Strike It Lucky Quotes

Love comes like lightning, and disappears the same way. If you are lucky, it strikes you right. If not, you'll spend your life yearning for a man you can't have.

But there was one other thing that the grown-ups also knew, and it was this: that however small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance is there. The chance had to be there.

Barack Obama strikes at the heart of our deepest insecurities. He is a good father while many of us aren’t. He wears suits to his job while we wear overalls, if we’re lucky enough to have a job at all. His wife tells us that we shouldn’t be feeding our children certain foods, and we hate her for it—not because we think she’s wrong but because we know she’s right.

However small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance was there.

Sometimes, you're the one who strikes it lucky. Sometimes, it's the other poor bastard who's left with the short straw, and you just have to shut up and get on with it.

Luck is buying a lottery ticket along with your Yoo-hoo and striking it rich. Nothing about my life is lucky- it is all about hard work, it is all uphill struggle.

If you’re not aware of the transcendent, if you’re not awake to the glorious mystery of life and death that you’re lucky enough to be part of—if that doesn’t fill you with joy and strike you with awe … you might as well not be alive. That’s the message of the tragedies. Participate in the wonder. For your sake (...) -live it.

Vitaly owns half a carton of Lucky Strikes, an electric guitar, and a hangover

Lucky” was what people who couldn’t bear to contemplate horrors needed to hear maimed and terrorized survivors call themselves.

That however small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance was there.

Here was my lesson in the reach of veterinary medicine, in how an animal doctor may not be the one standing up when disaster strikes and someone shouts, 'Is there a doctor in the house?' but occasionally, if he or she is lucky, a vet can help heal a sick loved one.

Some of us are born plain unlucky, helplessly watching others sail through. When tragedy strikes, those ‘lucky bastards’ won’t have a fucking clue what to do, paralyzed by fear.

They understood something together at that moment, Makepeace and Bear. Sometimes you had to be patient through pain, or people gave you more pain. Sometimes you had to weather everything and take your bruises. If you were lucky, and if everyone thought you were tamed and trained... there might come a time when you could strike.

Not for the first time I find our lives are a shadow, and I am not afraid to say that people who think they have everything figured out and are masters of logic - they are responsible for the greatest folly. No human being is happy. Strike it rich and you are luckier than your neighbor - but happy, never.

I read a book one day and my whole life was changed” starts Orhan Pamuk to his famous and brilliantly written book: The New Life. Some books just strike you with the very first sentence, and generally those are the ones that leave a mark in your memory and soul, the ones that make you read, come back many years later and read again, and have the same pleasure each time. I was lucky enough to have a father who was passionate about literature, so passionate that he would teach me how to read at the age of five. The very first book he bought for me was “The Little Black Fish” by Samad Behrangi. After that I started reading his other books, and at that age I had already owned a small Behrangi collection. Recently I was talking with a Persian friend about how Behrangi and his books changed my life. A girl, from another country, from kilometeters away, around the same time was also reading Behrangi’s books, and creating her own imaginary worlds with his rich and deep characters, and intense stories.

Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place. Besides, persistence of the normal is usually greater than the effect of the disturbance, as we know from our own times. After absorbing the news of today, one expects to face a world consisting entirely of strikes, crimes, power failures, broken water mains, stalled trains, school shutdowns, muggers, drug addicts, neo-Nazis, and rapists. The fact is that one can come home in the evening--on a lucky day--without having encountered more than one or two of these phenomena. This has led me to formulate Tuchman's Law, as follows: "The fact of being reported multiplies the apparent extent of any deplorable development by five- to tenfold" (or any figure the reader would care to supply).

We are probably this far from donning trench coats, smoking Lucky Strikes, and slinking furtively around town, taking notes in a little black book. Which doesn't actually sound all that bad, truth be told.

Being dyslexic, I’m lucky if I can recognize English words, but, being a demigod, Ancient Greek is sort of hardwired into my brain. ‘Ke-rau-noh,’ I pronounced. ‘Blast?’ Annabeth gave me a wicked little smile. ‘Closest term I could think of. Literally it means strike with lightning bolts .’ ‘Ooh,’ Sadie said. ‘I love striking things with lightning bolts.

It’s possible you briefly lost that feeling of impending doom in 2008, after the likable, cool presidential candidate defeated the old man who slept through all his flight school classes. But that relief probably vanished in a wave of Wall Street bailouts and drone strikes and a brief Democratic congressional majority that didn’t even bother to pass the card check bill or push for true universal health care. Perhaps once you got a job, you realized that the pay—or, if you were really lucky, the benefits package—was vastly outweighed by what work took out of your soul, as you spent your days white-knuckling it from check to check, feeling like the same idiot failure you were before you had a job.

Throughout the years, I was always envied that I had the opportunity to travel so extensively. International travel, at least for me, was no fun. I liked to work on a tight schedule with as few surprises, delays, and disruptions as possible. That almost never worked out. Some connection would invariably be missed and some appointments not kept. There were riots and strikes, and in the seventies, bombs. It always confounded me when people would come up to me tell me how lucky I was to travel all over the world. Not

she has heard somewhere that cigarettes are good for grief. One long drag and you forget how to cry. The body too busy dealing with the poison. No wonder they gave them out free to the soliders. Lucky Strikes.

The driver had on Radio 1, which was giving us Kylie Minogue's 'I should be so lucky'....By the song's second verse I was already longing for an IRA ambush and and by the second chorus I was dreaming of a rogue comet strike.

If you’re not aware of the transcendent, if you’re not awake to the glorious mystery of life and death that you’re lucky enough to be part of—if that doesn’t fill you with joy and strike you with awe … you might as well not be alive. That’s the message

I figure heaven will be a scratch-and-sniff sort of place, and one of my first requests will be the Driftwood in its prime, while it was filled with our life. And later I will ask for the smell of my dad's truck, which was a combination of basic truck (nearly universal), plus his cologne (Old Spice), unfiltered Lucky Strikes, and when I was very lucky, leaded gasoline. If I could have gotten my nose close enough I would have inhaled leaded gasoline until I was retarded. The tendency seemed to run in my family; as a boy my uncle Crandall had an ongoing relationship with a gas can he kept in the barn. Later he married and divorced the same woman four times, sometimes marrying other women in between, including one whose name was, honestly, Squirrelly.

President Obama came on the scene right as so many people in my community began to believe that the modern American meritocracy was not built for them. We know we’re not doing well. We see it every day: in the obituaries for teenage kids that conspicuously omit the cause of death (reading between the lines: overdose), in the deadbeats we watch our daughters waste their time with. Barack Obama strikes at the heart of our deepest insecurities. He is a good father while many of us aren’t. He wears suits to his job while we wear overalls, if we’re lucky enough to have a job at all. His wife tells us that we shouldn’t be feeding our children certain foods, and we hate her for it—not because we think she’s wrong but because we know she’s right. Many

If you’re not aware of the transcendent, if you’re not awake to the glorious mystery of life and death that you’re lucky enough to be part of—if that doesn’t fill you with joy and strike you with awe … you might as well not be alive. That’s the message of the tragedies. Participate in the wonder. For your sake—for Tara’s sake—live it.

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. Lucky is he who has been able to understand the causes of things Virgil, Georgics, Book 2

I think they both have to be lucky. It's like, luck friction. One's flint and one's steel, striking together to make fire.

Love comes like lightning , and disappears the same way.. If you are lucky it strikes you right..

But that’s the funny thing about hope, Dak’s learned—you only have to get lucky once.

Mark had known a lesbian attorney for an evil cabal would never smoke Lucky Strikes.

however small the chance might be of striking lucky the chance will be there

Tragedy strikes us all at one point in our life. People make mistakes, and some are lucky enough to walk away without lasting marks, while others live a lifetime with the choice they made.

I’ll try, Aunt Evvie.” “Yes—I know you will. Trying—that’s built into you, too.” Aunt Evvie looked her over closely. “You were a fair child, and a likely child, although you weren’t ever a lucky child. Well, luck is for fools. It’s all they have to hope for, poor devils. It strikes me that you are still likely and fair, and that’s the important thing. I think you’ll make out.

I said that we should be all right if we had some cigarettes. I only meant this as a joke; nevertheless half an hour later McNair appeared with two packets of Lucky Strike. He had braved the pitch-dark streets, roamed by Anarchist patrols who had twice stopped him at the pistol’s point and examined his papers. I shall not forget this small act of heroism. We were very glad of the cigarettes.

Look both ways before you cross the street," she tells me. I start to protest, but then it strikes me that if I am very lucky I will one day be able to offer annoying safety tips to my own children one day.

Does six strike you as a good number?” I didn’t know what he was getting at. “Six isn’t exactly a lucky number,” I hedged. “If I were looking for a good number I’d have to go up to seven.” I shrugged. “Or down to three.

he was lucky, he had half his life to live again, and it was time to give up things far more harmful than smoking and chips, time to admit to himself he should seek something new, as opposed to what was damaging but familiar.

If you’re not aware of the transcendent, if you’re not awake to the glorious mystery of life and death that you’re lucky enough to be part of—if that doesn’t fill you with joy and strike you with awe … you might as well not be alive.

If you're not aware of the transcendent, if you're not awake to the glorious mystery of life and death that you're lucky enough to be part of, if that doesn't fill you with joy and strike you with awe, you might as well not be alive.

If you’re not aware of the transcendent, if you’re not awake to the glorious mystery of life and death that you’re lucky enough to be part of — if that doesn’t fill you with joy and strike you with awe… you might as well not be alive.

In jeder freien Minute lehnen sie sich auf ihre Schaufeln, rauchen Lucky Strikes oder Camel, sehen dich an, als ob sie das Salz der Erde wären, imstande, dir für fünf Dollar einen zu verpassen oder mit deiner Frau ins Bett zu gehen, wann immer sie wollen.

Czernobog snorted and woke, sitting up slowly. “I dreamed a strange dream,” he said. “I dreamed that I am truly Bielebog. That forever the world imagines that there are two of us, the light god and the dark, but that now we are both old, I find it was only me all the time, giving them gifts, taking my gifts away.” He broke the filter from a Lucky Strike, put it between his lips and lit it with his lighter. Shadow wound down his window. “Aren’t you worried about lung cancer?” he said. “I am cancer,” said Czernobog. “I do not frighten myself.

Stuyvesants and Vanderbilts and Roosevelts and staid, respectable Washington Square. Trinity Church. Mrs. Astor’s famous ballroom, the Four Hundred, snobby Ward McAllister, that traitor Edith Wharton, Delmonico’s. Zany Zelda and Scott in the Plaza fountain, the Algonquin Round Table, Dottie Parker and her razor tongue and pen, the Follies. Cholly Knickerbocker, 21, Lucky Strike dances at the Stork, El Morocco. The incomparable Hildegarde playing the Persian Room at the Plaza, Cary Grant kneeling at her feet in awe. Fifth Avenue: Henri Bendel, Bergdorf’s, Tiffany’s.

Those were the ones who gave the least trouble, because they didn’t just want tokens, they needed them. Karl Marx had called religion the opiate of the people, but Stackhouse begged to differ. He thought Lucky Strikes and Boone’s Farm (greatly favored by their female guests) did the job quite nicely.

All this has happened because someone saw an opportunity that no one else did. They had the audacity to strike where no one else would even have considered an attack. That’s the power of audacity, and if a general is lucky and strong-minded, they can take that advantage and keep the enemy on their back foot forever.

Now that Dad was gone I was starting to see how mortality was bound up in things like that cold, arc-lit sky. How the world is full of signs and wonders that come, and go, and if you are lucky you might see them. Once, twice. Perhaps never again. The albums on my mother’s shelves are full of family photographs. But also other things. A starling with a crooked beak. A day of hoarfrost and smoke. A cherry tree thick with blossom. Thunderclouds, lightning strikes, comets and eclipses: celestial events terrifying in their blind distances but reassuring you, too, that the world is for ever, though you are only a blink in its course.

She laughed out loud. 'I can't teach you that,' she said. 'Love comes like lightning, and disappears the same way. If you're lucky, it strikes you right. If not, you'll spend your life yearning for a man you can't have. I advise you to forget about love, princess. Pleasure is simpler, and duty more important. Learn to be satisfied with them.' I should have believed her and modified my expectations. But I didn't. Deep in my stubborn heart I was convinced I deserved more.

they could not understand that poverty carried its own flavour there, where everything cost more, where the relentless distinctions between those who had succeeded and those who had not were constantly, painfully visible. The distance between Elin’s vanilla-columned flat in Clarence Terrace and the filthy Whitechapel squat where his mother had died could not be measured in mere miles. They were separated by infinite disparities, by the lotteries of birth and chance, by faults of judgement and lucky breaks.

I had tracked down a little cafe in the next village, with a television set that was going to show the World Cup Final on the Saturday. I arrived there mid-morning when it was still deserted, had a couple of beers, ordered a sensational conejo au Franco, and then sat, drinking coffee, and watching the room fill up. With Germans. I was expecting plenty of locals and a sprinkling of tourists, even in an obscure little outpost like this, but not half the population of Dortmund. In fact, I came to the slow realisation as they poured in and sat around me . . . that I was the only Englishman there. They were very friendly, but there were many of them, and all my exits were cut off. What strategy could I employ? It was too late to pretend that I was German. I’d greeted the early arrivals with ‘Guten Tag! Ich liebe Deutschland’, but within a few seconds found myself conversing in English, in which they were all fluent. Perhaps, I hoped, they would think that I was an English-speaker but not actually English. A Rhodesian, possibly, or a Canadian, there just out of curiosity, to try to pick up the rules of this so-called ‘Beautiful Game’. But I knew that I lacked the self-control to fake an attitude of benevolent detachment while watching what was arguably the most important event since the Crucifixion, so I plumped for the role of the ultra-sporting, frightfully decent Upper-Class Twit, and consequently found myself shouting ‘Oh, well played, Germany!’ when Helmut Haller opened the scoring in the twelfth minute, and managing to restrain myself, when Geoff Hurst equalised, to ‘Good show! Bit lucky though!’ My fixed grin and easy manner did not betray the writhing contortions of my hands and legs beneath the table, however, and when Martin Peters put us ahead twelve minutes from the end, I clapped a little too violently; I tried to compensate with ‘Come on Germany! Give us a game!’ but that seemed to strike the wrong note. The most testing moment, though, came in the last minute of normal time when Uwe Seeler fouled Jackie Charlton, and the pig-dog dolt of a Swiss referee, finally revealing his Nazi credentials, had the gall to penalise England, and then ignored Schnellinger’s blatant handball, allowing a Prussian swine named Weber to draw the game. I sat there applauding warmly, as a horde of fat, arrogant, sausage-eating Krauts capered around me, spilling beer and celebrating their racial superiority.

I don’t think George Lucas would want you to do this,” her mom said. “I didn’t know you knew who George Lucas was.” “Please. I was watching Star Wars movies before you were born. Your dad and I saw Empire Strikes Back five times in the theater.” “Lucky,” Elena said. “George Lucas is a father of daughters,” her mother said. “He wouldn’t want young girls freezing to death to prove their loyalty.” “This isn’t about George Lucas,” Elena said. “He isn’t even that involved in the sequels.” “Come home,” her mom said. “We’ll watch Empire Strikes Back and I’ll make hot cocoa.” “I can’t,” Elena said. “I’ll lose my place in line.” “I think it will still be there for you in the morning.” “Goodnight, Mom.

...in the book’s epilogue, a man moves about a barren plain “striking fire that God has placed” in the earth. He is digging holes for fenceposts, creating the demarcation between civilization and the wild; or, depending on your point of view, between a new civilization and an old one. Other men follow him blindly. They see only the holes he has dug. They don’t see the man. They don’t see his fire. The man leads them alone, and in isolation, calling this divine fire from the raw materials of existence. This of course is what Great Artists do. They follow their inner voice into places others will not understand; they work knowing they will be ignored and misunderstood. The lucky few—like Cormac McCarthy—will live to see their masterpieces recognized.

A thug. In peacetime Fitch would be hanging around a pool table giving the cops trouble. He was perfect for war. Tibbets had chosen his men well - most of them, anyway. Moving back past Haddock January stopped to stare at the group of men in the navigation cabin. They joked, drank coffee. They were all a bit like Fitch: young toughs, capable and thoughtless. They're having a good time, an adventure. That was January's dominant impression of his companions in the 509th; despite all the bitching and the occasional moments of overmastering fear, they were having a good time. His mind spun forward and he saw what these young men would grow up to be like as clearly as if they stood before him in businessmen's suits, prosperous and balding. They would be tough and capable and thoughtless, and as the years passed and the great war receded in time they would look back on it with ever-increasing nostalgia, for they would be the survivors and not the dead. Every year of this war would feel like ten in their memories, so that the war would always remain the central experience of their lives - a time when history lay palpable in their hands, when each of their daily acts affected it, when moral issues were simple, and others told them what to do - so that as more years passed and the survivors aged, bodies falling apart, lives in one rut or another, they would unconsciously push harder and harder to thrust the world into war again, thinking somewhere inside themselves that if they could only return to world war then they would magically be again as they were in the last one - young, and free, and happy. And by that time they would hold the positions of power, they would be capable of doing it.

Sooner or later the world must burn, and all things in it—all the books, the cloister together with the brothel, Fra Angelico together with the Lucky Strike ads which I haven’t seen for seven years because I don’t remember seeing one in Louisville. Sooner or later it will all be consumed by fire and nobody will be left—for by that time the last man in the universe will have discovered the bomb capable of destroying the universe and will have been unable to resist the temptation to throw the thing and get it over with. And here I sit writing a diary. But love laughs at the end of the world because love is the door to eternity and he who loves God is playing on the doorstep of eternity, and before anything can happen love will have drawn him over the sill and closed the door and he won’t bother about the world burning because he will know nothing but love.

For a moment, I thought I heard laughter, the click of one croquet ball striking another, a dog barking. I stared at the empty yard, trying hard to see what Great-grandfather saw, but nothing shifted, nothing changed. If the Tylers were playing croquet, they were visible to him and him alone. The only dog in sight was Binky. Running across the lawn to meet him, I took the stick he carried and threw it as hard as I could. It sailed across the sky, and Binky dashed after it. As the dog disappeared into the bushes, I looked up at the attic window and remembered the flash of white I’d seen the day I arrived--my first glimpse of Andrew. Funny to think I’d been scared. Nothing stirred in the attic now. No one watched, no one waited. Deep in my pocket, I touched the red bull’s-eye, warm as blood and twice as lucky. The marbles were mine for keeps. They were safe, and so was Andrew.

Don’t think, muñeca. Everything will work itself out.” “But--” “No buts. Trust me.” My mouth closes over hers. The smell of rain and cookies eases my nerves. My hand braces the small of her back. Her hands grip my soaked shoulders, urging me on. My hands slide under her shirt, and my fingers trace her belly button. “Come to me,” I say, then lift her until she’s straddling me over my bike. I can’t stop kissing her. I whisper how good she feels to me, mixing Spanish and English with every sentence. I move my lips down her neck and linger there until she leans back and lets me take her shirt off. I can make her forget about the bad stuff. When we’re together like this, hell, I can’t think of anything else but her. “I’m losing control,” she admits, biting her lower lip. I love those lips. “Mamacita, I’ve already lost it,” I say, grinding against her so she knows exactly how much control I’ve lost. She moves her hips in a slow rhythm against me, an invitation I don’t deserve. My fingertips graze her mouth. She kisses them before I slowly slide my hand down her chin to her neck and in between her breasts. She catches my hand. “I don’t want to stop, Alex.” I cover her body with mine. I can easily take her. Hell, she’s asking for it. But God help me if I don’t grow a conscience. It’s that loco bet I made with Lucky. And what my mom said about how easy it is to get a girl pregnant. When I made the bet, I had no feelings for this complex white girl. But now…shit, I don’t want to think about my feelings. I hate feelings; they’re only good for screwing up someone’s life. And may God strike me down right now because I want to make love to Brittany, not fuck her on my motorcycle like some cheap whore. I move my hands away from her cuerpo perfecto, the first sane thing I’ve done tonight. “I can’t take you like this. Not here,” I say, my voice hoarse from emotion overload. This girl was going to gift me with her body, even though she knows who I am and what I’m about to do. The reality is hard to swallow. I expect her to be embarrassed, maybe even mad. But she curls into my chest and hugs me. Don’t do this to me, I want to say. Instead I wrap my arms around her and hold on tight. “I love you,” I hear her say so softly it might have been her thoughts. Don’t, I’m tempted to say. ¡Noǃ ¡Noǃ My gut twists and I hold her tighter. Dios mío, if things were different I’d never give her up. I burrow my face in her hair and fantasize about stealing her away from Fairfield. We stay that way for a long time, long after the rain stops and reality sets in.

THREE BIG MISTAKES. But, of course, it’s never that simple. Before we even got to the third one, we were down and done. As much as our willingness to believe in the constant rise felled us, as much as our eagerness to conquer risk opened us up to more risk, as much as Greenspan stood by as Wall Street turned itself into Las Vegas, there was also Greece, and Iceland, and Nick Leeson, who took down Barings, and Brian Hunter, who tanked Amaranth, and Jérôme Kerviel and every other rogue trader who thought he—and it was always a he—could reverse his gut-churning, self-induced free fall with one swift, lucky strike; it was rising oil prices, global inflation, easy credit, the cowardice of Moody’s, the growing chasm of income inequality, the dot com boom and bust, the Fed’s rejection of regulation, the acceptance of “too big to fail,” the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the feast of subprime debt; it was Clinton and Bush the second and senators vacationing with banking industry lobbyists, the Kobe earthquake, an infatuation with financial innovation, the forgettable Hank Paulson, the delicious hubris of ten, twenty, thirty times leverage, and, at the bottom of it, our own vicious, lingering self-doubt. Or was it our own willful, unbridled self-delusion? Doubt vs. delusion. The flip sides of our last lucky coin. We toss it in the fountain and pray.

don’t mean girls can do just anything, or that there’s no such thing as immorality. I mean, that Balbec girl you were all talking about the other day, who’s supposed to be carrying on with that actress, well, I think that’s just disgusting—so disgusting, actually, that I can only assume it’s not true, but was invented by the girl’s enemies. It just strikes me as improbable—impossible, in fact. But letting a fellow that you like kiss you, and go even further, since you say you like me ...” “I do! But I’ve liked other fellows too. Believe you me, I’ve known other boys who were just as fond of me as you are. But there wasn’t one of them who would’ve dared do any such thing! They knew perfectly well they’d have got a good slap in the face! Anyway, the thought never entered their heads—we just shook hands in the usual way, like ordinary good friends. No one would ever have thought of kissing, but that didn’t stop us from being close friends. Look, if you really want us to be friends, then you can count yourself lucky—I must be pretty fond of you to forgive you like this. In any case, I’m sure you’re just teasing me! Andrée’s the one you really like—admit it! And I’m sure you’re right—she’s much nicer than me, and she’s beautiful! Oh, you men!” That Albertine should speak so openly was balm to my recent hurt feelings; and this gave me a high opinion of her.

Hoover fed the story to sympathetic reporters—so-called friends of the bureau. One article about the case, which was syndicated by William Randolph Hearst’s company, blared, NEVER TOLD BEFORE! —How the Government with the Most Gigantic Fingerprint System on Earth Fights Crime with Unheard-of Science Refinements; Revealing How Clever Sleuths Ended a Reign of Murder and Terror in the Lonely Hills of the Osage Indian Country, and Then Rounded Up the Nation’s Most Desperate Gang In 1932, the bureau began working with the radio program The Lucky Strike Hour to dramatize its cases. One of the first episodes was based on the murders of the Osage. At Hoover’s request, Agent Burger had even written up fictional scenes, which were shared with the program’s producers. In one of these scenes, Ramsey shows Ernest Burkhart the gun he plans to use to kill Roan, saying, “Look at her, ain’t she a dandy?” The broadcasted radio program concluded, “So another story ends and the moral is identical with that set forth in all the others of this series….[ The criminal] was no match for the Federal Agent of Washington in a battle of wits.” Though Hoover privately commended White and his men for capturing Hale and his gang and gave the agents a slight pay increase—“ a small way at least to recognize their efficiency and application to duty”—he never mentioned them by name as he promoted the case. They did not quite fit the profile of college-educated recruits that became part of Hoover’s mythology. Plus, Hoover never wanted his men to overshadow him.

An unusually clear statement of the secular view of evil and suffering is made by Richard Dawkins in his book "River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life"- He writes: “The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation....In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” This is a complete departure from every other cultural view of suffering. Each one sees evil as having some purpose as a punishment, or a test, or an opportunity. But in Dawkin's view, the reason people struggle so mightily in the face of suffering is because they will not accept that it never has any purpose. It is senseless, neither bad nor good- because categories such as good and evil are meaningless in the universe we live in. "We humans have purpose on the brain," he argues. "Show us almost any object or process and it is hard for us to resist the 'Why' question...It is an almost universal delusion...The old temptation comes back with a vengeance when tragedy strikes..."Why oh why, did the cancer/earthquake/hurricane have to strike my child?" But he argues that this agony happens because "we cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous-indifferent to all suffering, lacking purpose....DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.

As I said, if I don’t do anything I tend to put on the pounds. My wife’s the opposite, since she can eat as much as she likes (she doesn’t eat a lot of them, but can never turn down anything sweet), never exercise, and still not put on any weight. She has no extra fat at all. Life just isn’t fair, is how it used to strike me. Some people can work their butts off and never get what they’re aiming for, while others can get it without any effort at all. But when I think about it, having the kind of body that easily puts on weight was perhaps a blessing in disguise. In other words, if I don’t want to gain weight I have to work out hard every day, watch what I eat, and cut down on indulgences. Life can be tough, but as long as you don’t stint on the effort, your metabolism will greatly improve with these habits, and you’ll end up much healthier, not to mention stronger. To a certain extent, you can even slow down the effects of aging. But people who naturally keep the weight off no matter what don’t need to exercise or watch their diet in order to stay trim. There can’t be many of them who would go out of their way to take these troublesome measures when they don’t need to. Which is why, in many cases, their physical strength deteriorates as they age. If you don’t exercise, your muscles will naturally weaken, as will your bones. Some of my readers may be the kind of people who easily gain weight, but the only way to understand what’s really fair is to take a long-range view of things. For the reasons I give above, I think this physical nuisance should be viewed in a positive way, as a blessing. We should consider ourselves lucky that the red light is so clearly visible.

Clad in red velvet it came, the very covering my old Master had so loved, the dream king, Marius. It came swaggering and camping through the lighted streets of Paris as though God had made it. But it was a vampire child, the same as I, son of the seventeen hundreds, as they reckoned the time to be then, a blazing, brash, bumbling, laughing and teasing blood drinker in the guise of a young man, come to stomp out whatever sacred fire yet burnt in the cleft scar tissue of my soul and scatter the ashes. It was The Vampire Lestat. It wasn't his fault. Had one of us been able to strike him down one night, break him apart with his own fancy sword and set him ablaze, we might have had a few more decades of our wretched delusions. But nobody could. He was too damned strong for us. Created by a powerful and ancient renegade, a legendary vampire by the name of Magnus, this Lestat, aged twenty in mortal years, an errant and penniless country aristocrat from the wild lands of Auvergne, who had thrown over custom and respectability and any hope of court ambitions, of which he had none anyway since he couldn't even read or write, and was too insulting to wait on any King or Queen, who became a wild blond-haired celebrity of the boulevard gutter theatricals, a lover of men and women, a laughing happy-go-lucky blindly ambitious self-loving genius of sorts, this Lestat, this blue-eyed and infinitely confident Lestat, was orphaned on the very night of his creation by the ancient monster who made him, bequeathed to him a fortune in a secret room in a crumbling medieval tower, and then went into the eternal comfort of the ever devouring flames. This Lestat, knowing nothing of Old Covens and Old Ways, of soot covered gangsters who thrived under cemeteries and believed they had a right to brand him a heretic, a maverick and a bastard of the Dark Blood, went strutting about fashionable Paris, isolated and tormented by his supernatural endowments yet glorying in his new powers, dancing at the Tuileries with the most magnificently clad women, reveling in the joys of the ballet and the high court theater and roaming not only in the Places of Light, as we called them, but meandering mournfully in Notre Dame de Paris itself, right before the High Altar, without the lightning of God striking him where he stood. Armand’s description of Lestat from The Vampire Armand

If Mamaw's second God was the United States of America, then many people in my community were losing something akin to a religion. The tie that bound them to the neighbors, that inspired them in the way my patriotism had always inspired me, had seemingly vanished. The symptoms are all around us. Significant percentages of white conservative voters--about one-third--believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim. In one poll, 32 percent of conservatives said that they believed Obama was foreign-born and another 19 percent said they were unsure--which means that a majority of white conservatives aren't certain that Obama is even an American. I regularly hear from acquaintances or distant family members that Obama has ties to Islamic extremists, or is a traitor, or was born in some far-flung corner of the world. Many of my new friends blame racism for this perception of the president. But the president feels like an alien to many Middletonians for reasons that have nothing to do with skin color. Recall that not a single one of my high school classmates attended an Ivy League school. Barack Obama attended two of them and excelled at both. He is brilliant, wealthy, and speaks like a constitutional law professor--which, of course, he is. Nothing about him bears any resemblance to the people I admired growing up; His accent--clean, perfect, neutral--is foreign; his credentials are so impressive that they're frightening; he made his life in Chicago, a dense metropolis; and he conducts himself with a confidence that comes from knowing that the modern American meritocracy was built for him. Of course, Obama overcame adversity in his own right--adversity familiar to many of us--but that was long before any of us knew him. President Obama came on the scene right as so many people in my community began to believe that the modern American meritocracy was not built for them. We know we're not doing well. We see it every day: in the obituaries for teenage kids that conspicuously omit the cause of death (reading between the lines: overdose), in the deadbeats we watch our daughters waste their time with. Barack Obama strikes at the heart of our deepest insecurities. He is a good father while many of us aren't. He wears suits to his job while we wear overalls, if we're lucky enough to have a job at all. His wife tells us that we shouldn't be feeding our children certain foods, and we hate her for it--not because we think she's wrong, but because we know she's right.

8:00am The sun is shining, the cows are mooing, and I am ready for the mines. I hope I find something awesome today. Steve has told me about some pretty crazy things I had no idea existed. According to him, I must find empty tombs in the desert. That’s where the real treasures are. For today, I will stick to regular mining. Who knows, maybe I will come across an abandoned mine shaft; could be my lucky day.   12:30pm I was forced to come home for lunch today because I had too much stuff to carry. I was getting low on my iron ore, gold, and lapis lazuli stocks before this mine trip. It’s amazing how quick lapis goes when you are busy enchanting everything but the kitchen sink. I’d enchant that too if I had one. I wonder what an enchanted kitchen sink would do. Would it do my dishes for me? That would be so cool.   I have plenty of both now. I can make some new armor and enchant it! I love mining.   Steve decided to join me for lunch and we ate a couple of pork chops and some cake. I love cake! We ate until no more food could fill us up. Then, Steve had the guts to brag about how, when he mines, he takes a horse with extra storage so he can stay down there all day long. Well fancy you, Steve.   He also went on to tell me about how well the crops are doing these days. He thinks it’s because he is looking after them half of the time. What he doesn’t know is I throw bone marrow on them when I am working. Makes my job faster and gives me more free time so whatever you need to tell yourself, Steve.   Life may be easier switching every day between mines and farming, but it still doesn’t make me his biggest fan. I just don’t think he needs to fall in a hole, either. At least… Not right now. I would consider us to be frienemies; Friendly enemies. Yes. At times we pretend to get along, but most of the time, we are happiest doing our own thing.   6:00pm Mining this afternoon was super fun… Not! I got attacked by a partially hidden skeleton guy. I couldn’t see him enough to strike back until half of my life hearts were gone. I must not have made the space bright enough. Those guys are nasty. They are hard to kill too. If you don’t have a bow and arrow you might as well surrender. Plus, they kind of smell like death. Yuck.   Note to self: Bring more torches on the next mining day.   On the other hand, I came back with an overshare of Redstone, too much iron for my own good, and oddly, quite a few diamonds. I won’t be sharing the diamonds with anyone. They are far too precious. They will go to some new diamond pickaxes, and maybe some armor. Hmm, I could enchant those too! The iron and Redstone though, I am thinking a trip to the village may be in order. See what those up-tight weirdos are willing to trade me.   For now, it’s bedtime.   6:10pm You can only sleep at night. You can only sleep at night. You can only sleep at night.   6:11pm That stupid rule gets me every time. Why can’t I decide when it’s bed time?   First, I will go eat a cookie, then I will go to sleep. Day Thirty-Three   3:00am I just dreamt that our world was made of cookies.

At the Fishhouses Although it is a cold evening, down by one of the fishhouses an old man sits netting, his net, in the gloaming almost invisible, a dark purple-brown, and his shuttle worn and polished. The air smells so strong of codfish it makes one's nose run and one's eyes water. The five fishhouses have steeply peaked roofs and narrow, cleated gangplanks slant up to storerooms in the gables for the wheelbarrows to be pushed up and down on. All is silver: the heavy surface of the sea, swelling slowly as if considering spilling over, is opaque, but the silver of the benches, the lobster pots, and masts, scattered among the wild jagged rocks, is of an apparent translucence like the small old buildings with an emerald moss growing on their shoreward walls. The big fish tubs are completely lined with layers of beautiful herring scales and the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered with creamy iridescent coats of mail, with small iridescent flies crawling on them. Up on the little slope behind the houses, set in the sparse bright sprinkle of grass, is an ancient wooden capstan, cracked, with two long bleached handles and some melancholy stains, like dried blood, where the ironwork has rusted. The old man accepts a Lucky Strike. He was a friend of my grandfather. We talk of the decline in the population and of codfish and herring while he waits for a herring boat to come in. There are sequins on his vest and on his thumb. He has scraped the scales, the principal beauty, from unnumbered fish with that black old knife, the blade of which is almost worn away. Down at the water's edge, at the place where they haul up the boats, up the long ramp descending into the water, thin silver tree trunks are laid horizontally across the gray stones, down and down at intervals of four or five feet. Cold dark deep and absolutely clear, element bearable to no mortal, to fish and to seals . . . One seal particularly I have seen here evening after evening. He was curious about me. He was interested in music; like me a believer in total immersion, so I used to sing him Baptist hymns. I also sang "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." He stood up in the water and regarded me steadily, moving his head a little. Then he would disappear, then suddenly emerge almost in the same spot, with a sort of shrug as if it were against his better judgment. Cold dark deep and absolutely clear, the clear gray icy water . . . Back, behind us, the dignified tall firs begin. Bluish, associating with their shadows, a million Christmas trees stand waiting for Christmas. The water seems suspended above the rounded gray and blue-gray stones. I have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same, slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones, icily free above the stones, above the stones and then the world. If you should dip your hand in, your wrist would ache immediately, your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn as if the water were a transmutation of fire that feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame. If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter, then briny, then surely burn your tongue. It is like what we imagine knowledge to be: dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free, drawn from the cold hard mouth of the world, derived from the rocky breasts forever, flowing and drawn, and since our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.

I’m the kind of patriot whom people on the Acela corridor laugh at. I choke up when I hear Lee Greenwood’s cheesy anthem “Proud to Be an American.” When I was sixteen, I vowed that every time I met a veteran, I would go out of my way to shake his or her hand, even if I had to awkwardly interject to do so. To this day, I refuse to watch Saving Private Ryan around anyone but my closest friends, because I can’t stop from crying during the final scene. Mamaw and Papaw taught me that we live in the best and greatest country on earth. This fact gave meaning to my childhood. Whenever times were tough—when I felt overwhelmed by the drama and the tumult of my youth—I knew that better days were ahead because I lived in a country that allowed me to make the good choices that others hadn’t. When I think today about my life and how genuinely incredible it is—a gorgeous, kind, brilliant life partner; the financial security that I dreamed about as a child; great friends and exciting new experiences—I feel overwhelming appreciation for these United States. I know it’s corny, but it’s the way I feel. If Mamaw’s second God was the United States of America, then many people in my community were losing something akin to a religion. The tie that bound them to their neighbors, that inspired them in the way my patriotism had always inspired me, had seemingly vanished. The symptoms are all around us. Significant percentages of white conservative voters—about one-third—believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim. In one poll, 32 percent of conservatives said that they believed Obama was foreign-born and another 19 percent said they were unsure—which means that a majority of white conservatives aren’t certain that Obama is even an American. I regularly hear from acquaintances or distant family members that Obama has ties to Islamic extremists, or is a traitor, or was born in some far-flung corner of the world. Many of my new friends blame racism for this perception of the president. But the president feels like an alien to many Middletonians for reasons that have nothing to do with skin color. Recall that not a single one of my high school classmates attended an Ivy League school. Barack Obama attended two of them and excelled at both. He is brilliant, wealthy, and speaks like a constitutional law professor—which, of course, he is. Nothing about him bears any resemblance to the people I admired growing up: His accent—clean, perfect, neutral—is foreign; his credentials are so impressive that they’re frightening; he made his life in Chicago, a dense metropolis; and he conducts himself with a confidence that comes from knowing that the modern American meritocracy was built for him. Of course, Obama overcame adversity in his own right—adversity familiar to many of us—but that was long before any of us knew him. President Obama came on the scene right as so many people in my community began to believe that the modern American meritocracy was not built for them. We know we’re not doing well. We see it every day: in the obituaries for teenage kids that conspicuously omit the cause of death (reading between the lines: overdose), in the deadbeats we watch our daughters waste their time with. Barack Obama strikes at the heart of our deepest insecurities. He is a good father while many of us aren’t. He wears suits to his job while we wear overalls, if we’re lucky enough to have a job at all. His wife tells us that we shouldn’t be feeding our children certain foods, and we hate her for it—not because we think she’s wrong but because we know she’s right.

The opponent seemed to shift slightly in the seat. His index finger tapped a card, just a couple strokes. There it was the card that ruined his hand. Her hazel eyes release the player across from her to steal a glance registering the emotion of observers around the table then to her best friend. Sophie looks like a Nervous Nelly-she, always worries. She knows the girl will put too much emphasis on a lost hand. The striking man with his lusty brown eyes tries to draw Sophie closer. Now that he has folded and left the game, he is unnecessary, and the seasoned flirt easily escapes his reach. He leaves with a scowl; Sophie turns and issues knowing wink. Ell’s focus is now unfettered, freeing her again to bring down the last player. When she wins this hand, she will smile sweetly, thank the boys for their indulgence, and walk away $700 ahead. The men never suspected her; she’s no high roller. She realizes she and Sophie will have to stay just a bit. Mill around and pay homage to the boy’s egos. The real trick will be leaving this joint alone without one of them trying to tag along. Her opponent is taking his time; he is still undecided as to what card to keep—tap, tap. He may not know, but she has an idea which one he will choose. He attempts to appear nonchalant, but she knows she has him cornered. She makes a quick glance for Mr. Lusty Brown-eyes; he has found a new dame who is much more receptive than Sophie had been. Good, that small problem resolved itself for them. She returns her focuses on the cards once more and notes, her opponent’s eyes have dilated a bit. She has him, but she cannot let the gathering of onlookers know. She wants them to believe this was just a lucky night for a pretty girl. Her mirth finds her eyes as she accepts his bid. From a back table, there is a ruckus indicating the crowd’s appreciation of a well-played game as it ends. Reggie knew a table was freeing up, and just in time, he did not want to waste this evening on the painted and perfumed blonde dish vying for his attention. He glances the way of the table that slowly broke up. He recognizes most of the players and searches out the winner amongst them. He likes to take on the victor, and through the crowd, he catches a glimpse of his goal, surprised that he had not noticed her before. The women who frequent the back poker rooms in speakeasies all dress to compete – loud colors, low bodices, jewelry which flashes in the low light. This dame faded into the backdrop nicely, wearing a deep gray understated yet flirty gown. The minx deliberately blended into the room filled with dark men’s suits. He chuckles, thinking she is just as unassuming as can be playing the room as she just played those patsies at the table. He bet she had sat down all wide-eyed with some story about how she always wanted to play cards. He imagined she offered up a stake that wouldn’t be large but at the same time, substantial enough. Gauging her demeanor, she would have been bold enough to have the money tucked in her bodice. Those boys would be eager after she teased them by retrieving her stake. He smiled a slow smile; he would not mind watching that himself. He knew gamblers; this one was careful not to call in the hard players, just a couple of marks, which would keep the pit bosses off her. He wants to play her; however, before he can reach his goal, the skirt slips away again, using her gray camouflage to aid her. Hell, it is just as well, Reggie considered she would only serve as a distraction and what he really needs is the mental challenge of the game not the hot release of some dame–good or not. Off in a corner, the pit boss takes out a worn notepad, his meaty hands deftly use a stub of a pencil to enter the notation. The date and short description of the two broads quickly jotted down for his boss Mr. Deluca. He has seen the pair before, and they are winning too often for it to be accidental or to be healthy.

Look both ways before you cross the street," she tells me. I start to protest, but then it strikes me that if I am very lucky I will be able to offer annoying safety tips to my own children one day.

Excerpted From Chapter One I decided staying put in the alley was preferable to keeping the dead guy company, so I went outside and lit a Lucky Strike. The night air had gotten damper and chillier during the short time I was in the warehouse, or maybe it was just me. Wisps of lacy fog were now sinking into the alley, and a skulking cat in search of dinner moved slowly along the opposite wall until he noticed me. He scurried off in a furry blur, eager to be far away from the evil invading his domain. The cat had better sense than me and I wished I could follow his example.

Well, if isn’t my favorite bran muffin.” She was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a Lucky Strike. “If it isn’t my favorite dinosaur.” I teased back. She stuck her tongue out at me like an errant child. “Roar!” I sat at the table and stole one of her cigarettes. How she smoked those things I would never know. “Looks like I’m off on another adventure. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone this time.” I said somewhat sulking. “Where to this time?” She raised a brow. “We’re off to New York carting around some rock star.” I waited for her reaction. Granny loved rock stars. “Who is it?” She prodded. “Jake Parker.” I said with disgust. “Oh, I’d like him to come clean out my cobwebs.” She beamed. I did not need the mental picture that followed. “Granny, that’s disgusting!” I shrieked. “Whatever, it’s true. That boy is a tall drink of water if I’ve ever seen one.” “Alright, I’m outta here. Thanks for the nightmares.

In 1925, an advertisement began appearing in newspapers and magazines across America. It depicted a slim woman with short hair standing on a diving board, clad in a one-piece bathing suit, looking pleased with her herself. But next to her, in shadow, stood her future self: dowdy and obese. “This Is You Five Years From Now!” read the caption. “When Tempted to Over-indulge, Reach for a Lucky Instead.” The ad, for Lucky Strike cigarettes, was made by American Tobacco, which was the first cigarette manufacturer to realize that obesity could be used as a marketing cudgel. Until then, smoking had been an overwhelmingly male pastime. But in looking to expand sales, the cigarette manufacturers began pitching tobacco to women as an appetite suppressant.

When we first arrived at the school we received an extended introduction detailing what a wonderful place it was and how lucky we were to be there. But no one explained exactly why we were to be there. Yes, we understood the general objective was to accumulate knowledge, although learning Shakespeare and algebra did not strike us as particularly helpful to our future lives. I've yet to meet a single person who found a use for algebra in later life. The excuse proffered was that it developed intelligence. It struck me as extremely unintelligent not to give us the opportunity to study subjects that would be of practical use as well as develop our intelligence. I learned Boyle's law and Ohm's law parrot fashion without having a clue as to their meaning, yet left the school five years later incapable of changing a fuse or wiring a three-pin plug. Understandably, we formed the general impression that we were there for the same reason we were sent to Sunday school – to keep us out of mischief until we were old enough to work.

There was thus no good reason for us to detain them, and even if we had done so, we had no material to work with during an interrogation. A police officer, like a prosecutor, is always in a much stronger position if he already knows the answer to the question he is asking. It is one thing to make a man admit to a truth that you have already discovered for yourself. It is quite another to take potshots in the dark, hoping that you are lucky enough to strike a target. We

Avigail, however, did not. Like the few other survivors, she’d suffered permanent internal damage and almost constantly felt pain. But in this, she also regarded herself as lucky. The SS doctors carried out sterilization experiments on some of the women. “When Rebekah arrived at the camp, she had a daughter, just a year old. I’m not sure why the guards let her keep the child. Rebekah was strikingly beautiful and from the start, she was treated differently. The things they made her do…” Avigail’s voice cracked, “The only reason she did not end it all herself was the child.

Hey, Dylan,” I said, holding my orange ball. “You got rid of the Mohawk.” Lark and Raven’s stepbrother ran his hand over his bald head and sighed. “Yeah, I’d been thinking about going the business man route for a while. Kept going back and forth about cutting it. A few weeks ago, I got drunk at Lark’s place. The sisters were nice enough to shave my head while I was passed out.” Nearby, Raven laughed so hard she had trouble distracting Vaughn who was still trying to win the game. Dylan glared at her then shrugged. “Gonna let it grow out and play the average Joe shit.” “Good luck with that,” I said, glancing at the bathroom and hoping Bailey would appear. When she didn’t, I walked to an open lane and rolled the ball. It took out a single pin which was one more than I expected. A lane away Raven struggled to win against Vaughn. She bent over one direction. When her ass didn’t do it, she bent forward and adjusted her tits. A distracted Vaughn missed his strike with a single pin remaining. Before I could hear him complain and her celebrate, Cooper and Tucker appeared next to me. “I liked the way you handled that fucker,” Tucker said, arms crossed tightly. “You always know how to deal with these losers while looking like a Boy Scout. A good skill to have.” Ignoring them, I rolled the second ball and managed to take out three pins. A new record for me. “What’s with the silent shit?” Tucker asked. Sighing, I looked at them and frowned. “I want to be with Bailey. We just started dating, but here I am jumping through hoops for you two. You do this shit with every guy?” “Most are losers,” Cooper said. “Most never do the second date thing. They bang then hang. If they’re lucky, she never mentions it to us and we don’t kick anyone’s ass. You’re the first boyfriend type she’s had.” “Our family needs good people,” added Tucker. Cooper shifted his stance and shook his head at his brother. “He doesn’t want that life. Nick wants to be a teacher.” “Why?” “Who cares?” Cooper said. “It’s what he wants. Sounds like a nice safe life for our little sister, don’t you think?” Tucker’s expression froze and his dopey brain took awhile to put things together. By the time he figured it out, I’d rolled a gutter ball, Bailey returned, and Vaughn declared his wife a cheater. “It’s only fair!” Raven cried as Vaughn threw her over his shoulder and spun her around. “You’re a better bowler and I want to win. Cheating was the only card I could play.” “Making me think some fucker was looking at your ass was low, Raven.” “So is naming our first born son Maverick. You’re just looking for trouble with a name like that.” Vaughn lowered her to her feet then grinned. “My boys will be nothing but trouble. They’ll own this town and chase pretty girls like Scarlet and Lily.” “Hey, keep your pervy kid away from my daughter!” Tucker hollered, looking pissed. Cooper grabbed his brother and they wrestled onto the ground. By the end of pounding each other, they were both laughing.

Max spat his coffee out all over himself. He tried to laugh and choke at the same time and so the only thing that came out was a sputtering bark that sounded like a phlegmatic seal with a pack and a half a day Lucky Strike habit -non filtered.

Strike had felt a variety of emotions which included guilt, gratitude, confusion, fear, rage, resentment and loneliness, but he couldn’t remember feeling lucky. “Lucky” would have been the bomb not detonating. “Lucky” would have meant still having both his legs. “Lucky” was what people who couldn’t bear to contemplate horrors needed to hear maimed and terrorized survivors call themselves.

It was probably only a few intervals, though it seemed longer with Ryzven lurking and radiating impatience. At last Beryl and Kurr returned, markedly cleaner and fresher, and he heard Beryl telling the Greenspirit about the garden. His human hurried toward him, though her steps slowed when she spotted Ryzven nearby. Snaps squirmed in Zylar’s arms, so he set him down after checking the cord looped around his neck. Beryl reached for the leash as she eyed Ryzven, but she didn’t address him. Instead, she knelt and spoke nonsense words to the fur-person while rubbing him all over with her grabbers. Kurr filled the awkward silence with a stiff, formal greeting. “Honor to your kith and kin, renowned Ryzven. I am Kurr.” “A pleasure! Everyone who has been following the Choosing knows who you are, esteemed Greenspirit.” While Zylar would be pleased if Ryzven forgot his business with Beryl while dallying with Kurr, he doubted he’d be so lucky. And as Beryl rose, Ryzven turned to her, making sure she got the full impact of his rare colors. He even puffed out his thorax a little, and Beryl let out a breath, a sound Zylar identified as annoyance. She said something the translator couldn’t process. “I came to congratulate you on your—” Before Ryzven could finish his pompous sentence, Snaps ambled forward, lifted a leg, and eliminated on him. “I don’t like him,” Snaps said. “Beryl doesn’t like him. Let’s go!” “So sorry about that,” Beryl said in a flat tone. “Snaps is nervous around strangers.” Zylar had heard sincerity from her many times before, and on this occasion, she wasn’t remotely apologetic. In fact, her eyes were twinkling and she seemed to be having a hard time restraining herself from making the battle face, which she’d said indicated amusement or enjoyment. “You should clean that up,” he told Ryzven, who was sputtering incoherent outrage. Most likely, he would live to regret all of this, but it felt so good to get the best of his arrogant nest-mate for once that he didn’t even look back when Beryl grabbed his claw and led him toward the exit. It occurred to him that she was leading him like Snaps, only by the limb instead of using a cord, but it would have lessened the impact of their departure if he mentioned as much. Once they reached the public corridors, Kurr finally said, “I hope we have not given serious offense. I am…fearful.” The Greenspirit must know Ryzven’s reputation well. He wouldn’t accept such a humiliation without striking back. “Do not let it lessen your satisfaction in what you’ve achieved today. I will apologize more fully another time.” “Why would you apologize for something Snaps did?” Beryl cut in. “If anyone’s going to make amends, it should be me. Though for the record, I said ‘sorry’ already.” “It was insincere,” Kurr noted. Beryl stared for a long moment, then said, “That’s fair.” She took a step closer to the two of them and added in a whisper, “So when I apologize sincerely, I probably shouldn’t let on that I told Snaps to pee on him? I mean, theoretically.” The Greenspirit emitted a shocked rustling sound while Zylar simply could not contain his glee. He churred louder than he ever had in his life. “Truly? That’s what you said that the translator could not comprehend?” Then Beryl did show her fearsome aspect, displaying all her teeth. “I will neither confirm nor deny those allegations.” “Confirmed,” said Snaps. “I was promised extra snacks.” Still delighted with his intended, Zylar led the way to the garden, wondering how he should reward Beryl for improving his life in every conceivable way. 

But he was so very sad about the boy who didn’t see. Now that Dad was gone I was starting to see how mortality was bound up in things like that cold, arc-lit sky. How the world is full of signs and wonders that come, and go, and if you are lucky you might see them. Once, twice. Perhaps never again. The albums on my mother’s shelves are full of family photographs. But also other things. A starling with a crooked beak. A day of hoarfrost and smoke. A cherry tree thick with blossom. Thunderclouds, lightning strikes, comets and eclipses: celestial events terrifying in their blind distances but reassuring you, too, that the world is for ever, though you are only a blink in its course. Henri Cartier-Bresson called the taking of a good photograph a decisive moment. ‘Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera,’ he said. ‘The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone for ever.

Darius the third, emperor of Persia, had two hundred thousand soldiers under his command. Bactrians, Arachosians, Scythians. Some Greek mercenaries. On the other side, thirty-five thousand soldiers, and Alexander of Macedon. Alexander the Great. Five Persians to every Macedonian. It should have been a slaughter. But Alexander pulled so much of the enemy out to the flank that a gap opened in the middle of the Persian lines. Alexander called his men to form a wedge, and leading with his own cavalry, he pushed through and headed straight for the emperor. There were vast forces to either side, surrounding him. But it didn’t matter, because he saw how to reach Darius. Alexander saw something no one else had seen. These people? This little faction of the OPA? Between Earth and Mars and me, we outnumber them. We outgun them. All this has happened because someone saw an opportunity that no one else did. They had the audacity to strike where no one else would even have considered an attack. That’s the power of audacity, and if a general is lucky and strong-minded, they can take that advantage and keep the enemy on their back foot forever.

They talked disconcertedly about the possibility that they might have to kill the dog while attacking the guerrillas. Then the trucks stopped briefly and the dog decided he had better things to do and jumped out. Cheers erupted in the C.I.A.’s Global Response Center. After the wave of emotion subsided, at least one officer in the room thought to himself: That was weird. The C.I.A. officers named the dog “Lucky.” It turned out to be not an unusual nickname for other Afghan and Pakistani dogs at the sites of drone-launched Hellfire strikes. The animals’ hearing was so acute that they sometimes seemed to detect Predators overhead or picked up the whine of missile launches when humans could not, and then got out of the way.30

Date: 27th of Feb, 2021 What is Love ? Is it something you feel, vibe or exhibit ? Or is it in caring, sharing or sacrifices L.O.V.E Love is in small details, everywhere around, the sun loves the sky amidst it colours, the sky loves the clouds inspite of its darkness, the darkness loves the light inspite of its own capabilities to lighten, Love is not something that can be talked or explained, but then what am i trying to do so?? Weird. Despite the running thoughts right now i have to share what i feel before that thought would never strike again (Ps: You are a constant thought that runs in my mind) For me what love really is ! For me, love is a gift, that feeling is magical, being in that feeling is lucky, Love is not something you fall for, how can u fall in love, when you feel embraced and butterflies, in your stomach you are actually lifted in love, you are actually strong when you love. You admire the person with all its possibilities to be with her and its goodness and makeup your mind about the righteous of the person and imagine and day dreaming of being with them. That's the first sip. Love is true, when you demand no change and when u accept her the way she is with all her negativity and positivity, with her moods and habits, accepting and going with her choices, supporting her beyond the support you expect from her, pushing yourself to make efforts to see her smile, taking her stand in public, respecting her thoughts despite having different opinions. love is not about being right every time about everything, its about making her feel right about things that are not, its about sacrificing your thoughts to hear hers, its about sacrificing your last bite to look her smile, its about starring into your partner eyes and talk without a word, holding hands until you go home, hold her mood until she's back, and being insecured about her safety until she's home This is the only feeling that makes me feel special, its the only feeling that helps me finds happiness in sacrificing too, That's the only feeling that lifts my mood by seeing her or motivating her when i m having a bad day, its tough though sometimes, love can make you think for possibilities and impossibilities that may never occur and give you a hard time, sometimes you push yourself and them away. But cannot really stay away, then why do we do that, Sharing of emotions will be the best part of the journey of love You don't shy accepting, being in love, coz not everybody is lucky to have it, You embrace it, You love being in Love ❤️ but then why do they not talk about love Its a complex simple feeling. 05:19 AM (the moon was still so pretty)

When he'd finished he took his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket (he smoked Lucky Strikes; whenever I think of him I think of that little red bull's-eye right over his heart) and offered me one, shaking a couple out of the pack and raising an eyebrow.

The decision of the amateur to remain locked in a mediocre life, and that of the pro who decides to discipline himself to excellence, are both responses to the recognition that life consists of suffering. Yet while the amateur seeks relief from the pain of life primarily through the numbing effects of addictions and the pursuit of pleasures, the pro strives to rise above his suffering through what Pressfield calls “labor and love”. Some people are lucky in that they find a calling early in life and commit to turning pro with little thought as to what they are doing. For others, however, the choice to turn pro requires many wasted years drifting in despair, before the realization strikes that a change to a more purpose-driven life is needed.

If you attend a meeting of evolutionary biologists somewhere in America, you might be lucky and spot a tall, gray-whiskered, smiling man bearing a striking resemblance to Abraham Lincoln, standing rather diffidently at the back of the crowd. He will probably be surrounded by a knot of admirers, hanging on his every word—for he is a man of few words. A whisper will go around the room: “George is here.” You will sense from people’s reactions the presence of greatness.

On Sunday evenings, there was a comparatively vast array of radio shows from which to choose. Frequently I would lie in my bed with my father, who would pull the covers over our heads and pretend that we were in a cave. This is how we would listen to shows such as Jack Benny, The Great Gildersleeve with Harold Peary, The Fred Allen Show, and The Edgar Bergen Show. As a ventriloquist, Edgar Bergen had Charlie McCarthy and the slow-witted Mortimer Snerd as puppets. For us the last show of the evening was always Your Hit Parade sponsored by Lucky Strike Cigarettes, starring Snooky Lanson, Gisele MacKenzie and a host of other well-known singers of that period. Although my father was a strict disciplinarian, on Sunday evenings he usually relaxed things and we would enjoy our time listening to the radio together.

STATISTICS Pack of Lucky Strikes. A lottery ticket

But first a description: Clara Bowden was beautiful in all senses except maybe, by virtue of being black, the classical. Clara Bowden was magnificently tall, black as ebony and crushed sable, with hair plaited in a horseshoe which pointed up when she felt lucky, down when she didn’t. At this moment it was up. It is hard to know whether that was significant. She needed no bra – she was independent, even of gravity – she wore a red halterneck which stopped below her bust, underneath which she wore her belly button (beautifully) and underneath that some very tight yellow jeans. At the end of it all were some strappy heels of a light brown suede, and she came striding down the stairs on them like some kind of vision or, as it seemed to Archie as he turned to observe her, like a reared-up thoroughbred. Now, as Archie understood it, in movies and the like it is common for someone to be so striking that when they walk down the stairs the crowd goes silent. In life he had never seen it. But it happened with Clara Bowden. She walked down the stairs in slow motion, surrounded by afterglow and fuzzy lighting. And not only was she the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, she was also the most comforting woman he had ever met. Her beauty was not a sharp, cold commodity. She smelt musty, womanly, like a bundle of your favorite clothes. Though she was disorganized physically – legs and arms speaking a slightly different dialect from her central nervous system – even her gangly demeanour seemed to Archie exceptionally elegant. She wore her sexuality with an older woman’s ease, and not (as with most of the girls Archie had run with in the past) like an awkward purse, never knowing how to hold it, where to hang it or when to just put it down. ‘Cheer up, bwoy,’ she said in a lilting Caribbean accent that reminded Archie of That Jamaican Cricketer, ‘it might never happen.’ ‘I think it already has.’ Archie, who had just dropped a fag from his mouth which has been burning itself to death anyway, saw Clara quickly tread it underfoot. She gave him a wide grin that revealed possibly her one imperfection. A complete lack of teeth in the top of her mouth. ‘Man…dey get knock out,’ she lisped, seeing his surprise. ‘But I tink to myself: come de end of de world, d’Lord won’t mind if I have no toofs.’ She laughed softly.

Lucky is he who has been able to understand the causes of things

The nanny goat is integral to Lucky Strike’s healing.

range viewer mounted near our ship’s console. Jafar steered for Lucas. After a few more minutes, Lucas signed off and turned to us. “We have a carrier strike group nearby, guys. Denny says they launched two 60H Seahawk helicopters with Seal Teams aboard. We get to clear the Mother Ship’s deck for safe boarding of the Seal teams. I’ll circle the wagons and you guys go rain some death down on the Mother Ship deck until ain’t nothin’ livin’ there. Then we hold shadow position until the Seahawks get here, maintaining a safe landing zone.” Casey and I just smile at each other. Oh yeah! And it’s my turn on the XM307. We jog back into position with Casey manning our Browning fifty while I slipped behind the XM307. We started taking small arms fire from the pirate ship as Lucas passed them to the port side before giving us a clear field of fire. Casey tilted and fired short bursts with tracers. Soon, anything stupid enough to get near the railing was cut in half. I fired 25mm bursts stem to stern. Airburst shells exploded all along the pirate deck, blowing out the view windows on their bridge, and leaving no inch of the vessel untouched above deck. Lucas sped up, passed the pirate bow and angled out on the starboard side. We repeated our dual assault although there really wasn’t anyone alive anyway. Twenty minutes later, we heard the Seahawk helicopters approaching. I fired one more burst as Lucas passed once again on the port side. With the helicopters in sight, Lucas headed for the open sea. Shortly after Casey and I closed up shop, Jafar came to summon us to the bridge. Denny was on speaker. “We’re all here, Captain Blood,” Lucas told him. “The Seals found twenty-six mangled pirates above deck and took no fire from the vessel. Below decks, fourteen more pirates were taken prisoner and eleven of the original ship’s crew rescued. No one spotted you guys so steam for our next baiting area. Once things get wrapped up with the rescued ship the carrier group will get orders to take up a support position within striking distance in case we get this lucky again. Great job! Man, we fucked them up today!” We did our ‘pirate talk’ for a few minutes, including Jafar. Denny cracked up. Who says pirate warfare and cold blooded murder can’t be fun. I had to ask though. “What was the cover story for no live pirates on deck to the carrier group?” “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” Denny adlibbed for our amusement. “The Seals didn’t mind. The official news coverage will be a pirate falling out. The mysterious crater where the pirate den used to be near Mogadishu will be rumored a munitions accident. Those

Surely you don’t mean right now.” Her startled gaze focused on the lodge door. “It’s not even dark yet. People are still awake. You haven’t eaten. There’s no fire built. We can’t just--” He lifted the door flap and drew her into the dark lodge. “Blue Eyes, I have no hunger for food,” he said huskily. “But I will make a fire if you wish for one.” Any delay, no matter how short, appealed to Loretta. “Oh, yes, it’s sort of chilly, don’t you think?” It was a particularly muggy evening, the kind that made clothing stick to the skin, but that hardly seemed important. “Yes, a fire would be lovely.” He left her standing alone in the shadows to haul in some wood, which he quickly arranged in the firepit. Moments later golden flames lit the room, the light dancing and flickering on the tan walls. Remaining crouched by the flames, he tipped his head back and gave her a lazy perusal, his eyes touching on her dress, eyebrows lifting in a silent question. “Do you hunger for food?” he asked her softly. Loretta clamped a hand to her waist. “You know, actually I am hungry. Famished! Aren’t you? What sounds good?” She threw a frantic look at the cooking pots behind him. “I’ll bet stew would strike your fancy, wouldn’t it? After traveling so far and eating nothing but jerked meat. Yes, stew would be just the thing.” Hunter’s mouth quirked. “Blue Eyes, a stew will take a very long time.” All night, if she was lucky. “Oh, not that long. It’s no trouble, really!” She made a wide circle around him toward the pots. “I make a wonderful stew, really I do. I’m sure Maiden has some roots and onions I can borrow. Just you--” Loretta leaped at the touch of his hand on her shoulder. She turned to face him, a large pot wedged between them, her hand white-knuckled on the handle. “Blue Eyes, I do not want stew,” Hunter whispered, his voice laced with tenderness. “If you hunger, we will have nuts and fruit, eh?” Loretta swallowed a lump of air. Fruit and nuts were better than the alternative. Maybe, if she ate one nut at a time…“All right, fruit and nuts.” He spread a buffalo robe beside the fire while she put the pot away and dug up a parfleche of fruit and nuts from his store of preserved edibles. Kneeling beside him, Loretta munched industriously, staring into the leaping flames, aware with every bite she took that Hunter watched her. When she reached for her fourth handful, he clamped his long fingers around her wrist. “Enough,” he said evenly. “You will sicken your gut if you eat more.” Loretta’s gut was already in sorry shape. She swallowed, trying to avoid his gaze and failing miserably. When their eyes met, she felt as if the ground fell away. There was no mistaking that look in his eye. The moment of reckoning had come.

Do you hunger for food?” he asked her softly. Loretta clamped a hand to her waist. “You know, actually I am hungry. Famished! Aren’t you? What sounds good?” She threw a frantic look at the cooking pots behind him. “I’ll bet stew would strike your fancy, wouldn’t it? After traveling so far and eating nothing but jerked meat. Yes, stew would be just the thing.” Hunter’s mouth quirked. “Blue Eyes, a stew will take a very long time.” All night, if she was lucky. “Oh, not that long. It’s no trouble, really!” She made a wide circle around him toward the pots. “I make a wonderful stew, really I do. I’m sure Maiden has some roots and onions I can borrow. Just you--” Loretta leaped at the touch of his hand on her shoulder. She turned to face him, a large pot wedged between them, her hand white-knuckled on the handle. “Blue Eyes, I do not want stew,” Hunter whispered, his voice laced with tenderness.

Do you hunger for food?” he asked her softly. Loretta clamped a hand to her waist. “You know, actually I am hungry. Famished! Aren’t you? What sounds good?” She threw a frantic look at the cooking pots behind him. “I’ll bet stew would strike your fancy, wouldn’t it? After traveling so far and eating nothing but jerked meat. Yes, stew would be just the thing.” Hunter’s mouth quirked. “Blue Eyes, a stew will take a very long time.” All night, if she was lucky.

I’m sorry you had to lie to that fisher,” Karish muttered. So was I. I was committed to the story now, and there was no backing out of it. I was going to have nightmares about everyone finding out that we’d been blowing windless. But it was done. “I didn’t have to lie. I wasn’t lying. We are working on it, remember? This was part of the deal.” He looked at me. “You felt you were lying to him, and with you that’s all that counts.” I shrugged. “Then I’ll just have to get over my delicate sensibilities, won’t I? And you’ll have to figure out some way to fix things.” He grunted. “Lucky me.” I almost winced. That had been careless, and thoughtless, and stupid. Let’s just pile a bit more pressure on him, shall we? I widened my eyes at him, though the effect may have been ruined by the scarves wrapped around my face. “But Taro,” I said in a lilting voice, “You’re my hero.” He groaned. I swallowed down a laugh. “You’re everyone’s hero.” “Shut up, Lee.” “The Darling of the Triple S.” “That wasn’t my fault!” That made me pause for a moment. That wasn’t his fault? What exactly did that mean? “The hope of High Scape.” “Will you stop?” “Defeater of the evil Stevan Creol and favorite of the Empress Constia.” I was kind of getting into this. He squirmed so well. “I swear if you don’t stop I’ll . . .” “What?” I challenged him. “Do something you don’t like,” he muttered. As threats went, that was a little weak. “Like what? From the way his eyes crinkled up I knew he was grinning behind the wraps around his face. And didn’t that send a thread of alarm through me?“I am walking you to the Lion,” he told me. “Where I will turn you over to your mother. Let her deal with her impossible, wayward, disrespectful child.” And once more he had me by the hand and was leading me down the street. As punishments went, that was rather disappointing.

Evaluation must be done in hindsight, after the work has been done, not for proposals for work to be done. That said, secondary factors must carry some weigh, because research results depend too much on historical contingency and luck. As articulated by Ralph Bown, vice president of research at Bell Labs from 1951 to 1955: 'A conviction on the part of employees that meritorious performance will be honestly appraised and adequately rewarded is a necessary ingredient of their loyalty. This appraisal, to be fair and convincing, must be based on the individual's performance and capabilities rather than wholly on the direct value of his results. A system which rewards only those lucky enough to strike an idea which pays off handsomely will not have the cooperative teamwork needed for vitality of the enterprise as a whole.

Jazz is a strange music. Jazz is where you find it. You dig all day in the mine, handling those big lumpy dead rocks; that’s the popular music, the dead stuff. And then all of a sudden you come on a bright gleaming streak embedded in the dead rock; it’s alive, it’s gold. That’s how you find jazz. So many people have never heard jazz, because they’ve found nothing but the slag, the dead ore in which it’s cased. They hear the raw material, the nondescript popular song; they may never be lucky enough to be present when inspired musicians strike away the lumpy death and bring out the life. The trumpet states a theme; it isn’t a hell of a good theme and in the song it means little or nothing. He strips it down to its bare chords, throws its thin line of melody out there for a start. The clarinet invents a counter-melody for himself, an invention as carefully wrought, as musicianly, as anything Bach ever wrote down. And then the trombone sings; there is a complete perfection, coming close to the unbearable, in the addition of that third voice to the polyphony of true jazz. Out of nothing something of beauty has been created; you have heard jazz, and you are lucky. You are even more lucky if you have created jazz, if you can sit with the gut-searing vibrations of a trombone mouthpiece kicking back against your face and feel the music down into your feet.

The lesson here is very simple. But it is striking how often it is overlooked. We are so caught in the myths of the best and the brightest and the self-made that we think outliers spring naturally from the earth. We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed that thirteen-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur. But that’s the wrong lesson. Our world only allowed one thirteen-year-old unlimited access to a time-sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsofts would we have today? To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success—the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history—with a society that provides opportunities for all. If Canada had a second hockey league for those children born in the last half of the year, it would today have twice as many adult hockey stars. Now multiply that sudden flowering of talent by every field and profession. The world could be so much richer than the world we have settled for.

They were separated by infinite disparities, by the lotteries of birth and chance, by faults of judgement and lucky breaks.

One Newport acquaintance who hadn’t snubbed Jack Astor was Margaret Tobin Brown, the estranged wife of Denver millionaire James J. Brown. She was sympathetic to marital woes and escaped her own by traveling. That winter, in fact, Mrs. Brown had joined the Astors on their excursion to North Africa and Egypt. In her pocket as she sat near the Astor party on the Nomadic was a small Egyptian tomb figure that she had bought in a Cairo market as a good luck talisman. The voyage Margaret Brown was about to take would immortalize her in books, movies, and a Broadway musical as “the unsinkable Molly Brown,” a feisty backwoods girl whose husband’s lucky strike at a Leadville, Colorado, gold mine vaults her into a mansion in Denver, where she is rebuffed by Mile High society.