Style Confidence Quotes

Your comfort zone is a place where you keep yourself in a self-illusion and nothing can grow there but your potentiality can grow only when you can think and grow out of that zone.

As history confirms, people will change their minds about almost anything, from which god they worship to how they style their hair. But when it comes to existential judgments, human beings in general have an unfalteringly good opinion of themselves and their condition in this world and are steadfastly confident they are not a collection of self-conscious nothings.

Money isn't the solution to your problems. It only lets you carry your unhappiness around in style.

If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud!" (William Strunk) ... Why compound ignorance with inaudibility?

While clothes may not make the woman, they certainly have a strong effect on her self-confidence, which, I believe, does make the woman.

It's so important to always be yourself. If you do that, you will be successful as you, instead of worrying about trying to conform.

Style comes from knowing who you are and who you want to be in the world; it does not come from wanting to be somebody else, or wanting to be thinner, shorter, taller, prettier.

Remember this: No one is looking at your imperfections; they're all too busy worrying about their own.

Style has a profound meaning to Black Americans. If we can’t drive, we will invent walks and the world will envy the dexterity of our feet. If we can’t have ham, we will boil chitterlings; if we are given rotten peaches, we will make cobblers; if given scraps, we will make quilts; take away our drums, and we will clap our hands. We prove the human spirit will prevail. We will take what we have to make what we need. We need confidence in our knowledge of who we are.

Your VISION and your self-willingness is the MOST powerful elements to conquer your goal

Using the comma well announces that you have an ear for sense and rhythm, confidence in your style and a proper respect for your reader,

How you carry yourself speaks volumes about how you feel about yourself.

Man has always been a venal animal. The growth of populations, the huge costs of war, the incessant pressure of confiscatory taxation – all these things make him more and more venal. The average man is tired and scared, and a tired, scared man can’t afford ideals. He has to buy food for his family. In our time we have seen a shocking decline in both public and private morals. You can’t expect quality from people whose lives are a subjection to a lack of quality. You can’t have quality with mass production. You don’t want it because it lasts too long. So you substitute styling, which is a commercial swindle intended to produce artificial obsolescence. Mass production couldn’t sell its goods next year unless it made what is sold this year look unfashionable a year from now. We have the whitest kitchens and the most shining bathrooms in the world. But in the lovely white kitchen the average [person] can’t produce a meal fit to eat, and the lovely shining bathroom is mostly a receptacle for deodorants, laxatives, sleeping pills, and the products of that confidence racket called the cosmetic industry. We make the finest packages in the world, Mr Marlowe. The stuff inside is mostly junk.

(Decadent style) is ingenious, complicated, learned, full of shades of meaning and research, always pushing further the limits of language... forcing itself to express in thought that which is most ineffable, and in form the vaguest and most fleeting contours; listening that it may translate them to the subtle confidences of the neuropath, to the avowals of aging and depraved passion, and to the singular hallucinations of the fixed idea verging on madness... In opposition to the classic style, it admits of shading, and these shadows teem and swarm with the larvae of superstitions, the haggard phantoms of insomnia, nocturnal terrors, remorse which starts and turns back at the slightest noise, monstrous dreams stayed only by impotence, obscure phantasies at which daylight would stand amazed, and all that the soul conceals of the dark, the unformed, and the vaguely horrible, in its deepest and furthest recesses.

A strong confident person can rule the room with knowledge, personal style, attitude and great posture.

Style is when they're running you out of town and you make it look like you're leading the parade.

Proper posture sends a positive message since 90% of all communication occures through body language and how you carry yourself.

Your image is your brand and you have only one opportunity to make that first impression. Choose to make a positive first impression.

Life is full of challenges, seen and unseen, so to look and feel great, you must hold your head up each day and project your inner confidence.

In other words: master the form you want to operate in, get experience, be willing to be imperfect, and then develop the confidence to play within that form, to develop your own style.

every consequence. So we feed off each other’s energy and have that perfect yin-and-yang thing going on.

Autumn is a momentum of the natures golden beauty…, so the same it’s time to find your momentum of life

The signature item is an attitude. It is the gun in your holster that makes you feel well dressed and invincible.

Your traditional EDUCATION is not going to CHANGE your life but the life you are experiencing that can change you. Choose a POSITIVE life STYLE with positive ATTITUDE which could bring you a life with HAPPINESS and WISDOM

I confide in everyone. I have no restricted private self, reserved specifically for certain trusted special people. I trust and mistrust anyone. I have traveled a full circle. But this time, on returning to zero again, I am able to act out the mistake more adeptly. I am on my way to becoming a very skilled loser. A specialist, a loser to end all losers. A flair for failing. I do it with style and finesse.

Stand tall and be proud. Realize confidence is charismatic and something that is something money can't buy, it radiates from within you.

Your every positive action in your life will increase your self-esteem and this self-esteem will boost you for more positive action to take you on success

How you think and create your inner world that you gonna become in your outer world. Your inner believe manifest you in the outside

A great attitude toward your approach to an interview—demonstrated by your good posture—is everything.

Project a confident image through good body posture.

For better or worse, pessimism without compromise lacks public appeal. In all, the few who have gone to the pains of arguing for a sullen appraisal of life might as well never have been born. As history confirms, people will change their minds about almost anything, from which god they worship to how they style their hair. But when it comes to existential judgments, human beings in general have a unfalteringly good opinion of themselves and their condition in this world and are steadfastly confident they are not a collection of self-conscious nothings

If nothing else, my analysis of George W.’s oratory style had taught me that a sincere countenance and a confident stance were sufficient to distract your audience from the fact that you were talking rubbish.

It does not take the striking pose of a high-fashion model or the strict stance of someone in uniform to earn respect and admiration.

Bloom is not a book about living the perfect lifestyle, it's about giving you the confidence to find the lifestyle that is perfect for you.

Confident Assured Posture: Foundation of Powerful Style

Do not allow your inner doubts to keep you from achieving what you can do.

The key to dressing with purpose is to understand how to use your personal colors, style, body shape, and proportion to achieve your personal goals and objectives.

Sisters before Misters.

Don’t spread rumors or diss me when I can’t defend myself.

