Wry Life Quotes

the last cigarettes are smoked, the loaves are sliced, and lest this be taken for wry sorrow, drown the spider in wine. you are much more than simply dead: I am a dish for your ashes, I am a fist for your vanished air. the most terrible thing about life is finding it gone.

Five years off my life... I wondered with a wry smile, would people be immortal if they didn't have kids?

It was this: Gansey saying, "I like you an awful lot, Blue Sargent." It was this: Blue's smile – crooked, wry, ridiculous, flustered. There was a lot of happiness tucked in the corner of that smile, and even though her face was several inches from Gansey, some of it still spilled out and got on him. She put her finger on his cheek where he knew his own smile was dimpling it, and then they took each other’s hands, and they climbed back up together. It was this: this moment and no other moment, and for the first time that Gansey could remember, he knew what it would feel like to be present in his own life.

I want everything,' she replied with a faint, wry smile. 'You know, I said that once to a friend of mine, and he told me that the real trick in life is to want nothing, and to succeed in getting it.

With a kind of wry envy, Hazel realized that Bigwig was actually looking forward to meeting the Efrafan assault. He knew he could fight and he meant to show it. He was not thinking of anything else. The hopelessness of their chances had no important place in his thoughts. Even the sound of the digging, clearer already, only set him thinking of the best way to sell his life as dearly as he could.

I say the same thing about the death of James Wait: "Oh, well - he wasn't going to write Beethoven's Ninth Symphony anyway." This wry comment on how little most of us were likely to accomplish in life, no matter how long we lived, isn't my own invention.

Your guardian angel’s a man?” She gave me a little wry look, and for the first time in days, I saw a hint of the old Lola coming back to life. “Of course. I like to imagine he’s hopelessly in love with me, but we can never be together because it’s against the rules.

You get tired of always wondering anew why life has to take the place of youth.

Cynicism creates a numbness toward life. Cynicism begins with a wry assurance that everyone has an angle. Behind every silver lining is a cloud. The cynic is always observing, critiquing, but never engaging, loving, and hoping. ... To be cynical is to be distant. While offering a false intimacy of being "in the know," cynicism actually destroys intimacy. It leads to bitterness that can deaden and even destroy the spirit. ... Cynicism begins, oddly enough, with too much of the wrong kind of faith, with naive optimism or foolish confidence. At first glance, genuine faith and naive optimism appear identical since both foster confidence and hope.But the similarity is only surface deep.Genuine faith comes from knowing my heavenly Father loves, enjoys, and cares for me. Naive optimism is groundless. It is childlike trust without the loving Father. ... Optimism in the goodness of people collapses when it confronts the dark side of life. ... Shattered optimism sets us up for the fall into defeated weariness and, eventually, cynicism. You'd think it would just leave us less optimistic, but we humans don't do neutral well. We go from seeing the bright side of everything to seeing the dark side of everything. We feel betrayed by life. ... The movement from naive optimism to cynicism is the new American journey. In naive optimism we don't need to pray because everything is under control. In cynicism we can't pray because everything out of control, little is possible. With the Good Shepherd no longer leading us through the valley of the shadow of death, we need something to maintain our sanity. Cynicism's ironic stance is a weak attempt to maintain a lighthearted equilibrium in a world gone mad. ... Without the Good Shepherd, we are alone in a meaningless story. Weariness and fear leave us feeling overwhelmed, unable to move. Cynicism leaves us doubting, unable to dream. The combination shuts down our hearts, and we just show up for life, going through the motions.

Heartache may be bad for the soul, but it's great for bookshops. It's when we are at our lowest romantic ebb that we are likely to do the bulk of our life's reading. Adolescents who can't get a date are in a uniquely privileged position: they will have the perfect chance to get grounding in world literature. There is perhaps an important connection between love and reading, there is perhaps a comparable pleasure offered by both. A feeling of connection may be at the root of it. There are books that speak to us, no less eloquently—but more reliably—than our lovers. They prevent the morose suspicion that we do not fully belong to the human species, that we lie beyond comprehension. Our embarrassments, our sulks, our feelings of guilt, these phenomena may be conveyed on a page in a way that affords us with a sense of self-recognition. The author has located words to depict a situation we thought ourselves alone in feeling, and for a few moments, we are like two lovers on an early dinner date thrilled to discover how much they share (and unable to touch much of the seafood linguine in front of them, so busy are they fathoming the eyes opposite), we may place the book down for a second and stare at its spine with a wry smile, as if to say, "How lucky I ran into you.

There is a tale of a man who found on the road a large stone bearing the words, "Under me lies a great truth." The man strained to turn the stone over and finally succeeded. On the bottom was written, "Why do you want a new truth when you do not practice what you already know?

My parents died years ago. I was very close to them. I still miss them terribly. I know I always will. I long to believe that their essence, their personalities, what I loved so much about them, are - really and truly - still in existence somewhere. I wouldn't ask very much, just five or ten minutes a year, say, to tell them about their grandchildren, to catch them up on the latest news, to remind them that I love them. There's a part of me - no matter how childish it sounds - that wonders how they are. "Is everything all right?" I want to ask. The last words I found myself saying to my father, at the moment of his death, were "Take care." Sometimes I dream that I'm talking to my parents, and suddenly - still immersed in the dreamwork - I'm seized by the overpowering realization that they didn't really die, that it's all been some kind of horrible mistake. Why, here they are, alive and well, my father making wry jokes, my mother earnestly advising me to wear a muffler because the weather is chilly. When I wake up I go through an abbreviated process of mourning all over again. Plainly, there's something within me that's ready to believe in life after death. And it's not the least bit interested in whether there's any sober evidence for it. So I don't guffaw at the woman who visits her husband's grave and chats him up every now and then, maybe on the anniversary of his death. It's not hard to understand. And if I have difficulties with the ontological status of who she's talking to, that's all right. That's not what this is about. This is about humans being human.

Einstein was not used to self-righting political systems. Nor did he fully appreciate how resilient America’s democracy and its nurturing of individual liberty could be. So for a while his disdain deepened. But he was saved from serious despair by his wry detachment and his sense of humor. He was not destined to die a bitter man.

Yrene rose onto her toes to kiss him before he led them toward their spacious stateroom. “This story of yours had better be worth it,” she said with a wry grin. Chaol smiled back at his wife, at the light he’d unknowingly walked toward his entire life, even when he had not been able to see it. “It is,” he said quietly to Yrene. “It is.

Dalinar took a deep breath, then forced himself to open his arms and pull back. “If you had hoped to soothe my worries for the day, then this didn’t help.” She folded her arms. He could still feel where her safehand had touched him on the back. A tender touch, reserved for a family member. “I’m not here to soothe you, Dalinar. Quite the opposite.” “Please. I do need time to think.” “I won’t let you put me away. I won’t ignore that this happened. I won’t—” “Navani,” he gently cut her off, “I will not abandon you. I promise.” She eyed him, then a wry smile crept onto her face. “Very well. But you began something today.” “I began it?” he asked, amused, elated, confused, worried, and ashamed at the same time. “The kiss was yours, Dalinar,” she said idly, pulling open the door and entering his antechamber. “You seduced me to it.” “What? Seduced?” She glanced back at him. “Dalinar, I’ve never been more open and honest in my life.” “I know,” Dalinar said, smiling. “That was the seductive part.” He closed the door softly, then let out a sigh. Blood of my fathers, he thought, why can’t these things ever be simple? And yet, in direct contrast with his thoughts, he felt as if the entire world had somehow become more right for having gone wrong.

In his life, he'd had more than his share of lectures, some brutal enough to leave permanent gouges in his soul. But no man had ever spoken to him quite like this- wry, honest, direct, bracing, and a bit high-handed in a way that felt oddly reassuring. Fatherly.

I take many things seriously. Rudyard Kipling, Harper Lee, Oscar Wilde, and Elmore Leonard are all held in the highest regard. I am dead serious when I discuss the many reasons that Ernest Hemingway’s greatest contribution to literature was his generous decision to take his own life. I will not be sucked into a discussion of politics by people who prefer emotion to reason. The designated hitter is an abomination, and the day pitchers and catchers report is the start of the new year despite what those ill-informed calendar makers might try to tell you.” “I

My other chore is to buy a tree- a thankless task. The only truly well-proportioned Christmas trees are the ones they use in advertisements. If you try and find one in real life you face inevitable disapointment. Your tree will lean to the left or the right. It will be too bushy at the base, or straggly at the top. Even if you do, by some miracle, find a perfect tree, if won't fit in the car and by the time you strap it to the rooftop and drive it home the branches are broken and twisted out of shape. You wrestle it through the door, gagling on pine needles and sweating profusely, only to hear the maddening question from countless Christmases past: 'Is that really the best one you could find?

