Relay For Life Quotes

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Rose: Who are you then? Who's that lot down there? [The Doctor ignores her] I said who are they?! The Doctor: They're made of plastic. Living plastic creatures. They're being controlled by a relay device on the roof. Which would be a great big problem if- [he pulls a bleeping bomb out of his coat] -I didn't have this. So I'm gonna go upstairs and blow it up. And I might well die in the process. But don't worry about me, no. You go home, go on! Go and have your lovely beans on toast. [suddenly serious] Don't tell anyone about this 'cos if you do, you'll get them killed. [closes the door] [opens it again] I'm The Doctor, by the way. What's your name? Rose: Rose. The Doctor: Nice to meet you, Rose. [holds up the bomb, shaking it slightly while grinning.] Run for your life!
Russell T. Davies
Morpheus is not his true name. He is glory and deprecation—sunlight and shadows—the scuttle of a scorpion and the melody of a nightingale. The breath of the sea and the cannonade of a storm. Can you relay birdsong, or the sound of wind, or the scurry of a creature across the sand? For the proper names of netherlings are made up of the life forces defining them. Can you speak these things with your tongue?
A.G. Howard (Splintered (Splintered, #1))
She felt like a baton getting passed along in a relay race, completely devoid of any control over her destiny.
Gretchen McNeil (Possess)
Christian life isn’t a one-person race. It’s a relay. You are not alone; you’re part of a team assembled by our unstoppable God to achieve his eternal purposes.
Christine Caine (Unstoppable: Running the Race You Were Born To Win)
Christianity is a religion in a rush. Look at the world created in seven days. Even on a symbolic level, that's creation in a frenzy. To one born in a religion where the battle for a single soul can be a relay race run over many centuries, with innumerable generations passing along the baton, the quick resolution of Christianity has a dizzying effect. If Hinduism flows placidly like the Ganges, then Christianity bustles like Toronto at rush hour. It is religion as swift as a swallow, as urgent as an ambulance. It turns on a dime, expresses itself in the instant. In a moment you are lost or saved. Christianity stretches back through the ages, but in essence it exists only at one time: right now.
Yann Martel (Life of Pi)
teaching is no longer about relaying the content standard…it’s about transforming lives.
Dave Burgess (Teach Like a PIRATE: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator)
There is wisdom out there that can’t be relayed in musings or sage advice. Like the complexity of life itself, it simply won’t condense. It can only be shown in its entirety. It takes a story.
Lance Conrad (The Price of Nobility (The Historian Tales, #2))
I sat parked for a while in the parent pickup lot, watching a bunch of little kids run relays up and down the field. To be nine years old. To have life simply about family and friends and who was mad at who and which games you wanted to play at recess, and getting gold stars on spelling tests, an feeling that first crush. Laurel, you had everything back then, and you didn't even know it.
Jennifer Castle (The Beginning of After)
Indeed, is not the Sun, our Sol, a light source itself; a spiritual powerhouse; a relay station of God? I believe so. One can understand the reasons why many cultures through many millennia have worshiped the Sun.
Stephen Poplin (Inner Journeys, Cosmic Sojourns: Life transforming stories, adventures and messages from a spiritual hypnotherapist's casebook)
I find I think of myself not as a writer so much as someone who provides a gateway, a tangential route for readers to reach the circus again, if only in their minds, when they are unable to attend it physically, I relay it through printed words on crumpled newsprint, words that they can read again and again. returning to the circus whenever they wish, regardless of time of day or physical location. Transporting them at will. When put that way, it sounds rather like magic, doesn't it? -Friedrick Thiessen, 1898" Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissiolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. _Prosper, THE TEMPEST, ACT IV, SCENE 1
Erin Morgenstern (The Night Circus)
Do you know the first thing Jesus did with that meager offering? He looked up to heaven and gave thanks to God for the little he was given by the boy. I wonder what it was like for that boy to see his meager meal held up to the heavens by the hands of a grateful Jesus. Jesus, of course, knew it wasn’t going to remain little, that it was about to be multiplied into great abundance. But let’s not miss this moment. The Son of God, holding our offering up to Almighty God and blessing it with his thanks! Remember Kalli, unable to imagine what she could possibly do to help but volunteering anyway? We need to be like her. We don’t need to know how God is going to use our meager offering. We only need to know that he wants to use it. Always remember that God celebrates our gifts to him and blesses them. Next, Jesus broke the bread and the fish. When he blessed it, there were five and two. But when he broke it, we lose count. The more Jesus broke the bread and fish, the more there was to feed and nourish. The disciples started distributing the food, and soon what was broken was feeding thousands. The miracle is in the breaking. It is in the breaking that God multiplies not enough into more than enough. Are there broken places in your life so painful that you fear the breaking will destroy you? Do you come from a broken home? Did you have a broken marriage? Did you have a broken past? Have you experienced brokenness in your body? Have your finances been broken? You may think your brokenness has disqualified you from being able to run in the divine relay, but as with my own life and Kalli’s, when we give God our brokenness, it qualifies us to be used by God to carry a baton of hope, restoration, and grace to others on the sidelines who are broken.
Christine Caine (Unstoppable: Running the Race You Were Born To Win)
Life is a multi-generational relay game. Each generation reaps the fruits of the sacrifices or excuses of the generations before it. And one life well lived can be a legacy of pleasure passed on for generations.
Tunde Salami
... death was just a natural part of the cycle of renewal, and that life should be seen not as a two-hundred-hard hurdle with a tape to reach before anyone else, but more like a relay race without end, and only one team.
Jasper Fforde (Shades of Grey (Shades of Grey, #1))
I believe one of the important differences between creating literature and just telling a story around the campfire is that in literature you’re recreating the experience of life, not just relaying a ‘this happened, then that happened’ kind of narrative. The specific details and layers of depth that make the world of the story — and what the character is experiencing in that world — as real as possible are elements I love as a reader and, consequently, elements I strive to use effectively as a writer.
Lara Campbell McGehee
I believe that nature is wise, and that we all have deep instincts within us that can provide the wisdom to know when to eat, what to eat, and when to stop eating. Everyone has and needs these primal instincts. The Warrior Diet allows you to make changes, to binge on carbohydrates or fatty foods like nuts, and still be fine. Other diets don’t allow this freedom. I believe that feeling free should be a part of your life. By introducing you to the Warrior Diet, I hope to relay how this sense of freedom will enrich your life in many ways.
Ori Hofmekler (The Warrior Diet)
The miracle is in the breaking. It is in the breaking that God multiplies not enough into more than enough. Are there broken places in your life so painful that you fear the breaking will destroy you? Do you come from a broken home? Did you have a broken marriage? Did you have a broken past? Have you experienced brokenness in your body? Have your finances been broken? You may think your brokenness has disqualified you from being able to run in the divine relay, but as with my own life and Kalli’s, when we give God our brokenness, it qualifies us to be used by God to carry a baton of hope, restoration, and grace to others on the sidelines who are broken. What should have disqualified Kalli from the race was the very thing that qualified her for it. Put your broken pieces into God’s hands and watch him use them to work his wonders.
Christine Caine (Unstoppable: Running the Race You Were Born To Win)
He lamented the attitude of his younger students, who “no longer noticed that their heads had been turned into relays in a telephone network for communicating and distributing sensational physics messages” without realizing that, like almost all modern developments, mathematics was hostile to life: “It is inhuman, like every truly diabolic machine, and it kills everyone whose spinal marrow isn’t conditioned to fit the movement of its wheels.” His already excruciating self-criticism and inferiority complex became truly unbearable, for although he knew mathematics, it was not simple for him. He was not a computer.
Benjamín Labatut (The MANIAC)
Our personal story has many chapters that reconnoiter universal themes. We each struggle to understand ourselves and aspire to make ourselves known to the world. We struggle to win the love of other people. We seek to pick all the low hanging fruit that we come across in our journey through the corridor of time. We write our story in the Niagara of emotional experiences that flowing watercourse makes us human. We use a profusion of words, symbols, and the nuances pulled from a rich library of language to depict the cascade of our visions, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, dreams, and infelicitous thoughts. We use logical and dialectal thought processes when communing with our inner self. We use self-speak along with the esemplastic powers of poetic imagination, sprinkled with the fizz of creativity, to cohere disparate chapters of our life into a unified whole and relay the effervescence of our story to other people.
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
Communication is all about listening, if not more than it is about speaking. The more transparent you are, the better your communication will be. Conversely, the more your ego is in the way, the less resonance your message will have. When your personality stands between your message as well as the listeners, then your personality will dilute and distort your message you want to relay.
Jake Hollow (How to Deal with Emotions and the Life of a Motivational Speaker)
We believe our eyes capture images from the world like a camera, then relay these images to our brain. Our eyes “photograph,” say, the coffee mug in front of us. It’s a nice model. It is also wrong. Seeing is less like photography and more like language. We don’t see the world so much as converse with it. What is that? Looks like a coffee mug, you say? Let me check my database and get back to you. Yep, it’s a
Eric Weiner (The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers)
Journey by Train Stretched across counties, countries, the train Rushes faster than memory through the rain. The rise of each hill is a musical phrase. Listen to the rhythm of space, how it lies, How it rolls, how it reaches, what unwinding relays Of wood and meadow where the red cows graze Come back again and again to closed eyes— That garden, that pink farm, that village steeple, And here and there the solitary people Who stand arrested when express trains pass, That stillness of an orchard in deep grass. Yet landscapes flow like this toward a place, A point in time and memory’s own face. So when the clamor stops, we really climb Down to the earth, closing the curve of time, Meeting those we have left, to those we meet Bringing our whole life that has moved so fast, And now is gathered up and here at last, To unroll like a ribbon at their feet.
May Sarton (Collected Poems, 1930–1993)
Weil paid great attention to matters most of us consider trivial. Handwriting, for instance. In high school, relays her friend and biographer Simone Pétrement, Weil decided to reform her “sloppy, almost careless, scrawled handwriting.” She worked at it tirelessly, attentively, despite headaches and frequently swollen and painful hands. Her scrawl grew “progressively less rigid and more supple and, finally, attained the pure, beautiful script of her last years.
Eric Weiner (The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers)
He had thought there could be no stranger feeling than stumbling across a book that narrates a long-ago incident from his own life that was never relayed to anyone, never spoken about or written down but nevertheless is unfolding in typeset prose, but he was wrong. It is stranger still to have that narration confirm long-held suspicions that in that moment, in that alleyway facing that door he was given something extraordinary and he let the opportunity slip from his fingers. A boy at the beginning of a story has no way of knowing that the story has begun.
Erin Morgenstern (The Starless Sea)
Bleak pushed the chair around a corner so the light of the dying sun stained their faces a healthy red, and added, "Look, life gives us everything. Then it takes it away. Youth, love, happiness, friends. Darkness gets it all in the end. We didn't have enough sense to know you can will it-life-to others. Your looks, your youth. Pass it on. Give it away. It's lent to us for only a while. Use it, let go without crying. It's a very fancy relay race, heading God knows where. Except now, in your last lap of the race, you find no one waiting for you on the track ahead. Nobody for you to hand the stick to.
Ray Bradbury (Farewell Summer)
What do you see?” my professor asked as he projected a picture of a small black dot in the middle of a very big white screen. I was sitting in Psychology 101 during my years at Sydney University. We all responded immediately: “A black dot.” I was excited, thinking, If all of the questions are as easy as this one, this course is going to be easy! The prof looked out over the class and paused for several seconds before he asked again, “What do you see?” Thinking he must not have heard us properly the first time, we repeated even more loudly: “A black dot!” Again he paused . . . and then asked the same question a third time. Now he had my attention. And when still, on the third try, none of us provided the correct answer, he explained — and gave me a lesson I will never forget. “You were all so focused on the little black dot in the center of the screen that none of you noticed the dominant image on the screen: the large white space covering the screen top to bottom, left to right.” I couldn’t believe I had missed it. Suddenly it was obvious. There was far more white space than black dot. Whatever I chose to focus on had my attention. There is always much more white space than there is space covered by little black dots — we simply need to recognize and focus on it. In class, that idea seemed like an easy notion — easier than it has proven to be in life. Because the harsh reality is that the black dots of our lives — the trials, challenges, disappointments, obstacles, and hurdles we face as we run — will naturally draw and consume our attention. Our enemy would love to get us to focus on those black dots and convince us they define and shape our lives and determine our destiny. But in the divine relay, we are to fix our eyes on Jesus. He is the “white space” of God’s power at work in the universe, and the trials we face are but a tiny speck, a black dot, in comparison. As we learn to focus on the vastness of God’s eternal, amazing work on this planet, those black dots will cease to blemish our lives.
Christine Caine (Unstoppable: Running the Race You Were Born To Win)
Duck calls remind me of how God uses people to make Himself known. Like duck calls, people are all a bit different and are dependent on their maker and designer for their individualism in life. Duck calls and their unique individual sounds breathe life into decoys that are essentially dead. Likewise, God uses different people with unique perspectives to illustrate His existence and shout out the message of eternal life through Jesus Christ. The audible sound that each mallard hen makes is virtually the same; however, the tone and cadence are unique. Similarly, the Gospel message is the same yesterday, today, and forever, yet the perspective and life experience are different and unique for each person relaying it.
Jase Robertson (Good Call: Reflections on Faith, Family, and Fowl)
On our last day, a few hours before we were to leave for Munnar, I hurried up the hill on the left. It strikes me now as a typically Christian scene. Christianity is a religion in a rush. Look at the world created in seven days. Even on a symbolic level, that’s creation in a frenzy. To one born in a religion where the battle for a single soul can be a relay race run over many centuries, with innumerable generations passing along the baton, the quick resolution of Christianity has a dizzying effect. If Hinduism flows placidly like the Ganges, then Christianity bustles like Toronto at rush hour. It turns on a dime, expresses itself in an instant. In a moment you are lost or saved. Christianity stretches back through the ages, but in essence it exists only at one time: right now.
Yann Martel (Life of Pi)
She leans back again against the pine’s trunk. Some slight change in the atmosphere, the humidity, and her mind becomes a greener thing. At midnight, on this hillside, perched in the dark above this city with her pine standing in for a Bo, Mimi gets enlightened. The fear of suffering that is her birthright—the frantic need to steer—blows away on the wind, and something else wings down to replace it. Messages hum from out of the bark she leans against. Chemical semaphores home in over the air. Currents rise from the soil-gripping roots, relayed over great distances through fungal synapses linked up in a network the size of the planet. The signals say: A good answer is worth reinventing from scratch, again and again. They say: The air is a mix we must keep making. They say: There’s as much belowground as above. They tell her: Do not hope or despair or predict or be caught surprised. Never capitulate, but divide, multiply, transform, conjoin, do, and endure as you have all the long day of life. There are seeds that need fire. Seeds that need freezing. Seeds that need to be swallowed, etched in digestive acid, expelled as waste. Seeds that must be smashed open before they’ll germinate. A thing can travel everywhere, just by holding still. The next day dawns. The sun rises so slowly that even the birds forget there was ever anything else but dawn. People drift back through the park on their way to jobs, appointments, and other urgencies. Making a living. Some pass within a few feet of the altered woman. Mimi comes to, and speaks her very first Buddha’s words. “I’m hungry.” The answer comes from right above her head. Be hungry. “I’m thirsty.” Be thirsty. “I hurt.” Be still and feel.
Richard Powers (The Overstory)
We are each warriors of our own times. When we step out of our protective shell, we each encounter forces much more powerful than we are. What we learn through testing ourselves on the combat zones of our eon becomes the textbook protocol for how we shall live out the remainder of our life. The glorious skirmishes and daunting conflicts that we encounter, and what we learn from vigorous engagements on the battlefield of time, inscribe the story of our lives. Spiritual leaders help guide us in our times of doubt and self-questioning. Recognizing the value of the mentorship of spiritual guides in their self-questing ventures, persons who endure immense adversity wish to reciprocate their love of humanity by sharing the scored story of their episodic journey through the corridors of time and relay the incisive truths they discovered to any other travelers with a willing ear.
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
Thanks again, sir.” Jules shook his hand again. “You’re welcome again,” the captain said, his smile warm. “I’ll be back aboard the ship myself at around nineteen hundred. If it’s okay with you, I’ll, uh, stop in, see how you’re doing.” Son of a bitch. Was Jules getting hit on? Max looked at Webster again. He looked like a Marine. Muscles, meticulous uniform, well-groomed hair. That didn’t make him gay. And he’d smiled warmly at Max, too. The man was friendly, personable. And yet . . . Jules was flustered. “Thanks,” he said. “That would be . . . That’d be nice. Would you excuse me, though, for a sec? I’ve got to speak to Max, before I, uh . . . But I’ll head over to the ship right away.” Webster shook Max’s hand. “It was an honor meeting you, sir.” He smiled again at Jules. Okay, he hadn’t smiled at Max like that. Max waited until the captain and the medic both were out of earshot. “Is he—” “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Jules said. “But, oh my God.” “He seems nice,” Max said. “Yes,” Jules said. “Yes, he does.” “So. The White House?” “Yeah. About that . . .” Jules took a deep breath. “I need to let you know that you might be getting a call from President Bryant.” “Might be,” Max repeated. “Yes,” Jules said. “In a very definite way.” He spoke quickly, trying to run his words together: “I had a very interesting conversation with him in which I kind of let slip that you’d resigned again and he was unhappy about that so I told him I might be able to persuade you to come back to work if he’d order three choppers filled with Marines to Meda Island as soon as possible.” “You called the President of the United States,” Max said. “During a time of international crisis, and basically blackmailed him into sending Marines.” Jules thought about that. “Yeah. Yup. Although it was a pretty weird phone call, because I was talking via radio to some grunt in the CIA office. I had him put the call to the President for me, and we did this kind of relay thing.” “You called the President,” Max repeated. “And you got through . . .?” “Yeah, see, I had your cell phone. I’d accidently switched them, and . . . The President’s direct line was in your address book, so . . .” Max nodded. “Okay,” he said. “That’s it?” Jules said. “Just, okay, you’ll come back? Can I call Alan to tell him? We’re on a first-name basis now, me and the Pres.” “No,” Max said. “There’s more. When you call your pal Alan, tell him I’m interested, but I’m looking to make a deal for a former Special Forces NCO.” “Grady Morant,” Jules said. “He’s got info on Heru Nusantra that the president will find interesting. In return, we want a full pardon and a new identity.” Jules nodded. “I think I could set that up.” He started for the helicopter, but then turned back. “What’s Webster’s first name? Do you know?” “Ben,” Max told him. “Have a nice vacation.” “Recovering from a gunshot wound is not a vacation. You need to write that, like, on your hand or something. Jeez.” Max laughed. “Hey, Jules?” He turned back again. “Yes, sir?” “Thanks for being such a good friend.” Jules’s smile was beautiful. “You’re welcome, Max.” But that smile faded far too quickly. “Uh-oh, heads up—crying girlfriend on your six.” Ah, God, no . . . Max turned to see Gina, running toward him. Please God, let those be tears of joy. “What’s the verdict?” he asked her. Gina said the word he’d been praying for. “Benign.” Max took her in his arms, this woman who was the love of his life, and kissed her. Right in front of the Marines.
Suzanne Brockmann (Breaking Point (Troubleshooters, #9))
I took up the pestle as she left, and pounded and ground automatically, paying little heed to the results. The shut window blocked the sound both of the rain and the crowd below; the two blended in a soft, pattering susurrus of menace. Like any schoolchild, I had read Dickens. And earlier authors, as well, with their descriptions of the pitiless justice of these times, meted out to all illdoers, regardless of age or circumstance. But to read, from a cozy distance of one or two hundred years, accounts of child hangings and judicial mutilation, was a far different thing than to sit quietly pounding herbs a few feet above such an occurrence. Could I bring myself to interfere directly, if the sentence went against the boy? I moved to the window, carrying the mortar with me, and peered out. The crowd had increased, as merchants and housewives, attracted by the gathering, wandered down the High Street to investigate. Newcomers leaned close as the standees excitedly relayed the details, then merged into the body of the crowd, more faces turned expectantly to the door of the house. Looking down on the assembly, standing patiently in the drizzle awaiting a verdict, I suddenly had a vivid understanding of something. Like so many, I had heard, appalled, the reports that trickled out of postwar Germany; the stories of deportations and mass murder, of concentration camps and burnings. And like so many others had done, and would do, for years to come, I had asked myself, “How could the people have let it happen? They must have known, must have seen the trucks, the coming and going, the fences and smoke. How could they stand by and do nothing?” Well, now I knew. The stakes were not even life or death in this case. And Colum’s patronage would likely prevent any physical attack on me. But my hands grew clammy around the porcelain bowl as I thought of myself stepping out, alone and powerless, to confront that mob of solid and virtuous citizens, avid for the excitement of punishment and blood to alleviate the tedium of existence. People are gregarious by necessity. Since the days of the first cave dwellers, humans—hairless, weak, and helpless save for cunning—have survived by joining together in groups; knowing, as so many other edible creatures have found, that there is protection in numbers. And that knowledge, bred in the bone, is what lies behind mob rule. Because to step outside the group, let alone to stand against it, was for uncounted thousands of years death to the creature who dared it. To stand against a crowd would take something more than ordinary courage; something that went beyond human instinct. And I feared I did not have it, and fearing, was ashamed.
Diana Gabaldon (Outlander (Outlander, #1))
Sinclair James - English Communication Language in Asia Is English Language a Hindrance to Communication for Foreigners in Asia? One of the hesitations of westerners in coming to Asia is the language barrier. True, Asia has been a melting pot of different aspects of life that in every country, there is a distinct characteristic and a culture which would seem odd to someone who grew up in an entirely different perspective. Language is one of the most flourishing uniqueness of Asian nations. Although their boundaries are emphasized by mere walls which can be broken down easily, the brand of each individual can still be determined on the language they use or most comfortable with. Communication may be a problem as it is an issue which neighboring countries also encounter on each other. Message relays or even simple gestures, if interpreted wrongly can cause conflicts. Indeed, the complaints are valid. However, on the present day number of American and European visitors and the boost in tourism economies, language barriers seem to have been surpassed. Perhaps, the problem may not even exist at all. According to English Language Proficiency Test (ELPT) and International English Language Testing System (IELTS), Asian countries are not altogether illiterate in speaking and understanding the universal language. If so, there are countries which can even speak English as fluent as any native can. Take for example the Philippines. Once in Manila, the country’s capital, you will find thousands of individuals representing different nationalities. The center for business growth in the country, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) has proven the literacy of the people in conversing using the international language. Clients from abroad prefer Filipinos in dealing with customers concern since they can easily comprehend grasp and explain things in English. ELPT and IELTS did not even include the Philippines in the list of the top English speaking nations in Asia since they are already considered one of the best and most fluent in this field. Other neighboring Asian countries also send their citizens to the Philippines to learn English. With a mixture of British and American English being used in everyday conversations, the Philippines has to be considered to be included in the top 5 most native English speakers. You may even be surprised to meet a young child in Manila who has not gone to school or mingled with foreigners but can speak and understand English. Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and most Asian countries, if indeed all, can also easily understand and speak English. It seems that the concern for miscommunication has completely no basis and remains a groundless issue. Maybe perhaps, those who say this just want to find a dumb excuse? Read more at: SjTravels.com
James Sinclair
There are times in your life where you will need to stand still before God, and let him fight your battles for you. The objective of such circumstances teaches you that God is bigger than you are, and bigger than your circumstances. He permits you to experience difficult times, so that you might learn to relay on him, and not on yourself. Today maybe one of those days, when you need to stand still and see the salvation of God in your life!
Christopher Roberts (365 Days With God: A Daily Devotional)
Running in the relay of life sometimes makes me notice that faith takes over the baton when reason finished its part.
Hasse Jerner
During those contemplative moments on Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau seemed aware of such complex interactions—that, (as had been relayed by Kuan Yin), “It takes a tremendous amount of courage to deeply relate to nature...You’re too distracted by other issues. Put them aside and really look at the flower with me.” “I’m looking at the flower and watching how Kuan Yin relates to it, I’m seeing how the act of relating to a flower appears to be so simple. Yet, it takes a tremendous amount of courage to make such a simple act important. I understand now how busyness can be a real distraction, how it can create ‘made up’ realities. Being present means an absence of past and future. I’m seeing how bringing the mind into the present is the link to eternity and that true meditation is the acceptance of no past or future. I realize these are amazingly brave concepts, that there are only moments upon moments to be lived. It’s almost inconceivable. Usually Kuan Yin takes me on a journey somewhere. Or there is an elaborate backdrop. Today, however, we’re in ‘no place’. Against only a backdrop of air, Kuan Yin sits; intent upon really being with a flower. It’s so interesting. There is a tremendous difference between the consciousness of really being with something and, for instance, living a life. It’s as if the life is the dream!” Indeed, the following quotations from “Walden” illustrate Thoreau’s deep abidance of nature—that through such a sacred connection, we access the deep vitality of our being, elevating ourselves as well as our surroundings: “It's the beauty within us that makes it possible for us to recognize the beauty around us. The question is not what you look at but what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau - Walden Equally, Thoreau appears to espouse the higher elevations of human consciousness—that there exists an inseparable bond, regardless of ego’s prejudices, between the ego and Higher Self.
Hope Bradford (the empath chronicles)
There is a long history of this growing promiscuity, from the glorification of daily life and its irruption within the historical dimension - up until the implacable immersion into the real all too real, into the human all too human, into the banal and residual. But the last decade saw an extraordinary acceleration of this banalization of the world, by the relay of information and universal communication -and above all by the fact that this banality has become experimental. The field of banality is no longer merely residual; it has become a theatre of operations. Brought to the screen, as is the case with Loft Story, it becomes an object of experimental leisure and desire. A verification of what Marshall McLuhan stated about television: that it is a perpetual test, and we are subjected to it like guinea pigs, in an automatic mental interaction.
Jean Baudrillard (Telemorphosis (Univocal))
Terrible cultural struggle is kindled by the demand that that which is great shall be eternal. For everything else that lives exclaims 'No!' The customary, the small, and the common fill up the crannies of the world like a heavy atmosphere which we are all condemned to breathe. Hindering, suffocating, choking, darkening, and deceiving: it billows around what is great and blocks the road which it must travel towards immortality. This road leads through human brains — through the brains of miserable, short-lived creatures who, ever at the mercy of their restricted needs, emerge again and again to the same trials and with difficulty avert their own destruction for a little time. They desire to live, to live a bit at any price. Who could perceive in them that difficult relay race by means of which only what is great survives? And yet again and again a few persons awaken who feel themselves blessed in regard to that which is great, as if human life were a glorious thing and as if the most beautiful fruit of this bitter plant is the knowledge that someone once walked proudly and stoically through this existence, while another walked through it in deep thoughtfulness and a third with compassion. But they all bequeathed one lesson: that the person that lives life most beautifully is the person who does not esteem it. Whereas the common man takes this span of being with such gloomy seriousness, those on their journey to immortality knew how to treat it with Olympian laughter, or at least with lofty disdain. Often they went to their graves ironically — for what was there in them to bury? The boldest knights among these addicts of fame, those who believe that they will discover their coat of arms hanging on a constellation, must be sought among philosophers. Their efforts are not dependent upon a 'public,' upon the excitation of the masses and the cheering applause of contemporaries. It is their nature to wander the path alone. Their talent is the rarest and in a certain respect most unnatural in nature, even shutting itself off from the hostile towards similar talents. The wall of their self-sufficiency must be made of diamond if it is not to be demolished and shattered. For everything in man and nature is on the move against them. Their journey towards immortality is more difficult and impeded than any other, and yet no one can be more confident than the philosopher that he will reach his goal. Because the philosopher knows not where to stand, if not on the extended wings of all ages. For it is the nature of philosophical reflection to disregard the present and momentary. He possesses the truth: let the wheel of time roll where it will, it will never be able to escape from the truth.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Our bidadi banyan tree - kalpavriksha, has the unique power that even if you are not there in bidadi ashram physically, if you see the live webcam relay and do pranayama, you will experience the same thing! Each tree’s breathing space has certain energy when you do pranayama under that tree. That energy gets filled inside your system.
Paramahamsa Nithyananda
I caught a fish that weighed three stone if it weighed a pound!” Nick bragged, looking to Kit for approval. “Indeed.” Kit nodded in assent, supportively. “But mine was the real coup—I took down a rabbit with feet as large as my own!” “Mmmm,” Will agreed, taking a drink of wine. “Neither compares with the quail I bested…it was the size of a golden eagle! Wasn’t it, Blackmoor?” Blackmoor smiled broadly, leaning back and looking from one brother to the next. “I’m not certain I want to be involved in this particular conversation,” he said with a laugh. “Oh?” Alex asked with a twinkle in her eye, knowing exactly why he wouldn’t participate. “Could that be because this generation of Staffords has been having this very conversation for years, since they were old enough to go hunting?” Blackmoor smiled at her and replied, “It could be…” “And perhaps because, for years, it is only after the Stafford boys have relayed their incredible feats of manhood that their father ruins their fun by telling the truth—that none of the three of them could catch a fish, a rabbit, or a bird if his very life depended on it?” the duke noted, drawing a laugh from everyone around the table. “Alas, it seems the wildlife of this particular estate have nothing to fear from their masters,” Vivi said. “It’s a good thing you’re all fairly intelligent,” Ella remarked. “And don’t forget attractive,” added Nick, good-humoredly. “Oh, of course!” Alex replied sarcastically. “How could we forget?” The
Sarah MacLean (The Season)
Rebecca approached the causality violation chamber (too grand a name for such a faulty thing), placed her hand against its door, and closed her eyes, much as Philip had during its christening years ago. There was no response from the machine; no prophecy; no apology; no advice. It did not relay the news from other, brighter timelines. It did not tell her what would have transpired had she returned from yesterday's shopping trip a few hours later, or had she turned the steering wheel left instead of right two years ago, or had she not taken that first drink, or had she turned down any one of the thousands of drinks that had followed, or had she chosen not to respond to Philip's insistent and perhaps deliberately oblivious messages during the early days of their online courtship, or had her parents or her grandparents, or her great-grandparents never met. The machine's obstinate silence was all it had to offer; the message of that silence was that she had made her choices in life, and her choices had made her in return.
Dexter Palmer (Version Control)
For love to be replaced by resentful contempt between husband and wife, or for that matter between parent and child, or colleague and colleague, is a negation of holiness, whatever stuff one may display in books or relay from pulpits and platforms.
J.I. Packer (Rediscovering Holiness: Know the Fullness of Life with God)
Her best friend and the best friend’s cousin also lived in our dorm. I went once to an ice cream shop with them and saw the pity in their eyes when Missy relayed the lack of Titanic in my life. I was put in the help category. Meaning, they thought I needed help and I was no longer in their group because it’s obvy I’m weird. Dirty Dancing, A Walk to Remember, Hope Floats, and so many other movies were the repertoire of their conversation. I wasn’t allowed in. There were inside jokes, inside quotes, even a weird inside-type of laugh. The one friend I did have was Kristina. She was a gift from above, though she lived two floors below, and I always jumped at her movie night invite. Sometimes, I was tempted to ask how high, but I refrained. She wouldn’t have gotten the joke. See, I could have my own inside jokes. Take that, snotty roommate and two friends. Insert karate chop here.
Tijan (Hate to Love You)
I think of words as our spiritual DNA. They relay the author’s feelings and emotions. And, like the strands of DNA which uncoil to create a life, so can an author bind words into prose and create imagined lives.
Carlos Alvarado (Tujunga)
But as the cyberpunk writer Bruce Sterling points out, connectivity is not necessarily a symbol of affluence and plenty. It is, in a sense, the poor who most prize connectivity. Not in the sense of the old classic stereotype that 'the poor love their cellphones': no powerful group would turn down the opportunities that smartphones and social media offer. The powerful simply engage differently with the machine. But any culture that values connectivity so highly must be as impoverished in its social life as a culture obsessed with happiness is bitterly depressed. What Bruce Alexander calls the state of permanent 'psychosocial dislocation' in late capitalism, with life overrun by the law of markets and competition, is the context for soaring addiction rates. It is as if the addictive relationships stands in for the social relationships that have been upended by the turbulence of capitalism. The nature of this social poverty can be recognized in a situation typical of a social industry addict. We often use our smartphones to take us away from a social situation, without actually leaving that situation. We develop ways of simulating conversational awareness while attending to our phones, a technique known as 'phubbing.' We experience this weirdly detached 'uniform distancelessness,' as Christopher Bollas calls it. We becomes nodes in the network, equivalent to 'smart' devices, mere points for relay for fragments of information; as much extensions of the tablet or smartphone as they are of us. We prefer the machine when human relationships have become disappointing.
Richard Seymour (The Twittering Machine)
The storm relented on the morning of the eleventh. The winds dropped to about thirty knots. Stuart Hutchison and three Sherpas went in search of Yasuko and me. They found us lying next to each other, largely buried in snow and ice. First to Yasuko. Hutchison reached down and pulled her up by her coat. She had a three-inch-thick layer of ice across her face, a mask that he peeled back. Her skin was porcelain. Her eyes were dilated. But she was still breathing. He moved to me, pulled me up, and cleaned the ice out of my eyes and off my beard so he could look into my face. I, like Yasuko, was barely clinging to life. Hutchison would later say he had never seen a human being so close to death and still breathing. Coming from a cardiologist, I’ll accept that at face value. What do you do? The superstitious Sherpas, uneasy around the dead and dying, were hesitant to approach us. But Hutchison didn’t really need a second opinion here. The answer was, you leave them. Every mountaineer knows that once you go into hypothermic coma in the high mountains, you never, ever wake up. Yasuko and I were going to die anyway. It would only endanger more lives to bring us back. I don’t begrudge that decision for my own sake. But how much strain would be entailed in carrying Yasuko back? She was so tiny. At least she could have died in the tent, surrounded by people, and not alone on that ice. Hutchison and the Sherpas got back to camp and told everyone that we were dead. They called down to Base Camp, which notified Rob’s office in Christchurch, which relayed the news to Dallas. On a warm, sunny Saturday morning the phone rang in our house. Peach answered and was told by Madeleine David, office manager for Hall’s company, Adventure Consultants, that I had been killed descending from the summit ridge. “Is there any hope?” Peach asked. “No,” David replied. “There’s been a positive body identification. I’m sorry.
Beck Weathers (Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest)
Because unless you’re discerning, you may unwittingly tune in to what you don’t want. Psychic airwaves are like radio frequencies, broadcasting many levels of information at the same time. Think of the signals from your spirit as the psychic equivalent of a classical music satellite station—that is, a beautiful channel for high, spiritual guidance and healing. In contrast, what I call “psychic riffraff”—or the generic relay of other people’s feelings, moods, fears, thoughts, anxieties, and even nightmares—is the psychic equivalent of low-vibration AM talk radio. In other words, useless noise.
Sonia Choquette (Trust Your Vibes (Revised Edition): Live an Extraordinary Life by Using Your Intuitive Intelligence)
Life is a race that you will get to run alone and sometimes with others in the form of a relay.
Gift Gugu Mona (The Extensive Philosophy of Life: Daily Quotes)
As we head towards the end of the year 2019, let it be like a relay, where we keep the race in track and maintain a better pace, so that as we pass the stick to the year 2020, it will be fully packed with finishing moves.
Marvelous Ruwizhu
Finally, in late 1855, Lorenzo received a letter from a friend in California. This letter would change the life of both Lorenzo and Olive forever. Lorenzo’s friend had made contact with a man named Rowlit, who had just come from Fort Yuma. Rowlit relayed that the word around Fort Yuma—that had been given to Fort Yuma by Francisco—that there were two white girls living among the Mohave who had been sold after their family was murdered.
Brent Schulte (Olive Oatman: Explore The Mysterious Story of Captivity and Tragedy from Beginning to End)
As a child I was confused by my father’s love of steak. I remember being eight and my dad ceremoniously announcing to the family, “We’re having steak tonight!” as if Abe Lincoln were coming over for dinner. My siblings and I would politely act excited as we watched TV. “That’s great, Dad!” I remember thinking, Big deal. Why can’t we just have McDonald’s? To me, my father just had this weird thing with steak. I thought, Dads obsess about steak the way kids obsess about candy. Well, my dad did. I’d watch him trudge out behind our house in all types of weather to the propane grill after me or one of my brothers barely averted death by lighting it for him. He would happily take his post out there, chain-smoking his Merit Ultra Light cigarettes and drinking his Johnnie Walker Black Label Scotch alone in the darkness of Northwest Indiana. He’d stare into the flame like it was an ancient oracle relaying a prophecy that solved the mysteries of life.
Jim Gaffigan (Food: A Love Story)
In a sense, life is a relay race, and each of us receives the baton at a time and place over which we have no control. Our parents, our birth order, our country and our surrounding culture have already been predetermined for us. Some of the prerequisites for achievement can be affected later by individual choices or social policies, but by no means 100 percent in most cases, much less in all cases. No human being and no human institution has either sufficient knowledge or sufficient power for that. More important, we have zero control over the past—and, as was said, long ago, “We do not live in the past, but the past in us.
Thomas Sowell (Discrimination and Disparities)
If your long path is short-circuited by stress, and your brain is using the short path instead, you might be so alarmed at the mere thought of a shark that you have a panic attack just thinking about taking a swim in the ocean. All the body’s machinery of FFF then gets engaged by this imaginary threat, just as if you were nose to nose with Jaws. Your gut clenches, your heart races, your breathing becomes fast and shallow, and your focus narrows to the point where you can’t think about anything other than the threat. This takes a huge biological toll on the body. High adrenaline produces dramatic reductions in life span. Stressed people have much more disease and live much shorter lives than unstressed people. Whatever form stress takes—depression, anxiety, or PTSD—correlates with higher rates of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. The deficits in the life spans of stressed people are measured in decades rather than years. In meditators, the amygdala is quiet. It becomes even quieter with practice. The difference in amygdala activation between the longest-term meditators and their less-experienced peers has been measured. The adepts show 400% less reactivity to stressful events. But even in novices who practice mindfulness for 30 hours over 8 weeks, decreased amygdala activity is found. Other structures within the midbrain or limbic system work together with the hippocampus and amygdala. One of them, the thalamus, is like a relay station. Close to the corpus callosum, it identifies information coming in from the senses like touch, hearing, and taste, and directs it to the consciousness centers of the prefrontal cortex. The thalamus typically becomes more active during meditation, as it works harder to suppress sensory input (like “that buzzing mosquito” or “this chair is too hard”) that pulls us out of Bliss Brain. With the hippocampus regulating emotion, the thalamus regulating sensory input, and the long path in good working order, stress-inducing signals aren’t sent to the amygdala. In turn, all the body’s FFF machinery remains offline. This produces corresponding biological benefits. Heart rhythm is even. Respiration is deep and slow. Digestion is effective. Immunity is high. That’s why so many studies show pervasive health and longevity benefits among meditators.
Dawson Church (Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy)
Emotional territory I had never been there before, An emotional territory that was weighing on me and my soul, everyday a bit more, There were relays of feelings printed on the reels of mind, Where each feeling sought something that it could never find, That unfulfilled desire, a darling wish that always remained a dream, Now lost in the confusion where desires become wishes and wishes turn into desires representing heart’s every scream, And this is where I was now, a territory that I owned, but knew nothing about, It was like a reality based on known facts, yet the mind had its reasons to doubt, Every feeling, that rushed to seek this unknown desire, Not knowing what to like, what to love and what to admire, Because desires had turned into wishes and wishes into desires, Resulting in a quest of mind and heart that first seduces, and then tires, As I stood in the middle of this unfamiliar emotional territory, I thought of her and our love’s moments eternal and transitory, And then desires were vanquished by once felt emotions, Nothing was left of the wishes too, because now they were reduced to known and loving sensations, Her and my feelings, in our territory of known feelings, Then I reposed in this territory to think of her and let her old sensations be the cause of my temporary healings, I am here in the same territory still, with the few known and many unknown feelings, And I often wonder what defines my mind’s endeavours and my heart’s beatings, Maybe one may never know and I may know the least about this emotional reality, So I see no harm resting here in her emotional territory and her old memories, my own space of tranquility!
Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
Life given and life taken away, and every moment in between. I live it all, with them, through them, as them. Whoosh. “If you leave, we will be brothers wherever you go, right, Maman?” Whoosh. Tobias presses his forehead to mine as I relay through stunted breaths that there is no separation—one last secret to take with me. “Frères pour toujours.” Whoosh. Cecelia’s storm engulfs me fully, sweeping me into the blissful state only she could ever take me as my brother’s whisper reaches me, “Mother greet you, Father keep you. I love you, brother.” Whoosh. “It’s time to sleep, Petit Prince.” Whoosh.
Kate Stewart (One Last Rainy Day: The Legacy of a Prince (Ravenhood Legacy, #1))
Emotional territory I had never been there before, An emotional territory that was weighing on me and my soul, everyday a bit more, There were relays of feelings printed on the reels of mind, Where each feeling sought something that it could never find, That unfulfilled desire, a darling wish that always remained a dream, Now lost in the confusion where desires become wishes and wishes turn into desires representing heart’s every scream, And this is where I was now, a territory that I owned, but knew nothing about, It was like a reality based on known facts, yet the mind had its reasons to doubt, Every feeling, that rushed to seek this unknown desire, Not knowing what to like, what to love and what to admire, Because desires had turned into wishes and wishes into desires, Resulting in a quest of mind and heart that first seduces, and then tires, As I stood in the middle of this unfamiliar emotional territory, I thought of her and our love’s moments eternal and transitory, And then desires were vanquished by once felt emotions, Nothing was left of the wishes too, because now they were reduced to known and loving sensations, Her and my feelings, in our territory of known feelings, Then I reposed in this territory to think of her and let her old sensations be the cause of my temporary healings, I am here in the same territory still, with the few known and many unknown feelings, And I often wonder what defines my mind’s endeavours and my heart’s beatings, Maybe one may never know and I may know the least about this emotional reality, So I see know harm resting here in her emotional territory and her old memories, my own space of tranquility!
Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
The Device consists of a small telescreen, headset, and keypad. It combines the functions of telephone, radio, television, newspaper, and encyclopedia. Users are warned not to attempt to open the housing of the Device, or the power supply will explode. Every Device is keyed to a specific user, by means of electrodes built into the headset that recognize his unique brain-wave pattern. Signals from the Device are relayed by a network of thousands of tiny satellites in Low Earth Orbit, collectively known as the Cloud. The Device is so cheap and so useful that it soon becomes an indispensable part of daily life. It’s impossible to buy, sell, communicate, or travel without one. The Device becomes a de facto national ID card, to be carried at all times. Children are issued their own Device at the age of eight.
Fenton Wood (Five Million Watts (Yankee Republic Book 2))
State wants the alleged techniques, presumably.” “I’ve been wondering about that,” Norman said. “I wonder if we do want them.” “How do you mean?” “It’s a bit difficult to explain … Look, have you been following television at all since you came home?” “Occasionally, but since the Yatakang news broke I’ve been much too busy to catch more than an occasional news bulletin.” “So have I, but—well, I guess I’m more familiar with the way trends get started here nowadays, so I can extrapolate from the couple or three programmes I have had time for.” Norman’s gaze moved over Elihu’s head to the far corner of the room. “Engrelay Satelserv blankets most of Africa, doesn’t it?” “The whole continent, I’d say. There are English-speaking people in every country on Earth nowadays, except possibly for China.” “So you’re acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere?” “Yes, of course—these two who always appear in station identification slots, doing exotic and romantic things.” “Did you have a personalised set at any time, with your own identity matted into the Everywhere image?” “Lord, no! It costs—what? About five thousand bucks, isn’t it?” “About that. I haven’t got one either; the basic fee is for couple service, and being a bachelor I’ve never bothered. I just have the standard brownnose identity on my set.” He hesitated. “And—to be absolutely frank—a Scandahoovian one for the shiggy half of the pair. But I’ve watched friends’ sets plenty of times where they had the full service, and I tell you it’s eerie. There’s something absolutely unique and indescribable about seeing your own face and hearing your own voice, matted into the basic signal. There you are wearing clothes you’ve never owned, doing things you’ve never done in places you’ve never been, and it has the immediacy of real life because nowadays television is the real world. You catch? We’re aware of the scale of the planet, so we don’t accept that our own circumscribed horizons constitute reality. Much more real is what’s relayed to us by the TV.” “I can well understand that,” Elihu nodded. “And of course I’ve seen this on other people’s sets too. Also I agree entirely about what we regard as real. But I thought we were talking about the Yatakangi claim?” “I still am,” Norman said. “Do you have a homimage attachment on your set? No, obviously not. I do. This does the same thing except with your environment; when they—let’s see … Ah yes! When they put up something like the splitscreen cuts they use to introduce SCANALYZER, one of the cuts is always what they call the ‘digging’ cut, and shows Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere sitting in your home wearing your faces watching the same programme you’re about to watch. You know this one?” “I don’t think they have this service in Africa yet,” Elihu said. “I know the bit you mean, but it always shows a sort of idealised dream-home full of luxy gadgetry.” “That used to be what they did here,” Norman said. “Only nowadays practically every American home is full of luxy gadgetry. You know Chad’s definition of the New Poor? People who are too far behind with time-payments on next year’s model to make the down-payment on the one for the year after?” Elihu chuckled, then grew grave. “That’s too nearly literal to be funny,” he said. “Prophet’s beard, it certainly is! I found time to look over some of Chad’s books after Guinevere’s party, and … Well, having met him I was inclined to think he was a conceited blowhard, but now I think he’s entitled to every scrap of vanity he likes to put on.
John Brunner (Stand on Zanzibar)
The idea was to shake the tubes and make the marbles descend to the other end through a series of holes just big enough to allow one marble to drop through at a time. It made for a very exciting, somewhat noisy, relay when our
Marina Mahathir (The Apple and the Tree: Life as Dr Mahathir's Daughter)
I’ll show you what I’m going to do about it. No little fucking bitch of a slut is going to make me sick picking up her goddamned crusty Kleenexes.” The coffee table is all that’s between us. He is clutching the life out of the Kleenex, getting the germs all over him, his adrenaline-soaked palm mixing with its deadly hosts. Mom has told him I drop them so he will have to pick them up; a premeditated attempt to sicken my father with clever trickery. He takes the Kleenex, and as his voice gains momentum, my mother’s trails off. Like a relay race in which she just puffed through the first leg, he is stepping in and now she can let go. My eyes are frozen wide, this can’t be happening. I tell him that the Kleenex is Mr. Beck’s; that he loses them when he’s shuffling to the bathroom, that he can’t help it because he’s slow from the drugs. My mother rolls her eyes: That’s the most insane excuse she’s ever heard spew out my mouth. He responds to her cue that I am lying, and he is prompted by the promise of the reward: Let her give him peace, please God, give him peace, just let him be, let him go back into his shell. Oh, now I’m calling him a liar, I’m challenging his view. No little shit is going to call him a liar. He takes my head down, down, smash my skull goes into the piercing corner of the coffee table. Pain splinters my face, my new nose, and ricochets, vibrating to all points over my scalp, like the crack of lightning
Julie Gregory (Sickened: The True Story of a Lost Childhood)
To successfully tell the story, we had to be willing to let people see us as we really were; with all our weaknesses, fears, and imperfections. There are important lessons we learned from the experience that we would not have adequately relayed to the reader if we had been less bold.” ~ Duane
Duane & Selena Pannell (3000 Miles to Eternity: A True Internet Love Story)
Who am I really? What has become of this bag of bones that had such great intentions in life, only to dwindle away like autumn’s cold shoulder to the trees? I wish I could use this to help, in such pain to find hope, but I’d be the liar in this if I claimed a personal epiphany that relayed the secrets to derail this carousel.
Ian Schware (A Filthy Creation: Part 1)
the shadows. “Why do you think they invented chess?” “He’s got you there,” said the captain, following Fletcher. Jake jogged slightly to catch up as Captain Chenoweth continued. “These guys are exactly who we need to get you to your destination. They’ve got contacts throughout the area, and we should be able to slip through without anyone even knowing we’re coming.” “But why should anyone care?” Captain Chenoweth pointed back the way they’d come, toward the coastal village. “Those people down there didn’t know us, but they were ready to kill you. Now, no matter what started this little conflict, don’t think for a second anyone here cares which side you’re on. In their eyes America is their enemy, and they’re likely to kill us all simply to vent their frustration. Either that, or they’ll capture us and hold us for ransom – maybe do what those wannabe terrorists did and chop our heads off, posting it on the internet for shits and giggles. We’re not sitting in your little ivory bubble anymore. Highly polished principles won’t wash well here.” The words felt like a slap in the face. “You think I’m that naive?” he eventually mustered after an awkward pause. Captain Chenoweth gave a short whistle, and the SEAL team dropped back from their defensive positions, jogging up the short hill and clambering into the rear of one of the virtually invisible trucks. “I think it’s time to go, sir.” And with that simple statement, Captain Chenoweth relayed volumes to Jake, who nodded silently and walked toward the large truck, its back tray covered by a canvas roof stretched over a high, metal frame. Jake saw the SEAL team seated alongside Fletcher and three of his men, two bench-seats running the length of the tray. He climbed awkwardly into the back of the truck as its engine roared to life. The tray reeked of livestock; the musky scent of animal feces mixed with grass or hay and wet fur. Jake gagged, but otherwise remained silent, still stinging from the captain’s indirect rebuke. Complaining of the stench would only serve to lower him further in their esteem. Captain Chenoweth climbed in alongside
Russell Blake (9 Killer Thrillers)
I knew that nothing would ever tear us apart. Life is Great… Have you ever had an older person say to you – “Don’t say that, you’ll jinx yourself.” Well, listen to that advice! Maddi and I planned to arrive at school half an hour early to spend some time together. Yes it was all going along like a perfect dream. I had fallen head over heels in love with this girl, just the thought of her brought a smile to my face and a warm feeling to my heart. There we were…it was a beautiful sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. We were walking towards each other, smiling happily. Our bodies were only yards apart. Then from out of the blue, Linda appeared! She stood between us and we both bumped into her. “Easy on guys,” she said, smiling. Maddi wasn’t smiling, in fact she looked like she wanted to rip Linda’s head off! “So glad I caught you before class Richie, I have some great news!” she said with a huge smile on her face. I didn’t want to be rude, but I knew Maddi was about to explode. “Hey Linda, can you tell me later, Maddi and I have something we urgently need to talk about,” I said, telling a white lie. “Cool! So you are breaking up with her! I could never see what you saw in her anyway,” she said this right in front of my girlfriend, the girl I was eventually going to marry, the girl who held my heart! “WHAT!” yelled Maddi. I tried to get the words out, but I was so flabbergasted I became tongue-tied! Then eventually (it seemed like hours later, but I’m sure it was only a couple of seconds) the word, “NO!” came out. Linda pretended she was upset, “Oh my goodness, Richie, I’m so sorry, you haven’t told her yet. How insensitive of me! Maddi now that you know and I’m sorry for blurting out the news, you might want to toddle off so Richie and I can talk about our weekend away.” Maddi and Linda stood face to face. The rage coming from Maddi’s body was enough to light a fire. Linda relayed the same intensity of hatred.
Kaz Campbell (Girl Wars (Diary of Mr TDH, Mr Tall Dark and Handsome #3))
The chief characteristic of the modern novel is a plurality of consciousness, each with equal rights and individual perspectives; the organized coexistence and interaction of spiritual diversity, not stages in the life of a unified spirit.28 The narrator should not pick sides, and that is why he is ultimately in control rather than the characters. A great novelist allows the different characters to develop multiple relationships between themselves and does not reserve for himself the ability to judge every event from his perspective. The work is an endless dialogue or conversation, in which he plays the role of an organizer. This is no longer a story where the narrator relays events from his own point of view, clumsily interpreting the world and everyone in it as a reflection of his personal wishes. Everyone is endowed with autonomy and power; his role is to bring all characters together and preserve their own individual spheres. Suddenly they must move together in a common world and none can be interpreted in isolation. The narrator has learned not to impose a single truth upon the whole, but neither should any of the characters be allowed to replace him.
Bruno Maçães (History Has Begun: The Birth of a New America)
I am told it can be the next stage of evolvement. They are not yet comfortable inhabiting the body at that new stage. Sometimes people who are born severely retarded or with severe body problems are at a new level of evolvement, so they get to live life more as an observer than a participant.” I thought of Jennifer (Chapter 3), whose sons, Ryan and Bradley, had planned physical handicaps so they could be more in the role of observer. “Does ‘next level of evolvement’ mean that most of those souls are incarnating for the first time, or does it mean they’re taking on new lessons?” “More often than not it’s their first physical incarnation at a new level of evolvement, not their first physical incarnation,” Staci said, relaying what she was hearing from her guide. “There are cases, though, when it is somebody’s first physical incarnation, specifically, people who have gone through other planetary schools and then come to Earth.
Robert Schwartz (Your Soul's Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born)
Dick Cheney at the Pentagon. Cheney then prepared me for the final phase of the operation. This was a meeting with Prince Bandar (who Cheney, Houston, and others referred to as Sultan) in Nashville, Tennessee where he often visited corrupt friends. There, I would relay a message of agreement to Fahd's terms between Noriega and the U.S., as well as confirm all Air Force flights (Carrier Pigeons) and bank transactions. In turn, Fahd's "Homing Pigeon" would relay the messages to Fahd so that the seemingly long running drugs for arms deals would draw to a successful conclusion. Dick Cheney cautioned me, "Sultan will be in Nashville
Cathy O'Brien (TRANCE Formation of America: True life story of a mind control slave)