If you are not EXCITED enough at your present life its mean your future is not EXITING. Excitement will give you ENTHUSIASM and enthusiasm will give you a positive energetic LIFE STYLE which could give you a successful exiting life…

The good news is good friends—make that great friends—will see you through everything. They are your sounding board, your cheerleading squad, your cross-my-heart-hope-to-die secret keepers. You may rely on an old one you’ve known since preschool or lean on a new one you met in homeroom. The point is, this person is going to have your back no matter how long you’ve known him or her.

Our nonverbal behavior (including posture) gives away our inner personality and reflects our inner attitude.

CONFIDENCE is not showing off your VANITY, it’s about to be HUMBLED and KIND to others what are you truly SKILLED and PROFESSIONAL about…

Give yourself a great self-respect to know who you are then your confidence will shine on you

Give yourself the clear advantage of a positive perspective with styles that compliment your best features and colors all in perfect proportion to your body.

Command respect with style and grace.

Even a moment's reflection will help you see that the problem of using your time well is not a problem of the mind but of the heart. It will only yield to a change in the very way we feel about time. The value of time must change for us. And then the way we think about it will change, naturally and wisely. That change in feeling and in thinking is combined in the words of a prophet of God in this dispensation. It was Brigham Young, and the year was 1877, and he was speaking at April general conference. He wasn't talking about time or schedules or frustrations with too many demands upon us. Rather, he was trying to teach the members of the Church how to unite themselves in what was called the united order. The Saints were grappling with the question of how property should be distributed if they were to live the celestial law. In his usual direct style, he taught the people that they were having trouble finding solutions because they misunderstood the problem. Particularly, he told them they didn't understand either property or the distribution of wealth. Here is what he said: With regard to our property, as I have told you many times, the property which we inherit from our Heavenly Father is our time, and the power to choose in the disposition of the same. This is the real capital that is bequeathed unto us by our Heavenly Father; all the rest is what he may be pleased to add unto us. To direct, to counsel and to advise in the disposition of our time, pertains to our calling as God's servants, according to the wisdom which he has given and will continue to give unto us as we seek it. [JD 18:354] Time is the property we inherit from God, along with the power to choose what we will do with it. President Young calls the gift of life, which is time and the power to dispose of it, so great an inheritance that we should feel it is our capital. The early Yankee families in America taught their children and grandchildren some rules about an inheritance. They were always to invest the capital they inherited and live only on part of the earnings. One rule was "Never spend your capital." And those families had confidence the rule would be followed because of an attitude of responsibility toward those who would follow in later generations. It didn't always work, but the hope was that inherited wealth would be felt a trust so important that no descendent would put pleasure ahead of obligation to those who would follow. Now, I can see and hear Brigham Young, who was as flinty a New Englander as the Adams or the Cabots ever hoped to be, as if he were leaning over this pulpit tonight. He would say something like this, with a directness and power I wish I could approach: "Your inheritance is time. It is capital far more precious than any lands or stocks or houses you will ever get. Spend it foolishly, and you will bankrupt yourself and cheapen the inheritance of those that follow you. Invest it wisely, and you will bless generations to come. “A Child of Promise”, BYU Speeches, 4 May 1986

Genius' was a word loosely used by expatriot Americans in Paris and Rome, between the Versailles Peace treaty and the Depression, to cover all varieties of artistic, literary and musical experimentalism. A useful and readable history of the literary Thirties is Geniuses Together by Kay Boyle-Joyce, Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Pound, Eliot and the rest. They all became famous figures but too many of them developed defects of character-ambition, meanness, boastfulness, cowardice or inhumanity-that defrauded their early genius. Experimentalism is a quality alien to genius. It implies doubt, hope, uncertainty, the need for group reassurance; whereas genius works alone, in confidence of a foreknown result. Experiments are useful as a demonstration of how not to write, paint or compose if one's interest lies in durable rather than fashionable results; but since far more self-styled artists are interested in frissons á la mode rather than in truth, it is foolish to protest. Experimentalism means variation on the theme of other people's uncertainties.

Mentors have their own strengths and weaknesses. The good ones allow you to develop your own style and then to leave them when the time is right. Such types can remain lifelong friends and allies. But often the opposite will occur. They grow dependent on your services and want to keep you indentured. They envy your youth and unconsciously hinder you, or become overcritical. You must be aware of this as it develops. Your goal is to get as much out of them as possible, but at a certain point you may pay a price if you stay too long and let them subvert your confidence. Your submitting to their authority is by no means unconditional, and in fact your goal all along is eventually to find your way to independence, having internalized and adapted their wisdom.

REJECTION is kind of your negative ILLUSION which has no value but it’s give you a CLUE to go for next level of your ACTION.

When your intuition is strong, follow it.

I need to know how you did it.” “I did it,” said Sweeney, with the air of one confiding a huge secret, “with panache and style.

The keys to dressing is understanding your personal colors, body shape and proportions.

Wearing clothes we feel good in can help us maintain a positive outlook by increasing our self-acceptance and self-confidence.

Clothe yourself with harmonious style and a consistent message.

I love my style of writing. Nope, it's not the most poetic stuff you've ever read but you know, it can evoke emotions and images and smells and sensations, and that is what I set out to do.

when you become addict in to MATERIAL things in life then the TRUE natural life start to run away from you, YES! it's can give you certain pleasure in the society but in the same time it will sabotage your true HAPPINESS of life which we could have simply with GRATITUDE and FORGIVENESS

Breaking our silence is powerful. Whether it comes as a whisper or a squeak at first, allow that sense of spaciousness, of opening, allow yourself to trust the bottomlessness, and lean into the dark roar which will light up every cell. Though it may start softly, we build in confidence and skills, we realise we do not need to wait for permission before we open our mouths. We do not need to wait for others to make space for us, we can take it. We do not need to read from others’ scripts or style ourselves in weak comparison. We do not need to look to another’s authority because we have our own. Down in our cores. We have waited so long for permission to know that it was our time, our turn on stage. That time is now. Our voices are being heard into being. They are needed.

As your skills increase, you will see your unique style become firm and recognizable. Guard it, nurture it, and cherish it, for your style expresses you. As with the Zen master-archer, the target is yourself.

Don’t allow your clothing to make you feel inferior! When you aren’t happy with your clothing choices, you may feel self-conscious. If your clothes make you feel self-conscious, you probably should not be wearing them.

Take more selfies. Not because you need validation or likes or comments. but because you are here on this earth. Alive and holy and true. And yes, your beauty deserves to be seen and known, most especially by you. You are worthy of being the subject of your own art. It is okay to capture the process of your own becoming. To be your own kind and gentle and fierce witness. To learn the truth of your eyes and your skin and your bones. To choose to show what wants to be shown, to name what wishes to be named, to claim ownership of the story that is told about you by being the one to tell it. Dear girl. YOU are the greatest art you will ever create. The masterpiece. The magnum opus. You’re it. However you want to be. Look at yourself now, miracle that you are, look at yourself and soak in the wonder, until you no longer want to look away.

Sometimes the path to higher self-esteem is lonely and frightening. We cannot fully know in advance how much more satisfying our lives will be. But the more we are willing to experience and accept the many aspects of who we are, the richer our inner worlds, the greater our resources, the more appropriate we feel to the challenges and opportunities of life. Also, it is more likely that we will find - or create - a style of existence that will meet our individual needs.

The valor of a country may be learned by the bravery of its soldiery, and the general cast of its inhabitants, but confidence of success is best discovered by the active measures pursued by men of property; and when the spirit of enterprise becomes so universal as to act at once on all ranks of men, a war may then, and not till then, be styled truly proper.

Your posture is the key to your personal and professional foundation.

Always walk with style and finesse.

You project a confident image through good body posture.

Good posture says confidence without us even saying a word.

A wonderful place to start is to seek role models who exemplify this way of being and try their style on for size.

Elegance is 15% confidence, 30% intelligence, 15% appearance, and 40% charm.

Style is whatever you want to do, if you can do it with confidence.

Setting a goal is like to set your destination point in your life GPS which could take you to your desire position as you dreamed about...

They proceed from conclusion to evidence; our greatest resource is the mind, and the mind is not well-trained by being taught to assume what has to be proved… Don’t allow your thinking to be done for you by any party or faction, however high-minded. Distrust any speaker who talks confidently about 'we,' or speaks in the name of 'us.' Distrust yourself if you hear these tones creeping into your own style. The search for security and majority is not always the same as solidarity; it can be another name for consensus and tyranny and tribalism.

We buy items that we only half like because they are on sale or a “good deal.” •We wear clothes that are so uncomfortable we need to take them off as soon as we get home. •We keep items that stopped fitting years ago just in case they fit again someday. •We wear shoes that we can hardly walk in and that leave our feet covered in blisters. •We force ourselves to wear pieces that we feel only so-so about because they were expensive and we don’t want to let that “investment” go to waste. •We wear worn-out, scruffy pieces around the house and hope nobody is going to stop by unannounced. •We wear clothes that ride up and tug in all the wrong places. •We wear outfits that don’t make us feel confident or inspired because we simply don’t have anything better in our wardrobe.

For example, in order to identify these schemas or clarify faulty relational expectations, therapists working from an object relations, attachment, or cognitive behavioral framework often ask themselves (and their clients) questions like these: 1. What does the client tend to want from me or others? (For example, clients who repeatedly were ignored, dismissed, or even rejected might wish to be responded to emotionally, reached out to when they have a problem, or to be taken seriously when they express a concern.) 2. What does the client usually expect from others? (Different clients might expect others to diminish or compete with them, to take advantage and try to exploit them, or to admire and idealize them as special.) 3. What is the client’s experience of self in relationship to others? (For example, they might think of themselves as being unimportant or unwanted, burdensome to others, or responsible for handling everything.) 4. What are the emotional reactions that keep recurring? (In relationships, the client may repeatedly find himself feeling insecure or worried, self-conscious or ashamed, or—for those who have enjoyed better developmental experiences—perhaps confident and appreciated.) 5. As a result of these core beliefs, what are the client’s interpersonal strategies for coping with his relational problems? (Common strategies include seeking approval or trying to please others, complying and going along with what others want them to do, emotionally disengaging or physically withdrawing from others, or trying to dominate others through intimidation or control others via criticism and disapproval.) 6. Finally, what kind of reactions do these interpersonal styles tend to elicit from the therapist and others? (For example, when interacting together, others often may feel boredom, disinterest, or irritation; a press to rescue or take care of them in some way; or a helpless feeling that no matter how hard we try, whatever we do to help disappoints them and fails to meet their need.)

On both occasions Fred had felt confident that he should meet the bill himself, having ample funds at disposal in his own hopefulness. You will hardly demand that his confidence should have a basis in external facts; such confidence, we know, is something less coarse and materialistic: it is a comfortable disposition leading us to expect that the wisdom of providence or the folly of our friends, the mysteries of luck or the still greater mystery of our high individual value in the universe, will bring about agreeable issues, such as are consistent with our good taste in costume, and our general preference for the best style of thing.

Distrust any speaker who speaks confidently about ”we,” or speaks in the name of “us.” Distrust yourself if you hear these tones creeping into your own style. The search for security and majority are not always the same as solidarity; it can be another name for consensus and tyranny and tribalism. Never forget that, even if there are “masses” to be invoked, or “the people” to be praised, they and it must by definition be composed of individuals.

You will hardly demand that his confidence should have a basis in external facts; such confidence, we know, is something less coarse and materialistic: it is a comfortable disposition leading us to expect that the wisdom of providence or the folly of our friends, the mysteries of luck or the still greater mystery of our high individual value in the universe, will bring about agreeable issues, such as are consistent with our good taste in costume, and our general preference for the best style of thing.

The point is, your style guide-or any given "rule" you learned in school-was created so you would do something the same way every time for the sake of consistency, for the reader's sake. It's less distracting that way. You learn style rules so you don't have to stop and ponder every time you, say, come to a number in the text: "Hmm. Here's a number. Shall I spell it out? Use numerals?" You know your chosen style by heart, so you just flybywith confidence. Style rules aren't used because they're "correct." They're used for your convenience in serving the reader.

I want them to be great people with enough competitive spirit and self-confidence to drive them to follow and excel at their passions — be those styling hair, serving their country, performing, or driving trash trucks. I want them to have just enough competitive spirit and self-confidence, but not so much that they risk meaningful relationships and become consumed by their own self-righteousness. I don’t ever want them to feel like true fulfillment is unattainable. I want them to fall in love with their whole heart, more than once. I want them to have a significant other in their life who fills them, completes them, and isn’t chosen out of compromise, ambivalence,or apathy. I want them to have someone whom they want to care for and who wants to care for them. I want them to have a moral compass that works better than my own. I want them to know right from wrong, to consider other people’s feelings and the consequences of their actions. I want them to be men who do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do.

The good reporters of that era, those who were well educated and who were enlightened themselves and worked for enlightened organizations, liked the Kennedys and were for the same things the Kennedys were for. In addition, the particular nature of the President’s personal style, his ease and confidence with reporters, his considerable skill in utilizing television, and the terrible manner in which he was killed had created a remarkable myth about him. The fact that a number of men in his Cabinet were skillful writers themselves and that in the profound sadness after his murder they wrote their own eloquent (and on occasion self-serving) versions of his presidency had strengthened that myth.

Ambiverts typically . . . • Can process information both internally and externally. They need time to contemplate on their own, but consider the opinions and wisdom from people whom they trust when making a decision. • Love to engage and interact enthusiastically with others, however, they also enjoy calm and profound communication. • Seek to balance between their personal time and social time, they value each greatly. • Are able to move from one situation to the next with confidence, flexibility, and anticipation. “Not everyone is going to like us or understand us. And that is okay. It may have nothing to do with us personally; but rather more about who they are and how they relate to the world.

How old is she now?” “Oh, she’s twenty now.” She hesitated. She was obligated to end our little chat with a stylized flourish. The way it’s done in serial television. So she wet her little bunny mouth, sleepied her eyes, widened her nostrils, patted her hair, arched her back, stood canted and hip-shot, huskied her voice and said, “See you aroun’, huh?” “Sure, Marianne. Sure.” Bless them all, the forlorn little rabbits. They are the displaced persons of our emotional culture. They are ravenous for romance, yet settle for what they call making out. Their futile, acne-pitted men drift out of high school into a world so surfeited with unskilled labor there is competition for bag-boy jobs in the supermarkets. They yearn for security, but all they can have is what they make for themselves, chittering little flocks of them in the restaurants and stores, talking of style and adornment, dreaming of the terribly sincere stranger who will come along and lift them out of the gypsy life of the two-bit tip and the unemployment, cut a tall cake with them, swell them up with sassy babies, and guide them masterfully into the shoal water of the electrified house where everybody brushes after every meal. But most of the wistful rabbits marry their unskilled men, and keep right on working. And discover the end of the dream. They have been taught that if you are sunny, cheery, sincere, group-adjusted, popular, the world is yours, including barbecue pits, charge plates, diaper service, percale sheets, friends for dinner, washer-dryer combinations, color slides of the kiddies on the home projector, and eternal whimsical romance—with crinkly smiles and Rock Hudson dialogue. So they all come smiling and confident and unskilled into a technician’s world, and in a few years they learn that it is all going to be grinding and brutal and hateful and precarious. These are the slums of the heart. Bless the bunnies. These are the new people, and we are making no place for them. We hold the dream in front of them like a carrot, and finally say sorry you can’t have any. And the schools where we teach them non-survival are gloriously architectured. They will never live in places so fine, unless they contract something incurable.

Henry, who is in every other respect exactly what a brother should be, who loves me, consults me, confides in me, and will talk to me by the hour together, has never yet turned the page in a letter; and very often it is nothing more than, "Dear Mary, I am just arrived. Bath seems full, and every thing as usual. Your's sincerely.' That is the true manly style; that is a complete brother's letter.

I tried on the measured nobility of Milton’s epic verse. Gaining confidence, I added the romantic sensuality of a Byron matured by a Keatsish celebration of the language. Stirring all this, I seasoned the mixture with a dash of Yeats’s brilliant cynicism and a pinch of Pound’s obscure, scholastic arrogance. I chopped, diced, and added such ingredients as Eliot’s control of imagery, Dylan Thomas’s feel for place, Delmore Schwartz’s sense of doom, Steve Tem’s touch of horror, Salmud Brevy’s plea for innocence, Daton’s love of the convoluted rhyme scheme, Wu’s worship of the physical, and Edmond Ki Fererra’s radical playfulness. In the end, of course, I threw this entire mixture out and wrote the Cantos in a style all my own. — IF IT HAD not been for Unk the slumyard bully, I probably still would be on Heaven’s Gate, digging

Has someone made you feel shame for taking selfies? For daring to believe so much in your beauty, in your style, in your badassery, in your joy, in your body, in your sensuality, in your humanity that you'd be so audacious, so bold, so (insert judgmental word of choice here) to want to witness and be witnessed for who and what you are. ⠀ ⠀ Has someone out there sold you their own truth that this is conceited or narcissistic or superficial? How dare you think so much of yourself that you stop to take a photo?⠀ ⠀ Forget. those. people. ⠀ ⠀ Seriously. You are worthy of capture. Of celebration. Of admiration. You are worthy of being seen and witnessed. Of being looked at with awe and with joy. Just as you are, right now. All made up and wearing the outfit that makes you feel like you can take on the world or just waking up in bed, bare skin and messy hair and eyes hazy with dreams. ⠀ ⠀ Here's the thing. Self-portraiture in art is as old as time. We are fascinated with the visible proof of our own existence, our own reality, and for damn good reason. We are infinite and complex and ever changing. We are majestic and mundane. Self-portraits, regardless of the medium, offer us a way to capture ourselves at a specific moment in time. ⠀ ⠀ For me, this is an act of self-love. Of self-honoring. Of owning myself as beautiful and sovereign. It is the way I learned to look at myself without needing to look away. It is how I learned to trace the lines of my own being with the sort of admiration I used to reserve for others, for those I loved or for rarified celebrities I never thought I could live up to. ⠀ ⠀ When I stop to take a photo of myself, it is a way to say that I am here. I have something to say that can't be spoken in words. It might be deep and poetic, or maybe I just damn well love my outfit and think you should see it. And that yes, it is a way to say I want to be seen and I no longer hold shame in that wanting.

And so, when I had found, one day, in a book by Bergotte, some joke about an old family servant, to which his solemn and magnificent style added a great deal of irony, but which was in principle what I had often said to my grandmother about Françoise, and when, another time, I had discovered that he thought not unworthy of reflection in one of those mirrors of absolute Truth which were his writings, a remark similar to one which I had had occasion to make on our friend M. Legrandin (and, moreover, my remarks on Françoise and M. Legrandin were among those which I would most resolutely have sacrificed for Bergotte’s sake, in the belief that he would find them quite without interest); then it was suddenly revealed to me that my own humble existence and the Realms of Truth were less widely separated than I had supposed, that at certain points they were actually in contact; and in my new-found confidence and joy I wept upon his printed page, as in the arms of a long-lost father. From

If the novelist loses touch with this linguistic ground of prose style, if he is unable to attain the heights of a relativized, Galilean linguistic consciousness, if he is deaf to organic double-voicedness and to the internal dialogization of living and evolving discourse, then he will never comprehend, or even realize, the actual possibilities and tasks of the novel as a genre. He may, of course, crete an artistic work that compositionally and thematically will be similar to a novel, will be “made” exactly as a novel is made, but he will not thereby have created a novel. The style will always give him away. We will recognize the naively self-confident or obtusely stubborn unity of a smooth, pure single-voiced language (perhaps accompanied by a primitive, artificial, worked-up double-voicedness). We quickly sense that such an author finds it easy to purge his work of speech diversity: he simply does not listen to the fundamental heteroglossia inherent in actual language; he mistakes social overtones, which create the timbres of words, for irritating noises that it is his task to eliminate. The novel, when torn out of authentic linguistic speech diversity, emerges in most cases as a “closet drama,” with detailed, fully developed and “artistically worked out” stage directions (it is, of course, bad drama). In such a novel, divested of its language diversity, authorial language inevitably ends up in the awkward and absurd position of the language of stage directions in plays [327].

and was very anxious about it. ‘There’s nothing to be scared about,’ he said confidently. ‘Just give it to them from the shoulder; tell them to buy their Liberty Bonds; don’t try to be funny.’ ‘Don’t worry!’ I said ironically. Very soon I heard my introduction, so I bounded on to the platform in Fairbanksian style and without a pause let fly a verbal machine-gun barrage, hardly taking a breath: ‘The Germans are at your door! We’ve got to stop them! And we will stop them if you buy Liberty Bonds! Remember, each bond you buy will save a soldier’s life – a mother’s son! – will bring this war to an early victory!

Physical beauty is a subject that many skirt around and almost everyone attempts to down-play thereby demonstrating some sound moral stance, but it remains one of the glories of human existence. Of course, there are many people who are attractive without being beautiful just as there are beauties who bore, and the danger of beauty in the very young is that it can make the business of life seem deceptively easy. All this I am fully aware of. I know too, however, that of the four great gifts that the fairies may or may not bring to the christening – Brains, Birth, Beauty and Money – it is Beauty that makes locked doors spring open at a touch. Whether it is for a job interview, a place at a dining table, a brilliant promotion or a lift on the motorway, everyone, regardless of their sex or their sexual proclivity, would always rather deal with a good-looking face. And no one is more aware of this than the Beauties themselves. They have a power they simultaneously respect and take for granted. Despite the moralists who tut about its transience, it is generally a power that is never completely lost. One can usually trace in the wrinkled lines of a nonagenarian, stooped and leaning on a stick, the style and confidence that turned heads in a ballroom in 1929.

POLLARD had known better, but instead of pulling rank and insisting that his officers carry out his proposal to sail for the Society Islands, he embraced a more democratic style of command. Modern survival psychologists have determined that this “social”—as opposed to “authoritarian”—form of leadership is ill suited to the early stages of a disaster, when decisions must be made quickly and firmly. Only later, as the ordeal drags on and it is necessary to maintain morale, do social leadership skills become important. Whalemen in the nineteenth century had a clear understanding of these two approaches. The captain was expected to be the authoritarian, what Nantucketers called a fishy man. A fishy man loved to kill whales and lacked the tendency toward self-doubt and self-examination that could get in the way of making a quick decision. To be called “fishy to the backbone” was the ultimate compliment a Nantucketer could receive and meant that he was destined to become, if he wasn’t already, a captain. Mates, however, were expected to temper their fishiness with a more personal, even outgoing, approach. After breaking in the green hands at the onset of the voyage—when they gained their well-deserved reputations as “spit-fires”—mates worked to instill a sense of cooperation among the men. This required them to remain sensitive to the crew’s changeable moods and to keep the lines of communication open. Nantucketers recognized that the positions of captain and first mate required contrasting personalities. Not all mates had the necessary edge to become captains, and there were many future captains who did not have the patience to be successful mates. There was a saying on the island: “[I]t is a pity to spoil a good mate by making him a master.” Pollard’s behavior, after both the knockdown and the whale attack, indicates that he lacked the resolve to overrule his two younger and less experienced officers. In his deference to others, Pollard was conducting himself less like a captain and more like the veteran mate described by the Nantucketer William H. Macy: “[H]e had no lungs to blow his own trumpet, and sometimes distrusted his own powers, though generally found equal to any emergency after it arose. This want of confidence sometimes led him to hesitate, where a more impulsive or less thoughtful man would act at once. In the course of his career he had seen many ‘fishy’ young men lifted over his head.” Shipowners hoped to combine a fishy, hard-driving captain with an approachable and steady mate. But in the labor-starved frenzy of Nantucket in 1819, the Essex had ended up with a captain who had the instincts and soul of a mate, and a mate who had the ambition and fire of a captain. Instead of giving an order and sticking with it, Pollard indulged his matelike tendency to listen to others. This provided Chase—who had no qualms about speaking up—with the opportunity to impose his own will. For better or worse, the men of the Essex were sailing toward a destiny that would be determined, in large part, not by their unassertive captain but by their forceful and fishy mate.

The problem, Augustine came to believe, is that if you think you can organize your own salvation you are magnifying the very sin that keeps you from it. To believe that you can be captain of your own life is to suffer the sin of pride. What is pride? These days the word “pride” has positive connotations. It means feeling good about yourself and the things associated with you. When we use it negatively, we think of the arrogant person, someone who is puffed up and egotistical, boasting and strutting about. But that is not really the core of pride. That is just one way the disease of pride presents itself. By another definition, pride is building your happiness around your accomplishments, using your work as the measure of your worth. It is believing that you can arrive at fulfillment on your own, driven by your own individual efforts. Pride can come in bloated form. This is the puffed-up Donald Trump style of pride. This person wants people to see visible proof of his superiority. He wants to be on the VIP list. In conversation, he boasts, he brags. He needs to see his superiority reflected in other people’s eyes. He believes that this feeling of superiority will eventually bring him peace. That version is familiar. But there are other proud people who have low self-esteem. They feel they haven’t lived up to their potential. They feel unworthy. They want to hide and disappear, to fade into the background and nurse their own hurts. We don’t associate them with pride, but they are still, at root, suffering from the same disease. They are still yoking happiness to accomplishment; it’s just that they are giving themselves a D– rather than an A+. They tend to be just as solipsistic, and in their own way as self-centered, only in a self-pitying and isolating way rather than in an assertive and bragging way. One key paradox of pride is that it often combines extreme self-confidence with extreme anxiety. The proud person often appears self-sufficient and egotistical but is really touchy and unstable. The proud person tries to establish self-worth by winning a great reputation, but of course this makes him utterly dependent on the gossipy and unstable crowd for his own identity. The proud person is competitive. But there are always other people who might do better. The most ruthlessly competitive person in the contest sets the standard that all else must meet or get left behind. Everybody else has to be just as monomaniacally driven to success. One can never be secure. As Dante put it, the “ardor to outshine / Burned in my bosom with a kind of rage.” Hungry for exaltation, the proud person has a tendency to make himself ridiculous. Proud people have an amazing tendency to turn themselves into buffoons, with a comb-over that fools nobody, with golden bathroom fixtures that impress nobody, with name-dropping stories that inspire nobody. Every proud man, Augustine writes, “heeds himself, and he who pleases himself seems great to himself. But he who pleases himself pleases a fool, for he himself is a fool when he is pleasing himself.”16 Pride, the minister and writer Tim Keller has observed, is unstable because other people are absentmindedly or intentionally treating the proud man’s ego with less reverence than he thinks it deserves. He continually finds that his feelings are hurt. He is perpetually putting up a front. The self-cultivator spends more energy trying to display the fact that he is happy—posting highlight reel Facebook photos and all the rest—than he does actually being happy. Augustine suddenly came to realize that the solution to his problem would come only after a transformation more fundamental than any he had previously entertained, a renunciation of the very idea that he could be the source of his own solution.

But your lolas took offense at being called witches. That is an Amerikano term, they scoff, and that they live in the boroughs of an American city makes no difference to their biases. Mangkukulam was what they styled themselves as, a title still spoken of with fear in their motherland, with its suggestions of strange healing and old-world sorcery. Nobody calls their place along Pepper Street Old Manila, either, save for the women and their frequent customers. It was a carinderia, a simple eatery folded into three food stalls; each manned by a mangkukulam, each offering unusual specialties: Lola Teodora served kare-kare, a healthy medley of eggplant, okra, winged beans, chili peppers, oxtail, and tripe, all simmered in a rich peanut sauce and sprinkled generously with chopped crackling pork rinds. Lola Teodora was made of cumin, and her clients tiptoed into her stall, meek as mice and trembling besides, only to stride out half an hour later bursting at the seams with confidence. But bagoong- the fermented-shrimp sauce served alongside the dish- was the real secret; for every pound of sardines you packed into the glass jars you added over three times that weight in salt and magic. In six months, the collected brine would turn reddish and pungent, the proper scent for courage. unlike the other mangkukulam, Lola Teodora's meal had only one regular serving, no specials. No harm in encouraging a little bravery in everyone, she said, and with her careful preparations it would cause little harm, even if clients ate it all day long. Lola Florabel was made of paprika and sold sisig: garlic, onions, chili peppers, and finely chopped vinegar-marinated pork and chicken liver, all served on a sizzling plate with a fried egg on top and calamansi for garnish. Sisig regular was one of the more popular dishes, though a few had blanched upon learning the meat was made from boiled pigs' cheeks and head.

A well-heeled housewife confided that all the husbands in her social circle had recently accepted jobs in China, and were now commuting between Cupertino and Shanghai, partly because their quiet styles prevented them from advancing locally. The American companies “think they can’t handle business,” she said, “because of presentation. In business, you have to put a lot of nonsense together and present it. My husband always just makes his point and that’s the end of it. When you look at big companies, almost none of the top executives are Asians. They hire someone who doesn’t know anything about the business, but maybe he can make a good presentation.” A software engineer told me how overlooked he felt at work in comparison to other people, “especially people from European origin, who speak without thinking.” In China, he said, “If you’re quiet, you’re seen as being wise. It’s completely different here. Here people like to speak out. Even if they have an idea, not completely mature yet, people still speak out. If I could be better in communication, my work would be much more recognized. Even though my manager appreciates me, he still doesn’t know I have done work so wonderful.

My heart has been broken a million times by the same hand, yet I would let it happen a million times again if it meant it was by you. I was weaker than I thought / my heart sagging like the stems of uncut, unkempt flowers because of the sunlight you held in your faraway heart / Maybe you weren't mine to love / I think I'm falling The wallpaper above her bed frame was glued in my brain the way it was glued against her walls / I got so close to running my fingers against it / I wish I felt the confidence to tell you the truth, as strongly as I felt stubborn to hide it Do you hear that? That's my heart knocking against my chest at the sight of you / I've never heard anything more terrifying / how could you provide me air and suffocate me at the same time? Blue hydrangeas, pink tulips, red bleeding hearts / it's all you ever loved, but never yourself / I never understood why anyone spoke poorly of the color brown, it was a dream on you And that kiss... I think about it all the time / was it wrong of me to think of you when you were never mine? / I feel lucky to have had you, but dismayed to know what life is like without you Don't worry if the flowers pass, I'll be right there to plant you more / and when the soil grows old, I'll comfort it in the chaos of the storm Am I a ghost in your story? / because you look at me with conviction when I don't even know the crime I committed Burden me with your secrets / so I can carry the weight you're so fearful of letting go To be close to you was to be haunted by what I couldn't have and to be reminded of how much I truly wanted you / and I'd be lying if I said I never thought about where my hands would take me across your body Midnights and daydreaming hours of retracing steps to how we possibly got here / how did I ever let time pass this long without seeing you? / my heart was so full of our memories that painted my body like a scrapbook I tried to stop loving you, but along the way, you found your way into the sound of my laugh, the style of my writing, and the threads of my clothes / I would've gone down on my knees just to hear you say yes Neck stiff, legs weak, eyes set on what we could've looked like if you hadn't left / 'moving on' was a broken record that I never had the strength to lift the needle off of / If hearts were meant to love then why did mine feel so empty? / and suddenly, I fell Glances, gazes, eyes following places they shouldn't have seen / intimacy was to be seen by you; free falling was to be touched by you / there was no such thing as a crowded room where you stood She lives in between the pinks and yellows of the world / where a beautiful color is unknown to others / and when she speaks, I become a bee enthralled in a field of daisies

There was something of an unwritten code about working in the office of Rudy Giuliani, as I suppose there is in most organizations. In his case, the message was that Rudy was the star at the top and the successes of the office flowed in his direction. You violated this code at your peril. Giuliani had extraordinary confidence, and as a young prosecutor I found his brash style exciting, which was part of what drew me to his office. I loved it that my boss was on magazine covers standing on the courthouse steps with his hands on his hips, as if he ruled the world. It fired me up. Prosecutors almost never saw the great man in person, so I was especially pumped when he stopped by my office early in my career, shortly after I had been assigned to an investigation that touched a prominent New York figure who dressed in shiny tracksuits and sported a Nobel-sized medallion around his neck. The state of New York was investigating Al Sharpton for alleged embezzlement from his charity, and I was assigned to see if there was a federal angle to the case. I had never even seen Rudy on my floor, and now he was at my very door. He wanted me to know he was personally following the investigation and knew I would do a good job. My heart thumped with anxiety and excitement as he gave me this pep talk standing in the doorway. He was counting on me. He turned to leave, then stopped. “Oh, and I want the fucking medal,” he said, then walked away. But we never made a federal case. The state authorities charged Sharpton, and he was acquitted after a trial. The medal stayed with its owner.

We end up at an outdoor paintball course in Jersey. A woodsy, rural kind of place that’s probably brimming with mosquitos and Lyme disease. When I find out Logan has never played paintball before, I sign us both up. There’s really no other option. And our timing is perfect—they’re just about to start a new battle. The worker gathers all the players in a field and divides us into two teams, handing out thin blue and yellow vests to distinguish friend from foe. Since Logan and I are the oldest players, we both become the team captains. The wide-eyed little faces of Logan’s squad follow him as he marches back and forth in front of them, lecturing like a hot, modern-day Winston Churchill. “We’ll fight them from the hills, we’ll fight them in the trees. We’ll hunker down in the river and take them out, sniper-style. Save your ammo—fire only when you see the whites of their eyes. Use your heads.” I turn to my own ragtag crew. “Use your hearts. We’ll give them everything we’ve got—leave it all on the field. You know what wins battles? Desire! Guts! Today, we’ll all be frigging Rudy!” A blond boy whispers to his friend, “Who’s Rudy?” The kid shrugs. And another raises his hand. “Can we start now? It’s my birthday and I really want to have cake.” “It’s my birthday too.” I give him a high-five. “Twinning!” I raise my gun. “And yes, birthday cake will be our spoils of war! Here’s how it’s gonna go.” I point to the giant on the other side of the field. “You see him, the big guy? We converge on him first. Work together to take him down. Cut off the head,” I slice my finger across my neck like I’m beheading myself, “and the old dog dies.” A skinny kid in glasses makes a grossed-out face. “Why would you kill a dog? Why would you cut its head off?” And a little girl in braids squeaks, “Mommy! Mommy, I don’t want to play anymore.” “No,” I try, “that’s not what I—” But she’s already running into her mom’s arms. The woman picks her up—glaring at me like I’m a demon—and carries her away. “Darn.” 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. He swaggers confidently back to his side and I sneer at his retreating form. The uniformed paintball worker blows a whistle and explains the rules. We get seven minutes to hide first. I cock my paintball shotgun with one hand—like Charlize Theron in Fury fucking Road—and lead my team into the wilderness. “Come on, children. Let’s go be heroes.” It was a massacre. We never stood a chance. In the end, we tried to rush them—overpower them—but we just ended up running into a hail of balls, getting our hearts and guts splattered with blue paint. But we tried—I think Rudy and Charlize would be proud

In the EPJ results, there were two statistically distinguishable groups of experts. The first failed to do better than random guessing, and in their longer-range forecasts even managed to lose to the chimp. The second group beat the chimp, though not by a wide margin, and they still had plenty of reason to be humble. Indeed, they only barely beat simple algorithms like “always predict no change” or “predict the recent rate of change.” Still, however modest their foresight was, they had some. So why did one group do better than the other? It wasn’t whether they had PhDs or access to classified information. Nor was it what they thought—whether they were liberals or conservatives, optimists or pessimists. The critical factor was how they thought. One group tended to organize their thinking around Big Ideas, although they didn’t agree on which Big Ideas were true or false. Some were environmental doomsters (“We’re running out of everything”); others were cornucopian boomsters (“We can find cost-effective substitutes for everything”). Some were socialists (who favored state control of the commanding heights of the economy); others were free-market fundamentalists (who wanted to minimize regulation). As ideologically diverse as they were, they were united by the fact that their thinking was so ideological. They sought to squeeze complex problems into the preferred cause-effect templates and treated what did not fit as irrelevant distractions. Allergic to wishy-washy answers, they kept pushing their analyses to the limit (and then some), using terms like “furthermore” and “moreover” while piling up reasons why they were right and others wrong. As a result, they were unusually confident and likelier to declare things “impossible” or “certain.” Committed to their conclusions, they were reluctant to change their minds even when their predictions clearly failed. They would tell us, “Just wait.” The other group consisted of more pragmatic experts who drew on many analytical tools, with the choice of tool hinging on the particular problem they faced. These experts gathered as much information from as many sources as they could. When thinking, they often shifted mental gears, sprinkling their speech with transition markers such as “however,” “but,” “although,” and “on the other hand.” They talked about possibilities and probabilities, not certainties. And while no one likes to say “I was wrong,” these experts more readily admitted it and changed their minds. Decades ago, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote a much-acclaimed but rarely read essay that compared the styles of thinking of great authors through the ages. To organize his observations, he drew on a scrap of 2,500-year-old Greek poetry attributed to the warrior-poet Archilochus: “The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” No one will ever know whether Archilochus was on the side of the fox or the hedgehog but Berlin favored foxes. I felt no need to take sides. I just liked the metaphor because it captured something deep in my data. I dubbed the Big Idea experts “hedgehogs” and the more eclectic experts “foxes.” Foxes beat hedgehogs. And the foxes didn’t just win by acting like chickens, playing it safe with 60% and 70% forecasts where hedgehogs boldly went with 90% and 100%. Foxes beat hedgehogs on both calibration and resolution. Foxes had real foresight. Hedgehogs didn’t.

Fifteen years had passed since I first learned to improvise by copying George Shearing records. From the beginning, the goal was to move beyond imitation and find my own voice, and I felt that that was finally happening. Miles had been the guiding light to my growth, encouraging all of us in the band to develop our own styles of playing, and during my five and a half years in the quintet I did start to develop my own sound. But it wasn’t until I got out on my own that I felt I could really explore it. Now that I had my own sextet, I started thinking analytically about what actually goes on within a jazz group. At every moment onstage players are making choices, and each choice affects every other member of the group. So each player has to be prepared to change directions at any given moment—just as Miles did when I played that “wrong” chord onstage a few years earlier. Everybody in a jazz ensemble has learned the basic framework of harmony and scales and how they fit. They know the basic song structure of having the rhythm section—piano, bass, and drums—playing together while the horns carry the melody. But apart from those basics, jazz is incredibly broad. There are really uncountable ways of playing it. For the pianist alone there are so many choices to make: what pitch, how many notes, whether to play a chord or a line. I have ten fingers, and they’re in motion almost all the time, so all of those decisions must happen in an instant. I’m reacting to what the rest of the band is playing, but if I’m only reacting, then I’m not really making a choice; I’m just getting hit and being pushed along. Acting is making a choice, so all the players must be ready to act as well as react. The players have to be talented enough, and confident enough, to do both. I had watched Miles surround himself with amazing musicians and then give them the freedom to act.

Switch from a Performance Focus to a Mastery Focus There’s a way to keep your standards high but avoid the problems that come from perfectionism. If you can shift your thinking from a performance focus to a mastery focus, you’ll become less fearful, more resilient, and more open to good, new ideas. Performance focus is when your highest priority is to show you can do something well now. Mastery focus is when you’re mostly concerned with advancing your skills. Someone with a mastery focus will think, “My goal is to master this skill set” rather than “I need to perform well to prove myself.” A mastery focus can help you persist after setbacks. To illustrate this, imagine the following scenario: Adam is trying to master the art of public speaking. Due to his mastery goal, he’s likely to take as many opportunities as he can to practice giving speeches. When he has setbacks, he’ll be motivated to try to understand these and get back on track. His mastery focus will make him more likely to work steadily toward his goal. Compare this with performance-focused Rob, who is concerned just with proving his competence each time he gives a talk. Rob will probably take fewer risks in his style of presentation and be less willing to step outside his comfort zone. If he has an incident in which a talk doesn’t go as well as he’d hoped, he’s likely to start avoiding public speaking opportunities. Mastery goals will help you become less upset about individual instances of failure. They’ll increase your willingness to identify where you’ve made errors, and they’ll help you avoid becoming so excessively critical of yourself that you lose confidence in your ability to rectify your mistakes. A mastery focus can also help you prioritize—you can say yes to things that move you toward your mastery goal and no to things that don’t. This is great if you’re intolerant of uncertainty, because it gives you a clear direction and rule of thumb for making decisions about which opportunities to pursue. Experiment: What’s your most important mastery goal right now? Complete this sentence: “My goal is to master the skills involved in ___.” Examples include parenting, turning more website visitors into buyers, property investment, or self-compassion. Based on the mastery goal you picked, answer the following questions. Make your answers as specific as possible. How would people with your mastery goal: 1. React to mistakes, setbacks, disappointments, and negative moods? 2. Prioritize which tasks they work on? What types of tasks would they deprioritize? 3. React when they’d sunk a lot of time into something and then realized a particular strategy or idea didn’t have the potential they’d hoped it would? 4. Ensure they were optimizing their learning and skill acquisition? 5. React when they felt anxious?

You okay?” Marlboro Man called out. I didn’t answer. I just kept on walking, determined to get the hell out of Dodge. It took him about five seconds to catch up with me; I wasn’t a very fast walker. “Hey,” he said, grabbing me around the waist and whipping me around so I was facing him. “Aww, it’s okay. It happens.” I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted him to let go of me and I wanted to keep on walking. I wanted to walk back down the hillside, start my car, and get out of there. I didn’t know where I’d go, I just knew I wanted to go. I wanted away from all of it--riding horses, saddles, reins, bridles--I didn’t want it anymore. I hated everything on that ranch. It was all stupid, dumb…and stupid. Wriggling loose of his consoling embrace, I squealed, “I seriously can’t do this!” My hands trembled wildly and my voice quivered. The tip of my nose began to sting, and tears welled up in my eyes. It wasn’t like me to display such hysteria in the presence of a man. But being driven to the brink of death had brought me to this place. I felt like a wild animal. I was powerless to restrain myself. “I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life!” I cried. I turned to leave again but decided instead to give up, choosing to sit down on the ground and slump over in defeat. It was all so humiliating--not just my rigid, freakish riding style or my near collision with the ground, but also my crazy, emotional reaction after the fact. This wasn’t me. I was a strong, confident woman, for Lord’s sake; I don’t slump on the ground in the middle of a pasture and cry. What was I doing in a pasture, anyway? Knowing my luck, I was probably sitting on a pile of manure. But I couldn’t even walk anymore; my knees were even trembling by now, and I’d lost all feeling in my fingertips. My heart pounded in my cheeks. If Marlboro Man had any sense, he would have taken the horses and gotten the hell out of there, leaving me, the hysterical female, sobbing on the ground by myself. She’s obviously in the throes of some hormonal fit, he probably thought. There’s nothing you can say to her when she gets like this. I don’t have time for this crap. She’s just gonna have to learn to deal with it if she’s going to marry me. But he didn’t get the hell out of there. He didn’t leave me sobbing on the ground by myself. Instead he joined me on the grass, sitting beside me and putting his hand on my leg, reassuring me that this kind of thing happens, and there wasn’t anything I did wrong, even though he was probably lying. “Now, did you really mean that about not wanting to do this the rest of your life?” he asked. That familiar, playful grin appeared in the corner of his mouth. I blinked a couple of times and took a deep breath, smiling back at him and reassuring him with my eyes that no, I hadn’t meant it, but I did hate his horse. Then I took a deep breath, stood up, and dusted off my Anne Klein straight-leg jeans. “Hey, we don’t have to do this now,” Marlboro Man said, standing back up. “I’ll just do it later.” “No, I’m fine,” I answered, walking back toward my horse with newfound resolve.