“
I’m not laughing.” I was actually crying. “And please don’t laugh at me now, but I think the reason it’s so hard for me to get over this guy is because I seriously believed David was my soul mate. ”He probably was. Your problem is you don’t understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it. Your problem is, you just can’t let this one go. It’s over, Groceries. David’s purpose was to shake you up, drive you out of your marriage that you needed to leave, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master and beat it. That was his job, and he did great, but now it’s over. Problem is, you can’t accept that his relationship had a real short shelf life. You’re like a dog at the dump, baby – you’re just lickin’ at the empty tin can, trying to get more nutrition out of it. And if you’re not careful, that can’s gonna get stuck on your snout forever and make your life miserable. So drop it.“But I love him.”
“So love him.” “But I miss him.” “So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it. You’re just afraid to let go of the last bits of David because then you’ll be really alone, and Liz Gilbert is scared to death of what will happen if she’s really alone. But here’s what you gotta understand, Groceries. If you clear out all that space in your mind that you’re using right now to obsess about this guy, you’ll have a vacuum there, an open spot – a doorway. And guess what the universe will do with the doorway? It will rush in – God will rush in – and fill you with more love than you ever dreamed. So stop using David to block that door. Let it go.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)
“
It is important to view a recipe book as one that you use daily and what we in our family call "a living book" — a book that you use all the time, not just read once and discard on the shelf. It is in a sense a spell book, a book of magical enchantments, to be consulted, used and altered as needed.
”
”
The Silver Elves (The Elf Folks' Book of Cookery: Recipes for a Delighted Tongue, a Healthy Body and a Magical Life)
“
Books don't change lives... People change lives... Sometimes, if you're lucky, if you get the thing right, a book can say some important things and that's all fine and good... but a book is just an artifact... a thing that sits on a desk or a shelf... People make the real difference... People and love...
”
”
Adam Rapp (Decelerate Blue)
“
grew convinc'd that truth, sincerity and integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life; and I form'd written resolutions, which still remain in my journal book, to practice them ever while I lived.
”
”
Benjamin Franklin (The Complete Harvard Classics - ALL 71 Volumes: The Five Foot Shelf & The Shelf of Fiction: The Famous Anthology of the Greatest Works of World Literature)
“
There was nothing wrong with being able to handle things herself. Nothing wrong with wanting to.And she did appreciate Brian's help.
And she didn't need caffeine.
"I like caffeine," she grumbled. "I enjoy it, and that's entirely different from needing it.Entirely.I could give it up anytime I wanted, and I'd barely miss it."
Annoyed,she snagged the soft drink she'd left on a shelf and guzzled.
All right,so maybe she would miss it. But only beause she liked the taste. It wasn't like a craving or an addiction or...
She couldn't say why Brian popped into her head just then.She was certain if he'd seen her staring in a kind of horror at a soft drink bottle, he'd have been amused.It was debatable what his reaction would be if he'd realized she wasn't actually seeing the bottle, but his face.
No,that wasn't a need, either, she thought quickly. She did not need Brian Donnelly. It was attraction.Affection-a cautious kind of affection.He was a man who interested her, and whom she admired in many ways. But it wasn't as if she needed...
"Oh God."
It had to be overreaction, she decided, and set the bottle aside as carefully as she would have a container of nitro. What she was going through was something as simple as overromanticizing an affair. That would be natural enough, she told herself, particularly sice this was her first.
She didn't want to be in love with him. She began wielding the pitchfork vigorously now, as if to sweat out a fever.She didn't choose to be in love with him. That was even more important.When her hands trembled she ignored them and worked harder still.
By the time her mother joined her, Keeley had herself under control enough to casually ask Adelia to work in the office while she exervised Sam.
Keeley Grant had never run from a problem in her life,and she wasn't about to start now.She saddled her mount,then rode off to clear her head before she dealt with the problem at hand.
”
”
Nora Roberts (Irish Hearts (Irish Hearts #1 & 2))
“
Our parents had drilled us under the importance of using proper diction, of saying “going” instead of “goin” and “isn’t” instead of “ain’t “. We were taught to finish off words. They bought us a dictionary and a full Encyclopedia Britannica set, which lived on a shelf in the stairwell to our apartment, its titles etched in gold. Any time we had a question about a word, or a concept, or some piece of history, they directed us toward those books. Dandy, too, was an influence, meticulously correcting our grammar and admonishing us to enunciate our words when we went over for dinner. The idea was we were to transcend, to get ourselves further. They’d planned for it. They encouraged it. We were expected not just to be smart but to own our smartness – to inhabit it with pride – and this filtered down to how we spoke.
”
”
Michelle Obama (Becoming)
“
I grew convinc'd that truth, sincerity and integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life; and I form'd written resolutions, which still remain in my journal book, to practice them ever while I lived. Revelation had indeed no weight with me, as such; but I entertain'd an opinion that, though certain actions might not be bad because they were forbidden by it, or good because it commanded them, yet probably these actions might be forbidden because they were bad for us, or commanded because they were beneficial to us, in their own natures, all the circumstances of things considered. And this persuasion, with the kind hand of Providence, or some guardian angel, or accidental favorable circumstances and situations, or all together, preserved me, thro' this dangerous time of youth, and the hazardous situations I was sometimes in among strangers, remote from the eye and advice of my father, without any willful gross immorality or injustice, that might have been expected from my want of religion. I say willful, because the instances I have mentioned had something of necessity in them, from my youth, inexperience, and the knavery of others. I had therefore a tolerable character to begin the world with; I valued it properly, and determin'd to preserve it.
”
”
Benjamin Franklin (The Complete Harvard Classics - ALL 71 Volumes: The Five Foot Shelf & The Shelf of Fiction: The Famous Anthology of the Greatest Works of World Literature)
“
A writer spinning out the manuscript of a book is like a banker generating debts he knows can never be repaid. From one perspective it’s a waste of time, ‘the deliberate pouring of water through a sieve’, in Dostoyevsky’s phrase. The effort will not be repaid. From another, however, it’s an incredibly important process in which cultural charisma – intellectual glamour – is generated via a mechanism of guilt. A bookshelf is a glamorous row of reproaches. We know that there are books we ought to read, and ought to have read, because they are said to be wonderful and capable of making us better people. They sit there on the shelf, seeming to watch us, waiting for our best moment of spiritual preparedness. Yet we fail to read them. As a result we feel guilty. The books seem to say to us: – You are trivial and lazy. Your life could be so much richer and more creative, yet you fritter away your attention on television and Facebook, or idle gossip, or sports, or Olafur Eliasson installations. This guilt is much more wonderful than the contents of the books themselves could ever be, and spiritually much more uplifting. The unreadness of books outstrips their readness in beauty and in utility. It’s tremendously important to believe that there are heights which we’ve failed to attain, mountains we can glimpse in the distance but not climb. It’s almost like believing in heaven. To quote Kafka once more: Theoretically there is a perfect possibility of happiness: believing in the indestructible element in oneself and not striving towards it.
”
”
Momus (HERR F)
“
Photos Cherish who you are now If you have been sorting and discarding things in the order I recommend, you have likely stumbled across photographs in many different places, perhaps stuck between books on a shelf, lying in a desk drawer, or hidden in a box of odds and ends. While many may already have been in albums, I’m sure you found the odd photo or two enclosed with a letter or still encased in the envelope from the photo shop. (I don’t know why so many people leave photos in these envelopes.) Because photos tend to emerge from the most unexpected places when we are sorting other categories, it is much more efficient to put them in a designated spot every time you find one and deal with them all at the very end. There is a good reason to leave photos for last. If you start sorting photos before you have honed your intuitive sense of what brings you joy, the whole process will spin out of control and come to a halt. In contrast, once you have followed the correct order for tidying (i.e., clothes, books, papers, komono, sentimental items), sorting will proceed smoothly, and you will be amazed by your capacity to choose on the basis of what gives you pleasure. There is only one way to sort photos, and you should keep in mind that it takes a little time. The correct method is to remove all your photos from their albums and look at them one by one. Those who protest that this is far too much work are people who have never truly sorted photos. Photographs exist only to show a specific event or time. For this reason, they must be looked at one by one. When you do this, you will be surprised at how clearly you can tell the difference between those that touch your heart and those that don’t. As always, only keep the ones that inspire joy. With this method, you will keep only about five per day of a special trip, but this will be so representative of that time that they bring back the rest vividly. Really important things are not that great in number. Unexciting photos of scenery that you can’t even place belong in the garbage. The meaning of a photo lies in the excitement and joy you feel when taking it. In many cases, the prints developed afterward have already outlived their purpose. Sometimes people keep a mass of photos in a big box with the intention of enjoying them someday in their old age. I can tell you now that “someday” never comes. I can’t count how many boxes of unsorted photographs I have seen that were left by someone who has passed away. A typical conversation with my clients goes something like this: “What’s in that box?” “Photos.” “Then you can leave them to sort at the end.” “Oh, but they aren’t mine. They belonged to my grandfather.” Every time I have this conversation it makes me sad. I can’t help thinking that the lives of the deceased would have been that much richer if the space occupied by that box had been free when the person was alive. Besides, we shouldn’t still be sorting photos when we reach old age. If you, too, are leaving this task for when you grow old, don’t wait. Do it now. You will enjoy the photos far more when you are old if they are already in an album than if you have to move and sort through a heavy boxful of them.
”
”
Marie Kondō (The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing (Magic Cleaning #1))
“
The longer one owns the shares, however, the more important the firm’s underlying economics will be to performance results. Long-term investors therefore seek answers with shelf life. What is relevant today may need to be relevant in ten years’ time if the investor is to continue owning the shares. Information with a long shelf life is far more valuable than advance knowledge of next quarter’s earnings. We seek insights consistent with our holding period. These principally relate to capital allocation, which can be gleaned from examining the company’s advertising, marketing, research and development spending, capital expenditures, debt levels, share repurchase/ issuance, mergers and acquisitions and so forth.
”
”
Edward Chancellor (Capital Returns: Investing Through the Capital Cycle: A Money Manager’s Reports 2002-15)
“
The length of the life of the consumer of the product is, to the vast majority of food manufacturers, not nearly as important as the product’s shelf life.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Comparison
-He continued: Comparison exists in everything material and immaterial, when you stand in front of the library shelf to buy a book on a subject, you look at the author’s name first, to compare the quality of his presentation with the fame of his writer.
When you enter a café, you look at the people in it, associating its importance with the importance of the customers, their looks, their clothing brand, and their watches.
I know a café in Vienna, that you are not allowed to enter unless you wear specific clothing brands, and its prices are very high, although the coffee in it tastes bad, yet everyone sees it as an excellent coffee.
These two papers are of the same color, you will not see them, not because they do not reflect light, or because they are colorless, but because there is no frame of reference on which the mind can rely to distinguish between them.
He bent the little one to stick out its tip: but now, you have another frame of reference, this bend exposed it.
Just because you see something when you do not have a proper frame of reference to base it on does not mean it does not exist.
He smiled and looked him straight in the eye: just as you did not see that Roman worker on the bridge, it does not mean he does not exist.
”
”
Ahmad I. AlKhalel (Zero Moment: Do not be afraid, this is only a passing novel and will end (Son of Chaos Book 1))
“
Your job as a creator - a maker of things - is to make your thing, but then put that thing on a proverbial shelf in your brain. Not on some shelf in a dusty pantry at the back of your brain but on display in a place of prominence and importance. Keep it in a place in your mind (or, if it's small and tangible, on an actual shelf in your home) where you will come across it often. Rather than forgetting about it and moving on to the next thing, imagine it as a glowing bauble, looking to become something new and different and maybe even better.
”
”
Matthew Dicks (Someday Is Today: 22 Simple, Actionable Ways to Propel Your Creative Life)
“
this trade of importing slaves from their native country being much encouraged amongst them, and the white people and their children so generally living without much labor, was frequently the subject of my serious thoughts. I saw in these southern provinces so many vices and corruptions, increased by this trade and this way of life, that it appeared to me as a dark gloominess hanging over the land; and though now many willingly run into it, yet in future the consequence will be grievous to posterity. I express it as it hath appeared to me, not once, nor twice, but as a matter fixed on my
”
”
Charles William Eliot (The Complete Harvard Classics - ALL 71 Volumes: The Five Foot Shelf & The Shelf of Fiction: The Famous Anthology of the Greatest Works of World Literature)
“
Not that they prefer rum. I never knew a sailor, in my life, who would not prefer a pot of hot coffee or chocolate, in a cold night, to all the rum afloat. They all say that rum only warms them for a time; yet, if they can get nothing better, they will miss what they have lost. The momentary warmth and glow from drinking it; the break and change which is made in a long, dreary watch by the mere calling all hands aft and serving of it out; and the simply having some event to look forward to, and to talk about; give it an importance and a use which no one can appreciate who has not stood his watch before the mast. On my passage round Cape Horn before, the vessel that I was in was not under temperance articles, and grog was served out every middle and morning watch, and after every reefing of topsails; and though I had never drank rum before, and never intend to again, I took my allowance then at the capstan, as the rest did, merely for the momentary warmth it gave the system, and the change in our feelings and aspect of our duties on the watch.
”
”
Charles William Eliot (The Complete Harvard Classics - ALL 71 Volumes: The Five Foot Shelf & The Shelf of Fiction: The Famous Anthology of the Greatest Works of World Literature)
“
In "The Devil's Presence," Goldsborough brilliantly captures the Zeitgeist of our troubled times, writing with an honesty and passion that will stir your soul and rekindle your belief that a better world is within our grasp.
Richard Feinberg, former White House and State Department official, official book reviewer for "Foreign Affairs."
Put "Blood and Oranges" on the L.A. shelf next to Mike Davis' "City of Quartz," a Raymond Chandler or two and a DVD of "Chinatown." Just dive in. And hold on.
Arthur Salm, former book editor, "San Diego Union Tribune."
The Paris Herald'" is a witty, tender and evocative portrait of Americans in Paris that vividly brings to life the city they loved and made their own.
Ronald Steel, author of "Walter Lippmann and the American Century."
"Waiting for Uncle John" is a wonderful story that should be read and reread, told and retold. The Cuban people will never support an invader."
Alejandro Orfila, former Secretary General of the Organization of American States.
"Misfortunes of Wealth" is wonderfully structured and written, a gripping work of social history. I was utterly absorbed while reading it and have been haunted by it ever since.
Beth Gutcheon, author of eleven novels including "Still Missing" and "Leeway Cottage."
"Rebel Europe" is the most important book I have read in years.
Charles Champlain, "The Los Angeles Times.
”
”
James Oliver Goldsborough
“
If I could write you a note with all the things I know to be true, this is what the note would say and how I would reassure you— “Life is only an anchor if you don’t remind yourself to breathe, and sometimes there are no answers for why people leave. But you are worthy of more things than you ever dream to believe, and there is more hope in life than you let yourself think, even on the days that feel like they were made to sink. It can be difficult, knowing when to speak and when to ask for help, but your story is not a story that deserves to be left on the shelf. More important than all the things you fear is where you place your faith; just know you will always belong here and your story is not one that can be erased.
”
”
Courtney Peppernell (The Way Back Home)
“
I think it’s important to remind yourself that you have a top-shelf bussy. Your hips do not lie. And you can, and have, sucked the soul out of someone’s dick. As I write this, he aimlessly roams the streets, a shell of a man, searching for someone who can suck dick like you. I want you to focus on that man’s life you destroyed by being too damn good at head. That’s the internal validation I’m talking about!
”
”
Zachary Zane (Boyslut: A Memoir and Manifesto)
“
important. We’re used to defining a person by their profession, and when the job is gone, the person disappears with it. That’s not right. Marta had always been a whole person; employment is no more than an accessory for her, like a bracelet, or a hairstyle, or a manner of speaking.
”
”
David Machado (The Shelf Life of Happiness)
“
It is also the case that some outer teachings, things the teacher says, only get unlocked years later. You may hear a teaching, and not really understand it, or only partially understand it. You may even think you did understand it, when in fact, you were missing the point. It goes up on a storage shelf in your mind for years, and then one day, an experience comes along. If you are open to it, that teaching can come to life as the experience connects with it. The outer and inner teacher work together this way to deliver some of the most important lessons.
”
”
Kevin Casey (Ninja Mind: Harnessing the Mental Strength and Physical Abilities of the Ninjutsu Masters)
“
The stainless-steel mold gives the cheese its disc shape, about ten inches thick and two feet in diameter. But the mold serves another increasingly important function, as an anticounterfeiting measure. The molds are specially produced by the Consorzio Parmigiano-Reggiano, an independent and self-regulating industry group funded by fees levied on cheese producers. Carefully tracked and numbered, molds are supplied only to licensed and inspected dairies, and each is lined with Braille-like needles that crate a pinpoint pattern instantly recognizable to foodies, spelling out the name of the cheese over and over again in a pattern forever imprinted on its rind. A similar raised-pin mold made of plastic is slipped between the steel and the cheese to permanently number the rind of every lot so that any wheel can be traced back to a particular dairy and day of origin. Like a tattoo, these numbers and the words Parmigiano-Reggiano become part of the skin. Later in its life, because counterfeiting the King of Cheeses has become a global pastime, this will be augmented with security holograms...
One night, friends came to town and invited Alice out to dinner at celebrity chef Mario Batali's vaunted flagship Italian eatery, Babbo. As Alice told me this story, at one point during their meal, the waiter displayed a grater and a large wedge of cheese with great flourish, asking her if she wanted Parmigiano-Reggiano on her pasta. She did not say yes. She did not say no. Instead Alice looked at the cheese and asked, "Are you sure that's Parmigiano-Reggiano?"
Her replied with certainty, "Yes."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
She then asked to see the cheese. The waiter panicked, mumbled some excuse, and fled into the kitchen. He returned a few minutes later with a different and much smaller chunk of cheese, which he handed over for examination. The new speck was old, dry, and long past its useful shelf-life, but it was real Parmigiano-Reggiano, evidenced by the pin-dot pattern.
"The first one was Grana Padano," she explained. "I could clearly read the rind. They must have gone searching through all the drawers in the kitchen in a panic until they found this forgotten crumb of Parmigiano-Reggiano." Alice Fixx was the wrong person to try this kind of bait and switch on, but she is the exception, and I wonder how many other expense-account diners swallowed a cheaper substitute. This occurred at one of the most famous and expensive Italian eateries in the country. What do you think happens at other restaurants?
”
”
Larry Olmsted (Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don’t Know What You’re Eating and What You Can Do About It)
“
I should say that it was only for me that Marxism seemed over. Surely, I would tell G. at least once a week, it had to count for something that every single self-described Marxist state had turned into an economically backward dictatorship. Irrelevant, he would reply. The real Marxists weren’t the Leninists and Stalinists and Maoists—or the Trotskyists either, those bloodthirsty romantics—but libertarian anarchist-socialists, people like Anton Pannekoek, Herman Gorter, Karl Korsch, scholarly believers in true workers’ control who had labored in obscurity for most of the twentieth century, enjoyed a late-afternoon moment in the sun after 1968 when they were discovered by the New Left, and had now once again fallen back into the shadows of history, existing mostly as tiny stars in the vast night sky of the Internet, archived on blogs with names like Diary of a Council Communist and Break Their Haughty Power. They were all men. The group itself was mostly men. This was, as Marxists used to say, no accident. There was something about Marxist theory that just did not appeal to women. G. and I spent a lot of time discussing the possible reasons for this. Was it that women don’t allow themselves to engage in abstract speculation, as he thought? That Marxism is incompatible with feminism, as I sometimes suspected? Or perhaps the problem was not Marxism but Marxists: in its heyday men had kept a lock on it as they did on everything they considered important; now, in its decline, Marxism had become one of those obsessive lonely-guy hobbies, like collecting stamps or 78s. Maybe, like collecting, it was related, through subterranean psychological pathways, to sexual perversions, most of which seemed to be male as well. You never hear about a female foot fetishist, or a woman like the high-school history teacher of a friend of mine who kept dated bottles of his own urine on a closet shelf. Perhaps women’s need for speculation is satisfied by the intense curiosity they bring to daily life, the way their collecting masquerades as fashion and domesticity—instead of old records, shoes and ceramic mixing bowls—and their perversity can be satisfied simply by enacting the highly artificial role of Woman, by becoming, as it were, fetishizers of their own feet.
”
”
Katha Pollitt (Learning to Drive (Movie Tie-in Edition): And Other Life Stories)
“
General Environment Principles Here are some things to keep in mind when organizing a child's environment. (1) Participation in Family Life: from the first days on invite the child into the life of the family. In each room—the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, dining room, living room, front hall, and so forth have a space for the child to function. (2) Independence: The child's message to us at any age is "Help me to do it myself." Supporting this need shows respect for and faith in the child. Think carefully about family activities in all areas of the home, and arrange each space to support independence. A twin mattress for the child's bed; a small cupboard, coat tree, or low clothing rod or hook wherever the child dresses or undresses (front hall, bathroom, bedroom, etc.); a stool or bench for removing shoes and boots; inviting shelves for books, dishes, toys. This is a very child-friendly bathroom
in a home in Oregon where the
mother, a Montessori Assistant to
Infancy, had an infant community. 4) Belongings: This brings up a very important point. It is too much for anyone to care for or enjoy belongings when there are too many out at one time. In preparing the home environment for a child, have a place to keep clothing, toys, and books that are not being used. Rotate these when you see the child tiring of what is out on the shelf, in the book display, or toy basket. Have just a few pieces of clothing available to the child to choose what to wear each day, just a few toys that are enjoyed, and only a few favorite or new books. (5) Putting Away & The Sense of Order: "Discipline" comes from the same word as "disciple" and our children become disciplined only by imitating us; just as we teach manners such as saying "thank you" by modeling this for our children instead of reminding, we can teach them to put away their books and toys only by gracefully and cheerfully doing it over and over in their presence.
”
”
Susan Mayclin Stephenson (The Joyful Child: Montessori, Global Wisdom for Birth to Three)
“
THE LIFE OF Björnstjerne Björnson was so full and active, and involves to such a degree the intellectual and political history of his country in the second half of the nineteenth century, that it is impossible in a short sketch to do more than indicate its main outlines. He was born, the son of a pastor, in Kvikne, Osterdal, Norway, on December 8, 1832, but his youth was spent mainly in the picturesque district of Romsdal. He was educated in Molde and Christiania, and early began a career as a journalist and dramatic critic. His first book of importance was “Synnöve Solbakken” (1857), and it was followed by “Arne,” “A Happy Boy” (1860), and “The Fisher Maiden.” These works deal with the Norwegian peasant, portrayed with understanding and sympathy, and, though true to nature, have an idyllic quality which separates them from much of the fiction of rural life that was being written elsewhere in Europe at that time.
”
”
Charles William Eliot (Delphi Complete Harvard Classics and Shelf of Fiction)
“
I once met an eighty-nine-year-old woman who had, of her own volition, checked herself into a Boston nursing home. Usually, it’s the children who push for a change, but in this case she was the one who did. She had congestive heart failure, disabling arthritis, and after a series of falls she felt she had little choice but to leave her condominium in Delray Beach, Florida. “I fell twice in one week, and I told my daughter I don’t belong at home anymore,” she said. She picked the facility herself. It had excellent ratings and nice staff, and her daughter lived nearby. She had moved in the month before I met her. She told me she was glad to be in a safe place—if there’s anything a decent nursing home is built for, it is safety. But she was wretchedly unhappy. The trouble was that she expected more from life than safety. “I know I can’t do what I used to,” she said, “but this feels like a hospital, not a home.” It is a near-universal reality. Nursing home priorities are matters like avoiding bedsores and maintaining residents’ weight—important medical goals, to be sure, but they are means, not ends. The woman had left an airy apartment she furnished herself for a small beige hospital-like room with a stranger for a roommate. Her belongings were stripped down to what she could fit into the one cupboard and shelf they gave her. Basic matters, like when she went to bed, woke up, dressed, and ate, were subject to the rigid schedule of institutional life. She couldn’t have her own furniture or a cocktail before dinner, because it wasn’t safe.
”
”
Atul Gawande (Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End)
“
None of this tells you how long a given scene should be, of course. A general rule might suggest that the length of the scene should be directly proportional to its importance in the overall plot. Thus Fred’s scene with the banker – vital as it may be – probably should be shorter in the final story than a later scene in which Fred and a competitive climber struggle for momentary possession of a rocky shelf halfway up the mountain – the loser likely to lose not only the race, but his life. The higher the stakes, the longer the scene.
”
”
Jack M. Bickham (Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure)