Snub Quotes

Ok. You fuck me, then snub me. You love me, you hate me. You show me a sensitive side, then you turn into a total asshole. Is this a pretty accurate description of our relationship.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

Everything’s not always black and white, Princess. Sometimes we have to do shit because there’s not another choice. Maybe you should think about that before you snub your nose at me.

Our bodies need regular washing because we get dirty everyday. But so do our hearts! Because each day, people hurt us, offend us, forget us, snub us, step on us, reject us. But if we choose to forgive everyone everyday, we cleanse our hearts! We wake up the next morning refreshed and pure and lovely!

You learn nothing about men by snubbing them and crushing their pride. You must ask them what it is they can do in this world, that they alone can do.

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which,if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

The embroiling algorithm of happiness may leave many people bewildered or lost in translation while they snubbingly fall back on the smartphone, as a shield against intrusions from the outer world. ("Even if the world goes down, my mobile will save me")

A man may meet a woman and be shocked by her ugliness. Soon, if she is natural and unaffected, her expression makes him overlook the faults of her features. He begins to find her charming, it enters his head that she might be loved, and a week later he is living in hope. The following week he has been snubbed into despair, and the week afterwards he has gone mad. (Chapter 17)

I don’t run for trains.” Snub your destiny. I have taught myself to resist running to keep on schedule. This may seem a very small piece of advice, but it registered. In refusing to run to catch trains, I have felt the true value of elegance and aesthetics in behavior, a sense of being in control of my time, my schedule, and my life. Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking. You stand above the rat race and the pecking order, not outside of it, if you do so by choice.

Women are never tired of bewailing man’s fickleness in love, but they only seem to snub his constancy.

I’m no more used to being without a weapon than you are. (Cassandra) She’s right about that. Her teddy bear is a six-inch retractable knife with a snub-nosed .38 Special. (Katra)

It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. ... "It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit. ... Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.

One might almost say that affinities begin with the letters of the alphabet. In that sequence, O and P are inseparable. You might just as well say O and P as Orestes and Pylades. A true satellite of Enjolras, Grantaire lived within this circle of young men. He dwelt among them, only with them was he happy, he followed them everywhere. His pleasure was to watch these figures come and go in a wine-induced haze. They put up with him because of his good humour. In his belief, Enjolras looked down on this sceptic; and in his sobriety, on this drunkard. He spared him a little lordly pity. Grantaire was an unwanted Pylades. Always snubbed by Enjolras, spurned, rebuffed and back again for more, he said of Enjolras, ‘What marmoreal magnificence'.

Those who incessantly underestimate people will one day experience an incident that would make them want to plead everyone they had offended in the world.

You know that ‘no weapons at work’ policy?” I asked the twitching and growing hairy monstrosity standing less than ten feet from me. His yellow eyes bored into me with raw animal hatred. There was nothing recognizably human in that look. “I never did like that rule,” I said as I bent down and drew my gun from my ankle holster, put the front sight on the target and rapidly fired all five shots from my snub-nosed .357 Smith & Wesson into Mr. Huffman’s body. God bless Texas.

We organized First and Second Volunteer Defense Gunners of Free Luna-two regiments so that First could snub lowly Second and Second could be jealous of First.

There are no ordinary people. You have never spoken to a mere mortal. Natures, civilizations, cultures, arts, these are mortal. But it is with immortals that we work, joke, snub, marry, exploit.

The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two.

This story was written many moons ago under an apple tree in an orchard in Kent, which is one of England's prettiest counties . . . I had read at least twenty of the [fairy tales] when I noticed something that had never struck me before--I suppose because I had always taken it for granted. All the princesses, apart from such rare exceptions as Snow White, were blond, blue-eyed, and beautiful, with lovely figures and complexions and extravagantly long hair. This struck me as most unfair, and suddenly I began to wonder just how many handsome young princes would have asked a king for the hand of his daughter if that daughter had happened to be gawky, snub-nosed, and freckled, with shortish mouse-colored hair? None, I suspected. They would all have been of chasing after some lissome Royal Highness with large blue eyes and yards of golden hair and probably nothing whatever between her ears! It was in that moment that a story about a princess who turned out to be ordinary jumped into my mind, and the very next morning I took my pencil box and a large rough-notebook down to the orchard and, having settled myself under an apple tree in full bloom, began to write . . . the day was warm and windless and without a cloud in the sky. A perfect day and a perfect place to write a fairy story.

When I came back, after all those stories about Hitler and his snub, I came back to my native country, and I could not ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. Now what's the difference?

Nothing snubs quite like a cat. What evolutionary purpose did it serve, this inherent disdain, this artful blanking?

Ethiopians imagine their gods as black and snub-nosed; Thracians blue-eyed and red-haired. But if horses or lions had hands, or could draw and fashion works as men do, horses would draw the gods shaped like horses and lions like lions, making the gods resemble themselves. Xenophanes

As in the political sphere, the child is taught that he is free, a democrat, with a free will and a free mind, lives in a free country, makes his own decisions. At the same time he is a prisoner of the assumptions and dogmas of his time, which he does not question, because he has never been told they exist. By the time a young person has reached the age when he has to choose (we still take it for granted that a choice is inevitable) between the arts and the sciences, he often chooses the arts because he feels that here is humanity, freedom, choice. He does not know that he is already moulded by a system: he does not know that the choice itself is the result of a false dichotomy rooted in the heart of our culture. Those who do sense this, and who don't wish to subject themselves to further moulding, tend to leave, in a half-unconscious, instinctive attempt to find work where they won't be divided against themselves. With all our institutions, from the police force to academia, from medicine to politics, we give little attention to the people who leave—that process of elimination that goes on all the time and which excludes, very early, those likely to be original and reforming, leaving those attracted to a thing because that is what they are already like. A young policeman leaves the Force saying he doesn't like what he has to do. A young teacher leaves teaching, here idealism snubbed. This social mechanism goes almost unnoticed—yet it is as powerful as any in keeping our institutions rigid and oppressive.

