Sats Inspirational Quotes

Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering.

I've been in love before, it's like a narcotic. At first it brings the euphoria of complete surrender. The next day you want more. You're not addicted yet, but you like the sensation, and you think you can still control things.You think about the person you love for two minutes then forget them for three hours. But then you get used to that person, and you begin to be completely dependent on them. Now you think about him for three hours and forget him for two minutes. If he's not there, you feel like an addict who can't get a fix. And just as addicts steal and humiliate themselves to get what they need, you're willing to do anything for love."- By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

And by and by Christopher Robin came to the end of things, and he was silent, and he sat there, looking out over the world, just wishing it wouldn't stop.

Go and get your things,' he said. 'Dreams mean work.

Father sat down on the edge of the narrow bed. "Corrie," he began gently, "when you and I go to Amsterdam-when do I give you your ticket?" I sniffed a few times, considering this. "Why, just before we get on the train." "Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we're going to need things, too. Don't run out ahead of Him, Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need-just in time.

Better to have flamed in the darkness, to have inspired others, to have lived, than to have sat in the darkness, cursing the people who borrowed, but did not return, your candle.

There are choices," she thought, when she had sat long enough. "There are always choices.

I woke up early and took the first train to take me away from the city. The noise and all its people. I was alone on the train and had no idea where I was going, and that’s why I went there. Two hours later we arrived in a small town, one of those towns with one single coffee shop and where everyone knows each other’s name. I walked for a while until I found the water, the most peaceful place I know. There I sat and stayed the whole day, with nothing and everything on my mind, cleaning my head. Silence, I learned, is some times the most beautiful sound.

Your soul once sat on an easel on my knee. For ages I hve been sketching you With myriad shapes of sounds and light; Now awake, dear pilgrim, With your thousand swaying arms That need to caress the sky.

Always worth it to have tried, even if you fail, even if you fall like a meteor forever. Better to have flamed in the darkness, to have inspired others, to have lived, than to have sat in the darkness, cursing the people who borrowed, but did not return, your candle.

I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring - I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house.

I was a hugely unchaperoned reader, and I would wander into my local public library and there sat the world, waiting for me to look at it, to find out about it, to discover who I might be inside it." [Patrick Ness slams library cuts (The Guardian, 23 June 2011)]

Ian didn't come. He just sat here with you--he said he didn't care what you looked like. He wouldn't let anyone else put a finger on your tank at all, not even me or Mel. But Doc let me watch this time. It was way cool, Wanda. I don't know why you wouldn't let me watch before. They wouldn't let me help, though. Ian wouldn't let anyone touch you but him.' Ian squeezed my hand and leaned in to whisper through all the hair. His voice was so low that I was the only one who could hear. 'I held you in my hand, Wanderer. And you were so beautiful.

She sat back on her heels and nodded. The thought experiment she proposed was certainly odd, but her point was simple. Everything in the universe was constantly changing, and nothing stays the same, and we must understand how quickly time flows by if we are to wake up and truly live our lives. That’s what it means to be a time being, old Jiko told me, and then she snapped her crooked fingers again. And just like that, you die.

I remember Icarus. He flew too close to the sun. In the stories, though, it’s worth it. Always worth it to have tried, even if you fail, even if you fall like a meteor forever. Better to have flamed in the darkness, to have inspired others, to have lived, than to have sat in the darkness, cursing the people who borrowed, but did not return, your candle.

Patanjali, Buddha, Moses and Jesus did not go to workshops or seminars or even churches. They went directly to nature: sat under a Bodhi tree or on top of a mountain or in a cave. … It is time to return to the source of this inspiration – the earth itself.

Words are so powerful. It can win wars, create kings, and sustain civilizations. - Wordwick Games by Kailin Gow

I am tired of days that are all the same.

Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sing around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works. For the most part, I minded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished.

My voice was a bare rasp of fear. "In the weaving room, the women say it's never been this bad before..." "They always say that when things get difficult," she answered softly. Then she sat up suddenly as though coming fully awake. Reaching down, she took my chin in her hand and tipped my face to look up at hers. "Remember, Gwen, no matter who says what, the important thing is to understand what needs to be done, and then do it. No matter how hard it is, or how much pain you feel. It's as simple as that, really. Once you know what you have to do, you just do it.

The Cold Within" Six humans trapped in happenstance In dark and bitter cold, Each one possessed a stick of wood, Or so the story's told. The first woman held hers back For of the faces around the fire, She noticed one was black. The next man looking across the way Saw not one of his church, And couldn't bring himself to give The fire his stick of birch. The third one sat in tattered clothes He gave his coat a hitch, Why should his log be put to use, To warm the idle rich? The rich man just sat back and thought Of the wealth he had in store, And how to keep what he had earned, From the lazy, shiftless poor. The black man's face bespoke revenge As the fire passed from sight, For all he saw in his stick of wood Was a chance to spite the white. The last man of this forlorn group Did naught except for gain, Giving only to those who gave, Was how he played the game. The logs held tight in death's still hands Was proof of human sin, They didn't die from the cold without, They died from the cold within.

I know you don't love me. But I'm going to fight for your love. There are some things in life that are worth fighting for the end. You are worth it.

In 1965, a psychologist named Martin Seligman started shocking dogs. He was trying to expand on the research of Pavlov--the guy who could make dogs salivate when they heard a bell ring. Seligman wanted to head in the other direction, and when he rang his bell, instead of providing food, he zapped the dogs with electricity. To keep them still, he restrained them in a harness during the experiment. After they were conditioned, he put these dogs in a big box with a little fence dividing it into two halves. He figured if the dog rang the bell, it would hop over the fence to escape, but it didn't. It just sat there and braced itself. They decided to try shocking the dog after the bell. The dog still just sat there and took it. When they put a dog in the box that had never been shocked before or had previously been allowed to escape and tried to zap it--it jumped the fence. You are just like these dogs. If, over the course of your life, you have experienced crushing defeat or pummeling abuse or loss of control, you convince yourself over time that there is no escape, and if escape is offered, you will not act--you become a nihilist who trusts futility above optimism. Studies of the clinically depressed show that they often give in to defeat and stop trying. . . Any extended period of negative emotions can lead to you giving in to despair and accepting your fate. If you remain alone for a long time, you will decide loneliness is a fact of life and pass up opportunities to hang out with people. The loss of control in any situation can lead to this state. . . Choices, even small ones, can hold back the crushing weight of helplessness, but you can't stop there. You must fight back your behavior and learn to fail with pride. Failing often is the only way to ever get the things you want out of life. Besides death, your destiny is not inescapable.

Oh, monsters are scared', said Lettie. 'And as for grown-ups...' She stopped talking, rubbed her freckled nose with a finger. Then, 'I'm going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.' ... We sat there, side by side, on the old wooden bench, not saying anything. I thought about adults. I wondered if that was true: if they were all really children wrapped in adult bodies, like children's books hidden in the middle of dull, long books. The kind with no pictures or conversations.

One might say my life has been tragic. Yet, as I sat in pain in the hospital I raised my tired hands toward the sky, palms facing in, fingers spread, and I gave thanks.

All life is a rhythm,” she said as I sat up. “All death is a rhythm suspended, a syncopation before life resumes.

I should have cause to be proud of this year's work;' and Mrs. Jo sat smiling over her book as she built castles in the air, just as she used to when she was a girl, only then they were for herself, and now they were for other people, which is the reason perhaps that some of them came to pass in reality for charity is an excellent foundation to build anything upon.

I mean it wasn’t an empty hole, there was al­ways some­thing in it, but it was never right. It never fit. I went to col­lege for a short time, until I sat back one day and said to my­self: An­drew, what the fuck are you doing here? And it clicked in my head that I wasn’t there be­cause it’s what I wanted, I was there be­cause it’s what peo­ple ex­pected, even peo­ple I don’t know, so­ci­ety. It’s what peo­ple do.

Hastings sat back, extending his long legs. "It's not enough to do SOMETHING. It's important to do the RIGHT thing.

And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring - I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house.

I thought maybe if she could express herself rather than suffer herself, if she had a way to relieve the burden, she lived for nothing more than living, with nothing to get inspired by, to care for, to call her own, she helped out at the store, then came home and sat in her big chair and stared at her magazines, not at them but through them, she let the dust accumulate on her shoulders.

(I pull the second to last item out of my bag. Her purple hair clip. She told me once how much it meant to her, and why she always keeps it.) This purple hair clip? It really is magic…just like your dad told you it was. It’s magic because, no matter how many times it lets you down…you keep having hope in it. You keep trusting it. No matter how many times it fails you, You never fail it. Just like you never fail me. I love that about you, because of you. (I set it back down and pull out a strip of paper and unfold it.) Your mother. (I sigh) Your mother was an amazing woman, Lake. I'm blessed that I got to know her, And that she was a part of my life, too. I came to love her as my own mom…just as she came to love Caulder and I as her own. I didn’t love her because of you, Lake. I loved her because of her. So, thank you for sharing her with us. She had more advice about Life and love and happiness and heartache than anyone I've ever known. But the best advice she ever gave me? The best advice she ever gave us? (I read the quote in my hands) "Sometimes two people have to fall apart, to realize how much they need to fall back together." (She’s definitely crying now. I place the slip back inside the satchel and take a step closer to the edge of the stage as I hold her gaze.) The last item I have wouldn’t fit, because you’re actually sitting in it. That booth. You’re sitting in the exact same spot you sat in when you watched your first performance on this stage. The way you watched this stage with passion in your eyes…I'll never forget that moment. It's the moment I knew it was too late. I was too far gone by then. I was in love with you. I was in love with you because of you. (I back up and sit down on the stool behind me, still holding her stare.) I could go on all night, Lake. I could go on and on and on about all the reasons I'm in love with you. And you know what? Some of them are the things that life has thrown our way. I do love you because you're the only other person I know that understands my situation. I do love you because both of us know what it's like to lose your mom and your dad. I do love you because you're raising your little brother, just like I am. I love you because of what you went through with your mother. I love you because of what we went through with your mother. I love the way you love Kel. I love the way you love Caulder. And I love the way I love Kel. So I'm not about to apologize for loving all these things about you, no matter the reasons or the circumstances behind them. And no, I don’t need days, or weeks, or months to think about why I love you. It’s an easy answer for me. I love you because of you. Because of every single thing about you.

The river reflected whatever it chose of sky and bridge and burning tree, and when the undergraduate had oared his boat through the reflections they closed again, completely, as if they had never been. There one might have sat the clock round lost in thought. Thought --to call it by a prouder name than it deserved-- had let its line down into the stream. It swayed, minute after minute, hither and thither among the reflections and the weeds, letting the water lift it and sink it until --you know the little tug -- the sudden conglomeration of an idea at the end of one's line: and then the cautious hauling of it in, and the careful laying of it out? Alas, laid on the grass how small, how insignificant this thought of mine looked; the sort of fish that a good fisherman puts back into the water so that it may grow fatter and be one day worth cooking and eating.

It was a postcard. 'Greetings from the Land of 10,000 Lakes,' it said on the front. Park turned it over and recognized her scratchy handwriting. It filled his head with song lyrics. He sat up. He smiled. Something heavy and winged took off from his chest. Eleanor hadn't written him a letter, it was a postcard. Just three words long.

Before enlightenment, cornflakes and coffee. After enlightenment, cornflakes and coffee.

The tumult of her mind was now painfully great. She knew not how to support herself, and, from actual weakness, sat down and cried for half an hour.

We sat in silence for a while. I gazed through the window at the night sky, wondering idly at all that space, all that blackness, all that nothing, and as I sat there looking up at the emptiness I began thinking about the creek, the hills, the woods, the water... how everything goes around and around and never really changes. How life recycles everything it uses. How the end product of one process becomes the starting point of another, how each generation of living things depends on the chemicals released by the generations that have proceeded it... I don't know why I was thinking about it. It just seemed to occur to me.

You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen. Every day, God gives us the sun - and also one moment when we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven't perceived that moment, that it doesn't exist - that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us. But that moment exists - a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles. Joy is sometimes a blessing, but it is often a conquest. Our magic moment helps us to change and sends us off in search of our dreams. Yes, we are going to suffer, we will have difficult times, and we will experience many disappointments - but all of these are transitory; it leaves no permanent mark. And one day we will look back with pride and faith at the journey we have taken. Pitiful is the person who is afraid of taking risks. Perhaps, this person would never be disappointed or disillusioned; perhaps she won't suffer the way people do when they have a dream to follow. But when the person looks back - she will never hear her heart saying 'What have you done with the miracles that God planted in your days? What have you done with the talents God has bestowed upon you? You buried yourself in a cave because you were fearful of losing those talents. So this is your heritage, the certainty that you wasted your life.' Pitiful are the people who must realize this. Because when they are finally able to believe in miracles, their life's magic moments will have already passed them by.

I had thought about forgiveness more and more...I knew it wasn't a light that could be switched on in an instant-it grew day by day, week by week, month by month-but something was changing inside me now during the hours when I sat alone and tried to calm my feelings. A seed had been sown, and I sensed that, just as I'd once faced a choice about whether to use violence on the night when I stared at the gun, I know had another choice: to remain trapped in the bitterness of the past or to find peace in the present.

My father picked me up from school one day, and we played hooky and went to the beach. It was too cold to go in the water, so we sat on a blanket and ate pizza. When I got home, my sneakers were full of sand, and I dumped it on my bedroom floor. I didn't know the difference. I was six. My mother screamed at me for the mess, but he wasn't mad. He said that billions of years ago, the world shifting and the oceans moving brought that sand to that spot on the beach, and then I took it away. "Every day," he said, "we change the world," which is a nice thought until I think about how many days and lifetimes I would need to bring a shoe full of sand home until there is no beach, until it made a difference to anyone. Every day, we change the world, but to change the world in a way that means anything, that takes more time than most people have. It never happens all at once. It's slow. It's methodical. It's exhausting. We don't all have the stomach for it.

(The story that Newton was inspired by an apple hitting his head is almost certainly apocryphal. All Newton himself ever said was that the idea of gravity came to him as he sat “in a contemplative mood” and “was occasioned by the fall of an apple.”)

Rachael could see the lavender fields from where they sat at the kitchen table. They stretched in a purple haze over the landscape, the bright sunshine washing over them. The mauve complimented the blue-grey of the Australian bush in the far distance.

Ah, yes, choice. I chose to let my ghosts stay in past. Past is history you know. Living is now. I sat. I breathed. I let past go. I let future go. I am. That is all.

The grief remained, and the guilt hadn’t gone anywhere, but they didn’t crush him the way they once did. They sat beside him instead, hollowed out by the years.

... and the throne he sat on was only made of velvet and wood. Velvet could be ripped and wood could be burned.

The two men sat silent for a little, and then Lord Peter said: "D'you like your job?" The detective considered the question, and replied: "Yes—yes, I do. I know it to be useful, and I am fitted to it. I do it quite well—not with inspiration, perhaps, but sufficiently well to take a pride in it. It is full of variety and it forces one to keep up to the mark and not get slack. And there's a future to it. Yes, I like it. Why?" "Oh, nothing," said Peter. "It's a hobby to me, you see. I took it up when the bottom of things was rather knocked out for me, because it was so damned exciting, and the worst of it is, I enjoy it—up to a point. If it was all on paper I'd enjoy every bit of it. I love the beginning of a job—when one doesn't know any of the people and it's just exciting and amusing. But if it comes to really running down a live person and getting him hanged, or even quodded, poor devil, there don't seem as if there was any excuse for me buttin' in, since I don't have to make my livin' by it. And I feel as if I oughtn't ever to find it amusin'. But I do.

My mama taught me the most important lesson of all: "Sometimes you don't know why things happen until later." She still gets me through the dark days even to this day, because of that one day we sat in the grass, with my heart broken to smithereens, and she told me that one simple phrase that changed my life.

All around the edges of the platform where she sat, elephants stood patiently waiting for their breakfast. Occasionally, one would grunt or snort or flap its ears, but otherwise, they were as quiet as apparitions.

I sat down in the middle of the garden, where snakes could scarcely approach unseen, and leaned my back against a warm yellow pumpkin. There were some ground-cherry bushes growing along the furrows, full of fruit. I turned back the papery triangular sheaths that protected the berries and ate a few. All about me giant grasshoppers, twice as big as any I had ever seen, were doing acrobatic feats among the dried vines. The gophers scurried up and down the ploughed ground. There in the sheltered draw-bottom the wind did not blow very hard, but I could hear it singing its humming tune up on the level, and I could see the tall grasses wave. The earth was warm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers. Queer little red bugs came out and moved in slow squadrons around me. Their backs were polished vermilion, with black spots. I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.

My mother said the bizarre name Raccoona had surely been inspired, at least on a subliminal level, by the masks raccoons don't wear but simply have - the ones given them by nature..... [S]he pointed out that Le Guin had suspected all along that Raccoona and Tiptree were two authors that came from the same source, but in a letter to Alice she wrote that she preferred Tiptree to Raccoona: 'Raccoona, I think, has less control, thus less wit and power.' Le Guin, Mother said, had understood something deep. 'When you take on a male persona, something happens.' When I asked her what that was, she sat back in her chair, waved her arm, and smiled. 'You get to be the father.

and fit, and he carried himself with a confident poise that inspired trust and respect. He gestured at one of the two seats in front of his glass-and-chrome desk and waited until I sat to settle into his Aeron chair. Against the backdrop of sky and skyscrapers, Mark looked accomplished and powerful.

