Secretly Admiring Someone Quotes

I just had an out-of-body experience. Niall Stella just took off my shirt and admired my chest.” “Do you need to text someone?

So let me see-you've got a boyfriend, a not boyfriend, and a secret admirer. " He shook his head at me. "Girl, no wonder someone tried to run you down.

I am jealous. I’m envious of the easy options all the rest of you enjoy. To date someone or not to date someone? Does she like him? Does he like her? You can try out whatever you like and change your minds at any time. Everyone is available to everyone else. Me? I might be permitted to admire someone from afar, to harbor a yearning in secret, but to act on it would cost me everything.

And then a man of forty or so, with a French accent, asked, "How do you achieve the presence of mind to initiate the writing of a poem?" And something cracked open in me, and I finally stopped hoarding and told them my most useful secret. The only secret that has helped me consistently over all the years that I've written. I said, "Well, I'll tell you how. I ask a simple question. I ask myself: What was the very best moment of your day??" The wonder of it was, I told them that this one question could lift out from my life exactly what I will want to write a poem about. Something I hadn't known was important will leap out and hover there in front of me, saying I am— I am the best moment of the day. I noticed two people were writing down what I was saying. Often, I went on, it's a moment when you're waiting for someone, or you're driving somewhere, or maybe you're just walking across a parking lot and admiring the oil stains and the dribbled tar patterns. One time it was when I was driving past a certain house that was screaming with sunlitness on its white clapboards, and then I plunged through tree shadows that splashed and splayed across the windshield. I thought, Ah, of course— I'd forgotten. You, windshield shadows, you are the best moment of the day. "And that's my secret, such as it is," I said.

But the thing is, since I've met someone, everyone started banging on and on about my not-so-secret admirer. I'd started to find it quite exciting. I'd forgotten that I don't get involved because the pain might not be worth it. All that flattery and attention distracted me from any pain that might have been lurking around the corner. But course, the pain got me in the end. It always does.

If someone hates you, secretly they are admiring you. They deserve you love and not your hate.

So many women and non-binary people told me a similar story: they had people in their lives that they looked up to, who they thought were beautiful and assured and real, but they couldn't see that they themselves had qualities worthy of that admiration too; they could only see their own qualities in a positive light when they saw them reflected in someone else.

Human life is fragile: we live in the space between one breath and the next. We often try to maintain an illusion of permanence, through what we do, say, wear, buy, and how we enjoy ourselves and who and how we love. Yet it is an illusion that is constantly being undermined by change and death. We can use diamonds in whatever way we like. They are empty things, pretty as water, yet within them—if we want to see it—there is blood, dust, love, curses, and suffering. There is desire to make someone happy, there is admiration, there is ostentation…and there is a company’s profit curve.

It is often difficult to admit that someone you love is not perfect or to consider aspects of a person that are less than admirable. To the Baudelaires it felt almost as if they had drawn a line after their parents died. A secret line in their memories separating all the wonderful things about the Baudelaire parents from the things that were perhaps not quite so wonderful. Since the fire whenever they thought of their parents the Baudelaires never stepped over this secret line preferring to ponder the best moments the family had together rather than any of the times when they had fought, been unfair, or selfish.

She always felt that she knew everything about him that could be known - not that he was simple, but that he was knowable, like a list of errands, like an encyclopedia. He had a birthmark on the third toe of his left foot. He wasn't able to urinate if someone could hear him. He thought cucumbers were good enough, but pickles were delicious - so absolutely delicious, in fact, that he questioned whether they were, indeed, made from cucumbers, which were only good enough. He hadn't heard of Shakespeare, but Hamlet sounded familiar. He liked making love from behind. That, he thought, was about as nice as it gets. He had never kissed anyone besides his mother and her. He had dived for the golden sack only because he wanted to impress her. He sometimes looked in the mirror for hours at a time, making faces, tensing muscles, winking, smiling, puckering. He had never seen another man naked, and so had no idea if his body was normal. The word "butterfly" made him blush, although he didn't know why. He had never been out of the Ukraine. He once thought that the earth was the centre of the universe, but learned better. He admired magicians more after learning the secrets of their tricks.

But I must remind you, it was before you that I lost my self-respect, and gained a boundless sense of guilt. (Recollecting this boundlessness I once wrote of someone, ‘He feared the shame that would outlive him.’)  I couldn’t suddenly change when I was with other people; indeed with other people I felt even more guilty because of your attitude towards them – I felt implicated in this and I had to atone for your words.  And you always spoke badly of people that I had dealings with – sometimes openly, sometimes secretly – and I had to atone for that as well.  In business and in the family you tried to instil a mistrust of people in my mind (when I admired someone, you buried him with criticism).  And you could do this without it weighing you down (you were strong enough for that) though your attitude might just have been a lordly affectation.  But your mistrust was misplaced, with my childish eyes I couldn’t see what you  saw: for everywhere there were extraordinary, unmatchable people – so instead I gained a mistrust of myself, and an abiding fear of everyone.  So in this respect your influence on me was absolute.  And you didn’t see that; possibly because you had not experienced my sort of dealings with people, and so you were doubtful and jealous (but do I deny that you loved me?) and you thought that I had found some sort of compensation elsewhere, for you couldn’t imagine that I lived in the outside world as I did in your presence. Yet as child I found some comfort in my mistrust of my judgement: I doubted my insight, I said to myself, ‘Like all children you exaggerate, you feel little things too much and believe they have great weight.’  But this comfort dwindled as I grew up and has almost vanished. Equally

This is the worst idea ever,” Lend shouted from behind the closed door as Arianna finished pinning my hair under a brunette wig. “I’ve been having a lot of those lately, but one of us wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my most recent one.” “Well, you look the part, at least,” Arianna said, standing back to admire her handiwork. I was in a fitted, sleek black pantsuit with a blouse underneath. The blouse was white. I hated it already. That, combined with the too-dark hair and colored eyebrows making my tragically pale skin even white, and I was not loving life. Still, sacrifices had to be made. Jack was lying on the bed with his head hanging over the side, his face slowly turning more and more red as the blood rushed to it. He looked phenomenally bored for someone about to break into a secret international high security facility. I slipped into my favorite stilettos, took one step, and fell over. “Ouch.” Shaking off the shoes, I rubbed at my still-tender feet. The stilettos were so not happening. That did it. If I didn’t already want to destroy the Dark Queen, the fact that she had ruined my ability to wear high heels put her at the very top of my hit list. She was so going down.

Me: It will get better, right? Eventually, it will get better. Scarlett: I’m sorry I’m not the type to lower our discourse to emoji use since you totally deserve a smiley face right now. Yes, it will get better. Me: Ha. It’s just. Whatever. Sorry to keep whining. Scarlett: That’s what I’m here for. BTW, that email you forwarded? My guess: TOTALLY A SECRET ADMIRER. Me: You’ve read too many books. I’m being set up. And stop YELLING AT ME. Scarlett: No way. I didn’t say he was a vampire. I said he was a secret admirer. Most def. Me: Wanna take bets? Scarlett: You should just know by now that I’m always right. It’s my one magic power. Me: What’s mine? Scarlett: TBD. Me: Thanks a lot. Scarlett: Kidding. You are strong. That’s your power, girl. Me: My arms are v. toned from stress-eating ALL the cookies. Hand to mouth. Repeat 323 times. Hard-core workout. Scarlett: Seriously, for a second, J? Just because you’re strong doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask for help sometimes. Remember that. I’m here, ALWAYS, but you might want to take up that offer from someone local. Me: Whatever. Ugh. Thanks, Dr. Phil. I miss you! Scarlett: Miss you too! Go write back to SN. NOW. NOW. NOW. Now tell me the truth? Anyone at your school unusually pale?

Hey,” I said to her. “Let me get your opinion on something.” She stopped and listened. She was about four foot ten, with short, frizzy hair and a marshmallow body, but she had a nice smile; she would be good practice. I decided to use the Maury Povich opener. “My friend Grimble there just got a call today from the Maury Povich show,” I began. “And it seems they’re doing a segment on secret admirers. Evidently, someone has a little crush on him. Do you think he should go on the show or not?” “Sure,” she answered. “Why not?” “But what if his secret admirer is a man?” I asked. “Talk shows always need to put an unexpected twist on everything. Or what if it’s a relative?” It’s not lying; it’s flirting. She laughed. Perfect. “Would you do the show?” I asked. “Probably not,” she answered. Suddenly,

(a) A writer always wears glasses and never combs his hair. Half the time he feels angry about everything and the other half depressed. He spends most of his life in bars, arguing with other dishevelled, bespectacled writers. He says very ‘deep’ things. He always has amazing ideas for the plot of his next novel, and hates the one he has just published. (b) A writer has a duty and an obligation never to be understood by his own generation; convinced, as he is, that he has been born into an age of mediocrity, he believes that being understood would mean losing his chance of ever being considered a genius. A writer revises and rewrites each sentence many times. The vocabulary of the average man is made up of 3,000 words; a real writer never uses any of these, because there are another 189,000 in the dictionary, and he is not the average man. (c) Only other writers can understand what a writer is trying to say. Even so, he secretly hates all other writers, because they are always jockeying for the same vacancies left by the history of literature over the centuries. And so the writer and his peers compete for the prize of ‘most complicated book’: the one who wins will be the one who has succeeded in being the most difficult to read. (d) A writer understands about things with alarming names, like semiotics, epistemology, neoconcretism. When he wants to shock someone, he says things like: ‘Einstein is a fool’, or ‘Tolstoy was the clown of the bourgeoisie.’ Everyone is scandalized, but they nevertheless go and tell other people that the theory of relativity is bunk, and that Tolstoy was a defender of the Russian aristocracy. (e) When trying to seduce a woman, a writer says: ‘I’m a writer’, and scribbles a poem on a napkin. It always works. (f) Given his vast culture, a writer can always get work as a literary critic. In that role, he can show his generosity by writing about his friends’ books. Half of any such reviews are made up of quotations from foreign authors and the other half of analyses of sentences, always using expressions such as ‘the epistemological cut’, or ‘an integrated bi-dimensional vision of life’. Anyone reading the review will say: ‘What a cultivated person’, but he won’t buy the book because he’ll be afraid he might not know how to continue reading when the epistemological cut appears. (g) When invited to say what he is reading at the moment, a writer always mentions a book no one has ever heard of. (h) There is only one book that arouses the unanimous admiration of the writer and his peers: Ulysses by James Joyce. No writer will ever speak ill of this book, but when someone asks him what it’s about, he can’t quite explain, making one doubt that he has actually read it.

She felt a bored indifference toward the immediate world around her, toward other children and adults alike. She took it as a regrettable accident, to be borne patiently for a while, that she happened to be imprisoned among people who were dull. She had caught a glimpse of another world and she knew that it existed somewhere, the world that had created trains, bridges, telegraph wires and signal lights winking in the night. She had to wait, she thought, and grow up to that world. She never tried to explain why she liked the railroad. Whatever it was that others felt, she knew that this was one emotion for which they had no equivalent and no response. She felt the same emotion in school, in classes of mathematics, the only lessons she liked. She felt the excitement of solving problems, the insolent delight of taking up a challenge and disposing of it without effort, the eagerness to meet another, harder test. She felt, at the same time, a growing respect for the adversary, for a science that was so clean, so strict, so luminously rational. Studying mathematics, she felt, quite simply and at once: “How great that men have done this” and “How wonderful that I’m so good at it.” It was the joy of admiration and of one’s own ability, growing together. Her feeling for the railroad was the same: worship of the skill that had gone to make it, of the ingenuity of someone’s clean, reasoning mind, worship with a secret smile that said she would know how to make it better some day. She hung around the tracks and the round-houses like a humble student, but the humility had a touch of future pride, a pride to be earned. “You’re unbearably conceited,” was one of the two sentences she heard throughout her childhood, even though she never spoke of her own ability. The other sentence was: “You’re selfish.” She asked what was meant, but never received an answer. She looked at the adults, wondering how they could imagine that she would feel guilt from an undefined accusation. She

Once that secret is in place, you will find yourself enjoying the little things of life: you’ll stop to admire a sparrow, a sunset, a breeze moving the leaves of a tree, someone’s pretty hair. You’ll enjoy a shower more than you did before, a walk, a conversation with a friend, or simply sitting, thinking about how wonderful the Universe is. You’ll stop focusing on things that are detrimental to your happiness, on unpleasant events in distant places that can’t possibly have an effect upon you, on dark items in the news, on inconsequential things that used to trouble you but now, in the knowledge of your secret, no longer take your attention.

When are you going to do something about those feelings of yours?” His eyes darted to Mama Jo. Her blue eyes studied him over the ridge of her bifocals. Heat rose on his neck. “What do you mean?” She pinned him with a look. “I think you know what I mean.” There was something in her eyes that made the blood rush to his face. Cacophony erupted on the court as PJ sank another shot, the others groaning. Daniel watched them blindly, his heart in his throat. First Madison, now Mama Jo. His secret wasn’t a secret anymore. His heart raced. “How long have you known?” “Since about five seconds after your feelings changed.” He scratched his neck, wishing twilight would fall faster. “I understood why you held back at first.” Mama Jo flipped another page. “She was so young. She was with Aaron, and they were so—” She stopped before saying the hurtful words. He’d stayed away a lot during those four years. It was too hard seeing Jade so in love with someone who wasn’t him. “The secret admirer notes.” She looked at him over her glasses. “They were from you?” His lips parted as his eyes shot to her. This was getting out of hand. “Please don’t tell her.” She removed her glasses, folded them, and set them on the paper, looking down. “At first, when she came home, I thought maybe the time was finally right. That you’d finally tell her how you felt.” She waved her hand. “I know I’m butting in here.” She looked toward Jade and Cody, then back to him. “But I see things moving forward, and I worry you’re missing your open window. Maybe the last one you’ll get.” He

He sees toxic shame in both the binging and the purging cycle. Following Tomkins, he sees binging on food as a substitute for interpersonal needs, which are shame-bound: When one feels empty inside, hungry to feel a part of someone, desperate to be held close, craving to be wanted and admired but these have become taboo through shame, one turns instead to food. Food can never satisfy the longing, and as the longing turns into shame, then one eats more to anesthetize the shame. The meta-shame, the shame about eating in secret and binging, is a displacement of affect, a transforming of the shame about self into the shame about food. The

and egg from her fingers she wiped her hands and went out to the café. ‘You’re not running in this hideous weather, are you?’ She took in her friend’s running gear, the autumn long-sleeved top now with the addition of a body warmer, a knitted hat, and gloves. ‘Can’t always use weather as an excuse,’ she puffed, a faint sound still coming from the earbuds that hung waiting around her neck. ‘I’d get far too lazy if I did.’ ‘Well, I’m in awe,’ Jo admitted. ‘It’s so cosy in here.’ Jess took in the twinkly lights which stood out all the more when it was so miserable outside. ‘And the tree smells beautiful.’ She sniffed in the scent that would soon be mingled with the smell of baking. ‘I almost don’t want to venture outside again, but I must, so it’s a banana smoothie to go for me, please.’ ‘Coming right up.’ Jo went out to the kitchen and chopped the fruit, poured milk, drizzled honey and had the takeaway drink whizzed up in no time. Jess was perusing the postcards board by the time Jo came out with her smoothie and a paper straw to push through the lid on top. She was repinning the card that had come today. Locals were invited to read the cards at their leisure – it was a big part of the community feel in the café. ‘Harry seems to be having fun,’ she said, closing her eyes briefly at the refreshing first sip of her drink. ‘It was sitting on the mat this morning when I got here.’ It had fallen through the letterbox at the bottom of the door and landed writing side up and Jo’s heart had skipped a beat when she unlocked the door to the café, hoping with everything she had that the card was from her secret admirer, but when she’d seen Harry’s name she’d shaken away the thought, glad she could pin up a card from someone who would always be a friend. She was so pleased he’d found a fresh start and seemed happy and she was even happier she hadn’t let nostalgia

Without moving apart, Zev moaned and whispered into Jonah’s mouth, “Damn, Blondie, you’re a great kisser.” Jonah moved his arms up to Zev’s back, wrapping the young man in his embrace and stroking his smooth, firm skin. “You’re not so bad yourself, Hassick. You been practicing this with someone without me knowing?” Zev snickered. “You jealous?” Jonah didn’t return the smile. He looked into Zev’s eyes and answered without any guile, “Yeah. I’m jealous of anyone who got to touch you.” Instead of looking freaked out, as Jonah had half expected, Zev remained completely calm. He gazed into Jonah’s eyes with such powerful emotion that Jonah’s heart raced and his breath hitched. “Unless you can manage being jealous of yourself, you don’t have to worry. Like I told you yesterday, I haven’t ever thought about anyone else—girls or guys—let alone touched anyone else. It’s just you, Blondie. It’s always been you.” Zev let his words sink in, then he reversed the tables on the discussion. “What about you? Been hiding out behind the bleachers sneaking kisses with cheerleaders?” Jonah snorted more than laughed. “Uh, Zev, I was teasing about the whole not-so-smart thing earlier, but now I’m thinking I may have been on to something. That hardness you feel against your stomach isn’t a banana. That’s me happy to see you, or feel you, in this case. And you’re a guy. With that background in place, we can add two and two together here and even someone with your limited math skills can come up with the correct answer. I’m gay. I’ve got no deep dark cheerleader secrets in my past.” Zev was amazed at how easily Jonah said the words. He admired how his friend so completely accepted this part of himself. No shame, no hesitation. Just a matter-of-fact statement. In that moment, Zev decided he’d take the same approach. He knew it’d shock his parents. Hell, it’d rock his whole community. But he was attracted to a man. He had a male mate. That meant he was gay. Zev Hassick was a gay shifter. The pack would just have to find a way to deal with that truth even though they’d always believed it to be impossible. “And in case you’re wondering,” Jonah continued, his hand still rubbing Zev’s back but now moving lower, skating over his ass, “I don’t have any deep dark football player secrets, either. I’ve had a crush on one guy for as long as I can remember and I kinda put all my eggs in that basket.” Zev took another kiss, slow, soft and sweet this time. “I better be the egg-basket guy in that story, Blondie, or the tickles are coming back in full force.

I might be a fan of Audubon, I suppose." "Ah, birds. I can tell a lot about a person by the type of art they're drawn to. You say Audubon, and I think of someone with a meticulous eye for detail. But that's an easy assumption, isn't it? Not the sort of thing that impresses someone like you much." "Like me?" "Uh-huh. Skeptic." He studied her intently, and she was surprised to find herself unaffected, buffered from his scrutiny by her coat and her mittens, her ugly shoes and her padded socks, her warm cup of coffee and her anonymity. He rubbed his chin with his knuckle. "I would say a person who hangs Audubon on her walls is a person who believes in God, but not necessarily religion. A person who believes in free will, but also in the existence of a natural pecking order, pardon the pun, in all societies. Aware of it, and accepts it. I would say such a person has the capacity to be awed by nature and horrified by it, in equal amounts. A scientist's brain, but an artist's soul. How am I doing?" Alice smiled. "Remarkable." "You're not impressed. I see I'll have to up my game." He looked at her face, her eyes, and she looked back at him blandly, keeping her sharp corners hidden. She had little practice talking to strangers but embraced the thought that she could play the role of anyone she chose, trying on imagined identities to see what fit: businesswoman here for a meeting, opera impresario, wealthy collector, lover en route to a secret assignation. "Hmm," he said, narrowing his eyes while he watched her. "It's not so much an admiration for the artist as it is for the subject matter, correct? What is it about birds? People envy them the ability of flight, of course, but it must be more. Maybe not just their ability to fly, but to fly away 'from', is that it? To leave trouble behind, be free from boundaries, from expectations.

As much as Milly loved seeing Asa on that tractor, a part of her dreaded the days he came to mow, not only because her father made her go out to him with cookies and lemonade and watched her closely the entire time, but also because on those nights, Bett and Twiss would trick her into talking about Asa, and Milly would fall for their tricks. Milly understood Twiss's reasons for teasing her- Twiss didn't want to lose her- but she never understood Bett's. Bett would start innocently enough. "I heard Milly was talking to someone in the meadow the other day. I heard she baked him a red velvet cake shaped like a heart." "I heard she did more than that," Twiss would say. "With Mr. Peterson." "She likes them old, yep, she does." "Wrinkly," Bett would say. "Hairy." "Pruney!" When Milly could no longer stand the teasing, she'd pull her blanket over her head and say, "It wasn't Mr. Peterson I was talking to, it was Asa! And it wasn't red velvet cake, it was butter cookies! They weren't shaped like hearts, either!" And then the laughter would come, and Milly would know she'd been fooled into giving up another part of herself that she preferred to keep secret. The night she first told them about how much she admired Asa's work ethic (when she really just meant him), Bett and Twiss had made fun of her, and of Asa's slight stutter. "M-M-May I eat one of your cookies?" "Y-Y-Yes, you may." "M-M-May I love you like coconut flakes?" "L-L-Love me like coconut flakes, you may." They laughed when they said the word "love," but that was the word Milly had begun to think about- the possibility of it- whenever she was with Asa and, even more often, when she was without him. The word was with her when she pinned clothes to the line, or scrubbed the linoleum, or baked a pie. Sometimes, when no one was looking, she'd trace an A into a well of flour or hold a mop as though she were holding Asa's hand.

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The higher you rise, the greater your desire for becoming loved and admired.” “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” “Remember to be yourself; you don’t need anyone’s approval or appreciation otherwise.” “Some people are so busy looking in the mirror they forget to look at what is around them.” “What comes around goes around and more often than not comes right back at you.” “Good karma will always come back to those who give off positive energy and spread kindness and love. The only person that can truly make a difference in your life is you – start by becoming aware of when narcissism rears its ugly head. “If you do good, you will be rewarded. If you do bad, you will suffer the consequences. That’s what karma is all about.” “Karma has no deadline; be aware that your actions today will always come back to haunt you tomorrow.” “The universe always pays back; you cannot escape from the effects of Karma!” “Good karma requires no explanation and bad karma requires no excuse.” “Karma has a way of returning your secrets in unexpected ways. Be careful who knows them and how they’re shared… or not shared at all!” Selfishness brings misery, whereas kindness brings joy and peace built upon a strong foundation of karma that eventually leads to success.” “In life, we reap what we have sown so it’s best to sow good deeds so one can reap their sweet rewards later on in life through karmic justice!” “Karma has no menu; you get served what you deserve.” “The universe is not punishing you; it’s teaching you.” “Be careful with your words. Once they are said, they can be only forgiven, not forgotten.” “Everything that happens to us happens for a reason and the only viable response we can give is to learn from it and move on.” “By hating someone else, we set ourselves up as judge; we take upon ourselves the powers of Karma: to reward or punish with justice.” “No matter how much suffering you go through, you will never earn the right to be cruel.” If life gives you lemons and all that jazz remember one thing: Everything eventually becomes something else and nobody ever truly knows what the future holds. “Karma is a powerful force that doesn’t forget anyone who has wronged or hurt you.” “You will reap what you sow and what goes around comes around in due time.” “One day the pain and suffering you caused others will come back to you tenfold” “Put kindness out into the world and it will come back to reward you in unexpected ways.

But I was stuck for a long time by myself at Abraham Lincoln's portrait, standing in the middle of the huge hall as people moved all around me with mostly children. I felt as if time had stopped as I watched Lincoln, facing him, while watching the woman’s back as she was looking out the window. I felt wronged, so much like Truman from the movie, standing there in the middle of the museum alone. I was wondering what would Abraham Lincoln do if he realized he was the slave in his own cotton fields, being robbed by evil thieves, nazis. I had taken numerous photos of Martina from behind, as well as silhouettes of her shadow. I remember standing there, watching as she stood in front of the window; it was almost as if she was admiring the view of the mountains from our new home, as I did take such pictures of her, with a very similar composition to that of the female depicted in the iconic Lincoln portrait looking outwards from the window. I hadn't realized how many photographs I snapped of Martina with her back turned towards me while we travelled to picturesque places. Fernanda and I walked side-by-side in utter silence, admiring painting after painting of Dali's, without exchanging a single word. Meanwhile, Luis and Martina had got lost somewhere in the museum. When I finally found her, she was taking pictures outside of the Rainy Cadillac. We both felt something was amiss without having to say it, as Fernanda knew things I didn't and vice versa. We couldn't bring ourselves to discuss it though, not because we lacked any legal authority between me and Martina, but because neither Fernanda or myself had much parental authority over the young lady. It felt like when our marriages and divorces had dissolved, it was almost as if our parenting didn't matter anymore. It was as if I were unwittingly part of a secret screenplay, like Jim Carrey's character in The Truman Show, living in a fabricated reality made solely for him. I was beginning to feel a strange nauseous feeling, as if someone was trying to force something surreal down my throat, as if I were living something not of this world, making me want to vomit onto the painted canvas of the personalised image crafted just for me. I couldn't help but wonder if Fernanda felt the same way, if she was aware of the magnitude of what was happening, or if, just like me, she was completely oblivious, occasionally getting flashes of truth or reality for a moment or two. I took some amazing photographs of her in Port Lligat in Dali's yard in the port, and in Cap Creus, but I'd rather not even try to describe them—they were almost like Dali's paintings which make all sense now. As if all the pieces are coming together. She was walking by the water and I was walking a bit further up on the same beach on pebbles, parallel to each other as we walked away from Dali's house in the port. I looked towards her and there were two boats flipped over on the two sides of my view. I told her: “Run, Bunny! Run!

On one of those nights in January 2014, we sat next to each other in Maria Vostra, happy and content, smoking nice greens, with one of my favorite movies playing on the large flat-screen TVs: Once Upon a Time in America. I took a picture of James Woods and Robert De Niro on the TV screen in Maria Vostra's cozy corner, which I loved to share with Martina. They were both wearing hats and suits, standing next to each other. Robert de Niro looked a bit like me and his character, Noodles, (who was a goy kid in the beginning of the movie, growing up with Jewish kids) on the picture, was as naive as I was. I just realized that James Woods—who plays an evil Jewish guy in the movie, acting like Noodles' friend all along, yet taking his money, his woman, taking away his life, and trying to kill him at one point—until the point that Noodles has to escape to save his life and his beloved ones—looks almost exactly like Adam would look like if he was a bit older. “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.” – William Shakespeare That sounds like an ancient spell or rather directions, instructions to me, the director instructing his actors, being one of the actors himself as well, an ancient spell, that William Shakespeare must have read it from a secret book or must have heard it somewhere. Casting characters for certain roles to act like this or like that as if they were the director’s custom made monsters. The extensions of his own will, desires and actions. The Reconquista was a centuries-long series of battles by Christian states to expel the Muslims (Moors), who had ruled most of the Iberian Peninsula since the 8th century. The Reconquista ended on January 2, 1492. The same year Columbus, whose statue stands atop a Corinthian custom-made column down the Port at the bottom of the Rambla, pointing with his finger toward the West, had discovered America on October 12, 1492. William Shakespeare was born in April 1564. He had access to knowledge that had been unavailable to white people for thousands of years. He must have formed a close relationship with someone of royal lineage, or used trick, who then permitted him to enter the secret library of the Anglican Church. “A character has to be ignorant of the future, unsure about the past, and not at all sure what he/she’s supposed to be doing.” – Anthony Burgess Martina proudly shared with me her admiration for the Argentine author Julio Cortazar, who was renowned across South America. She quoted one of his famous lines, saying: “Vida es como una cebolla, hay que pelarla llorando,” which translates to “Life is like an onion, you have to peel it crying.” Martina shared with me her observation that the sky in Europe felt lower compared to America. She mentioned that the clouds appeared larger in America, giving a sense of a higher and more expansive sky, while in Europe, it felt like the sky had a lower and more limiting ceiling. “The skies are much higher in Argentina, Tomas, in all America. Here in Europe the sky is so low. In Argentina there are huge clouds and the sky is huge, Tomas.” – Martina Blaterare “It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same--everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another’s existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same--people who had never learned to think but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world.” – George Orwell, 1984

JOHN LEHMAN, PRESIDENT REAGAN’S SECRETARY of the Navy during the 1980s, recently published a book (Oceans Ventured, W. W. Norton, 2018) discussing the maritime security strategy that he promoted while he was secretary. In his book (p. 96) he comments: “In early years of the strategy, while we modernized the fleet a certain amount of bluff was necessary.” Even for those not involved at the time, that specific note might prompt someone to ask three questions: •  Just how much bluff are we talking about? •  Was any sort of net assessment made before the maritime strategy was launched? • What really happened? Well, the maritime strategy was a whole box full of bluff. And what actually occurred makes for an interesting case study. It was a while ago, so it is necessary to set the stage. It also involves providing some background as the situation had developed over some time. Our own submarine force had become more and more secretive in their war against the Soviets. As a result, nonsubmariners

In response to the question, “Would the U.S. ambassador in the country concerned know about your activities there?” Raborn replied, “CIA’s overseas personnel are subordinate to the U.S. ambassadors. We operate with the foreknowledge and approval of the ambassador.” The reader may have his choice in concluding that Admiral Raborn either made an untrue statement, or that he did not know how his clandestine services operated. I choose to believe the latter. In either case, there are countless instances in which the ambassador does not know what the CIA is doing. Kenneth Galbraith’s Ambassador’s Journal is all anyone needs to read to see that. Or would someone like to say that Ambassador Keating in India knew what Henry Kissinger and his Agency friends were doing in Pakistan and India during the December, 1971, conflict? Another case would be that of Ambassador Timberlake in the Congo. It would be unthinkable that the DCI, in this case Admiral Raborn, would intentionally make untrue statements in a national publication such as the U.S. News and World Report. The least he could have done would have been to avoid the question entirely. The deeper meaning of this interview is that Admiral Raborn, after more than a year of duty as DCI, simply did not know how his operating agents worked.

The very next morning It was Valentine’s Day! They grabbed all their cards and went on their way. The classroom was decked out in red, pink, and white, with balloons and streamers, so festive and bright. Someone dropped by with a giant bouquet addressed to the teacher, who blushed right away. The card was signed “From a secret admirer,” but everyone knew it was Mr. O’Meyer! They played pin the heart and won goofy toys, and girls ran away from kissy-face boys. The art teacher came and painted kids’ faces. She put hearts on cheeks and sillier places! At last it was time to deliver the cards. Look! One for Lisa, Jim, and Bernard. They opened them up, read them and smiled, and laughed at the cards that were totally wild. Then they ate goodies, sweet cherries, and grapes, and drank punch with ice cubes in little heart shapes. And just when they thought the party was done, a knock on the door came at quarter past one. When what to their wondering eyes should appear, but the principal himself dressed in full Cupid gear! His arrows--how golden! His bow--curved and tight! The wig that he wore was a comical sight. He spoke not a word and was gone in a minute, leaving a present behind. Now what could be in it? They read Cupid’s note as he leapt down the hall: “Happy Valentine’s Day-- to one and to all!

After the war, in 1924 Gerardo Machado was elected to the Presidency. As a General during the Cuban War of Independence, he had a great deal of popular support. He was best known for rustling cattle from the Spanish Imperial Army to feed the poor. As the President of Cuba, he undertook many public projects, including the 777-mile construction of a highway, going almost the entire 782-mile length of Cuba. He developed the Capital in Havana and intended to modernize and industrialize the nation. His ambitions and admiration of fascist Benito Mussolini in Italy, caused him to overreach when he convened the legislature to extend his term in office for 6 years, without the benefit of an election. Not only had he overspent, but now he also alienated the Cuban public who denounced him as an authoritarian nationalist. Students, labor unions and intellectualists denounced him as a dictator. Due to a new worldview of Marxist thinking brought on by the Russian revolution, communism was becoming popular and gained a reasonably strong foothold in Cuba. Machado, intent on holding on to power, became more despotic. He created a secret police and resorted to torture and even assassination to control the Cuban people. What started as a great idea ended in disaster for the Cuban people! World history shows this to be a common event. First someone like Machado or Hitler gets elected and in the end as the elected leader becomes a “despot” and takes over the country!

31. Humility Is Everything This chapter is about remembering your manners when things start rolling your way - as they surely will now that you are learning so many of these life secrets! It’s very tempting, when we experience a little bit of success, to think that our good fortune is down to our skill, our brilliance or our good nature. That might be a part of it, of course, but the truth is that every successful person has had great help and support from others. And the really successful person also has the humility to acknowledge that. When you clam too much credit for yourself, or you shout too loudly of your success, you give people a really good reason to talk against you. No one likes a boaster. And real success has humility at its core. I’ve been super lucky to have met some of the most successful sports stars on the planet. And you know what’s interesting about the most successful sportsmen and women? The more successful they are, so often the more humble they are. Listen to how Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal talk about their success. Even as the number-one tennis players in the world, they continually acknowledge their family, their coach, their team, even their opponents, as incredible people. And it makes us like them even more! I guess it’s because big-heads don’t get our admiration, even if they are incredibly successful. Why is that? Maybe it is because we know, deep down, that none of us gets very far on our own, and if someone says they have done it all alone, we don’t really believe them. Take a look at one of the greatest inventors to have ever lived, Sir Isaac Newton. In a letter to his great rival Robert Hooke, he wrote that his work on the theory of gravity had only been possible because of the scholarship of those who had gone before him. ‘If I have seen a little further,’ he wrote, ‘it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’ I instantly admire him even more for saying that. You see, all great men and women stand on mighty shoulders. And that means you, too. Never forget that.

PERSONAL IDENTITY AUDIT How do you think the world views you? How do you view yourself? How is the “public you” different from the “private you”? What conditions produce the BEST VERSION OF YOU? (The version of you who competes and gets the highest results.) Competition Fear of loss A setback A victory Having someone believe in you A point to prove Name a ninety-day period of your career during which you were the hungriest to succeed. What drove you? How do you handle a public loss? Do you feel you’re entitled to things without earning them? How difficult a personality do you have? Do you have a tendency of blaming others for your lack of effort or discipline? If yes, why? Very difficult Difficult Somewhat difficult Easygoing Very easygoing Do you get along with people like yourself or can there be only one of you in the room? Who do you speak to the most when you’re losing? People ahead of you People at the same level as you People not yet at your level No one Who are you secretly envious of that no one knows about?Don’t worry about writing this one down. No one will know youranswer but you. How is your relationship with the person you’remost envious of? How much of that envy is due to your not willing to do the work that the other individual is willing to do? What type of people annoy you the most and why? What type of people do you like the most and why? Who do you collaborate with the most? What qualities and traits do you admire most in others? How do you handle pressure? How often do you challenge your own vision to help improve your perspective? What brings out the worst side of you? Why? What brings out the best side of you? Why? What do you value the most in business and in life? What do you fear the most in your line of business? What accomplishment are you most proud of and why? Who do you want to be? What kind of life do you want to live?