Undo It Book Quotes

Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices… Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?

You fucking undo me.

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares. But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.

Wanting to Die Since you ask, most days I cannot remember. I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage. Then the almost unnameable lust returns. Even then I have nothing against life. I know well the grass blades you mention, the furniture you have placed under the sun. But suicides have a special language. Like carpenters they want to know which tools. They never ask why build. Twice I have so simply declared myself, have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy, have taken on his craft, his magic. In this way, heavy and thoughtful, warmer than oil or water, I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole. I did not think of my body at needle point. Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone. Suicides have already betrayed the body. Still-born, they don't always die, but dazzled, they can't forget a drug so sweet that even children would look on and smile. To thrust all that life under your tongue!— that, all by itself, becomes a passion. Death's a sad Bone; bruised, you'd say, and yet she waits for me, year after year, to so delicately undo an old wound, to empty my breath from its bad prison. Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet, raging at the fruit, a pumped-up moon, leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss, leaving the page of the book carelessly open, something unsaid, the phone off the hook and the love, whatever it was, an infection.

We are absurdly accustomed to the miracle of a few written signs being able to contain immortal imagery, involutions of thought, new worlds with live people, speaking, weeping, laughing. We take it for granted so simply that in a sense, by the very act of brutish routine acceptance, we undo the work of the ages, the history of the gradual elaboration of poetical description and construction, from the treeman to Browning, from the caveman to Keats. What if we awake one day, all of us, and find ourselves utterly unable to read? I wish you to gasp not only at what you read but at the miracle of its being readable.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939 I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night. Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther until now That has driven a culture mad, Find what occurred at Linz, What huge imago made A psychopathic god: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. Exiled Thucydides knew All that a speech can say About Democracy, And what dictators do, The elderly rubbish they talk To an apathetic grave; Analysed all in his book, The enlightenment driven away, The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again. Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse: But who can live for long In an euphoric dream; Out of the mirror they stare, Imperialism's face And the international wrong. Faces along the bar Cling to their average day: The lights must never go out, The music must always play, All the conventions conspire To make this fort assume The furniture of home; Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good. The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone. From the conservative dark Into the ethical life The dense commuters come, Repeating their morning vow; 'I will be true to the wife, I'll concentrate more on my work,' And helpless governors wake To resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now, Who can reach the dead, Who can speak for the dumb? All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die. Defenseless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.

Life is a book. The fact that it was a short book doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good book. It was a very good book.

My death granted immortality. With one look, I knew he’d be my undoing…” Forgotten, book #1 of the Fate Trilogy

The greatest book in the world, the Mahabharata, tells us we all have to live and die by our karmic cycle. Thus works the perfect reward-and-punishment, cause-and-effect, code of the universe. We live out in our present life what we wrote out in our last. But the great moral thriller also orders us to rage against karma and its despotic dictates. It teaches us to subvert it. To change it. It tells us we also write out our next lives as we live out our present. The Mahabharata is not a work of religious instruction. It is much greater. It is a work of art. It understands men will always fall in the shifting chasm between the tug of the moral and the lure of the immoral. It is in this shifting space of uncertitude that men become men. Not animals, not gods. It understands truth is relative. That it is defined by context and motive. It encourages the noblest of men - Yudhishtra, Arjuna, Lord Krishna himself - to lie, so that a greater truth may be served. It understands the world is powered by desire. And that desire is an unknowable thing. Desire conjures death, destruction, distress. But also creates love, beauty, art. It is our greatest undoing. And the only reason for all doing. And doing is life. Doing is karma. Thus it forgives even those who desire intemperately. It forgives Duryodhana. The man who desires without pause. The man who precipitates the war to end all wars. It grants him paradise and the admiration of the gods. In the desiring and the doing this most reviled of men fulfils the mandate of man. You must know the world before you are done with it. You must act on desire before you renounce it. There can be no merit in forgoing the not known. The greatest book in the world rescues volition from religion and gives it back to man. Religion is the disciplinarian fantasy of a schoolmaster. The Mahabharata is the joyous song of life of a maestro. In its tales within tales it takes religion for a spin and skins it inside out. Leaves it puzzling over its own poisoned follicles. It gives men the chance to be splendid. Doubt-ridden architects of some small part of their lives. Duryodhanas who can win even as they lose.

How do you undo intimacy? How do you go back to being acquaintances, when the other person knows every inch and groove of you, every irrational fear, every trigger?

Each and every day, NOAA collects twice as much data as is contained in the entire book collection of the Library of Congress.

He took the pen and book from her and faltered. “Just write anything – anything trivial that won't matter if it comes to pass.” “Erm...” God, he was useless at this. Elena's hair turned blue. “Hey!” “What?” “I don't want blue hair! What the hell did you write that for?” “It seemed trivial.” “Blue hair – blue? That's trivial? What if I can't undo it?” Karl stared at her blankly. His throat went dry. He felt like a total dickhead, but writing really wasn't his strong point, so he went for humour instead and flashed her a grin. “I was going to write that all your clothes fall off, but figured you may have a problem with that. This was the second thing that came to mind.” (Karl and Elena)

my days in love are filled with the universe the stars are unified to resemble our union a bond even love cannot undo my days in love reverse time while moving it forward making it slow for a while helping me catch my breath

A mysterious object, a good book. It did that to you; made it almost painful turning the last page. Then it clung in your mind, like static, refusing to let go until another good book came along and gently weaved its undoing spell.

There are matters in that book, said to be done by the express command of God, that are as shocking to humanity, and to every idea we have of moral justice, as any thing done by Robespierre, by Carrier, by Joseph le Bon, in France, by the English government in the East Indies, or by any other assassin in modern times. When we read in the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, etc., that they (the Israelites) came by stealth upon whole nations of people, who, as the history itself shews, had given them no offence; that they put all those nations to the sword; that they spared neither age nor infancy; that they utterly destroyed men, women and children; that they left not a soul to breathe; expressions that are repeated over and over again in those books, and that too with exulting ferocity; are we sure these things are facts? are we sure that the Creator of man commissioned those things to be done? Are we sure that the books that tell us so were written by his authority? ...The Bible tells us, that those assassinations were done by the express command of God. And to read the Bible without horror, we must undo every thing that is tender, sympathising, and benevolent in the heart of man. Speaking for myself, if I had no other evidence that the Bible is fabulous, than the sacrifice I must make to believe it to be true, that alone would be sufficient to determine my choice.

It is unfair that life doesn’t come with a rewind button; an undo button that can reset time after you make a terrible mistake.

You know how ballerinas pick a spot to look at when they're doing a pirouette so they don't get dizzy? Bridget was Magnolia's spot on the wall.

I can’t go back to what we had in childhood. I can’t relive those times, retrace my tracks and undo what’s been done. It’s not like writing a book and rewriting the ending to make it happier.

It [Joyce's "Ulysses"] plays on the reader's sympathies to his own undoing unless sleep kindly intervenes and puts a stop to this drain of energy. Arrived at page 135, after making several heroic efforts to get at the book, to "do it justice", as the phrase goes, I fell at last into profound slumber.

Between life and death there is a library,’ she said. ‘And within that library, the shelves go on for ever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be different if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?’ ‘So, I am dead?’ Nora asked. Mrs Elm shook her head. ‘No. Listen carefully. Between life and death.’ She gestured vaguely along the aisle, towards the distance. ‘Death is outside.

Everyone causes harm,” Calvin said. “Sometimes we hurt others, and sometimes we hurt ourselves. If you’ve caused a problem, you learn and do better. You become smarter for next time. And you undo what harm you can.

It would undo me, I think, to glimpse some familiar piece of clothing, or a certain book or photograph, or to catch a hint of your smell. And I don't want to be undone like that, oh my God, not with your widow standing by.

He had dreamt about a dark-haired foreign boy. This boy held the key to the undoing of their demise. He had carried his curse for too long. Time was short, the alignment was coming. The vivid dream had spoken to him about Florence. As the sun overshadowed the top of the open-air coliseum, the light briefly hit his three golden symbols. He would need to cover them before he was spotted. Glancing around, he found what he needed. He rolled through the mud until he was coated. On the outside, he was Celestial KittyCat — a black, scrappy, alley cat with a golden brand on his side. A brand of a sun, a star, and a moon all in alignment. On the inside, he was still Patrick, and his heart still yearned for CallaLyly. He scowled as he thought about the curse that was planted by a mystic from the Far East over two and a half centuries ago.

Ten things that won’t make you happier Wanting to be someone you aren’t. Wishing you could undo a past that can’t be undone. Taking out your hurt on people who didn’t cause your hurt. Trying to distract yourself from pain by doing something that creates more pain. Being unable to forgive yourself. Waiting for people to understand you when they don’t even understand themselves. Imagining happiness is the place you reach when you get everything done. Trying to control things in a universe characterized by unpredictability. Avoiding painful memories by resisting a contented present. The belief that you have to be happy.

Heredity and environment are funny things. You can’t rid yourselves of all the odd ducks in just a few years. The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That’s why we’ve lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we’re almost snatching them from the cradle. We had some false alarms on the McClellans, when they lived in Chicago. Never found a book. Uncle had a mixed record; antisocial. The girl? She was a time bomb. The family had been feeding her subconscious, I’m sure, from what I saw of her school record. She didn’t want to know how a thing was done, but why. That can be embarrassing. You ask Why to a lot of things and you wind up very unhappy indeed, if you keep at it.

You’re trying to figure out who you are. I see it. And you’ll make it. But not if you give up.” Seth heaved a sigh. “I might want to give up, but I won’t. I worry, though: what if everything I do just causes more harm?” “Everyone causes harm,” Calvin said. “Sometimes we hurt others, and sometimes we hurt ourselves. If you’ve caused a problem, you learn and do better. You become smarter for next time. And you undo what harm you can.

He moves a stack of hardcovers off the sofa, then crosses the room to take the chair behind the desk. His expression seems to tease, See? I’m perfectly harmless over here. Except nothing about him looks harmless to me. He looks like a Swiss Army knife. A man with six different means to undo me. This Charlie, for making you spill your secrets. This one for making you laugh. This one can turn you on. This is the one who will convince you you’re capable of anything. Here is the Charlie who will pull you into his lap to form your human barricade at a hospital. And the one with the power to take you apart brick by brick.

He had not stopped looking into her eyes, and she showed no signs of faltering. He gave a deep sigh and recited: "O sweet treasures, discovered to my sorrow." She did not understand. "It is a verse by the grandfather of my great-great-grandmother," he explained. "He wrote three eclogues, two elegies, five songs, and forty sonnets. Most of them for a Portuguese lady of very ordinary charms who was never his, first because he was married, and then because she married another man and died before he did." "Was he a priest too?" "A soldier," he said. Something stirred in the heart of Sierva María, for she wanted to hear the verse again. He repeated it, and this time he continued, in an intense, well-articulated voice, until he had recited the last of the forty sonnets by the cavalier of amours and arms Don Garcilaso de la Vega, killed in his prime by a stone hurled in battle.When he had finished, Cayetano took Sierva María's hand and placed it over his heart. She felt the internal clamor of his suffering. "I am always in this state," he said. And without giving his panic an opportunity, he unburdened himself of the dark truth that did not permit him to live. He confessed that every moment was filled with thoughts of her, that everything he ate and drank tasted of her, that she was his life, always and everywhere, as only God had the right and power to be, and that the supreme joy of his heart would be to die with her. He continued to speak without looking at her, with the same fluidity and passion as when he recited poetry, until it seemed to him that Sierva María was sleeping. But she was awake, her eyes, like those of a startled deer, fixed on him. She almost did not dare to ask: "And now?" "And now nothing," he said. "It is enough for me that you know." He could not go on. Weeping in silence, he slipped his arm beneath her head to serve as a pillow, and she curled up at his side. And so they remained, not sleeping, not talking, until the roosters began to crow and he had to hurry to arrive in time for five-o'clock Mass. Before he left, Sierva María gave him the beautiful necklace of Oddúa: eighteen inches of mother-of-pearl and coral beads. Panic had been replaced by the yearning in his heart. Delaura knew no peace, he carried out his tasks in a haphazard way, he floated until the joyous hour when he escaped the hospital to see Sierva María. He would reach the cell gasping for breath, soaked by the perpetual rains, and she would wait for him with so much longing that only his smile allowed her to breathe again. One night she took the initiative with the verses she had learned after hearing them so often. 'When I stand and contemplate my fate and see the path along which you have led me," she recited. And asked with a certain slyness: "What's the rest of it?" "I reach my end, for artless I surrendered to one who is my undoing and my end," he said. She repeated the lines with the same tenderness, and so they continued until the end of the book, omitting verses, corrupting and twisting the sonnets to suit themselves, toying with them with the skill of masters. They fell asleep exhausted. At five the warder brought in breakfast, to the uproarious crowing of the roosters, and they awoke in alarm. Life stopped for them.

Maybe it was time to undo the locks and open all the windows. Maybe falling in love didn’t mean you were doomed and the future couldn’t be determined by the past. Maybe I had to stop living my life through books and it was time to rip off all the caution tape and see what happened when I let myself feel. Or when I let myself fall.

You fucking undo me,' he says.

What I did I can’t undo. But I can address it, and undress you.” This is the chorus in a new song I’m writing called “Mannequin Love.

If renunciation is not embraced By the pure motivation of bodhicitta, It will not become a cause for the perfect bliss of unsurpassed awakening, So the wise should generate supreme bodhicitta. Beings are swept along by the powerful current of the four rivers, Tightly bound by the chains of their karma, so difficult to undo, Ensnared within the iron trap of their self-grasping, And enshrouded in the thick darkness of ignorance. Again and yet again, they are reborn in limitless saṃsāra, And constantly tormented by the three forms of suffering. This is the current condition of all your mothers from previous lives— Contemplate their plight and generate supreme bodhichitta.

Three things happen when you apologize sincerely. First, you acknowledge someone’s anger or sadness. You validate that they have reason to be angry or that their anger is real. This often disarms them. Research shows that, after the apology, they no longer see you as a threat or as someone who might again harm them. They drop their defensive posture. And finally, when you’re successful, their brain prepares to forgive. They may even be able to move on from the source of injury entirely. Beverly Engel, a psychotherapist who specializes in trauma recovery, writes in her book The Power of Apology, “While an apology cannot undo harmful past actions, if done sincerely and effectively, it can undo the negative effects of those actions.

What makes letting go so challenging is that we need to let go of far more than mere emotional pain—we need to let go of hope, of the fantasy in which we undo what went wrong, of the psychological presence the person or pet has in our daily thoughts, and thus, in our lives. We need to truly say good-bye—to turn away from love, even when there is no longer a person or animal there to receive it. And we need to let go of a part of ourselves, of the person we were when our love still mattered.

You let me sing, you lifted me up, you have my soul a beam to travel on. You folded your distance back into my heart. You drew the tears back to my eyes. You hid me in the mountain of your word. You gave the injury a tongue to heal itself. You covered my head with my teacher's care, you bound my arm with my grandfather's strength. O beloved speaking, O comfort whispering in the terror, unspeakable explanation of the smoke and cruelty, undo the self-conspiracy, let me dare the boldness of joy.

The day I finished the first draft of this book, President Donald Trump informed the world that the United States would no longer be part of the Paris Accords, effectively abdicating the role of this country in fighting climate change. Therefore, I had to rewrite the scene in which Joshua Hallal discusses SPYDER’s plans to hasten the melting of Antarctica. Originally, SPYDER’s plan was to try to undo all the work the governments of the world were doing to fight climate change. Now, as you have read, he simply claims that climate change isn’t happening fast enough. As rewriting goes, that didn’t cause me too much trouble, though. But sadly, Trump’s decision may end up causing far more trouble for me, and you, and pretty much every other human being alive. The truth is, climate

The novel had a framework made by thinking. The thought was that to divide off and compartmentalize living was dangerous and led to nothing but trouble. Old, young; black, white; men, women; capitalism, socialism; these dichotomies undo us, force us into unreal categorisation, make us look for what separates us rather than what we have in common. That was the thought, which made the shape or pattern of 'The Golden Notebook'. But the emotions were stronger than the thought. This is why I have always seen TGN as a failure: a failure in my terms, of what I had meant. For has this book changed by an iota our tendency to think like computers set to sort everything - people, ideas, history - into boxes? No, it has not. Yet why should I have such a hubristic thought? But I was in the grip of discovery, of revelation. I had only just seen this Truth: I was watching my own mind working like a sorting machine, and I was appalled.

That is no doubt how the story ought to end, with the seals and the stars, explanation, resignation, reconciliation, everything picked up into some radiant bland ambiguous higher significance, in calm of mind, all passion spent. However life, unlike art, has an irritating way of bumping and limping on, undoing conversions, casting doubt on solutions, and generally illustrating the impossibility of living happily or virtuously ever after; so I thought I might continue the tale a little longer in the form once again of a diary, though I suppose that, if this is a book, it will have to end, arbitrarily enough no doubt, in quite a short while.

Between life and death there is a library,’ she said. ‘And within that library, the shelves go on for ever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?

When Postman wrote the introduction to his important book Amusing Ourselves to Death, he set forth the stance he adopts by contrasting the warnings of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World: Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think…. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much information that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared that the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared that we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared that we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.34

To return to my blunder in group therapy, a veteran whose voice is often heard in this book turned black with anger and, glaring at me, said, "I won my war. It's you who fucking lost!" He got up and left the room to remove himself from the opportunity to physically hurt me. Toward the end of the group session he returned and said, "What we lost in Vietnam was some good fucking kids!

When a star falls to earth we make a wish Their undoing is our redemption What then does it mean when a soul shatters? If we are stardust and moon rise, fragments of the universe, surely we come undone only to be made whole again. An unraveling— of the broken and the beautiful. Just as we wish upon a starfall, Maybe our pieces that shatter, Our soulfall—are the wishes the stars make on us.

you have done any piece of work incorrectly, the very first step toward getting it right is to undo the wrong, and begin again from that point. We have believed wrong about God and about ourselves. We have believed that God was angry with us and that we were sinners who ought to be afraid of Him. We have believed that sickness and poverty and other troubles are evil things put here by this same God to torture us in some way into serving Him and loving Him. We have believed that we have pleased God best when we became so absolutely subdued by our troubles as to be patiently submissive to them all, not even trying to rise out of them or to overcome them. All this is false, entirely false! And the first step toward freeing ourselves from our troubles is to get rid of our erroneous beliefs about God and about ourselves.

Wonderful is the wit and subtiltie that dumb creatures have & how they shift for themselves and annoy their enemies: which is the only difficultie that they have to arise and grow to so great an height and excessive bignesse. The dragon therefore espying the Elephant when he goeth to releese, assaileth him from an high tree and launceth himselfe upon him; but the Elephant knowing well enough well enough he is not able to withstand his windings and knittings about him, seeketh to come close to some trees or hard rockes, and so forth to crush and squise the dragon between him and them: the dragons ware hereof, entangle and snarle his feet and legges first with their taile: the Elephants on the other side, undoe those knots with their trunke as with a hand: but to prevent that againe, the dragons put in their heads into their snout, and so stop their breath, and withall, fret and gnaw the tenderest parts that they find there. (Translated by Philomel Holland, 1601. "The Book of Naturalists: An Anthology of the Best Natural History", 1944. p. 20)

There's probably a basic fear there, that you're simply incompetent and inadequate, that you have to work so hard at life that you have no hope of happiness. One big secret I know from my patients is that everyone, no matter how successful or accomplished, has that kind of fear at times. Drag that fear out into the light of day and look at it with compassionate curiosity. No one who is able to read this book is completely incompetent or inadequate. You probably got that idea from some old, bad experiences, but they're not happening now. If you can face your fears about yourself, they lose all power over you.

Gibbon who worked nonstop and seemed free of the self-doubt and crises of confidence that dog us mere mortals, there is a William James or a Franz Kafka, great minds who wasted time, waited vainly for inspiration to strike, experienced torturous blocks and dry spells, were racked by doubt and insecurity. In reality, most of the people in this book are somewhere in the middle—committed to daily work but never entirely confident of their progress; always wary of the one off day that undoes the streak. All of them made the time to get their work done. But there is infinite variation in how they structured their lives to do so.

Recondition your reactions to dominant people. Try to visualize yourself behaving in a firm manner, armed with well-prepared facts and evidence. Practice saying things like “Hold on a minute—I need to consider what you have just said.” Also practice saying “I’m not sure about that. It’s too important to make a snap decision now.” Don’t cave in for fear that someone might shout at you or have a tantrum. Have faith that your own abilities will work if you use them. Non-assertive people are often extremely strong in areas of process, detail, dependability, reliability, and working cooperatively with others. These capabilities all have the potential to undo a dominating personality who has no proper justification. Recognize your strengths and use them to defend and support your position.

The chain booksellers, like Barnes and Noble, began to dominate the market, and they instituted a “gay and lesbian” section in many of their branch stores. This section was never positioned at the front of the store with the bestsellers. It was usually on the fourth floor hidden behind the potted plants. What this meant in practical terms was that those of us who had the integrity to be out in our work found our books literarily yanked off of the “Fiction” shelves and hidden on the gay shelves, where only “gay” people wanting “gay” books would dare to tread. It was an instant undoing of all the progress we had made to be treated as full citizens and a natural, organic part of American intellectual life. …I felt very strongly, and still do, that authentic lesbian literature should be represented at all levels of publishing, including taking its rightful place as a natural organic part of mainstream American intellectual life. The corporate lockdown went into overdrive just at the moment that this integration was beginning to take place. This positioning is essential for so many reasons, least of which is the right of writers of merit to not be excluded from financial, emotional, and intellectual development simply because they have the integrity to be out in their work. Second is the right of gay people to be in dialogic relationships with straights - where they read and identify with our work as we are asked to with theirs. And finally, that even at the height of the strength of the lesbian subculture, most gay people find out about gay things through the mainstream media.

When I was a kid people used to say one could travel the entire world just by sitting in a library and reading books. Sadly, in the age of billionaire-controlled social media functioning and governing bodies and minds based on carefully engineered algorithms, I don’t believe this is true anymore. The saying should be revised in our times to be ‘one could hate the entire world and see everyone as a villain or an enemy just by browsing through reels and social posts carefully selected to confirm one’s limited knowledge, perspective, and prejudices.’ With that in mind, we need more than ever to master the art of traveling, whether we go near or far. We need to undo the unreasonable, amplified, and exaggerated fear of strangers." [From “Can We Travel Without Being Tourists?” published on CounterPunch on March 15, 2024]

As we have seen, the phrase “in accordance with the Bible” has little to do with isolated proof-texts and everything to do with the meaning of the long, dark, puzzling narrative of Israel ending with the question mark at the end of the books of Malachi and Chronicles. “Exile” was still in operation. The first Christians saw the message and accomplishment of Jesus as the long-awaited arrival of God’s kingdom, the final dealing-with-sin that would undo the powers of darkness and break through to the “age to come.” The whole point, as in Galatians 3, was that Israel’s long and sad story was not just a rambling muddle, an accumulation of irrelevant but damaging mistakes of generations that had more or less lost the plot. Paul never saw Israel’s past history like that, though many readers of Paul have assumed that he did.

IT’S A CHOICE Try as we might; neither I nor anyone else can change the past. Yet, our history does not have to hold us hostage. We can’t change things said and done to us, nor can we undo and change what we have done to others. There is no do-over, unfortunately. What we can choose to do, however, is grow and take ownership of our mistakes and share our history and experiences to heal ourselves and others. We can also choose to forgive ourselves and others, and we can also choose to use our experiences to raise ourselves while giving hope and inspiration to others. We can choose to grow from adversity, and we can choose to let go of victimhood. And that is what I decided to do when I left prison, here and in my book. I choose to own it all – the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I choose to let it all go and use my story as both a cautionary tale and a source of inspiration.

Yes.” I sniff. I love him like you might love a star. “Yes, you did?” He stares over at me. I nod. “Yes.” His eyes go funny, sort of blurry—he blinks twice and then he yells “Fuck!” way too loudly to be anything close to discreet. My head pulls back and I tense up. “Shit.” He breathes out, shaking his head. “Fuck—” I watch on in mild horror. “Are you ok—” “Say it.” “What?” I stare over at him. “Can you, please? Say it?” he asks. “Now. Out loud—” He shakes his head at himself. “Just so I’ve heard you say it one time.” I open my mouth to protest for a reason I don’t know why and then I stop myself, swallow and look him in the eye. “I loved you.” He nods a couple of times then closes his eyes for a few seconds, blows some air out of his mouth. “I have to ask—” He looks back over at me, eyes all heavy now. “Was I ever in with a shot?” He is a star. Not the shooting kind. Not some flash-in-the-pan meteorite that burns up on entry into the atmosphere. And stars, they’re undeniably beautiful, kind of magical. Only come out at the nighttime. Easy enough to ignore. In a sky full of them, a single star can be difficult to tell apart from the others. They don’t affect our day-to-day lives, really. You might see it one night and not the next, and it bears no real consequence other than perhaps the sky is a little less wonderful on that particular evening. A star is a star. “In this world,” I give him a delicate look, “with BJ?” I shake my head. “I’m sorry.” “That’s—” He trails, letting out this hollow laugh that I kind of hate. It doesn’t suit him. His regular laugh is so wonderful. “—fine.” He nods. “That’s good to know, actually—” “I’m sorry,” I tell him. He shakes his head again. “No, don’t be.” But you see, the thing about stars is that in another galaxy, that star is also a sun. “If it wasn’t him, it would be you,” I tell him, for better and for worse. He blows some more air out of his mouth and catches my eye. “In another life, yeah?” I nod and offer him a weak smile. “I’ll meet you there.

There are videos and books in her room to entertain her, but Miracolina has to laugh, because just as the harvest camp van had only happy, family-friendly movies, the titles she has to choose from here have a clear agenda as well. They’re all about kids being mistreated, but rising above it, or kids empowering themselves in a world that doesn’t understand them. Everything from Dickens to Salinger—as if Miracolina Roselli could possibly have anything in common with Holden Caulfield. ... Finally a bald middle-aged man comes in with a clipboard and a name tag that just says BOB. “I used to be a respected psychiatrist until I spoke out against unwinding,” Bob tells her after the obligatory introductions. “Being ostracized was a blessing in disguise, though, because it allowed me to come here, where I’m truly needed.” Miracolina keeps her arms folded, giving him nothing. She knows what this is all about. They call it “deprogramming,” which is a polite term for undoing brainwashing with more brainwashing.

The Scythe I created has been used for unspeakable crimes. Infected children have been hunted—killed. Physicians have turned to murderers. The Old Book of Alders has been defiled by Rowans to justify their every whim. Pain is Blunder’s legacy. It has perforated the kingdom for centuries, and would continue to do so if your family—my rightful heirs—were to forcibly take it back. There would be terrible unrest. You and I are Blunder’s reckoning, Ravyn Yew. Not its peace.” His voice softened, as if he were easing a child to rest with a story. “I had five hundred years to imagine my revenge. Hauth Rowan tasted it, that night at Spindle House. But poetry is as judicious as violence. And wouldn’t it be poetic to undo the Rowans from within? To take that legacy of pain, and watch one of their own grind it under his heel? To carve the way for a Prince who never used the Scythe for violence? Your cousin Elm has done more than Brutus Rowan or I ever could. He has looked pain in the eye—and refused to let it make a monster of him.

There was a girl next door," he said, slowly. "She's gone now, I think, dead. I can't even remember her face. But she was different. How? How did she happen?" Beatty smiled. "Here or there, that's bound to occur. Clarisse McClellan? We've a record on her family. We've watched them carefully. Heredity and environment are funny things. You can't rid yourselves of all the odd ducks in just a few years. The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're almost snatching them from the cradle. We had some false alarms on the McClellans, when they lived in Chicago. Never found a book. Uncle had a mixed record; antisocial. The girl? She was a time bomb. The family had been feeding her subconscious, I'm sure, from what I saw of her school record. She didn't want to know how a thing was done, but why. That can be embarrassing. You ask Why to a lot of things and you wind up very unhappy indeed, if you keep at it. The poor girl's better off dead.

Huxley and Orwell, wrote Postman, did not predict the same future. “Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think,” As Postman explained: What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny ‘failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.’ In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.

I’ve made myself into the character of a book, a life one reads. Whatever I feel is felt (against my will) so that I can write that I felt it. Whatever I think is promptly put into words, mixed with images that undo it, cast into rhythms that are something else altogether. From so much self-revising, I’ve destroyed myself. From so much self-thinking, I’m now my thoughts and not I. I plumbed myself and dropped the plumb; I spend my life wondering if I’m deep or not, with no remaining plumb except my gaze that shows me – blackly vivid in the mirror at the bottom of the well – my own face that observes me observing it. I’m like a playing card belonging to an old and unrecognizable suit – the sole survivor of a lost deck. I have no meaning, I don’t know my worth, there’s nothing I can compare myself with to discover what I am, and to make such a discovery would be of no use to anyone. And so, describing myself in image after image – not without truth, but with lies mixed in – I end up more in the images than in me, stating myself until I no longer exist, writing with my soul for ink, useful for nothing except writing. But the reaction ceases, and again I resign myself. I go back to whom I am, even if it’s nothing. And a hint of tears that weren’t cried makes my stiff eyes burn; a hint of anguish that wasn’t felt gets caught in my dry throat. But I don’t even know what I would have cried over, if I’d cried, nor why it is that I didn’t cry over it. The fiction follows me, like my shadow. And what I want is to sleep.

I: ... Rather, a most remarkable and strange fact has occurred: after the opposites had been united, quite unexpectedly and incomprehensibly nothing further happened. Everything remained in place, peacefully and yet completely motionless, and life turned into a complete standstill. Satan: Yes, you fools, you certainly have made a pretty mess of things. I: Well, your mockery is unnecessary. Our intentions were serious. Satan: Your seriousness leads us to suffer. The ordering of the beyond is shaken to its foundations. [...] I: ... So - just what do you advise? Satan: The best advice I can give you is: revoke your completely harmful innovation as soon as possible. I: What would be gained by that? We'd have to start from scratch again and would infallibly reach the same conclusion a second time. What one has grasped once, one cannot intentionally not know again and undo. Your counsel is no counsel. Satan: But could you exist without divisiveness and disunity? You have to get worked up about something, represent a party, overcome opposites, if you want to live. I: That does not help. We also see each other in the opposite. We have grown tired of this game. Satan: And so with life. I: It seems to me that it depends on what you call life. Your notion of life has to do with climbing up and tearing down, with assertion and doubt, with impatient dragging around, with hasty desire. You lack the absolute and its forbearing patience. Satan: Quite right. My life bubbles and foams and stirs up turbulent waves, it consists of seizing and throwing away, ardent wishing and restlessness. That is life, isn't it? I: But the absolute also lives. Satan: That is no life. It is a standstill or as good as a standstill, or rather: it lives interminably slowly and wastes thousands of years, just like the miserable condition that you have created. I: You enlighten me. You are personal life, but the apparent standstill is the forbearing life of eternity, the life of divinity! This time you have counselled me well. I will let you go. Farewell!

The ambulance came, and they all followed it to the hospital. Sarah was pronounced dead when she got there. She was gone. I know there are families who have had tragedies. But we were always somehow spared. There’s a comfort you slip into as good Christians. God’s got his angels over me, you think. I was taught—and generations before me believed—that we were protected. Without that blind faith, what did we have? Mom and I got on the next flight home. I was in shock, I realize now, thinking if we did everything right, we would somehow undo the reality. Maybe like Aunt Debbie’s prayers. I thought we would go up in the air and then touch down on a world where this hadn’t happened. Going through the clouds, I put my head down on my mother’s lap. I don’t know if I fell asleep, but I had a dream that I had fallen asleep, if that makes sense. Whether it was a dream or a vision, Sarah came to me. She had her long curly hair again. She had gotten her hair cut shorter a few weeks before and told me she hated it. But there it was. “I’m okay,” she said, giving me that smile she gave me every time she gently shook her head and told me to relax. “Please tell my mom I’m okay. Please give her a hug for me.” Mom stroked my hair, and I sat up. “Sarah just came to me in a dream,” I told her, adding what she’d said about her mom. “Well, you should let Aunt Debbie know,” she said. “She needs to hear that.

Will—,” she whispered, and he stood up, lifting her in his arms, still kissing her. She held tight to his back and shoulders as he carried her over to the bed and laid her down on it. She was already barefoot; he kicked off his boots and climbed up beside her. Part of her training had been in how to remove gear, and her hands were light and quick on his gear, undoing the clasps and pulling it aside like a shell. He batted it aside impatiently, and knelt upright to undo his weapons belt.

sampled. So, in time, and with Mrs Elm’s assistance, Nora took lots of books from the shelves, and ended up having a taste of lots of different lives in her search for the right one. She learned that undoing regrets was really a way of making wishes come true. There was almost any life she was living in one universe, after all.

Harry’s other presents were much more satisfactory than Dobby’s odd socks — with the obvious exception of the Dursleys’, which consisted of a single tissue, an all-time low — Harry supposed they too were remembering the Ton-Tongue Toffee. Hermione had given Harry a book called Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland; Ron, a bulging bag of Dungbombs; Sirius, a handy penknife with attachments to unlock any lock and undo any knot; and Hagrid, a vast box of sweets including all Harry’s favorites: Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, Chocolate Frogs, Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum, and Fizzing Whizbees. There was also, of course, Mrs. Weasley’s usual package, including a new sweater (green, with a picture of a dragon on it — Harry supposed Charlie had told her all about the Horntail), and a large quantity of homemade mince pies.

Between life and death there is a library,’ she said. ‘And within that library, the shelves go on for ever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be different if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?

Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices... Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?

A tendency toward obsession was hardwired into his brain and would likely be his undoing if he couldn't learn to outsmart it.

You undo me,

What we do, say, and even think has consequences. Words and thoughts are included, for they cause things to happen. What we say and think has consequences for the world around us, for they condition how we act. This is what Hinduism and Buddhism call the law of karma. Karma means something done, whether as cause or as effect. Actions in harmony with dharma bring good karma and add to health and happiness. Selfish actions, at odds with dharma, bring unfavorable karma and pain. Instead of trapping us in a fatalistic snare, this gives us freedom. Because we alone have brought ourselves into this state, we ourselves, by working hard, can reach the supreme state which is nirvana. In order to cross the river of life, we have to undergo all the necessary spiritual disciplines, but it is equally important to undo our unfavorable karma.

Karsa Orlong, do you no longer believe in mercy?" "My beliefs are my own, Delum Thord. I shall not undo what I do not understand, and that is all.

This measure, which endangers the environment as Canadian oil would now have to cross into the US by train and truck, would essentially be a gift to the oil companies and might contribute toward undoing Trump policies that led to energy independence. This one act, which would likely lead to the loss of upwards of a hundred thousand jobs in aggregate, would likely contribute to a raise in the cost of oil which hurts production and potentially raises prices thus hurting working people.

wild olive tree leaf like a cloths peg on the cloths line — who pays attention to it and who will undo the cloths peg that holds the kerchief of summer?

Between life and death there is a library,’ she said. ‘And within that library, the shelves go on for ever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?

It is our responsibility to expend the energy it will take to practice and become skillful at relating well. It does not come automatically. We will have to learn, be taught, grieve our past, work in therapy, get to know our true self, undo years of habits, practice with a partner, follow a spiritual practice—and read and work with a book like this.

To use a metaphor, it is as if the stream of corporate globalized culture flows toward self-centeredness. If we swim eagerly with the current, we are likely to develop exaggerated and unhealthy forms of narcissism. And we actually have to swim against the current to locate wider, wilder, and more connected versions of ourselves. This is one of the key points of this book: It is the larger culture, our society, that is breeding us to be narcissistic, and this is a problem. Not only does it cause us to be more self-centered, but it also causes us to not care as deeply for the welfare of others. A

Between life and death there is a library, she said. And within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices... Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?

Between life and death there is a library,’ she said. ‘And within that library, the shelves go on for ever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be different if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?

Between life and death there is a library' she said. 'And within that library, the shelves go on for ever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices...Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?

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Decades before Sergey Brin and Larry Page were born, authors like George Orwell and Aldous Huxley painted scenes of technology-driven dystopias in books like 1984 and Brave New World. “Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression,” wrote media theorist Neil Postman. “But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices… Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?”-Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

So what else did you find?” she asked and he smiled sadly, looking back to the book. “Well, once I gave up on examining this page, I decided to go back to the spell King has been using for their sacrifices.” He flipped through the pages then paused on one with the image of the four Elemental triangles surrounded by symbols which were impossible to read. “The answer to undoing King’s power is here.” Orion pointed to a piece of text at the bottom of the page which had always been undecipherable regardless of the spyglass. “But…” He sighed. “It requires a sacrifice to read it.” “No one’s giving blood,” I said immediately. That thing could take a piece of someone’s soul if we gave it the chance, and I was not risking that with anyone in this room. “No, it’s not blood it wants,” Orion said, but his eyes were still dark. “It’s the pain of a woman suffering under the power of the four Elements. I used a couple of dark spells to reveal that much, but I couldn’t go any further.” “That’s horrifically specific,” Leon muttered. “I’ll do it,” Elise said simply, getting to her feet. “No,” I snapped the same time as Leon and Dante did. “It’s not an option,” Elise snarled. “I’ll do anything to defeat King, and I’ve faced far worse pain in my life. This will be a small sacrifice to make.” She looked me in the eyes, willing me to back down, but how could I? I couldn’t cast my power against her. I wouldn’t.

The solfeggio is a six-note scale and is also nicknamed “the creational scale.” Traditional Indian music calls this scale the saptak, or seven steps, and relates each note to a chakra. These six frequencies, and their related effects, are as follows: Do 396 Hz Liberating guilt and fear Re 417 Hz Undoing situations and facilitating change Mi 528 Hz Transformation and miracles (DNA repair) Fa 639 Hz Connecting/relationships Sol 741 Hz Awakening intuition La 852 Hz Returning to spiritual order Mi has actually been used by molecular biologists to repair genetic defects.115 Some researchers believe that sound governs the growth of the body. As Dr. Michael Isaacson and Scott Klimek teach in a sound healing class at Normandale College in Minneapolis, Dr. Alfred Tomatis believes that the ear’s first in utero function is to establish the growth of the rest of the body. Sound apparently feeds the electrical impulses that charge the neocortex. High-frequency sounds energize the brain, creating what Tomatis calls “charging sounds.”116 Low-frequency sounds drain energy and high-frequency sounds attract energy. Throughout all of life, sound regulates the sending and receiving of energy—even to the point of creating problems. People with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder listen too much with their bodies, processing sound through bone conduction rather than the ears. They are literally too “high in sound.”117 Some scientists go a step further and suggest that sound not only affects the body but also the DNA, actually stimulating the DNA to create information signals that spread throughout the body. Harvard-trained Dr. Leonard Horowitz has actually demonstrated that DNA emits and receives phonons and photons, the electromagnetic waves of sound and light. As well, three Nobel laureates in medical research have asserted that the primary function of DNA is not to synthesize proteins, but to perform bioacoustic and bioelectrical signaling.118 While research such as that by Dr. Popp shows that DNA is a biophoton emitter, other research suggests that sound actually originates light. In a paper entitled “A Holographic Concept of Reality,” which was featured in Stanley Krippner’s book Psychoenergetic Systems, a team of researchers led by Richard Miller showed that superposed coherent waves in the cells interact and form patterns first through sound, and secondly through light.119 This idea dovetails with research by Russian scientists Peter Gariaev and Vladimir Poponin, whose work with torsion energies was covered in Chapter 25. They demonstrated that chromosomes work like holographic biocomputers, using the DNA’s own electromagnetic radiation to generate and interpret spiraling waves of sound and light that run up and down the DNA ladder. Gariaev and his group used language frequencies such as words (which are sounds) to repair chromosomes damaged by X-rays. Gariaev thus concludes that life is electromagnetic rather than chemical and that DNA can be activated with linguistic expressions—or sounds—like an antenna. In turn, this activation modifies the human bioenergy fields, which transmit radio and light waves to bodily structures.120

He looks like a Swiss Army knife. A man with six different means to undo me.

Fortune, because of whom all good leaves us, was thereupon born, and was complicit in the whole affair. She did this because of her fickleness. And I believe her to be the daughter of the devil because I do not find any writing or text—not prose, not verse—that says or proves that God, who makes all good, beneficial works out of nothing, ever formed or loved Fortune. So I believe that the devil made her, so that she would undo all good and put man in servitude, because there is no shame, damage, or misfortune that does not come to man because of Fortune (may all remember that!). And she does even greater harm to the best than to the worst, night and day. Her disruptive influence will not be short-lived; rather, her control will last until Judgment Day

It is amazing how dull history books are, given how much of what’s in them must be invented.” What

But, what if? I needed release. I needed Ben inside of me. Right. Now. Time to take charge, in a different way than I’d done before. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You asked. I thought it better to get it out in the open.” I put my glass down on the table. I moved closer to him, taking one of his rough hands in mine. I reached out and touched his face with my other hand. “It’s okay, baby.” I said softly, “I did ask. It’s okay.” I reached my hands down to his belt buckle and started undoing it. “Liv, what …” “Shhh. I know how to fix this. Just be quiet and let me do this.

How to read this book: Even after I was told my father was dead, I believed (I still believe) that I could fix everything- that if I logged enough miles in my VW and kept telling stories through the countless dead ends and breakdowns, I could undo the terrible tree events…not that I should have expected to with this particular power, which is incomplete (as I was forced to sell a few stories and procedures for time-of-money), full of holes. Sure, the book turns on, lights up; its fans whirr and the bookengine crunches. But some of the pages are completely blank; others hang by a thread. the book’s transmission is shot, too, so don’t’ be surprised if the book slips from one version to the next as you’re reading .Finally, the thermostat’s misked, so you should expect sudden changes in temperature, the pages might get cold, or it may begin to snow between paragraphs, or you may turn the page and get hit with a faceful of rain or blinding beams of sunlight. So go ahead. Do it-open the book. See? You see me, right? And I see you. See? I am reading your face, your eyes, your lips. I know the sufferdust on your brow. I can see you reading, and I can tell, too, when you are here, when you are absent, what you’ve read and how it affects you. There is no more hiding. I see your chords- your fratures, your cold gifts, where and when you’ve hurt people…your stories are written right there on your face!

Anu concluded his tirade, explaining his plan. “But I bring new hope and change. I want to undo the separation, to erase the distinctions between creatures. I want to make all things into One.” Anu bent down and looked into one of the jars of fetuses on the shelf. “By combining my seed with human seed, I will fundamentally transform humankind. I will create man in my image rather than in Elohim’s image. I will give man his proper destiny. I will make man into a god.” All of Emzara’s words came flooding into Ham’s mind, causing doubts and fears. The prophecy of the Chosen Seed ending the rule of the gods and bringing the judgment of Elohim down upon their heads.

through, always making an undo amount of

Our freedom is God’s primary gift to us. In fact it makes us like God. We need not be afraid to claim it and exercise it. Even when we misuse our free will, God does not take it away, but works to undo the damage we cause. We learn from Jesus how to use our freedom well.

There has to be something we can do to undo whatever it is we have done.

After long minutes of quiet in which he thought she’d gone to sleep, Malina said, “Is it because I’m pregnant? Or too short?” She was asking about earlier. His heart clenched. “Nay, lass,” he said with a sigh. He tilted her chin up then, not for the kiss he longed to take from her, but to find the moist sparkle of her gaze in the darkness. “There isna a thing wrong with you. You are lovely as a lily in the morning mist. Any man would be proud to have you as his wife.” “Are you any man?” “Aye, lass. I’m as proud of you as I can be. Never doubt that.” “I suppose I can live with that,” she said with a wee smile. “If you won’t make love to me, then I’ll take your pride.” His heart stuttered and his cock jerked at her bold words. He hoped his plaid kept the bugger from bothering her. “I can live with it,” she pressed on, “but it would be easier for me if I knew the reason. Is it because I’m planning to leave you?” She said the last words so quietly he had to strain to hear her. Guilt lashed at him; she was desperate to understand why he didn’t want to bed her. He cupped her face, his hand covering her delicate cheek and jaw. His thumb stroked the swollen skin around her eye. It was tight and hot with healing. Malina was wounded because he’d failed to hide her box well enough. Her injury was his undoing. It tugged at his heart and made him willing to do anything to make it up to her.

When I went into the attic to find the veil for Rose, I discovered this painting,” she began. “This is your great-grandfather, the third Earl of Ashton.” He wasn’t certain what to make of it, but then the weight of her words struck him. She’d said it was his great-grandfather. “He had green eyes,” Moira whispered. “You can see it for yourself.” Iain accepted the portrait, and when he took a closer look at the man, his blood ran cold. It was like looking into a mirror. There was no doubt at all that he was a blood relation to this man. He set down the portrait, and the hair stood up on his arms. Moira spoke first. “You have to understand how broken I was after I was violated by a man who was not my husband. And because Aidan sought revenge, he died. I found myself with a living reminder of that night.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Every time I looked at you, I could only think of the violence. I couldn’t see that you were a gift that Aidan left to me, so I wouldn’t be alone.” Moira turned away, her shoulders slumped forward. He couldn’t answer her, though he knew what she was saying. She finished with, “There is nothing I can say to undo the years I mistreated you. I neglected the only son remaining to me. The last piece of my husband, because I was too blind to see the truth.” For a time, he was frozen, not knowing how to respond. He was the Earl of Ashton in truth. By blood and by birthright. “I will leave, if you ask it of me,” she whispered. “I deserve to be cast out for what I did.” A part of him wanted to lash out at her, for the years she’d made him feel like a shadow worth nothing at all. But what good would it do? She had aged into a fragile shell of a woman who had based her life upon misery and bitterness. He had Rose now, the woman he loved more than life itself. He had brought her here to help him rebuild Ashton . . . but perhaps she could help him rebuild more than the estate. With a heavy sigh, he placed his hand upon his mother’s shoulder. “Will you walk with me when I meet my bride?” Moira took his hand and pressed it to her forehead. Against his fingers, he felt the wetness of her tears. “I will, yes. Thank you.” It would take time to let go of the past. But it would begin with a single step.

Perhaps it was foolhardy to suppose that in real life we could undo what had been done, cancel our knowledge of evil, uninvent our weapons, stow away what remained in some safe hiding place. With the devastation of World War II still grimly visible, its stench hardly gone from the air, the community of nations started to fragment, its members splitting into factions, resorting to threats and, finally, to violence and to war. The certainty of peace had proved little more than a fragile dream. “And so the great democracies triumphed,” Sir Winston Churchill wrote later. “And so were able to resume the follies that had nearly cost them their life.” Prophetic as he was, Churchill did not foresee the awesome extremes to which these follies would extend: diplomacy negotiated within a balance of nuclear terror; resistance tactics translated into guidelines for fanatics and terrorists; intelligence agencies evolving technologically to a level where they could threaten the very principles of the nations they were created to defend. One way or another, such dragon’s teeth were sown in the secret activities of World War II. Questions of utmost gravity emerged: Were crucial events being maneuvered by elite secret power groups? Were self-aggrandizing careerists cynically displacing principle among those entrusted with the stewardship of intelligence? What had happened over three decades to an altruistic force that had played so pivotal a role in saving a free world from annihilation or slavery? In the name of sanity, the past now had to be seen clearly. The time had come to open the books.

Chris Peterson’s book, A Primer in Positive Psychology, is full of practical

3 Chris Peterson’s book, A Primer in Positive Psychology, is full of practical

He looks like a Swiss Army knife, a man with six different means to undo me.

nothing about him looks harmless to me. He looks like a Swiss Army knife. A man with six different means to undo me. This Charlie, for making you spill your secrets. This one for making you laugh. This one can turn you on. This is the one who will convince you you’re capable of anything. Here is the Charlie who will pull you into his lap to form your human barricade at a hospital. And the one with the power to take you apart brick by brick.

Thousand Leagues Under the Sea out like a sword. “What are you going to do?” The Magister turned to her. “First, as I promised, I’ll free all fictional creatures I can find. I’ve explained the way things work to my friends, here. And they’d like to speak to their creators, much as I’d still like to.” He held out a hand. “Give me Jonathan Porterhouse, and no harm shall come to you.” Bethany swallowed hard. “What for?” “He will accompany any and all other writers into a fictional world, where they will be free to live or die as they can.” He spread his hands. “It is the only way to ensure an end to their power, and seems the fairest way to imprison them. After all, it is no more than they have done to us.” Bethany’s eyes went wide. “You can’t just send everyone into books! Do you have any idea what would happen?” “Do you know what happened to me?” the Magister roared. “Fighting a war for the freedom of my people, only to find none of it is real? Let the writers of this world decide if their dystopian futures, their dangerous magic, their monsters and stories of terror are so entertaining once it’s their own life or death they’re living out!” Her legs shaking, Bethany took a step forward. “I’m not going to let you do this,” she said quietly. “I can’t.” “Bethany, don’t,” Kiel whispered to her, but she shook her head. “There’s nothing you can do that I can’t undo,” she told the Magister. “So go ahead. Steal my power some more. I’ll just find a way to put everything back where it belongs, and will keep at it as long as I live.” “I understand,” the Magister said. “Then I suppose you leave me with no other option.” “NO!” Kiel shouted, but it was too late. The Magister gestured, and Bethany immediately crumpled to the ground, unmoving. CHAPTER 30 What’s the problem?” Charm said, waving her robotic hand for Owen to hurry up. “We don’t have much more time!” “Give me a minute,” Owen told her, trying not to look at the skeleton sitting on the computer-circuit throne. Kiel had mentioned wanting to bring his parents back to life using magic (before he found out he was a clone of Dr. Verity, of course), but the Magister had always forbidden it, saying that such dark magic led to horrible results.

Seth stopped walking. “Phantom, you can wait for me, or you can let me tell the Sphinx how you left me behind.” The phantom halted. “Calvin, don’t you get it?” Seth said. “If what you say is true, if Kendra and the good guys would forgive me, it almost makes it worse. I know what I did, Calvin. I may have been manipulated, but I wasn’t forced. If I was a traitor, if I caused destruction by releasing evil, if I got people killed and made a sanctuary fall, I have to live with that. I’m not sure how I can.” “You’ve been in an impossible situation, Seth,” Calvin said. “You’re trying to figure out who you are. I see it. And you’ll make it. But not if you give up.” Seth heaved a sigh. “I might want to give up, but I won’t. I worry, though: what if everything I do just causes more harm?” “Everyone causes harm,” Calvin said. “Sometimes we hurt others, and sometimes we hurt ourselves. If you’ve caused a problem, you learn and do better. You become smarter for next time. And you undo what harm you can.” “What about the Everbloom?” Seth asked. “What should I do?” “We’ve come this far,” Calvin said. “Let’s have a look.” Seth folded his arms and stared at the ground. What else was he supposed to do? Sit down and mope until Ronodin came looking for him? “Go ahead, phantom,” he said. Dezia drifted forward again. “Besides, you might be right,” Calvin said. “We may burn up in hot lava before we get there.

Gradually, they draw back, and I’m left floating, drifting in a current of Charlie: his faintly spiced scent, the heat of his skin, the fine wool of his light sweater. A picture of my apartment flickers across my mind. The yellowy-red streetlights catching raindrops on my windowpane, the sound of cars slushing past, the radiator hissing against my socked feet. The smell of old books and crisp new ones, and the cologne whose cedarwood and amber notes are meant to conjure up the image of sun-soaked libraries. The creak of old floorboards, the shuffle of footsteps, half-drunken singing as revelers make their way home from the tequila bar across the street, stopping for dollar slices of pizza dripping with oil. I can almost believe I’m there. In my home, where it’s safe enough to relax, to undo the brackets of steel in my spine and slip out of my harsh outline to—settle. “You’re not useless, Charlie,” I whisper against his steady heartbeat. “You’re . . .” His hand is still in my hair. “Organized?” I smile into his chest. “Something like that,” I say. “It’ll come to me.