Steep Game Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Steep Game. Here they are! All 33 of them:

If you choose to believe me, good. Now I will tell you how Octavia, the spider-web city, is made. There is a precipice between two steep mountains: the city is over the void, bound to the two crests with ropes and chains and catwalks. You walk on the little wooden ties, careful not to set your foot in the open spaces, or you cling to the hempen strands. Below there is nothing for hundreds and hundreds of feet: a few clouds glide past; farther down you can glimpse the chasm's bed. This is the foundation of the city: a net which serves as passage and as support. All the rest, instead of rising up, is hung below: rope ladders, hammocks, houses made like sacks, clothes hangers, terraces like gondolas, skins of water, gas jets, spits, baskets on strings, dumb-waiters, showers, trapezes and rings for children's games, cable cars, chandeliers, pots with trailing plants. Suspended over the abyss, the life of Octavia's inhabitants is less uncertain than in other cities. They know the net will only last so long.
Italo Calvino (Invisible Cities)
A vision had seized hold of me, like the demented fury of a hound that has sunk its teeth into the leg of a deer carcass and is shaking and tugging at the downed game so frantically that the hunter gives up trying to calm him. It was the vision of a large steamship scaling a hill under its own steam, working its way up a steep slope in the jungle, while above this natural landscape, which shatters the weak and the strong with equal ferocity, soars the voice of Caruso, silencing all the pain and all the voices of the primeval forest and drowning out all birdsong. To be more precise: bird cries, for in this setting, left unfinished and abandoned by God in wrath, the birds do not sing; they shriek in pain, and confused trees tangle with one another like battling Titans, from horizon to horizon, in a steaming creation still being formed. Fog-panting and exhausted they stand in this unreal misery - and I, like a stanza in a poem written in an unknown foreign tongue, am shaken to the core.
Werner Herzog (Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo)
In an agricultural society, or during a time of exploration and settlement, or hunting and fathering--which is to say, most of mankind's history--energetic boys were particularly prized for their strength, speed, and agility. [...] As recently as the 1950s, most families still had some kind of agricultural connection. Many of these children, girls as well as boys, would have been directing their energy and physicality in constructive ways: doing farm chores, baling hay, splashing in the swimming hole, climbing trees, racing to the sandlot for a game of baseball. Their unregimented play would have been steeped in nature.
Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder)
Sweating and bleeding, his shirt torn, thick hair now a tangled mop, he crawled up the steep incline until he reached the window. He knocked. She lifted the window the tiniest bit. "Yes?" Puzzled, he frowned. "You asked me to come." "Oh." She shook her head, feigning confusion. "That was ages ago. I'm about to go to sleep.
Sara Desai (The Dating Plan (Marriage Game, #2))
Sebastian, the Duke of Kingston, radiated the cool confidence of a man who had been born to privilege. Unlike most British peers, who were disappointingly average, Kingston was dashing and ungodly handsome, with the taut, slim physique pf a man half his age. Known for his shrewd mind and caustic wit, he oversaw a labyrinthine financial empire that included, of all things, a gentlemen's gaming club. If his fellow noblemen expressed private distaste for the vulgarity of owning such an enterprise, none dared criticize him publicly. He was the holder of too many debts, the possessor of too many ruinous secrets. With a few words or strokes of a pen, Kingston could have reduced nearly any proud aristocratic scion to beggary. Unexpectedly, rather sweetly, the duke seemed more than little enamored of his own wife. One of his hands lingered idly at the small of her back, his enjoyment in touching her covert but unmistakable. One could hardly blame him. Evangeline, the duchess, was a spectacularly voluptuous woman with apricot-red hair, and merry blue eyes set in a lightly freckled complexion. She looked warm and radiant, as if she'd been steeped in a long autumn sunset.
Lisa Kleypas (Devil's Daughter (The Ravenels, #5))
Marxism in this country had even been an eccentric and quixotic passion. One oppressed class after another had seemed finally to miss the point. The have-nots, it turned out, aspired mainly to having. The minorities seemed to promise more, but finally disappointed: it developed that they actually cared about the issues, that they tended to see the integration of the luncheonette and the seat in the front of the bus as real goals, and only rarely as ploys, counters in a larger game. They resisted that essential inductive leap from the immediate reform to the social ideal, and, just as disappointingly, they failed to perceive their common cause with other minorities, continued to exhibit a self-interest disconcerting in the extreme to organizers steeped in the rhetoric of "brotherhood." And then, at that exact dispirited moment when there seemed no one at all willing to play the proletariat, along came the women's movement.
Joan Didion (The White Album)
Even more remote from his way of thinking, even more impossible than any other thought, would have been words such as this: “Is it only I alone who have created this experience, or is it objective reality? Does the Master have the same feelings as I, or would mine amuse him? Are my thoughts new, unique, my own, or have the Master and many before him experienced and thought exactly the same?” No, for him there were no such analyses and differentiations. Everything was reality, was steeped in reality, full of it as bread dough is of yeast.
Hermann Hesse (The Glass Bead Game)
When he thundered up the steep staircase [of the institute], two steps at a time, there were few of us younger ones that could keep pace with him. The peace of the library was often broken by a brisk game of pingpong, and I don’t remember ever beating Bohr at that game.
Richard Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition)
If ideas flow out of you easily like a chocolate fountain, bless you, and skip to the next chapter. But if you’re someone like me, who longs to create but finds the process agonizing, here’s my advice: –Find a group to support you, to encourage you, to guilt you into DOING. If you can’t find one, start one yourself. Random people enjoy having pancakes. –Make a goal. Then strike down things that are distracting you from that goal, especially video games. (Unless it’s this book; finish reading it and THEN start.) –Put the fear of God into yourself. Okay, I’m not religious. Whatever spiritual ideas float your boat. Read some obituaries, watch the first fifteen minutes of Up, I don’t care. Just scare yourself good. You have a finite number of toothpaste tubes you will ever consume while on this planet. Make the most of that clean tooth time. For yourself. The creative process isn’t easy, even for chocolate-fountain people. It’s more like a wobbly, drunken journey down a very steep and scary hill, not knowing if there’s a sheer cliff at the end of it all. But it’s worth the journey, I promise.
Felicia Day (You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost))
Personal happiness is an end game; it is not an immediate necessity. A person whom attains lasting happiness will necessarily endure many hardships. People earn happiness by courageously braving the storms of life, instead of merely existing. A person must steep oneself in the type of experiences that girds one when times on the streets are the meanest. I will garner a comforting sense of self-satisfaction from taking the longer and more difficult road to personal happiness. I can never again work exclusively for money. I shall seek truth wherever it exists, muster the courage to plunge along headfirst without fear, maintain personal dreams when all hope seems lost, and adamantly refuse to be mollified or satisfied with anything less than my very best work. I will dedicate personal efforts to mining my substratum while maintaining a diligent stewardship of a cherished central individuality.
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, a novel steeped in nostalgia and innovation that follows three friends as they come of age in the world of video games, creating stories and worlds that enhance, redefine, and preserve their rich bonds while attempting to defy the limits of mortality.
Gabrielle Zevin (Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow)
Your mind, what you learn, how hard you work, and everything you do directly controls how much money you make. It is a lot like working out or playing a video game. When you start, you are likely going to suck at it, get frustrated, and possibly even quit. This is why people consider it too hard and too risky. Well, it’s not. It just has a steep learning curve, and you are likely to fail at first.
Alex Becker (The 10 Pillars of Wealth: Mind-Sets of the World's Richest People)
That night, after the lates had been cleared, Robb carried Bran up to bed himself. Grey Wind led the way, and Summer came close behind. His brother was strong for his age, and Bran was as light as a bundle of rags, but the stairs were steep and dark, and Robb was breathing hard by the time they reached the top. He put Bran into bed, covered him with blankets, and blew out the candle. For a time Robb sat beside him in the dark. Bran wanted to talk to him, but he did not know what to say. "We'll find a horse for you, I promise," Robb whispered at last. "Are they ever coming back?" Bran asked him. "Yes," Robb said with such hope in his voice that Bran knew he was hearing his brother and not just Robb the Lord. "Mother will be home soon. Maybe we can ride out to meet her when she comes. Wouldn't that surprise her, to see you ahorse?" Even in the dark room, Bran could feel his brother's smile. "And afterward, we'll ride north to see the Wall. We won't even tell Jon we're coming, we'll just be there one day, you and me. It will be an adventure." "An adventure," Bran repeated wistfully. He heard his brother sob. The room was so dark he could not see the tears on Robb's face, so he reached out and found his hand. Their fingers twined together.
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
And as soon as I had recognised the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And in the game wherein the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little pieces of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch and twist and take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, solid and recognisable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.
Marcel Proust (Du côté de chez Swann (À la recherche du temps perdu, #1))
That was the moment Anna felt something inside her trip and fall, something come clean away from all the snares and traps and tangles of the propriety in which she’d been steeped all these years. And as he began to move, she pressed into him as he had shown her, looked up at him from beneath her lashes as he’d directed, and said, in a purring voice, “My, my, sir, how well you move us about the dance floor! One can’t help but wonder if you move as well in other, more intimate circumstances,” she said, and let her lips stretch into a soft smile. It worked. Grif’s grin faded; he slowed his step a little and blinked down at her for a moment. But that dangerous smile slowly appeared again, starting in his eyes and casually reaching his lips. “If ye were to pose such a question to me, lass, I’d say, ‘As fast or as slow, as soft or as hard as ye’d want, leannan. Pray tell, how would ye want?’” The tingling in her groin was a signal that she was on perilous ground. Anna looked into his green eyes, so dark and so deep that she couldn’t quite determine if this was a game they were playing or something far more dangerous. And her good sense, shaped and controlled from years of living among high society, quietly shut down, allowing the real Anna, the Anna who yearned to be loved, to be held and caressed and adored and know all manner of physical pleasure, to slide deeper into the circle of his arms. “I don’t rightly know how I’d want, sir, other than to say…” Her voice trailed away as she let her gaze roam his face, the perfectly tied neckcloth, the breadth of his shoulders, his thick arms. And then she lifted her gaze to his, saw something smoldering there, and recklessly whispered, “… that I’d most definitely want.” He said nothing. The muscles in his jaw bulged as if he refrained from speaking, and she realized that they had come to a halt. But then his hand spread beneath hers, his palm pressed to her palm, and he laced his fingers between hers, one by one, and with the last one, he closed his hand, gripping hers tightly. “Tha sin glè mhath,” he whispered hoarsely. Anna smiled, lifted a curious brow. “I said, that’s very good, lass. Very good indeed
Julia London (Highlander in Disguise (Lockhart Family #2))
Victory was inexorable, Overbeck believed, because the Americans wanted it more, because they had trained harder in the Florida swamp heat and because they had competed more fiercely among teammates who turned pumpkin carving and card games and scavenger hunts into blood sport, because they had survived the lean years of backpack travel and diets of candy bars and queasy soup steeping with the heads of chickens, because they had ridden the coal trains until their faces were black with soot, because they had lived in rickety hotels with one hour of hot water out of 24, because they had run sprints in hotel stairways and parking lots and abandoned fields, because they ignored the disbelievers, building their sport from nothing into a consuming moment, a galvanizing instant, that would make people remember where they were and what they were doing.
Jere Longman
That was a very pretty image, the idle ladies sitting in the gazebo and murmuring lasciate ogni speranza, but it depended entirely upon the popular view of the movement as some kind of collective inchoate yearning for “fulfillment,” or “self-expression,” a yearning absolutely devoid of ideas and capable of engendering only the most pro forma benevolent interest. In fact there was an idea, and the idea was Marxist, and it was precisely to the extent that there was this Marxist idea that the curious historical anomaly known as the women’s movement would have seemed to have any interest at all. Marxism in this country had ever been an eccentric and quixotic passion. One oppressed class after another had seemed finally to miss the point. The have-nots, it turned out, aspired mainly to having. The minorities seemed to promise more, but finally disappointed: it developed that they actually cared about the issues, that they tended to see the integration of the luncheonette and the seat in the front of the bus as real goals, and only rarely as ploys, counters in a larger game. They resisted that essential inductive leap from the immediate reform to the social ideal, and, just as disappointingly, they failed to perceive their common cause with other minorities, continued to exhibit a self-interest disconcerting in the extreme to organizers steeped in the rhetoric of “brotherhood.
Joan Didion (The White Album: Essays)
Dubrovnik, Croatia Dubrovnik’s old architecture, all wrapped within its ancient stone walls, have made this city a World Heritage Site. It’s an old sea port that sits above the Adriatic Sea. Its background, from medieval times was trade between the east and Europe and the city rivalled Venice for its reach and connections. Today, however, the principle economy is based on tourism. The old town is a warren of narrow, cobbled streets, sometimes steep, but pedestrianised which makes it easy to walk. However, be careful – signs do not always point to where they say they are going – many of them are old and the hotels, restaurants, bus stations have moved. The City Walls might look familiar to fans of Game of Thrones – many scenes were filmed here and there are Game of Thrones tours to visit the film’s settings. The area suffered a devastating earthquake in the 17th century, therefore much of the original architecture did not survive. The Sponza Palace, near the Bell Tower, is one of the few Gothic buildings left in the city. The Stradun is the main street in the Old Town – restaurants, shops and bars all pour out onto here. It’s lively, especially towards the end of the day. Don’t forget that the city’s location on the coast means that it also has beautiful beaches. Lapad Beach is two miles outside of town, and has a chilled atmosphere. Banje Beach is closer to the old town. It has an entrance fee and is livelier. One of the reasons Dubrovnok appeals to solo travellers is because it has a low crime rate. In addition, its cobbled streets and artistic shops all make browsing easy.
Dee Maldon (The Solo Travel Guide: Just Do It)
and Bran was suddenly afraid. Old sour-smelling Yoren looked up at Robb, unimpressed. “Whatever you say, m’lord,” he said. He sucked at a piece of meat between his teeth. The youngest of the black brothers shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “There’s not a man on the Wall knows the haunted forest better than Benjen Stark. He’ll find his way back.” “Well,” said Yoren, “maybe he will and maybe he won’t. Good men have gone into those woods before, and never come out.” All Bran could think of was Old Nan’s story of the Others and the last hero, hounded through the white woods by dead men and spiders big as hounds. He was afraid for a moment, until he remembered how that story ended. “The children will help him,” he blurted, “the children of the forest!” Theon Greyjoy sniggered, and Maester Luwin said, “Bran, the children of the forest have been dead and gone for thousands of years. All that is left of them are the faces in the trees.” “Down here, might be that’s true, Maester,” Yoren said, “but up past the Wall, who’s to say? Up there, a man can’t always tell what’s alive and what’s dead.” That night, after the plates had been cleared, Robb carried Bran up to bed himself. Grey Wind led the way, and Summer came close behind. His brother was strong for his age, and Bran was as light as a bundle of rags, but the stairs were steep and dark, and Robb was breathing hard by the time they reached the top. He put Bran into bed, covered him with blankets, and blew out the candle. For a time Robb sat beside him in the dark. Bran wanted to talk to him, but he did not know what to say. “We’ll find a horse for you, I promise,” Robb whispered at last. “Are they ever coming back?” Bran asked him. “Yes,” Robb said with such hope in his voice that Bran knew he was hearing his brother and not just Robb the Lord. “Mother will be home soon. Maybe we can ride out to meet her when she comes. Wouldn’t that surprise her, to see you ahorse?” Even in the dark room, Bran could feel his brother’s smile. “And afterward, we’ll ride north to see the Wall. We won’t even tell Jon we’re coming, we’ll just be there one day, you and me. It will be an adventure.” “An adventure,” Bran repeated wistfully. He heard his brother sob. The room was so dark he could not see the tears on Robb’s face, so he reached out and found his hand. Their fingers twined together. EDDARD “Lord Arryn’s death was a great sadness for all of us, my lord,” Grand Maester Pycelle said.
