Stunning Day Quotes

Childhood feels so permanent, like it's the entire world, and then one day it's over and you're shoveling wet dirt onto your father's coffin, stunned at the impermanence of everything.

Now that number was gone, covered up by the jet-black image of a chess piece. Neil's knowledge of chess was hazy at best, but he knew for sure that wasn't a king. "You did it," Neil said, too stunned to manage anything else. "Let Riko be King," Kevin said, with the exaggerated enunciation of the thoroughly sloshed. "Most coveted, most protected. He'll sacrifice every piece he has to protect his throne. Whatever. Me?" Kevin gestured again, meaning to indicate himself but too drunk to get his hand higher than his waist. "I'm going to be the deadliest piece on the board." "Queen," Andrew said somewhere behind Neil.

Beauty comes naturally, but it's hard to be stunning by accident.

It [Darwin's theory of evolution] was a concept of such stunning simplicity, but it gave rise, naturally, to all of the infinite and baffling complexity of life. The awe it inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem, frankly, silly beside it. I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.

You look... amazing!" And I have to say, I agree. I'm wearing all black - but expensive black. The kind of deep, soft black that you fall into. A simple sleeveless dress from Whistles, the highest of Jimmy Choos, a pair of stunning uncut amethyst earrings. And please don't ask how much it all cost, because that's irrelevant. This is investment shopping. The biggest investment of my life. I haven't eaten anything all day so I'm nice and thin and for once my hair has fallen perfectly into shape. I look... well, I've never looked better in my life. But of course, looks are only part of the package, aren't they?

From the moment I first saw him— saw through his stunning and impossibly gorgeous exterior to the dark and dangerous man inside— I’d felt the pull that came from finding the other half of myself. I needed him like I needed my heart to beat, and he’d put himself in great jeopardy, risking everything— for me.

...You find a way, somehow to get through the most horrible things, things you think would kill you. You find a way and you move through the days, one by one, in shock, in despair, but you move. The days pass, one after the other, and you go along with them - occasionally stunned, and not entirely relieved, to find that you are still alive.

Peeta,” I say lightly. “You said at the interview you’d had a crush on me forever. When did forever start?” “Oh, let’s see. I guess the first day of school. We were five. You had on a red plaid dress and your hair... it was in two braids instead of one. My father pointed you out when we were waiting to line up,” Peeta says. “Your father? Why?” I ask. “He said, ‘See that little girl? I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner,’” Peeta says. “What? You’re making that up!” I exclaim. “No, true story,” Peeta says. “And I said, ‘A coal miner? Why did she want a coal miner if she could’ve had you?’ And he said, ‘Because when he sings... even the birds stop to listen.’” “That’s true. They do. I mean, they did,” I say. I’m stunned and surprisingly moved, thinking of the baker telling this to Peeta. It strikes me that my own reluctance to sing, my own dismissal of music might not really be that I think it’s a waste of time. It might be because it reminds me too much of my father. “So that day, in music assembly, the teacher asked who knew the valley song. Your hand shot right up in the air. She stood you up on a stool and had you sing it for us. And I swear, every bird outside the windows fell silent,” Peeta says. “Oh, please,” I say, laughing. “No, it happened. And right when your song ended, I knew—just like your mother—I was a goner,” Peeta says. “Then for the next eleven years, I tried to work up the nerve to talk to you.” “Without success,” I add. “Without success. So, in a way, my name being drawn in the reaping was a real piece of luck,” says Peeta. For a moment, I’m almost foolishly happy and then confusion sweeps over me. Because we’re supposed to be making up this stuff, playing at being in love not actually being in love. But Peeta’s story has a ring of truth to it. That part about my father and the birds. And I did sing the first day of school, although I don’t remember the song. And that red plaid dress... there was one, a hand-me-down to Prim that got washed to rags after my father’s death. It would explain another thing, too. Why Peeta took a beating to give me the bread on that awful hollow day. So, if those details are true... could it all be true? “You have a... remarkable memory,” I say haltingly. “I remember everything about you,” says Peeta, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re the one who wasn’t paying attention.” “I am now,” I say. “Well, I don’t have much competition here,” he says. I want to draw away, to close those shutters again, but I know I can’t. It’s as if I can hear Haymitch whispering in my ear, “Say it! Say it!” I swallow hard and get the words out. “You don’t have much competition anywhere.” And this time, it’s me who leans in.

You are a terrible liar. You do want this. Just as badly as I do.” My mouth opened, but no words came out. “You want this as badly as you want to go to ALA this winter.” Now my jaw was on the floor. “You don’t even know what ALA is!” “American Library Association midwinter event,” he said, grinning proudly. “Saw you obsessing over it on your blog before you got sick. I’m pretty sure you said you’d give up your firstborn child to go.” Yeah, I kind of did say that. Daemon eyes flashed. “Anyway, back to the whole you wanting me part.” I shook my head, dumbfounded. “You do want me.” Taking a deep breath, I struggled with my temper… and my amusement. “You are way too confident.” “I’m confident enough to wager a bet.” “You can’t be serious.” He grinned. “I bet that by New Year’s Day, you will have admitted that you’re madly, deeply, and irrevocably—” “Wow. Want to throw another adverb out there?” My cheeks were burning. “How about irresistibly?” I rolled my eyes and muttered, “I’m surprised you know what an adverb is.” “Stop distracting me, Kitten. Back to my bet—by New Year’s Day, you’ll have admitted that you’re madly, deeply, irrevocably, and irresistibly in love with me.” Stunned, I choked on my laugh. “And that you dream about me.” He released my arm and folded his, cocking an eyebrow. “I bet you’ll even admit that. Probably even show me your notebook with my name circled in hearts—” “Oh, for the love of God…” Daemon winked. “It’s on.

Boasting is one of those rare outfits that never looks good on you but makes you look stunning when modeled by your admirers.

And my own affairs were as bad, as dismal, as the day I had been born. The only difference was that now I could drink now and then, though never often enough. Drink was the only thing that kept a man from feeling forever stunned and useless. Everything else just kept picking and picking, hacking away. And nothing was interesting, nothing. The people were restrictive and careful, all alike. And I've got to live with these fuckers for the rest of my life, I thought. God, they all had assholes and sexual organs and their mouths and their armpits. They shit and they chattered and they were dull as horse dung. The girls looked good from a distance, the sun shining through their dresses, their hair. But get up close and listen to their minds running out of their mouths, you felt like digging in under a hill and hiding out with a tommy-gun. I would certainly never be able to be happy, to get married, I could never have children. Hell, I couldn't even get a job as a dishwasher.

Alex, the piece costs $40,000.” “Really? Shit.” “I’m sure we can—” “I thought it was expensive.” I allowed myself a soft laugh at her stunned expression. “It’s not a big deal. I’ll own a new piece of art, you’ll receive a hefty commission, and your manager will kiss your ass until the end of days. Win-win.

Fuck You Poem #45 Fuck you in slang and conventional English. Fuck you in lost and neglected lingoes. Fuck you hungry and sated; faded, pock marked, and defaced. Fuck you with orange rind, fennel and anchovy paste. Fuck you with rosemary and thyme, and fried green olives on the side. Fuck you humidly and icily. Fuck you farsightedly and blindly. Fuck you nude and draped in stolen finery. Fuck you while cells divide wildly and birds trill. Thank you for barring me from his bedside while he was ill. Fuck you puce and chartreuse. Fuck you postmodern and prehistoric. Fuck you under the influence of opiun, codeine, laudanum, and paregoric. Fuck every real and imagined country you fancied yourself princess of. Fuck you on feast days and fast days, below and above. Fuck you sleepless and shaking for nineteen nights running. Fuck you ugly and fuck you stunning. Fuck you shipwrecked on the barren island of your bed. Fuck you marching in lockstep in the ranks of the dead. Fuck you at low and high tide. And fuck you astride anyone who has the bad luck to fuck you, in dank hallways, bathrooms, or kitchens. Fuck you in gasps and whispered benedictions. And fuck these curses, however heartfelt and true, that bind me, till I forgive you, to you.

The flawlessness of his beautiful face will amaze me until the day I die— his lightly tanned skin, his almost girly long lashes, the faint crease across his brow. It would take me a lifetime to run through all his stunning features. My devastating man, in all of his challenging ways.

What is it about wearing a tuxedo or that little black dress, that makes us feel confident, beautiful, splendid, even invincible? We put on formal wear and suddenly we become extraordinary. On the days when you feel low and invisible, why not try this on for size: imagine you are wearing a fantastic tailored tuxedo or a stunning formal gown. And then proceed with your day.

May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun.

What God does in the tiny corners of our day-to-day lives is stunning and gorgeous and headline-making, but we have a bad habit of saving the headlines for the grotesque and scary.

Then I said, “Matt’s got a big mouth.” “They all got big mouths, girl, learn that quick. These boys talk more than a pack of women. I lost fifty bucks on you.” I was stunned speechless again, this time it didn’t last as long. “What?” “See, Lee nailed Indy the first night they were together. Not nailed her nailed her but she was in his bed. Eddie, with Jet, it took a few days. Hank and Roxie, like, a day. Vance, like three, but Jules was a virgin and he had to interrupt the festivities once to go out and shoot someone.” I was blinking rapidly and feeling kind of faint at the amount and sensitivity of information Shirleen was imparting, not to mention what it might mean to me. “So we had a pool. Everyone threw down money on when they thought Luke would nail you. Mace won five hundred dollars.” Ho-ly crap. “So,” she went on. “Did he nail you nail you or did you two just sleep?” For some reason, I answered her unbelievably nosy question. “We just slept.” “New pool!” she shouted.

She still hadn't caught on. Alec sighed. "Change your gown, Jamie, if that's your inclination. I prefer white. Now go and do my bidding. The hour grows late and we must be on our way." He'd deliberately lengthened his speech, giving her time to react to his announcement. He thought he was being most considerate. She thought he was demented. Jamie was, at first, too stunned to do more than stare in horror at the warlord. When she finally gained her voice, she shouted, "It will be a frigid day in heaven before I marry you, milord, a frigid day indeed." "You've just described the Highlands in winter, lass. And you will marry me." "Never." Exactly one hour later, Lady Jamison was wed to Alec Kincaid.

So initiate us," Claire said, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes in challenge. "Make us priests and priestesses of Apollo." "Say that again," Jason said, turning to Claire. He was so stunned there was almost no expression on his face. "That's the plan you've been working on for the past two days? The one you told us not to worry about?" Matt asked in an increasingly high-pitched voice. "Yup.

It was wonderful, a stunning happy ending to what began as another tragic rock & roll story, as if Bob Dylan had been arrested in Miami for jacking off in a seedy little XXX theater while stroking the spine of a fat young boy.

Say something Becks. Say anything" "You," I said. "I remember you." I kept my eyes shut, and felt his hands drop. He didn't move back. "What do you remember about me?" There was strong emotion behind his voice. Something he fought to control. With my eyes closed, I could easily picture the other side of the century. "I remember the way your hand could cover my entire shoulder. The way your lower lip stuck out when you were working out a problem in your head. And how you flick your ring finger with your thumb when you get impatient." I opened my eyes, and the words no longer got stuck in my throat on their way out. They flowed. "And when something surprises you and you don't know what to say, you get a tiny wrinkle in between your eyebrows." I reached up to touch the divot, then hesitated and lowered my hand. "It showed on the day the coach told you you'd made first-string quarterback. And it's showing now." For a moment the space between us held no tension, no questions, no accusations. Finally he leaned back, a stunned expression on his face. "Where do we go from here?" "Nowhere, really," I whispered. "It doesn't change anything.

Where was he, her Alexander, of once? Was he truly gone? The Alexander of the Summer Garden, of their first Lazarevo days, of the hat in his hands, white toothed, peaceful, laughing, languid, stunning Alexander, had he been left far behind? Well, Tatiana supposed that was only right. For Alexander believed his Tatiana of once was gone, too. The swimming child Tatiana of the Luga, of the Neva, of the River Kama. Perhaps on the surface they were still in their twenties, but their hearts were old.

