Sand Dollars Quotes

Just tell me, Percy, do you still have the birthday gift I gave you last summer?" I nodded and pulled out my camp necklace. It had a bead for every summer I'd been at Camp Half-Blood, but since last year I'd also kept a sand dollar on the cord. My father had given it to me for my fifteenth birthday. He'd told me I would know when to "spend it," but so far I hadn't figured out what he meant. All I knew that it didn't fit the vending machines in the school cafeteria.

If someday you should ever think of me and miss me, know in your heart that I'd want you to find me once again. No matter how distant in time or space... FIND ME.

That whole week, we started to divide things into those two categories: anything or something. A piece of jewelry bougth at a department store: anything. A piece of jewelry made by hand: something. A dollar: anything. A sand dollar: something. A gift certificate: anything. An IOU for two hours of starwatching: something. A drunk kiss at a party: anything. A sober kiss alone in a park: something.

I...asked why purebloods despised me so. He replied, 'What if the difference between social strata stem not from genomics or inherent xcellence or even dollars, but merely differences in knowledge? Would this not mean the whole Pyramid is built on shifting sands?... fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror

The time to quit is before you wish you had.

With peaks of joy and valleys of heartache, life is a roller coaster ride, the rise and fall of which defines our journey. It is both scary and exciting at the same time.

I got to my feet and brushed sand off the seat of my pants. 'How about you sell me the 'Stang for thirty dollars? I can even pay cash.' He laughed, slinging his arm around my shoulders. 'Drunk, but not that drunk, Grey.

The lesson learned: never take your loved ones for granted. And if you're ever lucky enough to find that one person in life who makes you love more than any other person could possible make you love, you treat every day together as if it were your last. You cherish every moment.

I lean across his body and lift his hand for inspection. As i run my fingertips over his broken skin, careful not to cause more pain, I say "I meant you blowfish. Your bones." His hand trembles a little in mine. Somehow that rattles me more then anything else. I could deal with losing my fantasy Brody more then i can face a very real, trembling Quince. "No," He whispers. "I pulled my punches." Then, with some of his usual humor, he adds, "Principal Brown already thinks I'm one step away from juvie. Don't need to put myself there." I look up ready to argue, when a lumpy spot in his heather gray t-shirt catches my eye. Lifting my fingers to the place just beneath his collarbone, I'm both surprised and not to feel a sand-dollar shaped object. My gaze continues the journey up to his. "Your still wearing it." We both know it's not a question, just like we both seem to have lost the ability to breathe. A whole sea of emotions washes though his eyes-fear,anger, pain, trust, love. Love. It's when i see that last one that i close my eyes. He whispers, "Always.

Perhaps you know someone whose heart clutches onto the bittersweet memory of the one who got away. Someone who secretly bears the weight of this imperceptible burden wherever he or she goes, every day of his or her life. Someone who’d gladly travel back in a time machine to a day when paths diverged, to mend together that which has been torn apart, setting destiny back on its rightful track — if only he or she could. Perhaps you know this someone better than you think. And should this someone happen to be you, may you find strength and support in the millions of others who shoulder this burden with you, and may you be reintroduced one day to true love… in this lifetime and whatever comes after.

Molecules never die, I thought. Hadn’t they told us that in chemistry? Hadn’t they said a molecule of Julius Caesar’s dying breath was, statistically speaking, in every breath we took? Same with Lincoln. Or our grandparents. Molecules exchanging and mingling, on and on. Particles that had once been others and now moved through us. “Evie!” said Jack. “Look! I found a sand dollar!” That was the sad thing about my molecules: they wouldn’t remember him.

Have you ever thought that if one thing hadn't happened, a whole set of things never would have either? Like dominoes in time, a single event kicked off an unstoppable series of changes that gained momentum and spun out of control, and nothing was ever the same again. Don't ever doubt that a mere second can change your life forever.

Oh, and one more thing: if I try something that I've never done before, something that's particularly difficult for me, and it doesn't work out, that doesn't make it a failure. The fact that I actually succeeded in finishing it makes it a huge success. Think of all the people that never even try.

They see her lips moving when she is all alone and they may think that she is muttering crazy, witchy thoughtd, but I know that she is singing.

As I lay there watching Robin sleep beside me, I realized that she was right all along. I didn’t need to live in a castle — a shack in the woods with her would do just fine. And for that matter, I didn’t need to be prince of the ocean either, because with her by my side… I was king of the pond.

Soraya-joon, I have done all that I could. Do not be sorry for us. Your mother and I await you upon your return. We love you more than we have loved life. After your dear brother name your first son. Live here if you like, but if you sell it take no less than one hundred thousand dollars. ~Bawbaw

Everything's ruined, our lives around our lands are ruined, our water, the air, everything. Their almighty dollar comes first. That's pretty sad. You can't eat money. At the cost of our lives-as long as they get their money. They don't care how many of us they kill off.

I wonder if all mothers feel like this the moment they realize their daughters are growing up- as if it is impossible to believe that the laundry I once folded for her was doll-sized; as if I can still see her dancing in lazy pirouettes along the lip of the sandbox. Wasn't it yesterday that her hand was only as big as the sand dollar she found on the beach? That same hand, the one that's holding a boy's; wasn't it just holding mine, tugging so that I might stop and see the spiderweb, the milkweed pod, any of a thousand moments she wanted me to freeze? Time is an optical illusion- never quite as solid or strong as we think it is. You would assume that, given everything, I saw this coming. But watching Kate watch this boy, I see I have a thousand things to learn.

...and in the summer we would line up three sand dollars John and I had found on our second date when we walked along the ocean holding hands, both of us taut with the knowledge the we had found The One- though neither of us admitted it until much later. It was the same beach where I scattered his ashes. It is good we don't know our own futures.

What if the differences between social strata stem not from genomics or inherent xcellence or even dollars, but merely differences in knowledge? Would this not mean the whole Pyramid is built on shifting sands?" I speculated such a suggestion could be seen as a serious deviancy. Melphi seemed delited. "Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror." I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves. Melphi relplied, "History suggests, not until they are made to.

As Robin thought about what he had just said, Noah got up from the chair and knelt down in front of her. 'How about I give you three reasons? Morning, day, and night.' She narrowed her eyes. 'Stay… so every morning when I open my eyes, you’ll be the first thing I see. Stay… so every day when I’m with you, I can show you all over again exactly how much you mean to me. And stay… so every night when you lay your head down next to mine, you’ll know… you’ll know just how much you’re loved.' Her eyes drifted to the water as she thought for a moment, returning to look deep into Noah’s eyes. 'Okay, Noah… I’ll stay.

You remember?' he said incredulously. 'What could you possibly remember?' he asked, staring at her, waiting for the answer. The beauty from within her soul shined brightly through her loving eyes as she looked deep into Noah’s now melting eyes. 'I remember — I love you,' she said in a soft voice, nervously biting her lip.

The day before a cinema trip, I spent 400 Hong Kong dollars on a Jo Malone candle because I could imagine lighting it with her in the flat. For her, I'd burn a candle worth four hours' pay to me, i.e. one-sixth of a day, thinking: the other five-sixths are there, too, if you want them. It would glow purple against her face and her cheekbones would ridge like sand ripples.

The grime was no man’s grime but death and human locomotives, all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black mis’ry, that sooty hand or phallus or protuberance of artificial worse-than-dirt—industrial—modern—all that civilization spotting your crazy golden crown— and those blear thoughts of death and dusty loveless eyes and ends and withered roots below, in the home-pile of sand and sawdust, rubber dollar bills, skin of machinery, the guts and innards of the weeping coughing car, the empty lonely tincans with their rusty tongues alack, what more could I name, the smoked ashes of some cock cigar, the cunts of wheelbarrows and the milky breasts of cars, wornout asses out of chairs & sphincters of dynamos—all these entangled in your mummied roots—and you there standing before me in the sunset, all your glory in your form!

Joke: What did the seahorse say when the sand dollar landed on his back in the rip current? "Hi-yo Silver! Swim-away!" :)

One foot in front of the other,' Lee murmured. 'One sand dollar and then another.

Thank you for inviting me here today " I said my voice sounding nothing like me. "I'm here to testify about things I've seen and experienced myself. I'm here because the human race has become more powerful than ever. We've gone to the moon. Our crops resist diseases and pests. We can stop and restart a human heart. And we've harvested vast amounts of energy for everything from night-lights to enormous super-jets. We've even created new kinds of people, like me. "But everything mankind" - I frowned - "personkind has accomplished has had a price. One that we're all gonna have to pay." I heard coughing and shifting in the audience. I looked down at my notes and all the little black words blurred together on the page. I just could not get through this. I put the speech down picked up the microphone and came out from behind the podium. "Look " I said. "There's a lot of official stuff I could quote and put up on the screen with PowerPoint. But what you need to know what the world needs to know is that we're really destroying the earth in a bigger and more catastrophic was than anyone has ever imagined. "I mean I've seen a lot of the world the only world we have. There are so many awesome beautiful tings in it. Waterfalls and mountains thermal pools surrounded by sand like white sugar. Field and field of wildflowers. Places where the ocean crashes up against a mountainside like it's done for hundreds of thousands of years. "I've also seen concrete cities with hardly any green. And rivers whose pretty rainbow surfaces came from an oil leak upstream. Animals are becoming extinct right now in my lifetime. Just recently I went through one of the worst hurricanes ever recorded. It was a whole lot worse because of huge worldwide climatic changes caused by... us. We the people." .... "A more perfect union While huge corporations do whatever they want to whoever they want and other people live in subway tunnels Where's the justice of that Kids right here in America go to be hungry every night while other people get four-hundred-dollar haircuts. Promote the general welfare Where's the General welfare in strip-mining toxic pesticides industrial solvents being dumped into rivers killing everything Domestic Tranquility Ever sleep in a forest that's being clear-cut You'd be hearing chain saws in your head for weeks. The blessings of liberty Yes. I'm using one of the blessings of liberty right now my freedom of speech to tell you guys who make the laws that the very ground you stand on the house you live in the children you tuck in at night are all in immediate catastrophic danger.

The Bahamas should be positioning itself as a key strategic link in the global supply chain and the global movement of resources. We have a variety of strategic advantages along these lines, that if leveraged will allow us to add value to global commerce in very unique ways and then profit from the value we add collectively as a people.

However, at the end of the night I saw Nick stomping out to the car park, obviously in a terrible mood. They take their lives so seriously, these young people. “Just appreciate the fact that you can stomp so energetically,” I wanted to say to him. I’d pay a million dollars to be Alice and Elisabeth’s age again for just one day. I’d dance like Olivia’s butterfly and bite into crisp green apples and run across hot sand into the surf, and I’d walk, as far as I wanted, wherever I wanted, in big loping, leaping strides, with my head held high and my lungs filling with air.

In a windowless nook of a downtown Roanoke funeral parlor, not far from where Tess once roamed the streets, Patricia caressed the back of the scar, as if cupping a baby's head, and told her poet goodbye. It was January 2, Tess's birthday. She would have been twenty-nine. Patricia tucked the treasures of her daughter's life inside the vest--a picture of her boy and one of his cotton onesies that was Tess's favorite, some strands of Koda's hair, and a sand dollar.

Her kiss is hungry, as if long deprived. As if they didn’t already spend the morning doing just exactly this, making up for the lost time they were apart. Triton’s trident, I could do this all day. Then he catches himself. No, I couldn’t. Not without wanting more. Which is why we need to stop. Instead, he entwines his hands in her hair, and she teases his lips with her tongue, trying to get him to fully open his mouth to her. He gladly complies. Her fingers sneak their way under his shirt, up his stomach, sending a trail of fire to his chest. He is about to lose his shirt altogether. Until Antonis’s voice booms from the doorway. “Extract yourself from Prince Galen, Emma,” he says. “You two are not mated. This behavior is inappropriate for any Syrena, let alone a Royal.” Emma’s eyes go round as sand dollars. He can tell she’s not sure what to think about her grandfather telling her what to do. Or maybe she’s caught off guard that he called her a Royal. Either way, like most people, Emma decides to obey. Galen does, too. They stand up side by side, not daring to be close enough to touch. They behold King Antonis in a polka-dot bathrobe, and though he’s the one who looks silly, they are the ones who look shamed. Galen feels like a fingerling again. “I apologize, Highness,” he says. It seems like all he does lately is apologize to the Poseidon king. “It was my fault.” Antonis gives him a reproving look. “I like you, young prince. But you well know the law. Do not disappoint me, Galen. My granddaughter is deserving of a proper mating ceremony.” Galen can’t meet his eyes. He’s right. I shouldn’t be flirting with temptation like this. With the Archives on their way-or possibly here already-there is a distant but small chance that he and Emma can still live within the confines of the law. That they can still live as mates under the Syrena tradition. And he almost just blew it. What if it had gone too far? Then his mating with Emma would forever be blemished by breaking the law. “It won’t happen again, Highness.” Not until we’re mated, anyway. “Um. Did you just promise not to kiss me ever again?” Emma whispers. “Can we talk about this later? The Archives are obviously here, angelfish.” She’s on the verge of a fit, he can tell. “He’s just looking out for us,” Galen says quickly. “I agree, we need to respect the law-“ At this her fit subsides as if it was never there. She smiles wide at him. He can’t decide if it’s genuine, or if it’s the kind of smile she gives him when he’ll pay for something later. “Okay, Galen.” “Galen, Emma,” Nalia calls from the dining room, saving him from making a fool of himself. “Everyone is here.” Emma gives him a look that clearly says, “We’re so not done with this conversation.” Then she turns and walks away. Galen takes a second to regain a little bit of composure-which kissing Emma tends to steal from him. Then there’s the mortification of being interrupted by-Get it together, idiot.

I wasn’t perfect, and I made mistakes; but I learned from them and became a better person for it. I always followed my heart. And most of all, I loved — with every ounce of my being. I guess you could say the greatest love story ever written isn’t confined to the pages of a book. It’s in our lives; and we’re the ones who write it. So that’s what life’s all about, isn’t it? Why we’re here. It has nothing to do with dollars. In fact, it’s totally free. Life’s greatest gift. And the best part is, the best part, this gift we give to others… we get it back. It’s what makes the journey so worthwhile… it’s LOVE.

When did people begin to wear clothing with writing on it? Was this not significant? I visit a beach resort. There is a fellow sitting on the sand and his T-shirt says in bold letters: "Tommy." Is he Tommy? Of course not. Tommy is Tommy Hilfiger, the designer who writes his name all over everything and people buy it. Kate Spade puts her name on a purse and it sells for several hundred dollars. Calvin Klein enhances your underwear with his name. ... Where did they get their strange power? What did they do to derange people so that they actually pay for the right to wear an advertisement for what they have just bought?

I wonder if all mothers feel like this the moment they realize their daughters are growing up—as if it is impossible to believe that the laundry I once folded for her was doll-sized; as if I can still see her dancing in lazy pirouettes along the lip of the sandbox. Wasn't it yesterday that her hand was only as big as the sand dollar she found on the beach? That same hand, the one that's holding a boy's; wasn't it just holding mine, tugging so that I might stop and see the spiderweb, the milkweed pod, any of a thousand moments she wanted me to freeze? Time is an optical illusion—never quite as solid or strong as we think it is.

You’re sure you want to do this,” Galen says, eyeing me like I’ve grown a tiara of snakes on my head. “Absolutely.” I unstrap the four-hundred-dollar silver heels and spike them into the sand. When he starts unraveling his tie, I throw out my hand. “No! Leave it. Leave everything on.” Galen frowns. “Rachel would kill us both. In our sleep. She would torture us first.” “This is our prom night. Rachel would want us to enjoy ourselves.” I pull the thousand-or-so bobby pins from my hair and toss them in the sand. Really, both of us are right. She would want us to be happy. But she would also want us to stay in our designer clothes. Leaning over, I shake my head like a wet dog, dispelling the magic of hairspray. Tossing my hair back, I look at Galen. His crooked smile almost melts me where I stand. I’m just glad to see a smile on his face at all. The last six months have been rough. “Your mother will want pictures,” he tells me. “And what will she do with pictures? There aren’t exactly picture frames in the Royal Caverns.” Mom’s decision to mate with Grom and live as his queen didn’t surprise me. After all, I am eighteen years old, an adult, and can take care of myself. Besides, she’s just a swim away. “She keeps picture frames at her house though. She could still enjoy them while she and Grom come to shore to-“ “Okay, ew. Don’t say it. That’s where I draw the line.” Galen laughs and takes off his shoes. I forget all about Mom and Grom. Galen, barefoot in the sand, wearing an Armani tux. What more could a girl ask for? “Don’t look at me like that, angelfish,” he says, his voice husky. “Disappointing your grandfather is the last thing I want to do.” My stomach cartwheels. Swallowing doesn’t help. “I can’t admire you, even from afar?” I can’t quite squeeze enough innocence in there to make it believable, to make it sound like I wasn’t thinking the same thing he was. Clearing his throat, he nods. “Let’s get on with this.” He closes the distance between us, making foot-size potholes with his stride. Grabbing my hand, he pulls me to the water. At the edge of the wet sand, just out of reach of the most ambitious wave, we stop. “You’re sure?” he says again. “More than sure,” I tell him, giddiness swimming through my veins like a sneaking eel. Images of the conference center downtown spring up in my mind. Red and white balloons, streamers, a loud, cheesy DJ yelling over the starting chorus of the next song. Kids grinding against one another on the dance floor to lure the chaperones’ attention away from a punch bowl just waiting to be spiked. Dresses spilling over with skin, matching corsages, awkward gaits due to six-inch heels. The prom Chloe and I dreamed of. But the memories I wanted to make at that prom died with Chloe. There could never be any joy in that prom without her. I couldn’t walk through those doors and not feel that something was missing. A big something. No, this is where I belong now. No balloons, no loud music, no loaded punch bowl. Just the quiet and the beach and Galen. This is my new prom. And for some reason, I think Chloe would approve.

We were partners in sewing. And partners in luck-hunting: four-leaf clovers, sand-dollar birds, red sea glass, clouds shaped like hearts, the first daffodils of spring, ladybugs, ladies in oversized hats. Best to bet on all the horses, dear, she’d say. Quick, make a wish, she’d say. I bet. I wished. I was her disciple. I still am.

There were books everywhere. There were pens, and a blue glass vase, an ash tray from the Dolder Grand in Zürich, the rusted arrow of a weather vane, a little brass hourglass, sand dollars on the windowsill, a pair of binoculars, and empty wine bottle that served as a candle holder, wax melted down the neck. I touch this thing and that. At the end, all that's left of you are your possessions.

That was true, Iris would sometimes think, about marriage: it was only a boat, too. A wooden boat, difficult to build, even more difficult to maintain, whose beauty derived at least in part from its unlikelihood. Long ago the pragmatic justifications for both marriage and wooden-boat building had been lost or superseded. Why invest countless hours, years, and dollars in planing and carving, gluing and fastening, caulking and fairing, when a fiberglass boat can be had at a fraction of the cost? Why struggle to maintain love and commitment over decades when there were far easier ways to live, ones that required no effort or attention to prevent corrosion and rot? Why continue to pour your heart into these obsolete arts? Because their beauty, the way they connect you to your history and to the living world, justifies your efforts. A long marriage, like a classic wooden boat, could be a thing of grace, but only if great effort was devoted to its maintenance. At first your notions of your life with another were no more substantial than a pattern laid down in plywood. Then year by year you constructed the frame around the form, and began layering memories, griefs, and small triumphs like strips of veneer planking bent around the hull of everyday routine. You sanded down the rough edges, patched the misunderstandings, faired the petty betrayals. Sometimes you sprung a leak. You fell apart in rough weather or were smashed on devouring rocks. But then, as now, in the teeth of a storm, when it seemed like all was lost, the timber swelled, the leak sealed up, and you found that your craft was, after all, sea-kindly.

I wonder if all mothers feel like this the moment they realize their daughters are growing up—as if it is impossible to believe that the laundry I once folded for her was doll-sized; as if I can still see her dancing in lazy pirouettes along the lip of the sandbox. Wasn’t it yesterday that her hand was only as big as the sand dollar she found on the beach? That same hand, the one that’s holding a boy’s; wasn’t it just holding mine, tugging so that I might stop and see the spiderweb, the milkweed pod, any of a thousand moments she wanted me to freeze? Time is an optical illusion—never quite as solid or strong as we think it is.

I’d pay a million dollars to be Alice and Elisabeth’s age again for just one day. I’d dance like Olivia’s butterfly and bite into crisp green apples and run across hot sand into the surf, and I’d walk, as far as I wanted, wherever I wanted, in big loping, leaping strides, with my head held high and my lungs filling with air. And I’d probably have sex!

Even the same exact work, like sanding floors, could be at the Dollar General or a movie star mansion. Show me your paycheck, I’ll make a guess which floor. If you are making a rich person happy, or a regular person feel rich, aka better than other people, the money rolls. If it’s lowlifes you’re looking after, not so much. And if it’s kids, good luck, because anything to do with improving the life of a child is on the bottom.

Finally Bill Mixter would lower his head, lay his bow upon the strings, and draw out the first notes of a tune, and the others would come in behind him. The music, while it lasted, brought a new world into being. They would play some tunes they had learned on the radio, but their knowledge was far older than that and they played too the music that was native to the place, or that the people of the place were native to. Just the names of the tunes were a kind of music; they cal l back the music to my mind still, after so many years: "Sand Riffle," "Last Gold Dollar," "Billy in the Low Ground," "Gate to Go Through," and a lot of others. "A fiddle, now, is an atmospheric thing," said Burley Coulter. The music was another element filling the room and pouring out through the cracks. When at last they'd had their fill and had gone away, the shop felt empty, the silence larger than before.

But it wasn't all bad. Sometimes things wasn't all bad. He used to come home easing into bed sometimes, not too drunk. I make out like I'm asleep, 'casue it's late, and he taken three dollars out of my pocketbook that morning or something. I hear him breathing, but I don't look around. I can see in my mind's eye his black arms thrown back behind his head, the muscles like a great big peach stones sanded down, with veins running like little swollen rivers down his arms. Without touching him I be feeling those ridges on the tips of my fingers. I sees the palms of his hands calloused to granite, and the long fingers curled up and still. I think about the thick, knotty hair on his chest, and the two big swells his breast muscles make. I want to rub my face hard in his chest and feel the hair cut my skin. I know just where the hair growth slacks out-just above his navel- and how it picks up again and spreads out. Maybe he'll shift a little, and his leg will touch me, or I feel his flank just graze my behind. I don't move even yet. Then he lift his head, turn over, and put his hand on my waist. If I don't move, he'll move his hand over to pull and knead my stomach. Soft and slow-like. I still don't move, because I don't want him to stop. I want to pretend sleep and have him keep rubbing my stomach. Then he will lean his head down and bite my tit. Then I don't want him to rub my stomach anymore. I want him to put his hand between my legs. I pretend to wake up, and turn to him, but not opening my legs. I want him to open them for me. He does, and I be soft and wet where his fingers are strong and hard. I be softer than I ever been before. All my strength in his hand. My brain curls up like wilted leaves. A funny, empty feeling is in my hands. I want to grab holt of something, so I hold his head. His mouth is under my chin. Then I don't want his hands between my legs no more, because I think I am softening away. I stretch my legs open, and he is on top of me. Too heavy to hold, too light not to. He puts his thing in me. In me. In me. I wrap my feet around his back so he can't get away. His face is next to mine. The bed springs sounds like them crickets used to back home. He puts his fingers in mine, and we stretches our arms outwise like Jesus on the cross. I hold tight. My fingers and my feet hold on tight, because everything else is going, going. I know he wants me to come first. But I can't. Not until he does. Not until I feel him loving me. Just me. Sinking into me. Not until I know that my flesh is all that be on his mind. That he couldnt stop if he had to. That he would die rather than take his thing our of me. Of me. Not until he has let go of all he has, and give it to me. To me. To me. When he does, I feel a power. I be strong, I be pretty, I be young. And then I wait. He shivers and tosses his head. Now I be strong enough, pretty enough, and young enough to let him make me come. I take my fingers out of his and put my hands on his behind. My legs drop back onto the bed. I don't make a noise, because the chil'ren might hear. I begin to feel those little bits of color floating up into me-deep in me. That streak of green from the june-bug light, the purple from the berries trickling along my thighs, Mama's lemonade yellow runs sweet in me. Then I feel like I'm laughing between my legs, and the laughing gets all mixed up with the colors, and I'm afraid I'll come, and afraid I won't. But I know I will. And I do. And it be rainbow all inside. And it lasts ad lasts and lasts. I want to thank him, but dont know how, so I pat him like you do a baby. He asks me if I'm all right. I say yes. He gets off me and lies down to sleep. I want to say something, but I don't. I don't want to take my mind offen the rainbow. I should get up and go to the toilet, but I don't. Besides Cholly is asleep with his leg thrown over me. I can't move and I don't want to.

morning to pour out the sugar and substitute salt, thinking it so hilarious until our father lost his temper and spanked us both. The two of us dancing on the Eden patio in my mother’s cast-off nightgowns. Playing mermaid on the beach or fairies on the bluffs. Later, all three of us moving like a school of fish, Josie and Dylan and me, swimming in the cove or making a bonfire or practicing calligraphy with fountain pens my mother brought back from some trip she took with my father during one of their happy stints, an interest bolstered by Dylan’s passion for all things Chinese. Like so many boys of the era, he’d fallen hard for Kwai Chang Caine in the Kung Fu television series. I adored them both, but my sister was first. Worshipped the very air she breathed. I would have done anything she told me—chased down bandits, built a ladder to the moon. In turn, she brought me sand dollars to examine and Pop-Tarts she stole from the pantry in the house kitchen, and she kept her arms around me all night. It was Dylan who introduced surfing. He taught us when I was seven and Josie nine. It gave us both a sense of power and relief, a way to escape our crumbling family life and explore the sea—and, of course, it was our bond with Dylan himself. Josie. Thinking of her in the times before she turned into the later version of herself, the aloof, promiscuous addict, makes me ache with longing. I miss my sister with every molecule

My point though is the totem pole of paychecks, with school as one thing that gets you up there, and another one being where you live, country or city. But the main thing is, whatever you’re doing, who is it making happy? Are you selling the cheapest-ass shoes imaginable to Walmart shoppers, or high-class suits to business guys? Even the same exact work, like sanding floors, could be at the Dollar General or a movie star mansion. Show me your paycheck, I’ll make a guess which floor. If you are making a rich person happy, or a regular person feel rich, aka better than other people, the money rolls. If it’s lowlifes you’re looking after, not so much. And if it’s kids, good luck, because anything to do with improving the life of a child is on the bottom. Schoolteacher pay is for the most part in the toilet. I gather this is common knowledge, but I had no idea, the day Miss Barks said, So long sucker, I’m chasing the big bucks now. Schoolteacher!

Construction finally began that winter, and by early 1974 Syncrude’s Mildred Lake site bustled with 1,500 construction workers. But the deal remained tentative as cost estimates grew beyond the initial $1.5 billion to $2 billion or more and the federal government’s new budget arrived with punitive new taxes for oil and gas exports. Then, in the first week of December, one of the Syncrude partners, Atlantic Richfield, summarily quit the consortium, leaving a 30 percent hole in its financing. A mad scramble ensued in search of a solution. Phone calls pinged back and forth between government officials in Edmonton and Ottawa. Finally, on the morning of February 3, 1975, executives from the Syn-crude partner companies and cabinet ministers from the Alberta, Ontario and federal governments met without fanfare and outside the media’s brightest spotlights at an airport hotel in Winnipeg to negotiate a deal to save the project. Lougheed and Ontario premier Bill Davis both attended, along with their energy ministers. Federal mines minister Donald Macdonald represented Pierre Trudeau’s government, accompanied by Trudeau’s ambitious Treasury Board president, Jean Chrétien. Macdonald and Davis, both Upper Canadian patricians in the classic mould, were put off by Lougheed’s blunt style. By midday, the Albertans were convinced Macdonald would not be willing to compromise enough to reach a deal. Rumours in Lougheed’s camp after the fact had it that over lunch, Chrétien persuaded the mines minister to accept the offer on the table. Two days later, Chrétien rose in the House of Commons to announce that the federal government would be taking a 15 percent equity stake in the Syn-crude project, with Alberta owning 10 percent and Ontario the remaining 5 percent. In the coming years, it would be Lougheed, with his steadfast support and multimillion-dollar investments in SAGD, who would be seen as the Patch’s great public sector champion. But it was Chrétien, “the little guy from Shawinigan,” whose backroom deal-making skills had saved Syncrude

When Musk took delivery of his F1, CNN was there to cover it. “Just three years ago I was showering at the Y and sleeping on the office floor,” he told the camera sheepishly, “and now obviously, I’ve got a million-dollar car… it’s just a moment in my life.” While other McLaren F1 owners around the world—the sultan of Brunei, Wyclef Jean, and Jay Leno, among others—could comfortably afford it, Musk’s purchase had put a sizable dent in his bank account. And unlike other owners, Musk drove the car to work—and declined to insure it. As Musk drove Thiel up Sand Hill Road in the F1, the car was the subject of their chat. “It was like this Hitchcock movie,” Thiel remembered, “where we’re talking about the car for fifteen minutes. We’re supposed to be preparing for the meeting—and we’re talking about the car.” During their ride, Thiel looked at Musk and reportedly asked, “So, what can this thing do?” “Watch this,” Musk replied, flooring the accelerator and simultaneously initiating a lane change on Sand Hill Road. In retrospect, Musk admitted that he was outmatched by the F1. “I didn’t really know how to drive the car,” he recalled. “There’s no stability systems. No traction control. And the car gets so much power that you can break the wheels free at even fifty miles an hour.” Thiel recalls the car in front of them coming fast into view—then Musk swerving to avoid it. The McLaren hit an embankment, was tossed into the air—“like a discus,” Musk remembered——then slammed violently into the ground. “The people that saw it happen thought we were going to die,” he recalled. Thiel had not worn a seat belt, but astonishingly, neither he nor Musk were hurt. Musk’s “work of art” had not fared as well, having now taken a distinctly cubist turn. Post-near-death experience, Thiel dusted himself off on the side of the road and hitchhiked to the Sequoia offices, where he was joined by Musk a short while later. X.com’s CEO, Bill Harris, was also waiting at the Sequoia office, and he recalled that both Thiel and Musk were late but offered no explanation for their delay. “They never told me,” Harris said. “We just had the meeting.” Reflecting on it, Musk found humor in the experience: “I think it’s safe to say Peter wouldn’t be driving with me again.” Thiel wrung some levity out of the moment, too. “I’d achieved lift-off with Elon,” he joked, “but not in a rocket.

I’ve always been very Type-A, so a friend of mine got me into cycling when I was living in L.A. I lived right on the beach in Santa Monica, where there’s this great bike path in the sand that goes for, I think, 25 miles. I’d go onto the bike path, and I would [go] head down and push it—just red-faced huffing, all the way, pushing it as hard as I could. I would go all the way down to one end of the bike path and back, and then head home, and I’d set my little timer when doing this. . . . “I noticed it was always 43 minutes. That’s what it took me to go as fast as I could on that bike path. But I noticed that, over time, I was starting to feel less psyched about going out on the bike path. Because mentally, when I would think of it, it would feel like pain and hard work. . . . So, then I thought, ‘You know, it’s not cool for me to associate negative stuff with going on the bike ride. Why don’t I just chill? For once, I’m gonna go on the same bike ride, and I’m not going to be a complete snail, but I’ll go at half of my normal pace.’ I got on my bike, and it was just pleasant. “I went on the same bike ride, and I noticed that I was standing up, and I was looking around more. I looked into the ocean, and I saw there were these dolphins jumping in the ocean, and I went down to Marina del Rey, to my turnaround point, and I noticed in Marina del Rey, that there was a pelican that was flying above me. I looked up. I was like, ‘Hey, a pelican!’ and he shit in my mouth. “So, the point is: I had such a nice time. It was purely pleasant. There was no red face, there was no huffing. And when I got back to my usual stopping place, I looked at my watch, and it said 45 minutes. I thought, ‘How the hell could that have been 45 minutes, as opposed to my usual 43? There’s no way.’ But it was right: 45 minutes. That was a profound lesson that changed the way I’ve approached my life ever since. . . . “We could do the math, [but] whatever, 93-something-percent of my huffing and puffing, and all that red face and all that stress was only for an extra 2 minutes. It was basically for nothing. . . . [So,] for life, I think of all of this maximization—getting the maximum dollar out of everything, the maximum out of every second, the maximum out of every minute—you don’t need to stress about any of this stuff. Honestly, that’s been my approach ever since. I do things, but I stop before anything gets stressful. . . . “You notice this internal ‘Argh.’ That’s my cue. I treat that like physical pain. What am I doing? I need to stop doing that thing that hurts. What is that? And, it usually means that I’m just pushing too hard, or doing things that I don’t really want to be doing.

She wants to tell the fish the colour of the sea today. About the sun pennies on the bay, and she would not make them seem like worthless currency, but treasure just out of reach.

I’d bet dollars to doughnuts

Wealthy people so often find that the summit of their mountains - the success that they sought - isn’t enough. And they are right. It isn’t enough to satisfy our deep hunger for meaning and purpose. (And we will talk about that later on.) In essence, you have got to build your house on good foundations - on rock, not sand - and money as a goal in itself will never satisfy you. So choose wisely. And be careful what you wish for. When you start putting the correct steps into place, good things will start to happen. So you have got to be prepared for the success when it comes. Money can make the path more comfortable, but it will never remove the potholes. The billionaire John Paul Getty famously said: ‘I would give everything I own for one happy marriage.’ That is pretty telling. Money doesn’t solve all your ills. In fact, money, like success, tends, instead, to magnify your life - and if you are living with the wrong values, money will make things much worse. Conversely, if you get it right, money can be an incredible blessing. So always keep referring back to page 15 at the start of this book. Look at your dream. Never lose sight of it, because if you attain it, you will be rich beyond measure…and I’m not talking dollars and cents.

The room is a hundred shades of white. The enormous desk is the color of sand dollar beer foam with a plush cotton eggshell chair behind it. To its side, a tall shaving cream topped Swiss coffee lamp with a mozzarella sour cream lampshade. Official certificates the color of chalky whitecaps in limestone glacier frames hang on the frosted beluga whale wall. The wall is covered with rice powder cloud bookcases, full of books the color of moonstone jasmine, opal daffodil, quartz daisy, and polar bear hibiscus. The books are being tended by a man with his back to me, dressed in a milky, baking soda suit in seagull bone shoes, riding a rolling ladder the color of marshmallow tofu glue.

This [sand-dollar hunting] had become one of our rituals together, and though she would search for other varieties of shells when I was out of town or unable to see her, she would wait until I appeared on her front porch before setting off to extract these mute delicate coins from their settings in the sand. At first, we had collected only the larger specimens, but gradually as we learned what was rare and to be truly prized, we began to gather only the smallest sand dollars for our collection. Our trophies were sometimes as small as thumbnails and as fragile as contact lenses. Annie Kate collected the tiniest relics, round and cruciform and white as bone china when dried of sea water, and placed them in a glass-and-copper cricket box in her bedroom. Often we would sit together and admire the modest splendor of our accumulation. At times it looked like the coinage of a shy, diminutive species of angel. Our quest to find the smallest sand dollar became a competition between us, and as the months passed and Annie Kate grew larger with the child, the brittle, desiccated animals we unearthed from the sand became smaller and smaller. It was all a matter of training the eye to expect less.

Young Turks Billy left his home with a dollar in his pocket and a head full of dreams. He said somehow, some way, it's gotta get better than this. Patti packed her bags, left a note for her momma, she was just seventeen, there were tears in her eyes when she kissed her little sister goodbye. They held each other tight as they drove on through the night they were so exited. We got just one shot of life, let's take it while we're still not afraid. Because life is so brief and time is a thief when you're undecided. And like a fistful of sand, it can slip right through your hands. Young hearts be free tonight. Time is on your side, Don't let them put you down, don't let 'em push you around, don't let 'em ever change your point of view. Paradise was closed so they headed for the coast in a blissful manner. They took a tworoom apartment that was jumping ev'ry night of the week. Happiness was found in each other's arms as expected, yeah Billy pierced his ears, drove a pickup like a lunatic, ooh! Young hearts be free tonight.Time is on your side, Don't let them put you down, don't let 'em push you around, don't let 'em ever change your point of view. Young hearts be free tonight.Time is on your side. Billy wrote a letter back home to Patti's parents tryin' to explain. He said we're both real sorry that it had to turn out this way. But there ain't no point in talking when there's nobody list'ning so we just ran away Patti gave birth to a ten pound baby boy, yeah! Young hearts be free tonight, time is on your side. Young hearts be free tonight, time is on your side. Young hearts be free tonight, time in on your side. Young hearts gotta run free, be free, live free Time is on, time is on your side Time, time, time, time is on your side is on your side is on your side is on your side Young heart be free tonight tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight, yeah

Rarely in the history of the United States has the nation been so ill-served as during the presidency of George W. Bush. When Bush took office in 2001, the federal budget ran a surplus, the national debt stood at a generational low of 56 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and unemployment clocked in at 4 percent—which most economists consider the practical equivalent of full employment. The government’s tax revenue amounted to $2.1 trillion annually, of which $1 trillion came from personal income taxes and another $200 billion from corporate taxes. Military spending totaled $350 billion, or 3 percent of GDP—a low not seen since the late 1940s—and not one American had been killed in combat in almost a decade. Each dollar bought 1.06 euros, or 117 yen. Gasoline cost $1.50 per gallon. Twelve years after the Berlin Wall came down, the United States stood at the pinnacle of authority: the world’s only superpower, endowed with democratic legitimacy, the credible champion of the rule of law, the exemplar of freedom and prosperity.1 Eight years later the United States found itself in two distant “wars of choice”; military spending constituted 20 percent of all federal outlays and more than 5 percent of the gross domestic product. The final Bush budget was $1.4 trillion in the red and the national debt was out of control. The nation’s GDP had increased from $10.3 trillion to $$14.2 trillion during those eight years, but a series of tax cuts that Bush introduced had reduced the government’s revenue from personal income taxes by 9 percent and corporate taxes by 33 percent. Unemployment stood at 9.3 percent and was rising; two million Americans had lost their homes when a housing bubble burst, and new construction was at a standstill. The stock market had taken a nosedive, the dollar had lost much of its former value, and gasoline sold for $3.27 a gallon.2 The United States remained the world’s only superpower, but its reputation abroad was badly tarnished.

Let people try to tell her she was dreaming now. Let them say that teachers couldn’t rent stunning mansions for an entire summer. She’d shown them. After two decades, Sand Dollar Point was hers. At least it was for the next

He was chairman of the British branch of the Company, and had had shares allocated to him, — or, as he said, to the house, — to the extent of two millions of dollars. But still there was a feeling of doubt, and a consciousness that Melmotte, though a tower of strength, was thought by many to have been built upon the sands.

I don't see any of that potential, what's important is how willing are they to become my wild sand dogs.

love

This sand dollar would join the others in the cricket box, the accumulated relics of our long walks together as the child grew within her. I did not need any proof that our system of currency was special, extraordinary, and rare. I was in love for the first time in my life, and that was proof enough to me.

On Coco’s nightstand are two novels: Trespasses by Louise Kennedy, The Candy House by Jennifer Egan. Sitting on top of these is the sand dollar Coco found during their trip to Great Point.

The end game A systemic breakdown should be expected soon. Venezuela, Argentina and Canada are already in hyperinflation; The Canadian Dollar’s strength is based on their oil reserves that are as low a 2 - 3 dollar per barrel for oil from the oil sands. - The can has been kicked down the road for too long and much farther than in 2008. There has already been an electronic bank run where 500 billion was withdrawn within an hour. The Fed tried to stop it, but could not inject more than 120 billion. – This is an urgent call for you to convert your currency into gold and silver! Follow the interview with Rob Kirby here: 404

She went to the basement to get the ancestral ten-quart Dutch oven, and the clutter in the laundry-room cabinets made her furious. She dragged a trash can in from the garage and began to fill it with her mother’s crap. This was arguably helpful to her mother, and so she went at it with abandon. She threw away the Korean barfle-berries, the fifty most obviously worthless plastic flowerpots, the assortment of sand-dollar fragments, and the sheaf of silver-dollar plants whose dollars had all fallen off. She threw away the wreath of spray-painted pinecones that somebody had ripped apart. She threw away the brandy-pumpkin “spread” that had turned a snottish gray-green. She threw away the Neolithic cans of hearts of palm and baby shrimps and miniature Chinese corncobs, the turbid black liter of Romanian wine whose cork

The white picket trellis was covered in climbing vines, and the soft, brown weedless soil was covered with winter squash peeking out from underneath velvety dark-green leaves. The island breeze carried the scent of Gran's rosemary plants. I went into the potting shed, grabbed the scissors, and snipped a bunch of rosemary. I could use it in the butter for the mashed potatoes that would be served with the fried chicken. I looked around at her herbs and listened to the tinkle of the wind chimes' sand dollars. I snipped some parsley and thyme. Those herbs would add depth or brightness to any dish. I also plucked a half-dozen bright-yellow lemons to add to the fish dishes.

his hot sand dollar landed right on my throbbing rose bud. "Apple crumble on Christmas morning!" I gasped as he gave me a good shrubbing.

While MTA officials were completing the assessment of their needs, they learned that President Carter was not going to be the system’s savior. On November 4, he lost his reelection bid to Ronald Reagan, a California Republican who wanted to slash federal aid to urban areas. Three weeks after the election, the MTA board issued a detailed report proposing a ten-year, $14.4 billion capital program to restore the system to a state of good repair. Most importantly, the board suggested ways to pay for the capital program and new legislation that would streamline the process so that projects could be completed in a more cost-effective and timely manner.44 Ravitch said, “I will not cease for a minute petitioning the government to provide more capital funding. But on the other hand, we should not put our heads in the sand and think that we have fulfilled our responsibilities at the MTA merely by exhorting elected officials to provide funds which, as a practical matter, are simply not available.” That is why Ravitch was prepared for the MTA to take on billions of dollars in new debt to pay for improvements. He suggested increasing the maximum amount of bonds that the MTA’s Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA) could issue, and allowing its bond proceeds to be used for transit improvements, something it had never done before. He also proposed that the MTA be able, for the first time, to issue bonds that would be paid back from future fares.

I no longer even need a window to follow the journey. I can narrate it to myself hour by hour, live it from memory, all of it - canyons, towns, the reflection of the clouds in the rivers. Memory has taken on wings and speed has become an inner quality. A pity. No doubt it was better that this purely fornicatory and imaginary relationship, with her sexual voracity and her ankle bracelets, which we carried on all over the place - in the Badlands, in the Chelsea Hotel, in motels, in the sand, between the sheets - and which always meant immediate lovemaking in the minutes that followed, never satisfied, but just as sweet, and flexible and blonde, her eyes raised like a slavegirl's and her hand outstretched towards her sex, she free and servile, feminine and muscled, laughing and admiring, animal blood and metallic eyes - it was natural that this relationship should finish with a pathetic fellatio on a motel balcony, in the morning mist and a hypothetical child which no doubt was not mine and which I shall never see. I have even forgotten her name, but I have not forgotten the straw scent of her sex, nor the twenty-dollar bet on salt or snow, nor the sudden menstrual nosebleed I had one morning when I saw her arriving at my place in all her Californian splendour.

So how do I know that I am making the right choice?” “If it feels right, it’s always the right choice, at least in my book, but if you need confirmation, then you go by how easy it is. If the choice is right it usually comes effortlessly, whereas the wrong ones are usually riddled with disaster, strife, and trouble.

The result is what Unimin markets as Iota quartz, the industry standard of purity. The basic Iota quartz is 99.998 percent pure SiO2. It is used to make things like halogen lamps and photovoltaic cells, but it’s not good enough to make those crucibles in which polysilicon is melted. For that you need Iota 6, or the tip-top of the line, Iota 8, which clocks in at 99.9992 percent purity—meaning for every one billion molecules of SiO2, there are only eighty molecules of impurities.18 Iota 8 sells for up to $10,000 a ton. Regular construction sand, at the other end of the sand scale, can be had for a few dollars per ton.

Bringing them up to current standards would cost tens of billions of dollars. Despite this, they don’t get a lot of attention from overstretched state inspectors. Nationwide, there’s only one safety inspector for every 205 dams. As of 2013, according to ASCE, South Carolina had only two people monitoring all of its 2,380 dams, and one of them was part-time.27 So it was as unsurprising as it was tragic when in 2015 heavy rain collapsed 36 of the state’s dams. As many as nineteen people were killed in the resultant flooding, according to The New York Times.28 Scores of other dams around the country have failed since 2010. All told, hundreds of Americans are killed or injured each year due to the failure of the nation’s sand-based roads, bridges, and dams.

Vaclav Smil estimates that worldwide, as much as 100 billion tons of poorly manufactured concrete—buildings, roads, bridges, dams, everything—may need to be replaced in the coming decades. That will take trillions of dollars, and billions of tons of new sand.30 “Almost all the concrete structures you see today are doomed to a limited life span,” writes Robert Courland. “Hardly any of the concrete structures that now exist are capable of enduring two centuries, and many will begin disintegrating after fifty years. In short, we have built a disposable world using a short-lived material, the manufacture of which generates millions of tons of greenhouse gases. Most of the concrete structures built at the beginning of the twentieth century have begun falling apart, and most will be, or already have been, demolished.”31 We have built our world out of sand in the form of concrete—and it is starting to crumble.

For some time, an arbitrary line in the sand was drawn at the end of the first trimester as the demarcation marking the beginning of "life". Of course, advances in medical technology continued to force those who stood on that line to retreat further and further toward the beginning of gestation. For instance, it has been established that a fetus has brain waves which can be measured by EEG only 40 days after conception, and merely 18 days after conception, the fetus has a measurable heart beat. In fact, they were getting so close to the beginning of gestation, i.e., conception, that the PC pro-abortion genderists then had to adopt the more ephemeral "viability" position. Of course, according to their definition of "viability", comatose patients would not be considered human being because, in some ways, a fetus is actually more "viable" than someone who is comatose. As obstetrical and gynecological medicine continued its inevitable advance, revealing more and more about the nature of a human fetus, the pro-abortion forces continued their retreat until now they do not even discuss the fetus at all. As with all politically correct positions, if a fact gets in the way, it is simply changed or ignored. Unfortunately for the pro-abortion genderists, the fetus is a fact, a fact which is itself usually the result of "choices". Furthermore, the simple scientific fact is that at the moment of conception, the embryo is not a part of the mother's body. At that point and forever more it is a genetically distinct being with its own genetic code that is completely and totally different from every other human being who has ever lived or ever will live, including the mother. So here is the first instance of PC genderism crashing into scientific fact. It also seems ironic that while more and more law enforcement agencies in this country are now turning to DNA identification in criminal investigations and our courts are now admitting such identification as evidence in criminal prosecution, the rights of a fetus, which has its own, distinct DNA code at the moment of conception, are still not legally recognized in all cases. Now they are recognized in some cases, for there have been instances of people being prosecuted for two murders when they have killed pregnant women. There are also cases where mothers who have given birth to babies who are addicted to illegal drugs have been prosecuted, but there are no consistent standards or guidelines. It is also a macabre irony that in this country it is illegal to destroy the egg of an American bald eagle, but the government uses our tax dollars to destroy human embryos and fetuses.

If you made a country out of all the companies founded by Stanford alumni, it would have a GDP of roughly $ 2.7 trillion, putting it in the neighborhood of the tenth largest economy in the world. Companies started by Stanford alumni include Google, Yahoo, Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, eBay, Netflix, Electronic Arts, Intuit, Fairchild Semiconductor, LinkedIn, and E* Trade. Many were started by undergraduates and graduate students while still on campus. Like the cast of Saturday Night Live, the greats who have gone on to massive career success are remembered, but everyone still keeps a watchful eye on the newcomers to see who might be the next big thing. With a $ 17 billion endowment, Stanford has the resources to provide students an incredible education inside the classroom, with accomplished scholars ranging from Nobel Prize winners to former secretaries of state teaching undergraduates. The Silicon Valley ecosystem ensures that students have ample opportunity outside the classroom as well. Mark Zuckerberg gives a guest lecture in the introductory computer science class. Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey spoke on campus to convince students to join his companies. The guest speaker lineups at the myriad entrepreneurship and technology-related classes each quarter rival those of multithousand-dollar business conferences. Even geographically, Stanford is smack in the middle of Silicon Valley. Facebook sits just north of the school. Apple is a little farther south. Google is to the east. And just west, right next to campus, is Sand Hill Road, the Wall Street of venture capital.

Venezuela has more than 299 billion barrels in proved oil reserves trapped underground, the biggest known cache of crude on the planet. That is more oil than can be found under the sands of Saudi Arabia. Yet in 2016 Venezuela doesn’t have enough dollars to invest in its depleted oil sector. It doesn’t have enough so that it can finance the imports of milk, chicken, beef, cell phones, and even the polyester and cotton fiber local paper companies need to produce toilet paper.

For the Valley establishment, the creation of the Vision Fund was like that alien, menacing, and transformative Space Odyssey monolith materializing on the divide in Sand Hill Road. From 2013 to 2023, the market value of all unicorns would skyrocket from $100 billion to $5 trillion.31 To remain a player in this ocean of liquidity, Sequoia, like everyone else, needed a bigger boat. This would be Masa Son’s enduring legacy. A billion dollars wasn’t cool anymore. You know what was cool? A hundred billion dollars.