There is very little pleasure in being snubbed over a task for which one is well qualified. There is, however, quite a bit of pleasure in watching the ones who did the snubbing later eat their own words.

we begin to notice besides our particular sinful act, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are. This may sound rather difficult, so I will try to make it clear from my own case. When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in the cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not creat the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.

The penalty for success is to be bored by the people who used to snub you.

But I can think of nothing on earth so beautiful as the final haul on Halloween night, which, for me, was ten to fifteen pounds of candy, a riot of colored wrappers and hopeful fonts,snub-nosed chocolate bars and SweeTARTS, the seductive rattle of Jujyfruits and Good & Plenty and lollipopsticks all akimbo, the foli ends of mini LifeSavers packs twinkling like dimes, and a thick sugary perfume rising up from the pillowcase.

Snub end of a dismal year, deep in the dwarf orchard, The sky with its undercoat of blackwash and point stars, I stand in the dark and answer to My life, this shirt I want to take off, which is on fire . . .

I just need to be able to vanquish my enemies. That's all." He looks surprised, "Do you have a lot of enemies, then?" I am sure he imagines me among the children of the Gentry, with their soft hands and velvet skirts. He thinks of little cruelties, small slights, minor snubs. "Not many," I say, thinking of the lazy, hateful look Cardan gave me by torchlight in the hedge maze. "But they're quality.

As successful people are afraid of being used, unsuccessful people are afraid of being snubbed, interesting people want to talk about something different from their jobs and boring people won’t stop talking about their jobs,

The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.

The balloons’ snub noses swung left and right in the fickle breeze, giving them the anxious air of compasses abandoned by north.

Oh, my dear, this is worse than I expected! A strange girl is always a bore among good friends, but one can generally manage her. But a girl who writes books - why, it isn't respectable! And you can't snub that sort of people; they're unsnubbable.

- Идва вълна! - извика Сибил, поуплашена. - Няма да ѝ обърнем внимание. Ще я отминем с презрение – каза младият мъж. – Ние сме двама високомерни. "Here comes a wave," Sybil said nervously. "We'll ignore it. We'll snub it," said the young man. "Two snobs.

When you're asked to stay out of a bar you don't just punch the owner--you come back with your army and tear the place down, destroy the whole edifice and everything it stands for. No compromise. If a man gets wise, mash his face. If a woman snubs you, rape her. This is the thinking, if not the reality, behind the whole Hell's Angels act.

The human brain comprises 70% water, which means it's a similar consistency to tofu. Picture that for a second - a blob of tofu the size and shape of a brain. Now imagine taking that piece of tofu, and forcing your thumbs into it hard. It would burst wouldn't it? Okay, now imagine those thumbs weren't thumbs but thumb-shaped pieces of bad news. And there weren't two of them, they were about half a dozen. Imagine you were forcing all six pieces of bad news - a divorce, multiple career snubs, accusations from the family of a dead celebrity, estranged kids, borderline homelessness, that kind of thing - into a piece of tofu. With me? Good. Now imagine it's not tofu, but a human brain. And they're not pieces of bad news but six human thumbs. That's what happened to me. In 2001, my brain had half a dozen thumbs pushed into it.

He was an unpleasant youth, snub-nosed and spotty. Still, he could balance himself with one hand on an inverted ginger-ale bottle while revolving a barrel on the soles of his feet. There is good in all of us.

Olivia was her only beautiful child. Julia, with her dark curls and snub nose, was pretty but her character wasn't, Sylvia --- poor Sylvia, what could you say? And Amelia was somehow ...bland, but Olivia, Olivia was spun from light. It seemed impossible that she was Victor's child, although, unfortunately, there was no doubting the fact. Olivia was the only one she loved, although God knows she tried her best with the others. Everything was from duty, nothing from love. Duty killed you in the end.

Have you heard about the demotion of the planet Pluto? I, for one, am incensed. How do you go your whole life being a planet and then, suddenly, you’re not a planet anymore. Correction: dwarf planet. What does that even mean? I see an idiom taking shape. Five, ten years from now, when someone gets dissed or demoted or loses his or her job, people will say, “He was plutoed.” “Are you plutoing me?” someone will say when witnessing a snub. “That was some pluto, wasn’t it?” Hmm, I’m not sure about the syntax of the last one, but I think you get the gist.

A straight nose is the most beautiful, but one that deviates from being straight and tends toward being hooked or snub can nevertheless still be beautiful to look at. Yet if it is tightened still more toward the extreme, [25] the part will first be thrown out of due proportion, and in the end it will cease to look like a nose at all, because it has too much of one and too little of the other of these opposites.

After all, she had announced at our introduction in September that she "simply loves children," Miss Fabricant, with a blunt snub of a nose like a Charlotte potato and hips like Idahos, the infeasible assertion seems to decode, "I want to get married.

perhaps that’s what it’s for – self-confidence and courage and energy and peace – perhaps it’s to be used in the world. Perhaps there’s only one thing to do with it: spend it. I’m always super-conscious of how whenever I go out into the world, whenever I get involved in a relationship, my idea of who I think I am utterly collides with the reality of who I actually am. And I continue to go out even though who I am always comes up short. I always prove myself to be less generous, less charming, less considerate, not as bold or energetic or intelligent or courageous as I imagined in my solitude. And I’m always being insulted, or snubbed, or disappointed. And I’m never in my pyjamas. And yet, in some way, maybe this is better. Each of us in this room could suffer the pangs of withdrawal and gain the serenity of the non-smoker. We could be demi-gods in our little castles, all alone, but perhaps, at heart, none of us here wants that. Maybe the only cure for self-confidence and courage is humility. Maybe we go out in order to fall short... because we want to learn how to be good at being people... and moreover, because we want to be people.