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
Humans don't just entertain ideas but steep them with emotion. They stand in awe of deities, their parts and possessions, and the supernatural realms they control. They are terrified by disease, death, and infirmity. They are revolted by bodily secretions. They take a prurient interest in sexuality in all its variations. They loathe enemies, traitors, and subordinate peoples. As unpleasant as these thoughts are, people willingly inflict them on one another, sometimes to intimidate or denigrate them, sometimes to get their attention, sometimes to show that they can willingly endure the thoughts. As humans make it through the day, they react emotionally to its ups and downs, especially its frustrations and setbacks, and sometimes advertise these reactions to others.
James P. Carse (Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility)
You [Mark Antony] assumed a man’s toga and at once turned it into a prostitute’s frock. At first you were a common rent boy; you charged a fixed fee, and a steep one at that. Curio soon turned up, though, and took you off the game. You were as firmly wedded to Curio as if he had given you a married woman’s dress. No boy bought for lust was ever as much in his master’s power as you were in Curio’s. How many times did his father throw you out of his house? How many times did he set watchmen to make sure you did not cross his front door? And yet under cover of night, driven by lust and money, you were let in through the roof tiles.
Anthony Everitt (Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician)
you should choose to turn the key The price is your identity “My identity?” Seth asked. “Key of Forgetting,” Humbuggle said. “Steep price for a big prize. Good luck!” The dwarf clapped his hands and vanished. “You have the key,” Celebrant said, glowering at Seth. “Maybe not,” Seth replied. “I saw you put it in your pocket,” Celebrant said. “Maybe that was a candy bar,” Seth tried. “It was a key made of jade,” Celebrant said. “And Humbuggle congratulated you.” Seth removed it from his pocket. Celebrant smiled. “Well done. This has been quite a game.” “If you say so,” Seth said. “What if I gave you and your sister a sporting chance?” Celebrant said. “I’d be incredibly suspicious,” Seth said. “Taking the glove from Kendra and turning her to gold would be no problem,” Celebrant said. “Same with changing you to gold. But that would end our game, and dragons love
Brandon Mull (Wrath of the Dragon King (Dragonwatch #2))
The average life of a company in the 1950s, if you recall, was just over 60 years. Today it is less than 20 years. According to a 2017 study by Credit Suisse, disruptive technology is the reason for the steep decline in company life span.
Simon Sinek (The Infinite Game)
The default-mode network has since been implicated in modes of thought like mind-wandering, creative thinking, and dreaming. “As you’re falling asleep, your brain is falling into that default mode where it’s reviewing events from the day,” Stickgold explained. “It’s reviewing everything that has a tag on it that says, ‘You’re not done with this.’” That could be anything new, vague or intense—a game of Tetris or a hike up a steep mountain, a confusing conversation or nerve-racking project.
Alice Robb (Why We Dream: The Transformative Power of Our Nightly Journey)
To play the role, the producers wanted an actor with “the aggressiveness of Teddy Roosevelt, the warmth and humility of Abe Lincoln, and the tenacity of Andrew Jackson.” Their choice, Edward Arnold, made no attempt to characterize the men he played. “They’re all Edward Arnold,” he said, “or else there’d be no guessing game on the show.” But the problem with the show was aptly stated by the Radio Life critic: the novelty of the guessing game wore thin, leaving the show steeped in boredom. For Arnold it was a prestigious part, earning him the admiration of Harry Truman despite the actor’s Republican nature. Arnold was a frequent guest at the White House, where Truman referred to him as “Mr. President.
