Thumbnail Quotes

Harper: In your experience of the world. How do people change? Mormon Mother: Well it has something to do with God so it's not very nice. God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can't even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It's up to you to do the stitching. Harper: And then up you get. And walk around. Mormon Mother: Just mangled guts pretending. Harper: That's how people change.

The little poets sing of little things: Hope, cheer, and faith, small queens and puppet kings; Lovers who kissed and then were made as one, And modest flowers waving in the sun. The mighty poets write in blood and tears And agony that, flame-like, bites and sears. They reach their mad blind hands into the night, To plumb abysses dead to human sight; To drag from gulfs where lunacy lies curled, Mad, monstrous nightmare shapes to blast the world. MUSINGS [click on the thumbnail by Jack "King" Kirby]

We are, not metaphorically but in very truth, a Divine work of art, something that God is making, and therefore something with which He will not be satisfied until it has a certain character. Here again we come up against what I have called the “intolerable compliment.” Over a sketch made idly to amuse a child, an artist may not take much trouble: he may be content to let it go even though it is not exactly as he meant it to be. But over the great picture of his life—the work which he loves, though in a different fashion, as intensely as a man loves a woman or a mother a child—he will take endless trouble—and would doubtless, thereby give endless trouble to the picture if it were sentient. One can imagine a sentient picture, after being rubbed and scraped and re-commenced for the tenth time, wishing that it were only a thumb-nail sketch whose making was over in a minute. In the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less.

The only thumbnail you’ll get from me is this: no one knows what’s really wrong with you but you; no one can find a cure for it but you; no one but you can identify it as a cure; and once you find it, no one but you can do anything about it.

Karou was mysterious. She had no apparent family, she never talked about herself, and she was expert at evading questions--for all that her friends knew of her background, she might have sprung whole from the head of Zeus. And she was endlessly surprising. Her pockets were always spilling out curious things: ancient bronze coins, teeth, tiny jade tigers no bigger than her thumbnail. She might reveal, while haggling for sunglasses with an African street vendor, that she spoke fluent Yoruba. Once, Kaz had undressed her to discover a knife hidden in her boot. There was the matter of her being impossible to scare and, of course, there were the scars on her abdomen: three shiny divots that could only have been made by bullets.

Mitchell sanders was sitting under a banyan tree and using a thumbnail to pry off all the body lice, working slowly, carefully depositing them in a USO envelope. When he was done he sealed the envelope, wrote 'Free' in the right hand corner, and sent it to his draft board in ohio.

...thinking that the world was like an orange, that I could split it open with my thumbnail and find a whole different world, the grown-up world, the secrets beneath the skin.

I have tried to teach you the wonders of the spiritual world... ...I have tried to show how we mortals can attain such wisdom... ...and I've decided you're a pillock. [click on the thumbnail, art by Andrew Christine]

All money is imaginary," answered the Calcatrix simply. "Money is magic everyone agrees to pretend is not magic. Observe! You treat it like magic, wield it like magic, fear it like magic! Why should a body with more small circles of copper or silver or gold than anyone else have an easy life full of treats every day and sleeping in and other people bowing down? The little circles can't get up and fight a battle or make a supper so splendid you get full just by looking at it or build a house of a thousand gables. They can do those things because everyone agrees to give them power. If everyone agreed to stop giving power to pretty metals and started giving it to thumbnails or mushroom caps or roof shingles or first kisses or tears or hours or puffin feathers, those little circles would just lay there tarnishing in the rain and not making anyone bow their noses down to the ground or stick them up in the air.

Patricius’ heart sank. He studied the druids and recognised a few from Antrim. They stood around the king in their white robes, their hair shaved from ear to ear, chewing their thumbnails and chanting curses. The king raised him arms to silence them. “Kill him! Kill him!” they demanded.

I can never bring you to realise the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace.

What artist has not experienced the feverish euphoria of composing the perfect thumbnail sketch, first draft, negative or melody — only to run headlong into a stone wall trying to convert that tantalizing hint into the finished mural, novel, photograph, sonata. The artist’s life is frustrating not because the passage is slow, but because he imagines it to be fast.

The best thing about Caleb is not his perfect body, or his half smiles, or his even sexier voice... it's his mannerisms. The teasing, the way he runs his thumbnail across his bottom lip when he's thinking, the way he bites his tongue when he's turned on. The way he makes me look at him when I have an orgasm. He can undress you with one look, make you feel like you're standing naked in front of him.I know from experience, it's a pleasure to be naked in front of Caleb.

Months later, a woman brought a fish home from the market and cut it open to find an emerald the size of her thumbnail. She thanked the fish, tucked the jewel into her pocket, and left the house, never to be seen again. Her husband, a drunkard with heavy fists, found only the fish, which he was forced to prepare himself for dinner. He choked on a bone and was buried in a pauper's grave.

Across the road, tadpoles are dancing on the quarter thumbnail of the moon. They cant see, not yet.

It was like pressing your thumbnail against a radiator when it's really hot and the pain starts and it makes you want to cry and the pain keeps hurting even when you take your thumb away from the radiator.

That was when the childhood memory began to prey on his mind, for it suddenly struck him—and the force of it sent his thumbnail biting deep into the secret matchbook—that letting things happen and taking them gracefully had been, in a way, the pattern of his life. There was certainly no denying that the role of good loser had always held an inordinate appeal for him.

No! I don't want to speak of that! But I'm going to. I want you to hear. I want you to know what's in store for you. There will be days when you'll look at your hands and you'll want to take something and smash every bone in them, because they'll be taunting you with what they could do, if you found a chance for them to do it, and you can't find that chance, and you can't bear your living body because it has failed those hands somewhere. There will be days when a bus driver will snap at you as you enter a bus, and he'll be only asking for a dime, but that won't be what you hear; you'll hear that you're nothing, that he's laughing at you, that it's written on your forehead, that thing they hate you for. There will be days when you'll stand in the corner of a hall and listen to a creature on a platform talking about buildings, about the work you love, and the things he'll say will make you wait for somebody to rise and crack him open between two thumbnails; and then you'll hear people applauding him, and you'll want to scream, because you won't know whether they're real or you are, whether you're in a room full of gored skulls, or whether someone has just emptied your own head, and you'll say nothing, because the sounds you could make - they're not a language in that room any longer; but you'd want to speak, you won't anyway, because you'll be brushed aside, you who have nothing to tell them about buildings! Is that what you want?

I stood with my arms crossed, scanning the crowd. My eyes hated on a very tall gorilla looking in our direction. He bore a red badge on his furry chest. I had no idea how long we stared at each other, unmoving, before I lifted one hand in a wave. “Who are you waving at?” Veronica asked me. “Um, that big monkey. I think he's starting at...us.” And at that moment, the gorilla lifted an arm and scratched his armpit. The silly gesture filled me with a rush of joy. But I wasn't going to him. I faced my friends, chewing my thumbnail. Please come over. When I glanced again, he was walking our way. Yes! My pulse went erratic.

Where is your life, Gabriel?' she asked, after a despairing pause, 'Where is it? Ain’t it all done gone for nothing? Where’s your branches? Where’s your fruit?' He said nothing; insistently, she tapped the letter with her thumbnail.

How genius to call them thumbnails, because what part of the body tells us less?

Have you brought the moon to me?" she asked. "Not yet," said the Court Jester, "but I will get it for you right away. How big do you think it is?" "It is just a little smaller than my thumbnail," she said, "for when I hold my thumbnail up at the moon, it just covers it." "And how far away is it? asked the Court Jester. "It is not as high as the big tree outside my window," said the Princess, "for sometimes it gets caught in the top branches." It will be very easy to get the moon for you," said the Court Jester. "I will climb the tree tonight when it gets caught in the top branches and bring it to you." The he thought of something else. "What is the moon make of, Princess?" he asked. "Oh," she said, "it's made of gold, of course, silly.

Esther runs Unalaq’s ruby thumbnail up the stem of a purple tulip. “You miss purple, after a few years …

For my present purpose I require a word which shall embrace both the Sub-Creative Art in itself, and a quality of strangeness and wonder in the Expression, derived from the Image: a quality essential to fairy-story. I propose, therefore, to arrogate to myself the powers of Humpty-Dumpty, and to use Fantasy for this purpose: in a sense, that is, which combines with its older and higher use as an equivalent of Imagination the derived notions of 'unreality' (that is, of unlikeness to the Primary World), of freedom from the dominion of 'observed fact,' in short of the fantastic. I am thus not only aware but glad of the etymological and semantic connexions of fantasy with fantastic: with images of things that are not only 'not actually present,' but which are indeed not to be found in our primary world at all, or are generally believed not to be found there. But while admitting that, I do not assent to the depreciative tone. That the images are of things not in the primary world (if that indeed is possible) is, I think, not a lower but a higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most Potent. Fantasy, of course, starts out with an advantage: arresting strangeness. But that advantage has been turned against it, and has contributed to its disrepute. Many people dislike being 'arrested.' They dislike any meddling with the Primary World, or such small glimpses of it as are familiar to them. They, therefore, stupidly and even maliciously confound Fantasy with Dreaming, in which there is no Art; and with mental disorders, in which there is not even control; with delusion and hallucination. But the error or malice, engendered by disquiet and consequent dislike, is not the only cause of this confusion. Fantasy has also an essential drawback: it is difficult to achieve. . . . Anyone inheriting the fantastic device of human language can say the green sun. Many can then imagine or picture it. But that is not enough -- though it may already be a more potent thing than many a 'thumbnail sketch' or 'transcript of life' that receives literary praise. To make a Secondary World inside which the green sun will be credible, commanding Secondary Belief, will probably require labour and thought, and will certainly demand a special skill, a kind of elvish craft. Few attempt such difficult tasks. But when they are attempted and in any degree accomplished then we have a rare achievement of Art: indeed narrative art, story-making in its primary and most potent mode.

I deplore those long brown curly fingernail folk. I don’t even especially like people who have one long thumbnail for guitar. My mate Karl has one, and it scratched me the other day. I was sickened.

Roo: What’s your definition of popularity? Hutch: I used to think people were popular because they were good-looking, or nice, or funny, or good at sports. Roo: Aren’t they? Hutch: I’d think, if I could just be those things, I’d – you know – have more friends than I do. But in seventh grade, when Jackson and those guys stopped hanging out with me, I tried as hard as I could to get them to like me again. But then . . . (shaking his head as if to clear it) I don’t really wanna talk about it. Roo: What happened? Hutch: They just did some ugly stuff to me is all. And really, it was for the best. Roo: Why? Hutch: Because I was cured. I realized the popular people weren’t nice or funny or great-looking. They just had power, and they actually got the power by teasing people or humiliating them – so people bonded to them out of fear. Roo: Oh. Hutch: I didn’t want to be a person who could act like that. I didn’t want to ever speak to any person who could act like that. Roo: Oh Hutch: So then I wasn’t trying to be popular anymore. Roo: Weren’t you lonely? Hutch: I didn’t say it was fun. (He bites his thumbnail, bonsai dirt and all.) I said it was for the best.

Emily knew she was going to cry. She tried to avert it with a childhood trick that had sometimes worked before - pressing both thumbnails hard into the tender flesh beneath the nails of her index fingers, so that the self-inflicted pain might be greater than the ache of her swelling throat - but it was no use.

Can I try your Stiff Dick?” I asked, as I put my thumbnail in between my teeth. He endeavoured to keep his cool, but evidence of him breaking was sneaking through. “Can you handle my Stiff Dick?” he replied, then leaned forward and placed his chin on his resting hand. Fighting very hard to stop myself from smiling, I was finding it excruciatingly difficult. “Oh, I can handle your Stiff Dick and a Fuck on the Floor, but can you handle my Mind Fuck and Sex Up Against the Wall?

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live.

(How could he have known? How could he know my body better than I did myself? How could he foresee that a thumbnail run up my spine would—) “By God,” he murmured throatily into my hair. “I’ve wanted to do that since the moment I laid eyes upon you.

I remember Mitchell Sanders sitting quietly in the shade of an old banyan tree. He was using a thumbnail to pry off the body lice, working slowly, carefully depositing the lice in a blue USO envelope. His eyes were tired. It had been a long two weeks in the bush. After an hour or so he sealed up the envelope, wrote FREE in the upper right-hand corner, and addressed it to his draft board in Ohio.

Do you wanna go out for lunch? In celebration?” I asked and then touched my lips in thought. “Or we could swing by the store and get something really good for dinner?” Wesley glanced at me sideways with a puzzled expression I couldn’t figure out. He looked back at the road. “Maybe later,” he said, chewing on his thumbnail. “Why? Since we’re out, we might as well stop….” “We can’t right now. There are things I have to do first,” he said, looking at me with a grin. “What?” I asked, innocently walking into his trap, though I should’ve known better by now. “Like take you home and fuck you up, down, and sideways,” he answered, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

People still love browsing book stores, and there is an element of passion in collecting DVDs; however, it seems unlikely that the desire to collect boxes or a preference for physical artwork over thumbnails are strong enough forces to hold back the convenience (and, arguably, inevitability) of digital copies.

There was nothing to do now but let the thing happen and try to take it as gracefully as possible.    That was when the childhood memory began to prey on his mind, for it suddenly struck him—and the force of it sent his thumbnail biting deep into the secret matchbook—that letting things happen and taking them gracefully had been, in a way, the pattern of his life. There was certainly no denying that the role of good loser had always held an inordinate appeal for him.

I know you the way I know my own heart, the way I feel my own pulse. I know what your laugh will be, how you wave good-bye, the crescent of thumbnail you worry between your teeth. I have known you from the second you entered this world, and if I were to leave it now, I would know you still, were I to dust or ash.

Almost no one ever notices it, but our thumbs are on sideways. The thumbnail faces away from the rest of the fingers.

I told myself I did not have to live as I once did. I did not have to re-create the violent moments that used to come aborning like a sulfurous match flaring off a thumbnail.

Your grandparents are English?" "Grandfather is,but Grandmere is French. And my other grandparents are American,of course." "Wow.You really are a mutt." St. Clair smiles. "I'm told I take after my English grandfather the most, but it's only because of the accent." "I don't know.I think of you as more English than anything else.And you don't just sound like it,you look like it,too." "I do?" He surprised. I smile. "Yeah,it's that...pasty complexion. I mean it in the best possible way," I add,at his alarmed expression. "Honestly." "Huh." St. Clair looks at me sideways. "Anyway.Last summer I couldn't bear to face my father, so it was the first time I spent the whole holiday with me mum." "And how was it? I bet the girls don't tease you about your accent anymore." He laughs. "No,they don't.But I can't help my height.I'll always be short." "And I'll always be a freak,just like my dad. Everyone tells me I take after him.He's sort of...neat,like me." He seems genuinely surprised. "What's wrong with being neat? I wish I were more organized.And,Anna,I've never met your father,but I guarantee you that you're nothing like him." "How would you know?" "Well,for one thing,he looks like a Ken doll.And you're beautiful." I trip and fall down on the sidewalk. "Are you all right?" His eyes fill with worry. I look away as he takes my hand and helps me up. "I'm fine.Fine!" I say, brushing the grit from my palms. Oh my God, I AM a freak. "You've seen the way men look at you,right?" he continues. "If they're looking, it's because I keep making a fool of myself." I hold up my scraped hands. "That guy over there is checking you out right now." "Wha-?" I turn to find a young man with long dark hair staring. "Why is he looking at me?" "I expect he likes what he sees." I flush,and he keeps talking. "In Paris, it's common to acknowledge someone attractive.The French don't avert their gaze like other cultures do. Haven't you noticed?" St. Clair thinks I'm attractive. He called me beautiful. "Um,no," I say. "I hadn't noticed." "Well.Open your eyes." But I stare at the bare tree branches, at the children with balloons, at the Japanese tour group. Anywhere but at him. We've stopped in front of Notre-Dame again.I point at the familiar star and clear my throat. "Wanna make another wish?" "You go first." He's watching me, puzzled, like he's trying to figure something out. He bites his thumbnail. This time I can't help it.All day long, I've thought about it.Him.Our secret. I wish St. Clair would spend the night again.

I traced the bear with my thumbnail, thinking of all the vial had taught me: that the hardest truths never rest on the surface. They must be dredged up, held to the light and rinsed clean.

His father sometimes talks about people at The Network who are doing “too much Coca-Cola.” This statement is always accompanied by a humorless grin and a quick little sniff of the thumbnail.

He chewed on his thumbnail, as if racking his brain for a solution to this equation. But life is not evens and odds and solving for x. And sadness? Sadness is an equation made of all variables.

He saw something he’d missed upon his arrival: a tiny yellow flower growing through the warped wood of the first porch step. Barely the size of his thumbnail, the flower had persisted, pushing through the wood until it reached sunlight [...] He smiled, and for the first time in a long time, he felt something right itself in his chest. “Well,” he said, “if you can do it, I suppose I can too.

A Short Story of Falling It is the story of the falling rain to turn into a leaf and fall again it is the secret of a summer shower to steal the light and hide it in a flower and every flower a tiny tributary that from the ground flows green and momentary is one of water's wishes and this tale hangs in a seed-head smaller than my thumbnail if only I a passerby could pass as clear as water through a plume of grass to find the sunlight hidden at the tip turning to seed a kind of lifting rain drip then I might know like water how to balance the weight of hope against the light of patience water which is so raw so earthy-strong and lurks in cast-iron tanks and leaks along drawn under gravity towards my tongue to cool and fill the pipe-work of this song which is the story of the falling rain that rises to the light and falls again

you don’t want to live just one life, which could be typed, which could be tossed off in a thumbnail sketch = “She was the sort of girl ….” And end in 25 words or less. You want to live as many lives as you can …

I was playing rainbow six siege and that's the moment when I saw a dick on the wall so i knew I needed to masturbate so I uploaded thumbnail representing a dick so I can clickbait while masturbating” ~Eren Yeager

Poirot closed his eyes. What he perceived mentally was a kaleidoscope, no more, no less. Pieces of cut-up scarves and rucksacks, cookery books, lipsticks, bath salts; names and thumbnail sketches of odd students. Nowhere was there cohesion or form. Unrelated incidents and people whirled round in space. But Poirot knew quite well that somehow and somewhere there must be a pattern . . . The question was where to start.. . . .

You ever listen to that heavy metal music?” He painted such a vivid thumbnail that I was momentarily lost in it, groundless. “What? Oh, yeah, some. You know.” “I never liked it,” said Jorgensen. Pause for me to construct a mental image of Jorgensen sitting down all cozy with a Black Sabbath greatest hits disc. A taste of Mudhoney thrash. Perhaps a jot of some Norwegian speed-metal band’s idea of meltdown. “Know why? It sounds like combat, that’s why.

All Kellhus could see of his father were two fingers and a thumb lying slack upon a bare thigh. The thumbnail gleamed. “As Dûnyain,” the disembodied voice continued, “you had no choice. To command yourself, you had to master circumstance. And to master circumstance, you had to bind the actions of the worldborn to your will. You had to make limbs of nations. So you made their beliefs the object of your relentless scrutiny. It was axiomatic. “You realized those truths that cut against the interests of the powerful were called lies, and that those lies that served those interests were called truths. And you understood that it had to be this way, since it is the function of belief, not the veracity, that preserved nations. Why call an emperor’s blood divine? Why tell slaves that suffering is grace? It is what beliefs do, the actions they license and prohibit, that is important. If men believed all blood was equal, the caste-nobility would be overthrown. If men believed all coin was oppression, the caste-merchants would be turned out. “Nations tolerate only those beliefs that conserve the great system of interlocking actions that makes them possible. For the worldborn, you realized, truth is largely irrelevant. Why else would they all dwell in delusion? “Your first decision was elementary. You claimed to be a member of the caste-nobility, a prince, knowing that, once you convinced some, you could demand that all act accordingly. And through this simple deception, you secured your independence. No other would command you, because they believed they had no right to command you. “But how might you convince them of your right? One lie had made you their equal; what further lie might make you their master?

Remember: When searching for suckers, always look for the dissatisfied, the unhappy, the insecure. Such people are riddled with weaknesses and have needs that you can fill. Their neediness is the groove in which you place your thumbnail and turn them at will.

See that guy over there?" I nod toward a man in jean shorts and a Budweiser T-shirt. "Am I that obvious?" St. Clair squints at him. "Obviously what? Balding? Overweight? Tasteless?" "American." He sighs melodramtically. "Honestly, Anna. You must get over this." "I just don't want to offend anyone. I hear they offend easily." "You're not offending anyone except me right now." "What about her?" I point to a middle-aged woman in khaki shorts and a knit top with stars and stripes on it.She has a camera strapped to her belt and is arguing with a man in a bucket hat. Her husband,I suppose. "Completely offensive." "I mean,am I as obvious as her?" "Considering she's wearing the American flag, I'd venture a no on that one." He bites his thumbnail. "Listen.I think I have a solution to your problem, but you'll have to wait for it. Just promise you'll stop asking me to compare you to fifty-year-old women,and I'll take care of everything." "How? With what? A French passport?" He snorts. "I didn't say I'd make you French." I open my mouth to protest, but he cuts me off. "Deal?" "Deal," I say uncomfortably. I don't care for surprises. "But it better be good." "Oh,it's good." And St. Clair looks so smug that I'm about to call him on it, when I realize I can't see our school anymore. I don't believe it.He's completely distracted me.

I have a gift for you.” “Is it the firebird?” “Was that what you wanted? Should have told me sooner.” He reached into his pocket and placed something atop the wall. Light glinted off an emerald ring. The lush green stone at its center was bigger than my thumbnail and surrounded by stars of tiny diamonds. “Understatement is overrated,” I said on a shaky breath. “I love it when you quote me.” Nikolai tapped the ring. “Console yourself knowing that, should you ever punch me while wearing it, you’ll probably take my eye out. And I’d very much like you to. Wear it, that is. Not punch me.” “Where did you get this thing?” “My mother gave it to me before she left. It’s the Lantsov emerald. She was wearing it at my birthday dinner the night we were attacked. Curiously enough, that was not the worst birthday I’ve had.” “No?” “When I was ten, my parents hired a clown.

There.You're officially Canadian. Try not to abuse your new power." "Whatever.I'm totally going out tonight." "Good." He slows down. "You should." We're both standing still. He's so close to me.His gaze is locked on mine, and my heart pounds painfully in my chest. I step back and look away. Toph. I like Toph,not St. Clair. Why do I have to keep reminding myself of this? St. Clair is taken. "Did you paint these?" I'm desperate to change the mood. "These above your bed?" I glance back,and he's still staring at me. He bites his thumbnail before replying. His voice is odd. "No.My mum did." "Really? Wow,they're good. Really, really...good." "Anna..." "Is this here in Paris?" "No,it's the street I grew up on. In London." "Oh." "Anna..." "Hmm?" I stand with my back to him, trying to examine the paintings. They really are great. I just can't seem to focus. Of course it's not Paris. I should've known- "That guy.Sideburns.You like him?" My back squirms. "You've asked me that before." "What I meant was," he says, flustered. "Your feelings haven't changed? Since you've been here?" It takes a moment to consider the question. "It's not a matter of how I feel," I say at last. "I'm interested,but...I don't know if he's still interested in me." St. Clair edges closer. "Does he still call?" "Yeah.I mean,not often. But yes." "Right.Right,well," he says, blinking. "There's your answer." I look away. "I should go.I'm sure you have plans with Ellie." "Yes.I mean,no. I mean, I don't know. If you aren't doing any-" I open his door. "So I'll see you later. Thank you for the Canadian citizenship." I tap the patch on my bag. St. Clair looks strangely hurt. "No problem. Happy to be of service." I take the stairs two at a time to my floor. What just happened? One minute we were fine,and the next it was like I couldn't leave fast enough. I need to get out of here.I need to leave the dorm. Maybe I'm not a brave American,but I think I can be a brave Canadian.I grab the Pariscope from inside my room and jog downstairs. I'm going to see Paris.Alone.

One of Katie’s first roommates, a stringy-haired girl from New Hampshire who claimed to be descended from a real Salem witch, had the habit of humming relentlessly as she read her Latin textbook, biting the side of her thumbnail with such diligence that Katie had thought it might be grounds for murder.

Kyou handed him a small USB drive, barely bigger than his thumbnail. “Wireless bridge. Plug it into the back of the camera and give me five minutes. We’ll be set.” “You want me to bullshit my way through measuring for hardware for five minutes?” Kyou patted him on the arm. “You’re charming. You’ll be fine.

a friend told me that in a good marriage, nobody wins.” Matthew frowned, nibbling his thumbnail, noticing she’d sidestepped his question about the wards quite neatly. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.” “A marriage is a state of dynamic tension. It works as long as nobody gets the upper hand and keeps it.” She

Oh, those.” She bit back a smile. “Aaron Dawes made the mold and did the casting. Every proper militia needs a symbol.” “Yes, but proper militias don’t choose a lamb.” “As I recall it, the lamb chose you.” His thumbnail traced the motto—a tiny crescent of Latin. “Aries eos incitabit. A sheep shall urge them onward?

I'm jittery.It's like the animatronic band from Chuck E. Cheese is throwing a jamboree in my stomach. I've always hated Chuck E. Cheese. Why am I thinking about Chuck E. Cheese? I don't know why I'm nervous.I'm just seeing my mom again. And Seany.And Bridge! Bridge said she'd come. St. Clair's connecting flight to San Francisco doesn't leave for another three hours,so we board the train that runs between terminals,and he walks me to the arrivals area.We've been quiet since we got off the plane. I guess we're tired. We reach the security checkpoint,and he can't go any farther. Stupid TSA regulations.I wish I could introduce him to my family.The Chuck E. Cheese band kicks it up a notch,which is weird, because I'm not nervous about leaving him. I'll see him again in two weeks. "All right,Banana.Suppose this is goodbye." He grips the straps of his backpack,and I do the same. This is the moment we're supposed to hug. For some reason,I can't do it. "Tell your mom hi for me. I mean, I know I don't know her. She just sounds really nice. And I hope she's okay." He smiles softly. "Thanks.I'll tell her." "Call me?" "Yeah,whatever. You'll be so busy with Bridge and what's-his-name that you'll forget all about your English mate, St. Clair." "Ha! So you are English!" I poke him in the stomach. He grabs my hand and we wrestle, laughing. "I claim....no...nationality." I break free. "Whatever,I totally caught you. Ow!" A gray-haired man in sunglasses bumps his red plaid suitcase into my legs. "Hey,you! Apologize!" St. Clair says,but the guy is already too far away to hear. I rub my shins. "It's okay, we're in the way. I should go." Time to hug again. Why can't we do it? Finally, I step forward and put my arms around him. He's stiff,and it's awkward, especially with our backpacks in the way.I smell his hair again. Oh heavens. We pull apart. "Have fun at the show tonight" he says. "I will.Have a good flight." "Thanks." He bites his thumbnail,and then I'm through security and riding down the escalator. I look back one last time. St. Clair jumps up and down, waving at me.I burst into laughter, and his face lights up.The escalator slides down. He's lost from view. I swallow hard and turn around.And then-there they are.Mom has a gigantic smile, and Seany is jumping and waving, just like St. Clair.

Still we live meanly, like ants... Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.

It had butterfly wings, like flakes of patterned wax. Under the wings it had a hairy body with tiny horns. Its fur looked very dry in the hot summer rays. It had an ox’s head, no bigger than her thumbnail, with a pink muzzle drawn into a grimace. A white splodge between its nostrils. The impossible detail of a scar on its bottom lip. There was warmth and a heartbeat in its body like that of a newborn chick.

Because all such things are aspects of the holomovement, he feels it has no meaning to speak of consciousness and matter as interacting. In a sense, the observer is the observed. The observer is also the measuring device, the experimental results, the laboratory, and the breeze that blows outside the laboratory. In fact, Bohm believes that consciousness is a more subtle form of matter, and the basis for any relationship between the two lies not in our own level of reality, but deep in the implicate order. Consciousness is present in various degrees of enfoldment and unfoldment in all matter, which is perhaps why plasmas possess some of the traits of living things. As Bohm puts it, "The ability of form to be active is the most characteristic feature of mind, and we have something that is mindlike already with the electron. "11 Similarly, he believes that dividing the universe up into living and nonliving things also has no meaning. Animate and inanimate matter are inseparably interwoven, and life, too, is enfolded throughout the totality of the universe. Even a rock is in some way alive, says Bohm, for life and intelligence are present not only in all of matter, but in "energy, " "space, " "time, " "the fabric of the entire universe, " and everything else we abstract out of the holomovement and mistakenly view as separate things. The idea that consciousness and life (and indeed all things) are ensembles enfolded throughout the universe has an equally dazzling flip side. Just as every portion of a hologram contains the image of the whole, every portion of the universe enfolds the whole. This means that if we knew how to access it we could find the Andromeda galaxy in the thumbnail of our left hand. We could also find Cleopatra meeting Caesar for the first time, for in principle the whole past and implications for the whole future are also enfolded in each small region of space and time. Every cell in our body enfolds the entire cosmos. So does every leaf, every raindrop, and every dust mote, which gives new meaning to William Blake's famous poem: To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.

Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.

Sometimes, at night, the girl asleep, Lan stares into the dark, thinking of another world, one where a woman holds her daughter by the side of a road, a thumbnail moon hung in the clear air. A world where there are no soldiers or Hueys and the woman is only going for a walk in the warm spring evening, where she speaks real soft to her daughter, telling her the story of a girl who ran away from her faceless youth only to name herself after a flower that opens like something torn apart.

HE LIES ON HIS BACK. I run a finger along the fence of dark hair that partitions his torso from navel to chest. “I like your body,” I tell him. He sighs and smiles. “Don’t,” he says; and then, with my hand idling in the shallows of his neck, he catalogues his every flaw: the dry skin that makes terrazzo of his back; the single mole between his shoulder blades, like an Eskimo marooned on an expanse of flaggy ice; his warped thumbnail; his knobbed wrists; the tiny white scar that hyphenates his nostrils. I finger the wound. My pinkie dips into his nose; he snorts. “How did it happen?” I ask. He twists my hair around his thumb. “My cousin.” “I didn’t know you had a cousin.” “Two. This was my cousin Robin. He held a razor against my nose and said he’d slit my nostrils so that I only had one. And when I shook my head no, the blade sliced me.” “God.” He exhales. “I know. If I’d only nodded okay, it would’ve been fine.” I smile. “How old were you?” “Oh, this was last Tuesday.

Cersei cupped the other woman’s breast. Softly at first, hardly touching, feeling the warmth of it beneath her palm, the skin as smooth as satin. She gave it a gentle squeeze, then ran her thumbnail lightly across the big dark nipple, back and forth and back and forth until she felt it stiffen. When she glanced up, Taena’s eyes were open. “Does that feel good?” she asked. “Yes,” said Lady Merryweather. “And this?” Cersei pinched the nipple now, puling on it hard, twisting it between her fingers. The Myrish woman gave a gasp of pain. “You’re hurting me.” “It’s just the wine. I had a flagon with my supper, and another with the widow Stokeworth. I had to drink to keep her calm.” She twisted Taena’s other nipple too, puling until the other woman gasped. “I am the queen. I mean to claim my rights.” “Do what you wil.” Taena’s hair was as black as Robert’s, even down between her legs, and when Cersei touched her there she found her hair al sopping wet, where Robert’s had been coarse and dry. “Please,” the Myrish woman said, “go on, my queen. Do as you wil with me. I’m yours.” But it was no good. She could not feel it, whatever Robert felt on the nights he took her. There was no pleasure in it, not for her. For Taena, yes. Her nipples were two black diamonds, her sex slick and steamy. Robert would have loved you, for an hour. The queen slid a finger into that Myrish swamp, then another, moving them in and out, but once he spent himself inside you, he would have been hard-pressed to recal your name. She wanted to see if it would be as easy with a woman as it had always been with Robert. Ten thousand of your children perished in my palm, Your Grace, she thought, slipping a third finger into Myr. Whilst you snored, I would lick your sons of my face and fingers one by one, al those pale sticky princes. You claimed your rights, my lord, but in the darkness I would eat your heirs. Taena gave a shudder. She gasped some words in a foreign tongue, then shuddered again and arched her back and screamed. She sounds as if she is being gored, the queen thought. For a moment she let herself imagine that her fingers were a bore’s tusks, ripping the Myrish woman apart from groin to throat. It was stil no good. It had never been any good with anyone but Jaime. When she tried to take her hand away, Taena caught it and kissed her fingers. “Sweet queen, how shal I pleasure you?” She slid her hand down Cersei’s side and touched her sex. “Tel me what you would have of me, my love.

The pressing of my thumbnail against my fingertip had started off as a way of convincing myself that I was real. As a kid, my mom had told me that if you pinch yourself and don't wake up, you can be sure that you're not dreaming; and so every time I thought maybe I wasn't real, I would dig my nail into my fingertip, and I would feel the pain, and for a second I'd think, Of course, I'm real. But the fish can feel pain, is the ting. You can't know whether you're doing the bidding of some parasite, not really.

Sam "Snowbow" Archambeau sat on his bunk and finally sharked his thumbnail through the sealed envelope marked, “Do not open until I blast off!” It had been inserted inside an outer envelope that had flown from Amsterdam to Cape Town to Christchurch to McMurdo Station to South Pole Station. As he unfolded the red construction paper inside, Snowbow smiled at the incongruity of a rocket girl using snail mail to communicate her last Earthly message to him. -- from the upcoming novel, MARS COLONY AGATHA: NIKKI RED by Jack Chaucer, 1-1-20

I go back into the dark! Before the moon I was. No one knows, no one knows, no one can say what I am, what a woman is, a woman of power, a woman’s power, deeper than the roots of trees, deeper than the roots of islands, older than the Making, older than the moon. Who dares ask questions of the dark? Who’ll ask the dark its name?' The old woman was rocking, chanting, lost in her incantation; but Tenar sat upright, and split a reed down the center with her thumbnail. 'I will,' she said. She split another reed. 'I lived long enough in the dark,' she said

But then Azriel approached her. Nesta had blinked at the gift the shadowsinger set in her lap. 'I didn't get you anything,' she murmured to Az, her cheeks turning rosy. 'I know,' he said, smiling. 'I don't mind.' ... ...his gaze snagged on Nesta's fingers as she opened the small box. She peered at what was inside, then looked at Azriel in confusion. 'What is it?' Azriel plucked up the small folded silver wand within and unfurled it. One end held a clip, the other a small glass sphere. 'You can attach this to whatever book you're reading, and the little ball of faelight will shine. So you don't have to squint when you're reading at night.' Nesta touched the glass ball, no bigger than her thumbnail, and faelight flickered within, casting a bright, easy glow upon her lap. She tapped it again and it turned off. And then she jumped to her feet and flung her arms around Azriel. The room went silent for a beat. But Azriel chuckled and squeezed her gently. Cassian smiled to see it- to see them. 'Thank you,' Nesta said, quickly pulling away to marvel at the device. 'It's brilliant.' Azriel blushed and stepped back, shadows swirling.

I want you to hear. I want you to know what’s in store for you. There will be days when you’ll look at your hands and you’ll want to take something and smash every bone in them, because they’ll be taunting you with what they could do, if you found a chance for them to do it, and you can’t find that chance, and you can’t bear your living body because it has failed those hands somewhere. There will be days when a bus driver will snap at you as you enter a bus, and he’ll be only asking for a dime, but that won’t be what you’ll hear; you’ll hear that you’re nothing, that he’s laughing at you, that it’s written on your forehead, that thing they hate you for. There will be days when you’ll stand in the corner of a hall and listen to a creature on a platform talking about buildings, about that work which you love, and the things he’ll say will make you wait for somebody to rise and crack him open between two thumbnails; and then you’ll hear the people applauding him, and you’ll want to scream, because you won’t know whether they’re real or you are, whether you’re in a room full of gored skulls, or whether someone has just emptied your own head, and you’ll say nothing, because the sounds you could make—they’re not a language in that room any longer; but if you’d want to speak, you won’t anyway, because you’ll be brushed aside,

There's a pause. I break it by asking, "What do you want?" She says nothing for a long time and I look back at my hands, at dried blood, probably from a girl named Suki, beneath the thumbnail. My mother licks her lips tiredly, and says, "I don't know. I just want to have a nice Christmas." I don't say anything. I've spent the last hour studying my hair in the mirror I've insisted the hospital to keep in my mother's room. "You look unhappy," she says suddenly. "I'm not," I tell her with a brief sigh. "You look unhappy," she says, more quietly this time. She touches her hair, stark blinding white, again. "Well, you do too," I say slowly, hoping that she won't say anything else.

Still, Eddie envied the way his brother looked in the evenings, so tanned and clean. Eddie’s fingernails, like his father’s, were stained with grease, and at the dinner table Eddie would flick them with his thumbnail, trying to get the dirt out. He caught his father watching him once and the old man grinned. “Shows you did a hard day’s work,” he said, and he held up his own dirty fingernails, before wrapping them around a glass of beer. By this point—already a strapping teenager—Eddie only nodded back. Unbeknownst to him, he had begun the ritual of semaphore with his father, forsaking words or physical affection. It was all to be done internally. You were just supposed to know it, that’s all. Denial of affection. The damage done.

We've stopped in front of Notre-Dame again. I point at the familiar star and clear my throat. "Wanna make another wish?" "You go first." He's watching me, puzzled, like he's trying to figure something out. He bites his thumbnail. This time I can't help it. All day long, I've thought about it. Him. Our secret. I wish St. Clair would spend the night again. He steps on the coppery-bronze star after me and closes his eyes. I realize he must be wishing about his mother, and I feel guilty that she didn't even cross my mind. My thoughts are only for St. Clair. ( . . . ) Do I see the same St. Clair everyone else does? No. I don't think so. But I could be mistaking our friendship for something more, because I want to mistake it for something more.

Still, Einstein would never count Oppenheimer as one of his close friends, “perhaps partly because our scientific opinions are fairly diametrically different.” Back in the 1930s, Oppie had once called Einstein “completely cuckoo” for his stubborn refusal to accept quantum theory. All of the young physicists Oppenheimer brought to Princeton were wholly convinced of Bohr’s quantum views—and uninterested in the questions that Einstein posed to challenge the quantum view of the world. They could not fathom why the great man was working indefatigably to develop a “unified field theory” to replace what he saw as the inconsistencies of quantum theory. It was lonely work, and yet he was still quite satisfied to defend “the good Lord against the suggestion that he continuously rolls the dice”—his thumbnail critique of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, one of the foundations of quantum physics. And he didn’t mind that most of his Princeton colleagues “see me as a heretic and a reactionary who has, as it were, outlived himself.

Bunny was the first to leave. For three weeks he had been in a panic over a paper he had to write for his fourth course, something called Masterworks of English Literature. The assignment was twenty-five pages on John Donne. We’d all wondered how he was going to do it, because he was not much of a writer; though his dyslexia was the convenient culprit the real problem was not that but his attention span, which was as short as a child’s. He seldom read the required texts or supplemental books for any course. Instead, his knowledge of any given subject tended to be a hodgepodge of confused facts, often strikingly irrelevant or out of context, that he happened to remember from classroom discussions or believed himself to have read somewhere. When it was time to write a paper he would supplement these dubious fragments by cross-examination of Henry (whom he was in the habit of consulting, like an atlas) or with information from either The World Book Encyclopedia or a reference work entitled Men of Thought and Deed, a six-volume work by E. Tipton Chatsford, Rev., dating from the 1890s, consisting of thumbnail sketches of great men through the ages, written for children, full of dramatic engravings.

Sixth of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone The Greek myth goes like this you probably know it but I had to look it up Prometheus steals fire from Zeus and the other gods gives it to humans heaven's prowess now mortal Zeus sticks it to Prometheus cause he knows knowledge knows how sharp its edge can be chains him to a rock an eagle eating his liver all day the liver regenerates every morning the eagle keeps eating keeps eating keeps eating with the patent for Oxycontin set to run out in 2013 Purdue Pharma reformulates it gets a new patent lobbies the old drug illegal no one steals from the gods no one dulls the blade of knowledge - That summer my first desk job insurance intakes at a doctor's office the relief of air conditioning pharma reps catering our lunches released from the fear of dropping a ladder on a foreman of threading my thumbnail with another drill bit the good doc scheduled in five minute increments I retyped patient addresses all hill towns sixty miles off the waiting room so full and grumpy I wondered about the etymology of patient but never what makes a person drive hours through the mountains wait hours for a flicker with the doc I was not paid to wonder I quit before I ever typed your name

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live like baboons or like men, is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.

Most of the garden was devoted to the usual things- lettuces, onions, cabbage, and eggplant- ordinary ingredients for good, honest meals. But then there were the chef's other plants, the ones that made the cooks cross themselves and kiss their thumbnails whenever they were forced to handle them. Take love apples, to start with. Their poisonous reputation was as well known as that of hemlock, and the cooks protested loudly the day the chef put in his seedlings. What if their roots contaminated the onions? What if their fumes caused swoons or fits? What if the odd, tangy smell of their leaves attracted disgruntled ghosts from the nearby dungeons? It took repeated assurances, the installation of a wire enclosure, and the fact that nothing catastrophic followed their planting to keep the staff from uprooting the love apples behind the chef's back. Even so, one cook quit, and another developed a twitchy eye and started nipping at the cooking sherry. After the love apples, the chef put in beans- another rarity from the New World- and then potatoes. Once, he tried something he called maize, but the plants failed, so instead he bought sacks of dried maize from an unknown source. In a giant stone mortar, he ground the dried maize down to a coarse yellow meal from which he made one of his exotic specialties- polenta.

Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify.

I recognize magnesite.  From my explosives training years ago.  It’s a source of magnesium.” He muttered, turning the stone over and over in his hand.  “Correct again.  As you increase your Mining skill, you will eventually learn how to convert the raw ore into usable material.  Or you can simply purchase the Refining and Smelting skills.” Max shook his head.  “Assuming I ever make it to a settlement of some kind.” He stared harder at the stone.  “I am going to try something.  You might want to back up.” Stepping well back from the fire himself, he picked up a discarded leaf from one of his firewood sticks and laid it flat on the ground.  Using his thumbnail, he scraped at the magnesite vein inside the rock.  Initially he was very careful and slow, not wanting to create friction, and thus heat, as he scratched.  A few small particles dropped onto the leaf.  Another two minutes of careful scraping, and he had accumulated a tiny pile of the mineral, about the size of a pea.  Setting the stone down, he carefully wrapped the leaf around the magnesite dust. “Alright, here goes nothing.” He took another step back from the fire, then gently tossed the leaf bundle into it.  There was a brief delay, then a bright white flash as the heat reached the magnesite dust and a molten flame shot upward for about two seconds. Skill level increase!  Your Mining skill has increased by +1! Max uttered is best evil overlord laugh.  “Muah ha ha!

Perhaps I won’t tire of her,” Gray protested, just to be contrary. Because, apparently, that was how brothers behaved. “Perhaps a dolphin will fly out of your arse. And here’s an argument even you can’t refuse. Grayson Shipping doesn’t need a reputation for delivering damaged goods. You want me to hand George Waltham an impregnated governess?” “I wouldn’t get her with child. Give me that much credit, at least.” “I give you credit for nothing. Let’s try this one last time, shall we? You made me this ship’s captain. If I’m the captain, what I say goes. And I say you don’t touch her. If you can’t abide by my orders, take command of the ship yourself and let me go home.” “Go home and do what? Squander your fortune and talent on dirt farming?” “Go home and take care of my own family. Go home and do what I damn well please, for once.” Cursing, Gray leaned against the wall. He knew Joss would make good on that threat, too. It hadn’t been easy, coaxing his brother out of mourning. Gray had resorted to outright bullying just to convince him to take command of the Aphrodite, threatening to cut off his income unless he reported to London as agreed. But he needed Joss, if this shipping concern was to stay afloat. He’d worked too hard, sacrificed too much to see it fail. And if Joss didn’t become a willing partner, it all would have been in vain. “Stay away from the girl, Gray.” Gray sighed. “We’re on the same ship. I can’t help but be near her. I’ll not promise to refrain from touching her, because the girl seems to lose her footing whenever I’m around. But I give you my word I’ll not kiss her again. Satisfied?” Joss shook his head. “Give me your word you won’t bed her.” “What a legend you’re making me! Insinuating I could bed her without even kissing her first.” Gray worried the edge of his thumbnail as he considered. “That might prove an amusing challenge, now that you suggest it.” Joss shot him an incredulous look. “With some other lady, on some other ship.” Gray raised his hands in a defensive gesture. “I’ll not bed her. You have my word. And don’t think that’s not a great sacrifice, because it is. I’d have her in two, three days at the most, I tell you.” “Once again-not amusing.” “For God’s sake, Joss, it’s a joke. What do you want, an apology? I’m sorry for kissing Miss Turner’s hand, all right?” Joss shook his head and flipped open the logbook. “No, you’re not.” “Yes, I am.” The odd thing of it was, Gray was telling the truth. He knew he was being an ass, but the joking was easier than honesty. For all his teasing, he hadn’t kissed her hand with the intent to seduce, or to judge if she tasted as sweet as he’d dreamed. He’d kissed her fingers for one reason only. Because they were trembling, and he’d wanted them to stop. It was wholly unlike him, that kiss. It was not a gesture he thought it wise to repeat. That girl did something strange to him.

There was only one thing in the room that was different. For a moment or so he couldn't see what the one thing that was different was, because it too was covered in a film of disgusting dust. Then his eyes caught it and stopped. It was next to a battered old television on which it was only possible to watch Open University Study Courses, because if it tried to show anything more exciting it would break down. It was a box. Arthur pushed himself up on his elbows and peered at it. It was a grey box, with a kind of dull lustre to it. It was a cubic grey box, just over a foot on a side. It was tied with a single grey ribbon, knotted into a neat bow on the top. He got up, walked over and touched it in surprise. Whatever it was was clearly gift-wrapped, neatly and beautifully, and was waiting for him to open it. Cautiously, he picked it up and carried it back to the bed. He brushed the dust off the top and loosened the ribbon. The top of the box was a lid, with a flap tucked into the body of the box. He untucked it and looked into the box. In it was a glass globe, nestling in fine grey tissue paper. He drew it out, carefully. It wasn't a proper globe because it was open at the bottom, or, as Arthur realized turning it over, at the top, with a thick rim. It was a bowl. A fish bowl. It was made of the most wonderful glass perfectly transparent, yet with an extraordinary silver-grey quality as if crystal and slate had gone into its making. Arthur slowly turned it over and over in his hands. It was one of the most beautiful objects he had ever seen, but he was entirely perplexed by it. He looked into the box, but other than the tissue paper there was nothing. On the outside of the box there was nothing. He turned the bowl round again. It was wonderful. It was exquisite. But it was a fish bowl. He tapped it with his thumbnail and it rang with a deep and glorious chime which was sustained for longer than seemed possible, and when at last it faded seemed not to die away but to drift off into other worlds, as into a deep sea dream. Entranced, Arthur turned it round yet again, and this time the light from the dusty little bedside lamp caught it at a different angle and glittered on some fine abrasions on the fish bowl's surface. He held it up, adjusting the angle to the light, and suddenly saw clearly the finely engraved shapes of words shadowed on the glass. "So Long," they said, "and Thanks ..." And that was all. He blinked, and understood nothing. For fully five more minutes he turned the object round and around, held it to the light at different angles, tapped it for its mesmerizing chime and pondered on the meaning of the shadowy letters but could find none. Finally he stood up, filled the bowl with water from the tap and put it back on the table next to the television. He shook the little Babel fish from his ear and dropped it, wriggling, into the bowl. He wouldn't be needing it any more, except for watching foreign movies

To paint after nature is to transfer three-dimensional corporeality to a two-dimensional surface. This you can do if you are in good health and not colorblind. Oil paint, canvas, and brush are material and tools. It is possible by expedient distribution of oil paint on canvas to copy natural impressions; under favorable conditions you can do it so accurately that the picture cannot be distinguished from the model. You start, let us say, with a white canvas primed for oil painting and sketch in with charcoal the most discernible lines of the natural form you have chosen. Only the first line may be drawn more or less arbitrarily, all the others must form with the first the angle prescribed by the natural model. By constant comparison of the sketch with the model, the lines can be so adjusted that the lines of the sketch will correspond to those of the model. Lines are now drawn by feeling, the accuracy of the feeling is checked and measured by comparison of the estimated angle of the line with the perpendicular in nature and in the sketch. Then, according to the apparent proportions between the parts of the model, you sketch in the proportions between parts on the canvas, preferably by means of broken lines delimiting these parts. The size of the first part is arbitrary, unless your plan is to represent a part, such as the head, in 'life size.' In that case you measure with a compass an imaginary line running parallel to a plane on the natural object conceived as a plane on the picture, and use this measurement in representing the first part. You adjust all the remaining parts to the first through feeling, according to the corresponding parts of the model, and check your feeling by measurement; to do this, you place the picture so far away form you that the first part appears as large in the painting as the model, and then you compare. In order to check a given proportion, you hold out the handle of your paintbrush at arm's length towards this proportion in such a way that the end of the thumbnail on the handle coincides with the other end of the proportion. If then you hold the paintbrush out towards the picture, again at arm's length, you can, by the measurement thus obtained, determine with photographic accuracy whether your feeling has deceived you. If the sketch is correct, you fill in the parts of the picture with color, according to nature. The most expedient method is to begin with a clearly recognizable color of large area, perhaps with a somewhat broken blue. You estimate the degree of matness and break the luminosity with a complimentary color, ultramarine, for example, with light ochre. By addition of white you can make the color light, by addition of black dark. All this can be learned. The best way of checking for accuracy is to place the picture directly beside the projected picture surface in nature, return to your old place and compare the color in your picture with the natural color. By breaking those tones that are too bright and adding those that are still lacking, you will achieve a color tonality as close as possible to that in nature. If one tone is correct, you can put the picture back in its place and adjust the other colors to the first by feeling. You can check your feeling by comparing every tone directly with nature, after setting the picture back beside the model. If you have patience and adjust all large and small lines, all forms and color tones according to nature, you will have an exact reproduction of nature. This can be learned. This can be taught. And in addition, you can avoid making too many mistakes in 'feeling' by studying nature itself through anatomy and perspective and your medium through color theory. That is academy.

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live like baboons or like men, is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man.

And what they knew about nurses could be written on the thumbnail of a newborn.

Peeling a strip of thumbnail with his teeth and putting it carefully into his pocket—kahunas and sorcerers were rare these days, but old habits die hard—he watched the clouds on the horizon, thinking. He reached down and idly patted Ilima’s head.

Right there in the middle of the road he took the cigarette out of my mouth and put it in his, then struck a match on his thumbnail and lit the two of them together, exactly like Humphrey Bogart. Then, ever so gently, he put the lit cigarette back in my lips. It seemed almost like we had kissed. Chills ran down my back, but I couldn’t tell for sure if it was thrill chills or the creeps. Sometimes it is very hard to know the difference.

The best thing about Caleb is not his perfect body, or his half-smiles, or his even sexier voice…it’s his mannerisms. The teasing, the way he runs his thumbnail across his bottom lip when he’s thinking, the way he bites his tongue when he’s turned on. The way he makes me look at him when I have an orgasm. He can undress you with one look, make you feel like you’re standing naked in front of him. I know from experience, it’s a pleasure to be naked in front of Caleb.

Are you having tea, Miss Rose?” “Yes, Mr. Bronson. Miss Crumpet asked me to pour. Would you like a cup, too?” Before Holly could restrain her, the little girl hastened to Bronson with a doll-sized cup and saucer no bigger than his thumbnail. “Here you are, sir.” A tiny concerned frown adorned her brow. “It's only ‘air tea,’ but it's quite delicious if you're good at pretending.” Bronson accepted the cup as if it were a great favor. Carefully he sampled the invisible brew. “A bit more sugar, perhaps,” he said thoughtfully. Holly watched while the two prepared the cup to Bronson's satisfaction. She had not expected Bronson to interact so comfortably with a child. In fact, not even George's brothers, Rose's own uncles, had displayed such ease with her. Children were seldom part of a man's world. Even the most doting father did little more than view his child once or twice a day and inquire after his or her progress. Glancing at Holly briefly, Bronson caught her perplexed expression. “I was coerced into more than a few tea parties by Elizabeth when she was no bigger than Rose,” he said. “Although Lizzie had to make do with shingles for plates and an old tin cup instead of china. I always swore I'd get her a proper toy tea set someday. By the time I could afford one, she was too old to want it any longer.

Even Belinda, who could write what she knew about boats on her thumbnail and still have room for the Lord’s Prayer, could tell this one was special. Buck

they all stem from the primal fault, which is idolatry, worshipping that which is not God as if it were. Second, they all show the telltale marks of the consequent fault, which is subhuman behavior, that is, the failure fully to reflect the image of God, that missing the mark as regards full, free, and genuine humanness for which the New Testament’s regular word is hamartia, “sin.” (Sin, we note, is not the breaking of arbitrary rules; rather, the rules are the thumbnail sketches of different types of dehumanizing behavior.) Third, it is perfectly possible, and it really does seem to happen in practice, that this idolatry and dehumanization become so endemic in the life and chosen behavior of an individual, and indeed of groups, that unless there is a specific turning away from such a way of life, those who persist are conniving at their own ultimate dehumanization. This

Our neighbor, Hugo du Toit, was a very handsome Afrikaner, who, with his two sisters, was a close friend of Louis Botha, the first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, and also a close friend of General Jan Christiaan Smuts, the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 until 1924. He became a South African military leader during World War II. Although some accuse Smuts of having started apartheid, he later stood against it and was a force behind the founding of the United Nations. He is still considered one of the most eminent Afrikaners ever…. At his expansive farm house, Hugo had autographed photos of both men on his study wall. Parties were frequently held at my grandparents’ home and the thought of roasted turkeys and potatoes which Cherie had prepared, brings back warm memories of a delightful era, now lost forever.” The Colonial History of South Africa For many years South Africa was occupied primarily by Dutch farmers known as Boers who had first arrived in the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 when Jan van Riebeeck established the Dutch East India Company and later by British settlers who arrived in the Cape colony after the Napoleonic wars in the 1820’s, on board the sailing ships the Nautilus and the Chapman. For the most part the two got along like oil and water. After 1806, some of the Dutch-speaking settlers left the Cape Colony and trekked into the interior where they established the Boer Republics. There were many skirmishes between them, as well as with the native tribes. In 1877 after the First Boer War between the Dutch speaking farmers and the English, the Transvaal Boer republic was seized by Britain. Hostilities continued until the Second Boer War erupted in October of 1899, costing the British 22,000 lives. The Dutch speaking farmers, now called Afrikaners, lost 7,000 men and having been overrun by the English acknowledged British sovereignty by signing the peace agreement, known as the “Treaty of Vereeniging,” on May 31, 1902. Although this thumbnail sketch of South African history leaves much unsaid, the colonial lifestyle continued on for the privileged white ruling class until the white, pro-apartheid National Party, was peacefully ousted when the African National Congress won a special national election. Nelson Mandela was elected as the first black president on May 9, 1994. On May 10, 1994, Mandela was inaugurated as The Republic of South Africa's new freely elected President with Thabo Mbeki and F.W. De Klerk as his vice-presidents.

Chorizo, tomatoes and eggs Feeds three to four as a snack or just you if you’ve had a crappy day and are wondering what the point of it all really is. INGREDIENTS One medium onion, chopped 250g cooking chorizo, skinned (piquant or not, depending on taste) Two 400g tins of chopped tomatoes. Buy the expensive ones if it makes you feel better about yourself, but the cheap ones will do the job 200g grated cheddar 100g torn-up mozzarella Three eggs Bunch of coriander 200g jar of pickled jalapeños Heat the oven to 200°C. Gently fry the chopped onion in olive oil in a deep-sided frying pan until soft. Break the chorizo into thumbnail-sized nuggets and fry with the onion. When the chorizo is browned, add the tomatoes, mix all the ingredients together, turn down the heat and let it simmer gently on the hob for twenty minutes or so until almost all the liquid has been boiled off. Stir occasionally to stop it sticking to the bottom of the pan. Decant half the mixture into an oven-proof casserole dish. Cover with half the mixed cheese. Add the rest of the tomato and chorizo mixture and cover with the remaining cheese. Put in the oven and leave until the cheese has started to brown and the liquid around the edges is bubbling. Take the dish out of the oven and turn on the grill. Meanwhile, crack the three eggs across the top. Put under the grill for about five minutes or until the eggs are cooked through. Scatter with the coriander and the pickled jalapeños. Eat this by scooping with tortilla chips.

By then I had developed the method of working that I continue to use to this day. I begin by writing an outline of the story, saying what happens in each chapter, and giving thumbnail sketches of the characters. But this book was not like my others. The beginning came easily, but, as the story unwound over the decades and the people grew from youth to maturity, I found it more and more difficult to invent new twists and turns in their lives. I realized that one long book is much more of a challenge than three short ones.

Bryce’s daily armor consisted solely of this: an Archesian amulet barely the size of her thumbnail, gifted by Jesiba on the first day of work. A hazmat suit in a necklace, Danika had marveled when Bryce had shown off the amulet’s considerable protections against the influence of various magical objects. Archesian amulets didn’t come cheap, but Bryce didn’t bother to delude herself into thinking her boss’s gift was given out of anything but self-interest. It would have been an insurance nightmare if Bryce didn’t have one.

There will be days when you’ll stand in the corner of a hall and listen to a creature on a platform talking about buildings, about that work which you love, and the things he’ll say will make you wait for somebody to rise and crack him open between two thumbnails; and then you’ll hear the people applauding him, and you’ll want to scream, because you won’t know whether they’re real or you are, whether you’re in a room full of gored skulls, or whether someone has just emptied your own head, and you’ll say nothing,

He dug his thumbnail into the blushing peel and pulled until the dark red fruit appeared, spraying citrus oil everywhere. As he pulled the fruit into its sections, it glowed like rubies. It made the fruit I'd bought at the supermarket for our ill-fated experiment look dry and stale in comparison. "Why do you have to show me now?" I stopped cold, because he'd grabbed my chin. His fingers were soft, insistent. "Because I want to. Open," he said. He was smiling, but there was something in his eyes I hadn't seen before. Determination? When I gaped at him, he popped the orange segment in my mouth. I bit down, and my eyes fluttered shut. Sweet-sour fireworks exploded across my tongue, and I couldn't help but moan a little bit. I tasted orange, of course, but there were raspberries and a little bit of rose petal, too. "That's incredible," I said once I'd swallowed. "Like eating a sunset." When I opened my eyes, he was staring at my mouth. I felt fireworks again, this time in my stomach. But a second later, he smiled big and said, "I was going to say a party in my mouth, but I guess that's why you're the writer.

She pulled at the cuticle harder. A bright red pool appeared between her flesh and thumbnail. Quickly, she sucked it away.

Is there some general guideline by which we might measure our daily life, minute to minute, to see if we are on track? We can examine who is the doer of our actions. If we find ourselves doing whatever is needed without drama or burden, then the Self is the doer, and no karma or suffering will accrue. Drama and burden is our thumbnail litmus test of right living. Be the watcher of your mind as you go through the day and see why you do the things you do, and who is the doer of these actions.

Brody panicked, but was able to yank himself free from Luke’s grip. His thumbnail was white, but quickly turned back to red. “Close one!” said Brody. “It’s only a matter of time before you’re defeated,” Luke said keeping this thumb as far back as possible. “I think you should know that I’ve trained for this my entire life!” Brody laughed. “Your entire life? Really? You’ve known about thumb wrestling tournaments since you were born?” “Nope,” Luke sneered. “I’ve trained because my thumb is what I use to pick my nose with!” “Nasty!” Chloe shouted. “That’s so gross! Are all boys seriously this gross?” Brody grinned. “Then I’ve got news for you… I’ve had the same training!

What is [credit]?" asked Zotul skeptically. "It is how the poor are enabled to enjoy all the luxuries of the rich," said Broderick, and went on to give a thumbnail sketch of the involutions and devolutions of credit, leaving out some angles that might have had a discouraging effect. (from "A Gift from Earth")