Sooner Or Later You Realize Quotes

I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language." I began to ask each time: "What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?" Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, "disappeared" or run off the road at night. Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever. Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end. And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.

You will fall in love with train rides, and sooner or later you will realize that nowhere seems like home anymore.

Learning After some time, you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and imprisoning a soul; You learn that love does not equal sex, and that company does not equal security, and you start to learn…. That kisses are not contracts and gifts are not promises, and you start to accept defeat with the head up high and open eyes, and you learn to build all roads on today, because the terrain of tomorrow is too insecure for plans… and the future has its own way of falling apart in half. And you learn that if it’s too much even the warmth of the sun can burn. So you plant your own garden and embellish your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring flowers to you. And you learn that you can actually bear hardship, that you are actually strong, and you are actually worthy, and you learn and learn…and so every day. Over time you learn that being with someone because they offer you a good future, means that sooner or later you’ll want to return to your past. Over time you comprehend that only who is capable of loving you with your flaws, with no intention of changing you can bring you all happiness. Over time you learn that if you are with a person only to accompany your own solitude, irremediably you’ll end up wishing not to see them again. Over time you learn that real friends are few and whoever doesn’t fight for them, sooner or later, will find himself surrounded only with false friendships. Over time you learn that words spoken in moments of anger continue hurting throughout a lifetime. Over time you learn that everyone can apologize, but forgiveness is an attribute solely of great souls. Over time you comprehend that if you have hurt a friend harshly it is very likely that your friendship will never be the same. Over time you realize that despite being happy with your friends, you cry for those you let go. Over time you realize that every experience lived, with each person, is unrepeatable. Over time you realize that whoever humiliates or scorns another human being, sooner or later will suffer the same humiliations or scorn in tenfold. Over time you learn to build your roads on today, because the path of tomorrow doesn’t exist. Over time you comprehend that rushing things or forcing them to happen causes the finale to be different form expected. Over time you realize that in fact the best was not the future, but the moment you were living just that instant. Over time you will see that even when you are happy with those around you, you’ll yearn for those who walked away. Over time you will learn to forgive or ask for forgiveness, say you love, say you miss, say you need, say you want to be friends, since before a grave, it will no longer make sense. But unfortunately, only over time…

Neo, sooner or later you're going to realize, just as I did, that there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.

Sooner or later you'll hear what your heart has always been telling you: stop trying to be who you think you should be - become who you are.

Sooner or later, at some point in your life, you’ll realize that money isn’t everything. Nor is happiness. No! We are not here to be happy. The aim of our life should be fulfilment. More than happiness, man seeks meaning. And when he finds it, his life becomes fulfilling.

She’s beautiful to look at, she’s new, she’s clean, and perfectly cut. But then you get up and look closely and see that she’s not real. She’s a fake. She doesn't glimmer like a natural diamond or hold the beauty and unbreakable strength of a real diamond. She’s just a manufactured piece of glass. Not the real deal. And sooner or later, that pig headed owner is gonna realize that fake diamonds can never pass for the real ones, no matter how much you wish they would.

When you are young, you think it's going to be solved by love. But it never is. Being close -- as close as you can get -- to another person only makes clear that impassable distance between you." […] "I don't know. If being in love only made people more lonely, why would everyone want it so much?" "Because of the illusion. You fall in love, it's intoxicating, and for a little while you feel like you've actually become one with the other person. Merged souls, and so on. You thing you'll never be lonely again. Only it doesn't last and soon you realize you can only get so close, and you end up brutally disappointed, more alone that ever, because the illusion - the hope you'd held on to all those years - has been shattered." […] "But see, the incredible thing about people is that we forget." Ray continued. "Time passes and somehow the hope creeps back and sooner or later someone else comes along and we think this is the one. And the whole thing starts all over again. We go through our lives like that, and either we just accept the lesser relationship - it may not be total understanding, but it's pretty good - or we keep trying for that perfect union, trying and failing, leaving behind us a trail of broken hearts, our own included. In the end, we die as alone as we were born, having struggled to understand others, to make ourselves understood, but having failed in what we once imagined was possible.

Just keep being your belligerent self, and sooner or later, my mother will realize she made a terrible mistake.” “I don’t know about that. She kept you around.

Since having a strong core self relies on acceptance of feelings, being out of touch with the emotional side puts a person out of touch with herself. What then remains to be esteemed? Only a false self, a concoction of what we would like to imagine ourselves to be and what we have divined others want us to be. Sooner or later, people come to realize that this false self — wanting what they think they should want, feeling what they think they should feel — does not work for them. When they look inside themselves, they discover a frightening emptiness, a vacuum, an absence of a true self or of intrinsic motivation.

Does it matter whether we achieve our outer purpose, whether we succeed or fail in the world? It will matter to you as long as you haven't realized your inner purpose. After that, the outer purpose is just a game that you may continue to play simply because you enjoy it. It is also possible to fail completely in your outer purpose and at the same time totally succeed in your inner purpose. Or the other way around, which is actually more common: outer riches and inner poverty, or to "gain the world and lose your soul," as Jesus puts it. Ultimately, of course, every outer purpose is doomed to "fail" sooner or later, simply because it is subject to the law of impermanence of all things. The sooner you realize that your outer purpose cannot give you lasting fulfillment, the better. When you have seen the limitations of your outer purpose, you give up your unrealistic expectation that it should make you happy, and you make it subservient to your inner purpose.

What can I do for you, boss?” “Just keep being your belligerent self, and sooner or later, my mother will realize she made a terrible mistake.” “I don’t know about that. She kept you around.

The movement of descent and discovery begins at the moment you consciously become dissatisfied with life. Contrary to most professional opinion, this gnawing dissatisfaction with life is not a sign of "mental illness," nor an indication of poor social adjustment, nor a character disorder. For concealed within this basic unhappiness with life and existence is the embryo of a growing intelligence, a special intelligence usually buried under the immense weight of social shams. A person who is beginning to sense the suffering of life is, at the same time, beginning to awaken to deeper realities, truer realities. For suffering smashes to pieces the complacency of our normal fictions about reality, and forces us to become alive in a special sense—to see carefully, to feel deeply, to touch ourselves and our worlds in ways we have heretofore avoided. It has been said, and truly I think, that suffering is the first grace. In a special sense, suffering is almost a time of rejoicing, for it marks the birth of creative insight. But only in a special sense. Some people cling to their suffering as a mother to its child, carrying it as a burden they dare not set down. They do not face suffering with awareness, but rather clutch at their suffering, secretly transfixed with the spasms of martyrdom. Suffering should neither be denied awareness, avoided, despised, not glorified, clung to, dramatized. The emergence of suffering is not so much good as it is a good sign, an indication that one is starting to realize that life lived outside unity consciousness is ultimately painful, distressing, and sorrowful. The life of boundaries is a life of battles—of fear, anxiety, pain, and finally death. It is only through all manner of numbing compensations, distractions, and enchantments that we agree not to question our illusory boundaries, the root cause of the endless wheel of agony. But sooner or later, if we are not rendered totally insensitive, our defensive compensations begin to fail their soothing and concealing purpose. As a consequence, we begin to suffer in one way or another, because our awareness is finally directed toward the conflict-ridden nature of our false boundaries and the fragmented life supported by them.

Sooner or later you realize there are no answers, no answers except the ones you believe. Sooner or later faith is the only answer left.

But where will this mania for entertainment end? What will people do when they get tired of television? When they get tired of movies? We already know the answer—they go into participatory activities: sports, theme parks, amusement rides, roller coasters. Structured fun, planned thrills. And what will they do when they tire of theme parks and planned thrills? Sooner or later, the artifice becomes too noticeable. They begin to realize that an amusement park is really a kind of jail, in which you pay to be an inmate. ‘This artifice will drive them to seek authenticity. Authenticity will be the buzzword of the twenty-first century. And what is authentic? Anything that is not devised and structured to make a profit. Anything that is not controlled by corporations. Anything that exists for its own sake and assumes its own shape. But of course, nothing in the modern world is allowed to assume its own shape. The modern world is the corporate equivalent of a formal garden, where everything is planted and arranged for effect. Where nothing is untouched, where nothing is authentic.

Time for me is now double-edged: every day brings me further from the low of my last relapse but closer to the next recurrence—and, eventually, death. Perhaps later than I think, but certainly sooner than I desire. There are, I imagine, two responses to that realization. The most obvious might be an impulse to frantic activity: to “live life to its fullest,” to travel, to dine, to achieve a host of neglected ambitions. Part of the cruelty of cancer, though, is not only that it limits your time; it also limits your energy, vastly reducing the amount you can squeeze into a day. It is a tired hare who now races. And even if I had the energy, I prefer a more tortoiselike approach. I plod, I ponder. Some days, I simply persist.

In our final moments we all realize that relationships are what life is all about. Wisdom is learning that truth sooner rather than later. Don’t wait until you’re on your deathbed to figure out that nothing matters more.