John Dunning (On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio)
Then it occurred to me that I could walk outside and contrive to take a spill, or squeeze out the window on the rear staircase on HmH and fall several meters to the steep embankment below, being sure to land on the bad ankle and hurt it, so I’d not have to play. That I could carefully plan out a fall from the courts’ observation transom or the spectators’ gallery of whatever club C.T. and the Moms sent us to to help raise funds, and fall so carefully badly I’d take out all the ankle’s ligaments and never play again. Never have to, never get to. I could be the faultless victim of a freak accident and be knocked from the game while still on the ascendant. Becoming the object of compassionate sorrow rather than disappointed sorrow. 

I couldn’t stay with this fantastic line of thought long enough to parse out whose disappointment I was willing to cripple myself to avoid (or forgo).
David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest)
Then it occurred to me that I could walk outside and contrive to take a spill, or squeeze out the window on the rear staircase oh HmH and fall several meters to the steep embankment below, being sure to land on the bad ankle and hurt it, so I’d not have to play. That I could carefully plan out a fall from the courts’ observation transom or the spectators’ gallery of whatever club C.T. and the Moms sent us to to help raise funds, and fall so carefully badly I’d take out all the ankle’s ligaments and never play again. Never have to, never get to. I could be the faultless victim of a freak accident and be knocked from the game while still on the ascendant. Becoming the object of compassionate sorrow rather than disappointed sorrow. I couldn’t stay with this fantastic line of thought long enough to parse out whose disappointment I was willing to cripple myself to avoid (or forgo).
David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest)
Then it occurred to me that I could walk outside and contrive to take a spill, or squeeze out the window on the rear staircase oh HmH and fall several meters to the steep embankment below, being sure to land on the bad ankle and hurt it, so I’d not have to play. That I could carefully plan out a fall from the courts’ observation transom or the spectators’ gallery of whatever club C.T. and the Moms sent us to to help raise funds, and fall so carefully badly I’d take out all the ankle’s ligaments and never play again. Never have to, never get to. I could be the faultless victim of a freak accident and be knocked from the game while still on the ascendant. Becoming the object of compassionate sorrow rather than disappointed sorrow. 

I couldn’t stay with this fantastic line of thought long enough to parse out whose disappointment I was willing to cripple myself to avoid (or forgo).
David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest)
I have been told by many that their life is wonderful, that life’s a game, but it’s not fair, I break the rules, so I don’t care! That it is thrilling to be part of the freaking world of butt holes. I got news for you; I did want all that. I have been tooled, that dying you see the light too, along with the flashing by of your stupid pathetic life. Yet, at least I had a stupid pathetic life. Just like my great-grandma Nevaeh Natalie, grandmother Jaylynn, and my freaked-up mother Kristen, oh, and also my dad, and mom said- ‘she was born on May 12, 2001.’ She had me later on in life to another freakier she’s even more freaked up than my step-monster, after Brandon my real dad passed from something that I cannot protonate, I don’t want to talk about it- finding out how she left him, for someone else other than him, which she said she would happen or never- ever do. He ended it… Besides, that was it… I am not saying more; I do not want to… I don’t freaking have to. Freak that crap in the butt! Yet sometimes, I feel like such a steep child, yet in a way that is just what I am. However, my daddy loves me anyway, yet my little sis is their biological child. I was adopted before they realized that freaking one another in the old-school hallways would not work for them, anyway, it would not be long until she gets knocked up, with my pain in the butt sister Kellie. When she dropped out. I never really knew my real dad; my dad was always the one that was everything to me. Yet my mom is the monster, and I the mutant, (E-ugh! She said- ‘When she saw me as a baby girl in the nursery.’) However, she felt that way about me since day one, and I feel the same, damn- yes, the same way the same damn way. It was a new day… that fell to me… to me if you think about it; I have always been falling. Honestly, I thought that someday, ‘I would do wonder and crap cucumbers.’ Never truly pondering my last moments on this gray-green dying plant, we call earth. Looking over those visions from my past, my mind seems rather dreadful, nasty, and bleak. Just plan sadly really. Lonely in my memories, I felt that nearly if not all things would have improved if it was just covered up, covered over, and forgotten about completely in sixth grade. A failure to recall if you do well. That would be awesome.
Marcel Ray Duriez (Nevaeh Falling too You)
By now, though, it had been a steep learning curve, he was fairly well versed on the basics of how clearing worked: When a customer bought shares in a stock on Robinhood — say, GameStop — at a specific price, the order was first sent to Robinhood's in-house clearing brokerage, who in turn bundled the trade to a market maker for execution. The trade was then brought to a clearinghouse, who oversaw the trade all the way to the settlement. During this time period, the trade itself needed to be 'insured' against anything that might go wrong, such as some sort of systemic collapse or a default by either party — although in reality, in regulated markets, this seemed extremely unlikely. While the customer's money was temporarily put aside, essentially in an untouchable safe, for the two days it took for the clearing agency to verify that both parties were able to provide what they had agreed upon — the brokerage house, Robinhood — had to insure the deal with a deposit; money of its own, separate from the money that the customer had provided, that could be used to guarantee the value of the trade. In financial parlance, this 'collateral' was known as VAR — or value at risk. For a single trade of a simple asset, it would have been relatively easy to know how much the brokerage would need to deposit to insure the situation; the risk of something going wrong would be small, and the total value would be simple to calculate. If GME was trading at $400 a share and a customer wanted ten shares, there was $4000 at risk, plus or minus some nominal amount due to minute vagaries in market fluctuations during the two-day period before settlement. In such a simple situation, Robinhood might be asked to put up $4000 and change — in addition to the $4000 of the customer's buy order, which remained locked in the safe. The deposit requirement calculation grew more complicated as layers were added onto the trading situation. A single trade had low inherent risk; multiplied to millions of trades, the risk profile began to change. The more volatile the stock — in price and/or volume — the riskier a buy or sell became. Of course, the NSCC did not make these calculations by hand; they used sophisticated algorithms to digest the numerous inputs coming in from the trade — type of equity, volume, current volatility, where it fit into a brokerage's portfolio as a whole — and spit out a 'recommendation' of what sort of deposit would protect the trade. And this process was entirely automated; the brokerage house would continually run its trading activity through the federal clearing system and would receive its updated deposit requirements as often as every fifteen minutes while the market was open. Premarket during a trading week, that number would come in at 5:11 a.m. East Coast time, usually right as Jim, in Orlando, was finishing his morning coffee. Robinhood would then have until 10:00 a.m. to satisfy the deposit requirement for the upcoming day of trading — or risk being in default, which could lead to an immediate shutdown of all operations. Usually, the deposit requirement was tied closely to the actual dollars being 'spent' on the trades; a near equal number of buys and sells in a brokerage house's trading profile lowered its overall risk, and though volatility was common, especially in the past half-decade, even a two-day settlement period came with an acceptable level of confidence that nobody would fail to deliver on their trades.
Ben Mezrich (The Antisocial Network: The GameStop Short Squeeze and the Ragtag Group of Amateur Traders That Brought Wall Street to Its Knees)
Licorice steeped in vinegar, with honey and cloves. It will give you some strength and clear your head.
George R.R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire, 5-Book Boxed Set: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons (Song of Ice & Fire 1-5))
The path now is steep as hell—the new curve we’re on demands downright disruptive emissions cuts” of as much as 50 percent a decade. As the geophysicist Michael Mann put it, “what would have been a bunny slope was now a double black diamond.” That means, Steffen explained, that “climate action can no longer be orderly, gradual, or even continuous with our expectations
Bill McKibben (Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?)
State-run broadcast TV had been around for decades, but poor reception and a dearth of programming meant there simply wasn’t much reason to watch. But lately, thanks to a steep fall in the price of equipment and distribution, great swaths of India have been wired for cable and satellite TV. Between 2001 and 2006, some 150 million Indians received cable for the first time, their villages suddenly crackling with the latest game shows and soap operas, newscasts and police procedurals, beamed from the big cities of India and abroad. TV gave many Indian villagers their first good look at the outside world.
Steven D. Levitt (SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes And Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance)