“
So, here you are
too foreign for home
too foreign for here.
Never enough for both.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
1. You must let the pain visit.
2. You must allow it teach you
3. You must not allow it overstay.
(Three routes to healing)
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
I am too full of life
to be half-loved.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
Ada beza antara jumpa benda yang kita nak cari, dan cari benda yang kita nak jumpa.
”
”
Hlovate (Contengan Jalanan)
“
Stay away
from men who peel the skin
of other women, forcing you to
wear them.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
Do not
drown yourself in a man.
He will leave you struggling to
breathe.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
Healing comes in waves
and maybe today
the wave hits the rocks
and that's ok,
that's ok, darling
you are still healing
you are still healing.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
The day your education makes you roll your eyes at your father. The day your exposure makes you call your own mother uncivilized, the day your amazing foreign degrees make you cringe as your driver speaks pidgin english, may you never forget your grandfather was a farmer from Oyo state who never understood english.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
I never am really satisfied that I understand anything; because, understand it well as I may, my comprehension can only be an infinitesimal fraction of all I want to understand about the many connections and relations which occur to me, how the matter in question was first thought of or arrived at, etc., etc.
”
”
Ada Lovelace
“
You did not carry yourself
away from pain
to become pain itself.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
IRONY
They invite you
to come view
artifacts
stolen
from your ancestors
in their museums
as their
"experts"
explain
your
ancient
Benin
kingdom
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
Mother, I have pasts inside me I did not bury properly. Some nights, your daughter tears herself apart yet heals in the morning.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
Nobody warned you that the women whose feet you cut from running would give birth to daughters with wings.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
do not apologize for owning every piece of you they could not take, break, and claim as theirs.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
I told the priest
my god is a black woman
he poured holy water on me
and scheduled me for an exorcism
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
there are ways to let the world kill you.
first, lose your tongue in the mouth of a
lover.
second, do not remember your softness.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
You teach your daughters
how to rub poison on their skin
remember
to teach your sons
how not to be serpents.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
Here’s to the security guards who maybe had a degree in another land. Here’s to the manicurist who had to leave her family to come here, painting the nails, scrubbing the feet of strangers. Here’s to the janitors who don’t understand English yet work hard despite it all. Here’s to the fast food workers who work hard to see their family smile. Here’s to the laundry man at the Marriott who told me with the sparkle in his eyes how he was an engineer in Peru. Here’s to the bus driver, the Turkish Sufi who almost danced when I quoted Rumi. Here’s to the harvesters who live in fear of being deported for coming here to open the road for their future generation. Here’s to the taxi drivers from Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt and India who gossip amongst themselves. Here is to them waking up at 4am, calling home to hear the voices of their loved ones. Here is to their children, to the children who despite it all become artists, writers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, activists and rebels. Here’s to international money transfer. For never forgetting home. Here’s to their children who carry the heartbeats of their motherland and even in sleep, speak with pride about their fathers. Keep on.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
The problem was
you kept waiting for another
to call you powerful.
You naively believed men like him
were capable of loving
women who make
crowns for thorns.
The problem was
You loved him so shamelessly,
even his lies became holy.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
I tell you sometimes the moon is too weak to be full.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
i want to write about
women who pray for me
in a language so beautiful
english will bow.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
forcing manhood
on boys with skin
still made of
silk and mother's love
is cruel
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
You still with your floozy girlfriend?” Ah, there is was. The elephant in the car…
He gave her an incredulous look. “Obviously not.”
She smacked him on his arm. “Don’t look at me like I asked a stupid question. Because it not a stupid question at all, and you damn well know it.”
“Fine.”
“So you broke up with her?”
“Yes,” he said sharply.
“Way to find your balls, man,” Ada congratulated him and sat back in her seat.
”
”
Karina Halle (On Demon Wings (Experiment in Terror, #5))
“
Invisible
She scanned through the magazine
for girls who looked like her
with deeper hues,
flat nose, and thick hair.
The day she turned fifteen
she scrubbed herself with bleach
while screaming for God,
whispering over and over again
"the darker the skin,
the deeper the struggle"
releasing a sigh
that made her soul shake.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
The woman
carried herself
like God
worshipped her body.
Even the devil
will pray for her forgiveness
at the holy sight of her.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
this body has carried herself into days so bitter all gods wept. Yet, I am still here and I will always be here.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
I have pasts inside me I did not bury properly.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
Survive
...
Some women survive
by creating walls,
big walls guarding their hearts
and you say
"let them in"
but
she has been covered in regrets,
crawled on all fours for her salvation.
Dont curse them
for when her attacker came
there she was, loving, now
she has built her walls
brick by brick
guarding against parasites
Don't blame her
Some women are broken,
not ready to be healed,
some women are broken
not ready for love
and that's all right.
Let her find herself
Let her become her own sun
Let her
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
twice broken, three times more powerful.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
my love has been known to perform miracles.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
I curated our love into poems
and all the pains became less
all the anger left, eventually
but, there is no denying
here on the tip of my soul
with scars still healing,
that once I loved a man.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
I am too full of life to be half-loved.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
Beneath it all
I know
you are made of soft wind
and calm flowing water
but
on days when
you become strong wind
and crashing waves
be
rest assured
you did not
become less of you
do not become the woman
apologizing for days
when she has thorns
from the harshness
of the world.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
Forgive me father,
but sometimes my God
is a woman
sitting on the kitchen floor
her hands holding her legs
screaming for help
without making a sound.
Forgive me father
but sometimes my God
is a woman
calling me on the phone
begging me to call her
"beautiful"
because her lover forced
ugliness into her soul.
Forgive me father
but sometimes my God
is a woman
crying in the shower
begging for another God
to lift her burden.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
Like you, I am tired of waking up to news of death.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
Naked before my eyes,
I thank whatever Gods created your
ancestors.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
this is how his love like music
makes my soul dance.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
You apologize for
how you carry your
mother's loneliness
quietly
between your teeth.
You apologize for
how you carry your
father's sins
inside your blood.
You forgot
how to carry yourself
away for the histories
that threatens to break you
open, leaving you with grief
and unbearable weight of emptiness.
Tell me, apart from the sadness
thick as smog
living inside your chest
tell me the last time
you held your face
and saw love
staring back at you.
How does destroying yourself prove your worth to others?
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
parts of the Twenty-First Century were like a little golden age for gender, people starting to mix and match and choose and question and make all kinds of new things with it,
”
”
Ada Palmer (Perhaps the Stars)
“
I have always wondered
how women who carry war
inside their bones
still grow flowers
between their teeth.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
Lo nggak mesti tau dan mempertanyakan semuanya, Nin! Bikin capek aja. Ada yang lebih baik dibiarkan menjadi rahasia, Nin. Jalanin aja, biarkan mengalir
”
”
Okke Sepatumerah (Pre Wedding Rush)
“
you desecrated the shrines of our fathers
you pushed our tongue, stole our culture
paraded your wickedness as my savior
you refused the right to let me own my narrative
you butchered our names
you brought war on our land
you call my people "savages"
you stole our histories
and wear them proudly in your museums
you wash away our achievements
you carry it as yours
you "discovered" what was already mine
you plant puppets, assassinating our leaders
you desecrated the shrines of my mothers
when we worshipped nature, you laughed at us
now, you want to carry our ways, learn from us
we refuse to write softness into our stories
for you to feel comfortable
we refuse to let anyone but us own our
narrative
we refuse to believe your lies again
you will not spit in the face of our fathers
and think his children will now sit quietly.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
The day your education makes you roll your eyes at your father. The day your exposure makes you call your own mother uncivilized, the day your amazing foreign degrees make you cringe as your driver speaks pidgin english, may you never forget your grandfather was a farmer from Oyo state who never understood english.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
where does politics end
and your love poems begin?
sometimes, they are both the same thing
sometimes, they have to be the same thing.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
Natural selection has been described as an environment selectively screening for those who will have progeny. Where humans are concerned, though, this is an extremely limiting viewpoint. Reproduction by sex tends toward experiment and innovation. It raises many questions, including the ancient one about whether environment is a selective agent after the variation occurs, or whether environment plays a pre-selective role in determining the variations which it screens. Dune did not really answer those questions: it merely raised new questions which Leto and the Sisterhood may attempt to answer over the next five hundred generations. —THE DUNE CATASTROPHE AFTER HARQ AL-ADA
”
”
Frank Herbert (Children of Dune (Dune, #3))
“
She was soon ready, and they kissed tenderly in their hallway, between lift and stairs, before separating for a few minutes.
‘Tower,’ she murmured in reply to his questioning glance, just as she used to do on those honeyed mornings in the past, when checking up on happiness: ‘And you?’
‘A regular ziggurat.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle)
“
One question that I often get asked is how to overcome writer's block. And the funny thing is, I overcome it, by not overcoming it. I think it’s okay to not write. I think it’s okay not to talk, not to make, not to create, not to produce, produce, produce. How can we listen to the world if we are always talking to the world?
”
”
Ada Limon
“
Go on from here, Ada, please. (She). Billions of boys. Take one fairly decent decade. A billion of Bills, good, gifted, tender and passionate, not only spiritually but physically well-meaning Billions, have bared the jillions of their no less tender and brilliant Jills during that decade, at stations and under conditions that have to be controlled and specified by the worker, lest the entire report be choked up by the weeds of statistics and waist-high generalizations. No point would there be, if we left out, for example, the little matter of prodigious individual awareness and young genius, which makes, in some cases, of this or that particular gasp an unprecedented and unrepeatable event in the continuum of life or at least a thematic anthemia of such events in a work of art, or a denouncer’s article. The details that shine through or shade through: the local leaf through the hyaline skin, the green sun in the brown humid eye, tout ceci, vsyo eto, in tit and toto, must be taken into account, now prepare to take over (no, Ada, go on, ya zaslushalsya: I’m all enchantment and ears), if we wish to convey the fact, the fact, the fact—that among those billions of brilliant couples in one cross section of what you will allow me to call spacetime (for the convenience of reasoning), one couple is a unique super-imperial couple, sverhimperator-skaya cheta, in consequence of which (to be inquired into, to be painted, to be denounced, to be put to music, or to the question and death, if the decade has a scorpion tail after all), the particularities of their love-making influence in a special unique way two long lives and a few readers, those pensive reeds, and their pens and mental paintbrushes. Natural history indeed! Unnatural history—because that precision of senses and sense must seem unpleasantly peculiar to peasants, and because the detail is all: The song of a Tuscan Firecrest or a Sitka Kinglet in a cemetery cypress; a minty whiff of Summer Savory or Yerba Buena on a coastal slope; the dancing flitter of a Holly Blue or an Echo Azure—combined with other birds, flowers and butterflies: that has to be heard, smelled and seen through the transparency of death and ardent beauty. And the most difficult: beauty itself as perceived through the there and then. The males of the firefly (now it’s really your turn, Van).
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle)
“
Actually the question of mortal precedence has now hardly any importance. I mean, the hero and heroine should get so close to each other by the time the horror begins, so organically close, that they overlap, intergrade, interache, and even if Vaniada’s end is described in the epilogue we, writers and readers, should be unable to make out (myopic, myopic) who exactly survives, Dava or Vada, Anda or Vanda.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle)
“
Johann Hari’s 2018 book Lost Connections argues that our culture has come to medicate depression first and ask questions later, without recognizing that some discomforts are not medical emergencies. He tells the story of how when he begged for antinausea medication in a jungle hospital in Vietnam, the doctors said, “You need your nausea. It is a message, and we must listen to the message. It will tell us what is wrong with you.
”
”
Ada Calhoun (Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis)
“
If our generation has been told for decades that we have so much freedom, so many choices, such opportunities, the question women with young children face is: how free are we to reach for the stars in midlife if we have someone else depending on us? Especially when our concept of good parenting involves so much more brain space and such higher costs than it did for our mothers and grandmothers? And when we expect ourselves to be excellent, highly engaged parents while also being excellent, highly engaged employees?
”
”
Ada Calhoun (Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis)
“
Such questions were a recent habit Ruby had developed. She seemed to delight in demonstrating how disoriented Ada was in the world. As they walked by the creek one day she had asked, What's the course of that water? Where does it come from and what does it run into? Another day she had said, Name me four plants on that hillside that in a pinch you could eat. How many days to the next new moon? Name two things blooming now, and two things fruiting.
Ada did not yet have those answers, but she could feel them coming, and Ruby was her principal text.
”
”
Charles Frazier (Cold Mountain)
“
Aku tak tahu mengapa hari-hari ini aku begitu sering tersentuh. Oleh pohon, oleh, burung, air sungai. Entah mengapa, hal-hal kecil yang memikat yang pernah diajarkan kepada kita, ketika kita mendekat kepada mereka, mereka tampak begitu besar, nyaris suci. Memang melo-dramatis rasanya mengatakan ini semua tetapi aku tak mengada-ada. Kami tahu aku bukan orang yang religius; dulu aku malah suka menegaskan diri bahwa aku tak beragama justru agar para sejawatku tak mengusikku. Tetapi akhir-akhir ini aku merasa, berteduh dalam kesendirian juga pengalaman religius.
”
”
Laksmi Pamuntjak (The Question of Red)
“
Allow us a moment to explain a few things. When you break something, you must study the pattern of the shattering before you can piece it back together. So it was with the Ada. She was a question wrapped up in breath: How do you survive when they place a god inside your body? We said before that it was like shoving a sun into a bag of skin, so it should be no surprise that her skin would split or her mind would break. Consider her burned open. It was an unusual incarnation, to be a child of Ala as well as an ọgbanje, to be mothered by the god who owns life yet pulled toward death. We did the best we could.
”
”
Akwaeke Emezi (Freshwater)
“
People often seem surprised that I choose to write science fiction and fantasy—I think they expect a history professor to write historical fiction, or literary fiction, associating academia with the kinds of novels that academic lit critics prefer. But I feel that speculative fiction, especially science fiction and fantasy, is a lot more like the pre-modern literature I spend most of my time studying than most modern literature is. Ursula Le Guin has described speculative fiction authors as “realists of a larger reality” because we imagine other ways of being, alternatives to how people live now, different worlds, and raise questions about hope and change and possibilities that different worlds contain.
....
Writing for a more distant audience, authors tended to be speculative, using exotic perspectives, fantastic creatures, imaginary lands, allegories, prophecies, stories within stories, techniques which, like science fiction and fantasy, use alternatives rather than one reality in order to ask questions, not about the way things are, but about plural ways things have been and could be. Such works have an empathy across time, expecting and welcoming an audience as alien as the other worlds that they describe. When I read Voltaire responding to Francis Bacon, responding to Petrarch, responding to Boethius, responding to Seneca, responding to Plutarch, I want to respond to them too, to pass it on. So it makes sense to me to answer in the genre people have been using for this conversation since antiquity: speculation. It’s the genre of many worlds, the many worlds that Earth has been, and will be.
”
”
Ada Palmer
“
Early on it is clear that Addie has a rebellious streak, joining the library group and running away to Rockport Lodge. Is Addie right to disobey her parents? Where does she get her courage? 2. Addie’s mother refuses to see Celia’s death as anything but an accident, and Addie comments that “whenever I heard my mother’s version of what happened, I felt sick to my stomach.” Did Celia commit suicide? How might the guilt that Addie feels differ from the guilt her mother feels? 3. When Addie tries on pants for the first time, she feels emotionally as well as physically liberated, and confesses that she would like to go to college (page 108). How does the social significance of clothing and hairstyle differ for Addie, Gussie, and Filomena in the book? 4. Diamant fills her narrative with a number of historical events and figures, from the psychological effects of World War I and the pandemic outbreak of influenza in 1918 to child labor laws to the cultural impact of Betty Friedan. How do real-life people and events affect how we read Addie’s fictional story? 5. Gussie is one of the most forward-thinking characters in the novel; however, despite her law degree she has trouble finding a job as an attorney because “no one would hire a lady lawyer.” What other limitations do Addie and her friends face in the workforce? What limitations do women and minorities face today? 6. After distancing herself from Ernie when he suffers a nervous episode brought on by combat stress, Addie sees a community of war veterans come forward to assist him (page 155). What does the remorse that Addie later feels suggest about the challenges American soldiers face as they reintegrate into society? Do you think soldiers today face similar challenges? 7. Addie notices that the Rockport locals seem related to one another, and the cook Mrs. Morse confides in her sister that, although she is usually suspicious of immigrant boarders, “some of them are nicer than Americans.” How does tolerance of the immigrant population vary between city and town in the novel? For whom might Mrs. Morse reserve the term Americans? 8. Addie is initially drawn to Tessa Thorndike because she is a Boston Brahmin who isn’t afraid to poke fun at her own class on the women’s page of the newspaper. What strengths and weaknesses does Tessa’s character represent for educated women of the time? How does Addie’s description of Tessa bring her reliability into question? 9. Addie’s parents frequently admonish her for being ungrateful, but Addie feels she has earned her freedom to move into a boardinghouse when her parents move to Roxbury, in part because she contributed to the family income (page 185). How does the Baum family’s move to Roxbury show the ways Betty and Addie think differently from their parents about household roles? Why does their father take such offense at Herman Levine’s offer to house the family? 10. The last meaningful conversation between Addie and her mother turns out to be an apology her mother meant for Celia, and for a moment during her mother’s funeral Addie thinks, “She won’t be able to make me feel like there’s something wrong with me anymore.” Does Addie find any closure from her mother’s death? 11. Filomena draws a distinction between love and marriage when she spends time catching up with Addie before her wedding, but Addie disagrees with the assertion that “you only get one great love in a lifetime.” In what ways do the different romantic experiences of each woman inform the ideas each has about love? 12. Filomena and Addie share a deep friendship. Addie tells Ada that “sometimes friends grow apart. . . . But sometimes, it doesn’t matter how far apart you live or how little you talk—it’s still there.” What qualities do you think friends must share in order to have that kind of connection? Discuss your relationship with a best friend. Enhance
”
”
Anita Diamant (The Boston Girl)
“
America, while you were asleep another woman mourned her dead black lover’s bullet-ridden body, as his baby cried for her father’s life.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
Ada never questioned his decision to bring a child into the world; her connection to him was so complete that it felt entirely natural to her.
”
”
Liz Moore (The Unseen World)
“
... kata itu bisa membunuh ... Bertahun-tahun saya hidup dikelilingi sepotong kata, sepatah sebutan yang membagi manusia dan menandai mana yang harus disingkirkan dan mana yang tidak. ... bahasa adalah senjata para algojo. Tetapi mungkin saya salah. Mungkin karena para algojo harus ada bersama kata-kata sebagai bagian dari kebencian.
”
”
Laksmi Pamuntjak (The Question of Red)
“
I’m not going to be able to look at you while I’m driving, so answering in words would be good when I ask you a question.” “Yes, sir,” Ada said with an exaggerated eye roll. Well, that shot straight to my dick.
”
”
Lyla Sage (Swift and Saddled (Rebel Blue Ranch, #2))
“
Yes.” A smart witness never said more than necessary to answer a question. It was the first rule defense lawyers taught their clients. It was also the principal focus of an ADA when questioning a witness for the defense—make them say more than they intended.
”
”
Debra Webb (The Last Lie Told (Finley O’Sullivan, #1))
“
Ada banyak alasan untuk kembali, kan? Kenapa masih berpikir untuk pergi?
”
”
Agung Rusmana (Malaikat)
“
Anaya and McAda were engaged in the same criminal venture. Fran Tilbury, the regular at the Jolly Roger Social Club, and a friend of McAda’s, told investigators that McAda had a pistol, but only for his own protection. “He’s a brilliant man,” added Tilbury, “a friendly person, easy to get along with.… In fact, he’s such a good person that people sometimes take advantage of him.” The procedure in the second careo was identical to that of the first. But this time, Scott McAda was invited to speak first. He had come prepared with a statement to read out. “I requested the first confrontation with Mr. Holbert three months ago because I wanted to ask the detainee, in person, why he named me in his ridiculous, concocted story of lies. Naively I thought that if I confronted him face-to-face he might tell me the truth. But Mr. Holbert stuck to his lies. […] “In my first careo in May, I asked the detainee many questions and he did not provide one answer to any of them. Today, I will not ask the detainee any questions, because it only feeds him information for new lies. The people who the detainee himself
”
”
Nick Foster (The Jolly Roger Social Club: A True Story of a Killer in Paradise)
“
How can a poem make a difference? How can a tree make a difference? Perhaps the answer to those questions is that poetry and nature have a way of simply reminding us that we are not alone. The Kentucky writer bell hooks once wrote, “Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.” Going to the woods, or simply noticing the small defiant ways nature is thriving all around me on a daily basis, helps me feel that communion. And poems, like the poems that I’ve collected here for this anthology, help me feel that sense of communion too.
”
”
Ada Limon (You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World)
“
Perhaps the answer to those questions is that poetry and nature have a way of simply reminding us that we are not alone.
”
”
Ada Limon (You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World)
“
You began to love
all the women
inside you
and you began to nurse her
back into life
without apologizing
for how she heals herself.
”
”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
“
American Disabilities Act – ADA i. A federal law that prevents discrimination of disabled persons from receiving care from healthcare providers.
”
”
Jon Haws (NURSING.com Comprehensive NCLEX Book [458 Pages] (2020, review for nursing students, full-color, content + practice questions + answers + cheat sheets))
“
Gen X women had sky-high expectations for themselves. The contrast between our “you can be anything” indoctrination and the stark realities encountered in midlife—when you might, despite your best efforts, not be able to find a partner or get pregnant or save for retirement or own your own home or find a job with benefits—has made us feel like failures at the exact moment when we most require courage. It takes our bodies longer to recover from a night of drinking and it takes our spirits longer to bounce back from rejection. We may wind up asking questions like the one my friend posed to me the other night: “Do you think my life is ever going to be good again?
”
”
Ada Calhoun (Why We Can’t Sleep: Generation X Women’s New Midlife Crisis)
“
For Adams, as for most of his fellow statesmen, the question was not whether—but when—Cuba would become part of the United States. An American Cuba was inevitable, a consequence of the most elemental law of nature: gravity.
”
”
Ada Ferrer (Cuba: An American History)
“
Either we abandon the long-honored Theory of Relativity, or we cease to believe that we can engage in continued accurate prediction of the future. Indeed, knowing the future raises a host of questions which cannot be answered under conventional assumptions unless one first projects an Observer outside of Time and, second, nullifies all movement. If you accept the Theory of Relativity, it can be shown that Time and the Observer must stand still in relationship to each or inaccuracies will intervene. This would seem to say that it is impossible to engage in accurate prediction of the future. How, then, do we explain the continued seeking after this visionary goal by respected scientists? How, then, do we explain Muad’Dib? —LECTURES ON PRESCIENCE BY HARQ AL-ADA
”
”
Frank Herbert (Children of Dune (Dune, #3))
“
The latter, the document that Gregory found, had borne four items: a paragraph—an excerpt from A. S. Eddington’s Science and the Unseen World, which Ada had located easily with the help of Anna Holmes, and which broadly questioned man’s ability to perceive reality using so biased an instrument as his brain—
”
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Liz Moore (The Unseen World)
“
She hasn't quit staring at me. "what are you, anyway?"
"What are you talking about?" I ask. If she's made up her mind that I'm not a kime, then obviously I must be human. What else is there?
Then I realize that's not what she meant. I already thought she was pretty clueless, but now that's she asking my least favorite question, I'm sure of it. And I'm utterly not in the mood.
"I mean, your not white, right?"
"Okay," I say. With my black thick, wavy hair, and golden brown skin, and green-gold eyes two shades lighter than my face, I've been asked this so many times that I wish I could puke on everyone who brings it up. Just because it's an uncommon combination, why would anyone think I owe them an explanation? It's not like anybody wants to hear the whole list, anyway.
"I'm a person," I tell her. "A girl if you want to be picky. My name is Ada Halcyon Lahey, and I'm twelve.
”
”
Sarah Porter (Tentacle and Wing)
“
Hari ini kau kembali dalam diriku seperti bintang di langit itu —sesuatu yang ada di antara kerdip dan hilang, yang selalu muncul pada titik di mana lupa menyiapkan kekosongan.
Kubayangkan kau biru, mutiara, menangis.
”
”
Laksmi Pamuntjak (The Question of Red)
“
Air is the clear gas that surrounds the Earth. It is a mix of many other gases, dust particles, and water molecules. Most of air is nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), and other trace gases, including carbon dioxide and helium, which make up less than a tenth of 1%. We call the air around Earth the atmosphere. Gravity pulls the atmosphere toward the center of the Earth. (That’s why it doesn’t just fly off into space.) Atmospheric pressure is the force of the air pushing against objects. Atmospheric pressure is highest at the Earth’s surface because gravity is pulling all the air above it toward the center of the planet. (That’s a lot of air!) There is less and less air as you travel from the planet’s surface toward space. So there is less pressure! It’s like being in an ocean. When you float near the top of the ocean, there is only a small amount of water pushing down on you. When you swim at the bottom of the ocean, all the weight of the water between you and the ocean’s surface is pushing down on you. That is much heavier!
”
”
Andrea Beaty (Ada Twist and the Perilous Pants (The Questioneers, #2))