Put The Brakes On Quotes

I had this feeling that he and I , in this moment, were a car crash, and instead of putting on the brakes, I was hitting the accelerator.

A lack of clarity could put the brakes on any journey to success.

When we don’t put the brakes on our self-absorption, we have nothing stopping us from total self-destruction. We become the fruits of our actions.

Life is a short, wild ride. Don't try to put the brakes on, don't over-analyze or try to control it. If you're lucky, like I was, you'll find that perfect someone who'll sit next to you and hold your hand through every curve, every up and down.

Being praised essentially means that one is receiving judgment from another person as 'good.' And the measure of what is good or bad about that act is that person's yardstick. If receiving praise is what one is after, one will have no choice but to adapt to that person's yardstick and put the brakes on one's own freedom.

And I'm not saying it's a bad song, you know, or anything like that. All I'm saying is that if you get, I don't know, a broom, say, and dip it in some brake fluid, put the other end up my arse, stick me on a trampoline in a moving lift, and I would write a better song on the walls. That's all I'm saying.

There are two Newman's laws. The first one is "It is useless to put on your brakes when you're upside down." The second is "Just when things look darkest, they go black.

She's just playing a trick on us. This is just an Alaska Young Prank Extraordinaire. It's Alaska being Alaska, funny and playful and not knowing when or how to put on the brakes.

The sense of beauty puts a brake upon destruction, by representing its object as irreplaceable. When the world looks back at me with my eyes, as it does in aesthetic experience, it is also addressing me in another way. Something is being revealed to me, and I am being made to stand still and absorb it. It is of course nonsense to suggest that there are naiads in the trees and dryads in the groves. What is revealed to me in the experience of beauty is a fundamental truth about being - the truth that being is a gift, and receiving it is a task. This is a truth of theology that demands exposition as such.

No,” I said slowly, trying to put the brakes on my escalating heart beat, “I did not give you my number last night.” Why was he calling? “I may have borrowed your phone by accident while you were dozing… and called my cell with it…

right nostril is a gas pedal. When you’re inhaling primarily through this channel, circulation speeds up, your body gets hotter, and cortisol levels, blood pressure, and heart rate all increase. This happens because breathing through the right side of the nose activates the sympathetic nervous system, the “fight or flight” mechanism that puts the body in a more elevated state of alertness and readiness. Breathing through the right nostril will also feed more blood to the opposite hemisphere of the brain, specifically to the prefrontal cortex, which has been associated with logical decisions, language, and computing. Inhaling through the left nostril has the opposite effect: it works as a kind of brake system to the right nostril’s accelerator. The left nostril is more deeply connected to the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest-and-relax side that lowers blood pressure, cools the body, and reduces anxiety. Left-nostril breathing shifts blood flow to the opposite side of the prefrontal cortex, to the area that influences creative thought and plays a role in the formation of mental abstractions and the production of negative emotions.

Pleasure at simply being there had him swinging fast across the road, shooting up the snaking lane carved into the rock, then, in shock, slamming on the brakes to avoid crashing into a high iron gate. He scowled at it for a moment before the intercom beside his car buzzed on. "Templeton House.May i help you?" "What the hell is this? Who put this damn thing up?" "I-Mr. Joshua?" Recognizing the voice, he struggled to bank down on his irritation. "Annie, open this ridiculous gate,will you? And unless we're under attack, leave the damn thing open.

These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don't move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there'll be no way of stopping them, we'll lose the filibuster and there'll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It'll be Reconstruction all over again. [Said to Senator Richard Russell, Jr. (D-GA) regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1957]

The family which takes its mauve an cerise, air-conditioned, power-steered and power-braked automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved, made hideous by litter, lighted buildings, billboards and posts for wires that should long since have been put underground. They pass on into countryside that has been rendered largely invisible by commercial art. (The goods which the latter advertise have an absolute priority in our value system. Such aesthetic considerations as a view of the countryside accordingly come second. On such matters we are consistent.) They picnic on exquisitely packaged food from a portable icebox by a polluted stream and go on to spend the night at a park which is a menace to public health and morals. Just before dozing off on an air mattress, beneath a nylon tent, amid the stench of decaying refuse, they may reflect vaguely on the curious unevenness of their blessings. Is this, indeed, the American genius?

I’m thinking I should take a trip to Vegas, because this kind of luck… this fate, dropping her in my lap this way, is a once in a lifetime. Bet big or go home. I let my eyes eat her up. So tightly strung is Miss Sloan. Fuck. I want to say her name just like that when I’m working my way into her. Sick bastard that I am, knowing she’s my teacher means jack all to me, it certainly doesn’t put on any kind of moral brakes. In fact, I think I might be a little more turned on.

When animals make a stupid mistake, you laugh at them. A cat misjudges a leap. A dog looks overly quizzical about a simple object. These are funny things. But when a person doesn’t understand something, if they miscalculate and hit the brakes too late, blame is assigned. They are stupid. They are wrong. Teachers and cops are there to sort it out, with a trail of paperwork to illustrate the stupidity. The faults. The evidence and incidents of these things. We have entire systems in place to help decide who is what. Sometimes the systems don’t work. Families spend their weekend afternoons at animal shelters, even when they’re not looking for a pet. They come to see the unwanted and unloved. The cats and dogs who don’t understand why they are these things. They are petted and combed, walked and fed, cooed over and kissed. Then they go back in their cages and sometimes tears are shed. Fuzzy faces peering through bars can be unbearable for many. Change the face to a human one and the reaction changes. The reason why is because people should know better. But our logic is skewed in this respect. A dog that bites is a dead dog. First day at the shelter and I already saw one put to sleep, which in itself is a misleading phrase. Sleep implies that you have the option of waking up. Once their bodies pass unconsciousness to something deeper where systems start to fail, they revolt a little bit, put up a fight on a molecular level. They kick. They cry. They don’t want to go. And this happens because their jaws closed over a human hand, ever so briefly. Maybe even just the once. But people, they get chances. They get the benefit of the doubt. Even though they have the higher logic functioning and they knew when they did it THEY KNEW it was a bad thing.

Turning the key, she shifted into reverse, and I could only watch in admiration as she put her arm on the back of my seat and looked over her shoulder to back the car into position. She worked the wheel easily and maneuvered the pedals smoothly, flexing her legs everytime she braked and shifted. It was like watching porn.

Being praised essentially means that one is receiving judgement from another person as ‘good’. And the measure of what is good or bad about that act is that person’s yardstick. If receiving praise is what one is after, one will have no choice but to adapt to that person’s yardstick and put the brakes on one’s own freedom. ‘Thank you’, on the other hand, rather than being judgement, is a clear expression of gratitude. When one hears words of gratitude, one knows that one has made a contribution to another person.

Putting the brakes on is not an easy thing for a vamp to do. It's kind of like a shark trying to stop a feeding frenzy, or that old potato chip slogan: "Bet you can't eat just one.

I don't think humans are some self-driving car racing toward the finish line. We must own our lives, start the engine ourselves, and sometimes put on brakes.

I don’t think humans are some self-driving car, racing toward a finish line. We need to own our lives, start the engine ourselves and sometimes put on the brakes.

Introverts, in contrast, are constitutionally programmed to downplay reward—to kill their buzz, you might say—and scan for problems. “As soon they get excited,” says Newman, “they’ll put the brakes on and think about peripheral issues that may be more important. Introverts seem to be specifically wired or trained so when they catch themselves getting excited and focused on a goal, their vigilance increases.

The problem is people don't want to make the sacrifice. They have no long term thinking. But the difficulty is, if you don't put the brakes on your spending NOW, it'll only be far worse later on down the line.

Though “present at the creation” of this militarization of science, Oppenheimer had walked away from Los Alamos, and Einstein respected him for attempting to use his influence to put the brakes on the arms race.

The mold we give to our lives is so that there will be no cataclysms. The order we seek we are willing to surrender to the flow of life at any time, but it is there as a brake on a car, and our health is a brake. We put brakes on, against our temperament. he said, “Even a room, arranged in a certain manner, prevents certain things from taking place in it.

When things get tough and our bodies start to react, we need mindfulness to reset our internal north star. We need to be quiet, listen, and practice conscious breathing to bring ourselves back to the present moment and activate the parasympathetic nervous system, putting the brake on and slowing things down in our bodies.

The right nostril is a gas pedal. When you’re inhaling primarily through this channel, circulation speeds up, your body gets hotter, and cortisol levels, blood pressure, and heart rate all increase. This happens because breathing through the right side of the nose activates the sympathetic nervous system, the “fight or flight” mechanism that puts the body in a more elevated state of alertness and readiness. Breathing through the right nostril will also feed more blood to the opposite hemisphere of the brain, specifically to the prefrontal cortex, which has been associated with logical decisions, language, and computing. Inhaling through the left nostril has the opposite effect: it works as a kind of brake system to the right nostril’s accelerator. The left nostril is more deeply connected to the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest-and-relax side that lowers blood pressure, cools the body, and reduces anxiety. Left-nostril breathing shifts blood flow to the opposite side of the prefrontal cortex, to the area that influences creative thought and plays a role in the formation of mental abstractions and the production of negative emotions.

When your sense of respect for others.. Your humility despite a chance at arrogance.. is MISCONSTRUED, MISUNDERSTOOD AND JUDGED.. Put a stop , pull the brakes..Some people do not deserve it!!

The old woman sits on a bench before the door and quarrels With her meagre pale demoralized daughter. Once when I passed I found her alone, laughing in the sun And saying that when she was first married She lived in the old farmhouse up Garapatas Canyon. (It is empty now, the roof has fallen But the log walls hang on the stone foundation; the redwoods Have all been cut down, the oaks are standing; The place is now more solitary than ever before.) "When I was nursing my second baby My husband found a day-old fawn hid in a fern-brake And brought it; I put its mouth to the breast Rather than let it starve, I had milk enough for three babies. Hey how it sucked, the little nuzzler, Digging its little hoofs like quills into my stomach. I had more joy from that than from the others." Her face is deformed with age, furrowed like a bad road With market-wagons, mean cares and decay. She is thrown up to the surface of things, a cell of dry skin Soon to be shed from the earth's old eye-brows, I see that once in her spring she lived in the streaming arteries, The stir of the world, the music of the mountain.

It is simply not true that “religion” is always aggressive. Sometimes it has actually put a brake on violence. In the ninth century BCE, Indian ritualists extracted all violence from the liturgy and created the ideal of ahimsa, “nonviolence.” The medieval Peace and Truce of God forced knights to stop terrorizing the poor and outlawed violence from Wednesday to Sunday each week. Most dramatically, after the Bar Kokhba war, the rabbis reinterpreted the scriptures so effectively that Jews refrained from political aggression for a millennium. Such successes have been rare. Because of the inherent violence of the states in which we live, the best that prophets and sages have been able to do is provide an alternative.

The history of ancient Greece showed that, in a democracy, emotion dominates reason to a greater extent than in any other political system, thus giving freer rein to the passions which sweep a state into war and prevent it getting out—at any point short of the exhaustion and destruction of one or other of the opposing sides. Democracy is a system which puts a brake on preparation for war, aggressive or defensive, but it is not one that conduces to the limitation of warfare or the prospects of a good peace. No political system more easily becomes out of control when passions are aroused. These defects have been multiplied in modern democracies, since their great extension of size and their vast electorate produce a much larger volume of emotional pressure.

But in modern culture, there’s a contradiction built into the social remedies to stress. On the one hand, being around other people is often a core part of allowing our stress response to complete, particularly for women. On the other hand, we put the brakes on, self-inhibiting our stress response, in order to stay socially appropriate and not make other people uncomfortable. We hold on to our incomplete stress response in order to access the security of being with our tribe. And, of course, this contradiction is even more pronounced for women, who are the culturally sanctioned “managers of relationships.”32

 ‘We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out,’ ” said Beatty. Stoneman glanced over at the Captain, as did Montag, startled. Beatty rubbed his chin. “A man named Latimer said that to a man named Nicholas Ridley, as they were being burnt alive at Oxford, for heresy, on October 16, 1555.” Montag and Stoneman went back to looking at the street as it moved under the engine wheels. “I’m full of bits and pieces,” said Beatty. “Most fire captains have to be. Sometimes I surprise myself. Watch it, Stoneman!” Stoneman braked the truck. “Damn!” said Beatty. “You’ve gone right by the corner where we turn for the firehouse.

My final destination? I don’t think humans are some self-driving car, racing towards a finish line. We need to own our own lives, start the engine ourselves and sometimes put on the brakes. My life isn’t all about becoming a famous writer. I enjoy writing scripts, that’s all. Wherever I end up in life, whether beach or desert, I’ll embrace it.

Something scary is happening; you don’t want reason getting in the way of survival. The second is that the locus coeruleus is flooding the brain with noradrenaline, compromising the ability to override instincts and impulses. The PFC is the part of the kid’s brain that puts the brakes on impulses and helps him or her make smarter decisions. Telling a kid to sit still, concentrate, and ignore stimuli that are flooding his brain with the need to act is a lot to ask. This down-regulation of the PFC can have different consequences for different people. For some, it results in an inability to concentrate and solve problems, but in others it manifests as impulsive behavior and aggression.

One last bit of bad news. We’ve been focusing on the stress-related consequences of activating the cardiovascular system too often. What about turning it off at the end of each psychological stressor? As noted earlier, your heart slows down as a result of activation of the vagus nerve by the parasympathetic nervous system. Back to the autonomic nervous system never letting you put your foot on the gas and brake at the same time—by definition, if you are turning on the sympathetic nervous system all the time, you’re chronically shutting off the parasympathetic. And this makes it harder to slow things down, even during those rare moments when you’re not feeling stressed about something. How can you diagnose a vagus nerve that’s not doing its part to calm down the cardiovascular system at the end of a stressor? A clinician could put someone through a stressor, say, run the person on a treadmill, and then monitor the speed of recovery afterward. It turns out that there is a subtler but easier way of detecting a problem. Whenever you inhale, you turn on the sympathetic nervous system slightly, minutely speeding up your heart. And when you exhale, the parasympathetic half turns on, activating your vagus nerve in order to slow things down (this is why many forms of meditation are built around extended exhalations). Therefore, the length of time between heartbeats tends to be shorter when you’re inhaling than exhaling. But what if chronic stress has blunted the ability of your parasympathetic nervous system to kick the vagus nerve into action? When you exhale, your heart won’t slow down, won’t increase the time intervals between beats. Cardiologists use sensitive monitors to measure interbeat intervals. Large amounts of variability (that is to say, short interbeat intervals during inhalation, long during exhalation) mean you have strong parasympathetic tone counteracting your sympathetic tone, a good thing. Minimal variability means a parasympathetic component that has trouble putting its foot on the brake. This is the marker of someone who not only turns on the cardiovascular stress-response too often but, by now, has trouble turning it off.

It was too much of a gear change back then in the half an hour desperately trying to put the brakes on my frantic overthinking only made things worse. So did the acute awareness that everyone else seem to be able to do something that I couldn’t. But in that moment in the scout hall with the sun streaming in, I touched a still, settled, vast, spacious, magnificent knowing at my core. It was only for a few delicate moments, but there was no going back. The scab was removed and the rawness - the “Something Else” I’d been looking for - was finally exposed. I call it the Something Else because there’s no other way of describing this yearning - this indescribable thing or place or energy I’d been looking for - that came before words. But now I’d touched it. And goddamn it I wanted to touch it again.

The two researchers collaborated on a pilot study.32 What they found was that loneliness reprogrammed a person’s genes in the same way that fear of being outed altered the genes of closeted men. Loneliness changes the immune system. Specifically, feeling isolated turns on genes for inflammation—which are the first responders to tissue damage or bacterial threats—and it puts the brakes on genes that stop inflammation

Brother Males and Shemales: Are you coming to the Health Bee?  It will be the livest Hop-to-it that this busy lil ole planet has ever see.  And it's going to be Practical.  We'll kiss out on all these glittering generalities and get messages from men as kin talk, so we can lug a think or two (2)home wid us. Luther Botts, the famous community-sing leader, will be there to put Wim an Wigor neverything into the program.  John F. Zeisser, M.A., M.D., nail the rest of the alphabet (part your hair Jack and look cute, the ladies will love you) will unlimber a coupla key-notes.  (On your tootsies, fellers, thar she blows!)  From time to time, if the brakes hold, we will, or shall in the infinitive, hie oursellufs from wherein we are apt to thither, and grab a lunch with Wild Wittles. Do it sound like a good show?  It do!  Barber, you're next.  Let's have those cards saying you're coming. This

Johnson’s legislation essentially crystallized a long-term pact between blacks and the Democrat Party that still exists today, lending credence to his alleged statement that he would “have those niggers voting Democrat for the next two hundred years.” There is some uncertainty about whether Johnson actually made that bold claim, but even if he did not, a quote attributed to the president by numerous historians and publications lays bare the actual intention behind his historic civil rights legislation: These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don’t move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there’ll be no way of stopping them, we’ll lose the filibuster and there’ll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again.

