Truly Drink Quotes

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountaintop,then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shal claim your limbs,then shall you truly dance.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

You don't notice the dead leaving when they really choose to leave you. You're not meant to. At most you feel them as a whisper or the wave of a whisper undulating down. I would compare it to a woman in the back of a lecture hall or theater whom no one notices until she slips out.Then only those near the door themselves, like Grandma Lynn, notice; to the rest it is like an unexplained breeze in a closed room. Grandma Lynn died several years later, but I have yet to see her here. I imagine her tying it on in her heaven, drinking mint juleps with Tennessee Williams and Dean Martin. She'll be here in her own sweet time, I'm sure. If I'm to be honest with you, I still sneak away to watch my family sometimes. I can't help it, and sometimes they still think of me. They can't help it.... It was a suprise to everyone when Lindsey found out she was pregnant...My father dreamed that one day he might teach another child to love ships in bottles. He knew there would be both sadness and joy in it; that it would always hold an echo of me. I would like to tell you that it is beautiful here, that I am, and you will one day be, forever safe. But this heaven is not about safety just as, in its graciousness, it isn't about gritty reality. We have fun. We do things that leave humans stumped and grateful, like Buckley's garden coming up one year, all of its crazy jumble of plants blooming all at once. I did that for my mother who, having stayed, found herself facing the yard again. Marvel was what she did at all the flowers and herbs and budding weeds. Marveling was what she mostly did after she came back- at the twists life took. And my parents gave my leftover possessions to the Goodwill, along with Grandma Lynn's things. They kept sharing when they felt me. Being together, thinking and talking about the dead, became a perfectly normal part of their life. And I listened to my brother, Buckley, as he beat the drums. Ray became Dr. Singh... And he had more and more moments that he chose not to disbelieve. Even if surrounding him were the serious surgeons and scientists who ruled over a world of black and white, he maintained this possibility: that the ushering strangers that sometimes appeared to the dying were not the results of strokes, that he had called Ruth by my name, and that he had, indeed, made love to me. If he ever doubted, he called Ruth. Ruth, who graduated from a closet to a closet-sized studio on the Lower East Side. Ruth, who was still trying to find a way to write down whom she saw and what she had experienced. Ruth, who wanted everyone to believe what she knew: that the dead truly talk to us, that in the air between the living, spirits bob and weave and laugh with us. They are the oxygen we breathe. Now I am in the place I call this wide wide Heaven because it includes all my simplest desires but also the most humble and grand. The word my grandfather uses is comfort. So there are cakes and pillows and colors galore, but underneath this more obvious patchwork quilt are places like a quiet room where you can go and hold someone's hand and not have to say anything. Give no story. Make no claim. Where you can live at the edge of your skin for as long as you wish. This wide wide Heaven is about flathead nails and the soft down of new leaves, wide roller coaster rides and escaped marbles that fall then hang then take you somewhere you could never have imagined in your small-heaven dreams.

So it is not an accident that the Nazi lads vent a particular fury against (Einstein). He does truly stand for what they most dislike, the opposite of the blond beast intellectualist, individualist, supernationalist, pacifist, inky, plump... How should they know the glory of the free-ranging intellect and soft objective sympathy to whom money and violence, drink and blood and pomp, mean absolutely nothing?

I’ve often thought of the forest as a living cathedral, but this might diminish what it truly is. If I have understood Koyukon teachings, the forest is not merely an expression or representation of sacredness, nor a place to invoke the sacred; the forest is sacredness itself. Nature is not merely created by God; nature is God. Whoever moves within the forest can partake directly of sacredness, experience sacredness with his entire body, breathe sacredness and contain it within himself, drink the sacred water as a living communion, bury his feet in sacredness, touch the living branch and feel the sacredness, open his eyes and witness the burning beauty of sacredness

Gareth sucked in a breath. Hyacinth’s brother wasn’t going to make this easy on him. But that didn’t matter. He had vowed to do this right, and he would not be cowed. He looked up, meeting the viscount’s dark eyes with steady purpose. “I would like to marry Hyacinth,” he said. And then, because the viscount did not say anything, because he didn’t even move, Gareth added, “Er, if she’ll have me.” And then about eight things happened at once. Or perhaps there were merely two or three, and it just seemed like eight, because it was all so unexpected. First, the viscount exhaled, although that did seem to understate the case. It was more of a sigh, actually—a huge, tired, heartfelt sigh that made the man positively deflate in front of Gareth. Which was astonishing. Gareth had seen the viscount on many occasions and was quite familiar with his reputation. This was not a man who sagged or groaned. His lips seemed to move through the whole thing, too, and if Gareth were a more suspicious man, he would have thought that the viscount had said, “Thank you, Lord.” Combined with the heavenward tilt of the viscount’s eyes, it did seem the most likely translation. And then, just as Gareth was taking all of this in, Lord Bridgerton let the palms of his hands fall against the desk with surprising force, and he looked Gareth squarely in the eye as he said, “Oh, she’ll have you. She will definitely have you.” It wasn’t quite what Gareth had expected. “I beg your pardon,” he said, since truly, he could think of nothing else. “I need a drink,” the viscount said, rising to his feet. “A celebration is in order, don’t you think?” “Er…yes?” Lord Bridgerton crossed the room to a recessed bookcase and plucked a cut-glass decanter off one of the shelves. “No,” he said to himself, putting it haphazardly back into place, “the good stuff, I think.” He turned to Gareth, his eyes taking on a strange, almost giddy light. “The good stuff, wouldn’t you agree?” “Ehhhh…” Gareth wasn’t quite sure what to make of this. “The good stuff,” the viscount said firmly. He moved some books to the side and reached behind to pull out what looked to be a very old bottle of cognac. “Have to keep it hidden,” he explained, pouring it liberally into two glasses. “Servants?” Gareth asked. “Brothers.” He handed Gareth a glass. “Welcome to the family.

First. Don't get drunk. Don't smoke anything." "Duh. What are you, my dad? That's easy. I don't drink. We aren't even twenty-one. I seriously doubt anyone will be drinking at the Hodjwick house. And who smokes cigarettes anymore? So gross." Dustin shook his head. "You are so backwards. I wasn't talking about cigarettes, and if you truly believe no one will be drinking at a high school party on a Saturday night then you are too much of a baby to even leave your own house.

I would understand later that baseball was what truly made him an American: the sports pages were more crucial documents than the Constitution.

The problem with a lot of people who read only literary fiction is that they assume fantasy is just books about orcs and goblins and dragons and wizards and bullshit. And to be fair, a lot of fantasy is about that stuff. The problem with people in fantasy is they believe that literary fiction is just stories about a guy drinking tea and staring out the window at the rain while he thinks about his mother. And the truth is a lot of literary fiction is just that. Like, kind of pointless, angsty, emo, masturbatory bullshit. However, we should not be judged by our lowest common denominators. And also you should not fall prey to the fallacious thinking that literary fiction is literary and all other genres are genre. Literary fiction is a genre, and I will fight to the death anyone who denies this very self-evident truth. So, is there a lot of fantasy that is raw shit out there? Absolutely, absolutely, it’s popcorn reading at best. But you can’t deny that a lot of lit fic is also shit. 85% of everything in the world is shit. We judge by the best. And there is some truly excellent fantasy out there. For example, Midsummer Night’s Dream; Hamlet with the ghost; Macbeth, ghosts and witches; I’m also fond of the Odyessey; Most of the Pentateuch in the Old Testament, Gargantua and Pantagruel. Honestly, fantasy existed before lit fic, and if you deny those roots you’re pruning yourself so closely that you can’t help but wither and die.

I don't know what that means. To truly live." "To find work that you love, and work harder than other men. To learn the languages of the earth, and love the sounds of the words and the things they describe. To love food and music and drink. Fully love them. To love weather, and storms, and the smell of rain. To love heat. To love cold. To love sleep and dreams. To love the newness of each day.

I think the reason why twentysomethings are so fixated on age is because we feel a pressure to be a certain way at 23, at 25, at 29. There are all of these invisible deadlines with our careers and with love and drinking and drugs. I can’t do coke at 25. I need to be in a LTR at 27. I can’t vomit from drinking at 26. I just can’t! We feel so much guilt for essentially acting our age and making mistakes. We’re obsessed with this idea of being domesticated and having our shit together. It’s kind of sad actually because I don’t think we ever fully get a chance to enjoy our youth. We’re so concerned about doing things "the right way" that we lose any sense of pleasure in doing things the wrong way. Youth may be truly wasted on the young.

You know this girl. Her hair is neither long nor short nor light nor dark. She parts it precisely in the middle. She sits precisely in the middle of the classroom, and when she used to ride the school bus, she sat precisely in the middle of that, too. She joins clubs, but is never the president of them. Sometimes she is the secretary; usually, just a member. When asked, she has been known to paints sets for the school play. She always has a date to the dance, but is never anyone’s first choice. In point of fact, she’s nobody’s first choice for anything. Her best friend became her best friend when another girl moved away. She has a group of girls she eats lunch with every day, but God, how they bore her. Sometimes, when she can’t stand it anymore, she eats in the library instead. Truth be told, she prefers books to people, and the librarian always seems happy to see her. She knows there are other people who have it worse—she isn’t poor or ugly or friendless or teased. Of course, she’s also aware that the reason no one teases is because no one ever notices her. This isn’t to say she doesn’t have qualities. She is pretty, maybe, if anyone would bother to look. And she gets good enough grades. And she doesn’t drink and drive. And she says NO to drugs. And she is always where she says she will be. And she calls when she’s going to be late. And she feels a little, just a little, dead inside. She thinks, You think you know me, but you don’t. She thinks, None of you has any idea about all the things in my heart. She thinks, None of you has any idea how really and truly beautiful I am. She thinks, See me. See me. See me. Sometimes she thinks she will scream. Sometimes she imagines sticking her head in an oven. But she doesn’t. She just writes it all down in her journal and waits. She is waiting for someone to see.

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him, `Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?' 40: And the King will answer them, `Truly, I say to you, as you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.

Kell had told his brother about the deals he struck in Grey London, and in White, and even on occasion in Red, about the various things he’d smuggled, and Rhy had stared at him, and listened, and when he spoke, it wasn’t to lecture Kell on all the ways it was wrong, or illegal. It was to ask why. “I don’t know,” said Kell, and it had been the truth. Rhy had sat up, eyes bleary from drink. “Have we not provided?” he’d asked, visibly upset. “Is there anything you want for?” “No,” Kell had answered, and that had been a truth and a lie at the same time. “Are you not loved?” whispered Rhy. “Are you not welcomed as family?” “But I’m not family, Rhy,” Kell had said. “I’m not truly a Maresh, for all that the king and queen have offered me that name. I feel more like a possession than a prince.” At that, Rhy had punched him in the face. For a week after, Kell had two black eyes instead of one, and he’d never spoken like that again, but the damage was done.

The critical scene of the mystery is when the detective enters. The action shifts to Sherlock’s sitting room. The little Belgian man with the waxed moustache appears in the lobby of the grand hotel. The gentle old woman with a bag of knitting comes to visit her niece when the poison pen letters start going around the village. The private detective comes back to the office after a night of drinking and finds the woman with the cigarette and the veiled hat this is when things will change.

When people become addicted to alcohol, it’s seen as their failure. They didn’t pass the ‘moderate use of an addictive drug’ challenge. They failed at drinking! Society expects us to regularly use an addictive drug, without becoming addicted to it. Alcohol is the only drug where, the second you stop taking it, you’re seen as being too weak to handle it. It’s truly bizarre.

You will not remember much from school. School is designed to teach you how to respond and listen to authority figures in the event of an emergency. Like if there's a bomb in a mall or a fire in an office. It can, apparently, take you more than a decade to learn this. These are not the best days of your life. They are still ahead of you. You will fall in love and have your heart broken in many different, new and interesting ways in college or university (if you go) and you will actually learn things, as at this point, people will believe you have a good chance of obeying authority and surviving, in the event of an emergency. If, in your chosen career path, there are award shows that give out more than ten awards in one night or you have to pay someone to actually take the award home to put on your mantlepiece, then those awards are more than likely designed to make young people in their 20's work very late, for free, for other people. Those people will do their best to convince you that they have value. They don't. Only the things you do have real, lasting value, not the things you get for the things you do. You will, at some point, realise that no trophy loves you as much as you love it, that it cannot pay your bills (even if it increases your salary slightly) and that it won't hold your hand tightly as you say your last words on your deathbed. Only people who love you can do that. If you make art to feel better, make sure it eventually makes you feel better. If it doesn't, stop making it. You will love someone differently, as time passes. If you always expect to feel the same kind of love you felt when you first met someone, you will always be looking for new people to love. Love doesn't fade. It just changes as it grows. It would be boring if it didn't. There is no truly "right" way of writing, painting, being or thinking, only things which have happened before. People who tell you differently are assholes, petrified of change, who should be violently ignored. No philosophy, mantra or piece of advice will hold true for every conceivable situation. "The early bird catches the worm" does not apply to minefields. Perfection only exists in poetry and movies, everyone fights occasionally and no sane person is ever completely sure of anything. Nothing is wrong with any of this. Wisdom does not come from age, wisdom comes from doing things. Be very, very careful of people who call themselves wise, artists, poets or gurus. If you eat well, exercise often and drink enough water, you have a good chance of living a long and happy life. The only time you can really be happy, is right now. There is no other moment that exists that is more important than this one. Do not sacrifice this moment in the hopes of a better one. It is easy to remember all these things when they are being said, it is much harder to remember them when you are stuck in traffic or lying in bed worrying about the next day. If you want to move people, simply tell them the truth. Today, it is rarer than it's ever been. (People will write things like this on posters (some of the words will be bigger than others) or speak them softly over music as art (pause for effect). The reason this happens is because as a society, we need to self-medicate against apathy and the slow, gradual death that can happen to anyone, should they confuse life with actually living.)

Freshly brainwashed from rehab, I carry the bottle into the bathroom. I hold it up to the light. See the pretty bottle? Isn't it beautiful? Yes, it's beautiful. I unscrew the cap and pour it into the toilet. I flush twice. And then I think, why did I flush twice? The answer, is of course, because I truly do know myself. I cannot be sure I won't attempt to drink from the toilet, like a dog.

There's something about you, Maddie," he said as he looked into her eyes. "Something more than the way you make love. Something that makes me think about you when I'm pouring drinks or watching Travis strike out in T-Ball.

And yet, winning is like a welcome drink going down your throat, like a beautiful embrace. It is brilliant while it lasts but it isn't forever. The high eventually melts away and the journey of life begins afresh. The truly remarkable among us visit these highs periodically; winning then becomes a journey, a graph where each point is crucial but is in reality merely part of a larger curve.

Only when you drink from the river of silence, shall you indeed sing. And, when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And, when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance. -Khalid Gibran

Sometimes you need to lose yourself to truly find yourself again. But at the end of the day, you have to know when to wake the fuck up and get on with your life.

People that don’t wake up every morning feeling like what’s the point will never understand. It’s impossible. They say: exercise, meditate, think happy thoughts, snap out of it, wear this crystal, drink this tea, find your goddamn bliss. But I literally—and I am not exaggerating—do not remember a time when I was truly happy.

Another low moan rose from the grass. "That was a good shot," Mother said, nodding toward it. "Not good enough." Mother shrugged. "It was dark." She rose and stretched out her stiff body, a sign that she truly felt safe. "You'll get better." Another cry. Mother licked her finger, tested the wind, and fired once into the night. Silence fell.

A nineteenth-century Russian novel and vodka accompanied each other perfectly. Reading a novel while one sipped vodka legitimized the drink, while the drink made the novel seem much shorter than it truly was.

All boys wish to be manly; but they often try to become so by copying the vices of men rather than their virtues. They see men drinking, smoking, swearing; so these poor little fellows sedulously imitate such bad habits, thinking they are making themselves more like men. They mistake rudeness for strength, disrespect to parents for independence. They read wretched stories about boy brigands and boy detectives, and fancy themselves heroes when they break the laws, and become troublesome and mischievous. Out of such false influences the criminal classes are recruited. Many a little boy who only wishes to be manly, becomes corrupted and debased by the bad examples around him and the bad literature which he reads. The cure for this is to give him good books, show him truly noble examples from life and history, and make him understand how infinitely above this mock-manliness is the true courage which ennobles human nature.

She’s having a party, you know. This coming week.” He took a sip of wine. “I know. I received an invitation this morning before you arrived. According to her flowing prose, I am to be the guest of honor.” He shuddered. Miranda couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes, my mother is quite taken with you now that you’re assisting us financially. I’m sure she’ll fawn over you all evening.” He downed the remainder of his wine in one swig. “Dear God, now I wish I hadn’t accepted the invitation.” She giggled at his twisted, pained expression. “Oh, of course you must come. Drink the wine, appreciate the orchestra. After all, you’re paying for it.” Ethan’s expression went from a playfully pained one to a truly pained one for a brief instant. His frown drew down and he looked at her evenly. “No, Miranda. I believe it is you who are paying,” he said softly.

It was getting dark; soon it would be time for dinner. I finished my drink in a swallow. The idea of living there, of not having to go back ever again to asphalt and shopping malls and modular furniture; of living there with Charles and Camilla and Henry and Francis and maybe even Bunny; of no one marrying or going home or getting a job in a town a thousand miles away or doing any of the traitorous things friends do after college; of everything remaining exactly as it was, that instant—the idea was so truly heavenly that I’m not sure I thought, even then, it could ever really happen, but I like to believe I did.

Friends for life. These are the men and women that I cherish. Come rain or storm, we will always be there for one another. Maybe that’s the silver lining after having to deal with shitty people: you can truly appreciate the good ones.

Which brings us back around to drinkies. Lord Akeldama suggests a Pink Slurp (champagne & blood), but he’s a vampire and they have questionable palates. Alexia recommends substituting blackberry cordial for the blood, resulting in a truly excellent and festive drink. Alternatively, for those particularly cold nights, one might opt for mulled wine, which can be a most excellent way to disguise the quality of one’s vino. Bottoms

Through many a long day you'll be taught That what you once did without thinking, As easy as if it were eating or drinking, Must be done in order: one! two! three! But truly, this though factory of ours Is like some weaver's masterpiece: One treadle stirs a thousand threads, This way and that the shuttles whistle, Threads flow invisibly, one ... Read morestroke Ties a thousand knots .... The philosopher steps in And proves to you it had to be so; The first was so, the second was so, And therefore the third and fourth were so. If the first and second hadn't existed, The third and fourth would never have existed. And this is praised by every scholar, But never a one becomes a weaver. To know and describe a living thing You first get rid of all its spirit: Then the parts are all in the palm of your hand, And all that you lack is the spirit that binds them! Encheiresis naturae, chemists call it, And fool themselves and never know it

Roddy the assistant manager lived in the theater. He'd emptied out one of the supply closets. He'd installed an inflatable mattress, a Shower Anywhere portable shower, and a wee television. He slept amid the powdered-butter fumes and empty drink-syrup tanks. He had grub-white skin and Goth circles under his eyes that, unlike those of Goths, came from really, truly existing half in the world of the dead. He smelled like carpeting, Scotch tape, and steak sauce. He was almost forty but had one of those half mustaches that thirteen-year-olds have. He was the closest thing to a zombie I've yet encountered in this world.

He shook his head slowly. “I am not the person I was born. Neither are you. I know no one who is. Truly, Fitz, all we ever know are facets of one another. Perhaps we feel as if we know one another well when we know several facets of that person. Father, son, brother, friend, lover, husband… a man can be all of those things, yet no one person knows him in all of those roles. I watch you being Hap’s father, and yet I do not know you as I knew my father, any more than I knew my father as his brother did. So. When I show myself in a different light, I do not make a pretense. Rather I bare a different aspect to the world than they have seen before. Truly, there is a place in my heart where I am forever the Fool and your playfellow. And within me there is a genuine Lord Golden, fond of good drink and well-prepared food and elegant clothing and witty speech. And so, when I show myself as him, I am deceiving no one, but only sharing a different part of myself.” p. 40 The Fool to Fitz

Suppose you are drinking a cup of tea. When you hold your cup, you may like to breathe in, to bring your mind back to your body, and you become fully present. And when you are truly there, something else is also there—life, represented by the cup of tea. In that moment you are real, and the cup of tea is real. You are not lost in the past, in the future, in your projects, in your worries. You are free from all of these afflictions. And in that state of being free, you enjoy your tea. That is the moment of happiness, and of peace.” Pay

I took a moment to drink him in. His hair sticking in twenty-one directions since he’d yanked off his beanie. His Botticelli face. “I am entirely too old for you, Hayes.” “I don’t think you truly believe that. I mean, do you like me? Do you not have fun when we’re together? Do you feel like I have a problem following the conversation?” “No.” “Then I don’t think you really believe that. If you did, you wouldn’t be here. I think you care what other people might be thinking, or saying, and that’s what’s fucking you up.” I paused. “How do you not care?

Something as simple and ordinary as drinking a cup of tea can bring us great joy and help us feel our connection to the Earth. The way we drink our tea can transform our lives if we truly devote our attention to it. Sometimes we hurry through our daily tasks, looking forward to the time when we can stop and have a cup of tea. But then when we’re finally sitting with the cup in our hands, our mind is still running off into the future and we can’t enjoy what we’re doing; we lose the pleasure of drinking our tea. We need to keep our awareness alive and value each moment of our daily life. We may think our other tasks are less pleasant than drinking tea. But if we do them with awareness, we may find that they’re actually very enjoyable. Drinking a cup of tea is a pleasure we can give ourselves every day. To enjoy our tea, we have to be fully present and know clearly and deeply that we are drinking tea. When you lift your cup, you may like to breathe in the aroma. Looking deeply into your tea, you see that you are drinking fragrant plants that are the gift of Mother Earth. You see the labor of the tea pickers; you see the luscious tea fields and plantations in Sri Lanka, China, and Vietnam. You know that you are drinking a cloud; you are drinking the rain. The tea contains the whole universe.

It was strange, because she always felt that she hid herself from Erika, that she was more 'herself' with her 'true' friends, where the friendship flowed in an ordinary, uncomplicated, grown-up fashion (emails, phone calls, drinks, dinners, banter and jokes that everyone got), but right now it felt like none of those friends knew her the raw, ugly, childish, basic way that Erika did.

. . . because we cannot conceive that as we grow up our own minds will become so enlarged and elevated that we ourselves shall then regard as trifling those objects and pursuits we now so fondly cherish, and that, though our companions will no longer join us in those childish pastimes, they will drink with us at other fountains of delight, and mingle their souls with ours in higher aims and nobler occupations beyond our present comprehension, but not less deeply relished or less truly good for that, while yet both we and they remain essentially the same individuals as before.

Grief will never truly be done with you. When you're ready, take it in your hands like a paintbrush. like a charcoal. like a pen. Turn it into a thing that could hang in museums. - masterpiece

So here is my profound thought for the day: This is the first time I have met someone who seeks out people and who sees beyond. That may seem trivial but I think it is profound all the same. We never look beyond our assumptions and, what's worse, we have given up trying to meet others; we just meet ourselves. We don't recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. If we actually realized this, if we were to become aware of the fact that we are only ever looking at ourselves in the other person, that we are alone in the wilderness, we would go crazy. When my mother offers macaroons from Chez Laduree to Madame de Broglie, she is telling herself her own life story and just nibbling at her own flavor; when Papa drinks his coffee and reads his paper, he is contemplating his own reflection in the mirror, as if practicing the Coue method or something; when Colombe talks about Marian's lectures, she is ranting about her own reflection; and when people walk by the concierge, all they see is a void, because she is not from their world. As for me, I implore fate to give me the chance to see beyond myself and truly meet someone.

Is it that we pretend to a reformation? Truly, no: but it may be we are more addicted to Venus than our fathers were. They are two exercises that thwart and hinder one another in their vigor. Lechery weakens our stomach on the one side; and on the other sobriety renders us more spruce and amorous for the exercise of love.

Today, I choose not to take my life for granted. I choose not to look upon the fact that I am healthy, have food in my refrigerator and have clean water to drink as givens. They are not givens for so many people in our world. The fact that I am safe and (relatively) sane are not givens. That I was born into a family who loves me and into a country not ravaged by war are not givens. It is impossible to name all of the circumstances in my life I've taken for granted. All of the basic needs I've had met, all of the friendships and job opportunities and financial blessings and the list, truly, is endless. The fact that I am breathing is a miracle, one I too rarely stop to appreciate. I'm stopping, right now, to be grateful for everything I am and everything I've been given. I'm stopping, right now, to be grateful for every pleasure and every pain that has contributed to the me who sits here and writes these words. I am thankful for my life. This moment is a blessing. Each breath a gift. That I've been able to take so much for granted is a gift, too. But it's not how I want to live—not when gratitude is an option, not when wonder and awe are choices. I choose gratitude. I choose wonder. I choose awe. I choose everything that suggests I'm opening myself to the miraculous reality of simply being alive for one moment more.

Claire spoke often in her poetry of the idea of ‘fittingness’: that is, when your chosen pursuit and your ability to achieve it — no matter how small or insignificant both might be — are matched exactly, are fitting. This, Claire argued, is when we become truly human, fully ourselves, beautiful. To swim when your body is made for swimming. To kneel when you feel humble. To drink water when you are thirsty. Or — if one wishes to be grand about it — to write the poem that is exactly the fitting receptacle of the feeling or thought that you hoped to convey.

And if that illustration will not move you, here is another: -- We are children now; we feel as children, and we understand as children; and when we are told that men and women do not play with toys, and that our companions will one day weary on the trivial sports and occupations that interest them and us so deeply now, we cannot help being saddened at the thoughts of such an alteration, because we cannot conceive that as we grow up, our own minds will become so enlarged and elevated that we ourselves shall then regard as trifling those objects and pursuits we now so foolishly cherish, and that, though our companions will no longer join us in those childish pastimes, they will drink with us at other fountains of delight, and mingle their souls with ours in higher aims and nobler occupations beyond our present comprehension, but not less deeply relished or less truly good for that, while yet both we and they remain the same individuals as before.

I would make it a rule to eradicate from my patient any strong personal taste which is not actually a sin, even if it is something quite trivial such as a fondness for county cricket or collecting stamps or drinking cocoa. Such things, I grant you, have nothing of virtue in them; but there is a sort of innocence and humility and self-forgetfulness about them which I distrust. The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring twopence what other people say about it, is by that very fact fore-armed against some of our subtlest modes of attack. You should always try to make the patient abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favour of the “best” people, the “right” food, the “important” books.

This distinction between headspace and the emotion of happiness is an important one. For some reason we’ve come to believe that happiness should be the default setting in life and, therefore, anything different is somehow wrong. Based on this assumption we tend to resist the source of unhappiness – physically, mentally and emotionally. It’s usually at this stage that things get complicated. Life can begin to feel like a chore, and an endless struggle to chase and maintain that feeling of happiness. We get hooked on the temporary rush or pleasure of a new experience, whatever that is, and then need to feed it the whole time. It doesn’t matter whether we feed it with food, drink, drugs, clothes, cars, relationships, work, or even the peace and quiet of the countryside. If we become dependent on it for our happiness, then we’re trapped. What happens when we can’t have it any more? And what happens when the excitement wears off? For many, their entire life revolves around this pursuit of happiness. Yet how many people do you know who are truly happy? And by that I mean, how many people do you know who have that unshakeable sense of underlying headspace? Has this approach of chasing one thing after the next worked for you in terms of giving you headspace? It’s as if we rush around creating all this mental chatter in our pursuit of temporary happiness, without realising that all the noise is simply drowning out the natural headspace that is already there, just waiting to be acknowledged.

I hate this night. I hate that it makes me a person so truly removed from the real me; this man who sits in silence in his parlor – purposely quarantined from his family – is not who I want to be. But on Halloween night, this awful impostor wafts over me like morning fog, and I know there’s no resisting him. Like one anticipates the common cold brought on by a harsh winter, I know this broken and terrified man will soon be visiting when the evening of October 31st falls upon us. And on this yearly autumn night, he will sit and drink. And remember.

A pretty vampire woman in a cheongsam came flying down the hallway, ribbons waving from her purple-streaked hair like a silken flag. Her face was familiar. Alec had seen her at Taki’s, and around the city more generally, usually with Raphael. “Save us, oh fearless leader,” said Raphael’s lady friend. “Elliott’s in a huge aquarium puking blue and green. He tried to drink mermaid blood. He tried to drink selkie blood. He tried to—” “Ahem,” said Raphael, with a savage jerk of his head in Alec’s direction. Alec waved. “Shadowhunter,” he said. “Right here. Hi.” “He tried to keep to the Accords and obey all the known Laws!” the woman declared. “Because that’s the New York clan’s idea of a truly festive good time.” Alec remembered Magnus and tried not to look like he was here to ruin the Downworlder party. There was one thing he and this woman had in common. He recognized the bright purple she was wearing. “I think I saw you earlier,” said Alec hesitantly. “You were—making out with a faerie girl?” “Yeah, you’re gonna have to be more specific than that,” said the vampire woman. “This is a party. I’ve made out with six faerie girls, four faerie boys, and a talking toadstool whose gender I’m unsure about. Pretty sexy for a toadstool, though.” Raphael covered his face briefly with his non-texting hand. “Why, you want to make something of it?” The woman bristled. “How happy I am to see the Nephilim constantly crashing our parties. Were you even invited?” “I’m a plus-one,” said Alec. The vampire girl relaxed slightly. “Oh, right, you’re Magnus’s latest disaster,” she said. “That’s what Raphael calls you. I’m Lily.” She lifted a hand in a halfhearted wave. Alec glanced at Raphael, who arched his eyebrow at Alec in an unfriendly way. “Didn’t realize Raphael and I were on pet name terms,” said Alec. He continued to study Raphael. “Do you know Magnus well?” “Hardly at all,” said Raphael. “Barely acquainted. I don’t think much of his personality. Or his dress sense. Or the company he keeps. Come away, Lily. Alexander, I hope I never see you again.” “I’ve decided I detest you,” Lily told Alec. “It’s mutual,” Alec said dryly. Unexpectedly, that made Lily smile, before Raphael dragged her away.

Any way that you come up with to meet a woman that does not involve clearly stating your true intentions, your real reason for talking to her, would be to use an excuse, including picking up something that she dropped, joining the same class as she does, offering to buy her a drink, asking for her help, asking to be introduced by someone else, and approaching her friend first. The list could go on forever, as the number of excuses that males use is truly endless.

Go on,” he said, growing impatient. “I’m not going to turn you into a salamander.” “You can do that?” she whispered. “Truly?” “Of course.” A wicked gleam entered his eyes. “But I only turn girls into salamanders on Tuesdays. Luckily for you, it’s a Wednesday, which is the day I drink a goblet of orphan’s blood for supper.

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow? And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city? And what is fear of need but need itself? Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable? There are those who give little of the much which they have--and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome. And there are those who have little and give it all. These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty. There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward. And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism. And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue; They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space. Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth. It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding; And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving. And is there aught you would withhold? All you have shall some day be given; Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors'. You often say, "I would give, but only to the deserving." The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish. Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights, is worthy of all else from you. And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream. And what desert greater shall there be, than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving? And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed? See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving. For in truth it is life that gives unto life while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness. And you receivers... and you are all receivers... assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives. Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings; For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the freehearted earth for mother, and God for father.

I watched as he comprehended what it was that he saw on my face, in my eyes. And I watched as a part of him shut down, locked away from me forever. And I hid the fact that my heart was breaking even as I lied to him, even as I broke his. And I swore I would never let him know otherwise, or I would truly be lost and the war would be over.

Sooner or later, all talk among foreigners in Pyongyang turns to one imponderable subject. Do the locals really believe what they are told, and do they truly revere Fat Man and Little Boy? I have been a visiting writer in several authoritarian and totalitarian states, and usually the question answers itself. Someone in a café makes an offhand remark. A piece of ironic graffiti is scrawled in the men's room. Some group at the university issues some improvised leaflet. The glacier begins to melt; a joke makes the rounds and the apparently immovable regime suddenly looks vulnerable and absurd. But it's almost impossible to convey the extent to which North Korea just isn't like that. South Koreans who met with long-lost family members after the June rapprochement were thunderstruck at the way their shabby and thin northern relatives extolled Fat Man and Little Boy. Of course, they had been handpicked, but they stuck to their line. There's a possible reason for the existence of this level of denial, which is backed up by an indescribable degree of surveillance and indoctrination. A North Korean citizen who decided that it was all a lie and a waste would have to face the fact that his life had been a lie and a waste also. The scenes of hysterical grief when Fat Man died were not all feigned; there might be a collective nervous breakdown if it was suddenly announced that the Great Leader had been a verbose and arrogant fraud. Picture, if you will, the abrupt deprogramming of more than 20 million Moonies or Jonestowners, who are suddenly informed that it was all a cruel joke and there's no longer anybody to tell them what to do. There wouldn't be enough Kool-Aid to go round. I often wondered how my guides kept straight faces. The streetlights are turned out all over Pyongyang—which is the most favored city in the country—every night. And the most prominent building on the skyline, in a town committed to hysterical architectural excess, is the Ryugyong Hotel. It's 105 floors high, and from a distance looks like a grotesquely enlarged version of the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco (or like a vast and cumbersome missile on a launchpad). The crane at its summit hasn't moved in years; it's a grandiose and incomplete ruin in the making. 'Under construction,' say the guides without a trace of irony. I suppose they just keep two sets of mental books and live with the contradiction for now.

Restaurant, bar, night club. . . Eat, drink, walk. . . YAWN. . . For some people, this is ALL they can think of when getting ready for a date. Isn’t a “shortlist” like this enough to make you and your girlfriend want to yawn? Why not fill your love story with truly wondrous and exciting activities, or surprise your date with something unusual and adventurous? Infuse your personal life with miracles and astonishment—not monotony. Isn’t this what everyone dreams of on our little planet? At the same time, who holds us back from fulfilling our own dreams, other than ourselves? Fill the life around you with joy. It will be returned to you tenfold. CREATE happy moments. . . MAKE miracles happen! LOVE is a miracle.

I will, I do, Amen, Here Here, Let's eat, drink and be merry. Marriage is the public spectacle of private parts: cheque-books and genitals, house-wares, fainthearts, all doubts becalmed by kissing aunt, a priest's safe homily, those tinkling glasses tightening those ties that truly bind us together forever, dressed to the nines. Darling, I reckon maybe thirty years, given our ages and expectancies. Barring the tragic or untimely, say, ten thousand mornings, ten thousand evenings, please God, ten thousand moistened nights like this, when, mindless of these vows, our opposites, nonetheless, attract. Thus, love's subtactraction: the timeless from the ordinary times -- nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine.

Epicurus founded a school of philosophy which placed great emphasis on the importance of pleasure. "Pleasure is the beginning and the goal of a happy life," he asserted, confirming what many had long thought, but philosophers had rarely accepted. Vulgar opinion at once imagined that the pleasure Epicurus had in mind involved a lot of money, sex, drink and debauchery (associations that survive in our use of the word 'Epicurean'). But true Epicureanism was more subtle. Epicurus led a very simple life, because after rational analysis, he had come to some striking conclusions about what actually made life pleasurable - and fortunately for those lacking a large income, it seemed that the essential ingredients of pleasure, however elusive, were not very expensive. The first ingredient was friendship. 'Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one's entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship,' he wrote. So he bought a house near Athens where he lived in the company of congenial souls. The desire for riches should perhaps not always be understood as a simple hunger for a luxurious life, a more important motive might be the wish to be appreciated and treated nicely. We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us. Epicurus, discerning our underlying need, recognised that a handful of true friends could deliver the love and respect that even a fortune may not. Epicurus and his friends located a second secret of happiness: freedom. In order not to have to work for people they didn't like and answer to potentially humiliating whims, they removed themselves from employment in the commercial world of Athens ('We must free ourselves from the prison of everyday affairs and politics'), and began what could best have been described as a commune, accepting a simpler way of life in exchange for independence. They would have less money, but would never again have to follow the commands of odious superiors. The third ingredient of happiness was, in Epicurus's view, to lead an examined life. Epicurus was concerned that he and his friends learn to analyse their anxieties about money, illness, death and the supernatural. There are few better remedies for anxiety than thought. In writing a problem down or airing it in conversation we let its essential aspects emerge. And by knowing its character, we remove, if not the problem itself, then its secondary, aggravating characteristics: confusion, displacement, surprise. Wealth is of course unlikely ever to make anyone miserable. But the crux of Epicurus's argument is that if we have money without friends, freedom and an analysed life, we will never be truly happy. And if we have them, but are missing the fortune, we will never be unhappy.

if alcohol made you happy, every time you drank you should be full of happiness. Let me ask you, from a purely physiological perspective, how could alcohol possibly make you happy? The effect of alcohol is to deaden all of your senses, to numb you, to inebriate you. If you are numb, how can you feel anything, happiness included? Surely you are not happy every time you drink. None of us are proud of everything we have said or done while drinking. Yet in the moment we believe we are on top of the world, saying and doing anything we please, deluding ourselves into thinking it’s making us happy. Are you happy when the room starts to spin, or your dinner comes back up? Is the drunk on the street in Vegas who has lost his home and his family to booze truly happy? You might take issue with this and tell me that

Lifting our cup means sharing our life so we can celebrate it. When we truly believe we are called to lay down our lives for our friends, we must dare to take the risk to let others know what we are living.

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance. And now it was evening. And Almitra the seeress said, Blessed be this day and this place and your spirit that has spoken. And he answered, Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener? Then he descended the steps of

Only the Great Poison, he who is handsome and wise and charming and handsome, can lead the faithful to Edom. So cater to the Great Poison with food and drink and baths and the occasional massage. "They wrote 'handsome' twice," murmured Alec. "Why is it called the Red Scrolls," said Shiyun, "when it is a book? And not a scroll?" "It's definitely not plural scrolls," said Alec. "I'm sure whoever this handsome, handsome cult founder is," said Magnus, his chest constricting, "he had his reasons." Shinyun read on. "The prince wishes only the best for his children. Thus, to honor his name, there must be a hearth crowded with only the finest of liquors and cigars and bonbons. Tithes of treasure and gifts showered upon the Great Poison symbolize the love between the faithful, so keep the spirits flowing and the gold growing, and always remember the sacred roles. "Life is a stage, so exit in style. "Only the faithful who make a truly great drink shall be favored. "Offend not the Great Poison with cruel deeds or poor fashion. "Seek the children of demons. Love them as you love your lord. Do not let the children be alone. "In times of trouble, remember: all roads lead to Rome." Alec looked at Magnus, and Magnus could not entirely understand Alec's small smile. "I think you wrote this.

My wife and I had called on Miss Stein, and she and the friend who lived with her had been very cordial and friendly and we had loved the big studio with the great paintings. I t was like one of the best rooms in the finest museum except there was a big fireplace and it was warm and comfortable and they gave you good things to eat and tea and natural distilled liqueurs made from purple plums, yellow plums or wild raspberries. Miss Stein was very big but not tall and was heavily built like a peasant woman. She had beautiful eyes and a strong German-Jewish face that also could have been Friulano and she reminded me of a northern I talian peasant woman with her clothes, her mobile face and her lovely, thick, alive immigrant hair which she wore put up in the same way she had probably worn it in college. She talked all the time and at first it was about people and places. Her companion had a very pleasant voice, was small, very dark, with her hair cut like Joan of Arc in the Boutet de Monvel illustrations and had a very hooked nose. She was working on a piece of needlepoint when we first met them and she worked on this and saw to the food and drink and talked to my wife. She made one conversation and listened to two and often interrupted the one she was not making. Afterwards she explained to me that she always talked to the wives. The wives, my wife and I felt, were tolerated. But we liked Miss Stein and her friend, although the friend was frightening. The paintings and the cakes and the eau-de-vie were truly wonderful. They seemed to like us too and treated us as though we were very good, well-mannered and promising children and I felt that they forgave us for being in love and being married - time would fix that - and when my wife invited them to tea, they accepted.

How do you weigh a soul? Is it heavy with love or hate? Does it deny the things it's done? Does it even remember its own name? Does it miss those it has loved? Does it long for the life it's lost? How do you weigh a soul? After it has paid the highest cost, Does it lose the will to live? Without a physical shell Does it sense without hands That can touch and truly feel Does it need sustenance to last? A cold drink or warm meal How do you weigh a soul? Are souls even real?

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly.” —Richard David Bach The caterpillar believes it is dying because it's being sealed in a tomb. The Master knows that the caterpillar is not dying, and is simply transitioning (to something more). This points out that things are never over, that change is carrying us, (so often kicking and screaming), to higher states of being. I find it interesting that the caterpillar spends it's caterpillar existence crawling, (on a lone weed in the midst of an endless beautiful forest), surviving on bitter, poisonous leaves. Yet resists the changes to come. After the caterpillars "death"... And upon the butterflie's rebirth... The butterfly lives out it's butterfly existence experiencing all of the forest's wonders, being carried by the wind, landing on beauty, and drinking sweet nectar, all the while, being shielded from harm by the caterpillar's bitter and poisonous experiences of eating the weeds. Without the struggles of the caterpillar, the butterfly could never be. It is Truly wonderful how something as simple as caterpillars and butterflies can be such amazing reminders sent to us by a Loving Eternal Creator.

A MAN HITS YOU ONCE and apologizes, and you think it will never happen again. But then you tell him you’re not sure you ever want a family, and he hits you once more. You tell yourself it’s understandable, what he did. You were sort of rude, the way you said it. You do want a family someday. You truly do. You’re just not sure how you’re going to manage it with your movies. But you should have been more clear. The next morning, he apologizes and brings you flowers. He gets down on his knees. The third time, it’s a disagreement about whether to go out to Romanoff’s or stay in. Which, you realize when he pushes you into the wall behind you, is actually about the image of your marriage to the public. The fourth time, it’s after you both lose at the Oscars. You are in a silk, emerald-green, one-shoulder dress. He’s in a tux with tails. He has too much to drink at the after-parties, trying to nurse his wounds. You’re in the front seat of the car in your driveway, about to go inside. He’s upset that he lost. You tell him it’s OK. He tells you that you don’t understand. You remind him that you lost, too. He says, “Yeah, but your parents are trash from Long Island. No one expects anything from you.” You know you shouldn’t, but you say, “I’m from Hell’s Kitchen, you asshole.

soul awakens, you begin to truly inherit your life. You leave the kingdom of fake surfaces, repetitive talk, and weary roles and slip deeper into the true adventure of who you are and who you are called to become.” Sobriety, for me, was exactly as he wrote—I truly inherited my life. I slipped deeper into the adventure of who I felt called to become, and the tired roles I had played forever became obsolete as I moved forward into a world where I was finally naming the terms of who I would be, and who I wouldn’t be.

And then Gwyn closed her eyes, held her hands out and said, “Goddess, we beseech you that this man shall never again darken Vivi’s door nor her vagina.” Vivi nearly choked on her drink, giggling even as the alcohol seared her sinuses, and flopped down on the opposite side of the circle from Gwyn. “Goddess,” Vivi said, taking another sip, “we beseech you that he never again use his dimples for evil against unsuspecting maidens.” “Nice one,” Gwyn said before adding, “Goddess, we beseech you to make sure his hair never does that thing again. You know the thing we mean.” “She totally does.” Vivi nodded. “Goddess, we beseech you to make him the sort of man who will forever think the clitoris is exactly one-third of an inch away from where it actually is.” “Diabolical, Vivi. Truly dark magic.

At childhood’s end, the houses petered out into playing fields, the factory, allotments kept, like mistresses, by kneeling married men, the silent railway line, the hermit’s caravan, till you came at last to the edge of the woods. It was there that I first clapped eyes on the wolf. He stood in a clearing, reading his verse out loud in his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw, red wine staining his bearded jaw. What big ears he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth! In the interval, I made quite sure he spotted me, sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif, and bought me a drink, my first. You might ask why. Here’s why. Poetry. The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods, away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place lit by the eyes of owls. I crawled in his wake, my stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer snagged on twig and branch, murder clues. I lost both shoes but got there, wolf’s lair, better beware. Lesson one that night, breath of the wolf in my ear, was the love poem. I clung till dawn to his thrashing fur, for what little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf? Then I slid from between his heavy matted paws and went in search of a living bird – white dove – which flew, straight, from my hands to his hope mouth. One bite, dead. How nice, breakfast in bed, he said, licking his chops. As soon as he slept, I crept to the back of the lair, where a whole wall was crimson, gold, aglow with books. Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head, warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood. But then I was young – and it took ten years in the woods to tell that a mushroom stoppers the mouth of a buried corpse, that birds are the uttered thought of trees, that a greying wolf howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out, season after season, same rhyme, same reason. I took an axe to a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon to see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf as he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat, and saw the glistening, virgin white of my grandmother’s bones. I filled his old belly with stones. I stitched him up. Out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing, all alone. Little Red-Cap

That nature does not care, one way or the other, is the true abyss. That only man cares, in his finitude facing nothing but death, alone with his contingency and the objective meaninglessness of his projecting meanings, is a truly unprecedented situation... Will replaces vision; temporality of the act outsts the eternity of the "good-in-itself"As the product of the indifferent, his being, too, must be indifferent. Then the facing of his morality would simply warrant the reaction "let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die." There is no point in caring for what has no sanction behind it in any creative intention.

In particular, it is said, the most masculine of men do not do well in marriage. It is argued that “a need for sexual conquest, female adulation, and illicit and risky liaisons seems to go along with drive, ambition, and confidence in the ‘alpha male.’” But Lipton argued that marriage was traditionally a place where males became truly masculine: “For most of Western history, the primary and most valued characteristic of manhood was self-mastery. . . . A man who indulged in excessive eating, drinking, sleeping or sex—who failed to ‘rule himself’—was considered unfit to rule his household, much less a polity. . . .

The chalkboard menu really seemed to emphasize that everything was local and that everything had maple syrup in it. The BBQ beef was in maple syrup BBQ sauce. The mac and cheese was made with smoked maple cheese. There was maple tofu and maple-syrup dressing for the salads. "Did you forget you were in Vermont for a second?" Stevie said to Janelle as they took their trays. "Look down. You are standing in maple syrup." "Yeah," Janelle replied, a bit dispiritedly, as she took some tofu and vegetables. "It's not my favorite." Nate stared down the sneeze guard at the mapleized meats. "I'll drink the living blood of trees," he said. "Hit me.

I need to know how you can be so certain,' Daniel said, his voice dropping into a furious hush. 'Well...' Hugh brought his glass to his lips and took something deeper than a sip. 'If you must know, I told him that if anything happens to you, I would kill myself.' If Daniel had been holding anything, anything at all, it would have crashed to the ground. It was a remarkable thing that *he* did not crash to the ground. 'My father knows me well enough to know that I do not say such a thing lightly,' Hugh said, lightly. Daniel couldn't speak. 'So if you would...' Hugh took another drink, this time barely touching his lips to the liquid. 'I would appreciate if you would endeavor not to get yourself killed in an unhappy accident. I'm sure to blame it on my father, and honestly, I'd rather not see myself off unnecessarily.' 'You're mad,' Daniel whispered ... 'Why would you do such a thing?' Daniel could not imagine anyone else - not even Marcus, who was truly a brother to him - making the same sort of threat.

When it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning, remind yourself: I am rising to resume my life’s work. How can I be unhappy when I have another opportunity to do what I was born to do? But it’s so comfortable here. Were you born for this—lying in bed under a warm blanket? Life is meant for action and exertion. Consider the ants, bees, and birds, working to bring order to their corners of the universe. Are you unwilling to do the work of a human being? But I worked yesterday; today I need to rest. Rest is for recharging, not for indulgence. Take only what is sufficient for your health and vitality. Too much rest—like too much food or drink—defeats its purpose, weakening the body and dulling the spirit. But I should love and care for myself. If you truly love yourself, love your nature and your vocation. Those who love their work become so absorbed in it, they don’t even think of stopping. Do you love your work the way a dancer loves dancing and a painter loves painting? If not, why is your work less important to you than theirs is to them?

When we dare to speak from the depth of our heart to the friends God gives us, we will gradually find new freedom within us and new courage to live our own sorrows and joys to the full. When we truly believe that we have nothing to hide from God, we need to have people around us who represent God for us and to whom we can reveal ourselves with complete trust.

We can, simply by a sincere aspiration, open a sealed door in us and find... that Something which will change the whole significance of life, reply to all our questions, solve all our problems and lead us to the perfection we aspire for without knowing it, to that Reality which alone can satisfy us and give us lasting joy, equilibrium, strength, life. All have heard it - Oh! there are even some here who are so used to it that for them it seems to be the same thing as drinking a glass of water or opening a window to let in the sunlight.... We have tried a little, but now we are going to try seriously! The starting-point: to want it, truly want it, to need it. The next step: to think, above all, of that. A day comes, very quickly, when one is unable to think of anything else. That is the one thing which counts. And then... One formulates one’s aspiration, lets the true prayer spring up from one’s heart, the prayer which expresses the sincerity of the need. And then... well, one will see what happens. Something will happen. Surely something will happen. For each one it will take a different form.

Why should one live? All is vain! To live - that is to thresh straw; to live - that is to burn oneself and yet not get warm.- Such ancient babbling still passes for "wisdom"; because it is old, however, and smells mustily, therefore is it the more honoured. Even mould ennobles.- Children might thus speak: they shun the fire because it has burnt them! There is much childishness in the old books of wisdom. And he who ever "threshes straw," why should he be allowed to rail at threshing! Such a fool one would have to muzzle! Such persons sit down to the table and bring nothing with them, not even good hunger: - and then do they rail: "All is vain!" But to eat and drink well, my brothers, is truly no hath burnt them! There is much childishness in the old books of wisdom. And he who ever “thrasheth straw,” why should he be allowed to rail at thrashing! Such a fool one would have to muzzle! Such persons sit down to the table and bring nothing with them, not even good hunger:—and then do they rail: “All is vain!” But to eat and drink well, my brethren, is verily no vain art! Break up, break up for me the tables of the never-joyous ones!

And even in the open air the stench of whiskey was appalling. To this fiendish poison, I am certain, the greater part of the squalor I saw is due. Many of these vermin were obviously not foreigners—I counted at least five American countenances in which a certain vanished decency half showed through the red whiskey bloating. Then I reflected upon the power of wine, and marveled how self-respecting persons can imbibe such stuff, or permit it to be served upon their tables. It is the deadliest enemy with which humanity is faced. Not all the European wars could produce a tenth of the havock occasioned among men by the wretched fluid which responsible governments allow to be sold openly. Looking upon that mob of sodden brutes, my mind’s eye pictured a scene of different kind; a table bedecked with spotless linen and glistening silver, surrounded by gentlemen immaculate in evening attire—and in the reddening faces of those gentlemen I could trace the same lines which appeared in full development of the beasts of the crowd. Truly, the effects of liquor are universal, and the shamelessness of man unbounded. How can reform be wrought in the crowd, when supposedly respectable boards groan beneath the goblets of rare old vintages? Is mankind asleep, that its enemy is thus entertained as a bosom friend? But a week or two ago, at a parade held in honour of the returning Rhode Island National Guard, the Chief Executive of this State, Mr. Robert Livingston Beeckman, prominent in New York, Newport, and Providence society, appeared in such an intoxicated condition that he could scarce guide his mount, or retain his seat in the saddle, and he the guardian of the liberties and interests of that Colony carved by the faith, hope, and labour of Roger Williams from the wilderness of savage New-England! I am perhaps an extremist on the subject of prohibition, but I can see no justification whatsoever for the tolerance of such a degrading demon as drink.

Human colour is the colour I'm truly interested in, the colour of your humanity. May the size of your heart and the depth of your soul be your currency. welcome aboard my Good Ship. Let us sail to the colourful island of misex identity. You can eat from the cooking pot of mixed culture and bathe in the cool shade of being mixed-race. There is no need for a passport. There are no borders. We are all citizens of the world. Whatever shade you are, bring your light, bring your colour, bring your music and your books, your stories and your histories, and climb aboad. United as a people we are a million majestic colours, together we are a glorious stained-glass window. We are building a cathedral of otherness, brick by brick and book by book. Raise your glass of rum, let's toast to the minorities who are the majority. There's no stopping time, nor the blurring of lines or the blending of shades. With a spirit of hope I leave you now. I drink to our sameness and to our unique differences. This is the twenty-first century and we share this, we live here, in the future. It is a beautiful morning, it is first light on the time of being other, so get out from that shade and feel the warmth of being outside. You tick: Other.

She left her water pot because she had now found a well of 'living water.' She had come to the well for literal water and that was what her mind was set on. But now that she had obtained salvation, she did not think any more about her water pot. It is always this way. Once our souls truly perceive Christ, once we know Him and receive Him as our personal Savior, we turn away from what we used to think about. Her mind was now fixed on Christ, and she had no thought of well, water, or water pot." Granted, even after we come to Christ and learn to drink of His living water, there can be a time when we must learn how to leave the other "water behind" and it is certainly not always an instantaneous exchange of water, like the woman at the well did. We are not saying that it always has to happen in this manner, but what we are saying is that as we drink of Christ's living water we are able to leave behind the sinful water.

That reminds me, does Professor Camden know that you copied his house key yet?" "Yeah, he already took the first copy back," Everly replies and continues making her drink. I have to set my latte down at that point. I should know better than to have a conversation with Everly while drinking hot liquids. "The first copy, Everly?" "Yeah. And he didn't even ask me for the second copy." She takes a sip of her drink. "I'm kind of pissed off about it, to be honest. It's like he doesn't even know me, right?" I nod slowly. "Right." "Obviously I would make three copies. Anyone should know that." I lean against the back counter and nod. "Obviously." Honestly, I have no idea how many copies one would make when stealing someone's house key, but it's best to just go along when Everly is on a roll. "I expect him to change his locks once I use the second key so the third key is likely useless, but he should know me well enough to ask for the second key." She sighs, looking truly despondent.

And what do we do to fit our English-speaking Chinese, our docile and happy, our truly loyal servants, for the Asia of the future? We teach them English history: Henry the VIII, Elizabeth and Victoria, English geography, three-quarters of the book the British Isles, one quarter the rest of the world. literature, Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare and The Mill on the Floss, all in Basic, as they aren't to know the complexities of our tongue. We cut them from their own learning, their traditions; if that were cutting them off merely from the past, it wouldn't matter, but also and more dangerously, it cuts them from the present, and perhaps the future of Asia. With these happy eunuchs who are bound to us by their knowledge of English we run this country well as our colonial preserve. But we cannot pretend to think we can leave it to them to run it for themselves. All the revolutionaries in India were people who went back to their own literature and language. We'll see the same phenomenon here.

Angry heat tightens my skin. “Never took you for a coward,” I blurt. His head snaps in my direction. “What do you mean by that?” “You came here tonight for a reason. Why don’t you own up to it?” Before I can think about it, I lean across the center console and stare him directly in the face. “Do you always run from what you want?” Maybe I’m going out on a limb to imply he wants me, but the pulse throbbing at his neck tells me it’s so. And he is here, after all. His gaze drops to my mouth. “I can’t think of the last time I had anything I truly wanted,” he says huskily, so low I could hardly hear him. It’s more like I felt him. His words echo through me, striking a chord so deep that I’m sure there’s a reason for all this. A reason we’ve found each other, first in the mountains and now here. A reason. Something more. Something bigger than coincidence. “Me too.” He leans across the console. Sliding a hand behind my neck, he tugs my face closer. I move fluid, melting toward him. “Maybe it’s time to change that then.” At the first brush of his mouth, stinging heat surges through me, shocking me motionless. My veins and skin pop and pulse. I rise on my knees, clutch his shoulders with clawing fingers, trying to get closer. My hands drift, rounding over his smooth shoulders, skimming down a rock-hard chest. His heart beats like a drum beneath my fingers. My blood burns, lungs expand and smolder. I can’t draw enough air through my nose . . . or at least not enough to chill my steaming lungs. His hands slide over my cheeks, holding my face. His skin feels like ice to my blistering flesh, and I kiss him harder. “Your skin,” he whispers against my mouth,” it’s so . . .” I drink him in, his words, his touch, moaning at his taste, at the sudden burning pull of my skin. The delicious tugging in my back. He kisses me deeper with cool, dry lips. Moves his hands down my face, along my jaw to my neck. His fingertips graze beneath my ear, and I shiver. “Your skin is so soft, so warm . . .

We can, simply by a sincere aspiration, open a sealed door in us and find... that Something which will change the whole significance of life, reply to all our questions, solve all our problems and lead us to the perfection we aspire for without knowing it, to that Reality which alone can satisfy us and give us lasting joy, equilibrium, strength, life. All have heard it - Oh! there are even some here who are so used to it that for them it seems to be the same thing as drinking a glass of water or opening a window to let in the sunlight.... We have tried a little, but now we are going to try seriously! The starting-point: to want it, truly want it, to need it. The next step: to think, above all, of that. A day comes, very quickly, when one is unable to think of anything else. That is the one thing which counts. And then... One formulates one’s aspiration, lets the true prayer spring up from one’s heart, the prayer which expresses the sincerity of the need. And then... well, one will see what happens. Something will happen. Surely something will happen. For each one it will take a different form.

He knew everything. He knew at least a thousand Hungarian folk songs, all the words and tunes, he could handle Gypsies, give them instructions and keep them in order, check their familiarity with the flicker of an eyelid, then win their affection with a lordly, condescending, and yet fraternal-playful sidelong glance, he could call 'acsi' perfectly, shout at the first violin when he didn't strike up Csendesen, csak csendesen quietly enough and the cimbalonist when the padded sticks didn't make the steel strings thunder and rumble sufficiently in Hullamzo Balaton, he could kiss the viola player's pock-marked face, give the double bass a kick, break glasses and mirrors, drink wine, beer and marc brandy for three days on end out of tumblers, smack his lips at the site of cabbage soup and cold pork stew, take ages inspecting his cards (with relish, one eye closed), dance a quick csardas for a whole half-hour, urging and driving himself on to stamp and shout and toss his partner high in the air and catch her, light as a feather, with one arm: so, as I said, he could do everything that raises Man from his animal condition and makes him truly Man.

I was very moved by the Gauguin carvings. But then out of nowhere there was Van Gogh. Three self-portraits. I walked up to one; it was protected with glass. I could see my reflection. And I thought: Oh my God.” Less shakes his head, and his eyes widen as he relives the moment. “I look just like Van Gogh.” Javier laughs, his hand to his smile. “Before the ear, I think.” “I thought, I’ve gone crazy,” Less goes on. “But…I’ve already outlived him by over a decade!” Javier tilts his head, a cocker Spaniard. “Arthur, how old are you?” Deep breath. “I’m forty-nine.” Javier moves closer to peer at him; he smells of cigarettes and vanilla, like Less’s grandmother. “How funny. I am also forty-nine.” “No,” Less says, truly bewildered. There is not a line on Javier’s face. “I thought you were midthirties.” “That is a lie. But it is a nice lie. And you do not look close to fifty.” Less smiles. “My birthday is in one week.” “Strange to be almost fifty, no? I feel like I just understood how to be young.” “Yes! It’s like the last day in a foreign country. You finally figure out where to get coffee, and drinks, and a good steak. And then you have to leave. And you won’t ever be back.

Lucien rubbed his eyes. 'I've seen Rhysand do such... horrible things, seen him play the dark prince over and over. And yet you tell me it was all a lie. A mask. All to protect this place, these people. And I would have laughed at you for believing it, and yet... this city exists. Untouched- or until recently, I suppose. Even the Dawn Court's cities are nothing so lovely as this.' 'Lucien-' 'And you love him. And he- he truly does love you.' Lucien dragged a hand through his red hair. 'And all these people I have spent my centuries hating, even fearing... They are your family.' 'I think Amren would probably deny that she feels any affection for us-' 'Amren is a bedtime story they told us as younglings to make us behave. Amren was who would drink my blood and carry me to hell if I acted out of line. And yet there she was, acting more like a cranky old aunt than anything.' 'We don't- we don't enforce protocol and rank here.' 'Obviously. Rhys lives in a town house, by the Cauldron.' He waved an arm to encompass the city. I didn't know what to say, so I kept silent. 'I hadn't realised I was a villain in your narrative,' Lucien breathed. 'You weren't.' Not entirely.

The story of the “exquisite cadavers” is as follows. In the aftermath of the First World War, a collection of surrealist poets—which included André Breton, their pope, Paul Eluard, and others—got together in cafés and tried the following exercise (modern literary critics attribute the exercise to the depressed mood after the war and the need to escape reality). On a folded piece of paper, in turn, each one of them would write a predetermined part of a sentence, not knowing the others’ choice. The first would pick an adjective, the second a noun, the third a verb, the fourth an adjective, and the fifth a noun. The first publicized exercise of such random (and collective) arrangement produced the following poetic sentence: The exquisite cadavers shall drink the new wine. (Les cadavres exquis boiront le vin nouveau.) Impressive? It sounds even more poetic in the native French. Quite impressive poetry has been produced in such a manner, sometimes with the aid of a computer. But poetry has never been truly taken seriously outside of the beauty of its associations, whether they have been produced by the random ranting of one or more disorganized brains, or the more elaborate constructions of one conscious creator.

Hypothetically, then, you may be picking up in someone a certain very strange type of sadness that appears as a kind of disassociation from itself, maybe, Love-o.’ ‘I don’t know disassociation.’ ‘Well, love, but you know the idiom “not yourself” — “He’s not himself today,” for example,’ crooking and uncrooking fingers to form quotes on either side of what she says, which Mario adores. ‘There are, apparently, persons who are deeply afraid of their own emotions, particularly the painful ones. Grief, regret, sadness. Sadness especially, perhaps. Dolores describes these persons as afraid of obliteration, emotional engulfment. As if something truly and thoroughly felt would have no end or bottom. Would become infinite and engulf them.’ ‘Engulf means obliterate.’ ‘I am saying that such persons usually have a very fragile sense of themselves as persons. As existing at all. This interpretation is “existential,” Mario, which means vague and slightly flaky. But I think it may hold true in certain cases. My own father told stories of his own father, whose potato farm had been in St. Pamphile and very much larger than my father’s. My grandfather had had a marvelous harvest one season, and he wanted to invest money. This was in the early 1920s, when there was a great deal of money to be made on upstart companies and new American products. He apparently narrowed the field to two choices — Delaware-brand Punch, or an obscure sweet fizzy coffee substitute that sold out of pharmacy soda fountains and was rumored to contain smidgeons of cocaine, which was the subject of much controversy in those days. My father’s father chose Delaware Punch, which apparently tasted like rancid cranberry juice, and the manufacturer of which folded. And then his next two potato harvests were decimated by blight, resulting in the forced sale of his farm. Coca-Cola is now Coca-Cola. My father said his father showed very little emotion or anger or sadness about this, though. That he somehow couldn’t. My father said his father was frozen, and could feel emotion only when he was drunk. He would apparently get drunk four times a year, weep about his life, throw my father through the living room window, and disappear for several days, roaming the countryside of L’Islet Province, drunk and enraged.’ She’s not been looking at Mario this whole time, though Mario’s been looking at her. She smiled. ‘My father, of course, could himself tell this story only when he was drunk. He never threw anyone through any windows. He simply sat in his chair, drinking ale and reading the newspaper, for hours, until he fell out of the chair. And then one day he fell out of the chair and didn’t get up again, and that was how your maternal grandfather passed away. I’d never have gotten to go to University had he not died when I was a girl. He believed education was a waste for girls. It was a function of his era; it wasn’t his fault. His inheritance to Charles and me paid for university.’ She’s been smiling pleasantly this whole time, emptying the butt from the ashtray into the wastebasket, wiping the bowl’s inside with a Kleenex, straightening straight piles of folders on her desk.

Muscles contract somewhere above the roof of my mouth, pumping venom into her bloodstream. Kelly cries out, a gasp of pain that turns suddenly to moans of euphoria as the carotids rush the narcotic serum directly to her brain. Her knees buckle, and I reach down to steady her — one arm over her breasts, the other around her waist as I hold her tightly to myself. Then the blood begins to flow, seeping out of the wounds I have made, and I put my lips to her skin and drink. There are no words adequate to describe it. My mind explodes with a wash of light and color, swirling and dancing before my eyes. Then the Sharing truly begins, and I can see inside her: images of her memories, her thoughts, her hopes and dreams, the way she remembers her past and how she imagines her future. Her joys; her grief; that which she loves and that she despises, what stirs her fire and chills her bones. And through it all, I feel the touch of her presence, and I know that she sees the same things inside of me. Blood is more than matter, more than plasma and hemoglobin. Blood is life, the river on which the spirit flows. And as Kelly's blood flows into me, it carries her life with it, until my soul entwines with hers. She has given a part of herself to me, and from this day forth we are bound to each other.

We only have a little bit of time before I leave for Korea. Let’s not waste it.” Then I slide my hand in his, and he squeezes it. The house is completely empty, for the first time all week. All the other girls are still at the party, except for Chris, who ran into somebody she knows through Applebee’s. We go up to my room, and Peter takes off his shoes and gets in my bed. “Want to watch a movie?” he asks, stretching his arms behind his head. No, I don’t want to watch a movie. Suddenly my heart is racing, because I know what I want to do. I’m ready. I sit down on the bed next to him as he says, “Or we could start a new show--” I press my lips to his neck, and I can feel his pulse jump. “What if we don’t watch a movie or a show? What if we…do something else instead.” I give him a meaningful look. His body jerks in surprise. “What, you mean like now?” “Yes.” Now. Now feels right. I start planting little kisses down his throat. “Do you like that?” I can feel him swallow. “Yes.” He pushes me away from him so he can look at my face. “Let’s stop for a second. I can’t think. Are you drunk? What did Chris put in that drink she gave you?” “No, I’m not drunk!” I had a little bit of a warm feeling in my body, but the walk home woke me right up. Peter’s still staring at me. “I’m not drunk. I swear.” Peter swallows hard, his eyes searching mine. “Are you sure you want to do this now?” “Yes,” I say, because I really, truly am. “But first can you put on Frank Ocean?” He grabs his phone, and a second later the beat kicks in and Frank’s melodious voice fills the room. Peter starts fumbling with his shirt buttons and then gives up and starts to pull my shirt up, and I yelp, “Wait!” Peter’s so startled, he jumps away from me. “What? What’s wrong?” I leap off the bed and start rummaging through my suitcase. I’m not wearing my special bra and underwear set; I’m wearing my normal every day cappuccino-colored bra with the frayed edges. I can’t lose my virginity in my ugliest bra.

Today, I choose not to take my life for granted. I choose not to look upon the fact that I am healthy, have food in my refrigerator and have clean water to drink as givens. They are not givens for so many people in our world. The fact that I am safe and (relatively) sane are not givens. That I was born into a family who loves me and into a country not ravaged by war are not givens. It is impossible to name all of the circumstances in my life I’ve taken for granted. All of the basic needs I’ve had met, all of the friendships and job opportunities and financial blessings and the list, truly, goes on and on. The fact that I am breathing is a miracle, one I too rarely stop to appreciate. I’m stopping, right now, to be grateful for everything I am and everything I’ve been given. I’m stopping, right now, to be grateful for every pleasure and every pain that has contributed to the me who sits here and writes these words. I am thankful for my life. This moment is a blessing. Each breath a gift. That I’ve been able to take so much for granted is a gift, too. But it’s not how I want to live—not when gratitude is an option, now when wonder and awe are choices. I choose gratitude. I choose wonder. I choose awe. I choose everything that suggest I’m opening myself to the miraculous reality of simply being alive for one moment more.

Then Almitra spoke, saying, "We would ask now of Death." And he said: You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. Is the sheered not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling? For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk who has been called the “world’s calmest man,” has spent a lifetime exploring how to live in kairos, albeit by a different name. He has taught it as mindfulness or maintaining “beginner’s mind.” He has written: “Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.”2 This focus on being in the moment affects the way he does everything. He takes a full hour to drink a cup of tea with the other monks every day. He explains: “Suppose you are drinking a cup of tea. When you hold your cup, you may like to breathe in, to bring your mind back to your body, and you become fully present. And when you are truly there, something else is also there—life, represented by the cup of tea. In that moment you are real, and the cup of tea is real. You are not lost in the past, in the future, in your projects, in your worries. You are free from all of these afflictions. And in that state of being free, you enjoy your tea. That is the moment of happiness, and of peace.” Pay attention through the day for your own kairos moments. Write them down in your journal. Think about what triggered that moment and what brought you out of it. Now that you know what triggers the moment, try to re-create it. Training yourself to tune into kairos will not only enable you to achieve a higher level of contribution but also make you happier.

Gary Hallet is getting leg cramps sitting in the Honda, but he’s not going anywhere yet. His grandfather used to tell him that most folks had it all wrong: The truth of the matter was, you could lead a horse to water, and if the water was cool enough, if it was truly clear and sweet, you wouldn’t have to force him to drink. Tonight Gary feels a whole lot more like the horse than the rider. He has stumbled into love, and now he’s stuck there. He’s fairly used to not getting what he wants, and he’s dealt with it, yet he can’t help but wonder if that’s only because he didn’t want anything too badly. Well, he does now. He looks out at the parking lot. By afternoon he’ll be back where he belongs; his dogs will go crazy when they see him, his mail will be waiting outside his front door, the milk in his refrigerator will still be fresh enough to use in his coffee. The hitch is, he doesn’t want to go. He’d rather be here, crammed into this tiny Honda, his stomach growling with hunger, his desire so bad he doesn’t know if he could stand up straight. His eyes are burning hot, and he knows he can never stop himself when he’s going to cry. He’d better not even try. “Oh, don’t,” Sally says. She moves closer to him, pulled by gravity, pulled by forces she couldn’t begin to control. “I just do this,” Gary says in that sad, deep voice. He shakes his head, disgusted with himself. This time he’d prefer to do almost anything but cry. “Pay no attention.” But she does. She can’t help herself. She shifts toward him, meaning to wipe at his tears, but instead she loops her arms around his neck, and once she does that, he holds her closer. “Sally,” he says. It’s music, it’s a sound that is absurdly beautiful in his mouth, but she won’t pay attention. She knows from the time she spent on the back stairs of the aunts’ house that most things men say are lies. Don’t listen, she tells herself. None of it’s true and none of it matters, because he’s whispering that he’s been looking for her forever. She’s halfway onto his lap, facing him, and when he touches her, his hands are so hot on her skin she can’t believe it. She can’t listen to anything he tells her and she certainly can’t think, because if she did she might just think she’d better stop.

Jeremy fixed her with a dark look, full of reproach. A hot blush singed the tips of her opal-adorned ears. For a moment, Lucy felt as though she were sitting in the breakfast room wearing only her nightgown—or less. But if he meant to shame her, he would be sorely disappointed. Her lips tingled, and she slowly wet them with her tongue before flashing him a bold grin. He quickly looked away. Oh, what fun it was to vex him. He made it so easy to do. Hunting and fishing were all welland good, but truly, Jemmy-baiting had always been her favorite autumn sport. Lucy viewedhis staid countenance as an unending challenge. A smooth, thick-shelled egg that begged to be cracked. Any rearrangement of his features constituted a victory, be it a wince, a scowl, or that rarest of expressions—a smile. A smile that showed teeth counted double.Last night had shown her an entirely new way to bedevil Jeremy Trescott. Not with girlish pranks, but with womanly wiles. Oh, yes. She ‟ d cracked the egg last night, but good. Hisexpression of befuddled desire was far more amusing than a wince or a scowl, or even asmile that showed teeth. That last kiss had to count at least ten.She lifted her cup of chocolate to her lips. Closing her eyes, she pressed her tongue againstthe cool china rim, remembering the power of a proper kiss. Drinking in the hot, sweetrichness, feeling delicious warmth spread down her throat and pool in her belly. And lower.She sighed into the cup. If Jeremy ‟ s kiss could rival chocolate, Lucy shivered to imaginehow it would be to kiss—

I’d better have a glass then. To complete my ensemble.” Kestrel didn’t quite forget her promise to Arin not to drink, but rather willed it away along with everything else about him. “Oh, yes,” said Jess. “You must. Don’t you think so, Ronan?” “I don’t think. I am thinking of nothing other than what Kestrel could be thinking, and whether she will dance with me. If I’m not mistaken, there is one final dance before this legendary wine is served.” Kestrel’s happiness faltered. “I’d love to, but…won’t your parents mind?” Ronan and Jess exchanged a glance. “They’re not here,” Ronan said. “They’ve left to spend the winter season in the capital.” Which meant that, were they here, they would object--as would any parents, given the scandal. Ronan read Kestrel’s face. “It doesn’t matter what they think. Dance with me.” He took her hand, and for the first time in a long while, she felt safe. He pulled her to the center of the floor and into the motions of the dance. Ronan didn’t speak for a few moments, then touched a slim braid that curved in a tendril along Kestrel’s cheek. “This is pretty.” The memory of Arin’s hands in her hair made her stiffen. “Gorgeous?” Ronan tried again. “Transcendent? Kestrel, the right adjective hasn’t been invented to describe you.” She attempted a light tone. “What will ladies do, when this kind of exaggerated flirtation is no longer the fashion? We shall be spoiled.” “You know it’s not mere flirtation,” Ronan said. “You’ve always known.” And Kestrel had, it was true that she had, even if she hadn’t wanted to shake the knowledge out of her mind and look at it, truly see it. She felt a dull spark of dread. “Marry me, Kestrel.

#The Vanity of all Worldly Things. As he said vanity, so vain say I, Oh! Vanity, O vain all under sky; Where is the man can say, "Lo, I have found On brittle earth a consolation sound"? What isn't in honor to be set on high? No, they like beasts and sons of men shall die, And whilst they live, how oft doth turn their fate; He's now a captive that was king of late. What isn't in wealth great treasures to obtain? No, that's but labor, anxious care, and pain. He heaps up riches, and he heaps up sorrow, It's his today, but who's his heir tomorrow? What then? Content in pleasures canst thou find? More vain than all, that's but to grasp the wind. The sensual senses for a time they pleasure, Meanwhile the conscience rage, who shall appease? What isn't in beauty? No that's but a snare, They're foul enough today, that once were fair. What is't in flow'ring youth, or manly age? The first is prone to vice, the last to rage. Where is it then, in wisdom, learning, arts? Sure if on earth, it must be in those parts; Yet these the wisest man of men did find But vanity, vexation of the mind. And he that know the most doth still bemoan He knows not all that here is to be known. What is it then? To do as stoics tell, Nor laugh, nor weep, let things go ill or well? Such stoics are but stocks, such teaching vain, While man is man, he shall have ease or pain. If not in honor, beauty, age, nor treasure, Nor yet in learning, wisdom, youth, nor pleasure, Where shall I climb, sound, seek, search, or find That summum bonum which may stay my mind? There is a path no vulture's eye hath seen, Where lion fierce, nor lion's whelps have been, Which leads unto that living crystal fount, Who drinks thereof, the world doth naught account. The depth and sea have said " 'tis not in me," With pearl and gold it shall not valued be. For sapphire, onyx, topaz who would change; It's hid from eyes of men, they count it strange. Death and destruction the fame hath heard, But where and what it is, from heaven's declared; It brings to honor which shall ne'er decay, It stores with wealth which time can't wear away. It yieldeth pleasures far beyond conceit, And truly beautifies without deceit. Nor strength, nor wisdom, nor fresh youth shall fade, Nor death shall see, but are immortal made. This pearl of price, this tree of life, this spring, Who is possessed of shall reign a king. Nor change of state nor cares shall ever see, But wear his crown unto eternity. This satiates the soul, this stays the mind, And all the rest, but vanity we find.

The day wore on.While yet Rycca slept, Dragon did all the things she had said he would do-paced back and forth, contemplated mayhem,and even honed his blade on the whetstone from the stable.All except being oblivious to her,for that he could never manage. But when she awoke,sitting up heavy-lidded, her mouth so full and soft it was all he could do not to crawl back into bed with her,he put aside such pursuits and controlled himself admirably well,so he thought. Yet in the midst of preparing a meal for them from the provisions in the pantry of the lodge,he was stopped by Rycca's hand settling upon his. "Dragon," she said softly, "if you add any more salt to that stew, we will need a barrel of water and more to drink with it." He looked down, saw that she was right, and cursed under his breath. Dumping out the spoiled stew, he started over. They ate late but they did eat.He was quite determined she would do so,and for once she seemed to have a decent appetite. "I'm glad to see your stomach is better," he said as she was finishing. She looked up,startled. "What makes you say that?" "You haven't seemed able to eat regularly of late." "Oh,well,you know...so many changes...travel...all that." He nodded,reached for his goblet, and damn near knocked it over as a sudden thought roared through him. "Rycca?" She rose quickly,gathering up the dishes. His hand lashed out, closing on her wrist. Gently but inexorably, he returned her to her seat. Without taking his eyes from her,he asked, "Is there something you should tell me?" "Something...?" "I ask myself what sort of changes may cause a woman to be afflicted with an uneasy stomach and it occurs to me I've been a damned idiot." "Not so! You could never be that." "Oh,really? How otherwise would I fail to notice that your courses have not come of late? Or is that also due to travel,wife?" "Some women are not all that regular." "Some women do not concern me.You do,Rycca. I swear,if you are with child and have not told me, I will-" She squared her shoulders,lifted her head,and met his eyes hard on. "Will what?" "What? Will what? Does that mean-" "I'm sorry,Dragon." Truly repentant, Rycca sighed deeply. "I was going to tell you.I was just waiting for a calmer time.I didn't want you to worry more." Still grappling with what she had just revealed,he stared at her in astonishment. "You mean worry that my wife and our child are bait for a murderous traitor?" "I know you're angry and you have a right to be.But if I had told you, we wouldn't be here now." "Damn right we wouldn't be!" He got up from the table so abruptly that his chair toppled over and crashed to the floor.Ignoring it,Dragon paced back and forth,glaring at her. Rycca waited,trusting the storm to pass. As she did,she counted silently, curious to see just how long it would take her husband to grasp fully what he had discovered. Nine...ten... "We're going to have a baby." Not long at all. She nodded happily. "Yes,we are, and you're going to be a wonderful father." He walked back to the table,picked her up out of her chair,held her high against his chest,and stared at her. "My God-" Rycca laughed. "You can't possibly be surprised.It's not as though we haven't been doing our best to make this happen." "True,but still it's absolutely incredible." Very gently,she touched his face. "Perhaps we think of miracles wrongly. They're supposed to be extraordinarily rare but in fact they're as commonplace as a bouquet of wildflowers plucked by a warrior...or a woman having a baby." Dragon sat down with her still in his arms and held her very close.He swallowed several times and said nothing. Both could have remained contentedly like that for a long while, but only a few minutes passed before they were interrupted. The raven lit on the sill of the open window just long enough to catch their attention,then she was gone into the bloodred glare of the dying day.

The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured – disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui – in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off. All the while someone is eating the bread of life and drinking the wine, some dirty fat cockroach of a priest who hides away in the cellar guzzling it, while up above in the light of the street a phantom host touches the lips and the blood is pale as water. And out of the endless torment and misery no miracle comes forth, no microscopic vestige of relief. Only ideas, pale, attenuated ideas which have to be fattened by slaughter; ideas which come forth like bile, like the guts of a pig when the carcass is ripped open. And so I think what a miracle it would be if this miracle which man attends eternally should turn out to be nothing more than these two enormous turds which the faithful disciple dropped in the bidet. What if at the last moment, when the banquet table is set and the cymbals clash, there should appear suddenly, and wholly without warning, a silver platter on which even the blind could see that there is nothing more, and nothing less, than two enormous lumps of shit. That, I believe would be more miraculous than anything which man has looked forward to. It would be miraculous because it would be undreamed of. It would be more miraculous than even the wildest dream because anybody could imagine the possibility but nobody ever has, and probably nobody ever again will. Somehow the realization that nothing was to be hoped for had a salutary effect upon me. For weeks and months, for years, in fact, all my life I had been looking forward to something happening, some intrinsic event that would alter my life, and now suddenly, inspired by the absolute hopelessness of everything, I felt relieved, felt as though a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders. At dawn I parted company with the young Hindu, after touching him for a few francs, enough for a room. Walking toward Montparnasse I decided to let myself drift with the tide, to make not the least resistance to fate, no matter in what form it presented itself. Nothing that had happened to me thus far had been sufficient to destroy me; nothing had been destroyed except my illusions. I myself was intact. The world was intact. Tomorrow there might be a revolution, a plague, an earthquake; tomorrow there might not be left a single soul to whom one could turn for sympathy, for aid, for faith. It seemed to me that the great calamity had already manifested itself, that I could be no more truly alone than at this very moment.

You were so good to me.” He took a drink. “Only because you were the daughter of a friend. Were you anyone else I would have plucked you that first season.” Just how much honesty did he owe her? Because surely this was a bit much. She didn’t look nearly as disgusted as she should have. She merely looked…disappointed. That was worse. Necessary, but worse. “But you’re not that man anymore,” she reminded him. Grey smiled, but there was little humor in it. “Who’s to say? I really don’t want to find out. Do you?” She looked away, a frown knitting her delicate brow. He wanted to reach out and smooth that pucker away with his thumb, kiss her flesh smooth again. Hold her and tell her that he could be whatever she wanted him to be. “I understand why you despise society,” she said after a moment’s pause. “I wanted to tell you that.” She drained the rest of her drink and stood. She didn’t quite meet his gaze. “You do?” Color him astonished. He truly hadn’t thought she’d ever see it. She nodded, looking so remote and stiff-not his Rose at all. But she placed her hand on his shoulder as she walked by-a gesture of comfort? “I would avoid it as well if it reviled me as much as it reviles you. Good night, Grey.” And when she left him sitting there, drunk and about to get drunker, what little self-respect he had left got up and went with her.