Special Song Quotes

Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.

She loved all the wolves behind her house, but she loved one of them most of all. And this one loved her back. He loved her back so hard that even the things that weren't special about her became special: the way she tapped her pencil on her teeth, the off-key songs she sang in the shower, how when she kissed him he knew it meant for ever. Hers was a memory made up of snapshots: being dragged through the snow by a pack of wolves, first kiss tasting of oranges, saying goodbye behind a cracked windshield. A life made up of promises of what could be: the possibilities contained in a stack of college applications, the thrill of sleeping under a strange roof, the future that lay in Sam's smile. It was a life I didn't want to leave behind. It was a life I didn't want to forget. I wasn't done with it yet. There was so much more to say.

Don't be special." That's what I would say to my younger self if I could pinpoint the moment when I went astray. But there was no one moment. I was always astray

In a sense we are all like a Flo Rida song: The more time you spend with us, the more you see how special we are. Social scientists refer to this as the Flo Rida Theory of Acquired Likability Through Repetition.

I longed to have my mama come to me and sing me a song that settled me down while she rubbed my back, quieting my restless mind and pouting heart and helping me fall asleep, knowing I was loved.

Robert wanted to be loved. My brother Tyrion has the same disease. Do you want to be loved, Sansa?” “Everyone wants to be loved.” “I see flowering hasn’t made you any brighter,” said Cersei. “Sansa, permit me to share a bit of womanly wisdom with you on this very special day. Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same.

Oh, heads are going to roll for this. I’m going to set up a special lane and use their skulls for bowling balls.

Listen, baby, people do funny things. Specially us. The cards are stacked against us and just trying to stay in the game, stay alive and in the game, makes us do funny things. Things we can't help. Things that make us hurt one another. We don't even know why.

Just because something is addictive doesn't mean that you will get addicted to it. But . . . if your stomach ties up in knots while you count the seconds waiting for a phone call from that special someone . . . if you hear a loud buzzing in your ears when you see a certain person's car (or one just like it) . . . if your eyes burn when you hear a random love song or see a couple holding hands . . . if you suffer the twin agonies of craving for and withdrawing from a series of unrequited crushes or toxic relationships . . . if you always feel like you're clutching at someone's ankle and dragged across the floor as they try to leave the room . . . welcome to the club.

Being different is the only way to live

There are countries out there where people speak English. But not like us - we have our own languages hidden in our carry-on luggage, in our cosmetics bags, only ever using English when we travel, and then only in foreign countries, to foreign people. It's hard to imagine, but English is the real language! Oftentimes their only language. They don't have anything to fall back on or to turn to in moments of doubt. How lost they must feel in the world, where all instructions, all the lurics of all the stupidest possible songs, all the menus, all the excruciating pamphlets and brochures - even the buttons in the lift! - are in their private language. They may be understood by anuone at any moment, whenever they open their mouths. They must have to write things down in special codes. Wherever they are, people have unlimited access to them - they are accessible to everyone and everything! I heard there are plans in the works to get them some little language of their own, one of those dead ones no one else is using anyway, just so that for once they can have something just for them.

Outside the window, there was so much to see, and hear, and touch — walks to take, hills to climb, caterpillars to watch as they strolled through the garden. There were voices to hear and conversations to listen to in wonder, and the special smell of each day. And, in the very room in which he sat, there were books that could take you anywhere, and things to invent, and make, and build, and break, and all the puzzle and excitement of everything he didn't know — music to play, songs to sing, and worlds to imagine and then someday make real. His thoughts darted eagerly about as everything looked new — and worth trying. "Well, I would like to make another trip," he said, jumping to his feet; "but I really don't know when I'll have the time. There's just so much to do right here.

...she loved one of them most of all. And this one loved her back. He loved her back so hard that even the things that weren't special about her became special: the way she tapped her pencil on her teeth, the off-key songs she sang in the shower, how when she kissed him he knew it meant forever.

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Grace Brisbane. There was nothing particularly special about her, except that she was good with numbers, and very good at lying, and she made her home in between the pages of books. She loved all the wolves behind her house, but she loved one of them most of all. And this one loved her back. He loved her back so hard that even the things that weren’t special about her became special: the way she tapped her pencil on her teeth, the off-key songs she sang in the shower, how when she kissed him he knew it meant forever.

As a child, we sang those precious songs at church and school. At home, we sang along with the singers on the Lawrence Welk Christmas show, and there used to be so many Christmas specials—Andy Williams and Perry Como. I loved the bouncing ball on the Mitch Miller sing-along show. And of course, we watched “The Ed Sullivan Show” weekly and loved his Christmas special. I never grew tired of them.

While I was backstage before presenting the Best New Artist award, I talked to George Strait for a while. He's so incredibly cool. So down-to-earth and funny. I think it should be known that George Strait has an awesome, dry, subtle sense of humor. Then I went back out into the crowd and watched the rest of the show. Keith Urban's new song KILLS ME, it's so good. And when Brad Paisley ran down into the front row and kissed Kimberley's stomach (she's pregnant) before accepting his award, Kellie, my mom, and I all started crying. That's probably the sweetest thing I've ever seen. I thought Kellie NAILED her performance of the song we wrote together "The Best Days of Your Life". I was so proud of her. I thought Darius Rucker's performance RULED, and his vocals were incredible. I'm a huge fan. I love it when I find out that the people who make the music I love are wonderful people. I love Faith Hill and how she always makes everyone in the room feel special. I love Keith Urban, and how he told me he knows every word to "Love Story" (That made my night). I love Nicole Kidman, and her sweet, warm personality. I love how Kenny Chesney always has something hilarious or thoughtful to say. But the real moment that brought on this wave of gratitude was when Shania Twain HERSELF walked up and introduced herself to me. Shania Twain, as in.. The reason I wanted to do this in the first place. Shania Twain, as in.. the most impressive and independent and confident and successful female artist to ever hit country music. She walked up to me and said she wanted to meet me and tell me I was doing a great job. She was so beautiful, guys. She really IS that beautiful. All the while, I was completely star struck. After she walked away, I realized I didn't have my camera. Then I cried. You know, last night made me feel really great about being a country music fan in general. Country music is the place to find reality in music, and reality in the stars who make that music. There's kindness and goodness and....honesty in the people I look up to, and knowing that makes me smile. I'm proud to sing country music, and that has never wavered. The reason for the being.. nights like last night.

God never uses one approach to the get his job done in the world. Each soul has its own way of being reached. He has put inside of each of us an unique song, that only another heart can hear clearly. To wish you were someone else robs another human being of the special blessings, talents and gifts God meant for you to share.

To be a Southerner, or to live Southern, is to feel, well, something special even in the quiet, something fine in itself after all those rebel yells and fight songs have finally faded into silence.

...the authors he has himself discovered are his own exclusive territory, like the saloon compartment of a special train.

It’s the very fact that it’s finite that makes traveling special. You could move to any one of those destinations you loved in small doses, and it wouldn’t be the spellbinding, life-altering seven days you spent there as a guest, letting a place into your heart fully, letting it change you. The song ends. The dance ends.

Listen, baby, people do funny things. Specially us. The cards are stacked against us and just trying to stay in the game, stay alive and in the game, makes us do funny things. Things we can't help. Things that make us hurt one another. We don't even know why. But look here, don't carry it inside and don't give it to nobody else. Try to understand it, but if you can't, just forget it and keep yourself strong, man.

At least, not in this country,' she added after a moment's thought. 'In China it's a little different. Once I saw a Chinaman in Shanghai. His ears were so big he could use them for a raincoat. When it rained, he just crept in under his ears and was warm and snug as could be. Not that the ears had such a rattling good time of it, you understand. If it was specially bad weather, he'd invite friends and acquaintances to pitch camp under his ears too. There they sat, singing their sorrowful songs while it poured down outside.

There is evidence that the honoree [Leonard Cohen] might be privy to the secret of the universe, which, in case you're wondering, is simply this: everything is connected. Everything. Many, if not most, of the links are difficult to determine. The instrument, the apparatus, the focused ray that can uncover and illuminate those connections is language. And just as a sudden infatuation often will light up a person's biochemical atmosphere more pyrotechnically than any deep, abiding attachment, so an unlikely, unexpected burst of linguistic imagination will usually reveal greater truths than the most exacting scholarship. In fact. The poetic image may be the only device remotely capable of dissecting romantic passion, let alone disclosing the inherent mystical qualities of the material world. Cohen is a master of the quasi-surrealistic phrase, of the "illogical" line that speaks so directly to the unconscious that surface ambiguity is transformed into ultimate, if fleeting, comprehension: comprehension of the bewitching nuances of sex and bewildering assaults of culture. Undoubtedly, it is to his lyrical mastery that his prestigious colleagues now pay tribute. Yet, there may be something else. As various, as distinct, as rewarding as each of their expressions are, there can still be heard in their individual interpretations the distant echo of Cohen's own voice, for it is his singing voice as well as his writing pen that has spawned these songs. It is a voice raked by the claws of Cupid, a voice rubbed raw by the philosopher's stone. A voice marinated in kirschwasser, sulfur, deer musk and snow; bandaged with sackcloth from a ruined monastery; warmed by the embers left down near the river after the gypsies have gone. It is a penitent's voice, a rabbinical voice, a crust of unleavened vocal toasts -- spread with smoke and subversive wit. He has a voice like a carpet in an old hotel, like a bad itch on the hunchback of love. It is a voice meant for pronouncing the names of women -- and cataloging their sometimes hazardous charms. Nobody can say the word "naked" as nakedly as Cohen. He makes us see the markings where the pantyhose have been. Finally, the actual persona of their creator may be said to haunt these songs, although details of his private lifestyle can be only surmised. A decade ago, a teacher who called himself Shree Bhagwan Rajneesh came up with the name "Zorba the Buddha" to describe the ideal modern man: A contemplative man who maintains a strict devotional bond with cosmic energies, yet is completely at home in the physical realm. Such a man knows the value of the dharma and the value of the deutschmark, knows how much to tip a waiter in a Paris nightclub and how many times to bow in a Kyoto shrine, a man who can do business when business is necessary, allow his mind to enter a pine cone, or dance in wild abandon if moved by the tune. Refusing to shun beauty, this Zorba the Buddha finds in ripe pleasures not a contradiction but an affirmation of the spiritual self. Doesn't he sound a lot like Leonard Cohen? We have been led to picture Cohen spending his mornings meditating in Armani suits, his afternoons wrestling the muse, his evenings sitting in cafes were he eats, drinks and speaks soulfully but flirtatiously with the pretty larks of the street. Quite possibly this is a distorted portrait. The apocryphal, however, has a special kind of truth. It doesn't really matter. What matters here is that after thirty years, L. Cohen is holding court in the lobby of the whirlwind, and that giants have gathered to pay him homage. To him -- and to us -- they bring the offerings they have hammered from his iron, his lead, his nitrogen, his gold.