Some changes occur suddenly like a brilliant flash of lightning striking across a dark sky. These changes are stunning, exciting but can be quickly forgotten. Other changes happen slowly, gradually, like a flower blooming in early spring, each day unfurling its petals another fraction of an inch towards the warm, nurturing sun. These changes are as inevitable as nature running its course; they’re meant to be.

It was growing dark on this long southern evening, and suddenly, at the exact point her finger had indicated, the moon lifted a forehead of stunning gold above the horizon, lifted straight out of filigreed, light-intoxicated clouds that lay on the skyline in attendant veils. Behind us, the sun was setting in a simultaneous congruent withdrawal and the river turned to flame in a quiet duel of gold....The new gold of moon astonishing and ascendant, he depleted gold of sunset extinguishing itself in the long westward slide, it was the old dance of days in the Carolina marshes, the breathtaking death of days before the eyes of children, until the sun vanished, its final signature a ribbon of bullion strung across the tops of water oaks.

Rarely do we realize that if we simply take time to marvel at life’s gifts and give thanks for them, we activate stunning opportunities to increase their influence in our lives.

What was she thinking?” muttered Alexander, closing his eyes and imagining his Tania. “She was determined. It was like some kind of a personal crusade with her,” Ina said. “She gave the doctor a liter of blood for you—” “Where did she get it from?” “Herself, of course.” Ina smiled. “Lucky for you, Major, our Nurse Metanova is a universal donor.” Of course she is, thought Alexander, keeping his eyes tightly shut. Ina continued. “The doctor told her she couldn’t give any more, and she said a liter wasn’t enough, and he said, ‘Yes, but you don’t have more to give,’ and she said, ‘I’ll make more,’ and he said, ‘No,’ and she said, ‘Yes,’ and in four hours, she gave him another half-liter of blood.” Alexander lay on his stomach and listened intently while Ina wrapped fresh gauze on his wound. He was barely breathing. “The doctor told her, ‘Tania, you’re wasting your time. Look at his burn. It’s going to get infected.’ There wasn’t enough penicillin to give to you, especially since your blood count was so low.” Alexander heard Ina chuckle in disbelief. “So I’m making my rounds late that night, and who do I find next to your bed? Tatiana. She’s sitting with a syringe in her arm, hooked up to a catheter, and I watch her, and I swear to God, you won’t believe it when I tell you, Major, but I see that the catheter is attached to the entry drip in your IV.” Ina’s eyes bulged. “I watch her draining blood from the radial artery in her arm into your IV. I ran in and said, ‘Are you crazy? Are you out of your mind? You’re siphoning blood from yourself into him?’ She said to me in her calm, I-won’t-stand-for-any-argument voice, ‘Ina, if I don’t, he will die.’ I yelled at her. I said, ‘There are thirty soldiers in the critical wing who need sutures and bandages and their wounds cleaned. Why don’t you take care of them and let God take care of the dead?’ And she said, ‘He’s not dead. He is still alive, and while he is alive, he is mine.’ Can you believe it, Major? But that’s what she said. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I said to her. ‘Fine, die yourself. I don’t care.’ But the next morning I went to complain to Dr. Sayers that she wasn’t following procedure, told him what she had done, and he ran to yell at her.” Ina lowered her voice to a sibilant, incredulous whisper. “We found her unconscious on the floor by your bed. She was in a dead faint, but you had taken a turn for the better. All your vital signs were up. And Tatiana got up from the floor, white as death itself, and said to the doctor coldly, ‘Maybe now you can give him the penicillin he needs?’ I could see the doctor was stunned. But he did. Gave you penicillin and more plasma and extra morphine. Then he operated on you, to get bits of the shell fragment out of you, and saved your kidney. And stitched you. And all that time she never left his side, or yours. He told her your bandages needed to be changed every three hours to help with drainage, to prevent infection. We had only two nurses in the terminal wing, me and her. I had to take care of all the other patients, while all she did was take care of you. For fifteen days and nights she unwrapped you and cleaned you and changed your dressings. Every three hours. She was a ghost by the end. But you made it. That’s when we moved you to critical care. I said to her, ‘Tania, this man ought to marry you for what you did for him,’ and she said, ‘You think so?’ ” Ina tutted again. Paused. “Are you all right, Major? Why are you crying?

The car was on the FDR drive now and, turning her head, she glanced out at the bleak brown buildings of the projects that stretched for blocks along the drive. Something inside her sank at the sight of all that sameness, and she suddenly felt defeated. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. In the past year, she'd started experiencing these moments of desperate emptiness, as if nothing really mattered, nothing was ever going to change, there was nothing new; and she could see her life stretching before her--one endless long day after the next, in which every day was essentially the same. Meanwhile, time was marching on, and all that was happening to her was that she was getting older and smaller, and one day she would be no bigger than a dot, and then she would simply disappear. Poof! Like a small leaf burned up under a magnifying glass in the sun. These feelings were shocking to her, because she'd never experienced world-weariness before. She'd never had time. All her life, she'd been striving and striving to become this thing that was herself--the entity that was Nico O'Neilly. And then, one morning, time had caught up with her and she had woken up and realized that she was there. She had arrived at her destination, and she had everything she'd worked so hard for: a stunning career, a loving (well, sort of) husband, whom she respected, and a beautiful eleven-year-old daughter whom she adored. She should have been thrilled. But instead, she felt tired. Like all those things belonged to someone else.

were in town. At dawn, NBC, along with the rest of the baseball world, awakened to the irresistible story of Joe Castle and his stunning debut in Philadelphia. Suddenly the biggest game of the day was

I don’t think about Terry every day, anymore. And sometimes I’m stunned by that fact. It isn’t only the discomfort of disloyalty I feel, it’s the fact of utter disappearance after death. The idea that as loved as we may be, we may also be forgotten. If only for a day here and there.

At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, “Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough.” Enough. I was stunned by the simple eloquence of that word—stunned for two reasons: first, because I have been given so much in my own life and, second, because Joseph Heller couldn’t have been more accurate. For a critical element of our society, including many of the wealthiest and most powerful among us, there seems to be no limit today on what enough entails.

Jesus Christ says, 'Kill me and in 3 days, not only this temple, but all temples in the whole world will be out of business.' This is the most stunning thing any human being has ever said.

[Jürgen Habermas' obituary to friend and philosopher, Richard Rorty] One small autobiographical piece by Rorty bears the title 'Wild Orchids and Trotsky.' In it, Rorty describes how as a youth he ambled around the blooming hillside in north-west New Jersey, and breathed in the stunning odour of the orchids. Around the same time he discovered a fascinating book at the home of his leftist parents, defending Leon Trotsky against Stalin. This was the origin of the vision that the young Rorty took with him to college: philosophy is there to reconcile the celestial beauty of orchids with Trotsky's dream of justice on earth. Nothing is sacred to Rorty the ironist. Asked at the end of his life about the 'holy', the strict atheist answered with words reminiscent of the young Hegel: 'My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law.

A fight like this was stunning, revealing not just how much he was on the lookout for enemies, but how she too was unable to abandon argument which escalated into rage. Neither of them would back off, they held bitterly to principles. Can't you tolerate people being different, why is this so important? If this isn't important, nothing is. The air seemed to grow thick with loathing. All over a matter that could never be resolved. They went to bed speechless, parted speechless the next morning, and during the day were overtaken by fear - hers that he would never come home, his that when he did she would not be there. Their luck held, however. They came together in the late afternoon pale with contrition, shaking with love, like people who had narrowly escaped an earthquake and had been walking around in naked desolation.

I'm trying..." How could I put it? "I'm trying to get far enough down the line so that I can remember." I stopped, then continued: "so that I can remember without the pain killing me" And the days were stacking up. And weeks. And months. It was now almost the middle of June and he'd died in February, but I still felt like I'd just woken from a horrible dream, that I was suspended in that stunned, paralyzed state between sleep and reality where I was grasping for, but couldn't get a handle on normality.

There! There it is again! What language is that?" From the bed, Roarke shifted. "I believe it's known as rooster." With the weapon at her side, she stared at him, slack-jawed. "Are you fucking kidding me?" "Not a bit. It's morning, more or less, and that's a cock signaling the dawn." "A cock?" "I'd say. I don't think Sindead and her man want you to stun their rooster, but I have to say, Lieutenant, you make a fascinating picture." She heaved out a breath, set her weapon down. "Jesus Christ, we may as well be on another planet." She slid back into bed. "And if your cock gets any ideas about signaling the day, remember I've got a weapon.

...for most of the ride through British Columbia we were treated to stunning scenery ranging from majestic peaks shrouded in mist to more barren vistas reminiscent of the Old West ... to churning rivers fed by waterfalls twisting down mountains like the woven tassels on the white summer Chanel bag I'd left back home. Do waterfalls ever feel unfashionable after Labor Day

You're suicidal.You know how impossible this sounds?" "Yes." I pause. "But I don't really have much choice." "Well,go on.What about the square?" "Diversion." My eyes lock onto Kaede's. "Create chaos in Batalla Square, as much chaos as you can manage. Enough chaos to force most of the soldiers guarding the back exits to enter the square and help contain the crowd-if only for a couple of minutes. That's what the electro-bomb might help you with. Set it off in the air, and it'll shake up the ground in Batalla Hall and around it. It shouldn't hurt anyone, but it'll definitely stir up some panic. And if the guns in the vicinity are disabled,they can't shoot at Day even if they see him escaping along a rooftop.They'll have to chase him or try their luck with less accurate stun guns." "Okay,genius." Kaede laughs, a little too sarcastically. "Let me ask you this, though. How the hell are you going to get Day out of the building at all? You think you're going to be the only soldier escorting him to the firing squad? Other soldiers will probably flank you.Hell,a whole patrol might join you." I smile at her. "There will be other soldiers. But who says they can't be Patriots in disguise?" She doesn't answer me,not in words. But I can see the grin spreading on her face, and I realize that even though she thinks I'm crazy,she has also agreed to help.

When I was a child growing up in Salinas we called San Francisco “the City”. Of course it was the only city we knew, but I still think of it as the City, and so does everyone else who has ever associated with it. A strange and exclusive work is “city”. Besides San Francisco, only small sections of London and Rome stay in the mind as the City. New Yorkers say they are going to town. Paris has no title but Paris. Mexico City is the Capital. Once I knew the City very well, spent my attic days there, while others were being a lost generation in Paris. I fledged in San Francisco, climbed its hills, slept in its parks, worked on its docks, marched and shouted in its revolts. In a way I felt I owned the City as much as it owned me. San Francisco put on a show for me. I saw her across the bay, from the great road that bypasses Sausalito and enters the Golden Gate Bridge. The afternoon sun painted her white and gold---rising on her hills like a noble city in a happy dream. A city on hills has it over flat-land places. New York makes its own hills with craning buildings, but this gold and white acropolis rising wave on wave against the blue of the Pacific sky was a stunning thing, a painted thing like a picture of a medieval Italian city which can never have existed. I stopped in a parking place to look at her and the necklace bridge over the entrance from the sea that led to her. Over the green higher hills to the south, the evening fog rolled like herds of sheep coming to cote in the golden city. I’ve never seen her more lovely. When I was a child and we were going to the City, I couldn’t sleep for several nights before, out of busting excitement. She leaves a mark.

After my mother died, I had a feeling that was not unlike the homesickness that always filled me for the first few days when I went to stay at my grandparents'' house, and even, I was stunned to discover, during the first few months of my freshman year at college. It was not really the home my mother had made that I yearned for. But I was sick in my soul for that greater meaning of home that we understand most purely when we are children, when it is a metaphor for all possible feelings of security, of safety, of what is predictable, gentle, and good in life.

I think that's such a beautiful sentiment. Love should only last as long as a very expensive and impractical bikini that looks stunning, but dissolves in the sea within days. So many pop songs tell of this terrible, tiresome love that they want to last forever. But that just makes me think of long-life milk, acrid and fake. Love should be like a movie trailer. Even if the film's a stinker, you get the best laughs and the biggest explosions in the space of two minutes.

They stared at her curiously, and she caught snatches of conversation in two or three languages. It wasn't hard to guess their content, and she smiled a bit primly. Youth, it appeared, was full of illusions as to how much sexual energy two people might have to spare while hiking forty or so kilometers a day, concussed, stunned, diseased, on poor food and little sleep, alternating caring for a wounded man with avoiding becoming dinner for every carnivore within range - and with a coup to plan for the end.

Say something Becks. Say anything" "You," I said. "I remember you." I kept my eyes shut, and felt his hands drop. He didn't move back. "What do you remember about me?" There was strong emotion behind his voice. Something he fought to control. With my eyes closed, I could easily picture the other side of the century. "I remember the way your hand could cover my entire shoulder. The way your lower lip stuck out when you were working out a problem in your head. And how you flick your ring finger with your thumb when you get impatient." I opened my eyes, and the words no longer got stuck in my throat on their way out. They flowed. "And when something surprises you and you don't know what to say, you get a tiny wrinkle in between your eyebrows." I reached up to touch the divot, then hesitated and lowered my hand. "It showed on the day the coach told you you'd made first-string quarterback. And it's showing now." For a moment the space between us held no tension, no questions, no accusations. Finally he leaned back, a stunned expression on his face. "Where do we go from here?" "Nowhere, really," I whispered. "It doesn't change anything." Eyebrows still drawn together, he said, "We'll see." Then he turned and left. I tucked this moment away. In the dark, dank world of the Tunnels, I would call upon this memory. And there would be a flicker of candlelight. If only for a moment.

Ah, Robert?” “Shhhh, not while I’m praying,” he said, momentarily losing his place before he started again, “thank you for letting us survive that trip from hell. Thank you for ignoring my prayers for a quick death when I didn’t think that I’d be able to survive another day of starvation,” he said, making her roll her eyes in annoyance. “You were given three full meals a day just like everyone else,” she pointed out, not bothering to mention the fact that, on most days, he’d received second helpings. She sat down on a bench near their luggage, wondering just how much longer he was going to keep this up. “I’m sorry for all the cursing that my wife forced me to do while I was on that boat,” he continued, ignoring her even as he amused her. “As you know, she’s been such a bad influence on me. Thank you for pulling me from near death and somehow giving me the strength to survive.” “Near death?” she asked, frowning. “When were you near death?” “When was I near death?” he asked in stunned disbelief as he opened his eyes so that he could glare at her. “How could you forget all those times that I could barely move? When I struggled to find the will to live so that I wouldn’t leave you a young widow? Did my struggle for survival mean nothing to you?” he demanded in outrage, terrifying the people that were forced to walk past him to get to the docks and making her wrack her brain as she struggled to figure out what he was talking about. “Do you mean those few times when you had a touch of seasickness?” she asked, unable to think of anything else that he could be talking about since he’d been the picture of health during the majority of the trip. “A touch?” he repeated in disbelief. “I nearly died!

What modern day burlesquer hasn't been influenced by Sally Rand? My own pink ostrich fans -designed by Catherine, naturally- were the largest fans on any stage in the world (even I must up the ante). They are absolutely stunning! Made with four graduated shades of pink and hundreds of rose-colored crystals, they measure seven feet across and weigh 2.3 pounds each.

Gradually, the night stumbled as if stunned and wandering aimlessly into an overcast day -- limped through the wilderland of transition as though there were no knowing where the waste of darkness ended and the ashes of light began. The low clouds seemed full of grief -- tense and uneasy with accumulated woe -- and yet affectless, unable to rain, as if the air clenched itself too hard for tears. And through the dawn, Atiaran and Covenant moved heavily, unevenly, like pieces of a broken lament.

Then a soft voice whispers right against my ear. “They’re already going AWOL on you, lass? You’re fucked.” I turn to face the bold, tough Wessconian . . . and he’s so close, I can feel the heat from his hard body, see the small sprigs of stubble on that perfect, gorgeous jaw. My brain stutters, but I find the resolve to tease him. “Dear God, Logan, are you smiling? Careful—you might pull a muscle in your face.” And then Logan does something that melts my insides and turns my knees to quivery goo. He laughs. And it’s beautiful. It’s a crime he doesn’t do it more often. Or maybe a blessing. Because Logan St. James is a sexy, stunning man on any given day. But when he laughs? He’s heart-stopping.

There is something stunningly narrow about how the Anthropic Principle is phrased. Yes, only certain laws and constants of nature are consistent with our kind of life. But essentially the same laws and constants are required to make a rock. So why not talk about a Universe designed so rocks could one day come to be, and strong and weak Lithic Principles? If stones could philosophize, I imagine Lithic Principles would be at the intellectual frontiers.

At twenty-two, you are built for poverty and rejection. And you know why? Because you're good-looking. You might not realize it this morning, but thirty years from now, you will pull out pictures of yourself taken on this day and think, Why did nobody tell me I was so fucking attractive? You maybe can't see it now because you're comparing yourself to the person next to you, or two rows up. But you are stunning.

It was drizzling. As people rushed along, they began opening umbrellas over their heads, and all at once the streets were crowded, too. Arched umbrella roofs collided with one another. The men were courteous, and when passing Tereza they held their umbrellas high over their heads and gave her room to go by. But the women would not yield; each looked straight ahead, waiting for the other woman to acknowledge her inferiority and step aside. The meeting of the umbrellas was a test of strength. At first Tereza gave way, but when she realized her courtesy was not being reciprocated, she started clutching her umbrella like the other women and ramming it forcefully against the oncoming umbrellas. No one ever said "Sorry." For the most part no one said anything, though once or twice she did hear a "Fat cow!" or "Fuck you!" The women thus armed with umbrellas were both young and old, but the younger among them proved the more steeled warriors. Tereza recalled the days of the invasion and the girls in miniskirts carrying flags on long staffs. Theirs was a sexual vengeance: the Russian soldiers had been kept in enforced celibacy for several long years and must have felt they had landed on a planet invented by a science fiction writer, a planet of stunning women who paraded their scorn on beautiful long legs the likes of which had not been seen in Russia for the past five or six centuries. She had taken many pictures of those young women against a backdrop of tanks. How she had admired them! And now these same women were bumping into her, meanly and spitefully. Instead of flags, they held umbrellas, but they held them with the same pride. They were ready to fight as obstinately against a foreign army as against an umbrella that refused to move out of their way.

So I started running through our weaponry to distract myself. I had my stun gun. Jonah had a pseudosword, and Aaron had a really cute butt. Not that his butt would be useful in de-botting Trey, but it's always good to have a full catalog of your strengths before going into battle.

Four Millions of people heretofore declared by the highest tribunal in the land, not citizens of the United States, nor eligible to become so, voters in every part of the land, the right not to be abridged by any state, is indeed a measure of grander importance than any other one act of the kind from the foundation of our free government to the present day . . . The adoption of the 15th Amendment . . . constitutes the most important event that has occurred, since the nation came into life.” It was a stunning statement of Grant’s faith in the new black electorate. He further urged Congress to promote popular education so that “all who possess and exercise political rights, shall have the opportunity to acquire the knowledge which will make their share in the government a blessing.

One day you woke up, looked around and started saying things like, “It was better back then,” or, “Music nowadays is just noise,” and when the words leave your lips, you’re stunned, thinking, man, when did this old guy appear?

The sun in its slow descent filtered great cathedral-moats of gold through latticed boughs of pine and birch and maple. It was that time of day- or afternoon- when the forest's breath, sun-stunned, yearning for night, impalpably swoons to the slow pulsations of blood and time and silence.

At paces that might stun and dismay the religious jogger, the runners easily kept up all manner of chatter and horseplay. When they occasionally blew by a huffing fatty or an aging road runner, they automatically toned down the banter to avoid overwhelming, to preclude the appearance of show boating (not that they slowed in the slightest). They in fact respected these distant cousins of the spirit, who, among all people, had some modicum of insight into their own days and ways. But the runners resembled them only in the sense that a puma resembles a pussy cat. It is the difference between stretching lazily on the carpet and prowling the jungle for fresh red meat.

I’ve started dreaming in Spanish, which has never happened before. I wake up feeling different, like something inside me is changing, something chemical and irreversible. There’s a magic here working its way through my veins. There’s something about the vegetation, too, that I respond to instinctively - the stunning bougainvillea, the flamboyants and jacarandas, the orchids growing from the trunks of the mysterious ceiba trees. And I love Havana, its noise and decay and painted ladyness. I could happily sit on one of those wrought-iron balconies for days, or keep my grandmother company on her porch, with its ringside view of the sea. I’m afraid to lose all this, to lose Abuela Celia again. But sooner or later I’d have to return to New York. I know now it’s where I belong - not instead of here, but more than here. How can I tell my grandmother this?

Gideon walked briskly and I hurried to keep up. When he stopped abruptly, turned, and dipped me back in a lavish heated kiss on the crowded sidewalk, I was too stunned to do more than hold on. It was a soul-wrenching melding of our mouths, full of passion and sweet spontaneity that made my heart ache. Applause broke out around us. When he straightened me again, I was breathless and dizzy. “What was that?” I gasped. “A prelude.

There was an old joke about being left on a deserted island with an editor. You are starving. All you have left is a glass of orange juice. Days pass. You are near death. You are about to drink the juice when the editor grabs the glass from your hand and pees into it. You look at him, stunned . "There," the editor says, handing you the glass. "It just needed a little tweaking.

Cinder." Kai pulled one leg onto the bank, turning his body so they were facing each other. He took her hands between his and her heart began to drum unexpectedly. Not because of his touch, and not even because of his low, serious tone, but because it occurred to Cinder all at once that Kai was nervous. Kai was never nervous. "I asked you once," he said, running his thumbs over her knuckles, "if you thought you would ever be willing to wear a crown again. Not as the queen of Luna, but ... as my empress. And you said that you would consider it, someday." She swallowed a breath of cool night air. "And ... this is that day?" His lips twitched, but didn't quite become a smile. "I love you. I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I want to marry you, and, yes, I want you to be my empress." Cinder gaped at him for a long moment before she whispered, "That's a lot of wanting." "You have no idea." She lowered her lashes. "I might have some idea." Kai released one of her hands and she looked up again to see him reaching into his pocket - the same that had held Wolf's and Scarlet's wedding rings before. His fist was closed when he pulled it out and Kai held it toward her, released a slow breath, and opened his fingers to reveal a stunning ring with a large ruby ringed in diamonds. It didn't take long for her retina scanner to measure the ring, and within seconds it was filling her in on far more information than she needed - inane worlds like carats and clarity scrolled past her vision. But it was the ring's history that snagged her attention. It had been his mother's engagement ring once, and his grandmother's before that. Kai took her hand and slipped the ring onto her finger. Metal clinked against metal, and the priceless gem looked as ridiculous against her cyborg plating as the simple gold band had looked on Wolf's enormous, deformed, slightly hairy hand. Cinder pressed her lips together and swallowed, hard, before daring to meet Kai's gaze again. "Cinder," he said, "will you marry me?" Absurd, she thought. The emperor of the Eastern Commonwealth was proposing to her. It was uncanny. It was hysterical. But it was Kai, and somehow, that also made it exactly right. "Yes," she whispered. "I will marry you." Those simple words hung between them for a breath, and then she grinned and kissed him, amazed that her declaration didn't bring the surge of anxiety she would have expected years ago. He drew her into his arms, laughing between kisses, and she suddenly started to laugh too. She felt strangely delirious. They had stood against all adversity to be together, and now they would forge their own path to love. She would be Kai's wife. She would be the Commonwealth's empress. And she had every intention of being blissfully happy for ever, ever after.

Other possible means were not lacking on God’s part.” One drop of blood—from Christ’s circumcision at the age of eight days—would have been sufficient to purchase all mankind’s salvation. Why then did He give us twelve quarts instead of one drop? The simple and stunning answer, from Monica Miller’s book on the movie “The Passion of the Christ”, is: Because He had twelve quarts to give. The strategy of war and of games is to win with the minimum possible expense and sacrifice. Love does not seek the minimum but the maximum.

one day you are going to fall in love and instead of breaking like before you'll find you fit perfectly into all the fractured parts and rusted worn-out spots you'll realize you are more beautiful than you ever could have dreamed more stunning than you ever imagined you see little love the universe always knew just how flawless you would become when you finally took the time to fall in love with yourself

All right, you primitive screwheads. Listen up. I'm Harry Dresden. I'm the new Winter Knight. I'm instituting a rule: When you're within sight of me, mortals are off-limits." I paused for a moment to let that sink in. Then I continued. "I can't give you orders. I can't control what you do in your own domains. I'm not going to be able to change you. I'm not even going to try. But if I see you abusing a mortal, you'll join Chunky here. Zero warnings. Zero excuses. Subzero tolerance." I paused again and then asked, "Any questions?" One of the Sidhe smirked and stepped forward, his leather pants creaking. He opened his mouth, his expression condescending. "Mortal, do you actually think that you can - " "Infriga!" I snarled, unleashing Winter again, and without waiting for the cloud to clear, hurled the second strike, shouting, "Forzare!" This time I aimed much of the force up. Grisly bits of frozen Sidhe noble cam pattering and clattering down to the ice of the dance floor. When the mist cleared, the Sidhe looked...stunned Even Maeve. "I'm glad you asked me that," I said to the space where the Sidhe lord had been standing. "I hope my answer clarified any misunderstandings." I looked left and right, seeking out eyes, but didn't find any willing to meet mine. "Are there any other questions?

Sunlight’s warmth on my face awoke me in the morning. I didn’t remember falling asleep or how I came to be in my own bed. But I did recall nightmares. Awful nightmares featuring Gwen. I turned my head to stare out an open window where the sun shone in full splendor, bleaching a clear sky enough to tell it was going to be a beautiful spring day. The air smelled of rain from overnight showers, mixed with a strong floral scent. A large lilac bush outside was responsible for the perfume. I breathed in the clean and fragrant air. My eyelids fluttered, blinking at a stunning reflection of daylight off the glass. The blue beyond gave an exquisite glow to my room. All of it was an invitation to bask in a new day—an invitation I declined because none of that mattered to me. The world might as well come to a dark and ugly end. I saw no reason for beauty or life to go on so long as Gwen was lost. Rolling over in bed, I felt the vice grips wrench at my heart again as I cried myself back to sleep. from Phantom's Veil

Jesus didn’t have to extend His love. He didn’t have to think of me when He went up on that cross. He didn’t have to rewrite my story from one of beauty to one of brokenness and create a whole new brand of beauty. He simply didn’t have to do it, but He did. He bought me. He bought me that day He died, and He showed His power when He overcame death and rose from the grave. He overcame my death in that moment. He overcame my fear of death in that unbelievable, beautiful moment, and the fruit of that death, that resurrection, and that stunning grace is peace. It is the hardest peace, because it is brutal. Horribly brutal and ugly, and we want to look away, but it is the greatest, greatest story that ever was. And it was, and it is.

One day I sat in the woods, which I found to be stunningly different than walking ‘through’ the woods. And in the sitting, the woods jumped to life with a spirited activity that I had scarcely ever seen or known to exist. And as I sat there turning this way and that in order to draw it all in, I thought that it was not the woods coming alive. Rather, it was me coming to a halt.

That sounded like a great plan, in that it didn’t involve me. I said, “Dr. Mensah, do you need me for anything else?” She turned her chair to face me. “No, I’ll call if we have any questions.” I had worked for some contracts that would have kept me standing here the entire day and night cycle, just on the off chance they wanted me to do something and didn’t want to bother using the feed to call me. Then she added, “You know, you can stay here in the crew area if you want. Would you like that?” They all looked at me, most of them smiling. One disadvantage in wearing the armor is that I get used to opaquing the faceplate. I’m out of practice at controlling my expression. Right now I’m pretty sure it was somewhere in the region of stunned horror, or maybe appalled horror.

Dear Jeff, I happened to see the Channel 7 TV program "Hooray for Hollywood" tonight with the segment on Blade Runner. (Well, to be honest, I didn't happen to see it; someone tipped me off that Blade Runner was going to be a part of the show, and to be sure to watch.) Jeff, after looking—and especially after listening to Harrison Ford discuss the film—I came to the conclusion that this indeed is not science fiction; it is not fantasy; it is exactly what Harrison said: futurism. The impact of Blade Runner is simply going to be overwhelming, both on the public and on creative people—and, I believe, on science fiction as a field. Since I have been writing and selling science fiction works for thirty years, this is a matter of some importance to me. In all candor I must say that our field has gradually and steadily been deteriorating for the last few years. Nothing that we have done, individually or collectively, matches Blade Runner. This is not escapism; it is super realism, so gritty and detailed and authentic and goddam convincing that, well, after the segment I found my normal present-day "reality" pallid by comparison. What I am saying is that all of you collectively may have created a unique new form of graphic, artistic expression, never before seen. And, I think, Blade Runner is going to revolutionize our conceptions of what science fiction is and, more, can be. Let me sum it up this way. Science fiction has slowly and ineluctably settled into a monotonous death: it has become inbred, derivative, stale. Suddenly you people have come in, some of the greatest talents currently in existence, and now we have a new life, a new start. As for my own role in the Blade Runner project, I can only say that I did not know that a work of mine or a set of ideas of mine could be escalated into such stunning dimensions. My life and creative work are justified and completed by Blade Runner. Thank you...and it is going to be one hell of a commercial success. It will prove invincible. Cordially, Philip K. Dick

Here is part of the problem, girls: we’ve been sold a bill of goods. Back in the day, women didn’t run themselves ragged trying to achieve some impressively developed life in eight different categories. No one constructed fairy-tale childhoods for their spawn, developed an innate set of personal talents, fostered a stimulating and world-changing career, created stunning homes and yardscapes, provided homemade food for every meal (locally sourced, of course), kept all marriage fires burning, sustained meaningful relationships in various environments, carved out plenty of time for “self care,” served neighbors/church/world, and maintained a fulfilling, active relationship with Jesus our Lord and Savior. You can’t balance that job description. Listen to me: No one can pull this off. No one is pulling this off. The women who seem to ride this unicorn only display the best parts of their stories. Trust me. No one can fragment her time and attention into this many segments.

What are you doing here?" He takes a deep breath. "I came for you." "And how on EARTH did you know I was up here?" "I saw you." He pauses. "I came to make another wish,and I was standing on Point Zero when I saw you enter the tower. I called your name,and you looked around,but you didn't see me." "So you decided to just...come up?" I'm doubtful,despite the evidence in front of me.It must have taken superhuman strength for him to make it past the first flight of stairs alone. "I had to.I couldn't wait for you to come down,I couldn't wait any longer. I had to see you now.I have to know-" He breaks off,and my pulse races. What what what? "Why did you lie to me?" The question startles me.Not what I was expecting.Nor hoping.He's still on the ground,but he stares up at me.His brown eyes are huge and heartbroken. I'm confused. "I'm sorry, I don't know what-" "November.At the creperie. I asked you if we'd talked about anything strange that night I was drunk in your room.If I had said anything about our relationship,or my relationship with Ellie.And you said no." Oh my God. "How did you know?" "Josh told me." "When?" "November." I'm stunned. "I...I..." My throat is dry. "If you'd seen the look on your face that day.In the restaurant. How could I possibly tell you? With your mother-" "But if you had,I wouldn't have wasted all of these months.I thought you were turning me down.I thought you weren't interested." "But you were drunk! You had a girlfriend! What was I supposed to do? God,St. Clair,I didn't even know if you meant it." "Of course I meant it." He stands,and his legs falter. "Careful!" Step.Step.Step. He toddles toward me,and I reach for his hand to guide him.We're so close to the edge. He sits next to me and grips my hand harder. "I meant it,Anna.I mean it." "I don't under-" He's exasperated. "I'm saying I'm in love with you! I've been in love with you this whole bleeding year!" My mind spins. "But Ellie-" "I cheated on her every day.In my mind, I thought of you in ways I shouldn't have,again and again. She was nothing compared to you.I've never felt this way about anybody before-" "But-" "The first day of school." He scoots closer. "We weren't physics partners by accident.I saw Professeur Wakefield assigning lab partners based on where people were sitting,so I leaned forward to borrow a pencil from you at just the right moment so he'd think we were next to each other.Anna,I wanted to be your partner the first day." "But..." I can't think straight. "I doubt you love poetry! 'I love you as certain dark things are loved, secretly,between the shadow and the soul.'" I blink at him. "Neruda.I starred the passage.God," he moans. "Why didn't you open it?" "Because you said it was for school." "I said you were beautiful.I slept in your bed!" "You never mave a move! You had a girlfriend!" "No matter what a terrible boyfriend I was,I wouldn't actually cheat on her. But I thought you'd know.With me being there,I thought you'd know." We're going in circles. "How could I know if you never said anything?" "How could I know if you never said anyting?" "You had Ellie!" "You had Toph! And Dave!

Why would you family think about it?" "Oh, my mother's the only one that counts, and she likes you very much from what she's seen of you." "So you had me inspected?" "No-dash it all, I seem to be saying all the wrong things today. I was absolutely stunned that first day in court, and I rushed off to my mater, who's an absolute dear, and the kind of person who really understands things, and I said, 'Look here! here's the absolutely one and only woman, and she's being put through a simply ghastly awful business and for God's sake come and hold my hand!' You simply don't know how foul it was.

The commercialization of molecular biology is the most stunning ethical event in the history of science, and it has happened with astonishing speed. For four hundred years since Galileo, science has always proceeded as a free and open inquiry into the workings of nature. Scientists have always ignored national boundaries, holding themselves above the transitory concerns of politics and even wars. Scientists have always rebelled against secrecy in research, and have even frowned on the idea of patenting their discoveries, seeing themselves as working to the benefit of all mankind. And for many generations, the discoveries of scientists did indeed have a peculiarly selfless quality... Suddenly it seemed as if everyone wanted to become rich. New companies were announced almost weekly, and scientists flocked to exploit genetic research... It is necessary to emphasize how significant this shift in attitude actually was. In the past, pure scientists took a snobbish view of business. They saw the pursuit of money as intellectually uninteresting, suited only to shopkeepers. And to do research for industry, even at the prestigious Bell or IBM labs, was only for those who couldn't get a university appointment. Thus the attitude of pure scientists was fundamentally critical toward the work of applied scientists, and to industry in general. Their long-standing antagonism kept university scientists free of contaminating industry ties, and whenever debate arose about technological matters, disinterested scientists were available to discuss the issues at the highest levels. But that is no longer true. There are very few molecular biologists and very few research institutions without commercial affiliations. The old days are gone. Genetic research continues, at a more furious pace than ever. But it is done in secret, and in haste, and for profit.

«She sat at the bow of a pleasure craft a stone's throw away, under the shade of a white parasol, a diligent tourist out to reap all the beauty and charm Copenhagen had to offer. She studied him with a distressed concentration, as if she couldn't quite remember who he was. As if she didn't want to. He looked different. His hair reached down to his nape, and he'd sported a full beard for the past two years. Their eyes met. She bolted upright from the chair. The parasol fell from her hand, clanking against the deck. She stared at him, her face pale, her gaze haunted. He'd never seen her like this, not even on the day he left her. She was stunned, her composure flayed, her vulnerability visible for miles. As her boat glided past him, she picked up her skirts and ran along the port rail, her eyes never leaving his. She stumbled over a line in her path and fell hard. His heart clenched in alarm, but she barely noticed, scrambling to her feet. She kept running until she was at the stern and could not move another inch closer to him (…) Gigi didn't move from her rigid pose at the rail, but she suddenly looked worn down, as if she'd been standing there, in that same spot, for all the eighteen hundred and some days since she'd last seen him. She still loved him. The thought echoed wildly in his head, making him hot and dizzy. She still loved him.»

As the leader of the international Human Genome Project, which had labored mightily over more than a decade to reveal this DNA sequence, I stood beside President Bill Clinton in the East Room of the White House... Clinton's speech began by comparing this human sequence map to the map that Meriwether Lewis had unfolded in front of President Thomas Jefferson in that very room nearly two hundred years earlier. Clinton said, "Without a doubt, this is the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by humankind." But the part of his speech that most attracted public attention jumped from the scientific perspective to the spiritual. "Today," he said, "we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, and the wonder of God's most divine and sacred gift." Was I, a rigorously trained scientist, taken aback at such a blatantly religious reference by the leader of the free world at a moment such as this? Was I tempted to scowl or look at the floor in embarrassment? No, not at all. In fact I had worked closely with the president's speechwriter in the frantic days just prior to this announcement, and had strongly endorsed the inclusion of this paragraph. When it came time for me to add a few words of my own, I echoed this sentiment: "It's a happy day for the world. It is humbling for me, and awe-inspiring, to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God." What was going on here? Why would a president and a scientist, charged with announcing a milestone in biology and medicine, feel compelled to invoke a connection with God? Aren't the scientific and spiritual worldviews antithetical, or shouldn't they at least avoid appearing in the East Room together? What were the reasons for invoking God in these two speeches? Was this poetry? Hypocrisy? A cynical attempt to curry favor from believers, or to disarm those who might criticize this study of the human genome as reducing humankind to machinery? No. Not for me. Quite the contrary, for me the experience of sequencing the human genome, and uncovering this most remarkable of all texts, was both a stunning scientific achievement and an occasion of worship.

When you are quite well enough to travel, Latimer, I shall take you home with me. The journey will amuse you and do you good, for I shall go through the Tyrol and Austria, and you will see many new places. Our neighbours, the Filmores, are come; Alfred will join us at Basle, and we shall all go together to Vienna, and back by Prague...' My father was called away before he had finished his sentence, and he left my mind resting on the word Prague with a strange sense that a new and wondrous scene was breaking upon me: a city under the broad sunshine, that seemed to me as if it were summer sunshine of a long-past century arrested in its course-unrefreshed for ages by dews of night, or the rushing rain-cloud; scorching the dusty, weary, time-eaten grandeur of a people doomed to live on in the stale repetition of memories, like deposed and superannuated kings in their regal gold inwoven tatters. The city looked so thirsty that the broad river seemed to me a sheet of metal; and the blackened statues, as I passed under their blank gaze, along the unending bridge, with their ancient garments and their saintly crowns, seemed to me the real inhabitants and owners of this place, while the busy, trivial men and women, hurrying to and fro, were a swarm of ephemeral visitants infesting it for a day. It is such grim, stony beings as these, I thought, who are the fathers of ancient faded children, in those tanned time-fretted dwellings that crowd the steep before me; who pay their court in the worn and crumbling pomp of the palace which stretches its monotonous length on the height; who worship wearily in the stifling air of the churches, urged by no fear or hope, but compelled by their doom to be ever old and undying, to live on in the rigidity of habit, as they live on in perpetual midday, without the repose of night or the new birth of morning. A stunning clang of metal suddenly thrilled through me, and I became conscious of the objects in my room again: one of the fire-irons had fallen as Pierre opened the door to bring me my draught. My heart was palpitating violently, and I begged Pierre to leave my draught beside me; I would take it presently. ("The Lifted Veil")

The park was the heart of the city. He had come to the city – and with a knowing in his blood – he had established himself at the heart of it. Everyday he looked at the heart of it; every day; he was so stunned and awed and overwhelmed that just to think about it made him sweat. There was something, in the center of the park, that he had discovered. It was a mystery although it was in a glass case for everybody to see and there was a typewritten card over it telling all about it. But there was something the card couldn't say and what it couldn't say was inside him. He could not show the mystery to just anybody; but he had to show it to somebody. Who he had to show it to was a special person. This person could not be from the city but he didn't know why. He knew he would know him when he saw him and that he would have to see him soon or the nerve inside him would grow so big that he would be forced to steal a car or rob a bank or jump out of a dark alley onto a woman.

We walked into my mother's house at 10:30 in the morning at the end of February 1992. I had been gone for three weeks. She had been so desperate about us - she, too, looked thin and haggard. She was stunned to see me walk in, filthy and crawling with lice, with a huge crowd of starving people. We ate and drank clean water; then, before we even washed, I put Marian in a taxi with me and told the driver to go to Nairobi Hospital. We had no money left and I knew Nairobi Hospital was expensive; it was where I had been operated on when the ma'alim broke my skull. But I also knew that there they would help us first and ask to pay later. Saving the baby's life had become the only thing that mattered to me. At the reception desk I announced, "This baby is going to die," and the nurse's eyes went wide with horror. She took him and put a drip in his arm, and very slowly, this tiny shape seemed to uncrumple slightly. After a little while, his eyes opened. The nurse said, "The child will live," and told us to deal with the bill at the cash desk. I asked her who her director was, and found him, and told this middle-aged Indian doctor the whole story. I said I couldn't pay the bill. He took it and tore it up. He said it didn't matter. Then he told me how to look after the baby, and where to get rehydration salts, and we took a taxi home. Ma paid for the taxi and looked at me, her eyes round with respect. "Well done," she said. It was a rare compliment. In the next few days the baby began filling out, growing from a crumpled horror-movie image into a real baby, watchful, alive.

School went exactly as Violet thought it would: weird. It wasn’t her best, and it wasn’t her worst, day ever. It was just weird. Jay was true to his word, deciding not to hold anything back. And it started the second they got out of the car, when he claimed her hand and refused to let go, even when Violet tugged and pulled to try to get it away from him. He ignored her mute protests and held on tight, smiling more to himself than to her, and paraded her right into the school like that. Not that they’d never held hands before, because they had. But this was entirely different, and Jay was hell-bent on making sure that everyone knew it. And just in case anyone wondered what the hand-holding actually meant, he made sure to clear things up for them by planting a big, albeit very satisfying, kiss on her lips, right in the middle of the hallway. Violet didn’t try to pull away from that; in fact, she was dismayed to find herself leaning into him, craving more, and not caring—at least at that moment—who might see them together. Unfortunately that person turned out to be Chelsea. Chelsea, of all people, along with Claire, who happened to walk up at very inopportune instant. “Well, well, well,” Chelsea said in an oh-so-innocent voice. “Look what we have here, Claire-bear. It’s old Jay and Violet.” The unconcealed smile was embedded deep in her voice. “Only, and correct me if I’m wrong, this looks a little more than friendly, don’t you think?” “I never kiss my friends like that,” Claire replied, blank-faced and serious, oblivious to sarcasm. Jay’s answer was to pull Violet closer, wrapping his arm around her waist. Violet cringed. Chelsea cocked her head at Claire. “I was just trying to make a point.” Claire looked confused. “What point?” “Seriously, Claire? That Violet and Jay are dating now.” She glanced away from poor confused Claire and flashed a gloating look to the couple in front of her. “It’s about time, by the way. I think everyone will thank you for putting us all out of our misery. I, for one, was completely fed up with watching you two lovesick puppies pining over each other. Seriously, it was disgusting.” She grabbed Claire by the sleeve of her snug, body-hugging hoodie and led her down the hallway, toward their first-period class. Violet watched in stunned silence, processing everything that Chelsea had said to them, as Claire bounded along in Chelsea’s commanding wake. Jay decided that it was his turn to gloat. “You pined for me?” he asked, stupid grin and all. Violet hit him in the arm. “Shut up!” She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure she was talking about you anyway.

Studs Terkel was waiting for a number 146 bus alongside two well-groomed business types. "This was before the term yuppie was used," he explains. "But that was what they were. He was in Brooks Brothers and Gucci shoes and carrying the Wall Street Journal under his arm. She was a looker. I mean stunning - Bloomingdales and Neiman Marcus and carrying Vanity Fair." Terkel, who is 95, has long been a Chicago icon, every bit as accessible and integral to the cultural life of the Windy City as Susan Sontag was to New York. He had shared the bus stop with this couple for several mornings but they had always failed to acknowledge him. "It hurts my ego," he quips. "But this morning the bus was late and I thought, this is my chance." The rest of the story is his. "I say, 'Labour Day is coming up.' Well, it was the wrong thing to say. He looks toward me with a look of such contempt it's like Noel Coward has just spotted a bug on his collar. He says, 'We despise unions.' I thought, oooooh. The bus is still late. I've got a winner here. Suddenly I'm the ancient mariner and I fix him with my glittering eye. 'How many hours a day do you work?' I ask. He says, 'Eight.' 'How comes you don't work 18 hours a day like your great-great-grandfather did? You know why? Because four guys got hanged in Chicago in 1886 fighting for the eight-hour day ... For you.

You could join me, son of Hephaestus," Khione said. "I know you find me beautiful. It would be enough for my plan if these two were to die. Reject that ridiculous destiny the fates have given you. Live and be my champion, instead. Your skills would be quite useful." Leo looked stunned. He glanced behind him, like Khione might be talking to somebody else. For a second Jason was worried. He figured Leo didn't have beautiful goddesses make him offers like this every day. Then Leo laughed so hard, he doubled over. "Yeah, join you. Right. Until you get bored with me and turn me into a leosicle? Lady, nobody messes with my dragon and gets away with it. I can't believe I thought you were hot." "Khione's face turned red. "Hot? You dare insult me? I am cold, Leo Valdez. Very, very cold." She shot a blast of wintry sleet at the demigods, but Leo held up his hand. A wall of fire roared to life in front of them, and the snow dissolved into a steamy cloud. Leo grinned. "See, lady, that's what happens to snow in Texas. It-freaking-melts.

And then she was nodding—nodding and smiling, too, as he drew the dagger from his boot and offered it to her. “Say it, Aelin.” Not daring to let her hands shake in front of Maeve or Rowan’s stunned friends, she took his dagger and held it over her exposed wrist. “Do you promise to serve in my court, Rowan Whitethorn, from now until the day you die?” She did not know the right words or the Old Language, but a blood oath wasn’t about pretty phrases. “I do. Until my last breath, and the world beyond. To whatever end.” She would have paused then, asked him again if he really wanted to do this, but Maeve was still there, a shadow lurking behind them. That was why he had done it now, here—so Celaena could not object, could not try to talk him out of it. It was such a Rowan thing to do, so pigheaded, that she could only grin as she drew the dagger across her wrist, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. She offered her arm to him. With surprising gentleness, he took her wrist in his hands and lowered his mouth to her skin. For a heartbeat, something lightning-bright snapped through her and then settled—a thread binding them, tighter and tighter with each pull Rowan took of her blood. Three mouthfuls—his canines pricking against her skin—and then he lifted his head, his lips shining with her blood, his eyes glittering and alive and full of steel. There were no words to do justice to what passed between them in that moment.

The best example I know, of this astonishingly stupid attitude towards sport, is that of Franz Ferdinand. His, however, was an achievement with the gun. He used to shoot at Konopist with no less than seven weapons and four loaders, and he once killed more than 4,000 birds, himself, in one day. [A propos of statistics and quite beside the point: a Yorkshireman once drank 52½ pints of beer in one hour.] Now why did Franz Ferdinand do this? Even if he shot for twelve hours at a stretch, without pause for luncheon, it means that he killed six birds in each minute of the day. The mere manual labour, a pheasant every ten seconds for twelve successive hours, is enough to make a road-mender stagger; and there is little wonder that, by the time the unhappy archduke had accumulated his collection of 300,000 head of game, he was shooting with rubber pads on his coat and a bandage round his ears. The unfortunate man had practically stunned himself with gunpowder, long before they bagged him also at Sarajevo.

I stared down at the white bikini in horror. My cleavage was out in full form, while the bikini bottoms hugged my hips, tinier than anything I’d ever dare buy for myself. What the hell was Gavin Fletcher thinking putting me in something like this? And he wanted me to go outside in it, much less get my picture taken? Yeah, right! That was absolutely not happening. “We haven’t got all day, Lani,” Martin barked from on deck. I put my head in my hands, sighing deeply before brushing my hair back from my eyes. What the hell had I gotten myself into? There was a gentle rapping on the bedroom door, and I opened it, wishing I had a towel to cover up with. Gavin’s gold-flecked eyes met mine, and I stepped back to let him in. He sucked in a breath, looking me over in that brash way of his, his lips curling into a grin. “Now that’s what I’ve been hoping for,” he said. I laughed nervously and crossed my arms in front of my body. “I don’t know if I can do this. You heard Martin out there.” Gavin reached forward and put a hand on my arm, smoothing his large palm over my skin. I shivered beneath his touch, feeling the heat from a connection I wondered if he felt, too. Judging by the heat in his gaze, he did, but how was that even possible? I couldn’t be reading him right. “You look stunning, Aolani,” he said, that dangerous, bad-boy smile of his making my toes curl. “You’re exactly what I’ve been waiting for. Exactly what this campaign needs. Please say you’ll try? For me?

She huddled next to Daniel in the Meadow, basking in the warmth of a burgeoning love that was pure and sustaining, as Daniel’s name rang out across the Meadow. He had been called. He rose above the riot of angelic light and said with calm self-possession, “With respect, I will not do this. I will not choose Lucifer’s side, nor will I choose the side of Heaven.” A roar went up from the vast camps of angels, from those who stood beside the Throne, from Lucifer most of all. Lucinda had been stunned. “Instead, I choose love,” Daniel went on. “I choose love and leave you to your war. You’re wrong to bring this upon us,” Daniel said to Lucifer. Then, to the Throne: “All that is good in Heaven and on Earth is made of love. Maybe that wasn’t your plan when you created the universe-maybe love was just one aspect of a complicated and brutal world. But love was the best thing you made, and it has become the only thing worth saving. This war is not just. This war is not good. Love is the only thing worth fighting for.” The Meadow fell silent after Daniel’s words. Most of the angels looked dumbfounded, as if they did not understand what Daniel meant. It had not been Lucinda’s turn. The angels’ names were called by the celestial secretaries according to their rank, and Lucinda was one of a handful of angels higher than Daniel. It didn’t matter. They were a team. She rose to his side in the Meadow. “There should never have to be a choice between love and You,” Lucinda declared to the Throne. “Maybe one day You will find a way to reconcile adoration and the true love You have made us capable of. But if forced to choose, I must stand beside my love. I choose Daniel and will choose him forevermore.

In The Sunset Sky The sunset sky dazzling with the golden hues, Taking bow in brilliant sparkle of experience Is it not a climax, of the story so far, that was today? Or is it building anticipation of the night yet to come. Watch the days go, some proud of their accomplishments Some leaving sighs of disappointments, Leaving all in awe of its Amaranthine twists and turns And the fortunate get to see the moon trying to steal the show from setting sun, Oh she is such a show off, isn't she, basking in reflected glory Its magical, the sunset sky,Puzzling, sometimes just like a riddle, Leaving the nature stunned and amazed For it has been filling the canvas whole day with colours And now the sunset threatens to hide them all And in dark all the colours will be same A cue for the wise. Sunset sky has so much to offer, is she not a fine exampleof how uncertain a life can be Often reminding no matter what you planned, there will besome unexpected returns For End has its own brain, its own script Charting its own course So why just the beginning,every moment of the life should be grand, meted with equal passion and fervor She has been so clever; the sunset sky Leaving Twinkling cryptic messages for the night sky For even the dark has sparkle and hope if you keep your head up, A constant reminder that exuberance is an attitude of deep,rich, warm hearts I want my sunset sky to be grand, magical, and full of stories of my life that has been And its memories to linger on in this world, in the tomorrow and a few more years to come

Layla, the first moment I laid eyes on you I knew I had to have you. I watched you walk across that street to the coffee house in a complete daze. You were breathtaking. Fumbling around in your purse, your hair blowing in the breeze around your face. I couldn’t take my eyes off you. In fact I was so stunned I never even noticed how close I was standing to the door when you backed your way into it. So when you asked me how I didn’t see you through that glass, I did see you. Then when you told me you worked here, oh Layla, I can’t lie, I was thrilled and worried all at the same time. It meant I would be able to see you whenever I wanted. That’s why I came in the next day and every day after that, just to see you here. When you agreed to go on a date with me, I thought my head and chest would explode from the sheer joy I felt. You were so easy to talk to and wonderfully fiery, sarcastic, yet warm and caring at the same time. I feel like I’ve known you forever. I’ve never shared a connection with anyone like the one I have with you. So no, I don’t think it’s fast

His mother is dead. She was a suicide. Her marriage was terrifying to her. In the center of it she found herself completely alone. During the last year she sent long telegrams to her sister, sometimes quoting poetry, Swinburne, Blake. One day she burned her diaries, a spring day, and walked into the Connecticut River to drown, just like Virginia Woolf or Madame Magritte. She was buried in Boston, her home. I could see the ceremony. Dean is six years old and his sister three. They stand stunned and obedient as the great, glistening coffin is lowered into the ground. Within lies the drowned woman who had given them life and who now gives an example of melancholy and commitment which will stay with them forever. Clods of earth thunder onto the hollow lid and, half-orphan, bearer of his mother’s death which is not yet even real, he begins his life. Much of it you know, at any rate college, the wanderings. Now, at twenty-four, he has come to the time of choice. I know quite well how all that is. And then, I read his letters. His father writes to him in the most beautiful, educated hand, the born hand of a copyist. Admonitions to confront life, to think a little more seriously about this or that. I could have laughed. Words that meant nothing to him. He has already set out on a dazzling voyage which is more like an illness, becoming ever more distant, more legendary. His life will be filled with those daring impulses which cause him to disappear and next be heard of in Dublin, in Veracruz… I am not telling the truth about Dean, I am inventing him. I am creating him out of my own inadequacies, you must always remember that.

Hey Pete. So why the leave from social media? You are an activist, right? It seems like this decision is counterproductive to your message and work." A: The short answer is I’m tired of the endless narcissism inherent to the medium. In the commercial society we have, coupled with the consequential sense of insecurity people feel, as they impulsively “package themselves” for public consumption, the expression most dominant in all of this - is vanity. And I find that disheartening, annoying and dangerous. It is a form of cultural violence in many respects. However, please note the difference - that I work to promote just that – a message/idea – not myself… and I honestly loath people who today just promote themselves for the sake of themselves. A sea of humans who have been conditioned into viewing who they are – as how they are seen online. Think about that for a moment. Social identity theory run amok. People have been conditioned to think “they are” how “others see them”. We live in an increasing fictional reality where people are now not only people – they are digital symbols. And those symbols become more important as a matter of “marketing” than people’s true personality. Now, one could argue that social perception has always had a communicative symbolism, even before the computer age. But nooooooothing like today. Social media has become a social prison and a strong means of social control, in fact. Beyond that, as most know, social media is literally designed like a drug. And it acts like it as people get more and more addicted to being seen and addicted to molding the way they want the world to view them – no matter how false the image (If there is any word that defines peoples’ behavior here – it is pretention). Dopamine fires upon recognition and, coupled with cell phone culture, we now have a sea of people in zombie like trances looking at their phones (literally) thousands of times a day, merging their direct, true interpersonal social reality with a virtual “social media” one. No one can read anymore... they just swipe a stream of 200 character headlines/posts/tweets. understanding the world as an aggregate of those fragmented sentences. Massive loss of comprehension happening, replaced by usually agreeable, "in-bubble" views - hence an actual loss of variety. So again, this isn’t to say non-commercial focused social media doesn’t have positive purposes, such as with activism at times. But, on the whole, it merely amplifies a general value system disorder of a “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT HOW GREAT I AM!” – rooted in systemic insecurity. People lying to themselves, drawing meaningless satisfaction from superficial responses from a sea of avatars. And it’s no surprise. Market economics demands people self promote shamelessly, coupled with the arbitrary constructs of beauty and success that have also resulted. People see status in certain things and, directly or pathologically, use those things for their own narcissistic advantage. Think of those endless status pics of people rock climbing, or hanging out on a stunning beach or showing off their new trophy girl-friend, etc. It goes on and on and worse the general public generally likes it, seeking to imitate those images/symbols to amplify their own false status. Hence the endless feedback loop of superficiality. And people wonder why youth suicides have risen… a young woman looking at a model of perfection set by her peers, without proper knowledge of the medium, can be made to feel inferior far more dramatically than the typical body image problems associated to traditional advertising. That is just one example of the cultural violence inherent. The entire industry of social media is BASED on narcissistic status promotion and narrow self-interest. That is the emotion/intent that creates the billions and billions in revenue these platforms experience, as they in turn sell off people’s personal data to advertisers and governments. You are the product, of course.

There was still some time before the train opened its doors for boarding, yet passengers were hurriedly buying boxed dinners, snacks, cans of beer, and magazines at the kiosk. Some had white iPod headphones in their ears, already off in their own little worlds. Others palmed smartphones, thumbing out texts, some talking so loudly into their phones that their voices rose above the blaring PA announcements. Tsukuru spotted a young couple, seated close together on a bench, happily sharing secrets. A pair of sleepy-looking five- or six-year-old twin boys, with their mother and father dragging them along by their hands, were whisked past where Tsukuru sat. The boys clutched small game devices. Two young foreign men hefted heavy-looking backpacks, while a young woman was lugging a cello case. A woman with a stunning profile passed by. Everyone was boarding a night train, heading to a far-off destination. Tsukuru envied them. At least they had a place they needed to go to. Tsukuru Tazaki had no place he needed to go. He realized that he had never actually been to Matsumoto, or Kofu. Or Shiojiri. Not even to the much closer town of Hachioji. He had watched countless express trains for Matsumoto depart from this platform, but it had never occurred to him that there was a possibility he could board one. Until now he had never thought of it. Why is that? he wondered. Tsukuru imagined himself boarding this train and heading for Matsumoto. It wasn’t exactly impossible. And it didn’t seem like such a terrible idea. He’d suddenly gotten it into his head, after all, to take off for Finland, so why not Matsumoto? What sort of town was it? he wondered. What kind of lives did people lead there? But he shook his head and erased these thoughts. Tomorrow morning it would be impossible to get back to Tokyo in time for work. He knew that much without consulting the timetable. And he was meeting Sara tomorrow night. It was a very important day for him. He couldn’t just take off for Matsumoto on a whim. He drank the rest of his now-lukewarm coffee and tossed the paper cup into a nearby garbage bin. Tsukuru Tazaki had nowhere he had to go. This was like a running theme of his life. He had no place he had to go to, no place to come back to. He never did, and he didn’t now.

5. When Begging Ends I love the idea of Divine Source. It reminds us that everything, the fulfillment of every need, always emanates from the One. So if you learn how to keep your vibration high and attuned to That, whatever is needed to sustain you can always occur, often in surprising and delightful ways. Your Source is never a particular person, place, or thing, but God Herself. You never have to beg. Furthermore, Divine Source says that whatever resonates with you will always find you. That which does not, will fall away. It’s that simple. When Outrageous Openness first came out, I experienced this as I took the book around—some stores were simply not drawn to it. But knowing about Divine Source and resonance, I didn’t care. I remember taking it to a spiritual bookstore in downtown San Francisco. The desultory manager sort of half-growled, “Oh, we have a long, long wait here. You can leave a copy for our ‘pile’ in the back room. Then you could call a ton and plead with us. If you get lucky, maybe one day we’ll stock it. Just keep hoping.” “Oh, my God, no!” I shuddered. “Why would I keep twisting your arm? It’ll go easily to the places that are right. You never have to convince someone. The people who are right will just know.” He looked stunned when I thanked him, smiling, and left. And sure enough, other store clerks were so excited, even from the cover alone. They nearly ripped the book out of my hands as I walked in. When I brought it to the main bookstore in San Francisco’s Castro district, I noticed the manager striding toward me was wearing a baseball cap with an image of the goddess Lakshmi. “Great sign,” I mused. He held the book for a second without even cracking it open, then showed the cover to a coworker, yelling, “Hey, let’s give this baby a coming-out party!” So a few weeks later, they did. Sake, fortune cookies, and all. Because you see, what’s meant for you will always, always find you. You never have to be bothered by the people who aren’t meant to understand. And anyway, sometimes years later, they are ready . . . and they do. Change me Divine Beloved into One who knows that You alone are my Source. Let me trust that You fling open every door at the right time. Free me from the illusion of rejection, competition, and scarcity. Fill me with confidence and faith, knowing I never have to beg, just gratefully receive.

It's true,' replied Doris with a sniff in Bessy's direction to make her sensible of a victory, even if a minor one. 'It is amazing how so many people go insane. One day a man is a normal, friendly husband and the next he suddenly becomes a raging schizoid and slays his wife and himself as well. The result of what cause? Why, perhaps he chanced to find some schoolgirl treasure of another beau who had been his greatest rival and is stunned to discover that she secretly retains this. But usually the matter is not so simple, you know. Next to nothing may happen, jarring awake some sleeping monstrosity in a man's complex mental machinery and turning him from a sane person to a mentally sick individual. It is wholly impossible to say when a man is sane, for' -she tittered- 'scarce one of us is normal.' 'You mean - it might happen to any of us?' 'Of course,' said Doris, charmed by all this interest. 'One moment we are seated here, behaving normally and the next some tiny thing, a certain voice, a certain combination of thoughts may throw out the balance wheel of our intellects and we become potential inmates for asylums the rest of our lives. No, not one of us knows when the world will cease to be a normal, ordinary place. You know, no one ever knows when he goes insane: He supposes it is the world altering, not himself. Rooms become peopled with strange shapes and beings, sounds distort themselves into awful cries and, poof! we are judged insane.' 'Poof -' said Jacob, feeling weak and ill. ("He Didn't Like Cats")

Jack was behind it,waiting, with the corner of his lip pulled up in not quite a smile. "What?" he demanded. "What what?" I asked. He held my note up in front of my face. "What do you remember?" Everything. But I couldn't tell him that. I shrugged and said, "Things." Then I made a move to leave,but Jack's strong arm blocked my way,his hand pressing against the locker behind my back. "No you don't.You can't leave a note like this"-he waved the paper-"and then say 'things.' I want to know what, exactly, you remember." People in the hallway stared and I could feel my face going red. Jack noticed, and put his other arm up against the lockers,blocking me in. My pulse went nuts.It had to be visible on my wrists. Jack's face was inches from mine. His breath was minty, and I could smell the rustic scent of his aftershave,and whatever strong emotion he was feeling, it tasted sweet. I breathed it in, and the inhalation was embarrassingly loud. His eyes searched mine. "This is the first opening you've given me, and I'm not letting you get out of it." He paused. "What do you remember?" I looked behind him, at the curious spectators, and squinted my eyes shut, unable to bear the scrutiny anymore. "Say something,Becks. Say anything." "You," I said. "I remember you." I kept my eyes shut,and felt his hands drop. He didn't move back. "What do you remember about me?" There was strong emotion behind his voice. Something he fought to control. With my eyes closed,I could easily picture the other side of the century. "I remember the way your hand could cover my entire shoulder. The way your lower lip stuck out when you were working out a problem in your head. And how you flick you ring finger with your thumb when you get impatient." I opened my eyes,and the words no longer got stuck in my throat on their way out. They flowed. "And when something surprises you and you don't know what to say,you get a tiny wrinkle in between your eyebrows." I reached up to touch the divot,then hesitated and lowered my hand. "It showed on the day the coach told you you'd made first-string quarterback.And it's showing now." For a moment the space between us held no tension,no questions, no accusations. Finally he leaned back, a stunned expression on his face. "Where do we go from here?" "Nowhere,really," I whispered. "It doesn't change anything." Eyebrows still drawn together, he said, "We'll see." Then he turned and left. I tucked this moment away. In the dark,dank world of the Tunnels, I would call upon this memory. And there would be a flicker of candlelight. If only for a moment. I closed my eyes,as if my eyelids were the levers of a printing press,etching the fibers into my mind.Memories were outside Cole's reach.As long as I held them,memories were mine and mine alone.

Still lying on the ground, half tingly, half stunned, I held my left hand in front of my face and lightly spread my fingers, examining what Marlboro Man had given me that morning. I couldn’t have chosen a more beautiful ring, or a ring that was a more fitting symbol of my relationship with Marlboro Man. It was unadorned, uncontrived, consisting only of a delicate gold band and a lovely diamond that stood up high--almost proudly--on its supportive prongs. It was a ring chosen by a man who, from day one, had always let me know exactly how he felt. The ring was a perfect extension of that: strong, straightforward, solid, direct. I liked seeing it on my finger. I felt good knowing it was there. My stomach, though, was in knots. I was engaged. Engaged. I was ill-prepared for how weird it felt. Why hadn’t I ever heard of this strange sensation before? Why hadn’t anyone told me? I felt simultaneously grown up, excited, shocked, scared, matronly, weird, and happy--a strange combination for a weekday morning. I was engaged--holy moly. My other hand picked up the receiver of the phone, and without thinking, I dialed my little sister. “Hi,” I said when Betsy picked up the phone. It hadn’t been ten minutes since we’d hung up from our last conversation. “Hey,” she replied. “Uh, I just wanted to tell you”--my heart began to race--“that I’m, like…engaged.” What seemed like hours of silence passed. “Bullcrap,” Betsy finally exclaimed. Then she repeated: “Bullcrap.” “Not bullcrap,” I answered. “He just asked me to marry him. I’m engaged, Bets!” “What?” Betsy shrieked. “Oh my God…” Her voice began to crack. Seconds later, she was crying. A lump formed in my throat, too. I immediately understood where her tears were coming from. I felt it all, too. It was bittersweet. Things would change. Tears welled up in my eyes. My nose began to sting. “Don’t cry, you butthead.” I laughed through my tears. She laughed it off, too, sobbing harder, totally unable to suppress the tears. “Can I be your maid of honor?” This was too much for me. “I can’t talk anymore,” I managed to squeak through my lips. I hung up on Betsy and lay there, blubbering on my floor.

The decades that she devoted to conserving her husband’s legacy made Eliza only more militantly loyal to his memory, and there was one injury she could never forget: the exposure of the Maria Reynolds affair, for which she squarely blamed James Monroe. In the 1820s, after Monroe had completed two terms as president, he called upon Eliza in Washington, D.C., hoping to thaw the frost between them. Eliza was then about seventy and staying at her daughter’s home. She was sitting in the backyard with her fifteen-year-old nephew when a maid emerged and presented the ex-president’s card. Far from being flattered by this distinguished visitor, Eliza was taken aback. “She read the name and stood holding the card, much perturbed,” said her nephew. “Her voice sank and she spoke very low, as she always did when she was angry. ‘What has that man come to see me for?’” The nephew said that Monroe must have stopped by to pay his respects. She wavered. “I will see him,” she finally agreed. So the small woman with the upright carriage and the sturdy, determined step marched stiffly into the house. When she entered the parlor, Monroe rose to greet her. Eliza then did something out of character and socially unthinkable: she stood facing the ex-president but did not invite him to sit down. With a bow, Monroe began what sounded like a well-rehearsed speech, stating “that it was many years since they had met, that the lapse of time brought its softening influences, that they both were nearing the grave, when past differences could be forgiven and forgotten.” Eliza saw that Monroe was trying to draw a moral equation between them and apportion blame equally for the long rupture in their relationship. Even at this late date, thirty years after the fact, she was not in a forgiving mood. “Mr. Monroe,” she told him, “if you have come to tell me that you repent, that you are sorry, very sorry, for the misrepresentations and the slanders and the stories you circulated against my dear husband, if you have come to say this, I understand it. But otherwise, no lapse of time, no nearness to the grave, makes any difference.” Monroe took in this rebuke without comment. Stunned by the fiery words delivered by the elderly little woman in widow’s weeds, the ex-president picked up his hat, bid Eliza good day, and left the house, never to return.

Okay, that’s fair,” I said. “But it’s not a contest about whose days suck the most, Auggie. The point is we all have to put up with the bad days. Now, unless you want to be treated like a baby the rest of your life, or like a kid with special needs, you just have to suck it up and go.” He didn’t say anything, but I think that last bit was getting to him. “You don’t have to say a word to those kids,” I continued. “August, actually, it’s so cool that you know what they said, but they don’t know you know what they said, you know?” “What the heck?” “You know what I mean. You don’t have to talk to them ever again, if you don’t want. And they’ll never know why. See? Or you can pretend to be friends with them, but deep down inside you know you’re not.” “Is that how you are with Miranda?” he asked. “No,” I answered quickly, defensively. “I never faked my feelings with Miranda.” “So why are you saying I should?” “I’m not! I’m just saying you shouldn’t let those little jerks get to you, that’s all.” “Like Miranda got to you.” “Why do you keep bringing Miranda up?” I yelled impatiently. “I’m trying to talk to you about your friends. Please keep mine out of it.” “You’re not even friends with her anymore.” “What does that have to do with what we’re talking about?” The way August was looking at me reminded me of a doll’s face. He was just staring at me blankly with his half-closed doll eyes. “She called the other day,” he said finally. “What?” I was stunned. “And you didn’t tell me?” “She wasn’t calling you,” he answered, pulling both comic books out of my hands. “She was calling me. Just to say hi. To see how I was doing. She didn’t even know I was going to a real school now. I can’t believe you hadn’t even told her. She said the two of you don’t hang out as much anymore, but she wanted me to know she’d always love me like a big sister.” Double-stunned. Stung. Flabbergasted. No words formed in my mouth. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I said, finally. “I don’t know.” He shrugged, opening the first comic book again. “Well, I’m telling Mom and Dad about Jack Will if you stop going to school,” I answered. “Tushman will probably call you into school and make Jack and those other kids apologize to you in front of everyone, and everyone will treat you like a kid who should be going to a school for kids with special needs. Is that what you want? Because that’s what’s going to happen. Otherwise, just go back to school and act like nothing happened. Or if you want to confront Jack about it, fine. But either way, if you—

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous" i Tell me it was for the hunger & nothing less. For hunger is to give the body what it knows it cannot keep. That this amber light whittled down by another war is all that pins my hand to your chest. i You, drowning                         between my arms — stay. You, pushing your body                          into the river only to be left                          with yourself — stay. i I’ll tell you how we’re wrong enough to be forgiven. How one night, after backhanding mother, then taking a chainsaw to the kitchen table, my father went to kneel in the bathroom until we heard his muffled cries through the walls. And so I learned that a man, in climax, was the closest thing to surrender. i Say surrender. Say alabaster. Switchblade.                    Honeysuckle. Goldenrod. Say autumn. Say autumn despite the green                    in your eyes. Beauty despite daylight. Say you’d kill for it. Unbreakable dawn                    mounting in your throat. My thrashing beneath you                    like a sparrow stunned with falling. i Dusk: a blade of honey between our shadows, draining. i I wanted to disappear — so I opened the door to a stranger’s car. He was divorced. He was still alive. He was sobbing into his hands (hands that tasted like rust). The pink breast cancer ribbon on his keychain swayed in the ignition. Don’t we touch each other just to prove we are still here? I was still here once. The moon, distant & flickering, trapped itself in beads of sweat on my neck. I let the fog spill through the cracked window & cover my fangs. When I left, the Buick kept sitting there, a dumb bull in pasture, its eyes searing my shadow onto the side of suburban houses. At home, I threw myself on the bed like a torch & watched the flames gnaw through my mother’s house until the sky appeared, bloodshot & massive. How I wanted to be that sky — to hold every flying & falling at once. i Say amen. Say amend. Say yes. Say yes anyway. i In the shower, sweating under cold water, I scrubbed & scrubbed. i In the life before this one, you could tell two people were in love because when they drove the pickup over the bridge, their wings would grow back just in time. Some days I am still inside the pickup. Some days I keep waiting. i It’s not too late. Our heads haloed             with gnats & summer too early to leave any marks.             Your hand under my shirt as static intensifies on the radio.             Your other hand pointing your daddy’s revolver             to the sky. Stars falling one by one in the cross hairs.             This means I won’t be afraid if we’re already             here. Already more than skin can hold. That a body             beside a body must ma

Anna? Anna,are you there? I've been waiting in the lobby for fifteen minutes." A scrambling noise,and St. Clair curses from the floorboards. "And I see your light's off.Brilliant. Could've mentioned you'd decided to go on without me." I explode out of bed. I overslept! I can't believe I overslept! How could this happen? St. Clair's boots clomp away,and his suitcase drags heavily behind him. I throw open my door. Even though they're dimmed this time of night,the crystal sconces in the hall make me blink and shade my eyes. St. Clair twists into focus.He's stunned. "Anna?" "Help," I gasp. "Help me." He drops his suitcase and runs to me. "Are you all right? What happened?" I pull him in and flick on my light. The room is illuminated in its disheveled entirety. My luggage with its zippers open and clothes piled on top like acrobats. Toiletries scattered around my sink. Bedsheets twined into ropes. And me. Belatedly, I remember that not only is my hair crazy and my face smeared with zit cream,but I'm also wearing matching flannel Batman pajamas. "No way." He's gleeful. "You slept in? I woke you up?" I fall to the floor and frantically squish clothes into my suitcase. "You haven't packed yet?" "I was gonna finish this morning! WOULD YOU FREAKING HELP ALREADY?" I tug on a zipper.It catches a yellow Bat symbol, and I scream in frustration. We're going to miss our flight. We're going to iss it,and it's my fault. And who knows when the next plane will leave, and we'll be stuck here all day, and I'll never make it in time for Bridge and Toph's show. And St. Clair's mom will cry when she has to go to the hospital without him for her first round of internal radiation, because he'll be stuck iin an airport on the other side of the world,and its ALL. MY FAULT. "Okay,okay." He takes the zipper and wiggles it from my pajama bottoms. I make a strange sound between a moan and a squeal. The suitcase finally lets go, and St. Clair rests his arms on my shoulders to steady them. "Get dressed. Wipe your face off.I'll takecare of the rest." Yes,one thing at a time.I can do this. I can do this. ARRRGH! He packs my clothes. Don't think about him touching your underwear. Do NOT think about him touching your underwear. I grab my travel outfit-thankfully laid out the night before-and freeze. "Um." St. Clair looks up and sees me holding my jeans. He sputters. "I'll, I'll step out-" "Turn around.Just turn around, there's not time!" He quickly turns,and his shoulders hunch low over my suitcase to prove by posture how hard he is Not Looking.

For months beforehand, I fielded calls from British media. A couple of the reporters asked me to name some British chefs who had inspired me. I mentioned the Roux brothers, Albert and Michel, and I named Marco Pierre White, not as much for his food as for how—by virtue of becoming an apron-wearing rock-star bad boy—he had broken the mold of whom a chef could be, which was something I could relate to. I got to London to find the Lanesborough dining room packed each night, a general excitement shared by everyone involved, and incredibly posh digs from which I could step out each morning into Hyde Park and take a good long run around Buckingham Palace. On my second day, I was cooking when a phone call came into the kitchen. The executive chef answered and, with a puzzled look, handed me the receiver. Trouble at Aquavit, I figured. I put the phone up to my ear, expecting to hear Håkan’s familiar “Hej, Marcus.” Instead, there was screaming. “How the fuck can you come to my fucking city and think you are going to be able to cook without even fucking referring to me?” This went on for what seemed like five minutes; I was too stunned to hang up. “I’m going to make sure you have a fucking miserable time here. This is my city, you hear? Good luck, you fucking black bastard.” And then he hung up. I had cooked with Gordon Ramsay once, a couple of years earlier, when we did a promotion with Charlie Trotter in Chicago. There were a handful of chefs there, including Daniel Boulud and Ferran Adrià, and Gordon was rude and obnoxious to all of them. As a group we were interviewed by the Chicago newspaper; Gordon interrupted everyone who tried to answer a question, craving the limelight. I was almost embarrassed for him. So when I was giving interviews in the lead-up to the Lanesborough event, and was asked who inspired me, I thought the best way to handle it was to say nothing about him at all. Nothing good, nothing bad. I guess he was offended at being left out. To be honest, though, only one phrase in his juvenile tirade unsettled me: when he called me a black bastard. Actually, I didn’t give a fuck about the bastard part. But the black part pissed me off.

One day Moses was walking in the mountains on his own when he saw a shepherd in the distance. The man was on his knees with his hands spread out to the sky, praying. Moses was delighted. But when he got closer, he was equally stunned to hear the shepherd’s prayer. “Oh, my beloved God, I love Thee more than Thou can know. I will do anything for Thee, just say the word. Even if Thou asked me to slaughter the fattest sheep in my flock in Thy name, I would do so without hesitation. Thou would roast it and put its tail fat in Thy rice to make it more tasty.” Moses inched toward the shepherd, listening attentively. “Afterward I would wash Thy feet and clean Thine ears and pick Thy lice for Thee. That is how much I love Thee.” Having heard enough, Moses interrupted the shepherd, yelling, “Stop, you ignorant man! What do you think you are doing? Do you think God eats rice? Do you think God has feet for you to wash? This is not prayer. It is sheer blasphemy.” Dazed and ashamed, the shepherd apologized repeatedly and promised to pray as decent people did. Moses taught him several prayers that afternoon. Then he went on his way, utterly pleased with himself. But that night Moses heard a voice. It was God’s. “Oh, Moses, what have you done? You scolded that poor shepherd and failed to realize how dear he was to Me. He might not be saying the right things in the right way, but he was sincere. His heart was pure and his intentions good. I was pleased with him. His words might have been blasphemy to your ears, but to Me they were sweet blasphemy.” Moses immediately understood his mistake. The next day, early in the morning, he went back to the mountains to see the shepherd. He found him praying again, except this time he was praying in the way he had been instructed. In his determination to get the prayer right, he was stammering, bereft of the excitement and passion of his earlier prayer. Regretting what he had done to him, Moses patted the shepherd’s back and said: “My friend, I was wrong. Please forgive me. Keep praying in your own way. That is more precious in God’s eyes.” The shepherd was astonished to hear this, but even deeper was his relief. Nevertheless, he did not want to go back to his old prayers. Neither did he abide by the formal prayers that Moses had taught him. He had now found a new way of communicating with God. Though satisfied and blessed in his naïve devotion, he was now past that stage—beyond his sweet blasphemy. “So you see, don’t judge the way other people connect to God,” concluded Shams. “To each his own way and his own prayer. God does not take us at our word. He looks deep into our hearts. It is not the ceremonies or rituals that make a difference, but whether our hearts are sufficiently pure or not.

Until my thirtieth year, I lived in a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. It feels now as if I am talking about some past lifetime or somebody else’s life. One night not long after my twenty-ninth birthday, I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread. I had woken up with such a feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense than it had ever been. The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train – everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless that it created in me a deep loathing of the world. The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this continuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live. ‘I cannot live with myself any longer.’ This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. ‘Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.’ ‘Maybe,’ I thought, ‘only one of them is real.’ I was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped. I was fully conscious, but there were no more thoughts. Then I felt drawn into what seemed like a vortex of energy. It was a slow movement at first and then accelerated. I was gripped by an intense fear, and my body started to shake. I heard the words ‘resist nothing,’ as if spoken inside my chest. I could feel myself being sucked into a void. It felt as if the void was inside myself rather than outside. Suddenly, there was no more fear, and I let myself fall into that void. I have no recollection of what happened after that. I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window. I had never heard such a sound before. My eyes were still closed, and I saw the image of a precious diamond. Yes, if a diamond could make a sound, this is what it would be like. I opened my eyes. The first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains. Without any thought, I felt, I knew, that there is infinitely more to light than we realize. That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself. Tears came into my eyes. I got up and walked around the room. I recognized the room, and yet I knew that I had never truly seen it before. Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marvelling at the beauty and aliveness of it all. That day I walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if I had just been born into this world.

When she finally reached it, she bent forward and looked through the peephole. Jay was grinning back at her from outside. Her heart leaped for a completely different reason. She set aside her crutches and quickly unbolted the door to open it. "What took you so long?" Her knee was bent and her ankle pulled up off the ground. She balanced against the doorjamb. "What d'you think, dumbass?" she retorted smartly, keeping her voice down so she wouldn't alert her parents. "You scared the crap out of me, by the way. My parents are already in bed, and I was all alone down here." "Good!" he exclaimed as he reached in and grabbed her around the waist, dragging her up against him and wrapping his arms around her. She giggled while he held her there, enjoying everything about the feel of him against her. "What are you doing here? I thought I wouldn't see you till tomorrow." "I wanted to show you something!" He beamed at her, and his enthusiasm reached out to capture her in its grip. She couldn't help smiling back excitedly. "What is it?" she asked breathlessly. He didn't release her; he just turned, still holding her gently in his arms, so that she could see out into the driveway. The first thing she noticed was the officer in his car, alert now as he kept a watchful eye on the two of them. Violet realized that it was late, already past eleven, and from the look on his face, she thought he must have been hoping for a quiet, uneventful evening out there. And then she saw the car. It was beautiful and sleek, painted a glossy black that, even in the dark, reflected the light like a polished mirror. Violet recognized the Acura insignia on the front of the hood, and even though she could tell it wasn't brand-new, it looked like it had been well taken care of. "Whose is it?" she asked admiringly. It was way better than her crappy little Honda. Jay grinned again, his face glowing with enthusiasm. "It's mine. I got it tonight. That's why I had to go. My mom had the night off, and I wanted to get it before..." He smiled down at her. "I didn't want to borrow your car to take you to the dance." "Really?" she breathed. "How...? I didn't even know you were..." She couldn't seem to find the right words; she was envious and excited for him all at the same time. "I know right?" he answered, as if she'd actually asked coherent questions. "I've been saving for...for forever, really. What do you think?" Violet smiled at him, thinking that he was entirely too perfect for her. "I think it's beautiful," she said with more meaning than he understood. And then she glanced back at the car. "I had no idea that you were getting a car. I love it, Jay," she insisted, wrapping her arms around his neck as he hoisted her up, cradling her like a small child." "I'd offer to take you for a test-drive, but I'm afraid that Supercop over there would probably Taser me with his stun gun. So you'll have to wait until tomorrow," he said, and without waiting for an invitation he carried her inside, dead bolting the door behind him. He settled down on the couch, where she'd been sitting by herself just moments before, without letting her go. There was a movie on the television, but neither of them paid any attention to it as Jay reclined, stretching out and drawing her down into the circle of his arms. They spent the rest of the night like that, cradled together, their bodies fitting each other perfectly, as they kissed and whispered and laughed quietly in the darkness. At some point Violet was aware that she was drifting into sleep, as her thoughts turned dreamlike, becoming disjointed and fuzzy and hard to hold on to. She didn't fight it; she enjoyed the lazy, drifting feeling, along with the warmth created by the cocoon of Jay's body wrapped protectively around her. It was the safest she'd felt in days...maybe weeks... And for the first time since she'd been chased by the man in the woods, her dreams were free from monsters.