Stroke Inspirational Quotes

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity.

My father had taught me to be nice first, because you can always be mean later, but once you've been mean to someone, they won't believe the nice anymore. So be nice, be nice, until it's time to stop being nice, then destroy them.

These rough sketches, which are born in an instant in the heat of inspiration, express the idea of their author in a few strokes, while on the other hand too much effort and diligence sometimes saps the vitality and powers of those who never know when to leave off.

Love is too precious to be ashamed of.

No name-calling truly bites deep unless, in some dark part of us, we believe it. If we are confident enough then it is just noise.

I ask of you your lives,” Elend said, voice echoing, “and your courage. I ask of you your faith, and your honor—your strength, and your compassion. For today, I lead you to die. I will not ask you to welcome this event. I will not insult you by calling it well, or just, or even glorious. But I will say this. “Each moment you fight is a gift to those in this cavern. Each second we fight is a second longer that thousands of people can draw breath. Each stroke of the sword, each koloss felled, each breath earned is a victory! It is a person protected for a moment longer, a life extended, an enemy frustrated!” There was a brief pause. “In the end, they will kill us,” Elend said, voice loud, ringing in the cavern. “But first, they shall fear us!

CONCERNED BUT NOT CONSUMED!

I think that if you have a horse, pegasus, qilin, or unicorn, you should sit on it! You should stroke its hair, whisper in its ear, be one with it! And you shouldn't feel sorry if other people don't have one.

I was no longer a child willing to drift with the ride - I would steer against the current if I had to. and if I won, by some miraculous stroke of luck, I would never be helpless again.

Once there was a boy,” said Jace. Clary interrupted immediately. “A Shadowhunter boy?” “Of course.” For a moment a bleak amusement colored his voice. Then it was gone. “When the boy was six years old, his father gave him a falcon to train. Falcons are raptors – killing birds, his father told him, the Shadowhunters of the sky. “The falcon didn’t like the boy, and the boy didn’t like it, either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at him with beak and talons when he came near: For weeks his wrists and hands were always bleeding. He didn’t know it, but his father had selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and thus was nearly impossible to tame. But the boy tried, because his father told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to please his father. “He stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was meant to be easier to tame. He learned the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist. He was meant to keep the falcon blind, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it – instead he tried to sit where the bird could see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust him. Hee fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat. Later it ate so savagely that its beak cut the skin of his palm. But the boy was glad, because it was progress, and because he wanted the bird to know him, even if the bird had to consume his blood to make that happen. “He began to see that the falcon was beautiful, that its slim wings were built for the speed of flight, that it was strong and swift, fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like likght. When it learned to circle and come to his wrist, he neary shouted with delight Sometimes the bird would hope to his shoulder and put its beak in his hair. He knew his falcon loved him, and when he was certain it was not just tamed but perfectly tamed, he went to his father and showed him what he had done, expecting him to be proud. “Instead his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands and broke its neck. ‘I told you to make it obedient,’ his father said, and dropped the falcon’s lifeless body to the ground. ‘Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not meant to be loving pets: They are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken.’ “Later, when his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until eventually his father sent a servant to take the body of the bird away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he’d learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed.

Quick work doesn't mean less serious work, it depends on one's self-confidence and experience. In the same way Jules Guérard, the lion hunter, says in his book that in the beginning young lions have a lot of trouble killing a horse or an ox, but that the old lions kill with a single blow of the paw or a well-placed bite, and that they are amazingly sure at the job... I must warn you that everyone will think that I work too fast. Don't you believe a word of it. Is it not emotion, the sincerity of one's feeling for nature, that draws us, and if the emotions are sometimes so strong that one works without knowing one works, when sometimes the strokes come with a continuity and coherence like words in a speech or a letter, then one must remember that it has not always been so, and that in time to come there will again be hard days, empty of inspiration. So one must strike while the iron is hot, and put the forged bars on one side.

If you really want things to change, you have to get involved. Little strokes fell big oaks, you know.

Just So You Know You fall in love with every book you touch. You never break the spine or tear the pages. That would be cruel. You have secret favorites but, when asked, you say that you could never choose. But did you know that books fall in love with you, too? They watch you from the shelf while you sleep. Are you dreaming of them, they wonder, in that wistful mood books are prone to at night when they’re bored and there’s nothing else to do but tease the cat. Remember that pale yellow book you read when you were sixteen? It changed your world, that book. It changed your dreams. You carried it around until it was old and thin and sparkles no longer rose from the pages and filled the air when you opened it, like it did when it was new. You should know that it still thinks of you. It would like to get together sometime, maybe over coffee next month, so you can see how much you’ve both changed. And the book about the donkey your father read to you every night when you were three, it’s still around – older, a little worse for wear. But it still remembers the way your laughter made its pages tremble with joy. Then there was that book, just last week, in the bookstore. It caught your eye. You looked away quickly, but it was too late. You felt the rush. You picked it up and stroked your hand over its glassy cover. It knew you were The One. But, for whatever reason, you put it back and walked away. Maybe you were trying to be practical. Maybe you thought there wasn’t room enough, time enough, energy enough. But you’re thinking about it now, aren’t you? You fall in love so easily. But just so you know, they do, too.

When you keep hitting walls of resistance in life, the universe is trying to tell you that you are going the wrong way. It's like driving a bumper car at an amusement park. Each time you slam into another car or the edge of the track, you are forced to change direction.

Thinking there had to be a better way was a brilliant stroke of serendipity!

We cannot speak a loyal word and be meanly silent, we cannot kill and not kill in the same moment; but a moment is room wide enough for the loyal and mean desire, for the outlash of a murderous thought and the sharp bakcward stroke of repetance.

An attitude of gratitude goes a long way when it comes to physical and emotional healing.

Every word I write is another stroke that takes me to the shore of a completed book.

Then I knew: this wasn’t just a passion I felt for my model. My feelings about him had nothing to do with how his looks inspired me; he was far more than a muse. With every stroke of pencil and crayon, I had drawn Will into my heart. I was in love with him.

Motivation is bullshit, if you ask me this country could use a little less motivation. The people who are motivated are the ones who are causing all the trouble! Stock swindlers, serial killers, child molesters, Christian conservatives? These people are highly motivated, highly motivated. I think motivation is overrated, you show me some lazy prick who's lying around all day watching game shows and stroking his penis and I'll show you someone who's not causing any fucking trouble ok?

The More you do the better you become

What luck has gave you will probably leave you.

On our way home we throw the apples, the biscuits, the chocolate and the coins in the tall grass by the roadside. It is impossible to throw away the stroking on our hair

It is a well-known established fact throughout the many-dimensional worlds of the multiverse that most really great discoveries are owed to one brief moment of inspiration. There's a lot of spadework first, of course, but what clinches the whole thing is the sight of, say, a falling apple or a boiling kettle or the water slipping over the edge of the bath. Something goes click inside the observer's head and then everything falls into place. The shape of DNA, it is popularly said, owes its discovery to the chance sight of a spiral staircase when the scientist‘s mind was just at the right receptive temperature. Had he used the elevator, the whole science of genetics might have been a good deal different. This is thought of as somehow wonderful. It isn't. It is tragic. Little particles of inspiration sleet through the universe all the time traveling through the densest matter in the same way that a neutrino passes through a candyfloss haystack, and most of them miss. Even worse, most of the ones that hit the exact cerebral target, hit the wrong one. For example, the weird dream about a lead doughnut on a mile-high gantry, which in the right mind would have been the catalyst for the invention of repressed-gravitational electricity generation (a cheap and inexhaustible and totally non-polluting form of power which the world in question had been seeking for centuries, and for the lack of which it was plunged into a terrible and pointless war) was in fact had by a small and bewildered duck. By another stroke of bad luck, the sight of a herd of wild horses galloping through a field of wild hyacinths would have led a struggling composer to write the famous Flying God Suite, bringing succor and balm to the souls of millions, had he not been at home in bed with shingles. The inspiration thereby fell to a nearby frog, who was not in much of a position to make a startling contributing to the field of tone poetry. Many civilizations have recognized this shocking waste and tried various methods to prevent it, most of them involving enjoyable but illegal attempts to tune the mind into the right wavelength by the use of exotic herbage or yeast products. It never works properly.

I need to remember, however, that there are enormous gaps between what I know and what I think I know. I learned that I need to be very wary of my storyteller's potential for stirring up drama and trauma.

You see, Momo,' he [Beppo Roadsweeper] told her one day, 'it's like this. Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you'll never get it swept.' He gazed silently into space before continuing. 'And then you start to hurry,' he went on. 'You work faster and faster, and every time you look up there seems to be just as much left to sweep as before, and you try even harder, and you panic, and in the end you're out of breath and have to stop - and still the street stretches away in front of you. That's not the way to do it.' He pondered a while. Then he said, 'You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else.' Again he paused for thought before adding, 'That way you enjoy your work, which is important, because then you make a good job of it. And that's how it ought to be.' There was another long silence. At last he went on, 'And all at once, before you know it, you find you've swept the whole street clean, bit by bit. What's more, you aren't out of breath.' He nodded to himself. 'That's important, too,' he concluded.

Water, wind and birdsong were the echoes in this quiet place of a great chiming symphony that was surging around the world. Knee-deep in grasses and moon daisies, Stella stood and listened, swaying a little as the flowers and trees were swaying, her spirit voice singing loudly, though her lips were still, and every pulse in her body beating its hammer strokes in time to the song.

But I will confess 
that I began as an astronomer—a liking
for bright flashes, vast distances, unreachable things,
a hand stretched always toward the furthest limit—
and that my longing for you has not taken me
very far from that original desire
to inscribe a comet’s orbit around the walls
of our city, to gently stroke the surface of the stars.

Symphonies begin with one note; fires with one flame; gardens with one flower; and masterpieces with one stroke.

Make sure your subconscious knows you love it by stroking it until it purrs.

Take a moment from time to time to remember that you are alive. I know this sounds a trifle obvious, but it is amazing how little time we take to remark upon this singular and gratifying fact. By most astounding stroke of luck and infinitesimal portion of all the matter in the universe came together to create you and for the tiniest moment in the great span of eternity you have the incomparable privilege to exist. For endless eons there was no you. Before you know it, you will cease to be again. And in between you have this wonderful opportunity to see and feel and think and do. Whatever else you do with your life, nothing will remotely compare with the incredible accomplishment of having managed to get yourself born. Congratulations. Well done. You really are special.

There are no mistakes in Zentangle, so there is no need for an eraser. If you do not like the look of a stroke you have made, it then becomes only an opportunity to create a new tangle, or transform it using an old trusty pattern. A Zentangle tile is meant to be a surprise that unfolds before the creator's eyes, one stroke at a time.

Yelling louder does not help me understand you any better! Don't be afraid of me. Come closer to me. Bring me your gentle spirit. Speak more slowly. Enunciate more clearly. Again! Please, try again. S-l-o-w down. Be kind to me. Be a safe place for me. See that I am a wounded animal, not a stupid animal. I am vulnerable and confused. Whatever my age, whatever my credentials, reach for me. Respect me. I am in here. Come find me.

DON Luigi Giussani used to quote this example from Bruce Marshall’s novel To Every Man a Penny. The protagonist of the novel, the abbot Father Gaston, needs to hear the confession of a young German soldier whom the French partisans are about to sentence to death. The soldier confesses his love of women and the numerous amorous adventures he has had. The young priest explains that he has to repent to obtain forgiveness and absolution. The soldier answers, “How can I repent? It was something that I enjoyed, and if I had the chance I would do it again, even now. How can I repent?” Father Gaston, who wants to absolve the man who has been marked by destiny and who’s about to die, has a stroke of inspiration and asks, “But are you sorry that you are not sorry?” The young man answers impulsively, “Yes, I am sorry that I am not sorry.” In other words, he apologizes for not repenting. The door was opened just a crack, allowing absolution to come in….

If the emotions are sometimes so strong that one works without knowing one works, when sometimes the strokes come with a continuity and a coherence like words in a speech or a letter, then one must remember that it has not always been so, and that in time to come there will again be hard days, empty of inspiration. So one must strike while the iron is hot, and put the forged bars on one side.

Poetry Poetry, How did you find your way to me? My mother does not know Albanian well, She writes letters like Aragon, without commas and periods, My father roamed the seas in his youth, But you have come, Walking down the pavement of my quiet city of stone, And knocked timidly at the door of my three-storey house, At Number 16. There are many things I have loved and hated in life, For many a problem I have been an 'open city', But anyway... Like a young man returning home late at night, Exhausted and broken by his nocturnal wanderings, Here too am I, returning to you, Worn out after another escapade. And you, Not holding my infidelity against me, Stroke my hair tenderly, My last stop, Poetry.

Gently, John brought her face into view and stroked her hair back with a stiff, scarred hand. “I don’t want you to worry about us either,” he said. “God doesn’t protect us from every danger, but He’s always with us, helping us through it. We’re going to face this together, my Love, with the Lord at our side.

Golden framed and heavy, the painting. Ocean waves curled in suspended time, white-lipped and silent beneath brush-stroked blues of sky. Gulls are captured there, mid-flight, fishing moments stolen in time, they soar without moving.

When you go home, I want you to remember that you are boundless,” he says. “That your dreams are not limited by anything—not uncertainty. Not what someone else thinks or says. Not what you think you should be doing versus what makes your heart light up.” He cups my face with one of his hands, his thumb stroking down my cheek. “Watching you embrace your passion is beautiful. And I hope you keep doing that, no matter what else might get in the way. You are so creative, so talented—the way your imagination overflows when you’re inspired …” He shakes his head, smiling slightly. “You have this endless well of passion and when you love something, you love it so fiercely. I am in awe of that. I am in awe of you.

Just think of how his book has inspired, affected, and shaped the minds of children for almost one hundred and fifty years. It's safe to say that Carroll's words weren't a stroke of luck, but of genius. Something in that book makes people relate. Wonderland must be real.

I pressed my head against his chest and breathed. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed. For the time being. I was finally where I had waited long enough to be, in his arms. He stroked my hair and gave kisses to my forehead. Love had definitely found us and tied us in a bow.

Tender-handed stroke a nettle, And it stings you, for your pains; Grasp it like a man of mettle, And it soft as silk remains. Aaron Hill

Disregard nuisances and obstacles, for they are merely a brush-stroke on the bigger picture

There lived a poet in the lands of gold, Wrote along poems unaffected by warmth or cold, His words spoke truth and pen's stroke was bold, His only motive: lives to mould

An inspired stroke of a pen can save or damn the world

Everyday is a painting of thought; every moment is a brush stroke for the next.

True Discipleship makes a man and woman a project or an portrait painting to completion With a careful detail and awareness of every stroke of the brush until the vision comes to pass

Phoenix Queen: You blaze so brightly You set fire to the heart of this world. You conjure up enormous love in all you give, And keep rising from the ashes as a Phoenix queen. Some will be burned by your flame, Try to cool you, put you out, Make you think that your passion is something to doubt, But the ones that truly matter will dance with your flame, Stoke you, stroke you, And stay lit right beside you.

It was the master stroke, that stutter; for it contrived to make her banalities sound somehow original, and secondly, despite her tallness, her assurance, it served to inspire in male listeners a protective feeling.

The (kunyaza) technique liberates women to experience the fountain of erotic pleasure. It involves the tapping, rubbing and stroking of the female flower with the penis head to inflame a woman’s desire and send her into ecstasy.

Cradling her to his chest, he cursed himself for taking too much blood. He was certain he hadn't taken enough for her to need a transfusion, but it had clearly left her weak. "I'm so sorry," he whispered, glad she hadn't found the deed in his thoughts. He had feared he wouldn't be able to hide it from her. The dog began to whine again. "It's okay, boy," he murmured. "She's okay. She's just tired." Several minutes passed while he stroked her hair and held her close despite the pain it caused. She was petite and looked as though she only weighed about a hundred pounds. After spending all damned night digging his sorry ass up, no wonder she passed out. "I haven't seen it yet," she mumbled against his neck as consciousness returned, "but I'm willing to bet your ass is actually quite nice." Startled laughter escaped him, inspiring another groan. "Don't make me laugh. It hurts too much." "Sorry. I couldn't resist.

I encountered a glowing green raccoon riding a neon orange motorcycle at my cabin in the woods of northern California around midnight one night in 1985. The raccoon proceeded to metamorphose into a singing dolphin at the stroke of midnight.

Writers write because they're writers. Because their imaginations boil up inside of them, waiting to overflow into the written word. Ordinary people have little capacity for unyielding imagination, whereas the natural-born writer can do little but yield to the tug of imagination. Ordinary people may practice for years to 'perfect' the challenge of writing; but the one destined to create and destroy with the stroke of a pen, the strike of the key, their wells of imagination shall never run dry.

The Government set the stage economically by informing everyone that we were in a depression period, with very pointed allusions to the 1930s. The period just prior to our last 'good' war. ... Boiled down, our objective was to make killing and military life seem like adventurous fun, so for our inspiration we went back to the Thirties as well. It was pure serendipity. Inside one of the Scripter offices there was an old copy of Doc Smith's first LENSMAN space opera. It turned out that audiences in the 1970s were more receptive to the sort of things they scoffed at as juvenilia in the 1930s. Our drugs conditioned them to repeat viewings, simultaneously serving the ends of profit and positive reinforcement. The movie we came up with stroked all the correct psychological triggers. The fact that it grossed more money than any film in history at the time proved how on target our approach was.' 'Oh my God... said Jonathan, his mouth stalling the open position. 'Six months afterward we ripped ourselves off and got secondary reinforcement onto television. We pulled a 40 share. The year after that we phased in the video games, experimenting with non-narcotic hypnosis, using electrical pulses, body capacitance, and keying the pleasure centers of the brain with low voltage shocks. Jesus, Jonathan, can you *see* what we've accomplished? In something under half a decade we've programmed an entire generation of warm bodies to go to war for us and love it. They buy what we tell them to buy. Music, movies, whole lifestyles. And they hate who we tell them to. ... It's simple to make our audiences slaver for blood; that past hasn't changed since the days of the Colosseum. We've conditioned a whole population to live on the rim of Apocalypse and love it. They want to kill the enemy, tear his heart out, go to war so their gas bills will go down! They're all primed for just that sort of denouemment, ti satisfy their need for linear storytelling in the fictions that have become their lives! The system perpetuates itself. Our own guinea pigs pay us money to keep the mechanisms grinding away. If you don't believe that, just check out last year's big hit movies... then try to tell me the target demographic audience isn't waiting for marching orders. ("Incident On A Rainy Night In Beverly Hills")

In the name of speed, Morse and Vail had realized that they could save strokes by reserving the shorter sequences of dots and dashes for the most common letters. But which letters would be used most often? Little was known about the alphabet’s statistics. In search of data on the letters’ relative frequencies, Vail was inspired to visit the local newspaper office in Morristown, New Jersey, and look over the type cases. He found a stock of twelve thousand E’s, nine thousand T’s, and only two hundred Z’s. He and Morse rearranged the alphabet accordingly. They had originally used dash-dash-dot to represent T, the second most common letter; now they promoted T to a single dash, thus saving telegraph operators uncountable billions of key taps in the world to come. Long afterward, information theorists calculated that they had come within 15 percent of an optimal arrangement for telegraphing English text.

The casting of the brash United States Army Air Force officer Colonel Robert E. Hogan and the pompous German Luftwaffe officer Colonel Wilhelm Klink was inspired. For this series—a comedy with the serious backdrop of war—to succeed, the lead players had to be the perfect fit. The dynamic portrayal of this military odd couple had to be articulate, accurate, and precise. For the show to work, for the concept to be accepted, for one of the most outlandish premises in television history to be believed, the actors signed to play the two leading characters not only had to bring these extreme individuals to life with broad, fictional strokes, they had to make them real in the details.

.. although there are certain limbic system (emotional) programs that can be triggered automatically, it takes less then 90 seconds for one of these programs to be triggered, surge through our body, and then be completely flushed out of our bloodstream... within 90 seconds from initial trigger, the chemical components of my anger has completely dissipated from my blood and my automatic response is over.

It was a memorable night for a burgeoning community of food enthusiasts at exactly the right moment. I was ecstatic. For the first time in my adult life, I was doing something purely for the joy of sharing my passion with the world, rather than to stroke my ego or make money. It felt like I was finally living my purpose. I was manifesting my dreams, making tangible an inspiration that came from deep within.

In the name of speed, Morse and Vail had realized that they could save strokes by reserving the shorter sequences of dots and dashes for the most common letters. But which letters would be used most often? Little was known about the alphabet’s statistics. In search of data on the letters’ relative frequencies, Vail was inspired to visit the local newspaper office in Morristown, New Jersey, and look over the type cases.

I can tell myself Polley brought it on himself, and that is true, but when I think of him raising his useless hands to ward off the knife-strokes of whoever was kneeling over him in that trash-littered underpass, I can’t help feeling sorry and ashamed. You may say I have no reason to feel shame, that I did what I had to do to save my life and the shed’s secret, but shame is like laughter. And inspiration. It doesn’t knock.

Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?

Candor isn’t cruel. It does not destroy. On the contrary, any successful feedback system is built on empathy, on the idea that we are all in this together, that we understand your pain because we’ve experienced it ourselves. The need to stroke one’s own ego, to get the credit we feel we deserve—we strive to check those impulses at the door. The Braintrust is fueled by the idea that every note we give is in the service of a common goal: supporting and helping each other as we try to make better movies.

God directly inspired the writers of the New Testament canon and so the words recorded by them in the autographs are God’s Word absolute, inerrant and infallible in all they affirm. This inspiration extends down to the Greek equivalent of jots and tittles—Jesus was emphatic about that (Matt. 5:18). And if inspiration is applied to the smallest pen strokes, it certainly should also apply to sentences, paragraphs, pericopes, and more. The relevance of the doctrine of inspiration extends into all the corners.

That was our first home. Before I felt like an island in an ocean, before Calcutta, before everything that followed. You know it wasn’t a home at first but just a shell. Nothing ostentatious but just a rented two-room affair, an unneeded corridor that ran alongside them, second hand cane furniture, cheap crockery, two leaking faucets, a dysfunctional doorbell, and a flight of stairs that led to, but ended just before the roof (one of the many idiosyncrasies of the house), secured by a sixteen garrison lock, and a balcony into which a mango tree’s branch had strayed. The house was in a building at least a hundred years old and looked out on a street and a tenement block across it. The colony, if you were to call it a colony, had no name. The house itself was seedy, decrepit, as though a safe-keeper of secrets and scandals. It had many entries and exits and it was possible to get lost in it. And in a particularly inspired stroke of whimsy architectural genius, it was almost invisible from the main road like H.G. Wells’ ‘Magic Shop’. As a result, we had great difficulty when we had to explain our address to people back home. It went somewhat like this, ‘... take the second one from the main road….and then right after turning left from Dhakeshwari, you will see a bird shop (unspecific like that, for it had no name either)… walk straight in and take the stairs at the end to go to the first floor, that’s where we dwell… but don’t press the bell, knock… and don't walk too close to the cages unless you want bird-hickeys…’’ ('Left from Dhakeshwari')

A lot of her songs were to do with Blake, which did not escape Mark’s attention. She told Mark that writing songs about him was cathartic and that ‘Back to Black’ summed up what had happened when their relationship had ended: Blake had gone back to his ex and Amy to black, or drinking and hard times. It was some of her most inspired writing because, for better or worse, she’d lived it. Mark and Amy inspired each other musically, each bringing out fresh ideas in the other. One day they decided to take a quick stroll around the neighbourhood because Amy wanted to buy Alex Clare a present. On the way back Amy began telling Mark about being with Blake, then not being with Blake and being with Alex instead. She told him about the time at my house after she’d been in hospital when everyone had been going on at her about her drinking. ‘You know they tried to make me go to rehab, and I told them, no, no, no.’ ‘That’s quite gimmicky,’ Mark replied. ‘It sounds hooky. You should go back to the studio and we should turn that into a song.’ Of course, Amy had written that line in one of her books ages ago. She’d told me before she was planning to write a song about what had happened that day, but that was the moment ‘Rehab’ came to life. Amy had also been working on a tune for the ‘hook’, but when she played it to Mark later that day it started out as a slow blues shuffle – it was like a twelve-bar blues progression. Mark suggested that she should think about doing a sixties girl-group sound, as she liked them so much. He also thought it would be fun to put in the Beatles-style E minor and A minor chords, which would give it a jangly feel. Amy was unaccustomed to this style – most of the songs she was writing were based around jazz chords – but it worked and that day she wrote ‘Rehab’ in just three hours. If you had sat Amy down with a pen and paper every day, she wouldn’t have written a song. But every now and then, something or someone turned the light on in her head and she wrote something brilliant. During that time it happened over and over again. The sessions in the studio became very intense and tiring, especially for Mark, who would sometimes work a double shift and then fall asleep. He would wake up with his head in Amy’s lap and she would be stroking his hair, as if he was a four-year-old. Mark was a few years older than Amy, but he told me he found her very motherly and kind.

And suddenly I just need to hold his hand more than I’ve ever needed anything in this world. Not just be held by it, but hold it back. I aim every remaining ounce of energy into my right hand. I’m weak, and this is so hard. It’s the hardest thing I will ever have to do. I summon all the love I have ever felt, I summon all the breath that Mom, Dad, and Teddy would fill me with if they could. I summon all my own strength, focus it like a laser beam into the fingers and palm of my right hand. I picture my hand stroking Teddy’s hair, grasping a bow poised above my cello, interlaced with Adam’s. And then I squeeze.

Rest too long after an injury and your system powers down, preparing you for a peaceful exit. Fight your way back to your feet, however, and you trigger that magical ON switch that speeds healing hormones to everything you need to get stronger: your bones, brain, organs, ligaments, immune system, even the digestive bacteria in your belly, all get a molecular upgrade from exercise. For that, you can thank your hunter-gatherer ancestors, who evolved to stay alive by staying on the move. Today, movement-as-medicine is a biological truth for survivors of cancer, surgery, strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, brain injuries, depression, you name it.

I’m an overthinker. Many of us are. My mind gets racing a thousand miles a minute and I get anxious about my work, my career, or where I need to be in thirty minutes. Every day I need to shut down this machine and simply be still. Be aware of your breathing, really feel your breath going in, going out. Be aware of the feeling of the cloth on your shirt. Be aware of the grip on the steering wheel. Tell yourself--out oud--that the only thing that truly exists right now is this exact moment, and enjoy it, swim in it. Someone once said that your mind is like a raging river that’s full of debris, and when you’re floating in this river, you reach out and try to grab the branches and rocks. But what if you could climb onto the bank and watch the river? Suddenly you’re in a calm place. Maybe it sounds like a cliché to say, “Stop and smell the roses,” so I’ll tell you this instead: “Stop and watch the sunset.” Just the other night, driving home in L.A., I was struck by how beautiful the sky was--a dark blue canvas painted with strokes of bright orange and red. It was truly one of the most glorious sunsets I’d ever seen. I was stuck in traffic, worrying about one thing or another, and I just gazed out the window and drank it in. I let it fill my soul and inspire me. The world stopped revolving for just that split second, and my mind was still and calm. And to think, I could have missed it.

Today, men, I ask you your lives." "I ask of you your lives and your courage. I ask of your faith, your honor-- your strength, and your compassion. For today I lead you to die. I will not ask you to welcome this event. I will not insult you by calling it well, or just, or even glorious. But I will say this.... ....."Each moment you fight is a gift to those in this cavern. Each second we fight is a second longer that thousands of people can draw breath. Each stroke of the sword, each koloss felled, each breath earned is another victory! It is a person protected for a moment longer, a life extended, an enemy frusturated!" There was a brief pause. "In the end they shall kill us. But first they shall fear us!

Gentle hands, soft lips, and hot little breaths down my stomach. Pleasure, a thick syrup pouring over my limbs. My cock rose, growing heavy with desire. We were so new together, by all accounts, I should be panting madly, trying to take over. But I was slowly heating wax molding to her will. Emma palmed me through my briefs, and I grunted. I wanted them off, no barriers between us. As if she heard the silent demand, she kissed my nipple and slowly eased the briefs down. I lifted my butt to help her. My dick slapped against my belly as it was freed. Emma made a noise of appreciation and then wrapped her clever fingers around me. "Please," I whispered. My body was weak, but my need grew stronger, drowning out everything else. She complied, stroking, her lips on my lower abs, teasing along the V leading to my hips. "Em..." My plea broke off into a groan as her hot mouth enveloped me. There were no more words. I let her have me, do as she willed, and I was thankful for it. And it felt so good I could only lie there and take it, try not to thrust into her mouth like an animal. But she pulled free with a lewd pop and gazed up at me. Panting lightly, I stared back at her, ready to promise her anything, when she kissed my pulsing tip. "Go ahead," she said. "Fuck my mouth." I almost spilled right there. She sucked me deep once more, and a sound tore out of me that was part pained, part "Oh God, please don't ever stop." The woman was dismantling me in the best of ways. Waves of heat licked up over my skin as I pumped gently into her mouth, keeping my moves light because I didn't want to hurt her, and because denying myself was outright torture. Apparently, I was into that. She sucked me like I was dessert----all the while, her hand stroking steady circles on the tight, sensitive skin of my lower abs. It was that touch, the knowledge that she was doing this because she wanted to take care of me, that rushed me straight to the edge. My trembling hand touched the crown of her head. "Em. Baby, I'm gonna..." I gasped as she did something truly inspired with her tongue. "I'm gonna..." She pulled free with one last suck and surged up to kiss me, her hand wrapping around my aching dick and stroking it. Panting into her mouth, my kiss frantic and sloppy, I came with a shudder of pleasure. And all the tension, all the pain, dissolved like a sugar cube dropped into hot tea.

And yet to possess a young soul that has barely developed is a source of very deep delight. It is like a flower whose richest perfume goes out to meet the first ray of the sun. One must pluck it at that very moment and, after inhaling its perfume to one's heart's content, discard it along the wayside on the chance that someone will pick it up. I sense in myself that insatiable avidity that devours everything in its path. And I regard the sufferings and joys of others merely in relation to myself, as food to sustain my spiritual strength. Passion is no longer capable of robbing me of my sanity. My ambition has been crushed by circumstances, but it has manifested itself in a new form, for ambition is nothing but lust for power, and my greatest pleasure I derive from subordinating everything around me to my will. Is it not both the first token of power and its supreme triumph to inspire in others the emotions of love, devotion and fear? Is it not the sweetest fare for our vanity to be the cause of pain or joy for someone without the least claim thereto? And what is happiness? Pride gratified. Could I consider myself better and more powerful than anyone else in the world, I would be happy. Were everybody to love me, I'd find in myself unending wellsprings of love. Evil begets evil; one's first suffering awakens a realization of the pleasure of tormenting another. The idea of evil cannot take root in the mind of man without his desiring to apply it in practice. Someone has said that ideas are organic entities: their very birth imparts them form, and this form is action. He in whose brain the most ideas are born is more active than others, and because of this a genius shackled to an office desk must either die or lose his mind, just as a man with a powerful body who leads a modest, sedentary life dies from an apoplectic stroke

Helen was bewildered to find herself surrounded by air as warm as the breath of summer. Slowly she walked into a large gallery, constructed of thousands of flashing, glittering glass panes in a network of wrought-iron ribs. It was a glasshouse, she realized in bewilderment. On a rooftop. The ethereal construction, as pretty as a wedding cake, had been built on a sturdy brickwork base, with iron pillars and girders welded to vertical struts and diagonal tiers. "This is for my orchids," she said faintly. Rhys came up behind her, his hands settling at her waist. He nuzzled gently at her ear. "I told you I'd find a place for them." A glass palace in the sky. It was magical, an inspired stroke of romantic imagination, and he had built it for her. Dazzled, she took in the view of London at sunset, a red glow westering across the leaden sky. The clouds were torn in places, gold light spilling through the fire-colored fleece.

There are times when even the best leaders lose their emotional balance. Leadership brings with it responsibility, and responsibility, in times of serious adversity, brings emotional turmoil and strain. In this sense responsibility is like a lever, which can upset a leader’s emotional balance when adversity presses down hard on one end. When the adversity is threatening enough or comes without warning, it can unbalance the leader at a single stroke. Even a leader as great as Lincoln was floored more than once in this way. Other times the effect is cumulative, coming after a period of sustained high tension—of pressure on one end and resistance on the other—until finally the leader’s equanimity begins to give way. The point is that every leader has her emotional limits, and there is no shame in exceeding them. What distinguishes effective leaders from inferior ones, rather, is their ability to restore their emotional balance.

Hence I am forced to doubt whether even without her potent charm and peculiar filial position Gwendolen might not still have played the queen in exile, if only she had kept her inborn energy of egoistic desire, and her power of inspiring fear as to what she might say or do. However, she had the charm, and those who feared her were also fond of her; the fear and the fondness being perhaps both heightened by what may be called the iridescence of her character - the play of various, nay, contrary tendencies. For Macbeth's rhetoric about the impossibility of being many opposite things in the same moment, referred to the clumsy necessities of action and not to the subtler possibilities of feeling. We cannot speak a loyal word and be meanly silent; we cannot kill and not kill in the same moment; but a moment is wide enough for the loyal and mean desire, for the outlash of a murderous thought and the sharp backward stroke of repentance.

An example: A few years ago, the public health authorities in Canada, where it had been estimated that smoking kills forty-five thousand people a year, decided to supplement the warning printed on every pack of cigarettes with a shock-photograph—of cancerous lungs, or a stroke-clotted brain, or a damaged heart, or a bloody mouth in acute periodontal distress. A pack with such a picture accompanying the warning about the deleterious effects of smoking would be sixty times more likely to inspire smokers to quit, a research study had somehow calculated, than a pack with only the verbal warning. Let’s assume this is true. But one might wonder, for how long? Does shock have term limits? Right now the smokers of Canada are recoiling in disgust, if they do look at these pictures. Will those still smoking five years from now still be upset? Shock can become familiar. Shock can wear off. Even if it doesn’t, one can not look. People have means to defend themselves against what is upsetting—in this instance, unpleasant information for those wishing to continue to smoke. This seems normal, that is, adaptive. As one can become habituated to horror in real life, one can become habituated to the horror of certain images.

Since my biographer may be too staid Or know too little to affirm that Shade Shaved in his bath, here goes: "He'd fixed a sort Of hinge-and-screw affair, a steel support Running across the tub to hold in place The shaving mirror right before his face And with his toe renewing tap-warmth, he'd Sit like a king there, and like Marat bleed." The more I weigh, the less secure my skin; In places it's ridiculously thin; Thus near the mouth: the space between its wick And my grimace, invited the wicked nick. Or this dewlap: some day I must set free The Newport Frill inveterate in me. My Adam's apple is a prickly pear: Now I shall speak of evil and despair As none has spoken. Five, six, seven, eight, Nine strokes are not enough. Ten. I palpate Through strawberry-and-cream the gory mess And find unchanged that patch of prickliness. I have my doubts about the one-armed bloke Who in commercials with one gliding stroke Clears a smooth path of flesh from ear to chin, Then wipes his faces and fondly tries his skin. I'm in the class of fussy bimanists. As a discreet ephebe in tights assists A female in an acrobatic dance, My left hand help, and holds, and shifts its stance. Now I shall speak...Better than any soap Is the sensation for which poets hope When inspiration and its icy blaze, The sudden image, the immediate phrase Over the skin a triple ripple send Making the little hairs all stand on end As in the enlarged animated scheme Of whiskers mowed when held up by Our Cream.

I know that a lot of our successes came because we had pure intentions and great talent, and we did a lot of things right, but I also believe that attributing our successes solely to our own intelligence, without acknowledging the role of accidental events, diminishes us. We must acknowledge the random events that went our way, because acknowledging our good fortune—and not telling ourselves that everything we did was some stroke of genius—lets us make more realistic assessments and decisions. The existence of luck also reminds us that our activities are less repeatable. Since change is inevitable, the question is: Do you act to stop it and try to protect yourself from it, or do you become the master of change by accepting it and being open to it? My view, of course, is that working with change is what creativity is about.

At the stroke of midnight as my childhood ended, I prayed and cried in a pool of moonlight to the listener who knows All, for my mission to actualise and thus, my eternal duty begins.

But once on stage he seems to enjoy playing the role of inspirational speaker—a kind of nerd Tony Robbins, overly fond of touchy-feely rhetoric and vapid aphorisms. “Success,” Shah says, striding back and forth across a stage, with his head down, stroking his beard, as if impersonating a professor, “is making those who believed in you look brilliant.” Then he will pause, as if he has just said something incredibly profound and wants to give you a moment to let it sink in. Then he repeats the line, and a ballroom full of marketing people cheer.

When he had made all the necessary preparations the army began to embark at the approach of the dawn; while according to custom he offered sacrifice to the gods and to the river Hydaspes, as the prophets directed. When he had embarked he poured a libation into the river from the prow of the ship out of a golden goblet, invoking the Acesines as well as the Hydaspes, because he had ascertained that it is the largest of all the rivers which unite with the Hydaspes, and that their confluence was not far off. He also invoked the Indus, into which the Acesines flows after its junction with the Hydaspes. Moreover he poured out libations to his forefather Heracles, to Ammon, and the other gods to whom he was in the habit of sacrificing, and then he ordered the signal for starting seawards to be given with the trumpet. As soon as the signal was given they commenced the voyage in regular order; for directions had been given at what distance apart it was necessary for the baggage vessels to be arranged, as also for the vessels conveying the horses and for the ships of war; so that they might not fall foul of each other by sailing down the channel at random. He did not allow even the fast-sailing ships to get out of rank by outstripping the rest. The noise of the rowing was never equalled on any other occasion, inasmuch as it proceeded from so many ships rowed at the same time; also the shouting of the boatswains giving the time for beginning and stopping the stroke of the oars, and the clamour of the rowers, when keeping time all together with the dashing of the oars, made a noise like a battle-cry. The banks of the river also, being in many places higher than the ships, and collecting the sound into a narrow space, sent back to each other an echo which was very much increased by its very compression. In some parts too the groves of trees on each side of the river helped to swell the sound, both from the solitude and the reverberation of the noise. The horses which were visible on the decks of the transports struck the barbarians who saw them with such surprise that those of them who were present at the starting of the fleet accompanied it a long way from the place of embarkation. For horses had never before been seen on board ships in the country of India; and the natives did not call to mind that the expedition of Dionysus into India was a naval one. The shouting of the rowers and the noise of the rowing were heard by the Indians who had already submitted to Alexander, and these came running down to the river’s bank and accompanied him singing their native songs. For the Indians have been eminently fond of singing and dancing since the time of Dionysus and those who under his bacchic inspiration traversed the land of the Indians with him.

Ranunculus chose that moment to saunter inside, the big orange cat going straight across to Jack to rub against his trouser legs. Clearly unconcerned about any hair the feline might be leaving behind, Jack bent to stroke the cat's striped head and back. "I see the two of you have already met," she remarked, observing the friendly byplay. Soft purrs issued from the cat, his eyes closing with contentment as Jack scratched him under his chin. "Indeed," Jack said. "This big fellow introduced himself to me while you were sleeping. He's quite expert at hogging the sofa." His gaze moved to the cat. "Aren't you... Ranunculus, is it not?" "That's right," she confirmed. Obviously Jack had gleaned additional "interesting details" from the servants. He stroked the cat's head, his voice lowering. "At least she didn't call you Buttercup, old man." "You know what ranunculus means?" she said, surprised. His gaze swung up to meet hers. "I know a great deal more on that subject than you might imagine. Let's just say you... inspired me to learn.

St. John would say that the natural working of the faculties is not adequate to attain to union with God, and the beginner is drawn to spiritual exercises as much by the satisfaction as by any purely spiritual motives. For the psychologist, even while he is refraining from making any judgment about the religious object, is often painfully aware that if interior experiences are viewed as if they had nothing to do with the overall dynamics of the psyche, then their recipient runs the risk of damaging his psychic balance. If temptations must be seen only as the direct working of the devil and inspirations and revelations the direct working of the Holy Spirit, then the totality of the psyche and the flow of its energy will be misunderstood. The biggest danger to the beginner experiencing sensible fervor, or any other tangible phenomenon, is that they will equate their experience purely and simply with union with God. The very combination of genuine spiritual gifts and how these graces work through the psyche creates a sense of conviction that this, indeed, is the work of God, but this conviction is often extended to deny the human dimension as if any participation by the psyche is a denial of divine origin. The beginner, then, can become impervious to psychological and spiritual advice. The sense of consolation, the feeling of completion, the visions seen, or the voices heard, the tongue spoken, or the healings witnessed, are all identified with the exclusive direct action of God as if there were no psyche that received and conditioned these inspirations. This same attitude is then carried over into daily life and how God's action is viewed in this world. If God is so immediately present, miracles must be taking place daily. God must be intervening day-by-day, even in the minor mundane affairs of the recipients of His Spirit. This does not mean that genuine miracles do not take place, nor that genuine inspirations do not play a role in daily life, but rather, if we believe that they are conceptually distinguishable from the ordinary working of consciousness, we run the risk of identifying God's action with our own perceptions, feelings and emotions. The initial conversion state, precisely because of the degree of emotional energy it is charged with, is often clung to as if the intensity of this energy is a guarantee of its spiritual character. As beginners under the vital force of these tangible experiences we take up an attitude of inner expectancy. We look to a realm beyond the arena of the ego and assume that what transpires there is supernatural. We reach and grasp for interior messages. Thus arises a real danger of misinterpreting what we perceive. What Jung says about the inability to discern between God and the unconscious at the level of empirical experience is verified here. We run the risk of confusing the spiritual with the psychic, our own perceptions with God Himself. An even greater danger is that we will erect this kind of knowledge into a whole theology of the spiritual life, and thus judge our progress by the presence of these phenomena. “The same problem can arise in a completely different context, which could be called a pseudo-Jungian Christianity. In it the realities of the psyche which Jung described are identified with the Christian faith. Thus, at one stroke a vivid sense of experience, even mysticism, if you will, arises. The numinous experience of the unconscious becomes equivalent to the workings of the Holy Spirit. Dreams and the psychological events that take place during the process of individuation are taken for the stages of the life of prayer and the ascent of the soul to God by faith. But this mysticism is no more to be identified with St. John's than the previous one of visions and revelations.

The Masterpiece? Head down, she obeys... Her mind, a virgin canvas, World paints its own strokes.

A work of art which inspires us comes from no quibbling or uncertain man. It is the manifest of a very positive nature in great enjoyment, and at the very moment the work was done. It is not enough to have thought great things before doing the work. The brush stroke at the moment of contact carries inevitably the exact state of being of the artist at that exact moment into the work, and there it is, to be seen and read by those who can read such signs, and to be read later by the artist himself, with perhaps some surprise, as a revelation of himself.

Luck plays such an overpowering role in some lives that the thoughtful person must ask: ‘Why have I been cursed with bad luck while another is blessed with so much good luck?’ Believe me, the fortunate person who receives the favorable breaks also wonders about his favored situation. In my case, I have no explanation. I was hardworking; I had a tough character; I was a good student; and I acknowledged the leadership of my superiors. But no amount of hard work or high standard of behavior could have brought the many good things that happened to me; pure chance dictated most of them. The only generalization I can offer is that in an irrational world if a prudent course has been followed, you make yourself eligible to capitalize on luck if it happens to strike. If you have not made yourself eligible, you may never be aware that luck is at hand. By all this I mean: learn typing, master math, learn to draft a convincing letter, broaden the mind, and do not evade challenges. Making oneself eligible to seize the breaks if and when they come is the only sensible strategy I know. Be prepared to make full use of any stroke of luck, and even if it never comes, the preparation in itself will be a worthy effort.” —Chapter VIII, “Writing”, page 289

When I recall the morning that the paramedics wheeled Ray out of the house on that sterile-looking gurney, my stomach churns, wanting to vomit. This was possibly the most traumatic day of my life. I was terribly frightened by my intelligent best friend-husband’s uttering inconceivable utterings, making no sense, which told me that he was having a massive stroke. I followed the screaming ambulance to the hospital, where they rushed him in for the MRI that confirmed the stroke. (p. 97)

But when I accept the call of creative passion, I am a bold stroke of vermilion, a renegade hyperbole, or the wild fury of jazz violin. The world is a canvas to explore, a blank page to fill, and an arpeggio of waiting experiences. This moving masterpiece called “life” becomes intoxicating when it’s lived as if it were art.

know that a lot of our successes came because we had pure intentions and great talent, and we did a lot of things right, but I also believe that attributing our successes solely to our own intelligence, without acknowledging the role of accidental events, diminishes us. We must acknowledge the random events that went our way, because acknowledging our good fortune—and not telling ourselves that everything we did was some stroke of genius—lets us make more realistic assessments and decisions. The existence of luck also reminds us that our activities are less repeatable. Since change is inevitable, the question is: Do you act to stop it and try to protect yourself from it, or do you become the master of change by accepting it and being open to it? My view, of course, is that working with change is what creativity is about.

David Landes, the distinguished economic historian, has even seen in the political fragmentation of the Old Continent one of the roots of its later global dominance. By decentralizing authority, fragmentation made Europe safe from single-stroke conquest – the fate of many empires of the past, from Persia after Issus (333 BC) and Rome after the sack of Alaric (410 AD) to Aztec Mexico and Inca Peru. The American historian concludes his argument with a citation from Patricia Crone’s Pre-Industrial Societies: ‘Far from being stultified by imperial government, Europe was to be propelled forward by constant competition between its component parts’ (Landes 1998: 528). These and other scholars stressing the importance of inter-state competition in European history have been inspired by the arguments advanced by Eric Jones in his well-known book The European Miracle. The miracle the British historian wished to explain is the fact that one thousand years ago, more or less, nobody would have thought possible that Europe could ever be able to challenge the great empires of the East, but five hundred years later European global dominance was already becoming a reality. According to Jones the essence of this ‘European miracle’ lies in politics rather than in economics: in its long-lasting system of competing but also cooperating states. Considered as a group, the members of the European states system realized the benefits of competitive decision-making but also some of the economies of scale expected of an empire: ‘Unity in diversity gave Europe some of the best of both worlds, albeit in a somewhat ragged and untidy way’ (Jones 1987: 110).

Candor isn’t cruel. It does not destroy. On the contrary, any successful feedback system is built on empathy, on the idea that we are all in this together, that we understand your pain because we’ve experienced it ourselves. The need to stroke one’s own ego, to get the credit we feel we deserve—we strive to check those impulses at the door.

Life is a Canvas. Every action of ours is a stroke of paint and at the end, how beautiful our painting is will depend upon all our strokes, all our Actions.-RVM

There was nothing to be said, only the happiness she had dreamed now to be seized. But the hurt was too fresh. She brandished the broadsheet. “I admit, my lord, that your theory about Christmas gifts chosen to suit the recipient for greatest effect has merit.” “Only if the effect is to inspire mercy,” he replied quietly. She could not bear the confusion. She dipped her gaze. “When?” she whispered. “At the chateau.” Her eyes came up. “At first?” “I was intrigued. I had never known a woman like you.” His throat moved awkwardly. “I came to understand that there are no others.” The page crinkled between her fingers. “Why did you do it?” “Because I wanted you, and I think I didn’t know how to have you otherwise. Jacqueline, I have been a great fool, but I never wished to hurt you. I beg of you, if you can someday forgive m—” Her palm upon his chest stayed his words. Then she leaned forward, released a shaking breath, and buried her face in his shoulder. He wrapped his arms about her and held her tight. “I assume from this response that you will not, after all, be marrying Tarleton?” he said into her hair. “I will not. I could not.” Tears of joy arose in her eyes and soaked his shoulder. He stroked her hair. “Then perhaps you might consider marrying me instead? If you don’t, you know, you will never live this down, embracing a man with a hundred people looking on.” “Are they looking?” “Yes. I think they’re all eager to hear you sing ‘God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen.’ I know I am.” “Is there perhaps a black veil lying anywhere about?” “No, but I could remove my coat and you could throw that over your head. No one would recognize you, I’m certain.” She laughed and he held her tighter yet. “My darling,” he whispered close. “My love.” -Jacqueline & Cam

If we know a man to be a child of God, it does not follow that he is to be admitted to fellowship in the Church. Paul instructs the Thessalonians, "If any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." Here is one whom Paul will own as a brother, and will have the Church to own, and yet his present conduct, his refusal to submit to inspired counsels, excludes him from fellowship. The open communionist, to be consistent with himself, would stand up before Paul and demand, "How dare you forbid God’s child access to his Father’s table!" Close communion, in excluding from the fellowship in the Church and in breaking of bread, does not deny a spiritual relationship to Christ; but open communion, in making regeneration the condition of fellowship, pronounces a very unwarrantable and uncharitable sentence on such as are excluded. God’s strokes are safer than man’s kisses.

The enemy is crafty; if he would take all away at one stroke he would cause alarm. He starts a certain and infallible method of getting rid of it bit by bit and very gradually, that is, this idea of interior inspiration, by which everybody can receive or reject what seems good to him.

We must acknowledge the random events that went our way, because acknowledging our good fortune—and not telling ourselves that everything we did was some stroke of genius—lets us make more realistic assessments and decisions. The existence of luck also reminds us that our activities are less repeatable. Since change is inevitable, the question is: Do you act to stop it and try to protect yourself from it, or do you become the master of change by accepting it and being open to it? My view, of course, is that working with change is what creativity is

I’m not leaving the bathroom. Nothing out there is as sexy as in here.” “Hell yeah,” he groaned. “Don’t tease though. I’m this close to turning the water to cold.” “Or you could fix your problem.” Cooper squinted at me. “Really?” Pulling off my shirt, I lowered my bra. Standing closer to the shower door, I stretched. “Here’s your visual inspiration. I could lick my lips a lot if you think it’d help?” “Fucking A,” he said, stroking himself. “Say my name.” “Cooper,” I moaned softly, rolling my nipples between my thumbs and index fingers like he always did. “Oh, Cooper, I’m yours. I need you. I wish you were inside me, Cooper.” His gaze held mine as I teased myself and he stroked his cock. I eventually just looked at where he worked himself closer to relief. Soon, I licked my lips while thinking about making him feel good using my hand. While I didn’t know how long Cooper had been in a state of heat, it didn’t take him long to find relief. I doubted it would take him long to need more relief. To prolong his comfort, I immediately dressed and left the bathroom. Cooper appeared buck naked a few minutes later and I wondered if lunch should wait. Somehow, I’d gotten myself into a state of heat. “Some of it’s genetics,” he teased, retrieving boxers from his dresser. “The rest is hard work.” “I have a response, but I don’t want you getting worked up again.” “Give it five minutes and the memory of you touching yourself and… Fuck it, I didn’t need five minutes.

If there so many hurdles in your life to achieve something, you have to believe God firmly. Because He is creating a wonderful story to inspire people through you, that couldn't be done with a single stroke of success.

Candor isn’t cruel. It does not destroy. On the contrary, any successful feedback system is built on empathy, on the idea that we are all in this together, that we understand your pain because we’ve experienced it ourselves. The need to stroke one’s own ego, to get the credit we feel we deserve—we strive to check those impulses at the door. The Braintrust is fueled by the idea that every note we give is in the service of a common goal: supporting and helping each other as we try to make better movies. It

We are servants of the Mystery. We were put here on earth to act as agents of the Infinite, to bring into existence that which is not yet, but which will be, through us. Every breath we take, every heartbeat, every evolution of every cell comes from God and is sustained by God every second, just as every creation, invention, every bar of music or line of verse, every thought, vision, fantasy, every dumb-ass flop and stroke of genius comes from that infinite intelligence that created us and the universe in all its dimensions, out of the Void, the field of infinite potential, primal chaos, the Muse. To acknowledge that reality, to efface all ego, to let the work come through us and give it back freely to its source, that, in my opinion, is as true to reality as it gets.

Roll over on your side. I would like to cuddle up with someone who is exceedingly pretty and worth some tender regard.” “So I might be inspired to whisper confidences to you?” Ellen asked, shifting carefully in the hammock. Val waited for her to get situated then rolled to his side and began stroking his hand over her shoulders, neck, and back. “The boys said you were not your most sanguine today.” Val felt the tension particularly across her shoulders, exactly where his own usually ached when he’d finished a good round of Beethoven. “Have you confidences to share?” “I do not. You will put me to sleep if you keep that up.” “Then you can dream of me, and I will dream of you—and vegetables.” “Vegetables?” Ellen quirked a glance at him over her shoulder. “Green beans, tomatoes, peppers, you know the kind.” Val kissed her nape. “Fruit helps, but I am beside myself with longing for vegetables. I could write a little rhapsody to the buttered green bean, so great is my torment.” “I understand this torment.” Ellen rolled her shoulders. “By the end of June, I am practically sleeping in my vegetable patch, so desperately do I want that first bowl of crisp, ripe beans. Mine are almost ready.” “And what about you?” Val kissed her nape again. “Are you ready?” His