Ashlinn was lovely to look upon, someone who could easily snub half of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood and break the hearts of the rest.

A battle followed, fought in true Gilded Age fashion with oblique snubs and poisonous courtesy.

Wow. Snubbed by a homeless guy. My night was getting better and better

The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.

No man can put a rope on the past and hope to snub it down. The best thing is to learn to it ride the new trails - Kilkenny

Her mother could sail impervious through reversals and snubs that would have sunk another woman. But she was defenseless against her own thoughts

as Lewis once stated, that “there are no ordinary people” and that “it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit.

Neutrinos, they are very small. They have no charge and have no mass And do not interact at all. The earth is just a silly ball To them, through which they simply pass, Like dustmaids down a drafty hall Or photons through a sheet of glass. They snub the most exquisite gas, Ignore the most substantial wall, Cold shoulder steel and sounding brass, Insult the stallion in his stall, And, scorning barriers of class, Infiltrate you and me. Like tall And painless guillotines they fall Down through our heads into the grass. At night, they enter at Nepal And pierce the lover and his lass From underneath the bed—you call It wonderful; I call it crass.

If you’ve been snubbed, or ignored, or frustrated, and your life’s pretty drab and empty, I suppose you get a sense of power from stabbing in the dark at people who are happy and enjoying themselves.

When demand for her attention exceeds supply on a grand scale, it is not surprising to find practices of men trying to turn the heads of women previously unknown to them—via catcalling and wolf-whistling and various forms of online trolling (from the patently abusive to ostensibly reasonable demands for rational debate, which unfortunately sometimes result in her being belittled, insulted, or mansplained to). In public settings, she is told to smile or asked what she’s thinking by many a (male) stranger—especially when she appears to be “deep inside her own head” or “off in her own little world,” i.e., appearing to think her own thoughts, her attention inwardly, rather than outwardly, focused. These gestures are then supposed to either make her look, or else force her to stonewall—a withholding, rather than sheer absence, of reaction. So her silence is icy; her neutral expression, sullen. Her not looking is snubbing; her passivity, aggression. But an ice queen, a bitch, a temptress—or an angel, for that matter—each has something in common: they are human, all too human, female characters.

Zanpano~: What are your buddies in central Scheming?! Mini-Enzy: SNUB I don't know... Zanpano: *Shaking jar Violently* TALK YOU INSECT SCUM!! TALK!! Frog man: YOU GO, ZANPANO! SHOW IT WHOSE BOSS!

Bunny Sue was nineteen. She had honey-bobbed hair and candid, near-insolent green eyes. She had a snub, delightful nose, a cool, regal, and tapering neck, a fine, intelligent mouth that covered teeth so startling they might have been cleansed by sun gods. Without any makeup save lipstick, her complexion was as milk flecked with butter, the odor she cast as wholesome as bread. On my first breathless vision of her, I wanted to bury my teeth, Dracula-like, into her flanks, knowing that she would bleed pure butterscotch.

It takes just one, he says over and over. You hear that all the time in this business. One big case, and you can retire. That's one reason lawyers do so many sleazy things, like full-color ads in the yellow pages, and billboards, and placards on city buses, and telephone solicitation. You hold your nose, ignore the stench of what you're doing, ignore the snubs and snobbery of big-firm lawyers, because it takes only one.

You’re different than you used to be. A few months ago you wouldn’t have followed me onto this porch.” The compliment, if it was that, brought tears to her eyes. “I—I’m sorry for treating you so badly. I’m ashamed now of how I snubbed you—acted afraid of you—” “It’s common enough.” The admission startled her—made her feel grieved and defensive and tender toward him all at once. She longed to lay a reassuring hand on his sleeve but checked herself. There was no self-pity in his manner, only truth telling, and she sensed he didn’t want her sympathy, just her friendship. And her forgiveness. “A half blood belongs to no one, red or white,” he said. “You belong to God,” she said softly.

The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects … Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses. That man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was a part of the monster, a robot in the seat … The driver could not control it – straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the ‘cat, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent the tractor out, had somehow gotten into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him – goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as it smelled; his feet did not stamp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did not know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was no skin off his ass. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor. He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor – its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with blades – not plowing but surgery … The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

For an instant he felt nettled at the irony, the lightest shadow of a snub, with which she had met his decisiveness, and at the way he had risen to her quick glance. But it was only an infinitesimal clink of foils and as the bowing maitre d’hotel led them through the crowded room, it was forgotten as Bond in her wake watched the heads of the diners turn to look at her.

In an Anglo-Saxon thriller, the villain is generally punished, and the strong silent man generally wins the weak babbling girl, but there is no governmental law in Western countries to ban a story that does not comply with a fond tradition, so that we always hope that the wicked but romantic fellow will escape scot-free and the good but dull chap will be finally snubbed by the moody heroine.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. . . . Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.

Charm has an occasional contrary concomitant, heartlessness. The virtuoso is so pleased by the way he produces his effects that he disregards the audience. Once Dorothy Thompson came in to see FDR after a comparatively long period of having been snubbed by the White House—although she had deserted Wilkie for Roosevelt during the campaign just concluded, and as a result had been fired from The New York Herald Tribune, the best job she ever had. Roosevelt greeted her with the remark, "Dorothy, you lost your job, but I kept mine—ha, ha!

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

When you sever ties with the unit purely for self-serving intentions, you are likely to find yourself stranded and struggling to survive; fighting to keep your head above water. What’s more, there is no one to save you because you’ve turned your back on your comrades and snubbed your support system.

If just for one week in the South would show them some simple, impartial courtesy. I wonder what would happen. Do you think it'd give 'em airs or the beginnings of self-respect? Have you ever been snubbed, Atticus? Do you know how it feels? No, don't tell me they're children and don't feel it: I was a child and felt it, so grown children must feel, too. A real good snub, Atticus, makes you feel like you're too nasty to associate with people. How they're as good as they are now is a mystery to me, after a hundred years of systematic denial that they are human. I wonder what kind of miracle we could work with a week's decency.

The next day round about ten o'clock I was walking down Welbeck Street. I was in a bad temper. By daylight the whole project seemed very much less attractive. I felt that to be snubbed by a film star would put me in a bad state of mind for months. But I regarded the matter as something which had been decided and which now simply had to be carried out. I often use this method for deciding difficult cases. In stage one I entertain the thing purely as a hypothesis, and in stage two I count my stage one thinking as a fixed decision on which there is no going back. I recommend this technique to any of you who are not good at making decisions.

I stop, thinking of Topher and his cushioned, monied existence--the way he has had everything handed to him on a plate, the way he's never had to scrap for anything, never had to swallow a snub from a boss, or pick up a stranger's dirty underwear, or do any of the myriad demeaning, boring jobs the rest of us take for granted. They are arrogant, that's what I realize--maybe not Liz and Carl quite so much, but all of them to some degree. They are protected by the magic of their shares and their status and their IP. They think that life can't touch them--just like I used to do. Only now it has. Now life has them by the throat. And it won't let go.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feelings for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses ... for in him also Christ 'vere latitat' - the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

What had spoken to her in that scoured-out cavity of the granite? What dwelt in the first of the caves? Something very old and very small. Before time, it was before space also. Something snub-nosed, incapable of generosity -- the undying worm itself. Since hearing its voice, she had not entertained one large thought, she was actually envious of Adela. All this fuss over a frightened girl! Nothing had happened, 'and if it had,' she found herself thinking with the cynicism of a withered priestess, 'if it had there are worse evils than love.' The unspeakable attempt presented itself to her as love: in a cave, in a church -- Boum, it amounts to the same. Visions are supposed to entail profundity, but -- Wait till you get one, dear reader! The abyss also may be petty, the serpent of eternity made of maggots; her constant thought was: 'Less attention should be paid to my future daughter-in-law and more to me, there is no sorrow like my sorrow,' although when the attention was paid she rejected it irritably.

It is an art form to hate New York City properly. So far I have always been a featherweight debunker of New York; it takes too much energy and endurance to record the infinite number of ways the city offends me. Were I to list them all, I would fill up a book the size of the Manhattan yellow pages, and that would merely be the prologue. Every time I submit myself to the snubs and indignities of that swaggering city and set myself adrift among the prodigious crowds, a feeling of displacement, profound and enervating, takes me over, killing all the coded cells of my hard-won singularity. The city marks my soul with a most profane, indelible graffiti. There is too much of too much there.

Virginia Woolf observes that "the two Alices are not books for children; they are the only books in which we become children.... To become a child is very literal; to find everything so strange that nothing is surprising; to be heartless, to be ruthless, yet to be so passionate that a snub or a shadow drapes the world in gloom. It is so to be Alice in Wonderland.

Don't be brittle as glass in dealing with people. And especially with friends. Some people crack easily, revealing their fragility. They fill up with offence and fill others with annoyance. They reveal a nature so petty and sensitive that it tolerates nothing, in jest or in earnest. The slightest thing offends them, so insults are never necessary. Those who have dealings with them have to tread carefully, always attending to their sensibilities and adjusting to their temperaments, since the slightest snub annoys them. They are completely self-centred...

We're at a dinner party in an apartment on Rue Paul Valéry between Avenue Foch and Avenue Victor Hugo and it's all rather subdued since a small percentage of the invited guests were blown up in the Ritz yesterday. For comfort people went shopping, which is understandable even if they bought things a little too enthusiastically. Tonight it's just wildflowers and white lilies, just W's Paris bureau chief, Donna Karan, Aerin Lauder, Ines de la Fressange and Christian Louboutin, who thinks I snubbed him and maybe I did but maybe I'm past the point of caring. Just Annette Bening and Michael Stipe in a tomato-red wig. Just Tammy on heroin, serene and glassy-eyed, her lips swollen from collagen injections, beeswax balm spread over her mouth, gliding through the party, stopping to listen to Kate Winslet, to Jean Reno, to Polly Walker, to Jacques Grange. Just the smell of shit, floating, its fumes spreading everywhere. Just another conversation with a chic sadist obsessed with origami. Just another armless man waving a stump and whispering excitedly, "Natasha's coming!" Just people tan and back from the Ariel Sands Beach Club in Bermuda, some of them looking reskinned. Just me, making connections based on fear, experiencing vertigo, drinking a Woo-Woo.

Reader, I did the stupid thing. I looked her up on Facebook. It didn't take more than forty minutes to filter this Katie Ingram from the other hundred or so. Her profile was unlocked, and contained the logo for the NHS. Her job description said: "Paramedic: Love My Job!!!" She had hair that could have been red or strawberry blond, it was hard to tell from the photographs, and she was possibly in her late twenties, pretty, with a snub nose. In the first thirty photographs she had posted she was laughing with friends, frozen in the middle of Good Times. She looked annoyingly good in a bikini (Skiathos 2014!! What a laugh!!!!!), she had a small, hairy dog, a penchant for vertiginously high heels, and a best friend with long, dark hair who was fond of kissing her cheek in pictures (I briefly entertained the hope that she was gay but she belonged to a Facebook group called: Hands up if you're secretly delighted that Brad Pitt is single again!!).

She wasn’t rude, exactly. She simply participated in conversation at the absolute minimum and didn’t encourage anyone to speak to her more than necessary. She didn’t do any of the things women usually do, that I spend so much of my life doing: try to draw others out in conversation, smile receptively, laugh at jokes or even non-jokes just to show you are listening attentively. She didn’t draw attention to her silence or deliberately snub anyone; she simply wasn’t playing the game.

Historical context apart, Klemperer’s journals can be read for their own sake as a gnawing meditation on the disappointments of life and the irrevocability of choices. He is intensely aware at all moments, perhaps because of his consciousness of being a “survivor,” that death is only a breath away. He is one of the great kvetches of all time, endlessly recording aches and pains, bad dreams, shortages of food and medicine, snubs and humiliations. And, like everyone else, he wants everything both ways. In

There was Annabelle, with her honey-streaked hair curled into shining upswept ringlets, her complexion as fresh as that of the idealized dairymaids who were painted on tins of sweets. Upon first acquaintance, Annabelle's exquisite English-rose beauty had been so intimidating that Evie had been afraid to talk to her, certain that she would receive a crushing snub from such an exquisite creature. However, she had eventually discovered that Annabelle was warm and kind, with a self-deprecating sense of humor.

You’ll have my love. And if I have yours, that will be more than enough.” “It’s romantic to think so. But years from now, when the respectable ladies still snub you in church, or when our children come home bruised or crying because their schoolmates were cruel . . . ?” She laid her head against his shoulder. “Then I will tell them an amusing story about a hedgehog in a ballroom and give them a hug and perhaps a kitten to hold, and you and I will remind ourselves that children are stronger than anyone suspects.

A furious Big Ammachi studies her smiling daughter. What did the stupid boy see? Was it her daughter’s tongue? The family is used to Baby Mol’s habit of parking her tongue on her lower lip, as though there’s no room in her mouth. Her face is broad, or perhaps her prominent forehead just makes it seem so. The soft diamond that babies have in the front of their heads remains visible under Baby Mol’s skin, though she’s going on six. Her features are blunt, that’s true. Unlike her parents, she has a snub nose, and it sits on her face like a berry on a saucer.

She thought, just for a second, that they were going to bare fangs at each other . . . and then Myrnin smiled. "I suppose I should say thank you." "It would be customary," Oliver agreed. Myrnin turned to Claire. "Thank you." Somehow, she guessed that wasn't what Oliver had expected; she certainly hadn't. It was the kind of snub that got most people hurt in Morganville, but then again, she guessed Myrnin wasn't most people, even to Oliver. Oliver didn't react. If there was a small red glow in the depths of his eyes, it could have been a reflection from the lights.

The Marquis believed himself to be hardened against flattery. He thought that he had experienced every variety, but he discovered that he was mistaken: the blatantly worshipful look in the eyes of a twelve-year-old, anxiously raised to his, was new to him, and it pierced his defences. He was capable of giving the coolest of set-downs to any gushing female; and the advances of toadeaters he met with the most blistering of snubs; but even as he realised how intolerably bored he would be in Soho he found himself quite unable to snub his latest and most youthful admirer. It would be like kicking a confiding puppy.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of performing these small ceremonies regularly, and being as nearly accurate as possible with regard to the times. You must not mind stopping in the middle of a crowded thoroughfare—lorries or no lorries—and saying the Adorations; and you must not mind snubbing your guest—or your host—if he or she should prove ignorant of his or her share of the dialogue. It is perhaps because these matters are so petty and trivial in appearance that they afford so excellent a training. They teach you concentration, mindfulness, moral and social courage, and a host of other virtues.

Aristotle drew a distinction between essential and accidental properties. The way he put it is that essential properties are those without which a thing wouldn’t be what it is, and accidental properties are those that determine how a thing is, but not what it is. For example, Aristotle thought that rationality was essential to being a human being and, since Socrates was a human being, Socrates’s rationality was essential to his being Socrates. Without the property of rationality, Socrates simply wouldn’t be Socrates. He wouldn’t even be a human being, so how could he be Socrates? On the other hand, Aristotle thought that Socrates’s property of being snub-nosed was merely accidental; snub-nosed was part of how Socrates was, but it wasn’t essential to what or who he was. To put it another way, take away Socrates’s rationality, and he’s no longer Socrates, but give him plastic surgery, and he’s Socrates with a nose job.

Speaking generally, we may say that whatever legal enactments are held to be for the interest of various constitutions, all these preserve them. And the great preserving principle is the one which has been repeatedly mentioned- to have a care that the loyal citizen should be stronger than the disloyal. Neither should we forget the mean, which at the present day is lost sight of in perverted forms of government; for many practices which appear to be democratical are the ruin of democracies, and many which appear to be oligarchical are the ruin of oligarchies. Those who think that all virtue is to be found in their own party principles push matters to extremes; they do not consider that disproportion destroys a state. A nose which varies from the ideal of straightness to a hook or snub may still be of good shape and agreeable to the eye; but if the excess be very great, all symmetry is lost, and the nose at last ceases to be a nose at all on account of some excess in one direction or defect in the other; and this is true of every other part of the human body. The same law of proportion equally holds in states. Oligarchy or democracy, although a departure from the most perfect form, may yet be a good enough government, but if any one attempts to push the principles of either to an extreme, he will begin by spoiling the government and end by having none at all. Wherefore the legislator and the statesman ought to know what democratical measures save and what destroy a democracy, and what oligarchical measures save or destroy an oligarchy. For neither the one nor the other can exist or continue to exist unless both rich and poor are included in it. If equality of property is introduced, the state must of necessity take another form; for when by laws carried to excess one or other element in the state is ruined, the constitution is ruined.

Those entering the Saloon Bar of the ‘The Midnight Bell’ from the street came through a large door with a fancifully frosted glass pane, a handle like a dumb-bell a brass inscription ‘Saloon Bar and Lounge,’ and a brass adjuration to Push. Anyone temperamentally so wilful, careless, or incredulous as to ignore this friendly admonition was instantly snubbed, for this door would only succumb to Pushing. Nevertheless hundreds of temperamental people nightly argued with this door and got the worst of it. Given proper treatment, however, it swung back in the most accomplished way, and announced you to the Saloon Bar with a welcoming creak.

The next day round about ten o'clock I was walking down Welbeck Street. I was in a bad temper. By daylight the whole project seemed very much less attractive. I felt that to be snubbed by a film star would put me in a bad state of mind for months. But I regarded the matter as something which had been decided and which now simply had to be carried out. I often used this method for deciding difficult cases. In stage one I entertain the thing purely as a hypothesis, and in stage two I count my stage one thinking as a fixed decision on which there is no going back. I recommend this technique to any of you who are not good at making decisions.

Sitting down on a crate, Helen felt them, felt the vibrancy they had left behind like twilight after the sun is gone. She tried to picture their faces, their voices, but the details already blurred. They were slipping away from her, for they were never hers to keep. Turning her eyes to the ocean, Helen thought of all those boatloads of children on the water, needing somewhere warm and safe, and yet the ocean hadn’t listened to her plea. Everything she’d asked the universe had been ignored, snubbed. As she watched the waves, she tried to find peace in their steady heartbeat, but none came. The only thing she felt was betrayed. Betrayed and so utterly lonely.

It was stupid, but people needed someone to hate, and the newspapers were always ready to supply that need. Maud knew the proprietor of the Mail, Lord Northcliffe. Like all great press men, he really believed the drivel he published. His talent was to express his readers’ most stupid and ignorant prejudices as if they made sense, so that the shameful seemed respectable. That was why they bought the paper. She also knew that Lloyd George had recently snubbed Northcliffe personally. The self-important press lord had proposed himself as a member of the British delegation at the upcoming peace conference, and had been offended when the Prime Minister turned him down. Maud was worried. In politics, despicable people sometimes had to be pandered to, but Lloyd George seemed to have forgotten that. She wondered anxiously how much effect the Mail’s malevolent propaganda would have on the election. A few days later she found out. She went to an election meeting in a municipal hall in the East End of

Like a child, I close my eyes as if they can't see me either. The fire from the kiss broadcasts itself all over me in the form of a full-body blush. Galen laughs. "There it is," he says, running his thumb over my bottom lip. "That is my favorite color. Wow." I'm going to kill him. "Galen. Please. Come. With. Me," I coke out. Gliding past him, my bare feet slap against the tile until I'm stomping on carpet in the hallway, then up the stairs. I can tell by the prickles on my skin that he's following like a good dead fish. As I reach the ladder to the uppermost level, I nod to him to keep following before I hoist myself up. Pacing the room until he gets through the trap door, I count more Mississipis than I've ever counted in my whole life. He closes the door and locks it shut but makes no move to come closer. Still, for a person who's about to die, he seems more amused than he should. I point my finger at him, but can't decide what to accuse him of first, so I put it back down. After several moments of this, he breaks the silence. "Emma, calm down." "Don't tell me what to do, Highness." I dare him with my eyes to call me "boo." Instead of the apology I'm looking for, his eyes tell me he's considering kissing me again, right now. Which is meant to distract me. Tearing my gaze from his mouth, I stride to the window seat and move the mountains of pillows on it. Making myself comfortable, I lean my head against the window. He knows as well as I do that if we had a special spot, this would be it. For me to sit here without him is the worst kind of snub. In the reflection, I see him run his hand through his hair and cross his arms. After a few more minutes, he shifts his weight to the other leg. He knows what I want. He knows what will earn him entrance to the window seat and my good graces. I don't know if it's Royal blood or manly pride that keeps him from apologizing, but his extended delay just makes me madder. Now I won't accept an apology. Now, he must grovel. I toss a satisfied smirk into the reflection only to find he's not there anymore. His hand closes around my arm and he jerks me up against him. His eyes are stormy, intense. "You think I'm going to apologize for kissing you?" he murmurs. "I. Yes. Uh-huh." Don't look at his mouth! Say something intelligent. "We don't have any clothes on." Fan-flipping-tastic. I meant to say he shouldn't kiss me in front of everyone, especially half naked. "Mmm," he says, pulling me closer. Brushing his lips against my ear, he says, "I did happen to notice that. Which is why I shouldn't have followed you up here.

The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now, we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind. Does this seem to you exaggerated? If so, think it over. I pointed out a moment ago that the more pride one had, the more one disliked pride in others. In fact, if you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, ‘How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronise me, or show off?’ The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with every one else’s pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise. Two of a trade never agree. Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive—is competitive by its very nature—while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.

(2) Substance is plainly divisible into other substances, if we consider the mere nature of a definition. For instance, if ‘man’ is a substance, (15) ‘animal’ and ‘biped’ must also be substances. For if not substances, they must be attributes—and if attributes, attributes either of (a) man or of (b) some other subject. But neither is possible. (a) An attribute is either that which may or may not belong to the subject or that in whose definition the subject of which it is an attribute is involved. (20) Thus ‘sitting’ is an example of a separable attribute, while ‘snubness’ contains the definition of ‘nose’, to which we attribute snubness. Further, the definition of the whole is not contained in the definitions of the contents or elements of the definitory formula; that of ‘man’ for instance in ‘biped’, or that of ‘white man’ in ‘white’. If then this is so, and if ‘biped’ is supposed to be an attribute of ‘man’, (25) it must be either separable, so that ‘man’ might possibly not be ‘biped’, or the definition of ‘man’ must come into the definition of ‘biped’—which is impossible, as the converse is the case. (30) (b) If, on the other hand, we suppose that ‘biped’ and ‘animal’ are attributes not of man but of something else, and are not each of them a substance, then ‘man’ too will be an attribute of something else. But we must assume that substance is not the attribute of anything, and that the subject of which both ‘biped’ and ‘animal’ and each separately are predicated is the subject also of the complex ‘biped animal’.

Neither should we forget the mean, which at the present day is lost sight of in perverted forms of government; for many practices which appear to be democratical are the ruin of democracies, and many which appear to be oligarchical are the ruin of oligarchies. Those who think that all virtue is to be found in their own party principles push matters to extremes; they do not consider that disproportion destroys a state. A nose which varies from the ideal of straightness to a hook or snub may still be of good shape and agreeable to the eye; but if the excess be very great, all symmetry is lost, and the nose at last ceases to be a nose at all on account of some excess in one direction or defect in the other; and this is true of every other part of the human body. The same law of proportion equally holds in states. Oligarchy or democracy, although a departure from the most perfect form, may yet be a good enough government, but if any one attempts to push the principles of either to an extreme, he will begin by spoiling the government and end by having none at all. Wherefore the legislator and the statesman ought to know what democratical measures save and what destroy a democracy, and what oligarchical measures save or destroy an oligarchy. For neither the one nor the other can exist or continue to exist unless both rich and poor are included in it. If equality of property is introduced, the state must of necessity take another form; for when by laws carried to excess one or other element in the state is ruined, the constitution is ruined.

Trump did not enjoy his own inauguration. He had hoped for a big blowout. Tom Barrack, the would-be showman—in addition to Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, he had bought Miramax Pictures from Disney with the actor Rob Lowe—may have declined the chief of staff job, but, as part of his shadow involvement with his friend’s White House, he stepped up to raise the money for the inaugural and to create an event that—seemingly quite at odds with the new president’s character, and with Steve Bannon’s wish for a no-frills populist inauguration—he promised would have a “soft sensuality” and “poetic cadence.” But Trump, imploring friends to use their influence to nail some of the A-level stars who were snubbing the event, started to get angry and hurt that stars were determined to embarrass him.

And who would not risk its terrors to gain its raptures? Ah, what raptures they were! The mere recollection thrills you. How delicious it was to tell her that you loved her, that you lived for her, that you would die for her! How you did rave, to be sure, what floods of extravagant nonsense you poured forth, and oh, how cruel it was of her to pretend not to believe you! '''In what awe you stood of her! How miserable you were when you had offended her! And yet, how pleasant to be bullied by her and to sue for pardon without having the slightest notion of what your fault was! How dark the world was when she snubbed you, as she often did, the little rogue, just to see you look wretched; how sunny when she smiled! How jealous you were of every one about her! How you hated every man she shook hands with, every woman she kissed—the maid that did her hair, the boy that cleaned her shoes, the dog she nursed—though you had to be respectful to the last-named! How you looked forward to seeing her, how stupid you were when you did see her, staring at her without saying a word! How impossible it was for you to go out at any time of the day or night without finding yourself eventually opposite her windows!

but a man of pleasure like yourself ought to know that all who are in the flower of youth do somehow or other raise a pang or emotion in a lover's breast, and are thought by him to be worthy of his affectionate regards. Is not this a way which you have with the fair: one has a snub nose, and you praise his charming face; the hook-nose of another has, you say, a royal look; while he who is neither snub nor hooked has the grace of regularity: the dark visage is manly, the fair are children of the gods; and as to the sweet 'honey pale,' as they are called, what is the very name but the invention of a lover who talks in diminutives, and is not averse to paleness if appearing on the cheek of youth? In a word, there is no excuse which you will not make, and nothing which you will not say, in order not to lose a single flower that blooms in the spring-time of youth. If

So she ignored Mrs. Arbuthnot's remark and raised forefinger, and said with marked coldness—at least, she tried to make it sound marked— that she supposed they would be going to breakfast, and that she had had hers; but it was her fate that however coldly she sent forth her words they came out sounding quite warm and agreeable. That was because she had a sympathetic and delightful voice, due entirely to some special formation of her throat and the roof of her mouth, and having nothing whatever to do with what she was feeling. Nobody in consequence ever believed they were being snubbed. It was most tiresome. And if she stared icily it did not look icy at all, because her eyes, lovely to begin with, had the added loveliness of very long, soft, dark eyelashes. No icy stare could come out of eyes like that; it got caught and lost in the soft eyelashes, and the persons stared at merely thought they were being regarded with a flattering and exquisite attentiveness. And if ever she was out of humour or definitely cross— and who would not be sometimes in such a world?—-she only looked so pathetic that people all rushed to comfort her, if possible by means of kissing. It was more than tiresome, it was maddening. Nature was determined that she should look and sound angelic. She could never be disagreeable or rude without being completely misunderstood.

She had, Emma decided, a very particular beauty about her, a quality that required more than the possession of conventionally attractive features. Good looks could be a cliché, which meant that those who satisfied the normal criteria of beauty could fail its more subtle tests. Thus it was that those with very regular features could just miss being beautiful because they lacked some tiny human imperfection, some irregularity that imparted to their appearance the poignancy, the reminder of ordinary humanity, on which real beauty depended. It was quite possible to be too perfect, and end up being plastic, as Hollywood stars so often were, with their well-placed curves or sculpted chins. The heart would not stop at such features, whereas it might well do so when a snub nose, or one not quite dead-center, or ears that were just slightly too large, were combined with eyes that seem to reflect and enhance the light, or with lips that formed a tantalizing bow, or with perfectly unblemished skin.

Narrative horror, disgust. That's what drives him mad, I'm sure of it, what obsesses him. I've known other people with the same aversion, or awareness, and they weren't even famous, fame is not a deciding factor, there are many individuals who experience their life as if it were the material of some detailed report, and they inhabit that life pending its hypothetical or future plot. They don't give it much thought, it's just a way of experiencing things, companionable, in a way, as if there were always spectators or permanent witnesses, even of their most trivial goings-on and in the dullest of times. Perhaps it's a substitute for the old idea of the omnipresence of God, who saw every second of each of our lives, it was very flattering in a way, very comforting despite the implicit threat and punishment, and three or four generations aren't enough for Man to accept that his gruelling existence goes on without anyone ever observing or watching it, without anyone judging it or disapproving of it. And in truth there is always someone: a listener, a reader, a spectator, a witness, who can also double up as simultaneous narrator and actor: the individuals tell their stories to themselves, to each his own, they are the ones who peer in and look at and notice things on a daily basis, from the outside in a way; or, rather, from a false outside, from a generalised narcissism, sometimes known as "consciousness". That's why so few people can withstand mockery, humiliation, ridicule, the rush of blood to the face, a snub, that least of all ... I've known men like that, men who were nobody yet who had that same immense fear of their own history, of what might be told and what, therefore, they might tell too. Of their blotted, ugly history. But, I insist, the determining factor always comes from outside, from something external: all this has little to do with shame, regret, remorse, self-hatred although these might make a fleeting appearance at some point. These individuals only feel obliged to give a true account of their acts or omissions, good or bad, brave, contemptible, cowardly or generous, if other people (the majority, that is) know about them, and those acts or omissions are thus encorporated into what is known about them, that is, into their official portraits. It isn't really a matter of conscience, but of performance, of mirrors. One can easily cast doubt on what is reflected in mirrors, and believe that it was all illusory, wrap it up in a mist of diffuse or faulty memory and decide finally that it didn't happen and that there is no memory of it, because there is no memory of what did not take place. Then it will no longer torment them: some people have an extraordinary ability to convince themselves that what happened didn't happen and what didn't exist did.

What starts the process, really, are the laughs and snubs and slights you get when you are a kid. Sometimes, it's because you're poor or Irish or Jewish or Catholic or ugly or simply that you are skinny. But if you are reasonably intelligent and if your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance, while those who have everything are sitting on their fat butts.... But once you learn that you've got to work harder than everybody else, it becomes a way of life as you move out of the alley and on your way. In your own mind you have nothing to lose, so you take plenty of chances and if you do your homework many of them pay off. It is then that you understand, for the first time, that you have the advantage because your competitors can't risk what they have already. It's a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can't stop playing the game the way you've always played it because it is a part of you and you need it as much as you can do an arm or a leg. So you are lean and mean and resourceful and you continue to walk on the edge of the precipice because over the years you have become fascinated by how close to the edge you can walk without losing your balance.

The primary culprit is assumed to be peer rejection: shunning, exclusion, shaming, taunting, mocking, bullying. The conclusion reached by some experts is that peer acceptance is absolutely necessary for a child's emotional health and well-being, and that there is nothing worse than not being liked by peers. It is assumed that peer rejection is an automatic sentence to lifelong self-doubt. Many parents today live in fear of their children's not having friends, not being esteemed by their peers. This way of thinking fails to consider two fundamental questions: What renders a child so vulnerable in the first place? And why is this vulnerability increasing? It is absolutely true that children snub, ignore, shun, shame, taunt, and mock. Children have always done these things when not sufficiently supervised by the adults in charge. But it is attachment, not the insensitive behavior or language of peers, that creates vulnerability. The current focus on the impact of peer rejection and peer acceptance has completely overlooked the role of attachment. If the child is attached primarily to the parents, it is parental acceptance that is vital to emotional health and well-being, and not being liked by parents is the devastating blow to self-esteem. The capacity of children to be inhumane has probably not changed, but, as research shows, the wounding of our children by one another is increasing. If many kids are damaged these days by the insensitivity of their peers, it is not necessarily because children today are more cruel than in the past, but because peer orientation has made them more susceptible to one anothers taunts and emotional assaults.

For about 48 weeks of the year an asparagus plant is unrecognizable to anyone except an asparagus grower. Plenty of summer visitors to our garden have stood in the middle of the bed and asked, 'What is this stuff? It's beautiful!' We tell them its the asparagus patch, and they reply, 'No this, these feathery little trees.' An asparagus spear only looks like its picture for one day of its life, usually in April, give or take a month as you travel from the Mason-Dixon Line. The shoot emerges from the ground like a snub nose green snake headed for sunshine, rising so rapidly you can just about see it grow. If it doesn't get it's neck cut off at ground level as it emerges, it will keep growing. Each triangular scale on the spear rolls out into a branch until the snake becomes a four foot tree with delicate needles. Contrary to lore, fat spears are no more tender or mature than thin ones. Each shoot begins life with its own particular girth. In the hours after emergence, it lengthens but does not appreciably fatten. To step into another raging asparagus controversy, white spears are botanically no different from their green colleagues. White shoots have been deprived of sunlight by a heavy mulch pulled up over the plant's crown. European growers go to this trouble for consumers who prefer the stalks before they've had their first blush of photosynthesis. Most Americans prefer the more developed taste of green. Uncharacteristically, we're opting for the better nutritional deal here also. The same plant could produce white or green spears in alternate years, depending on how it is treated. If the spears are allowed to proceed beyond their first exploratory six inches, they'll green out and grow tall and feathery like the house plant known as asparagus fern, which is the next of kin. Older, healthier asparagus plants produce chunkier, more multiple shoots. Underneath lies an octopus-shaped affair of chubby roots called a crown that stores enough starch through the winter to arrange the phallic send-up when winter starts to break. The effect is rather sexy, if you're the type to see things that way. Europeans of the Renaissance swore by it as an aphrodisiac and the church banned it from nunneries.