Survey House Quotes

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We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
Henry Beston (The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod)
Bryce shouldered the canvas bag, surveying the Viper Queen. “Nice outfit.” The serpentine shifter smiled, revealing bright white teeth—and canines that were slightly too elongated. And slightly too thin. “Nice bodyguard.” Bryce shrugged as those snake’s eyes dragged over every inch of Hunt. “Nothing going on upstairs, but everything happening where it counts.
Sarah J. Maas (House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City, #1))
surveyed the cabin around me, the surfaces I’d painted nearly a year ago. I was promised a wall, Rhys. A pause. A long pause. I’ve taken you against a wall before. These walls. Another long, long pause. It’s bad form to be at attention while in the birchin. My lips curved as I sent him an image. A memory. Of me on the kitchen table just a few feet away. Of him kneeling before me. My legs wrapped around his head. Cruel, wicked thing. I heard a door slamming somewhere in the house, followed by a distinctly male yelp. Then banging—as if someone was trying to get back inside. Mor’s eyes sparkled. “You got him kicked out, didn’t you?” My answering smile set her roaring.
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Frost and Starlight (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3.5))
Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain - which is to say, all of it. Every last bit of it, good and bad - Marmite, village fetes, country lanes, people saying 'mustn't grumble' and 'I'm terribly sorry but', people apologizing to me when I conk them with a nameless elbow, milk in bottles, beans on toast, haymaking in June, stinging nettles, seaside piers, Ordnance Survey maps, crumpets, hot-water bottles as a necessity, drizzly Sundays - every bit of it. What a wondrous place this was - crazy as fuck, of course, but adorable to the tiniest degree. What other country, after all, could possibly have come up with place names like Tooting Bec and Farleigh Wallop, or a game like cricket that goes on for three days and never seems to start? Who else would think it not the least odd to make their judges wear little mops on their heads, compel the Speaker of the House of Commons to sit on something called the Woolsack, or take pride in a military hero whose dying wish was to be kissed by a fellow named Hardy? ('Please Hardy, full on the lips, with just a bit of tongue.') What other nation in the world could possibly have given us William Shakespeare, pork pies, Christopher Wren, Windsor Great Park, the Open University, Gardners' Question Time and the chocolate digestive biscuit? None, of course. How easily we lose sight of all this. What an enigma Britain will seem to historians when they look back on the second half of the twentieth century. Here is a country that fought and won a noble war, dismantled a mighty empire in a generally benign and enlightened way, created a far-seeing welfare state - in short, did nearly everything right - and then spent the rest of the century looking on itself as a chronic failure. The fact is that this is still the best place in the world for most things - to post a letter, go for a walk, watch television, buy a book, venture out for a drink, go to a museum, use the bank, get lost, seek help, or stand on a hillside and take in a view. All of this came to me in the space of a lingering moment. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I like it here. I like it more than I can tell you.
Bill Bryson (Notes from a Small Island)
It looks like a gingerbread house assembled by a thoroughly mad child,” Page said. He took a puff from his cigarette and stepped a few paces to the side as if to survey the house from a different angle. “I love it.
Cat Sebastian (Hither, Page (Page & Sommers, #1))
Whilst I could not think of any man whose spirit was, or needed to be, more enlarged than the spirit of a genuine merchant. What a thing it is to see the order which prevails throughout his business! By means of this he can at any time survey the general whole, without needing to perplex himself in the details. What advantages does he derive from the system of book-keeping by double entry? It is among the finest inventions of the human mind; every prudent master of a house should introduce it into his economy.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Think of a globe, a revolving globe on a stand. Think of a contour globe, whose mountain ranges cast shadows, whose continents rise in bas-relief above the oceans. But then: think of how it really is. These heights are just suggested; they’re there….when I think of walking across a continent I think of all the neighborhood hills, the tiny grades up which children drag their sleds. It is all so sculptured, three-dimensional, casting a shadow. What if you had an enormous globe that was so huge it showed roads and houses- a geological survey globe, a quarter of a mile to an inch- of the whole world, and the ocean floor! Looking at it, you would know what had to be left out: the free-standing sculptural arrangement of furniture in rooms, the jumble of broken rocks in the creek bed, tools in a box, labyrinthine ocean liners, the shape of snapdragons, walrus. Where is the one thing you care about in earth, the molding of one face? The relief globe couldn’t begin to show trees, between whose overlapping boughs birds raise broods, or the furrows in bark, where whole creatures, creatures easily visible, live our their lives and call it world enough. What do I make of all this texture? What does it mean about the kind of world in which I have been set down? The texture of the world, its filigree and scrollwork, means that there is a possibility for beauty here, a beauty inexhaustible in its complexity, which opens to my knock, which answers in me a call I do not remember calling, and which trains me to the wild and extravagant nature of the spirit I seek.
Annie Dillard (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)
Oh, that turned out nicely,” Lindsey said, hands on her hips as she surveyed it, then smiled at Mallory. “Is your house just covered in glitter now?” Mallory stepped back, adjusted my sash carefully. “It’s every-freaking-where. It’s probably the perfect vector for worldwide contagion, should any bad guys figure that out.
Chloe Neill (Blade Bound (Chicagoland Vampires, #13))
She had been looking all round her again—at the lawn, the great trees, the reedy, silvery Thames, the beautiful old house; and while engaged in this survey she had made room in it for her companions; a comprehensiveness of observation easily conceivable on the part of a young woman who was evidently both intelligent and excited. She had seated herself and had put away the little dog; her white hands, in her lap, were folded upon her black dress; her head was erect, her eye lighted, her flexible figure turned itself easily this way and that, in sympathy with the alertness with which she evidently caught impressions. Her impressions were numerous, and they were all reflected in a clear, still smile. "I've never seen anything so beautiful as this.
Henry James (The Portrait of a Lady)
My eyes surveyed the woman standing in my house, and it felt familiar. Not familiar in the sense that she’s been here before; familiar in the sense that she’s always been here. Like she was the other half of me, and we were just now finding each other. It was that kind of familiar, which is ridiculous I know, but that’s how it felt.
Pamela Sparkman (Shattered (Stolen Breaths #2))
Everything about him accorded with the fastidious element in her taste, even to the light irony with which he surveyed what seemed to her most sacred. She admired him most of all, perhaps, for being able to convey as distinct a sense of superiority as the richest man she had ever met.
Edith Wharton (The House of Mirth)
The gravel road widened into a large turnaround where three similar looking and designed brothels sat waiting for customers. They were called Sheila's Front Porch, Tawny's High Five Ranch and Miss Delilah's House of Holies. "Nice," Rachel said as we surveyed the scene. "why are these places always named after women -- as if women actually own them?" "You got me. I guess Mister Dave's House of Holies wouldn't go over so well with the guys." Rachel smiled. "You're right. I guess it's a shrewd move. Name a place of female degradation and slavery after a female and it doesn't sound so bad, does it? It's packaging.
Michael Connelly (The Narrows (Harry Bosch, #10; Harry Bosch Universe, #14))
No rough housing.” “Rough housing? We’re twenty,” I point out. “Fine.” He surveys the scene, noticing the girls. “Then no orgies.” He takes his leave.
Sarah Daltry (Backward Compatible)
Danika surveyed the street ahead, glancing past a poster of the six enthroned Asteri tacked up on a wall—with an empty throne to honor their fallen sister
Sarah J. Maas (House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City, #1))
Mr. Pumblechook made out, after carefully surveying the premises, that he had first got upon the roof of the forge, and had then got upon the roof of the house, and had then let himself down the kitchen chimney by a rope made of his bedding cut into strips; and as Mr. Pumblechook was very positive and drove his own chaise-cart—over Everybody—it was agreed that it must be so.
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
like those moments after the last dinner party guest has left and you survey your kitchen to see if any corner of the countertop seems like a reasonable place to start, or whether you should just sell your house instead
Jeremy Denk (Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, in Music Lessons)
Mountains have long been a geography for pilgrimage, place where people have been humbled and strengthened, they are symbols of the sacred center. Many have traveled to them in order to find the concentrated energy of Earth and to realize the strength of unimpeded space. Viewing a mountain at a distance or walking around its body we can see its shape, know its profile, survey its surrounds. The closer you come to the mountain the more it disappears, the mountain begins to lose its shape as you near it, its body begins to spread out over the landscape losing itself to itself. On climbing the mountain the mountain continues to vanish. It vanishes in the detail of each step, its crown is buried in space, its body is buried in the breath. On reaching the mountain summit we can ask, “What has been attained?” - The top of the mountain? Big view? But the mountain has already disappeared. Going down the mountain we can ask, “What has been attained?” Going down the mountain the closer we are to the mountain the more the mountain disappears, the closer we are to the mountain the more the mountain is realized. Mountain’s realization comes through the details of the breath, mountain appears in each step. Mountain then lives inside our bones, inside our heart-drum. It stands like a huge mother in the atmosphere of our minds. Mountain draws ancestors together in the form of clouds. Heaven, Earth and human meet in the raining of the past. Heaven, Earth and human meet in the winds of the future. Mountain mother is a birth gate that joins the above and below, she is a prayer house, she is a mountain. Mountain is a mountain.
Joan Halifax (The Fruitful Darkness: A Journey Through Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom)
When we survey our lives and endeavours we soon observe that almost the whole of our actions and desires are bound up with the existence of other human beings. We eat food that others have grown, wear clothes that others have made, live in houses that others have built. The greater part of our knowledge and beliefs has been communicated to us by other people through the medium of a language which others have created. Without language our mental capacities would be poor indeed, comparable to those of the higher animals; we have, therefore, to admit that we owe our principal advantage over the beasts to the fact of living in human society. The individual, if left alone from birth, would remain primitive and beast-like in his thoughts and feelings to a degree that we can hardly conceive. The individual is what he is and has the significance that he has not so much in virtue of his individuality, but rather as a member of a great human society, which directs his material and spiritual existence from the cradle to the grave.
Albert Einstein (The World As I See It)
Azriel said nothing, face impassive. Fine. Sighing, Bryce surveyed the carvings on the floor. Whorls and faces and— The hair on her arms rose. “These are Midgard’s constellations.” Bryce pointed to a cluster. “That’s the Great Ladle. And that … that’s Orion. The hunter.” Hunt. Her Hunt.
Sarah J. Maas (House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3))
There is something about the village of Saxby-on-Avon that concerns me,’ he went on. ‘I have spoken to you before of the nature of human wickedness, my friend. How it is the small lies and evasions which nobody sees or detects but which can come together and smother you like the fumes in a house fire.’ He turned and surveyed the surrounding buildings, the shaded square. ‘They are all around us. Already there have been two deaths: three, if you include the child who died in the lake all those years ago. They are all connected. We must move quickly before there is a fourth.
Anthony Horowitz (Magpie Murders (Susan Ryeland #1))
When Bill Archer (R-Tex.) was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, he routinely quoted an informal survey of five hundred international companies located in Europe and Japan. These companies were asked, “What would you do in your long-term planning if the United States eliminated all taxes on capital and labor and taxed only personal consumption?” Eighty percent—that’s four hundred out of five hundred companies—said they would build their next plant in America. The remaining 20 percent—the other hundred companies—said they would relocate their business to America altogether.
Neal Boortz (FairTax: The Truth: Answering the Critics)
The conclusion, therefore, is that of Augustine, who said that the heart of man was created for God and that it cannot find rest until it rests in his Father’s heart. Hence all men are really seeking after God, as Augustine also declared, but they do not all seek Him in the right way, nor at the right place. They seek Him down below, and He is up above. They seek Him on the earth, and He is in heaven. They seek Him afar, and He is nearby. They seek Him in money, in property, in fame, in power, and in passion; and He is to be found in the high and the holy places, and with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit (Isa. 57:15). But they do seek Him, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him (Acts 17:27). They seek Him and at the same time they flee Him. They have no interest in a knowledge of His ways, and yet they cannot do without Him. They feel themselves attracted to God and at the same time repelled by Him. In this, as Pascal so profoundly pointed out, consists the greatness and the miserableness of man. He longs for truth and is false by nature. He yearns for rest and throws himself from one diversion upon another. He pants for a permanent and eternal bliss and seizes on the pleasures of a moment. He seeks for God and loses himself in the creature. He is a born son of the house and he feeds on the husks of the swine in a strange land. He forsakes the fountain of living waters and hews out broken cisterns that can hold no water ( Jer. 2:13). He is as a hungry man who dreams that he is eating, and when he awakes finds that his soul is empty; and he is like a thirsty man who dreams that he is drinking, and when he awakes finds that he is faint and that his soul has appetite (Isa. 29:8). Science cannot explain this contradiction in man. It reckons only with his greatness and not with his misery, or only with his misery and not with his greatness. It exalts him too high, or it depresses him too far, for science does not know of his Divine origin, nor of his profound fall. But the Scriptures know of both, and they shed their light over man and over mankind; and the contradictions are reconciled, the mists are cleared, and the hidden things are revealed. Man is an enigma whose solution can be found only in God.
Herman Bavinck (Our Reasonable Faith: A Survey of Christian Doctrine)
On our particular mission, senior marines met with local school officials while the rest of us provided security or hung out with the schoolkids, playing soccer and passing out candy and school supplies. One very shy boy approached me and held out his hand. When I gave him a small eraser, his face briefly lit up with joy before he ran away to his family, holding his two-cent prize aloft in triumph. I have never seen such excitement on a child’s face. I don’t believe in epiphanies. I don’t believe in transformative moments, as transformation is harder than a moment. I’ve seen far too many people awash in a genuine desire to change only to lose their mettle when they realized just how difficult change actually is. But that moment, with that boy, was pretty close for me. For my entire life, I’d harbored resentment at the world. I was mad at my mother and father, mad that I rode the bus to school while other kids caught rides with friends, mad that my clothes didn’t come from Abercrombie, mad that my grandfather died, mad that we lived in a small house. That resentment didn’t vanish in an instant, but as I stood and surveyed the mass of children of a war-torn nation, their school without running water, and the overjoyed boy, I began to appreciate how lucky I was: born in the greatest country on earth, every modern convenience at my fingertips, supported by two loving hillbillies, and part of a family that, for all its quirks, loved me unconditionally. At that moment, I resolved to be the type of man who would smile when someone gave him an eraser. I haven’t quite made it there, but without that day in Iraq, I wouldn’t be trying. The
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
It’s one thing building a cloister to reflect the 768 of the numerological Bismillah, it’s another planning a giant alphabet out of an entire city before you’ve even built your first mosque.’ ‘It is, but remember, Sinan was chief architect and city planner at the time of the conquest of Cairo. He practised on that city; demolishing and building where he liked. I have no doubt that he was already forming the idea of a sacred geometry. His first building as Architect of the Abode of Felicity was the Haseki Hürrem Mosque for the Kadin Roxelana. Not his greatest work by any means, and he was working from existing designs, but it was identifiable as his first mature work. There’s a story in his autobiography Tezkiretül Bünyan that while he was surveying the site he noticed that children were pulling live fish from a grating in the street. When he went to investigate he discovered an entire Roman cistern down there. Perhaps it was this that inspired him to realize his vision. Hidden water. The never-ceasing stream of Hurufism.
Ian McDonald (The Dervish House)
Florence lives alone in the great dreary house, and day succeeded day, and still she lived alone; and the blank walls looked down upon her with a vacant stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like mind to stare her youth and beauty into stone. No magic dwelling-place in magic story, shut up in the heart of a thick wood, was ever more solitary and deserted to the fancy, than was her father's mansion in its grim reality, as it stood lowering on the street: always by night, when lightd were shining from neighbouring windows, a blot upon its scanty brightness; always by day, a frown upon its never-smiling face. There were not two dragon sentries keeping ward before the gate of this above, as in magic legend are usually found on duty over the wronged innocence imprisoned; but besides a glowering visage, with its thin lips parted wickedly, that surveyed all comers from above the archway of the door, there was a monstrous fantasy of rusty iron, curling and twisting like a petrification of an arbour over threshold, budding in spikes and corkscrew points, and bearing, one on either side, two ominous extinguishers, that seemed to say, 'Who enter here, leave light behind!
Charles Dickens (Dombey and Son)
He paused. ‘There is something about the village of Saxby-on-Avon that concerns me,’ he went on. ‘I have spoken to you before of the nature of human wickedness, my friend. How it is the small lies and evasions which nobody sees or detects but which can come together and smother you like the fumes in a house fire.’ He turned and surveyed the surrounding buildings, the shaded square. ‘They are all around us.
Anthony Horowitz (Magpie Murders (Susan Ryeland #1))
I surveyed the country that had cost us so much trouble, anxiety and blood, and that now caused me to be a prisoner of war. I reflected upon the ingratitude of the whites when I saw their fine houses, rich harvests and everything desirable around them; and recollected that all this land had been ours, for which I and my people had never received a dollar, and that the whites were not satisfied until they took our village and our graveyards from us and removed us across the Mississippi.
Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak (Black Hawk)
A statue of Arturo Prat, hero of the Chilean Navy, surveyed it all. From under his statue I look up onto those fragrant wooded hills. The shanty houses blur into a pastiche of colour, yellows and reds, cobalt and purple. The washing lines strung across the stairways and hung from balconies echo the ships' flags fluttering in the harbour. This is a city of the muses. For poets, painters and composers. This is the artists' enclave. This is Venice and Florence waiting to be explored, and I dream it still.
Brian Keenan (Between Extremes)
Steps scuffed down the hall. A warning. From someone who knew how to remain silent. ... Cassian had just finished setting himself to rights when Azriel strode in. 'Good evening,' his brother said with a grating level of calm, striding toward the table. 'Az.' Cassian wasn't able to keep the bite out of his tone. He met his brother's too-aware stare and silently conveyed every bit of annoyance he felt at his timing. Azriel only shrugged, surveying the food the House had brought him. As if he knew exactly what he'd interrupted and took his chaperone duties very seriously. Nesta was watching them, but as soon as Cassian turned to her, she launched into movement, pushing off the table and aiming for the door. 'Good night.' She didn't wait for him to respond before she was gone. Cassian levelled a glare at Az. 'Thanks for that.' 'I don't know what you're talking about,' Az said, even as he smiled down at his food. 'Asshole.' Az chuckled. 'Don't show your hand all at once, Cass.' 'What's that supposed to mean?' Az nodded toward the doorway. 'Save something for later.' 'Busybody.
Sarah J. Maas (A ​Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4))
When Papa finished surveying the tools, he shut the shed as best he could and they headed toward the house. Ivy gasped when they reached the back door. Someone had painted the words: “Papa, that’s awful!” Papa sucked air through gritted teeth. “I do not like these words.” “Papa, the son’s feelings will be hurt if he sees this. He wouldn’t be pleased. We should paint over it.” “I’m glad you feel that way. That’s exactly what we should do. We need to look inside the house, too, but it will take some time to go through their things. Maybe Mama can do it next week.
Pam Muñoz Ryan (Echo)
Finally, the survey findings also lent a helping hand to those men who wanted to engage in some heartfelt wooing, by identifying the gestures that women view as most, and least, romantic. The top-ten list of gestures is shown below, along with the percentage of women who assigned each gesture maximum marks on the “how romantic is this” scale. Cover her eyes and lead her to a lovely surprise—40 percent Whisk her away somewhere exciting for the weekend—40 percent Write a song or poem about her—28 percent Tell her that she is the most wonderful woman that you have ever met—25 percent Run her a relaxing bath after she has had a bad day at work—22 percent Send her a romantic text or e-mail, or leave a note around the house—22 percent Wake her up with breakfast in bed—22 percent Offer her a coat when she is cold—18 percent Send her a large bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates at her workplace—16 percent Make her a mix CD of her favorite music—12 percent Interestingly, it seems that gestures that reflect a form of escapism and surprise top the list, followed by those that reflect thoughtfulness, with blatant acts of materialism trailing in last place—scientific evidence, perhaps, that when it comes to romance, it really is the thought that counts.
Richard Wiseman (59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot)
Each month Cohn brought Trump the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, called JOLTS, conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He realized he was being an asshole by rubbing it in because each month was basically the same, but he didn’t care. “Mr. President, can I show this to you?” Cohn fanned out the pages of data in front of the president. “See, the biggest leavers of jobs—people leaving voluntarily—was from manufacturing.” “I don’t get it,” Trump said. Cohn tried to explain: “I can sit in a nice office with air conditioning and a desk, or stand on my feet eight hours a day. Which one would you do for the same pay?
Bob Woodward (Fear: Trump in the White House)
A battery of laws that effectively criminalize homelessness is sweeping the nation, embraced by places like Orlando, Fla.; Santa Cruz, Calif.; and Manchester, N.H. By the end of 2014, 100 cities had made it a crime to sit on a sidewalk, a 43 percent increase over 2011, according to a survey of 187 major American cities by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. The number of cities that banned sleeping in cars jumped to 81 from 37 during that same period. The crackdown comes amid the gentrification that is transforming cities like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington and Honolulu, contributing to higher housing costs and increased homelessness.
Jessica Bruder (Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century)
Pumblechook made out, after carefully surveying the premises, that he had first got upon the roof of the forge, and had then got upon the roof of the house, and had then let himself down the kitchen chimney by a rope made of his bedding cut into strips; and as Mr. Pumblechook was very positive and drove his own chaise-cart — over Everybody — it was agreed that it must be so. Mr. Wopsle, indeed, wildly cried out, “No!” with the feeble malice of a tired man; but, as he had no theory, and no coat on, he was unanimously set at naught,— not to mention his smoking hard behind, as he stood with his back to the kitchen fire to draw the damp out: which was not calculated to inspire confidence.
Charles Dickens (Charles Dickens: The Complete Novels)
When I heard of the shady tactics of the Moonies, my initial indignation was modified by empathy. I remembered only too well all the innocuous-sounding "fronts" operated by Evangelicals in order to witness to sinners, e.g., coffee houses, concerts, philosophical forums, religious surveys. None of these was ever billed for what it was. The idea was to hook the unsuspecting sinner and win an opportunity to tell him the gospel. Similar Machiavellian tactics govern various interpersonal contacts. A campus leader or foreign student may find himself the object of an Evangelical's friendly attention, not realizing he has been singled out for "friendship evangelism" because of his potentially strategic position.
Robert M. Price
The Cauldron,” Nesta said hours later, pointing to yet another carving on the wall. It indeed showed a giant cauldron, perched atop what seemed to be a barren mountain peak with three stars above it. Azriel halted, angling his head. “That’s Ramiel.” At Bryce’s questioning look, he explained, “A mountain sacred to the Illyrians.” Bryce nodded to the carving. “What’s the big deal about a cauldron?” “The Cauldron,” Azriel amended. Bryce shook her head, not understanding. “You don’t have stories of it in your world? The Fae didn’t bring that tradition with them?” Bryce surveyed the giant cauldron. “No. We have five gods, but no cauldron. What does it do?” “All life came and comes from it,” Azriel said with something like reverence. “The Mother poured it into this world, and from it, life blossomed.
Sarah J. Maas (House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3))
Two months before the funeral, the real estate website Redfin looked at the statistics and concluded that 83 percent of California's homes, and 100 percent of San Francisco's, were unaffordable on a teacher's salary. What happens to a place where the most vital workers cannot afford to live in it? Displacement has contributed to deaths, particularly of the elderly - and many in their eighties and nineties have been targeted with eviction from their homes of many decades. In the two years since Nieto's death, there have been multiple stories of seniors who died during or immediately after their eviction. A survey reported that 71 percent of the homeless in San Francisco used to be housed there. Losing their homes makes them vulnerable to a host of conditions, some of them deadly. Gentrification can be fatal.
Rebecca Solnit (Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation)
I have written all sorts of paragraphs recounting those months together: first kiss, first Mister Softee, first time I noticed that he won’t touch a doorknob without covering his hand with his sweatshirt. I have written sentences about how the first time we made love it felt like dropping my keys on the table after a long trip, and about wearing his sneakers as we ran across the park toward my house, which would someday be our house. About the way he gathered me up after a long terrible day and put me to bed. About the fact that he is my family now. I wrote it down, found the words that evoked the exact feeling of the edge of the park at 11:00 P.M. on a hot Tuesday with the man I was starting to love. But surveying those words I realized they are mine. He is mine to protect. There is so much I’ve shared, and so much that’s been crushed by the sharing. I never mourned it, because it never mattered.
Lena Dunham (Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned")
This seems to be what the nature writer Henry Beston was getting at when he wrote in The Outermost House: We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.
Monks of New Skete (The Art of Raising a Puppy)
Alec Kirkbride later graphically described the events in Amman on 18 July: "A couple of thousand Palestinian men swept up the hill toward the main [palace] entrance... screaming abuse and demanding that the lost towns should be reconquered at once... The king[of Jordan] appeared at the top of the main steps of the building; he was a short dignified figure wearing white robes and headdress. He paused for a moment, surveying the seething mob before, then walked down the steps to push his way through the line of guardsmen into the thick of the demonstrators. He went up to a prominent individual, who was shouting at the top of his voice, and dealt him a violent blow to the side of the head with the flat of his hand. The recipient of the blow stopped yelling... and the king could be heard roaring: 'so you want to fight the Jews, do you? Very well, there is a recruiting office for the army at the back of my house... go there and enlist! The rest of you, get the hell down the hillside!' Most of the crowd got the hell down the hillside, indeed...
Benny Morris (1948: The First Arab-Israeli War)
It was Spring, and yet it wasn't. It was not the land I had once roamed in centuries past, or even visited almost a year ago. The sun was mild, the day clear, distant dogwoods and lilacs still in eternal bloom. Distant- because on the estate, nothing bloomed at all. The pink roses that had once climbed the pale stone walls of the sweeping manor house were nothing but tangled webs of thorns. The fountains had gone dry, the hedges untrimmed and shapeless. The house itself had looked better the day after Amarantha's cronies had trashed it. Not for any visible signs of destruction, but for the general quiet. The lack of life. Though the great oak doors were undeniably worse for wear. Deep, long claw marks had been slashed down them. Standing on the top step of the marble staircase that led to those front doors, I surveyed the brutal gashes. My money was on Tamlin having inflicted them after Feyre had duped him and his court. But Tamlin's temper had always been his downfall. Any bad day could have produced those gouge marks. Perhaps today would produce more of them.
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Frost and Starlight (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3.5))
Size Matters. A lot. How much you have and more importantly how much space it will take up in a movingtruck are the first things you need to know when planning a long distance move. Professional movers charge by weight because it is an easier and more uniform way to determine exactly how much you have. They literally drive the truck onto a large scale before loading your goods to get a light weight and return after loading your stuff to get a heavy weight, with the difference being the weight of your shipment. The moving company’s estimate, however, is based on coming to your home and surveying the total cubic feet, or estimated size of all your household goods. They then convert that figure into a weight estimate by multiplying the cubic feet (cubes) by the average density of 6.5 pounds per cubic foot. A small 2-bedroom house for example might have 1,000 cubic feet which when multiplied by a density of 6.5 (lbs) would equal 6,500 lbs. If this sounds like brain surgery then I would ask you to try and remember the last furniture mover you met who struck you as brain surgeon-ish.
Jerry G. West
Please tell me all the chocolate is for us.' The House had stocked the table between the armchairs with piles of chocolate truffles and confections and bars of it. Along with cookies and small finger cakes. And a platter of cheeses and fruit. And carafes of water and various juices. Gwyn surveyed the table. 'Did you go to all this trouble?' 'Oh, no,' Emerie said, eyes glowing. 'Nesta's been holding out on us.' Nesta scoffed, but Emerie said, 'The House will get you anything you want. Just say it aloud.' At Gwyn's raised brows, Emerie said, 'I'd like a slice of pistachio cake, please.' A plateful of one appeared before her. As well as a bowl of whipped cream topped with raspberries. Gwyn blinked. 'You live in a magic house.' 'It likes to read,' Nesta admitted, patting a stack of the romances. 'We've bonded over that.' Gwyn whispered to the room, 'What's your favourite book?' One thumped on the table beside Emerie's cake, and Gwyn squawked in surprise. But then rubbed her hands together. 'Oh, this is delightful.' 'That smile means trouble,' Emerie said. Gwyn's grin just widened.
Sarah J. Maas (A ​Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4))
When we survey our lives and endeavors, we soon observe that almost the whole of our actions and desires is bound up with the existence of other human beings. We notice that our whole nature resembles that of the social animals. We eat food that others have produced, wear clothes that others have made, live in houses that others have built. The greater part of our knowledge and beliefs has been communicated to us by other people through the medium of a language which others have created. Without language our mental capacities would be poor indeed, comparable to those of the higher animals; we have, therefore, to admit that we owe our principal advantage over the beasts to the fact of living in human society. The individual, if left alone from birth, would remain primitive and beastlike in his thoughts and feelings to a degree that we can hardly conceive. The individual is what he is and has the significance that he has not so much in virtue of his individuality, but rather as a member of a great human community, which directs his material and spiritual existence from the cradle to the grave.
Albert Einstein (Ideas and Opinions)
The following books can be recommended: The Muvver Tongue, by Robert Balthrop and Jim Woolveridge, The Journeyman Press, 1980 The Cockney, by Julian Franklyn, Andre Deutsch, 1953 Dictionary of Rhyming Slang, by Julian Franklyn, Routledge, 1975 An unrivalled record of Cockney speech is to be found in Mayhew’s London and the other following books can be recommended: Balthrop, Robert and Jim Woolveridge, The Muvver Tongue (The Journeyman Press, London, 1980). Franklyn, Julian, The Cockney (Andre Deutsch, 1953). Franklyn, Julian, Dictionary of Rhyming Slang (Andre Deutsch, 1961). Harris, Charles, Three Ha’Pence to the Angel (Phoenix House, London, 1950). Jones, Jack, Rhyming Cockney Slang (Abson Books, London, 1971). Lewey, F., Cockney Campaign (Heffer, 1944). Matthews, Professor William, Cockney Past and Present (Routledge, London, 1940). O’London, Jack (Wilfred Whitten), London Stories (TC & EC Jack Ltd, Bristol, 1948). Quennell, Peter, ed., Mayhew’s London (Hamlyn, London, 1969). Robbins, G., Fleet Street Blitzkrieg Diary (Ernest Benn Ltd, London, 1942). Upton, Clive and David Parry, The Dictionary of English Grammar: Survey of English Dialects (Routledge, London, 1994).
Jennifer Worth (Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times (The Midwife Trilogy #1))
So your sword … it’s been in your world for fifteen thousand years?” “Brought by my ancestor.” She debated the next bit, then added, “Queen Theia. Or Prince Pelias, depending on what propaganda’s being spun.” Amren stiffened slightly. Rhysand slid his eyes to her, clocking the movement. Bryce dared to push, “You … know of them?” Amren surveyed Bryce from her blood-splattered neon-pink shoes to her high ponytail. The blood smeared on Bryce’s face, now stiff and sticky. “No one has spoken those names here in a very, very long time.” In fifteen thousand years, Bryce was willing to bet. “But you have heard of them?” Bryce’s heart thundered. “They once … dwelled here,” Amren said carefully. It was the last scrap of confirmation Bryce needed about what this planet was. Something settled deep in her, a loose thread at last pulling taut. “So this is it, then. This is where we—the Midgard Fae—originated. My ancestors left this world and went to Midgard … and we forgot where we came from.” Silence again. Azriel spoke in their own language, and Rhysand translated. Perhaps Rhysand had been translating for Azriel mind-to-mind these last few minutes. “He says we have no such stories about our people migrating to another world.
Sarah J. Maas (House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3))
You need to get out in the practice ring more, brother,' Cassian told him, surveying his friend's powerful body. 'Don't want that mate of yours to find any soft bits.' 'She never finds any soft bits when I'm around her,' Rhys said, and Cassian laughed again. 'Is Feyre going to kick your ass for what you said earlier?' 'I already told the servants to clear out for the rest of the day as soon as you take Nesta up to the House.' 'I think the servants hear you fighting plenty.' Indeed, Feyre had no hesitation when it came to telling Rhys that he'd stepped out of line. Rhys threw him a wicked smile. 'It's not the fighting I don't want them hearing.' Cassian grinned right back, even as something like jealousy tugged on his gut. He didn't begrudge them their happiness- not at all. There were plenty of times when he'd seen the joy on Rhys's face and have to walk away to keep from weeping, because his brother had waited for that love, earned it. Rhys had gone to the mat again and again to fight for that future with Feyre. For this. But sometimes, Cassian saw that mating ring, and the portrait behind the desk, and this house, and just... wanted. The clock chimed ten thirty, and Cassian rose. 'Enjoy your not-fighting.
Sarah J. Maas (A ​Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4))
Separately they surveyed their individual plates, trying to decide which item was most likely to be edible. They arrived at the same conclusion at the same moment; both of them picked up a strip of bacon and bit into it. Noisy crunching and cracking sounds ensued-like those of a large tree breaking in half and falling. Carefully avoiding each other’s eyes, they continued crunching away until they’d both eaten all the bacon on their plates. That finished, Elizabeth summoned her courage and took a dainty bite of egg. The egg tasted like tough, salted wrapping paper, but Elizabeth chewed manfully on it, her stomach churning with humiliation and a lump of tears starting to swell in her throat. She expected some scathing comment at any moment from her companion, and the more politely he continued eating, the more she wished he’d revert to his usual unpleasant self so that she’d at least have the defense of anger. Lately everything that happened to her was humiliating, and her pride and confidence were in tatters. Leaving the egg unfinished, she put down her fork and tried the biscuit. After several seconds of attempting to break a piece off with her fingers she picked up her knife and sawed away at it. A brown piece finally broke loose; she lifted it to her mouth and bit-but it was so tough her teeth only made grooves on the surface. Across the table she felt Ian’s eyes on her, and the urge to weep doubled. “Would you like some coffee?” she asked in a suffocated little voice. “Yes, thank you.” Relieved to have a moment to compose herself, Elizabeth arose and went to the stove, but her eyes blurred with tears as she blindly filled a mug with freshly brewed coffee. She brought it over to him, then sat down again. Sliding a glance at the defeated girl sitting with her head bent and her hands folded in her lap, Ian felt a compulsive urge to either laugh or comfort her, but since chewing was requiring such an effort, he couldn’t do either. Swallowing the last piece of egg, he finally managed to say, “That was…er…quite filling.” Thinking perhaps he hadn’t found it so bad as she had, Elizabeth hesitantly raised her eyes to his. “I haven’t had a great deal of experience with cooking,” she admitted in a small voice. She watched him take a mouthful of coffee, saw his eyes widen with shock-and he began to chew the coffee. Elizabeth lurched to her feet, squired her shoulders, and said hoarsely, “I always take a stroll after breakfast. Excuse me.” Still chewing, Ian watched her flee from the house, then he gratefully got rid of the mouthful of coffee grounds.
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
Cohn assembled every piece of economic data available to show that American workers did not aspire to work in assembly factories. Each month Cohn brought Trump the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, called JOLTS, conducted y the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He realized he was being an asshole by rubbing it in because each month was basically the same, but he didn't care. "Mr. President, can I show this to you?" Cohn fanned out the pages of data in front of the president. "See, the biggest leavers of jobs--people leaving voluntarily--was from manufacturing." "I don't get it," Trump said. Cohn tried to explain: "I can sit in a nice office with air conditioning and a desk, or stand on my feet eight hours a day. Which one would you do for the same pay?" Cohn added, "People don't want to stand in front of a 2,000 degree blast furnace. People don't want to go into coal mines and get black lung. For the same dollars or equal ollars, they're going to choose something else." Trump wasn't buying it. Severl times Cohn just asked the president, "Why do you have these views?" "I just do," Trump replied. "I've had these views for 30 years." "That doesn't mean they're right," Cohn said. "I had the view for 15 years I could play professional football. It doesn't mean I was right.
Bob Woodward (Fear: Trump in the White House)
I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. “Laughter,” I said, “is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?” I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly — my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives. I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem as well—the delights of a man’s heart. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me. I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. —Ecclesiastes 2:1–11
Anonymous (Bible)
The most celebrated germ expert in the world is almost certainly Dr. Charles P. Gerba of the University of Arizona, who is so devoted to the field that he gave one of his children the middle name Escherichia, after the bacterium Escherichia coli. Dr. Gerba established some years ago that household germs are not always most numerous where you would expect them to be. In one famous survey he measured bacterial content in different rooms in various houses and found that typically the cleanest surface of all in the average house was the toilet seat. That is because it is wiped down with disinfectant more often than any other surface. By contrast the average desktop has five times more bacteria living on it than the average toilet seat. The dirtiest area of all was the kitchen sink, closely followed by the kitchen counter, and the filthiest object was the kitchen washcloth. Most kitchen cloths are drenched in bacteria, and using them to wipe counters (or plates or breadboards or greasy chins or any other surface) merely transfers microbes from one place to another, affording them new chances to breed and proliferate. The second most efficient way of spreading germs, Gerba found, is to flush a toilet with the lid up. That spews billions of microbes into the air. Many stay in the air, floating like tiny soap bubbles, waiting to be inhaled, for up to two hours; others settle on things like your toothbrush. That is, of course, yet another good reason for putting the lid down.
Bill Bryson (At Home: A Short History of Private Life)
According to Bartholomew, an important goal of St. Louis zoning was to prevent movement into 'finer residential districts . . . by colored people.' He noted that without a previous zoning law, such neighborhoods have become run-down, 'where values have depreciated, homes are either vacant or occupied by color people.' The survey Bartholomew supervised before drafting the zoning ordinance listed the race of each building's occupants. Bartholomew attempted to estimate where African Americans might encroach so the commission could respond with restrictions to control their spread. The St. Louis zoning ordinance was eventually adopted in 1919, two years after the Supreme Court's Buchanan ruling banned racial assignments; with no reference to race, the ordinance pretended to be in compliance. Guided by Bartholomew's survey, it designated land for future industrial development if it was in or adjacent to neighborhoods with substantial African American populations. Once such rules were in force, plan commission meetings were consumed with requests for variances. Race was frequently a factor. For example, on meeting in 1919 debated a proposal to reclassify a single-family property from first-residential to commercial because the area to the south had been 'invaded by negroes.' Bartholomew persuaded the commission members to deny the variance because, he said, keeping the first-residential designation would preserve homes in the area as unaffordable to African Americans and thus stop the encroachment. On other occasions, the commission changed an area's zoning from residential to industrial if African American families had begun to move into it. In 1927, violating its normal policy, the commission authorized a park and playground in an industrial, not residential, area in hopes that this would draw African American families to seek housing nearby. Similar decision making continued through the middle of the twentieth century. In a 1942 meeting, commissioners explained they were zoning an area in a commercial strip as multifamily because it could then 'develop into a favorable dwelling district for Colored people. In 1948, commissioners explained they were designating a U-shaped industrial zone to create a buffer between African Americans inside the U and whites outside. In addition to promoting segregation, zoning decisions contributed to degrading St. Louis's African American neighborhoods into slums. Not only were these neighborhoods zoned to permit industry, even polluting industry, but the plan commission permitted taverns, liquor stores, nightclubs, and houses of prostitution to open in African American neighborhoods but prohibited these as zoning violations in neighborhoods where whites lived. Residences in single-family districts could not legally be subdivided, but those in industrial districts could be, and with African Americans restricted from all but a few neighborhoods, rooming houses sprang up to accommodate the overcrowded population. Later in the twentieth century, when the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) developed the insure amortized mortgage as a way to promote homeownership nationwide, these zoning practices rendered African Americans ineligible for such mortgages because banks and the FHA considered the existence of nearby rooming houses, commercial development, or industry to create risk to the property value of single-family areas. Without such mortgages, the effective cost of African American housing was greater than that of similar housing in white neighborhoods, leaving owners with fewer resources for upkeep. African American homes were then more likely to deteriorate, reinforcing their neighborhoods' slum conditions.
Richard Rothstein (The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America)
Creating “Correct” Children in the Classroom One of the most popular discipline programs in American schools is called Assertive Discipline. It teaches teachers to inflict the old “obey or suffer” method of control on students. Here you disguise the threat of punishment by calling it a choice the child is making. As in, “You have a choice, you can either finish your homework or miss the outing this weekend.” Then when the child chooses to try to protect his dignity against this form of terrorism, by refusing to do his homework, you tell him he has chosen his logical, natural consequence of being excluded from the outing. Putting it this way helps the parent or teacher mitigate against the bad feelings and guilt that would otherwise arise to tell the adult that they are operating outside the principles of compassionate relating. This insidious method is even worse than outand-out punishing, where you can at least rebel against your punisher. The use of this mind game teaches the child the false, crazy-making belief that they wanted something bad or painful to happen to them. These programs also have the stated intention of getting the child to be angry with himself for making a poor choice. In this smoke and mirrors game, the children are “causing” everything to happen and the teachers are the puppets of the children’s choices. The only ones who are not taking responsibility for their actions are the adults. Another popular coercive strategy is to use “peer pressure” to create compliance. For instance, a teacher tells her class that if anyone misbehaves then they all won’t get their pizza party. What a great way to turn children against each other. All this is done to help (translation: compel) children to behave themselves. But of course they are not behaving themselves: they are being “behaved” by the adults. Well-meaning teachers and parents try to teach children to be motivated (translation: do boring or aversive stuff without questioning why), responsible (translation: thoughtless conformity to the house rules) people. When surveys are conducted in which fourth-graders are asked what being good means, over 90% answer “being quiet.” And when teachers are asked what happens in a successful classroom, the answer is, “the teacher is able to keep the students on task” (translation: in line, doing what they are told). Consulting firms measuring teacher competence consider this a major criterion of teacher effectiveness. In other words if the students are quietly doing what they were told the teacher is evaluated as good. However my understanding of ‘real learning’ with twenty to forty children is that it is quite naturally a bit noisy and messy. Otherwise children are just playing a nice game of school, based on indoctrination and little integrated retained education. Both punishments and rewards foster a preoccupation with a narrow egocentric self-interest that undermines good values. All little Johnny is thinking about is “How much will you give me if I do X? How can I avoid getting punished if I do Y? What do they want me to do and what happens to me if I don’t do it?” Instead we could teach him to ask, “What kind of person do I want to be and what kind of community do I want to help make?” And Mom is thinking “You didn’t do what I wanted, so now I’m going to make something unpleasant happen to you, for your own good to help you fit into our (dominance/submission based) society.” This contributes to a culture of coercion and prevents a community of compassion. And as we are learning on the global level with our war on terrorism, as you use your energy and resources to punish people you run out of energy and resources to protect people. And even if children look well-behaved, they are not behaving themselves They are being behaved by controlling parents and teachers.
Kelly Bryson (Don't Be Nice, Be Real: Balancing Passion for Self with Compassion for Others)
Starting a little over a decade ago, Target began building a vast data warehouse that assigned every shopper an identification code—known internally as the “Guest ID number”—that kept tabs on how each person shopped. When a customer used a Target-issued credit card, handed over a frequent-buyer tag at the register, redeemed a coupon that was mailed to their house, filled out a survey, mailed in a refund, phoned the customer help line, opened an email from Target, visited Target.com, or purchased anything online, the company’s computers took note. A record of each purchase was linked to that shopper’s Guest ID number along with information on everything else they’d ever bought. Also linked to that Guest ID number was demographic information that Target collected or purchased from other firms, including the shopper’s age, whether they were married and had kids, which part of town they lived in, how long it took them to drive to the store, an estimate of how much money they earned, if they’d moved recently, which websites they visited, the credit cards they carried in their wallet, and their home and mobile phone numbers. Target can purchase data that indicates a shopper’s ethnicity, their job history, what magazines they read, if they have ever declared bankruptcy, the year they bought (or lost) their house, where they went to college or graduate school, and whether they prefer certain brands of coffee, toilet paper, cereal, or applesauce. There are data peddlers such as InfiniGraph that “listen” to shoppers’ online conversations on message boards and Internet forums, and track which products people mention favorably. A firm named Rapleaf sells information on shoppers’ political leanings, reading habits, charitable giving, the number of cars they own, and whether they prefer religious news or deals on cigarettes. Other companies analyze photos that consumers post online, cataloging if they are obese or skinny, short or tall, hairy or bald, and what kinds of products they might want to buy as a result.
Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business)
Come here, you flea-ridden hair wad. You’ll have all the sugar biscuits you want, if you’ll give your new toy to me.” He whistled softly and clicked. But the blandishments did not work. Dodger merely regarded him with bright eyes and stayed at the threshold, clutching the vial in his tiny paws. “Give him one of your garters,” Leo said, still staring at the ferret. “I beg your pardon?” Miss Marks asked frostily. “You heard me. Take off a garter and offer it to him as a trade. Otherwise we’ll be chasing this damned animal all through the house. And I doubt Rohan will appreciate the delay.” The governess gave Leo a long-suffering glance. “Only for Mr. Rohan’s sake would I consent to this. Turn your back.” “For God’s sake, Marks, do you think anyone really wants a glance at those dried-up matchsticks you call legs?” But Leo complied, facing the opposite direction. He heard a great deal of rustling as Miss Marks sat on a bedroom chair and lifted her skirts. It just so happened that Leo was positioned near a full-length looking glass, the oval cheval style that tilted up or down to adjust one’s reflection. And he had an excellent view of Miss Marks in the chair. And the oddest thing happened—he got a flash of an astonishingly pretty leg. He blinked in bemusement, and then the skirts were dropped. “Here,” Miss Marks said gruffly, and tossed it in Leo’s direction. Turning, he managed to catch it in midair. Dodger surveyed them both with beady-eyed interest. Leo twirled the garter enticingly on his finger. “Have a look, Dodger. Blue silk with lace trim. Do all governesses anchor their stockings in such a delightful fashion? Perhaps those rumors about your unseemly past are true, Marks.” “I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, my lord.” Dodger’s little head bobbed as it followed every movement of the garter. Fitting the vial in his mouth, the ferret carried it like a miniature dog, loping up to Leo with maddening slowness. “This is a trade, old fellow,” Leo told him. “You can’t have something for nothing.” Carefully Dodger set down the vial and reached for the garter. Leo simultaneously gave him the frilly circlet and snatched the vial.
Lisa Kleypas (Seduce Me at Sunrise (The Hathaways, #2))
Why should he treat Elizabeth as if he harbored any feelings for her, including anger? Elizabeth sensed that he was wavering a little, and she pressed home her advantage, using calm reason: “Surely nothing that happened between us should make us behave badly to each other now. I mean, when you think on it, it was noting to us but a harmless weekend flirtation, wasn’t it?” “Obviously.” “Neither of us was hurt, were we?” “No.” “Well then, there’s no reason why we should not be cordial to each other now, is there?” she demanded with a bright, beguiling smile. “Good heavens, if every flirtation ended in enmity, no one in the ton would be speaking to anyone else!” She had neatly managed to put him in the position of either agreeing with her or else, by disagreeing, admitting that she had been something more to him than a flirtation, and Ian realized it. He’d guessed where her calm arguments were leading, but even so, he was reluctantly impressed with how skillfully she was maneuvering him into having to agree with her. “Flirtations,” he reminded her smoothly, “don’t normally end in duels.” “I know, and I am sorry my brother shot you.” Ian was simply not proof against the appeal in those huge green eyes of hers. “Forget it,” he said with an irritated sigh, capitulating to all she was asking. “Stay the seven days.” Suppressing the urge to twirl around with relief, she smiled into his eyes. “Then could we have a truce for the time I’m here?” “That depends.” “On what?” His brows lifted in mocking challenge. “On whether or not you can make a decent breakfast.” “Let’s go in the house and see what we have.” With Ian standing beside her Elizabeth surveyed the eggs and cheese and bread, and then the stove. “I shall fix something right up,” she promised with a smile that concealed her uncertainty. “Are you sure you’re up to the challenge?” Ian asked, but she seemed so eager, and her smile was so disarming, that he almost believed she knew how to cook. “I shall prevail, you’ll see,” she told him brightly, reaching for a wide cloth and tying it around her narrow waist. Her glance was so jaunty that Ian turned around to keep himself from grinning at her. She was obviously determined to attack the project with vigor and determination, and he was equally determined not to discourage her efforts. “You do that,” he said, and he left her alone at the stove.
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
The same lesson can be learned from one of the most widely read books in history: the Bible. What is the Bible “about”? Different people will of course answer that question differently. But we could all agree the Bible contains perhaps the most influential set of rules in human history: the Ten Commandments. They became the foundation of not only the Judeo-Christian tradition but of many societies at large. So surely most of us can recite the Ten Commandments front to back, back to front, and every way in between, right? All right then, go ahead and name the Ten Commandments. We’ll give you a minute to jog your memory . . . . . . . . . . . . Okay, here they are:        1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage.        2. You shall have no other gods before Me.        3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.        4. Remember the Sabbath day, to make it holy.        5. Honor your father and your mother.        6. You shall not murder.        7. You shall not commit adultery.        8. You shall not steal.        9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.       10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, nor your neighbor’s wife . . . nor any thing that is your neighbor’s. How did you do? Probably not so well. But don’t worry—most people don’t. A recent survey found that only 14 percent of U.S. adults could recall all Ten Commandments; only 71 percent could name even one commandment. (The three best-remembered commandments were numbers 6, 8, and 10—murder, stealing, and coveting—while number 2, forbidding false gods, was in last place.) Maybe, you’re thinking, this says less about biblical rules than how bad our memories are. But consider this: in the same survey, 25 percent of the respondents could name the seven principal ingredients of a Big Mac, while 35 percent could name all six kids from The Brady Bunch. If we have such a hard time recalling the most famous set of rules from perhaps the most famous book in history, what do we remember from the Bible? The stories. We remember that Eve fed Adam a forbidden apple and that one of their sons, Cain, murdered the other, Abel. We remember that Moses parted the Red Sea in order to lead the Israelites out of slavery. We remember that Abraham was instructed to sacrifice his own son on a mountain—and we even remember that King Solomon settled a maternity dispute by threatening to slice a baby in half. These are the stories we tell again and again and again, even those of us who aren’t remotely “religious.” Why? Because they stick with us; they move us; they persuade us to consider the constancy and frailties of the human experience in a way that mere rules cannot.
Steven D. Levitt (Think Like a Freak)
A less well known impact of immigrant populations is the increase that destination states gain in Congress where apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives is calculated on the basis of a state's entire adult population regardless of legal status. And, because each state's electoral college vote is the sum of the number of its representatives in the House and its two senators, high immigration states play a larger role in presidential elections than they might if only adult citizens and legal aliens were counted in population surveys.
Edward S. Greenberg (The Struggle for Democracy)
but we dare never count on legislation or political parties to accomplish what only God's people functioning as the church can do. We must seek a completely pro-life agenda, trying to prevent abortion and to avoid endorsing sexual sin or glamorizing dysfunctional family life, but at the same time we must work for the best quality of life for those already born, including adequate health care for the poor, housing for the homeless, jobs for the unemployed, fair treatment for immigrants, and positive alternatives for those lured by a life of crime.
Craig L. Blomberg (Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey)
THE FIRST TIME she left the house with her sleeping son in her arms, still unsteady on her legs, gripping the railing tightly, she surveyed the yard, astonished. It was at once familiar and strange. Something was different, though she could not immediately put her finger on it. The morning sun beamed through the bushes. The leaves of the banana plants seemed greener, their fruit larger and yellower. The hibiscus and the bougainvillea had never looked so beautiful. A warm breeze caressed her skin. Maung Sein was perched on a log below her, chopping kindling. Stroke by stroke he would split branches as thick as a fist. The uniformity of his movements radiated something infinitely reassuring. Nu Nu looked at Ko Gyi in her arms. He had her nose. Her mouth. Her cinnamon skin. She cautiously took one of his little hands. It was warm. And would always remain so. Suddenly he opened one blinking eye, and then quickly the other. He had her eyes, too, without a doubt. Ko Gyi regarded his mother earnestly, intently. She smiled. His deep brown eyes did not move. They looked for a long time at each other. Then a quiet smile drifted across his face. No one had ever smiled at her that
Jan-Philipp Sendker (A Well-Tempered Heart)
The company must have the power to manage its own affairs.” “Regardless of the consequences to others?” “This is our coal mine. The company surveyed the land, negotiated with the earl, dug the pit, and bought the machinery, and it built the houses for the miners to live in. We paid for all this and we own it, and we won’t be told what to do with it by anyone else.” Da put his cap on. “You didn’t put the coal in the earth, though, did you, Maldwyn?” he said. “God did that.
Ken Follett (Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy #1))
We have to decide how to start our research,” Ashley said. “Like, should we look for information on the whole town, or just one specific area. Roo and I decided we should all focus on the Brickway.” “You decided we should all focus on the Brickway,” Roo mumbled, popping the tab on her can. Gage nodded. “Ashley’s right. If this is a walking tour, some kids in our class might not want to walk very far.” “If, in fact, anybody wants to walk on this tour at all,” Parker couldn’t help adding. “Come on…we’re not really going to do this ghost stuff, are we?” Ashley rolled her eyes. “Well then, maybe we should have transportation. Maybe we could use our cars?” “Our cars? Etienne and I are the only ones with wheels.” “What a perfectly brilliant idea, Ash.” Roo shot her sister a bland look. “Ghost BMW. No…wait. Ghost Truck. I’m all tingly with dread.” “Or Ghost SUV?” Despite Ashley’s wounded expression, Parker clasped his hands beseechingly at Gage. “Oh, pretty please, can we use your mom’s minivan?” Ashley’s lips tightened. “Parker, this is serious!” “Look, I know it’s half our grade.” Easing back down, he took a swig of beer and tried to reason with her. “But let’s face it--the whole thing’s pretty stupid. And impossible.” “It’s not stupid. And why is it impossible? All we have to do is research old places that might be haunted.” “And just how do you propose we do that? Oh wait, I know--let’s just knock on people’s doors. Excuse me, we’re doing a survey--are there any creepy ghosts living in your house? Ash, come on. We can’t force things to be haunted just so they can be close enough to walk to.” A disappointed silence fell. For several minutes everyone seemed lost in thought, till Etienne unfolded himself from the tree. “Don’t y’all know anything about your own town?” He walked over to the cooler and pulled out a beer. To Miranda, who watched him, he moved with all the grace and stealth of a predatory cat. “Well, I’m not going to flunk this project,” Ashley said crossly, “just because Parker’s an idiot.” Roo promptly frowned. “Where’s your compassion? Parker can’t help being an idiot.
Richie Tankersley Cusick (Walk of the Spirits (Walk, #1))
Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, called JOLTS, conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Bob Woodward (Fear: Trump in the White House)
Like the garden and land of Eden, the tabernacle is mostly off-limits. From the time of Adam to the time of Jesus, no one is allowed to go back into the Garden, past the cherubim, to enjoy God’s presence. As Paul put it, the Old Covenant is a ministry of death (2 Cor. 3:7; see Heb. 9:8–10). The tabernacle is a way of keeping the people of God at a distance. Since Jesus has come, there is no longer a tabernacle or temple on earth. This means that God is no longer keeping us away from Him. Because Jesus has offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sins, we may boldly enter the Most Holy Place (Heb. 10:19–25). We may go back into the garden and eat from Jesus, the Tree of Life. All this is true now because Jesus has died and torn the veil that separated Israel from God. And when we have passed through the “firmament” of the Holy Place, God brings us to the highest heavens to sit on thrones in Christ and rule with Him (Eph. 2:6).
Peter J. Leithart (A House for My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament)
I ain't inspired any more, Sherm; there was this painting I saw in the museum in Amsterdam. It was called 'Christ Preaching in the House of Mary and Martha.' And the whole foreground of the picture, maybe three-fourths of the canvas, is a kitchen in one of them Dutch houses, and there's a cook plucking chickens. All around her there's dead rabbits, pheasants, turkeys, ducks, sides of beef, six kinds of fish, clams, oysters, potatoes, apples, eggplant, kohlrabi, rutabaga, carrots, Swiss chard, and God knows what else. Food, food, food. And where's Christ? Well, way back in a little alcove off the kitchen, there He is, with the women, preaching. Who cares about Him, when everyone wants to stuff their gut with rabbit and turkey? Who hears His sermon, when there's lots of roast duck and fried oysters?" "What in the world has that to do with our survey?" asked Wettlaufer. "Sherman, you and me and this survey and these people like Huguettte Roux and Willem Kruis--we're preaching way back in the corner to two people. But most of the world is in that kitchen drooling over those rabbits and geese!
Gerald Green (The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey)
According to a Gallup survey released in January 2018, less than half of Americans could name an “objective news source”—not a single one. The effect of this was that the more the “fake news” attacked Trump, the tighter his supporters clung to him.
Cliff Sims (Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House)
he would even suggest such a thing. Her motives for such dedication were unclear, but since she was only a client, he didn’t press for more. As she stood abruptly, he followed suit. “I’ll show you your room,” she said, the words clipped. Larkin followed her back to the foyer and up the stairs, pausing only to grab his bag. The house was furnished with impeccable taste, luxury in every detail, but nothing at all ostentatious. He wondered if she had redone the place after her parents’ deaths, and he suspected she had. Somehow the decor reflected the personality of its owner. When Winnie paused, Larkin followed suit, standing shoulder to shoulder with his hostess as he surveyed the room. He whistled. “Very nice.” This close, he inhaled the scent of honeysuckle again. “I hope you’ll be comfortable. I appreciate your fitting me into your schedule. Let me know if you need anything at all.” There it was again. That pesky, subtle does-she-or-doesn’t-she vibe that made his skin itchy and his sex
Janice Maynard (Taming the Lone Wolff (The Men of Wolff Mountain Book 6))
Not long before the USSR’s breakup, I participated in a survey of Russian attitudes regarding democracy and free enterprise. What we found was a population worn down by Communism but with little understanding of what democracy entailed. Reliance on the state for jobs, housing, and other benefits was deeply ingrained. People accustomed to the Soviet system had no clue about competitive markets and found alien, even disturbing, the concept of demanding more productive work as a condition for higher pay.
Madeleine K. Albright (Fascism: A Warning)
All ten of the top ten presidents in C-SPAN’s survey were hackers. Only one, JFK, climbed a semblance of a traditional ladder; he served in both houses of Congress, but was a war hero and author of a Pulitzer Prize–winning book—clearly not the average ladder climber. Each of the men on this list worked hard in his career, learned and proved leadership through diverse experiences, and switched ladders multiple times. They continuously parlayed their current success for something more, and they didn’t give up when they lost elections (which most of them did). The ladder switching made them better at getting elected and better at the job. To be a good president, Wead says, “You’ve got to be able to think on your feet.” Stubbornness and tradition make for poor performance—as we see with Andrew Johnson and other presidents at the bottom of history’s rankings. The fact that our best presidents—and history’s other greatest overachievers—circumvented the system to get to the top speaks to what’s wrong with our conventional wisdom of paying dues and climbing the ladder. Hard work and luck are certainly ingredients of success, but they’re not the entire recipe. Senators and representatives, by contrast, generally play the dues-and-ladder game of hierarchy and formality. And they get stuck in the congressional spiderweb. “The people that go into Congress go step by step by step,” Wead explains. But presidents don’t. It begs the question: should we?
Shane Snow (Smartcuts: The Breakthrough Power of Lateral Thinking)
Research from Brunel University shows that chess students who trained with coaches increased on average 168 points in their national ratings versus those who didn’t. Though long hours of deliberate practice are unavoidable in the cognitively complex arena of chess, the presence of a coach for mentorship gives players a clear advantage. Chess prodigy Joshua Waitzkin (the subject of the film Searching for Bobby Fischer) for example, accelerated his career when national chess master Bruce Pandolfini discovered him playing chess in Washington Square Park in New York as a boy. Pandolfini coached young Waitzkin one on one, and the boy won a slew of chess championships, setting a world record at an implausibly young age. Business research backs this up, too. Analysis shows that entrepreneurs who have mentors end up raising seven times as much capital for their businesses, and experience 3.5 times faster growth than those without mentors. And in fact, of the companies surveyed, few managed to scale a profitable business model without a mentor’s aid. Even Steve Jobs, the famously visionary and dictatorial founder of Apple, relied on mentors, such as former football coach and Intuit CEO Bill Campbell, to keep himself sharp. SO, DATA INDICATES THAT those who train with successful people who’ve “been there” tend to achieve success faster. The winning formula, it seems, is to seek out the world’s best and convince them to coach us. Except there’s one small wrinkle. That’s not quite true. We just held up Justin Bieber as an example of great, rapid-mentorship success. But since his rapid rise, he’s gotten into an increasing amount of trouble. Fights. DUIs. Resisting arrest. Drugs. At least one story about egging someone’s house. It appears that Bieber started unraveling nearly as quickly as he rocketed to Billboard number one. OK, first of all, Bieber’s young. He’s acting like the rock star he is. But his mentor, Usher, also got to Billboard number one at age 18, and he managed to dominate pop music for a decade without DUIs or egg-vandalism incidents. Could it be that Bieber missed something in the mentorship process? History, it turns out, is full of people who’ve been lucky enough to have amazing mentors and have stumbled anyway.
Shane Snow (Smartcuts: The Breakthrough Power of Lateral Thinking)
Twelve months later, when the Iraq survey group, Blair’s inspectors of choice, couldn’t find the weapons either, he changed tack again. Speaking to the House of Commons Liaison Committee, he said: ‘I have to accept we haven’t found them and we may never find them, we don’t know what has happened to them . . . They could have been removed, they could have been hidden, they could have been destroyed.’ The evidential dance was now at full tilt. The lack of evidence for WMD in Iraq, according to Blair, was no longer because troops had not had enough time to find them, or because of the inadequacy of the inspectors: rather, it was because the Iraqi troops had spirited them out of existence.
Matthew Syed (Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth About Success)
They have shown that problems endemic to poverty—residential instability, severe deprivation, concentrated neighborhood disadvantage, health disparities, even joblessness—stem from the lack of affordable housing in our cities. I have made all survey data publicly available through the Harvard Dataverse Network.13 —
Matthew Desmond (Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City)
On February 17, Obama signed the Recovery Act into law. It had squeaked through Congress with only three Republican votes in the Senate and none in the House. Five years later, a survey of leading American economists chosen for their ideological diversity and eminence in the field, taken by the Initiative on Global Markets, a project run by the University of Chicago, found nearly unanimous consensus that the Recovery Act had achieved its goal of reducing unemployment.
Jane Mayer (Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right)
One reason why fundamentalists have such high ACR scores may be due to church doctrine. Many of the fundamentalist theologians who espouse supernatural interpretations of scripture are often the same ones who advocate strict child-rearing practices.20 For example, Rev. James Dobson’s best-selling book, Dare to Discipline, explicitly links its fundamentalist beliefs to having obedient and well-mannered children. And upon reflection, this connection between strict child rearing and fundamentalism is not at all surprising. Many fundamentalist sects demand submission and obedience to the strict will of God. It’s no surprise, then, that obedience and respect are regarded as desirable traits among people who see them as pathways to salvation. That noted, it’s also important to recognize that not all authoritarians are fundamentalists. Indeed, 45 percent of strong authoritarians do not hold fundamentalist beliefs. And some of this difference may have to do with another factor emphasized by the original authors of The Authoritarian Personality: childhood experience. By their account, being raised in an overly harsh or punitive social environment contributes to authoritarianism. These same factors might also contribute to magical thinking. Our research suggests that this is plausible. In our surveys, we asked respondents to describe their childhood in very general terms. Did they grow up in a •  very strict house where all rules had to be followed (31 percent); •  moderate house where only some rules were strictly enforced (59 percent); •  relaxed house where my parents largely let me alone (10 percent). Not surprisingly, these items are correlated with ACR scores. Authoritarians are far more likely to report being raised in strict homes; for example, 42 percent of people raised in strict homes are strong authoritarians, compared with only 23 percent of people from relaxed homes. More important, however, is that the type of home you were raised in is also a big predictor of your Intuitionism score. People from strict homes score four points higher on our Intuitionism scale than people from either moderate or relaxed homes, even when we take their ACR scores into account.
J. Eric Oliver (Enchanted America: How Intuition & Reason Divide Our Politics)
The survey revealed, in areas quite close to known and even famous and well-visited Mayan sites such as Tikal, more than 60,000 previously unsuspected ancient houses, palaces, defensive walls, fortresses, and other structures as well as quarries, elevated highways connecting urban centers, and complex irrigation and terracing systems that would have been capable of supporting intensive agriculture. Previously scholars had believed that only scattered city-states had existed in an otherwise sparsely populated region, but the Lidar images make it clear, [...] that 'scale and population density had been grossly underestimated.
Graham Hancock (America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization)
if there really is no way you can win, you never say it out loud. You assess why, change strategy, adjust tactics, and keep fighting and pushing till either you’ve gotten a better outcome or you’ve died. Either way, you never quit when your country needs you to succeed. As Team 5 was shutting down the workup and loading up its gear, our task unit’s leadership flew to Ramadi to do what we call a predeployment site survey. Lieutenant Commander Thomas went, and so did both of our platoon officers in charge. It was quite an adventure. They were shot at every day. They were hit by IEDs. When they came home, Lieutenant Commander Thomas got us together in the briefing room and laid out the details. The general reaction from the team was, “Get ready, kids. This is gonna be one hell of a ride.” I remember sitting around the team room talking about it. Morgan had a big smile on his face. Elliott Miller, too, all 240 pounds of him, looked happy. Even Mr. Fantastic seemed at peace and relaxed, in that sober, senior chief way. We turned over in our minds the hard realities of the city. Only a couple weeks from now we would be calling Ramadi home. For six or seven months we’d be living in a hornet’s nest, picking up where Team 3 had left off. It was time for us to roll. In late September, Al Qaeda’s barbaric way of dealing with the local population was stirring some of Iraq’s Sunni tribal leaders to come over to our side. (Stuff like punishing cigarette smokers by cutting off their fingers—can you blame locals for wanting those crazies gone?) Standing up for their own people posed a serious risk, but it was easier to justify when you had five thousand American military personnel backing you up. That’ll boost your courage, for sure. We were putting that vise grip on that city, infiltrating it, and setting up shop, block by block, house by house, inch by inch. On September 29, a Team 3 platoon set out on foot from a combat outpost named Eagle’s Nest on the final operation of their six-month deployment. Located in the dangerous Ma’laab district, it wasn’t much more than a perimeter of concrete walls and concertina wire bundling up a block of residential homes. COP Eagle’s
Marcus Luttrell (Service: A Navy SEAL at War)
Indeed, it was perhaps the most iconic scene from any novel of its day, immortalised in engravings and artworks from the period and later. Werther, as Geothe’s narrator, describes the moment of desire in the first person: "I walked across the court to a well-built house, and, ascending the flight of steps in front, opened the door, and saw before me the most charming spectacle I had ever witnessed. Six children, from eleven to two years old, were running about the hall, and surrounding a lady of middle height, with a lovely figure, dressed in a robe of simple white, trimmed with pink ribbons. She was holding a rye loaf in her hand and was cutting slices for the little ones all around, in proportion to their age and appetite. She performed her task in a graceful and affec-tionate manner; each claimant awaiting his turn with outstretched hands, and boisterously shouting his thanks. Some of them ran away at once, to enjoy their evening meal; whilst others, of a gentler disposition, retired to the courtyard to see the strangers, and to survey the carriage in which their Charlotte was to drive away." The focus here is not on Lotte herself, of whom we learn only that she is ‘a lady of middle height, with a lovely figure, dressed in a robe of simple white’. Instead, for Werther what is important is what Barthes would call ‘the arrangements of objects’: Lotte’s relation to the children, the rye loaf, and the knife, all appear as scene-setting props which make desire possible. Lotte emerges from amidst these objects and Werther is ‘initiated’ as ‘the scene’ (described by Werther as the ‘most charming spectacle’) ‘consecrates the object [he is] going to love.’ It is that scene, that arrangement of objects, which makes desire – even love – possible. The technologies of our space, place and time set the scene for love to appear – make the emergence of desire possible. We don’t fall in love with an object in isolation but with how it appears in a curate scene determined by a variety of technologies. The Tinder profile card could hardly be a more perfect example from today.
Alfie Bown (Dream Lovers: The Gamification of Relationships (Digital Barricades))
Even people who would prefer to live in sober environments say they do not want to quit their addictions. “When we surveyed people in supportive housing in New York,” said University of Pennsylvania homelessness researcher Dennis Culhane, “almost everybody wanted their neighbors to be clean and sober but they didn’t want rules for themselves about being clean.
Michael Shellenberger (San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities)
They measured, surveyed, and allocated whatever land had not been distributed. They built roads, bridges, fences, livestock pounds, and public landings. They exported barrel staves and imported “salt and Barbados goods on reasonable terms.” They authorized the building of a warehouse whose owner would “supply the town of Lyme with salt and certain woods upon reasonable terms,” and they prohibited the cutting of timber on common land and the “transport of the same out of the town” because “all sorts of timber grow scarce among us.” They also managed the operation of the gristmill to keep it “in repair continually for to grind the town’s corn all winter and summer,” and they decided the length of the school year, authorizing two dame schools “for teaching young children and maids to read and whatever else they may be capable of learning, either knitting or sewing.” In 1685 they decided to erect “a pair of stocks & scaffold to answer the laws within a month at the meeting house.
Carolyn Wakeman (Forgotten Voices: The Hidden History of a New England Meetinghouse (The Driftless Series))
Pete Fleming was one of those who could not be content while the Aucas remained in darkness. In his diary he wrote: “It is a grave and solemn problem; an unreachable people who murder and kill with extreme hatred. It comes to me strongly that God is leading me to do something about it, and a strong idea and impression comes into my mind that I ought to devote the majority of my time to collecting linguistic data on the tribe and making some intensive air surveys to look for Auca houses. . . . I know that this may be the most important decision of my life, but I have a quiet peace about it.
Elisabeth Elliot (Through Gates of Splendor)
Two hours later, Nesta found herself fully clothed in a bathtub in the middle of the private library, the entire thing filled with bubbles. No water, just bubbles. In matching tubs on either side of her, Emerie and Gwyn were giggling. 'This is ridiculous,' Nesta said, even as her mouth curved upward. Each one of their requests had gotten more and more absurd, and Nesta might have felt like they were exploiting the House had it not been so... exuberant in answering their commands. Adding creative flourishes. Like the fact that each bubble held a tiny bird fluttering about inside. Silent fireworks still exploded in the far corner of the room, and a miniature pegasus- Nesta's request, made only when her friends goaded her into submitting one- fed on a small patch of grass by the shelf, content to ignore them. A cake taller than Cassian stood in the centre of the room, lit with a thousand candles. Six frogs danced circles around a red-and-white-spotted toadstool, the waltzes provided by Nesta's Symphonia. Emerie wore a diamond crown and six strings of pearls. Gwyn sported a broad-brimmed hat fit for any fine lady, perched at a rakish angle on her head. A lace parasol leaned against her other shoulder, and she twirled it idly as she surveyed the windows...
Sarah J. Maas (A ​Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4))
A British Cabinet Minister finds that To lie in the nude Is not at all rude But to lie in the House is obscene and a government is rocked
Lawrence Block (Eros & Capricorn: A Cross-Cultural Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Techniques)
Because the stone beneath this house has ears, the wind has ears—all of it listening,” Amren said. “And if it reports back … They will remember, Rhysand, that they have not caught me. And I will not let them put me in that black pit again.” My ears hollowed out as a shield clicked into place. “No one will hear beyond this room.” Amren surveyed the books lying forgotten on the low table in the sitting room. Her brows narrowed. “I had to give something up. I had to give me up. To walk out, I had to become something else entirely, something the Prison would not recognize. So I—I bound myself into this body.
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3))
By the grace of the Mother, she was paranoid enough about any new allies or companions that she hid the Horn and Harp. She created a pocket of nothingness, she told me, and stashed them there. Only she could access that pocket of nothingness—only she could retrieve the Horn and Harp from its depths. But she remained unaware that Pelias had already told the Daglan of their presence. She had no idea that she was allowed to live, if only for a time, so they might figure out where she’d concealed them. So Pelias, under their command, might squeeze their location out of her. Just as she had no idea that the gate she had left open into our home world … the Daglan had been waiting a long, long time for that, too. But they were patient. Content to let more and more of Theia’s forces come into the new world—thus leaving her own undefended. Content to wait to gain her trust, so she might hand over the Horn and Harp. It was a trap, to be played out over months or years. To get the instruments of power from Theia, to march back into our home world and claim it again … It was a long, elegant trap, to be sprung at the perfect moment. And, distracted by the beauty of our new world, we did not consider that it all might be too easy. Too simple. Midgard was a land of plenty. Of green and light and beauty. Much like our own lands—with one enormous exception. The memory spanned to a view from a cliff of a distant plain full of creatures. Some winged, some not. We were not the only beings to come to this world hoping to claim it. We would learn too late that the other peoples had been lured by the Daglan under similarly friendly guises. And that they, too, had come armed and ready to fight for these lands. But before conflict could erupt between us all, we found that Midgard was already occupied. Theia and Pelias, with Helena and Silene trailing, warriors ten deep behind them, stood atop the cliff, surveying the verdant land and the enormous walled city on the horizon. Bryce’s breath caught. She’d spent years working in the company of the lost books of Parthos, knowing that a great human civilization had once flourished within its walls, but here, before her, was proof of the grandeur, the human skill that had existed on Midgard. And had been entirely wiped away.
Sarah J. Maas (House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3))
What is it you want, exactly?' Hunt asked, surveying a stall full of ancient knives. 'A boyfriend or mate or husband who will just sit there, with no opinions, and agree to everything you say, and never dare to ask you for anything?' 'Of course not.' 'Just because I'm male and have an opinion doesn't make me into some psychotic, domineering prick.
Sarah J. Maas (House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City, #1))
Nesta either didn’t know or didn’t care about the sword’s impact on Bryce as she surveyed the carvings. The one closest to them. A female, clearly Fae nobility from the ornate robes and fancy jewelry, stared out from the wall. As if she were addressing an audience, welcoming the newcomers to the tunnel. She was young and beautiful, yet stood with a presence that seemed regal. Long hair flowed around her like a silent river, framing her delicate, heart-shaped face. Bryce shook off the last of her dread and translated the inscription. “Her name was Silene.” Nesta peered at the writing beneath the image. “That’s all it says?” Bryce shrugged. “Old-school Fae. Lots of fancy titles and lineage. You know how they liked to preen.
Sarah J. Maas (House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3))
Flynn threw up his hands. “Am I the only one who feels like they’re on a bad acid trip?” Tharion scrubbed at his face. “I’m still on one, I think.” Flynn snorted, but Tharion mastered himself, clearing his throat before saying to the Hind, “Allow me to clarify a few things: You are the Asteri’s most skilled interrogator and spy-breaker. You and your dreadwolves tormented us nonstop not so long ago, in this very city. You are, not to put too fine a point on it, pretty much the soul of evil. Yet you’re asking us to help you free our friends. And you expect us not to be suspicious?” She surveyed them all for a long moment, and Tharion had the good sense to sit down before she said evenly, “I’m Agent Daybright.” “Bullshit,” Flynn spat, angling his gun at her again.
Sarah J. Maas (House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3))
In a national health survey, 51 percent of Indian men said that wife-beating is justified under certain circumstances; more surprisingly, 54 percent of women agreed—if, for instance, a wife burns dinner or leaves the house without permission.
Steven D. Levitt (SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes And Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance)
The incarcerated are simply not counted in most national surveys, resulting in a falsely rosy statistical picture of American progress. Poverty measures exclude everyone in prison and jail—not to mention those housed in psych wards, halfway houses, and homeless shelters—which means there are millions more poor Americans than official statistics let on.[14]
Matthew Desmond (Poverty, by America)
What’s the matter?” “I know you want Providence Cards,” I said, the words rushing out of my mouth. “I also know you don’t want the King to find out. Otherwise, you would not have bothered disguising yourself on the forest road.” I steadied my voice. “I’ll help you find Cards. I won’t tell anyone you and the Prince moonlight as highwaymen, and you, in turn, will keep my secret. But I need something else.” Ravyn crossed his arms over his chest, surveying me anew. “The decision regarding how to handle your magic does not rest solely with me, I’m afraid.” I stuck out my chin. Even reclined, calm in his seat, Ravyn Yew frightened me. Taking my silence in stride, the Captain asked, “What precisely do you want, Miss Spindle?” My fingers shook. “I want you to leave my family alone. Do not punish them for hiding my infection.” He nodded slowly. “If that is your wish.” “And don’t go back to my uncle’s house,” I added. “He carries no Card you have not already shown me today.” “I thought you didn’t know anything about your uncle’s Cards.” I blinked. “I wasn’t about to tell a man with a knife to my chest how to steal from my own family.” “Brave of you.” Ravyn shifted in his chair. “Anything else?” He’ll give anything to have your magic, the Nightmare cooed. Ask for something extravagant. Like a magical procedure to remove the parasite from my head? I kept my face neutral and my eyes on the Captain of the Destriers. “One last thing.” “Yes?” I put my hands on the table and leaned forward without breaking our gaze. “You must swear, Captain, no matter the circumstance, you will never use that Nightmare Card on me again.
Rachel Gillig (One Dark Window (The Shepherd King, #1))
D.A.R.E. doesn’t work. A number of well-controlled experiments have shown that the program has no effect on students’ use of tobacco, alcohol, or other drugs. In 2003, the United States General Accounting Office surveyed the evidence and reached the same conclusion. (Apparently, the White House doesn’t pay close attention to reports from the General Accounting Office, or at least not this one.) Amazing amounts of time, effort, and money (more than one billion dollars annually) have been devoted to a program that was not adequately tested and, when it was, turned out to be ineffective.
Timothy D. Wilson (Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change)
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Kate looked to the kitchen stairs that led up to the second floor where her four-year-old son was sound asleep, then shook her head. She hadn’t told him the news yet. She didn’t want him hearing it from the neighbors. “No, but thanks. I need to be with him if he wakes. We’ll be fine.” “I’m always here for you, Kate. Remember that. If you need anything, I’m just across the street.” “Thanks.” Kate forced a smile she didn’t feel. With a quick hug, Mindy made her way to the front of the house. When the heavy mahogany door clicked shut, Kate turned and surveyed the empty house. She was alone. Totally alone. No car would be pulling into the drive in the middle of the night. Jake wouldn’t come bounding through the door, apologizing for missing yet another dinner. She wouldn’t see his face or feel his arms around her again. It didn’t matter if he’d been a lousy husband. He’d been her husband. And now he was gone. From now on, it would just be her and Reed. Shaky lips blew out a long sigh. She tamped down the grief that wanted to pour over her again. Even though it was close to midnight, she knew there was no way she’d be able to drift into a slumber, peaceful or otherwise. Making her way into Jake’s office, she rubbed the chill from her arms, then sank into the chair behind his desk, letting the butter-soft leather cushion her aching body. With trembling fingers, her hand feathered the dark wood in front of her. Her gaze washed over the room. A tall bookshelf
Elisabeth Naughton (Wait for Me (Against All Odds #2))
both his condo and his downtown office. Furthermore, the ambiance was intrusive; the lighting was harsh and a continual stream of commentaries about sporting events that he didn’t give a shit about blared from several flat-screen televisions scattered around. As he surveyed the room with set features, he acknowledged that the employees
Lynda Chance (Rule's Obsession (The House of Rule, #1))
The medical officer’s microplan was a sheaf of ragged paper, with marker-drawn maps and penciled-in tables. The first page said that he had recruited twenty-two teams of two vaccinators each to cover a population of 34,144 people. “How do you know this population estimate is right?” Pankaj asked. The officer replied that he’d done a house-to-house survey.
Atul Gawande (Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance)
The sound of Alex revving his motorcycle brings my attention back to him. “Don’t be afraid of what they think.” I take in the sight of him, from his ripped jeans and leather jacket to the red and black bandana he just tied on top of his head. His gang colors. I should be terrified. Then I remember how he was with Shelley yesterday. To hell with it. I shift my book bag around to my back and straddle his motorcycle. “Hold on tight,” he says, pulling my hands around his waist. The simple feel of his strong hands resting on top of mine is intensely intimate. I wonder if he’s feeling these emotions, too, but dismiss the thought. Alex Fuentes is a hard guy. Experienced. The mere touch of hands isn’t going to make his stomach flutter. He deliberately brushes the tips of his fingers over mine before reaching for the handlebars. Oh. My. God. What am I getting myself into? As we speed away from the school parking lot, I grab Alex’s rock-hard abs tighter. The sped of the motorcycle scares me. I feel light-headed, like I’m riding a roller coaster with no lap bar. The motorcycle stops at a red light. I lean back. I hear him chuckle when he guns the engine once more as the light turns green. I clutch his waist and bury my face in his back. When he finally stops and puts the kickstand down, I survey my surroundings. I’ve never been on his street. The homes are so…small. Most are one level. A cat can’t fit in the space between them. As hard as I try to fight it, sorrow settles in the pit of my stomach. My house is at least seven, maybe even eight or nine times Alex’s home’s size. I know this side of town is poor, but… “This was a mistake,” Alex says. “I’ll take you home.” “Why?” “Among other things, the look of disgust on your face.” “I’m not disgusted. I guess I feel sorry--” “Don’t ever pity me,” he warns. “I’m poor, not homeless.” “Then are you going to invite me in? The guys across the street are gawking at the white girl.” “Actually, around here you’re a ‘snow girl.’” “I hate snow,” I say. His lips quirk up into a grin. “Not for the weather, querida. For your snow-white skin. Just follow me and don’t stare at the neighbors, even if they stare at you.
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
When he had ate his fill, and proceeded from the urgent first cup and necessary second to the voluntary third which might be toyed with at leisure, without any particular outcry seeming to suggest he should be on his guard, he leant back, spread the city’s news before him, and, by glances between the items, took a longer survey of the room. Session of the Common Council. Vinegars, Malts, and Spirituous Liquors, Available on Best Terms. Had he been on familiar ground, he would have been able to tell at a glance what particular group of citizens in the great empire of coffee this house aspired to serve: whether it was the place for poetry or gluttony, philosophy or marine insurance, the Indies trade or the meat-porters’ burial club. Ships Landing. Ships Departed. Long Island Estate of Mr De Kyper, with Standing Timber, to be Sold at Auction. But the prints on the yellowed walls were a mixture. Some maps, some satires, some ballads, some bawdy, alongside the inevitable picture of the King: pop-eyed George reigning over a lukewarm graphical gruel, neither one thing nor t’other. Albany Letter, Relating to the Behaviour of the Mohawks. Sermon, Upon the Dedication of the Monument to the Late Revd. Vesey. Leases to be Let: Bouwerij, Out Ward, Environs of Rutgers’ Farm. And the company? River Cargos Landed. Escaped Negro Wench: Reward Offered. – All he could glean was an impression generally businesslike, perhaps intersown with law. Dramatic Rendition of the Classics, to be Performed by the Celebrated Mrs Tomlinson. Poem, ‘Hail Liberty, Sweet Succor of a Briton’s Breast’, Offered by ‘Urbanus’ on the Occasion of His Majesty’s Birthday. Over there there were maps on the table, and a contract a-signing; and a ring of men in merchants’ buff-and-grey quizzing one in advocate’s black-and-bands. But some of the clients had the wind-scoured countenance of mariners, and some were boys joshing one another. Proceedings of the Court of Judicature of the Province of New-York. Poor Law Assessment. Carriage Rates. Principal Goods at Mart, Prices Current. Here he pulled out a printed paper of his own from an inner pocket, and made comparison of certain figures, running his left and right forefingers down the columns together. Telescopes and Spy-Glasses Ground. Regimental Orders. Dinner of the Hungarian Club. Perhaps there were simply too few temples here to coffee, for them to specialise as he was used.
Francis Spufford (Golden Hill)
He’ll probably kill me. Good, that’s better than having him hate me. A quick throttling, and it will be over. I wish I could throttle myself and spare him the trouble. Maybe I should toss myself out the window. If only I’d never written those letters. If only I’d been honest. Oh, what if he goes to Ramsay House and waits there for me? What if--” She stopped abruptly as she heard a noise from outside. A bark. Creeping to the window, she looked down and saw Albert’s jaunty, furry form trotting around the building. And Christopher, tethering his horse near hers. He had found her. “Oh God,” Beatrix whispered, blanching. She turned and set her back against the wall, feeling like a prisoner facing execution. This was one of the worst moments of her entire life…and in light of some of the Hathaways’ past difficulties, that was saying something. In just a few moments, Albert bounded into the room and came to her. “You led him here, didn’t you?” Beatrix accused in a furious whisper. “Traitor!” Looking apologetic, Albert went to a chair, hopped up, and rested his chin on his paws. His ears twitched at the sound of a measured tread on the stairs. Christopher entered the room, having to bend his head to pass through the small medieval doorway. Straightening, he surveyed their surroundings briefly before his piercing gaze found Beatrix. He stared at her with the barely suppressed wrath of a man to whom entirely too much had happened. Beatrix wished she were a swooning sort of female. It seemed the only appropriate response to the situation. Unfortunately, no matter how she tried to summon a swoon, her mind remained intractably conscious.
Lisa Kleypas (Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways, #5))
Since heavily policed inner-city Blacks were much more likely than Whites to be arrested and imprisoned in the 1990s—since more homicides occurred in their neighborhoods—racists assumed that Black people were actually using more drugs, dealing more in drugs, and committing more crimes of all types than White people. These false assumptions fixed the image in people’s minds of the dangerous Black inner-city neighborhood as well as the contrasting image of the safe White suburban neighborhood, a racist notion that affected so many decisions of so many Americans, from housing choices to drug policing to politics, that they cannot be quantified. The “dangerous Black neighborhood” conception is based on racist ideas, not reality. There is such a thing as a dangerous “unemployed neighborhood,” however. One study, for example, based on the National Longitudinal Youth Survey data collected from 1976 to 1989, found that young Black males were far more likely than young White males to engage in serious violent crime. But when the researchers compared only employed young males, the racial differences in violent behavior disappeared. Certain violent crime rates were higher in Black neighborhoods simply because unemployed people were concentrated in Black neighborhoods.
Ibram X. Kendi (Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America)
The earl narrowed his eyes as he hopped off his bay gelding and surveyed the deep green expanse of lawn surrounding the ancestral home. The graceful house, built atop and around an ancient abbey, wore its centuries of accretion with aplomb, as if it had always perched atop this gentle slope. In the slanting late afternoon sun, the fading red-brick walls glowed. “My God, I hate the country,” he said.
Jenny Holiday (The Miss Mirren Mission (Regency Reformers, #1))