Now ease off the brake, I mean flip-flop.” The truck crawled backward. “Now, when you’re far enough back, step on the brake again.” The edge of the woods came closer. “Good. Just a little more.” We went another few feet. “Okay, stop.” The truck kept going. “Brake Morgan.” “Which one’s the brake?” “Left, I mean, flip-flop.” The truck jerked to a stop. I slammed my hand against the dash to keep from getting thrown around. “You’re not a very good copilot, Grant.” “You’re not a very good pilot.” “That’s because I don’t know how to drive.” Morgan flexed his hand on the steering wheel. I counted to ten before saying anything. “Now you need to put the truck in drive and make a right… I mean bare foot.” The truck shot forward. “Stop, Morgan. Stop. Flip-flop.” It jerked to a stop hard enough to dump me into the floorboard and crack my head on the dash. “Fuck.” I struggled to get back into the seat. “Should have brought a helmet.” “If I’d known you were going to try to kill me, I would have.” “You’re the one who said bare foot.” “I meant direction.” “We didn’t discuss direction, just flip-flops and bare feet.

By definition, a tool exists to improve something you are already doing. If you're not doing formal data governance yet, or if you are doing it poorly, then casting about for a tool to help you deploy DG is a waste of time. This flies in the face of typical IT philosophy, where the tool is usually acquired first. This is a notoriously silly thing to do. However, our work always has us putting the brakes on a tool selection project. It is easy to buy a tool and install it. However, most of the time we witness new tools for data management sitting unused or poorly deployed. This is because no one has mastered the process the tool is supporting.

Wit,” I tried again, and this time, I put my hand on his knee and squeezed it. “Wit!” Something flashed in his eyes when he turned and saw the terror on my face, and before I could count to ten, he’d eased on the brakes, pulled onto the side of the road, and put the Jeep in park. “Shit, shit, shit,” I heard him mutter as he hopped out of the car and came around to my side to pop open my door. “I’m sorry.” He looked up at me, high off the ground in the passenger seat. “I’m an asshole. I’m sorry.” Don’t cry, I told myself. Don’t cry. But it had taken him less than ten seconds. It had taken him less than ten seconds to connect the dots, while Ben had never connected them.

Just one more, before we get on with our writing,’ said the teacher, turning to a large, friendly-looking boy with cropped hair and large ears. ‘Scott’s from America, Mr Phinn. All the way from Tennessee. Come along then, Scott, what was your accident?’ ‘Well, I guess the worst accident I had was when I was riding my bike on the sidewalk – ’ ‘We call it “pavement” over here, Scott,’ interrupted the teacher. ‘Oh yeah, pavement, and I came to this slope. I was pedalling so fast I just could not stop. I put on my brakes but I carried on skidding and sliding until I hit one of those great white things in the middle of the road – ’ ‘Bollards,’ said the teacher. ‘Straight up, miss,’ said the boy. ‘I really did.

When it passes us, the driver tips his cap our way, eying us as if he thinks we're up to no good-the kind of no good he might call the cops on. I wave to him and smile, wondering if I look as guilty as I feel. Better make this the quickest lesson in driving history. It's not like she needs to pass the state exam. If she can keep the car straight for ten seconds in a row, I've upheld my end of the deal. I turn off the ignition and look at her. "So, how are you and Toraf doing?" She cocks her head at me. "What does that have to do with driving?" Aside from delaying it? "Nothing," I say, shrugging. "Just wondering." She pulls down the visor and flips open the mirror. Using her index finger, she unsmudges the mascara Rachel put on her. "Not that it's your business, but we're fine. We were always fine." "He didn't seem to think so." She shoots me a look. "He can be oversensitive sometimes. I explained that to him." Oversensitive? No way. She's not getting off that easy. "He's a good kisser," I tell her, bracing myself. She turns in her seat, eyes narrowed to slits. "You might as well forget about that kiss, Emma. He's mine, and if you put your nasty Half-Breed lips on him again-" "Now who's being oversensitive?" I say, grinning. She does love him. "Switch places with me," she snarls. But I'm too happy for Toraf to return the animosity. Once she's in the driver's seat, her attitude changes. She bounces up and down like she's mattress shopping, getting so much air that she'd puncture the top if I hadn't put it down already. She reaches for the keys in the ignition. I grab her hand. "Nope. Buckle up first." It's almost cliché for her to roll her eyes now, but she does. When she's finished dramatizing the act of buckling her seat belt-complete with tugging on it to make sure it won't unclick-she turns to me in pouty expectation. I nod. She wrenches the key and the engine fires up. The distant look in her eyes makes me nervous. Or maybe it's the guilt swirling around in my stomach. Galen might not like this car, but it still feels like sacrilege to put the fate of a BMW in Rayna's novice hands. As she grips the gear stick so hard her knuckles turn white, I thank God this is an automatic. "D is for drive, right?" she says. "Yes. The right pedal is to go. The left pedal is to stop. You have to step on the left one to change into drive." "I know. I saw you do it." She mashes down on the brake, then throws us into drive. But we don't move. "Okay, now you'll want to step on the right pedal, which is the gas-" The tires start spinning-and so do we. Rayna stares at me wide-eyed and mouth ajar, which isn't a good thing since her hands are on the wheel. It occurs to me that she's screaming, but I can't hear her over my own screeching. The dust wall we've created whirls around us, blocking our view of the trees and the road and life as we knew it. "Take your foot off the right one!" I yell. We stop so hard my teeth feel rattled. "Are you trying to get us killed?" she howls, holding her hand to her cheek as if I've slapped her. Her eyes are wild and glassy; she just might cry. "Are you freaking kidding me? You're the one driving!

Then there was the time when he picked up a two-by-four on the side of the road and put it in the front seat by me and stuck it out the window. He told me to hold it, which I did, but when the wind hit the board, it turned around and hit me in the head and knocked me out. Another time, when a friend of Daddy’s bought a brand-new Buick, Daddy pressed the push-button window up on my neck. But that time I think it was just a matter of him not being familiar with the equipment. The main thing Momma bases her theory on is once Daddy, who is very artistic, wanted to make a life mask of my face. He put plaster of paris on me but forgot the breathing holes. On top of that he also forgot to put Vaseline on my face. He had to crack the plaster off with a hammer. Momma didn’t speak to him for a week on that one. I myself was sorry that it didn’t turn out. She also says he is going to ruin my nervous system because of the time he sneaked up on me when I was listening to Inner Sanctum on the radio. Just as the squeaking door opened, he grabbed me and yelled, “Got ya,” real loud, which caused me to faint. She also didn’t like him telling me Santa Claus had been killed in a bus accident and making me throw up. The Pettibones have very delicate nervous systems. That’s true. Momma is nervous all the time. She’s worn a hole in the floor on the passenger’s side of Daddy’s car from putting on the brakes. Momma always looks like she is on the verge of a hissy fit, but that’s mainly because when she was eighteen, she stuck her head in a gas oven looking at some biscuits and blew her eyebrows off. So she paints them on like little half-moons. People love to talk to her because she always looks interested, even if she isn’t.

He knew nothing about werewolves but what was in the movies. He hadn’t even believed they existed until he was attacked. The tall dude, though, knew. Joshua managed to force his body to make a left-hand turn at the corner, and again once he was across the street, and then a third time. He came looping past the Kitchen Kitsch where the tall dude was standing in the hole in the wall. “You’re really conflicted about this running away part, aren’t you?” the dude said as Joshua dashed past him. “Yes!” He tried to put on the brakes but his body kept running. He could smell his own blood on the man and his body wanted nothing to do with that. The dude wasn’t standing in the hole as Joshua came looping back toward the Kitchen Kitsch a second time. Joshua was afraid he’d lost the man. He was so focused on the opposite side of the street that he nearly ran into the glass door that opened out in front of him. A hand caught him, jerking him into the building.

I'm going to get lecture-y for a second and add that I think the entire idea of tops and bottems, especially when coming from straight people who fetishize gay people, is an attempt to place some sort of hetero world over gay people. "Oh your're a bottom, so you're the woman." Gay guys who are strictly tops or bottoms tend to embrace this idea, too. Being a top only means you're "manly" or whatever because not being manly is considered bad by like adults and TV and stuff. Gay guys can buy into that crap just as easy as straight people. Whenever you see masc for masc on Grindr or whatever, what you're seeing is someone saying," I don't want people to think I'm like a woman, and I don;t want people to think that you're like a woman because people will think less of us." Sure people have preference but these ideas of masculine and feminine are kind of meaningless. I wear make-up. I think I'm pretty manly! We're all told this crap all the time, but you can reject it. Instead you're enforcing the idea that there is masculine and there is feminine, and that masculine is, for some unexplained reason, better. Finally, and this should probably be clear after the last bit, but you cant tell a top or a bottom or what a person's preferences are just by looking at him! Big, harry, muscled men love taking it up the ass. Trust me, I know. And slim, make-up wearing types, we love to f@$%. And in my case, get f@$%ed, too. Like I said, versatility is the best. So, in summary, it's wrong to assume all gay guys are having anal sex all the time. And it's ridiculous and offensive and stereotyping and hurtful to think that those who are penetrated are girly and those who penetrate are manly, something you've been doing. ... You're email is more like a mean joke you tell your friends, and I think that is because secretly you hate the way you're always being told what a girl should be like. And when you see a gay guy blurring the gender lines a little, like me, you're jealous of him. You want to put him in his place. You want to say, "he's not a man." Because if you can't blur those gender lines without being told you're gross or wrong, then you want to make sure that anyone who does cross those gender lines gets punished the way you would. But you shouldn't be punishing gay guys. You should be braking down the barriers that keep you from being who YOU want to be!

Ove kept exactly to every speed limit, even on that 35 mph road where the recently arrived idiots in suits came tanking along at 55. Among their own houses they put up speed bumps and damnable numbers of signs about “Children Playing,” but when driving past other people’s houses it was apparently less important. Ove had repeated this to his wife every time they drove past over the last ten years. “And it’s getting worse and worse,” he liked to add, just in case by some miracle she hadn’t heard him the first time. Today he’d barely gone a mile before a black Mercedes positioned itself a forearm’s length behind his Saab. Ove signaled with his brake lights three times. The Mercedes flashed its high beams at him in an agitated manner. Ove snorted at his rearview mirror. As if it was his duty to fling himself out of the way as soon as these morons decided speed restrictions didn’t apply to them. Honestly. Ove didn’t move. The Mercedes gave him a burst of its high beams again. Ove slowed down. The Mercedes sounded its horn. Ove lowered his speed to 15 mph. When they reached the top of a hill the Mercedes overtook him with a roar. The driver, a man in his forties in a tie and with white cables trailing from his ears, held up his finger through the window at Ove. p. 28

Christina died of a stroke in the fall of 1971, at the age of sixty-one. June watched the nurses take her mother's body away. Standing there in the hospital, June felt like she'd been caught in an undertow. How had she ended up here? One woman all alone, with four kids, and a restaurant she had never wanted. The day after the funeral, June took the kids to school. She dropped Kit off at the elementary building and then drove Nina, Jay, and Hud to junior high. When they pulled into the drop-off circle, Jay and Hud took off. But Nina turned back, put her hand on the door handle, and looked at her mother. 'Are you sure you're OK?' Nina asked. 'I could stay home. Help you at the restaurant.' 'No, honey,' June said, taking her daughter's hand. 'If you feel up for going to school, then that's where you should be.' 'OK,' Nina said. 'But if you need me, come get me.' 'How about we think of it the other way around?' June said, smiling. 'If you need me, have the office call me.' Nina smiled. 'OK' June felt herself about to cry and so she put her sunglasses over her eyes and pulled out of the parking lot. She drove, with the window down, to Pacific Fish. She pulled in and put on the parking brake. She took a deep breath. She got out of the car and stood there, staring up at the restaurant with a sense of all that she had inherited. It was hers now, whatever that meant. She lit a cigarette.

Imagine you’re a male lab rat. Your mother raises you with everything a young rat needs, normal and healthy. In addition to that normal, healthy development, the researchers train you to associate the smell of lemons with sexual activity.12 Ordinarily, lemons mean as much to rat sexuality as they do to human sexuality: nothing. But you’ve been trained to link lemons and sex in your brain. So when you’re presented with two receptive female rats, one of whom smells like a healthy, receptive female rat and the other smells like a healthy, receptive female rat plus lemons, you’ll prefer the one who smells like lemons—and by “prefer,” I mean you’ll copulate with both females, but 80 percent of your ejaculations will be with the lemony partner, and only about 20 percent of your ejaculations will be with the nonlemony partner. Your ratty sexual accelerator learned that lemons are sex-related, so the lemony partner hits your accelerator more. Let’s look at another experiment. This time, imagine that your brother was raised in the normal, healthy rat way, without the lemon thing. But during his first opportunity to copulate with a receptive female, the researchers put him into a rodent harness, a comfortable little jacket.13 If your brother is wearing his little rat jacket the first time he copulates with the receptive female, then the next time he’s with a receptive female but not wearing the jacket, he’ll actually self-inhibit. His brakes will stay on because during that single first experience, his brain learned that “jacket + female in estrus = sexytimes.” It did not learn simply “female in estrus = sexytimes.

You said to step on the brake to put us into drive, then to step on the right one to-" "Not at the same time!" "Well, you should have told me that. How was I supposed to know?" I snort. "You acted like the freaking Dalai Lama when I tried to tell you how to shift gears. I told you, one was for go and one was for stop. You can't stop and go at the same time! You have to make up your mind." From the expression on her face, she's either about to punch me or call me something really bad. She opens her mouth, but the really bad something doesn't come out; she shuts it again. Then she giggles. Now I've seen everything. "Galen tells me that all the time," she chortles. "That I can never make up my mind." Then she bursts out laughing so hard she spits all over the steering wheel. She keeps laughing until I'm convinced an unknown force is tickling her senseless. What? As far as I can tell, her indecisiveness almost got us killed. Killed isn't funny. "You should have seen your face," she says, between gulps of breaths. "You were all, like-" And she makes the face of a drunk clown. "I bet you wet yourself, didn't you?" She cracks herself up so much she clutches her side as if she's holding in her own guts. I feel my lips fracture into a smile before I can stop them. "You were more scared than me. You swallowed like ten flies while you were screaming." She spits all over the steering wheel again. And I spew laughter onto the dash. It takes a good five minutes for us to sober up enough for another driving lesson. My throat is dry, and my eyes are wet when I say, "Okay, now. Let's concentrate. The sun is going down. These woods probably get pretty creepy at night." She clears her throat, still giggling a little. "Okay. Concentrate. Right." "So, this time, when you take your foot off the brake, the car will go on its own. There, see?" We slink along the road at an idle two miles per hour. She huffs up at her bangs. "This is boring. I want to go faster." I start to say, "Not too fast," but she squashes the gas under her foot, and my words are snatched away by the wind. She gives a startled shout, which I find hypocritical because after all, I'm the one helpless in the passenger seat, and she's the one screaming like a teapot, turning the wheel back and forth like the road isn't straight as a pencil. "Brake, brake, brake!" I shout, hoping repetition will somehow penetrate the small part of her brain that actually thinks. Everything happens fast. We stop. There's a crunching sound. My face slams into the dash. No wait, the dash becomes an airbag. Rayna's scream is cut off by her airbag. I open my eyes. A tree. A freaking tree. The metal frame groans, and something under the hood lets out a mechanical hiss. Smoke billows up from the front, the universal symbol for "you're screwed." I turn to the rustling sound beside me. Rayna is wrestling with the airbag like it has attacked her instead of saved her life. "What is this thing?" she wails, pushing it out of her way and opening the door. One Mississippi...two Mississippi... "Well, are you just going to sit there? We have a long walk home. You're not hurt are you? Because I can't carry you." Three Mississippi...four Mississippi... "What are those flashing blue lights down there?

Now the muted setting made sense: a neutral setting, soothing light, a book. The deep magic fed the beast within him. It took a monumental effort of will to restrain it. With the flare so close, Curran was a powder keg with a short fuse. I had to be careful not to light that fuse. Nobody outside the Pack, except for Andrea, knew I was here. He could kill me right now and they would never find my body. We shared a silence for a long moment. Magic blossomed, filling me with giddy energy. The short waves again. They would ebb in a minute, and then I’d be exhausted. Guilt gnawed at me. He could control himself in my presence, but I apparently couldn’t control myself in his. “Curran, up on the roof . . . That is, my brakes don’t work sometimes.” He leaned forward, suddenly animated. “Do I smell an apology?” “Yes. I said things I shouldn’t have. I regret saying them.” “Does this mean you’re throwing yourself at my feet?” “No. I pretty much meant that part. I just wish I could’ve put it in less offensive terms.” I glanced at him and saw a lion. He didn’t change, his face was still fully human, but there was something disturbingly lionlike in the way he sat, completely focused on me, as if ready to pounce. Stalking me without moving a muscle. The primordial urge to freeze shackled my limbs. I just sat there, unable to look away. A slow, lazy, carnivorous smile touched Curran’s lips. “Not only will you sleep with me, but you will say ‘please.’” I stared at him, shocked. The smile widened. “You will say ‘please’ before and ‘thank you’ after.” Nervous laughter bubbled up. “You’ve gone insane. All that peroxide in your hair finally did your brain in, Goldilocks.

The Soviet Union was the only nation involved in the Second World War to put women in the sky as fighter and bomber pilots, and what women they were! Products of the Soviet aviation drive of the 1930s, these young fliers were championed by Marina Raskova, the Amelia Earhart of the USSR. The day bombers and the fighter pilots (among the latter, Lilia Litviak, seen in cameo at the Engels training camp, was killed in an aerial dogfight during the war, but became history’s first female ace) eventually integrated with male personnel . . . but the night bombers remained all-female throughout their term of service and were fiercely proud of this fact. The ladies of the Forty-Sixth Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment went to war in the outdated Polikarpov U-2, an open-cockpit cloth-and-plywood biplane, achingly slow and highly flammable, built without radio, parachute, or brakes. (It was redesignated the Po-2 after 1943; I was unable to pinpoint an exact date for the change, and continued to use the term U-2 for clarity.) The women flew winter and summer, anywhere from five to eighteen runs per night, relying on stimulants that destroyed their ability to rest once off-duty. They flew continuously under these conditions for three years, surviving on catnaps and camaraderie, developing the conveyor belt land-and-refuel routine that gave them a far more efficient record than comparable night bomber regiments. The women’s relentless efficiency waged ruthless psychological warfare on the Germans below, who thought their silent glide-down sounded like witches on broomsticks, and awarded them the nickname “die Nachthexen.” Such dedication took a toll: the regiment lost approximately 27 percent of its flying personnel to crashes and enemy fire. The Night Witches were also awarded a disproportionately higher percentage of Hero of the Soviet Union medals—the USSR’s highest decoration.

Everywhere power has to be seen in order to give the impression that it sees. But this is not the case. It doesn't see anything. It is like a woman walled up in a 'peepshow'. It is separated from society by a two-way mirror. And it turns slowly, undresses slowly, adopting the lewdest poses, little suspecting that the other is watching and masturbating in secret. The metro. A man gets on - by his glances, gestures and movements, he carves out a space for himself and protects it. From that space, he sets his actions to those of the neighbouring, approximate molecules. He becomes the centre of a physical pressure, sniffs out hostile vibrations and emanations, or friendly ones, on the verge of panic. He joins up with others out of fear. He innervates his whole body with a calculated indifference, wraps himself in a superficial reverie, created only to keep others at a distance. He deciphers nothing, protects himself from the crossfire of everyone's gazes and sets his own as a backhand down the line, staring at a particular face at the back of the carriage until the very lightness of his stare stirs the other in his sleep. When the train accelerates or brakes, all the bodies are thrown in the same direction, like the shoals of fish which change direction simultaneously. The marvellous underwater lethargy of the metro, the self-defence of the capillary systems, the cruel play of vague thoughts - all while waiting for the stop at Faidherbe-Chaligny. The crucial thing is not to have sweeping views of the future, but to know where to plant your primal scene. The danger for us is that we'll keep running up against the wall of the Revolution. For this is the source of our misery: our phobias, our prohibitions, our phantasies, our utopias are imbedded in the nineteenth century, where their foundations were laid down. We have to put an end to this historical coagulation. Beyond it, all is permitted. It will perhaps be the adventure of the end of the century to dissolve the wall of the Revolution and to plunge on beyond it, towards the marvels of form and spirit.

Prologue In 1980, a year after my wife leapt to her death from the Silas Pearlman Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina, I moved to Italy to begin life anew, taking our small daughter with me. Our sweet Leah was not quite two when my wife, Shyla, stopped her car on the highest point of the bridge and looked over, for the last time, the city she loved so well. She had put on the emergency brake and opened the door of our car, then lifted herself up to the rail of the bridge with the delicacy and enigmatic grace that was always Shyla’s catlike gift. She was also quick-witted and funny, but she carried within her a dark side that she hid with bright allusions and an irony as finely wrought as lace. She had so mastered the strategies of camouflage that her own history had seemed a series of well-placed mirrors that kept her hidden from herself. It was nearly sunset and a tape of the Drifters’ Greatest Hits poured out of the car’s stereo. She had recently had our car serviced and the gasoline tank was full. She had paid all the bills and set up an appointment with Dr. Joseph for my teeth to be cleaned. Even in her final moments, her instincts tended toward the orderly and the functional. She had always prided herself in keeping her madness invisible and at bay; and when she could no longer fend off the voices that grew inside her, their evil set to chaos in a minor key, her breakdown enfolded upon her, like a tarpaulin pulled across that part of her brain where once there had been light. Having served her time in mental hospitals, exhausted the wide range of pharmaceuticals, and submitted herself to the priestly rites of therapists of every theoretic persuasion, she was defenseless when the black music of her subconscious sounded its elegy for her time on earth. On the rail, all eyewitnesses agreed, Shyla hesitated and looked out toward the sea and shipping lanes that cut past Fort Sumter, trying to compose herself for the last action of her life. Her beauty had always been a disquieting thing about her and as the wind from the sea caught her black hair, lifting it like streamers behind her,

I stand so abruptly that Leiza startles. “If Violet wants to find me, I’ll be outside chopping wood,” I tell her, causing her to choke back a sound that suspiciously resembles a smothered laugh. When I eye her, she’s the picture of seriousness, nodding once again. “Of course, Alpha,” she says so graciously. Tearing my shirt over my head, I toss it to the ground. Leiza’s phone rings, and she puts it aside. “A vampire is calling me. That can’t be good,” she says as she meets my eyes, almost asking for permission to answer Shera’s call. “They’re trying to reach me. Not you. They can kiss my ass. I need a minute to deal with this.” “I thought you were tired and going to get some sleep,” Leiza states, and then swallows down whatever else is on the tip of her tongue. “I’m no longer tired,” I point out dryly. Another nod from Leiza, and I walk out shirtless to go chop some fucking wood for the fireplace Violet rarely ever uses. There’s an axe wedged into one of the piles of wood near the chopping block, making this simpler than expected, so I get to work. Before I can even make one small pile, Damien is wheeling into the driveway, barely putting the brake on, before he hops out. His eyes narrow on me, and then his brow furrows. It’s when his lips start to twitch that I bristle, feeling a little too transparent. “Didn’t realize you’d gotten this pathetic, mongrel,” he drawls. “And here I thought our calls were being ignored so you could have Violet to yourself.” “I’m holding an axe,” I warn him. “Not a Van Helsing axe,” he volleys with a growing grin. The side door swings open for Violet as she walks out, eyeing me first from my spot near the sidewalk by the street, and then Damien next. “What’re you doing shirtless?” she asks, looking back over at me. “It’s like ten degrees out here. People are going to think that’s weird.” Damien restrains a smile. “You were almost out of wood,” I tell her, gesturing to the…fucking full wood chamber on the side of her house. I couldn’t squeeze another piece in there if I wanted to. Violet glances from it, to me, to Damien, and then to the wood again. “Tiara keeps it filled, and we hardly use it, since the heat is on…” She lets her words trail off, clearly confused. Damien outright grins. “Just what are you doing, exactly?” Damien muses. Tossing the axe to the ground, I glare over at him. “Why are you here?

The door was still open, so I shut it and was returning to my desk when I braked. There was a backpack resting on the other side of my desk chair. It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t Missy’s. I was pretty sure it wasn’t Holly’s or the cousin’s. “Shit,” I muttered under my breath. “Huh?” she barked, her head swinging around to me. A quick glance confirmed what I already knew. She was drunk. “Nothing.” She pulled out one of her shirts, but it wasn’t her normal pajama top. She was really drunk. I picked up Shay’s bag and checked the contents to make sure it was his. It was. I saw his planner with his name scrawled at the top, so I zipped that bag and put it in the back of my closet. No one needed to go through it. I didn’t think Missy would, but I just never knew. Dropping into my chair, I picked up my phone to text Shay as Missy fell to the floor. I looked up to watch. I couldn’t not see this. I was tempted to video it, but I was being nice. For once. As Missy wrestled with her jeans and lifted them over her head to throw into her closet, I texted Shay. Me: You left your bag here. Missy let out a half-gurgled moan and a cry of frustration at the same time. She didn’t stand, instead crawling to the closet. She grabbed another pair of pants. Those weren’t her pajamas, either. As she pulled them on—or tried since her feet kept eluding the pants’ hole—my phone buzzed back. Coleman: Can I pick it up in the morning? I texted back. Me: When? Missy got one leg in. Success. I wanted to thrust my fist in the air for her. My phone buzzed again. Coleman: Early. My playbook is in there. I groaned. Me: When is early? I’m in college, Coleman. Sleeping in is mandatory. Coleman: Nine too early for you? I can come back to get it now. Nine was doable. Me: Let’s do an exchange. You bring me coffee, and I’ll meet you at the parking lot curb with your bag. Coleman: Done. Decaf okay? I glared at my phone. Me: Back to hating you. Coleman: Never stop that. The world’s equilibrium will be fucked up. I have to know what’s right and wrong. Don’t screw with my moral compass, Cute Ass. Oh, no! No way. Me: Third rule of what we don’t talk about. No nicknames unless they reconfirm our mutual dislike for each other. No Cute Ass. His response was immediate. Coleman: Cunt Ass? A second squeak from me. Me: NO! I could almost hear him laughing. Coleman: Relax. I know. Clarke’s Ass. That’s how you are in my phone. The tension left my shoulders. Me: See you in the morning. 9 sharp. Coleman: Night. I put my phone down, but then it buzzed once again. Coleman: Ass. I was struggling to wipe this stupid grin off my face. All was right again. I plugged my phone in, pulled my laptop back toward me, and sent a response to Gage’s email. I’ll sit with you, but only if we’re in the opposing team’s section. He’d be pissed, but that was the only way. I turned the computer off, and by then Missy was climbing up the ladder in a bright pink silk shirt. The buttons were left buttoned, and her pajama bottoms were a pair of corduroy khakis. I was pretty sure she didn’t brush her teeth, but before my head even hit the pillow, she was snoring

Skybridge parking?” Hardy asked as we drove through the huge sprawl of buildings in the medical center. We were passing the thirty-story Memorial Hermann tower sheathed with spandrel glass, one of a multitude of offices and hospitals in the complex. “No, there’s a valet at the main entrance,” Haven said, unbuckling her seat belt. “Hold on, honey, I haven’t stopped yet.” He glanced over his shoulder at me and saw that I was out of my seat belt, too. “Y’all mind waiting ’til I put the brakes on before you jump out?” he asked ruefully. -Hardy, Haven, Ella

By the time Cooper arrived from Montana and before Gary became the actor’s new first name, Brennan had been canvassing the studios for two years and was still doing crowd scenes. The two aspiring actors became friends and sometimes socialized together and shared their meager earnings. Walter remembered a day in 1926 when he and Cooper were driving to work in a 1919 Buick when the brakes gave out. “Those were the days when the brake bands were on the outside of the wheels,” Walter explained. “We’d heard somewhere that if you put castor oil on the bands, it would make them swell. Well, we tried it and it worked, and Gary and I came down over that steep pass praising God for castor oil.

A woman doesn’t just wake up one morning and decide to have an affair. No. The affair happens when day after day she fails to put on the brakes with her thoughts, fantasies, and sexual boundaries.

Slow down.” Sheriff Jeffries put a hand on the steering wheel. “I can do it.” I yanked in the opposite direction. White pickets glowing beneath the full moon appeared closer and larger. My foot missed the brake. Wood splintered. A headlamp went dark. The engine died without a sputter. Sheriff Jeffries practically sat in the same seat with me now, his foot hard on the brake. I looked up. A shadowy figure rose from a chair on the porch and walked toward us. Frank. I pushed open my door and stood on shaky legs, straightening my hat. The sheriff inspected his car. Frank kept his eyes on me. I refused to turn from his reproachful gaze. “I’m so sorry, Sheriff. I hope I didn’t hurt anything.” “Only my fence,” Frank grumbled. I gave him my most coquettish smile. “Nothing that can’t be repaired, right?” The sheriff cleared his throat. I turned to him. “I do thank you for the ride.” When did I start sounding so much like Mama? “My . . . pleasure. I’ll see you on Sunday?” I looked to Frank, then back to the sheriff. “Of course. And I am sorry about your car.” “No harm done. At least, not much.

Think of yourself as a ‘57 Chevy that just turned over two-hundred thousand miles. I know you love that car. It’s still got original equipment. You’ve changed the oil, lubed it and maintained it well all these years. Now it needs a valve job. Our bodies are like that car. Stuff wears out. You put it in the shop for a week, get the valves ground, a new set of brake pads and fan belts and you’re good to go for another hundred-thousand miles.

But despite the direct engagement with Cuban officials and numerous efforts by third parties, the Cubans refused to release him unless the United States released five convicted Cuban spies serving time in prison. It is possible that hard-liners within the regime exploited the Gross case as an opportunity to put the brakes on any possible rapprochement with the United States and the domestic reforms that would require. If so, it is a double tragedy, consigning millions of Cubans to a kind of continued imprisonment as well.

Offering a Sacrifice of Praise There is an old saying many Christians use: “Offer the Lord a sacrifice of praise,” referring to Hebrews 13:15. In many circles this notion of a “sacrifice of praise” almost becomes cliché. (Perhaps because worship does not often come at much cost, especially compared with the sacrifices of saints who’ve gone before us.) But when we worship with folks of various traditions, there are times when we may hear a prayer that uses language we might not naturally use or sing a song that isn’t really our style. That is part of what it means to be a member of a community as diverse as the church is. And perhaps that also helps shed some light on why it might require some sacrifice for us to give up ourselves. When a song isn’t working for you, consider praising God, because that probably means it is working for someone else who is very different from you. Offer your worship as a sacrifice rather than requiring others to sacrifice for your pleasure or contentment. There is something to the notion of becoming one as God is one; it doesn’t mean that we are the same; it just means that we are united by one Spirit. After all, we can become one only if there are many of us to begin with. Liturgy puts a brake on narcissism. Certainly, there is something beautiful about contemporary worship, where we can take old things and add a little spice to them, like singing hymns to rock tunes or reciting creeds as spoken word rhymes. But liturgy protects us from simply making worship into a self-pleasing act. So if a song or prayer doesn’t quite work for you, be thankful that it is probably really resonating with someone who is different from you, and offer a sacrifice of praise.

The fast brain is where all of our subconscious intuitions, cravings, habits, and emotions reside. The fast brain’s primary purpose is to provide these subconscious “spurs” to drive behavior patterns aimed at bringing us safety, security, food, and social connection. We’re born with a fully operational fast brain, which begins functioning while we’re still in the womb. It is always on and running, constantly scanning to collect information and continually forming conclusions about what it observes. Those conclusions often are based in intuition, emotion, or cravings. Our fast brain also spurs behavior through habits—automatic responses such as putting our foot on the brake when we see a stop sign. Those habits that determine how we relate to others, such as a reflexive response to tell the truth or own up to our mistakes, become our character habits.

THIS BOOK LOOKS at how we make sense of the world. It’s about what happens when we’re confused and the path forward isn’t obvious. Of course, most of the challenges of daily life are perfectly straightforward. When it’s snowing, we know to put on a jacket before venturing out. When the phone rings, we pick it up. A red stoplight means we should brake. At the other end of the spectrum, vast stores of knowledge completely confound most of us. Stare at Babylonian cuneiform or listen to particle physicists debate, and if you’re like me, your mind will draw a blank. We can’t be confused without some foothold in knowledge. Instead of feeling uneasy because we half understand, we’re as calmly certain in our ignorance as we are assured in our everyday rituals. This book examines the hazy middle ground between these two extremes, when the information we need to make sense of an experience seems to be missing, too complex, or contradictory.

Until researchers started measuring the effects of cell-phone distractions under controlled conditions, nobody had any idea how profoundly they can impair a driver. It’s like driving drunk. Recall that large fractions of a second are consumed every time the brain switches tasks. Cell-phone talkers are more wild in their “following distance” behind the vehicle in front of them, a half second slower to hit the brakes in emergencies, and slower to return to normal speed after an emergency. In a half second, a driver going 70 mph travels 51 feet. Given that 80 percent of crashes happen within three seconds of some kind of driver distraction, increasing your amount of task switching increases your risk of an accident. More than 50 percent of the visual cues spotted by attentive drivers are missed by cell-phone talkers. Not surprisingly, they get in more wrecks than anyone except very drunk drivers. Putting on makeup, eating, and rubbernecking at an accident aren’t much better. One study showed that simply reaching for an object while driving a car multiplies the risk of a crash or near-crash by nine times.

The Squeaky Wheel The squeaky wheel ~ will put you $374.43 in the hole after replacing the brake pad, rotors and $500 with a new master cylinder.

Anyone lucky enough to have options should keep them open. Don’t enter the workforce already looking for the exit. Don’t put on the brakes. Accelerate. Keep a foot on the gas pedal until a decision must be made. That’s the only way to ensure that when that day comes, there will be a real decision to make.

Put the brakes on any runaway mental conversations you may be having with those who have wounded you.

He illuminates the landscape of society with an intense, ultra sensitive light and brings out a strange, hyperreal relief - a coherent reading, precisely like the light of a laser. The local is a shabby thing. There's nothing worse than bringing us back down to our own little corner, our own territory, the radiant promiscuity of the face to face. A culture which has taken the risk of the universal, must perish by the universal. Exile always offers a marvellous - pathetic or dramatic - distance, a distance which aids judgement, a serenity orphaned by its own world. Deterritorialization, on the other hand, is a demented deprivation. It is like a lobotomy. It has in it something of agony, of the inconstancy and disconnection of circuits. You need an infinite stretch of time ahead of you to start to think, infinite energy to make the smallest decision. The world is getting denser. The immense number of useless projects is bewildering. Too many things have to be put in to balance up an uncertain scale. You can't disappear any more. You die in a state of total indecision. A frenzy of indifference in these times of 'speed'. In the same way as you can counter the acceleration of your molecules with an iced drink, you have to head off artificial euphoria by pulling on the brake of melancholy. Science and technologies could have become extensions of our human faculties, as MacLuhan wanted. Instead, they have devoured them. They have become sarcastic, like the laugh of the same name which devours flesh or like the creatures on the banks of the Styx which destroy the substance of the mental faculties.

It’s easier to like animals than people, and there’s a reason for that. When animals make a stupid mistake, you laugh at them. A cat misjudges a leap. A dog looks overly quizzical about a simple object. These are funny things. But when a person doesn’t understand something, if they miscalculate and hit the brakes too late, blame is assigned. They are stupid. They are wrong. Teachers and cops are there to sort it out, with a trail of paperwork to illustrate the stupidity. The faults. The evidence and incidents of these things. We have entire systems in place to help decide who is what. Sometimes the systems don’t work. Families spend their weekend afternoons at animal shelters, even when they’re not looking for a pet. They come to see the unwanted and unloved. The cats and dogs who don’t understand why they are these things. They are petted and combed, walked and fed, cooed over and kissed. Then they go back in their cages and sometimes tears are shed. Fuzzy faces peering through bars can be unbearable for many. Change the face to a human one and the reaction changes. The reason why is because people should know better. But our logic is skewed in this respect. A dog that bites is a dead dog. First day at the shelter and I already saw one put to sleep, which in itself is a misleading phrase. Sleep implies that you have the option of waking up. Once their bodies pass unconsciousness to something deeper where systems start to fail, they revolt a little bit, put up a fight on a molecular level. They kick. They cry. They don’t want to go. And this happens because their jaws closed over a human hand, ever so briefly. Maybe even just the once. But people, they get chances. They get the benefit of the doubt. Even though they have the higher logic functioning and they knew when they did it THEY KNEW it was a bad thing.

The strong wind of the previous evening had blown most of the snow to the land, so the iceboat tacked across the surface at a fast clip. Looking back at the island, Chet remarked, “It’s sure a pretty place.” Tall pines looked like white pyramids, and bare branches were coated with ice which glittered in rainbow colors. On the mainland directly opposite, the four boys spotted a shack built of sun-bleached boards. Smoke was drifting upward from its rickety stove-pipe chimney. Frank slackened sail and let the Sea Gull drift to a complete stop. “Let’s talk to the person who lives here,” he suggested, putting down the brake.

WITH A SOMEWHAT PROLONGED GRINDING of the brakes and an unnecessary amount of fuss in the way of letting off steam, the afternoon train from London came to a standstill in the station at Detton Magna. An elderly porter, putting on his coat as he came, issued, with the dogged aid of one bound by custom to perform a hopeless mission, from the small, redbrick lamp room. The station master, occupying a position of vantage in front of the shed which enclosed the booking office, looked up and down the lifeless row of closed and streaming windows, with an expectancy dulled by daily disappointment, for the passengers who seldom alighted. On this occasion no records were broken. A solitary young man stepped out on to the wet and flinty platform, handed over the half of a third-class return ticket from London, passed through the two open doors and commenced to climb the long ascent which led into the town.

Three miles farther on they reached a side road which they figured would take them near the shack. Presently the road ended and Frank braked the convertible to a stop. Ahead was nothing but sand. The boys got out and looked around. “There’s the shack!” Frank pointed to their right as he put the car keys in his pocket. The ramshackle old building, badly weathered and sagging, stood between two dunes. They trudged toward it through the wet sand, a fine spray from the windswept sea stinging their faces. “What a dismal place!” Frank exclaimed

In a similar fashion, you can find ways to like a person if you believe you can. You can discover solutions to personal problems if you believe you can. You can find a way to purchase that new, larger home if you believe you can. Belief releases creative powers. Disbelief puts the brakes on. Believe, and you’ll start thinking—constructively.

The clinician’s challenge is to find a way to allow the ADD person to put on the brakes. From a biological perspective, one of the most successful strategies has been the use of medications.

Will nature rebel? Will the Colorado burst its dams? Will the cost of maintaining our enormous water and energy networks become prohibitive? Or will we ourselves rebel for spiritual and ascetic reason and put a brake on growth? No one really knows. But if we want to create a society in Arizona that is more than a series of booms and busts, we need to make the fit between nature and culture more like a membrane and less like a life-support system. There is too much at stake in this wild, dry land to do otherwise.

I think I understand the-” I put my foot on the accelerator and the Rust Bucket jolted forward, A LOT faster than I expected. “SLOW SLOW SLOW!” My dad shouted and I slammed my foot onto the brake pedal. We were thrown forward in our seats as the Rust Bucket came to an abrupt halt. I turned to Dad. He scowled at me. I grinned back. “Easy as pie,” I said weakly. Dad didn’t seem to agree. I wasn’t sure I did either. My heart was pounding loudly in my ears. I had always dreamed of turning up to school in a red Ferrari and making all my friends jealous, (ultimately, of course, they would all want to hang out and go on road trips with me). Now

You need the kind of understanding of them that will let you put on the brakes before things have gone too far.

Hard to put on the brakes when you're with the person you're meant to be with.

You won't freeze me in my tracks or put me on a string. I won't be made a puppet on a stage at leftwing. There are no strings to yank or closet skeletons to sell, and I will not walk the plank above your wishing well. You'll see me in the street. You'll hear me in the field. There will be no retreat or brake at the yield.

We didn’t know how long the light would stay on green or if the car in front would suddenly swerve or put on its brakes. The only way to keep from crashing was to put extra space between our car and the car in front of us. This space acted as a buffer.

Arius of Alexandria denied the ontological deity of Jesus Christ and was excommunicated by the Council of Nicea in 325. His heresy, Arianism, was a bit different from Paul of Samosata’s, but both denied the deity

Ritschl taught that when Christians affirm the divinity of Jesus Christ, they mean that Jesus Christ has the value of God for them. Jesus was the inaugurator of the kingdom of God, which is God’s highest good. Because Jesus’ life was unequaled in devotion to the kingdom of God, he has the value of God. God realized his highest good in the man

Giving up is when you hold yourself back because your partner is holding himself back, because he’s fearful or proud or resistant to change, or because she’s run out of hope and is simply hunkering down. Giving up is when you put the brakes on your longing for a healthier, more vital relationship because conventional wisdom says one person shouldn’t have to do “more.

Mosscap pointed. "Crown shyness is so striking, don't you think?" Dex had no idea what Mosscap meant. "Sorry, what's striking?" "Stop," Mosscap said. "Look." Dex sighed, but they hit the brakes, put their feet on the paving below, and looked up. Mosscap continued to point, tracing lines in the air. "Look at the treetops," it said. "What do you notice?" "Uh," Dex said. They frowned, not knowing what Mosscap was getting at. There were branches, obviously, and leaves, and... "Oh, they're..." They fell quiet as their perspective of the surrounding landscape shifted in a way they'd never unsee. Despite their number and close proximity, none of the treetops were touching one another. It was as though someone had taken an eraser and run it cleanly through the canopy, transforming each tree into its own small island contained within a definitive border of blue sky. The effect reminded Dex of puzzle pieces laid out on the table, each in their own place yet still unconnected. It wasn't that the trees were unhealthy or their foliage sparse. On the contrary, every tree was lush and full, bursting with green life. Yet somehow, in the absence of contact, they knew exactly where to stop growing outward so they might give their neighbors space to thrive.

Stop. Right now. Remake your life from the inside out. I don’t know a way to remake anything without first taking down the existing structures, and that’s what no does—it puts the brakes on your screaming-fast life and gives you a chance to stop and inspect just exactly what you’ve created for yourself, as difficult as that might be.

If your goal starts to become unattainable, reengaging means switching to something still within your grasp. If you are struggling to put pen to paper on your novel, it’s switching from trying to write a chapter to simply outlining your thoughts. Reengaging allows you to shift the target slightly, so that instead of slamming on the brakes, you find something that you can manage in the moment. It’s moving from reaching the peak to getting down in one piece. Inner drive brings clarity, allowing you to listen to your body so that you can make the right decision during difficult moments.

Grip strength, how hard you can grip with your hands, which involves everything from your hands to your lats (the large muscles on your back). Almost all actions begin with the grip. Attention to both concentric and eccentric loading for all movements, meaning when our muscles are shortening (concentric) and when they are lengthening (eccentric). In other words, we need to be able to lift the weight up and put it back down, slowly and with control. Rucking down hills is a great way to work on eccentric strength, because it forces you to put on the “brakes.” Pulling motions, at all angles from overhead to in front of you, which also requires grip strength (e.g., pull-ups and rows). Hip-hinging movements, such as the deadlift and squat, but also step-ups, hip-thrusters, and countless single-leg variants of exercises that strengthen the legs, glutes, and lower back.

Proust wrote exclusively in bed, lying with his body almost completely horizontal and his head propped up by two pillows. To reach the exercise book resting on his lap, he had to lean awkwardly on one elbow, and his only working light was a weak, green-shaded bedside lamp. Thus any substantial period of work left his wrist cramped and his eyes exhausted. “After ten pages I am shattered,” he wrote. If he felt too tired to concentrate, Proust would take a caffeine tablet, and when he was finally ready to sleep, he would counteract the caffeine with Veronal, a barbital sedative. “You’re putting your foot on the brakes and the accelerator at the same time,” a friend warned him. Proust didn’t care-if anything, he seemed to need the work to be painful. He thought suffering had value, and that it was the root of great art. As he wrote in the final volume of Remembrance of Things Past, “it almost seems as though a writer’s works, like the water in an artesian well, mount to a height which is in proportion to the depth to which suffering has penetrated his heart.

The second, published in 2013, is “The Hallmarks of Aging,” and enumerates nine changes which fit three criteria. First, they need to increase with age: if they don’t, how could they be causing aging? Second, accelerating a hallmark’s progress should accelerate aging, and, third, slowing one should improve it—these two criteria are an attempt to separate things which are merely associated with aging from things that are actually contributing to it. Finally, these hallmarks also come with suggested interventions which could slow or reverse their progression, thus slowing or reversing that aspect of aging, and hopefully putting the brakes on the process overall.

The encouraging news is that getting enough sleep will help you control body weight. We found that a full night of sleep repairs the communication pathway between deep-brain areas that unleash hedonic desires and higher-order brain regions whose job it is to rein in these cravings. Ample sleep can therefore restore a system of impulse control within your brain, putting the appropriate brakes on potentially excessive eating.

And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. 1 Kings 19:11-12 KJV God addresses us in dreams, visions and voices as well as through the Bible and extraordinary events. Such things are well documented in biblical and personal accounts. The significance of these ways can confuse us, however. For example, the still, small voice is so humble that it may be ignored or even discounted by some who think that only the more dramatic communications can be authentic. If this view is accepted, a life of hearing God must be filled with constant fireworks from heaven, which is not reasonable. Rather the still, small voice is one of God’s primary ways of addressing us. Meditate: Close your eyes and put yourself in the place of Elijah. Tense up as the strong wind creates havoc. Brace yourself as the ground under your feet keeps shifting. Feel the heat of the fire and see yourself moving away from it. Then perk up to the still, small voice. What does God want to say to you today?

Fundamentally I structure my training around exercises that improve the following: Grip strength, how hard you can grip with your hands, which involves everything from your hands to your lats (the large muscles on your back). Almost all actions begin with the grip. Attention to both concentric and eccentric loading for all movements, meaning when our muscles are shortening (concentric) and when they are lengthening (eccentric). In other words, we need to be able to lift the weight up and put it back down, slowly and with control. Rucking down hills is a great way to work on eccentric strength, because it forces you to put on the “brakes.” Pulling motions, at all angles from overhead to in front of you, which also requires grip strength (e.g., pull-ups and rows). Hip-hinging movements, such as the deadlift and squat, but also step-ups, hip-thrusters, and countless single-leg variants of exercises that strengthen the legs, glutes, and lower back.

The right nostril is a gas pedal. When you’re inhaling primarily through this channel, circulation speeds up, your body gets hotter, and cortisol levels, blood pressure, and heart rate all increase. This happens because breathing through the right side of the nose activates the sympathetic nervous system, the “fight or flight” mechanism that puts the body in a more elevated state of alertness and readiness. Breathing through the right nostril will also feed more blood to the opposite hemisphere of the brain, specifically to the prefrontal cortex, which has been associated with logical decisions, language, and computing. Inhaling through the left nostril has the opposite effect: it works as a kind of brake system to the right nostril’s accelerator. The left nostril is more deeply connected to the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest-and-relax side that lowers blood pressure, cools the body, and reduces anxiety. Left-nostril breathing shifts blood flow to the opposite side of the prefrontal cortex, to the area that influences creative thought and plays a role in the formation of mental abstractions and the production of negative emotions. In 2015, researchers at the University of California, San Diego, recorded the breathing patterns of a schizophrenic woman over the course of three consecutive years and found that she had a “significantly greater” left-nostril dominance. This breathing habit, they hypothesized, was likely overstimulating the right-side “creative part” of her brain, and as a result prodding her imagination to run amok. Over several sessions, the researchers taught her to breathe through her opposite, “logical” nostril, and she experienced far fewer hallucinations.

pelvis against him and he became aroused instantly. If they didn’t have the barrier of jeans between them, this thing he’d been trying to talk himself out of would be done. “Aw, Shelby,” he whispered against her lips. He released her mouth. “Listen, we have to talk.” She smiled at him. “Sure. I’ve been expecting this. The talk.” “Shelby, you should run for your life, I’m not kidding. I’ve never been reliable where women are concerned. And I’m not real well fixed with brakes, either. God, I really don’t want to hurt you.” “Are you trying to scare me again, Luke?” “Yeah, I’m trying to scare you. Warn you. Use your head, Shelby. You’re young, you’re sweet, and I’m just an irresponsible, horny bastard. You’d be making a mistake, getting mixed up with me.” She traced his ear with a finger. “Well, Luke, I’m already a little mixed up with you. And you got yourself mixed up with me.” “Shelby, I’m temporary at best. I’m not staying here.” “Me, neither. Is that it?” He sighed and shook his head. “I’ve been known to run through women like sharks run through scuba divers. I wouldn’t be good for you.” “Are you sleeping with a lot of women right now?” she asked him. He hadn’t been with a woman in so long, he had a hard time remembering the last one. That fact alone made him even more vulnerable to Shelby’s incredibly seductive charm. “There has been only one woman on my mind. My brain is like a frickin’ missile and if you don’t move out of the target, I’m afraid I’m going to end up doing some things you might hate me for later. And then your Uncle Walt is going to shoot me.” It only made her chuckle. “Do you always warn your women not to get involved with you before you swoop down and devour them?” “Never. That could keep me from getting laid. But I worry about you. You need to fall in love, I can smell it on you. And I don’t fall in love. I don’t put down roots and I don’t make commitments.” “You know something, Luke?

And when her face transformed with pure joy And she waved enthusiastically, Brendan knew he loved her. God knew, it had happened fast, but he'd been incapable of putting the brakes on. Not when she was the destination.

The system we will be applying is not a teeth-gritting, will-power, try-hard-to-shape-up method. You have tried that already: I’m going to try hard to get organized! or I’m going to put my will-power to work and stop smoking! Probably the harder you tried the more frustrated you became.