The alley is a pitch for about twenty women leaning in doorways, chain-smoking. In their shiny open raincoats, short skirts, cheap boots, and high-heeled shoes they watch the street with hooded eyes, like spies in a B movie. Some are young and pretty, and some are older, and some of them are very old, with facial expressions ranging from sullen to wry. Most of the commerce is centred on the slightly older women, as if the majority of the clients prefer experience and worldliness. The younger, prettier girls seem to do the least business, apparent innocence being only a minority preference, much as it is for the aging crones in the alley who seem as if they’ve been standing there for a thousand years. In the dingy foyer of the hotel is an old poster from La Comédie Française, sadly peeling from the all behind the desk. Cyrano de Bergerac, it proclaims, a play by Edmond Rostand. I will stand for a few moments to take in its fading gaiety. It is a laughing portrait of a man with an enormous nose and a plumed hat. He is a tragic clown whose misfortune is his honour. He is a man entrusted with a secret; an eloquent and dazzling wit who, having successfully wooed a beautiful woman on behalf of a friend cannot reveal himself as the true author when his friend dies. He is a man who loves but is not loved, and the woman he loves but cannot reach is called Roxanne. That night I will go to my room and write a song about a girl. I will call her Roxanne. I will conjure her unpaid from the street below the hotel and cloak her in the romance and the sadness of Rostand’s play, and her creation will change my life.

He gave me a look of great contempt; as I supposed, for venturing, even by implication, to draw a parallel between a lack of affluence that might, literally, affect my purchase of rare vintages, and a figure of speech intended delicately to convey his own dire want for the bare necessities of life. He remained silent for several seconds, as if trying to make up his mind whether he could ever bring himself to speak to me again; and then said gruffly: 'I've got to go now.

Then Er Lang was looking at me ruefully. “You have taken at least fifty years of my life!” I was stricken. “Take it back!” “I can’t. But fortunately, my life span is many times yours.” “How long can a dragon live?” “A thousand years, if he is lucky. Not all of us are, of course.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry.” I couldn’t look him in the eye. Instead, my gaze was drawn to the strong line of his throat. If he had given me blood, I would surely have killed him. But Er Lang was struggling to sit up. “I should have stopped you sooner. Though I now understand why men succumb to ghosts.” He spoke lightly, but my ears blazed with mortification. “You were the one who put your tongue in my mouth!” I blurted out, regretting it instantly. To talk about other people’s tongues was the worst, revealing the depths of my inexperience. And yet, the memory of his made me shiver and burn, as though I had a fever. It hadn’t been like this with Tian Bai; it was easy to understand where I stood with him. But he had been courting me, whereas Er Lang was an entirely different commodity. We did not have that sort of relationship, I reminded myself. But he merely gave me a wry glance. “I was a little carried away.” “Thank you,” I said at last. I realized it was the first time I had thanked him formally.

You saved my life today, with your boyish skills.” He gave her another one of his wry half smiles that made her insides flutter.

With a wry smile, he said seriously, "I know.

Every description is calculated for what it reveals, both about the character to whom it refers and the person whose attitude it represents ... As always in these descriptions, she has a knack for the unexpected word: tropical fish in a mural swim “insanely,” and the apple trees on Pepper Street produce “wry unpalatable fruit.” In “Notes for a Young Writer,” a lecture on writing fiction composed as advice to her daughter Sarah, Jackson would relish the “grotesque effect” of the “absolutely wrong word”: “ ‘I will always love you,’ he giggled.

It’s funny, but when I talk about this business of my father and Valentina with my women friends, they’re absolutely appalled. They see a vulnerable old man who’s being exploited. Yet all the men I talk to—without any exception, Mike” (I wag my finger) “they respond with these wry knowing smiles, these little admiring chuckles. Oh, what a lad he is. What an achievement, pulling this much younger bird. Best of luck to him. Let him have his bit of fun.” “You must admit, it’s done him good.” “I don’t admit anything.” (It’s much less satisfying arguing with Mike than with Vera or Pappa. He’s always so irritatingly reasonable.) “Are you sure you’re not just being a bit puritanical?” “Of course I’m not!” (So what if I am?) “It’s because he’s my father—I just want him to be grown up.” “He is being grown up, in his way.” “No he’s not, he’s being a lad. An eighty-four-year-old lad. You’re all being lads together. Wink wink. Nudge nudge. What a great pair of knockers. For goodness’ sake!” My voice has risen to a shriek. “But you can see it’s doing him good, this new relationship. It’s breathed new life into him. Just goes to show that you’re never too old for love.” “You mean for sex.” “Well, maybe that as well. Your Dad is just hoping to fulfil every man’s dream—to lie in the arms of a beautiful younger woman.” “Every man’s dream?” That night Mike and I sleep in separate beds.

Shelton pushed Ben lightly. “Remember when you couldn’t flare without losing your temper? So Hi kicked you from behind to get you mad, and you threw him in the ocean?” Ben snorted. “He deserved it.” “I was providing a service,” Hi protested. “I recall Tory once trying to eat a mouse.” I pinched my nose. “Ugh, don’t remind me.” Ella giggled. “One time Cole lost his flare while carrying a boulder. It pinned his leg for an hour.” Then everyone had a story. Our funeral became a wake. The mood lifted as we swapped flare stories. It was cathartic. A way to say good-bye. I caught Ben smiling at me. “I remember when Tory sniffed that mound of bird crap in the old lighthouse. I thought she’d vomit on the spot.” Chance laughed. “I knew she was too clever. Always with a trick up her sleeve.” The boys glanced at each other. Their smiles faded. Something passed between them. Abruptly, both looked at me. I could see a question in their eyes. A resolve to see something through. They talked. Oh God, they talked about me. They’re going to make me choose. In a flash of dread, I realized I could delay this no longer. With another jolt, I realized I didn’t need to. There was no point putting it off. There was also no decision to make. My eyes met a dark, intense pair staring back earnestly. Longingly. Fearfully. I smiled. Even as my heart pounded. Before anyone spoke, I stepped forward, legs shaking so badly I worried I might fall. But my second foot successfully followed the first. I walked over to Ben’s side. Slipped my hand inside his. Squeezed for dear life. Ben’s eyes widened. He gasped quietly, his chest rising and falling. I met his startled gaze. Smiled through my blushes. A goofy smile split Ben’s face, one I’d never seen before. His fingers crushed mine. No decision to make. Tearing my eyes from Ben, I looked at Chance, found him watching me with a glum expression. Then he sighed, a wry smile twisting his lips. Chance nodded slightly. Not one word spoken. Volumes exchanged. The silence stretched, like a living breathing force. Finally, Hi cleared his throat. “Um.” My face burned scarlet as I remembered our audience. Ella was gaping at me, a delighted grin on her face. Shelton looked like he might turn and run. Hi was rubbing the back of his neck, his face twisted in an uncomfortable grimace. Still no one said a word. This was the most painful moment of my life. “So . . .” Hi drummed his thighs, eyes fixed to the pavement. “Right. A lot just happened there. Weirdly without anyone talking, but, um, yeah.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, nineteenth-century women’s rights reformer and married mother of seven, was wry about the tolls of home life; she joked in a letter after not having heard from Anthony for a while: “Where are you, Susan, and what are you doing? Your silence is truly appalling. Are you dead or married?”4 Common

She blinked at him. Why did she care? How could she not care? His sister was dead, his sister was dead because of her. Belatedly, she remembered her guise—the servant from Athens, the stranger. “I—I suppose because it isn’t fair.” Mathias’s smile was wry. “What in life is?” “That doesn’t mean unfairness should be tolerated. That it should be expected. We should not—we should not be playthings for the gods.

It was raining and I had to walk on the grass. I’ve got mud all over my shoes. They’re brand-new, too.” “I’ll carry you across the grass on the return trip, if you like,” Colby offered with twinkling eyes. “It would have to be over one shoulder, of course,” he added with a wry glance at his artificial arm. She frowned at the bitterness in his tone. He was a little fuzzy because she needed glasses to see at distances. “Listen, nobody in her right mind would ever take you for a cripple,” she said gently and with a warm smile. She laid a hand on his sleeve. “Anyway,” she added with a wicked grin, “I’ve already given the news media enough to gossip about just recently. I don’t need any more complications in my life. I’ve only just gotten rid of one big one.” Colby studied her with an amused smile. She was the only woman he’d ever known that he genuinely liked. He was about to speak when he happened to glance over her shoulder at a man approaching them. “About that big complication, Cecily?” “What about it?” she asked. “I’d say it’s just reappeared with a vengeance. No, don’t turn around,” he said, suddenly jerking her close to him with the artificial arm that looked so real, a souvenir of one of his foreign assignments. “Just keep looking at me and pretend to be fascinated with my nose, and we’ll give him something to think about.” She laughed in spite of the racing pulse that always accompanied Tate’s appearances in her life. She studied Colby’s lean, scarred face. He wasn’t anybody’s idea of a pinup, but he had style and guts and if it hadn’t been for Tate, she would have found him very attractive. “Your nose has been broken twice, I see,” she told Colby. “Three times, but who’s counting?” He lifted his eyes and his eyebrows at someone behind her. “Well, hi, Tate! I didn’t expect to see you here tonight.” “Obviously,” came a deep, gruff voice that cut like a knife. Colby loosened his grip on Cecily and moved back a little. “I thought you weren’t coming,” he said. Tate moved into Cecily’s line of view, half a head taller than Colby Lane. He was wearing evening clothes, like the other men present, but he had an elegance that made him stand apart. She never tired of gazing into his large black eyes which were deep-set in a dark, handsome face with a straight nose, and a wide, narrow, sexy mouth and faintly cleft chin. He was the most beautiful man. He looked as if all he needed was a breastplate and feathers in his hair to bring back the heyday of the Lakota warrior in the nineteenth century. Cecily remembered him that way from the ceremonial gatherings at Wapiti Ridge, and the image stuck stubbornly in her mind. “Audrey likes to rub elbows with the rich and famous,” Tate returned. His dark eyes met Cecily’s fierce green ones. “I see you’re still in Holden’s good graces. Has he bought you a ring yet?” “What’s the matter with you, Tate?” Cecily asked with a cold smile. “Feeling…crabby?” His eyes smoldered as he glared at her. “What did you give Holden to get that job at the museum?” he asked with pure malice. Anger at the vicious insinuation caused her to draw back her hand holding the half-full coffee cup, and Colby caught her wrist smoothly before she could sling the contents at the man towering over her. Tate ignored Colby. “Don’t make that mistake again,” he said in a voice so quiet it was barely audible. He looked as if all his latent hostilities were waiting for an excuse to turn on her. “If you throw that cup at me, so help me, I’ll carry you over and put you down in the punch bowl!” “You and the CIA, maybe!” Cecily hissed. “Go ahead and try…!” Tate actually took a step toward her just as Colby managed to get between them. “Now, now,” he cautioned. Cecily wasn’t backing down an inch. Neither was Tate.

This mix of coldness and warmth produced in Einstein a wry detachment as he floated through the human aspects of his world. “My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and communities,” he reflected. “I am truly a ‘lone traveler’ and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude.

Comedy is tragedy plus x, with x being an amount of time defined by the person experiencing the tragedy. Some people need less time than others. I joked about Dad’s death as it was happening. But that gave some friends the impression they could join in . No . My dad, my jokes. A Facebook friend posted one day after Dad died: “Welcome to the Dead Dad Club.” I hated him instantly. He was an Early Orphan. I scrolled through his profile pictures, I saw smiles . Life had gone on for him. I didn’t want to be in his stupid club, I didn’t want to read his wry asides.

It was this: Gansey starting down the stairs to the kitchen, Blue starting up, meeting in the middle. It was Gansey stepping aside to let her pass, but changing his mind. He caught her arm and then the rest of her. She was warm, alive, vibrant beneath the thin cotton; he was warm, alive vibrant beneath his. Blue slid her hand over his bare shoulder and then onto his chest, her palm spread out flat on his breastbone, her fingers pressed curiously into his skin. "I thought you would be hairier," she whispered. "Sorry to disappoint. The legs have a bit more going on." "Mine too." It was this: laughing senselessly into each other's skin, playing, until it was abruptly no longer play, and Gansey stopped himself with his mouth perilously close to hers, and Blue stopped herself with her belly pressed close to his. It was this: Gansey saying, "I like you an awful lot, Blue Sargent." It was this: Blue's smile--crooked, wry, ridiculous, flustered. There was a lot of happiness tucked into the corner of that smile, and even though her face was several inches from Gansey, some of it still spilled out and got on him. She put her finger on his cheek where he knew his own smile was dimpling it, and then they took each other's hands, and they climbed back up together. It was this: this moment and no other moment, and for the first time that Gansey could remember, he knew what it would feel like to be present in his own life.

Eragon and the others walked as quietly as they could, but the tunnel magnified sounds. Every bump and scrape echoed, filling the air with a multitude of overlapping whispers that seemed to murmur and sigh with a life of their own. The whispers made Eragon feel as if they were surrounded by a host of disembodied spirits who were commenting on their every move. So much for sneaking up on anyone, he thought as he scuffed his boot against a rock, which bounced against the side of the tunnel with a loud clack that multiplied a hundredfold as it spread through the tunnel. “Sorry,” he mouthed as everyone looked at him. A wry smile touched his lips. At least we know what causes the strange sounds underneath Dras-Leona.

So small footprint yet the shovelling jealous sea has not erased it. You were for me the necessary exemplary figure of dedication and endurance. Whatever your inner life truly was it was ardently pursued. You observed with acute imagination. When you spoke you drove to the heart of things though sometimes through wry indirection. You manifested the value of the life dedicated to an art. Whatever terrors you underwent they may have been very great you did not evince them. You were never indecent. Of course in making this thing about you or around you I am talking about my youth and homesick for it. But that is not the point. The point is that at one time in one place I met someone who became to me a living conscience.

5. Be the Most Enthusiastic Person You Know My mum and dad gave me a few bits of great advice as a young boy (along with a fair amount of scolding for being an idiot, but that’s another story!), but there is one thing my late father told me that has affected my outlook and approach to life more than almost anything else, and it was this: If you can be the most enthusiastic person you know, then you won’t go far wrong. It was always said to me with a wry smile, as if I was being told something of infinite power. And he was right. Enthusiasm so often makes the critical difference: it sustains you when times are tough, it encourages those around you, it is totally infectious and it rapidly becomes a habit! In turn, that enthusiasm adds the extra 5 per cent sparkle to everything we do - and life is so often won or lost in that little extra bit that carries us home over the finish line.

There is a good deal of the Nietzschean standpoint in this verse. It is the evolutionary and natural view. Of what use is it to perpetuate the misery of tuberculosis, and such diseases, as we now do? Nature's way is to weed out the weak. This is the most merciful way, too. At present all the strong are being damaged, and their progress hindered by the dead weight of the weak limbs and the missing limbs, the diseased limbs and the atrophied limbs. The Christians to the Lions! Our humanitarianism, which is the syphilis of the mind, acts on the basis of the lie that the King must die. The King is beyond death; it is merely a pool where he dips for refreshment. We must therefore go back to Spartan ideas of education; and the worst enemies of humanity are those who wish, under the pretext of compassion, to continue its ills through the generations. The Christians to the Lions! Let weak and wry productions go back into the melting-pot, as is done with flawed steel castings. Death will purge, reincarnation make whole, these errors and abortions. Nature herself may be trusted to do this, if only we will leave her alone. But what of those who, physically fitted to live, are tainted with rottenness of soul, cancerous with the sin-complex? For the third time I answer: The Christians to the Lions! Hadit calls himself the Star, the Star being the Unit of the Macrocosm; and the Snake, the Snake being the symbol of Going or Love, the Dwarf-Soul, the Spermatozoon of all Life, as one may phrase it. The Sun, etc., are the external manifestations or Vestures of this Soul, as a Man is the Garment of an actual Spermatozoon, the Tree sprung of that Seed, with power to multiply and to perpetuate that particular Nature, though without necessary consciousness of what is happening. (―New Comment on Liber AL vel Legis III:48)

Trina, I never expected to fall in love again. I thought I got my shot, and I was okay with that, because I had my girls. I didn’t realize anything was missing. Then came you.” Ms. Rothschild’s hands are covering her mouth. She has tears in her eyes. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Trina.” Ms. Rothschild starts choking on her candy, and Daddy leaps up off his knee and starts pounding her on the back. She’s coughing like crazy. From his tree Peter whispers, “Should I go do the Heimlich on her? I know how to do it.” “Peter, my dad’s a doctor!” I whisper back. “He’s got it.” As her coughing subsides, she stands up straight and wipes her eyes. “Wait. Were you asking me to marry you?” “I was trying to,” Daddy says. “Are you all right?” “Yes!” She claps her hands to her cheeks. “Yes, you’re all right, or yes, you’ll marry me?” Daddy asks her, and he’s only half kidding. “Yes, I’ll marry you!” she screams, and Daddy reaches for her, and they kiss. “This feels private,” I whisper to Kitty. “It’s all part of the show,” she whispers back. Daddy hands Ms. Rothschild the ring box. I can’t quite make out what he says next, but whatever it was, it makes her double over laughing. “What’s he saying?” Kitty asks me, just as Peter says, “What did he say?” “I can’t hear! Both of you be quiet! You’re ruining the video!” Which is when Ms. Rothschild looks over in our direction. Shoot. We all pop back behind our respective trees, and then I hear Daddy’s wry voice call out, “You can come out, guys. She said yes!” We run out from behind the trees; Kitty launches herself into Ms. Rothschild’s arms. They fall over onto the grass, and Ms. Rothschild is laughing breathlessly, her laughter echoing through the woods. I hug Daddy, and meanwhile Peter’s still playing videographer, recording the moment for posterity like the good boyfriend he is. “Are you happy?” I ask, looking up at my dad. His eyes brimming with tears, he nods and hugs me tighter. And just like that, our little family grows bigger.

Did you ever notice how very fickle males are?” she asked the horse. “And how very foolish females are about them?” she added, aware of how inexplicably deflated she felt. She realized as well that she was being completely irrational-she had not intended to come here, had not wanted him to be waiting, and now she felt almost like crying because he wasn’t! Giving the ribbons of her bonnet an impatient jerk, she untied them. Pulling the bonnet off, she pushed the back door of the cottage open, stepped inside-and froze in shock! Standing at the opposite side of the small room, his back to her, was Ian Thornton. His dark head was slightly bent as he gazed at the cheery little fire crackling in the fireplace, his hands shoved into the back waistband of his gray riding breeches, his booted foot upon the grate. He’d taken off his jacket, and beneath his soft lawn shirt his muscles flexed as he withdrew his right hand and shoved it through the side of his hair. Elizabeth’s gaze took in the sheer male beauty of his wide, masculine shoulders, his broad back and narrow waist. Something in the somber way he was standing-added to the fact that he’d waited more than two hours for her-made her doubt her earlier conviction that he hadn’t truly cared whether she came or not. And that was before she glanced sideways and saw the table. Her heart turned over when she saw the trouble he’d taken: A cream linen tablecloth covered with crude china, obviously borrowed from Charise’s house. In the center of the table a candle was lit, and a half-empty bottle of wine stood beside a platter of cold meat and cheese. In all her life Elizabeth had never known that a man could actually arrange a luncheon and set a table. Women did that. Women and servants. Not men who were so handsome they made one’s pulse race. It seemed she’d been standing there for several minutes, not mere seconds, when he stiffened suddenly, as if sensing her presence. He turned, and his harsh face softened with a wry smile: “You aren’t very punctual.” “I didn’t intend to come,” Elizabeth admitted, fighting to recover her balance and ignore the tug of his eyes and voice. “I got caught in the rain on my way to the village.” “You’re wet.” “I know.” “Come over by the fire.” When she continued to watch him warily, he took his foot off the grate and walked over to her. Elizabeth stood rooted to the floor, while all of Lucinda’s dark warnings about being alone with a man rushed through her mind. “What do you want?” she asked him breathlessly, feeling dwarfed by his towering height. “Your jacket.” “No-I think I’d like to keep it on.” “Off,” he insisted quietly. “It’s wet.” “Now see here!” she burst out backing toward the open door, clutching the edges of her jacket. “Elizabeth,” he said with reassuring calm, “I gave you my word you’d be safe if you came today.” Elizabeth briefly closed her eyes and nodded, “I know. I also know I shouldn’t be here. I really ought to leave. I should, shouldn’t I?” Opening her eyes again, she looked beseechingly into his-the seduced asking the seducer for advice. “Under the circumstances, I don’t think I’m the one you ought to ask.

Few authors have captivated the American penchant for curiosity like Samuel Longhorne Clemens. Many have called his cantankerous alter ego, Mark Twain, the greatest American humorist-philosopher of his age-if not of all times. With his wry observations and forthright humor-unleashed in his particularly pithy paragraphs-Mark Twain became one of the most prolific satirists in American literature. The New York Times editorial, reporting of his death on April 22, 1910, said. “ He has been quoted in common conversation oftener, perhaps, than any of his fellow-countrymen, including Benjamin Franklin and Lincoln. In 1909, Mark Twain is quoted as saying, “ I came in with Haley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Haley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.” His prediction was accurate-Mark Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, one day after the comet's closest approach to earth. In Mark Twain's Guide to Audacious Sarcasm-volume 1, Lowell Smith has assembled twenty of the classic cantankerous tales and wry observations of Mark Twain’s celestial career.

Stormy lived more life in one night than most people do their whole lives. She was a force of nature. She taught me that love--” My eyes well up and I start over. “Stormy taught me that love is about making brave choices every day. That’s what Stormy did. She always picked love; she always picked adventure. To her they were one and the same. And now she’s off on a new adventure, and we wish her well.” From his seat on the couch, John wipes his eyes with his sleeve. I give Janette a nod, and she gets up and presses play on the stereo, and “Stormy Weather” fills the room. “Don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky…” After, John shoulders his way over to me, holding two plastic cups of fruit punch. Ruefully he says, “I’m sure she’d tell us to spike it, but…” He hands me a cup, and we clink. “To Edith Sinclair McClaren Sheehan, better known as Stormy.” “Stormy’s real name was Edith? It’s so serious. It sounds like someone who wears wool skirts and heavy stockings, and drinks chamomile tea at night. Stormy drank cocktails!” John laughs. “I know, right?” “So then where did the name Stormy come from? Why not Edie?” “Who knows?” John says, a wry smile on his lips. “She’d have loved your speech.” He gives me a warm, appreciative sort of look. “You’re such a nice girl, Lara Jean.

I want to test him, said Saphira. She slapped her tail against the ground, causing Fírnen to pause. Test him? How? For what? To find out if he has the iron in his bones and the fire in his belly to match me. Are you sure? he asked, understanding her intent. She again slapped her tail against the ground, and he felt her certainty and the strength of her desire. I know everything about him--everything but this. Besides--she displayed a flash of amusement--it’s not as if dragons mate for life. Very well…But be careful. He had barely finished speaking when Saphira lunged forward and bit Fírnen on his left flank, drawing blood and causing Fírnen to snarl and spring backward. The green dragon growled, appearing uncertain of himself, and retreated before Saphira as she prowled toward him. Saphira! Chagrined, Eragon turned to Arya, intending to apologize. Arya did not seem upset. To Fírnen, and to Eragon as well, she said, If you want her to respect you, then you have to bite her in return. She raised an eyebrow at Eragon, and he responded with a wry smile, understanding. Fírnen glanced at Arya and hesitated. He jumped back as Saphira snapped at him again. Then he roared and lifted his wings, as if to make himself appear larger, and he charged Saphira--and nipped her on a hind leg, sinking his teeth into her hide. The pain Saphira felt was not pain. Saphira and Fírnen resumed circling, growling and yowling with increasing volume. Then Fírnen jumped at her again. He landed on Saphira’s neck and bore her head to the ground, where he held her pinned and gave her a pair of playful bites at the base of her skull. Saphira did not struggle as fiercely as Eragon would have expected, and he guessed that she had allowed Fírnen to catch her, as it was not something even Thorn had managed to do. “The courting of dragons is no gentle affair,” he said to Arya. “Did you expect soft words and tender caresses?” “I suppose not.” With a heave of her neck, Saphira threw Fírnen off and scrambled backward. She roared and clawed at the ground with her forefeet, and then Fírnen lifted his head toward the sky and loosed a rippling pennant of green fire twice the length of his own body. “Oh!” exclaimed Arya, sounding delighted. “What?” “That’s the first time he has breathed fire!

And then it sends a signal to turn off the system.” “So the universe with the wallet in the chamber waiting to be sent still exists,” added Allen. “But the universe from which it is actually sent never does.”  “That is just so messed up,” said Blake in exasperation, and Jenna, Walsh, and Soyer nodded their agreement. “Here is my advice to all of you,” said Cargill. “The best thing to do is ignore time travel, and don’t think about the paradoxes too hard. If you do, your head really will explode,” he added with a wry smile. “Just think of it as duplication and teleportation. But always keep in mind that the universe seems to go out of its way to ensure that infinite alternate timelines aren’t allowed. So no matter what, we only ever get this one universe.” He sighed. “So we’d better make sure we don’t screw it up.”     48   Brian Hamilton hated Cheyenne Mountain. Sure, it was one of the most interesting places in the world to visit, but living there only worked if you were a bat. The Palomar facility had also been underground, but nothing like this. It had a much larger security perimeter, so trips to the surface were easier to make happen. Not that it really mattered. Soon enough he would be traveling on another assignment anyway, living in a hotel room somewhere. But what he really wanted was to work side by side with Edgar Knight, toward their common goal. He was tired of being Knight’s designated spy, having to watch Lee Cargill squander Q5’s vast resources and capabilities. Watching him crawl like a wounded baby when he could be soaring. Cargill was an idiot. He could transform the world, but he was too weak to do it. He could wipe out the asshole terrorists who wanted nothing more than to butcher the helpless. If you have the ultimate cure for cancer, you use it to wipe out the disease once and for all. You don’t wield your cure only as a last resort, when the cancer has all but choked the life out of you. Edgar Knight, on the other hand, was a man with vision. He was able to make the tough decisions. If you were captain of a life raft with a maximum capacity of ten people, choosing to take five passengers of a sinking ship on board was an easy decision, not a heroic one. But what about when there were fifty passengers? Was it heroic to take them all, dooming everyone to death? Or was the heroic move using force, if necessary, to limit this number, to ensure some would survive? Sure, from the outside this looked coldhearted, while the converse seemed compassionate. But watching the world circle the drain because you were too much of a pussy to make the hard decisions was the real crime. Survival of the fittest was harsh reality. In the animal kingdom it was eat or be eaten. If you saw a group of fuck-nuts just itching to nuke the world back into the Dark Ages—who believed the Messiah equivalent, the twelfth Imam, would only come out to play when Israel was destroyed, and worldwide Armageddon unleashed—you wiped them out. To a man. Or else they’d do the same to you. It had been three days since Cargill had reported that he was on the verge of acquiring Jenna Morrison and Aaron Blake.

I want you to be happy. Eat it.” A wry smile curved Rose’s lips. “Am I to find happiness in a piece of chocolate cake?” Eve already had a forkful en route to her mouth. “I stake my reputation on it.” “Oh,” she replied dryly. “Surely heaven is just a bite away.” “Speaking of heaven,” Eve said a few minutes later when Rose thought she might expire from the bliss the dessert inspired, “tell me about your evening at Saint’s Row.” “Shh!” Her paranoid gaze darted around to see if anyone had overheard, but there was no one standing close enough to their whitewashed bench. “Don’t shush me, Rose Danvers. I’m your best friend and you’ve kept me waiting four whole days! I demand details.” Cheeks flushed, Rose stared at the half-eaten cake on her plate. Eve’s timing might leave something to be desired, but at least she’d stopped Rose from eating the entire slice. “What do you want to know?” Eve’s expression was incredulous. “Everything, of course.” Then, as though realizing who she was talking to, she sighed. “Did you find him?” Rose nodded. “I did.” The fire in her cheeks burned hotter, and she looked away. “Oh, Eve!” Her friend grabbed her wrist, clattering fork against plate. “That arse didn’t hurt you did he?” “No!” Then lowering her voice, “And he’s not an arse.” Using such rough language made her feel daring and bold. The scowl on Eve’s face eased. “Then…he was good to you?” Rose nodded, leaning closer. “It was the most amazing experience of my life.” The blonde giggled, bringing her head nearer to Rose’s. “Tell me everything.” So Rose did, within reason, looking up every once in awhile to make sure no one could hear. Afterward, when she was finished, Eve looked at her with a peculiar expression. “It sounds wonderful.” “It was.” Eve’s ivory brow tightened. “So, why do you sound so…disappointed?” Rose sighed. “It’s going to sound so pathetic, but when I saw Grey the next day he didn’t recognize me.” “But I thought you didn’t want him to know it was you.” Rose laughed darkly. “I don’t. That’s the rub of it.” She turned to more fully face her friend. “But part of me wanted him to realize it was me, Eve. I wanted him to see me as a woman, not as his responsibility or burden.” “I’m sure he doesn’t view you as any such thing.” Shaking her head Rose set the plate of cake aside, her appetite gone for good. "I thought this scheme would make everything better, and it's only made things worse." Worse because her feelings for Grey hadn't lessened as she'd hoped they might, they'd only deepened. Eve worried her upper lip with her bottom teeth. "Are you going to meet him again?" Another shake of her head, vehement this time. "No." "But. Rose, he wants to see you." "Not me, her." This was said with a bit more bitterness than Rose was willing to admit. He might have whispered her name, but it wasn't her he wanted to meet. Eve chuckled. "But you are her." She squeezed her wrist again. "Rose, don't you see? You're who he wants to see again, whether he knows it was you or not." Rose hadn't looked at it that way. She wasn't quite convinced her friend was right, but it was enough to make her doubt her own conclusions. She shook her head again. Blast, but she was making herself lightheaded. "I just don't know." "You'll figure it out," Eve allowed. "You always do.

Sean was watching me, though. And Sean wiped the bryozoa residue from his hand across my stomach. This was the third time a boy had ever touched my bare tummy, and I’d had enough. Through gritted teeth, like any extra movement might spread the bryozoa further across my skin, I told him, “I like you less than I did.” I bailed over the side of the boat-the side opposite where the bryozoa returned to its native habitat. Deep in the warm water, I scrubbed at my tummy with both hands. A combination of bryozoa waste and Sean germs: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Leaning toward worst, because now I had slime on my hands. Or maybe this was psychosomatic. Holding my hands open in front of me in the water, I didn’t see any slime. I rubbed my hands together anyway. Something dove into the water beside me in a rush of bubbles. I came up for air. Sean surfaced, too, tossing sparkling drops of water from his hair. “You still like me a lot, though, right?” “No prob. Green is the new black.” Giving up on getting clean, I swam a few strokes back toward the platform to get out again. What I needed was a shower with chlorinated water and disinfectant soap. I might need to bubble out my belly button with hydrogen peroxide. “What if I made it up to you?” He splashed close behind me. “What if I helped you get clean? We don’t want you dirty.” He moved both hands around me under the water, up and down across my tummy. It was the fourth time a boy had touched my tummy! And it was very awkward. He bobbed so close behind me that I had a hard time treading water without kicking him. I needed to choose between flirting and breathing. Cameron and my brother leaned over the side of the boat and gaped at us, which didn’t help matters. I’d been afraid of this. Flirting with Sean was no fun if the other boys acted like we were lepers. Well, okay, it was fun, but not as fun as it was supposed to be. Obviously I would need to give McGullicuddy the little dolphin talk. I wasn’t sure I could do this with Cameron-Cameron and I didn’t have heart-to-heart convos-but I might need to make an exception, if he continued to watch us like we were a dirty movie on Pay-Per-View (which I’d also seen a lot of. Life with boys). BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE- Sean and I started and turned toward the boat. Still behind the steering wheel, Adam had his chin in his hand and his elbow on the horn. -EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Damn it! I turned around to face Sean and gave him a wry smile, but he’d already taken his hands away from my tummy. The horn really ruined the mood. -EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Sean hauled himself up onto the platform. I followed close behind him, and (glee!) he put out a hand to help me. Cameron and my brother yelled at Adam. -EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. “Oh!” Adam said as if he’d had no idea he’d been laying on the horn. He looked at his elbow like it belonged to someone else. I was in the boat with Sean now, and he was still holding my hand. Or, maybe I was still clinging to his hand, but this is a question of semantics. In any case, I pulled him by the hand past the other boys to the bow. We didn’t have privacy. There was no privacy on a wakeboarding boat. At least we had the boat’s windshield between us and the others. As I turned to sit down on the bench, I stuck out my tongue at Adam behind the windshield. He crossed his eyes at me.

The Dark Ages are alive and secretly thriving like a herpes infection among us.

Yeah, sorry, I’m fine. It was just a bit weird to see Tom and Penny again,’ Otto said with a sigh. ‘It just seems so long ago, you know, life before this place. Sometimes I feel like I’m never going to see the real world again. That I’m never going to leave. Do you know what I mean?’ ‘Of course I do,’ Laura said. ‘I’m sure we all feel like that sometimes but there’s going to be a life after H.I.V.E. you know. For all of us.’ ‘Assuming we survive till then,’ Otto said with a wry smile. ‘Well, there is that,’ Laura said, ‘although it’s been several months since anyone tried to kill us so that has to be a good sign.’ ‘And yet here we are working on a device that will probably end up getting us killed. It’ll either explode or Doctor Nero will catch us with it. Either way we’re dead,’ Otto said cheerily. ‘I’ll have you know that there’s a remarkably low chance of this exploding,’ Laura said with mock indignation. ‘If you’d designed it on the other hand, well, then we might as well be playing hopscotch in a minefield.’ ‘Ouch, suppose I asked for that,’ Otto said with a grin.

Stay clear of anyone—other than a clergyman—who refers to God more than once in an hour One sees a growing number of professional moralists who appear on TV telling people what God wants of them. If these folks are right about God, it is splendid news, and one should follow them as if they were Moses. If, however, they have misinterpreted God's wishes—about political candidates, free expression, human reproduction, and other issues on which He is said to be communicating His opinions to a select few—or if these professional moralists have mistaken God's voice for, say, Elvis's, then paying attention to them may only lead to divine trouble. Better to play it safe and avoid such people. The danger in hanging around them is that God may be tired of listening to them misrepresent Him and decide to revert to His old bad-tempered tricks with locusts and floods. Of course, this being the 21st century, He may have refined His arsenal so that He can pick off only the offenders and leave the rest of us unharmed. But I would not count on this. God is good, but He may not be that good. ***

Truman Capote on Jack Kerouac: "That's not writing, it's typing.

Goodness knows what Maxwell would make of our current relish for watching people indulging in histrionic self-exposure on television. He would certainly have a wry smile at the irony of the fact that his own electromagnetic theory provides the means of bringing such unwholesome displays into our homes.

Over the last few years the counselling, the friendships and the holistic therapies she has embraced have enabled her to win back her personality, a character which has been smothered by her husband, the royal system, and the public’s expectations towards their fairy-tale princess. The woman behind the mask is not a flighty, skittish young thing nor a vision of saintly perfection. She is, however, a much quieter, introverted and private person than many would like to believe. As Carolyn Bartholomew says: “She has never liked the media although they’ve been friends to her. Actually she has always been shy of them.” As she has matured over the last three years the physical changes in her have been noticeable. When she asked Sam McKnight to cut her hair in a shorter sportier style it was a public statement of the way she felt she had altered. Her voice, too, is a barometer of the way she has matured. When she speaks of the “dark ages”, her tone is flat and soft, almost fading to nothing, as though dredging thoughts from a dim recess of her heart which she only visits with trepidation. When she is feeling “centered”. And in charge of herself her voice is lively, colourful and brimming with wry amusement. When Oonagh Toffolo first visited Diana at Kensington Palace in September 1989 she observed that the Princess was timid and would never look her straight in the eye. She says: “Over the last two years she has got in touch with her own nature and has found a new confidence and sense of liberation which she had never known before.” Her observation is borne out by others. As one friend who first met Diana in 1989 recalls: “My initial impression was of a very shy and retiring person. She bowed her head low and hardly looked at me when she spoke. Diana emanated such sadness and vulnerability that I just wanted to give her a hug. She has matured enormously since that time. She now has a purpose in life and is no longer the lost soul of that first meeting.

When I asked May how long she had been feeling disengaged, her first answer was “I’m going through this now.” Before I could get out my next question, she choked off a wry laugh and said, “Looking back, I think it’s been going on all seven years here, stemming from soulless work.” She actually felt a sense of unease dating back to her first day on the job when she went home that night and told herself, “This work just isn’t my passion.” Tamping down those feelings, and giving in to her fears, May stayed—hopefully for only a limited time—but just for the money she desperately needed. It wasn’t the work that caused these feelings of disengagement per se, but more the feeling that she was not where she was supposed to be. While she went about doing her job with a smile on her face, her inner voice kept saying, “This isn’t right.” May felt like she had developed Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) in her current role because her body needed, in fact craved, movement. She couldn’t seem to focus. For May, the underlying cause of disengagement was a strong feeling that her job didn’t align with her core values—the essence of who she is. As she searched to name her feelings and how to deal with the overwhelming sadness across the years, she talked to friends, hired coaches, learned new skills, and most importantly built an escape route. But she still felt angst and isolation. Finally, she approached her boss and indicated she was about to blow like a volcano. That was the catalyst for change. May knew it was time to listen to her inner voice and leave this job when the right opportunity presented itself. Although she hasn’t left yet, the fact that she has an escape plan has made the waiting so much easier, just knowing there is an out. May’s message to others struggling with this disease is to know you are not alone, don’t give up on your dream, keep the faith, and it will eventually lead you to a sunnier side of the street.

If you do not write the thoughts of the moments, it is lost forever.

With wry irony, Alfred Edward Housman (1859–1936) advises preparing oneself for a world that may contain “much good, but much less good than ill.” Escapist solutions such as drink (Burton-on-Trent, mentioned in the second stanza, is a famous English brewing town) offer only the false answer of illusion. The best tack, Housman says, is to “train for ill and not for good,” and thereby steel oneself against all the unfairness life has to offer. And so he suggests as a model Mithridates, king of ancient Pontus in Asia Minor, who made himself immune to poison by swallowing small doses every day. There’s a bit of cynicism in this poem, but there’s also a good measure of hard truth: we must practice bracing ourselves for all of life’s contingencies.

It’s true!’ he’d smile, coyly, and usually he was right, if unable to balance humanity’s cruelty, corruption and selfishness with even a scintilla of its compassion, intelligence or happiness, other than a melancholy nostalgia for the carefree joys of childhood. If his then comically wry nihilism would become, soon enough, the calcified cynicism which killed him, he was also softly spoken, peculiarly gentle, his lilting Welsh timbre the lightness through the foreboding darkness of most everything he had to say.

If someone gets a better opportunity than what you get, never feel bad, sad or feel jealous about it. Simply concentrate on your life and keep working hard and you will definitely get your chance to prove yourself. Keep your hopes alive, opportunities will knock your door.

Not too bad,” Dragir replied, and he ran his hand over one of the glaives he’d given me. “My father is stepping down from his position as head of our House, so I will be taking his place very soon.” “No shit?” I asked. “I hope his health isn’t declining again.” “No, he is more energetic than ever,” Dragir informed me with a wry look. “With Deya gone, he seems to have found a new passion in his life. Now, he spends all day behaving like a tyrant. Even the warriors avoid going near him. I suggested he spend some time at the caves by the sea to recollect himself, and he barred me from my own home for opening my mouth. It is of no concern, though. I prefer the caves anyways.” “Shit,” I muttered. “He’s pretty pissed at me then?” “Yes and no.” The elf shrugged

I want everything,' she replied with a faint, wry smile. 'You know I said that once, to a friend of mine, and he told me that the real trick in life is to want nothing, and to succeed in getting it.

Attila gave a small wry smile. ‘I’m not being cynical, just realistic. War is in the blood of humans. The kind of people who torture and rape during war, they’re always among us, every time you walk down a busy street you’re passing killers waiting to kill. War gives them licence. We tell ourselves people are ordinarily good, but where’s the proof of that? There are no ordinarily good people, just a lot of people who’ve never been offered the opportunity to be anything else. As for the rest, the followers and foot soldiers – well, you can’t imprison half a nation. For them and for everyone else life carries on, only not quite as before.

But now I want that time. My mind closes around memories of her, the feel of her hands in my hair, her cheek on my chest, her voice in my ear, her breath in my mouth. It's so classic. I've spent most of my life wanting to die and now that I am, I don't want to anymore. I manage a small, wry smile. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.

The meanness that first bothered me, though, when I encountered it a decade ago, long before I was married, was in a short story in Pigeon Feathers in which a young husband returns with hamburgers and eats them happily with his family in front of the fire, and thinks lovingly of his wife’s Joyceanly “smackwarm” thighs, and then, in the next paragraph, says as narrator (the “you” directed at the narrator’s wife), “In the morning, to my relief, you are ugly.… The skin between your breasts is a sad yellow.” And a little later, “Seven years have worn this woman.” This hit me as inexcusably brutal when I read it. I couldn’t imagine Updike’s real, nonfictional wife reading that paragraph and not being made very unhappy. You never know, though; the internal mechanics of marriages are shielded from us, and maybe in the months after that story came out the two of them enjoyed a wry private joke whenever they went to a party and she wore a dress with a high neckline and they noticed some interlocutor’s gaze drop to her breasts and they saw together the little knowing look cross his unpleasantly salacious features as he thought to himself, Ho ho: high neckline to cover up all that canary-yellow, eh? Updike knows that people are going to assume that the fictional wife of an Updike-like male character corresponds closely with Updike’s own real-life wife — after all, Updike himself angered Nabokov by suggesting that Ada was Vera. How can Updike have the whatever, the disempathy, I used frequently to ask myself, and ask myself right now, to put in print that his wife appeared ugly to him that morning, especially in so vivid a way? It just oughtn’t to be done! It makes us readers imagine her speculating as she read it: “Which morning was he thinking that? He sat at the kitchen table eating breakfast and thinking I was ugly and worn! And I had no idea.

Dear Lord, you are a vampire,” Eva gasped, then covered her mouth to keep the wayward thing from spouting any other unwanted revelations. Connall stiffened, his eyes shooting to her face. He had the oddest expression on his face, she noted. He looked . . . scared? Nay, apprehensive was a better description, and Eva had to wonder why he was looking so apprehensive when he was the soulless— Nay, not soulless, she reminded herself, recalling their conversation from the night before. He was not dead, nor soulless, he had assured her and he did not kill those he bit. Connall had described himself as just different and while Eva thought that was something of an understatement, she reassured herself with that information, now. He was just different, still her husband, the kind, sweet, gentle man who had treated her as if she had value, and shown her such consideration, as well as taught her passion. Nothing else had changed, she reminded herself as her head began to spin. He was the clan chief of the MacAdie, and her husband. And really, as flaws went, vampirism was much more pleasant to deal with than his being a wife beater or some such thing. Wasn’t it? “Dear Lord,” Eva breathed, shaking her head at her own thoughts, then she glanced to Connall again. He was uncharacteristically silent, his attention focused on her with an intensity that made her nervous. Her husband hadn’t said a word since she’d blurted that he was a vampire and it was making her uncomfortable enough to start searching her mind for a way to make him leave. “If you have things to do, you need not trouble yourself to wait here for me to finish eating. I can manage well enough on my own,” she murmured at last, though the food was all gone. “Tis no trouble to be with ye,” he said with a frown and there was sudden anger on his face. “Yer no a burden to me, Eva, ye ne’er ha’e been and ne’er will be. Dear God, ye saved me life this morn, woman, no once, but twice. Ha’e ye no realized yer worth yet?” “I—” Eva shook her head helplessly, confused by the tears suddenly pooling in her eyes. His vehemence was as surprising to her as the words themselves. She had saved his life that morning. She’d driven the intruder off with the log, then . . . well all right, the feeding bit wasn’t that impressive. Anyone would have done in that instance, but she had fended off the intruder. “Ye’ve courage and beauty and intelligence and are a worthy wife. E’en a king would ha’e pride in claimin’ ye to wife. I have felt nothing but pride in claimin’ ye meself.” “Despite my bein’ accident prone?” she teased with a wry twist of the lips. “Yer accidents are a result o’ tryin’ too hard to earn a place here,” he said quietly. “But ’tis only because you doonae realize ye already ha’e a place here. Yer the Lady MacAdie. My wife.” Eva swallowed, her gaze dropping from his at those words. They made her heart ache for some reason. “Why do ye look away? Do ye hate me now?” Eva glanced back up with surprise. “What?” “Now that ye know what I am?” he explained. “Will ye be wantin’ an annulment? Beggin’ to be set free? Wid ye rather a mortal man to husband? Should I take ye back to Caxton?” Eva stared at him in horror, fear clutching at her heart at the very idea of what he suggested.

I am cross with Christopher,” Beatrix told Amelia in the afternoon, as they strolled arm in arm along the graveled paths behind Ramsay House. “And before I tell you about it, I want to make it clear that there is only one reasonable side of the issue. Mine.” “Oh, bother,” Amelia said sympathetically. “Husbands do make one cross at times. Tell me your side, and I will agree completely.” Beatrix began by explaining about the calling card left by the Colonel Fenwick, and Christopher’s subsequent behavior. Amelia sent Beatrix a wry sideways smile. “I believe these are the problems that Christopher took pains to warn you about.” “That’s true,” Beatrix admitted. “But that doesn’t make it any easier to contend with. I love him madly. But I see how he struggles against certain thoughts that jump into his head, or reflexes that he tries to suppress. And he won’t discuss any of it with me. I’ve won his heart, but it’s like owning a house in which most of the doors are permanently locked. He wants to shield me from all unpleasantness. And it’s not really marriage--not like the marriage you have with Cam--until he’s willing to share the worst of himself as well as the best of himself.” “Men don’t like to put themselves at risk in that way,” Amelia said. “One has to be patient.” Her tone became gently arid, her smile rueful. “But I can assure you, dear…no one is ever able to share only the best of himself.” Beatrix gave her a brooding glance. “No doubt I’ll provoke him into some desperate act before long. I push and pry, and he resists, and I’m afraid that will be the pattern of our marriage for the rest of my life.” Amelia smiled at her fondly. “No marriage stays in the same pattern forever. It is both the best feature of marriage and the worst, that it inevitably changes. Wait for your chance, dear. I promise it will come.

Soon after DIVA’s recruitment, Nate had committed the unthinkable operational transgression by sleeping with her. Risking everything. Risking her, his agent’s life. Risking a career that kept him whole and independent, risking the work that defined him. But her blue eyes and edgy temper and wry smile had blinded him. Her ballerina’s body was matchless and responsive. Her passion for her country and her rage at those who coveted power had him in awe of her. And he could still hear the way she said his name—Neyt. Their lovemaking had been drastic, clutching, urgent, guilty. They were professional intelligence officers and both knew how badly they were behaving. Typically, Dominika didn’t care. As a woman, she desired him outside the limits of the agent–case officer relationship. Nate could not—would not—commit to such an arrangement, for he worried about his standing, about operational security, about tradecraft. The irony of the situation was not lost on either of them: The hidebound Russian was more willing to break the rules to feed their passion than was the informal, loose-limbed American. But until she reappeared, until he knew she was still alive, Nate had a new Russian to handle.

You must also remember the yellow-hair may give you many more children than a Comanche woman. Take care or you could father more children than you can feed. I’ve never seen a white woman yet who wasn’t a good breeder.” A slow grin spread across Hunter’s mouth. “You will tell her this, yes? So far she isn’t showing the proper enthusiasm.” “She’ll come around. Give her time. Be patient. The rewards will be worth the wait.” Hunter tossed aside the poker and rose. “I will think long on your words.” “You sound like a man with eyes going two different directions. What maiden in the village entices you?” “There is no one.” “Hmmph. Bullheaded, just as I suspected. I used to hope you might outgrow it. I see you never will.” “I have the strongest arm in my lodge circle. Her pouting will not sway me. If that’s being bullheaded, then I sure enough am.” Many Horses rolled his eyes. “You think my arm is not the strongest?” “I think you should fight your battles with men on the battlefield, my son, where you have a chance of winning. That is what I think. But when have you ever listened to me?” He reached for the bow he was so skillfully crafting. “I suppose you must learn life’s lessons your own way.” Choosing to ignore his father’s digs, Hunter said, “It’s a very small bow. Who is it for?” “Turtle,” Many Horses replied with a mischievous smile. “At my age, there is little pleasure in life. It is time I watched my grandson learn to shoot. I and my friends are placing bets. I have two horses that say he will shoot Warrior in the thigh. Old Man thinks it will be in the rump. Want to wager?” Hunter’s smile turned wry. “I don’t think so. If I recall, I told Warrior that I would teach Turtle how to shoot.” Many Horses nodded, then quirked an eyebrow. “So it’s your thigh I’m wagering on, eh? Hmm. Sometime today, bring your yellow-hair by to meet me.” “Why?” “She may want to bet with us.” “My yellow-hair?” Many Horses grinned. “If Turtle aims a little high, think of all the grief he might save her.” Hunter gave a snort of disgust and left the lodge.

It’s a very small bow. Who is it for?” “Turtle,” Many Horses replied with a mischievous smile. “At my age, there is little pleasure in life. It is time I watched my grandson learn to shoot. I and my friends are placing bets. I have two horses that say he will shoot Warrior in the thigh. Old Man thinks it will be in the rump. Want to wager?” Hunter’s smile turned wry. “I don’t think so. If I recall, I told Warrior that I would teach Turtle how to shoot.” Many Horses nodded, then quirked an eyebrow. “So it’s your thigh I’m wagering on, eh? Hmm. Sometime today, bring your yellow-hair by to meet me.” “Why?” “She may want to bet with us.” “My yellow-hair?” Many Horses grinned. “If Turtle aims a little high, think of all the grief he might save her.” Hunter gave a snort of disgust and left the lodge.

One thing I’ve learned, my friend, is every person you meet has different needs, and when we wish to be a valuable part of the person’s life, we must learn them.” His mouth quirked in a wry grin. “I suppose that’s the trick, isn’t it? Caring for a person in the way they require, even when it’s not how we’d wish to. from Miss Whitaker Opens Her Heart

Why is my love for you, dyed in wool? What is the hindrance to moving on? Why in love have I been made a fool? What’s been causing this oblivion? Why is thought of you, ever-present? What’s keeping me from forgetting you? Why is the sight of you magnificent? What’s it you possess than others few? A slow fire burns deep within me, And keeps my curiosity at high I question these puzzles so direly, To philosophy, a pleasure – wry If all life has led me to this point, To make me but a mere proponent Then, from this day to my last moment, Just you and love, are my argument.

It’s not the most uncommon thing in the world. I keep a journal, you know.” Kate looked up. “You do? I never knew that.” “For years and years.” He moved another stack of muffin tins to the sink. She watched as he cleaned one, scraping crust from its edges. “Why? If you don’t mind my asking,” she said. He paused in his scrubbing. “I mean, are you going to do anything with them? Do you love writing?” He looked over his shoulder at her. “It’s not a matter of loving writing. It’s something I need to do. It helps me vent and figure things out. I don’t have to think about anyone else’s feelings or judgments. It’s the one place I really get to have my say.” “Why not just call a friend?” He gave her a wry smile that suggested she’d missed the point in some important way. “ ‘The unexamined life’ and all that, m’dear.” They sat in silence while he drained the sink. “Besides. Who wants to hear all that? Really.

I want everything," she replied with a faint, wry smile. "You know, I said that once, to a friend of mine, and he told me that the real trick in life is to want nothing, and to succeed in getting it.

Sacré, Belle!" Marguerite had exclaimed upon entering, and though the grandeur of the room had never dulled for Belle, it was a treat to see it through Marguerite's eyes, and only made Belle more certain that opening it to the public was the right decision. "I know. It's magnificent, isn't it?" Belle replied dreamily. Marguerite ran her hands along the gilded banisters encircling the spiral staircase. "I've never seen so many books in all my life." She turned back to Belle and gave her a wry grin. "Is it true that your husband simply gave it to you during your courtship?" A blush crept up her neck. She had thought of her time in the castle as many things, but a courtship was never one of them. "Something like that," she admitted. She wondered if she would ever feel close enough to Marguerite to tell her the truth. Marguerite let out an appraising whistle. "No wonder you married him." Belle blushed as she pulled her through the stacks, pointing out favorite books along the way. She ushered Marguerite to her favorite chaise nestled in her favorite alcove. "This spot is best for a gloomy afternoon," Belle told her, pointing to a red velvet settee next to a small fireplace, framed by a window almost as tall as the room itself. "The patter of raindrops on the glass mixed with the warmth of the fire..." "It must be heavenly," said Marguerite. "It is." Marguerite spun back around, head tilted to the ceiling, before collapsing in a heap on the plush carpet and motioning for Belle to join her on the floor. Belle acquiesced, lying down beside her friend and noting the view was even more remarkable from that new vantage.

Before we do anything, here's the first lesson in dessert making: don't stint on any of the good stuff. Fill it up with butter, and cream, and sugar, and fruit. All the things we want loads of but really shouldn't have. It should feel decadent." That's her grandfather talking, of course: "Pudding is an indulgence; it should feel like it," he used to say. She could recall one day, in the kitchen of their house in London, when she was maybe nine or ten, helping her mother frost a birthday cake for one of her sisters (Meg, surely; Julia had given up cake, by that point). Elliott sat on a stool at the kitchen island, watching them, guiding Susan's technique: "Take off just enough of the frosting to give a smooth appearance, but don't scrape it all off. The whole point of cake is the frosting, isn't it? You don't want a bare cake." "Julia would," Susan commented with a wry smile. "Julia doesn't appreciate things like this" was Elliott's response. "Now, now," Susan's mother gently remonstrated with a warning look at her father-in-law. "Well, I worry about Julia," he said. "If you can't indulge in a little cake now and again, what sort of joy do you have in your life? Can you indulge in anything? And yes, cake is an indulgence. You don't need it, but you want it. It should feel celebratory and just a little delightfully naughty when you have it. It's the same with any dessert.

Never miss an opportunity to do nothing

Do not judge others by their dramatic moments—how they may panic or become nasty or wild in a crisis—in contrast to their much different normal behavior.

I look back on that May morning, and on myself at my pretty play‐work, as Eve must have looked back upon the pastimes of Paradise. I am not separated from that time by any great crime, as she was from the period of her happiness; but I think the yearning regret that filled the universal mother's bosom for the lotos‐scented airs that breathed about the banks of those mystic eastern rivers, was akin to the eager longing (never to be gratified now) with which I inhale in fancy the rough western breezes blowing round old Lestrange. I suppose it rained there in those days; I suppose it snowed, and was foggy, and cold, and dreary there in those days as much as other places—perhaps more; but I cannot realize that now. To me it seems as if those gnarled old trees were always crowned with a glory of green leaves; as if those walls were always sunlit; as if the pinks and the sweet peas and the larkspurs flowered there all the year round. I did not think myself particularly happy in those days. That is the worst of this life—one never tastes its sweets while they are in one's mouth; it is only when they are gone, and we are chewing the bitters, and making wry faces over them, that we recognise them for what they were.

Well, you know what they say about motherhood,” Penelope said. “ ‘They’?” Daphne murmured. Penelope paused just long enough to shoot her a wry grin. “The years fly by, and the days are endless.

But it's possible to be wry and somewhat skeptical about the tedious, expensive process of saint-making without losing sight of the person at the center. Without saints, sanctity might be considered only as an abstraction. Saints help us see how a spiritual life can be lived in many different ways and under many different social and historical circumstances.

She floated through gray mists, remembering them from before. Which helped her not fight them. Instead, she accepted the way the mists wrapped her in cocoons of enshrining silk that healed her, as if she were a butterfly, soon to emerge with damp wings and no more duties than kissing flowers. That might be lovely—a life of nothing but the sugar offered by flowers and the sun on her colorful self, bringing a sigh of joy to someone’s lips. “Until a bird snapped you up.” She knew that wry mind-voice, too. Chuffta, her Familiar. Memories came back faster this time, too—good.

The two connoisseurs congratulated each other, then Wingo returned to the Glicca. Professor Gill closed and locked the door. He placed the helmet on a counter. To right and left he arranged a golden candelabrum and reverently put flame to the orange candles. From the depths of a cabinet he brought a squat bottle and a goblet. He unsealed the bottle and poured a thick amber liquid into the goblet; then he pulled up a chair, settled himself to the joy of his acquisition. The universe had been opened to him; he was free to leave this frowsty little town of mad sprang-hoppers and, in dignity and pride, return to the cloisters of academia, where his wry anecdotes of life on Mariah would grace many an intimate little dinner party. Bliss!

Writing reminds me of carving a sculpture. The early rough hewing doesn't look too pretty but is necessary to reveal the chiseled artistry beneath.

If it all goes wrong, a wise-cracking, irreverent-but-devilishly handsome archaeologist with a wry, witty, and sarcastic sense of humor and a fear of snakes won't be swooping in to save us." "Ladies." As if on cue, Jack joined us at the table. He was wearing a perfectly fitted gray button-down shirt beneath his leather jacket, a pair of vintage jeans that hugged his hips, and brown Blundstones that had seen better days. On another man, the look might have been too casual. On him, it was thirst trap sexy. "He's just missing the hat and the whip

Schelling writes the way he speaks: with a wry smile and an impish twinkle in his eye. He wants to make you a bit uncomfortable.* Here, the story of the sick girl is a vivid way of capturing the major contribution of the article. The hospitals stand in for the concept Schelling calls a “statistical life,” as opposed to the girl, who represents an “identified life.” We occasionally run into examples of identified lives at risk in the real world, such as the thrilling rescue of trapped miners. As Schelling notes, we rarely allow any identified life to be extinguished solely for the lack of money. But of course thousands of “unidentified” people die every day for lack of simple things like mosquito nets, vaccines, or clean water.

About the Author Winner of a Robert F. Kennedy Book Prize, a Peabody Award, an Emmy, and two Polk awards, ROGER ROSENBLATT is University Professor of Writing at Long Island University Southampton College. He writes essays for Time magazine and for The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. He lives in Manhattan and Quogue, Long Island.

It didn’t necessarily mean that he’d been awake all night washing away his mother’s blood. She looked under the bed and felt behind the wardrobe. No porn. No girlie posters on the walls. In fact there were no pictures on the walls at all, only a framed certificate from his catering course. What did he do for sex? Probably used the Internet, like most of the UK’s male population. It came to Vera that more than likely he was a virgin. In contrast, Miranda’s room was surprisingly big. Opulent and glamorous in an old-fashioned way. It held a double bed, piled with pillows and silk-covered cushions, in various shades of purple. These seemed to have been artfully arranged – another sign, Vera thought, that Miranda hadn’t been to bed the night before. There was a small wrought-iron grate, just for decoration now. Where the fire would once have been laid stood a candle in a big blue candle-holder, identical to the one on the table on the terrace. Was that significant? Vera tried to remember if she’d seen one like it in the main house. On one side of the chimneybreast, bookshelves had been built into the alcove, and on the other stood a big Victorian wardrobe. There was a dressing table with an ornate framed mirror under the window, and an upholstered stool in front of it. No PC. So what did Miranda do for sex? The question came, unbidden, into her head. Vera sat on the stool and gave a wry smile into the mirror. She knew her team had sometimes asked the same question about her. But not recently. As you got older, folk seemed to think you could do without. This is where Miranda would have sat to prepare herself to meet the residents. Again Vera was reminded of an ageing actress. Her dressing table was scattered with make-up. The woman hadn’t shared her son’s obsession with order and cleanliness. And beyond the mirror there was a view to the coast. It wasn’t possible to see the terrace from here – it was in the shadow of the big house. But the beach was visible. What had Miranda been thinking as she put on her face, as she brushed her hair and held it in place with spray? That her life as a writer was over? Or did she still hope for the big break, the posters on the Underground and the reviews in the Sunday papers? Was she still writing? It seemed to Vera that this question was so important, so fundamental, that she’d been a fool not to consider it before. If Miranda had written a new book, and Tony Ferdinand had offered to help her find a home for it, of course Miranda would be shattered to find him dead. The stabbed body would symbolize her shattered dreams. It wouldn’t be easy for a middle-aged

The opening signature of Frontier Gentleman defined it: Herewith, an Englishman’s account of life and death in the West. As a reporter for the London Times, he writes his colorful and unusual accounts. But as a man with a gun, he lives and becomes a part of the violent years in the new territories. What the signature didn’t say was that Frontier Gentleman was a solid cut above most westerns on radio or television in a western-filled decade. It came in radio’s final years, successfully combining wry insights, humor, suspense, and human interest. As J. B. Kendall roamed the West, his adventures came in all guises and forms. He met nameless drifters, outlaws, and real people from history.

Radio’s Croupier played strongly upon Webster’s definition of the word—an attendant who collects and pays money at a gaming table. The host was omniscient, offering wry commentary on the movements of the characters. I am the Croupier…. I spin the wheel of life…. Madame et monsieur, place your bets! The wheel stops, the ball drops, and a long feminine sigh is heard. Thirteen black! … and the wondrous voice of the male player: I’ve won! It was billed as “man’s eternal conflict with fate,” moments of truth when life itself is sometimes at risk.

68. Cheerfulness In Adversity The Royal Marine Commandos, with whom I worked a lot in my military days, have the phrase ‘Cheerfulness in Adversity’ as one of their founding principles - and it is a great one to live by. It is easy to be cheerful when everything is going like a song, but the real time to be cheerful is when everything is going dead wrong! I remember in the North African desert once, when we were training with the French Foreign Legionnaires, that we had a particularly unpleasant night. The corporals took shifts to ensure that we were woken up every 15 minutes until down. They would burst in and throw our kit all around and out of the windows, turn the beds upside down, empty the lockers into the desert sand, only to do it all over again as soon as we had tidied up. It was a real ball-breaker of a night. But I will never forget one of the recruits, Bobby. At 4:30 a.m., during our darkest, most exhausting hour, when the corporals were in full swing and we had been up all night in the face of this mindless, sleep-defying beasting, Bobby looked at us, smiled and said: ‘Breakfast is comin’!’ There was something about the way he said it, with a wry grin as he set about retrieving his pile of kit from the rafters of the barrack block, that lifted all our spirits like nothing you could imagine. From then on, whenever something has got really tough, I say to myself: ‘Don’t worry- breakfast is comin’!’ And it always makes me smile. You see, Bobby knew that when it gets hard we all have two responses to choose from: to moan, or to put our heads down, smile and get on with it.

You and the Kereseth boy both exasperate me,” Yma said, undoing the clasp on the cloak she had borrowed and lowering the hood. “So eager to throw your lives away.” “It’s not just his life he’s willing to throw away,” I snapped. “It’s mine, too.” “Yes, that was quite a shock, him not saving you,” Yma said. “I wasn’t sure he had the fortitude. I was so concerned I thought about creating it, in him, but I was afraid of the damage I might do in the process.” “Creating it?” I said. “Yes,” she said. “The reason your family has kept me alive so long is that I twist hearts into the shapes of my choosing.” “That,” I said, “explains a lot.” “Does it.” Yma’s tone was wry. “In any case, you are remarkably consistent, Miss Noavek. The boy has been starved, imprisoned, beaten, manipulated, threatened, and shown his friend’s eyeballs in a jar at dinner, and still you think about what he allowed to happen to you.” “Yma,” Teka said, looking sick. “No, no. Let her get it out.” I held my arms wide. “Which am I, then? Irritatingly self-sacrificial, or shockingly self-centered?” “Do I have to choose?

This story of yours had better be worth it,” she said with a wry grin. Chaol smiled back at his wife, at the light he’d unknowingly walked toward his entire life, even when he had not been able to see it. “It is,” he said quietly to Yrene. “It is.

He may as well still be lying where he fell by how deeply his presence is felt, but it isn’t the wry and witty aura he’d cultivated in life. It’s stifling grief. He’d hate it, but an indelible impression isn’t free. When such a light goes out, there is no hiding the dark it leaves behind.

Family?" I asked. "In a sense. And I exhausted all other avenues. Joining this fucking barbaric spectacle was not high up on my list of things I wanted to do with my pathetic never-ending life." His mouth twisted into a wry smile. "I wouldn't even be here if Mische didn't force me into it." My eyebrows leapt. He chuckled and took another drink. "Look at that face. You thought I was the—what was your word?—brute who Turned Mische, carted her around Obitraes for a few hundred years, then dragged that poor, innocent little sunshine sprite halfway across the world to the bloodthirsty Kejari tournament, is that it?" "Yes," I said, without hesitation. "Absolutely." "That fucking girl." He shook his head. "No, this was all her idea. And she knew I'd never let her do it alone.