Thad Quotes

Lothaire said, “I have a much better plan.” “Why help him?” Thad asked pointedly. “When you don’t help anybody else?” Lothaire exhaled ruefully. “Incurable romantic.

First Emma. Now Thad. Regin was sick and tired of non-evil vampiric creatures messing with her millennium's worth of scathing animosity for their species...

When Thad began nuzzling her neck, pressing his opened lips against her, she smacked him in the back of the head. "Don't go vamp on me now!" "Whaa!" He shot upright, his fangs sharp. "Where am I?" She glanced at his fangs, then down. "Oh, my gods, when do you not sport wood? There are bathrooms in the back, so go burp the worm or whatever.

Kneeling before him, Regin murmured, "Don't let that Fegley worm get to you." Still staring ahead, the kid slowed his banging. "There's a good ... male of indeterminate species.

Valkyrie, if there was ever a cradle to be robbed ... Gods, just look at him." ... ... "Face it, Nat, this is one tiger who will never be jumping through your flaming hoop--

I give you a week, maybe two, before you're driven to bite someone." "I don't know how to... to bite or drink! But you could teach me." "And what could you possibly do in return?" Lothaire waved a negligent hand. "Play football for me? Break in my jeans really well?

Vampire females are as good as extinct.” Thad was aghast. “No females?” Natalya patted his shoulder. “You can date other species, Tiger. Don’t you worry. I’ve already thought of some ladies to relieve you of your big V. One’s a nymph—” “Over my dead body,” Regin said. “Two-bit hookers, every one of them.” Thad scratched his head. “Mr. Lothaire said every male needed a purring nymph or two chained to the foot of his bed. As pets.” Natalya gasped. “All right, lad, no more talking to Lothaire.

Face it, Nat, this is one tiger who will never be jumping through your flaming hoop--

Thad: “But this is a boy, and you need to think of your reputation if you’re spending time alone with him—” Ari: ”Learning how to put a man's eye out or take him down at the knees. Very romantic stuff, Thad. Very romantic. Oh, and we also hid a body together, so we're practically engaged.

I wanted to love this piano. I wanted to invite music back into my life.

The effect is captivating as all of the tones mix, like a watercolor with hues swirled together, and lovely carrying notes long after the fingers are lifted from the keys.

Maybe all the events of the last few months had occured for just one reason - to bring Thad and me together. Perhaps our being here on the Titanic wasn't pre-destination, but rather, destiny.

Life is a river,' he once told me, 'and we all have to find a boat that floats.

You die." Thad's voice was heavy; the fire was gone. "It's like everyone has a personal window of time that the gateway to Nil stays open for them. It's always one year. Exactly three hundred sixty-five days. If you miss that window, you're done.

winks at Thad before biting her bottom lip, and Thad leans in closer. “Any time you want, blondie.

The bright blue sky remained cloudless, and the aquamarine ocean still crashed gently onto the white sand beach, but the scene was suddenly warped. Twisted, as I processed Thad's words.

I curled into a ball under the thin covers, trying to get warm. Despite the moonlight, darkness crept in, cold and complete, like the dying whisper of a gate. But it was the darkness in my head that was the hardest to shake. For the first time, the darkness had a name. It was the daywatch. Thad had seventy-five days left.

Thad asked, "Why does she keep calling you Kid, Mr.Morgan? Something about that sounds mite familiar." "Son of a gun!" Bill suddenly exclaimed. "He's Kid Morgan, the gunfighter! I've read about him! Lace glanced at The Kid and smiled. "Looks like your secret's out." "It was never that much of a secret." The Kid shrugged. "Well, I'm glad I don't have to keep it anymore," Nick said. The Gustaffson brothers looked at him. Bill said, "You knew about this?" "Yeah," Nick replied, looking a little ashamed. "I'm sorry, fellas. Mr.Morgan asked me to keep quiet about it, and I promised him I would.

Stark lit a Pall Mall himself, picked up one of his Berols, opened his own notebook . . . and then paused. He looked at Thad with naked honesty. “I’m scared, hoss,” he said. And Thad felt a great wave of sympathy for Stark—in spite of everything he knew. Scared. Yes, of course you are, he thought. Only the ones just starting out—the kids—aren’t scared. The years go by and the words on the page don’t get any darker . . . but the white space sure does get whiter. Scared? You’d be crazier than you are if you weren’t. “I know,” he said. “And you know what it comes down to—the only way to do it is to do it.

On September 3, an especially hostile audience baited Johnson in Cleveland, where his behavior flirted with new lows. When a heckler yelled that Johnson should “hang Jeff Davis,” the president rejoined, “Why not hang Thad Stevens and Wendell Phillips?”62 When someone in the crowd hollered, “Is this dignified?” Johnson shot back: “I care not for dignity.

The piano became a kind of flying carpet by which I could travel to an entirely different place, and I would leave the room with the half-dazed sensibility that children sometimes show when they have discovered a new and agreeable and utterly private world of their own.

K, boys, it’s shirts against skins. Lose ‘em,” Lucy said, pointing to the guys and ignoring Thad. “I beg your pardon?” Thad said, aghast. “Why do we have to be skins?” Josh complained. Lucy looked at Erin and they both shrugged and grabbed the hems of their shirts, preparing to haul them over their heads. “Whoa!” Sable said, covering his eyes immediately. “Wait,” Josh, Angelo, and Thad said at the same time. “Hell, yeah,” Blaze chimed in. The girls stopped right before they fully exposed their chest. “What? You guys act like none of you have ever seen a pair of boobs in a bra before. Josh saw mine a few hours ago and I know, for a fact, that three of you have seen hers outside the bra.” Lucy looked pointedly at Thad, Blaze, and Angelo. Erin’s head snapped in Josh’s direction. “JOSH!” she screeched, accidentally letting loose a snap of electricity.

Reason is the greatest good, reciprocity the rule.

Remember, too, that the trees for the wood that was used to build this piano were most likely planted in the late sixteenth century.

Natural movement is riskier,” he acknowledged, “but life is risky and music is an element of life, so it is risky, too!

the exuberance of the moment drowning out all other sensations but that of music’s delicious momentum.

What allowed a person sitting in front of this strange giant to call forth beautiful sounds just by moving his fingers up and down?

I sat down on the bench and started playing, instantly lost in the perfection of the moment; I was elsewhere.

Motionless, he held the final chord for a long moment and we felt—I could almost say watched—the harmony rise into the light-filled cold of the atelier.

emerged with a shared sense of the exultation that great music can bring.

Etre patient avec soi-même!” (“Be patient with yourself!”)

a “mélomane,” the French word for music lover;

The teaching of music in France is taken very seriously; while admirable enough in itself, very often it veers toward an overly formal and academic approach.

It’s a world with its own traditions and lore, some of which are hidden within pianos themselves.

Music isn’t music unless we share it with others,” she told me, but even then that sentiment seemed unsatisfactory to me.

On ne fait pas de musique contre quelqu’un” (“One does not make music against someone else”).

This world has three kinds of people. The ones who can count, and the ones who can’t.

Religions at least give hope; that’s something, even if it’s based on dreams. But those who promise heaven here on earth, whether it’s Communists or Masons, they’re the worst of the worst.

I particularly liked the rationale it advanced for renouncing the tradition of competitive concours: “On ne fait pas de musique contre quelqu’un” (“One does not make music against someone else”).

Think of a full-size harp, the kind used in orchestras. Pivot it mentally from the vertical, as it normally stands, to the horizontal and put it in a box shaped to its frame. There you have the shape of the grand piano.

Val de Grâce is a large late Renaissance church that is unusual for Paris; its exuberant carvings and animated façade are more typical of Rome, and the most beautiful dome in the city graces its undulating mass of light yellow stone.

Ashanti's pleasurable gasps and mewls weren't making it any easier. Every sexy little whimper was like an injection of fuel, accelerating his need to draw out that response from her over and over again. He wanted to make her cry out in pleasure, to make it so good that she wouldn't even think about limiting this to a one-time thing. Thad hooked his arms under the bend of her knees and angled her hips upward, his own limbs growing weak at the ecstasy of the shift in position it produced. He immersed himself in her, not just her body but her entire essence. He could feel himself becoming more enthralled with every delicious thrust. She intoxicated him. Captivated him, body, soul, and everything in between.

There is no such thing as music note by note just as there is no such thing as a book word by word. We have to accept that things are ambiguous,” Sebök said to one of the students on the last day of the master class. Is there any more fundamental lesson that we must learn as we mature? As my friend had told me, he might have been talking about all of life, not just music.

Mason is able to inspect the long Map, fragrant, elegantly cartouch’d with Indians and Instruments, at last. Ev’ry place they ran it, ev’ry House pass’d by, Road cross’d, the Ridge-lines and Creeks, Forests and Glades, Water ev’ry-where, and the Dragon nearly visible. “So,— so. This is the Line as all shall see it after its Copper-Plate ’Morphosis,— and all History remember? This is what ye expect me to sign off on?” “Not the worst I’ve handed in. And had they wish’d to pay for Coloring? Why, tha’d scarcely knaah the Place . . . ?” “This is beauteous Work. Emerson was right, Jeremiah. You were flying, all the time.” Dixon, his face darken’d by the Years of Weather, may be allowing himself to blush in safety. “Could have us’d a spot of Orpiment, all the same. Some Lapis . . . ?

We’ve told you before—rollwhen you land a fancy jump,” Wilford squinted in the sunlight as he yelled. “Use your shoulder to take the brunt of your fall and move with it, or you’re going to twist an ankle or break a wrist one of these days!” Tari—impressively—managed to sound like an angry bear as she translated it into Elvish. Gwendafyn nodded as she stood and gave her sword a test twirl, then yipped when her opponent wrapped a meaty hand around her left ankle and pulled it out from under her. “Stay aware of your surroundings,” Thad instructed as he narrowed his eyes. “No opponent is going to stop and let you catch your breath!” Gwendafyn kicked like a jackrabbit, yanking her leg free, then rolled away from the soldier. “For the love of Lady Tari’s favorite lemon bars,” Grygg grumbled. “What part of ‘fight dirty’ isn’t translating correctly?” “Don’t hold back, Princess,” Wilford advised. “We know you’ve got the edge—you’ve broken Grygg’s nose three times. That’s a new record. Phelps, here, could use a little bone re-arrangement, too.” “Shut up, Wilford!” Gwendafyn’s opponent—Phelps, apparently—growled as he staggered to his feet. Gwendafyn crisply nodded when Tari finished translating, then promptly turned and flung her wooden practice sword at Phelps with deadly accuracy. The soldier swore and had to throw himself to the ground to avoid it. Gwendafyn closed the distance between them with the blink of an eye, extended her elbow, and rammed the soldier in the spine with the hardest bone of her elbow. All of Phelps’ air left him in a painful-sounding exhale, and for a moment, he went limp. “Ouch,” Grygg winced in sympathy. “That had to hurt.

A voicing apprentice came to work at the Steinway factory one day to find his master, a man of great reserve, in tears. The master was standing before the disassembled action assembly of an old Steinway grand that had been sent back to the factory to be reconditioned. “What’s wrong?” asked the apprentice. “How can I help?” The master then explained that when he had removed the action assembly from the piano, he had found the name of another Steinway technician hidden on the inside, the signature of his late father.

This special moment takes the two pianists—master and student—someplace that no one else can go. The French call this sort of sharing, this meeting of minds, complicité, and the word captures perfectly the special bond that instantly develops as two pianists explore together the edge of music. If chamber music can be likened to a conversation, with a constant give-and-take, a joining and separating of the voices, this is all simultaneity, more like a duo of dancers who perform exactly the same figurations. By some remarkable chemistry a momentum builds that puts the two pianists in perfect concurrence.

A graduate of Fordham and Georgetown, he was Jesuit trained through and through.

A designer in England made me several pretty legs with painted nails. They looked freakishly real. My boss hated them. He said they were as ‘fucking impractical as a pair of high-heeled shoes.’ Those legs were ‘prosthetics,’ and wearing them only revealed my vanity. He designed robotic legs, and comparing them to the average prosthesis was the ultimate insult. “Hey love, tell me about my baby.” Thaddeus “Thad” Westbrook wasn’t British, but he always called me love. Why? No idea. I was not his baby, but I think his baby ranked higher than his love. The “smart limb” aka my bionic leg was his baby. I had a lot of his babies, yet we’d never had sex.

Danny’s mother, Kate Helen Branch, had been the love of Burley Coulter’s life. They were careless lovers, those two, and Danny came as a surprise—albeit a far greater surprise to Burley than to Kate Helen. Danny was born to his mother’s name, a certified branch of the Branches, and he grew up in the care of his mother and his mother’s mother in a small tin-roofed, paper-sided house on an abandoned corner of Thad Spellman’s farm, not far from town by a shortcut up through the woods. As the sole child in that womanly household,

Let me respond with a different question for you,” he said. “Why do you have this job?” “So I can pay off my loans from college,” Thad quickly replied. “And why did you go to college?” “Well, I needed to go to college so I could get this job.” Thad understood at once.

Luc explained that the woodworking tradition was firmly established in Germany from the Middle Ages, and that guilds and families regularly replanted trees in order to provide the right kind of wood for their descendants.

Thad, did she come over?” said Quentin Erwin, Jr., the Hickam County District Attorney and Thaddeus Murfee’s best friend. “I sent her to see you because I sure as hell didn’t know what to do with her. Great tits, though, huh?” Quentin loved raunchy cases like Ermeline’s.

A piano builder or restorer, then, has to be part master carpenter and part structural engineer, fitting a mechanism as intricate as the finest timepiece into a wooden cabinet that is strengthened with a massive steel frame. A musical historian I once met commented that the mechanism was as complicated as a clock. ‘But the big difference’, he pointed out, ‘is that you don’t pound on a clock.’ This combination of delicacy and sturdiness, of finesse and vigor, makes the piano unique, and the skills to build or repair it are not often found in one person.

When we talked, Luc often touched obliquely on the piano’s dual nature. He liked that they could be a repository for our dreams and a bauble that can readily be bought and sold, and he often pointed out that the same instrument could be both sophisticated and vulgar, subtle and brash, classical and jazzy.

You all are nothing to me," I continued, using my toughest of tough personas. "I'm bulletproof and your most advanced weapon is a pointy stick. I have fought Therezians. I have fought Boranjame. I have fought Thad Fricken' Elon himself! I didn't win any of those fights. But I'm still standing.

I personally think this was his play all along and we could have avoided this entirely if Ian had simply let the man in a training class.” “You know how I feel about douchebag names.” Big Tag shook his head. A groan came from Chef’s mouth. “He has a list.” “Arlo, Milo, Kylo,” Big Tag began. “Basically all the o’s. Except dildo. If someone is named Dildo, I’ll totally let them in. Ephram, Jeremiah. Basically anyone who sounds like they do civil war reenactments on weekends. Then you’ve got the moneybags. Chet, Thad, Brock. Oh, and anyone named Chazz. If you sound like you belong on a reality dating show, you’re out.” “Because Seth doesn’t rank on any of those lists,” Chef shot back. Big Tag shrugged. “Not my call. Charlie shot down John Wayne Taggart. Apparently when you shove a ten-pound baby out your hoo haw, you get naming rights.

Neurologist David Zald articulates a consensus position among addiction researchers when he says that the key lies in identifying “a stronger alternative reward to overcome the compulsion to seek and engage in the addictive behavior.” Graft onto the wound of liminality another and more salubrious piece of it: some combination of body work and spiritual practice, meditation and the “in the zone” trance brought about by intense exercise, ideally in wilderness—surfing, for instance.

Thad,” he repeated sleepily. “My name is Thad.

His mind retreated to a place more familiar. There was a sergeant who told Thad the infantry were the hands of God, and that idea made sense to Thad because it was no different from what he had heard all his life growing up in the church. The old-timers said some prayers needed feet. But there was evil in this world that had to be strangled. And so it wasn't just a matter of giving those prayers legs. Sometimes a prayer needed hands just the same." - Thad Broom, The Weight of This World

His mind retreated to a place more familiar. There was a sergeant who told Thad the infantry were the hands of God, and that idea made sense to Thad because it was no different from what he had heard all his life growing up in the church. The old-timers said some prayers needed feet. But there was evil in this world that had to be strangled. And so it wasn't just a matter of giving those prayers legs. Sometimes a prayer needed hands just the same." --Thad Broom, The Weight of This World

Thad took Neil’s advice and discovered talents that had lain dormant. The bug, as they say, bit, and he appeared in all three plays at school that year, each time mastering more challenging roles. Come summer, he was loath to let the long, hot months pass without honing his newfound craft. Again it was Neil who suggested the remedy—community theater. And it was Neil, throughout, who coached Thad in the lore and taboos of the art of Thespis; it was Neil who spent patient hours helping Thad memorize lines; it was Neil who knew exactly how to quell Thad’s doubts and butterflies.

Hey,” said Thad, “since we’ve got a few minutes, I want you to meet some people.” He started leading us down the aisle toward the activity near the stage. “Are you sure?” asked Neil, laughing. “We’re just a couple of old farts.

He paused, looked Thad in the eye, and told him through a sarcastic smirk, “I see you brought your two daddies tonight. Are they proud of their boy toy?

Before leaving, I met them briefly. Thad and Ruben were among them. Then there was Annar, Orion, Stephan (pronounced Steh-fawn),

I am a scientist, I seek to understand me.”   Robert Pollard

What we give our attention to, grows. —Ken Blanchard, Thad Lacinak, Chuck Tompkins, and Jim Ballard Whale Done!™       The more attention you pay to a behavior, the more it will be repeated. Accentuating the positive and redirecting the negative are the best tools for increasing productivity.

I’ve been waiting for word from my parents—waiting and hoping—and finally letters arrive. But before I even have a chance to open them and find out what Mama and Papa think is best for me to do about my feelings for you, you come along and—” Thad had heard enough. She obviously had no inkling how frightened he’d been. He might have lost her. And he hadn’t yet told her how much he cared for her. Well, he wouldn’t wait another second. But she wasn’t in a state to listen to words. He’d have to show her. With a growl, Thad gathered Sadie in his arms. She let out a little squawk of surprise, but he cut it short with a firm, heartfelt, possessive kiss.

Sadie,” Thad said, his gaze boring into her. He kept his voice low, almost a growl. “Don’t ever scare me like that again. If anything had happened to you, I—” With a groan, he pulled her close again. Her cheek pressed to his chest, the points of the tin badge pricking her flesh. His heartbeat pounded fast and sure beneath her ear. She remained snug in his embrace for long seconds, absorbing the wonder of the moment. Her lips still tingled pleasantly from the pressure of his. She tasted the essence of coffee and salty ham. And she’d eaten oatmeal for breakfast.

Even though her stomach already ached from the hearty supper, she consumed every bite of the pie and even tamped up the leftover pastry crumbs with the back of the fork’s tines. Licking the fork clean, she glanced at Thad and caught his amused grin. Mortified, she lowered the fork and ducked her head. Hadn’t Mama taught her better manners? What must Thad think, witnessing her childish display? He reached across the table and cupped her hand. Her face flaming, she peeked at him through her lashes. “Don’t hide from me, Sadie Wagner.” His deep voice, kind yet resolute, sent her heart to thudding against her rib cage. His hand tightened on hers. “Look at me.” Slowly, she raised her head, but her cheeks blazed so hot it took all of her effort to meet his gaze rather than looking past his shoulder to the flowered wallpaper behind him. His eyes smiled even while he maintained a serious expression. “You never have to be ashamed around me. You enjoyed the pie—what’s wrong with that?” He gave her hand a little tug, his brows briefly coming together. “Too many people hunker behind a shield of indifference instead of letting folks know what they really think. I call that putting on airs, and it isn’t honest.” His face relaxed, his smile enfolding her in a blanketing contentment unlike anything she’d experienced before in a man’s company. “So you just be yourself. Always be honest with me, Sadie, no matter what. All right?

Thad! Let me go right now!” “No, ma’am.” He pulled, drawing her along beside him. “As sheriff, my job’s to protect folks. An’ you obviously need protecting.

An’ something else you can remember . . .” He leaned in again, his mustache twitching. “My name.” Sadie drew back in surprise. “W-what?” His friendly green-eyed gaze held her captive. “Would you consider calling me Thad instead of Sheriff McKane? You and me are the newest ones in town, and I think it’d be nice if we could be friends. Would’ja mind?

Thad kept his voice light, even though his heart had suddenly decided to set up a fierce boom-boom inside his chest. “Are you hoping to have a big family of your own someday?” “Of course! Big and boisterous.” She laughed, the sound like creek water tripping over rocks. “I can’t imagine family being any other way.

Thad slowly sat upright, his limbs quivery. He’d never been a whimsical man, but in that moment he felt as though someone had pushed him over the edge of a cliff and he was soaring in the clouds. In that moment, he lost his heart to Miss Sadie Wagner. And he had no idea how to snatch it back.

Hey, so I know I said that Puddin' wouldn't be coming to the daycare anymore, but I was hoping you hadn't given his spot away yet," Thad said. Her dog began to bark and twirl around like a chunky ballerina the minute he said Puddin's name. "Duchess, sit," Ashanti ordered. The dog immediately plopped its butt on the floor. Thad should not have found her commanding tone sexy, but apparently that's where his brain wanted to take everything when it came to Ashanti Wright. Impressive. That's what it was. He couldn't get Puddin' to sit on command if he promised that little asshole every dog biscuit in New Orleans.

Sit down," Thad whispered. When she did, he pulled her to the edge of the mattress and lifted both her legs, placing her thighs on his shoulders. Then he dipped his head and read her open with his tongue. She gasped, and sound sent a jolt of sensation straight to his dick. Fuck! He knew she would taste good, but this was so much better than good. He stroked her with his tongue, dragging slow, firm licks from her clit on down, and then back up again. Ashanti lifted her hips, grinding against his mouth as he continued to lap at her. Her cries filled the room, hesitant as they were. Thad wanted her to tell her to let go, to just give in and not hold back. But he didn't want to stop what he was doing long enough to speak. He caught her by the waist and held her down while he wedged his tongue inside her, driving in and out. Her legs moved restlessly against his shoulders, as if she didn't know what to do with herself. He tried to make out what she was saying between her breathy pants and realized it was his name. She was calling his name over and over again. Thad had never heard anything sexier in his entire life. It drove him to keep going until he felt her legs shake and tense. She came against his tongue. But instead of stopping, he ramped up the intensity, closing his mouth over her clit and sucking until she came again and again and again. Her body was limp by the time he lifted her legs and set them back on the bed. He stood. As he stared down at Ashanti completely spent on his mattress, Thad realized his ego would never need stroking again. "Are you okay?" he asked her. "I'm a puddle," she said. "Don't ask me to move, because I can't." Nope. No ego stroking necessary for the newly crowned king of cunnilingus.

Puddin' and Duchess have been best friends since the day they met." "Looks a bit more than just friendly to me," Thad said. "Looks like Puddin' has a better love life than I do." "Probably because he's more approachable," she said.

Prepare yourself for uncomfortable questions about why you don't have an engagement ring on your finger. Nadia is convinced that we are engaged and waiting to announce it here." Ashanti nearly swallowed her tongue. "Thad, please tell me you're not planning some big, cheesy public proposal today?" "Is that what you're expecting?" "No!" she said. "Especially not today. We're going slow, remember?" He tipped his head to the side. "Exactly how fast is slow?" She smiled up at him. "Maybe by Christmas or New Year's." She grinned. "That's what you were planning, isn't it?" "Von is the only person who can read my mind," he answered. "Tell me!" He winked. "Nah. I'm going to keep you guessing.

I knew it was you the moment I saw that truck." Puddin' ran to her and started jumping around like fire ants were attacking his paws. "I knew it was you the moment I saw you too," Von said as he dusted his hands on the front of his T-shirt. He held one out to her. "Von Montgomery. And you are?" "She's the dog sitter," Thad answered for her. He fought the instinct to push Von out of the room. "Ah! Puddin's favorite person," Von said. "That would explain his excitement." Ashanti dropped down to one knee and rubbed the poodle behind the ears while nuzzling his nose. It would be stupid and immature to admit he was jealous of a dog, and yet...

Puddin' started barking from the back room; he must have smelled Ashanti in the house. Their moldy, dusty surroundings couldn't mask that slightly floral, slightly peachy scent that wreaked the most delicious havoc on Thad's senses.

Life is a river,” he once told me, “and we all have to find a boat that floats.

The people you need to connect with are the people who are going to watch you struggle and not try to fix it, not try to tell you what you’re doing wrong but sit with you in your pain and stay there regardless: people who have the strength to engage in vulnerability and empathy themselves. Remember, this is about you and your journey and only you can inevitably take it—no one else can do that for you. So

Influences I’d list would be J. P. S. Brown, the author of The Forests of the Night and Jim Kane, who is and always will be one of my favorite authors, along with Steinbeck (The Pearl), Carlos Castaneda (The Teachings of Don Juan), Cormac McCarthy (All the Pretty Horses), and Malcolm Lowry (Under the Volcano). There are other, nonfiction influences such as Shod with Iron by border patrolman C. M. Newsome, The Texas Sheriff: Lord of the County Line by Thad Sitton, and Bill Jordan’s No Second Place Winner.

To change the metaphor again, we all have to decide on what the constants are in the life we’ve been given. Over the years, I expect they’ll grow stronger and more certain, or maybe even become something else and change entirely. For example, I’m trying to work out if Thad is a constant for me or a variable. Either way, at the moment I care deeply for him. When it comes to you, I’ve already made up my mind. If you’ll let me, then I want to be a constant in your life, now and for as long as you’ll let me walk with you. The only one who can change that now is you.” Gèng didn’t say anything but

Now it was dark as coal. The forest rang with sounds. Hoot owls called back and forth. There was a quick cry from some sort of creature. Merck heard rustling, but he knew the rustling wasn’t human. He could have sworn he heard a catamount screech. It was far away and up high. Once, and only once, a coyote yipped, then sang its shrill tune for half a minute. None of his kith and kin joined in. Merck watched, his eyes perfectly adjusted to the night. He could see the horse wandering around by Thad’s grave. There was a thin trickle nearby and the horse discovered it. Faintly, Merck could hear it drink.

It was Rebecca Hayes standing there, speaking with Thad and Mark. My student’s mother, and the wife of the man I’d seen here at the theater with—I thought—another woman. To say I was flabbergasted was an understatement.

I will never understand women,” Thad repeated. “It’s best that you don’t.

Thad landed his airship as they argued. As soon as it touched down, he realized it was never taking off again. The short wings had been damaged more than he thought. A little longer in the air and he would have become a glider that didn’t glide.

And then I see Thaddeus. We are children. Nothing bad has happened to us. Thaddeus is calm and sweet, and our father is at sea and his anger is never around to seep into us. No one screams at us. No one beats us. I am six and Thad is eleven and he tells me he will always look out for me. He will be the man who protects the Jones’ family. I know Thaddeus is no longer this boy. He is angry and violent, but he has given his whole life to protect me. I am softer than him because he took the brunt of it all—every bad thing in this world has always gone through him first. Am I meant to leave him to die? I can’t. I won’t. We share the trauma of being the sons of Mr and Mrs Jones. There is no one else in this world who understands.

Holy hells,” said Jean. “how’d I geddhere?” “Never mind that. You see any oars?” “Uh, I thing I bead the crap out of the guy that had them.” Jean reached up and gingerly prodded his face. “Aw, gods, I thing I broge my node again!” “You used it to break your fall when you hit the boat.” “Is thad whad hit me?” “Yeah, scared me shitless.” “You saved me!” “It’s my turn every couple of years,” said Locke with a thin smile. “Thang you.” “All I did was save my own ass four or five times down the line.

The room beyond was quite long and wider than the shop and it was swimming in light pouring down from a glass roof. It had the peculiar but magical air of being larger on the inside than the outside. This was one of the classic nineteenth-century workshops that are still to be found throughout Paris behind even the most bourgeois façades of carved stone. Very often the backs of buildings were extended to cover part of the inner courtyard and the space roofed over with panels of glass, like a giant greenhouse.

Summer set in early and the sidewalks in the quartier came alive after hours. In a city where few apartments are air-conditioned, the terraces of cafés and restaurants become the common refuge from a withering heat in the evening. The long light of June and July encouraged those gathered at the outdoor tables to linger well into the night, while swallows threaded the air with their shrill whistles. Before the August dispersion, everyone in the neighborhood seemed to revel in the slower pace that the heat imposed.

If someone had beaucoup de caractère and took pleasure in making music, no praise was too great.

You're so fat you can’t even do the ABC’s, just the KFC’s.

Money talks. For instance, mine keeps saying “good bye.

This pronouncement suggests how France differs from America in this respect. In the United States, private institutions—schools, conservatories, hospitals, universities—are very often the richest and most prestigious of their kind, while this is rarely the case in France. The government-run conservatories are showered with resources while their private counterparts must make do by raising money in a country where there are few private foundations and little tradition of giving for activities that are regarded as the province of the state.

This sensitivity to the qualities of wood was as essential to the pioneers of piano building as it was to the great makers of stringed instruments like Stradivari or Guarneri.

On a visit to the Steinway showroom in New York, I saw Henry Steinway, the last member of the family to be connected with the company, take out a felt-tip pen and sign the painted metal frame of a piano for an enthusiastic customer. It was like watching a baseball player sign a ball, or an author his book, and seemed in keeping with our age of celebrity.

I've got other things on my mind besides in love." "I thought you would tell me that," said Ima Dean in a wise, positive voice. "So I asked Kiser first. Guess what he told me." "I don't want to. I don't like riddles." "He said for me to watch Gaither Graybeal look at you next time he comes to our house. And Thad Yancey too. He said then at least I'd know what in love looks like." "Kiser said that? Well, of all the—" "And then he laughed. Devola did too. Kiser laughed so hard he busted a button off his shirt.

Should I tell them of my lifelong love of pianos, of how I hoped to play again after many vagabond years when owning a piano was as impractical as keeping a large dog or a collection of orchids?