Tosca Quotes

I look at the blanked-out faces of the other passengers--hoisting their briefcases, their backpacks, shuffling to disembark--and I think of what Hobie said: beauty alters the grain of reality. And I keep thinking too of the more conventional wisdom: namely, that the pursuit of pure beauty is a trap, a fast track to bitterness and sorrow, that beauty has to be wedded to something more meaningful. Only what is that thing? Why am I made the way I am? Why do I care about all the wrong things, and nothing at all for the right ones? Or, to tip it another way: how can I see so clearly that everything I love or care about is illusion, and yet--for me, anyway--all that's worth living for lies in that charm? A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don't get to choose our own hearts. We can't make ourselves want what's good for us or what's good for other people. We don't get to choose the people we are. Because--isn't it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture--? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it's a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what's right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: "Be yourself." "Follow your heart." Only here's what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can't be trusted--? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight toward a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?...If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or...is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?

How mighty, how great the One must be, I thought, to send the heavens careening, and yet hear the cry of a single heart.

And I know that God made the heart the most fragile and resilient of all organs, that a lifetime of joy and pain might be encased in one mortal chamber.

The words, when they came to my heart, were so gentle, and familiar -- and so very sad: What is this you have done?

Because--isn't it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture--? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it's a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what's right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: "Be yourself." "Follow your heart." Only here's what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can't be trusted--? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight toward a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?...If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or...is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?

How the stars shone. How sweet the earth smelled. The orchard gate creaked, and a footstep pressed on the sand. And she entered, fragrant as a flower, and fell into my arms. Oh, sweet kisses, lingering caresses. Slowly, trembling, I gazed upon her beauty. Now my dream of true love is lost forever. My last hour has flown, and I die, hopeless, and never have I loved life more.

You are necessary to that end, and to me...you are all I have of the garden. You are the image of me and of the One. And if you have wronged, then I have surely repaid your wrong twice over.

My #1 rule is write like no one is ever going to read it. Why? Because it gives you permission to be as audacious as you want.

My purpose for living, my role in this great scheme was clear to me from the first: to fall down, to worship, to praise, to wait upon the word of El." "That sounds really boring." "Really? Imagine the bliss of fulfilling one's created purpose.

I wanted to be alone with the One. The One who scaled then careened from the heights of the Mount. The One who raised up the man from the mud. The One who fashioned me from a part of the man and knew me more intimately than even the adam.

I was beloved. I had been hoped for. Somehow, I was necessary.

A weak man declares a woman a temptress and orders her to cover herself. A strong man covers himself and says nothing.

Sometime before sleep it occurred to me that the true nature of being without might mean never knowing what one lacked.

I felt laid bare, a fruit split open to reveal a moldering inside.

In the beginning there was God...but for me there was Adam.

I have always contended that girls are the sturdier of the genders and wondered in secret if the One that Is might not best be identified with the creativity of the female heart.

«Vieni con me, Giuda», ripeté. «Troverai ciò che stai cercando». In quel momento, gli credetti. Gli credetti con tutto il cuore

In that instant I knew that as bad as it was, it was going to get much worse.

Beware: this is a place of tears. Questo è luogo di lagrime! Badate!

I stared. "But you're saying--" "Yes, Clay" - her mouth smoothed into a chilly smile - "Image of El, breath of God. In such an unworthy vessel. Something far more precious than diamonds, denied even to us but entrusted to a container of mud.

Even though he did not hear me sometimes so that I had to repeat my questions a second or third time. By then my tone was as abrasive as the coarse hair or the boar. How he annoyed me!

But these are no longer just samples of some disease. They were purchased with lives too save many more. Lives precious to me. Which might be the reason it feels so hard to let them go.

I will protect you all the days of my life. You will be the mother of all who live and the giver of life to the seed spoken by the One -- the seed that will strike the offspring of the serpent. The One has said it, Isha...today I name you Havah, because you will live, and all who live will come from you, and you will give birth to hope.

I've never stopped wanting to cross the equator, or touch an elk's horns, or sing Tosca or screw James Dean in a field of wheat. To hell with wisdom. They're all wrong: I'll never be through with my life.

From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it’s a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what’s right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: “Be yourself.” “Follow your heart.” Only here’s what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can’t be trusted—? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight towards a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?

I hesitated, having never considered that Katrina might be subject to the same whims of nature as other mortals. "I had no idea. I'm so sorry." And I meant it. Why do bad things happen to good people? There are no good people.

understanding. Do we wish our children to do as they are told forever, simply because we told them what they should do, or because they fear punishment? Or do we hope that they grow in understanding to discern for themselves and freely choose right?

«Tu mi ami, Giuda?», mi chiese Gesù un mattino. Eravamo rimasti tutta la notte fuori a pregare tra le colline. «Con tutto il cuore», risposi, stanco ed esausto. Desideravo disperatamente che tornasse tra noi. Che tornasse a vivere. Che tornasse da me.

I slept in the grip of that love, comforted, thinking I should forget my longing within it, knowing that all was somehow well...In the morning when I stirred, I knew...I knew I lay here in my own flesh, but not alone.

Not yet," he wailed, as raw as the earth. "But you lay as though already dead, and I cannot go on without you. Do not leave me; do not die!" And I felt a grief from him to melt the mountain ice. Grief to drown in. Grief to both rend my heart and mend it at once.

A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to choose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are. Because—isn’t it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture—? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it’s a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what’s right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: “Be yourself.” “Follow your heart.” Only here’s what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can’t be trusted—? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight towards a beautiful flare of ruin self-immolation, disaster? Is Kitsey right? If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you?

What attention would death pay to his pathetic voice? He was powerless without her.

What is love, but to hold dear without expectation? What is love, but first given devotion? What is love . . . But freedom.

Suffice it to say, we were horrified by the entire concept of dying, even if we weren't the ones with the death sentence.

Yes, I call your beautiful world mutant and perverse. So would you if you had seen the original. If you had, you would know how far we've all veered, how like a cancer things have grown.

A mist crept into the valley—how could this be, by the light of the climbing sun? It drifted over the form in the grass, nearly obscuring it, seeming to draw all sound into itself. I thought I might burst from the strain of that silence... until a single sound shattered it: The gasp of an indrawn breath.

Più di tutto, avrei voluto dirgli che volevo restare, perché non avevo altro luogo in cui andare, né persona o cosa a cui rivolgermi in questo mondo, né altre risposte se non quelle che lui poteva darmi; che avevo pregato perché mi offrisse le risposte che cercavo, perché se non lo avesse fatto lui, non avrei saputo dove altro cercarle

...Ezio Longo, inmigrante de primera generación en el país, arquitecto sin título y constructor de oficio, quien se había propuesto fundar un imperio sobre cemento y acero y a los treinta y cinco años ya lo tenía casi consolidado

His lips pulled back from his teeth. "This then, shall be my singular consolation, my bitter solace: that when you die - and the time will be soon - there will be at least one of El's precious clay humans more damned to hell than I!

Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore, non feci mai male ad anima viva!

Ser padre es muy distinto a la maternidad. A las mujeres les crece dentro el hijo, las antoja, les duele, les da náuseas, los patea por dentro. En cambio, ser padre es que los demás digan: 'este es tu hijo'. Es si acaso, una patada por fuera. Es una palabra. Es algo a lo que se puede uno acostumbrar o rechazar. Esa lejanía, esa posibilidad de tomar distancia. La madre no puede hacer eso. Es lo cercano, lo que envuelve, lo que cuida. El padre puede desatenderse, evadir, quedarse callado. Ser hijo de un padre es mucho más complejo que serlo de una madre. Al padre se le idealiza cuando está ausente, y cuando no, se le perdona tras una visita, una caricia tosca en el cabello, una palmada mal dada. Ser hijo es una tarea de abandono

Because—isn’t it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture—? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it’s a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what’s right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: “Be yourself.” “Follow your heart.

We longed for this world. We coveted it, and we hoped. Even Lucifer, though he wouldn't say it, looked on with greed-softened eyes, infatuated. I deluded myself into thinking that yes, perhaps Elohim had taken him back. Perhaps Elohim had forgotten all, would set him up as a god over this rich and wild new world. The next blessings to come from El would be his, and ours." He shook his head with a brittle laugh, the sound slightly too high-pitched for such a big man. We had skirted the MIT campus to arrive on Main, a block from my office building. "And why weren't they? Why couldn't they be?" He pulled over, put the car in park, and turned to look at me. "Because then he created them." "Them?" "You.

Sweat trickled down my sides inside my sweater. "Why? Why did you do this?" "Because this is your life, Clay: fleeting, ephemeral, and insignificant except for one thing, that El loved you. And you have missed it. Missed it all, completely. And now, look at you. Sweating, worried about your life, your story. Did you expect to live forever? Did you think this day would not come? It had to, if not in this way then in some other.

There is beauty in the world still. Even now. And it's worth saving for that reason alone.

Któż to wie, do czego człowiek jest zdolny w imię jakiegokolwiek boga?

Ośmieliłam się mieć nadzieję. Oto mój największy grzech

Hagarlat... Która nigdy nie żałowała mu nałożnic - tylko po to, by zabezpieczyć sobie jego względy. Która nie cofała się przed niszczeniem innych, jeśli służyło to jej celom

O quiza ni siquiera era un hombre, sus facciones eran toscas, como modeladas a puñetazos por un escultor ciego, y sus ojos eran pajas.

I wonder now if [the gods] take from us that which we love so we must seek them, if only to scavenge for meaning in this existence.

I had sought love. I had talked of love, not knowing that it is one step beyond wisdom into the face of God. And this was the only salvation.

The passing of every moment since has disconcerted me. See the clock on the dash?" He tapped it. "You're deaf to it, to the death of each second. But I am not.

She shrugged. "He sat back, called it good, and rested." I waited. She waited. I raised my brows. "And?" Her mouth curved into a smile. "You think I'm pretty, don't you.

The adam and I had pondered the death many times since the day he brought me here. But despite our musing about an end of life and our search for evidence of death among fallen and decomposing fruit and the compost of leaves and the refuse of our industry, which we gathered to enrich the soil, I understood the death less well than the explosion that had filled the universe at its incarnation. In fact, every evidence of degrading life seemed only to point back to the sustenance of the living so that I grasped the idea of the death less and less the more I meditated upon it.

How is one statute against murder or rape or theft different from any other?” I said, though my mind had careened into a hundred different questions. “They are different in that they come from a god who says we are to show honor of him by honoring others. And so as we feed our hungry neighbor and do not steal from him we honor not our neighbor, but the image of the One who fashioned him. You say our god has no face. This is not true. Yaweh’s face is before us in every person we see, as we are made in his image. Living people who require more kindness and adoration than any idol.

Diranno che l’ho tradito, che ho ridotto il suo prezzo a trenta sicli d’argento. Diranno che sono avaro, che ho tradito il mio maestro. Non sanno che sono morto di crepacuore. Per il rammarico… Per amore. Se non conoscono me, non conoscevano neanche lui. Quanto ci ha sconvolti con la sua compassione, con la sua riluttanza a salvare un’intera nazione, ma con il desiderio di salvare le singole persone. Lo definivano un folle, un bugiardo. Ma ora so che era il volto di Dio, che non ci salva dai romani… Ma da noi stessi Sono il lebbroso, l’indemoniato. Io, paralizzato dalla paura, ero cieco. La prostituta, il cadavere nella tomba. Io, sono tutto questo. Io, che l’ho rinnegato e l’ho consegnato ai nemici. Io, che muoio per lui. Il mio nome sarà per sempre sinonimo di “traditore”. Ma egli amava i suoi nemici. Egli mi amava.

Don't." I heard a tremor in her voice. "Don't do that. You did everything right." "I don't think I did." "Yes, you did. You're a good man." I hated those words. I hated hearing them. Being a good man had won me nothing. Lucian's words echoed somewhere between my brain and the phone line. I ask you, what is good, really, Clay? And I knew the answer: not good enough.

have begun to despair that even love is like this. That it is all and only the transaction of agreement. ‘I will love you if you please me.’ ‘I will love you if you desire no other.’ ‘I will love you if . . .’ and so on and so on.” I said it, because it was true.

I thought of you when I read this quote from "The Legend of Sheba: Rise of a Queen" by Tosca Lee - "Whatever the reason, I wonder now if they take from us that which we love so we must seek them, if only to scavenge for meaning in this existence. Why? Why? I ask it day and night!

«Voi chi pensate che io sia?». In quel momento, ebbi la chiara impressione che se avessi detto che per me era un amico, lo sarebbe stato per sempre. Se avessi detto che era un gran lavoratore… lo sarebbe stato per sempre. Non so perché lo pensassi, ma il suo viso mi parve come una pagina bianca pronta per essere riempita, priva dell’angoscia o della follia da cui era tormentato negli ultimi tempi. Un mio amico. Il mio cuore sussurrò quella parola. Il Messia. Il mio passato, i miei piani ne avevano bisogno. Era così diverso, così imprevedibile, che spesso nessuno di noi sapeva cosa dire. Poi mi resi conto di aver paura. Il cuore mi batteva come un randello nelle orecchie. Avevo paura: temevo che qualunque cosa avessi detto, egli avrebbe potuto rispondere che non era vera. Che non era il Messia. Che non mi amava. O peggio, temevo che gli avrei creduto

Me corroyó la envidia. ¿Por qué él y yo no? Imagino tu respuesta: «él era rubio y tú, prieto». Considerabas que en nuestro país se desplegaba un racismo por «goteo». Las telenovelas solo elegían protagonistas «güeritos». Los comerciales, en su vena aspiracional, solo presentaban blancos. Nosotros, los morenos de pelos lacios y de facciones toscas, no cuadrábamos en los cánones de la belleza, del estatus y del poder. La blancura como única vía de acceso a las esferas políticas y sociales más altas. Me niego a pensar que ella se acostara con él por rubio. Solo pienso que él le gustó más.

La sencillez y sobriedad de la naturaleza promueven y configuran en el hombre sólo nociones comunes y una tosca honestidad. La coacción artificial y la opulencia de la organización civil [de la sociedad] dan lugar a hombres ingeniosos y razonadores, si bien en ocasiones también a locos (Narren) y tramposos (Betrüger), y genera la sabia u honesta apariencia que permite carecer tanto de entendimiento como de honradez, siempre que el bello velo que el decoro extiende sobre las secretas dolencias (Gebrechen) de la cabeza o del corazón sea tupido y suficientemente tejido. ― Immanuel Kant, Ensayo sobre las enfermedades de la cabeza

From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it’s a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what’s right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: “Be yourself.” “Follow your heart.

White noise, impersonal roar. Deadening incandescence of the boarding terminals. But even these soul-free, sealed-off places are drenched with meaning, spangled and thundering with it. Sky Mall. Portable stereo systems. Mirrored isles of Drambuie and Tanqueray and Chanel No. 5. I look at the blanked-out faces of the other passengers—hoisting their briefcases, their backpacks, shuffling to disembark—and I think of what Hobie said: beauty alters the grain of reality. And I keep thinking too of the more conventional wisdom: namely, that the pursuit of pure beauty is a trap, a fast track to bitterness and sorrow, that beauty has to be wedded to something more meaningful. Only what is that thing? Why am I made the way I am? Why do I care about all the wrong things, and nothing at all for the right ones? Or, to tip it another way: how can I see so clearly that everything I love or care about is illusion, and yet—for me, anyway—all that’s worth living for lies in that charm? A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to choose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are. Because—isn’t it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture—? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it’s a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what’s right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: “Be yourself.” “Follow your heart.

The history keepers will no doubt tell their own tale, and the priests another. It is the men's accounts that seem to survive a world obsessed with conquest, our actions beyond bedchamber and hearth remembered only when we leave their obscurity. And so we become infamous because we were not invisible, the truth of our lives ephemeral as incense.

So like the womb. Like that moment before birth where there is no awareness of wrong or evil or pain or hope or anything but that still voice that whispers merely: I am.

...każdy dwór jest jak morze: gładki i niebieski na powierzchni, w głębi zaś pełen potworów, pragnących jedynie pożreć się nawzajem

Do tej pory skupiałam się na byciu słyszaną. Naprawię ten błąd. Teraz. Dzisiaj. I każdego dnia do czasu, aż wrócę do Saby ze statkami w garści

a girl in her twenties who might have been pretty had she refrained from drawing her eyebrows on with a marker.

...więcej osiągniesz za sprawą prowokacji niż pochlebstwa

Nie chciał... kobiety, która nie kryła w sobie żadnej tajemnicy

...cenił każdą chwilę, w której niczego od niego nie chciałam... Musiałam prowadzić negocjacje bez negocjacji, prosić, nie wypowiadając tego na głos!

... tak naprawdę jesteś jak zwierzę we wnykach, niezdolne zwrócić się ani w jedną, ani w drugą stronę

Tylko demony kuszą słodkimi słówkami. Tylko demony mogą doprowadzać do szaleństwa, wykorzystując przeciwko człowiekowi jego ukryte tęsknoty

Chciał czegoś, co mógłby czcić

Postanowiłam, że zadam jej te pytania. Później. Jutro... Ale kiedy stałam na tarasie tamtego wieczoru, zdałam sobie sprawę z tego, że odpowiedzi Shary niczego nie zmienią

El?" I spoke, softly, feeling foolish. And then, "Elohim?" The night answered with silence.

Trust me, at the time nine hundred years seemed frighteningly short - it still does. I really don't know how you cope with your eighty-something life spans, and that's a best-case scenario, isn't it?

Reflexiona sobre las raíces, sobre la primera lengua y la segunda, sobre lo que quería cuando era pequeño y lo que quiere ahora, y dónde se superponen ambas cosas. Tal vez ese lugar donde ambas cosas se encuentran sea este, aquí, en la dulce insistencia del agua que le rodea las piernas, en las toscas letras grabadas con una navaja vieja. En el ritmo constante del pulso de otra persona en contacto con el suyo.

our love is proved when we love those who are not beautiful, who wound with word or deed. When we love not out of pity, or even for their sakes, but for our own. And here is the secret: they do not wound us, as Yaweh does not wound us. We wound ourselves by allowing the offense. And so Yaweh commands forgiveness for our own healing. Because in honoring ourselves—and others as ourselves—we please and honor Yaweh, who looks not on what a person does, but on the heart.” I

The cook fires of the fishermen glowed orange on their boats in the distance. They would be back by morning, bringing the catch to market as they had yesterday, and a year ago, and a hundred years before that. And yet today nothing was the same. Not the mist on the lake or the tiny dots of fire upon it. Not the thinning darkness of the eastern sky or the dogs coming to sniff at my feet. Nothing. And though I did not know how or what it meant, neither was I the same.

It is harder for queens, who have no luxury of meekness. History does not know how to reconcile our ambition or our power when we are strong enough to survive it. The priests have no tolerance for those of us driven by the divine madness of questions. And so our stories are blackend from the fire of righteous indignation by those who envy our imagined fornications. We become temptresses, harlots, and heretics. I have been all and none of these, depending on who tells the tale.

I love my kids, and I’m so proud of them for everything that they have accomplished. My oldest child, Elon, is making electric cars to save the environment and launching rockets. My middle child, Kimbal, opened farm-to-table restaurants and is teaching children across the country to build fruit and vegetable gardens in underserved schools. My youngest child, Tosca, runs her own entertainment company, producing and directing romance films from bestselling novels. They all have different interests.

Later he would tell her that their story began at the Royal Hungarian Opera House, the night before he left for Paris on the Western Europe Express. The year was 1937; the month was September, the evening unseasonably cold. His brother had insisted on taking him to the opera as a parting gift. The show was Tosca and their seats were at the top of the house. Not for them the three marble-arched doorways, the façade with its Corinthian columns and heroic entablature. Theirs was a humble side entrance with a red-faced ticket taker, a floor of scuffed wood, walls plastered with crumbling opera posters. Girls in knee-length dresses climbed the stairs arm in arm with young men in threadbare suits; pensioners argued with their white-haired wives as they shuffled up the five narrow flights. At the top, a joyful din: a refreshment salon lined with mirrors and wooden benches, the air hazy with cigarette smoke. A doorway at its far end opened onto the concert hall itself, the great electric-lit cavern of it, with its ceiling fresco of Greek immortals and its gold-scrolled tiers. Andras had never expected to see an opera here, nor would he have if Tibor hadn’t bought the tickets. But it was Tibor’s opinion that residence in Budapest must include at least one evening of Puccini at the Operaház. Now Tibor leaned over the rail to point out Admiral Horthy’s box, empty that night except for an ancient general in a hussar’s jacket. Far below, tuxedoed ushers led men and women to their seats, the men in evening dress, the women’s hair glittering with jewels.

Go away. Go live out your gnat's existence." "But we're not done!" Her eyes lolled back to me. "Yes, we are." "But--I don't know how it ends!" And now I remembered something else. "Or what it has to do with me - you said this story was ultimately about me. What does this have to do with me?" "What does this have to do with me?" she mimicked. "Can't you do anything but think of yourself? Go home." "But how can I--" "Go." "I don't know--" "GO!" She screamed it, lunging across the table at me. I bolted up, stumbled back, knocking over my chair. She screamed again. "GO!

A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don't get to choose our own hearts. We can't make ourselves want what's good for us or what's good for other people. We don't get to choose the people we are. Because-- isn't it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture--? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it's a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what's right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: "Be yourself." "Follow your heart.

So as I said, the world was mutating," she said, prick, prick, pricking at the cloth, looking up at me once to make sure, I assume, I was listening. "From the earth sprung hateful and ugly things that flourished amid all that was lush and good. There would be no more accord among the animals now; they would follow a different order, no longer subsisting exclusively on plants but also on one another. Adam's flesh was no longer the same, though it would take centuries for disease to manifest itself, for bodies so genetically pure that a man could marry his sister to corrupt down through generations to the point where a man dare not marry even his cousin.

—No one knows why. Perhaps her mind, ravenous, still insatiable, sensed that to struggle with the shreds of a voice must make her artistry subtler, more refined, more capable of expressing humiliation, rage, betrayal ... —Perhaps the opposite. Perhaps her spirit loathed the unending struggle to embody itself, to manifest itself, on a stage whose mechanics, and suffocating customs, seemed expressly designed to annihilate spirit ... —I know that in Tosca, in the second act, when, humiliated, hounded by Scarpia, she sang Vissi d’arte —“I lived for art”— and in torment, bewilderment, at the end she asks, with a voice reaching harrowingly for the notes, “Art has repaid me LIKE THIS?

To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl Do you realize that if you had started building the Parthenon on the day you were born you would be all done in only one more year? Of course, you couldn’t have done it alone, so never mind, you’re fine just as you are. You are loved simply for being yourself. But did you know that at your age Judy Garland was pulling down $150,000 a picture, Joan of Arc was leading the French army to victory, and Blaise Pascal had cleaned up his room? No wait, I mean he had invented the calculator. Of course, there will be time for all that later in your life after you come out of your room and begin to blossom, or at least pick up all your socks. For some reason, I keep remembering that Lady Jane Grey was Queen of England when she was only fifteen, but then she was beheaded, so never mind her as a role model. A few centuries later, when he was your age, Franz Schubert was doing the dishes for his family but that did not keep him from composing two symphonies, four operas, and two complete Masses as a youngster. But of course that was in Austria at the height of romantic lyricism, not here in the suburbs of Cleveland. Frankly, who cares if Annie Oakley was a crack shot at 15 or if Maria Callas debuted as Tosca at 17? We think you are special by just being you, playing with your food and staring into space. By the way, I lied about Schubert doing the dishes, but that doesn’t mean he never helped out around the house.

Brianna olhou para seu relógio, ainda surpresa em vê-lo ali. Ainda faltava meia hora. Se pudessem evitar derramamento de sangue até... Um grito lancinante vindo de cima e ela fez uma careta. A ajudante, menos preparada, deixou cair sua prancheta de anotações com um gritinho. - MAMÃE! - Jem, em tom de queixa. - O QUE FOI? - ela rugiu em resposta. - Estou OCUPADA! -Mas mamãe! Mandy me BATEU! -veio o relato indignado do alto da escada. Erguendo os olhos, ela podia ver a parte de cima de sua cabeça, a luz da janela brilhando em seus cabelos. - É mesmo? Bem... - Com uma VARINHA! - Que tipo de... - De PROPÓSITO! - Bem, não acho... - E... - uma pausa antes do desfecho incriminador - ELA NÃO PEDIU DESCULPAS! O construtor e sua ajudante desistiram de procurar larvas de caruncho para acompanhar a emocionante narrativa, e agora ambos olhavam para Brianna, sem dúvida esperando algum decreto salomônico. Brianna fechou os olhos por um instante. - MANDY - ela berrou. - Peça desculpas! - Não! - veio uma recusa estridente de cima. - Sim, tem que pedir! - veio a voz de Jem, seguida de ruídos de luta. Brianna dirigiu-se às escadas, com um olhar assassino. Assim que botou o pé no degrau, Jem emitiu um grito agudo. - Ela me MORDEU! - Jeremiah Mackenzie, nem PENSE em devolver a mordida! - gritou. - Vocês dois, parem com isso agora mesmo! Jem enfiou uma cabeça desgrenhada pelo corrimão, os cabelos arrepiados. Usava uma brilhante sombra azul nos olhos e alguém aplicara batom cor-de-rosa em uma forma tosca de boca de uma orelha à outra. - Ela é uma pestinha - ele informou furiosamente aos fascinados espectadores embaixo. - Meu avô disse.

el gran macho cabrío. ¡Salve, demonio mudo! Eres el más intenso animal. Místico eterno del infierno carnal… ¡Cuántos encantos tiene tu barba, tu frente ancha, rudo Don Juan! ¡Qué gran acento el de tu mirada mefistofélica y pasional! Vas por los campos con tu manada, hecho un eunuco ¡siendo un sultán! Tu sed de sexo nunca se apaga; ¡bien aprendiste del padre Pan! La cabra lenta te va siguiendo, enamorada con humildad; mas tus pasiones son insaciables; Grecia vieja te comprenderá. ¡Oh ser de hondas leyendas santas de ascetas flacos y Satanás, con piedras negras y cruces toscas, con fieras mansas y cuevas hondas, donde te vieron entre la sombra soplar la llama de lo sexual! ¡Machos cornudos de bravas barbas! ... ¡Machos cabríos! Sois metamorfosis de viejos sátiros perdidos ya. Vais derramando lujuria virgen como no tuvo otro animal. ¡Iluminados del Mediodía!

Porque- já não é incutido em nós constantemente, desde a infância, um lugar-comum não questionado na cultura? De William Blake a Lady Gaga, de Rousseau a Rumi, passando pela Tosca e pelo Sr. Rogers, é uma mensagem curiosamente uniforme, aceita de alto a baixo - quando em dúvida, o que fazer? Como sabemos qual é a coisa certa para nós? Qualquer psiquiatra, qualquer orientador vocacional, qualquer princesa da Disney sabe a resposta: "seja você mesmo". "Siga seu coração." Mas aí está o que eu realmente, realmente queria que alguém me explicasse. E se alguém por acao tem um coração que não é confiável? E se o coração, por seus próprios motivos insondáveis, afasta deliberadamente a pessoa, e numa nuvem de esplendor indescritível, da saúde, da vida doméstica, da responsabilidade cívica, dos fortes vínculos sociais e de todas as virtudes comuns agradavelmente mantidas a leva em vez disso bem na direção de uma bela labareda de ruína, autoimolação desastre?

UE es pues la Comedia? La edad medieval realizada como arte, a pesar del autor y de los contemporáneos. ¡Y notad qué cosa tan grande es ésta! La edad media no era un mundo artístico, antes lo contrario del arte. La religión era misticismo; la filosofía, escolástica. La primera excomulgaba el arte, quemaba las imágenes, avezaba a los espíritus a desasirse de lo real. La otra vivía de abstracciones y de fórmulas y de citas, aguzando el entendimiento y llevándole a sutilizar acerca de los nombres y de los vacuas generalidades llamadas esencias. Los espíritus eran atraídos hacia lo general, más dispuestos a idealizar que a realizar: y esto es precisamente lo contrario del arte. En los poetas sencillos hallamos la realidad tosca e informe, como en los misterios, en las visiones y en las leyendas. En los poetas doctos encontramos una forma crudamente didascálica o figurativa y alegórica. El arte no había nacido aún. Existía la imagen; pero no la realidad con su libertad y carácter.

Viví en aquel bloque de pisos entre los seis y los veintiún años. En total había veinte apartamentos, cuatro por planta, y lo único que recuerdo es un edificio lleno de mujeres. Apenas recuerdo a ningún hombre. Estaban por todas partes, claro está –maridos, padres, hermanos–, pero sólo recuerdo a las mujeres. Y las recuerdo a todas tan toscas como la señora Drucker o tan feroces como mi madre. Nunca hablaban como si supiesen quiénes eran, como si comprendieran el trato que habían hecho con la vida, pero a menudo actuaban como si lo supiesen. Astutas, irascibles, iletradas, parecían sacadas de una novela de Dreiser. Había años de aparente calma y, de repente, cundían el pánico y la locura: dos o tres vidas marcadas (quizá arruinadas) y el tumulto se apagaba. De nuevo calma silenciosa, letargo erótico, la normalidad de la abnegación cotidiana. Y yo –la niña que crecía entre todas ellas, formándose a su imagen y semejanza– me empapaba de ellas como de cloroformo impregnado en un paño apretado contra mi cara. He tardado treinta años en entender cuánto entendí de ellas.

Penso a ciò che mi disse Hobie: la bellezza cambia la venatura della realtà. E continuo a pensare anche a una verità più convenzionale: ovvero, che la ricerca della bellezza pura è una trappola, una scorciatoia per l’amarezza e il dolore, che la bellezza dev’essere sempre associata a qualcosa di più profondo. Ma cos’è quel qualcosa? Perché sono fatto così? Perché tengo alle cose sbagliate, e non mi curo di quelle giuste? O, per metterla in un altro modo: come è possibile che, pur rendendomi conto che tutto quel che amo o che m’interessa è un’illusione, io continui a sentire che tutto ciò per cui vale la pena vivere risiede proprio in quell’illusione? Un grande dolore, che comincio a comprendere solo adesso: il cuore non si sceglie. Non possiamo obbligarci a desiderare ciò che è bene per noi o per gli altri. Non siamo noi a determinare il tipo di persone che siamo. Perché – non ci martellano forse fin dall’infanzia con l’idea opposta, un luogo comune profondamente radicato nella nostra cultura, da William Blake a Lady Gaga, da Rousseau a Rumi alla Tosca a Mister Rogers, un messaggio curiosamente uniforme, trasversale: se sei in dubbio, cosa fai? Come fai a sapere cosa è giusto per te? Ogni psicologo, ogni consulente del lavoro, ogni principessa Disney conosce la risposta: «Sii te stesso». «Segui il tuo cuore.» Ma ecco ciò che vorrei davvero che qualcuno mi spiegasse. Cosa succede se ti ritrovi con un cuore inaffidabile? Se questo cuore, per ragioni imperscrutabili, ti porta ostinatamente, avvolto in una nube di indicibile fulgore, lontano da tutto ciò che è sano, dal conforto dei piaceri domestici, dal senso civico e dai legami sociali e da tutte quelle che vengono comunemente considerate virtù per trascinarti invece verso uno stupendo falò di rovina, immolazione e disastro? […] Se il tuo io più profondo ti conduce cantando dritto verso il fuoco, devi voltargli le spalle? Tapparti le orecchie con la cera? Ignorare il perverso splendore che il cuore ti grida contro? […] O è meglio tuffarsi di testa e con una risata nel sacro fuoco che chiama il tuo nome?

Diante de tanta ignorância e preconceito atualmente eu só posso comentar que o Facebook é um terreno fértil para os piores frutos de nossa tosca personalidade.

Una noche, la ciudad dormía con paz razonable. Por supuesto, la oprimían las interrupciones habituales. Los hombres y mujeres luchaban entre ellos y morían. La sangre y el vómito manchaban las viejas calles. Los cristales se rompían. La milicia surcaba los cielos. Los dirigibles rugían como ballenas monstruosas. El cuerpo mutilado, sin ojos, de un hombre que más tarde sería identificado como Benjamín Flex, fue encontrado flotando en Malado. La ciudad bregaba inquieta a través de la noche, como había hecho a lo largo de los siglos. Era un sueño fracturado, pero el único que había conocido. Pero a la noche siguiente, cuando David completó su furtiva tarea en los barrios bajos, algo cambió. La Nueva Crobuzon nocturna siempre había sido un caos de ritmos discordantes y acordes violentos, repentinos. Ahora sonaba una nueva nota, un tono sutil, tenso, susurrado, que enfermaba el aire. Una noche, la tensión era algo delgado, tentativo, que se abría camino en la mente de los ciudadanos, arrojando sombras sobre sus rostros dormidos. Entonces llegaba el día y nadie recordaba más que un momento de inquietud nocturna. Y entonces las sombras se alargaron y la temperatura descendió, y cuando la noche regresó desde debajo del mundo, algo nuevo y terrible se aposentó sobre la ciudad. Por toda la conurbación, desde la Colina de la Bandera al norte hasta Barracan bajo el río, desde los intermitentes suburbios de Malado al este hasta las toscas barriadas industriales de Campanario, la gente se agitaba gimiente en sus camas. Los niños eran los primeros. Lloraban y se clavaban las uñas en las manos, retorciendo sus caritas en duras muecas, sudando sin parar con un hedor empalagoso; sus cabezas oscilaban horrendas de un lado a otro, mas sin despertar. A medida que la noche avanzaba, también eran los adultos los que sufrían. En las profundidades de otro inocuo sueño, los viejos miedos y las paranoias llegaban de repente atravesando murallas mentales, como ejércitos invasores. Sucesiones de imágenes pavorosas asaltaban a los afligidos, visiones animadas de miedos profundos, banalidades absurdamente aterradoras (fantasmas y trasgos a los que nunca deberían enfrentarse) de los que se reirían de estar despiertos. Aquellos que de forma arbitraria se salvaban de la ordalía despertaban de repente en lo más profundo de la noche, por los gemidos y gritos de sus amantes dormidos, por sus sollozos desesperados. A veces los sueños podían ser de sexo o felicidad, pero aumentados y febriles hasta tornarse espantosos en su intensidad. En aquella retorcida celada nocturna, lo bueno era malo, y lo malo era peor. La ciudad se mecía temblorosa. Los sueños devenían pestilencia, un bacilo que parecía saltar de un durmiente a otro. Incluso invadían las mentes durante la vigilia. Los vigilantes nocturnos y los agentes de la milicia; las bailarinas y los estudiantes frenéticos; los insomnes se encontraban perdiendo la concentración, cayendo en fantasías y meditaciones de extraña, alucinatoria intensidad. Por toda la ciudad, la noche quedaba fisurada por gritos de miseria nocturna. Nueva Crobuzon estaba en garras de una epidemia, una enfermedad, una plaga de pesadillas.

No one is immune from obesity – it affects everyone from every race, gender and age. For the first time in history, there is a real possibility that children will not outlive their parents as a result of weight-related illnesses and other diseases. There has to be a better way!

Me estremezco al pensar en cuál ha de ser el resultado de una lucha entre sistemas tan distintos; uno de nosotros ha de prevalecer y el otro será destruido, en cualquier caso no podemos existir ambos de forma segura. De su parte está la inmensa riqueza de su imperio, recursos intactos, experiencia y práctica en las armas, una soldadesca veterana, una serie ininterrumpida de victorias, disposición a resistir las dificultades, unión, orden, disciplina, frugalidad y vigilancia. De la nuestra se encuentra una hacienda vacía, hábitos lujosos, recursos agotados, espíritus quebrantados, una soldadesca tosca e insubordinada, y codiciosas reyertas; no hay respeto por la disciplina, el libertinaje se extiende por todas partes, los hombres se complacen en la embriaguez y la depravación, y, lo peor de todo, el enemigo está acostumbrado a la victoria, y nosotros a la derrota. ¿Podemos dudar de cuál ha de ser el resultado?7

complexes. Maye set up a practice as a dietitian. A bit more than a year after Elon’s birth came his brother, Kimbal, and soon thereafter came their sister, Tosca. Elon showed all the traits of a curious, energetic tot. He picked things up