“
I've always been a quitter. I quit the Boy Scouts, the glee club, the marching band. Gave up my paper route, turned my back on the church, stuffed the basketball team. I dropped out of college, sidestepped the army with a 4-F on the grounds of mental instability, went back to school, made a go of it, entered a Ph.D. program in nineteenth-century British literature, sat in the front row, took notes assiduously, bought a pair of horn-rims, and quit on the eve of my comprehensive exams. I got married, separated, divorced. Quit smoking, quit jogging, quit eating red meat. I quit jobs: digging graves, pumping gas, selling insurance, showing pornographic films in an art theater in Boston. When I was nineteen I made frantic love to a pinch-faced, sack-bosomed girl I'd known from high school. She got pregnant. I quit town.
”
”
T. Coraghessan Boyle
“
It wasn't that he was specially ungenerous but that he put things off to give his generosity a longer and more significant route.
”
”
Saul Bellow (The Adventures of Augie March)
“
- On approche, affirma Oukilip.
- Nous approchons depuis que nous nous sommes mis en route, rétorque Pilipip. Ta remarque est aussi mal formulée qu'inutile.
”
”
Pierre Bottero (Ellana (Le Pacte des MarchOmbres, #1))
“
Starting to get hungry out here,” Yerin said, as they marched on their patrol route through the Night Wheel Valley. “Not me,” Lindon replied. He pulled the object from his soulspace and popped it into his mouth. “I have a bean.
”
”
Will Wight (Underlord (Cradle, #6))
“
STEP 1. Identify the system’s bottlenecks. (After all it wasn’t too difficult to identify the oven and the NCX10 as the bottlenecks of the plant.)
STEP 2. Decide how to exploit the bottlenecks. (That was fun. Realizing that those machines should not take a lunch break, etc.)
STEP 3. Subordinate everything else to the above decision. (Making sure that everything marches to the tune of the constraints. The red and green tags.)
STEP 4. Elevate the system’s bottlenecks. (Bringing back the old Zmegma, switching back to old, less “effective” routings. . . .)
STEP 5. If, in a previous step, a bottleneck has been broken go back to step 1.
”
”
Eliyahu M. Goldratt (The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement)
“
La vie n'est pas une roue impitoyable mais une route. Une route certes parsemée d'embûches, mais une route qui peut conduire au bonheur.
Pour peu qu'on ne s'y perde pas.
Ellana, Edwin, Destan.
Enlacés.
Heureux.
Ils ne s'étaient pas perdus.
”
”
Pierre Bottero (Ellana, la Prophétie (Le Pacte des MarchOmbres, #3))
“
Et comme j’essayais de lui expliquer ce que c’était que ces mariages, je sentis quelque chose de frais et de fin peser légèrement sur mon épaule. C’était sa tête alourdie de sommeil qui s’appuyait contre moi avec un joli froissement de rubans, de dentelles et de cheveux ondés. Elle resta ainsi sans bouger jusqu’au moment où les astres du ciel pâlirent, effacés par le jour qui montait. Moi, je la regardais dormir, un peu troublé au fond de mon être, mais saintement protégé par cette claire nuit qui ne m’a jamais donné que de belles pensées. Autour de nous, les étoiles continuaient leur marche silencieuse, dociles comme un grand troupeau ; et par moments je me figurais qu’une de ces étoiles, la plus fine, la plus brillante ayant perdu sa route, était venue se poser sur mon épaule pour dormir..
”
”
Alphonse Daudet (Lettres de mon moulin)
“
On 23 June 1757, marching through a drenching rainfall at the head of 900 Englishmen of the 39th Foot and 2000 Indian sepoys, an audacious general named Robert Clive routed the army of a troublesome Nawab in the rice paddies outside a Bengali village called Plassey.
”
”
Larry Collins (Freedom at Midnight)
“
We won’t give up until Khalil receives justice,” Ms. Ofrah says over the talking. “I ask you to join us and Khalil’s family after the service for a peaceful march to the cemetery. Our route happens to pass the police station. Khalil was silenced, but let’s join together and make our voices heard for him. Thank you.
”
”
Angie Thomas (The Hate U Give (The Hate U Give, #1))
“
- Pour ton information, reprend Blake, je suis parfaitement sobre. - Blake, tu ne marches pas droit. - C’est la route qui zigzague !
”
”
Marie Reppelin (La Carte des Confins, tome 1)
“
it had to when it was accompanying a march (political) or procession (religious) both of which were frequent in Malta; and practically every route took it through some rival territory.
”
”
Michael Pearce (A Dead Man in Malta)
“
[Li Ch’uan cites the case of Fu Chien, prince of Ch’in, who in 383 A.D. marched with a vast army against the Chin Emperor. When warned not to despise an enemy who could command the services of such men as Hsieh An and Huan Ch’ung, he boastfully replied: “I have the population of eight provinces at my back, infantry and horsemen to the number of one million; why, they could dam up the Yangtsze River itself by merely throwing their whips into the stream. What danger have I to fear?” Nevertheless, his forces were soon after disastrously routed at the Fei River, and he was obliged to beat a hasty retreat.] If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. [Chang Yu said: “Knowing the enemy enables you to take the offensive, knowing yourself enables you to stand on the defensive.” He adds: “Attack is the secret of defense; defense is the planning of an attack.” It would be hard to find a better epitome of the root-principle of war.]
”
”
Sun Tzu (The Art of War)
“
Lorsque j’ai commencé à voyager en Gwendalavir aux côtés d'Ewìlan et de Salim, je savais que, au fil de mon écriture, ma route croiserait celle d'une multitude de personnages. Personnages attachants ou irritants, discrets ou hauts en couleurs, pertinents ou impertinents, sympathiques ou maléfiques... Je savais cela et je m'en réjouissais.
Rien, en revanche, ne m'avait préparé à une rencontre qui allait bouleverser ma vie.
Rien ne m'avait préparé à Ellana.
Elle est arrivée dans la Quête à sa manière, tout en finesse tonitruante, en délicatesse remarquable, en discrétion étincelante. Elle est arrivée à un moment clef, elle qui se moque des serrures, à un moment charnière, elle qui se rit des portes, au sein d’un groupe constitué, elle pourtant pétrie d’indépendance, son caractère forgé au feu de la solitude.
Elle est arrivée, s'est glissée dans la confiance d'Ewilan avec l'aisance d'un songe, a capté le regard d’Edwin et son respect, a séduit Salim, conquis maître Duom... Je l’ai regardée agir, admiratif ; sans me douter un instant de la toile que sa présence, son charisme, sa beauté tissaient autour de moi.
Aucun calcul de sa part. Ellana vit, elle ne calcule pas. Elle s'est contentée d'être et, ce faisant, elle a tranquillement troqué son statut de personnage secondaire pour celui de figure emblématique d'une double trilogie qui ne portait pourtant pas son nom. Convaincue du pouvoir de l'ombre, elle n'a pas cherché la lumière, a épaulé Ewilan dans sa quête d'identité puis dans sa recherche d'une parade au danger qui menaçait l'Empire.
Sans elle, Ewilan n'aurait pas retrouvé ses parents, sans elle, l'Empire aurait succombé à la soif de pouvoir des Valinguites, mais elle n’en a tiré aucune gloire, trop équilibrée pour ignorer que la victoire s'appuyait sur les épaules d'un groupe de compagnons soudés par une indéfectible amitié.
Lorsque j'ai posé le dernier mot du dernier tome de la saga d'Ewilan, je pensais que chacun de ses compagnons avait mérité le repos. Que chacun d'eux allait suivre son chemin, chercher son bonheur, vivre sa vie de personnage libéré par l'auteur après une éprouvante aventure littéraire.
Chacun ?
Pas Ellana.
Impossible de la quitter. Elle hante mes rêves, se promène dans mon quotidien, fluide et insaisissable, transforme ma vision des choses et ma perception des autres, crochète mes pensées intimes, escalade mes désirs secrets...
Un auteur peut-il tomber amoureux de l'un de ses personnages ?
Est-ce moi qui ai créé Ellana ou n'ai-je vraiment commencé à exister que le jour où elle est apparue ? Nos routes sont-elles liées à jamais ?
— Il y a deux réponses à ces questions, souffle le vent à mon oreille. Comme à toutes les questions. Celle du savant et celle du poète.
— Celle du savant ? Celle du poète ? Qu'est-ce que...
— Chut... Écris.
”
”
Pierre Bottero (Ellana (Le Pacte des MarchOmbres, #1))
“
And so, along paths bordered by tender regard, by total fidelity, they began to go their semiseparate ways—his a public route, a march of satisfying conquests, and hers a private one that eventually wound through hospital corridors.