Boy everyone in this country is running around yammering about their fucking rights. "I have a right, you have no right, we have a right." Folks I hate to spoil your fun, but... there's no such thing as rights. They're imaginary. We made 'em up. Like the boogie man. Like Three Little Pigs, Pinocio, Mother Goose, shit like that. Rights are an idea. They're just imaginary. They're a cute idea. Cute. But that's all. Cute...and fictional. But if you think you do have rights, let me ask you this, "where do they come from?" People say, "They come from God. They're God given rights." Awww fuck, here we go again...here we go again. The God excuse, the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument, "It came from God." Anything we can't describe must have come from God. Personally folks, I believe that if your rights came from God, he would've given you the right for some food every day, and he would've given you the right to a roof over your head. GOD would've been looking out for ya. You know that. He wouldn't have been worried making sure you have a gun so you can get drunk on Sunday night and kill your girlfriend's parents. But let's say it's true. Let's say that God gave us these rights. Why would he give us a certain number of rights? The Bill of Rights of this country has 10 stipulations. OK...10 rights. And apparently God was doing sloppy work that week, because we've had to ammend the bill of rights an additional 17 times. So God forgot a couple of things, like...SLAVERY. Just fuckin' slipped his mind. But let's say...let's say God gave us the original 10. He gave the british 13. The british Bill of Rights has 13 stipulations. The Germans have 29, the Belgians have 25, the Sweedish have only 6, and some people in the world have no rights at all. What kind of a fuckin' god damn god given deal is that!?...NO RIGHTS AT ALL!? Why would God give different people in different countries a different numbers of different rights? Boredom? Amusement? Bad arithmetic? Do we find out at long last after all this time that God is weak in math skills? Doesn't sound like divine planning to me. Sounds more like human planning . Sounds more like one group trying to control another group. In other words...business as usual in America. Now, if you think you do have rights, I have one last assignment for ya. Next time you're at the computer get on the Internet, go to Wikipedia. When you get to Wikipedia, in the search field for Wikipedia, i want to type in, "Japanese-Americans 1942" and you'll find out all about your precious fucking rights. Alright. You know about it. In 1942 there were 110,000 Japanese-American citizens, in good standing, law abiding people, who were thrown into internment camps simply because their parents were born in the wrong country. That's all they did wrong. They had no right to a lawyer, no right to a fair trial, no right to a jury of their peers, no right to due process of any kind. The only right they had was...right this way! Into the internment camps. Just when these American citizens needed their rights the most...their government took them away. and rights aren't rights if someone can take em away. They're priveledges. That's all we've ever had in this country is a bill of TEMPORARY priviledges; and if you read the news, even badly, you know the list get's shorter, and shorter, and shorter. Yeup, sooner or later the people in this country are going to realize the government doesn't give a fuck about them. the government doesn't care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare or your safety. it simply doesn't give a fuck about you. It's interested in it's own power. That's the only thing...keeping it, and expanding wherever possible. Personally when it comes to rights, I think one of two things is true: either we have unlimited rights, or we have no rights at all.

When you realized that you would have to ask for help, you did not feel humiliated. And when you learned that someone needed help, you showed them all that you had learned without fearing that you might be revealing secrets or being used by others. To he who knocks, the door will open. He who asks will receive. He who consoles knows that he will be consoled. Even if none of these things happens when you are expecting it to, sooner or later you will see the fruits of the thing you shared with such generosity.

Sooner or later you realize that dating is performative. You have to perform how interesting you are. Perform how kind you are. Perform what an emotional grown-up you are. And then--it gets worse. Because when your performances get his attention, well, then you've got his attention, and do you actually want all that attention? It's exhausting.

Says you and your family. Sooner or later you’re gonna realize that just cause a Turner thinks a thing is normal doesn’t mean it is. Not at all.

Sooner or later you’re going to realize, just as I did, that there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.” MORPHEUS, THE MATRIX

The sooner you know who you really are, the sooner life becomes prosperous; the later you know, the further you will have to suffer.

What you are after as a seducer is the ability to move people in the direction you want them to go. But the game is perilous; the moment they suspect they are acting under your influence, they will become resentful. We are creatures who cannot stand feeling that we are obeying someone else’s will. Should your targets catch on, sooner or later they will turn against you. But what if you can make them do what you want them to without their realizing it? What if they think they are in control? That is the power of indirection and no seducer can work his or her magic without it.

She would not accept it as a law of nature that the individual is always defeated. In a way she realized that she herself was doomed, that sooner or later the Thought Police would catch her and kill her, but with another part of her mind she believed that it was somehow possible to construct a secret world in which you could live as you chose. All you needed was luck and cunning and boldness. She did not understand that there was no such thing as happiness that the only victory lay in the far future, long after you were dead, that from the moment of declaring war on the Party it was better to think of yourself as a corpse.

Death. Perhaps later than I think, but certainly sooner than I desire. There are, I imagine, two responses to that realization. The most obvious might be an impulse to frantic activity: to “live life to the fullest,” to travel, to dine, to achieve, a host of neglected ambitions. Part of the cruelty of cancer, though, is not only that it limits your time; it also limits your energy, vastly reducing the amount you can squeeze into a day.

It doesn't seem like you're living a life, it's almost like you're travelling on a train with the destination unknown. You're sitting on a seat near the window looking outside, imagining how things are there outside, how is it like to live in the houses that you pass by. And when you’re busy noticing the outside, you at times do not pay heed to your surroundings inside the coach. And thus some passengers who got down at a station midway fail to capture your interest, or maybe it is because of your deviation of interest towards the outside. While at other stops new people get up, and you like their company, you share and you laugh. But sooner or later they get down. Because it's your journey, you're the traveler and they just accompany you for some distances. And then, maybe when you reach your destination there will still be passengers in the train, passengers you've mingled with or passengers you hate, people who were there since the train had started or people who got in just before the last stoppage, and like it or not, they will get off the train with you, at your destination which also proved to be there destination.

Sooner or later, the house always won. Pepper used to think that she was the house. She has it all: family, beauty, brains, moxie. You think you hold all the cards, and then you realize you don’t. You have one single precious card, and he wants it back.

The down cycle is absolutely essential for spiritual realization. You must have failed deeply on some level or experienced some deep loss or pain to be drawn to the spiritual dimension. Or perhaps your very success became empty and meaningless and so turned out to be failure. Failure lies concealed in every success, and success in every failure. In this world, which is to say on the level of form, everybody “fails” sooner or later, of course, and every achievement eventually comes to naught. All forms are impermanent.

all kids sooner or later reach a point in their lives where they realize their dads aren’t actually superheroes. I’m not stupid. I just wish for it to take as long as possible. I wish we could at least have a couple of Sunday afternoons together, you and I. Something that’s ours.

Everything feels like a badly designed computer game in which you fall into a pit that doesn't kill you but from which there's absolutely no escape. For a while you kick against the walls, but the walls get higher no matter how hard and fast you press all the buttons you can find. And sooner or later you'll realize there's one you haven't tried yet. The power switch.[...] So she began reaching for the button herself, but she never tried quite hard enough, because some part of her was still alive. She didn't want to throw the machine away. She just wanted to start again.

I understand,” she said. “Truly, I do. I asked myself the same questions. It’s like walking out of a movie. Being made to walk out of a movie that you’re really enjoying. That’s what worried me about it. I would never know how it turned out. I would never know what happened to you boys in the end, with your lives. I hated that part. But then I realized, obviously I’ll walk out of the movie sooner or later. I mean, nobody lives forever. I’ll never know how it turns out for you. I’ll never know what happens with your lives. Not in the end. Not even under the best of circumstances. I realized that. Then it didn’t seem to matter so much. It will always be an arbitrary date. It will always leave me wanting more.

the difference between the trousermen and the Raiders is that sooner or later the cannibals go away!’ ‘That’s a terrible thing to say!’ said Daphne hotly. ‘We don’t eat people!’ ‘There are different ways to eat people, girl, and you are clever, oh yes, clever enough to know it. And sometimes the people don’t realize it’s happened until they hear the belch!

Many people associate procrastination with laziness. But psychologists find that procrastination is not a time management problem—it’s an emotion management problem. When you procrastinate, you’re not avoiding effort. You’re avoiding the unpleasant feelings that the activity stirs up. Sooner or later, though, you realize that you’re also avoiding getting where you want to go.

When I say maturity, I mean an inner integrity. And this inner integrity comes only when you stop making others responsible, when you stop saying that the other is creating your suffering, when you start realizing that you are the creator of your suffering. This is the first step towards maturity: I am responsible. Whatsoever is happening, it is my doing. You feel sad. Is this your doing? You will feel very much disturbed, but if you can remain with this feeling, sooner or later you will be able to stop doing many things. This is what the theory of karma is all about. You are responsible. Don’t say society is responsible, don’t say that parents are responsible, don’t say the economic conditions are responsible, don’t throw the responsibility onto anybody. YOU are responsible.

I didn’t mean to treat you so bad You shouldn’t take it so personal I didn’t mean to make you so sad You just happened to be there, that’s all When I saw you say “goodbye” to your friend and smile I thought that it was well understood That you’d be comin’ back in a little while I didn’t know that you were sayin’ “goodbye” for good But, sooner or later, one of us must know You just did what you’re supposed to do Sooner or later, one of us must know That I really did try to get close to you I couldn’t see what you could show me Your scarf had kept your mouth well hid I couldn’t see how you could know me But you said you knew me and I believed you did When you whispered in my ear And asked me if I was leavin’ with you or her I didn’t realize just what I did hear I didn’t realize how young you were But, sooner or later, one of us must know You just did what you’re supposed to do Sooner or later, one of us must know That I really did try to get close to you I couldn’t see when it started snowin’ Your voice was all that I heard I couldn’t see where we were goin’ But you said you knew an’ I took your word And then you told me later, as I apologized That you were just kiddin’ me, you weren’t really from the farm An’ I told you, as you clawed out my eyes That I never really meant to do you any harm But, sooner or later, one of us must know You just did what you’re supposed to do Sooner or later, one of us must know That I really did try to get close to you

Justice and honesty and loyalty are not properties of this world, she thought; and then, by God, she rammed her old enemy, her ancient foe, the Coca-Cola truck, which went right on going without noticing. The impact spun her small car around; her headlights dimmed out, horrible noises of fender against tire shrieked, and then she was off the freeway onto the emergency strip, facing the other direction, water pouring from her radiator, with motorists slowing down to gape. Come back, you motherfucker, she said to herself, but the Coca-Cola truck was long gone, probably undented. Maybe a scratch. Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, her war, her taking on a symbol and a reality that outweighed her. Now my insurance rates will go up, she realized as she climbed from her car. In this world you pay for tilting with evil in cold, hard cash. A late-model Mustang slowed and the driver, a man, called to her, “You want a ride, miss?” She did not answer. She just kept on going. A small figure on foot facing an infinity of oncoming lights.

Stop staring at Kevin so much. You're making me fear for your life over here." "What do you mean?" "Andrew is scary territorial of him. He punched me the first time I said I'd like to get Kevin too wasted to be straight." Nicky pointed at his face, presumably where Andrew had decked him. "So yeah, I'm going to crush on safer targets until Andrew gets bored of him. That means you, since Matt's taken and I don't hate myself enough to try Seth. Congrats." "Can you take the creepy down a level?" Aaron asked. "What?" Nikcy asked. "He said he doesn't swing, so obviously he needs a push." "I don't need a push," Neil said. "I'm fine on my own." "Seriously, how are you not bored of your hand by now?" "I'm done with this conversation," Neil said. "This and every future variation of it. [...]" The stadium door slammed open as Andrew showed up at last. He swept them with a wide-eyed look as if surprised to see them all there. "Kevin wants to know what's taking you so long. Did you get lost?" "Nicky's scheming to rape Neil," Aaron said. "There are a couple flaws in his plan he needs to work out first, but he'll get there sooner or later." [...] "Wow, Nicky," Andrew said. "You start early." "Can you really blame me?" Nicky glanced back at Neil as he said it. He only took his eyes off Andrew for a second, but that was long enough for Andrew to lunge at him. Andrew caught Nicky's jersey in one hand and threw him hard up against the wall. [...] "Hey, Nicky," Andrew said in stage-whisper German. "Don't touch him, you understand?" "You know I'd never hurt him. If he says yes-" "I said no." "Jesus, you're greedy," Nicky said. "You already have Kevin. Why does it-" He went silent, but it took Neil a moment to realize why. Andrew had a short knife pressed to Nicky's Jersey. [...] Neil was no stranger to violence. He'd heard every threat in the book, but never from a man who smiled as bright as Andrew did. Apathy, anger, madness, boredom: these motivators Neil knew and understood. But Andrew was grinning like he didn't have a knife point where it'd sleep perfectly between Nicky's ribs, and it wasn't because he was joking. Neil knew Andrew meant it. If Nicky so much as breathed wrong right now, Andrew would cut his lungs to ribbons, any and all consequences be damned. Neil wondered if Andrew's medicine would let him grieve, or if he'd laugh at Nicky's funeral too. Then he wondered if a sober Andrew would act any different. Was this Andrew psychosis or his medicine? Was he flying too high to understand what he was doing, or did his medicine only add a smile to Andrew's ingrained violence? [...] Andrew let go of Nicky and spun away. [...] Aaron squized Nicky's shoulder on his way out. Nicky looked shaken as he stared after the twins, but when he realized Neil was watching him he rallied with a smile Neil didn't believe at all. "On second thought, you're not my type after all,” Nicky said [...]. "Don't let him get away with things like that." Nicky considered him for a moment, his smile fading into something small and tired. "Oh, Neil. You're going to make this so hard on yourself. Look, [...] Andrew is a little crazy. Your lines are not his lines, so you can get all huff and puff when he tramps across yours but you'll never make him understand what he did wrong. Moreover, you'll never make him care. So just stay out of his way." "He's like this because you let him get away with it," Neil said. [...] "That was my fault. [...] I said something I shouldn't have, and got what I deserved.

Truth may not be expressed, but truth becomes a reality. Seeing the master, seeing one who is a realized one, you become certain: if you are groping in the dark, don't be worried, and don't feel hopeless. Go on groping! Every night has a morning to it, and sooner or later you will find the door, you will reach to the point. If one man has reached, the whole humanity can reach. He is enough proof. So the question is not whether truth can be spoken or not, the question is whether a presence can create a conviction that there is something that you are missing -- and unless you find it your life will not be complete, will not be perfect.

Now,” Samite continued, “after Essel has just spent time warning you about generalities and how they often don’t apply, I’m going to use some. Because some generalities are true often enough that we have to worry about them. So here’s one: men will physically fight for status. Women, generally, are more clever. The why of it doesn’t matter: learned, innate, cultural, who cares? You see the chest-bumping, the name-calling, performing for their fellows, what they’re really doing is getting the juices flowing. That interval isn’t always long, but it’s long enough for men to trigger the battle juice. That’s the terror or excitation that leads people to fight or run. It can be useful in small doses or debilitating in large ones. Any of you have brothers, or boys you’ve fought with?” Six of the ten raised their hands. “Have you ever had a fight with them—verbal or physical—and then they leave and come back a little later, and they’re completely done fighting and you’re just fully getting into it? They look like they’ve been ambushed, because they’ve come completely off the mountain already, and you’ve just gotten to the top?” “Think of it like lovemaking,” Essel said. She was a bawdy one. “Breathe in a man’s ear and tell him to take his trousers off, and he’s ready to go before you draw your next breath. A woman’s body takes longer.” Some of the girls giggled nervously. “Men can switch on very, very fast. They also switch off from that battle readiness very, very fast. Sure, they’ll be left trembling, sometimes puking from it, but it’s on and then it’s off. Women don’t do that. We peak slower. Now, maybe there are exceptions, maybe. But as fighters, we tend to think that everyone reacts the way we do, because our own experience is all we have. In this case, it’s not true for us. Men will be ready to fight, then finished, within heartbeats. This is good and bad. “A man, deeply surprised, will have only his first instinctive response be as controlled and crisp as it is when he trains. Then that torrent of emotion is on him. We spend thousands of hours training that first instinctive response, and further, we train to control the torrent of emotion so that it raises us to a heightened level of awareness without making us stupid.” “So the positive, for us Archers: surprise me, and my first reaction will be the same as my male counterpart’s. I can still, of course, get terrified, or locked into a loop of indecision. But if I’m not, my second, third, and tenth moves will also be controlled. My hands will not shake. I will be able to make precision movements that a man cannot. But I won’t have the heightened strength or sensations until perhaps a minute later—often too late. “Where a man needs to train to control that rush, we need to train to make it closer. If we have to climb a mountain more slowly to get to the same height to get all the positives, we need to start climbing sooner. That is, when I go into a situation that I know may be hazardous, I need to prepare myself. I need to start climbing. The men may joke to break the tension. Let them. I don’t join in. Maybe they think I’m humorless because I don’t. Fine. That’s a trade I’m willing to make.” Teia and the rest of the girls walked away from training that day somewhat dazed, definitely overwhelmed. What Teia realized was that the women were deeply appealing because they were honest and powerful. And those two things were wed inextricably together. They said, I am the best in the world at what I do, and I cannot do everything. Those two statements, held together, gave them the security to face any challenge. If her own strengths couldn’t surmount an obstacle, her team’s strengths could—and she was unembarrassed about asking for help where she needed it because she knew that what she brought to the team would be equally valuable in some other situation.

Consider that everything you possess at this moment is, by its very nature, guaranteed not to be yours. Sooner or later, every relationship you have is guaranteed to dissolve. Everything that lives will die; everything that is created eventually will be destroyed. If impermanence is the true nature of reality, this is all the more reason not to get too attached to your visions. People who feel a little more open are sensing indirectly or directly that this is the case. People who feel blocked are, indirectly, not realizing impermanence. They think they can hold on forever to relationships and possessions, yet everything they are trying so hard to grasp is only an illusion.

Before he could say my name, I closed the space between us. Quickly, my lips moved against his. The mental and emotional emptiness took over instantly, but physically, I was more alert than ever. Wesley’s surprise didn’t last as long as it had before, and his hands were on me in seconds. My fingers tangled in his soft hair, and Wesley’s tongue darted into my mouth and became a new weapon in our war. Once again, my body took complete control of everything. Nothing existed at the corners of my mind; no irritating thoughts harassed me. Even the sounds of Wesley’s stereo, which had been playing some piano rock I didn’t recognize, faded away as my sense of touch heightened. I was fully conscious of Wesley’s hand as it slid up my torso and moved to cup my breast. With an effort, I pushed him away from me. His eyes were wide as he leaned back. “Please don’t slap me again,” he said. “Shut up.” I could have stopped there. I could have stood up and left the room. I could have let that kiss be the end of it. But I didn’t. The mind-numbing sensation I got from kissing him was so euphoric-such a high-that I couldn’t stand to give it up that fast. I might have hated Wesley Rush, but he held the key to my escape, and at that moment I wanted him… I needed him. Without speaking, without hesitating, I pulled my T-shirt over my head and threw it onto Wesley’s bedroom floor. He didn’t have a chance to say anything before I put my hands on his shoulders and shoved him onto his back. A second later, I was straddling him and we were kissing again. His fingers undid the clasp on my bra, and it joined my shirt on the floor. I didn’t care. I didn’t feel self-conscious or shy. I mean, he already knew I was the Duff, and it wasn’t like I had to impress him. I unbuttoned his shirt as he pulled the alligator clip from my hair and let the auburn waves fall around us. Casey had been right. Wesley had a great body. The skin pulled tight over his sculpted chest, and my hands drifted down his muscular arms with amazement. His lips moved to my neck, giving me a moment to breathe. I could only smell his cologne this close to him. As his mouth traveled down my shoulder, a thought pushed through the exhilaration. I wondered why he hadn’t shoved me-Duffy-away in disgust. Then again, I realized, Wesley wasn’t known for rejecting girls. And I was the one who should have been disgusted. But his mouth pressed into mine again, and that tiny, fleeting thought died. Acting on instinct, I pulled on Wesley’s lower lip with my teeth, and he moaned quietly. His hands moved over my ribs, sending chills up my spine. Bliss. Pure, unadulterated bliss. Only once, as Wesley flipped me onto my back, did I seriously consider stopping. He looked down at me, and his skilled hand grasped the zipper on my jeans. My dormant brain stirred, and I asked myself if things had gone too far. I thought about pushing him away, ending it right where we were. But why would I stop now? What did I stand to lose? Yet what could I possibly gain? How would I feel about this in an hour… or sooner? Before I could come up with any answers, Wesley had my jeans and underwear off. He pulled a condom from his pocket (okay, now that I’m thinking about it, who keeps condoms in their pockets? Wallet, yes, but pocket? Pretty presumptuous, don’t you think?), and then his pants were on the floor, too. All of a sudden, we were having sex, and my thoughts were muted again.

You have to leave town to claim your life, to birth yourself, to take possession of the world. If you do not leave town, sooner or later, ten minutes from now, if not ten years hence, you wake to find you were never alive, that your town exists against a nothing background. You have to leave your town before you can claim it—this is something my father and his friends came to realize in the fifties, when it seemed the entire borough was packing up and moving off. Dead or out of town. Dead or out. Out or dead of town. Dead town out of. And of course, years later, when they did try to come back, when they stood on the corner and closed their eyes, they realized the old town was gone, had died while they were off living their lives.

FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 1943 Dearest Kitty, Oh my, another item has been added to my list of sins. Last night I was lying in bed, waiting for Father to tuck me in and say my prayers with me, when Mother came into the room, sat on my bed and asked very gently, “Anne, Daddy isn’t ready. How about if I listen to your prayers tonight?” “No, Momsy,” I replied. Mother got up, stood beside my bed for a moment and then slowly walked toward the door. Suddenly she turned, her face contorted with pain, and said, “I don’t want to be angry with you. I can’t make you love me!” A few tears slid down her cheeks as she went out the door. I lay still, thinking how mean it was of me to reject her so cruelly, but I also knew that I was incapable of answering her any other way. I can’t be a hypocrite and pray with her when I don’t feel like it. It just doesn’t work that way. I felt sorry for Mother—very, very sorry—because for the first time in my life I noticed she wasn’t indifferent to my coldness. I saw the sorrow in her face when she talked about not being able to make me love her. It’s hard to tell the truth, and yet the truth is that she’s the one who’s rejected me. She’s the one whose tactless comments and cruel jokes about matters I don’t think are funny have made me insensitive to any sign of love on her part. Just as my heart sinks every time I hear her harsh words, that’s how her heart sank when she realized there was no more love between us. She cried half the night and didn’t get any sleep. Father has avoided looking at me, and if his eyes do happen to cross mine, I can read his unspoken words: “How can you be so unkind? How dare you make your mother so sad!” Everyone expects me to apologize, but this is not something I can apologize for, because I told the truth, and sooner or later Mother was bound to find out anyway. I seem to be indifferent to Mother’s tears and Father’s glances, and I am, because both of them are now feeling what I’ve always felt. I can only feel sorry for Mother, who will have to figure out what her attitude should be all by herself. For my part, I will continue to remain silent and aloof, and I don’t intend to shrink from the truth, because the longer it’s postponed, the harder it will be for them to accept it when they do hear it! Yours, Anne

The best way to hide your wealth is to give it away. If you are generous with your wealth, the money that would have disappeared sooner or later becomes an everlasting jewel, deeply engraved in the heart of the recipient.” The air I inhale enters my body and becomes part of me. The air that I exhale moves into someone else and becomes part of her. Just by looking at how the air moves, we realize we are all connected to one another, not just figuratively but also literally. “Whether we like it or not, we are all connected, and it is unthinkable to be happy all by oneself.” —HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA* The whole universe is contained in an apple wedge in a lunch box. Apple tree, sunlight, cloud, rain, earth, air, farmer’s sweat are all in it. Delivery truck, gas, market, money, cashier’s smile are all in it. Refrigerator, knife, cutting board, mother’s love are all in it. Everything in the whole universe depends on one another. Now, think about what exists in you. The whole universe is in us.

To the man standing on the corner holding the sign that said “God hates gays.” I’ve never seen, exactly who it is that you paperclip your knees, meld your hands together and pray to But I think I know what he looks like: I bet your God is about 5’10”. I bet he weighs 185. Probably stands the way a high school diploma does when it’s next to a GED. I bet your god has a mullet. I bet he wears flannel shirts with no sleeves, a fanny pack and says words like “getrdun.” I bet your god—I bet your god—I bet your god watches FOX news, Dog the Bounty Hunter, voted for John McCain, and loves Bill O’Reilly. I bet your god lives in Arizona. I bet his high school served racism in the cafeteria and offered “hate speech” as a second language. I bet he has a swastika inside of his throat, and racial slurs tattooed to his tongue just to make intolerance more comfortable in his mouth. I bet he has a burning cross as a middle finger and Jim Crow underneath his nails. Your god is a confederate flags wet dream conceived on a day when the sky decided to slice her own wrists, I bet your god has a drinking problem. I bet he sees the bottom of the shot glass more often than his own children. I bet he pours whiskey on his dreams until they taste like good ideas, Probably cusses like an electric guitar with Tourette’s plugged into an ocean. I bet he yells like a schizophrenic nail gun, damaging all things that care about him enough to get close. I bet there are angels in Heaven with black eyes and broken halos who claimed they fell down the stairs. I bet your god would’ve made Eve without a mouth and taught her how to spread her legs like a magazine that she will never ever ever be pretty enough to be in. Sooner or later you will realize that you are praying to your own shadow, that you are standing in front of mirrors and are worshipping your own reflection. Your God stole my god’s identity and I bet he’s buying pieces of heaven on eBay. So next time you bend your knees, next time you bow your head I want you to tell your god— that my god is looking for him.

Yet there is dynamism in our house. Day to day, week to week, Cady blossoms: a first grasp, a first smile, a first laugh. Her pediatrician regularly records her growth on charts, tick marks indicating her progress over time. A brightening newness surrounds her. As she sits in my lap smiling, enthralled by my tuneless singing, an incandescence lights the room. Time for me is now double-edged: every day brings me further from the low of my last relapse but closer to the next recurrence—and, eventually, death. Perhaps later than I think, but certainly sooner than I desire. There are, I imagine, two responses to that realization. The most obvious might be an impulse to frantic activity: to “live life to its fullest,” to travel, to dine, to achieve a host of neglected ambitions. Part of the cruelty of cancer, though, is not only that it limits your time; it also limits your energy, vastly reducing the amount you can squeeze into a day. It is a tired hare who now races. And even if I had the energy, I prefer a more tortoiselike approach. I plod, I ponder. Some days, I simply persist. If time dilates when one moves at high speeds, does it contract when one moves barely at all? It must: the days have shortened considerably. With little to distinguish one day from the next, time has begun to feel static. In English, we use the word time in different ways: “The time is two forty-five” versus “I’m going through a tough time.” These days, time feels less like the ticking clock and more like a state of being. Languor settles in. There’s a feeling of openness. As a surgeon, focused on a patient in the OR, I might have found the position of the clock’s hands arbitrary, but I never thought them meaningless. Now the time of day means nothing, the day of the week scarcely more. Medical training is relentlessly future-oriented, all about delayed gratification; you’re always thinking about what you’ll be doing five years down the line. But now I don’t know what I’ll be doing five years down the line. I may be dead. I may not be. I may be healthy. I may be writing. I don't know. And so it's not all that useful to spend time thinking about the future - that is, beyond lunch.

The House walls, the House Laws, its memories, its fights, its games, its tales—that’s all well and good, calm and soothing, if it were not for the fear that’s always nearby, that only can be pushed away for a short while, very short, because sooner or later it returns, bristling with even more sharp spikes than before. It’s the fear of the inevitable end to all this, the public flaying of the new, freshly grown skin. The fear of long-legged Sphinx carrying the secret of the real me. He who has power over someone surely would wield it? “Are you afraid of me, Alexander?” The green eyes leave smoking holes in me. I cringe. I shout back, “Yes! Yes! I am afraid! So? Wouldn’t you be, in my place?” “If I could be both you and myself at the same time, no, I wouldn’t. And you don’t have to either. Trust me, I want nothing from you.” It was the truth, but I could not allow myself to believe it. He was taming me, quietly, step by step, and I didn’t realize it. He made me read and then discuss books with him. Listen to music and talk about it. Make up ridiculous stories and tell them to him. First to him only, then to others. He squeezed the fear out of me and made me trust him. I was happy, and not afraid of his eyes anymore.

Unlike the mind, witnessing awareness is an unlimited perspective. It’s a clarity infinitely more subtle than space. It’s not made of vibrational energy, so it has no energetic limits. It’s not physical, so it has no spatial borders. You never directly experience witnessing awareness to have any limitations at all. In your direct experience (which happens from the vantage point of witnessing awareness), you never know or perceive anything like an edge at which things stop. There’s no border with unexperienced objects on the other side. You never experience the unexperienced. After a while, you stop being sure that there are objects outside of awareness. It feels as if the mind has limits but awareness has no limits. When you look at experience and there no longer seems to be anything external (or internal) to witnessing awareness, witnessing awareness has finished its task as a teaching tool. Sooner or later it dissolves into happiness and contentment, with no sense of identity whatsoever. Not even “I am awareness.” There’s no sense of localization or individuation. As this stabilizes, the entire notion of the “witness” is no longer needed. Witnessing and appearing no longer seem to apply to experience. This is sometimes called the “collapse” of the witness, and it’s equivalent to non-dual realization.

They won’t have forgotten her. Sooner or later she would have become involved, but she’ll be drawn in now whether I want to protect her or not.” “But how do you know that, for God’s sake? The alethiometer again?” “Yes. Lyra has a part to play in all this, and a major one. The irony is that she must do it all without realizing what she’s doing. She can be helped, though, and if my plan with the Tokay had succeeded, she would have been safe for a little longer. I would have liked to spare her a journey to the North. I wish above all things that I were able to explain it to her...” “She wouldn’t listen,” the Librarian said. “I know her ways only too well. Try to tell her anything serious and she’ll half-listen for five minutes and then start fidgeting. Quiz her about it next time and she’ll have completely forgotten.” “If I talked to her about Dust? You don’t think she’d listen to that?” The Librarian made a noise to indicate how unlikely he thought that was. “Why on earth should she?” he said. “Why should a distant theological riddle interest a healthy, thoughtless child?” “Because of what she must experience. Part of that includes a great betrayal....” “Who’s going to betray her?” “No, no, that’s the saddest thing: she will be the betrayer, and the experience will be terrible. She mustn’t know that, of course, but there’s no reason for her not to know about the problem of Dust. And you might be wrong, Charles; she might well take an interest in it, if it were explained in a simple way. And it might help her later on. It would certainly help me to be less anxious about her.” “That’s the duty of the old,” said the Librarian, “to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.” They sat for a while longer, and then parted, for it was late, and they were old and anxious.

[...] Kevin had grown up playing left-handed. Seeing him take on Andrew right-handed was ballsy enough, seeing him actually score was surreal. Kevin kicked them off the court [...], but instead of following [...] he stayed behind with Andrew to keep practicing. Neil watched them over his shoulder. "I saw him first," Nicky said. "I thought you had Erik," Neil said. "I do, but Kevin's on the List," Nicky said. When Neil frowned, Nicky explained. "It's a list of celebrities we're allowed to have affairs with. Kevin is number three." Neil pretended to understand and changed the topic. "How does anyone lose against the Foxes with Andrew in your goal?" "He's good, right? [...] Coach bribed Andrew into saving our collective asses with some really nice booze." "Bribed?" Neil echoed. "Andrew's good," Nicky said again, "but it doesn't really matter to him if we win or lose. You want him to care, you gotta give him incentive." "He can't play like that and not care." "Now you sound like Kevin. You'll find out the hard way, same as Kevin did. Kevin gave Andrew a lot of grief this spring [...]. Up until then they were fighting like cats and dogs. Now look at them. They're practically trading friendship bracelets and I couldn't fit a crowbar between them if it'd save my life." "But why?" Neil asked. "Andrew hates Kevin's obsession with Exy." "The day they start making sense to you, let me know," Nicky said [...]. "I gave up trying to sort it all out weeks ago. [...] But as long as I'm doling out advice? Stop staring at Kevin so much. You're making me fear for your life over here." "What do you mean?" "Andrew is scary territorial of him. He punched me the first time I said I'd like to get Kevin too wasted to be straight." Nicky pointed at his face, presumably where Andrew had decked him. "So yeah, I'm going to crush on safer targets until Andrew gets bored of him. That means you, since Matt's taken and I don't hate myself enough to try Seth. Congrats." "Can you take the creepy down a level?" Aaron asked. "What?" Nikcy asked. "He said he doesn't swing, so obviously he needs a push." "I don't need a push," Neil said. "I'm fine on my own." "Seriously, how are you not bored of your hand by now?" "I'm done with this conversation," Neil said. "This and every future variation of it [...]." The stadium door slammed open as Andrew showed up at last. [...] "Kevin wants to know what's taking you so long. Did you get lost?" "Nicky's scheming to rape Neil," Aaron said. "There are a couple flaws in his plan he needs to work out first, but he'll get there sooner or later." [...] "Wow, Nicky," Andrew said. "You start early." "Can you really blame me?" Nicky glanced back at Neil as he said it. He only took his eyes off Andrew for a second, but that was long enough for Andrew to lunge at him. Andrew caught Nicky's jersey in one hand and threw him hard up against the wall. [...] "Hey, Nicky," Andrew said in stage-whisper German. "Don't touch him, you understand?" "You know I'd never hurt him. If he says yes-" "I said no." "Jesus, you're greedy," Nicky said. "You already have Kevin. Why does it-" He went silent, but it took Neil a moment to realize why. Andrew had a short knife pressed to Nicky's Jersey. [...] Neil was no stranger to violence. He'd heard every threat in the book, but never from a man who smiled as bright as Andrew did. Apathy, anger, madness, boredom: these motivators Neil knew and understood. But Andrew was grinning like he didn't have a knife point where it'd sleep perfectly between Nicky's ribs, and it wasn't because he was joking. Neil knew Andrew meant it. [...] "Hey, are we playing or what?" Neil asked. "Kevin's waiting." [...] Andrew let go of Nicky and spun away. [...] Nicky looked shaken as he stared after the twins, but when he realized Neil was watching him he rallied with a smile Neil didn't believe at all. "On second thought, you're not my type after all [...].

Nothing can be the total truth in the worlds of manifestation and the more solid your concepts, the more likely they are going to sink you, sooner or later.

It’s like walking out of a movie. Being made to walk out of a movie that you’re really enjoying. That’s what worried me about it. I would never know how it turned out. I would never know what happened to you boys in the end, with your lives. I hated that part. But then I realized, obviously I’ll walk out of the movie sooner or later. I mean, nobody lives forever. I’ll never know how it turns out for you. I’ll never know what happens with your lives. Not in the end. Not even under the best of circumstances. I realized that. Then it didn’t seem to matter so much. It will always be an arbitrary date. It will always leave me wanting more.

Ironically enough, when we returned to the zoo, the Dr. Dolittle cameo almost came true. We had to transfer a big female crocodile named Toolakea to another enclosure. Steve geared up for the move as he always did. “Don’t think about catching Toolakea,” he instructed his crew, me included, before we ever got near to the enclosure. “If you’re concentrating on catching her, she’ll know it. We’ll never get a top-jaw rope on. Crocs know when they’re being hunted.” For millions of years, wild animals have evolved to use every sense to tune into the world around them. Steve understood that their survival depended on it. So as I approached the enclosure, I thought of mowing the lawn, or doing the croc show, or picking hibiscus flowers to feed the lizards. Anything but catching Toolakea. It went like clockwork. Steve top-jaw-roped Toolakea, and we all jumped her. He decided that since she was only a little more than nine feet long, we would be able to just lift her over the fence and carry her to her other enclosure. Steve never built his enclosures with gates. He knew that sooner or later, someone could make a mistake and not latch a gate properly. We had to be masters at fence jumping. He picked up Toolakea around her shoulders with her neck held firmly against his upper arm. This would protect his face if she started struggling. The rest of us backed him up and helped to lift Toolakea over the fence. All of a sudden she exploded, twisting and writhing in everyone’s arms. “Down, down, down,” Steve shouted. That was our signal to pin the crocodile again before picking her up. Not everyone reacted quickly enough. As Steve moved to the ground, the people on the tail were still standing up. That afforded Toolakea the opportunity to twist her head around and grab hold of Steve’s thigh. The big female croc sank her teeth deep into his flesh. I never realized it until later. Steve didn’t flinch. He settled the crocodile on the ground, keeping her eyes covered to quiet her down. We lifted her again. This time she cleared the fence easily. I noticed the blood trickling down Steve’s leg. We got to the other enclosure before I asked what had happened, and he showed me. There were a dozen tears in the fabric of his khaki shorts. A half dozen of Toolakea’s teeth had gotten through to his flesh, putting a number of puncture holes in his upper thigh. As usual, Steve didn’t bother with the wound. He cleaned it out and carried on, but even after his leg had healed, he couldn’t feel the temperature accurately on his leg. Once, about a month after the incident, I got a drink out of the fridge and rested it on his thigh. “I can feel something there,” he said. “Hot or cold?” I quizzed. “I don’t know,” he said. The croc-torn khaki shorts he wore that day made an amazing souvenir for a lucky sponsor of the zoo. People who donated a certain amount of money to our conservation efforts received a bonus in return: one of Steve’s uniforms and a photograph of him in it. Steve was very proud to include his khakis with teeth holes in them as the gift for a generous supporter.

Don’t worry. You’re lost. The best of us are, but you will find your way. The universe is everything, all that is tangible and all that is not. Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in the scheme of things. The world is wondrous and mysterious, but he will reveal himself to you when he is ready.” He paused. “We are all connected, but we don’t realize how. You, me… We’re all connected… somehow. Sooner or later it will all be revealed to us.

Go into the house, Aunt Rachel,” Loretta called. “Why? What is it?” “I’m not sure. He comes in anger.” “You come with me, then!” Loretta swallowed an upsurge of fear. One Indian was taller on horseback than all the rest, broader across the shoulders and chest. Hunter. She kept her gaze on him. A month ago she would have fled in panic. She would never run from him again. “Go to the house, Aunt Rachel. Pull the shutters. Do as I say!” Loretta began walking again, afraid yet not afraid. A war party of Comanches was an intimidating spectacle, even to her, but the man she loved rode with them. Before she reached the gate, the warriors urged their horses forward. Instead of attacking, though, as she had feared they might, they rode the perimeters of the property, driving lances into the earth every few feet. Once again Hunter had come to mark her home. Loretta no sooner realized that than she also realized that Hunter wouldn’t mark the property if he intended to take her with him. He was leaving her. She bolted into a run. “Hunter! Hunter, please…” She gained the gate and watched in helpless despair as the warriors sped past on their mounts, sending up such a cloud of dust that she couldn’t tell which man was Hunter. “Hunter, at least talk to me!” If Hunter heard her, he paid her no heed. Moments later the war party withdrew and rode over the rise. Loretta stood there, staring. Was Hunter divorcing her because of the tosi tivo attack? As hurt as she was, Loretta could muster no anger. It was her own fault he was leaving her. The night before the attack, she had vowed to leave him if he wouldn’t go away with her. She had insisted he choose between her and the People. He had done just that. His father and countless others had been killed. His honor demanded that he avenge them. She pressed her hand to her chest, over the medallion that bore his mark. Throwing back her head, she screamed his name, praying he would hear her and return. She waited, and she prayed. But he didn’t come.

But where will this mania for entertainment end? What will people do when they get tired of television? When they get tired of movies? We already know the answer—they go into participatory activities: sports, theme parks, amusement rides, roller coasters. Structured fun, planned thrills. And what will they do when they tire of theme parks and planned thrills? Sooner or later, the artifice becomes too noticeable. They begin to realize that an amusement park is really a kind of jail, in which you pay to be an inmate.

I’m not letting you go,” I told her. “And it’s selfish and wrong and sooner or later you’re going to wake up and realize that I can’t love you the way you should be loved. Or want to be loved, and it doesn’t matter.

You might fight a lifetime trying to change a system; but sooner or later you will realize that the only thing that needs to change is you”.

If you ever have a daughter—a blessing I wouldn't wish on anyone, because it's Murphy's Law that sooner or later she will break your heart—anyhow, as I was saying, if you ever have a daughter, you'll begin, without realizing it, to divide men into two camps: those you suspect are sleeping with her and those you don't. Whoever says that's not true is lying through his teeth.

you ever let me find you on a guest floor again! Got it?” More murmuring. Then Gregor shouted, “Move faster!” A moment later there was a knock at the door. “Rachel? It’s me. They’re gone.” I opened the door. Gregor’s solid rectangular frame filled the doorway. It was a reassuring sight. “Thank you so much. Those two just ambushed me.” Now, in hindsight, I realized there’d been no real danger, and I felt sheepish. “Sorry to sound the alarm like that. I guess I overreacted.” “Please, you were more than justified. No apology necessary. Are you okay?” “I’m fine, Gregor. Thank you again.” “I’ll put extra security on your hallway from now on. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner—” “Maybe because you were thinking no one would be sleazy enough to hit me up where I live?

Reflex or Response I did not survive to be untouched. The emotional patterns of our lives are very strong. They often come into being because we've needed them to survive. But sooner or later, we all arrive at moments where the very thing that has saved us is killing us, keeping us from truly living. Being invisible once kept us from being hurt, but now we are vanishing. Or listening once kept us in relation, but now we are drowning in our unheard cries. Or avoiding conflict once kept us out of the line of fire, but now we are thirsting for contact that is real. Early in my life, I learned to protect myself, and this meant that I became very good at catching things. In fact, I never went anywhere without my catcher's mitt. No matter what came at me, nothing could surprise me. And while this saved me from the unpredictable assaults of my family, and even helped me in my odyssey through cancer, it eventually had a life of its own. Everything—birds, women, friends, truth—was intercepted by the quick reflex of my mitt. Eventually, nothing got through, and the very thing that helped me survive was now keeping me from being touched. The softness and wonder of the world was vanishing from my life. But I did not survive to live at a distance from things, and so I began the long and painful process of putting my mitt down, of regaining choice about when and how to protect myself. I began to realize that letting life in was a deeper way to survive.

A dove, pursued by a hawk, asked a king called Sivi to save it. As soon as the king offered it protection, the hawk shouted, ‘What will I eat then?’ Sivi then offered the hawk any other dove to feed on. ‘That is not fair to the other birds, is it, O king?’ asked the hawk. The king then offered his own flesh, equal in measure to the dove’s weight. ‘How much flesh can you give king? Sooner or later, you will die, and the dove will have to fend for itself. Unless one creature dies, another creature cannot survive, that is the natural cycle of life,’ said the hawk. ‘Was I wrong to save the dove?’ wondered the king—his inner voice said he was not. So what must a man do? What must a king do? Save doves and let hawks starve or save hawks by allowing them to kill doves? At that moment, the king realized how different man was from animal. Animals spent their entire lives focused on survival. Humans could look beyond survival, seek meaning in life, harm others to save themselves, help others by sacrificing themselves. Humanity was blessed with a faculty that enabled it to empathize and exploit. It was this unique faculty that allowed humans to forsake the jungle and establish civilization.

If I had killed you, none of this would have happened.’ ‘I thought you would realize it sooner or later,’ Lymond said.

One realizes everything later. Sorrow always comes late. Sometimes sooner because it gives advance notice. Coming to find you at night, digging holes in your brain and stomach and veins with pain, wounds, something dark comes to you. But you still don’t know what it is.

always a process involved in any healing endeavor. The first step in the process is to be willing to pray and ask questions. We must stop trying to figure out what is going on! Sooner or later you should realize that if you knew what you were doing to make yourself miserable or crazy, you would not be doing it. Stop!

Many people associate procrastination with laziness. But psychologists find that procrastination is not a time management problem—it’s an emotion management problem.14 When you procrastinate, you’re not avoiding effort. You’re avoiding the unpleasant feelings that the activity stirs up. Sooner or later, though, you realize that you’re also avoiding getting where you want to go.

Have not found God? Well, become naught. And, sooner or later, now in this birth or in times thereafter, you'll get a visit from That Which Is. Some call "it" God.

more, he had lost his pride. The mobs defeated him, got past all his defenses. Nothing worse can happen to a warrior than that, I imagine. Not only that, but he’s trapped here, in Minecraftia. He really misses Earth. For once, it was my turn to be the strong one. For Steve. I marched over to the bed, looked up, and said: “You know, those mobs are going to figure out how to break through our wall sooner or later. Some day, the creepers are going to realize they don’t need to bomb us with slimes. They can just blow up next to the wall, and that’ll be it. We need you, hurrrrr. Besides, don’t you want to get revenge?” I thought it was a good speech. But Steve just made a strange groaning noise. “Uuuuuggghhhhhh . . .” I tried a few more times to motivate him, but he didn’t move. He was just another zombie. A zombie who sleeps and eats cake. My parents said I shouldn’t bother him. They said he needs some time alone. That’s fine. I understand. Besides, he’s not the only warrior around. Tomorrow, I’m going to visit Mike.

When a knock finally sounded from outside the apartment, I eagerly rose to my feet and made my way toward the door to let him in. “You do realize you have a key, correct?” I teased, trying to bite back my nerves. “You don’t have to knock.” “I don’t have to, but I wanted to.” He leaned in and gave me a peck on my cheek and I took in the smell of his cologne. It was light enough that it was hardly noticeable from a distance, but up close, it was a mesmerizing scent, one reminiscent of sandalwood. He pulled a small bouquet of flowers from behind his back and handed them to me. “Your favorite, of course." All at once, my nerves seemed to ease up. I smiled as I took the purple tulips from Ben and went in search of a vase to store them in. “I’ll admit, I can get used to this.” “Is that so?” He cocked a brow as he followed me into the kitchen. “Well, I’ll admit, I could get used to you like this.” He moved in behind me as I stood at the sink, filling a vase with water for the flowers, and wrapped his arms around my waist. “I’m a lucky man,” he whispered, leaning in closely so that his warm breath caught against my neck, eliciting a chill throughout my body. “You look amazing, Gems. So much so that I fear if we don’t leave soon, I won’t be able to stop myself from dragging you to your bedroom.” “Is that supposed to be a threat or an offer?” I grabbed hold of his arms and pressed back against him. In response, he let out a growl. “Don’t tempt me, love. It’s already hard enough,” he insisted. “We’re supposed to do things the right way, remember?” “Ah, yes. You and your ‘right way’ nonsense.” I leaned my head back to look up at him and grinned because I knew he was fighting it, and it would only be a matter of time before he caved. “I know you and sooner or later, you’re going to give in.” “Don’t tempt me, love.” He pulled one of his hands from mine and ran his right thumb over my jaw. “I’m trying to be good here.” “But maybe I don’t want you to be good, Benjamin.

None of you are intending on coming back, are you?” I finally managed to ask. “You never intended to see this through to the end.” “When you’ve lived a life as long as ours, Harley, the promise of death is the only thing to look forward to.” Esme shared a smile with Felix, who tipped his head ever so slightly in agreement. “This isn’t a battle we ever truly wanted to be a part of; it was merely a way to ensure our death would come at last.” “Couldn’t you have just asked them to kill you?” Frustration overtook my voice because I realized the danger they’d put us all in for selfish reasons. “The Ancient Elders will do whatever they can to keep themselves safe,” Felix answered. “You have to remember, we’re their personal weapons. They don’t want to see our demise.” “Don’t get us wrong, we still hate your kind,” Amelia assured me. “But when you’ve lived a life as long as us, sooner or later, you find yourself craving an end to it all.” “So comforting, Amelia,” I groaned. Honestly, I wasn’t entirely sold on her hating hunters. Or at least, she hadn’t truly hated hybrids as much as she would have liked me to believe. After all, she’d given me a weapon to take down the Ancients myself. Still, I didn’t dare share our secret with the others.

Don’t be indecisive. Decide. Even if sometimes you commit mistakes, nothing is wrong in them. By committing mistakes you will learn much. Nobody learns without committing mistakes. Even if you go astray, don’t be afraid. Go with courage. Go alert. Sooner or later you will realize that you have gone astray. You can come back.

Observe your wandering mind It is likely, sooner or later, that we learn that the mind has a life of its own. A very active, energetic, inquisitive, and sometimes obsessed life. And so even with the best intentions to hold our focus on the breath and keep it breath by breath, after a while it's hard not to notice the purpose may get sidetracked, stolen, distracted, and we get involved in some other mind operation. The many infinite scenarios and storylines played out in the mind: perhaps it's dreaming and thinking about future events, or planning or fantasizing about some possibility. Or perhaps it's about recollecting past events and getting carried away by past memories and emotions. Or perhaps it's talking about this or that with ourselves, or with someone else for that matter, and objecting to this or that. It could be practically anything, and this very air will quickly disappear from our consciousness in the process of the breath that we were paying attention to, even though it is always flowing in and out of the body, of course. Note when your mind has wandered And although we made the commitment to just be with a healthy sense. But in any moment you realize the focus is no longer with the air, or on the breath, not making that into a question, or blaming yourself for this lack in concentration in any way. Clearly, and freely and affectionately remember what is in your mind at this moment. If the breath in the field of consciousness is no longer center stage, what is it? In the note, see, hear, smell what's in your head. Clearly, and freely and affectionately mention what is in your mind at this moment. If the breath in the field of consciousness is no longer center stage, what is it? Allow yourself to be aware of the breath again And then encouraging the air to be part of it right now, because it's here right now and just allowing wherever the consciousness is pushed to be, however it is, and returning the primacy of concentration once more to the heart, to the nostrils, to the flood of breath stimuli in the body, right now. So when you realize that the mind has slipped or diverted, it is already back to understanding purpose. That is consciousness, which is life itself. They just pick up on what the wind is like at this moment. Ride the waves of the breath So focusing, if you will, the concentration on the body, and then as well you can maintain the focus on the breath by floating on the waves of the air sensations, and when you know that the mind has wandered and is no longer breathing again and again, softly, compassionately only realizing what the mind is up to now. Allowing it to be just as it is, and just in reconnecting with the spirit that is also already here, once again presenting it as the center stage in the area of consciousness and thus exercising with the consistency of open and affectionate devotion to the unfolding of your life as it unfolds right here, breath by breath and moment by moment.

Alright, dream girl. I’ll give you tonight. But you and me…its fucking real. It’s the realest fucking thing I’ve ever felt in my life. And sooner or later, you’re going to realize it too.

When you finally creat what you call "Ai," you will realize sooner or later that it's not artificial. You will realize that all you've done is create an external device through which you can communicate with your higher mind. And that will open up the floodgates of awareness in your society.

When you finally create what you call "Ai," you will realize sooner or later that it's not artificial. You will realize that all you've done is create an external device through which you can communicate with your higher mind. And that will open up the floodgates of awareness in your society.

If you ever have a daughter—a blessing I wouldn’t wish on anyone, because it’s Murphy’s Law that sooner or later she will break your heart—anyhow, as I was saying, if you ever have a daughter, you’ll begin, without realizing it, to divide men into two camps: those you suspect are sleeping with her and those you don’t. Whoever says that’s not true is lying through his teeth. I suspected that Carax was one of the first, so I didn’t care whether he was a genius or a poor wretch. To me he was always a scoundrel.

If you ever have a daughter—a blessing I wouldn’t wish on anyone, because it’s Murphy’s Law that sooner or later she will break your heart—anyhow, as I was saying, if you ever have a daughter, you’ll begin, without realizing it, to divide men into two camps: those you suspect are sleeping with her and those you don’t. Whoever says that’s not true is lying through his teeth.

I’ve written a few stories in my time. But sooner or later you realize that the greatest stories can’t be written by men because the best of our humanity can’t pen the stories that will save our lives. And so, God sat down and wrote one on Christmas.

Sooner or later you have to recognize the old patterns. But even that wasn’t enough, she now realized. It wasn’t sufficient to simply watch them play out while thinking, Yes, indeed, that is my pattern, and then continue to do it that way all the same. No. Sooner or later you had to get up off your sorry butt and do a little better for yourself.

Why did you go through with it?” she heard him ask quietly. “I thought it best for Michael.” She felt a twinge of satisfaction as she saw how that had annoyed him. Harry half sat on the bed, his posture informal. His gaze didn’t stray from her. “Had there been a choice, I would have done all this the ordinary way. I would have courted you openly, won you fairly. But you’d already decided on Bayning. This was the only alternative.” “No, it wasn’t. You could have let me be with Michael.” “It’s doubtful he ever would have offered for you. He deceived you, and himself, by assuming he could persuade his father to accept the match. You should have seen the old man when I showed him the letter—he was mortally offended by the notion of his son taking a wife so far beneath him.” That hurt, as perhaps Harry had intended, and Poppy stiffened. “Then why didn’t you let it all play out? Why not wait until Michael had abandoned me, and then come forward to pick up the pieces?” “Because there was a chance Bayning might have dared to run off with you. I couldn’t risk it. And I knew that sooner or later you’d realize that what you had with Bayning was nothing but infatuation.” Poppy gave him a glance of purest contempt. “What do you know of love?” “I’ve seen how people in love behave. And what I witnessed in the vestry this morning was nothing close to it. Had you truly wanted each other, no force in the world could have stopped you from walking out of that church together.” “You wouldn’t have allowed it!” she shot back in outrage. “True. But I would have respected the effort.” “Neither of us gives a damn about your respect.” The fact that she was speaking for Michael as well as herself . . . “us” . . . caused Harry’s face to harden. “Whatever your feelings for Bayning are, you’re my wife now. And he’ll go on to marry some blue-blooded heiress as he should have done in the first place. Now all that’s left to decide is how you and I will go on.” “I would prefer a marriage in name only.” “I don’t blame you,” Harry said calmly. “However, the marriage isn’t legal until I bed you. And, unfortunately, I never leave loopholes.

Sooner or later you realize the need for my stress relief workshop. The latest research shows the more employees relieve stress, the more productivity employers see in the workplace. And you can imagine the benefit of more productivity, can you not? The sooner you call me; the more options you have for convenient scheduling. Try to resist the urge to call me today because relieving stress makes you feel so good!

If I have to wait sixty years, not a minute will have been wasted--because I’ll have spent all of them loving you.” Kathleen regarded him with wonder, a perilous warmth rising until it pushed fresh tears from her eyes. Cradling her face in both hands, Devon bent to kiss her in a brush of soft fire. “That being said,” he whispered, “I hope you’ll consider marrying me sooner rather than later.” Another kiss, slow and devastating. “Because I long for you, Kathleen, my dearest love. I want to sleep with you every night, and wake with you every morning.” His mouth caressed her with deepening pressure until her arms curled around his neck. “And I want children with you. Soon.” The truth was there, in his voice, his eyes, on his lips. She could taste it. She realized in wonder that somehow, in the past months, his heart had indeed changed. He was becoming the man fate had intended for him to be…his true self…a man who could make commitments and meet his responsibilities, and most of all, love without holding anything back. Sixty years? A man like that shouldn’t have to wait even sixty seconds.

I hope you’ll consider marrying me sooner rather than later.” Another kiss, slow and devastating. “Because I long for you, Kathleen, my dearest love. I want to sleep with you every night, and wake with you every morning.” His mouth caressed her with deepening pressure until her arms curled around his neck. “And I want children with you. Soon.” The truth was there, in his voice, his eyes, on his lips. She could taste it. She realized in wonder that somehow, in the past months, his heart had indeed changed. He was becoming the man fate had intended for him to be…his true self…a man who could make commitments and meet his responsibilities, and most of all, love without holding anything back. Sixty years? A man like that shouldn’t have to wait even sixty seconds. Fumbling a little with the watch chain, she lifted it and slipped it over her head. The glimmering gold timepiece settled over her heart. She looked up at him with swimming eyes. “I love you, Devon. Yes, I’ll marry you, yes--” He hauled her against him and kissed her without reserve. And he continued to kiss her hungrily as he undressed her, his mouth tender and hot as he ravished every exposed inch of skin. He removed everything but the little gold watch, which Kathleen insisted on keeping. “Devon,” she said breathlessly, when they were both naked and he had lowered beside her, “I…I should confess to a small prevarication.” She wanted complete honesty between them. No secrets, nothing held back. “Yes?” he asked with his lips against her throat, one of his thighs pressing between hers. “Until recently, I hadn’t really checked my calendar to make certain I was--” She broke off as he used the edge of his teeth to delicately score her throat. “--counting days properly. And I had already resolved to take full responsibility for…” His tongue was playing in the hollow at the base of her neck. “…what happened that morning. After breakfast. You remember.” “I remember,” he said, kissing his way down to her breasts. Kathleen grasped his head in her hands, urging him to look at her and pay attention. “Devon. What I’m trying to say is that I may have misled you last night…” She swallowed hard and forced herself to finish. “…when I said that my monthly courses had started.” He went very still. His face was wiped clean of all expression as he stared down at her. “They haven’t?” She shook her head, her anxious gaze searching his. “In fact, I’m quite late.” One of his hands came to her face, a tremor running through his long fingers. “You might be pregnant?” he asked huskily. “I’m almost certain of it.” Devon stared down at her dazedly, a flush covering his face. “My sweet, beautiful love, my angel--” He began to look over her intently, pressing kisses along her body, caressing her stomach. “My God. This settles it: I am the luckiest sod in England.

I thought about everything he’d told me about his past, and I wished he’d told me more. I thought of what he’d said to me about his dreams for the future, what he wanted in life, and I realized how little of that I knew. He wanted to fix Annie. Beyond that? I had no idea. Was there a future he’d wanted? One he’d imagined? Or had he just concentrated on the present and getting through it? Only he hadn’t gotten through it. He hadn’t fixed Annie. He’d come to Salmon Creek to find me for answers, and I’d gotten him killed. No future. Not for Rafe. Just…gone. I looked down at the leather band on my wrist--his bracelet--and thought, I don’t deserve this. I was ready to pull it off, climb a tree, and leave it there, in his memory. Then I stopped. I didn’t deserve his bracelet, but maybe I still could earn it. Find Annie, if she was still alive. Help her. Finish what he started. I took a deep breath and touched the bracelet’s cat’s-eye stone. I’m going to fix this. I know I can’t--my breath caught--can’t fix it all, but I’ll do what I can. I promise. I squeezed my eyes shut and I sent out the promise again, fingers on the stone. I sensed him close by. Felt him, smelled him-- “I knew I’d find you here,” a voice said behind me. “Sooner or later.” My heart stopped and I knew I was hearing wrong, that it must be Daniel, come to find me, but my mind was still fixed on-- “Rafe,” I whispered. I turned. He was walking out of the forest and he was grinning and…and there was no “and” because that was all I could think. My eyes shut. I didn’t want them to. I didn’t care if it was an illusion, I wanted to see him one more time before the vision disappeared and I was left with that last horrible memory of him falling from the helicopter. “I know I’m looking a little rough,” he said. “But I didn’t think it was that bad.” His voice came closer. “Open your eyes, Maya,” he whispered. “It’s me.

The Planetary Anthem of Earth O My Mother Earth, I am your stubborn child, I may fall again and again, Rising right back up I smile. I come from different religions, Different colors though my skin reflects, At heart I am one o mother, At heart I am beyond all sects. O My Mother Earth, Never turn your back on me, I may be arrogant sometimes, But I always need thee. I'm full of pride rather often, Often I'm blind to necessities, But fret not o my loving mother, Sooner or later I realize my atrocities. O My Mother Earth, I may act greedy sometimes, But if my neighbors are in pain, To help them my heart chimes. I make mistakes o mother, And that too quite often, But even the scorching sun, Can't make my zeal disheartened. O My Mother Earth, I may or may not have riches, But I am not poor my dear, For I have compassion that never glitches. You have given me all, All that I'll ever need, With it I'll win the universe, And to my agonies I'll pay no heed. O My Mother Earth, You've given me tongues many, But I promise to not let languages, Cause in your home disharmony. Love has no gender, Compassion has no religion, Character has no race, In acceptance I seek salvation. O My Mother Earth, I am your stubborn child, I may fall again and again, Rising right back up I smile.

Fine, maybe you’re a bit of a Neanderthal when it comes to relationships. You’re not perfect. Great. I get it. But, Ghost, you are romantic.” When Ghost began to shake his head in denial, or disgust, Rayne wasn’t sure which, she put her hand on his knee. “Let me finish.” Waiting until he finally nodded, she continued. “You’ve paid for every single thing we’ve done today, from the taxi, to lunch, to tipping the concierge at the hotel. When we were walking to the subway station, you put yourself between the traffic and me when we were on the sidewalk. You protected me from the crowds as we got in and out of the subway. You let me sit, while you stood near me, making sure no one got too close. You even carried my suitcase from the taxi to the hotel. Seriously, Ghost, you do these things and don’t even realize you’re doing them. That is a sign of a man who knows how to treat a woman. That’s what women think is romantic. Screw flowers, they’ll just die sooner rather than later. And even if you leave without saying goodbye to a woman, I’ll bet everything I own you take very good care of her before you take off…don’t you?

The more one feels connected to life through muscle, heart and brain, the higher respect one feels for it. But sooner or later you realize that becoming is more important than life.

Moist, of course, hadn’t been at Koom Valley but right now he wondered if he was about to see the ghost of Koom Valley’s second incarnation—except it would be dwarf against dwarf. He wanted to shout out “This is nuts!” and realized that in fact he had said it aloud. To his surprise, the King said, “Certainly so, Mister Lipwig. It beggars all reason, doesn’t it? But sooner or later there comes a time when you have to take names and crack skulls. I’m sorry, it’s at the other end of the spectrum from the little chat and it’s what happens when reason no longer holds sway.