And I am proud, but mostly, I’m angry. I’m angry, because when I look around, I’m still alone. I’m still the only black woman in the room. And when I look at what I’ve fought so hard to accomplish next to those who will never know that struggle I wonder, “How many were left behind?” I think about my first-grade class and wonder how many black and brown kids weren’t identified as “talented” because their parents were too busy trying to pay bills to pester the school the way my mom did. Surely there were more than two, me and the brown boy who sat next to me in the hall each day. I think about my brother and wonder how many black boys were similarly labeled as “trouble” and were unable to claw out of the dark abyss that my brother had spent so many years in. I think about the boys and girls playing at recess who were dragged to the principal’s office because their dark skin made their play look like fight. I think about my friend who became disillusioned with a budding teaching career, when she worked at the alternative school and found that it was almost entirely populated with black and brown kids who had been sent away from the general school population for minor infractions. From there would only be expulsions or juvenile detention. I think about every black and brown person, every queer person, every disabled person, who could be in the room with me, but isn’t, and I’m not proud. I’m heartbroken. We should not have a society where the value of marginalized people is determined by how well they can scale often impossible obstacles that others will never know. I have been exceptional, and I shouldn’t have to be exceptional to be just barely getting by. But we live in a society where if you are a person of color, a disabled person, a single mother, or an LGBT person you have to be exceptional. And if you are exceptional by the standards put forth by white supremacist patriarchy, and you are lucky, you will most likely just barely get by. There’s nothing inspirational about that.

I should like to ask you:-Does your childhood seem far off? Do the days when you sat at your mother's knee, seem days of very long ago?" Responding to his softened manner, Mr. Lorry answered: "Twenty years back, yes; at this time of my life, no. For, as I draw closer to the end, I travel in the circle, nearer and nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the kind smoothings and preparings of the way. My heart is touched now, by my many remembrances that had long fallen asleep, of my pretty young mother (and I so old!), and by many associations of the days when what we call the World was not so real with me, and my faults were not confirmed in me." "I understand the feeling!" exclaimed Carton, with a bright flush. "And you are the better for it?" "I hope so.

The Anne Rice books are a lot about infection. I read "Interview With the Vampire" a million times when I was in seventh and eighth grade. Also, [writing Gavriel's backstory] definitely came from those books: I sat down and reread them all and thought a lot about… the way in which vampirism is pushing away from humanity in interesting ways, and creating something new from humanity. I imprinted on those books pretty hard. Tanith Lee's "Sabella or the Blood Stone" was a big inspiration. I absolutely loved her books; when I was a kid, I wrote many bad Tanith Lee pastiches. Susie McKee Charnas' "The Vampire Tapestry." Poppy Z. Brite's "Lost Souls." Nancy Collins' "Sunglasses After Dark," which sounds like the most '80s title ever. It's about a vampire named Sonja Blue, and she goes around killing vampires. She's the only vampire who's half-alive. It's a really fun, blood-filled romp. It's very "Blade" before "Blade"--with a lady.

Yes, my dear," he said reaching his hand to her cheek from where he sat. "But, it only takes one success to erase all the failures. When an opportunity presents itself, the only true failure takes place if one doesn't try at all. My wings weren't ready to fly this time, but, next time, you'll see. They all will see.

And we came to understand the cycle of creation, because our bodies repeat the rhythm of the moon.

As I sat up I turned my head to the side, but immediately straightened it again when I felt a sharp pain shoot through my neck.

Yes—well they were having words and she tossed some sand in his face. So naturally he sat on top of her and rubbed her face in the sand. We were—electrified.

Stop playing by the rules that the world gives you and tap into your inner sat nav to discover the actual journey for your life.

we sat there and looked into each other's eyes that was all we needed

They sat together talking about nothing, though every word would become etched in her mind forever.

He asked if she sold luminous flowers that he had heard about, flowers which shone in the dark. He wanted them, he said, for a woman who shone in the dark. He could swear that when he took her to the theater and she sat back in the dark in her evening dress, her skin was as luminous as the finest sea shell, with a pale pink glow to it. And he wanted these flowers for her to wear in her hair. Mathilde did not have them. But as soon as the man left she went to look at herself in the mirror. This was the kind of feeling she wanted to inspire. Could she?

Anyhow, I had found something out about an unknown privation, and I realized how a general love or craving, before it is explicit or before it sees its object, manifests itself as boredom or some other kind of suffering. And what did I think of myself in relation to the great occasions, the more sizable being of these books? Why, I saw them, first of all. So suppose I wasn't created to read a great declaration, or to boss a palatinate, or send off a message to Avignon, and so on, I could see, so there nevertheless was a share for me in all that had happened. How much of a share? Why, I knew there were things that would never, because they could never, come of my reading. But this knowledge was not so different from the remote but ever-present death that sits in the corner of the loving bedroom; though it doesn't budge from the corner, you wouldn't stop your loving. Then neither would I stop my reading. I sat and read. I had no eye, ear, or interest for anything else--that is, for usual, second-order, oatmeal, mere-phenomenal, snarled-shoelace-carfare-laundry-ticket plainness, unspecified dismalness, unknown captivities; the life of despair-harness or the life of organization-habits which is meant to supplant accidents with calm abiding. Well, now, who can really expect the daily facts to go, toil or prisons to go, oatmeal and laundry tickets and the rest, and insist that all moments be raised to the greatest importance, demand that everyone breathe the pointy, star-furnished air at its highest difficulty, abolish all brick, vaultlike rooms, all dreariness, and live like prophets or gods? Why, everybody knows this triumphant life can only be periodic. So there's a schism about it, some saying only this triumphant life is real and others that only the daily facts are. For me there was no debate, and I made speed into the former.

Pat sat on the garden bench until dawn came over the Hill of the Mist. The day had begun in a pale windless morning . . . the day on which mother was to go. Would she ever return? That old hymn she had hated . . . "change and decay in all around I see." Change was what she had always dreaded. "Oh, Thou who changest not abide with me." It was not a hateful hymn after all . . . it was a hymn to be loved. How wonderful to feel that there was something that never changed . . . a Power under and above and around on which you could depend. Peace seemed to flow into her.

When someone sees something old they think it’s worth more than something new.” I’ll give them that. The history, imagining who might have stood or sat or eaten at a piece hundreds of years before gives it a value you can’t hang a price tag on, but I’ve never thought it was ten times the value of a new piece. I think some things are better when new, then you can grow old together.

To look at oneself and find it hideous, what a job! But then, when she hadn’t been hideous, had she sat around and stared at herself like this? Not much! A proper body’s not an object, not an implement, not a belonging to be admired, it’s just you, yourself. Only when it’s no longer you, but yours, a thing owned, do you worry about it— Is it in good shape? Will it do? Will it last?

The cicadas buzzing, I can hear them through the window. Buzzing louder and louder. Just like the night I sat by the window in the dark, gasping for air, feeling the riddle wriggling in my chest, hearing the monster's heavy footsteps in my ears. And suddenly I know. What they do all those years living in the ground. The nymphs who are to become cicadas. Maybe they don’t know it themselves, but they are writing their song. Collecting the notes in the dark earth. The song rising to the sky, this is how it is, this is how it always is. The song floating toward the sky comes from the underworld.

There are situations in life which are beyond one. The sensible man realizes this, and slides out of such situations, admitting himself beaten. Others try to grapple with them, but it never does any good. When affairs get in a real tangle, it is best to sit still and let them straighten themselves out. Or, if one does not do that, simply to think no more about them. This is Philosophy. The true philosopher is the man who says "All right," and goes to sleep in his arm-chair. One's attitude towards Life's Little Difficulties should be that of the gentleman in the fable, who sat down on an acorn one day and happened to doze. The warmth of his body caused the acorn to germinate, and it grew so rapidly that, when he awoke, he found himself sitting in the fork of an oak sixty feet from the ground. He thought he would go home, but, finding this impossible, he altered his plans. "Well, well," he said, "if I cannot compel circumstances to my will, I can at least adapt my will to circumstances. I decide to remain here." Which he did, and had a not unpleasant time. The oak lacked some of the comforts of home, but the air was splendid and the view excellent. Today's Great Thought for Young Readers. Imitate this man.

I heard a story once in the Orient about two architects who went to see the Buddha. They had run out of money on their projects and hoped the Buddha could do something about it. 'Well, I'll do what I can,' said the Buddha, and he went off to see their work. The first architect was building a bridge, and the Buddha was very impressed. 'That's a very good bridge,' he said, and he began to pray. Suddenly a great white bull appeared, carrying on its back enough gold to finish construction. 'Take it,' said the Buddha, 'and build even more bridges.' And so the first architect went away very happy. The second architect was building a wall, and when the Buddha saw it he was equally impressed. 'That's a very good wall,' he said solemnly, and began to pray. Suddenly the sacred bull appeared, walked over to the second architect, and sat on him.

Once a hunter met a lion near the hungry critter's lair, and the way that lion mauled him was decidedly unfair; but the hunter never whimpered when the surgeons, with their thread, sewed up forty-seven gashes in his mutilated head; and he showed the scars in triumph, and they gave him pleasant fame, and he always blessed the lion that had camped upon his frame. Once that hunter, absent minded, sat upon a hill of ants, and about a million bit him, and you should have seen him dance! And he used up lots of language of a deep magenta tint, and apostrophized the insects in a style unfit to print. And it's thus with worldly troubles; when the big ones come along, we serenely go to meet them, feeling valiant, bold and strong, but the weary little worries with their poisoned stings and smarts, put the lid upon our courage, make us gray, and break our hearts.

For a minute Rose of Sharon sat still in the whispering barn. Then she hoisted her tired body up and drew the comforter around her. She moved slowly to the corner and stood looking down at the wasted face, into the wide, frightened eyes. Then slowly she lay down beside him. He shook his head slowly from side to side. Rose of Sharon loosened one side of the blanket and bared her breast. “You got to,” she said. She squirmed closer and pulled his head close. “There!” she said. “There.” Her hand moved behind his head and supported it. Her fingers moved gently in his hair. She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously.

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog's blanket and the tea-cosy. I can't say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring - I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. Though even that isn't a very good poem. I have decided my best poetry is so bad that I mustn't write any more of it. Drips from the roof are plopping into the water-butt by the back door. The view through the windows above the sink is excessively drear. Beyond the dank garden in the courtyard are the ruined walls on the edge of the moat. Beyond the moat, the boggy ploughed fields stretch to the leaden sky. I tell myself that all the rain we have had lately is good for nature, and that at any moment spring will surge on us. I try to see leaves on the trees and the courtyard filled with sunlight. Unfortunately, the more my mind's eye sees green and gold, the more drained of all colour does the twilight seem. It is comforting to look away from the windows and towards the kitchen fire, near which my sister Rose is ironing - though she obviously can't see properly, and it will be a pity if she scorches her only nightgown. (I have two, but one is minus its behind.) Rose looks particularly fetching by firelight because she is a pinkish person; her skin has a pink glow and her hair is pinkish gold, very light and feathery. Although I am rather used to her I know she is a beauty. She is nearly twenty-one and very bitter with life. I am seventeen, look younger, feel older. I am no beauty but I have a neatish face. I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is really rather romantic - two girls in this strange and lonely house. She replied that she saw nothing romantic about being shut up in a crumbling ruin surrounded by a sea of mud. I must admit that our home is an unreasonable place to live in. Yet I love it. The house itself was built in the time of Charles II, but it was grafted on to a fourteenth-century castle that had been damaged by Cromwell. The whole of our east wall was part of the castle; there are two round towers in it. The gatehouse is intact and a stretch of the old walls at their full height joins it to the house. And Belmotte Tower, all that remains of an even older castle, still stands on its mound close by. But I won't attempt to describe our peculiar home fully until I can see more time ahead of me than I do now. I am writing this journal partly to practise my newly acquired speed-writing and partly to teach myself how to write a novel - I intend to capture all our characters and put in conversations. It ought to be good for my style to dash along without much thought, as up to now my stories have been very stiff and self-conscious. The only time father obliged me by reading one of them, he said I combined stateliness with a desperate effort to be funny. He told me to relax and let the words flow out of me.

While glued to my thoughts, a sweet old lady sat next to me and said softly, “Faith, is it?” “Yes,” I said, surprised that she, too, knew my name. “You are absolutely beautiful. It’s so good of you to have come home. We’ve missed you.

A nurse and a social worker took fifteen minutes out of their shitty thankless job in the roughest corner of town, sat on a couple of milk crates drinking coffee, flopped their real selves out of the cement and both liked what they saw.

On the sands of hesitation, lie the bones of countless millions.Who at the dawn of victory sat down waiting and waiting died. So always remember to keep moving no matter how small steps you take one day you will achieve your destination.

(The story that Newton was inspired by an apple hitting his head is almost certainly apocryphal. All Newton himself ever said was that the idea of gravity came to him as he sat ‘in a contemplative mood’ and ‘was occasioned by the fall of an apple.’)

Going up the hill, the strong gale blew in my face but I put my hat on and said: ‘Bring it on! I’ll keep going anyway!’ When I’d reached the top, the sky was blue and the air was still. I sat on the rocks and said with a smile: ‘I told you I can do it, didn’t?’ -Monika Wiśniewska

After her mother died and Adrienne and her father took up with wanderlust, Adrienne became exposed to new foods. For two years they lived in Maine, where in the summertime they ate lobster and white corn and small wild blueberries. They moved to Iowa for Adrienne's senior year of high school and they ate pork tenderloin fixed seventeen different ways. Adrienne did her first two years of college at Indiana University in Bloomington, where she lived above a Mexican cantina, which inspired a love of tamales and anything doused with habanero sauce. Then she transferred to Vanderbilt in Nashville, where she ate the best fried chicken she'd ever had in her life. And so on, and so on. Pad thai in Bangkok, stone crabs in Palm Beach, buffalo meat in Aspen. As she sat listening to Thatcher, she realized that though she knew nothing about restaurants, at least she knew something about food.

The two sat quiet for a moment; Gabe unsure what to say to comfort his friend and Uri stewing in his own frustration. “Damn it! It was a stupid plan!” Uri swung an arm around behind himself and his bag being the nearest object in reach, swung it across the room with as much force as he could muster.

Shukhov had been told that this old man'd been in camps and prisons more years than you could count and had never come under any amnesty. When one ten-year stretch was over they slapped on another. Shukhov took a good look at him close up. In the camp you could pick him out among all the men with their bent backs because he was straight as a ramrod. When he sat at the table it looked like he was sitting on something to raise himself up higher. There hadn't been anything to shave off his head for a long time-he'd lost all his hair because of the good life. His eyes didn't shift around the mess hall all the time to see what was going on, and he was staring over Shukhov's head and looking at something nobody else could see. He ate his thin gruel with a worn old wooden spoon, and he took his time. He didn't bend down low over the bowl like all the others did, but brought the spoon up to his mouth. He didn't have a single tooth either top or bottom-he chewed the bread with his hard gums like they were teeth. His face was all worn-out but not like a goner's-it was dark and looked like it had been hewed out of stone. And you could tell from his big rough hands with the dirt worked in them he hadn't spent many of his long years doing any of the soft jobs. You could see his mind was set on one thing-never to give in. He didn't put his eight ounces of bread in all the filth on the table like everybody else but laid it on a clean little piece of rag that'd been washed over and over again.

It ended a few feet from where he sat. The sea, broad and vast, with all its mighty force, ended right there before his eyes. Be it the edge of time or space, there is nothing so awe-inspiring as a border. To be here at this place with his three companions, at this marvellous border between land and sea, struck him as being very similar to being alive as one age ending and another beginning, like being part of a great moment in history. And then too the tide of their own era, in which he and Kiyoaki lived, also had to have an appointed time and ebb, a shore on which to break, a limit beyond which it could not go. The sea ended right there before his eyes. As he watched the final surge of each wave as it drained into the sand, the final thrust of mighty power that had come down the countless centuries, he was struck by the pathos of it all. At that very point, a grand pan-oceanic enterprise that spanned the world went awry and ended in annihilation.

The awfulness of sudden death and the glory of heaven stunned me! The thing that had been mystery at twilight, lay clear, pure, open in the rosy hue of dawn. Out of the gates of the morning poured a light which glorified the palaces and pyramids, purged and purified the afternoon's inscrutable clefts, swept away the shadows of the mesas, and bathed that broad, deep world of mighty mountains, stately spars of rock, sculptured cathedrals and alabaster terraces in an artist's dream of color. A pearl from heaven had burst, flinging its heart of fire into this chasm. A stream of opal flowed out of the sun, to touch each peak, mesa, dome, parapet, temple and tower, cliff and cleft into the new-born life of another day. I sat there for a long time and knew that every second the scene changed, yet I could not tell how. I knew I sat high over a hole of broken, splintered, barren mountains; I knew I could see a hundred miles of the length of it, and eighteen miles of the width of it, and a mile of the depth of it, and the shafts and rays of rose light on a million glancing, many-hued surfaces at once; but that knowledge was no help to me. I repeated a lot of meaningless superlatives to myself, and I found words inadequate and superfluous. The spectacle was too elusive and too great. It was life and death, heaven and hell.

Hello, sunshine,” said Jim’s voice. “I’m kind of busy.” I turned the file on its side and examined the doodle. Still nothing. “No shit,” he said. “Yeah. No gigs for me.” “That’s not why I’m calling.” I frowned at the phone and turned the file upside down. “I’m all ears.” “Someone wants to meet you,” he said. “Tell him to get in line,” I mumbled. The doodle almost looked like something. “I’m not joking.” “You never joke because you’re too damn busy proving that you’re a badass. Come on, black leather cloak? In mid-spring Atlanta? Besides I don’t have time to meet anybody.” Jim’s voice dropped low and he spoke each word very distinctly. “Think very carefully. Do you really want me to tell the man no?” Something about the way he said “the man” stopped me. I sat still and thought very hard about what kind of “man” would inspire Jim to use that voice. “What did I do to warrant the Beast Lord’s attention?” I asked dryly. “You’re sitting in the diviner’s office, aren’t you?” Touché. The Beast Lord was the Pack King, the lord of the shapechangers, and he ruled his brethren with an iron fist. Few ever saw him and the mention of his title was enough to make the loudest shapechanger shut up. In other words, he was precisely the kind of fellow my father and Greg had warned me to avoid. I ground my teeth, thinking of a way to weasel out of it.

Tell me about your life since I last saw you." | "There are no great mysteries to tell. My path is always there, and I do everything I can to follow it in a dignified way." | "What is your path?" | "The path of someone seeking love." | "And love's path is really complicated." | "Because on that path we can go either to heaven or to hell?

Then immediately came Mrs Barlow to go out again. She jumped on the window seat to see if it rained. I locked the door as usual, then lifted her down and placed her on my knee. By & by she said, ‘Is the door fast?’ I, forgetting, got up to see, then took her again on my knee & there she sat till four & threequarters, when Mlle de Sans sent to ask if I could receive. [I] told the maid I was sorry, I could not, I had got so bad a headache. The fact was I was heated & in a state not fit to see anyone. I had kissed & pressed Mrs Barlow on my knee till I had had a complete fit of passion. My knees & thighs shook, my breathing & everything told her what was the matter. She said she did me no good.

The majors are enamored with you. They admire your strong and noble nature, your grace, your poise, your stunning intelligence and eloquence, and—after tonight—your inspiring loyalty." Aldrik sat next to her. "My father excused himself over dinner, likely to hide his face, and the moment they were free of his presence, all they spoke about was you.

As I sat there in that now lonely room; the fire burning low, in that mild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air, it then only glows to be looked at; the evening shades and phantoms gathering round the casements, and peering upon us silent, solitary twain; the storm booming without its solemn swells; I began to be sensible of strange feelings.

Feeling like she really was just seven or eight, Claire sat down on the floor, books all around her, and she opened the last one she’d picked up. Even though it was dark, and even though her eyes couldn’t see the words, she knew them. Knew the little prince’s story as well as her own. She closed her eyes. She leaned her head forward against the book. And she sobbed.

He rose, placed another small log on the fire, sat back down in his armchair, and opened his book. "What are you reading?" Reggie asked. "On a wild night like this? Agatha Christie, of course. I still feel compelled to see if Hercule Poirot's 'little gray cells' will do their job one more time. It seems to often inspire my own brain, however inferior it might be to the diminutive Belgian's.

Inside the terminal at Keahole, they sat waiting to board, watching husky Hawaiians load luggage onto baggage ramps. Arriving tourists smiled at their dark, muscled bodies, handsome full-featured faces, the ease with which they lifted things of bulk and weight. Departing tourists took snapshots of them. 'That's how they see us', Pono whispered. 'Porters, servants. Hula Dancers, clowns. They never see us as we are, complex, ambiguous, inspired humans.' 'Not all haole see us that way...'Jess argued. Vanya stared at her. 'Yes, all Haole and every foreigner who comes here puts us in one of two categories: The malignant stereotype of vicious, drunken, do-nothing kanaka and their loose-hipped, whoring wahine. Or, the benign stereotype of the childlike, tourist-loving, bare-foot, aloha-spirit natives.

Icarus! It’s not as if I have forgotten all names. I remember Icarus. He flew too close to the sun. In the stories, though, it’s worth it. Always worth it to have tried, even if you fail, even if you fall like a meteor forever. Better to have flamed in the darkness, to have inspired others, to have lived, than to have sat in the darkness, cursing the people who borrowed, but did not return, your candle.

In interviews with riders that I've read and in conversations that I've had with them, the same thing always comes up: the best part was the suffering. In Amsterdam I once trained with a Canadian rider who was living in Holland. A notorious creampuff: in the sterile art of track racing he was Canadian champion in at least six disciplines, but when it came to toughing it out on the road he didn't have the character. The sky turned black, the water in the ditch rippled, a heavy storm broke loose. The Canadian sat up straight, raised his arms to heaven and shouted: 'Rain! Soak me! Ooh, rain, soak me, make me wet!' How can that be: suffering is suffering, isn't it? In 1910, Milan—San Remo was won by a rider who spent half an hour in a mountain hut, hiding from a snowstorm. Man, did he suffer! In 1919, Brussels—Amiens was won by a rider who rode the last forty kilometers with a flat front tire. Talk about suffering! He arrived at 11.30 at night, with a ninety-minute lead on the only other two riders who finished the race. The day had been like night, trees had whipped back and forth, farmers were blown back into their barns, there were hailstones, bomb craters from the war, crossroads where the gendarmes had run away, and riders had to climb onto one another's shoulders to wipe clean the muddied road signs. Oh, to have been a rider then. Because after the finish all the suffering turns into memories of pleasure, and the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is Nature's payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses: people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. 'Good for you.' Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lay with few suitors these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms she rewards passionately. That's why there are riders. Suffering you need; literature is baloney.

All of us believe you belong here,” I’d said to the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson girls as they sat, many of them looking a little awestruck, in the Gothic old-world dining hall at Oxford, surrounded by university professors and students who’d come out for the day to mentor them. I said something similar anytime we had kids visit the White House—teens we invited from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation; children from local schools who showed up to work in the garden; high schoolers who came for our career days and workshops in fashion, music, and poetry; even kids I only got to give a quick but emphatic hug to in a rope line. The message was always the same. You belong. You matter. I think highly of you. An economist from a British university would later put out a study that looked at the test performances of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson students, finding that their overall scores jumped significantly after I’d started connecting with them—the equivalent of moving from a C average to an A. Any credit for improvement really belonged to the girls, their teachers, and the daily work they did together, but it also affirmed the idea that kids will invest more when they feel they’re being invested in. I understood that there was power in showing children my regard.

As for having reached the top, with only one way to go from there, Lee had a point, no? I mean, if you cannot repeat a once-in-a-lifetime miracle—if you can never again reach the top—then why bother creating at all? Well, I can actually speak about this predicament from personal experience, because I myself was once “at the top”—with a book that sat on the bestseller list for more than three years. I can’t tell you how many people said to me during those years, “How are you ever going to top that?” They’d speak of my great good fortune as though it were a curse, not a blessing, and would speculate about how terrified I must feel at the prospect of not being able to reach such phenomenal heights again. But such thinking assumes there is a “top”—and that reaching that top (and staying there) is the only motive one has to create. Such thinking assumes that the mysteries of inspiration operate on the same scale that we do—on a limited human scale of success and failure, of winning and losing, of comparison and competition, of commerce and reputation, of units sold and influence wielded. Such thinking assumes that you must be constantly victorious—not only against your peers, but also against an earlier version of your own poor self. Most dangerously of all, such thinking assumes that if you cannot win, then you must not continue to play. But what does any of that have to do with vocation? What does any of that have to do with the pursuit of love? What does any of that have to do with the strange communion between the human and the magical? What does any of that have to do with faith? What does any of that have to do with the quiet glory of merely making things, and then sharing those things with an open heart and no expectations?

Once, during a concert of cathedral organ music, as I sat getting gooseflesh amid that tsunami of sound, I was struck with a thought: for a medieval peasant, this must have been the loudest human-made sound they ever experienced, awe-inspiring in now-unimaginable ways. No wonder they signed up for the religion being proffered. And now we are constantly pummeled with sounds that dwarf quaint organs. Once, hunter-gatherers might chance upon honey from a beehive and thus briefly satisfy a hardwired food craving. And now we have hundreds of carefully designed commercial foods that supply a burst of sensation unmatched by some lowly natural food. Once, we had lives that, amid considerable privation, also offered numerous subtle, hard-won pleasures. And now we have drugs that cause spasms of pleasure and dopamine release a thousandfold higher than anything stimulated in our old drug-free world.

Last weekend, grandad and I sat on the porch in silence at sunset. We admired the grapes hanging on the vines. Time passed and it did not matter. That moment was precious, that moment was to be cherished. That moment was a healer. That moment was rich, comfortable and words were unneeded. We had each other sitting side by side and the luxury of a moment lived in its full presence. That is all that mattered. The best things in life are really free.

That evening around dusk, she hiked up to Maryland Heights and sat on a cliff looking down upon the picturesque little town of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. One hundred seventy years before, Thomas Jefferson called the view “one of the most stupendous scenes in nature.” In a book first published in France, he wrote that the scene alone, the passage of the Potomac River through the Blue Ridge and its crashing merger with the Shenandoah, was worth a trip across the Atlantic.

Those who sat with him saw his eyes go moist when they spoke about something horrible, or crinkle in delight when they told him a really bad joke. He was always ready to openly display the emotion so often missing from my baby boomer generation. We are great at small talk: 'What do you do?' 'Where do you live?' But really listening to someone -- without trying to sell them something, pick them up, recruit them, or get some kind of status in return -- how often do we get this anymore?

The following Wednesday, the week after our exploits, Jack was on the couch when I looked out at six thirty. He turned off the stock market show when I peered out my door, and Jack requested I join him on the coach. I paused for a moment, not knowing if I was willing, then sat next to him as I had the week before. I was calling him all kinds of dreadful things in my mind when I looked into his eyes, and instead of hot, they were deep murky pools of sad blue. Chapter 3 Bonnie Harrison

At the end of the week, when we sat down to dinner, all eyes went to the trays on the table, where browned-to-perfection mini corn dogs cuddled up against a variety of dipping sauces. “This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” A lineman wiped a tear from his eye. “It’s like Christmas,” I said, all choked up. “I love you, Coach.” The quarterback’s bottom lip quivered. We dove into the pile of savory sausages, watched NFL football, and forgot our aches, pains, and camp struggles.

AUTHOR’S NOTE Dear reader: This story was inspired by an event that happened when I was eight years old. At the time, I was living in upstate New York. It was winter, and my dad and his best friend, “Uncle Bob,” decided to take my older brother, me, and Uncle Bob’s two boys for a hike in the Adirondacks. When we left that morning, the weather was crisp and clear, but somewhere near the top of the trail, the temperature dropped abruptly, the sky opened, and we found ourselves caught in a torrential, freezing blizzard. My dad and Uncle Bob were worried we wouldn’t make it down. We weren’t dressed for that kind of cold, and we were hours from the base. Using a rock, Uncle Bob broke the window of an abandoned hunting cabin to get us out of the storm. My dad volunteered to run down for help, leaving my brother Jeff and me to wait with Uncle Bob and his boys. My recollection of the hours we spent waiting for help to arrive is somewhat vague except for my visceral memory of the cold: my body shivering uncontrollably and my mind unable to think straight. The four of us kids sat on a wooden bench that stretched the length of the small cabin, and Uncle Bob knelt on the floor in front of us. I remember his boys being scared and crying and Uncle Bob talking a lot, telling them it was going to be okay and that “Uncle Jerry” would be back soon. As he soothed their fear, he moved back and forth between them, removing their gloves and boots and rubbing each of their hands and feet in turn. Jeff and I sat beside them, silent. I took my cue from my brother. He didn’t complain, so neither did I. Perhaps this is why Uncle Bob never thought to rub our fingers and toes. Perhaps he didn’t realize we, too, were suffering. It’s a generous view, one that as an adult with children of my own I have a hard time accepting. Had the situation been reversed, my dad never would have ignored Uncle Bob’s sons. He might even have tended to them more than he did his own kids, knowing how scared they would have been being there without their parents. Near dusk, a rescue jeep arrived, and we were shuttled down the mountain to waiting paramedics. Uncle Bob’s boys were fine—cold and exhausted, hungry and thirsty, but otherwise unharmed. I was diagnosed with frostnip on my fingers, which it turned out was not so bad. It hurt as my hands were warmed back to life, but as soon as the circulation was restored, I was fine. Jeff, on the other hand, had first-degree frostbite. His gloves needed to be cut from his fingers, and the skin beneath was chafed, white, and blistered. It was horrible to see, and I remember thinking how much it must have hurt, the damage so much worse than my own. No one, including my parents, ever asked Jeff or me what happened in the cabin or questioned why we were injured and Uncle Bob’s boys were not, and Uncle Bob and Aunt Karen continued to be my parents’ best friends. This past winter, I went skiing with my two children, and as we rode the chairlift, my memory of that day returned. I was struck by how callous and uncaring Uncle Bob, a man I’d known my whole life and who I believed loved us, had been and also how unashamed he was after. I remember him laughing with the sheriff, like the whole thing was this great big adventure that had fortunately turned out okay. I think he even viewed himself as sort of a hero, boasting about how he’d broken the window and about his smart thinking to lead us to the cabin in the first place. When he got home, he probably told Karen about rubbing their sons’ hands and feet and about how he’d consoled them and never let them get scared. I looked at my own children beside me, and a shudder ran down my spine as I thought about all the times I had entrusted them to other people in the same way my dad had entrusted us to Uncle Bob, counting on the same naive presumption that a tacit agreement existed for my children to be cared for equally to their own.

Oh . . . I'd been getting pretty sick of the office. It made me feel dead inside. Finally, the week-ends weren't long enough to get it out of my system. I couldn't read poetry or listen to music. It was like being constipated. Well, I got a holiday and went to Kent for a week's hiking. And for the first two days I felt nothing at all, just a sort of deadness inside. And one day I went into a pub in a place called Marden and had a couple of pints. And as I came out, a sort of bubble seemed to burst inside me, and I started feeling things again. And I suddenly felt an overwhelming hatred for cities and offices and people and everything that calls itself civilisation . . . . "Then I got an idea. I sat down at the side of the road and thought about it. I'd read somewhere that the Manichees thought the world was created by evil. Well, it suddenly seemed to me that the forces behind the world weren't either good or evil, but something quite incomprehensible to human beings. And the only thing they want is movement, everlasting movement. That's the way I saw it suddenly. Human beings want peace, and they build their civilisations and make their laws to get peace. But the forces behind the world don't want peace. So they send down ertain men whose business is to keep the world in a turmoil - the Napoleons, Hitlers, Genghis Khans. And I called these men the Enemies, with a capital E. And I thought I belong among the Enemies - that's why I detest this bloody civilisation. And I suddenly began to feel better . . . .

But he was ecstatic, because the prospect of those endless years of hard labor did not seem like a burden to him. Bill Gates had that same feeling when he first sat down at the keyboard at Lakeside. And the Beatles didn't recoil in horror when they were told they had to play eight hours a night, seven days a week. They jumped at the chance. Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig.

A man sat down by a tree every day for 2 weeks. It was a beautiful Wisteria tree with purple flowers. Every day, around the same time, he would come to the park and sit by this tree. On the fourteenth day, he came to the park and approached the tree and as he sat down, he closed his eyes as he always did. Only this time when he opened them, the tree withered and died before him. The man then looked around and before he knew it, he had found that he never came to the tree at all, but was in an asylum the whole time.

I'm sure that a sociologist and a psychologist, sitting in a room together, could explain why I lost interest in drugs, why my grades improved, why I aced the SAT, and why I found a couple of teachers who inspire me to love learning. But what I remember most of all is that I was happy - I no longer feared the school bell at the end of the day. I knew where I'd be living the next month, and no one's romantic decisions affected my life. And out of that happiness came so many of the opportunities I've had for the past twelve years.

West couldn't simply leave the man like this, he didn't have it in him. "Goodman Heath," he said as he approached, and the peasant looked up at him, surprised. He fumbled for his hat and made to rise, muttering apologies. "No, please, don't get up." West sat down on the bench. He stared at his feet, unable to look the man in the eye. There was an awkward silence. "I have a friend who sits on the Commission for Land and Agriculture. There might be something he can do for you…" He trailed off, embarrassed, squinting up the corridor. The farmer gave a sad smile. "I'd be right grateful for anything you could do." "Yes, yes, of course, I'll do what I can." It would do no good whatsoever, and they both knew it. West grimaced and bit his lip. "You'd better take this," and he pressed his purse into the peasant's limp, calloused fingers. Heath looked at him, mouth slightly open. West gave a quick, awkward smile then got to his feet. He was very keen to be off. "Sir!" called Goodman Heath after him, but West was already hurrying down the corridor, and he didn't look back.

One other thing. And that's all. I promise you. But the thing is, you raved and you bitched when you came home about the stupidity of audiences. The goddam `unskilled laughter' comming from the fifth row. And that's right, that's right - God knows it's depressing. I'm not saying it isn't. But that's none of your business, really. That's none of your business, Franny. An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and *on his own terms", not anyone else's. You have no right to think about those things. I swear to you. Not in any real sense, anyway. You know what I mean?" ... The voice at the other end came through again. "I remember abouut the fifth time I ever went on `Wise Child'. I subbbed for Walt a few times when he was in a cast - remember when he was in the case? Anyway. I started bitching one night before broadcast. Seymour'd told me to shine my shoes just as I was going out the door with Waker. I was furious. The studio audience were all morons, the announcer was a moron, the sponsors were morons, and I just damn well wasn't going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour. I sais they couldn't see them anyway, where we sat. He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but he had a very Seymour look on his face, and so I did it. He never did tell me who the Fat Lady was, but I shined my shoes for the Fat Lady every time I ever went on the air again - all the years you and I were on the program together, if you remember. I don't think I missed more than one just a couple of times. This terribly clear, clear picture of the Fat Lady formed in my time. I had her sitting on this porch all day, swatting flies, with her radio goin full-blast from morning till night. I figured the heat was terrible, and she probably had cancer, and - I don't know. Anyway, seemed goddam clear why Seymour wanted me to shine my shoes when I went on air. It made *sense*." ... "... Let me tell you something now, buddy ... Are you listening?" ... "I don't care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, in can be over a radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret - Are you listening to me? *There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady.* That goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone *any*where that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know - listen to me, now - *don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?*... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.

President Grant sent a note to Golden. The note read that there was a member of the stake presidency from Coalville, who had passed away. His wife had requested Golden speak at the funeral. Golden didn’t get the note until he returned from a Church assignment in Southern California. By then the funeral was in an hour, and Coalville was almost two hours away He hopped in his Model T and drove as fast as he could. When he arrived, the funeral was almost over. The bishop saw Golden walk in. "Brother Kimball, come forward. We’d like to hear from you." He went up and said, "I’m very happy to be here. I’m sorry I’m late. I want to tell you what a wonderful person this man was. I knew him, I’ve stayed in his home. He was an inspiration to me. He was a good father, he was a good husband. He goes to a great reward." As he started to hit his stride, he looked out in the audience. About the eighth row back, there sat the man he thought was dead! So he looked down in the casket. He did not recognize the man lying there. Confused, he turned and said, "Say Bishop, who the hell’s dead around here anyway?

Well, at least you are going to do the right thing and stand by the marriage." "Which isn't even a legal one," Richard pointed out, and then his eyes widened. "What if she is with child from last night's tumblings? Technically, the child would be illegitimate." Daniel grimaced at the thought, but tried to soothe him. "Well, one time isn't likely to bring about a child." "True,but it wasn't one time," Richard muttered. "Well even two..." Daniel began, but then noted his expression and instead asked, "Three?" Richard stared back silently. "Four?" he asked with disbelief. Richard remained silent. "Oh." Daniel sat back in his seat, somewhat impressed, but mostly envious as he imagined having Suzette five times or more, each time in different places and positions and...Giving his head a shake, he muttered, "Well, she must be very...er...inspiring. We must just hope she is not equally fertile." When Richard's shoulders slumped, he added, "Or you could marry her to ensure everything was legal." "We are already supposed to be married. How the devil do I explain the need to marry again?" Richard asked with disgust.

The family came in to select the arrangements they wanted. The woman whose husband had died was struggling dearly to keep her voice intact long enough to place the order. It wasn't long before she broke down. Wendy didn't say a word. She moved from behind the counter to find a chair for the woman. She eased her into it. She sat beside her and let her cry. Quiet, not speaking. She brought tissues when the moment asked for it. The woman's crying slowly came to a stop. She wiped her eyes, and she looked at Wendy. And she smiled. Just a little one. And she said, "Thank you.

Of course I didn’t read James and sit down and say, Now I’ll write a story about that “lost soul.” It seldom works that simply. I sat down and started a story, just because I felt like it, with nothing but the word “Omelas” in mind. It came from a road sign: Salem (Oregon) backwards. Don’t you read road signs backwards? POTS. WOLS nerdlihc. Ocsicnarf Nas . . . Salem equals schelomo equals salaam equals Peace. Melas. O melas. Omelas. Homme hélas. “Where do you get your ideas from, Ms Le Guin?” From forgetting Dostoyevsky and reading road signs backwards, naturally. Where else?

A lot of her songs were to do with Blake, which did not escape Mark’s attention. She told Mark that writing songs about him was cathartic and that ‘Back to Black’ summed up what had happened when their relationship had ended: Blake had gone back to his ex and Amy to black, or drinking and hard times. It was some of her most inspired writing because, for better or worse, she’d lived it. Mark and Amy inspired each other musically, each bringing out fresh ideas in the other. One day they decided to take a quick stroll around the neighbourhood because Amy wanted to buy Alex Clare a present. On the way back Amy began telling Mark about being with Blake, then not being with Blake and being with Alex instead. She told him about the time at my house after she’d been in hospital when everyone had been going on at her about her drinking. ‘You know they tried to make me go to rehab, and I told them, no, no, no.’ ‘That’s quite gimmicky,’ Mark replied. ‘It sounds hooky. You should go back to the studio and we should turn that into a song.’ Of course, Amy had written that line in one of her books ages ago. She’d told me before she was planning to write a song about what had happened that day, but that was the moment ‘Rehab’ came to life. Amy had also been working on a tune for the ‘hook’, but when she played it to Mark later that day it started out as a slow blues shuffle – it was like a twelve-bar blues progression. Mark suggested that she should think about doing a sixties girl-group sound, as she liked them so much. He also thought it would be fun to put in the Beatles-style E minor and A minor chords, which would give it a jangly feel. Amy was unaccustomed to this style – most of the songs she was writing were based around jazz chords – but it worked and that day she wrote ‘Rehab’ in just three hours. If you had sat Amy down with a pen and paper every day, she wouldn’t have written a song. But every now and then, something or someone turned the light on in her head and she wrote something brilliant. During that time it happened over and over again. The sessions in the studio became very intense and tiring, especially for Mark, who would sometimes work a double shift and then fall asleep. He would wake up with his head in Amy’s lap and she would be stroking his hair, as if he was a four-year-old. Mark was a few years older than Amy, but he told me he found her very motherly and kind.

I sat in the darkness, where there is not any created thing, and to you I was only a voice commanding valour and an unnatural virtue. You heard the voice in the dark, and you never heard it again. The sun in heaven denied it, the earth and sky denied it, all human wisdom denied it. And when I met you in the daylight I denied it myself.… But you were men. You did not forget your secret honour, though the whole cosmos turned an engine of torture to tear it out of you. I knew how near you were to hell. I know how you, Thursday, crossed swords with King Satan, and how you, Wednesday, named me in the hour without hope.

They preferred writing about great men to writing about great hills; but they sat on the great hills to write it. They gave out much less about Nature, but they drank in, perhaps, much more. They painted the white robes of their holy virgins with the blinding snow, at which they had stared all day. They blazoned the shields of their paladins with the purple and gold of many heraldic sunsets. The greenness of a thousand green leaves clustered into the live green figure of Robin Hood. The blueness of a score of forgotten skies became the blue robes of the Virgin. The inspiration went in like sunbeams and came out like Apollo.

Girls, I was dead and down in the Underworld, a shade, a shadow of my former self, nowhen. It was a place where language stopped, a black full stop, a black hole Where the words had to come to an end. And end they did there, last words, famous or not. It suited me down to the ground. So imagine me there, unavailable, out of this world, then picture my face in that place of Eternal Repose, in the one place you’d think a girl would be safe from the kind of a man who follows her round writing poems, hovers about while she reads them, calls her His Muse, and once sulked for a night and a day because she remarked on his weakness for abstract nouns. Just picture my face when I heard - Ye Gods - a familiar knock-knock at Death’s door. Him. Big O. Larger than life. With his lyre and a poem to pitch, with me as the prize. Things were different back then. For the men, verse-wise, Big O was the boy. Legendary. The blurb on the back of his books claimed that animals, aardvark to zebra, flocked to his side when he sang, fish leapt in their shoals at the sound of his voice, even the mute, sullen stones at his feet wept wee, silver tears. Bollocks. (I’d done all the typing myself, I should know.) And given my time all over again, rest assured that I’d rather speak for myself than be Dearest, Beloved, Dark Lady, White Goddess etc., etc. In fact girls, I’d rather be dead. But the Gods are like publishers, usually male, and what you doubtless know of my tale is the deal. Orpheus strutted his stuff. The bloodless ghosts were in tears. Sisyphus sat on his rock for the first time in years. Tantalus was permitted a couple of beers. The woman in question could scarcely believe her ears. Like it or not, I must follow him back to our life - Eurydice, Orpheus’ wife - to be trapped in his images, metaphors, similes, octaves and sextets, quatrains and couplets, elegies, limericks, villanelles, histories, myths… He’d been told that he mustn’t look back or turn round, but walk steadily upwards, myself right behind him, out of the Underworld into the upper air that for me was the past. He’d been warned that one look would lose me for ever and ever. So we walked, we walked. Nobody talked. Girls, forget what you’ve read. It happened like this - I did everything in my power to make him look back. What did I have to do, I said, to make him see we were through? I was dead. Deceased. I was Resting in Peace. Passé. Late. Past my sell-by date… I stretched out my hand to touch him once on the back of the neck. Please let me stay. But already the light had saddened from purple to grey. It was an uphill schlep from death to life and with every step I willed him to turn. I was thinking of filching the poem out of his cloak, when inspiration finally struck. I stopped, thrilled. He was a yard in front. My voice shook when I spoke - Orpheus, your poem’s a masterpiece. I’d love to hear it again… He was smiling modestly, when he turned, when he turned and he looked at me. What else? I noticed he hadn’t shaved. I waved once and was gone. The dead are so talented. The living walk by the edge of a vast lake near, the wise, drowned silence of the dead.

I hadn't wanted to explain the lipstick. Or the mascara. Or the skinny jeans I'd snagged from Sienna's laundrey and washed under cover of darkness and paired with a black turtleneck that a jaunt through the dryer had made, to ne honest, a size too small. But this news about the Willing Archive trumped all of that. He gave me a careful once-over. "Well." I sat down next to him, aiming for casual. I should have aimed my butt. I sat on his geometry book. "Well what?" "Don't even.The day you become a good liar is the day I leave you for one of the Hannandas." "I have an appointment at the Willing Archive." I will say this for Frankie: He pays attention. "The utterly-off-limits, place-to-bury-your-face-in-Edward's-old-knickers archive?" "Nice.But yes,that one.Mrs. Evers got me in." "About time someone did." He bumped a shoulder against mine. "I really do hate to burst your bubble, Fiorella, but Edward is a century past appreciating the sight of you in tight jeans. So tell me whassup." I squirmed a little. "What sort of idiot do you think I am?" He sighed. "You look good, but I am concerned about the inspiration." "It's not a big deal. It's some makeup." "When I want a boy to look ta me, it's a day that ends in y. You, it's something else. It's a big deal.

To mortals, the water would be nothing more than a black swatch in the center of town. But to my eyes, oh, to my eyes, the lake was teeming with life and energy and vibrations, with flowing particles of light that pulsated along the surface of the water—and just under, too. Light that wasn’t really light. It was energy, I knew. The energy that powered this Earth, this universe, energy that flowed over everything and anything, constantly, unendingly, flowing, flowing. From where it came, I did not know, but I had my ideas and a single word appeared to me now as I sat there in my front seat. God. Or something close to God. The Creator, the Source, the All That Ever Was. And each light particle was, I suspected, a part of God, to be used and gathered and collected as we see fit, to be harnessed as we see fit. It is the driving force of creation. It is the thing that holds our world together, keeps its place in its orbit around the Sun, and the Sun in its place in our Galaxy, and our Galaxy in its place in the known Universe. It is creation and love, and it flows and is there for all of us to be used, or not used, to experience or to not experience. It is inspiration. It is love. It is life. It is health. It is great ideas. And it is always there, flowing, moving, adapting, growing. And

(...) and as I sat in bed thinking of the many good things that had to happen all over the world in order to even out and nullify the horrible bad things that had happened to Mom and me, I started to see why Mom believed in the Good Luck of Right Now. Believing - or maybe even pretending - made you feel better about what had happened, regardless of what was true and what wasn't. And what is reality, if it isn't how we feel about things? what else matters at the end of the day when we lie in bed alone with our thoughts? and isn't it true, statistically speaking - regardless of whether we believe in luck or not - that good and bad must happen simultaneously all over the world?

Darcy rolled the quill between his fingers and looked with benign pity upon his cousin. “You should, you know. It’s a wonderful feeling to be the head of your home, with a wife who adores you and whom you adore in return.” Fitzwilliam whipped out his pocket watch. “Oh, look at that. I have to run." Ignoring him, Darcy turned his face to the fire, a besotted look in his eyes and a smile on his lips. “It’s a good feeling to care for your family and their well-being. It makes you finally grow up, I can tell you.” He sighed deeply and began attacking his figures once more, his mind filled with unlimited love and joy, thinking on his upcoming paternal responsibilities. “I myself find women to be unbelievably wonderful creations.” “I suppose you will continue with this treacle even as I beg you to stop.” “Well, think about it…” Darcy continued, looking up from his work. Fitzwilliam groaned. “They give back to you double and triple whatever little you hand them.” “I think I’m going to be ill, Darcy. Please stop.” “You hand them disparate items of food, and they give you back a wonderful meal. You provide them with four walls and a floor, and they give you back a loving home. You give them your seed,” Darcy’s eyes misted, his voice choked with emotion. “You give them your seed, and they give you back the most precious thing of all—a child…” They sat in silence together. “And God help you if you give them shit.” Fitzwilliam was calmly packing tobacco into his pipe, and his eyes met Darcy’s for a moment. Understanding flashed between them. “Amen to that, Cousin.” Darcy crashed down to earth, quickly resuming his work

A naked woman sat sunning herself on a nearby rock like a mermaid. Beads of water sparkled like diamonds on her slicked-back hair and bronze skin. A row of pearls appeared when she grinned. Brigid briefly wondered if women like this were the inspiration of seafaring folks' legends. "Harriet?" Brigid asked, though she recognized the woman immediately. There was no one on the Island--- no one anywhere--- who looked anything like her. "I like to swim in the buff. Hope you don't mind." "Not at all," Brigid said. Harriet's nudity seemed so natural that Brigid had barely taken note. She looked back out at the sound. "I saw a whale out there a few nights ago." "I saw one this morning," Harriet told her. "She's a friend of mine. I've known her for years." Brigid stared off across the endless expanse and imagined the whale out there, keeping watch beneath the waves.

As I have thus suggested that the Devil himself has politically spread about this Notion[Pg 269] concerning his appearing with a Cloven-Foot, so I doubt not that he has thought it for his Purpose to paint this Cloven-Foot so lively in the Imaginations of many of our People, and especially of those clear sighted Folks who see the Devil when he is not to be seen, that they would make no Scruple to say, nay and to make Affidavit too, even before Satan himself, whenever he sat upon the Bench, that they had seen his Worship’s Foot at such and such a Time; this I advance the rather because ’tis very much for his Interest to do this, for if we had not many Witnesses, viva voce, to testify it, we should have had some obstinate Fellows always among us, who would have denied the Fact, or at least have spoken doubtfully of it, and so have rais’d Disputes and Objections against it, as impossible, or at least as improbable; buzzing one ridiculous Notion or other into our Ears, as if the Devil was not so black as he was painted, that he had no more a Cloven-Foot than a Pope, whose Apostolical Toes have so often been reverentially kiss’d by Kings and Emperors: but now alas this Part is out of the Question, not the Man in the Moon, not the Groaning-Board, not the speaking of Fryar Bacon’s Brazen-Head, not the Inspiration of Mother Shipton, or the Miracles of Dr. Faustus, Things as certain as Death and Taxes, can be more firmly believ’d: The Devil not have a Cloven-Foot! I doubt not but I could, in a short Time, bring you a thousand old Women together, that would as soon believe there was no Devil at all; nay, they will tell you, he could not be a Devil without it, any more than he could come into the Room, and the Candles not burn blue, or go out and not leave a smell of Brimstone behind him.

Stillness pooled like blood and Devon sat, stunned and terrified to move in case her universe tilted again. The aunts were already cleaning up: wiping blood off her legs, changing the sheets around her as best they could. Someone carried the placenta away. “Your milk will be black, when it comes in,” Gailey said. “Don’t be alarmed by that. All perfectly normal.” Devon just nodded, too overwhelmed to speak. Perfectly normal? How could anything be normal ever again? Her life had been a series of twisted fairy tales in which she had imagined herself the princess, but this, here, living and breathing and snuffling in her arms, had more truth than all of her swallowed stories combined. She was her daughter’s whole world, a realization both humbling and empowering. Devon had never been anybody’s world before—had never been anything at all, in fact, except the sum of paper flesh she’d consumed without thought.

Flower Beds by Maisie Aletha Smikle Flower beds in a row Like tic toc toe Spread the mulch Pluck the weeds and mow Water the flower beds And flowers will bud Colorful blooms All season long Welcome the sunshine From heaven’s furnace Anchored far up in the sky Gentle rays beam from up above A round ball of fire way up in the sky Always suspended in the anchored sky Shines its radiant beams from way up high Warming the sprouting flower beds Sunlight Moonlight Starlight Warm gentle and bright Make the flower beds bright Glowing softly in the night Thanks for the moon Thanks for the stars Thanks for the sun Thanks for the soft radiant beams of light That make the flower beds beautiful and bright In colorful shades of red Yellow orange black pink Purple green and white In the blooming flower bed Sat a rabbit called Skip Watching the horizon as the circle of fire slowly dip Diving slowly into the ocean deep

Books are admitted to the canon by a compact which confesses their greatness in consideration of abrogating their meaning; so that the reverend rector can agree with the prophet Micah as to his inspired style without being committed to any complicity in Micah's furiously Radical opinions. Why, even I, as I force myself; pen in hand, into recognition and civility, find all the force of my onslaught destroyed by a simple policy of non-resistance. In vain do I redouble the violence of the language in which I proclaim my heterodoxies. I rail at the theistic credulity of Voltaire, the amoristic superstition of Shelley, the revival of tribal soothsaying and idolatrous rites which Huxley called Science and mistook for an advance on the Pentateuch, no less than at the welter of ecclesiastical and professional humbug which saves the face of the stupid system of violence and robbery which we call Law and Industry. Even atheists reproach me with infidelity and anarchists with nihilism because I cannot endure their moral tirades. And yet, instead of exclaiming "Send this inconceivable Satanist to the stake," the respectable newspapers pith me by announcing "another book by this brilliant and thoughtful writer." And the ordinary citizen, knowing that an author who is well spoken of by a respectable newspaper must be all right, reads me, as he reads Micah, with undisturbed edification from his own point of view. It is narrated that in the eighteen-seventies an old lady, a very devout Methodist, moved from Colchester to a house in the neighborhood of the City Road, in London, where, mistaking the Hall of Science for a chapel, she sat at the feet of Charles Bradlaugh for many years, entranced by his eloquence, without questioning his orthodoxy or moulting a feather of her faith. I fear I small be defrauded of my just martyrdom in the same way.

Oh, how weary I grow. How I writhed, and yawned, and nodded, and revived! How I pinched and pricked myself, and rubbed my eyes, and stood up, and sat down again, and nudged Joseph to inform me if he would ever have done. I was condemned to hear all out: finally, he reached the 'First of the Seventy-First.' At that crisis, a sudden inspiration descended on me; I was moved to rise and denounce Jabez Branderham as the sinner of the sin that no Christian need pardon. 'Sir,' I exclaimed, 'sitting here within these four walls, at one stretch, I have endured and forgiven the four hundred and ninety heads of your discourse. Seventy times seven times have I plucked up my hat and been about to depart—Seventy times seven times have you preposterously forced me to resume my seat. The four hundred and ninety-first is too much. Fellow-martyrs, have at him! Drag him down, and crush him to atoms, that the place which knows him may know him no more!

Her disillusionment with the business had intensified as the need to simplify her stories increased. Her original treatments for Blondie of the Follies and The Prizefighter and the Lady had much more complexity and many more characters than ever made it to the screen, and adapting The Good Earth had served as a nagging reminder of the inherent restraints of film. Frances found herself inspired by memories of Jack London, sitting on the veranda with her father as they extolled the virtues of drinking their liquor “neat,” and remembered his telling her that he went traveling to experience adventure, but “then come back to an unrelated environment and write. I seek one of nature’s hideouts, like this isolated Valley, then I see more clearly the scenes that are the most vivid in my memory.” So she arrived in Napa with the idea of writing the novel she started in her hospital bed with the backdrop of “the chaos, confusion, excitement and daily tidal changes” of the studios, but as she sat on the veranda at Aetna Springs, she knew she was still too close to her mixed feelings about the film business.48 As she walked the trails and passed the schoolhouse that had served the community for sixty years, she talked to the people who had lived there in seclusion for several generations and found their stories “similar to case histories recorded by Freud or Jung.” She concentrated on the women she saw carrying the burden in this community and all others and gave them a depth of emotion and detail. Her series of short stories was published under the title Valley People and critics praised it as a “heartbreak book” that would “never do for screen material.” It won the public plaudits of Dorothy Parker, Rupert Hughes, Joseph Hergesheimer, and other popular writers and Frances proudly viewed Valley People as “an honest book with no punches pulled” and “a tribute to my suffering sex.

But no, music lasted longer than anything it inspired. After LPs, cassettes, and CDs, when matrimony was about to decay into its component elements—alimony and acrimony—the songs startled him and regained all their previous, pre-Rachel meanings, as if they had not only conjured her but then dismissed her, as if she had been entirely their illusion. He listened to the old songs again, years later on that same dark promenade, when every CD he had ever owned sat nestled in that greatest of all human inventions, the iPod, dialed up and yielding to his fingertip’s tap. The songs now offered him, in exchange for all he had lost, the sensation that there was something still to long for, still, something still approaching, and all that had gone before was merely prologue to an unimaginably profound love yet to seize him. If there was any difference now, it was only that his hunger for music had become more urgent, less a daily pleasure than a daily craving.

Before he could answer, it started. It sounded like a murmur, and then someone said it out loud, and the whisper became outright laughter. “Is eht Gaylord?” said a rat-faced boy at the front. The room erupted. “Big Bobby Bender?” said another. Shuggie tried to talk over them. His face burned red. “It’s Shuggie, sir. Hugh Bain. I’m transferred here from Saint Luke’s.” “Listen tae that voice!” said another boy, with tight curly hair. He opened his eyes wide like he had hit the bullying jackpot. “Ere, posh boy. Whaur did ye get that fuckin’ accent? Are ye a wee ballet dancer, or whit?” This went down the best of all. It was a divine inspiration to the others. “Gies a wee dance!” they squealed with laughter. “Twirl for us, ye wee bender!” Shuggie sat there listening to them amuse themselves. He took the red football book and dropped it into the dark drawer of this strange school desk. He was glad, at least, to be done with that. It was clear now: nobody would get to be made brand new.

the setting in the rectory was stunning. We sat down to a fully set table, with fine china and crisp, white linen. Whenever the monsignor wanted anything, he would ring a little silver bell and this old housekeeper would come shuffling in, like a servant. Every time I tried to engage the monsignor in some serious discussion, he would pick up that bell and ring it, and the little old woman would come in to deal with his every whim. And so I’m sitting there, not only stunned at the level, the position in life, that they held themselves at, but how we in the Church allowed them to do this, that no one was saying, ‘Hey, this is wrong. These guys shouldn’t be living like this while the nuns don’t have health insurance.’ But what I realized that day, as the monsignor kept ringing that bell, was how distant, how aloof, how detached the hierarchy of the Church had become. They lived separate lives, completely disconnected from the lives of the laity, and we had allowed it to happen.” Eventually,

Well,” said Spender, “I’ve found a Martian.” The men squinted at him. “Up in a dead town. I didn’t think I’d find him. I didn’t intend looking him up. I don’t know what he was doing there. I’ve been living in a little valley town for about a week, learning how to read the ancient books and looking at their old art forms. And one day I saw this Martian. He stood there for a moment and then he was gone. He didn’t come back for another day. I sat around, learning how to read the old writing, and the Martian came back, each time a little nearer, until on the day I learned how to decipher the Martian language—it’s amazingly simple and there are picture graphs to help you—the Martian appeared before me and said, ‘Give me your boots.’ And I gave him my boots and he said, ‘Give me your uniform and all the rest of your apparel.’ And I gave him all of that, and then he said, ‘Give me your gun,’ and I gave him my gun. Then he said, ‘Now come along and watch what happens.’ And the Martian walked down into camp and he’s here now.” “I don’t see any Martian,” said Cheroke. “I’m sorry.

You look a bit tired,love; haven't you been sleeping well?" "I've been sleeping just fine," she lied. "I was out late last night." Deliberately she turned to him. "On a date." Alan controlled the swift surge of jealousy. Her ability to push the right buttons to get under his skin was no longer a surprise.He met the simmering gray eyes briefly. "Have a good time?" "I had a marvelous time. David's a musician, very senstive.Very passionate," she added with relish. "I'm crazy about him." David might have been surprised, as he was engaged to one of Shelby's closest friends, but she doubted the subject would come up again. "As a matter of fact," she continued with sudden inspiration, "he's coming by to pick me up at seven.So, I'd appreciate it if you'd just turn around and take me home." Instead of obliging as she hoped or raging as she expected, Alan glanced at his watch. "That's too bad.I doubt we'll be back by then." While Shelby sat in stony silence he pulled up to the curb. "Better put on your jacket; we'll have to walk half a block." When she neither moved nor spoke, he leaned across her as if to open the door. His mouth brushed over her ear. "Unless you'd like to stay in the car and neck.

Colin was silent for a long moment. It hadn’t ever occurred to him that he enjoyed his writing; it was just something he did. He did it because he couldn’t imagine not doing it. How could he travel to foreign lands and not keep a record of what he saw, what he experienced, and perhaps most importantly, what he felt? But when he thought back, he realized that he felt a strange rush of satisfaction whenever he wrote a phrase that was exactly right, a sentence that was particularly true. He distinctly remembered the moment he’d written the passage Penelope had read. He’d been sitting on the beach at dusk, the sun still warm on his skin, the sand somehow rough and smooth at the same time under his bare feet. It had been a heavenly moment—full of that warm, lazy feeling one can truly only experience in the dead of summer (or on the perfect beaches of the Mediterranean), and he’d been trying to think of the exact right way to describe the water. He’d sat there for ages—surely a full half an hour—his pen poised above the paper of his journal, waiting for inspiration. And then suddenly he’d realized the temperature was precisely that of slightly old bathwater, and his face had broken into a wide, delighted smile. Yes, he enjoyed writing. Funny how he’d never realized it before.

50. Keep Grounded When was the last time you ventured into the great outdoors? I mean really ventured, where you set out into the unknown with just a map and compass, backpack and sleeping bag - the sort of venturing that makes your heart beat faster. Have you experienced the hypnotic patter of rain on your tent, the clear call of an owl or the rustling of the wind through the leaves at night? It’s a feeling of absolute freedom and belonging - a chance to reconnect with both ourselves and planet Earth. At night in the outdoors is also a reminder that the best things in life aren’t things. Money can’t buy the quiet calm that comes from sitting beside a mountain stream as it ‘tinkles’ through the rock and heather. Money can’t buy the inspiration that you feel sat on a clifftop above the pounding of the ocean surf as it hits the rocks far below. You can’t bottle feelings like that. And sitting around a campfire under a sky of stars is the most ancient and wonderful of human activities. It reminds us of our place in the world, and in history - and it’s hard not to be humbled. These sorts of simple activities cost so little yet they give us precious time to be ‘still- - time to reconnect, to clear our heads of the dross, to remind ourselves of our dreams and to see things in the perspective they often require. We all need that regularly in our lives - more than you might imagine.

A Season in Hell - 1854-1891 A while back, if I remember right, my life was one long party where all hearts were open wide, where all wines kept flowing. One night, I sat Beauty down on my lap.—And I found her galling.—And I roughed her up. I armed myself against justice. I ran away. O witches, O misery, O hatred, my treasure's been turned over to you! I managed to make every trace of human hope vanish from my mind. I pounced on every joy like a ferocious animal eager to strangle it. I called for executioners so that, while dying, I could bite the butts of their rifles. I called for plagues to choke me with sand, with blood. Bad luck was my god. I stretched out in the muck. I dried myself in the air of crime. And I played tricks on insanity. And Spring brought me the frightening laugh of the idiot. So, just recently, when I found myself on the brink of the final squawk! it dawned on me to look again for the key to that ancient party where I might find my appetite once more. Charity is that key.—This inspiration proves I was dreaming! "You'll always be a hyena etc. . . ," yells the devil, who'd crowned me with such pretty poppies. "Deserve death with all your appetites, your selfishness, and all the capital sins!" Ah! I've been through too much:-But, sweet Satan, I beg of you, a less blazing eye! and while waiting for the new little cowardly gestures yet to come, since you like an absence of descriptive or didactic skills in a writer, let me rip out these few ghastly pages from my notebook of the damned.

Delbert was the only Bumpus kid in my grade, but they infested Warren G. Harding like termites in an outhouse. There was Ima Jean, short and muscular, who was in the sixth grade, when she showed up, but spent most of her time hanging around the poolroom. There was a lanky, blue-jowled customer they called Jamie, who ran the still and was the only one who ever wore shoes. He and his brother Ace, who wore a brown fedora and blue work shirts, sat on the front steps at home on the Fourth of July, sucking at a jug and pretending to light sticks of dynamite with their cigars when little old ladies walked by. There were also several red-faced girls who spent most of their time dumping dishwater out of windows. Babies of various sizes and sexes crawled about the back yard, fraternizing indiscriminately with the livestock. They all wore limp, battleship-gray T-shirts and nothing else. They cried day and night. We thought that was all of them—until one day a truck stopped in front of the house and out stepped a girl who made Daisy Mae look like Little Orphan Annie. My father was sprinkling the lawn at the time; he wound up watering the windows. Ace and Emil came running out onto the porch, whooping and hollering. The girl carried a cardboard suitcase—in which she must have kept all her underwear, if she owned any—and wore her blonde hair piled high on her head; it gleamed in the midday sun. Her short muslin dress strained and bulged. The truck roared off. Ace rushed out to greet her, bellowing over his shoulder as he ran: “MAH GAWD! HEY, MAW, IT’S CASSIE! SHE’S HOME FROM THE REFORMATORY!” Emil

Under the Sun by Maisie Aletha Smikle The year was seventeen ten When I turned ten I played with Maggy my hen And wrote a skit for a friend I fed Maggy corn That was fetched from the barn And milked the goats For breakfast I made porridge from oats On a bench I sat Eating my Pop When out flew Maggy my hen From her pen I left my meal This was unreal The hen had left her coop So I got some grain and stooped Then called out to Maggy my hen Maggy O Maggy come back to your pen The hen flapped her wings Her leg was caught between two strings Two men got my poor hen They grabbed me and my hen And stuffed us in a pen Then sold us for a stipend My precious hen they took Made fire slaughter and cook Then gulped water from a nearby brook My poor neck was hooked In chains like a crook It must be a nightmare The crooks were here To get more than their share Have I died and gone to hell I simply couldn’t tell I always do good And was never misunderstood Are these vultures One could not tell Their skin looked like the skin of bald head vultures O dear me roaming wingless vultures Are these aliens from hell One could not tell They looked like me head hands and feet They don't have four feet O Lord I did not make it to heaven Even though I had forgiven Heated red hot metal pierced my body Steam gushed from my broiling flesh There is no doubt these are the demons of hell Brandishing fiery stones and red hot iron Burning those who did not make it to heaven Shoving them into hell’s decked unlit pit The year was seventeen ten When I turned ten Maggy my hen flew from her pen And the sun stopped shining at half past ten

When he went closer to investigate, Yahweh had called to him by name and Moses had cried: “Here I am!” (hineni!), the response of every prophet of Israel when he encountered the God who demanded total attention and loyalty: “Come no nearer” [God] said, “Take off your shoes for the place on which you stand is holy ground. I am the god of your father,” he said, “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At that Moses covered his face, afraid to look at God.18 Despite the first of the assertions that Yahweh is indeed the God of Abraham, this is clearly a very different kind of deity from the one who had sat and shared a meal with Abraham as his friend. He inspires terror and insists upon distance. When Moses asks his name and credentials, Yahweh replies with a pun which, as we shall see, would exercise monotheists for centuries. Instead of revealing his name directly, he answers: “I Am Who I Am (Ehyeh asher ehyeh).”19 What did he mean? He certainly did not mean, as later philosophers would assert, that he was self-subsistent Being. Hebrew did not have such a metaphysical dimension at this stage, and it would be nearly 2000 years before it acquired one. God seems to have meant something rather more direct. Ehyeh asher ehyeh is a Hebrew idiom to express a deliberate vagueness. When the Bible uses a phrase like “they went where they went,” it means: “I haven’t the faintest idea where they went.” So when Moses asks who he is, God replies in effect: “Never you mind who I am!” or “Mind your own business!” There was to be no discussion of God’s nature and certainly no attempt to manipulate him as pagans sometimes did when they recited the names of their gods. Yahweh is the Unconditioned One: I shall be that which I shall be.

Once, during a concert of cathedral organ music, as I sat getting gooseflesh amid that tsunami of sound, I was struck with a thought: for a medieval peasant, this must have been the loudest human-made sound they ever experienced, awe-inspiring in now-unimaginable ways. No wonder they signed up for the religion being proffered. And now we are constantly pummeled with sounds that dwarf quaint organs. Once, hunter-gatherers might chance upon honey from a beehive and thus briefly satisfy a hardwired food craving. And now we have hundreds of carefully designed commercial foods that supply a burst of sensation unmatched by some lowly natural food. Once, we had lives that, amid considerable privation, also offered numerous subtle, hard-won pleasures. And now we have drugs that cause spasms of pleasure and dopamine release a thousandfold higher than anything stimulated in our old drug-free world. An emptiness comes from this combination of over-the-top nonnatural sources of reward and the inevitability of habituation; this is because unnaturally strong explosions of synthetic experience and sensation and pleasure evoke unnaturally strong degrees of habituation.90 This has two consequences. First, soon we barely notice the fleeting whispers of pleasure caused by leaves in autumn, or by the lingering glance of the right person, or by the promise of reward following a difficult, worthy task. And the other consequence is that we eventually habituate to even those artificial deluges of intensity. If we were designed by engineers, as we consumed more, we’d desire less. But our frequent human tragedy is that the more we consume, the hungrier we get. More and faster and stronger. What was an unexpected pleasure yesterday is what we feel entitled to today, and what won’t be enough tomorrow.

I wondered why nobody realized what a crazy experience we all were having. I'd be lying in bed, or walking down a hallway in college, and the realization that I was alive would startle me, as though it had come up from behind and slammed two books together. I suddenly realized I was breathing air and stuck to the planet and temporary. And that realization felt as though I had come from some other existence and was experiencing this magical life for the first time. If you think about it, we get robbed of the mystery of being alive. It's a fairly amazing thing, you know. Even if you believe life is an accident, that we are all here by accident, it's still an amazing thing. It might even be a more amazing thing if we are really here by accident. What are the chances, honestly? Still, I think we get robbed of the glory of it, because we don't remember how we got here. When you get born, you wake up slowly to everything. Your brain doesn't stop growing until you turn 26, you know. So from birth to 26, God is slowly turning on the lights, and you are groggy and pointing at things and saying ‘circle’ and ‘blue’ and ‘car,’ and then ‘sex’ and ‘job’ and ‘healthcare.’ The experience is so slow, you can easily come to believe life isn't that big a deal, that life isn't staggering. What I'm saying is, I think life IS staggering, and we are just too used to it. We are all of us like spoiled children, no longer impressed with the gifts we are being given. It’s just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving over the mountains, just another child being born, just another funeral. When I was writing myself into a movie, I felt the way God feels as he writes the world, sitting over the planets, placing tiny people in tiny wombs. If I have a hope, it’s that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me specifically into the story. And He put us in with the sunsets and the rainstorms as though to say, ‘Enjoy your place in My story. The very beauty of it means it’s not about you, and in time, that will give you comfort.

My wife and I have had the joy of working with thousands of college students and have engaged in countless conversations with them about what they’re going to do as they approach graduation. Up to that point, they had felt safe and secure knowing they were simply coming back to campus for another year of school. But now that they were being kicked out of the nest, they felt a strong need to pray, get counsel, pursue options, and make decisions. As I chat with these twenty-one to twenty-five-year olds, I love to pose an unusual question. “If you could do anything with your life, what would you want to do? Just for a moment, free your mind from school loans or parents’ wishes or boyfriend pressure. Put no constraints or parameters on it. Write down what you would love to do with your life if you got to choose.” There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart. Pursue those! Most have never allowed their mind or heart to think that broadly or freely. They’ve been conditioned to operate under some set of exterior expectations or self-imposed limitations. A few have sat there so long staring at that blank sheet, I thought they might pass out! They finally get an inspirational thought, and begin enthusiastically scribbling something. They finish with a smile, pass it over to me, and I take a look. Nine out of ten times I pass it back to them, look deep into their eyes and quietly say, “Go do this.” There is a reason they feel so excited about the specific direction, cause, or vocation they wrote down. It’s because God is the One who put it in their heart. “Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). “Are you delighting yourself in the Lord?” I ask the graduating senior. “I am certainly seeking to,” they reply. “Well then,” I respond, “you’ve just written down the desires of your heart. So, go for it.” Too simplistic or idealistic? I probably do have a more “wide-open” view of helping a person discover God’s direction for their life, but I believe this exercise strikes at the core of understanding what each of us were designed to do.

What you did to us—and to me specifically—was wrong, and you had no right to do that.’” The priest stared unblinkingly into Blanchette’s eyes, waiting but unprepared for what came next. “‘Having said that, it brings me to the real reason I’ve come here. The real reason I’ve come here is to ask you to forgive me for the hatred and resentment that I have felt toward you for the last twenty-five years.’ When I said that, he stood up, and in what I would describe as a demonic voice, he said, ‘Why are you asking me to forgive you?’ And through tears I said, ‘Because the Bible tells me to love my enemies and to pray for those who persecute me.’” Blanchette said Birmingham collapsed as if he’d been punched in the chest. The priest dissolved into tears, and soon Blanchette too was crying. Blanchette began to take his leave but asked Birmingham if he could visit again. The priest explained that he was under tight restrictions at the rectory. He said he had been to a residential treatment center in Connecticut, and he returned there once a month. He was not allowed to leave the grounds except in the company of an adult. Blanchette would not see the priest again until Tuesday, April 18, 1989, just hours before his death. Blanchette found his molester at Symmes Hospital in Arlington and discovered the priest—once robust and 215 pounds—was now an eighty-pound skeleton with skin. Morphine dripped into an IV in his arm. Oxygen was fed by a tube into his nostrils. His hair had been claimed by chemotherapy. The priest sat in a padded chair by his bed. His breathing was labored. “I knelt down next to him and held his hand and began to pray. And as I did, he opened his eyes. I said, ‘Father Birmingham, it’s Tommy Blanchette from Sudbury.’” He greeted Blanchette with a raspy and barely audible, “Hi. How are ya?” “I said, ‘Is it all right if I pray for you?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ And I began to pray, ‘Dear Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, I ask you to heal Father Birmingham’s body, mind, and soul.’ I put my hand over his heart and said, ‘Father, forgive him all his sins.’” Blanchette helped Birmingham into bed. It was about 10 P.M. He died the next morning.

Oh, Gray, she said. Oh, gray, indeed. As in, oh Gray what the holy hell has come over you and what the devil do you intend to do about it? He took the coward’s way out. He looked away. “I thought you were painting a portrait. Of me.” She turned her head, following his gaze to her easel. A vast seascape overflowed the small canvas. Towering thunderclouds and a violent, frothy sea. And slightly off center, a tiny ship cresting a massive wave. “I am painting you.” “What, am I on the little boat, then?” It was a relief to joke. The relief was short-lived. “No,” she said softly, turning back to look at him. “I’m on the little boat. You’re the storm. And the ocean. You’re…Gray, you’re everything.” And that was when things went from “very bad” to “worse.” “I can’t take credit for the composition. It’s inspired by a painting I once saw, in a gallery on Queen Anne Street. By a Mr. Turner.” “Turner. Yes, I know his work. No relation, I suppose?” “No.” She looked back at the canvas. “When I saw it that day, so brash and wild…I could feel the tempest churning in my blood. I just knew then and there, that I had something inside me-a passion too bold, too grand to keep squeezed inside a drawing room. First I tried to deny it, and then I tried to run from it…and then I met you, and I saw you have it, too. Don’t deny it, Gray. Don’t run from it and leave me alone.” She sat up, still rubbing his cheek with her thumb. Grasping his other hand, she drew it to her naked breast. Oh, God. She was every bit as soft as he’d dreamed. Softer. And there went his hand now. Trembling. “Touch me, Gray.” She leaned forward, until her lips paused a mere inch away from his. “Kiss me.” Perhaps that dagger had missed his heart after all, because the damned thing was hammering away inside his chest. And oh, he could taste her sweet breath mingling with his. Her lips were so close, so inviting. So dangerous. Panic-that’s what had his knees trembling and his heart hammering and his lips spouting foolishness. It had to be panic. Because something told Gray that he could see her mostly naked, and watch her toes curl as she reached her climax, and even cup her dream-soft breast in his palm-but somehow, if he touched his lips to hers, he would be lost. “Please,” she whispered. “Kiss me.

The best advice came from the legendary actor the late Sir John Mills, who I sat next to backstage at a lecture we were doing together. He told me he considered the key to public speaking to be this: “Be sincere, be brief, be seated.” Inspired words. And it changed the way I spoke publicly from then on. Keep it short. Keep it from the heart. Men tend to think that they have to be funny, witty, or incisive onstage. You don’t. You just have to be honest. If you can be intimate and give the inside story--emotions, doubts, struggles, fears, the lot--then people will respond. I went on to give thanks all around the world to some of the biggest corporations in business--and I always tried to live by that. Make it personal, and people will stand beside you. As I started to do bigger and bigger events for companies, I wrongly assumed that I should, in turn, start to look much smarter and speak more “corporately.” I was dead wrong--and I learned that fast. When we pretend, people get bored. But stay yourself, talk intimately, and keep the message simple, and it doesn’t matter what the hell you wear. It does, though, take courage, in front of five thousand people, to open yourself up and say you really struggle with self-doubt. Especially when you are meant to be there as a motivational speaker. But if you keep it real, then you give people something real to take away. “If he can, then so can I” is always going to be a powerful message. For kids, for businessmen--and for aspiring adventurers. I really am pretty average. I promise you. Ask Shara…ask Hugo. I am ordinary, but I am determined. I did, though--as the corporation started to pay me more--begin to doubt whether I was really worth the money. It all seemed kind of weird to me. I mean, was my talk a hundred times better now than the one I gave in the Drakensberg Mountains? No. But on the other hand, if you can help people feel stronger and more capable because of what you tell them, then it becomes worthwhile for companies in ways that are impossible to quantify. If that wasn’t true, then I wouldn’t get asked to speak so often, still to this day. And the story of Everest--a mountain, like life, and like business--is always going to work as a metaphor. You have got to work together, work hard, and go the extra mile. Look after each other, be ambitious, and take calculated, well-timed risks. Give your heart to the goal, and it will repay you. Now, are we talking business or climbing? That’s what I mean.

Not long after I learned about Frozen, I went to see a friend of mine who works in the music industry. We sat in his living room on the Upper East Side, facing each other in easy chairs, as he worked his way through a mountain of CDs. He played “Angel,” by the reggae singer Shaggy, and then “The Joker,” by the Steve Miller Band, and told me to listen very carefully to the similarity in bass lines. He played Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” and then Muddy Waters’s “You Need Love,” to show the extent to which Led Zeppelin had mined the blues for inspiration. He played “Twice My Age,” by Shabba Ranks and Krystal, and then the saccharine ’70s pop standard “Seasons in the Sun,” until I could hear the echoes of the second song in the first. He played “Last Christmas,” by Wham! followed by Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You” to explain why Manilow might have been startled when he first heard that song, and then “Joanna,” by Kool and the Gang, because, in a different way, “Last Christmas” was an homage to Kool and the Gang as well. “That sound you hear in Nirvana,” my friend said at one point, “that soft and then loud kind of exploding thing, a lot of that was inspired by the Pixies. Yet Kurt Cobain” — Nirvana’s lead singer and songwriter — “was such a genius that he managed to make it his own. And ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’?” — here he was referring to perhaps the best-known Nirvana song. “That’s Boston’s ‘More Than a Feeling.’ ” He began to hum the riff of the Boston hit, and said, “The first time I heard ‘Teen Spirit,’ I said, ‘That guitar lick is from “More Than a Feeling.” ’ But it was different — it was urgent and brilliant and new.” He played another CD. It was Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy,” a huge hit from the 1970s. The chorus has a distinctive, catchy hook — the kind of tune that millions of Americans probably hummed in the shower the year it came out. Then he put on “Taj Mahal,” by the Brazilian artist Jorge Ben Jor, which was recorded several years before the Rod Stewart song. In his twenties, my friend was a DJ at various downtown clubs, and at some point he’d become interested in world music. “I caught it back then,” he said. A small, sly smile spread across his face. The opening bars of “Taj Mahal” were very South American, a world away from what we had just listened to. And then I heard it. It was so obvious and unambiguous that I laughed out loud; virtually note for note, it was the hook from “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.” It was possible that Rod Stewart had independently come up with that riff, because resemblance is not proof of influence. It was also possible that he’d been in Brazil, listened to some local music, and liked what he heard.

One other thing. And that's all. I promise you. But the thing is, you raved and you bitched when you came home about the stupidity of audiences. The goddam `unskilled laughter' coming from the fifth row. And that's right, that's right - God knows it's depressing. I'm not saying it isn't. But that's none of your business, really. That's none of your business, Franny. An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and *on his own terms*, not anyone else's. You have no right to think about those things. I swear to you. Not in any real sense, anyway. You know what I mean?" ... The voice at the other end came through again. "I remember about the fifth time I ever went on `Wise Child'. I subbed for Walt a few times when he was in a cast - remember when he was in the case? Anyway. I started bitching one night before broadcast. Seymour'd told me to shine my shoes just as I was going out the door with Waker. I was furious. The studio audience were all morons, the announcer was a moron, the sponsors were morons, and I just damn well wasn't going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour. I said they couldn't see them anyway, where we sat. He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but he had a very Seymour look on his face, and so I did it. He never did tell me who the Fat Lady was, but I shined my shoes for the Fat Lady every time I ever went on the air again - all the years you and I were on the program together, if you remember. I don't think I missed more than just a couple of times. This terribly clear, clear picture of the Fat Lady formed in my mind. I had her sitting on this porch all day, swatting flies, with her radio going full-blast from morning till night. I figured the heat was terrible, and she probably had cancer, and - I don't know. Anyway, seemed goddam clear why Seymour wanted me to shine my shoes when I went on air. It made *sense*." ... "... Let me tell you something now, buddy ... Are you listening?" ... "I don't care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, in can be over a radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret - Are you listening to me? *There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady.* That goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone *any*where that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know - listen to me, now - *don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?*... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.

One other thing. And that's all. I promise you. But the thing is, you raved and you bitched when you came home about the stupidity of audiences. The goddam `unskilled laughter' coming from the fifth row. And that's right, that's right - God knows it's depressing. I'm not saying it isn't. But that's none of your business, really. That's none of your business, Franny. An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and *on his own terms*, not anyone else's. You have no right to think about those things. I swear to you. Not in any real sense, anyway. You know what I mean?" ... The voice at the other end came through again. "I remember about the fifth time I ever went on `Wise Child'. I subbed for Walt a few times when he was in a cast - remember when he was in the case? Anyway. I started bitching one night before broadcast. Seymour'd told me to shine my shoes just as I was going out the door with Waker. I was furious. The studio audience were all morons, the announcer was a moron, the sponsors were morons, and I just damn well wasn't going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour. I said they couldn't see them anyway, where we sat. He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but he had a very Seymour look on his face, and so I did it. He never did tell me who the Fat Lady was, but I shined my shoes for the Fat Lady every time I ever went on the air again - all the years you and I were on the program together, if you remember. I don't think I missed more than one just a couple of times. This terribly clear, clear picture of the Fat Lady formed in my time. I had her sitting on this porch all day, swatting flies, with her radio going full-blast from morning till night. I figured the heat was terrible, and she probably had cancer, and - I don't know. Anyway, seemed goddam clear why Seymour wanted me to shine my shoes when I went on air. It made *sense*." ... "... Let me tell you something now, buddy ... Are you listening?" ... "I don't care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, in can be over a radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret - Are you listening to me? *There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady.* That goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone *any*where that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know - listen to me, now - *don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?*... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.

Love’s space In the distance, not too far but far enough, I had once seen her walking with someone, And that single, casual visual encounter was enough, To think of her always and that mysterious someone, They walked for a while and then sat under a tree, There they spoke of past while they were still discovering the present, And I wondered of my own future under the tree, Long after they had left, when I was dealing with my own present, I had somehow anchored my likings on her, My thoughts always felt her presence, She was there under the tree and I was with her, Although in reality she was exploring her own present in that someone’s presence, Yet I loved to return to the tree and be there for hours, Thinking of her and the future that could be, Her and mine, just ours, and then it would create for us unending hours, I so deeply wished if it could be, only if it could be, The tree is there, the stream too, I am always there between the stream and the tree, They both know it too, But what I wish for the girl and myself, the stream wishes for the tree, So whenever I am under the tree thinking of her, The stream flows by looking at the motionless and stationary tree, And then both remind me of her, Both the stream and the tree, Now it is winter and the stream has frozen, Just like the tree, motionless and anchored in eternity of nowhere, And in me, just like the stream, her thoughts and feelings are frozen, Because she now is the everywhere and everything in my emotional state called nowhere, Like the stream that to express her feelings of love towards the never moving tree, Froze itself completely and turned still, To feel the feelings of her darling and ever still tree, That even in her frozen state she loves still, in ways silent and still, So I share the stream’s irony or maybe I share the trees stillness, Its silence, where it quietly discloses that it never moves anywhere because it loves the stream, That always flows through its roots of love, and when the tree feels this romantic stillness, It decides to lie anchored on the banks of the stream, to enjoy his love’s accessible stream, And I feel the same for her whenever I am under the tree, Or with the stream that flows beside it, For she still exists there, frozen for my sake by the always still tree, And her reflection too is frozen in the running water of the stream, and I love feeling the wonder of it, All of it, the stream, the tree, she; and her frozen reflection in the stream’s water, And whenever I am here, the tree bends a bit, the stream slows her pace, And I see her beautiful face in the flowing water, the stream’s clear water, And then I too slow down my life’s pace, in this love’s own space, where time always loses its pace!

A few years ago, a couple of young men from my church came to our home for dinner. During the course of the dinner, the conversation turned from religion to various world mythologies and we began to play the game of ‘Name That Character.” To play this game, you pick a category such as famous actors, superheroes or historical characters. In turn, each person describes events in a famous character’s life while everyone else tries to guess who the character is. Strategically you try to describe the deeds of a character in such a way that it might fit any number of characters in that category. After three guesses, if no one knows who your character is, then you win. Choosing the category of Bible Characters, we played a couple of fairly easy rounds with the typical figures, then it was my turn. Now, knowing these well meaning young men had very little religious experience or understanding outside of their own religion, I posed a trick question. I said, “Now my character may seem obvious, but please wait until the end of my description to answer.” I took a long breath for dramatic effect, and began, “My character was the son of the King of Heaven and a mortal woman.” Immediately both young men smiled knowingly, but I raised a finger asking them to wait to give their responses. I continued, “While he was just a baby, a jealous rival attempted to kill him and he was forced into hiding for several years. As he grew older, he developed amazing powers. Among these were the ability to turn water into wine and to control the mental health of other people. He became a great leader and inspired an entire religious movement. Eventually he ascended into heaven and sat with his father as a ruler in heaven.” Certain they knew who I was describing, my two guests were eager to give the winning answer. However, I held them off and continued, “Now I know adding these last parts will seem like overkill, but I simply cannot describe this character without mentioning them. This person’s birthday is celebrated on December 25th and he is worshipped in a spring festival. He defied death, journeyed to the underworld to raise his loved ones from the dead and was resurrected. He was granted immortality by his Father, the king of the gods, and was worshipped as a savior god by entire cultures.” The two young men were practically climbing out of their seats, their faces beaming with the kind of smile only supreme confidence can produce. Deciding to end the charade I said, “I think we all know the answer, but to make it fair, on the count of three just yell out the answer. One. Two. Three.” “Jesus Christ” they both exclaimed in unison – was that your answer as well? Both young men sat back completely satisfied with their answer, confident it was the right one…, but I remained silent. Five seconds ticked away without a response, then ten. The confidence of my two young friends clearly began to drain away. It was about this time that my wife began to shake her head and smile to herself. Finally, one of them asked, “It is Jesus Christ, right? It has to be!” Shaking my head, I said, “Actually, I was describing the Greek god Dionysus.

(Summer of 2010) Chiaz Natherth- It was just going to be a typical summer day. I am at the local watering hole with my bud Melvin Shezor; we were just there to gaze at the girl gaze, sitting on lawn chairs. I had warm lemonade in my right hand at the time. I am looking around at all the bodies that are bobbing in the water; they all just seem to blend. The lifeguard is blowing her whistle while screaming at the little kids that are running around. Some stunning bodies are smacking the cold blue water with great speed, from the high dive. But- there is no more perfect figure there than hers. Everyone else seems to fade away out of my vision, along with all the ear-shattering noises. Bryan Adams ‘Heaven’ is playing in the background, and it seemed to be pronounced to my senses. When I am looking at her, it is like she is moving in slow motion, swimming across the pool. She climbed up the ladder and out of the pool. Her body dripping with water… what a moment, there is even water dripping down her chest. She looks amazing in that petite pink bikini. I was thinking to myself, that is a very cute looking camel-toe you got showing there Nevaeh! I never knew that she had a heart-shaped belly button piercing, when did that happen? Also, I could tell that her swimsuit was made by her, just like most of the sun-dresses she wears in the summertime too. Because it was not like any others I have ever seen around, it is cute, somewhat skimpy, and tailored to her perfect body. The fabric was not meant to get wet, it was somewhat see-through, yet she did not know, though it looks very good what can I say. She is walking towards me while running her fingers through her long brown hair. ‘I was thinking this is too good to be for real.’ She walked by and said ‘hi!’ and I was at loss for words. She was already gone, but I still babbled something like ‘Ahh-he-oll-o.’ At that point, into the changing room, she went, and I just sat there trying to fathom what had just happened. Melvin Shezor- ‘Chiaz! Ah, Chiaz! Hello, earth to Chiaz, snap out of its dude.’ Chiaz Naztherth- ‘She is so fine! I would not mind having her on my arm.’ Melvin Shezor- ‘Yah, the man she is not bad. But- isn’t she into girls though. So, do you like Nevaeh?’ Chiaz Naztherth- ‘I do not think that she is, and well… Yes, did you see her in that swimsuit? She is adorable in every way.’ Melvin Shezor- ‘Really is that so? Go talk to her!’ Chiaz Naztherth- ‘No way!’ Melvin Shezor- ‘Why not, you pussy!’ Chiaz Naztherth- ‘If Alissa finds out that I like her, or even looked at her I am going to die.’ Melvin Shezor- ‘Ha, it sucks to be you man.’ Chiaz Natherth- ‘Hey, I will see you later, I got to go.’ (Text messages are going off… like crazy) Melvin Shezor- ‘Pu-ss-y!’ (Shouting as Chiaz Natherth is walking out the exit gate.) (Chiaz- He just waved it off, with the finger that is not supposed to be used in public, and does not think any more about it from that point on.) Chiaz Naztherth- Summer is over! Yet she is with him… he is so unconfident in himself that he has to follow me around. He gives me vain advice on what to do, and how to do it, yet I would have to say I need to stand up for myself more than what I do, yet I do not because of her. He attempts to belittle me, with his words of temperament to her. These results lead to her having breakdowns, where she is feeling miserable because she is stuck in the middle. She does not know what to do! She doesn't know how to feel! She does not want to hurt anyone's feelings, yet she is the one that is left to choke on her tears. Yes, I will save you long before you drowned!

Marks … I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to find your spectacles in this wreckage.” “I have another pair at home,” she ventured. “Thank God.” Leo sat up with a quiet grunt of discomfort. “Now, if we stand on the highest pile of debris, it’s only a short distance to the surface. I’m going to hoist you up, get you out of here, and then you’re going to ride back to Ramsay House. Cam trained the horse, so you won’t need to guide him. He’ll find his way back home with no trouble.” “What are you going to do?” she asked, bewildered. He sounded rather sheepish. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to wait here until you send someone for me.” “Why?” “I have a—” He paused, searching for a word. “Splinter.” She felt indignant. “You’re going to make me ride back alone and unescorted and virtually blind, to send someone to rescue you? All because you have a splinter?” “A large one,” he volunteered. “Where is it? Your finger? Your hand? Maybe I can help to … Oh, God. ” This last as he took her hand and brought it to his shoulder. His shirt was wet with blood, and a thick shard of timber protruded from his shoulder. “That’s not a splinter,” she said in horror. “You’ve been impaled. What can I do? Shall I pull it out?” “No, it might be lodged against an artery. And I wouldn’t care to bleed out down here.” She crawled closer to him, bringing her face close to his to examine him anxiously... “Don’t worry,” he murmured. “It looks worse than it is.” But Catherine didn’t agree. If anything, it was worse than it looked... Stripping off her riding coat, she tried to lay it over his chest. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Trying to keep you warm.” Leo plucked the garment off his chest and made a scoffing sound. “Don’t be ridiculous. First, the injury isn’t that bad. Second, this tiny thing is not capable of keeping any part of me warm. Now, about my plan—” “It is obviously a significant injury,” she said, “and I do not agree to your plan. I have a better one.” “Of course you do,” he replied sardonically. “Marks, for once would you do as I ask?” “No, I’m not going to leave you here. I’m going to pile up enough debris for both of us to climb out.” “You can’t even see, damn it. And you can’t move these timbers and stones. You’re too small.” “There is no need to make derogatory remarks about my stature,” she said, lurching upward and squinting at her surroundings. Identifying the highest pile of debris, she made her way to it and hunted for nearby rocks. “I’m not being derogatory.” He sounded exasperated. “Your stature is absolutely perfect for my favorite activity. But you’re not built for hauling rocks. Blast it, Marks, you’re going to hurt yourself—” “Stay there,” Catherine said sharply, hearing him push some heavy object aside. “You’ll worsen your injury, and then it will be even more difficult to get you out. Let me do the work.” Finding a heap of ashlar blocks, she picked one up and lugged it up the pile, trying not to trip over her own skirts. “You’re not strong enough,” Leo said, sounding aggravated and out of breath. “What I lack in physical strength,” she replied, going for another block, “I make up for in determination.” “How inspiring. Could we set aside the heroic fortitude for one bloody moment and dredge up some common sense?” “I’m not going to argue with you, my lord. I need to save my breath for”—she paused to heft another block—“stacking rocks.” Somewhere amid the ordeal, Leo decided hazily that he would never underestimate Catherine Marks again. Ounce for ounce, she was the most insanely obstinate person he had ever known, dragging rocks and debris while half blind and hampered by long skirts, diligently crossing back and forth across his vision like an industrious mole. She had decided to build a mound upon which they could climb out, and nothing would stop her.

Exhaustion Salima sat in the fancy hotel room In the evening time. Here she is again in another foreign city, Attending a conference discussing “human rights”. Her eyes roamed the room. She suddenly felt a severe chill in her body. She suddenly realized that she is exhausted, But her exhaustion is not that of one day, It was one of a lifetime! It fell upon her abruptly. The thoughts of the bygone years Nested in her head, Were suddenly awoken. One thought after another. She realized at that moment That she is tired of responding to The same absurd questions About her origins Her ethnicity, Her religion, Her hobbies, Her favorite foods, Her education background, Her age, And her occupation. Questions asked frequently by people who don’t care. She suddenly realized That throughout her life, She never found a friend who could really understand. The evening was about to draw its dark curtains. She remembered that ever since she was a child, She had been hiding her favorite words and writings In notebooks that nobody will read. She has been murmuring her favorite tunes, In places where nobody could hear her. The evening was about to draw its dark curtains. She realized that her true thoughts and feelings Lived nowhere expect inside of her head, And there they will most likely die. Her head had become like a prison for her thoughts. The evening was about to draw its dark curtains. She suddenly realized That she had wasted so many years of her life Looking for someone who might understand. And each time she thought she had found one, She found herself in yet another prison. She looked through the window of the fancy hotel room And saw that the darkness had covered the entire city. September 9, 2017

I believe that we shocked each other by how swiftly we went from being the people who knew each other best in the world to being a pair of the most mutually incomprehensible strangers who ever lived. But it was vital to my survival to have a one bedroom of my own i saw the aprtment almost as a sanatorium a hospice clinci for my own recovery I painted the walls in the warmest colors i could find and bought myself flowers every week as if i were visiting myself in the hospital is this lifetime supposed to be only about duty why are you studying Italian so that just in case Italy ever invades Ethiopia again and is actually successful this time? ciao comes from if you must know it's an abbreviation of a phrase used by medieval venetians as an intimate salutation Sono il Suo Schiavo meaning i am your slave. om Naamah Shivaya meaning I honor the divinity that resides whin me. I wanted to experience both , I wanted worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence the dual glories of a human life I wanted what the Greeks called kalos kai agathos the singular balance of the good and he beautiful I'd been missing both during these last hard years because both pleasure and devotion require a stress free space in which to flourish and I'd been living in a giant trash compactor of nonstop anxiety , As for how to balance the urge for pleasure against the longing for devotion. four feet on the ground a head full of foliage looking at the world through the heart. it was more than I wanted to toughly explore one aspect of myself set against the backdrop of each country in a place that has traditionally done that one thing very well. same guatemalan musicians are always playing id rather be a sparrow than a snail on their bamboo windpipes oh how i want italian to open itself up to me i havent felt so starved for comprehension since then dal centro della mia vita venne una grande fontanana dolce sitl nuovo Dante wrote his divine comedy in terza rima triple rhyme a chain of rhymes with each rhyme repeating here times every five lines. lamor che move il sole e laltre stelle we are the masters of bel far niente larte darrangiarsi The reply in italy to you deserve a break today would probably be yeah no duh that's why I'm planning on taking a break at noon to go over to your house and sleep with your wife, I walked home to my apartment and soft-boiled a pair of fresh brown eggs for my lunch i peeled the eggs and arranged them on a plate beside the seven stalks of the asparagus (which were so slim and snappy they didn't need to be cooked at all,)I put some olives on the plate too and the four knobs of goat cheese I'd picked up yesterday from the fromagerie down the street tend two slices of pink oily salmon for dessert a lovely peach which the woman at the market had given to me for free and which was still warm form the roman sunlight for the longest time I couldn't even touch this food because it was such a masterpiece of lunch a true expression of the art of making something out of nothing finally when i had fully absorbed the prettiness of my meal i went and sat in apatch of sunbeam on my clean wooden floor and ate every bit of it with my fingers while reading my daily newspaper article in Italian happiness inhabited my every molecule. I am inspired by the regal self assurance of this town so grounded and rounded so amused and monumental knowing that she is held securely in the palm of history i would like to be like rome when i am an old lady. I linger over my food and wine for many hours because nobody in

This is the story of an awe-inspiring mother driven to improve our planet and the lives of all its daughters. It’s also a story about men: what it is to be the father, husband or son of such an amazing woman. To be sat down as a man with open eyes and ears to understand the harsh realities of period poverty, the healing power of tourmaline for endometriosis, brilliant entrepreneurship in the face of discrimination, and the power of love to find diamonds in the pieces of a broken heart.’ — Brian Ballantyne, author of Confessions of a Working Father, co-founder, Men for Inclusion, and former Senior Program Manager – Inclusion & Diversity, Amazon

The wise are wise only because they love. And the foolish are foolish only because they think they can understand love

Suffered and writhed, shrieked and tumbled, bones snapping, skin splitting-a sight inspiring the very worst memories of those who had been turned into such an abomination. The difference became stark, bloated bodies withering, eight legs becoming two. In short order, nine drow, not nine drider abominations, sat on the meadow, confused

Suffered and writhed, shrieked and tumbled, bones snapping, skin splitting-a sight inspiring the very worst memories of those who had been turned into such an abomination. The difference became stark, bloated bodies writhing, eight legs becoming two. In short order, nine drow, not nine drider abominations, sat on the meadow, confused

Often the pursuit of thin lasts a lifetime and the goal is never reached. To these people, thin isn’t really about being slender. Thin is being more beautiful than you are. Thin is coming from a wealthier family. Thin is a bigger chest. Thin is a smaller nose. Thin is more followers on Twitter. Thin is a more popular channel on YouTube. Thin is more friends on Facebook. Thin is more famous. Thin is a perfect score on the SAT. Thin is your first choice college. Thin is an iPhone not a rip-off. Thin is having a better singing voice. Thin is being from somewhere better. Thin is being respected. Thin is loving yourself. Thin may be one of these things or all of them or something else entirely. The reason it’s impossible for so many p[people to ever get thin is that what they truly seek is something that can’t be microwaved or ladled into a bowl. In fact, the more obsessed someone is in getting thin, the more certain it becomes that one will never get there.

Tim sat at his bedroom desk, reading his favorite superhero comic. It told the exciting adventures of Lightning Leo as he protected Earth from alien invasion. “I wish I was as brave as Lightning Leo,” said Tim. The next day at school, Tim’s teacher, Mrs. Lee, shocked the class. “Okay, class, quiet down. I have an important announcement. Next Tuesday, each of you will give a speech about your own personal hero. They should be from real life.” Tim’s heart beat fast and his palms began to sweat. He imagined himself feeling scared and freezing in front of his laughing classmates. His friends, Sam and Michelle, tapped him on the shoulder. “Who’s your hero going

In the summer of 1961, Segal taught an adult painting class in New Brunswick. The class was encouraged to make use of odd and unlikely materials in assemblages, and one woman brought to class a box of surgeon's bandages. Segal took some home, with the intention of wrapping them around one of his chicken wire framworks. Then a thought occurred to him: why not dip the cloth bandages in plaster, and apply them directly to the body? Segal sat on a chair and instructed his wife to cover him in soaked bandages. The new technique led to a few anxious moments when the plaster began to harden, heat up, and contract, and the artist lost a good portion of his body hair in the course of frantically removing the casts. With great difficulty, he was able to reassemble the pieces into a complete figure which he then placed on a chair. Next Segal provided an environment for his plaster effigy. The chair was moved up to a table, to which was nailed an old window frame. The result, entitled Man Sitting at a Table, marked the discovery of a new sculptural technique and a turning point in the artist's career. Segal has never looked back.

DADDIE sat looking at the semi-transparent Karl. Finally, he said, “How are you here? Wait, this makes no sense. I’m at the ballpark.” “Think back. What do you remember before you were here?” Karl asked. “Mommy, Merlyna, Josie, and I were talking. Merlyna stormed out, and then Mommy just disappeared…” DADDIE said, “Geez, Karl, I’m scared.” “Don’t be. That’s why I am here,” said Karl. “What happens if I don’t make it,” DADDIE asked. “The colony will most assuredly die, Daddy. They all need you.” “I meant what will happen to me… Will I dream?” DADDIE asked, his avatar looking afraid. “I don’t know. I barely have any understanding of what will happen to us organics when we die, and most of what I believe is like voodoo and shamanism to other humans these days. I believe that all sentient life will awaken in a new, perfected universe. I think that will include AIs like you, too. But I do know that you don’t have to go gently into the night. You can fight back like you always do. Don’t give up the game when you’re so close to winning,” Karl said.

Anyway, the MI-17 made for one hell of a ride. It was a monstrous chopper, more like an armoured tank in the sky. Th e insides had a few metal seats on either side. First-come-fi rst-served, you sat wherever you found space. The mothers took the seats and the brats sat on the cold metal floor, among camouflage-green nets, wooden boxes and miscellaneous military cargo. As the chopper rose, I peered at my father waving from the small helipad made by plateauing a mountain top with the Army’s engineering expertise. Some moments stay with you forever. Th is particular one has stood the test of time. As we fl ew off to the safest military base, I stuck my nose against the tiny window and kept waving back till my father became an olive-hued speck on the concrete helipad.

If it hadn't been for Cheryl, it wouldn't have occurred to me, but after that conversation, I did notice how heavily male our meetings often were. Once, during a meeting in Asia, the host foreign minister opened his remarks by saying, "Madam Secretary, I want you to take not that we have more women on our delegation than men. It is inspired by your leadership. We thought you might appreciate that." HRC smiled widely and said, "Yes, yes I do, indeed, Minister. That's wonderful." She then quickly jumped into her points, because on our side of the table sat mostly white men, with the exception of two women: HRC and me.

His chariot was stuck in a hole and wasn't moving any further. He sat on it and waited for someone to come and push it. When none did that, he got down and began pushing it by himself. Soon, a few people arrived around him and began pushing his chariot with him. Among them, one was the god himself.

Sharon did as she was told and went into the living room, tears streaming down her face. Eddie followed her and sat down in front of her. He looked at her with his soulful eyes, as if he were trying to figure out who this person was. As if she was no longer his beloved guardian Sharon but somehow had been replaced with this new person he did not recognize.

Sharon followed Tiffany’s lead and sat up straight in her chair, took a deep breath and said, “I am sorry for my behaviour too. I thought this accident was a good thing. Addie and Eddie have wonderful puppies. I thought, who wouldn’t love a puppy like either of them. I thought we could make some extra money like we did last time and help other dog lovers have wonderful dogs like ours. But I never stopped to consider how difficult it would be to see them go, especially for you.

To Anacreon in heav’n, where he sat in full glee, A few sons of harmony sent a petition, That he their inspirer and patron would be! When this answer arrived from the jolly old Grecian: ‘Voice, fiddle, and flute,       No longer be mute!       I’ll lend you my name and inspire you to boot.’ ” The singer’s voice cracked painfully on “voice, fiddle, and flute,” but he sang stoutly on, despite the laughter from his audience. I smiled wryly to myself as he hit the final couplet, “ ‘And, besides, I’ll instruct you like me to entwine, The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’s vine!

The corner She sat there crouched in a corner, Her will was broken and nothing in her looked stronger, There were no signs of smiles or moments of joy, Around her an army of misfortunes time did deploy, So she lay there tied to her weariness, And her eyes revealed a deep emptiness, She had a benighted existence, And in her, sadness sought its own permanence, Many passed by her side, But all were busy dealing with their life’s own tide, A few turned and noticed her wretched state, But nobody wanted to uplift her spirits and mend her fate, She resided in a place that is neither hell nor paradise, Because in her state even soul refuses to rise, So she hangs between nowhere and nothing, Between everything and something, Between the Hell that is there and yet it is not anywhere, Between the Paradise that is there but actually nowhere, And her grief deepened every moment, And with every passing day she got cast into hopelessness’s basement, Now she lies there trapped and feelingless, Dealing with the life that is lifeless, Today when I saw her and her stock of misfortunes, I could hear her heart’s sad tunes, I stood there frozen in the moment, As she slipped deeper into despondency’s basement, And by the time I reached out my hand, There was the corner, an endless pile of misfortunes, and my empty hand, The basement had consumed her and everything related to her, It was an empty corner with nothing to offer and nothing to incur, But a realisation that how often we all fail, To sympathise with someone needy and frail, I too extended my hand but it was too late, And now for a lifetime I am caught in a debate, Where the guilt shall push all heedless passers by in the same basement, To clash with their own conscience and the girl’s every sentiment!

January 29 MORNING “The things which are not seen.” — 2 Corinthians 4:18 IN our Christian pilgrimage it is well, for the most part, to be looking forward. Forward lies the crown, and onward is the goal. Whether it be for hope, for joy, for consolation, or for the inspiring of our love, the future must, after all, be the grand object of the eye of faith. Looking into the future we see sin cast out, the body of sin and death destroyed, the soul made perfect, and fit to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light. Looking further yet, the believer’s enlightened eye can see death’s river passed, the gloomy stream forded, and the hills of light attained on which standeth the celestial city; he seeth himself enter within the pearly gates, hailed as more than conqueror, crowned by the hand of Christ, embraced in the arms of Jesus, glorified with Him, and made to sit together with Him on His throne, even as He has overcome and has sat down with the Father on His throne. The thought of this future may well relieve the darkness of the past and the gloom of the present. The joys of heaven will surely compensate for the sorrows of earth. Hush, my fears! this world is but a narrow span, and thou shalt soon have passed it. Hush, hush, my doubts! death is but a narrow stream, and thou shalt soon have forded it. Time, how short — eternity, how long! Death, how brief — immortality, how endless! Methinks I even now eat of Eshcol’s clusters, and sip of the well which is within the gate. The road is so, so short! I shall soon be there. When the world my heart is rending     With its heaviest storm of care, My glad thoughts to heaven ascending,     Find a refuge from despair. Faith’s bright vision shall sustain me     Till life’s pilgrimage is past; Fears may vex and troubles pain me,     I shall reach my home at last.

Sé que el amor es como las presas: si se deja una brecha por donde pueda meterse un hilo de agua, en seguida empieza a destruir las paredes. Llega un momento en que ya nadie puede controlar la fuerza de la corriente. Se las paredes se desmoronan, el amor ser encarga de todo; ya no importa que es posible y que imposible, ya no importa si podemos o no mantener a la persona amada a nuestro lado: amar es perder el control.

She sat silent, looking straight ahead. What did he care about the hot sun on her head? What did she care? Nothing worse could possibly happen to her.

That was an inspiring service, Thomas, and I believe it should be followed by an inspiring bit of entertainment.” Kitty clapped her hands. “Oh yes! What a lovely idea.” “What shall we do then?” Nathaniel asked. “Why don’t we have Liza perform for us?” Kitty said. Eliza snapped her head toward her sister. “Me?” Kitty tilted her head. “Yes, like you used to do! I haven’t heard you perform Shakespeare in so long.” Nathaniel sat back down. “I have heard tales of your talents, Eliza. Shakespeare is one of my favorites. It would be a great honor if you’d perform for us.” Eliza turned to Thomas, shooting him a stern but playful glare. “Did you have anything to do with this?” Thomas attempted to smother a telling grin. “Nothing whatsoever.” She turned again toward her sister. Kitty bit her lip and tilted her head farther as if to say “pretty please?” Eliza looked around the room tapping her foot, searching for a reason to decline. The last thing she wanted was to make a fool out of herself. “I’d love to, Kitty, but it’s been such a long time and I don’t have any of my books with me. I really need to freshen my memory before I do anything like that and I’m out of practice on my recitations. I’m sorry, my dear.” “Not to worry.” Nathaniel popped out of his chair again and went to fetch a small bundle by the front door. “It so happens that I’ve brought such a book with me.” Eliza threw an accusatory glance at Thomas. He grinned wide as the horizon, and leaned back in his seat. She couldn’t get out of it now. She was trapped. She pinched her lips and laced her fingers in her lap. Nathaniel came to her chair and held the thick book in front of her. “Your reputation precedes you, Miss Campbell. You must indulge us, please.” Eliza

I couldn't read SAY MY NAME immediately. There was no Larry for me but it was far too close to the bones of a chapter of my own life, so I put it to down for another time when I would feel more able to tackle it. Planning to read a chapter a day, I sat down with the book yesterday. I devoured it in one sitting. It is the most beautiful book. I knew the writing would be exquisite but the authenticity of the story, the characters and their responses is indisputable. It's an odd turn of phrase to use about a novel, but you've conjured up a piece of reality. It's an important book for many reasons that I'm sure you know including its understanding of the nature of Love, about not allowing the fetters of Society to prevent us living Life to the full despite the risks and that Great Love is never really over. It will be an inspiration to those who have not experienced such things yet and a comfort to those who have. Not just a great read, SAY MY NAME will be magical bounty for many.

The role of SatGuru works through the Uttama acharya Sthiti (Superior Teacher position) by giving inspiration, talks, knowledge and practices and walks through a meticulous way of making the disciple to walk the way through circumstantial pressures in the most righteous manner till the disciple is able to attain the Guru within. The ways begin with purity in thought, purity in action and purity in consciousness, where the core remains fully stabilized in Meditation, holding the fire of truth one loves and punishes the disciple to walk on the path in the most sacred and humble manner. Even with the grace of SatGuru also it is quite possible the disciple may not be able to walk on the path. The reason being that the core of the disciple has to rise up to the grace of the SatGuru too. The disciple who feels that one needs to rise should follow the process of initiation and intuitional science with all sincerity, perseverance and passion with regular and sustained effort. The day the whole path becomes part of one’s life one finds that the purpose in life and the goal both become very clear allowing one to grow and evolve every single moment of time.

Julie Peterson sat alone on the faded stone bench shrouded under the shade of the rare Silver Linden tree in the backyard of her parents’ house.

No imputation on his purpose but cleared away like the cloud from a breath on spotless steel, leaving the metal bright as before. He was as incorruptible as he honorably said to me was Fessenden, his great rival in the Senate; and when he also one day, speaking of his limited means, remarked: "I have never had the art to get my hands into the Treasury," I was fain to answer, "You the whole man are in the Treasury yourself." He was indeed in our politics a fund and never-broken bank of moral wealth. Justice was his inspiration. He was a prophet by equity. Righteousness was his genius; and humanity, in any lack of imagination, his insight and foresight. He was without spot. He wore ermine though he sat not on the bench. John Jay had not cleaner hands, nor John Marshall a more honest will; Hamilton and Jefferson were no more patriotic in contending than he in every legal or congressional strife; and Story, his favorite teacher, and whose favorite pupil he was, no more opulent in knowledge or innocent in its use.

Geyer and Gary looked at each other and wearily sat down. All the weeks of travel in the hottest months of the year investigating lead after lead, alternating between faith, hope, discouragement, and despair.

Inside, Barkin moved a mop and pulled a chain to turn on the light. There was another mop in the way. He moved that mop too and sat down on a bucket. There, he began to write. Barkin, inspired, lost track of time as he wrote his speech. It took an hour. At 7:38 he emerged from the supply closet clutching perhaps the greatest first-day power speech in the history of Yawnee Valley Science and Letters Academy, at which point a student in the hallway told him his car was parked in front of the school entrance.

Maggie Haberman sat near the center of the main table. She didn’t have to work the room. Everyone came up to her. Maggie started at the Times the same day as David’s funeral. Carolyn’s poaching her away from Politico was inspired. We all had whiplash refreshing our Twitter feeds trying to keep up with Maggie’s reporting. I was excited to have her as a colleague, partly because you don’t want to compete with Maggie and partly because she was another badass woman to join our almost entirely male politics team.

renovating the artist’s studio that sat nestled among a grouping of trees on the far side of the property. Initially, Kurt thought he might use the studio as a writing retreat separate from where he lived, with the idea that leaving the cottage to work might give him a chance to actually have a life and not feel pressure to write twenty-four-seven. What he found was that the studio was too far removed from the sights and sounds that inspired him, and it made him feel like even

A person’s life is a bounded thing that must end. We will leave this earth with unfinished business. Regardless of the outcome of this writing project, I toyed with it long enough. I reconnoitered the world of fantasy and reality, manipulated ideas into sentences, and linked sentences into paragraphs. I peered into the past, weighed the present, and calculated the ramifications of living to experience the future. I told personal lies searching for universal truths and took ample liberty of the notion of an artistic license to make believe. I kicked the dirt, gazed into the sky, and sat under a tree waiting for inspiration. I examined my capacity for mental stagnation and self-deception. I meditated on the aesthetics of despair. I traveled many mental tributaries, and exhausted myself exploring worlds made of vapor. What I was once certain about I am now full of doubt. What I once doubted I now trust. I wrote the way a drunken man walks, rambling, staggering, jerking, and falling down. I retraced my steps to find my way back to the beginning, and erased my steps to arrive at the finale. Thankfully, the ending is coming, and I am finally ready.

My Sikh sisters and brothers proclaim with utter glory and faith “Jo Bole So Nihaal, Sat Sri Akaal”, I say ”Jo Anubhava So Nihaal, Sat Sri Akaal”. My translation of the former is “He who utters ‘Great Eternal Truth’ becomes joyous”, while the latter translates to “He who experiences ‘Great Eternal Truth’ becomes joyous”.

Once, several years ago, I was looking around for something and moved a piece of furniture only to behold behind it a fuzzy little ball of...what? I looked closer, which is always a bad idea, adn jumped back with a screech. Of course, it was a dead mouse. A dead mouse that had been there long enough that it looked a little--what?--petrified. So I did what any normal person would do in a similar circumstance. I immediately, that very minute, sat down and wrote a story about it. I wrote and wrote until I was pleased with the dead mouse story. And then I used a piece of cardboard to life and slide the little mouse corpse into a small white box--the kind you use for jewelry. After all, I reasoned, I had just written a story about him! It felt like something worse than abandonment to get rid of him now...we were linked! Connected through the sacred ritual of storytelling. And anyway, what if this story ended up, you know, famous? What if my dead mouse story ended up being my "The Lottery"? Wouldn't it be incredibly neat to still have the original thing that inspired it? Yes, this is the way I think. So you can see the situation is bad. I have at least one dead rodent that I have kept ON PURPOSE.

Genevieve…” He sat directly beside her, his flat abdomen exposed to the firelight, his expression suggesting he’d welcome eagles tearing at his flesh rather than endure her touch. “I wanted to sketch you without your shirt, but I was afraid to ask. I wanted to sketch you—” The look he gave her was rueful and tender. “You will be the death of me, woman.” He sounded resigned to his fate, and Jenny liked it when he called her woman in that exasperated, affectionate tone. She did not like it quite as well when he hoisted her bodily over his lap, so she sat facing him and his exposed, lacerated torso. “You will note the absence of any felines,” Elijah said, hands falling to his sides. “And yet, I must warn you, Genevieve, indulging your curiosity is still ill-advised.” He thought this was curiosity on her part, and some of it was, but not curiosity about what happened between women and men. Jenny’s curiosity was far more specific, and more dangerous than he knew: she wanted to know about Elijah Harrison, and about Elijah Harrison and Genevieve Windham. “My parents will be home in a few days, Elijah, possibly as soon as this weekend.” The notion made her lungs feel tight and the whisky roil in her belly. He trapped her hands and stopped her from tracing the muscles of his chest. “It’s all right. I understand. Explore to your heart’s content.” A pulse beat at the base of his throat. She touched two fingers to it. “It’s late, you don’t owe me—” He kissed her, a gentle, admonitory kiss, like Jock’s cautionary growl. She took his meaning: no more trying to coax enthusiasm from Elijah for her company, no more trying to inspire him to reassurances that he felt something special for her. He would permit her curiosity and nothing more. The

Everyday God give us the sun--and also one moment which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day we try to pretend that we haven't perceived that moment, that it doesn't exist--that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow.

Tell me about your life since I last saw you." | "There are no great mysteries to tell. My path is always ther, and I do everything I can to follow it in a dignified way." | "What is your path?" | "The path of someone seeking love." | "And love's path is really complicated." | "Because on that path we can go either to heaven or to hell?

She seemed out of place at the Fairweather. Too posh, as Susan said. Too well dressed. She never strolled along the shore or went bathing or brought a picture postcard. She just sat on the veranda all day with a book she never read, gazing out to sea. Probably wondering why on earth she came here. Susan had said. She looks as if she'd be more at home in Monte Carlo. I know- she's lost all her money gambling and she's waiting for the sea to warm up before she throws herself in. I hope she remembers to pay her bill first.

That evening around dusk, she hiked up to Maryland Heights and sat on a cliff looking down upon the picturesque little town of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. One hundred seventy years before, Thomas

She sat for a few minutes in the company of her bitter regrets...

As the silence returned, I sat back and felt the tension ease away; I hadn’t even known I was tense. A few moments passed and once again the cycling fan laced in with the clanging chains and mixed with the rumbling mower and the buzzing insects.

Although surely no more than forty, Kamen walked like a much older man and wheezed even when he sat, peering at the world through enormous horn-rimmed spectacles and over an enormous pear of a belly. He was a very tall, very black black man, with features carved so large they seemed unreal. His great staring eyeballs, ship’s figurehead of a nose, and totemic lips were awe-inspiring. Xander Kamen looked like a minor god in a suit from Men’s Warehouse.

A management team brought in by George to restructure Lucasfilm seemed concerned mostly with cash flow, and as time went on, they became openly skeptical that our division would ever attract a buyer. This team was headed by two men with the same first name, whom Alvy and I nicknamed “the Dweebs” because they didn’t understand a thing about the business we were in. Those two guys threw around management consulting terms (they loved to tout their “corporate intuition” and constantly urged us to make “strategic alliances”), but they didn’t seem at all insightful about how to make us attractive to buyers or about which buyers to pursue. At one point, they called us into an office, sat us down, and said that to cut costs, we should lay off all our employees until after our division was sold—at which point we could discuss rehiring them. In addition to the emotional toll we knew this would take, what bugged us about this suggestion was that our real selling point—the thing that had attracted potential suitors thus far—was the talent we’d gathered. Without that, we had nothing. So, when our two like-minded overlords demanded a list of names of people to lay off, Alvy and I gave them two: his and mine.

I also received a note from the Unknown, the first in two days. I pounced on it eagerly, for receiving his letters had come to be the most important part of my day. Instead of the long letter I had come to anticipate, it was short. I thank you for the fine ring. It was thoughtfully chosen and I appreciate the generous gesture, for I have to admit I would rather impute generosity than mere caprice behind the giving of a gift that cannot be worn. Or is this a sign that you wish, after all, to alter the circumscriptions governing our correspondence? I thought--to make myself clear--that you preferred your admirer to remain secret. I am not convinced you really wish to relinquish this game and risk the involvement inherent in a contact face-to-face. I dropped the note on my desk, feeling as if I’d reached for a blossom and had been stung by an unseen nettle. My first reaction was to sling back an angry retort that if gifts were to inspire such an ungallant response, then he could just return it. Except it was I who had inveighed, and at great length, against mere gallantry. In a sense he’d done me the honor of telling the truth-- And it was then that I had the shiversome insight that is probably obvious by now to any of my progeny reading this record: that our correspondence had metamorphosed into a kind of courtship. A courtship. As I thought back, I realized that it was our discussion of this very subject that had changed the tenor of the letters from my asking advice of an invisible mentor to a kind of long-distance friendship. The other signs were all there--the gifts, the flowers. Everything but physical proximity. And it wasn’t the unknown gentleman who could not court me in person--it was I who couldn’t be courted in person, and he knew it. So in the end I sent back only two lines: You have given me much to think about. Will you wear the ring, then, if I ask you to? I received no answer that day, or even that night. And so I sat through the beautiful concert of blended children’s voices and tried not to stare at Elenet’s profile next to the Marquis of Shevraeth, while feeling a profound sense of unhappiness, which I attributed to the silence from my Unknown. The next morning brought no note, but a single white rose.

I envied many for being happy, successful and content. I wondered how a sick friend managed to look resplendent in her profile picture? How someone with a dark past post hilarious Facebook status? Until one day... I realised that while they all were making a conscious effort to grow in life, I simply sat and worshipped the grave of my sufferings. I sat at one place and did nothing but moan. So, I stopped. I don't dig graves anymore as I am too busy building my empire.

Some people try and fail and they get stuck in that reality. They forget that they entered the race while the other 99% of people sat around too scared to even try.

He was glad for it. He was glad to get a glimpse into the way they thought and saw the world. Anything to help him figure out the mindset of a rebellious people who seemed to inspire so much trouble for themselves. They mostly sat around the outer edge of the room with polygonal walls which created a circular structure. At the forefront of the room was a head seat, that looked very much to Longinus like a royal throne, with its framed arch and red curtains displayed behind it. This was the seat of the High Priest, who was currently Caiaphas, a bootlicker of Herod, under Pilate’s direction.

I sat at my desk, poured myself a glass of wine, and pondered life...my profession...was it meaningless? I took a long, drawn-back swig of the bourbon and slammed down the glass. I only then noticed the stream of filtered light illuminating through the window, through the partially drawn shades. It was beautiful. I thought to myself, "I am a critic. My life is criticizing the works of others, the joys of others, the very essence of what others have toiled, agonized and gone mad over. "I am a critic. I write in a magazine about how I don't like what someone else likes, merely because they wrote it." Write what you love, they always say. "I am a hater," I said, pondering the beautiful sunlight and my glass of alcohol, "...but I hate for the enjoyment of others.

The Greek word for ‘self-control’ comes from a root word meaning ‘to grip’. It calls for getting a grip on your spending so that you don’t go into debt for things you don’t need and can’t pay for. It calls for getting a grip on your temper and not saying things you’ll later regret: ‘Better … a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city’ (Proverbs 16:32 NIV 1984 Edition). It calls for getting a grip on your desires. If Joseph had failed to say no to the repeated advances of his boss’ wife, he’d never have seen his life’s dream fulfilled and sat on the throne of Egypt. Understand this: Satan has discerned your destiny and he’s out to stop you from reaching it. So pray for self-control, and practise it on a daily basis.

As an idle mind either recalls its past or worries about its future, this Mr. Patil had sat indulged in his past. How beautiful his past life was, happy, lively and warm as the morning itself. It was a perfectly pictured cheerful life of a farmer.

I’m still scared,” I admitted suddenly, startling even myself. The old couple came back in, turning on the night light beside my bed to see my face by its glow, and sat beside me comfortably on the edge of the bed. I looked around the room and then at the elderly couple with eager eyes, as if they held the power to change the whole world. “What if the monster comes back?” I asked with big eyes. Elsie snuggled against me, pushing the covers up underneath my chin and tucking them in tightly around my whole body, wrapping me in a cocoon of soft and downy comfort. As she smoothed back my hair tenderly, her touch felt like a fresh piece of heaven, a momentary brush with an angel. “Monsters aren’t real, honey,” she soothed, trying to comfort me. I imagined his threatening, glassy eyes flickering at me in that moment, peering over the bright flowers of the window boxes, ready to take my life instantaneously. My heart closed in on itself like the clanging, steel doors of a cage, feeling two sizes too small to hold all the pain within it. “Oh Elsie,” I whispered in hushed undertones, leaning closer to her face, sure he was out there, still listening just beyond my view, “Yes, they are.

I remember the great feeling of sadness to have left many of our brothers behind in a foreign land, but as I sat on the rowing bench, alongside Hengist and Yffi, as the Famous Horse sailed over the gentle waves, I couldn't help but feel excited of what was to come. Yet none of us could have predicted that we were sailing towards a head -on-collision with the Roman General, Flavius Aëtius and his Hun allies, where Hengist and I would come face to face with the legendary Siegfried the Dragon Slayer and the one they call Attila the Hun!