Upstream Book Quotes

But literature, the best of it, does not aim to be literature. It wants and strives, beyond that artifact part of itself, to be a true part of the composite human record—that is, not words but a reality.

I network like a salmon in a bear costume. Why swim upstream when the honeybee has all the flowers? Is anything more romantic than roses on a grave?

I read my books with diligence, and mounting skill, and gathering certainty. I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life.

And this is what I learned: that the world’s otherness is antidote to confusion, that standing within this otherness—the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books—can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.

One can never swim upstream to a prosper future if they continue to drown in their past.

But first and foremost, I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple—or a green field—a place to enter, and in which to feel. Only in a secondary way is it an intellectual thing—an artifact, a moment of seemly and robust wordiness—wonderful as that part of it is. I learned that the poem was made not just to exist, but to speak—to be company.

The poem was made not just to exist, but to speak—to be company. It was everything that was needed, when everything was needed.

Writing is neither vibrant life nor docile artifact but a text that would put all its money on the hope of suggestion.

Two chemicals called actin and myosin evolved eons ago to allow the muscles in insect wings to contract and relax. Thus, insects learned to fly. When one of those paired molecules are absent, wings will grow but they cannot flap and are therefore useless. Today, the same two proteins are responsible for the beating of the human heart, and when one is absent, the person’s heartbeat is inefficient and weak, ultimately leading to heart failure. Again, science marvels at the way molecules adapt over millions of years, but isn’t there a deeper intent? In our hearts, we feel the impulse to fly, to break free of boundaries. Isn’t that the same impulse nature expressed when insects began to take flight? The prolactin that generates milk in a mother’s breast is unchanged from the prolactin that sends salmon upstream to breed, enabling them to cross from saltwater to fresh.

Yes, New York is exhausting. Yes, there are millions of people all swimming upstream, but you’re also in it together.

Understand from the first this certainty. Butterflies don’t write books, neither do lilies or violets. Which doesn’t mean they don’t know, in their own way, what they are. That they don’t know they are alive—that they don’t feel, that action upon which all consciousness sits, lightly or heavily. Humility is the prize of the leaf-world. Vainglory is the bane of us, the humans.

I learned to build bookshelves and brought books to my room, gathering them around me thickly. I read by day and into the night. I thought about perfectibility, and deism, and adjectives, and clouds, and then foxes. I locked my door, from the inside, and leaped from the roof and went to the woods, by day or darkness.

The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Republicans has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the rest of us and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.

standing within this otherness—the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books—can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.

Butterflies don't write books, neither do lilies or violets. Which doesn't mean they don't know, in their own way, what they are. That they don't know they are alive—that they don't feel, that action upon which all consciousness sits, lightly or heavily. Humility is the prize of the leaf-world.

Only recently the notion came to me of swimming upstream, against the tide of decay and degradation, the slow and subtle ebbing away of order; the way that every day in every way you and I are getting worse, losing ground, memory, teeth, and the battle just to stay as we are, let alone get better.

At the time, about to graduate from college, I was operating mainly on impulse, like a salmon swimming blindly upstream toward the site of his own conception. In class and seminars I would dress up these impulses in the slogans and theories that I'd discovered in books., thinking - falsely - that the slogans meant something, that they somehow made what I felt more amenable to proof. But at night, lying in bed, I would let the slogans drift away, to be replaced with a series of images, romantic images, of a past I'd never known. ... Such images became a form of prayer for me, bolstering my spirits, channeling my emotions in a way that words never could. They told me (although even this much understanding may have come later, is also a construct, containing its own falsehoods) that I wasn't alone in my particular struggles, and that communities had never been a given in this country, at least not for blacks. Communities had to be created, fought for, tended like gardens. They expanded or contracted with the dreams of men... Through organising, through shared sacrifice, membership had been earned. And because membership was earned... I believed that it might, over time, admit the uniqueness of my life. That was my idea of organising. It was a promise of redemption.

Question number four: I read somewhere that you were an actor before you became an author. CC: That sounded more like a judgement than a question. MG: It was. Usually people pick a career in medicine or business to fall back on. With your chosen professions, it's like you decided to sail upstream without a paddle or a canoe. CC: Well, performing and writing have always been the same thing to me. You get to be a storyteller in both fields, and at the end of the day, I suppose a storyteller is what I consider myself the most. MG: Well, la-di-da. I know what you mean, though. I was an actress myself back in the golden days of Hollywood - you know, before all this streaming trash. CC: Would I recognize your work? MG: Did you ever see the film Gone with the Wind? CC: Of course! MG: I supplied the wind. CC: [A beat of silence.} How much longer is this interview going to take?

Her fingers still cold, she lifted the receiver. “Still reading Proust?” “But not making much progress,” Aomame replied. It was like an exchange of passwords. “You don’t like it?” “It’s not that. How should I put it—it’s a story about a different place, somewhere totally unlike here.” Tamaru was silent, waiting for her to go on. He was in no hurry. “By different place, I mean it’s like reading a detailed report from a small planet light-years away from this world I’m living in. I can picture all the scenes described and understand them. It’s described very vividly, minutely, even. But I can’t connect the scenes in that book with where I am now. We are physically too far apart. I’ll be reading it, and I find myself having to go back and reread the same passage over again.” Aomame searched for the next words. Tamaru waited as she did. “It’s not boring, though,” she said. “It’s so detailed and beautifully written, and I feel like I can grasp the structure of that lonely little planet. But I can’t seem to go forward. It’s like I’m in a boat, paddling upstream. I row for a while, but then when I take a rest and am thinking about something, I find myself back where I started. Maybe that way of reading suits me now, rather than the kind of reading where you forge ahead to find out what happens. I don’t know how to put it exactly, but there is a sense of time wavering irregularly when you try to forge ahead. If what is in front is behind, and what is behind is in front, it doesn’t really matter, does it. Either way is fine.

What do you mean they dried up the river? It’s still there, isn’t it?” “It’s still there, but our spies reported what happened. We’ve been keeping track of them. The whole nation gathered on the far side of the Jordan, and then their priests headed for the river. It was a flood tide. It’s the time of year, sire.” “I know what time of year it is! What happened?” “As their priests’ feet came to the water, the river…well, it backed up. It was like an invisible dam was built upstream, and it held the waters back until all the people were across. Then, I suppose, their magicians took the spell off so the waters came rushing back into the river’s channel.” “The spies were drunk!” “No, they were reliable, King Jokab. They all agreed on what happened. Sire, these are mighty men, and more than that, they have a powerful god. I’m not a diplomat, but let me counsel you. Make peace with these people.

And so it was on that day. As the people prepared to pass over the Jordan, the priests bearing the ark of the covenant moved forward. As their feet touched the water of the Jordan, the waters that ran from upstream began to pile up. It was as though a huge dam had been built and the waters could go no farther. The people grew silent, and Caleb, who stood beside Joshua, said, “It reminds me of when God made a path through the Red Sea.” “That was a miracle in its day, but this is a miracle for us now.

None of Cyrus’s soldiers knew of the holy book of the Hebrews, where prophecy regarding their leader spoke of the favor of their one god, known to the Hebrews as YHVH, toward Cyrus. Perhaps Cyrus himself was unaware of it, but he was about to fulfill the prophecy in Isaiah and again in Jeremiah of the holy book, made 90 years before his birth. “I will dry up thy rivers…I will dry up her sea.” Babylon’s vulnerability was the Euphrates River, where it entered and exited below the transverse walls that bridged it. Cyrus diverted the river upstream, forming a lake and causing the river to become shallow enough for his men to wade, passing under the walls into the center of the city.

Swimming upstream doesn’t come naturally. If you see someone swimming upstream, you can be confident that he or she has a reason for it. This is faith. Faith is the fuel that powers unnatural endeavors. It is far easier to just go with the flow—to create in the way that your cultural roots dictate. To make work that transcends the lazy, numb, bored, and uninspiring art that is the natural course of things, one must purposefully turn around and swim upstream. To do so takes courage. Purpose. Faith.

connection. In April 1855 my great-granduncle Alexander Carter Jr. and his younger brother, Thomas Marion Carter, left their home in Scioto County, Ohio, and headed west. Starting by steamboat, the two brothers floated down the Ohio River until it joined the Mississippi and then traveled upstream to St. Louis. In St. Louis they found little transportation west, so they walked, hitched rides, and rode horseback to reach St. Joseph, Missouri. There they caught a stagecoach to Council Bluffs, Iowa, riding on top of the stage, with seventeen men and women-a three-day ordeal. On May 14, nineteen days after leaving St. Louis, the brothers crossed the Missouri River and landed on the town site of Omaha, then a community of cotton tents and shanties, where lots were being offered to anyone willing to build on them. They refused this offer and pressed on to their final destination, DeSoto, Washington County, Nebraska Territory, where they found only one completed log house and another under construction. There they homesteaded the town of Blair, Nebraska. For three generations there were Carters in Nebraska, first in Blair and then in Omaha, where I was bom. As a native Nebraskan, I feel a particular affinity for William F. Cody, who lived most of his adult life in Nebraska. My father, George W. Carter, could have seen Buffalo Bill's Wild West when it came to Omaha in August 1908. I wish I had known the old scout personally; I am glad I have come to know him better while writing this book. It is also my fond hope that readers will feel as I do, that Buffalo Bill Cody is well worth knowing. Writing a biography of someone long dead is always a challenge. You must come to understand the person, the motivations, the key events that altered the course of history. And there are the records, the letters, the reminiscences of contemporaries. In Bill. Cody's case the documentation is plentiful but sometimes contradictory. Did Buffalo Bill kill Yellow Hand-the "first scalp for Custer"-for example? There are those who say he did and detractors who say he did not. Who are. we . to ' believe? For the most part, if I found two or three accounts that agreed with each other, particularly if there were official government .records supporting him, I felt sure I could give the credit to Cody.

The mother is your source. If you start floating towards the mother, you are going upstream. You have to move away. The river has to go away from the source to the ocean. But that doesn’t mean that you are not in love with your mother. So, remember, that love for the mother has to be more like respect, less like love. Love towards your mother has to be more of the quality of gratefulness, respect, deep respect. She has given you birth, she has brought you into the world. Your love has to be very, very prayerful towards her. So do whatsoever you can do to serve her. But don’t make your love like the love for a beloved; otherwise you are confusing your mother with the beloved. And when goals are confused, you will become confused. So remember well that your destiny is to find a lover—another woman, not your mother. Then only for the first time will you become perfectly mature, because finding another woman means that now you are completely cut away from the mother; the final cord has been cut now. That

I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life.

Wherever I’ve lived my room and soon the entire house is filled with books; poems, stories, histories, prayers of all kinds stand up gracefully or are heaped on shelves, on the floor, on the bed. Strangers old and new offering their words bountifully and thoughtfully, lifting my heart. But, wait! I’ve made a mistake! how could these makers of so many books that have given so much to my life—how could they possibly be strangers?

The only fish that can swim upstream.

The Self is always 'upstream' of what is conceived by it, or what we perceive of that. "Ideas of Self in conflict cannot be slain, by resistance they are a reality - no Death or cunning has overcome them but is their reinforcement of energy" {The Book of Pleasure p. 17).

Tubman and her crew successfully loaded everyone on the ships and went upstream to raid the homes of some of the most prestigious plantation families in the state. They stole goods from the mansions and set fire to approximately thirty-four properties. Although historians disagree on the number of people Tubman led to freedom in this summer raid, scholars confirm that at least 750 made it to freedom. Official Confederate reports noted that whoever led this “well guided attack” was “thoroughly acquainted with the river and county.”20 Once again, Tubman showed that she was the Moses of her people, shepherding them out of slavery, even during the Civil War.

The current of life never stops,' he'd say. 'One can choose to swim downstream. That's an easier trip, of course, and there's always lots of company, but sooner or later it's also where all the garbage collects. 'Upstream, on the other hand, is where the water is pure. The things that make life special and worthwhile are all upstream, and to get there, you must discipline yourself to swim against the current. 'Be most aware,' Jones would say, 'of the danger of treading water. Many people believe there are three choices: swimming upstream, swimming downstream, and holding in place by treading water. 'In reality, the choices are only two. One can struggle upstream or travel downstream, but when a person chooses to stop swimming midstream, there is no such thing as holding in place. Water - like a life without purpose - always flows downstream, and everything that does not struggle from its grasp goes downstream too.

And Ella starts rapping: Straight A's, good grades, that's the plan Study hard, top of the class Doing the best you can You won't need it but you're studying algebra Won't use Japanese, world history or calculus You follow the path they tell you to Go straight to college when you finish school If there's no scholarship take out a loan Clock up a debt kid, you're on your own Take all your stuff, you're leaving home The big wide world is yours to roam The crowd roars. She is seriously so good! Damon picks up his guitar and starts singing: But life can give us lemons and not ice cream And the path we take is not what it seems But we can't give up and cry and scream We have to turn up and change our dream Ella raps again: Science, physics and chemistry Make sure you ace your SATs Gotta get into an Ivy League Make my parents proud of me The say the road is straight and clear No need to wait, choose a career Doctor, lawyer, engineer Need to make a hundred grand a year And Damon sings: But life can give you lemons and not ice cream Find yourself against the current going upstream And all you wanna do is cry and scream Because you realize this ain't your dream You realize you have to change your dream Ella raps: Sat in class reading Romeo and Juliet But never understanding a word of it It's so old fashioned, it just doesn't fit You hate it so much, you wanna quit That's the stuff they think you need to learn But what happens when you crash and burn What happens when life deals you a blow What happens when you sink so low? And Damon sings: When life gives you lemons and not ice cream When you find yourself without a team When it throws you things that are too extreme When you can no longer chase your dream Then know it's time to change your dream And together they sing: When life gives you lemons and not ice cream When you wanna cry and shout and scream When you've fallen off your balance beam Then you know it's time to change your dream And you can do it You Can Change Your Dream

Four days after the lime incident, Mom’s friends came over with Cook’s champagne and an envelope of cash they’d pooled to help us out. Yes, New York is exhausting. Yes, there are millions of people all swimming upstream, but you’re also in it together. That’s why I put my career first. Not because I have no life, but because I can’t bear to let the one Mom wanted for us slip away. Because I need to know Libby and Brendan and the girls and I will all be okay no matter what, because I want to carve out a piece of the city and its magic, just for us. But carving turns you into a knife. Cold, hard, sharp, at least on the outside. Inside, my chest feels bruised, tender.

And this is what I learned: that the world's otherness is antidote to confusion, that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.

There are four main predictive modeling techniques detailed in this book as important upstream O&G data-driven analytic methodologies: Decision trees Regression Linear regression Logistic regression Neural networks Artificial neural networks Self-organizing maps (SOMs) K-means clustering

This green place in which I stood with James turned slowly around us like a music box. All my memories returning, and all his. I could see and feel each of his days and he mine. Childhood songs, books read, hearts broken, arguments forgiven.The sweetness of these imperfections far outshining the regrets. Our lives overlapped as naturally as two blades of grass brushing together. My pain forgotten, my clothes dry and clean, I pulled James close to me. As he lifted my chin, I felt no sensation of falling as when I had been Light touching one who is Quick. It wasn't the mere heat of a stolen moment in borrowed flesh. We touched now soul to soul, both of us Light. And when we kissed, the garden rocked, floating upstream.

Swim downstream, not upstream,