”
”
Truman Capote (In Cold Blood)
“
Un piège.
Dressé non pour Ellana mais pour lui.
Jilano bondit vers la porte.
Verrouillée, elle l'aurait à peine ralenti. Elle s'ouvrit sans difficulté.
Sur un mur de pierre.
Il leva les yeux. La même substance huileuse qui l'avait fait glisser recouvrait tous les murs. La gouttière gisait au sol. Inutile de l'observer pour savoir qu'elle avait été sabotée.
Du joli travail.
Jilano inspira profondément, ralentissant son rythme cardiaque jusqu'à ce que son corps élimine l'injonction de survie induite par le danger.
Ce n'était plus la peine.
Il s'assit en tailleur contre un mur et attendit que la silhouette apparaisse au-dessus de lui.
Elle ne tarda pas.
Un sourire pâle erra sur les lèvres du maître marchombre lorsqu’il reconnut l'assassin. La guilde était donc tombée si bas ?
Il faillit parler, non pas pour tenter de convaincre, encore moins pour supplier, mais pour chercher à comprendre. Il préféra détourner les yeux afin de se concentrer sur l'essentiel.
Alors que l'assassin bandait son arc, les pensées de Jilano s'envolèrent vers Ellana.
Bonheur.
Gratitude.
Amour.
- Garde-toi, murmura-t-il, et que ta route soit belle.
- Madame ! Que vous arrive-t-il ?
Ellana était brusquement devenue livide.
Elle poussa un cri rauque, leva la main à son cœur et, avant qu'Aoro ait pu intervenir, elle s'effondra.
”
”
Pierre Bottero (Ellana, l'Envol (Le Pacte des MarchOmbres, #2))
“
I was soon discharged from the rehab center and sent back to the SAS. But the doctor’s professional opinion was that I shouldn’t military parachute again. It was too risky. One dodgy landing, at night, in full kit, and my patched-up spine could crumple.
He didn’t even mention the long route marches carrying huge weights on our backs.
Every SF soldier knows that a weak back is not a good opener for life in an SAS squadron.
It is also a cliché just how many SAS soldiers’ backs and knees are plated and pinned together, after years of marches and jumps.
”
”
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
“
Last Night’s Moon,"
“When will we next walk together
under last night’s moon?”
- Tu Fu
March aspens, mist
forest. Green rain pins down
the sea, early evening
cyanotype. Silver saltlines, weedy
toques of low tide, pillow lava’s
black spill indelible
in the sand. Unbroken
broken sea.
—
Rain sharpens marsh-hair
birth-green of the spring firs.
In the bog where the dead never disappear,
where river birch drown, the surface
strewn with reflection. This is the acid-soaked
moss that eats bones, keeps flesh;
the fermented ground where time stops and
doesn’t; dissolves the skull, preserves
the brain, wrinkled pearl in black mud.
—
In the autumn that made love
necessary, we stood in rubber boots
on the sphagnum raft and learned
love is soil–stronger than peat or sea–
melting what it holds.
The past
is not our own. Mole’s ribbon of earth,
termite house,
soaked sponge. It rises,
keloids of rain on wood; spreads,
milkweed galaxy, broken pod
scattering the debris of attention.
Where you are
while your body is here, remembering
in the cold spring afternoon.
The past
is a long bone.
—
Time is like the painter’s lie, no line
around apple or along thigh, though the apple
aches to its sweet edge, strains
to its skin, the seam of density. Invisible line
closest to touch. Lines of wet grass
on my arm, your tongue’s
wet line across my back.
All the history in the bone-embedded hills
of your body. Everything your mouth
remembers. Your hands manipullate
in the darkness, silver bromide
of desire darkening skin with light.
—
Disoriented at great depths,
confused by the noise of shipping routes,
whales hover, small eyes squinting as they consult
the magnetic map of the ocean floor. They strain,
a thousand miles through cold channels;
clicking thrums of distant loneliness
bounce off seamounts and abyssal plains. They look up
from perpetual dusk to rods of sunlight,
a solar forest at the surface.
Transfixed in the dark summer
kitchen: feet bare on humid
linoleum, cilia listening. Feral
as the infrared aura of the snake’s prey, the bees’
pointillism, the infrasonic
hum of the desert heard by the birds.
The nighthawk spans the ceiling;
swoops. Hot kitchen air
vibrates. I look up
to the pattern of stars under its wings.
”
”
Anne Michaels
“
There's one big difference between the poor and the rich,' Kite says, taking a drag from his cigarette. We are in a pub, at lunch-time. John Kite is always, unless stated otherwise, smoking a fag, in a pub, at lunch-time.
'The rich aren't evil, as so many of my brothers would tell you. I've known rich people -- I have played on their yachts -- and they are not unkind, or malign, and they do not hate the poor, as many would tell you. And they are not stupid -- or at least, not any more than the poor are. Much as I find amusing the idea of a ruling class of honking toffs, unable to put their socks on without Nanny helping them, it is not true. They build banks, and broker deals, and formulate policy, all with perfect competency.
'No -- the big difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich are blithe. They believe nothing can ever really be so bad, They are born with the lovely, velvety coating of blitheness -- like lanugo, on a baby -- and it is never rubbed off by a bill that can't be paid; a child that can't be educated; a home that must be left for a hostel, when the rent becomes too much.
'Their lives are the same for generations. There is no social upheaval that will really affect them. If you're comfortably middle-class, what's the worst a government policy could do? Ever? Tax you at 90 per cent and leave your bins, unemptied, on the pavement. But you and everyone you know will continue to drink wine -- but maybe cheaper -- go on holiday -- but somewhere nearer -- and pay off your mortgage -- although maybe later.
'Consider, now, then, the poor. What's the worst a government policy can do to them? It can cancel their operation, with no recourse to private care. It can run down their school -- with no escape route to a prep. It can have you out of your house and into a B&B by the end of the year. When the middle-classes get passionate about politics, they're arguing about their treats -- their tax breaks and their investments. When the poor get passionate about politics, they're fighting for their lives.
'Politics will always mean more to the poor. Always. That's why we strike and march, and despair when our young say they won't vote. That's why the poor are seen as more vital, and animalistic. No classical music for us -- no walking around National Trust properties, or buying reclaimed flooring. We don't have nostalgia. We don't do yesterday. We can't bear it. We don't want to be reminded of our past, because it was awful; dying in mines, and slums, without literacy, or the vote. Without dignity. It was all so desperate, then. That's why the present and the future is for the poor -- that's the place in time for us: surviving now, hoping for better, later. We live now -- for our instant, hot, fast treats, to prep us up: sugar, a cigarette, a new fast song on the radio.
'You must never, never forget, when you talk to someone poor, that it takes ten times the effort to get anywhere from a bad postcode, It's a miracle when someone from a bad postcode gets anywhere, son. A miracle they do anything at all.
”
”
Caitlin Moran (How to Build a Girl (How to Build a Girl, #1))
“
I had never felt that Egypt was really Africa, but now that our route had taken us across the Sahara, I could look down from my window seat and see trees, and bushes, rivers and dense forest. It all began here. The jumble of poverty-stricken children sleeping in rat-infested tenements or abandoned cars. The terrifying moan of my grandmother, ‘Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven, feed me till I want no more.’ The drugged days and alcoholic nights of men for whom hope had not been born. The loneliness of women who would never know appreciation or a mite’s share of honor. Here, there, along the banks of that river, someone was taken, tied with ropes, shackled with chains, forced to march for weeks carrying the double burden of neck irons and abysmal fear. In that large clump of trees, looking like wood moss from the plane’s great height, boys and girls had been hunted like beasts, caught and tethered together. Sacrificial lambs on the altar of greed. America’s period of orgiastic lynchings had begun on yonder broad savannah.
”
”
Maya Angelou (The Heart of a Woman)
“
It was the end of a winter; this one was the winter of 2002-3. Elisabeth was eighteen. It was February. She had gone down to London to march in the protest. Not In Her Name. All across the country people had done the same thing and millions more people had all across the world. On the Monday after, she wandered through the city; strange to be walking streets where life was going on as normal, traffic and people going their usual backwards and forwards along streets that had had no traffic, had felt like they’d belonged to the two million people from their feet on the pavement all the way up to sky because of something to do with truth, when she’d walked the exact same route only the day before yesterday.
”
”
Ali Smith (Autumn (Seasonal Quartet, #1))
“
Nothing is more difficult than the art of maneuver. What is difficult about maneuver is to make the devious route the most direct and to turn misfortune to advantage. Thus, march by an indirect route and divert the enemy by enticing him with a bait. So doing, you may set out after he does and arrive before him. One able to do this understands the strategy of the direct and the indirect.
”
”
Sun Tzu (The Art Of War)
“
I looked at the huge charlatan with respect. Nicotine, dope, hash, barbiturates, speed, acid, smack, Colombian marching powder, ecstasy, alcohol in every form, all had entered the massive frame by some route and in quantities guaranteed to lay waste to the collected brains of three Melbourne universities or eight in Queensland. In theory, a scan of this man’s skull should reveal a place as grey and still as Kerguelen Island in winter. Yet from time to time there were clear signs of electrical activity.
”
”
Peter Temple (Black Tide (Jack Irish, #2))
“
- Maman, pourquoi les nuages vont dans un sens et nous dans l'autre ?
Isaya sourit, caressa la joue de sa fille du bout des doigts.
- Il y a deux réponses à ta question. Comme à toutes les questions, tu le sais bien. Laquelle veux-tu entendre ?
- Les deux.
-Laquelle en premier alors ?
La fillette plissa le nez.
- Celle du savant.
- Nous allons vers le nord parce que nous cherchons une terre où nous établir. Un endroit où construire une belle maison, élever des coureurs et cultiver des racines de niam. C'est notre rêve depuis des années et nous avons quitté Al-Far pour le vivre.
- Je n’aime pas les galettes de niam...
- Nous planterons aussi des fraises, promis. Les nuages, eux, n'ont pas le choix. Ils vont vers le sud parce que le vent les pousse et, comme ils sont très très légers, il sont incapables de lui résister.
- Et la réponse du poète ?
- Les hommes sont comme les nuages. Ils sont chassés en avant par un vent mystérieux et invisible face auquel ils sont impuissants. Ils croient maîtriser leur route et se moquent de la faiblesse des nuages, mais leur vent à eux est mille fois plus fort que celui qui souffle là-haut.
La fillette croisa les bras et parut se désintéresser de la conversation afin d'observer un vol de canards au plumage chatoyant qui se posaient sur la rivière proche. Indigo, émeraude ou vert pâle, ils se bousculaient dans une cacophonie qui la fit rire aux éclats.
Lorsque les chariots eurent dépassé les volatiles, elle se tourna vers sa mère.
- Cette fois, je préfère la réponse du savant.
-Pourquoi ? demande Isaya qui avait attendu sereinement la fin de ce qu'elle savait être une intense réflexion.
- J'aime pas qu'on me pousse en cachette.
”
”
Pierre Bottero (Ellana (Le Pacte des MarchOmbres, #1))
“
You've heard the call: We have to do something. We need to fight. We need to identify the enemy and go after them. Some respond, march and chant. Some look away, deny what's happening and search out escape routes into imaginary tomorrows: a life off the grid, space colonies, immortality in paradise, explicit denial, or consumer satiety in wireless, robot staffed, 3-D printed techno-utopia. Meanwhile, the rich take shelter in their fortresses, trusting to their air conditioning, private schools, and well-paid guards. Fight. Flight. Flight. Flight. The threat of death activates our deepest animal drives.
”
”
Roy Scranton (Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization)
“
I was soon discharged from the rehab center and sent back to the SAS. But the doctor’s professional opinion was that I shouldn’t military parachute again. It was too risky. One dodgy landing, at night, in full kit, and my patched-up spine could crumple.
He didn’t even mention the long route marches carrying huge weights on our backs.
Every SF soldier knows that a weak back is not a good opener for life in an SAS squadron.
It is also a cliché just how many SAS soldiers’ backs and knees are plated and pinned together, after years of marches and jumps. Deep down I knew the odds weren’t looking great for me in the squadron, and that was a very hard pill to swallow.
But it was a decision that, sooner or later, I would have to face up to. The doctors could give me their strong recommendations, but ultimately I had to make the call.
A familiar story. Life is all about our decisions. And big decisions can often be hard to make.
So I thought I would buy myself some time before I made it.
In the meantime, at the squadron, I took on the role of teaching survival to other units. I also helped the intelligence guys while my old team were out on the ground training.
But it was agony for me. Not physically, but mentally: watching the guys go out, fired up, tight, together, doing the job and getting back excited and exhausted. That was what I should have been doing.
I hated sitting in an ops room making tea for intelligence officers.
I tried to embrace it, but deep down I knew this was not what I had signed up for.
I had spent an amazing few years with the SAS, I had trained with the best, and been trained by the best, but if I couldn’t do the job fully, I didn’t want to do it at all.
The regiment is like that. To keep its edge, it has to keep focused on where it is strongest. Unable to parachute and carry the huge weights for long distances, I was dead weight. That hurt.
That is not how I had vowed to live my life, after my accident. I had vowed to be bold and follow my dreams, wherever that road should lead.
So I went to see the colonel of the regiment and told him my decision. He understood, and true to his word, he assured me that the SAS family would always be there when I needed it.
My squadron gave me a great piss-up, and a little bronze statue of service. (It sits on my mantelpiece, and my boys play soldiers with it nowadays.) And I packed my kit and left 21 SAS forever.
I fully admit to getting very drunk that night.
”
”
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
“
Room 40 had long followed Kptlt. Walther Schwieger’s U-20 and kept a running record of his patrols: when he left, which route he took, where he was headed, and what he was supposed to do once he got there. In early March 1915, Commander Hope monitored a voyage Schwieger made to the Irish Sea that coincided with a disturbing message broadcast from a German naval transmitter located at Norddeich, on Germany’s North Sea coast just below Holland. Addressed to all German warships and submarines, the message made specific reference to the Lusitania, announcing that the ship was en route to Liverpool and would arrive on March 4 or 5. The meaning was obvious: the German navy considered the Lusitania fair game.
”
”
Erik Larson (Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania)
“
[Chang Yu relates the following anecdote of Kao Tsu, the first Han Emperor: “Wishing to crush the Hsiung-nu, he sent out spies to report on their condition. But the Hsiung-nu, forewarned, carefully concealed all their able-bodied men and well-fed horses, and only allowed infirm soldiers and emaciated cattle to be seen. The result was that spies one and all recommended the Emperor to deliver his attack. Lou Ching alone opposed them, saying: “When two countries go to war, they are naturally inclined to make an ostentatious display of their strength. Yet our spies have seen nothing but old age and infirmity. This is surely some ruse on the part of the enemy, and it would be unwise for us to attack.” The Emperor, however, disregarding this advice, fell into the trap and found himself surrounded at Po-teng.”] 19. Thus one who is skillful at keeping the enemy on the move maintains deceitful appearances, according to which the enemy will act. [Ts’ao Kung’s note is “Make a display of weakness and want.” Tu Mu says: “If our force happens to be superior to the enemy’s, weakness may be simulated in order to lure him on; but if inferior, he must be led to believe that we are strong, in order that he may keep off. In fact, all the enemy’s movements should be determined by the signs that we choose to give him.” Note the following anecdote of Sun Pin, a descendent of Sun Wu: In 341 B.C., the Ch’i State being at war with Wei, sent T’ien Chi and Sun Pin against the general P’ang Chuan, who happened to be a deadly personal enemy of the later. Sun Pin said: “The Ch’i State has a reputation for cowardice, and therefore our adversary despises us. Let us turn this circumstance to account.” Accordingly, when the army had crossed the border into Wei territory, he gave orders to show 100,000 fires on the first night, 50,000 on the next, and the night after only 20,000. P’ang Chuan pursued them hotly, saying to himself: “I knew these men of Ch’i were cowards: their numbers have already fallen away by more than half.” In his retreat, Sun Pin came to a narrow defile, with he calculated that his pursuers would reach after dark. Here he had a tree stripped of its bark, and inscribed upon it the words: “Under this tree shall P’ang Chuan die.” Then, as night began to fall, he placed a strong body of archers in ambush near by, with orders to shoot directly they saw a light. Later on, P’ang Chuan arrived at the spot, and noticing the tree, struck a light in order to read what was written on it. His body was immediately riddled by a volley of arrows, and his whole army thrown into confusion. [The above is Tu Mu’s version of the story; the SHIH CHI, less dramatically but probably with more historical truth, makes P’ang Chuan cut his own throat with an exclamation of despair, after the rout of his army.] ] He sacrifices something, that the enemy may snatch at it. 20. By holding out baits, he keeps him on the march; then with a body of picked men he lies in wait for him. [With an emendation suggested by Li Ching, this then reads, “He lies in wait with the main body of his troops.”] 21. The clever combatant looks to the effect of combined energy, and does not require too much from individuals.
”
”
Sun Tzu (The Art of War)
“
Now the moment had arrived. Birgit took her place beside him in the command car. She pulled up her large striped cotton dirndl skirt made by her fellow national, Katya of Sweden, and looked around with an excited smile. But to onlookers it was more like the strained expression of a Swedish farm woman in a Swedish outhouse in the dead of a Swedish winter. She was trying to restrain her excitement at the sight of all those naked limbs in the amber light. From the shoulders up she had the delicate neckline and face of a Nordic goddess, but below her body was breastless, lumpy with bulging hips and huge round legs like sawed-off telegraph posts. She felt elated, sitting there with her man who was leading these colored people in this march for their rights. She loved colored people. Her eyeblue eyes gleamed with this love. When she looked at the white cops her lips curled with scorn. A number of police cruisers had appeared at the moment the march was to begin. They stared at the white woman and the colored man in the command car. Their lips compressed but they said nothing, did nothing. Marcus had got a police permit. The marchers lined up four abreast on the right side of the street, facing west. The command car was at the lead. Two police cars brought up the rear. Three were parked at intervals down the street as far as the railroad station. Several others cruised slowly in the westbound traffic, turned north at Lenox Avenue, east again on 126th Street, back to 125th Street on Second Avenue and retraced the route. The chief inspector had said he didn’t want any trouble in Harlem. “Squads, MARCH!” Marcus shouted over the amplifier.
”
”
Chester Himes (Blind Man with a Pistol (Harlem Cycle, #8))
“
It is the business of a general to be serene and inscrutable, impartial and self-controlled. If serene he is not vexed; if inscrutable, unfathomable; if upright, not improper; if self-controlled, not confused.
He should be capable of keeping his officers and men in ignorance of his plans. His troops may join him in rejoicing at the accomplishment, but they cannot join him in laying the plans. He prohibits superstitious practices and so rids the army of doubts. Then until the moment of death there can be no troubles. He changes his methods and alters his plans so that people have no knowledge of what he is doing. Courses of action previously followed and old plans previously executed must be altered.
He alters his campsites and marches by devious routes, and thus makes it impossible for others to anticipate his purpose. To assemble the army and throw it into a desperate position is the business of the general. He leads the army deep into hostile territory and there releases the trigger. He burns his boats and smashes his cooking pots; he urges the army on as if driving a flock of sheep, now in one direction, now in another, and none knows where he is going. He fixes a date for rendezvous and after the troops have met, cuts off their return route just as if he were removing a ladder from beneath them.
”
”
Sun Tzu (The Art of War)
“
Ground may be classified according to its nature as accessible, entrapping, indecisive, constricted, precipitous, and distant.
Ground which both we and the enemy can traverse with equal ease is called accessible. In such ground, he who first takes high sunny positions convenient to his supply routes can fight advantageously.
Ground easy to get out of but difficult to return to is entrapping. The nature of this ground is such that if the enemy is unprepared and you sally out you may defeat him. If the enemy is prepared and you go out and engage, but do not win, it is difficult to return. This is unprofitable.
Ground equally disadvantageous for both the enemy and ourselves to enter is indecisive. The nature of this ground is such that although the enemy holds out a bait I do not go forth but entice him by marching off. When I have drawn out half his force, I can strike him advantageously.
If I first occupy constricted ground I must block the passes and await the enemy. If the enemy first occupies such ground and blocks the defiles I should not follow him; if he does not block them completely I may do so.
In precipitous ground I must take position on the sunny heights and await the enemy. If he first occupies such ground I lure him by marching off; I do not follow him.
When at a distance from an enemy of equal strength it is difficult to provoke battle and unprofitable to engage him in his chosen position.
These are the principles relating to six different types of ground. It is the highest responsibility of the general to inquire into them with the utmost care.
”
”
Sun Tzu (The Art of War)
“
Boswell, like Lecky (to get back to the point of this footnote), and Gibbon before him, loved footnotes. They knew that the outer surface of truth is not smooth, welling and gathering from paragraph to shapely paragraph, but is encrusted with a rough protective bark of citations, quotations marks, italics, and foreign languages, a whole variorum crust of "ibid.'s" and "compare's" and "see's" that are the shield for the pure flow of argument as it lives for a moment in one mind. They knew the anticipatory pleasure of sensing with peripheral vision, as they turned the page, gray silt of further example and qualification waiting in tiny type at the bottom. (They were aware, more generally, of the usefulness of tiny type in enhancing the glee of reading works of obscure scholarship: typographical density forces you to crouch like Robert Hooke or Henry Gray over the busyness and intricacy of recorded truth.) They liked deciding as they read whether they would bother to consult a certain footnote or not, and whether they would read it in context, or read it before the text it hung from, as an hors d'oeuvre. The muscles of the eye, they knew, want vertical itineraries; the rectus externus and internus grow dazed waggling back and forth in the Zs taught in grade school: the footnote functions as a switch, offering the model-railroader's satisfaction of catching the march of thought with a superscripted "1" and routing it, sometimes at length, through abandoned stations and submerged, leaching tunnels. Digression—a movement away from the gradus, or upward escalation, of the argument—is sometimes the only way to be thorough, and footnotes are the only form of graphic digression sanctioned by centuries of typesetters. And yet the MLA Style Sheet I owned in college warned against lengthy, "essay-like" footnotes. Were they nuts? Where is scholarship going?
”
”
Nicholson Baker (The Mezzanine)
“
C'est de là-haut qu'il les aperçoit, au fond de la combe Nerre, écrasés par la perspective : deux insectes minuscules, l'un portant l'autre à travers l'un des endroits les plus inhospitaliers des Causses. Il en oublie la chevrette et, retrouvant l'agilité de ses vingt ans, se laisse glisser d'éboulis en barres rocheuses jusqu'à les surplomber d'une vingtaine de mètres.
Deux enfants.
Un garçon épuisé, couvert d'écorchures, qui continue à avancer bien qu'à bout de forces, ses jambes menaçant à tout moment de flancher sous lui, tremblant de fatigue et de froid.
Une fille, ce doit être une fille même si elle n'a plus un cheveu sur le crâne, immobile dans les bras du garçon. Inanimée. Ces deux-là ont souffert, souffrent encore. Maximilien le sent, il sent ces choses-là.
Alors, quand le garçon dépose la fille à l'abri d'un rocher, quand il quitte son tee-shirt déchiré pour l'en envelopper, quand il se penche pour lui murmurer une prière à l'oreille, alors Maximilien oublie sa promesse de se tenir loin des hommes.
Il descend vers eux.
Le garçon esquisse un geste de défense, mais Maximilien le rassure en lui montrant ses mains vides. Des mains calleuses, puissantes malgré l'âge. Il se baisse, prend la fille dans ses bras. Un frisson de colère le parcourt.
Elle est dans un état effroyable, le corps décharné, la peau diaphane, une cicatrice récente zigzague sur son flanc.
Dans une imprécation silencieuse, Maximilien maudit la folie des hommes, leur cruauté et leur ignorance.
Il se met en route, suivi par le garçon qui n'a pas prononcé un mot. Il ne sait pas encore ce qu'il va faire d'eux. Faire d'elle. La soigner, certes, mais ensuite ?
Tout en pensant, il marche à grands pas. Tout en marchant, il réfléchit à grands traits. Il atteint Ombre Blanche au moment où le soleil bascule derrière l'horizon, teintant les Causses d'une somptueuse lumière orangée. Un frémissement dans ses bras lui fait baisser la tête. La fille a bougé.
Elle ouvre les yeux.
Échange fugace.
Échange parfait.
Maximilien se noie dans le violet de son regard et en ressort grandi.
Le dernier des Caussenards a trouvé son destin.
”
”
Pierre Bottero (La Forêt des captifs (Les Mondes d'Ewilan, #1))
“
Speech in the Sportpalast Berlin, January 30, 1942
They say, “you sail on your KdF ships; we cannot allow them to land here; that would corrupt our laborers.” Now, why would that corrupt their laborers? I cannot see why. The German laborer has worked more than ever before; why should he not have a rest? Is it not a joke when today the man in the White House says, “we have a program for the world, and this program for the world will give man freedom and the right to work.” Mr. Roosevelt-open your eyes! We have already done this in Germany a long time ago. Or when he says that the sick ought to be taken care of. Please leave the garden of our party program-this is National Socialist teaching and not yours, Sir! This is heresy for a democrat.
Or when he says, “we want laborers to have a vacation.” It is a little late to want this, since we have already put this into practice. And we would be much further along now if Mr. Roosevelt had not interfered. Or when he says, “we want to increase prosperity for the masses of laborers, too.” All these things are in our program! He might have seen them through, if he had not started the war. After all, we did all this before the war. No, these capitalist hyenas do not have the slightest intention of doing this. They see us as a suspicious example.
And now, in order to lure their own people, they have to get in on our party program and fish out a few sentences, these poor bunglers. And even that they do imperfectly.
We had a world unanimously against us here. Of course, not only on the right, but also on the left. Those on the left feared: “What are we going to do, if this experiment succeeds and he actually makes it and eliminates the housing problem? What if he manages to introduce an educational system based on which a talented boy, no matter who his parents are, can attain God knows what position? And, he is capable of doing it, he is already making a Reich protector out of a former farmhand. What if he really introduces an old-age pension scheme covering the whole Volk? What if he truly secures a right to vacations for the whole Volk, since he is already building ships? And he is bringing all this up to an ordered and secured standard of living. What are we going to do? We live by the absence of this. We live by this and, therefore, we must fight National Socialism.” What the others have accomplished-that, our comrades were best able to see in Russia. We have been in power for nine years now. Bolshevism has been there since 1917, that is, almost twenty-five years. Everyone can judge for himself by comparing this Russia with Germany. The things we did in these nine years. What does the German Volk look like, and what have they accomplished over there? I do not even want to mention the capitalist states.
They do not take care of their unemployed, because no American millionaire will ever come into the area where they live, and no unemployed man will ever go to the area where the millionaires live. While hunger marches to Washington and to the White House are organized, they are usually dispersed en route by the police by means of rubber truncheons and tear gas. Such things do not exist in authoritarian Germany. We deal with such problems without such things-rubber truncheons and tear gas.
”
”
Adolf Hitler (Collection of Speeches: 1922-1945)
“
When Aadhaar finally became part of law, with the Aadhaar Act passed in March 2016, it was under a government headed by the same BJP that had emphatically opposed it earlier. The government chose the unusual route of passing the legislation as a money bill—a route typically reserved for bills that deal only with the use of public funds, and which bypassed the Rajya Sabha, where the government does not have a majority. Critics argued that the Aadhaar Act pertained to issues including civil liberties, national security and social policy, and could not be defined as a money bill. A Congress leader challenged the move in the Supreme Court.
”
”
The Caravan Magazine (The New Oil- Aadhaar’s mixing of public risk and private profit by ARIA THAKER)
“
Il ne s'agit pas ici de faire le procès, encore moins l'éloge de la colonisation européenne de l'Afrique, mais simplement de marquer que cette colonisation comporte, comme presque tous les phénomènes qui résultent des chocs de civilisation, un actif et un passif culturels. Ce n'est pas prendre la défense de la colonisation, de ses laideurs, voire de ses atrocités ou de ses indéniables bouffonneries (achat de vastes territoires contre quelques rouleaux d'étoffe ou un peu d'alcool), que d'admettre que le choc en a été souvent décisif et même finalement bénéfique pour les structures sociales, économiques et culturelles des peuples noirs colonisés. En fait, ç'a été, au lendemain de l'acte final du Congrès de Berlin (1885), la dernière très grande aventure de l'expansion européenne. Et si cette mise sous tutelle tardive a été de brève durée (moins d'un siècle), la rencontre s'est faite à vive allure, alors que l'Europe et l'économie mondiale se trouvaient en plein essor. C'est une société industrielle adulte, exigeante, disposant de moyens modernes d'action et de communication, qui a heurté et investi le monde noir. Et celui-ci est réceptif, plus mobile que les ethnographes ne le supposaient hier encore, capable de saisir des objets et des formes que l'Occident lui propose et, surtout, de les réinterpréter, de les charger de sens nouveau, de les lier, chaque fois que la chose est possible, aux impératifs de sa culture traditionnelle. [...] En parlant d'un certain actif de la colonisation, nous ne pensons pas à ces biens purement matériels, routes, voies ferrées, ports, barrages, à ces mises en marche d'exploitations du sol et du sous-sol que les colonisateurs ont installés dans des buts hautement intéressés. Ce legs, aussi important qu'il paraisse parfois, serait de peu d'utilité et éminemment périssable si les héritiers n'avaient aussi acquis, au cours de la pénible épreuve de la colonisation, de quoi leur en permettre aujourd'hui l’utilisation rationnelle. L'enseignement, un certain niveau de la technique, de l'hygiène, de la médecine, de l'administration publique, sont les meilleurs biens légués par les colonisateurs, la contrepartie positive aux destructions opérées par le contact européen dans les vielles habitudes tribales, familiales, sociales, sur lesquelles reposaient toute l'organisation et toute la culture.
”
”
Fernand Braudel (A History of Civilizations)
“
it. But taking that route never gets you anywhere; you get trapped in an eternal round of massacres and counter massacres. It’s only after you break the cycle and create strong groups—nations—that enforce the laws and demand some sort of international standard of acceptable behavior, that things start to improve.
”
”
David Weber (Throne of Stars (March Upcountry Combo Volumes #2))
“
LEFT the Varied Industries building, took a right outside the door, and continued up the street, searching the crowd. Something had changed. He remembered the moment when he’d seen Whitehead, the woman who looked like Marlys Purdy, and it had prodded his unconscious mind with an idea. He’d tracked the idea down in his own head, and it had turned into something. Now he was struck by the same feeling: he’d seen or heard something important, in the street, in the last minute or so, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He cast his mind back, trying to track it down. Had he seen something in the building he’d just left? He turned and looked back at it, but it didn’t seem right. It wasn’t in the building . . . Where was it? And it wasn’t a face . . . So what was it? Wasn’t the phone calls from Wood. Nothing about a grenade. Was it Greer? Something to do with Greer? Why would it be Greer? He looked at his watch: ten-twenty. The march would be starting in ten minutes. He was at the end of the route, had seen nothing. He turned back, thought about walking down the other side of the street, but that felt wrong.
”
”
John Sandford (Extreme Prey (Lucas Davenport, #26))
“
Vous vous rendez compte, quelle vie cette vie. Vous vous rendez compte, quel monde ce monde," Mais oui, je me rends compte. Je ne fais que ça, me rendre compte et en rendre compte. C'est bien ce que je souhaite. J'ai souvent recontré, au cours de ces années, ce même regard d'étonnement absolu qu'a eu ce viellard qui allait mourir, juste avant de mourir. J'avoue, d'ailleurs, n'avoir jamais bien compris pourquoi tant de types s'étonnaient tellement, Peut-être parce que j'ai une plus longue habitude de la mort sur les routes, des foules en marche sur les routes, avec la mort aux trousses. Peut-être que je n'arrive pas à m'étoner parce que je ne vois que ça, depuis juillet 1936. Ils m'énervent, souvent, tous ces étonnés. Ils reviennent de l'interrogatoire, éberlués. "Vous vous rendez compte, ils m'ont tabassé. -- Mais que voulez-vous qu'ils fassent, nom de dieu? Vous ne saviez donc pas que ce sont des nazis?" Ils hochaient la tête, ils ne savaient pas très bien ce qu'il leur arrivait. "Mais bon dieu, vous ne saviez pas à qui nous avons affaire?" Ils m'énervent souvent, ces éberlués. Peut-être parce que j'ai vu les avions de chasse italiens et allemands survoler les routes à basse altitude et mitrailler la foule, bien tranquillement, sur les routes de mon pays. À moi cetter charrette avex la femme en noir et le bébé qui pleure. À moi ce bourricot et la gran-mère sur le bourricot. À toi cette fiancée de neige et de feu qui marche comme une princesse sur la route brûlante. Peut-être qui'ils m'énervent, tous ces étonnés, à cause des villages en marche sur les routes de mon pays, fuyant ces mêmes S.S., our leurs semblables, leurs frères. Ainsi, à cette question: "Vous vous rendez compte?" j'ai une réponse toute faite, comme dirairt le gars de Semur. Mais oui, je me rends compte, je ne fais que ça. Je me rends compte et j'essaie d'en rendre compte, tel est mon propos.
”
”
Jorge Semprún (The Long Voyage)
“
However long our march home will be, we have just taken the first big step on the route, and we will keep putting one foot in front of the other, because that’s what humans do. Even when the odds against us are stacked up sky-high, we are terrible at sitting down and giving up.
”
”
Marko Kloos (Centers of Gravity (Frontlines, #8))
“
In 1920, Mary McLeod Bethune, an American educator, stateswoman, philanthropist, humanitarian, womanist, and civil-rights activist traveled through her home state of Florida to encourage women to vote, facing tremendous obstacles at every step along the route. The night before Election Day in November 1920, white-robed Klansmen marched into Bethune’s girls’ school to intimidate the women who had gathered there to get ready to vote, aiming to prevent them from voting even though they had managed to get their names on the voter rolls. Newspapers in Wilmington, Delaware, reported that the numbers of Black women who wanted to register to vote were “unusually large,” but they were turned away for their alleged failure to “comply with Constitutional tests” without any specification of what these tests were. The Birmingham Black newspaper Voice of the People noted that only half a dozen Black women had been registered to vote because the state had applied the same restrictive rules for voting to colored women that they applied to colored men.
”
”
Rafia Zakaria (Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption)
“
Liberté
Sur mes cahiers d'écolier
Sur mon pupitre et les arbres
Sur le sable de neige
J'écris ton nom
Sur toutes les pages lues
Sur toutes les pages blanches
Pierre sang papier ou cendre
J'écris ton nom
Sur les images dorées
Sur les armes des guerriers
Sur la couronne des rois
J'écris ton nom
Sur la jungle et le désert
Sur les nids sur les genêts
Sur l'écho de mon enfance
J'écris ton nom
Sur les merveilles des nuits
Sur le pain blanc des journées
Sur les saisons fiancées
J'écris ton nom
Sur tous mes chiffons d'azur
Sur l'étang soleil moisi
Sur le lac lune vivante
J'écris ton nom
Sur les champs sur l'horizon
Sur les ailes des oiseaux
Et sur le moulin des ombres
J'écris ton nom
Sur chaque bouffées d'aurore
Sur la mer sur les bateaux
Sur la montagne démente
J'écris ton nom
Sur la mousse des nuages
Sur les sueurs de l'orage
Sur la pluie épaisse et fade
J'écris ton nom
Sur les formes scintillantes
Sur les cloches des couleurs
Sur la vérité physique
J'écris ton nom
Sur les sentiers éveillés
Sur les routes déployées
Sur les places qui débordent
J'écris ton nom
Sur la lampe qui s'allume
Sur la lampe qui s'éteint
Sur mes raisons réunies
J'écris ton nom
Sur le fruit coupé en deux
Du miroir et de ma chambre
Sur mon lit coquille vide
J'écris ton nom
Sur mon chien gourmand et tendre
Sur ses oreilles dressées
Sur sa patte maladroite
J'écris ton nom
Sur le tremplin de ma porte
Sur les objets familiers
Sur le flot du feu béni
J'écris ton nom
Sur toute chair accordée
Sur le front de mes amis
Sur chaque main qui se tend
J'écris ton nom
Sur la vitre des surprises
Sur les lèvres attendries
Bien au-dessus du silence
J'écris ton nom
Sur mes refuges détruits
Sur mes phares écroulés
Sur les murs de mon ennui
J'écris ton nom
Sur l'absence sans désir
Sur la solitude nue
Sur les marches de la mort
J'écris ton nom
Sur la santé revenue
Sur le risque disparu
Sur l'espoir sans souvenir
J'écris ton nom
Et par le pouvoir d'un mot
Je recommence ma vie
Je suis né pour te connaître
Pour te nommer
Liberté
”
”
Paul Éluard
“
Ailleurs, on le pressait d'être un homme, bientôt un père, d'être ponctuel et de remplir ses objectifs. Toute la journée, il se sentait comme un outil, une chose à faire fonctionner. Et ce joug, il ne pouvait ni le nommer ni s'y soustraire. Mais une chose était sûre : c'était l'inverse de la jeunesse. Au moins au bistrot, il n'existait pas de feuille de route. La machine pour une heure suspendait sa marche. On lui foutait la paix.
”
”
Nicolas Mathieu (Connemara)
“
entered this place . . . obliged to continue my rout untill sometime after dark before I found a place sufficiently large to encamp my small party; at length such an one occurred on the lard. side. . . . from the singular appearance of this place I called it the gates of the rocky mountains.” In the morning, as the flotilla paddled its way out of the canyon, the mountains receded and a beautiful intermountain valley presented itself. But about 10:00 a.m., a distressing, worry-making sight appeared in the sky: a column of smoke, coming out of a creek drainage some seven miles west, big enough to have been deliberately set. It had to have been done by Indians, all but certainly Shoshone, and almost surely because a single Indian or a small party had heard the discharge of a rifle and set fire to the grass to warn the rest of the tribe to retreat into the interior of the mountains. That was about as bad as anything that could happen, but there was nothing to do but press on. The following day, the flotilla entered “a beautifull and extensive plain country of about 10 or 12 miles wide which extended upwards further than the eye could reach this valley is bounded by two nearly parallel ranges of high mountains which have their summits partially covered with snow.” • Lewis was within a couple of hours’ march from one of the great gold deposits, at Last Chance Gulch,
”
”
Stephen E. Ambrose (Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West)
“
Grieving for their future, men and women often took their own lives. Others died when they could not maintain the feverish pace of the march. While the mortality rate of slaves during the Second Middle Passage never approached that of the transatlantic transfer, it surpassed the death rate of those who remained in the seaboard states. Over time some of the hazards of the long march abated, as slave traders - intent on the safe delivery of a valuable commodity - standardized their routes and relied more on flatboats, steamboats, and eventually railroads for transportation. The largest traders established 'jails,' where slaves could be warehoused, inspected, rehabilitated if necessary, and auctioned, sometimes to minor traders who served as middlemen in the expanding transcontinental enterprise. But while the rationalization of the slave trade may have reduced the slaves' mortality rate, it did nothing to mitigate the essential brutality or the profound alienation that accompanied separation from the physical and social moorings of home and family.
...
[T]he Second Middle Passage was extraordinarily lonely, debilitating, and dispiriting. Capturing the mournful character of one southward marching coffle, an observer characterized it as 'a procession of men, women, and children resembling that of a funeral.' Indeed, with men and women dying on the march or being sold and resold, slaves became not merely commodified but cut off from nearly every human attachment. Surrendering to despair, many deportees had difficulties establishing friendships or even maintaining old ones. After a while, some simply resigned themselves to their fate, turned inward, and became reclusive, trying to protect a shred of humanity in a circumstance that denied it. Others exhibited a sort of manic glee, singing loudly and laughing conspicuously to compensate for the sad fate that had befallen them. Yet others fell into a deep depression and determined to march no further. Charles Ball, like others caught in the tide, 'longed to die, and escape from the bonds of my tormentors.'
But many who survived the transcontinental trek formed strong bonds of friendships akin to those forged by shipmates on the voyage across the Atlantic. Indeed, the Second Middle Passage itself became a site for remaking African-American society. Mutual trust became a basis of resistance, which began almost simultaneously with the long march. Waiting for their first opportunity and calculating their chances carefully, a few slaves broke free and turned on their enslavers. Murder and mayhem made the Second Middle Passage almost as dangerous for traders as it was for slaves, which was why the men were chained tightly and guarded closely.
”
”
Ira Berlin (Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves)
“
My espionage travels took me once around the world, to all of the continents except Australia, over most of the great mountain ranges and across most of the great rivers. At various times I followed the routes of Captain Cook, Sinbad the Sailor, T.E. Lawrence, Magellan, Vasco da Gama, Marshal Lyautey, and Admiral Livy.
In telling some of the stories of those years, I plead the precedent of the Author of the Old Testament in being security minded, and I hope to be excused for leaving a number of things untold and a number unexplained.
Rome,
March 1953.
”
”
Donald Downes (The Scarlet Thread: Adventures in Wartime Espionage)
“
The door slapped shut, sound echoing as Derek marched across the yard, dead on target.
I looked around, desperate for an escape route, but there was none. Go forward and deal with Derek, or run back toward Simon and have to deal with both of them. I kept walking.
"Where's Simon?" he snapped.
Relief washed through me. I didn't trust myself to speak, so I just pointed back to the woods.
"He left you? Out here? At night?"
"He dropped something," I mumbled, trying to get past him. "He isn't far."
Without a sound, he was right in front of me, blocking my path
"You're crying?" he said.
"No, I—" I tore my gaze away. "Just dust. From the path. Simon's that way."
I tried to pass him, but he stooped, trying to get a look at my face. When i wouldn't let him, he caught my chin. I jerked back, flinching at his touch, heart thudding at it, too.
I told myself Simon was wrong. I'd never be dumb enough to fall for Derek. But I had. With him so close, my stomach kept doing weird little flips. It wasn't fear. It hadn't been fear for a while.
"You've have been crying," he said, voice softer. Then his breath caught, the growl coming back as he snapped, "What did Simon—?" He bit off the words, cheeks reddening like he was embarrassed even to think Simon might be responsible.
”
”
Kelley Armstrong (The Reckoning (Darkest Powers, #3))
“
Before setting off for Jaure, Medendorp radioed regimental headquarters. Using the code words that the regiment had established for the villages along the route, which the men had named after cities in Michigan, Medendorp informed Colonel Quinn that Keast would remain in Laruni. “Starting for Holland,” Medendorp said, referring to Jaure by its code name. “Keast has bad knee. He is staying at Coldwater (Laruni) with fifty men. Received supplies.
”
”
James Campbell (The Ghost Mountain Boys: Their Epic March and the Terrifying Battle for New Guinea--The Forgotten War of the South Pacific)
“
Fortune draws her breath through cracks that make coarse the route on which we march to success
”
”
Agona Apell (The Success Genome Unravelled: Turning men from rot to rock)
“
Leaving the Connecticut River
March 8, 1704
Temperature 40 degrees
Mercy herself was so hungry, she was faint. Tannhahorens would despise her for it. She tried to keep her feet from weaving and her tears from falling, but she could not.
Tannhahorens took her hands and cupped them. Then he removed a small deerskin pouch from his belt and into her cupped hands poured dust. He licked his empty palm and lifted his chin at her to indicate that she was to do the same. Hesitantly, Mercy licked the dust.
It was parched corn, ground almost to the point of flour. It had a salty, burned taste. It surprised her, and she shuddered, but immediately she wanted more and took a second lick. It was good. It was even filling.
She glanced at the sky. The temperature was dropping. It would snow tonight. Three hundred people would have gone a dozen different routes, and by dawn, their tracks would be eaten by the snow, dusted by the wind.
”
”
Caroline B. Cooney (The Ransom of Mercy Carter)
“
April 9 MORNING “And there followed Him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented Him.” — Luke 23:27 AMID the rabble rout which hounded the Redeemer to His doom, there were some gracious souls whose bitter anguish sought vent in wailing and lamentations — fit music to accompany that march of woe. When my soul can, in imagination, see the Saviour bearing His cross to Calvary, she joins the godly women and weeps with them; for, indeed, there is true cause for grief — cause lying deeper than those mourning women thought. They bewailed innocence maltreated, goodness persecuted, love bleeding, meekness about to die; but my heart has a deeper and more bitter cause to mourn. My sins were the scourges which lacerated those blessed shoulders, and crowned with thorn those bleeding brows: my sins cried “Crucify Him! crucify Him!” and laid the cross upon His gracious shoulders. His being led forth to die is sorrow enough for one eternity: but my having been His murderer, is more, infinitely more, grief than one poor fountain of tears can express. Why those women loved and wept it were not hard to guess: but they could not have had greater reasons for love and grief than my heart has. Nain’s widow saw her son restored — but I myself have been raised to newness of life. Peter’s wife’s mother was cured of the fever — but I of the greater plague of sin. Out of Magdalene seven devils were cast — but a whole legion out of me. Mary and Martha were favoured with visits — but He dwells with me. His mother bare His body — but He is formed in me the hope of glory. In nothing behind the holy women in debt, let me not be behind them in gratitude or sorrow. “Love and grief my heart dividing, With my tears His feet I’ll lave — Constant still in heart abiding, Weep for Him who died to save.
”
”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Morning and Evening—Classic KJV Edition: A Devotional Classic for Daily Encouragement)
“
At dawn I had the assembly beaten; at broad daylight I had the drummers beat to arms, and started once more on our route, telling them that the Emperor was going to have all the deserters arrested. I marched until noon, and, as we emerged from a wood, I came upon a herd of cows grazing in a meadow. My soldiers immediately took their bowls, and went off to milk the cows, and we had to wait for them. When the evening came, they would camp before nightfall, and every time we came across any cows, we had to stop. It may be imagined that this was not much fun for me. At
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Jean-Roch Coignet (Notebooks of Captain Coignet)
“
One can reach this same conclusion by a different route (bypassing the intermarriage rates entirely). A Los Angeles Times poll of American Jews conducted in March 1998 asked a simple question: Are you raising your children as Jews? Only 70% said yes. A population in which the biological replacement rate is 80% and the cultural replacement rate is 70% is headed for extinction. By this calculation, every 100 Jews are raising 56 Jewish children. In just two generations, 7 out of every 10 Jews will vanish
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Charles Krauthammer (Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes, and Politics)
“
Magazine Street was a sea of green. Piper reveled in the pleasure and satisfaction of having finished the scene in her first feature film as she made her way through the crowds and watched the floats decorated by New Orleans marching clubs. The float riders threw carrots, potatoes, moon pies, and beads to the onlookers gathered on the sidewalk. Pets joined in the festivities as well, sporting leprechaun attire and green-tinted fur.
Under a bright sun and a clear blue sky, families and friends were gathered for the opportunity to celebrate one of the biggest street parties of the year. Some set up ladders along the parade route, climbing atop for the best views. Others scaled trees and found perches among the branches.
"Hey, mister, throw me something!" yelled a man next to Piper.
Waving hands rose in the air as a head of cabbage came hurtling from the float. Everyone in the crowd lunged for it. The person who snagged it was roundly congratulated for the catch.
"What's with the cabbage?" Piper asked the man standing next to her.
"They aren't supposed to throw them, just hand them out. Somebody could get hurt by one of those things." The man shrugged. "But the tradition is to cook them for dinner on St. Patrick's Day night.
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Mary Jane Clark (That Old Black Magic (Wedding Cake Mystery, #4))
“
La transpiration de l’âme
Côtoyer les arbres et leur mémoire, le vent et les tempêtes, les lumières et les ombres, puis les sons convaincants simplement pour me nourrir.
Je marche sans mesure et sans intention.
Ces errances m’offrent toujours cette conscience d’exister.
Sans rien attendre, je continue.
Les chemins et les routes me déplaisent.
C’est là-bas, au fond de la forêt que je souhaite dessiner.
Ce dessin, ce grand dessin sera offert au vent, au soleil, à l’hiver comme aux parfum des saisons pour plusieurs années.
Ce dessin comme une lettre, une missive sans destinataire, déposée là, au milieu des arbres immenses.
De mes errements et de mes hésitations vont surgir des formes des images.
Je ne garderai de ces traces que quelques bonheurs, des signaux, des sentiments profonds.
Les moments les plus riches sont ceux qui m’échappent, ceux que je découvre.
Le dessin et la peinture sont issus de cette transpiration de l’âme.
(Charles Belle, le 22 février 2022)
”
”
MBA Besançon (Charles Belle)
“
STEP 1. Identify the system’s bottlenecks.
(After all it wasn’t too difficult to identify the oven and the NCX10 as the bottlenecks of the plant.) STEP 2. Decide how to exploit the bottlenecks.
(That was fun. Realizing that those machines should not take a lunch break, etc.) STEP 3. Subordinate everything else to the above decision. (Making sure that everything marches to the tune of the constraints. The red and green tags.) STEP 4. Elevate the system’s bottlenecks.
(Bringing back the old Zmegma, switching back to old, less “effective” routings. . . .) STEP 5. If, in a previous step, a bottleneck has been broken go back to step 1.
”
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Eliyahu M. Goldratt (The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement)
“
Among Morgan’s many “loads” at the time was a scheme to create a huge international shipping syndicate that could stabilize trade and yield huge returns from the lucrative transatlantic routes. By June of 1902 he had purchased Britain’s prestigious White Star Line for $32 million and combined it with other shipping acquisitions to form a trust called the International Mercantile Marine. In 1904 Morgan installed White Star Line’s largest shareholder, forty-one-year-old J. Bruce Ismay, son of the line’s late founder, as president of the IMM. The second-largest shareholder was Lord William J. Pirrie, the chairman of Harland and Wolff, the Belfast shipbuilders responsible for the construction of White Star’s ships. Pirrie had been the chief negotiator with Morgan’s men and was placed on the board of the new trust. The British government had acceded to Morgan’s flexing of American financial muscle in the acquisition of White Star but had also provided loans and subsidies to the rival Cunard Line for the building of the world’s largest, fastest liners, Lusitania and Mauretania—with the proviso that they be available for wartime service. By the summer of 1907, the Lusitania had made its record-breaking maiden voyage, and Pirrie and Ismay soon hatched White Star’s response. They would use Morgan’s money to build three of the world’s biggest and most luxurious liners. Within a year Harland and Wolff had drawn up plans for two giant ships, and by mid-December the keel plate for the first liner, the Olympic, had been laid. On March 31, 1909, the same was done for a sister ship, to be called Titanic. A third, named Britannic, was to be built later.
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Hugh Brewster (Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World)
“
As William scoured England and Roger besieged Palermo, Emperor Romanos IV was marching out to fight Alp Arslan, the Seljuk sultan, who was making advances into today’s Anatolia, the beginning of its transformation into a Turkish heartland. But Arslan’s chief war was against the Fatimiyya caliphs, so he renewed an earlier treaty with Romanos, then headed southwards into Syria. But, provoked by Seljuk raids, the emperor advanced with a disorganized army of Varangians, Pechenegs and Anglo-Saxons. Arslan headed north but offered a generous peace which Romanos impulsively rejected. At Manzikert, on 26 August 1071, unwisely dividing his army and feuding with his generals, Romanos was routed.[*5] Arslan made him bow low, resting his boot on the imperial neck, but then he raised him to his feet, asking, ‘What would you do if I were brought before you as a prisoner?’ ‘Perhaps I’d kill you,’ replied Romanos, ‘or exhibit you in the streets of Constantinople.’ ‘My punishment is far heavier,’ said Arslan. ‘I forgive you, and set you free.
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”
Simon Sebag Montefiore (The World: A Family History of Humanity)
“
ÉPILOGUE
LOUIS. — Après, ce que je fais,
je pars.
Je ne reviens plus jamais. Je meurs quelques mois plus tard,
une année tout au plus.
Une chose dont je me souviens et que je raconte encore
(après j’en aurai fini) :
c’est l’été, c’est pendant ces années où je suis absent,
c’est dans le Sud de la France.
Parce que je me suis perdu, la nuit, dans la montagne, je décide de marcher
le long de la voie ferrée.
Elle m’évitera les méandres de la route, le chemin sera plus court et je sais
qu’elle passe près de la maison où je vis.
La nuit, aucun train n’y circule, je n’y risque rien
et c’est ainsi que je me retrouverai.
À un moment, je suis à l’entrée d’un viaduc immense,
il domine la vallée que je devine sous la lune,
et je marche seul dans la nuit,
à égale distance du ciel et de la terre.
Ce que je pense
(et c’est cela que je voulais dire)
c’est que je devrais pousser un grand et beau cri,
un long et joyeux cri qui résonnerait dans toute la vallée,
que c’est ce bonheur-là que je devrais m’offrir,
hurler une bonne fois,
mais je ne le fais pas,
je ne l’ai pas fait.
Je me remets en route avec seul le bruit de mes pas sur le gravier.
Ce sont des oublis comme celui-là que je regretterai.
”
”
Jean-Luc Lagarce (Juste la fin du monde)
“
It’s tempting to turn Clarke into a caricature or intellectual straw man: an easy grab in an attempt to show the ridiculous sexism inherent in Victorian ideology. Nevertheless, his theories became pervasive in American thought and defined expectations about access to wilderness for generations. Multiple outdoor organizations prohibited female membership, for example, including the influential hiking group the White Mountain Club. The club’s founder, John M. Gould, was a bank clerk and amateur Civil War historian. In his How to Camp Out, first published in 1877, Gould advised young men to view their expeditions as regimental exercises: hikes were best considered “marches”; male camping pals were instructed to form “companies” with clear duties and timetables. Most marches, he warned, would be too difficult for ladies, particularly if routes included loose rocks or tangles of low-growing trees. And because women ought not stray far from home, sites where they might camp must be chosen accordingly. Any overnight locations should be such that stoves could be delivered to make women more comfortable, along with discarded doors that women could stand upon while dressing. Sleeping outside was out of the question during any kind of precipitation; instead, schoolhouses or sawmills should be located as shelter.
”
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Kathryn Miles (Trailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders)
“
un homme de vingt ans peut avoir plus vécu qu'une femme de trente. La liberté dont les hommes jouissent les mène bien plus vite au fond de toutes choses ; ils courent sans entraves vers tout ce qui les attire ; ils essayent de tout. Dès qu'ils espèrent, ils se mettent en marche, ils vont, ils s'empressent. Arrivés au but, ils se retournent ; l'espérance est restée en route, et le bonheur a manqué de parole. »
”
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Alfred de Musset (Œuvres complètes - 78 titres)
“
In 2003, Oakland police infiltrated an anti-police-brutality organization and played an active role in planning and coordinating events, including the route of a march. This represents a fundamental conflict of interest and abuse of police power and crosses the line from passive observation into active manipulation. The impropriety is compounded by the fact that the target of these demonstrations was the police themselves.
”
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Alex S. Vitale (The End of Policing)
“
It wasn’t too long before the process was written clearly on the board: STEP 1. Identify the system’s bottlenecks.
(After all it wasn’t too difficult to identify the oven and the NCX10 as the bottlenecks of the plant.) STEP 2. Decide how to exploit the bottlenecks.
(That was fun. Realizing that those machines should not take a lunch break, etc.) STEP 3. Subordinate everything else to the above decision. (Making sure that everything marches to the tune of the constraints. The red and green tags.) STEP 4. Elevate the system’s bottlenecks.
(Bringing back the old Zmegma, switching back to old, less “effective” routings. . . .) STEP 5. If, in a previous step, a bottleneck has been broken go back to step 1.
”
”
Eliyahu M. Goldratt (The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement)
“
You’ve heard the call: We have to do something. We need to fight. We need to identify the enemy and go after them. Some respond, march, and chant. Some look away, deny what’s happening, and search out escape routes into imaginary tomorrows: a life off the grid, space colonies, immortality in paradise, explicit denial, or consumer satiety in a wireless, robot-staffed, 3D-printed techno-utopia. Meanwhile, the rich take shelter in their fortresses, trusting to their air conditioning, private schools, and well-paid guards. Fight. Flight. Flight. Fight. The threat of death activates our deepest animal drives.
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Roy Scranton (Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization (City Lights Open Media))
“
At a moment in history somebody says, “I was there.” I wasn’t. They were marching down to the Arc de Triomphe and I didn’t know it. All I knew is I wanted some perfume and scarves. I went to the Galerie Lafayette, a great department store. Nobody was on the street. We walked through the store, wearing boots, with the .45s on the hip and wearin’ a helmet. Great. Out from behind the counters came all those little French girls. They followed us: “Ohhh! Marvelous Américain.” We bought scarves and all of a sudden someone said, in broken English, they are firing on the Place de la Concorde. The diehards were in the eaves of the building sniping at the parade. They had to rout ’em out. But I wasn’t there. I didn’t see the parade. I wasn’t on the Place de la Concorde at this marvelous moment in history. I was in the goddamn Galerie Lafayette buying perfume and scarves. Shit.
”
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Studs Terkel (The Good War: An Oral History of World War II)
“
C’est moi. Réveille-toi. Debout. Viens ! J’ai besoin des craquements de tes vingt ans. J’ai besoin de ta main dans la mienne. Sois-moi complice. Lève-toi.
J’ai besoin de marcher avec toi dans la nuit. Ardemment. Marcher en silence en bousculant des formes, des vents, des ruades de parfums, des clartés qui passent. Marcher longtemps, le cœur en marche. Les dents serrées. Les routes et les pierres et les arbres. Et le cœur en marche dans la nuit. Le cœur dans la gorge et les dents serrées.
”
”
Bernard Manciet
“
Les militants de la grève n'ont pas surgi de nulle part. Depuis la vague altermondialiste du début des années 2000, on assiste au Québec à une consolidation de l'opposition aux politiques économiques et sociales de droite. Le printemps 2012 doit être compris comme une étape de ce processus: du Sommet des Amériques (2001) à la fondation de Québec solidaire (2006), de la fondation de l'Institut de recherche et d'information socio-économique (2001) à la grève étudiante de 2005, en passant par la mobilisation contre les gaz de schiste (2010), un autre Québec est en marche depuis un certain temps déjà. La route que nous suivons est longue, et il se peut même qu'à l'instar des chemins forestiers, elle ne mène nulle part. Une chose est certaine toutefois: si on reste sur le bord du chemin, on n'ira pas loin.
”
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Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois (Tenir tête)
“
I oughtn’t to have eaten so much,” Richard groaned, laying a hand on his slim midsection. “Not when I am not marching to burn it off.” “You might march, if you wish,” Darcy remarked, from his seat in the corner. “Rise with the rooster and plot a route around the grounds. I shall give Georgiana leave to heckle you, if you are missing regimental life so sorely.” Richard grinned. “Thank you, no. I have been on the receiving end of Georgiana’s heckling before and she is a crueller drill-sergeant than any who wears colours. No, I shall embark on some easier exercise, I think. Perhaps a ride.
”
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Meg Osborne (Mr Darcy's Summer Surprise: A Pride and Prejudice Variation (Pride and Prejudice Variation Novella Book 5))