“
The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore, professore dottore Eco, what a library you have ! How many of these books have you read?” and the others - a very small minority - who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you don’t know as your financial means, mortgage rates and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menancingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.
”
”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable)
“
Van Houten,
I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good team. I don’t want to ask you any favors, but if you have time – and from what I saw, you have plenty – I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I’ve got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently.
Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease.
I want to leave a mark.
But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion.
(Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.)
We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless – epically useless in my current state – but I am an animal like any other.
Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either.
People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm.
The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn’t actually invented anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn’t get smallpox.
After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark blue and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar.
A nurse guy came in and told me I had to leave, that visitors weren’t allowed, and I asked if she was doing okay, and the guy said, “She’s still taking on water.” A desert blessing, an ocean curse.
What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.
”
”
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
“
The trouble with you, Vic," he said, "is that you think of the world as a sort of huge museum with too many visitors allowed in.
”
”
John Banville
“
Nobody reads poetry, we are told at every inopportune moment. I read poetry. I am somebody. I am the people, too. It can be allowed that an industrious quantity of contemporary American poetry is consciously written for a hermetic constituency; the bulk is written for the bourgeoisie, leaving a lean cut for labor. Only the hermetically aimed has a snowball's chance in hell of reaching its intended ears. One proceeds from this realization. A staggering figure of vibrant, intelligent people can and do live without poetry, especially without the poetry of their time. This figure includes the unemployed, the rank and file, the union brass, banker, scientist, lawyer, doctor, architect, pilot, and priest. It also includes most academics, most of the faculty of the humanities, most allegedly literary editors and most allegedly literary critics. They do so--go forward in their lives, toward their great reward, in an engulfing absence of poetry--without being perceived or perceiving themselves as hobbled or deficient in any significant way. It is nearly true, though I am often reminded of a Transtromer broadside I saw in a crummy office building in San Francisco:
We got dressed and showed the house
You live well the visitor said
The slum must be inside you.
If I wanted to understand a culture, my own for instance, and if I thought such an understanding were the basis for a lifelong inquiry, I would turn to poetry first. For it is my confirmed bias that the poets remain the most 'stunned by existence,' the most determined to redeem the world in words..
”
”
C.D. Wright (Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil)
“
You should rather suppose that those are involved in worthwhile duties who wish to have daily as their closest friends Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus and all the other high priests of liberal studies, and Aristotle and Theophrastus. None of these will be too busy to see you, none of these will not send his visitor away happier and more devoted to himself, none of these will allow anyone to depart empty-handed. They are at home to all mortals by night and by day.
”
”
Seneca (On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It (Penguin Great Ideas))
“
the Welshman allowed it to eat into the vitals of his visitors,
”
”
Mark Twain (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)
“
It was seeing these worn-out men that really allowed Ophelia to take the measure of this world in which she found herself. There were those who danced at the ball, enclosed in their bubbles of illusion, and those who kept the whole machine going.
”
”
Christelle Dabos (A Winter's Promise (The Mirror Visitor, #1))
“
Whenever I’m home for a few days, I start to feel this despair at being back in the place where I had spent so many afternoons dreaming of getting away, so many late nights fantasizing about who I would be once I was allowed to be someone apart from my family, once I was free to commit mistakes on my own. How strange it is to return to a place where my childish notions of freedom are everywhere to be found—in my journals and my doodles and the corners of the room where I sat fuming for hours, counting down the days until I could leave this place and start my real life. But now that trying to become someone on my own is no longer something to dream about but just my ever-present reality, now that my former conviction that I had been burdened with the responsibility of taking care of this household has been revealed to be untrue, that all along, my responsibilities had been negligible, illusory even, that all along, our parents had been the ones watching over us—me and my brother—and now that I am on my own, the days of resenting my parents for loving me too much and my brother for needing me too intensely have been replaced with the days of feeling bewildered by the prospect of finding some other identity besides “daughter” or “sister.” It turns out this, too, is terrifying, all of it is terrifying. Being someone is terrifying. I long to come home, but now, I will always come home to my family as a visitor, and that weighs on me, reverts me back into the teenager I was, but instead of insisting that I want everyone to leave me alone, what I want now is for someone to beg me to stay. Me again. Mememememememe.
”
”
Jenny Zhang (Sour Heart)
“
Or guides might initiate a discussion of slave names. Many owners insisted on the right to name their newborn slaves—rather than allowing their parents this pleasure—and then deliberately gave them demeaning names or names that ironically invoked godlike figures from antiquity. George Washington, for instance, used Hercules, Paris-boy, Sambo, Sucky, Flukey, Doll, Suck Bass, Caesar, and Cupid. Most slaves received no last names. Guides could ask visitors to imagine the self-respect of black children under these conditions.
”
”
James W. Loewen (Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong)
“
While other girls plotted out their futures as doctors or businesswomen, her only dream was to be allowed to stay at home and eat buttered toast in front of the TV all day long.
”
”
Catherine Burns (The Visitors)
“
You have the lovers,
they are nameless, their histories only for each other,
and you have the room, the bed, and the windows.
Pretend it is a ritual.
Unfurl the bed, bury the lovers, blacken the windows,
let them live in that house for a generation or two.
No one dares disturb them.
Visitors in the corridor tip-toe past the long closed door,
they listen for sounds, for a moan, for a song:
nothing is heard, not even breathing.
You know they are not dead,
you can feel the presence of their intense love.
Your children grow up, they leave you,
they have become soldiers and riders.
Your mate dies after a life of service.
Who knows you? Who remembers you?
But in your house a ritual is in progress:
It is not finished: it needs more people.
One day the door is opened to the lover's chamber.
The room has become a dense garden,
full of colours, smells, sounds you have never known.
The bed is smooth as a wafer of sunlight,
in the midst of the garden it stands alone.
In the bed the lovers, slowly and deliberately and silently,
perform the act of love.
Their eyes are closed,
as tightly as if heavy coins of flesh lay on them.
Their lips are bruised with new and old bruises.
Her hair and his beard are hopelessly tangled.
When he puts his mouth against her shoulder
she is uncertain whether her shoulder
has given or received the kiss.
All her flesh is like a mouth.
He carries his fingers along her waist
and feels his own waist caressed.
She holds him closer and his own arms tighten around her.
She kisses the hand besider her mouth.
It is his hand or her hand, it hardly matters,
there are so many more kisses.
You stand beside the bed, weeping with happiness,
you carefully peel away the sheets
from the slow-moving bodies.
Your eyes filled with tears, you barely make out the lovers,
As you undress you sing out, and your voice is magnificent
because now you believe it is the first human voice
heard in that room.
The garments you let fall grow into vines.
You climb into bed and recover the flesh.
You close your eyes and allow them to be sewn shut.
You create an embrace and fall into it.
There is only one moment of pain or doubt
as you wonder how many multitudes are lying beside your body,
but a mouth kisses and a hand soothes the moment away.
”
”
Leonard Cohen
“
She raised her eyebrows. “Am I sick enough to require your immediate presence?” “You are.” “And am I refusing all visitors except my precious nephew because he is the only one I will allow to view me in my sorry state?” Matias nodded. “Exactly.” “The shit has hit the fan, I take it?
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Fated Blades (Kinsmen, #3))
“
We bring Kingsley comfort, by being here, but only one visitor has brought him any pleasure: Jaime. He enjoyed, he exulted in Jaime – because the dew is yet on him, the glamour is yet on him. Jaime brought his youth, in all its Conradian force (youth, that ‘mighty power’). I haven’t got any youth to offer my father. This year has closed my youth. I’m sorry, Dad: I haven’t got any . . . Sometimes I imagine that the dead are allowed to watch their children. This would be one of their privileges. But there must come a point where the dead really wouldn’t want to look. William Amis, even Rosa Amis: they wouldn’t be watching now.
”
”
Martin Amis (Experience)
“
I want it to be a palace—only I don’t think palaces are very luxurious. They’re so big, so promiscuously public. A small house is the true luxury. A residence for two people only—for my wife and me. It won’t be necessary to allow for a family, we don’t intend to have children. Nor for visitors, we don’t intend to entertain.
”
”
Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead)
“
Visitors to Lyme in the nineteenth century, if they did not quite have to undergo the ordeal facing travellers to the ancient Greek colonies -Charles did not actually have to deliver a Periclean oration plus comprehensive world news summary from the steps of the Town Hall- were certainly expected to allow themselves to be examined and spoken to.
”
”
John Fowles
“
for their signatures, she returned visitors’ passes with dexterity, if not pleasure. Nikki hoped to be the first person allowed inside, but she was disappointed.
”
”
Lisa Jackson (Tell Me (Savannah, #3))
“
No visitors? Even prisons allow visitors!
”
”
Riley Sager (Lock Every Door)
“
It’s always easier to set yourself on fire than to allow someone else to burn for you.
”
”
Seanan McGuire (Spelunking Through Hell: A Visitor's Guide to the Underworld (InCryptid, #11))
“
Do we allow unlimited visitation, or do we restrict numbers to protect a delicate ecosystem? Do we heavily advertise the park, enticing paying visitors, generating needed money for Idaho's park department, or do we sacrifice financial benefits to better preserve natural ones? Do we log diseased trees, interfering with nature, or do we allow trees to rot and fall, possibly endangering lives? Do we inexpensively repair historic structures, or do we meticulously restore them? Do we maintain this park as closely as possible to the condition in which Idaho received it, or do we develop it for multiple uses; allow overnight visitors; permit all-terrain vehicles; provide paths for those unable to navigate unpaved trails?
”
”
Mary E. Reed (Harriman: From Railroad Ranch to State Park)
“
Extract and expel implicit biases from your work life. Don't taint our visitors with your bias and views. Allow them to form their own conclusions where it's developmentally appropriate.
”
”
Monica O. Montgomery
“
You could just watch your belly grow bigger and no one would be allowed to ask you about it and you would have your baby and a year later you would allow visitors to finally come and meet your little miracle.
”
”
Amy Poehler (Yes Please)
“
Furthermore, Professor Uzzi-Tuzii had begun his oral translation as if he were not quite sure he could make the words hang together, going back over every sentence to iron out the syntactical creases, manipulating the phrases until they were not completely rumpled, smoothing them, clipping them, stopping at every word to illustrate its idiomatic uses and its commutations, accompanying himself with inclusive gestures as if inviting you to be content with approximate equivalents, breaking off to state grammatical rules, etymological derivations, quoting the classics. but just when you are convinced that for the professor philology and erudition mean more than what the story is telling, you realize the opposite is true: that academic envelope serves only to protect everything the story says and does not say, an inner afflatus always on the verge of being dispersed at contact with the air, the echo of a vanished knowledge revealed in the penumbra and in tacit allusions.
Torn between the necessity to interject glosses on multiple meanings of the text and the awareness that all interpretation is a use of violence and caprice against a text, the professor, when faced by the most complicated passages, could find no better way of aiding comprehension than to read them in the original, The pronunciation of that unknown language, deduced from theoretical rules, not transmitted by the hearing of voices with their individual accents, not marked by the traces of use that shapes and transforms, acquired the absoluteness of sounds that expect no reply, like the song of the last bird of an extinct species or the strident roar of a just-invented jet plane that shatters the sky on its first test flight.
Then, little by little, something started moving and flowing between the sentences of this distraught recitation,. The prose of the novel had got the better of the uncertainties of the voice; it had become fluent, transparent, continuous; Uzzi-Tuzii swam in it like a fish, accompanying himself with gestures (he held his hands open like flippers), with the movement of his lips (which allowed the words to emerge like little air bubbles), with his gaze (his eyes scoured the page like a fish's eyes scouring the seabed, but also like the eyes of an aquarium visitor as he follows a fish's movement's in an illuminated tank).
”
”
Italo Calvino (If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler)
“
Stevens worried about his staff and himself. In early June, he sent an e-mail to a State Department official in Washington asking that two six-man Mobile Security Detachments, known as MSD teams, of specially trained DS agents be allowed to remain in Libya through the national elections being held in July and August. Stevens wrote that State Department personnel “would feel much safer if we could keep two MSD teams with us through this period [to support] our staff and [provide a personal detail] for me and the [Deputy Chief of Mission] and any VIP visitors.” The request was denied, Stevens was told, because of staffing limitations and other commitments.
”
”
Mitchell Zuckoff (13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi)
“
FOR SOME TIME, I have believed that everyone should be allowed to have, say, ten things that they dislike without having to justify or explain to anyone why they don’t like them. Reflex loathings, I call them. Mine are: Power walkers. Those vibrating things restaurants give you to let you know when a table is ready. Television programs in which people bid on the contents of locked garages. All pigeons everywhere, at all times. Lawyers, too. Douglas Brinkley, a minor academic and sometime book reviewer whose powers of observation and generosity of spirit would fit comfortably into a proton and still leave room for an echo. Color names like taupe and teal that don’t mean anything. Saying that you are going to “reach out” to someone when what you mean is that you are going to call or get in touch with them. People who give their telephone number so rapidly at the end of long phone messages that you have to listen over and over and eventually go and get someone else to come and listen with you, and even then you still can’t get it. Nebraska. Mispronouncing “buoy.” The thing that floats in a navigation channel is not a “boo-ee.” It’s a “boy.” Think about it. Would you call something that floats “boo-ee-ant”? Also, in a similar vein, pronouncing Brett Favre’s last name as if the “r” comes before the “v.” It doesn’t, so stop it. Hotel showers that don’t give any indication of which way is hot and which cold. All the sneaky taxes, like “visitor tax” and “hospitality tax” and “fuck you because you’re from out of town tax,” that are added to hotel bills. Baseball commentators who get bored with the game by about the third inning and start talking about their golf game or where they ate last night. Brett Favre. I know that is more than ten, but this is my concept, so I get some bonus ones.
”
”
Bill Bryson (The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island)
“
But we may fairly say that they alone are engaged in the true duties of life who shall wish to have Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus, and all the other high priests of liberal studies, and Aristotle and Theophrastus, as their most intimate friends every day. No one of these will be "not at home," no one of these will fail to have his visitor leave more happy and more devoted to himself than when he came, no one of these will allow anyone to leave him with empty hands; all mortals can meet with them by night or by day.
”
”
Giordano Bruno (On the Infinite, the Universe and the Worlds: Five Cosmological Dialogues (Collected Works of Giordano Bruno Book 2))
“
A prison chaplain in the West of England confessed he had given up one prisoner as hopeless, so stubborn was he against any approach by him, and known throughout the jail as the most truculent and obstinate troublemaker.
But one day the governor was told of a visitor who insisted on seeing him. To his surprise, it was a little girl. "He's my daddy," she explained, "It's his birthday." The governor allowed the prisoner to be sent for.
"Daddy," said the child as he was brought in, "this was your birthday, so I wanted to come and see you." Then taking a lock of hair out of her pocket, she offered it to him. "I had no money to buy a present for you. But I brought this, a lock of my own hair."
The prisoner broke down and clasped her in his arms, sobbing. He became a changed man after that and guarded, as his most precious possession, the lock of hair that reminded him that somebody still loved him.
”
”
Francis Gay
“
Finally there are those who saw at once that the question was a trap. There is no answer. Instead of wasting time grappling with that trap. They decide to act. They look to their childhood and look for what filled them with enthusiasm then and disregarding the advice of their elders, devote their life to it. Because enthusiasm is the sacred fire. They slowly discover, their actions are linked to a mysterious impulse beyond human knowledge. And they bow their heads as a sign of respect for that mystery and pray that they will not be diverted from a path they do not know, a path which they have chosen to travel because of the flame burning in their hearts. They use their intuition when they can and resort to discipline when intuition fails them. They seem quite mad. And sometimes they behave like mad people. But they are not mad. They have discovered true love and will. And those two things reveal the goal and the direction that they should follow. Their will is crystalline, their love is pure and their steps determined. In moments of doubt or sadness they never forget: I am an instrument, allow me to be an instrument capable of manifesting your will. They have chosen their road, and they may understand what their goal is only when they find themselves before the unwanted visitor. That is the beauty of the person who continues onward with enthusiasm and respect for the mystery of life as his only guide. His road is beautiful, and his burden light. The goal will be large or small, it can be far away or right next door. He goes in search of it with respect and honor. He knows what each step means, and how much it costs in effort and training and intuition. He focuses not just on the goal to be reached but on everything happening around him. He often has to stop because his strength fails him. At such moments, love appears and says: You think you're heading toward a specific point, but the whole justification for the goals existence lies in your love for it. Rest a little. But as soon as you can, get up and carry on. Because ever since your goal found out that you were traveling toward it, it has been running to meet you.
”
”
Paulo Coelho
“
What can I be thinking of? Just imagine my not having presented myself to you even yet! But as a matter of fact I do not want to tell you my name
out loud; it is a romantic one, utterly inappropriate to the typically modern environment in which we now stand. Ah,
if we were only on the steep side of some mountain with the moon like a great lamp above us, or by the shore of
some wild ocean, there would be some glamour in proclaiming my identity in the silence of the night, or in the midst of lightning and thunder as a hurricane swept the seas! But here in a third-floor suite of the Royal Palace
Hotel, surrounded by telephones and electric lights, and standing by a window overlooking the Champs Elysees-> it would be positively anachronistic!" He took a card out of his pocket and drew near the little writing desk. "Allow me, Princess, to slip my card into this drawer, left open on purpose, it would seem," and while the princess uttered a little cry she could not repress, he did just that. "And now, Princess," he went on, compelling her to retreat before him as he moved to the door of the anteroom opening on to the corridor, "you are too well bred, I am sure, not to wish to conduct your visitor to the door of your suite." His tone altered abruptly, and in a deep imperious voice that made the princess quake he ordered her: "And now, not a word, not a cry, not a movement until I am outside, or I will kill you!
”
”
Marcel Allain (Fantômas (Fantômas, #1))
“
Remember that a little learning can be a pleasant thing. Italy gives much, in beauty, gaiety, diversity of arts and landscapes, good humor and energy—willingly, without having to be coaxed or courted. Paradoxically, she requires (as do other countries, probably more so) and deserves some preparation as background to enhance her pleasures. It is almost impossible to read a total history of Italy; there was no united country until a hundred years ago, no single line of power, no concerted developments. It is useful, however, to know something about what made Siena run and stop, to become acquainted with the Estes and the Gonzagas, the Medicis and the Borgias, the names that were the local history. It helps to know something about the conflicts of the medieval church with the Holy Roman Empire, of the French, Spanish and early German kings who marked out large chunks of Italy for themselves or were invited to invade by a nervous Italian power. Above all, it helps to turn the pages of a few art and architecture books to become reacquainted with names other those of the luminous giants.
The informed visitors will not allow himself to be cowed by the deluge of art. See what interests or attracts you; there is no Italian Secret Service that reports on whether you have seen everything. If you try to see it all except as a possible professional task, you may come to resist it all. Relax, know what you like and don’t like—not the worst of measures—and let the rest go.
”
”
Kate Simon (Italy: The Places in Between)
“
My entrance into the courtyard caused a small stir among the lookouts. I could tell because in the middle of February, in the dark of night, Baxter Terrace suddenly sounded like an Audubon Society refuge - birdcalls being the latest in urban drug - selling counterintelligence...
Birdcalls allowed much more information to be imparted to other members of the operation, without the visitor being aware of what was being communicated. So while a crow's harsh cry could harken the arrival of a member of the city narcotics unit - a significant threat - the sweet song of a chickadee might signal an officer who was merely escorting a social worker to an appointment allowing business to continue in guarded fashion. Someone like me, a stranger on unknown business, might warrant a whipporwill's call.
Where exactly a city kid learned what a whipporwill sounded like, I have no idea. But these kids were nothing if not resourceful. It makes you wonder what they could have accomplished under different circumstances.
”
”
Brad Parks (Eyes of the Innocent (Carter Ross Mystery #2))
“
Although both the U.S. and Canadian sides of the falls are well worth visiting, the best views, including nighttime illumination, are from the beautifully manicured flower gardens that line the Canadian side. However, to get up-close-and-personal with the falls, visit Niagara Falls State Park in New York, where there are several locations, including Prospect Point, Luna Island, Terrapin Point, and the Three Sisters Islands, that allow visitors to stand within a few feet of the raging rapids and at the brink of the falls.
”
”
Patricia Schultz (1,000 Places to See in the United States & Canada Before You Die)
“
They are required to carry a visitor registration card (called a “green card”), which allows them to work here even though they aren’t citizens. Christians should carry spiritual green cards to remind us that our citizenship is in heaven. God says his children are to think differently about life from the way unbelievers do. “All they think about is this life here on earth. But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives.”5 Real believers understand that there is far more to life than just the few years we live on this planet.
”
”
Rick Warren (The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?)
“
Paris. Reuters News Agency informs us that the gigantic and entirely useless structure of iron rods with which the French intend to astound visitors to the Fifteenth World Fair has finally been completed. This dangerous project is causing justified anxiety among the inhabitants of Paris. How can this interminable factory chimney be allowed to tower over Paris, dwarfing all the marvelous monuments of the capital with its ridiculous height? Experienced engineers express concern about whether such a tall and relatively slim structure, erected on a foundation only a third of its own height, is capable of withstanding the pressure of the wind.
”
”
Boris Akunin (Special Assignments (Erast Fandorin Mysteries, #5))
“
Farragut's first visitor was his wife. He was raking leaves in yard Y when the PA said that 734-508-32 had a visitor. He jogged up the road past the firehouse and into the tunnel. It was four flights up to cellblock F. "Visitor," he said to Walton, who let him into his cell. He kept his white shirt prepared for visits. It was dusty. He washed his face and combed his hair with water. "Don't take nuttin but a handkerchief," said the guard. "I know, I know, I know...." Down he went to the door of the visitor's room, where he was frisked. Through the glass he saw that his visitor was Marcia.
There were no bars in the visitor's room, but the glass windows were chicken-wired and open only at the top. A skinny cat couldn't get in or out, but the sounds of the prison moved in freely on the breeze. She would, he knew, have passed three sets of bars - clang, clang, clang - and waited in an anteroom where there were pews or benches, soft-drink engines and a display of the convict's art with prices stuck in the frames. None of the cons could paint, but you could always count on some wet-brain to buy a vase of roses or a marine sunset if he had been told that the artist was a lifer. There were no pictures on the walls of the visitor's room but there were four signs that said: NO SMOKING, NO WRITING, NO EXCHANGE OF OBJECTS, VISITORS ARE ALLOWED ONE KISS.
”
”
John Cheever (Falconer)
“
The visitors were allowed to wander in the corridors until they came to a closed door. “What’s in here?” Davis asked. No one answered. “Could you please open it?” “We lost the key,” Petukhov mumbled. “I’ll see if I can find a copy.” While the visitors waited impatiently, Petukhov took his time finding a “new” key. He eventually opened the door, but the room was dark. “Can you turn the light on?” Davis asked in irritation. “Not possible,” Petukhov said. “The bulb is out.” Undeterred, Davis walked right past him and pulled out a flashlight. At that moment, the façade of international cooperation ended. Petukhov lunged for the flashlight. Davis shouted. The two men tussled back and forth until someone suggested that they take the dispute back to the conference room, where I was awaiting their return.
”
”
Ken Alibek (Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World--Told from the Inside by the Man Who Ran It)
“
April 26 MORNING “This do in remembrance of Me.” — 1 Corinthians 11:24 IT seems then, that Christians may forget Christ! There could be no need for this loving exhortation, if there were not a fearful supposition that our memories might prove treacherous. Nor is this a bare supposition: it is, alas! too well confirmed in our experience, not as a possibility, but as a lamentable fact. It appears almost impossible that those who have been redeemed by the blood of the dying Lamb, and loved with an everlasting love by the eternal Son of God, should forget that gracious Saviour; but, if startling to the ear, it is, alas! too apparent to the eye to allow us to deny the crime. Forget Him who never forgot us! Forget Him who poured His blood forth for our sins! Forget Him who loved us even to the death! Can it be possible? Yes, it is not only possible, but conscience confesses that it is too sadly a fault with all of us, that we suffer Him to be as a wayfaring man tarrying but for a night. He whom we should make the abiding tenant of our memories is but a visitor therein. The cross where one would think that memory would linger, and unmindfulness would be an unknown intruder, is desecrated by the feet of forgetfulness. Does not your conscience say that this is true? Do you not find yourselves forgetful of Jesus? Some creature steals away your heart, and you are unmindful of Him upon whom your affection ought to be set. Some earthly business engrosses your attention when you should fix your eye steadily upon the cross. It is the incessant turmoil of the world, the constant attraction of earthly things which takes away the soul from Christ. While memory too well preserves a poisonous weed, it suffereth the rose of Sharon to wither. Let us charge ourselves to bind a heavenly forget-me-not about our hearts for Jesus our Beloved, and, whatever else we let slip, let us hold fast to Him.
”
”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Morning and Evening—Classic KJV Edition: A Devotional Classic for Daily Encouragement)
“
In a study I did with Jesse Graham and Brian Nosek, we tested how well liberals and conservatives could understand each other. We asked more than two thousand American visitors to fill out the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. One-third of the time they were asked to fill it out normally, answering as themselves. One-third of the time they were asked to fill it out as they think a “typical liberal” would respond. One-third of the time they were asked to fill it out as a “typical conservative” would respond. This design allowed us to examine the stereotypes that each side held about the other. More important, it allowed us to assess how accurate they were by comparing people’s expectations about “typical” partisans to the actual responses from partisans on the left and the right.32 Who was best able to pretend to be the other? The results were clear and consistent. Moderates and conservatives were most accurate in their predictions, whether they were pretending to be liberals or conservatives. Liberals were the least accurate, especially those who described themselves as “very liberal.
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion)
“
For about 48 weeks of the year an asparagus plant is unrecognizable to anyone except an asparagus grower. Plenty of summer visitors to our garden have stood in the middle of the bed and asked, 'What is this stuff? It's beautiful!' We tell them its the asparagus patch, and they reply, 'No this, these feathery little trees.' An asparagus spear only looks like its picture for one day of its life, usually in April, give or take a month as you travel from the Mason-Dixon Line. The shoot emerges from the ground like a snub nose green snake headed for sunshine, rising so rapidly you can just about see it grow. If it doesn't get it's neck cut off at ground level as it emerges, it will keep growing. Each triangular scale on the spear rolls out into a branch until the snake becomes a four foot tree with delicate needles. Contrary to lore, fat spears are no more tender or mature than thin ones. Each shoot begins life with its own particular girth. In the hours after emergence, it lengthens but does not appreciably fatten. To step into another raging asparagus controversy, white spears are botanically no different from their green colleagues. White shoots have been deprived of sunlight by a heavy mulch pulled up over the plant's crown. European growers go to this trouble for consumers who prefer the stalks before they've had their first blush of photosynthesis. Most Americans prefer the more developed taste of green. Uncharacteristically, we're opting for the better nutritional deal here also. The same plant could produce white or green spears in alternate years, depending on how it is treated. If the spears are allowed to proceed beyond their first exploratory six inches, they'll green out and grow tall and feathery like the house plant known as asparagus fern, which is the next of kin. Older, healthier asparagus plants produce chunkier, more multiple shoots. Underneath lies an octopus-shaped affair of chubby roots called a crown that stores enough starch through the winter to arrange the phallic send-up when winter starts to break. The effect is rather sexy, if you're the type to see things that way. Europeans of the Renaissance swore by it as an aphrodisiac and the church banned it from nunneries.
”
”
Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life)
“
Elizabeth automatically started forward three steps, then halted, mesmerized. An acre of thick Aubusson carpet stretched across the book-lined room, and at the far end of it, seated behind a massive baronial desk with his shirtsleeves folded up on tanned forearms, was the man who had lied in the little cottage in Scotland and shot at a tree limb with her.
Oblivious to the other three men in the room who were politely coming to their feet, Elizabeth watched Ian arise with that same natural grace that seemed so much a part of him. With a growing sense of unreality she heard him excuse himself to his visitors, saw him move away from behind his desk, and watched him start toward her with long, purposeful strides. He grew larger as he neared, his broad shoulders blocking her view of the room, his amber eyes searching her face, his smile one of amusement and uncertainty. “Elizabeth?” he said.
Her eyes wide with embarrassed admiration, Elizabeth allowed him to lift her hand to his lips before she said softly, “I could kill you.”
He grinned at the contrast between her words and her voice. “I know.”
“You might have told me.”
“I hoped to surprise you.”
More correctly, he had hoped she didn’t know, and now he had his proof: Just as he had thought, Elizabeth had agreed to marry him without knowing anything of his personal wealth. That expression of dazed disbelief on her face had been real. He’d needed to see it for himself, which was why he’d instructed his butler to bring her to him as soon as she arrived. Ian had his proof, and with it came the knowledge that no matter how much she refused to admit it to him or to herself, she loved him.
She could insist for now and all time that all she wanted from marriage was independence, and now Ian could endure it with equanimity. Because she loved him.
Elizabeth watched the expressions play across his face. Thinking he was waiting for her to say more about his splendid house, she gave him a jaunty smile and teasingly said, “’Twill be a sacrifice, to be sure, but I shall contrive to endure the hardship of living in such a place as this. How many rooms are there?” she asked.
His brows rose in mockery. “One hundred and eighty-two.”
“A small place of modest proportions,” she countered lightly. “I suppose we’ll just have to make do.”
Ian thought they were going to do very well.
”
”
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
“
You should rather suppose that those are involved in worthwhile duties who wish to have daily as their closest friends Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus and all the other high priests of liberal studies, and Aristotle and Theophrastus. None of these will be too busy to see you, none of these will not send his visitor away happier and more devoted to himself, none of these will allow anyone to depart empty-handed. They are at home to all mortals by night and by day. None of these will force you to die, but all will teach you how to die. None of them will exhaust your years, but each will contribute his years to yours. With none of these will conversation be dangerous, or his friendship fatal, or attendance on him expensive. From them you can take whatever you wish: it will not be their fault if you do not take your fill from them. What happiness, what a fine old age awaits the man who has made himself a client of these! He will have friends whose advice he can ask on the most important or the most trivial matters, whom he can consult daily about himself, who will tell him the truth without insulting him and praise him without flattery, who will offer him a pattern on which to model himself.
”
”
Seneca (On the Shortness of Life)
“
CHOOSE CREATIVITY: To be more creative, the first step is to decide you want to make it happen. 2. THINK LIKE A TRAVELER: Like a visitor to a foreign land, try turning fresh eyes on your surroundings, no matter how mundane or familiar. Don’t wait around for a spark to magically appear. Expose yourself to new ideas and experiences. 3. ENGAGE RELAXED ATTENTION: Flashes of insight often come when your mind is relaxed and not focused on completing a specific task, allowing the mind to make new connections between seemingly unrelated ideas. 4. EMPATHIZE WITH YOUR END USER: You come up with more innovative ideas when you better understand the needs and context of the people you are creating solutions for. 5. DO OBSERVATIONS IN THE FIELD: If you observe others with the skills of an anthropologist, you might discover new opportunities hidden in plain sight. 6. ASK QUESTIONS, STARTING WITH “WHY?”: A series of “why?” questions can brush past surface details and get to the heart of the matter. For example, if you ask someone why they are still using a fading technology (think landline phones), the answers might have more to do with psychology than practicality. 7. REFRAME CHALLENGES: Sometimes, the first step toward a great solution is to reframe the question. Starting from a different point of view can help you get to the essence of a problem. 8. BUILD A CREATIVE SUPPORT NETWORK: Creativity can flow more easily and be more fun when you have others to collaborate with and bounce ideas off.
”
”
Tom Kelley (Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All)
“
But we may fairly say that they alone are engaged in the true duties of life who shall wish to have Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus, and all the other high priests of liberal studies, and Aristotle and Theophrastus, as their most intimate friends every day. No one of these will be "not at home," no one of these will fail to have his visitor leave more happy and more devoted to himself than when he came, no one of these will allow anyone to leave him with empty hands; all mortals can meet with them by night or by day.
No one of these will force you to die, but all will teach you how to die; no one of these will wear out your years, but each will add his own years to yours; conversations with no one of these will bring you peril, the friendship of none will endanger your life, the courting of none will tax your purse. From them you will take whatever you wish; it will be no fault of theirs if you do not draw the utmost that you can desire. What happiness, what a fair old age awaits him who has offered himself as a client to these! He will have friends from whom he may seek counsel on matters great and small, whom he may consult every day about himself, from whom he may hear truth without insult, praise without flattery, and after whose likeness he may fashion himself.
We are wont to say that it was not in our power to choose the parents who fell to our lot, that they have been given to men by chance; yet we may be the sons of whomsoever we will. Households there are of noblest intellects; choose the one into which you wish to be adopted; you will inherit not merely their name, but even their property, which there will be no need to guard in a mean or niggardly spirit; the more persons you share it with, the greater it will become. These will open to you the path to immortality, and will raise you to a height from which no one is cast down. This is the only way of prolonging mortality—nay, of turning it into immortality. Honours, monuments, all that ambition has commanded by decrees or reared in works of stone, quickly sink to ruin; there is nothing that the lapse of time does not tear down and remove. But the works which philosophy has consecrated cannot be harmed; no age will destroy them, no age reduce them; the following and each succeeding age will but increase the reverence for them, since envy works upon what is close at hand, and things that are far off we are more free to admire. The life of the philosopher, therefore, has wide range, and he is not confined by the same bounds that shut others in. He alone is freed from the limitations of the human race; all ages serve him as if a god. Has some time passed by? This he embraces by recollection. Is time present? This he uses. Is it still to come? This he anticipates. He makes his life long by combining all times into one.
But those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear for the future have a life that is very brief and troubled; when they have reached the end of it, the poor wretches perceive too late that for such a long while they have been busied in doing nothing.
”
”
Seneca
“
Consider a world in which cause and effect are erratic. Sometimes the first precedes the second, sometimes the second the first. Or perhaps cause lies forever in the past while effect in the future, but future and past are entwined. On the terrace of the Bundesterrasse is a striking view: the river Aare below and the Bernese Alps above. A man stands there just now, absently emptying his pockets and weeping. Without reason, his friends have abandoned him. No one calls any more, no one meets him for supper or beer at the tavern, no one invites him to their home. For twenty years he has been the ideal friend to his friends, generous, interested, soft-spoken, affectionate. What could have happened? A week from this moment on the terrace, the same man begins acting the goat, insulting everyone, wearing smelly clothes, stingy with money, allowing no one to come to his apartment on Laupenstrasse. Which was cause and which effect, which future and which past? In Zürich, strict laws have recently been approved by the Council. Pistols may not be sold to the public. Banks and trading houses must be audited. All visitors, whether entering Zürich by boat on the river Limmat or by rail on the Selnau line, must be searched for contraband. The civil military is doubled. One month after the crackdown, Zürich is ripped by the worst crimes in its history. In daylight, people are murdered in the Weinplatz, paintings are stolen from the Kunsthaus, liquor is drunk in the pews of the Münsterhof. Are these criminal acts not misplaced in time? Or perhaps the new laws were action rather than reaction? A young woman sits near a fountain in the Botanischer Garten. She comes here every Sunday to smell the white double violets, the musk rose, the matted pink gillyflowers. Suddenly, her heart soars, she blushes, she paces anxiously, she becomes happy for no reason. Days later, she meets a young man and is smitten with love. Are the two events not connected? But by what bizarre connection, by what twist in time, by what reversed logic? In this acausal world, scientists are helpless. Their predictions become postdictions. Their equations become justifications, their logic, illogic. Scientists turn reckless and mutter like gamblers who cannot stop betting. Scientists are buffoons, not because they are rational but because the cosmos is irrational. Or perhaps it is not because the cosmos is irrational but because they are rational. Who can say which, in an acausal world? In this world, artists are joyous. Unpredictability is the life of their paintings, their music, their novels. They delight in events not forecasted, happenings without explanation, retrospective. Most people have learned how to live in the moment. The argument goes that if the past has uncertain effect on the present, there is no need to dwell on the past. And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence. Rather, each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own. Families comfort a dying uncle not because of a likely inheritance, but because he is loved at that moment. Employees are hired not because of their résumés, but because of their good sense in interviews. Clerks trampled by their bosses fight back at each insult, with no fear for their future. It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity. It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning, each touch has no past or no future, each kiss is a kiss of immediacy.
”
”
Alan Lightman (Einstein's Dreams)
“
In truth, “Arab” terrorism in the Holy Land originated centuries before the recent tool of “the Palestinian cause was invented.” In towns where Jews lived for hundreds of years, those Jews were periodically robbed, raped, in some places massacred, and in many instances, the survivors were obliged to abandon their possessions and run. As we have seen, beginning with the Prophet Mohammad’s edict demanding racial purity—that “Two religions may not dwell together . . .”—the Arab-Muslim world codified its supremacist credo, and later that belief was interpreted liberally enough to allow many non-Muslim dhimmis, or infidels, to remain alive between onslaughts in the Muslim world as a means of revenue. The infidel’s head tax, in addition to other extortions—and the availability of the “non-believers” to act as helpless scapegoats for the oft-dissatisfied masses—became a highly useful mainstay to the Arab-Muslim rulers. Thus the pronouncement of the Prophet Mohammad was altered in practice to: two religions may not dwell together equally. That was the pragmatic interpretation.181 In the early seventeenth century, a pair of Christian visitors to Safed [Galilee] told of life for the Jews: “Life here is the poorest and most miserable that one can imagine.” Because of the harshness of Turkish rule and its crippling dhimmi oppression, the Jews “pay for the very air they breath”.182 Reports like these could be multiplied. The audacity of Haj Amin al-Husseini’s claim that the “Jews always did live previously in Arab countries with complete freedom and liberty, as natives of the country” and that, “in fact, Muslim rule has always been tolerant . . . according to history Jews had a most quiet and peaceful residence under Arab rule,” is shown to be a cynical lie. This simply shows that Haj al-Husseini learned a lot from his visit to Nazis Germany. Adolf Hitler, whom he greatly admired, developed the propaganda tactic of “the Big Lie.
”
”
Hal Lindsey (The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad)
“
Still, if we combine all the victims of all these persecutions, it turns out that in these three centuries, the polytheistic Romans killed no more than a few thousand Christians.1 In contrast, over the course of the next 1,500 years, Christians slaughtered Christians by the millions to defend slightly different interpretations of the religion of love and compassion. The religious wars between Catholics and Protestants that swept Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are particularly notorious. All those involved accepted Christ’s divinity and His gospel of compassion and love. However, they disagreed about the nature of this love. Protestants believed that the divine love is so great that God was incarnated in flesh and allowed Himself to be tortured and crucified, thereby redeeming the original sin and opening the gates of heaven to all those who professed faith in Him. Catholics maintained that faith, while essential, was not enough. To enter heaven, believers had to participate in church rituals and do good deeds. Protestants refused to accept this, arguing that this quid pro quo belittles God’s greatness and love. Whoever thinks that entry to heaven depends upon his or her own good deeds magnifies his own importance, and implies that Christ’s suffering on the cross and God’s love for humankind are not enough. These theological disputes turned so violent that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Catholics and Protestants killed each other by the hundreds of thousands. On 23 August 1572, French Catholics who stressed the importance of good deeds attacked communities of French Protestants who highlighted God’s love for humankind. In this attack, the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, between 5,000 and 10,000 Protestants were slaughtered in less than twenty-four hours. When the pope in Rome heard the news from France, he was so overcome by joy that he organised festive prayers to celebrate the occasion and commissioned Giorgio Vasari to decorate one of the Vatican’s rooms with a fresco of the massacre (the room is currently off-limits to visitors).2 More Christians were killed by fellow Christians in those twenty-four hours than by the polytheistic Roman Empire throughout its entire existence. God
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
“
Understanding the taste of your visitor as well as guests is necessary to getting the right entertainment for your event. Best Corporate Events Booking Agency will provide the right entertainment that stay fit to the theme of the event.
When you organize an event, mainly a business happening, you desire to ensure that you not only have the jobs connected with the business or core reason of the event placed to make sure victory, but you also desire to ensure that you have the best and most suitable entertainment that your visitor as well as guests will take pleasure in. If you are having a hard time trying to make a decision the top type of entertainment and where to safe the entertainment, you will really benefit from booking your entertainment using the services with Private Entertainment Event Planner.
Booking the top entertainment agency means you will have the ability to choose the entertainment for your occasion from a diversity of different sort of entertainment. While booking Entertainment Events Booking Agency, you will be able to select from such entertainers including musical tribute entertainers, celebrity impersonators, comedians, bands and DJs among others. The top entertainment agency will surely allow a variety of entertainers of special types and will support you with selecting the best entertainment that merge well with your particular event.
Booking Entertainment Agency is simple with the help of internet. When you search for a popular agency over the internet, you will be capable to browse different entertainment agencies and assessment the services and sorts of entertainers they present. You will obtain a thought of the costs and you will contain their contact details so you can call or email them about the information related to the event. They will then react and give you with more information related to the agency and services and how they can assist you.
The Special Events Organizer will be simple to work with and understand your particular requirements. The team will listen to your wishes related to your event and give you with suggestions about the kind of entertainment your particular guests will enjoy. The group will also be more than eager to respond all of your questions and give you with a price quote. Moreover, one can demand references as well as find out how long they have been in the Celebrity Talent Agency .
”
”
Important Tips on Booking the Best Corporate Events Booking Agency
“
Church can’t be a place where we feel like a visitor, or somewhere we’re afraid to allow others to see our messes. It’s got to feel like home.
”
”
Ross Parsley (Messy Church: A Multigenerational Mission for God's Family)
“
The KCC also provides an online service
that allows visitors to assess their own
Internet ethics.
”
”
카톡PCASH
“
Steve didn’t fear death. Maybe that was part of his secret for being so gifted with wildlife. He had such perfect love for every animal, and especially crocodiles, that there didn’t seem to be any room left over for fear.
But this didn’t mean that Steve didn’t have his share of close calls.
One day I was feeding Cookie, Wes was feeding Mary, and our crew member Jan was backing up Wes. Steve talked to the zoo visitors about our big male, Agro, partially submerged in the water near Steve.
Steve was so intent on getting his message across about crocodiles that he might have been a bit distracted. It had poured rain that day, leaving the grass wet and slippery. Agro took full advantage when Steve’s back was to the water. He powered forward like a missile, out of the water and halfway up the bank. As he came out, Wes yelled.
Agro had Steve backed against the fence. Steve couldn’t move. I looked across the enclosure and saw the look on Steve’s face--it wasn’t fear, it was resolve. A big male saltwater croc was about to grab him. But for some unknown reason, Agro hesitated for a split second. Maybe he just couldn’t believe his luck. Or he was distracted by Wes, running over to save his best friend.
Steve darted sideways and ran down the fence line. He was safe. The audience erupted in excited chatter. “Nothing short of a miracle,” a crowd member said about Steve’s escape. Was it? Was it his sixth sense? Was it his mate, Wes?
That night we lay in bed and I stroked his face, tracing the lines that were starting to form around the corners of his eyes, waiting for his breathing to become more regular as he fell asleep. “I thought for a minute there he had me,” Steve said softly in the dark.
Steve was never one to panic, and that kind of levelheaded thinking allowed him to return the favor to Wes in a much closer call during cyclone season in March 2001.
”
”
Terri Irwin (Steve & Me)
“
Non-goblins are strongly urged to avoid Goblintown at all costs. There are parts we recommend goblins do not even venture into unless part of a highly trained and well armed cram. If one still feels the urge to visit Goblintown, we recommend seeking counseling to eliminate the suicidal tendencies. Should this fail or not be desirable, we suggest using one of the many fine Euthanasia Houses our world has to offer. (See Euthanasia Houses, Suicide Assistants.) Not only will they strive to make the experience pleasant, but they will beautify your corpse and deliver it intact to your next of kin or designated recipient, along with a valid proof of death, allowing your affairs to be put in order. Goblintown has no such guarantees, and the odds of a corpse leaving intact are minimal. However, there is an excellent chance of your head being made into a warning decoration. (See illustrations.)” -A Visitor’s Guide to Traven, 144th Edition
”
”
Patrick Thomas (MURPHY'S LORE: REDEMPTION ROAD)
“
March 15: Marilyn arrives to shoot Bus Stop in Phoenix. She is photographed wearing a black fur as she disembarks from the plane with Greene, camera in hand, beside her. Then she is photographed with her co-star, Don Murray, and her director, Josh Logan. Milton Greene keeps tight control on the set, allowing few photographers to shoot Marilyn at work or journalists to interview her. Arthur Miller writes to Saul Bellow, who is in Nevada, establishing the six-week residency to qualify for a divorce: “I am going out there around the end of the month to spend the fated six weeks and have no idea where to live. I have a problem, however, of slightly unusual proportions. From time to time there will be a visitor who is very dear to me, but who is unfortunately recognizable by approximately a hundred million people, give or take three or four. She has all sorts of wigs, can affect a limp, sunglasses, bulky coats, etc., but if it is possible, I want to find a place, perhaps a bungalow or something like, where there are not likely to be crowds looking in through the windows. Do you know of any such place?” Because of the Bus Stop shooting schedule, Marilyn is not able to visit Miller.
”
”
Carl Rollyson (Marilyn Monroe Day by Day: A Timeline of People, Places, and Events)
“
firms doing business with Israel. “I have clients interested in buying a diamond,” Sawyer said. Eight months before, a necklace had been ordered from Hopeman & Son by a customer in Kuwait, and then the order had been cancelled abruptly. Since then, nothing had been sold to anyone in the Arab countries. “I’ll be happy to have someone show you what we have,” he said, bemused. “No, no. They desire a particular diamond, offered for sale in the Holy Land.” “Where?” Sawyer raised a hand. “In Israel. They wish you to go there to buy it for them.” “It is nice to be needed.” Sawyer shrugged. “You are Harry Hopeman.” “Who are ‘they’?” “I am not at liberty. You understand.” “I am not interested,” Harry said. “Mr. Hopeman. It will be a brief trip that will open important doors and bring you such a lot of money. We are businessmen. Please do not allow politics—” “Mr. Sawyer. If your employers want me to work for them, they must ask me themselves.” His visitor
”
”
Noah Gordon (The Jerusalem Diamond)
“
The two men sipped their drinks silently, allowing Alastair a moment more to assess his visitor. The MacGregor tartan had been his idea. He wanted no one to suspect what was afoot. His guest’s face, however, was difficult to make out. Despite the fire’s warmth, the man seemed reluctant to remove the plaid from his head and
”
”
Kathleen Morgan (Child of the Mist (These Highland Hills Book #1))
“
I can't believe this! All of the Swiss girls who wanted to do ungodly things to me and I turned them down, all of them! Well except for the one who wanted to buy me a fruit ice, I allowed that.
”
”
Lauren Cagliola Green (The Visitors (Tensley Home Series, # 2))
“
Nervously I tried to check my reflection in the opaque window of the front door. I had an idea that equerries to Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales were several inches taller than me in their Gucci loafers and carried a reassuring air of Labradors and sports cars. They certainly did not lose their cuff links.
Summoning up all my stiffening thoughts, I pressed the bell. I could not hear if it had rung, so after several minutes I pressed it again, just as the door opened to reveal the Prince of Wales’s butler. He was about my height and wore a dark blue jacket with the Prince of Wales’s monogram on the lapels. He looked politely unimpressed. “Oh yes,” he said. “Come in.”
Later, I came to know Harold Brown well and grew to admire his professionalism. At home and abroad, he quietly bore the hundreds of little stresses that came with dealing with his royal employers at their less attractive moments. His gift as a mimic had me crying tears of laughter into my whiskey on many foreign tours. That afternoon, however, he was every inch the guardian of his master’s privacy and impassively allowed me to follow him to the Equerries’ Room where I was to await the royal summons.
Like so much of the apartment, although undeniably comfortable and well appointed, the Equerries’ Room was dark. Clever effects had been achieved with concealed lighting, pastel colorings, and flowers, but the overriding impression was one of pervasive gloom.
Two people were already there—the Princess’s lady-in-waiting, Anne Beckwith-Smith, and her current equerry, Richard Aylard. They were there to examine me as a possible recruit to their exclusive way of life. During the last few days they had been examining five others as well, of course, so they were understandably distant, if polite.
I was polite too—this was surely part of the selection process—and determined, like the butler, to look unimpressed. But I did need to go to the loo. Badly.
Groping in the semigloom of the cloakroom, I became the latest visitor to fumble for the trick light switch on a fiendish trompe l’oeil before finding the real switch on the wall behind me.
”
”
Patrick D. Jephson (Shadows Of A Princess: An Intimate Account by Her Private Secretary)
“
Our gentlemen visitors ain’t allowed no more than a smile and a squeeze in the public rooms, for I won’t ’ave Sodom and Gomorrah under my roof. I always tell my girls, I tell them, ‘Ladies, just show the boys enough to give them a proper ’int of what they’re in for. And close your door be’ind you when you’re entertaining, for a gentleman is easily embarrassed.
”
”
Owen Parry (Bold Sons of Erin (Abel Jones, #5))
“
We stood in the center of a football field–size dome that the Consu had constructed not an hour before. Of course, we humans could not be allowed to touch Consu ground, or be anywhere a Consu might again tread; upon our arrival, automated machines created the dome in a region of Consu space long quarantined to serve as a receiving area for unwelcome visitors such as ourselves. After our negotiations were completed, the dome would be imploded and launched toward the nearest black hole, so that none of its atoms would ever contaminate this particular universe again. I thought that last part was overkill.
”
”
John Scalzi (Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1))
“
Complementing the imposing stone edifice of the Palace of Colonies were three “traditional” African villages, with houses built of bamboo and thatch in the Bangala style. Two of them were located along a large pool, with dugout canoes at the waterfront. The third village was away from the water in the trees. Palm trees and other tropical vegetation were planted in and around the villages to give them an air of authenticity. The European visitors were not allowed to enter the villages, but they could watch from behind iron fences, much as they would watch animals in a zoo. A sign proclaimed, “Do not feed the blacks. They are already being fed.
”
”
Robert W. Harms (Land of Tears: The Exploration and Exploitation of Equatorial Africa)
“
Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for resistance to the brutal apartheid regime in South Africa for twenty-seven years. For eighteen of those years, he had a bucket for a toilet, a hard cot in a small cell, and once a year he was allowed a single visitor—for thirty minutes. It was vicious treatment meant to isolate and break down the prisoners. And yet, in spite of that, Mandela became a figure of dignity within the prison. Though he was deprived of many things, he still found creative ways to assert his will. As one of his fellow prisoners, Neville Alexander, explained on Frontline, “He [Mandela] always made the point, if they say you must run, insist on walking. If they say you must walk fast, insist on walking slowly. That was the whole point. We are going to set the terms.” He pretended to jump rope and shadowboxed to stay in shape. He held his head higher than other prisoners, encouraged them when times got tough, and always retained his sense of self-assurance. That self-assurance is yours to claim as well. No matter what happens today, no matter where you find yourself, shift to what lies within your reasoned choices. Ignore, as best you can, the emotions that pop up, which would be so easy to distract yourself with. Don’t get emotional—get focused.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living)
“
immediately forthcoming. Sheridan did all he could to meet the treaty obligations. "An abundant supply of rations is usually effective to keep matters quiet in such cases," he wrote in his Memoirs, "so I fed them pretty freely." The Indians had food in any case, for the buffalo still roamed the plains, despite the herds killed by Cody and other professional hunters. The Indians themselves were responsible for some of the slaughter inflicted on the buffalo. On occasion they would stampede a herd over a cliff, to pile up in heaps of meat.
A German visitor to the plains in 1853, Baron Mollhausen, described the typical Indian buffalo hunt: "The buffalo has many enemies, but the most dangerous is still the Indian who has all manner of wily tricks. Buffalo hunting for the Indian is a necessity; but it is also his favorite pastime. Life holds no higher pleasure than to mount one of the handy, patient little ponies ... and gallop into a herd dealing death and destruction. Everything which might interfere with the movements of man or horse is flung away. Clothing and saddle are cast aside; all the rider retains is a big
leather strap ... which is fastened around the pony's neck and allowed to trail behind. This trailrope acts as a bridle, and as a life-line too, for recapturing the horse should its rider be dismounted. In his left hand the hunter carries his bow and as many arrows as he can hold; in his right a whip with which he belabors his beast without pity. Indian ponies are trained to gallop close alongside the buffalo, providing an easy shot; the instant the bow twangs the pony instinctively dodges to escape the buffalo's horns, and approaches another victim. Thus the hunt continues until his pony's exhaustion warns the hunter to desist."
Buffalo Bill often followed the Indian's hunting tactics closely, riding in near his target, bareback and with only a bridle to control his mount.
Originally the several species of bison ranged from the Great Slave Lake in Canada to the Chihuahua in Mexico; they were also found in northern Nevada and eastern Oregon. Sometimes in pre-Columbian days they wandered into the grasslands of Kentucky, Tennessee, and even as far east as Ohio. A few may even have migrated as far as the shores of Lake
”
”
Robert A. Carter (Buffalo Bill Cody: The Man Behind the Legend)
“
The landlady was in her late thirties and obviously lonely. If her gaze spoke volumes her hints could have replaced whole libraries. So far, he had resisted her advances. Start something with his landlady? With someone who wouldn’t even allow female visitors? Out of the question! Right now though, she was allowing him a look at her ample décolletage. Elisabeth Behnke was obviously enjoying seeing her tenant short of breath.
”
”
Volker Kutscher (Babylon Berlin (Gereon Rath #1))
“
3 Reasons Why You Should Visit Galapagos Islands
Are you have been planning to spend their vacation in most of the beautiful place in the world. Then the Galapagos Islands is one of the most beautiful places in the world. The famous archipelago in the Pacific Ocean is a demand and desired destination for travelers all around the world.
The Galapagos isn’t probably the easiest and cheapest accessible place in the world but still attracts huge numbers of visitors, although there is a limit on how many people can arrive in the Galapagos.
These are not budget-friendly travel destination Islands, but there are some ways how to arrange your week in paradise from cruising the living onboard and archipelago to making the day trip from one of the islands.
You have most already heard or read all superlatives Galapagos Island can offer many visitors. But if you hesitate if the time and money will be worth it, we’ve put a list of three reasons why we should visit the Galapagos Islands. After reading these reasons, we believe that there won’t be any hesitation. The Galapagos Legend should be on every traveler.
Pristine beaches
You come to Galapagos Island to see fantastic wildlife but firstly mention the beaches. The stretches of fine white sand are on every island, and although you won’t have that much time to relax and lay down here just because of that there is so much to do, so we are looking at you sea lions only walking on those beaches from one to another end is a great unforgettable experience.
Never expect deck chairs, bars, or umbrellas beaches on the Galapagos have nothing familiar with those touristy and crowded places form travel catalogs.
Wildlife
When we think and talk about the Galapagos Islands, we have a suspicion that the wildlife would be something marvelous and unique. What we never know was that these superlatives would get a new dimension on the Galapagos.
All the wildlife animal species from iguanas, birds, tortoises, sea lions crabs to fish are incredible, and nothing can make you on their natural behavior that is dissimilar from the animal's behavior we know from our countries. The Galapagos animals never feel fear human at all, so you can get close to them and take images of a lifetime.
Island hikes
There are many designed ways on islands of Galapagos that will help you to walk through a unique landscape and will also help you to understand the evaluation process better, evaluation of not only the islands but also of the flora and fauna which live here in unbelievable symbiosis.
The hikes are short, so visitors are allowed to walk on the island on their own so that you want a certified guide to show you around. Hikes were one of the best activities we did on the Galapagos as it combined the exploration of almost barren volcanic islands and watching wildlife.
Galapagos Legend help you plan the trip you have dreamed about. You can choose onshore activities that cater to your interests, from a wildlife safari to a side trip to the fabulous annual Carnival in Rio, Brazil. As you stay on shore before and after your trip, you have the option of staying at a delightful boutique-style hotel or in a 5-star hotel setting.
”
”
ajdoorscomau
“
It will be lovely to have someone new to dine with,” Pandora exclaimed. “Especially someone who has just come from town. I want to hear everything about London.”
Devon cast a questioning glance at Kathleen.
She answered the twins directly. “I have already explained to Lord Trenear that as we are in strict mourning, we shall dine separately.”
The statement was met with a flurry of protests. “But Kathleen, it’s been so dull without any visitors —”
“We’ll behave perfectly, I promise —”
“They’re our cousins!”
“What harm would it do?”
Kathleen felt a twinge of regret, knowing that the girls were eager for any kind of diversion. However, this was the man who intended to cast them out of the only home they had ever known. And his brother, Weston, from all appearances, was already half in his cups. A pair of rakes was unsuitable company for innocent girls, particularly when the girls themselves could not be trusted to conduct themselves with restraint. No good could come of it.
“I’m afraid not,” she said firmly. “We will allow the earl and his brother to dine in peace.”
“But Kathleen,” Cassandra pleaded, “we’ve had no amusement for so long.”
“Of course you haven’t,” Kathleen said, steeling herself against a stab of guilt. “People aren’t supposed to have amusements when they’re in mourning.”
The twins fell silent, glowering at her.
Devon broke the tension by asking Cassandra lightly, “Permission to go ashore, Captain?”
“Aye,” came the sullen reply, “you and the wench can leave by way of the plank.”
Kathleen frowned. “Kindly do not refer to me as a wench, Cassandra.”
“It’s better than ‘bilge rat,’” Pandora said in a surly tone. “Which is the term I would have used.”
After giving her a chiding glance, Kathleen returned to the graveled walk, with Devon by her side. “Well?” she asked after a moment. “Aren’t you going to criticize as well?”
“I can’t think of anything to add to ‘bilge rat.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels, #1))
“
The Electronic Travel Authority is the name given to the most commonly used Australian Tourist Visa allows you to stay in Australia for up to 3 months on each arrival within 12 months from the date the visa was granted.An eVisitor visa is eligible for the citizens of the European Union countries who hold a valid passport of any of those countries. An Electronic Travel Authority provides authorization to travel to and enter Australia and is electronically linked to your passport. It is for short term stays for tourism or business Visitor activities such as attending a conference, making business enquirers, or for contractual negotiations.
”
”
Australia Tourist visa Application
“
Gertie C. had had a half-controlled hallucinosis for decades before she started on L-dopa - bucolic hallucinations of lying in a sunlit meadow or floating in a creek near her childhood home. This changed when she was given L-dopa, and her hallucinations assumed a social and sometimes sexual character. When she told me about this, she added, anxiously - You surely wouldn’t forbid a friendly hallucination to a frustrated old lady like me!
I replied that if her hallucinations had a pleasant and controllable character, they seemed rather a good idea under the circumstances. After this, the paranoid quality dropped away, and her hallucinatory encounters became purely amicable and amorous. She developed a humor and tact and control, never allowing herself a hallucination before eight in the evening and keeping its duration to thirty to forty minutes at most.
If her relatives stayed too late, she would explain firmly but pleasantly that she was expecting a gentleman visitor from out of town in a few minutes’ time, and she felt he might take it amiss if he was kept waiting outside. She now receives love, attention, and invisible presents from a hallucinatory gentleman who visits faithfully each evening.
”
”
Oliver Sacks (Hallucinations)
“
Puffer fish inflate into a ball when they feel threatened as a warning to predators. The males work endlessly on designing their territories to attract a mate. Burrowing diligently with their fins, reorganizing shells. They work twenty-four hours and many many days without taking a break. The males have many mates and reign over multiple female territories. Once the female is in his territory and tries to leave he will bite her. The female is only allowed a visitor if the visiting fish mutes its bright blue, yellow, and orange spots so that the king puffer fish doesn’t feel threatened. You get what I’m saying, Ana?
”
”
Angie Cruz (Dominicana)
“
general pop. Too many guys want a crack at him for what he did. He’s not even allowed in the visitor’s room. We have a place where you can meet with him privately.” “That’ll be fine,” I said. “Just a warning, if you hadn’t already been told, he’s got a quick mouth. He
”
”
Ty Hutchinson (Corktown (Abby Kane FBI Thriller, #1))
“
he will then deliver a totally redundant speech about all the things you’re not allowed to take inside: scissors, swords, knives, guns, bombs, ballistic missiles, tactical nuclear weapons, etc. Then you
”
”
Craig Cross (London - A Visitor's Guide)
“
For the next two weeks, the world and all other issues would be omitted. We were two people alone in a hospital room. We allowed no visitors. We had two weeks of near-silence with each other and my increasing helplessness. I tended to tangle the IV and misplace the oxygen tube. As I started to say earlier, I could feel no sensible interest in the future. The moments became extraordinarily dimensionless - not without value but flat and a great deal emptier. When you learn you're fatally ill, time becomes very confusing, perhaps uninteresting, pedestrian. But my not caring if I lived or died hurt Ellen. And I was grateful that I could indulge my cowardice toward death in terms of living for her.
”
”
Harold Brodkey (This Wild Darkness: The Story of My Death)
“
Devising a path
The single path:
A single path ensures that all visitors have similar experiences and allows the exhibitor to plan their approach to them in detail, so that they encounter a succession of exhibits in a preconceived fashion. This may be important where the objective is to build a platform of knowledge in the visitor's mind. [...] Later exhibits will be better understood once a basic understanding has been established. This process of introduction and preparation is called "scaffolding".
Single path displays often involve visitor management problems and "dwell time" needs to be strictly managed.
”
”
Philip Hughes (Exhibition Design)
“
It’ll be a day in which you tell us how to make Pixar better,” John said. “We’ll do no work that day. No visitors will be allowed. Everyone must attend.
”
”
Ed Catmull (Creativity, Inc.: an inspiring look at how creativity can - and should - be harnessed for business success by the founder of Pixar)
“
When Balzac was working, his writing schedule was brutal: He ate a light dinner at 6:00 P.M., then went to bed. At 1:00 A.M. he rose and sat down at his writing table for a seven-hour stretch of work. At 8:00 A.M. he allowed himself a ninety-minute nap; then, from 9:30 to 4:00, he resumed work, drinking cup after cup of black coffee. (According to one estimate, he drank as many as fifty cups a day.) At 4:00 P.M. Balzac took a walk, had a bath, and received visitors until 6:00, when the cycle started all over again.
”
”
Mason Currey (Daily Rituals: How Artists Work)
“
The Sabians were allowed to build a new Temple of the Moon God, and to continue their religious rites, after the Arab General Ibn Ghanam conquered Harran in the seventh century AD. This in itself is a sign of most unusual favor, since Islamic armies normally offered "pagans" the choice of either conversion or death. Even more interesting, however, is the Sabians' encounter with the Abbasid Caliph Abu Jafar Abdullah al-Ma'mun, who passed through their city in AD 830 and reportedly quizzed them intensively on their religion.
Remembering the Sabian pilgrimages to Giza, it is reasonable to wonder whether there is any connection with the fact that in AD 820, a decade before he visited Harran, it was Ma'mun who tunnelled into the Great Pyramid and opened its previously hidden passageways and chambers. Indeed, it is through "Ma'mun's Hole" that visitors still enter the monument today. Described by Gibbon as "a prince of rare learning," it seems Ma'mun's investigation was prompted by information he'd received about the Great Pyramid, specifically that it contained: 'a secret chamber with maps and tables of the celestial and terrestrial spheres. Although they were said to have been made in the remote past, they were suppposed to be of great accuracy.
”
”
Graham Hancock (Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth's Lost Civilization)
“
said Reel, shooting Robie a quick glance that he did not notice. “Maybe that was their plan. But Luke could never do that while he was with the skinheads. They wouldn’t have allowed it. And I doubt Luke would have wanted Holly anywhere near those people. They are bad news.” Robie said, “Maybe that’s why they came for him. Because he told them he was leaving the group so he could start a new life with Holly.” Reel said, “That actually makes sense. Too bad we don’t know where either one is so we can ask them. The police let Luke go and he’s disappeared.” “Did Holly have any other visitors?” asked Robie. “Her sister, Valerie, on a regular basis. A couple of young women she knew. Her parole officer also visited regularly, of course. But Luke came more often than anyone else. Now, let me see if there were any others. We keep records of all of them.” She turned to her computer and clicked some keys. “Yes, there was another person.” She glanced at the name on the screen. “Roger Walton.” Both Reel and Robie tensed. “When did he come by?” asked Reel. Fishbaugh clicked some more keys. “He came by only once.” “When was that?” “Five days ago.” “So, shortly before he disappeared. Did you talk to him?” “Briefly. He seemed to know
”
”
David Baldacci (End Game (Will Robie, #5))
“
The rear doors of the Marble Hall open onto the sprawling Fountain Terrace, decorated with statues and topiary. A promenade curves southward from it, lined with yew trees that resemble giant gumdrops, and banks of daffodils and bluebells. Multiple gated gardens snake outward from the grassy lane.
"This is the first of the gardens that we allow visitors to tour," Max says, leading me through a gate with a plaque above it reading THE FRENCH GARDEN. "We just planted new pink roses for the summer season."
"They're beautiful."
I can feel Max watching me intently as I wander the perimeter, taking in the blooming flowers and lush orange trees.
”
”
Alexandra Monir (Suspicion)
“
All tenants must check in at the front desk. Absolutely no visitors allowed.” — Alcatraz Hotel. Before the 1906 earthquake, the area east of City Hall was a fashionable neighborhood with graceful apartment buildings and elegant shops, but those days are long gone. The Tenderloin, as it is now called, is a forgotten cesspool of decaying tenements and residential hotels whose teeming streets are populated by poor immigrants, welfare recipients, drug addicts, prostitutes, and the homeless.
”
”
Sheldon Siegel (The Confession (Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez #5))
“
Visitors to Mason’s Yard in St. James’s will search in vain for Isherwood Fine Arts. They will, however, find the extraordinary Old Master gallery owned by my dear friend Patrick Matthiesen. A brilliant art historian blessed with an infallible eye, Patrick never would have allowed a misattributed work by Artemisia Gentileschi to languish in his storerooms for nearly a half century. The painting depicted in The Cellist does not exist. If it did, it would look a great deal like the one produced by Artemisia’s father, Orazio, that hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Like Julian Isherwood and his new managing partner, Sarah Bancroft, the inhabitants of my version of London’s art world are wholly fictitious, as are their sometimes-questionable antics. Their midsummer drinking session at Wiltons Restaurant would have been entirely permissible, as the landmark London eatery briefly reopened its doors before a rise in coronavirus infection rates compelled Prime Minister Boris Johnson to shut down all non-essential businesses. Wherever possible, I tried to adhere to prevailing conditions and government-mandated restrictions. But when necessary, I granted myself the license to tell my story without the crushing weight of the pandemic. I chose Switzerland as the primary setting for The Cellist because life there proceeded largely as normal until November 2020. That said, a private concert and reception at the Kunsthaus Zürich, even for a cause as worthy as democracy, likely could not have taken place in mid-October. I offer my profound apologies to the renowned Janine Jansen for the unflattering comparison to Anna Rolfe. Ms. Jansen is rightly regarded as one of her generation’s finest violinists, and Anna, of course, exists only in my imagination. She was introduced in the second Gabriel Allon novel, The English Assassin, along with Christopher Keller. Martin Landesmann, my committed if deeply flawed Swiss financier, made his debut in The Rembrandt Affair. The story of Gabriel’s blood-soaked duel with the Russian arms dealer Ivan Kharkov is told in Moscow Rules and its sequel, The Defector. Devotees of F. Scott Fitzgerald undoubtedly spotted the luminous line from The Great Gatsby that appears in chapter 32 of The Cellist. For the record, I am well aware that the headquarters of Israel’s secret intelligence service is no longer located on King Saul Boulevard in Tel Aviv. There is no safe house in the historic moshav of Nahalal—at least not one that I am aware of—and Gabriel and his family do not live on Narkiss Street in West Jerusalem. Occasionally, however, they can be spotted at Focaccia on Rabbi Akiva Street, one of my favorite restaurants in Jerusalem.
”
”
Daniel Silva (The Cellist (Gabriel Allon, #21))
“
Commenting on the police’s questionable role in the whole case, Tushar Gandhi writes: One of the crucial factors in the success of the murder plot was that the police—who were hampered by Gandhi’s decision not to allow additional security and frisking of his visitors—did not think of placing constables or inspectors from Bombay, Poona or Ahmednagar at Birla House, who would have been able to identify Godse, Apte and Karkare . . . The Congress Government and at least some of the members of the Cabinet were fed up of the interventions of the meddlesome old man. To them, a martyred Mahatma would be easier to live with . . . the way the investigation was carried out, and the lackadaisical approach of the police in trying to protect Gandhi’s life, leads one to believe that the investigation was meant to hide more than it was meant to reveal. The measures taken by the police between 20th and 30th January 1948 were more to ensure the smooth progress of the murderers, than to try and prevent his murder.
”
”
Vikram Sampath (Savarkar: A Contested Legacy, 1924-1966)
“
What if zoos stopped breeding all their animals, with the possible exception of any endangered species with a real chance of being re-released into the wild? What if they sent all the animals that need really large areas or lots of freedom and socialization to refuges? With apes, elephants, big cats, and other large and smart species gone, they could expand enclosures for the rest of the animals, concentrating on keeping them lavishly happy until their natural deaths. Eventually, the only animals on display would be a few ancient holdovers from the old menageries, some animals in active conservation breeding programs, and perhaps a few rescues.
Such 'zoos' might even be merged with sanctuaries, places that take wild animal that -- because injury or a lifetime of captivity -- cannot live in the wild. Existing refuges, like Wolf Haven, often do allow visitors, but not all animal are on the tour, just those who seem like it. Their facilities are really arranged for the animals, not for the people. These refuge-zoos could become places where animal live not in order to be on display, but in order to live. Display would be incidental.
”
”
Emma Marris (Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World)
“
For a century before William became its master, Cliveden had been open to visitors and sightseers, one of several showplaces in England that were in effect, and by long tradition, public parks maintained at private expense. The new owner enclosed Cliveden within a high wall topped with broken glass, forbade access to a spring of water that had been a local pleasure site, and erected a blank wall to replace the iron grille gate that had allowed a sweeping view up the long driveway leading to the forecourt of the house.
”
”
Justin Kaplan (When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods & Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age)
“
him, but of course they wouldn’t allow that. She became very melancholic, and started living all by herself in the old palace. They give her everything she needs, but she doesn’t go out or have visitors. Everyone says she’s mad.’ ‘How do they know?’ I asked. ‘Because she’s different from other people, I suppose.’ ‘Is that being mad?
”
”
Ruskin Bond (Ruskin Bond Collection)
“
Tools for live chat Popular tools for live chat include Zendesk Chat, LiveChat, Drift, Freshdesk, Olark, LivePerson, HappyFox, SnapEngage, LiveAgent, Chatra, Intercom, tawk.to, Tidio, and Comm100. Some of them, like Intercom, allow you to track, help, and convert visitors across multiple browsing sessions.
”
”
Karl Blanks (Making Websites Win: Apply the Customer-Centric Methodology That Has Doubled the Sales of Many Leading Websites)
“
scientist Krishna Bharat, frustrated by how difficult it was to find news stories online, created Google News in his 20 percent time. The site now receives millions of visitors every day. Former Google engineer Paul Bucheit created Gmail, now one of the world’s most popular e-mail programs, as his 20 percent project. Many other Google products share similar creation stories—among them Orkut (Google’s social networking software), Google Talk (its instant message application), Google Sky (which allows astronomically inclined users to browse pictures of the universe), and Google Translate (its translation software for mobile devices). As Google engineer Alec Proudfoot, whose own 20 percent project aimed at boosting the efficiency of hybrid cars, put it in a television interview: “Just about all the good ideas here at Google have bubbled up from 20 percent time.”9
”
”
Daniel H. Pink (Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us)
“
What we can learn from bricks-and-mortar bookstores About twenty-five years ago, offline bookstores learned not to push the hard sale. They discovered they could convert a visitor from “just browsing” to “buying” by making their stores highly conducive to reading. They added chairs, reading areas, and even in-store coffee stores. They discovered that the more time visitors spent in the store, the more likely they were to buy. Amazon has adopted the same approach, allowing visitors to “look inside” books.
”
”
Karl Blanks (Making Websites Win: Apply the Customer-Centric Methodology That Has Doubled the Sales of Many Leading Websites)
“
Separation of concerns is a fancy name for when information is organized and encapsulated into modules. The concept is closely related to the phrase “a place for everything and everything in its place.” Separation of concerns is essential when you’re managing a lot of content. For website design, the modules can be paragraphs, page sections, pages, or groups of pages: You can encapsulate benefits into clearly labeled paragraphs. Many winning websites clearly encapsulate their content into separate page sections. The navigation bars of many websites clearly encapsulate the content into groups of pages. (In one of our case studies, we describe how we used this technique to increase paid memberships for Smart Insights by 75%.) By modularizing, you allow your visitors to easily find the information that they need, and to ignore the rest. It’s hard to stress how important it is to organize information into an architecture that’s easy to navigate. Once a visitor is lost, it’s difficult to show them counterobjections. They’ll never find them.
”
”
Karl Blanks (Making Websites Win: Apply the Customer-Centric Methodology That Has Doubled the Sales of Many Leading Websites)
“
Make your vacation luxurious and memorable. Luxury Camping in Rishikesh is the greatest alternative for those who seek "Adventure with Luxury," that is, luxurious facilities and services in the camping site. Beach camps and jungle camps are not the same as luxury camps. These are located in a specific place that is around 1.5 kilometres from the river and jungle. These are built differently than the other camping areas. These can be found in the bush or along a river, but never on a river's bank. A luxurious camp is built on a good frame with a nylon basic structure and textiles (safari tents). Wildlife and adventure enthusiasts flock to Rishikesh for luxury camping.from all over the world. Rishikesh Luxury Camping not only gives sufficient possibilities for wildlife and nature lovers, but also allows visitors to participate in recreational activities. In the heart of the jungle, luxury camping in Rishikesh provides all of the comforts of home. Luxury camps include an attached bathroom, handheld shower, continuous running water, room service, a mirror in the tent, luxurious Swiss tents with carpeted floors, music, a toe chair, and one table inside the tent, and luxury Swiss tents with carpeted floors, bonfires, and one table inside the tent. Rishikesh offers luxury camping as well as rappelling, trekking, bird watching, rock climbing, and a variety of other activities. Wildlife excursions can also be enjoyed, making the journey even more enjoyable and bringing you closer to nature.
”
”
Anukriti Thakur
“
Even among the uninitiated - men and women who were unaware of how a day's labor had been defined through years of tense negotiation - extracting such large drafts of labor required extraordinarily coercive measures. Violent confrontations between masters and slaves seemed to grow as the lower Mississippi Valley became a slave society. Wielding the lash with greater frequency if not greater force, planters struggled to bend slaves to the new order. Slaves resisted with equal ferocity. Unrest increased and rumors of rebellion boiled to the surface. During the 1790s and into the new century, the lower Mississippi Valley was alive with news of revolt, as one intrigue after another came to light. In 1791, 1795, and again in 1804 and 1805, planters uncovered major conspiracies. They responded with the lash, mutilating many rebels and suspected rebels, deporting others, and executing still others, often after grotesque torture.
Yet behind this bloody facade, master and slave began to renegotiate the terms under which slaves lived and worked. Many of these involved the pace of labor; others originated in the organization of labor and the authority of the masters' subalterns, as overseers became a fixture on the largest estates. From the planters' perspective, the large units on which sugar and cotton were grown made movement from plantation to plantation - a prominent feature of slave life in eighteenth-century Louisiana - unnecessary and undesirable. But perhaps the most intense conflicts arose over the slaves' economy: their free Sundays and half-Saturdays, their gardens and provision grounds, and their right to sell their labor and market its product. Slaves in the lower Mississippi Valley had a long tradition of independent productive activities. Planters, who once saw advantages in allowing slaves to subsist themselves, pressed for an allowance society in which rations replaced gardens and the right to market.
...
Under the new regime, plantation slaves frequently worked from dawn to noon and then, after a two hour break, until 'the approach of night.' As the planters' demands intensified, the time left for slaves to work their gardens grew shorter. Sustaining them took an extraordinary commitment. The frantic pace at which slaves worked in their own plots was captured by an emigre from Saint Domingue in 1799, who observed that a slave returning form the field 'does not lose his time. He goes to work at a bit of the land which he has planted with provisions for his own use, while his companion, if he has one, busies herself in preparing some for him, herself, and their children.' 'Many of the owners take off a part of that ration,' noted another visitor. Slaves 'must obtain the rest of their food, as well as their clothing, from the results of their Sunday labors.' Planters who supplied their slaves with clothes forced them to work on Sunday 'until they have been reimbursed for their advances,' so that the cash that previously went into the slaves' pockets went to the masters'.
”
”
Ira Berlin (Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves)
“
I rarely stopped to think about what it meant that I was now far more comfortable in the rarefied air of campus than I had ever been in my hometown. Then I would fly back home and it would hit me anew, that cold prickle of awareness somewhere between my shoulder blades. I felt small and somehow trapped whenever I returned, as though I wouldn’t be allowed to leave, even though I was only a visitor now, the interloper I’d always looked like.
”
”
Nicole Chung (A Living Remedy: A Memoir)
“
Their owners returned to Philadelphia each fall, leaving the resort a ghost town. Samuel Richards realized that mass-oriented facilities had to be developed before Atlantic City could become a major resort and a permanent community. From Richards’ perspective, more working-class visitors from Philadelphia were needed to spur growth. These visitors would only come if railroad fares cost less. For several years Samuel Richards tried, without success, to sell his ideas to the other shareholders of the Camden-Atlantic Railroad. He believed that greater profits could be made by reducing fares, which would increase the volume of patrons. A majority of the board of directors disagreed. Finally in 1875, Richards lost patience with his fellow directors. Together with three allies, Richards resigned from the board of directors of the Camden-Atlantic Railroad and formed a second railway company of his own. Richards’ railroad was to be an efficient and cheaper narrow gauge line. The roadbed for the narrow gauge was easier to build than that of the first railroad. It had a 3½-foot gauge instead of the standard 4 feet 8½ inches, so labor and material would cost less. The prospect of a second railroad into Atlantic City divided the town. Jonathan Pitney had died six years earlier, but his dream of an exclusive watering hole persisted. Many didn’t want to see the type of development that Samuel Richards was encouraging, nor did they want to rub elbows with the working class of Philadelphia. A heated debate raged for months. Most of the residents were content with their island remaining a sleepy little beach village and wanted nothing to do with Philadelphia’s blue-collar tourists. But their opinions were irrelevant to Samuel Richards. As he had done 24 years earlier, Richards went to the state legislature and obtained another railroad charter. The Philadelphia-Atlantic City Railway Company was chartered in March 1876. The directors of the Camden-Atlantic were bitter at the loss of their monopoly and put every possible obstacle in Richards’ path. When he began construction in April 1877—simultaneously from both ends—the Camden-Atlantic directors refused to allow the construction machinery to be transported over its tracks or its cars to be used for shipment of supplies. The Baldwin Locomotive Works was forced to send its construction engine by water, around Cape May and up the seacoast; railroad ties were brought in by ships from Baltimore. Richards permitted nothing to stand in his way. He was determined to have his train running that summer. Construction was at a fever pitch, with crews of laborers working double shifts seven days a week. Fifty-four miles of railroad were completed in just 90 days. With the exception of rail lines built during a war, there had never been a railroad constructed at such speed. The first train of the Philadelphia-Atlantic City Railway Company arrived in the resort on July 7, 1877. Prior to Richards’ railroad,
”
”
Nelson Johnson (Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City HBO Series Tie-In Edition)
“
Puffer fish inflate into a ball when they feel threatened as a warning to predators. The males work endlessly on designing their territories to attract a mate. Burrowing diligently with their fins, reorganizing shells. They work twenty-four hours and many many days without taking a break. The males have many mates and reign over multiple female territories. Once the female is in his territory and tries to leave he will bite her. The female is only allowed a visitor if the visiting fish mutes its bright blue, yellow, and orange spots so that the king puffer fish doesn't feel threatened.
You get what I'm saying, Ana?
”
”
Angie Cruz (Dominicana)
“
The creation of this digital collection, which brings together the entire body of research materials related to William F Cody's personal and professional life, will enable a variety of audiences to consider the impact of William F. Cody the cultural entrepreneur on American life and provide contextualizing documents from other sources,
including audio-visual media that exist for the final years of his life.
It will allow more scholars to study the man within his times, will provide new resources to contextualize studies of other regional and national events and persons, and will encourage digital edition visitors to explore and learn more about these vital decades of American expansion and development. The digital edition of the Papers will differ significantly from the print edition by including manuscript materials, photographs, and film and sound recordings, and it will offer navigational and search options not possible in the print edition.
As Griffin's volume reveals, it took many people to make Buffalo Bill's Wild West happen. Likewise, there are many people whose combined efforts have made this documentary project a reality. All of the generous donors and talented scholars who have contributed to the success of this effort will be noted in due course. But in this, the first publication, it is appropriate to acknowledge that big ideas are carried to fruition only by sound and steady leadership. The McCracken Research Library was fortunate at the advent of the papers project that in its board chair it had such a leader. Maggie Scarlett was not only an early supporter of this documentary editing project but also its first true champion. It was through her connections (and tenacity) that the initial funds were raised to launch the project. Whether seeking support from private donors, the Wyoming State Legislature, federal granting agencies, or the United States Congress, Maggie led the charge and thereby secured the future of this worthy endeavor. Thus,
this reissue of Griffin's account is a legacy not only to William Cody but also to all of those who have made this effort and the larger undertaking possible. In that spirit, though these pages rightfully belong to Charles Eldridge Griffin and to Mr. Dixon, if this volume were mine to dedicate, it would be to Maggie.
Kurt Graham
”
”
Charles Eldridge Griffin (Four Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill)
“
Once you enter into nature and participate from the inside instead of as a visitor from the outside ... then we will intuitively know how to make a living in the world, how to feed ourselves and give ourselves shelter in a way which also allows other forms of life to live.
”
”
Larry Korn
“
Lying in state now in an exhibit case at London’s National Maritime Museum, H-4 draws millions of visitors a year. Most tourists approach the Watch after having passed the cases containing H-1, H-2, and H-3. Adults and youngsters alike stand mesmerized before the big sea clocks. They move their heads to follow the swinging balances, which rock like metronomes on H-1 and H-2. They breathe in time to the regular rhythm of the ticking, and they gasp when startled by the sudden, sporadic spinning of the single-blade fan that protrudes from the bottom of H-2. But H-4 stops them cold. It purports to be the end of some orderly progression of thought and effort, yet it constitutes a complete non sequitur. What’s more, it holds still, in stark contrast to the whirring of the going clocks. Not only are its mechanisms hidden by the silver case enclosure, but the hands are frozen in time. Even the second hand lies motionless. H-4 does not run. It could run, if curators would allow it to, but they demur, on the grounds that H-4 enjoys something of the status of a sacred relic or a priceless work of art that must be preserved for posterity. To run it would be to ruin it.
”
”
Dava Sobel (Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of his Time)
“
Then I would fly back home and it would hit me anew, that could prickle of awareness somewhere between my shoulder blades. I felt small and somehow trapped whenever I returned, as though I wouldn't be allowed to leave, even though I was only a visitor now, the interloper I'd always looked like. My visits got shorter and shorter, and it was impossible to ignore the mingled guilt and relief I felt every time I boarded a flight headed east. Campus was where I had a life, a purpose, new ideas to absorb--where things were always changing, where no one stared at me when I entered a room, where I no longer questioned the fact that I belonged.
”
”
Nicole Chung (A Living Remedy: A Memoir)
“
Sleeping Arrangements In many societies, children sleep with their parents at least through infancy and sometimes much longer. Some do so because they don’t have much space, but also because they believe co-sleeping to be an essential way to feed, comfort, protect, and bond with their babies and children. Here is a sampling of sleep arrangements in some traditional communities compiled by Carol Worthman and Melissa Melby: • In the leaf huts of Efe foragers of Africa, no one sleeps alone. Two adults, a baby, other children, a set of grandparents, and even a visitor routinely crash in the same small space. • Gebusi women in Papua New Guinea sleep together in a narrow area, about seven and a half feet wide, packed like sardines along with infants and children of varying ages. Men and older boys lie on sleeping platforms in a nearby space. • For the Gabra nomads in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, sleeping arrangements include separate beds for husband (and small boys) and wife (with infant and small children) in the sleeping portion of the tent. • The Balinese in Indonesia are social, even in sleep: “Being alone for even five minutes is undesirable, even when asleep, so widows and widowers who sleep alone are viewed as unfortunate and even socio-spiritually vulnerable,” Worthman and Melby wrote. • The Swat Pathan in Afghanistan and Pakistan allow a bed for each person, but no one gets his own room.
”
”
Mei-Ling Hopgood (How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm: And Other Adventures in Parenting (from Argentina to Tanzania and Everywhere in Between))
“
In the day’s last light the glowing lake below the palace-city looked like a sea of molten gold. A traveller coming this way at sunset — this traveller, coming this way, now, along the lakeshore road — might believe himself to be approaching the throne of a monarch so fabulously wealthy that he could allow a portion of his treasure to be poured into a giant hollow in the earth to dazzle and awe his guests. And as big as the lake of gold was, it must be only a drop drawn from the sea of the larger fortune — the traveller’s imagination could not begin to grasp the size of that mother-ocean! Nor were there guards at the golden water’s edge; was the king so generous, then, that he allowed all his subjects, and perhaps even strangers and visitors like the traveller himself, without hindrance to draw up liquid bounty from the lake? That would indeed be a prince among men, a veritable Prester John, whose lost kingdom of song and fable contained impossible wonders. Perhaps (the traveller surmised) the fountain of eternal youth lay within the city walls — perhaps even the legendary doorway to Paradise on Earth was somewhere close at hand? But then the sun fell below the horizon, the gold sank beneath the water’s surface, and was lost. Mermaids and serpents would guard it until the return of daylight. Until then, water itself would be the only treasure on offer, a gift the thirsty traveller gratefully accepted.
”
”
Salman Rushdie (The Enchantress of Florence)
“
To have visitors during a Day in Bed is a grave error. It means getting out to do your hair, make up your face, and have your bed made. A little talk on the telephone with some sympathetic friend who is really interested in your symptoms is the only social intercourse that should be allowed. A good deal of pleasure can be derived from asking for your fountain-pen and notepaper, and then not writing any letters.
”
”
Joyce Dennys (Henrietta's War: News from the Home Front 1939-1942)
“
A Tale of Two Parking Requirements The impact of parking requirements becomes clearer when we compare the parking requirements of San Francisco and Los Angeles. San Francisco limits off-street parking, while LA requires it. Take, for example, the different parking requirements for concert halls. For a downtown concert hall, Los Angeles requires, as a minimum, fifty times more parking than San Francisco allows as its maximum. Thus the San Francisco Symphony built its home, Louise Davies Hall, without a parking garage, while Disney Hall, the new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, did not open until seven years after its parking garage was built. Disney Hall's six-level, 2,188-space underground garage cost $110 million to build (about $50,000 per space). Financially troubled Los Angeles County, which built the garage, went into debt to finance it, expecting that parking revenues would repay the borrowed money. But the garage was completed in 1996, and Disney Hall—which suffered from a budget less grand than its vision—became knotted in delays and didn't open until late 2003. During the seven years in between, parking revenue fell far short of debt payments (few people park in an underground structure if there is nothing above it) and the county, by that point nearly bankrupt, had to subsidize the garage even as it laid employees off. The money spent on parking shifted Disney Hall's design toward drivers and away from pedestrians. The presence of a six-story subterranean garage means most concert patrons arrive from underneath the hall, rather than from the sidewalk. The hall's designers clearly understood this, and so while the hall has a fairly impressive street entrance, its more magisterial gateway is an "escalator cascade" that flows up from the parking structure and ends in the foyer. This has profound implications for street life. A concertgoer can now drive to Disney Hall, park beneath it, ride up into it, see a show, and then reverse the whole process—and never set foot on a sidewalk in downtown LA. The full experience of an iconic Los Angeles building begins and ends in its parking garage, not in the city itself. Visitors to downtown San Francisco have a different experience. When a concert or theater performance lets out in San Francisco, people stream onto the sidewalks, strolling past the restaurants, bars, bookstores, and flower shops that are open and well-lit. For those who have driven, it is a long walk to the car, which is probably in a public facility unattached to any specific restaurant or shop. The presence of open shops and people on the street encourages other people to be out as well. People want to be on streets with other people on them, and they avoid streets that are empty, because empty streets are eerie and menacing at night. Although the absence of parking requirements does not guarantee a vibrant area, their presence certainly inhibits it. "The more downtown is broken up and interspersed with parking lots and garages," Jane Jacobs argued in 1961, "the duller and deader it becomes ... and there is nothing more repellent than a dead downtown.
”
”
Donald C. Shoup (There Ain't No Such Thing as Free Parking (Cato Unbound Book 42011))
“
Active Pool, designed as a canyon lined with rushing water. Rectangular stone blocks created a staircase of viewing platforms that allowed water to travel beneath visitors who descended to the bottom pool, almost forty feet down. Nighttime lighting made the spot breathtakingly lovely.
”
”
Emily March (Hummingbird Lake (Eternity Springs, #2))
“
George Mumford, a Newton-based mindfulness teacher, one such moment took place in 1993, at the Omega Institute, a holistic learning center in Rhinebeck, New York. The center was hosting a retreat devoted to mindfulness meditation, the clear-your-head habit in which participants sit quietly and focus on their breathing. Leading the session: meditation megastar Jon Kabat-Zinn. Originally trained as a molecular biologist at MIT, Kabat-Zinn had gone on to revolutionize the meditation world in the 1970s by creating a more secularized version of the practice, one focused less on Buddhism and more on stress reduction and other health benefits. After dinner one night, Kabat-Zinn was giving a talk about his work, clicking through a slide show to give the audience something to look at. At one point he displayed a slide of Mumford. Mumford had been a star high school basketball player who’d subsequently hit hard times as a heroin addict, Kabat-Zinn explained. By the early 1980s, however, he’d embraced meditation and gotten sober. Now Mumford taught meditation to prison inmates and other unlikely students. Kabat-Zinn explained how they were able to relate to Mumford because of his tough upbringing, his openness about his addiction — and because, like many inmates, he’s African-American. Kabat-Zinn’s description of Mumford didn’t seem to affect most Omega visitors, but one participant immediately took notice: June Jackson, whose husband had just coached the Chicago Bulls to their third consecutive NBA championship. Phil Jackson had spent years studying Buddhism and Native American spirituality and was a devoted meditator. Yet his efforts to get Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and their teammates to embrace mindfulness was meeting with only limited success. “June took one look at George and said, ‘He could totally connect with Phil’s players,’ ’’ Kabat-Zinn recalls. So he provided an introduction. Soon Mumford was in Chicago, gathering some of the world’s most famous athletes in a darkened room and telling them to focus on their breathing. Mumford spent the next five years working with the Bulls, frequently sitting behind the bench, as they won three more championships. In 1999 Mumford followed Phil Jackson to the Los Angeles Lakers, where he helped turn Kobe Bryant into an outspoken adherent of meditation. Last year, as Jackson began rebuilding the moribund New York Knicks as president, Mumford signed on for a third tour of duty. He won’t speak about the specific work he’s doing in New York, but it surely involves helping a new team adjust to Jackson’s sensibilities, his controversial triangle offense, and the particular stress that comes with compiling the worst record in the NBA. Late one April afternoon just as the NBA playoffs are beginning, Mumford is sitting at a table in O’Hara’s, a Newton pub. Sober for more than 30 years, he sips Perrier. It’s Marathon Monday, and as police begin allowing traffic back onto Commonwealth Avenue, early finishers surround us, un-showered and drinking beer. No one recognizes Mumford, but that’s hardly unusual. While most NBA fans are aware that Jackson is serious about meditation — his nickname is the Zen Master — few outside his locker rooms can name the consultant he employs. And Mumford hasn’t done much to change that. He has no office and does no marketing, and his recently launched website, mindfulathlete.org, is mired deep in search-engine results. Mumford has worked with teams that have won six championships, but, one friend jokes, he remains the world’s most famous completely unknown meditation teacher. That may soon change. This month, Mumford published his first book, The Mindful Athlete, which is part memoir and part instruction guide, and he has agreed to give a series of talks and book signings
”
”
Anonymous