This poem is very long So long, in fact, that your attention span May be stretched to its very limits But that’s okay It’s what’s so special about poetry See, poetry takes time We live in a time Call it our culture or society It doesn’t matter to me cause neither one rhymes A time where most people don’t want to listen Our throats wait like matchsticks waiting to catch fire Waiting until we can speak No patience to listen But this poem is long It’s so long, in fact, that during the time of this poem You could’ve done any number of other wonderful things You could’ve called your father Call your father You could be writing a postcard right now Write a postcard When was the last time you wrote a postcard? You could be outside You’re probably not too far away from a sunrise or a sunset Watch the sun rise Maybe you could’ve written your own poem A better poem You could have played a tune or sung a song You could have met your neighbor And memorized their name Memorize the name of your neighbor You could’ve drawn a picture (Or, at least, colored one in) You could’ve started a book Or finished a prayer You could’ve talked to God Pray When was the last time you prayed? Really prayed? This is a long poem So long, in fact, that you’ve already spent a minute with it When was the last time you hugged a friend for a minute? Or told them that you love them? Tell your friends you love them …no, I mean it, tell them Say, I love you Say, you make life worth living Because that, is what friends do Of all of the wonderful things that you could’ve done During this very, very long poem You could have connected Maybe you are connecting Maybe we’re connecting See, I believe that the only things that really matter In the grand scheme of life are God and people And if people are made in the image of God Then when you spend your time with people It’s never wasted And in this very long poem I’m trying to let a poem do what a poem does: Make things simpler We don’t need poems to make things more complicated We have each other for that We need poems to remind ourselves of the things that really matter To take time A long time To be alive for the sake of someone else for a single moment Or for many moments Cause we need each other To hold the hands of a broken person All you have to do is meet a person Shake their hand Look in their eyes They are you We are all broken together But these shattered pieces of our existence don’t have to be a mess We just have to care enough to hold our tongues sometimes To sit and listen to a very long poem A story of a life The joy of a friend and the grief of friend To hold and be held And be quiet So, pray Write a postcard Call your parents and forgive them and then thank them Turn off the TV Create art as best as you can Share as much as possible, especially money Tell someone about a very long poem you once heard And how afterward it brought you to them

Our unclaimed Shunemite, however, can only look on. No kiss for her. Being the most beautiful woman in Israel isn't enough for Solomon. Solomon is seeking partners to help him grow a very special nation. Abishag is relegated to wishing Solomon's new wives well, but in the mean time, her life as an outsider is bitter. 'Take me away,' she will later lament.

Hold childhood in reverence, and do not be in any hurry to judge it for good or ill. Leave exceptional cases to show themselves, let their qualities be tested and confirmed, before special methods are adopted. Give nature time to work before you take over her business, lest you interfere with her dealings. You assert that you know the value of time and are afraid to waste it. You fail to perceive that it is a greater waste of time to use it ill than to do nothing, and that a child ill taught is further from virtue than a child who has learnt nothing at all. You are afraid to see him spending his early years doing nothing. What! is it nothing to be happy, nothing to run and jump all day? He will never be so busy again all his life long. Plato, in his Republic, which is considered so stern, teaches the children only through festivals, games, songs, and amusements. It seems as if he had accomplished his purpose when he had taught them to be happy; and Seneca, speaking of the Roman lads in olden days, says, "They were always on their feet, they were never taught anything which kept them sitting." Were they any the worse for it in manhood? Do not be afraid, therefore, of this so-called idleness. What would you think of a man who refused to sleep lest he should waste part of his life? You would say, "He is mad; he is not enjoying his life, he is robbing himself of part of it; to avoid sleep he is hastening his death." Remember that these two cases are alike, and that childhood is the sleep of reason. The apparent ease with which children learn is their ruin. You fail to see that this very facility proves that they are not learning. Their shining, polished brain reflects, as in a mirror, the things you show them, but nothing sinks in. The child remembers the words and the ideas are reflected back; his hearers understand them, but to him they are meaningless. Although memory and reason are wholly different faculties, the one does not really develop apart from the other. Before the age of reason the child receives images, not ideas; and there is this difference between them: images are merely the pictures of external objects, while ideas are notions about those objects determined by their relations.

She said black women are so special. Few men of any color and even fewer white women can deal with how fabulous we are.

If you're a boy, any display of sensitivity is gay. Compassion is gay. Crying is supergay. Reading is usually gay. Certain songs and types of music are gay. 'Enola Gay' would certainly be thought gay. Love songs are gay. Love itself is incredibly gay, as are any other heartfelt emotions. Singing is gay, but chanting is not gay. Wanking contests are not gay. Neither is all-male cuddling during specially designated periods in football matches, or communal bathing thereafter. (I didn't invent the rules of gay - I'm just telling you what they are.)

Tomorrow I shall write something beautiful, something so serene that storms will rise suddenly and protest with ferocious screams. I shall write poems for the poets and for the songster a single song That will tell a tale of such beauty the heart of earth shall moan. But today, today shall be special for all I will do is sit quietly alone and think of you and think of you.

Silver” is what I called girls who were natural beauties but who also smoothed on a layer of pretty from a jar. It wasn’t just how they looked, it was how they were. The name came from a song my mother sang sometimes when she was getting dressed to go out somewhere special. She sang along with Aretha Franklin at the end: “Sail on, silver girl… Your time has come to shine. All your dreams are on their way.

Amit likens fashion to a mask, and style to beauty of countenance. Style, he feels, belongs to the literary elite, who live by their own wishes. And fashion is for the ordinary lot, who make it their business to please other people. . . . You may view a professional dancing girl beneath the awning of a public marquee; but for the first glimpse of the bride’s face during the shubhodrishti ritual, a veil of Benarasi fabric is required. The marquee belongs to fashion, the Benarasi veil--which reveals the special one’s countenance shaded by a special hue--to style.

There’s a special kind of hell in not remembering trauma. It becomes a dark and faceless fear that lurks in unexpected places—the smell of whiskey, a certain type of bar stool, a song, a laugh

every day to the top of the mountain and let it drink from the stream. As it drinks, you are to sing to him.” She taught Elya a special song to sing to the pig. “On the day of Myra’s fifteenth birthday, you should carry the pig up the mountain for the last time. Then take it directly to Myra’s father. It will be fatter than any of Igor’s pigs.” “If it is that big and fat,” asked Elya, “how will I be

On Saturday morning, the DJ’s voice comes over the speakers as she’s folding laundry in her room. “All right, listeners,” he says, “I’ve got something special for you this morning. Normally we don’t take requests in advance, but this particular caller has been so loyal to us that when she called last week and asked if we’d play a song today, we decided to make an exception.” Oh. Oh, no. “This one’s for you, August. Jane says, ‘Just in case.’” “Love of My Life” starts to play, and August drops her socks on the floor and climbs into bed.

Little girls are the nicest things that can happen to people. They are born with a bit of angel-shine about them, and though it wears thin sometimes, there is always enough left to lasso your heart—even when they are sitting in the mud, or crying temperamental tears, or parading up the street in Mother’s best clothes. A little girl can be sweeter (and badder) oftener than anyone else in the world. She can jitter around, and stomp, and make funny noises that frazzle your nerves, yet just when you open your mouth, she stands there demure with that special look in her eyes. A girl is Innocence playing in the mud, Beauty standing on its head, and Motherhood dragging a doll by the foot. God borrows from many creatures to make a little girl. He uses the song of a bird, the squeal of a pig, the stubbornness of a mule, the antics of a monkey, the spryness of a grasshopper, the curiosity of a cat, the speed of a gazelle, the slyness of a fox, the softness of a kitten, and to top it all off He adds the mysterious mind of a woman. A little girl likes new shoes, party dresses, small animals, first grade, noisemakers, the girl next door, dolls, make-believe, dancing lessons, ice cream, kitchens, coloring books, make-up, cans of water, going visiting, tea parties, and one boy. She doesn’t care so much for visitors, boys in general, large dogs, hand-me-downs, straight chairs, vegetables, snowsuits, or staying in the front yard. She is loudest when you are thinking, the prettiest when she has provoked you, the busiest at bedtime, the quietest when you want to show her off, and the most flirtatious when she absolutely must not get the best of you again. Who else can cause you more grief, joy, irritation, satisfaction, embarrassment, and genuine delight than this combination of Eve, Salome, and Florence Nightingale. She can muss up your home, your hair, and your dignity—spend your money, your time, and your patience—and just when your temper is ready to crack, her sunshine peeks through and you’ve lost again. Yes, she is a nerve-wracking nuisance, just a noisy bundle of mischief. But when your dreams tumble down and the world is a mess—when it seems you are pretty much of a fool after all—she can make you a king when she climbs on your knee and whispers, "I love you best of all!

Johnny made me feel like I was clever without trying to be. And pretty. And valued. He made everything about me seem more special. Like, say I was a song. Well, Johnny made me feel as though I’d been remixed. The melody didn’t change, but it wasn’t just the same one-dimensional sequence of notes anymore. Instead, he brought out all these harmonies — these low and high notes — that made the music fuller. No more discord or dissonance. Around Johnny, I was the best possible rendition of myself.

I detest love lyrics. I think one of the causes of bad mental health in the United States is that people have been raised on 'love lyrics'. You're a young kid and you hear all those 'love lyrics', right? Your parents aren't telling you the truth about love, and you can't really learn about it in school. You're getting the bulk of your 'behaviour norms' mapped out for you in the lyrics to some dumb fucking love song. It's a subconscious training that creates desire for an imaginary situation which will never exist for you. People who buy into that mythology go through life feeling that they got cheated out of something. What I think is very cynical about some rock and roll songs -- especially today -- is the way they say: "Let's make love." What the fuck kind of wussy says shit like that in the real world? You ought to be able to say "Let's go fuck", or at least "Let's go fill-in-the-blank" -- but you gotta say "Let's make love" in order to get on the radio. This creates a semantic corruption, by changing the context in which the word 'love' is used in the song. When they get into drooling about love as a 'romantic concept' -- especially in the lyrics of sensitive singer/songwriter types -- that's another shove in the direction of bad mental health. Fortunately, lyrics over the last five or six years have gotten to be less and less important, with 'art rock groups' and new wavers specializing in 'nonjudgemental' or 'purposely inconsequential' lyrics. People have stopped listening to the lyrics -- they are now only 'pitched mouth noises'.

meander, v. "...because when it all comes down to it, there's no such thing as a two-hit wonder. So it's better just to have that one song that everyone knows, instead of diluting it with a follow-up that only half succeeds. I mean, who really cares what Soft Cell's next single was, as long as we have 'Tainted Love'?" I stop. You're still listening. "Wait," I say. "What was I talking about? How did we get to 'Tainted Love'?" "Let's see," you say, "I believe we started roughly at the Democratic gains in the South, then jumped back to the election of 1948, dipping briefly into northern constructions of the South, vis-a-vis Steel Magnolias, Birth of a Nation, Johnny Cash, and Fried Green Tomatoes. Which landed you on To Kill a Mockingbird, and how it is both Southern and universal, which -- correct me if I'm wrong -- got us to Harper Lee and her lack of a follow-up novel, intersected with the theory, probably wrong, that Truman Capote wrote the novel, then hopping over to literary one-hit wonders, and using musical one-hit wonders to make a point about their special place in our culture. I think." "Thank you," I say. "That's wonderful.

