“
The value of things is not the time they last, but the intensity with which they occur. That is why there are unforgettable moments and unique people!
”
”
Fernando Pessoa
“
The purpose of the poetry is not to dazzle us with an astonishing thought, but to make one moment of existence unforgettable and worthy of unbearable nostalgia.
”
”
Milan Kundera (Immortality)
“
This is how memories are; what seems so clear and unforgettable at one moment vanishes like steam the next.
”
”
Michelle Moran (The Heretic Queen)
“
It's one of those unforgettable moments that happen as a child, when you discover that all along the world has been betraying you.
”
”
Nicole Krauss (The History of Love)
“
Such is the life of a man. Moments of joy, obliterated by unforgettable sorrow.
”
”
Marcel Pagnol
“
Ben and Freda were happy for Cindy. She had recovered from the horrible abuses she had suffered the previous year. Her last bad dream was over five months behind her. Her schoolwork was excellent, and her home and farm chores were done promptly without any supervision. Her face without a smile was a rare sight.
”
”
Shafter Bailey (Cindy Divine: The Little Girl Who Frightened Kings)
“
Except for when I was very little and thought that being an "engineer" meant he drove a train. Then I imagined him in the seat of an engine car the color of coal, a string of shiny passenger cars trailing behind. One day my father laughed and corrected me. Everything snapped into focus. It's one of those unforgettable moments that happen as a child, when you discover that all along the world has been betraying you.
”
”
Nicole Krauss (The History of Love)
“
I desire you so much that I believe I might lose my reason. My body yearns for yours, and I crumble every single time you touch me. I've tried to be stronger but the memory of you inside me burns me. No man has ever made me feel the way you did. Whether you believe me or not, I will cherish that unforgettable moment for the rest of my life.
”
”
Chris Lange (The Lord of the Clans)
“
It was an unforgettable painting; it set a dense golden halo of light round the most trivial of moments, so that the moment, and all such moments, could never be completely trivial again.
”
”
John Fowles (The Magus)
“
The moment that every unrealised heart craves for. The unforgettable instant that a soul, clinging on to the purest memory of its previous life, longs for. The second, that in spite of a conspiracy of the gods, only a few lucky men experience. The moment when she enters his life.
”
”
Amish Tripathi (The Immortals of Meluha (Shiva Trilogy, #1))
“
The passage of time, and the details that spun some moments into unforgettable memories and others into thin air, traveled with Sylvie--the swirling atmosphere of her own life--while she walked.
”
”
Ann Napolitano (Hello Beautiful)
“
When the time comes, we all want the same things: care, comfort, and connection.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
The memory of sacred moment is unforgettable.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita
“
I reminded myself to live for today, not the fears of tomorrow—a promise I had made to myself when I started working in hospice.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
What we once deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
Great scientific minds are shaped early by unforgettable experiences . . . and some miracle moments.
”
”
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (Reignited: Scientific Pathways to a Better Future)
“
Strange it is, but unforgettable moments are often connected with very small happenings, happenings that assume fictitious proportions, especially when we are children.
”
”
Radclyffe Hall (The Well of Loneliness)
“
Let me begin with a heartfelt confession.
I admit it. I am a biblioholic, one who loves books and whose life would seem incomplete without them. I am an addict, with a compulsive need to stop by nearly any bookstore I pass in order to get my fix. Books are an essential part of my life, the place where I have spent many unforgettable moments. For me, reading is one of the most enjoyable ways to pass a rainy afternoon or a leisurely summer day. I crave the knowledge and insights that truly great books bring into my life and can spend transported hours scouring used book stores for volumes which "I simply must have". I love the smell and feel of well-loved books and the look of a bookcase full of books waiting to be taken down and read.
”
”
Terry W. Glaspey (Book Lover's Guide to Great Reading: A Guided Tour of Classic & Contemporary Literature)
“
I shall now explain my plan. You may then speak, but only to amend the detail. The broad outline is not subject to negotiation. Are you ready? Good … I propose to have sex with you. I believe it will be excellent sex. Your obedience on one particular issue of timing it will be required to make it unforgettable sex. I will explain that issue as we go. At the moment, I wish to hear your inevitable objection to the general sex part of this plan.
”
”
Nick Harkaway (Angelmaker)
“
The big event that rips through the heart of things and changes life for everyone, the unforgettable moment when something ends and something else begins. Was that what this was, he asked himself, a moment similar to the outbreak of war? No, not quite. War announces the beginning of a new reality, but nothing had begun today, a reality had ended, that was all, something had been subtracted from the world, and now there was a hole, a nothing where there had once been a something, as if every tree in the world had vanished, as if the very concept of tree or mountain had been erased from the human mind.
”
”
Paul Auster (4 3 2 1)
“
I reminded myself to live for today, not the fears of tomorrow
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
Good is a-dime-a-dozen. I mean perfect, quintessentially unique, unforgettable; a moment you would gladly stay in for the rest of your life, only the essence of it to sustain you.
”
”
Michael Reilly
“
To my husband. I had been told my entire life that my dreams were too big. Then I met you, and you told me to dream bigger.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
Someone once told me that anxiety lives in the unknown future, depression lives in the unforgettable past, and peace lives in acceptance of the present moment.
”
”
Abbi Waxman (Adult Assembly Required)
“
Strange it is, but unforgettable moments are often connected with very small happenings, happenings that assume fictitious proportions, especially
”
”
Radclyffe Hall (The Well of Loneliness)
“
O valor das coisas não está no tempo que elas duram, mas na intensidade com que acontecem, por isso, existem momentos inesquecíveis, coisas inexplicáveis e pessoas incomparáveis."
