Queen Code Quotes

I think a lot about queer villains, the problem and pleasure and audacity of them. I know I should have a very specific political response to them. I know, for example, I should be offended by Disney’s lineup of vain, effete ne’er-do-wells (Scar, Jafar), sinister drag queens (Ursula, Cruella de Vil), and constipated, man-hating power dykes (Lady Tremaine, Maleficent). I should be furious at Downton Abbey’s scheming gay butler and Girlfriend’s controlling, lunatic lesbian, and I should be indignant about Rebecca and Strangers on a Train and Laura and The Terror and All About Eve, and every other classic and contemporary foppish, conniving, sissy, cruel, humorless, depraved, evil, insane homosexual on the large and small screen. And yet, while I recognize the problem intellectually—the system of coding, the way villainy and queerness became a kind of shorthand for each other—I cannot help but love these fictional queer villains. I love them for all of their aesthetic lushness and theatrical glee, their fabulousness, their ruthlessness, their power. They’re always by far the most interesting characters on the screen. After all, they live in a world that hates them. They’ve adapted; they’ve learned to conceal themselves. They’ve survived.

The Warrior Woman Code: A confident woman doesn't beg a man to stay, cry if they don't or need to tear down other women to be loved. She knows her value. When the person she is meant to be with finds her, that person will know it also. He won't be confused by it. He will fight for her because without her he feels incomplete. She will always be foremost in his mind above anyone else. She doesn't have to scheme to keep or entice him. She is okay walking away from him because she doesn't want to be seen as a choice or a woman that has some potential. She demands to be seen as "the one." To settle for anything less than that is an admission of insecurity and lack of self love.

I wish that in order to secure his party’s nomination, a presidential candidate would be required to point at the sky and name all the stars; have the periodic table of the elements memorized; rattle off the kings and queens of Spain; define the significance of the Gatling gun; joke around in Latin; interpret the symbolism in seventeenth-century Dutch painting; explain photosynthesis to a six-year-old; recite Emily Dickenson; bake a perfect popover; build a shortwave radio out of a coconut; and know all the words to Hoagy Carmichael’s “Two Sleepy People”, Johnny Cash’s “Five Feet High and Rising”, and “You Got the Silver” by the Rolling Stones...What we need is a president who is at least twelve kinds of nerd, a nerd messiah to come along every four years, acquire the Secret Service code name Poindexter, install a Revenge of the Nerds screen saver on the Oval Office computer, and one by one decrypt our woes.

There is more than one way to add color to the world. More than one way to crown a queen.

Most kids don't believe in fairy tales very long. Once they hit six or seven they put away "Cinderella" and her shoe fetish, "The Three Little Pigs" with their violation of building codes, "Miss Muffet" and her well-shaped tuffet—all forgotten or discounted. And maybe that's the way it has to be. To survive in the world, you have to give up the fantasies, the make-believe. The only trouble is that it's not all make-believe. Some parts of the fairy tales are all too real, all too true. There might not be a Red Riding Hood, but there is a Big Bad Wolf. No Snow White, but definitely an Evil Queen. No obnoxiously cute blond tots, but a child-eating witch… yeah. Oh yeah.

Mary Queen of Scots had a little dog, a Skye terrier, that was devoted to her. Moments after Mary was beheaded, the people who were watching saw her skirts moving about and they thought her headless body was trying to get itself to its feet. But the movement turned out to be her dog, which she had carried to the block with her, hidden in her skirts. Mary Stuart is supposed to have faced her execution with grace and courage (she wore a scarlet chemise to suggest she was being martyred), but I don’t think she could have been so brave if she had not secretly been holding tight to her Skye terrier, feeling his warm, silky fur against her trembling skin.

A person's will is enabled, strengthened, by love. The greater their ability to dwell in love, the more potent their will.

Unlike the fairy tale princes, real men do not like having to save someone.

Being able to let go of a righteous position is a key to creating partnership.

some women turn frogs into princes. But that takes a queen, not a princess — or a shrew. Like most women, you, my dear, turn princes into frogs!

she fell asleep wondering if turning frogs into princes could be learned. Or do you have to be born royalty?

She'd assumed the prince was for show, and the frog was their true nature being revealed. What if they actually were Princes? And something I did changed them?

Men do not get credit for their wisdom about partnership. In fact, while they instinctively compete and conceal, men are more compelled to partner than women.

A compulsion to get married is not the same as a desire to partner.

A smart man will always choose an ounce of prevention over a pound of cure,” he

If you're always trying to impress me, how come you don't take out the trash?” The look on his face was priceless. He blurted out in undisguised bewilderment, “That would impress you?

I wish it were different. I wish that we privileged knowledge in politicians, that the ones who know things didn't have to hide it behind brown pants, and that the know-not-enoughs were laughed all the way to the Maine border on their first New Hampshire meet and greet. I wish that in order to secure his party's nomination, a presidential candidate would be required to point at the sky and name all the stars; have the periodic table of the elements memorized; rattle off the kings and queens of Spain; define the significance of the Gatling gun; joke around in Latin; interpret the symbolism in seventeenth-century Dutch painting; explain photosynthesis to a six-year-old; recite Emily Dickinson; bake a perfect popover; build a shortwave radio out of a coconut; and know all the words to Hoagy Carmichael's "Two Sleepy People," Johnny Cash's "Five Feet High and Rising," and "You Got the Silver" by the Rolling Stones. After all, the United States is the greatest country on earth dealing with the most complicated problems in the history of the world--poverty, pollution, justice, Jerusalem. What we need is a president who is at least twelve kinds of nerd, a nerd messiah to come along every four years, acquire the Secret Service code name Poindexter, install a Revenge of the Nerds screen saver on the Oval Office computer, and one by one decrypt our woes.

Women are instinctively motivated by perfection, and the need to be perceived as perfect enough to be pleasing — and therefore, protected and provided for. But not too perfect so as to cause jealousy in other women. This is the source of our drive to improve ourselves, and our fear of standing out at the same time.

The bigger your commitments, the more help you are going to need.

Your zip code shouldn’t determine the quality of your education.

What is a Gallagher Girl?” Liz asked. She looked nervously down at the papers in her hand even though I knew for a fact she had memorized every word. “When I was eleven I thought I knew the answer to that question. That was when the recruiters came to see me. They showed me brochures and told me they were impressed by my test scores and asked if I was ready to be challenged. And I said yes. Because that was what a Gallagher Girl was to me then, a student at the toughest school in the world.” She took a deep breath and talked on. “What is a Gallagher Girl?” Liz asked again. “When I was thirteen I thought I knew the answer to that question. That was when Dr. Fibs allowed me to start doing my own experiments in the lab. I could go anywhere—make anything. Do anything my mind could dream up. Because I was a Gallagher Girl. And, to me, that meant I was the future.” Liz took another deep breath. “What is a Gallagher Girl?” This time, when Liz asked it, her voice cracked. “When I was seventeen I stood on a dark street in Washington, D.C., and watched one Gallagher Girl literally jump in front of a bullet to save the life of another. I saw a group of women gather around a girl whom they had never met, telling the world that if any harm was to come to their sister, it had to go through them first.” Liz straightened. She no longer had to look down at her paper as she said, “What is a Gallagher Girl? I’m eighteen now, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that I don’t really know the answer to that question. Maybe she is destined to be our first international graduate and take her rightful place among Her Majesty’s Secret Service with MI6.” I glanced to my right and, call me crazy, but I could have sworn Rebecca Baxter was crying. “Maybe she is someone who chooses to give back, to serve her life protecting others just as someone once protected her.” Macey smirked but didn’t cry. I got the feeling that Macey McHenry might never cry again. “Who knows?” Liz asked. “Maybe she’s an undercover journalist.” I glanced at Tina Walters. “An FBI agent.” Eva Alvarez beamed. “A code breaker.” Kim Lee smiled. “A queen.” I thought of little Amirah and knew somehow that she’d be okay. “Maybe she’s even a college student.” Liz looked right at me. “Or maybe she’s so much more.” Then Liz went quiet for a moment. She too looked up at the place where the mansion used to stand. “You know, there was a time when I thought that the Gallagher Academy was made of stone and wood, Grand Halls and high-tech labs. When I thought it was bulletproof, hack-proof, and…yes…fireproof. And I stand before you today happy for the reminder that none of those things are true. Yes, I really am. Because I know now that a Gallagher Girl is not someone who draws her power from that building. I know now with scientific certainty that it is the other way around.” A hushed awe descended over the already quiet crowd as she said this. Maybe it was the gravity of her words and what they meant, but for me personally, I like to think it was Gilly looking down, smiling at us all. “What is a Gallagher Girl?” Liz asked one final time. “She’s a genius, a scientist, a heroine, a spy. And now we are at the end of our time at school, and the one thing I know for certain is this: A Gallagher Girl is whatever she wants to be.” Thunderous, raucous applause filled the student section. Liz smiled and wiped her eyes. She leaned close to the microphone. “And, most of all, she is my sister.

would have let me break the color code for shoes at work. These were borrowed from Indy’s next door neighbor, who was Denver’s top drag queen. Luckily, he had small feet; or I liked to think that way. Not that my feet were large.

The Bomb elbows me in the side. "We came up with your code name," she mouths. I hadn't even seen her come in past the locked doors. "What?" I feel as tired as I ever felt, and yet, for seven years, I will not be able to truly rest. I expect her to say The Liar. She gives me a tricksy grin, full of secrets. "What else? The Queen.

You have a good argument, Karen. And, would you be willing to consider this from another point of view?

gifts of words and time and touch.

compassionate humor is an expression of Human Spirit. As you battle your own most primitive, defensive reactions, there is no better weapon.

My mom was a sayyed from the bloodline of the Prophet (which you know about now). In Iran, if you convert from Islam to Christianity or Judaism, it’s a capital crime. That means if they find you guilty in religious court, they kill you. But if you convert to something else, like Buddhism or something, then it’s not so bad. Probably because Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are sister religions, and you always have the worst fights with your sister. And probably nothing happens if you’re just a six-year-old. Except if you say, “I’m a Christian now,” in your school, chances are the Committee will hear about it and raid your house, because if you’re a Christian now, then so are your parents probably. And the Committee does stuff way worse than killing you. When my sister walked out of her room and said she’d met Jesus, my mom knew all that. And here is the part that gets hard to believe: Sima, my mom, read about him and became a Christian too. Not just a regular one, who keeps it in their pocket. She fell in love. She wanted everybody to have what she had, to be free, to realize that in other religions you have rules and codes and obligations to follow to earn good things, but all you had to do with Jesus was believe he was the one who died for you. And she believed. When I tell the story in Oklahoma, this is the part where the grown-ups always interrupt me. They say, “Okay, but why did she convert?” Cause up to that point, I’ve told them about the house with the birds in the walls, all the villages my grandfather owned, all the gold, my mom’s own medical practice—all the amazing things she had that we don’t have anymore because she became a Christian. All the money she gave up, so we’re poor now. But I don’t have an answer for them. How can you explain why you believe anything? So I just say what my mom says when people ask her. She looks them in the eye with the begging hope that they’ll hear her and she says, “Because it’s true.” Why else would she believe it? It’s true and it’s more valuable than seven million dollars in gold coins, and thousands of acres of Persian countryside, and ten years of education to get a medical degree, and all your family, and a home, and the best cream puffs of Jolfa, and even maybe your life. My mom wouldn’t have made the trade otherwise. If you believe it’s true, that there is a God and He wants you to believe in Him and He sent His Son to die for you—then it has to take over your life. It has to be worth more than everything else, because heaven’s waiting on the other side. That or Sima is insane. There’s no middle. You can’t say it’s a quirky thing she thinks sometimes, cause she went all the way with it. If it’s not true, she made a giant mistake. But she doesn’t think so. She had all that wealth, the love of all those people she helped in her clinic. They treated her like a queen. She was a sayyed. And she’s poor now. People spit on her on buses. She’s a refugee in places people hate refugees, with a husband who hits harder than a second-degree black belt because he’s a third-degree black belt. And she’ll tell you—it’s worth it. Jesus is better. It’s true. We can keep talking about it, keep grinding our teeth on why Sima converted, since it turned the fate of everybody in the story. It’s why we’re here hiding in Oklahoma. We can wonder and question and disagree. You can be certain she’s dead wrong. But you can’t make Sima agree with you. It’s true. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. This whole story hinges on it. Sima—who was such a fierce Muslim that she marched for the Revolution, who studied the Quran the way very few people do read the Bible and knew in her heart that it was true.

The queen is kind. The queen is generous. The queen works as hard, if not harder, than everyone else. The queen doesn’t sit on the couch saying, “I don’t feel like it.” The queen is not a victim. She is a cool, nonmanipulative loving partner. She lives by her codes. The queen is the head of the military, she listens to the pleas of commoners, she oversees all of the special celebrations and feast days. She is merciful. And remember, the queen may be fair and the queen may be just, but if you cross her, she will cut off your head. The title is sitting there waiting for you. And if you choose to take it on? You will live interestingly ever after.

Drag wasn’t a disguise or an illusion; it was armor. When he stepped onstage, Axel became someone fierce and untouchable, a force of nature that gave no fucks and couldn’t be bothered. He brought hecklers to their knees, read homophobes until they needed the Da Vinci Code to piece their dignity back together, and faced the worst with a smart remark and a tongue pop. Lisel was both shield and weapon, the only refuge he’d had from these ugly years.

The term “welfare queen” became a not-so-subtle code for “lazy, greedy, black ghetto mother.” The food stamp program, in turn, was a vehicle to let “some fellow ahead of you buy a T-bone steak,” while “you were standing in a checkout line with your package of hamburger.

For though I have no wish to be Queen of England—or only for a moment—I would willingly sit beside her; I would hear the Prime Minister's gossips; the countess whisper, and share her memories of halls and gardens; the massive fronts of the respectable conceal after all their secret code; or why so impermeable? And then, doffing one’s own headpiece, how strange to assume for a moment someone’s—anyone’s—to be a man of valour who has ruled the Empire; to refer while Brangaena sings to the fragments of Sophocles, or see in a flash, as the shepherd pipes his tune, bridges and aqueducts. But no—we must choose. Never was there a harsher necessity! or one which entails greater pain; more certain disaster; for wherever I seat myself, I die in exile: Whittaker in his lodging-house; Lady Charles at the manor

She had heard of the genetic code that could shape an eye or hand from passing proteins. Deoxyribonucleic acid. It contained the entire set of instructions for constructing a respiratory system and a digestive one, as well as the grip of an infant’s hand. Chess was like that. The geometry of a position could be read and reread and not exhausted of possibility. You saw deeply into this layer of it, but there was another layer beyond that, and another.

She had heard of the genetic code that could shape an eye or hand from passing proteins. Deoxyribonucleic acid. It contained the entire set of instructions for constructing a respiratory system and a digestive one, as well as the grip of an infant's hand. Chess was like that. The geometry of a position could be read and reread and not exhausted of possibility. You saw deeply into the layer of it, but there was another layer beyond that, and another, and another.

Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners. Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me . . . My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her. Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?

Celebrate your accomplishments so thoroughly as to burn the bridge to whom you were before,’” Claudia responded. “This is extremely important, especially on a lifelong journey. You must stop from time to time and lay claim to the progress you have made. And close off the option of retreating to a smaller version of yourself. Your accomplishments may be new skills or abilities, or new horizons that you could not see before. It could be new relationships or new possibilities in existing relationships. By claiming them, you mark your progress. It helps to fight off the despair when the way before you seems endless.

You and I are going to form the backbone of this court. We will shape and decide our own code.” “What? Obedience and blind loyalty?” He didn’t feel like getting a lecture. Even if Rowan was right, and every word out of the prince’s mouth was one that Aedion had dreamed of hearing for a decade. He should have been the one to initiate this conversation. Gods above, he’d had this conversation with Ren weeks ago. Rowan’s eyes glittered. “To protect and serve.” “Aelin?” He could do that; he had already planned on doing that. “Aelin. And each other. And Terrasen.” No room for argument, no hint of doubt. A small part of Aedion understood why his cousin had offered the prince the blood oath.

In short, the observer is choked with observations. Only to prevent us from being submerged by chaos, nature and society between them have arranged a system of classification which is simplicity itself; stalls, boxes, amphitheatre, gallery. The moulds are filled nightly. There is no need to distinguish details. But the difficulty remains—one has to choose. For though I have no wish to be Queen of England or only for a moment—I would willingly sit beside her; I would hear the Prime Minister's gossip; the countess whisper, and share her memories of halls and gardens; the massive fronts of the respectable conceal after all their secret code; or why so impermeable? And then, doffing one's own headpiece, how strange to assume for a moment some one's—any one's—to be a man of valour who has ruled the Empire; to refer while Brangaena sings to the fragments of Sophocles, or see in a flash, as the shepherd pipes his tune, bridges and aqueducts. But no—we must choose. Never was there a harsher necessity! or one which entails greater pain, more certain disaster; for wherever I seat myself, I die in exile: Whittaker in his lodging-house; Lady Charles at the Manor.

As the literary fairy tale spread in France to every age group and every social class, it began to serve different functions, depending on the writer's interests. It represented the glory and ideology of the French aristocracy. It provided a symbolic critique, with utopian connotations, of the aristocratic hierarchy, largely within the aristocracy itself and from the female viewpoint. It introduced the norms and values of the bourgeois civilizing process as more reasonable and egalitarian than the feudal code. As a divertissement for the aristocracy and bourgeoisie, the fairy tale diverted the attention of listeners/readers from the serious sociopolitical problems of the times, compensating for the deprivations that the upper classes perceived themselves to be suffering. There was also an element of self-parody, revealing the ridiculous notions in previous fairy tales and representing another aspect of court society to itself; such parodies can be seen in Jacques Cazotte's "A Thousand and One Follies" (1746), Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "The Queen Fantasque" (1758), and Voltaire's "The White Bull" (1774). Finally, fairy tales with clear didactic and moral lessons were approved as reading matter to serve as a subtle, more pleasurable means of initiating children into the class rituals and customs that reinforced the status quo.

hope that somehow the partnership that eluded her would come within reach. Though she felt pessimistic, it was hope that made her try one more time. It was also hope that had her marry Mathew. The hope that after their wedding, he’d resume being the affectionate and engaging companion he was during their courtship. When Mathew remained as distant as he had become during their engagement, despite the ring on his finger, she blamed it on her flaws. She set out to make Mathew love her more and want her more by perfecting herself. She lost weight, she learned to cook the same meals as his mother, she even climbed mountains in the dead of winter. But nothing worked. After four years of trying, she concluded she lacked “the Grace Kelly gene.” This was the only way Kimberlee could justify why her husband never pursued her with gifts. Especially the ones she craved most: gifts of words and time and touch. Again, it was hope that had her leave Mathew. She’d rather risk being alone for the rest of her life to have a chance at the union she believed was possible. Yes, she wanted children and a family. But she needed support and attention, and laughter and passion. She wanted love and affection, and couldn’t live without interest and respect. It wasn’t hope that led her to Brett. That was pure chemistry and charisma. And for a while, it worked. He was attentive,

As the press also reported abuses by some recipients, welfare was symbolized, in many minds, by the image of working-age black women with children who maintained secret relationships with men who refused to care for their dependents. These “welfare queens” represented a tiny criminal element among recipients, but their existence, and attendant press accounts about them, were enough to make welfare a code word that communicated racist assumptions.10 Did

Once more for Britain,” I said to the empty room. I might not be the Queen everyone wanted me to be, but I was intelligent and fully capable of breaking the code.

Queene Elizabeth is my true mother and I am the lawfull heire to the throne. Finde the cypher storie my bookes containe. It tells great secrets, every one of which, if imparted openly, would forfeit my life. —F. Bacon.

You can’t park that here!” he barked. “It’s a red zone!” Courtney lowered her window and glared at him. “I’m not parked. I’m idling! That’s allowable.” “Not on my watch,” the meter man huffed. “According to District Code 46a, subsection D, there is to be no blocking of the red zone for any amount of time for any purpose at all. . . .” “How about national security?” David Stern asked, rolling down his window. “You see, I’m the president of the United States.” “And I’m the queen of Sweden,” the meter man declared sarcastically. Unaware that he was facing the actual president, he dramatically ripped off the ticket and handed it to Courtney.

The code and the message are not the same. And what is an angel but a ghost in drag?

Skills are taught experientially—meaning that students studying AI don’t have their heads buried in books. In order to learn, they need lexical databases, image libraries, and neural nets. For a time, one of the more popular neural nets at universities was called Word2vec, and it was built by the Google Brain team. It was a two-layer system that processed text, turning words into numbers that AI could understand.17 For example, it learned that “man is to king as woman is to queen.” But the database also decided that “father is to doctor as mother is to nurse” and “man is to computer programmer as woman is to homemaker.”18 The very system students were exposed to was itself biased. If someone wanted to analyze the farther-reaching implications of sexist code, there weren’t any classes where that learning could take place.

We came up with your code name," she mouths. ... I expect her to say 'The Liar.' She gives me a tricksy grin, full of secrets. "What else? The Queen.

The display of opulence characteristic of elite attire in the Middle Ages and Renaissance gave way to a new ideal of understatement: the courtly display that advertised the divine right of kings and queens yielded to a new aristocratic wardrobe. In this new political context, high social status began to be associated with industriousness, competence, and enlightened reason as opposed to noble birth and honor, and it was marked by a new understated elite style. Men still distinguished themselves through their attire, but the mark of elite status was in subtle refinements rather than conspicuous adornment. In many respects, this shift was a way of preserving elitism under the guise of attacking it: advances in manufacturing and trade along with a growing market in secondhand clothing had made many formerly rare adornments and luxuries more widely available, diluting their value as signs of exclusive privilege. The new status symbols of elegance, by contrast, required education and acculturation, which were much harder to fake.

It’s a putrid den, one cockroach away from being shut down after an inspection by Health and Safety. Kitchen Nightmares would refuse to record here, thinks Jon. But then their order arrives, and so much for prejudices. Inspector Gutiérrez is served a bottle of beer and a pepper steak—big enough to have its own zip code—that reconcile him to mankind. Antonia makes do with a tenderloin sandwich with cheese and a stale wedge of Spanish omelet reheated in the microwave. My God, how badly this girl eats. I don’t know how she’s so thin. Her brain must consume a lot of gas.

Cities fell apart in violent conflicts over a single letter: was Christ of the same being with the Father, or of like being, homoousios or homoiousios? Was he from two natures (ek duo), or in two (en duo)? Such language is seriously off-putting for most modern readers, including many educated Christians. And it uses so many technical terms that almost seem to the uninitiated like secret codes. Person? Subsistence? Nature? A critic could be forgiven for comparing the straightforward words of Jesus, with all the everyday analogies and images—sheep and harvests, the sparrows and the lilies of the field, the erring brother and the widow’s penny—to the arcane philosophical language used here. Jesus spoke of love; his church spoke in riddles. I may not be the only modern reader who hears the language of Chalcedon—two but not one—and finds his thoughts occasionally straying to the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. A monk offers instructions for the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, in a deliberate parody of the Athanasian Creed: First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.

Playing Chess Unconsciously For another demonstration of the power of our unconscious vision, consider chess playing. When grand master Garry Kasparov concentrates on a chess game, does he have to consciously attend to the configuration of pieces in order to notice that, say, a black rook is threatening the white queen? Or can he focus on the master plan, while his visual system automatically processes those relatively trivial relations among pieces? Our intuition is that in chess experts, the parsing of board games becomes a reflex. Indeed, research proves that a single glance is enough for any grand master to evaluate a chessboard and to remember its configuration in full detail, because he automatically parses it into meaningful chunks.29 Furthermore, a recent experiment indicates that this segmenting process is truly unconscious: a simplified game can be flashed for 20 milliseconds, sandwiched between masks that make it invisible, and still influence a chess master’s decision.30 The experiment works only on expert chess players, and only if they are solving a meaningful problem, such as determining if the king is under check or not. It implies that the visual system takes into account the identity of the pieces (rook or knight) and their locations, then quickly binds together this information into a meaningful chunk (“black king under check”). These sophisticated operations occur entirely outside conscious awareness.

The home and school of courtly love was at Poitiers, in the court of the renowned Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen of Henry II of England. Toward the end of the twelfth century, Eleanor presided over an actual Court of Love, wherein ladies and gentlemen judged questions of behavior, issued decisions, and composed a casuistic code for the guidance of others. Her daughter’s chaplain, Andreas Capellanus, set down the results of their meetings in a treatise, De Arte Honeste Amandi (The Art of Courtly Love). True love, he says, must be free; it must be mutual; it must be noble, for a commoner could not experience it; it must be secret. If the lover meets his lady in public, he must treat her almost as a stranger and communicate with her only by furtive signs. But when he catches sight of her, his heart palpitates, and he turns pale, and thus risks betraying his dear secret. He eats and sleeps very little. Clearly this true love is incompatible with marriage; “everybody knows that love can have no place between husband and wife.

There’s no point running anyway. In t-minus ten minutes, you will have no where to run to.” Quinn tensed at the triumphant look in his eyes. “. . .what have you done?” “I have entered launch codes in the computer. In exactly ten minutes, Alpha Star 9 will be a black stain in the middle of Utah.” Quinn’s lips part in shock. “Yes,” said. Dr. Zorgone in amusement. “Dramatic gasp!

This isn’t civilized. It’s selfish and it should be criminal. And with all due offense, I’d rather hang with the criminals than any of you. At least they have a moral code, fucked up though it is.” Disgusted, he stormed from the room and left them there to condemn him for it. If he was going to be judged, it would be for who he was. Not who he was trying to be. And if the Qill queen wanted his head. Let her take a number. In the meantime, he had places to go, a life to live and a universe to set on fire…

He took the messages to a local brewer, who wrapped them in a leather packet, which was then hidden inside a hollow bung used to seal a barrel of beer. The brewer would deliver the barrel to Chartley Hall, whereupon one of Mary’s servants would open the bung and take the contents to the Queen of Scots. The process worked equally well for getting messages out of Chartley Hall.

Vigenère’s work culminated in his Traicté des Chiffres (“A Treatise on Secret Writing”), published in 1586. Ironically, this was the same year that Thomas Phelippes was breaking the cipher of Mary Queen of Scots. If only Mary’s secretary had read this treatise, he would have known about the Vigenère cipher, Mary’s messages to Babington would have baffled Phelippes, and her life might have been spared.

She is miserable because women tend to think that whatever bad thing is happening now will continue forever. While they often think that a good thing will disappear any moment. We lack perspective since the worry part of our brain — the amygdala — is more active than in men. It can make us lose faith.

There is a wilderness in little girls. We could not contain it. It made magic of the rain and a temple of the forest. We raced down narrow trails, hair flying wind-wild behind us, and pretended that the slender spruce and hemlock were still the ancient woods that industry had chewed down to splinters. We made ourselves into warriors, into queens, into goddesses. Fern leaves and dandelions became poultices and potions, and we sang incantations to the trees. We gave ourselves new names: Artemis, Athena, Hecate. Conversations were in code, our letters filled with elaborate ciphers, and we taught ourselves the meanings of stones.

Dear Daughter, Avoid any form of blind loyalty and never put up with complacency. Remember that you are royalty.

That's when she saw the black ink strokes, underlining four words of the poem: Door. Veil. Thee. Me. And in a flash, the code to the sultan's combination lockbox flew into her mind. D V J S. Door. Veil. Jasmine. Sultan... or sultana. Even though the meaning was still opaque, even though she still hadn't the slightest clue which door or veil her father was trying to draw her toward, something lifted in her chest as she looked at the words. Hope. He was still talking to her, communicating with her, even from another plane. "As above, so below," she whispered.

Crime and welfare were the major themes of Reagan’s campaign rhetoric. According to the Edsalls, one of Reagan’s favorite and most-often-repeated anecdotes was the story of a Chicago “welfare queen” with “80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards,” whose “tax-free income alone is over $150,000.”68 The term welfare queen became a not-so-subtle code for “lazy, greedy, black ghetto mother.” The food stamp program, in turn, was a vehicle to let “some fellow ahead of you buy a T-bone steak,” while “you were standing in a checkout line with your package of hamburger.

Crime and welfare were the major themes of Reagan’s campaign rhetoric. According to the Edsalls, one of Reagan’s favorite and most-often-repeated anecdotes was the story of a Chicago “welfare queen” with “80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards,” whose “tax-free income alone is over $150,000.”68 The term welfare queen became a not-so-subtle code for “lazy, greedy, black ghetto mother.” The food stamp program, in turn, was a vehicle to let “some fellow ahead of you buy a T-bone steak,” while “you were standing in a checkout line with your package of hamburger.”69 These highly racialized appeals, targeted to poor and working-class whites, were nearly always accompanied by vehement promises to be tougher on crime and to enhance the federal government’s role in combating it. Reagan portrayed the criminal as “a staring face—a face that belongs to a frightening reality of our time: the face of the human predator.”70 Reagan’s racially coded rhetoric and strategy proved extraordinarily effective, as 22 percent of all Democrats defected from the party to vote for Reagan. The defection rate shot up to 34 percent among those Democrats who believed civil rights leaders were pushing “too fast.”71

Rule number one: The Game is secret. But I listened and, once or twice when temptation drove me and the coast was clear, I peeked inside the box. This is what I learned. The Game was old. They'd been playing it for years. No, not playing. That is the wrong verb. Living; they had been living The Game for years. For The Game was more than its name suggested. It was a complex fantasy, an alternate world into which they escaped. There were no costumes, no swords, no feathered headdresses. Nothing that would have marked it as a game. For that was its nature. It was secret. Its only accoutrement was the box. A black lacquered case brought back from China by one of their ancestors; one of the spoils from a spree of exploration and plunder. It was the size of a square hatbox- not too big and not too small- and its lid was inlaid with semiprecious gems to form a scene: a river with a bridge across it, a small temple on one bank, a willow weeping from the sloping shore. Three figures stood atop the bridge and above them a lone bird circled. They guarded the box jealously, filled as it was with everything material to The Game. For although The Game demanded a good deal of running and hiding and wrestling, its real pleasure was enjoyed elsewhere. Rule number two: all journeys, adventures, explorations and sightings must be recorded. They would rush inside, flushed with danger, to record their recent adventures: maps and diagrams, codes and drawings, plays and books. The books were miniature, bound with thread, writing so small and neat that one had to hold them close to decipher them. They had titles: Escape from Koshchei the Deathless; Encounter with Balam and His Bear, Journey to the Land of White Slavers. Some were written in code I couldn't understand, though the legend, had I had the time to look, would no doubt have been printed on parchment and filed within the box. The Game was simple. It was Hannah and David's invention really, and as the oldest they were its chief instigators. They decided which location was ripe for exploration. The two of them had assembled a ministry of nine advisers- an eclectic group mingling eminent Victorians with ancient Egyptian kings. There were only ever nine advisers at any one time, and when history supplied a new figure too appealing to be denied inclusion, an original member would die or be deposed. (Death was always in the line of duty, reported solemnly in one of the tiny books kept inside the box.) Alongside the advisers, each had their own character. Hannah was Nefertiti and David was Charles Darwin. Emmeline, only four when governing laws were drawn up, had chosen Queen Victoria. A dull choice, Hannah and David agreed, understandable given Emmeline's limited years, but certainly not a suitable adventure mate. Victoria was nonetheless accommodated into The Game, most often cast as a kidnap victim whose capture was precipitant of a daring rescue. While the other two were writing up their accounts, Emmeline was allowed to decorate the diagrams and shade the maps: blue for the ocean, purple for the deep, green and yellow for land.

If someone asks you a question that’s too personal, say, “Once, in college.” Try to live a life worth impersonating by a drag queen. Name your Starbucks self Rihanna. Flash yourself in your mirror. Take as many bikini pool shots as you possibly can because Sarong City is closer than you think.

Here are some additional books that I recommend… The Queen’s Code – Alison Armstrong For Women Only – Shaunti Feldhahn The 5 Love Languages – Gary Chapman The Way of the Superior Man – David Deida

Women are instinctively motivated by perfection, and the need to be perceived as perfect enough to be pleasing — and therefore, protected and provided for. But not too perfect so as to cause jealousy in other women. This is the source of our drive to improve ourselves, and our fear of standing out at the same time.” Karen

but none seemed remotely interested in the black SUV. The only person paying any attention to it was a meter man from the Department of Parking Enforcement, who stormed toward it with the zeal of a Navy SEAL team, already writing a ticket. “You can’t park that here!” he barked. “It’s a red zone!” Courtney lowered her window and glared at him. “I’m not parked. I’m idling! That’s allowable.” “Not on my watch,” the meter man huffed. “According to District Code 46a, subsection D, there is to be no blocking of the red zone for any amount of time for any purpose at all. . . .” “How about national security?” David Stern asked, rolling down his window. “You see, I’m the president of the United States.” “And I’m the queen of Sweden,” the meter man declared sarcastically. Unaware that he was facing the actual president, he dramatically ripped off the ticket and handed it to Courtney.

Golden Egg Pets · Golden Dragon · Golden Griffin · Golden Unicorn Diamond Egg Pets · Diamond Dragon · Diamond Griffin · Diamond Unicorn Common Pets · Bandicoot (Aussie Egg) · Buffalo (Cracked Egg or Pet Egg) · Cat (Starter Egg, Cracked Egg, or Pet Egg) · Chicken (Farm Egg) · Dog (Starter Egg, Cracked Egg, or Pet Egg) · Otter (Cracked Egg or Pet Egg) · Robin (Christmas Egg) Uncommon Pets · Black Panther (Jungle Egg) · Blue Dog (Blue Egg) · Capybara (Jungle Egg) · Chocolate Labrador (Cracked Egg, Pet Egg, or Royal Egg) · Dingo (Aussie Egg) · Drake (Farm Egg) · Fennec Fox (Cracked Egg, Pet Egg, or Royal Egg) · Meerkat (Safari Egg) · Pink Cat (Pink Egg) · Puma (Cracked Egg, Pet Egg, or Royal Egg) · Silly Duck (Farm Egg) · Snow Cat (Cracked Egg, Pet Egg, or Royal Egg) · Wild Boar (Safari Egg) · Wolf (Christmas Egg) Rare Pets · Australian Kelpie (Aussie Egg) · Beaver (Cracked Egg, Pet Egg, or Royal Egg) · Brown Bear (Jungle Egg) · Bunny (Cracked Egg, Pet Egg, or Royal Egg) · Cow (Farm Egg) · Elephant (Safari Egg) · Elf Shrew (Christmas Event: 23,000 Gingerbread) · Emu (Aussie Egg) · Hyena (Safari Egg) · Pig (Farm Egg) · Polar Bear (Christmas Egg) · Rabbit (Cracked Egg, Pet Egg, or Royal Egg) · Rat (Lunar New Year Event 2020 - Rat Box - 14 in 15 Chance) · Reindeer (Christmas Egg) · Rhino (Jungle Egg) · Snow Puma (Cracked Egg, Pet Egg, or Royal Egg) · Swan (Christmas Egg) Ultra-Rare Pets · Arctic Fox (Christmas Egg) · Bee (Coffee Shop - Honey: 199 Robux - 35 in 40 Chance) · Crocodile (Jungle Egg) · Elf Hedgehog (Christmas Event: eighty,500 Gingerbread) · Flamingo (Safari Egg) · Frog (Aussie Egg) · Horse (Pet Shop: 300 Robux) · Koala (Aussie Egg) · Lion (Safari Egg) · Llama (Farm Egg) · Panda (Lunar New Year Event - Game Pass: 249 Robux) · Penguin (Throw a Golden Goldfish (225 Robux) to a Penguin on the Ice Cream Parlor) · Platypus (Jungle Egg) · Red Panda (Cracked Egg, Pet Egg, or Royal Egg) · Santa Dog (Christmas Event: 250 Robux) · Shiba Inu (Cracked Egg, Pet Egg, or Royal Egg) · Sloth (Pet Shop: 199 Robux) · Turkey (Farm Egg) · Zombie Buffalo (Halloween Event) Legendary Pets · Arctic Reindeer (Christmas Egg) · Bat Dragon (Halloween Event 2019: a hundred and eighty,000 Candies) · Crow (Farm Egg) · Dragon (Cracked Egg, Pet Egg, or Royal Egg) · Evil Unicorn (Halloween Event 2019: 108,000 Candies) · Frost Dragon (Christmas Event 2019: 1,000 Robux) · Giraffe (Safari Egg) · Golden Penguin (Throw a Golden Goldfish (225 Robux) to a Penguin at the Ice Cream Parlor) · Golden Rat (Lunar New Year Event 2020 - Rat Box - 1 in 15 Chance) · Griffin (Gamepass or six hundred Robux) · Kangaroo (Aussie Egg) · King Bee (Coffee Shop - Honey: 199 Robux - 4 in 40 Chance) · Owl (Farm Egg) · Parrot (Jungle Egg) · Queen Bee (Coffee Shop - Honey: 199 Robux - 1 in 40 Chance) · Shadow Dragon (Halloween Event 2019: 1,000 Robux) · Turtle (Aussie Egg) · Unicorn (Cracked Egg, Pet Egg, or Royal Egg)

You can’t park that here!” he barked. “It’s a red zone!” Courtney lowered her window and glared at him. “I’m not parked. I’m idling! That’s allowable.” “Not on my watch,” the meter man huffed. “According to District Code 46a, subsection D, there is to be no blocking of the red zone for any amount of time for any purpose at all. . . .” “How about national security?” David Stern asked, rolling down his window. “You see, I’m the president of the United States.” “And I’m the queen of Sweden,” the meter man declared sarcastically.

Who can know what he's doing when he doesn't even know why he does it? Bless the bright Cromagnon for inventing the bow and damn him for inventing missile warfare. Bless the stubby little Sumerians for miracles in gold and lapis lazuli and damn them for burying a dead queen's hand-maidens living in her tomb. Bless Shih Hwang-Ti for building the Great Wall between northern barbarism and southern culture, and damn him for burning every book in China. Bless King Minos for the ease of Cnossian flush toilets and damn him for his yearly tribute of Greek sacrificial victims. Bless Pharaoh for peace and damn him for slavery. Bless the Greeks for restricting population so the well-fed few could kindle a watch-tower in the west, and damn the prostitution and sodomy and wars of colonization by which they did it. Bless the Romans for their strength to smash down every wall that hemmed their building genius, and damn them for their weakness that never broke the bloody grip of Etruscan savagery on their minds. Bless the Jews who discovered the fatherhood of God and damn them who limited it to the survivors of a surgical operation. Bless the Christians who abolished the surgical preliminaries and damn them who substituted a thousand cerebral quibbles. Bless Justinian for the Code of Law and damn him for his countless treacheries that were the prototype of the wretched Byzantine millenium. Bless the churchmen for teaching and preaching, and damn, them for drawing a line beyond which they could only teach and preach in peril of the stake.