Nothing is needed more than truth, and in relation to it everything else has only second-rate value." This unconditional will to truth—what is it? Is it the will not to allow oneself to be deceived? Or is it the will not to deceive? For the will to truth could be interpreted in the second way, too—if only the special case "I do not want to deceive myself" is subsumed under the generalization "I do not want to deceive." But why not deceive? But why not allow oneself to be deceived? Note that the reasons for the former principle belong to an altogether different realm from those for the second. One does not want to allow oneself to be deceived because one assumes that it is harmful, dangerous, calamitous to be deceived. In this sense, science would be a long-range prudence, a caution, a utility; but one could object in all fairness: How is that? Is wanting not to allow oneself to be deceived really less harmful, less dangerous, less calamitous? What do you know in advance of the character of existence to be able to decide whether the greater advantage is on the side of the unconditionally mistrustful or of the unconditionally trusting?

God, she was one big nerve ending, that girl, and those big brown eyes got just a little wider when she was close. And those bruises. And how she begged for them. I knew she was special the night I met her, I just didn't know how special.

I see no reason why church services have to be standard. I've discussed this with the man who used to be a pastor here at the Methodist Church in Sebastopol. I told him I saw no reason why, on a certain Sunday morning, if a minister has felt during the week the burden of a topic upon his heart and he knows that it is going to take more than the standard twenty minutes to discuss this thing, why he can't rise at the beginning of the service and say 'I have something of special importance this morning so let's sing just one song, and if you'll forgive me, I think I'm going to need about an hour to explain it to you.' I think the congregation would appreciate his candor and give him their attention. If, on the other hand, he does not feel that a definite message has been given him, why not admit it from the pulpit and say, 'This morning, I'm not going to try to make up something to fill the time. We'll sing a few extra hymns and go home!' Why do the services have to begin and end at the same time, and why does everything have to be so rigid?

She never knew that Mr. Laurence opened his study door to hear the old-fashioned airs he liked. She never saw Laurie mount guard in the hall to warn the servants away. She never suspected that the exercise books and new songs which she found in the rack were put there for her special benefit, and when he talked to her about music at home she only thought how kind he was to tell things that helped her so much. So she enjoyed herself heartily, and found, what isn't always the case, that her granted wish was all she had hoped. Perhaps it was because she was so grateful for this blessing that a greater was given her. At any rate she deserved both.

Some people believe that if they keep their heads down and stick to their safe routine and trust that nothing bad will befall them, then it won’t. They see things happening to others, but they think they’re different; they’re special; it could never happen to them. They believe that nothing can get better, but also that nothing can get worse. They’re cowards, in one way, because they won’t fight, but they’re also brave, because they’re willing to accept their lot in life. Glupava smelost, we called it. Foolish courage.

It was difficult to write about someone I felt I knew so well. The words were unwieldy, engorged with pretension. I wanted to uncover something special about her that only I could reveal. That she was so much more than a housewife, than a mother. That she was her own spectacular individual. Perhaps I was still sanctimoniously belittling the two roles she was ultimately most proud of, unable to accept that the same degree of fulfillment may await those who wish to nurture and love as those who seek to earn and create. Her art was the love that beat on in her loved ones, a contribution to the world that could be just as monumental as a song or a book. There could not be one without the other. Maybe I was just terrified that I might be the closest thing she had to leaving a piece of herself behind.

You are a seed dropping from above To be nurtured by earth And to grow into a healing herb For the whole world to consume.

Lucien bent and searched through the scraps of paper at Loki’s stone feet for the blood-kissed prayer Dante had placed among them. Finding it, he plucked it from the pile and straightened. The fading essence of creawdwr blood magic tingled against his fingers. Unfolding the liquor store receipt, he read the words scrawled in Dante’s lefty slant: Watch over her, ma mère. S’il te plaît, keep her safe. Even from me. Lucien reread the prayer until the words blurred. He closed his fingers around the receipt, the paper crinkling against his palm. He had no doubt who she was — Special Agent Heather Wallace. Wounded, his child, yes. Damaged, yes. But Dante’s heart was whole and in love, it seemed, with a mortal. Perhaps Heather Wallace could bind Dante and help keep his sanity from unraveling. Insanity. The fate of an unbound creawdwr.

As song writers, poetry has always played a special role in our lives. We discovered Pillow Thoughts, and it has been one of the most enjoyable books we have read in a long time!” —The Chainsmokers

This is a uni-verse (”one song’). There’s one song playing everywhere and we are all notes in it. There are no “special” or “better” notes.Every note is necessary and contains the whole essence of the music. All the power and substance of the universe is seeking to sing its song through you as magnificently as it has ever been sung before.

The Hindus, for example, don’t believe in special revelation. They speak of a state in which the ears have opened to the song of the universe. Here the eye has opened to the radiance of the mind of God. And that’s a fundamental deist idea.

Shin told me that the EDA spent decades engineering a special strain of weed that helps people focus and enhances their ability to play videogames! Once they had it perfected, that was when the government finally started legalizing it in the States.” He raised his arms in victory. “This ganja is part of the war effort! I love it!” He broke into song, and Shin immediately joined him. “ ‘America. Fuck yeah. Comin’ to save the motherfuckin’ day, yeah!’ ” They broke up into another laughing fit.

...Nature becomes your teacher, and from her you will learn what is beautiful and who you are and what is your special quest in life and whither you should go...You live on manna vouchsafed to you daily, miraculously. You stretch out arms for hidden gifts, you year toward the moonbeams and the stars, you listen with new ears to bird's songs and the murmurs of trees and streams....From day to day you keep your log, your day-book of the soul, and you may think at first that it is a mere record of travel and of facts; but something else will be entering into it, poetry, the new poetry of your life, and it will be evident to a seeing eye that you are gradually becoming an artist in life, you are learning the gentle art of tramping, and it is giving you an artist's joy in creation.

So when a little girl asks her father where the moon came from, he might tell her that the moon circles around the earth and reflects light from the sun. He might tell her that the moon likes to play hide-and-seek with the sun, so sometimes the moon looks like it’s peeking out from behind a black curtain; sometimes all you can see is the top of its head, and sometimes you can’t even see it at all! He might tell her about how the moon has invisible arms that can pull the oceans back and forth, making tides rise and fall. He might tell her that astronauts have walked on the moon and played golf on the moon and collected rocks from the moon. He might tell her that the moon has dimples and craters and basins that we can see only with a telescope and that there’s a special place on the moon called the Sea of Tranquility that isn’t really a sea. Then the father might take the little girl outside, hoist her up onto his shoulders, and let her stare at the moon for a while. He might recite a poem about a cow jumping over the moon or sing a song about a dreamy-eyed kid slow-dancing with it. Soon the little girl will become so lost in her father’s beautiful stories that she will forget she ever had a question to begin with.

There was a whole chain of separate departments dealing with proletarian literature, music, drama and entertainment generally. Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means on a special kind of kaleidoscope known as a versificator.

Robert wanted smiles and cheers, always, so he went where he found them, to his friends and his whores. Robert wanted to be loved. my brother Tyrion has the same disease. Do you want to be loved Sansa?" "Everyone want to be loved." "I see flowering hasn't made you any brighter," said Cersie. "Sansa, permit me to share a bit of womanly wisdom with you on this very special day. Love is a poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same

But I don't like it, okay? I don't like how everything is changing. It's like when you're a kid, you think that things like the holidays are meant to show you how things always stay the same, how you have the same celebration year after year, and that's why it's so special. But the older you get, the more you realize that, yes, there are all these things that link you to the past, and you're using the same words and singing the same songs that have always been there for you, but each time, things have shifted, and you have to deal with that shift. Because maybe you don't notice it every single day. Maybe it's only on days like today that you notice it a lot. And I know I'm supposed to be able to deal with that, but I'm not sure I can deal with that.--David Levithan (p. 201 in galley)

I’ve figured it out, something that was never clear to me before–how all creation transposes itself out of the world deeper and deeper into our inner world, and why birds cast such a spell on this path into us. The bird’s nest is, in effect, an outer womb given by nature; the bird only furnishes it and covers it rather than containing the whole thing inside itself. As a result, birds are the animals whose feelings have a very special, intimate familiarity with the outer world; they know that they share with nature their innermost mystery. That is why the bird sings its songs into the world as though it were singing into it inner self, that’s why we take a birdsong into our own inner selves so easily, it seems to us that we translate it fully, with no remainder, into our feelings; a birdsong can even, for a moment, make the whole world into a sky within us, because we feel that the bird does not distinguish between its heart and the world’s.

Or at least, he thought they were specially made, until we played a gig and he saw someone wearing exactly the same kaftan as him. He stopped in the middle of a song and started shouting angrily at him – ‘Where did you get that shirt? That’s my shirt!’ This, I felt, rather ran contrary to the kaftan’s associations with peace and love

MICHELLE, MA BELLE Paul McCartney had been awarded the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in a ceremony in the East Room. For most of the evening, other artists performed his songs. But for the conclusion, McCartney went onstage to sing some classics. Then he sang “Michelle” to Michelle Obama. I didn’t realize how special the moment was until the next day, when I was talking to the President. What were the odds, he said to me, that an African-American girl from the South Side of Chicago would one day be sitting in the front row of the White House, as the First Lady of the United States, while a member of the Beatles sang her name? Wow, just wow, I thought. June 2, 2010

You know the saying that nothing can last forever? It's partly true. Feelings can stop, people can leave us, but regardless, a piece of them is always with us, in some way. Maybe it's in a song, or a forgotten note, a picture. Even when you no longer love someone or can't be with them, you still remember them, you still remember good parts of them, and you smile. “Why worry about it lasting or not? Even if it doesn't, you'll still have a part of him. And he'll still have a part of you. And isn't that what's really important? Holding the best pieces of someone in our hearts so that the love never really fades, so that we don't forget that we once knew them, and they were special to us.

The story of the rapper and the story of the hustler are like rap itself, two kinds of rhythm working together, having a conversation with each other, doing more together than they could do apart. It's been said that the thing that makes rap special, that makes it different both from pop music and from written poetry, is that it's built around two kinds of rhythm. The first kind of rhythm is the meter. In poetry, the meter is abstract, but in rap, the meter is something you literally hear: it's the beat. The beat in a song never stops, it never varies. No matter what other sounds are on the track, even if it's a Timbaland production with all kinds of offbeat fills and electronics, a rap song is usually built bar by bar, four-beat measure by four-beat measure. It's like time itself, ticking off relentlessly in a rhythm that never varies and never stops. When you think about it like that, you realize the beat is everywhere, you just have to tap into it. You can bang it out on a project wall or an 808 drum machine or just use your hands. You can beatbox it with your mouth. But the beat is only one half of a rap song's rhythm. The other is the flow. When a rapper jumps on a beat, he adds his own rhythm. Sometimes you stay in the pocket of the beat and just let the rhymes land on the square so that the beat and flow become one. But sometimes the flow cops up the beat, breaks the beat into smaller units, forces in multiple syllables and repeated sounds and internal rhymes, or hangs a drunken leg over the last bap and keeps going, sneaks out of that bitch. The flow isn't like time, it's like life. It's like a heartbeat or the way you breathe, it can jump, speed up, slow down, stop, or pound right through like a machine. If the beat is time, flow is what we do with that time, how we live through it. The beat is everywhere, but every life has to find its own flow. Just like beats and flows work together, rapping and hustling, for me at least, live through each other. Those early raps were beautiful in their way and a whole generation of us felt represented for the first time when we heard them. But there's a reason the culture evolved beyond that playful, partying lyrical style. Even when we recognized the voices, and recognized the style, and even personally knew the cats who were on the records, the content didn't always reflect the lives we were leading. There was a distance between what was becoming rap's signature style - the relentlessness, the swagger, the complex wordplay - and the substance of the songs. The culture had to go somewhere else to grow. It had to come home.

One man came up to me at a taco stand and said, "I have no idea who you are, but I can see everyone is staring at you, so you must be somebody. I just wanted to tell you that you are not that special. You're no more special than me." I looked at him with a mouth full of food and managed to say, "Thanks. I agree," and promptly asked the waitress for a to go box.

I came to view the world as a word puzzle and, with no special aptitude I can name, fixed on the whys and wherefores of language from my earliest days. Song lyrics. Signs. The stories read in first and second grades. My parents almost always read to us at bedtime. Poems by Whittier. Scenes from Oliver Twist. Kidnapped. Treasure Island. The names alone intrigued me. Dr. Livesey, Squire Trelawney. The name Balfour sounded the knell of the romantic. Robinson Crusoe. I loved to hear read the exploits of Natty Bumppo. Authors had an aura of the godlike to me. The Latin prayers fascinated me as an altar boy. I can still recall carved names on buildings I saw from the MTA train when I was a youngster. Who can explain why? Words were magic to me. I once inadvisably glued my finger and thumb together at the Magoun Library in fourth grade trying to amuse a pretty little girl on whom I had a crush, and when the librarian came over angrily to inquire what the problem was and I pointed with a shrug and replied, “Mucilage”—a word that always made me laugh—she very coldly stated, “You are more to be pitied than censured.

Together, the six girls were the pride of their grandmother, the Queen Mother Ragnhildr, or as she preferred, Oma Ragn. The little mermaid loved Oma Ragn with a special fierceness—she felt at home when she was with her. At home, folded into the long white waves of her hair, against the warmth of her skin, the song she hummed under her breath just louder than their collective heartbeat.

Sunday “Well then, as I have just told you, they devoted each day of the week to productions in one or another special branch of knowledge—either works of their hands, or some other form of consciously designed being-manifestation “Thus, Monday was devoted to the first group, and this day was called the ‘day of religious and civil ceremonies’, “Tuesday was allotted to the second group, and was called the ‘day of architecture’, “Wednesday was called the ‘day of painting’, “Thursday, the ‘day of religious and popular dances’, “Friday, the ‘day of sculpture’, “Saturday, the ‘day of the mysteries’ or, as it was also called, the ‘day of the theater’, “Sunday, the ‘day of music and song

The cicada lies in the earth for seventeen years. It is warm and dark there, it is soft and wet. Its little legs curl underneath it, and twitch only once in a little while. What does the cicada dream when it is folded into the soil? What visions travel through it, like snow flying fast? Its dreams are lightless and secret. It dreams of the leaves it will taste, it composes the concerto it will sing to its mate. It dreams of the shells it will leave behind, like self-portraits. All its dreams are drawn in amber. It dreams of all the children it will make. And then it emerges from the earth, shaking dust and damp soil from its skin. It knows nothing but its own passion to ascend - it climbs a high stalk of grass and begins to sing, its special concerto to draw the wing-pattern of its beloved near. And as it sings it leaves its amber skin behind, so that in the end, it has sung itself into a new body in which it will mate, and die. The cicadas leave their shells everywhere, like a child's lost buttons. The shells do not understand the mating dance that now occurs in the mountains above it. The shell knows nothing of who it has been, it does not remember the dreaming of self, that was warm in the earth. The song emptied it, and now it simply waits for the wind or the rain to carry it away. You are the cicada-in-the-earth. You are the shell-in-the-grass. You do not understand what you dream, only that you dream. And when you begin to sing, the song will separate you from your many skins. This is the lesson of the cicada's dream.

Tell you what. Doc Sinclair will attempt to work a special treatment that my father swore helped relieve my mother's headaches." "Right at this moment you could shoot me and I'd be forever grateful." He chuckled. "This treatment isn't anywhere near as fateful.

Drew is the opening song on my favorite album. He’s the song that everyone loves, the song that draws me in and makes me want to listen to the whole album without stopping. He’s the catchy song with the great hook, fancy guitar solo, and soaring vocals. But Shane … Shane’s the hidden track. He’s the song I don’t listen to until I’ve devoured the whole album. He’s that quiet song with the unbelievable melody. The song that makes me understand myself a bit better. Once I discover a truly special hidden track, I never get sick of it.

The Chicago historian Studs Terkel asked Bob Dylan in the sixties about how he went about writing a song and trying to outdo himself, or at least being as good as the last song he wrote, and his response was pretty damn perfect. “I’m content with the same old piece of wood,” he said. “I just want to find another place to pound a nail . . . Music, my writing, is something special, not sacred.” If the songs Bob Dylan wrote aren’t sacred, then nobody’s songs are sacred. Nobody’s. No one has ever laid on their deathbed thinking, “Thank god I didn’t make that song. Thank god I didn’t make that piece of art. Thank god I avoided the embarrassment of putting a bad poem into the world.” Nobody reaches the end of their life and regrets even a single moment of creating something, no matter how shitty or unappreciated that something might have been. I’m writing this just weeks after returning from Belleville, where I sat next to my dad’s bed in my childhood house and watched him die. I can guarantee you that in the final moments of his life, he wasn’t kicking himself for all those times when he dared to make a fool of himself by singing too loud.

He couldn’t, Haymitch. He never heard me sing that song.” “Not you. Your father. He heard him singing it one day when he came to trade at the bakery. Peeta was small, probably six or seven, but he remembered it because he was specially listening to see if the birds stopped singing,” says Haymitch.

Out of the right speaker in your inner ear will come the endless stream of self-aggrandizement, the recitation of one’s specialness, of how much more open and gifted and brilliant and knowing and misunderstood and humble one is. Out of the left speaker will be the rap songs of self-loathing, the lists of all the things one doesn’t do well, of all the mistakes one has made today and over an entire lifetime, the doubt, the assertion that everything that one touches turns to shit, that one doesn’t do relationships well, that one is in every way a fraud, incapable of selfless love, that one had no talent or insight, and on and on and on.

Being gay. This has surprisingly little to do with what you do with your private parts (or, more accurately, what you’d like to do with your private parts). Being gay is more a state of mind, or sometimes, less often, a state of body. You could almost include it as a sub-crime in 2) and 3), but really, it goes beyond both of these categories. And because of the number of times it crops up as a specific accusation, it definitely deserves its own special category. But the best way to explain what ‘being gay’ means is to tell you some of the things that are gay. If you’re a boy, any display of sensitivity is gay. Compassion is gay. Crying is supergay. Reading is usually gay. Certain songs and types of music are gay. ‘Enola Gay’ would certainly be thought gay. Love songs are gay. Love itself is incredibly gay, as are any other heartfelt emotions. Singing is gay, but chanting is not gay. Wanking contests are not gay. Neither is all-male cuddling during specially designated periods in football matches, or communal bathing thereafter. (I didn’t invent the rules of gay–I’m just telling you what they are.) Girls can be gay too, but it’s much harder for them. And girls don’t tend to call each other gay as much as boys do. When a girl is gay, she’s called a dyke. Reasons for being a dyke include having thick limbs, bad hair or flat shoes.

The band in the ballroom announced the cover of a special request, and after a pause, the woman's voice sang out the breathy first line of Etta James's "At Last." Chairs barked as guests rose to greet the champion of all wedding songs, the one that always brought indifferent or fighting or estranged couples to the dance floor for momentary reconciliation.

I am slowly learning to disregard the insatiable desire to be special. I think it began, the soft piano ballad of epiphanic freedom that danced in my head, when you mentioned that "Van Gogh was her thing" while I stood there in my overall dress, admiring his sunflowers at the art museum. And then again on South Street, while we thumbed through old records and I picked up Morrissey and you mentioned her name like it was stuck in your teeth. Each time, I felt a paintbrush on my cheeks, covering my skin in grey and fading me into a quiet, concealed background that hummed everything you've ever loved has been loved before, and everything you are has already been on an endless loop. It echoed in your wrists that I stared at, walking (home) in the middle of the street, and I felt like a ghost moving forward in an eternal line, waiting to haunt anyone who thought I was worth it. But no one keeps my name folded in their wallet. Only girls who are able to carve their names into paintings and vinyl live in pockets and dust bunnies and bathroom mirrors. And so be it, that I am grey and humming in the background. I am forgotten Sundays and chipped fingernail polish and borrowed sheets. I'm the song you'll get stuck in your head, but it will remind you of someone else. I am 2 in the afternoon, I am the last day of winter, I am a face on the sidewalk that won't show up in your dreams. And I am everywhere, and I am nothing at all.

Bob really listened to our songs and recognized that we were less about storytelling than about singing about our own feelings and perceptions: "I'm the king of the nighttime world." "I want to rock and roll all night." That was a quantum difference. "I am the God of Thunder." These were the kinds of statements we specialized in, and they differentiated us from other bands. When we spoke to Bob about this, he realized that the simplicity and self-absorption in the lyrics was purposeful, that we were a band with a distinct point of view rather than just a set of guys who didn't have a clue. We wanted to write anthems, songs that felt like the theme songs for a generation, songs that had a "you and me against the world" perspective.

The political antagonisms of today are not controversies over ultimate questions of philosophy, but opposing answers to the question how a goal that all acknowledge as legitimate can be achieved most quickly and with the least sacrifice. This goal, at which all men aim, is the best possible satisfaction of human wants; it is prosperity and abundance. Of course, this is not all that men aspire to, but it is all that they can expect to attain by resort to external means and by way of social cooperation. The inner blessings—happiness, peace of mind, exaltation—must be sought by each man within himself alone. Liberalism is no religion, no world view, no party of special interests. It is no religion because it demands neither faith nor devotion, because there is nothing mystical about it, and because it has no dogmas. It is no world view because it does not try to explain the cosmos and because it says nothing and does not seek to say anything about the meaning and purpose of human existence. It is no party of special interests because it does not provide or seek to provide any special advantage whatsoever to any individual or any group. It is something entirely different. It is an ideology, a doctrine of the mutual relationship among the members of society and, at the same time, the application of this doctrine to the conduct of men in actual society. It promises nothing that exceeds what can be accomplished in society and through society. It seeks to give men only one thing, the peaceful, undisturbed development of material well-being for all, in order thereby to shield them from the external causes of pain and suffering as far as it lies within the power of social institutions to do so at all. To diminish suffering, to increase happiness: that is its aim. No sect and no political party has believed that it could afford to forgo advancing its cause by appealing to men's senses. Rhetorical bombast, music and song resound, banners wave, flowers and colors serve as symbols, and the leaders seek to attach their followers to their own person. Liberalism has nothing to do with all this. It has no party flower and no party color, no party song and no party idols, no symbols and no slogans. It has the substance and the arguments. These must lead it to victory.

Go on from here, Ada, please. (She). Billions of boys. Take one fairly decent decade. A billion of Bills, good, gifted, tender and passionate, not only spiritually but physically well-meaning Billions, have bared the jillions of their no less tender and brilliant Jills during that decade, at stations and under conditions that have to be controlled and specified by the worker, lest the entire report be choked up by the weeds of statistics and waist-high generalizations. No point would there be, if we left out, for example, the little matter of prodigious individual awareness and young genius, which makes, in some cases, of this or that particular gasp an unprecedented and unrepeatable event in the continuum of life or at least a thematic anthemia of such events in a work of art, or a denouncer’s article. The details that shine through or shade through: the local leaf through the hyaline skin, the green sun in the brown humid eye, tout ceci, vsyo eto, in tit and toto, must be taken into account, now prepare to take over (no, Ada, go on, ya zaslushalsya: I’m all enchantment and ears), if we wish to convey the fact, the fact, the fact—that among those billions of brilliant couples in one cross section of what you will allow me to call spacetime (for the convenience of reasoning), one couple is a unique super-imperial couple, sverhimperator-skaya cheta, in consequence of which (to be inquired into, to be painted, to be denounced, to be put to music, or to the question and death, if the decade has a scorpion tail after all), the particularities of their love-making influence in a special unique way two long lives and a few readers, those pensive reeds, and their pens and mental paintbrushes. Natural history indeed! Unnatural history—because that precision of senses and sense must seem unpleasantly peculiar to peasants, and because the detail is all: The song of a Tuscan Firecrest or a Sitka Kinglet in a cemetery cypress; a minty whiff of Summer Savory or Yerba Buena on a coastal slope; the dancing flitter of a Holly Blue or an Echo Azure—combined with other birds, flowers and butterflies: that has to be heard, smelled and seen through the transparency of death and ardent beauty. And the most difficult: beauty itself as perceived through the there and then. The males of the firefly (now it’s really your turn, Van).

People everywhere, enjoying life, smiling, and just slowing down to let the world take care of itself for a few hours. The feeling was contagious. Especially when I stepped into McPherson's Pub to grab a bite of the special and listen to some traditional Irish music. The fiddle made me want to dance with myself, and many did. The drum beat like my very own heart. And some little flute that looked no wider than a pencil reminded me of the Aran Islands floating not too far from Abbeyglen. God was here tonight. In the strings of the guitar and the call of the singer's voice. I realize how often I overlook him back at home. And I know I don't want to do that anymore. The LORD will send His faithful love by day; His song will be with me in the night a prayer to the Gid of my life.

According to Shaivism, anupaya may also be reached by entering into the infinite blissfulness of the Self through the powerful experiences of sensual pleasures. This practice is designed to help the practitioner reach the highest levels by accelerating their progress through the sakta and sambhava upayas. These carefully guarded doctrines of Tantric sadhana are the basis for certain practices, like the use of the five makaras (hrdaya) mentioned earlier. The experience of a powerful sensual pleasure quickly removes a person’s dullness or indifference. It awakens in them the hidden nature and source of blissfulness and starts its inner vibration. Abhinavagupta says that only those people who are awakened to their own inner vitality can truly be said to have a heart (hrdaya). They are known as sahrdaya (connoisseurs). Those uninfluenced by this type of experiences are said to be heartless. In his words: “It is explained thus—The heart of a person, shedding of its attitude of indifference while listening to the sweet sounds of a song or while feeling the delightful touch of something like sandalpaste, immediately starts a wonderful vibratory movement. (This) is called ananda-sakti and because of its presence the person concerned is considered to have a heart (in their body) (Tantraloka, III.209-10). People who do not become one (with such blissful experiences), and who do not feel their physical body being merged into it, are said to be heartless because their consciousness itself remains immersed (in the gross body) (ibid., III.24).” The philosopher Jayaratha addresses this topic as well when he quotes a verse from a work by an author named Parasastabhutipada: “The worship to be performed by advanced aspirants consists of strengthening their position in the basic state of (infinite and blissful pure consciousness), on the occasions of the experiences of all such delightful objects which are to be seen here as having sweet and beautiful forms (Tantraloka, II.219).” These authors are pointing out that if people participate in pleasurable experiences with that special sharp alertness known as avadhana, they will become oblivious to the limitations of their usual body-consciousness and their pure consciousness will be fully illumined. According to Vijnanabhairava: “A Shiva yogin, having directed his attention to the inner bliss which arises on the occasion of some immense joy, or on seeing a close relative after a long time, should immerse his mind in that bliss and become one with it (Vijnanabhairava, 71). A yogin should fix his mind on each phenomenon which brings satisfaction (because) his own state of infinite bliss arises therein (ibid., 74).” In summary, Kashmir Shaivism is a philosophy that embraces life in its totality. Unlike puritanical systems it does not shy away from the pleasant and aesthetically pleasing aspects of life as somehow being unspiritual or contaminated. On the contrary, great importance has been placed on the aesthetic quality of spiritual practice in Kashmir Shaivism. In fact, recognizing and celebrating the aesthetic aspect of the Absolute is one of the central principles of this philosophy. — B. N. Pandit, Specific Principles of Kashmir Shaivism (3rd ed., 2008), p. 124–125.

SOCIAL/GENERAL ICEBREAKERS 1. What do you think of the movie/restaurant/party? 2. Tell me about the best vacation you’ve ever taken. 3. What’s your favorite thing to do on a rainy day? 4. If you could replay any moment in your life, what would it be? 5. What one thing would you really like to own? Why? 6. Tell me about one of your favorite relatives. 7. What was it like in the town where you grew up? 8. What would you like to come back as in your next life? 9. Tell me about your kids. 10. What do you think is the perfect age? Why? 11. What is a typical day like for you? 12. Of all the places you’ve lived, tell me about the one you like the best. 13. What’s your favorite holiday? What do you enjoy about it? 14. What are some of your family traditions that you particularly enjoy? 15. Tell me about the first car you ever bought. 16. How has the Internet affected your life? 17. Who were your idols as a kid? Have they changed? 18. Describe a memorable teacher you had. 19. Tell me about a movie/book you’ve seen or read more than once. 20. What’s your favorite restaurant? Why? 21. Tell me why you were named ______. What is the origin of your last name? 22. Tell me about a place you’ve visited that you hope never to return to. get over your mom’s good intentions. 23. What’s the best surprise you’ve ever received? 24. What’s the neatest surprise you’ve ever planned and pulled off for someone else? 25. Skiing here is always challenging. What are some of your favorite places to ski? 26. Who would star as you in a movie about your life? Why that person? 27. Who is the most famous person you’ve met? 28. Tell me about some of your New Year’s resolutions. 29. What’s the most antiestablishment thing you’ve ever done? 30. Describe a costume that you wore to a party. 31. Tell me about a political position you’d like to hold. 32. What song reminds you of an incident in your life? 33. What’s the most memorable meal you’ve eaten? 34. What’s the most unforgettable coincidence you’ve experienced or heard about? 35. How are you able to tell if that melon is ripe? 36. What motion picture star would you like to interview? Why? 37. Tell me about your family. 38. What aroma brings forth a special memory? 39. Describe the scariest person you ever met. 40. What’s your favorite thing to do alone? 41. Tell me about a childhood friend who used to get you in trouble. 42. Tell me about a time when you had too much to eat or drink. 43. Describe your first away-from-home living quarters or experience. 44. Tell me about a time that you lost a job. 45. Share a memory of one of your grandparents. 46. Describe an embarrassing moment you’ve had. 47. Tell me something most people would never guess about you. 48. What would you do if you won a million dollars? 49. Describe your ideal weather and why. 50. How did you learn to ski/hang drywall/play piano?

One night, around the campfire after a dinner of bully-beef stew, someone opened an extra bottle of rum. ‘As it grew darker, the men began to sing, at first slightly self-conscious and shy, but picking up confidence as the song spread.’ Their songs were not the martial chants of warriors, but the schmaltzy romantic popular tunes of the time: ‘I’ll Never Smile Again’, ‘My Melancholy Baby’, ‘I’m Dancing with Tears in My Eyes’. The bigger and burlier the singer, Pleydell noted, the more passionate and heartfelt the singing. Now the French contingent struck up, with a warbling rendition of ‘Madeleine’, the bittersweet song of a man whose lilacs for his lover have been left to wilt in the rain. Then it was the turn of the German prisoners who, after some debate, belted out ‘Lili Marleen’, the unofficial anthem of the Afrika Korps, complete with harmonies: ‘Vor der Kaserne / Vor dem grossen Tor / Stand eine Laterne / Und steht sie noch davor …’ (Usually rendered in English as: Underneath the lantern, by the barrack gate, darling I remember, how you used to wait.) As the last verse died away, the audience broke into loud whistles and applause. To his own astonishment, Pleydell was profoundly moved. ‘There was something special about that night,’ he wrote years later. ‘We had formed a small solitary island of voices; voices which faded and were caught up in the wilderness. A little cluster of men singing in the desert. An expression of feeling that defied the vastness of its surroundings … a strange body of men thrown together for a few days by the fortunes of war.’ The doctor from Lewisham had come in search of authenticity, and he had found it deep in the desert, among hard soldiers singing sentimental songs to imaginary sweethearts in three languages.

No amount of black girl magic, no repeated proclamations of our worth can fully treat the wound – although acknowledging its persistence is a beginning. The ultimate remedy, as I see it is supernatural. I look daily toward heaven for restoration, for spiritual healing. My true identity isn’t rooted in our history, grievous and glorious as it is. It is grounded in my designation as a Child of God, the Daughter of the Great Physician. In His care I find my cure. My hope for you is the same one I carry for myself. I pray that amid the heartache of our ancestry you can grant yourself the grace so seldom extended to us. I pray that you can pass that compassion on to your children and to their children so that it slathers comfort on our sore spots. I pray that, as a people, we can give ourselves a soft place to land. I pray even as we rightly express our fury as being regarded as sub-human, that we don’t dwell in that space. That we don’t allow anger to poison our spirits. That we embrace love as our One True Antidote. I hope, too, that you recognize your specialness, the distinctiveness the Creator has imbued us with. I see you as clearly as history has, and in unison with it, I nod. I know that swivel in your hips, that fervor in your testimony, that ebullience in your stride, that flair in your song. The fact that others are constantly trying to diminish you, ever attempting to dismiss your talents even as they mimic you, is proof of your uniqueness! No one bothers to undermine you unless they recognize your brilliance. More than anything, I pray that you can carve out a purpose for yourself, a calling beyond your own survival, a sweet offering to the world. You gain a life by giving yours away. Not everyone is meant to raise a picket sign, and yet each of us can choose a path of impact. Rearing your children with affection and warmth is a form of activism. Honoring your word impeccably is a way to raise your voice. Performing your job with excellence, with your chin high and your standards higher is as powerful as any protest march. Sowing into the lives of young people is a worthy crusade. That is what it means to leave this world of ours more lit up than we found it. It’s also what it means to lead a magnificent life, even if an unlikely one.

His (Walt Disney's) favorite song, 'Feed the Birds' from Mary Poppins. The lyrics give insight into Walt's benevolence--his belief that small kindnesses go a long way. Disney Legend and lyricist Robert Sherman once explained the sentiment: ' Doing just a little extra and going just a little bit out of your way to make someone feel special. Sometimes it makes all the difference in the world to a person.' Come feed the little birds, show them you care And you'll be glad if you do Their young ones are hungry, their nest are so bare All it takes is tuppence from you.... When the song was finished, Walt would say under his breath, as an aside to himself, 'Yup, That's what it's all about.' Robert overheard that whisper and concluded, 'I do think this song summed him up. He was a simple man---a simple, wonderful man who understood that the greatest gift life bestows upon a person is the chance to share with others.

Audre, you are a wild nurturing. You are a complicated specialness. You are ancestral perseverance and sacred erotic,” she says, like she praying, holding me close to her. I cry louder. “Gyal, you been in constant communication with Spirit your whole life and you been taught that Spirit speak loudest when we deep in the water, drowning in trouble and fear.” Queenie suddenly closes her eyes and is quiet and breathing, which I know means she is receiving messages. “And that is when you must let yourself get quiet and still. You must let yourself float above it until you are safe and levitating on the water and beneath the sky and just listen, Audre.” She opens her eyes and looks at me. “And, dahlin’, let me tell you something for truth: America have dey spirits too, believe me,” she say, and she puts out her spliff, rubs my back, and starts humming a song into my spine. It a quiet and low song, and I feel my heart inhale the love of it.

Who’s teasing? I’m telling him the truth. He ain’t going to have it. Neither one of ‘em going to have it. And I’ll tell you something else you not going to have. You not going to have no private coach with four red velvet chairs that swivel around in one place whenever you want ‘em to. No. and you not going to have your own special toilet and your own special-made eight-foot bed either. And a valet and a cook and a secretary to travel with you and do everything you say. Everything: get the right temperature in your hot-water bottle and make sure the smoking tobacco in the silver humidor is fresh each and every day. There’s something else you not going to have. You ever have five thousand dollars of cold cash money in your pocket and walk into a bank and tell the bank man you want such and such a house on such and such a street and he sell it to you right then? Well, you won’t ever have it. And you not going to have a governor’s mansion, or eight thousand acres of timber to sell. And you not going to have no ship under your command to sail on, no train to run, and you can join the 332nd if you want to and shoot down a thousand German planes all by yourself and land in Hitler’s backyard and whip him with your own hands, but you never going to have four stars on your shirt front, or even three. And you not going to have no breakfast tray brought in to you early in the morning with a red rose on it and two warm croissants and a cup of hot chocolate. Nope. Never. And no pheasant buried in coconut leaves for twenty days and stuffed with wild rice and cooked over a wood fire so tender and delicate it make you cry. And no Rothschild ’29 or even Beaujolais to go with it.” A few men passing by stopped to listen to Tommy’s lecture. “What’s going on?” they asked Hospital Tommy. “Feather refused them a beer,” said. The men laughed. “And no baked Alaska!” Railroad Tommy went on. “None! You never going to have that.” “No baked Alaska?” Guitar opened his eyes wide with horror and grabbed his throat.” You breaking my heart!” “Well, now. That’s something you will have—a broken heart.” Railroad Tommy’s eyes softened, but the merriment in them died suddenly. “And folly. A whole lot of folly. You can count on it.” “Mr. Tommy, suh,” Guitar sang in mock humility, “we just wanted a bottle of beer is all.” “Yeah,” said Tommy. “Yeah, well, welcome aboard.

YOU THINK YOU are the only person in this world who is waiting?” said Sister Mary Inconnu. She was pacing. I wished she would stop, because the light was bright at the window and it is hard sometimes to keep up with a pacing nun. I kept losing her. She said, “The world is full of people like you, waiting for change. Waiting for a job. A lover. Waiting for a bite to eat. A drink of water. Waiting for the winning lottery ticket. So don’t think about the end. Picture those people instead. Picture their waiting.” I have to admit I sighed. I shook my head. How does this help? I said with my eye. She sat. At least there was that. Then she said, “Because if you picture other people like you, you will no longer be alone. And when you share, you see that your own sorrow is not so big or special. You are only another person feeling sad, and soon it will pass and you will be another person, feeling happy. It takes the sting out of life, I find, when you realize you are not alone.

5. The reading of the Scriptures with godly fear, the sound preaching, and conscionable hearing of the Word, in obedience unto God, with understanding, faith, and reverence; singing of psalms with grace in heart; as also the due administration and worthy receiving of the sacraments instituted by Christ, are all parts of the ordinary religious worship of God: besides religious oaths, vows solemn fastings, and thanksgivings upon special occasions, which are, in their several times and seasons, to be used in a holy and religious manner. Another element of true worship is the "signing of psalms with grace in the heart." It will be observed that the Confession does not acknowledge the legitimacy of the use of modern hymns in the worship of God, but rather only the psalms of the Old Testament. It is not generally realized today that Presbyterian (and many other Reformed) churches originally used only the inspired psalms, hymns and songs of the biblical Psalter in divine worship, but such is the case. The Westminster Assembly not only expressed the conviction that the psalms should be sung in divine worship, but implemented it by preparing a metrical version of the Psalter for use in the churches. This is not the place to attempt a consideration of this question. But we must record our conviction that the Confession is correct at this point. It is correct, we believe, because it has never been proved that God has commanded his Church to sing the uninspired compositions of men rather than or along with the inspired songs, hymns, and psalms of the Psalter in divine worship.

Men," said the little prince, "set out on their way in express trains, but they do not know what they are looking for. Then they rush about, and get excited, and turn round and round..." And he added: "It is not worth the trouble..." [...] "I am thirsty for this water," said the little prince. "Give me some of it to drink..." And I understood what he had been looking for. I raised the bucket to his lips. He drank, his eyes closed. It was as sweet as some special festival treat. This water was indeed a different thing from ordinary nourishment. Its sweetness was born of the walk under the stars, the song of the pulley, the effort of my arms. It was good for the heart, like a present. When I was a little bou, the lights of the Christmas tree, the music of the Midnight Mass, the tenderness of smiling faces, used to make up, so the radiance of the gifts I received. "The men where you live," said the little prince, "raised five thousand roses in the same garden - and they do not find in it what they are looking for. [...] And yet what they are looking for could be found in one single rose, or in a little water." "Yes, that is true," I said. And the little prince added: "But the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart...

If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy. So, live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home. ~ Chief Tecumseh Blurb A woman who betrayed her county.

It shouldn't make a difference to me, I suppose,but it does. I've grown to trust you, and I'd hate to think that I've been wrong about you." "Well,it's real nice to hear you like me, Freckles," he teased. "I kind of like you,too." He wiggled his eyebrows as he had earlier. Willow laughed and leaned over to swat at him but missed. "You know, I really don't have freckles. Why don't you call me Williw like everyone else does?" "Maybe, because everyone else does." He shrugged. "Freckles is mine. My special name for you, that is. And you do have freckles, cute little ginger-colored freckles, all-l-l aross the bridge of your nose." "I don't!" Her mouth twisted in annoyance. "Tell you what, we'll race on it. You win-you don't have freckles. I win-you do have freckles." Knowing her only chance to beat his big stallion was to get a head start, Willow didn't waste time agreeing to ny terms. She dug her heels into Sugar's sides and tore off across the desert. "Hey!" Rider called, laughing and spurring Sultan into a run. "You're supposed to wait till I say go." Her laugh drifted back on the wind. "Come on,Sultan. Let's show Miss Freckle Britches who she's dealing with." The spirited stallion's legs stretched out ith effortless grace, his body lowering in a ground-eating pace, and Willow's little mare was no match for the big stallion. "See you back at the ranch, Freckles," Rider laughingly taunted as he rode past.

An autumn evening... An autumn evening, I ran hurriedly, made my way I did to that special bench in the park, Where in a likewise special week, I used to meet my Amily. My dear Amily with her mischievious eyes, Hear songs do my ears, whenever she speaks. With her fragrance and aura of jasmine, Feel I do that I am in heaven. Words spoken between us are of course less, but the thoughts that we share are, a lot. See each other we do, very less. Yet an urge to keep seeing each other, we have got. As I sat on the bench today, waiting for her, I wondered how today she would be. Would she dress grand or just come casually, in a simple manner and her hair let out freely. After a while, glance I did at the time. “Why hadn't she come by now?” Did she meet with trouble on the way that she came? Or didn't it cross her mind what the time was now? Then my worries were put to rest, When I saw her in front of me. I smiled at the way, that she had dressed for me. Wearing a dress of my favourite colour, and herself appearing royal with grandeur, she came slowly towards me, with doubt in her eyes, as her eyes enquired if she looked good that way? I smiled again and gestured that she looked like a princess. Then I offered my hand, to walk the rest of the day. So holding each other's hands, we walked gently, with our minds out of the world and lost in our own dreams; Just the two of us, me and my Amily.

Sometimes I think with half the world on fire- with so much dying and so much pain- it's a special kind of sin to sing and feel good. But then I think, well, even before Dragonscale, most human lives were unfair, brutal, full of loss and grief and confusion. Most human lives were and are too short. Most people have lived out their days hungry and barefoot, on the run from this war and that famine, a plague here and a flood there. But people have to sing anyway. Even a baby that hasn't been fed in days will stop crying and look around when they hear someone singing in joy. You sing and it's like giving a thirsty person water. It's a kindness. It makes you shine. The proof that you matter is in your song and in the way you light up for one another.

Adele took her place in front of the audience and began to sing. "Miss Eyre, perhaps you can tell me what he's saying?" Mrs. Fairfax said. "The only other person in the house who speaks French is the master, and he hates to translate anymore." Jane glanced at Mr. Rochester, but he stared straight ahead. Jane listened to the song. "The first few lines are about a famous dancer ... in a club ... She wore flowers in her hair and a dress that ... oh." Adele sang in detail about how much the dress covered. Or didn't cover. Jane blushed and glanced at Mr. Rochester, searching for a reaction to the scandalous lyrics. But he just listened. Not scandalized. "So, yes, the dancer wore a dress," Jane continued, with slightly less detail. "And she was in love with a ... dealer. Of cards. And at night, they ... oh my." Adele sang of a very special hug. Jane's cheeks flamed. "Perhaps Mr. Rochester should translate." She turned to Mr. Rochester, who coughed. He waved his hand. "Please continue, Miss Eyre. You're doing such a fine job." Now Adele sang of the woman's roving eye, and another man visiting while her lover was away. "They continued to love each other," Jane said quickly, maybe a bit desperately. In the last verse, the boyfriend found out about her infidelity, and stabbed the dancer and her other lover. "That escalated quickly," said Helen. She also spoke French, but no one had asked her to translate. "And they both lived happily ever after," Jane blurted. She was going to have to teach Adele some new songs.

The Occupied Territories; you think there is absolutely no way you can get to it. Do you see how close it is? How touchable? How real? When the eye sees it, it has all the clarify of earth and pebbles and hills and rocks. It has its colours and its temperatures and its wild plants too. Who would dare to make it into an abstraction now that it has declared its physical self to the senses? It is no longer ’the beloved’ in the poetry of resistance, or an item on a political party program, and it is not an argument or a metaphor. It stretches before me, as touchable as a scorpion, a bird, a well; visible as a field of chalk, as the prints of shoes. I asked myself, what is so special about it except that we have lost it? It is a land, like any land. We sing for it only so that we may remember the humiliation of having had it taken from us. Our song is not for some sacred thing of the past but for our current self-respect that is violated anew every day by the Occupation.

Mr. Haverstrom closes the door, leaving Patrick and me alone in the hallway. Pat smiles slickly, leaning in toward me. I step back until I press against the wall. It’s uncomfortable—but not threatening. Mostly because in addition to racquetball I’ve practiced aikido for years. So if Patrick tries anything funny, he’s in for a very painful surprise. “Let’s be honest, Sarah: you know and I know the last thing you want to do is give a presentation in front of hundreds of people—your colleagues.” My heart tries to crawl into my throat. “So, how about this? You do the research portion, slides and such that I don’t really have time for, and I’ll take care of the presentation, giving you half the credit of course.” Of course. I’ve heard this song before—in school “group projects” where I, the quiet girl, did all the work, but the smoothest, loudest talker took all the glory. “I’ll get Haverstrom to agree on Saturday—I’m like a son to him,” Pat explains before leaning close enough that I can smell the garlic on his breath. “Let Big Pat take care of it. What do you say?” I say there’s a special place in hell for people who refer to themselves in the third person. But before I can respond, Willard’s firm, sure voice travels down the hall. “I think you should back off, Nolan. Sarah’s not just ‘up for it,’ she’ll be fantastic at it.” Pat waves his hand. “Quiet, midge—the adults are talking.” And the adrenaline comes rushing back, but this time it’s not anxiety-induced—it’s anger. Indignation. I push off the wall. “Don’t call him that.” “He doesn’t mind.” “I mind.” He stares at me with something akin to surprise. Then scoffs and turns to Willard. “You always let a woman fight your battles?” I take another step forward, forcing him to move back. “You think I can’t fight a battle because I’m a woman?” “No, I think you can’t fight a battle because you’re a woman who can barely string three words together if more than two people are in the room.” I’m not hurt by the observation. For the most part, it’s true. But not this time. I smile slowly, devilishly. Suddenly, I’m Cathy Linton come to life—headstrong and proud. “There are more than two people standing here right now. And I’ve got more than three words for you: fuck off, you arrogant, self-righteous swamp donkey.” His expression is almost funny. Like he can’t decide if he’s more shocked that I know the word fuck or that I said it out loud to him—and not in the good way. Then his face hardens and he points at me. “That’s what I get for trying to help your mute arse? Have fun making a fool of yourself.” I don’t blink until he’s down the stairs and gone. Willard slow-claps as he walks down the hall to me. “Swamp donkey?” I shrug. “It just came to me.” “Impressive.” Then he bows and kisses the back of my hand. “You were magnificent.” “Not half bad, right? It felt good.” “And you didn’t blush once.” I push my dark hair out of my face, laughing self-consciously. “Seems like I forget all about being nervous when I’m defending someone else.” Willard nods. “Good. And though I hate to be the twat who points it out, there’s something else you should probably start thinking about straight away.” “What’s that?” “The presentation in front of hundreds of people.” And just like that, the tight, sickly feeling washes back over me. So this is what doomed feels like. I lean against the wall. “Oh, broccoli balls.

✓My music had roots which I'd dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil. ✓What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man ✓What is a soul? It's like electricity - we don't really know what it is, but it's a force that can light a room ✓There are many spokes on the wheel of life. First, we're here to explore new possibilities. ✓I did it to myself. It wasn't society... it wasn't a pusher, it wasn't being blind or being black or being poor. It was all my doing. ✓What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man. ✓There's nothing written in the Bible, Old or New testament, that says, 'If you believe in Me, you ain't going to have no troubles.' ✓Music to me is like breathing. I don't get tired of breathing, I don't get tired of music. ✓Just because you can't see anything , doesn't mean you should shut your eyes. ✓Don't go backwards - you've already been there. ✓Affluence separates people. Poverty knits 'em together. You got some sugar and I don't; I borrow some of yours. Next month you might not have any flour; well, I'll give you some of mine. ✓Sometimes my dreams are so deep that I dream that I'm dreaming. ✓I don't think any of us really knows why we're here. But I think we're supposed to believe we're here for a purpose. ✓I'd like to think that when I sing a song, I can let you know all about the heartbreak, struggle, lies and kicks in the ass I've gotten over the years for being black and everything else, without actually saying a word about it. ✓.There's nothing written in the Bible, Old or New testament, that says, 'If you believe in Me, you ain't going to have no troubles.' ✓Other arms reach out to me, Other eyes smile tenderly, Still in peaceful dreams I see, The road leads back to you. ✓I can't help what I sound like. What I sound like is what i am. You know? I cannot be anything other that what I am. ✓Music is about the only thing left that people don't fight over. ✓My version of 'Georgia' became the state song of Georgia. That was a big thing for me, man. It really touched me. Here is a state that used to lynch people like me suddenly declaring my version of a song as its state song. That is touching. ✓Absence makes the heart grow fonder and tears are only rain to make love grow. ✓If you can play the blues, you can do anything. ✓I never considered myself part of rock 'n' roll. My stuff was more adult. It was more difficult for teenagers to relate to; my stuff was filled with more despair than anything you'd associate with rock 'n' roll. Since I couldn't see people dancing, I didn't write jitterbugs or twists. I wrote rhythms that moved me. My style requires pure heart singing. ✓It's like Duke Ellington said, there are only two kinds of music - good and bad. And you can tell when something is good. ✓Rhythm and blues used to be called race music. ... This music was going on for years, but nobody paid any attention to it. ✓Crying's always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling, and feeling is being human. ✓I cant retire from music any more than I can retire from my liver. Youd have to remove the music from me surgically—like you were taking out my appendix. ✓The words to country songs are very earthy like the blues. They're not as dressed up and the people are very honest and say, 'Look, I miss you darlin', so I went out and got drunk in this bar.' That's the way you say it. Where in Tin Pan Alley they would say, 'Oh I missed you darling, so I went to this restaurant and I sat down and had a dinn

Close to midnight, I gather up Kitty and the puppy and the sparklers. We put on heavy coats and I make Kitty wear a hat. “Should we put a hat on Jamie too?” she asks me. “He doesn’t need one,” I tell her. “He’s already got on a fur coat.” The stars are out by the dozen; they look like faraway gems. We’re so lucky to live by the mountains the way we do. You just feel closer to the stars. To heaven. I light up sparklers for each of us, and Kitty starts dancing around the snow making a ring of fire with hers. She’s trying to coax Jamie to jump through but he isn’t having it. Al he wants to do is pee around the yard. It’s lucky we have a fence, or I bet he’d pee his way down this whole block. Josh’s bedroom light is on. I see him in the window just as he opens it and calls out, “Song girls!” Kitty hollers, “Wanna light a sparkler?” “Maybe next year,” Josh calls back. I look up at him and wave my sparkler, and he smiles, and there’s just this feeling of all rightness between us. One way or another, Josh will be in our lives. And I’m certain, I’m so suddenly certain that everything is exactly the way it’s supposed to be, that I don’t have to be so afraid of good-bye, because good-bye doesn’t have to be forever. When I’m back in my room in my flannel nightgown, I get out my special flowy pen and my good thick stationery, and I start to write. Not a good-bye letter. Just a plain old love letter. Dear Peter…

Oh,Ella. I wish you'd had a better time at the ball." "Fuhgeddaboudit," I muttered. Greaseball. Freddy. Freak. "It's not like she and I were ever going to be BFFs." "I wasn't just referring to Amanda." Of course he wasn't. "I'll try," I moaned into the crook of my elbow. "Oh, Lord.I'll try to carry on." "That sounds rather dramatic, even for you." "It's Styx," I told him. "After your time, before mine. I don't know all the words,but those work for the moment. And for the record, I'm being ironic, not dramatic." "If you say so." I ignored him. "I have had my last flutter over Alex Bainbridge. I mean it. Frankie was right.How many signs do I need that we are never, ever going to have...anything...before I get it? Obviously, it doesn't matter that we realte to the same schizo seventies songs. Or that we can discuss antique Japanese woodblock prints. Or that when he sits next to me, he kinda takes my breath away. You would think that would count for a lot,wouldn't you?" Edward gets the concept of rhetorical questions, so I went on. "I wouldn't even want to hazard a guess about what makes Amanda's pulse go all skittery, but I would bet anything it's not Alex. And he's still with her. He doesn't belong with her, but apparently he feels he belongs to her. Explain that,please." "Oh,Ella.We men are not always the best at looking beyond the...er..." "Boobs,Edward. You can say it. Amanda Alstead has boobs and blonda hair. Beyond that, I can't see a single thing that's special about her." "Because there isn't a single thing. Beyond the...er, obvious. You,on the other hand,are a creature of infinite charms. Shall I list them alphabetically or from the top down?" I scowled up at him. "Y'know, you are beginning to sound a little too much like Frankie and Sadie,my deluded Greek chorus." "yes,well,I rather thought that's what friends are for." "You're not supposed to be my friend," I muttered. "You're supposed to be my Prince Charming." "Ahem." Edward's sculpted lips compressed into a grim line. "Have you looked at me lately? I am supposed to be startling and even a bit scary." "Nope.Neither." I rested my chin on my forearm. "To me,you are perfect. You are loyal and reliable and completely lacking in surprises." "That is a good thing?" "Absolutely," I said. "It's an excellent thing.I don't want any more surprises, over." "Hardly an admirable goal,that." "Maybe not," I agreed, "but pleasant. Among all the other bizarreness tonight, I found something new to be afraid of. Evil girlfriends." "Now,Ella. You can't go on being afraid forever." "Oh,yes,I can. As far as Amanda Alstead is concerned, I can." Edward tilted his head and studied me for a moment. He looked annoyed. "Why do you insist on having these conversations with me when you ignore everything I have to say?" It was a pretty good question. "Fine." I sat up straight and folded my hands in my lap. Home Truth time. "Go ahead. On this night when we celebrate the mysteries of life and death..Say something profound, something startling." There was a long silence. Then, "Boo," Edward said. "Thank you,Mr. Willing." "Don't mention it, Miss Marino. I am yours to command.

But this isn't standard Japanese picnic fare: not a grain of rice or a pickled plum in sight. Instead, they fill the varnished wooden tables with thick slices of crusty bread, wedges of weeping cheese, batons of hard salamis, and slices of cured ham. To drink, bottles of local white wine, covered in condensation, and high-alcohol microbews rich in hops and local iconography. From the coastline we begin our slow, dramatic ascent into the mountains of Hokkaido. The colors bleed from broccoli to banana to butternut to beet as we climb, inching ever closer to the heart of autumn. My neighbors, an increasingly jovial group of thirtysomethings with a few words of English to spare, pass me a glass of wine and a plate of cheese, and I begin to feel the fog dissipate. We stop at a small train station in the foothills outside of Ginzan, and my entire car suddenly empties. A husband-and-wife team has set up a small stand on the train platform, selling warm apple hand pies made with layers of flaky pastry and apples from their orchard just outside of town. I buy one, take a bite, then immediately buy there more. Back on the train, young uniformed women flood the cars with samples of Hokkaido ice cream. The group behind me breaks out in song, a ballad, I'm later told, dedicated to the beauty of the season. Everywhere we go, from the golden fields of empty cornstalks to the dense forest thickets to the rushing rivers that carve up this land like the fat of a Wagyu steak, groups of camouflaged photographers lie in wait, tripods and shutter releases ready, hoping to capture the perfect photo of the SL Niseko steaming its way through the hills of Hokkaido.

It's hard to form a lasting connection when your permanent address is an eight-inch mailbox in the UPS store. Still,as I inch my way closer, I can't help the way my breath hitches, the way my insides thrum and swirl. And when he turns,flashing me that slow, languorous smile that's about to make him world famous,his eyes meeting mine when he says, "Hey,Daire-Happy Sweet Sixteen," I can't help but think of the millions of girls who would do just about anything to stand in my pointy blue babouches. I return the smile, flick a little wave of my hand, then bury it in the side pocket of the olive-green army jacket I always wear. Pretending not to notice the way his gaze roams over me, straying from my waist-length brown hair peeking out from my scarf, to the tie-dyed tank top that clings under my jacket,to the skinny dark denim jeans,all the way down to the brand-new slippers I wear on my feet. "Nice." He places his foot beside mine, providing me with a view of the his-and-hers version of the very same shoe. Laughing when he adds, "Maybe we can start a trend when we head back to the States.What do you think?" We. There is no we. I know it.He knows it.And it bugs me that he tries to pretend otherwise. The cameras stopped rolling hours ago, and yet here he is,still playing a role. Acting as though our brief, on-location hookup means something more. Acting like we won't really end long before our passports are stamped RETURN. And that's all it takes for those annoyingly soft girly feelings to vanish as quickly as a flame in the rain. Allowing the Daire I know,the Daire I've honed myself to be, to stand in her palce. "Doubtful." I smirk,kicking his shoe with mine.A little harder then necessary, but then again,he deserves it for thinking I'm lame enough to fall for his act. "So,what do you say-food? I'm dying for one of those beef brochettes,maybe even a sausage one too.Oh-and some fries would be good!" I make for the food stalls,but Vane has another idea. His hand reaches for mine,fingers entwining until they're laced nice and tight. "In a minute," he says,pulling me so close my hip bumps against his. "I thought we might do something special-in honor of your birthday and all.What do you think about matching tattoos?" I gape.Surely he's joking. "Yeah,you know,mehndi. Nothing permanent.Still,I thought it could be kinda cool." He arcs his left brow in his trademark Vane Wick wau,and I have to fight not to frown in return. Nothing permanent. That's my theme song-my mission statement,if you will. Still,mehndi's not quite the same as a press-on. It has its own life span. One that will linger long after Vane's studio-financed, private jet lifts him high into the sky and right out of my life. Though I don't mention any of that, instead I just say, "You know the director will kill you if you show up on set tomorrow covered in henna." Vane shrugs. Shrugs in a way I've seen too many times, on too many young actors before him.He's in full-on star-power mode.Think he's indispensable. That he's the only seventeen-year-old guy with a hint of talent,golden skin, wavy blond hair, and piercing blue eyes that can light up a screen and make the girls (and most of their moms) swoon. It's a dangerous way to see yourself-especially when you make your living in Hollywood. It's the kind of thinking that leads straight to multiple rehab stints, trashy reality TV shows, desperate ghostwritten memoirs, and low-budget movies that go straight to DVD.

Dear Peter K, First of all I refuse to call you Kavinsky. You think you’re so cool, going by your last name all of a sudden. Just so you know, Kavinsky sounds like the name of an old man with a long white beard. Did you know that when you kissed me, I would come to love you? Sometimes I think yes. Definitely yes. You know why? Because you think EVERYONE loves you, Peter. That’s what I hate about you. Because everyone does love you. Including me. I did. Not anymore. Here are all your worst qualities: You burp and you don’t say excuse me. You just assume everyone else will find it charming. And if they don’t, who cares, right? Wrong! You do care. You care a lot about what people think of you. You always take the last piece of pizza. You never ask if anyone else wants it. That’s rude. You’re so good at everything. Too good. You could’ve given other guys a chance to be good, but you never did. You kissed me for no reason. Even though I knew you liked Gen, and you knew you liked Gen, and Gen knew you liked Gen. But you still did it. Just because you could. I really want to know: Why would you do that to me? My first kiss was supposed to be something special. I’ve read about it, what it’s supposed to feel like00fireworks and lightning bolts and the sound of waves crashing in your ears. I didn’t have any of that. Thanks to you it was as unspecial as a kiss could be. The worst part of it is, that stupid nothing kiss is what made me start liking you. I never did before. I never even thought about you before. Gen has always said that you are the best-looking boy in our grade, and I agreed, because sure, you are. But I still didn’t see the allure of you. Plenty of people are good-looking. That doesn’t make them interesting or intriguing or cool. Maybe that’s why you kissed me. To do mind control on me, to make me see you that way. It worked. Your little trick worked. From then on, I saw you. Up close, your face wasn’t so much handsome as beautiful. How many beautiful boys have you ever seen? For me it was just one. You. I think it’s a lot to do with your lashes. You have really long lashes. Unfairly long. Even though you don’t deserve it, fine, I’ll go into all the things I like(d) about you: One time in science, nobody wanted to be partners with Jeffrey Suttleman because he has BO, and you volunteered like it was no big deal. Suddenly everybody thought Jeffrey wasn’t so bad. You’re still in chorus, even though all the other boys take band and orchestra now. You even sing solos. And you dance, and you’re not embarrassed. You were the last boy to get tall. And now you’re the tallest, but it’s like you earned it. Also, when you were short, no one even cared that you were short--the girls still liked you and the boys still picked you first for basketball in gym. After you kissed me, I liked you for the rest of seventh grade and most of eighth. It hasn’t been easy, watching you with Gen, holding hands and making out at the bus stop. You probably make her feel very special. Because that’s your talent, right? You’re good at making people feel special. Do you know what it’s like to like someone so much you can’t stand it and know that they’ll never feel the same way? Probably not. People like you don’t have to suffer through those kinds of things. It was easier after Gen moved and we stopped being friends. At least then I didn’t have to hear about it. And now that the year is almost over, I know for sure that I am also over you. I’m immune to you now, Peter. I’m really proud to say that I’m the only girl in this school who has been immunized to the charms of Peter Kavinsky. All because I had a really bad dose of you in seventh grade and most of eighth. Now I never ever have to worry about catching you again. What a relief! I bet if I did ever kiss you again, I would definitely catch something, and it wouldn’t be love. It would be an STD! Lara Jean Song