"The value of things, are not in the time they endure, but in the intensity they happen, that's why, exist unforgettable moments, inexplicable things and incomparable people.
”
”
Fernando Pessoa
“
It's amazing how even those people who are in our life for just a short time can make a lasting impact.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
I have cared for enough end-of-life patients with varying religious backgrounds to believe that how you live your life is more important than what you believe in.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
It is easy to love but difficult to forget, so love every moment to create an enormous unforgettable memory.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
Our lives are composed of unexpected moments and unforgettable adventures.
”
”
Erin Forbes (Fire & Ice: The Lost Dreamer (Fire & Ice, #2))
“
I am continually amazed at how life just continues on as usual, despite the tragedy that exists all around us.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
I always thought I would have more time. I wish I would have spent more time with my loved ones. I wish I’d just eaten the damn cake.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
Our silences, those haunting moments between you and me. Do you remember them the way I do? I visit those alleys often. Do you too?
”
”
Avijeet Das
“
If done correctly, these techniques can allow the Bobo pilgrim to have 6 unforgettable moments a morning, 2 rapturous experiences over lunch, 1.5 profound insights in the afternoon (on average), and .667 life-altering epiphanies after each sunset.
”
”
David Brooks (Bobos in Paradise)
“
Everything I know, everything I put in my fiction, will hurt someone somewhere as surely as it will comfort and enlighten someone else. What then is my responsibility? What am I to restrain? What am I to fear and alter--my own nakedness or the grief of the reader? I want my stories to be so good they are unforgettable; to make my ideas live and my own terrors real for people I will never meet. It is a completely amoral writer's lust. If we begin to agree that some ideas are too dangerous, too bad to invite inside our heads, then we stop the storyteller completely. We silence everyone who would tell us something that might be painful in our vulnerable moments.
”
”
Dorothy Allison
“
While I still don't have all the answers, the one thing I can tell you for certain is that there are things that defy medical explanation, and that in between here and whatever comes next, there is something powerful and peaceful.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
And if I’ve figured out anything in this Shakespearean tragedy of a life, it’s that life is just moments all strung together like multicolor Christmas lights. You always end up liking some colors better than others. Joyful, tragic, peaceful, funny. Unforgettable moments, and moments we wish we could forget.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3))
“
We are artists. We are writers—slightly neurotic and probably addicted to coffee, late nights, sunsets, laughter, tears, and heartache. Creativity is our drug. We lose ourselves in the smell of old books. We’re bewildered by how we can live in a world this full of glory and grief and not be awestruck every moment. And we write stories to help wake people up before they fall asleep for good.
”
”
Steven James (Story Trumps Structure: How to Write Unforgettable Fiction by Breaking the Rules)
“
You’re going to have to give up your ideal life in order to live the life planned for you.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
As time has passed, I’ve found it to be generally true in life that, in the end, things are usually okay. Sometimes it just takes a lot of hard work and uncertainty to get there.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
wish I would have spent more time with my loved ones. I wish I’d just eaten the damn cake.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
Nursing school has everything to do with learning how to heal patients- or at least try to- and little to do with how to comfort them.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
I believe in medicine and science, but my own experience tells me that, while they can explain a lot, they can't explain everything.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
I wish I would have spent more time with my loved ones. I wish I’d just eaten the damn cake.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
God will save me if I’m meant to live.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
Great moment, unforgettable memory.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita
“
His hands cupped her cheeks, holding her steady so that he might drink in the sight of her. It was too dark to see the exact colors that made her unforgettable face, but Simon knew that her lips were soft and pink, with just a tinge of peach at the corners. He knew that her eyes were made up of dozens of shades of brown, with that one enchanting circle of green constantly daring him to take a closer look, to see if it was really there or just a figment of his imagination.
But the rest— how she would feel, how she would taste— he could only imagine.
And Lord, how he’d been imagining it. Despite his composed demeanor, despite all of his promises to Anthony, he burned for her. When he saw her across a crowded room, his skin grew hot, and when he saw her in his dreams, he went up in flames.
Now— now that he had her in his arms, her breath fast and uneven with desire, her eyes glazed with need she couldn’t possibly comprehend— now he thought he might explode.
And so kissing her became a matter of self-preservation. It was simple. If he did not kiss her now, if he did not consume her, he would die. It sounded melodramatic, but at the moment he would have sworn it to be true. The hand of desire twisting around his gut would burst into flame and take him along with it.
He needed her that much.
”
”
Julia Quinn (The Duke and I (Bridgertons, #1))
“
Was I happy after that? I think so. I experienced moments of pleasure, moments of unforgettable joy; I loved again and dreamed again like a wide-eyed boy. And yet I always felt there was something missing, something that left me somehow crippled, in short that I only every hovered on the fringes of happiness.
”
”
Yasmina Khadra (When the days owes the night)
“
It is not true that we have never been broken. We have been broken upon the wheel. It is not true that we have never descended from these thrones. We have descended into hell. We were complaining of unforgettable miseries even at the very moment when this man entered insolently to accuse us of happiness. I repel the slander; we have not been happy.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare)
“
Life cannot be lived backwards. But our memories make up for that by making some moments truly unforgettable!
”
”
Avijeet Das
“
Sometimes two people weren't meant to be more than one moment. Wondrous and unforgettable though it might be, not all good things were meant to last.
”
”
Kerri Maniscalco (Throne of the Fallen (Prince of Sin, #1))
“
The passage of time, and the details that spun some moments into unforgettable memories and others into thin air,
”
”
Ann Napolitano (Hello Beautiful)
“
I grew up with the understanding that death was natural, and it felt normal to me, not scary or mysterious.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
I don’t know anyone who works in the emergency department that does. A higher power that allows what we see to happen isn’t someone I want to spend eternity with.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
Ididn’t want to need help. I wanted to be able to disconnect and feel nothing.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
I left the office that day knowing that if I ever became a nurse I would never treat someone the way she treated me.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
So today, learn to live consciously. Listen to the rhythm of your heartbeat and how the air feels on your skin and watch life as it happens around you. Worries go away when you live in the NOW.
”
”
Nesta Jojoe Erskine (Unforgettable: Living a Life That Matters)
“
... I heard chirping nearby and looked up at a nearby tree, where I saw a bluebird. It happily chirped a few times and then began flapping its wings. I watched in awe as the bird flew directly alongside the hearse.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
This was not where I was expecting this conversation to go, but I was intrigued. “I keep thinking about all the times when I was invited to the beach with my friends and didn’t go because of the way my stomach looked. All the birthday dinners I skipped because I made all my own meals so I could obsessively count calories. I even skipped out on having friends over on my birthday because I didn’t want to have to eat cake.” I realized I wasn’t breathing. “That definitely resonates with me,” I told her, while looking at the floor, ashamed that it must have been obvious. Elizabeth looked me dead in the eyes and said, “I felt like I had to tell you this because I see myself in you. I never anticipated dying at forty. I always thought I would have more time. I wish I would have spent more time with my loved ones. I wish I’d just eaten the damn cake.” “That’s good advice,” I said softly.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
One phenomenon is certain and I can vouch for its absolute certainty: the sudden and immediate appearance of a solution at the very moment of sudden awakening. On being very abruptly awakened by an external noise, a solution long searched for appeared to me at once without the slightest instant of reflection on my part-the fact was remarkable enough to have struck me unforgettably-and in a quite different direction from any of those which I had previously tried to follow.
”
”
Jacques Hadamard
“
At his leisure, the lieutenant allowed the unforgettable spectacle to engrave itself upon his mind. With one hand he fondled the hair, with the other he softly stroked the magnificent face, implanting kisses here and there where his eyes lingered. The quiet coldness of the high, tapering forehead, the closed eyes with their long lashes beneath faintly etched brows, the set of the finely shaped nose, the gleam of teeth glimpsed between full, regular lips, the soft cheeks and the small, wise chin…
Wherever the lieutenant's eyes moved his lips faithfully followed. The high, swelling breasts, surmounted by nipples like the buds of a wild cherry, hardened as the lieutenant's lips closed about them. The arms flowed smoothly downward from each side of the breast, tapering toward the wrists, yet losing nothing of their roundness or symmetry…The natural hollow curving between the bosom and the stomach carried in its lines a suggestion not only of softness but of resilient strength, and while it gave forewarning to the rich curves spreading outward from here to the hips it had, in itself, an appearance only of restraint and proper discipline. The whiteness and richness of the stomach and hips was like milk brimming in a great bowl, and the sharply shadowed dip of the navel could have been the fresh impress of a raindrop, fallen there that very moment. Where the shadows gathered more thickly, hair clustered, gentle and sensitive, and as the agitation mounted in the now no longer passive body there hung over this region a scent like the smoldering of fragrant blossoms, growing steadily more pervasive…
Passionately they held their faces close, rubbing cheek against cheek…Their breasts, moist with sweat, were tightly joined, and every inch of the young and beautiful bodies had become so much one with the other that it seemed impossible there should ever again be a separation…From the heights they plunged into the abyss, and from the abyss they took wing and soared once more to dizzying heights…As one cycle ended, almost immediately a new wave of passion would be generated, and together -with no trace of fatigue- they would climb again in a single breathless movement to the very summit.
”
”
Yukio Mishima (Patriotism)
“
It should be pointed out that certain correlative concepts retain their meaning, and possibly their foremost significance, if they are referred exclusively to man. One might, for example, speak of an unforgettable life or moment even if all men had forgotten it. If the nature of such a life or moment required that it be unforgotten, that predicate would not imply a falsehood but merely a claim not fulfilled by men, and probably also refer to a realm in which it is fulfilled: God’s remembrance.
”
”
Walter Benjamin (On Translation: The Audience:)
“
My time is limited. It is thence that one fine day, when all nature smiles and shines, the rack lets loose its black unforgettable cohorts and sweeps away the blue for ever. My situation is truly delicate. What fine things, what momentous things, i am going to miss through fear, fear of falling back into the old error, fear of not finishing in time, fear of revelling, for the last time, in a last outpouring of misery, impotence and hate. The forms are many in which the unchanging seeks relief from its formlessness.
”
”
Samuel Beckett (Malone Dies)
“
I think that’s good enough,” I told him, surveying our work. “He won’t even notice those parts are missing.” Chris didn’t look up from tightening the world’s tiniest screw with the world’s tiniest screwdriver. “Santa doesn’t do good enough. Santa only does perfect,” he muttered.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
She and her best friend were teachers for many years, and as soon as they had saved up enough money, they quit their jobs and traveled together for two years. When I asked Sue how she felt about leaving her kids behind she told me, “They got postcards and I got to see the Eiffel Tower.
”
”
Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
“
It was beautitful. It was perfect. It was worth every ounce of heartbreak and every scared and confused thought I'd ever had. To be with Ollie, I would go through it all again, over and over, just for the moments like this, where I felt like my heart was going to burst from the overflow of love he gave to me.
”
”
Brooke Blaine (Forget Me Not (The Unforgettable Duet #1))
“
Ulysses's enthusiasm for life was a panacea. His optimism, his surety that he wasn't going to die. As if everything that mattered to him, he'd somehow protected from war. How was that possible? He was invincible, Dotty. Marvelously so. I had escaped Margaret and was waiting on the roadside for what? Death, I think. A way out, no matter how permanent. And then along came life. That pricelss, life-affirming moment with a Renaissance masterpiece would have been nothing without him and the good captain. It was about the complete moment. Was I in love with him? Maybe a little. When the bombs fell overhead, and he held my hands and shouted against the tumult, Not today, Evelyn! It's not going to be us today. His faith was compelling, Dotty. I was young again. I felt young again. I will be forever grateful.
You could look for him, said Dotty.
Why on earth would be remember an old woman like me?
Because you're unforgettable, Evelyn Skinner.
”
”
Sarah Winman (Still Life)
“
I looked left and right. The moment before the engagement was an unforgettable picture. In shell craters against the enemy line, which was still being forked over and over by the fire-storm, lay the battalions of attackers, clumped together by company. At the sight of the dammed-up masses of men, the breakthrough appeared certain to me. But did we have the strength and the stamina to splinter also the enemy reserves and rend them apart? I was confident. The decisive battle, the last charge, was here. Here the fates of nations would be decided, what was at stake was the future of the world. I sensed the weight of the hour, and I think everyone felt the individual in them dissolve, and fear depart.
”
”
Ernst Jünger (Storm of Steel)
“
This brings us in another fashion to the subject of the last chapter, and to another reason for the great memories of genius. The more significant a man is, the more different personalities he unites in himself, the more interests that are contained in him, the more wide his memory must be. All men have practically the same opportunities of perception, but the vast majority of men apprehend only an infinitesimal part of what they have perceived. The ideal genius is one in whom perception and apprehension are identical in their field. Of course no such being actually exists. On the other hand, there is no man who has apprehended nothing that he has perceived. In this way we may take it that all degrees of genius (not talent) exist; no male is quite without a trace of genius. Complete genius is an ideal; no man is absolutely without the quality, and no man possesses it completely. Apprehension or absorption, and memory or retention, vary together in their extent and their permanence. There is an uninterrupted gradation from the man whose mentality is unconnected from moment to moment, and to whom no incidents can signify anything because there is within him nothing to compare them with (such an extreme, of course, does not exist) to the fully developed minds for which everything is unforgettable, because of the firm impressions made and the sureness with which they are absorbed. The extreme genius also does not exist, because even the greatest genius is not wholly a genius at every moment of his life.
”
”
Otto Weininger (Sex and Character: An Investigation of Fundamental Principles)
“
As he sat down, he breathed in deeply and let the tranquil atmosphere suffuse him with its serenity. And then it happened. The moment that every unrealised heart craves for. The unforgettable instant that a soul, clinging on to the purest memory of its previous life, longs for. The moment which, in spite of a conspiracy of the gods, only a few lucky men experience. The moment when she enters his life.
”
”
Amish Tripathi (The Immortals of Meluha (Shiva Trilogy, #1))
“
SOCIAL/GENERAL ICEBREAKERS
1. What do you think of the movie/restaurant/party?
2. Tell me about the best vacation you’ve ever taken.
3. What’s your favorite thing to do on a rainy day?
4. If you could replay any moment in your life, what would it be?
5. What one thing would you really like to own? Why?
6. Tell me about one of your favorite relatives.
7. What was it like in the town where you grew up?
8. What would you like to come back as in your next life?
9. Tell me about your kids.
10. What do you think is the perfect age? Why?
11. What is a typical day like for you?
12. Of all the places you’ve lived, tell me about the one you like the best.
13. What’s your favorite holiday? What do you enjoy about it?
14. What are some of your family traditions that you particularly enjoy?
15. Tell me about the first car you ever bought.
16. How has the Internet affected your life?
17. Who were your idols as a kid? Have they changed?
18. Describe a memorable teacher you had.
19. Tell me about a movie/book you’ve seen or read more than once.
20. What’s your favorite restaurant? Why?
21. Tell me why you were named ______. What is the origin of your last name?
22. Tell me about a place you’ve visited that you hope never to return to.
get over your mom’s good intentions.
23. What’s the best surprise you’ve ever received?
24. What’s the neatest surprise you’ve ever planned and pulled off for someone else?
25. Skiing here is always challenging. What are some of your favorite places to ski?
26. Who would star as you in a movie about your life?
Why that person?
27. Who is the most famous person you’ve met?
28. Tell me about some of your New Year’s resolutions.
29. What’s the most antiestablishment thing you’ve ever done?
30. Describe a costume that you wore to a party.
31. Tell me about a political position you’d like to hold.
32. What song reminds you of an incident in your life?
33. What’s the most memorable meal you’ve eaten?
34. What’s the most unforgettable coincidence you’ve experienced or heard about?
35. How are you able to tell if that melon is ripe?
36. What motion picture star would you like to interview? Why?
37. Tell me about your family.
38. What aroma brings forth a special memory?
39. Describe the scariest person you ever met.
40. What’s your favorite thing to do alone?
41. Tell me about a childhood friend who used to get you in trouble.
42. Tell me about a time when you had too much to eat or drink.
43. Describe your first away-from-home living quarters or experience.
44. Tell me about a time that you lost a job.
45. Share a memory of one of your grandparents.
46. Describe an embarrassing moment you’ve had.
47. Tell me something most people would never guess about you.
48. What would you do if you won a million dollars?
49. Describe your ideal weather and why.
50. How did you learn to ski/hang drywall/play piano?
”
”
Debra Fine (The Fine Art of Small Talk: How to Start a Conversation, Keep It Going, Build Networking Skills and Leave a Positive Impression!)
“
A woman named Cynthia once told me a story about the time her father had made plans to take her on a night out in San Francisco. Twelve-year-old Cynthia and her father had been planning the “date” for months. They had a whole itinerary planned down to the minute: she would attend the last hour of his presentation, and then meet him at the back of the room at about four-thirty and leave quickly before everyone tried to talk to him. They would catch a tram to Chinatown, eat Chinese food (their favourite), shop for a souvenir, see the sights for a while and then “catch a flick” as her dad liked to say. Then they would grab a taxi back to the hotel, jump in the pool for a quick swim (her dad was famous for sneaking in when the pool was closed), order a hot fudge sundae from room service, and watch the late, late show. They discussed the details over and over again before they left. The anticipation was part of the whole experience. This was all going according to plan until, as her father was leaving the convention centre, he ran into an old college friend and business associate. It had been years since they had seen each other, and Cynthia watched as they embraced enthusiastically. His friend said, in effect: “I am so glad you are doing some work with our company now. When Lois and I heard about it we thought it would be perfect. We want to invite you, and of course Cynthia, to get a spectacular seafood dinner down at the Wharf!” Cynthia’s father responded: “Bob, it’s so great to see you. Dinner at the wharf sounds great!” Cynthia was crestfallen. Her daydreams of tram rides and ice cream sundaes evaporated in an instant. Plus, she hated seafood and she could just imagine how bored she would be listening to the adults talk all night. But then her father continued: “But not tonight. Cynthia and I have a special date planned, don’t we?” He winked at Cynthia and grabbed her hand and they ran out of the door and continued with what was an unforgettable night in San Francisco. As it happens, Cynthia’s father was the management thinker Stephen R. Covey (author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) who had passed away only weeks before Cynthia told me this story. So it was with deep emotion she recalled that evening in San Francisco. His simple decision “Bonded him to me forever because I knew what mattered most to him was me!” she said.5 One simple answer is we are unclear about what is essential. When this happens we become defenceless. On the other hand, when we have strong internal clarity it is almost as if we have a force field protecting us from the non-essentials coming at us from all directions. With Rosa it was her deep moral clarity that gave her unusual courage of conviction. With Stephen it was the clarity of his vision for the evening with his loving daughter. In virtually every instance, clarity about what is essential fuels us with the strength to say no to the non-essentials. Stephen R. Covey, one of the most respected and widely read business thinkers of his generation, was an Essentialist. Not only did he routinely teach Essentialist principles – like “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing” – to important leaders and heads of state around the world, he lived them.6 And in this moment of living them with his daughter he made a memory that literally outlasted his lifetime. Seen with some perspective, his decision seems obvious. But many in his shoes would have accepted the friend’s invitation for fear of seeming rude or ungrateful, or passing up a rare opportunity to dine with an old friend. So why is it so hard in the moment to dare to choose what is essential over what is non-essential?
”
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Greg McKeown (Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less)
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There are indeed moments of spiritual ecstasy in the Christian life and in gathered worship. Powerful spiritual experiences, when they come, are a gift. But that cannot be the point of Christian spirituality, any more than the unforgettable pappardelle pasta dish I ate years ago in Boston's North End is the point of eating.
Word and sacrament sustain my life, and yet they often do not seem life changing. Quietly, even forgettably, they feed me.
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Tish Harrison Warren (Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life)
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Their bodies coupled. Her breasts pressed against his chest and their hip bones rubbed. He curved his arms about her shoulders. She settled her hands at his waist. The man was solid. His muscles taut. She shifted between his legs, flush with his groin. A groin that stirred. Arousal struck hard.
He bent to kiss her.
Just as she stretched up to him.
Time slowed with the exchange of breath.
The heat of his slightly parted lips blew across her mouth.
His unshaved jaw brushed the softer skin of her chin.
Seconds were magnified as each memorized the impact of the moment. It was startling. Unsettling. And unforgettable.
He moved on her without reservation. The pull between them was inescapable. He slanted his mouth over hers, flicked his tongue along her upper lip, and nipped the bottom one. Then sucked both hard. She nearly came out of her skin.
He penetrated her mouth with his tongue. A seductive pulse of slow, then fast. Raking the roof of her mouth, then thrusting deep. He was skilled in kissing. She lost herself in the mating rhythm.
”
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Kate Angell (The Café Between Pumpkin and Pie (Moonbright, Maine #3))
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I felt the pull between how I had been raised and what I was experiencing. Everyone seemed to have different ideas about God and religion and what it all meant. How was I supposed to know who was right and who was wrong? Growing up, I was told to lean on God and never question his plan—just like this man in the ER was—but I understood where Theresa was coming from as well. In the short amount of time I had spent in the ER, which paled in comparison to the years she had spent working there, I had also seen some true horrors.
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Hadley Vlahos (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)
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The mountains above them came more and more into view. They were black misshapen heaves of the earth’s volcanic crust forced skyward, jutting and cracked and forbidding. They seemed lifeless as a moonscape, though seemingly filled with a dark living wonder that made them seem they would start to breathe at any moment. They offered no welcome, even as they seemed luring and magnetic in their presence. As if they held secrets beyond care or revelation, though beckoning and unforgettable. Bewitchment filled the cold desert air.
”
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James Snyder (Desolation Run)
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In the years since the disaster, I often think of my friend Arturo Nogueira, and the conversations we had in the mountains about God. Many of my fellow survivors say they felt the personal presence of God in the mountains. He mercifully allowed us to survive, they believe, in answer to our prayers, and they are certain it was His hand that led us home. I deeply respect the faith of my friends, but, to be honest, as hard as I prayed for a miracle in the Andes, I never felt the personal presence of God. At least, I did not feel God as most people see Him. I did feel something larger than myself, something in the mountains and the glaciers and the glowing sky that, in rare moments, reassured me, and made me feel that the world was orderly and loving and good. If this was God, it was not God as a being or a spirit or some omnipotent, superhuman mind. It was not a God who would choose to save us or abandon us, or change in any way. It was simply a silence, a wholeness, an awe-inspiring simplicity. It seemed to reach me through my own feelings of love, and I have often thought that when we feel what we call love, we are really feeling our connection to this awesome presence. I feel this presence still when my mind quiets and I really pay attention. I don’t pretend to understand what it is or what it wants from me. I don’t want to understand these things. I have no interest in any God who can be understood, who speaks to us in one holy book or another, and who tinkers with our lives according to some divine plan, as if we were characters in a play. How can I make sense of a God who sets one religion above the rest, who answers one prayer and ignores another, who sends sixteen young men home and leaves twenty-nine others dead on a mountain?
There was a time when I wanted to know that god, but I realize now that what I really wanted was the comfort of certainty, the knowledge that my God was the true God, and that in the end He would reward me for my faithfulness. Now I understand that to be certain–-about God, about anything–-is impossible. I have lost my need to know. In those unforgettable conversations I had with Arturo as he lay dying, he told me the best way to find faith was by having the courage to doubt. I remember those words every day, and I doubt, and I hope, and in this crude way I try to grope my way toward truth. I still pray the prayers I learned as a child–-Hail Marys, Our Fathers–-but I don’t imagine a wise, heavenly father listening patiently on the other end of the line. Instead, I imagine love, an ocean of love, the very source of love, and I imagine myself merging with it. I open myself to it, I try to direct that tide of love toward the people who are close to me, hoping to protect them and bind them to me forever and connect us all to whatever there is in the world that is eternal. …When I pray this way, I feel as if I am connected to something good and whole and powerful. In the mountains, it was love that kept me connected to the world of the living. Courage or cleverness wouldn’t have saved me. I had no expertise to draw on, so I relied upon the trust I felt in my love for my father and my future, and that trust led me home. Since then, it has led me to a deeper understanding of who I am and what it means to be human. Now I am convinced that if there is something divine in the universe, the only way I will find it is through the love I feel for my family and my friends, and through the simple wonder of being alive. I don’t need any other wisdom or philosophy than this: My duty is to fill my time on earth with as much life as possible, to become a little more human every day, and to understand that we only become human when we love. …For me, this is enough.
”
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Nando Parrado
“
Although my road to writing seems like it may have come easily, there were a few bumps in that road. I didn’t get a lot of encouragement from friends, although my family were great supporters. I also had many…what you would call “mind-boggling” moments, when I would doubt myself and what I was writing. It has been said that we, ourselves, are our own worst critics.
All the hard work had payed off though, and I created a children’s book that I am proud of, and an unforgettable little girl that will touch the hearts of many.”-Nina Jean Slack
”
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Nina Jean Slack (Little Effie's Book Of Poetry)
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Natasha and I used to go for walks in the orchard, and beyond that, there was a vast dank forest, where we once got lost… Unforgettable,
golden days! Life was just beginning to assert itself, mysteriously and alluringly – and it was a sweet experience. It seemed then that behind
every bush, every tree, some mysterious and unknowable being lurked; the fairy-tale world merged into the real one, and when the evening
mist thickened in the deep valleys and its grey, sinuous wisps reached out towards the brambles clinging to the rocky ridges of our great gorge, Natasha and I would stand hand in hand on the edge, peering with bated breath into the depths, expecting at any moment to see someone emerge or call out to us from the mist at the bottom and turn our nursery stories into manifest reality.
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Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Then the door opened and Diana entered…with Prince Charles. I held my breath as she gave us a brilliant smile and briskly crossed the floor.
The new Diana was truly breathtaking--beautiful, self-assured, polished, and stunning in her scarlet suit. She looked even more radiant in person than in her best pictures. She was absolute perfection, with her flawless complexion, starry blue eyes, and confident carriage. A remarkable and complete transformation from young nanny to global sensation--and she was only twenty-four!
Before either one of us said a word, Diana and I exchanged glances for just an instant. I didn’t even try to hide my amazement and admiration. My eyes and smile said, “Wow! I’m speechless.” Diana’s impish grin replied, “Yes, I’ve done pretty well, haven’t I?” It was an unforgettable, private moment.
”
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Mary Robertson (The Diana I Knew: Loving Memories of the Friendship Between an American Mother and Her Son's Nanny Who Became the Princess of Wales)
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And so I suppose now, my Fellow Reader, comes the moment I assume you've all been waiting for - the Magnum Opus of this merry tale of absurd and inflammatory nonsense in which our Holy Protagonist sets out for adventure to find himself and seek a moment of astounding enlightenment amid daring trials and tribulations and perils and dangers and gallant quests and encounters with fascinating people and enlightening conversations and unforgettable sights and upon return from this great and wild journey a new discovery of himself and the world around him and an opportunity for you Oh Holy Noble Reader to live vicariously through these incredible experiences and to dream of YOUR one day when YOU will have the courage to undertake such a journey yourself. So sit back and enjoy the ride because Costa Rica has been one zany insaney psychobrainy fuck of a holy trip.
”
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Yousef Alqamoussi (Chapter One: Costa Rica)
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He’d promised she would be “safe,” which she now realized left a great deal of room for personal interpretation. “If I’m going to remain,” she said uneasily, “I think we ought to agree to observe all the proprieties and conventions.”
“Such as?”
“Well, for a beginning, you really shouldn’t be calling me by my given name.”
“Considering the kiss we exchanged in the arbor last night, it seems a little absurd to call you Miss Cameron.”
It was the time to tell him she was Lady Cameron, but Elizabeth was too unstrung by his reference to those unforgettable-and wholly forbidden-moments in his arms to bother with that. “That isn’t the point,” she said firmly. “The point is that although last night did happen, it must not influence our behavior today. Today we ought-ought to be twice as correct in our behavior,” she continued, a little desperately and illogically, “to atone for what happened last night!”
“Is that how it’s done?” he asked, his eyes beginning to glint with amusement. “Somehow I didn’t quite imagine you allowed convention to dictate your every move.”
To a gambler without ties or responsibility, the rules of social etiquette and convention must be tiresome in the extreme, and Elizabeth realized it was imperative to convince him he must yield to her viewpoint. “Oh, but I am,” she prevaricated. “The Camerons are the most conventional people in the world! As you know from last night, I believe in death before dishonor. We also believe in God and country, motherhood and the king, and…and all the proprieties. We’re quite intolerably boring on the subject, actually.”
“I see,” he said, his lips twitching. “Tell me something,” he asked mildly, “why would such a conventional person as yourself have crossed swords with a roomful of men last night in order to protect a stranger’s reputation?”
“Oh, that,” Elizabeth said. “That was just-well, my conventional notion of justice. Besides,” she said, her ire coming to the fore as she recalled the scene in the card room last night, “it made me excessively angry when I realized that the only reason none of them would try to dissuade Lord Everly from shooting you was because you were not their social equal, while Everly is.”
“Social equality?” he teased with a lazy, devastating smile. “What an unusual notion to spring from such a conventional person as yourself.”
Elizabeth was trapped, and she knew it. “The truth is,” she said shakily, “that I am scared to death of being here.”
“I know you are,” he said, sobering, “but I am the last person in the world you’ll ever have to fear.
”
”
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
“
As many as three characters were murdered in a single quarter-hour ILAM episode. People were killed in ghoulish, imaginative, and sometimes mystifying ways. Throats were ripped out by wolves; there were garrotings and poisonings and mysterious slashings. In the story Monster in the Mansion, a headless black cat was found in a lady’s bed, and a man had his arm amputated while he slept; in The Thing That Cries in the Night, a slasher was at work in an old mansion, and murder was done to the cry of a baby, while everyone insisted that there had been no baby in the house for twenty years. Temple of Vampires was considered so vivid in its Hollywood heyday that the Nicaraguan government lodged a protest. The show was framed with unforgettable signatures: the wail of a train, the sting of an organ, and the haunting Valse Triste, a shimmering theme suggesting death. The chime of a clock brought listeners back to the hour when last they left their heroes. The theme played under the ominous recap: Twelve midnight, high on the ledge above the floor of the Temple of Vampires, somewhere in the jungles of Central America. Jack and Doc Long are facing one of the strangest, most hair-raising moments in their experience. They’re out in the center of the temple, each clinging to separate ropes 50 feet in the air. There is only one chance for Jack and Doc.
”
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John Dunning (On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio)
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What’s the best thing you’ve done in your work and career? In business decision-making, certainly one of your highlights was licensing your computer operating system to IBM for almost no money, provided you could retain the right to license the system to other computer manufacturers as well. IBM was happy to agree because, after all, nobody would possibly want to compete with the most powerful company in the world, right? With that one decision, your system and your company became dominant throughout the world, and you, Bill Gates, were on your way to a net worth of more than $60 billion. Or maybe you’d like to look at your greatest career achievement from a different angle. Instead of focusing on the decision that helped you make so much money, maybe you’d like to look at the decision to give so much of it away. After all, no other person in history has become a philanthropist on the scale of Bill Gates. Nations in Africa and Asia are receiving billions of dollars in medical and educational support. This may not be as well publicized as your big house on Lake Washington with its digitalized works of art, but it’s certainly something to be proud of. Determining your greatest career achievement is a personal decision. It can be something obvious or something subtle. But it should make you proud of yourself when you think of it. So take a moment, then make your choice.
”
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Dale Carnegie (Make Yourself Unforgettable: How to Become the Person Everyone Remembers and No One Can Resist (Dale Carnegie Books))
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A. J. Cronin’s Keys of the Kingdom, seemed equally momentous. Cronin provided an unforgettable model of “the man of true merit,” who, upon seeing vain, selfish, and corrupt individuals constantly exulted by a misguided public, nevertheless sticks to his guns and to what he knows is right.
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Jonathan M. Hansen (Young Castro: The Making of a Revolutionary)
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As I sat pondering the continuing mystery, I realized that I’d actually been in this building and squad room before. It was in 2001, when I’d been in the NYPD’s ESU SWAT A team. We’d been assigned to assist the NYPD’s Dignitary Protection squad to protect George W. Bush when he came to New York three days after the Twin Towers fell on 9/ 11. I was actually right there among the firefighters and phone guys and welders in the crowd at the pile down at Ground Zero when he gave the famous bullhorn speech. It was a pretty unforgettable moment, the president standing on the pile of devastation, his rousing words lost after a moment in the overhead roar of the two F-16 fighter jets flying air cover around the perimeter of Manhattan.
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James Patterson (Bullseye (Michael Bennett #9))
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As we walk hand in hand into the future, I'm truly filled with gratitude for the twists and turns that brought us here. Life is unpredictably unpredictable, and the most extraordinary moments can sometimes emerge from the most unexpected circumstances. And for that, I'll always be grateful for that unforgettable snowed-in adventure that changed my life forever.
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Portia MacIntosh (Two Night Stand)
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There are no perfect moments—only unforgettable ones.
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Ilaria Tuti (The Sleeping Nymph)
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life is just moments all strung together like multicolor Christmas lights. You always end up liking some colors better than others. Joyful, tragic, peaceful, funny. Unforgettable moments, and moments we wish we could forget.
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Elsie Silver (Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3))
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His gaze held hers, making Emma feel as if she was the most beautiful and most loved woman in the world. Tonight he even sang, his deep voice joining Nat King Cole’s in professing her unforgettable as they danced beneath the moonlight.
It was magical.
He was magical.
“I’m so in love with you,” she murmured.
Smiling, he swiveled slightly and lowered her in a gentle dip. “You’re the love of my life, Emma.”
She had never been happier than in that moment.
”
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Dianne Duvall (Cliff's Descent (Immortal Guardians, #11))
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There are rare moments in your life so vivid that you know they will be unforgettable from the very outset. They have about them an ethereal quality separate from other events in our lives.
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Keith Stuart (The Frequency of Us)
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When one doctor stands at the head of a trolley looking down at a patient who is dying, surviving or still somewhere in between, you would be forgiven for focusing on everything that sets those two people apart in that moment. All of the differences between them are obvious. But isn’t it more likely that we are all exactly the same? What my time as a doctor has taught me so far is that all of the things I most need to come to terms with are the very same things I have been dealing with since the day I was born: those signs of being human. Let me show you what I mean.
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Aoife Abbey (Seven Signs of Life: Unforgettable Stories from an Intensive Care Doctor)
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I think patients under the pressure of unexpected illness are often not the person they would recognise as themselves. The world around them can become unfamiliar and at that time, when they are so vulnerable and exposed, they are reliant on strangers – people who, if they had passed them in the street the day before, they would not have even said hello to. As a doctor in these moments, I think I inevitably become somebody who doesn’t entirely belong to me; somebody I perhaps wouldn’t easily recognise. I become somebody defined by the enormity of what that patient needs.
”
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Aoife Abbey (Seven Signs of Life: Unforgettable Stories from an Intensive Care Doctor)
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Her hands groped around his neck, her fingers lacing through the thick shorn locks at the back of his head. The hard, clean contours of Keir's face rubbed against hers, a different feeling than the coarse tickle of his beard. But the mouth was the same, full and erotic, searingly hot. He consumed her slowly, searching with his tongue, licking deep into each kiss. Wild quivers of pleasure went through her, weakening her knees until she had to lean against him to stay upright. As her head tilted back, a forgotten tear slid from the outer corner of her eye to the edge of her hairline. His lips followed the salty track, absorbing the taste.
Keir cradled her cheek in his hand, his shaken whisper falling hotly against her mouth. "Merry, love... my heart's gleam, drop of my dearest blood... you should have told me."
Merritt heard her own weak reply as if from a distance. "I thought... in some part of your mind... you might have wanted to forget."
"No." Keir crushed her close, nuzzling her hard against her hair and disheveling the pinned-up coils. "Never, love. The memory slipped out of reach for a moment, is all." His hand coasted slowly up and down her spine. "I'm so damned sorry for the way I've been trying to keep you at a distance. I dinna know you were already inside my heart." He paused before adding wryly, "Mind, I did have to jump from a three-story window, with little to break the fall but my own hard head." Taking one of her hands, he pressed her palm over his pounding heartbeat. "But you were still in here. Your name is carved so deep, a million years could no' erase it.
”
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Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Disguise (The Ravenels, #7))
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it’s that life is just moments all strung together like multicolor Christmas lights. You always end up liking some colors better than others. Joyful, tragic, peaceful, funny. Unforgettable moments, and moments we wish we could forget.
”
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Elsie Silver (Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3))
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And in that unforgettably sweet moment in my personal history, that one moment still more alive for me than so many of the other 'firsts' which followed — first pussy, first joint, first day in high school, first published book, or any other thing — I attained glory.
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Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly)
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Welcome to Golden Jumpers, San Jose's inflatable entertainment experts! Elevate your events with our vibrant bounce houses, thrilling water slides, and more. Whether it's a birthday bash, corporate event, or school celebration, our diverse collection promises joy for all ages. Immerse yourself in a world of color, laughter, and unforgettable moments. At Golden Jumpers, safety and quality are our priorities, ensuring every bounce is worry-free. Book with us for memories that last a lifetime.
”
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Golden Jumpers
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Sometimes two people weren't meant to be more than one moment. Wonderous and unforgettable though it might be, not all good things were meant to last.
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Kerri Maniscalco (Throne of the Fallen (Prince of Sin, #1))
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I knew I could get help and, more importantly, get better. Because suddenly I wasn’t bad, it was bad. It was no longer me, it was something else. I wasn’t schizophrenic, or psychotic, or any of the other things I thought I was. I had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD. In that unforgettable moment, I took back some of my power – chunks of it flooding into my psyche, called in from afar, returning home to me.
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Dana Da Silva (The Shift: A Memoir)
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I died long ago when she lost all memories of us.
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Hadley Vlahos R.N. (The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments)