You Are Owed Nothing Quotes

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

Maybe there were people who lived those lives. Maybe this girl was one of them. But what about the rest of us? What about the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. That was how you survived when you weren’t chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.

The universe owes you nothing...It has already given you everything, after all. It was here long before you, and it will go on long after you. The only way it will remember you is if you do something worthy of remembrance.

Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift.

Unfortunately, some family members are so psychotic that no matter how hard you try to forge a healthy relationship, nothing will help. Now that you're an adult, take refuge in the fact that some things are beyond your control. You owe it to yourself to steer clear of people who are harmful to your health.

He knew what Zoya would say: You are owed nothing. Steel is earned. Remember who you are.

You owe the companies nothing. You especially don't owe them any courtesy. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs.

Life owes you nothing. You owe yourself everything.

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.

And after all this time that you still owe, you're still a good-for nothing I don't know.

Inej almost felt sorry for her. Dunyasha really believed she was the Lantsov heir, and maybe she was. But wasn’t that what every girl dreamed? That she’d wake and find herself a princess? Or blessed with magical powers and a grand destiny? Maybe there were people who lived those lives. Maybe this girl was one of them. But what about the rest of us? What about the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. That was how you survived when you weren’t chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.

You are owed nothing. Steel is earned.

We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. That was how you survived when you weren’t chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.

I’ve always loved you,” he said, his eyes a blue that was almost violet. “You know this.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “I only wonder whether I deserve such devotion.” “Sometimes people fall in love with those who do not return the same strength of feelings. It is as it is,” he said with a quiet intensity. “What I give, I give freely. You owe me nothing, not love, not friendship, not even obligation.

I done learned my mistake and learned to do what's right by it. You still trying to get something for nothing. Life don't owe you nothing. You owe it to yourself. - Troy -

Shahrzad, I've failed you several times. But there was one moment I failed you beyond measure. It was the day we met. The moment I took your hand and you looked at me, with the glory of hate in your eyes. I should have sent you home to your family. But I didn't. There was honesty in your hatred. Fearlessness in your pain. In your honesty, I saw a reflection of myself. Or rather, of the man I longed to be. So I failed you. I didn't stay away. Then later, I thought if I had answers, it would be enough. I would no longer care. You would not matter. So I continued failing you. Continued wanting more. And now I can't find the words to say what must be said. To convey to you the least of what I owe. When I think of you, I can't find the air to breathe. And now, though you are gone, there is no pain or fear. All I am left with is gratitude. When I was a boy, my mother would tell me that one of the best things in life is the knowledge that your story isn't over yet. Our story may have come to a close, but your story is still yet to be told. Make it a story worthy of you. I failed you in one last thing. Here is my chance to rectify it. It was never because I didn't feel it. It was because I swore I would never say it, and a man is nothing if he can't keep his promises. So I write it in the sky- I love you, a thousand times over. And I will never apologize for it. Khalid

You owe me nothing, but I want everything.

He's better-looking then the last vagabond I had to take in," Eddie said, standing and carrying empty bowls to the sink. "I'll give him that." The insult slid off of Bobby like water. "So, you know, kid, according to thief culture, if you're going to court Kat, you now owe me two dozen goats." "It's a dozen," Eddie corrected. "Yeah, but Kat's worth two," Hamish said with a wink. Through it all, Hale said nothing. Then, finally, he smiled. "I'm afraid I'm all out of goats at the moment, but I've got some ruby cuff links you can have." "No." Bobby shook his head. "It's goats or nothing." "Sorry, Kat." Hale shrugged, disappointed. "It was fun while it lasted." "Don't look at me." Kat threw up her hands. "I'm officially ignoring all of you.

don't say no to me you can't say no to me because it's such a relief to have love again and to lie in bed and be held and touched and kissed and adored and your heart will leap when you hear my voice and see my smile and feel my breath on your neck and your heart will race when I want to see you and I will lie to you from day one and use you and screw you and break your heart because you broke mine first and you will love me more each day until the weight is unbearable and your life is mine and you'll die alone because I will take what I want then walk away and owe you nothing it's always there it's always been there and you cannot deny the life you feel fuck that life fuck that life fuck that life I have lost you now.

Where the world comes in my way—and it comes in my way everywhere—I consume it to quiet the hunger of my egoism. For me you are nothing but—my food, even as I too am fed upon and turned to use by you. We have only one relation to each other, that of usableness, of utility, of use. We owe each other nothing, for what I seem to owe you I owe at most to myself. If I show you a cheery air in order to cheer you likewise, then your cheeriness is of consequence to me, and my air serves my wish; to a thousand others, whom I do not aim to cheer, I do not show it.

The world owes you nothing because the universe has already given you everything.

When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.

While this is all very amusing, the kiss that will free the girl is the kiss that she most desires,” she said. “Only that and nothing more.” Jace’s heart started to pound. He met the Queen’s eyes with his own. “Why are you doing this?” … “Desire is not always lessened by disgust…And as my words bind my magic, so you can know the truth. If she doesn’t desire your kiss, she won’t be free.” “You don’t have to do this, Clary, it’s a trick—” (Simon) ...Isabelle sounded exasperated. ‘Who cares, anyway? It’s just a kiss.” “That’s right,” Jace said. Clary looked up, then finally, and her wide green eyes rested on him. He moved toward her... and put his hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him… He could feel the tension in his own body, the effort of holding back, of not pulling her against him and taking this one chance, however dangerous and stupid and unwise, and kissing her the way he had thought he would never, in his life, be able to kiss her again. “It’s just a kiss,” he said, and heard the roughness in his own voice, and wondered if she heard it, too. Not that it mattered—there was no way to hide it. It was too much. He had never wanted like this before... She understood him, laughed when he laughed, saw through the defenses he put up to what was underneath. There was no Jace Wayland more real than the one he saw in her eyes when she looked at him… All he knew was that whatever he had to owe to Hell or Heaven for this chance, he was going to make it count. He...whispered in her ear. “You can close your eyes and think of England, if you like,” he said. Her eyes fluttered shut, her lashes coppery lines against her pale, fragile skin. “I’ve never even been to England,” she said, and the softness, the anxiety in her voice almost undid him. He had never kissed a girl without knowing she wanted it too, usually more than he did, and this was Clary, and he didn’t know what she wanted. Her eyes were still closed, but she shivered, and leaned into him — barely, but it was permission enough. His mouth came down on hers. And that was it. All the self-control he’d exerted over the past weeks went, like water crashing through a broken dam. Her arms came up around his neck and he pulled her against him… His hands flattened against her back... and she was up on the tips of her toes, kissing him as fiercely as he was kissing her... He clung to her more tightly, knotting his hands in her hair, trying to tell her, with the press of his mouth on hers, all the things he could never say out loud... His hands slid down to her waist... he had no idea what he would have done or said next, if it would have been something he could never have pretended away or taken back, but he heard a soft hiss of laughter — the Faerie Queen — in his ears, and it jolted him back to reality. He pulled away from Clary before he it was too late, unlocking her hands from around his neck and stepping back... Clary was staring at him. Her lips were parted, her hands still open. Her eyes were wide. Behind her, Alec and Isabelle were gaping at them; Simon looked as if he was about to throw up. ...If there had ever been any hope that he could have come to think of Clary as just his sister, this — what had just happened between them — had exploded it into a thousand pieces... He tried to read Clary’s face — did she feel the same? … I know you felt it, he said to her with his eyes, and it was half bitter triumph and half pleading. I know you felt it, too…She glanced away from him... He whirled on the Queen. “Was that good enough?” he demanded. “Did that entertain you?” The Queen gave him a look: special and secretive and shared between the two of them. “We are quite entertained," she said. “But not, I think, so much as the both of you.

Love like you owe nothing, and pay in full.

So what can I do now?" she spoke up a minute later. "Nothing," I said. "Just think about what comes before words. You owe that to the dead. As time goes on, you'll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn't, doesn't. Time solves most things. And what time can't solve, you have to solve yourself. Is that too much to ask?" "A little," she said, trying to smile. "Well, of course it is," I said, trying to smile too. "I doubt that this makes sense to most people. But I think I'm right. People die all the time. Life is a lot more fragile than we think. So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets. Fairly, and if posible, sincerely. It's too easy not to make the effort, then weep and wring your hands after the person dies. Personally, I don't buy it." Yuki leaned against the car door. "But that's real hard, isn't it?" she said. "Real hard," I said. "But it's worth trying for.

She tried to kill you, Viola. She tried to blow you up... You don't owe her nothing,' he says. But I feel his arms on me and I'm realizing things don't seem so impossible anymore. I feel Todd touching me and there's anger rising in my gut but it's not at him and I grunt and I pull myself up again, leaning on him to keep me there as I stand. 'I do owe her,' I say. 'I owe her the look on her face when she sees me alive.

You owe reality nothing and the truth about your feelings everything.

I am a free man―and I need my freedom. I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company. What do you want of me? When I have something to say, I put it in print. When I have something to give, I give it. Your prying curiosity turns my stomach! Your compliments humiliate me! Your tea poisons me! I owe nothing to any one. I would be responsible to God alone―if He existed!

Will and Tessa were in the carriage now, and their driver was snapping the reins. 'Do you think there’s a chance for him?' 'A chance for who?' 'Will Herondale. To be happy.' Woolsey sighed gustily and put down his glass. 'Is there a chance for you to be happy if he isn’t?' Magnus said nothing. 'Are you in love with him?' Woolsey asked—all curiosity, no jealousy. Magnus wondered what it was like to have a heart like that, or rather to have no heart at all. 'No,' Magnus said. 'I have wondered that, but no. It is something else. I feel that I owe him. I have heard it said that when you save a life, you are responsible for that life. I feel I am responsible for that boy. If he never finds happiness, I will feel I have failed him. If he cannot have that girl he loves, I will feel I have failed him. If I cannot keep his parabatai by him, I will feel I failed him.

Friendship is a strange animal. It only thrives in voluntary enjoyment of each other's company, in the pleasure of nonobligatory connection. I repeat: You owe me nothing.

There is a great difference between one idler and another idler. There is someone who is an idler out of laziness and lack of character, owing to the baseness of his nature. If you like, you may take me for one of those. Then there is the other kind of idler, the idler despite himself, who is inwardly consumed by a great longing for action who does nothing because his hands are tied, because he is, so to speak, imprisoned somewhere, because he lacks what he needs to be productive, because disastrous circumstances have brought him forcibly to this end. Such a one does not always know what he can do, but he nevertheless instinctively feels, I am good for something! My existence is not without reason! I know that I could be a quite a different person! How can I be of use, how can I be of service? There is something inside me, but what can it be? He is quite another idler. If you like you may take me for one of those.

Before Me you are a slug in the sun. You are privy to a great Becoming and you recognize nothing. You are an ant in the after-birth. It is in your nature to do one thing correctly: before Me you rightly tremble. Fear is not what you owe Me, Lounds, you and the other pismires. You owe Me awe.

If you will thank me, let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you, might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe, I thought only of you.

The world owes you nothing, and equally you owe it nothing.

The same thing that makes friendship so valuable is what makes it so tenuous: it is purely voluntary. You enter into it freely, without the imperatives of biology or the agenda of desire. Officially, you owe each other nothing.

People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.

Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole. It's a relief when you arrive at this place, the point of absurdity, because then you are free, you owe them nothing.

As they split to prepare for the meeting with the Ravkans, Jesper followed Wylan down the hall. “Hey.” Wylan kept going. Jesper jogged past him and cut off his path, walking backward. “Listen, this thing with Kuwei isn’t a thing.” He tried again. “There is no thing with Kuwei.” “You don’t owe me an explanation. I’m the one who interrupted.” “No, you didn’t! Kuwei was sitting at the piano. It was an understandable mistake.” Wylan stopped short. “You thought he was me?” “Yes!” Jesper said. “See? Just a big mis—” Wylan’s gold eyes flashed. “You really can’t tell us apart?” “I … I mean, usually I can, but—” “We’re nothing alike,” Wylan said indignantly. “He’s not even that good at science! Half his notebooks are full of doodles. Mostly of you. And those aren’t good either.

Amé, fuí amado, el sol acarició mi faz. ¡Vida, nada me debes! ¡Vida, estamos en paz! I loved, I was loved, the sun stroked my face. Life, you owe me nothing! Life, we are at peace!

You can owe nothing, if you give back its light to the sun.

We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. That was how you survived when you weren’t chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway. Inej

I am a free man—and I need my freedom. I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company. What do you want of me? When I have something to say, I put it in print. When I have something to give, I give it. Your prying curiosity turns my stomach! Your compliments humiliate me! Your tea poisons me! I owe nothing to any one. I would be responsible to God alone—if He existed!

The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

That was one of Saint's rules. Nothing is free. He wasn't just talking about food or passage or the clothes on your back. He was talking about respect. Safety. Protection. They were things no one owed. And one way or another, you always paid.

This, according to the fellows who saw me as fit for a Service career, put me ahead of the curve, to understand this truth at an age when most guys are starting only to suspect the basics of adulthood--that life owes you nothing; that suffering takes many forms; that no one will ever care for you as your mother did; that the human heart is a chump.

He bent his face into the curve of my neck. “We don’t deserve anything Rowen. We don’t deserve punishment, we don’t deserve happiness, life owes us nothing. Realize that.” His voice wasn’t gentle anymore; it was as strong as I’d ever heard it. “So we have to take what we want because life sure as shit isn’t going to freely hand it over.” He kissed the skin just above my collar bone. “And I want you.

You will die in your sleep and leave everything unfinished. This is also speculation. I had obligations: hope, but hope negates the experience. I owe myself nothing. I cut off my head and threw it on the ground.

She did understand, or at least she understood that she was supposed to understand. She understood, and said nothing about it, and prayed for the power to forgive, and did forgive. But he can't have found living with her forgiveness all that easy. Breakfast in a haze of forgiveness: coffee with forgiveness, porridge with forgiveness, forgiveness on the buttered toast. He would have been helpless against it, for how can you repudiate something that is never spoken? She resented, too, the nurse, or the many nurses, who had attended my father in the various hospitals. She wished him to owe his recovery to her alone—to her care, to her tireless devotion. That is the other side of selflessness: its tyranny.

Being the firstborn gives you great patience. But you reach a point where after trying and trying you say, Patience be damned. Let them suffer their distorted worldview. Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole. It's a relief when you arrive at this place, the point of absurdity, because then you are free, you know you owe them nothing.

If you will thank me," he replied, "let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you." Elizabeth was too much embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause, her companion added, "You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever." Elizabeth, feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand that her sentiments had undergone so material a change since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure his present assurances.The happiness which this reply produced was such as he had probably never felt before, and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do.

What would it mean to do enough, I wondered, as I had wondered before about that obligation to others that sometimes seems so clear and sometimes disappears altogether, so that now we owe nothing, anything we give is too much, and now our debt is beyond all counting.

You think too highly of mortals. They give nothing to the universe, and the universe owes them nothing in return.

But feel what happens in the soul when you imagine children saying to their parents, "What you gave me, first of all, wasn't the right thing, and secondly, it wasn't enough. You still owe me." What do children have from their parents when they feel that way? Nothing. And what do the parents have from their children? Also nothing. Such children cannot separate from their parents. Their accusations and demands tie them to their parents so that, although they are bound to their parents, the children have no parents. They then feel empty, needy and weak. This is the second Order of Love, that children take what their parents give in addition to life as it comes.

Keep your knife where you can reach it. Never, ever owe anyone anything. Nothing is free. Always construct a lie from a truth. Never, under any circumstances, reveal what or who matters to you.

If you are not free in your heart, don’t take away your children’s freedom. I always tell my children, ‘I brought you into this world because I wanted to love you. You owe me nothing but that. All I need from you is your affection and respect.’ This is what I’m proud of – my family is my achievement.

You don’t owe your country nothing,” I remember him telling me. “You owe it something, and depending on what happens, you might owe it your life.

I was starting to understand that nothing in this life is owed to me and that it’s quite possible to sabotage yourself if you don’t pay attention.

Defriending isn’t just unrecognized by some social oversight; it’s protected by its own protocol, a code of silence. Demanding an explanation wouldn’t just be undignified; it would violate the whole tacit contract on which friendship is founded. The same thing that makes friendship so valuable is what makes it so tenuous: it is purely voluntary. You enter into it freely, without the imperatives of biology or the agenda of desire. Officially, you owe each other nothing.

Sometimes people fall in love with those who do not return the same strength of feelings. It is as it is,” he said with a quiet intensity. “What I give, I give freely. You owe me nothing, not love, not friendship, not even obligation.

Be terrified. Nothing in life is certain. It does not owe you anything, and if it decides to take something from you it will. You must accept this truth. Accept the dreadful possibility that your blind optimism is merely a fancied lie.

I’m telling you right now I could make him pop an aneurysm and no one would know. (Nero) Doesn’t that kind of murder bother you at all? (Alix) Given everything people have done to me in my life, little girl, especially in my childhood when I was helpless against them, humanity is lucky I’m not on a perpetual killing spree. As for the Merjacks…I owe them a debt that no amount of violence on my part will settle. So, no. Nothing about killing him would bother me. (Nero)

Is that what you think of yourself? That everything good about you came from a fucking church? Atroxus didn’t make you special by choosing you. He chose you because you already were, and even when you were eight Mother-damned years old, he knew that. You owe him nothing. Nothing.

Why do you help these strangers?" she asked Tiffany now. "They are not of your clan. You owe them nothing." "Well," said Tiffany, "although they are strangers, I simply think of them as people. All of them. And you help other people--that's how we do it." "Does every person do it?" said Nightshade. "No," said Tiffany. "Sadly, that is true. But many people will help other people, just because, well, because they are other people. That's how it goes.

Harry’s letter to his daughter: If I could give you just one thing, I’d want it to be a simple truth that took me many years to learn. If you learn it now, it may enrich your life in hundreds of ways. And it may prevent you from facing many problems that have hurt people who have never learned it. The truth is simply this: No one owes you anything. Significance How could such a simple statement be important? It may not seem so, but understanding it can bless your entire life. No one owes you anything. It means that no one else is living for you, my child. Because no one is you. Each person is living for himself; his own happiness is all he can ever personally feel. When you realize that no one owes you happiness or anything else, you’ll be freed from expecting what isn’t likely to be. It means no one has to love you. If someone loves you, it’s because there’s something special about you that gives him happiness. Find out what that something special is and try to make it stronger in you, so that you’ll be loved even more. When people do things for you, it’s because they want to — because you, in some way, give them something meaningful that makes them want to please you, not because anyone owes you anything. No one has to like you. If your friends want to be with you, it’s not out of duty. Find out what makes others happy so they’ll want to be near you. No one has to respect you. Some people may even be unkind to you. But once you realize that people don’t have to be good to you, and may not be good to you, you’ll learn to avoid those who would harm you. For you don’t owe them anything either. Living your Life No one owes you anything. You owe it to yourself to be the best person possible. Because if you are, others will want to be with you, want to provide you with the things you want in exchange for what you’re giving to them. Some people will choose not to be with you for reasons that have nothing to do with you. When that happens, look elsewhere for the relationships you want. Don’t make someone else’s problem your problem. Once you learn that you must earn the love and respect of others, you’ll never expect the impossible and you won’t be disappointed. Others don’t have to share their property with you, nor their feelings or thoughts. If they do, it’s because you’ve earned these things. And you have every reason to be proud of the love you receive, your friends’ respect, the property you’ve earned. But don’t ever take them for granted. If you do, you could lose them. They’re not yours by right; you must always earn them. My Experience A great burden was lifted from my shoulders the day I realized that no one owes me anything. For so long as I’d thought there were things I was entitled to, I’d been wearing myself out —physically and emotionally — trying to collect them. No one owes me moral conduct, respect, friendship, love, courtesy, or intelligence. And once I recognized that, all my relationships became far more satisfying. I’ve focused on being with people who want to do the things I want them to do. That understanding has served me well with friends, business associates, lovers, sales prospects, and strangers. It constantly reminds me that I can get what I want only if I can enter the other person’s world. I must try to understand how he thinks, what he believes to be important, what he wants. Only then can I appeal to someone in ways that will bring me what I want. And only then can I tell whether I really want to be involved with someone. And I can save the important relationships for th

fairy godmother says there is nothing in this world like the relief of knowing that you owe answers to nobody & nobody owes answers to you in return. we need not tie each other into knots to please one another. we are free to choose who we welcome into our homes & who gets the privilege to stay.

In this valley, Love is represented by fire, Reason by smoke. When Love bursts into flame, Reason is forthwith dissipated like smoke. Reason cannot coexist with Love’s mania, for Love has nothing whatever to do with human Reason. If ever you attain a clear vision of the unseen world, then only will you be able to realize the source of Love. By the odour of Love every atom in the world is intoxicated. It owes its existence to the existence of Love. If

(Golden Globe acceptance speech in the style of Jane Austen's letters): "Four A.M. Having just returned from an evening at the Golden Spheres, which despite the inconveniences of heat, noise and overcrowding, was not without its pleasures. Thankfully, there were no dogs and no children. The gowns were middling. There was a good deal of shouting and behavior verging on the profligate, however, people were very free with their compliments and I made several new acquaintances. Miss Lindsay Doran, of Mirage, wherever that might be, who is largely responsible for my presence here, an enchanting companion about whom too much good cannot be said. Mr. Ang Lee, of foreign extraction, who most unexpectedly apppeared to understand me better than I undersand myself. Mr. James Schamus, a copiously erudite gentleman, and Miss Kate Winslet, beautiful in both countenance and spirit. Mr. Pat Doyle, a composer and a Scot, who displayed the kind of wild behavior one has lernt to expect from that race. Mr. Mark Canton, an energetic person with a ready smile who, as I understand it, owes me a vast deal of money. Miss Lisa Henson -- a lovely girl, and Mr. Gareth Wigan -- a lovely boy. I attempted to converse with Mr. Sydney Pollack, but his charms and wisdom are so generally pleasing that it proved impossible to get within ten feet of him. The room was full of interesting activitiy until eleven P.M. when it emptied rather suddenly. The lateness of the hour is due therefore not to the dance, but to the waiting, in a long line for horseless vehicles of unconscionable size. The modern world has clearly done nothing for transport. P.S. Managed to avoid the hoyden Emily Tomkins who has purloined my creation and added things of her own. Nefarious creature." "With gratitude and apologies to Miss Austen, thank you.

Come, come into this circle of grace and friendship. Come bringing only your open heart. You owe us nothing but truth, you need no heavy armor here. Show us your beautiful scars, the evidence of adventures you’ve survived. Tell your stories from the road. This space is home. You are safe to come as you are without fear.

His guilt is why Acheron went out of his way to make sure that all of you had servants and pay for your work. The Dark-Hunters owe that man everything, and I do mean everything. He pays in blood every time one of you wants to go free, and he suffers every day so that you can all live your cushy little lives of wealth and privilege.” … “And I have to say that every time one of your turns on him, it seriously pisses me off. Acheron asks nothing from any of you and that’s exactly what he receives.

But what about the rest of us? What about the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. That was how you survived when you weren’t chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.

The public steals tragedies from victims. It sounds strange, I know, but I think you may be one of the few people who’ll understand what I mean by that. These things happened to us, to our loved ones, but it hits the news and suddenly everyone with a TV or computer feels like they’re entitled to our reactions and recoveries. They’re not. It takes a while to really believe it, but you owe them nothing.

You’re a survivor. Voron put you on the edge of that cliff again and again until he conditioned you to claw onto life. You’ll do whatever you have to do to survive, and I’m your only chance of getting out. At first you’ll balk, but with every passing hour my offer will look better and better. You’ll convince yourself that dying will accomplish nothing and you should at least go out with a bang. You’ll tell yourself that you’re accepting my offer just so you can stick that broken sword into my chest and feel it cut through my heart. Even if you die afterward, the fact that I’ll stop breathing makes your death mean something. So you’ll call me. And you’ll try to kill me. Except you’ve gone three days without food, and that body . . .” He tilted his head and looked me over slowly. “That body burns through calories like fire goes through gasoline. You’re running out of reserves. I can put you down with one hit.” “You’re right about the sword. You broke mine. I owe you one.” He tapped his naked chest over his heart. “This is the spot. Give it a shot, Kate. Let’s see what happens.

Nothing clarifies boundaries more than forgiveness. To forgive someone means to let him off the hook, or to cancel a debt he owes you. When you refuse to forgive someone, you still want something from that person, and even if it is revenge that you want, it keeps you tied to him forever.

Sometimes people fall in love with those who do not return the same strength of feelings. It is as it is,” he said with a quiet intensity. “What Igive, I give freely. You owe me nothing, not love, not friendship, not even obligation

As long as you’re my apprentice, you will owe nothing, you will accept no debts. Consider it part of your training.

Every man you ever meet in nothing but the product of what was withheld from him, what he feels owed.

This is God’s universe; we just live in it. He doesn’t owe us anything. We owe him everything. What did you make? Nothing. He made everything. For everything you have, you owe him.

You owe her nothing. You can’t live your whole life protecting people who don’t fucking deserve it.

You were created as a tool, a means to an end. You owe the world nothing but chaos.

You don't owe the people some better version of yourself. In fact, you owe this world nothing.

This entitlement has to stop. The world owes you nothing. Girls owe you nothing.

I was starting to understand that nothing in this life is owed to me and that it's quite possible to sabotage yourself if you don't pay attention.

There are only two kinds of men in this world: Honest men and dishonest men. There are black men and white men and yellow men and red men, but nothing counts except whether they're honest men or dishonest men. "Some men work almost entirely with their brains; some almost entirely with their hands; though most of us have to use both. But we all fall into one of the two classes--honest and dishonest. "Any man who says the world owes him a living is dishonest. The same God that made you and me made this earth. And He planned it so that it would yield every single thing that the people on it need. But He was careful to plan it so that it would only yield up its wealth in exchange for the labor of man. Any man who tries to share in that wealth without contributing the work of his brain or his hands is dishonest.

Dangerous and indifferent ground: against its fixed mass the tragedies of people count for nothing although the signs of misadventure are everywhere. No past slaughter nor cruelty, no accident nor murder that occurs on the little ranches or at the isolate crossroads with their bare populations of three or seventeen, or in the reckless trailer courts of mining towns delays the flood of morning light. Fences, cattle, roads, refineries, mines, gravel pits, traffic lights, graffiti'd celebration of athletic victory on bridge overpass, crust of blood on the Wal-Mart loading dock, the sun-faded wreaths of plastic flowers marking death on the highway are ephemeral. Other cultures have camped here a while and disappeared. Only earth and sky matter. Only the endlessly repeated flood of morning light. You begin to see that God does not owe us much beyond that.

You owe me." "What do I owe you? All the things I gave you. How I took care of you. Money, information...pleasure. I denied you nothing. If I could give it to you, I did." "You gave me things that cost you nothing. It certainly didn't seem to be a hardship to fuck me.

But wasn't that what every girl dreamed? That she would wake and find herself a princess? ... But what about the rest of us? What about the nobodies and nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary.... When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.

When I give, it does not come with strings. I’m not keeping track of what you owe me. When I give, I choose to do so without ulterior motives. I give because I know what it’s like to be without. To long for and be ignored; to speak and not be heard; to care for and have nothing returned. When I give it’s because I know the value in what I have in my heart. And I refuse to let the world stop me from sharing that, But when things start being taken for granted, When you no longer appreciate my sincerity, I won’t switch, I won’t get angry, and I won’t be spiteful. I’ll just get smart, and change your role in my life. Because when I give, I’m all in. But when I’m done, there’s no turning back.

How can I move thee? Will no entreaties cause thee to turn a favourable eye upon thy creature, who implores thy goodness and compassion? Believe me, Frankenstein, I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow creatures, who owe me nothing?

Stephen Colbert: Here’s the thing: You said to me and to many other people here years ago never to thank you, because we owe you nothing. Jon Stewart: [quietly] That’s right. Stephen Colbert: It’s one of the few times I’ve known you to be dead wrong… We owe you because we learned from you, by example, how to do a show with intention, with clarity. How to treat people with respect. You are infuriatingly good at your job, okay?

Years ago, I dated a lovely young woman who was a few thousand dollars in debt. She was completely stressed out about this. Every month, more interest would be added to her debts. To deal with her stress, she would go every Tuesday night to a meditation and yoga class. This was her one free night, and she said it seemed to be helping her. She would breathe in, imagining that she was finding ways to deal with her debts. She would breathe out, telling herself that her money problems would one day be behind her. It went on like this, Tuesday after Tuesday. Finally, one day I looked through her finances with her. I figured out that if she spent four or five months working a part-time job on Tuesday nights, she could actually pay off all the money she owed. I told her I had nothing against yoga or meditation. But I did think its always best to try to treat the disease first. Her symptoms were stress and anxiety. Her disease was the money she owed. "Why don't you get a job on Tuesday nights and skip yoga for a while?" I suggested. This was something of a revelation to her. And she took my advice. She became a Tuesday-night waitress and soon enough paid off her debts. After that, she could go back to yoga and really breathe easier.

Your daughters are my wives and want none of you. Your grandsons are my sons, and owe you nothing. While I stood on your land, I gave you honor you did not deserve, but now I am not bound by the obligations of guests and hosts.

The greatest joy is joy in God. This is plain from Psalm 16:11: "You [God] will make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever." Fullness of joy and eternal joy cannot be improved. Nothing is fuller than full, and nothing is longer than eternal. And this joy is owing to the presence of God, not the accomplishments of man. Therefore, if God wants to love us infinitely and delight us fully and eternally, he must preserve for us the one thing that will satisfy us totally and eternally; namely, the presence and worth of his own glory. He alone is the source of full and lasting pleasure. Therefore, his commitment to uphold and display his glory is not vain, but virtuous. God is the one being for whom self-exaltation is an infinitely loving act. If he revealed himself to the proud and self-sufficient and not to the humble and dependent, he would belittle the very glory whose worth is the foundation of our joy. Therefore, God's pleasure in hiding this from "the wise and intelligent" and revealing it to "infants" is the pleasure of God in both his glory and our joy.

There was nothing like an appeal to honor. It was a virtue that all craved, even those who lacked it. Fundamentally, honor was itself a debt, a code of behavior, a promise, something inside yourself that you owed to the others who saw it in you.

He thought here you are Joe Bonham lying like a side of beef all the rest of your life and for what? Somebody tapped you on the shoulder and said come along son we’re going to war. So you went. But why? In any other deal even like buying a car or running an errand you had the right to say what’s there in it for me? Otherwise you’d be buying bad cars for too much money or running errands for fools and starving to death. It was a kind of duty you owed yourself that when anybody said come on son do this or do that you should stand up and say look mister why should I do this for who am I doing it and what am I going to get out of it in the end? But when a guy comes along and says here come with me and risk your life and maybe die or be crippled why then you’ve got no rights. You haven’t even the right to say yes or no or I’ll think it over. There are plenty of laws to protect guys’ money even in war time but there’s nothing on the books says a man’s life’s his own. Of

God will not be tolerated. He instructs us to worship and fear Him. In our world, where hundreds of things distract us from God, we have to intentionally and consistently remind ourselves of Him. Because we don’t often think about the reality of who God is, we quickly forget that He is worthy to be worshiped and loved. We are to fear Him. The answer to each of these questions is simply this: because He’s God. He has more of a right to ask us why so many people are starving. As much as we want God to explain himself to us, His creation, we are in no place to demand that He give an account to us. Can you worship a God who isn’t obligated to explain His actions to you? Could it be your arrogance that makes you think God owes you an explanation? If God is truly the greatest good on this earth, would He be loving us if He didn’t draw us toward what is best for us (even if that happens to be Himself)? Doesn’t His courting, luring, pushing, calling, and even “threatening” demonstrate His love? If He didn’t do all of that, wouldn’t we accuse Him of being unloving in the end, when all things are revealed? Has your relationship with God actually changed the way you live? Do you see evidence of God’s kingdom in your life? Or are you choking it out slowly by spending too much time, energy, money, and thought on the things of this world? Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. Jesus’ call to commitment is clear: He wants all or nothing. Our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter. If life is a river, then pursuing Christ requires swimming upstream. When we stop swimming, or actively following Him, we automatically begin to be swept downstream. How could we think for even a second that something on this puny little earth compares to the Creator and Sustainer and Savior of it all? True faith means holding nothing back; it bets everything on the hope of eternity. When you are truly in love, you go to great lengths to be with the one you love. You’ll drive for hours to be together, even if it’s only for a short while. You don’t mind staying up late to talk. Walking in the rain is romantic, not annoying. You’ll willingly spend a small fortune on the one you’re crazy about. When you are apart from each other, it’s painful, even miserable. He or she is all you think about; you jump at any chance to be together. There is nothing better than giving up everything and stepping into a passionate love relationship with God, the God of the universe who made galaxies, leaves, laughter, and me and you. Do you recognize the foolishness of seeking fulfillment outside of Him? Are you ready and willing to make yourself nothing? To take the very nature of a servant? To be obedient unto death? True love requires sacrifice. What are you doing right now that requires faith? God doesn’t call us to be comfortable. If one person “wastes” away his day by spending hours connecting with God, and the other person believes he is too busy or has better things to do than worship the Creator and Sustainer, who is the crazy one? Am I loving my neighbor and my God by living where I live, by driving what I drive, by talking how I talk?” If I stop pursuing Christ, I am letting our relationship deteriorate. The way we live out our days is the way we will live our lives. What will people say about your life in heaven? Will people speak of God’s work and glory through you? And even more important, how will you answer the King when He says, “What did you do with what I gave you?

That was how you survived when you weren’t chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.

Maybe you owe your parents nothing, maybe you owe them everything.

How much happier is the man who owes nothing to anybody except the one he can most easily refuse, himself!

I brought you into this world because I wanted to love you. You owe me nothing but that. All I need from you is your affection and respect.

Let go of shit you have nothing to do with. You don’t owe the world a single thing, Sunshine.

Grandpa C instilled in me at a very young age, nobody owes you nothing!

If I've done anything for you, I've done it because I love you. You owe me nothing. I don't want you to do anything unless you love me.

You owe nothing to the people who would enslave you.

The thing about surviving something truly tragic is that it changes your expectations forever. You make do with very little. You’re grateful for crumbs. You make the best of small mercies. You endure large trials. You understand that life owes you nothing. You expect nothing, and when something wonderful happens, you don’t trust it. You know it can’t possibly last.

When she says margarita she means daiquiri. When she says quixotic she means mercurial. And when she says, "I'll never speak to you again," she means, "Put your arms around me from behind as I stand disconsolate at the window." He's supposed to know that. When a man loves a woman he is in New York and she is in Virginia or he is in Boston, writing, and she is in New York, reading, or she is wearing a sweater and sunglasses in Balboa Park and he is raking leaves in Ithaca or he is driving to East Hampton and she is standing disconsolate at the window overlooking the bay where a regatta of many-colored sails is going on while he is stuck in traffic on the Long Island Expressway. When a woman loves a man it is one ten in the morning she is asleep he is watching the ball scores and eating pretzels drinking lemonade and two hours later he wakes up and staggers into bed where she remains asleep and very warm. When she says tomorrow she means in three or four weeks. When she says, "We're talking about me now," he stops talking. Her best friend comes over and says, "Did somebody die?" When a woman loves a man, they have gone to swim naked in the stream on a glorious July day with the sound of the waterfall like a chuckle of water rushing over smooth rocks, and there is nothing alien in the universe. Ripe apples fall about them. What else can they do but eat? When he says, "Ours is a transitional era," "that's very original of you," she replies, dry as the martini he is sipping. They fight all the time It's fun What do I owe you? Let's start with an apology Ok, I'm sorry, you dickhead. A sign is held up saying "Laughter." It's a silent picture. "I've been fucked without a kiss," she says, "and you can quote me on that," which sounds great in an English accent. One year they broke up seven times and threatened to do it another nine times. When a woman loves a man, she wants him to meet her at the airport in a foreign country with a jeep. When a man loves a woman he's there. He doesn't complain that she's two hours late and there's nothing in the refrigerator. When a woman loves a man, she wants to stay awake. She's like a child crying at nightfall because she didn't want the day to end. When a man loves a woman, he watches her sleep, thinking: as midnight to the moon is sleep to the beloved. A thousand fireflies wink at him. The frogs sound like the string section of the orchestra warming up. The stars dangle down like earrings the shape of grapes.

If you will thank me,” he replied, “let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you.

I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow-creatures, who owe me nothing?

Zaphod left the controls for Ford to figure out, and lurched over to Arthur. "Look, Earthman," he said angrily, "you've got a job to do, right? The Question to the Ultimate Answer, right?" "What, that thing?" said Arthur, "I thought we'd forgotten about that." "Not me, baby. Like the mice said, it's worth a lot of money in the right quarters. And it's all locked up in that head thing of yours." "Yes but ..." "But nothing! Think about it. The Meaning of Life! We get our fingers on that we can hold every shrink in the Galaxy up to ransom, and that's worth a bundle. I owe mine a mint." Arthur took a deep breath without much enthusiasm. "Alright," he said, "but where do we start? How should I know? They say the Ultimate Answer or whatever is Forty-two, how am I supposed to know what the question is? It could be anything. I mean, what's six times seven?" Zaphod looked at him hard for a moment. Then his eyes blazed with excitement. "Forty-two!" he cried. Arthur wiped his palm across his forehead. "Yes," he said patiently, "I know that." Zaphod's faces fell. "I'm just saying that the question could be anything at all," said Arthur, "and I don't see how I am meant to know.

If we understand many more things than other people, we owe it to our nervous system which is far more disturbed. One says 'I'm sad' but no one realizes what is the cause of his/her sadness; it may come from the stomach; or from a tune we have just listened to and which failed to impress us on the spot; or it may come from frustrated sexual desire. . . . It is not easy to see beyond symbolic forms of expression. People don't realize that you can negate the progress of humanity because your feet hurt. It is important to see beyond that which is given; and yet, once you see it, nothing matters.

To my husband, Harold, I leave the Lower Bayou Motel. You’ve spent so many nights there with other women that I felt you should call the place home. It’s been operating in the red for the last eight years, owes back taxes since 1986, and is covered with deadly asbestos. Nothing but the best for you, dear.

Nothing is free. He wasn’t just talking about food or passage or the clothes on your back. He was talking about respect. Safety. Protection. They were things no one owed you. And one way or another, you always paid.

Believe me, Frankenstein, I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow creatures, who owe me nothing?

‹ Prev Next › When I Give It Does Not Come With Strings When I give, it does not come with strings. I’m not keeping track of what you owe me. When I give, I choose to do so without ulterior motives. I give because I know what it’s like to be without. To long for and be ignored; to speak and not be heard; to care for and have nothing returned. When I give it’s because I know the value in what I have in my heart. And I refuse to let the world stop me from sharing that, But when things start being taken for granted, When you no longer appreciate my sincerity, I won’t switch, I won’t get angry, and I won’t be spiteful. I’ll just get smart, and change your role in my life. Because when I give, I’m all in. But when I’m done, there’s no turning back.

Nothing in the community lives in isolation from the rest, not even the queens of the social insects. Nothing lives only in itself, needing nothing from the community. Nothing lives only for itself, owing nothing to the community. Nothing is untouchable or untouched. Every life is on loan from the community from birth and without fail is paid back to the community in death. The community is a web of life, and every strand of the web is a path to all the other strands. Nothing is exempt or excused. Nothing is special. Nothing lives on a strand by itself, unconnected to the rest. As you saw yesterday, nothing is wasted, not a drop of water or a molecule of protein—or the egg of a fly. This is the sweetness and the miracle of it all, Jared. Everything that lives is food for another. Everything that feeds is ultimately itself fed upon or in death returns its substance to the community.

He said I owed him for the car. He really only mentioned it but I became crazed, hysterical. For the first time in my life, I shouted at my father - not about the car but about the Weavers. I was so suffocated by rage, my words didn't come out as words, but as choking, sputtering sobs. Why are you like this? Why did you terrify us like that? Why did you fight so hard against made-up monsters, but do nothing about the monsters in your own house?

THE UNIVERSE OWES YOU NOTHING, KADY. IT HAS ALREADY GIVEN YOU EVERYTHING, AFTER ALL. IT WAS HERE LONG BEFORE YOU, AND IT WILL GO ON LONG AFTER YOU. THE ONLY WAY IT WILL REMEMBER YOU IS IF YOU DO SOMETHING WORTHY OF REMEMBRANCE.

America needs to reconcile with itself and do the work of apology: To say to indigenous, black, and brown people, we take full ownership for what we did. To say, we owe you everything. To say, we see how harm runs through generations. To say, we own this legacy and will not harm you again. To promise the non-repetition of harm would require nothing less than transitioning the nation as a whole. It would mean retiring the old narrative about who we are—a city on a hill—and embracing a new narrative of an America longing to be born, a nation whose promise lies in the future, a nation we can only realize by doing the labor: reckoning with the past, reconciling with ourselves, restructuring our institutions, and letting those who have been most harmed be the ones to lead us through the transition.

How baffling you are, oh Church, and yet how I love you! How you have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe you! I would like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your presence. You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand what sanctity is. I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false, and yet I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more beautiful. How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face, and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms. No, I cannot free myself from you, because I am you, though not completely. And besides, where would I go? Would I establish another? I would not be able to establish it without the same faults, for they are the same faults I carry in me. And if I did establish another, it would be my Church, not the Church of Christ. I am old enough to know that I am no better than anyone else. …) The Church has the power to make me holy but it is made up, from the first to the last, only of sinners. And what sinners! It has the omnipotent and invincible power to renew the Miracle of the Eucharist, but is made up of men who are stumbling in the dark, who fight every day against the temptation of losing their faith. It brings a message of pure transparency but it is incarnated in slime, such is the substance of the world. It speaks of the sweetness of its Master, of its non-violence, but there was a time in history when it sent out its armies to disembowel the infidels and torture the heretics. It proclaims the message of evangelical poverty, and yet it does nothing but look for money and alliances with the powerful. Those who dream of something different from this are wasting their time and have to rethink it all. And this proves that they do not understand humanity. Because this is humanity, made visible by the Church, with all its flaws and its invincible courage, with the Faith that Christ has given it and with the love that Christ showers on it. When I was young, I did not understand why Jesus chose Peter as his successor, the first Pope, even though he abandoned Him. Now I am no longer surprised and I understand that by founding his church on the tomb of a traitor(…)He was warning each of us to remain humble, by making us aware of our fragility. (…) And what are bricks worth anyway? What matters is the promise of Christ, what matters is the cement that unites the bricks, which is the Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit is capable of building the church with such poorly moulded bricks as are we. And that is where the mystery lies. This mixture of good and bad, of greatness and misery, of holiness and sin that makes up the church…this in reality am I .(…) The deep bond between God and His Church, is an intimate part of each one of us. (…)To each of us God says, as he says to his Church, “And I will betroth you to me forever” (Hosea 2,21). But at the same time he reminds us of reality: 'Your lewdness is like rust. I have tried to remove it in vain. There is so much that not even a flame will take it away' (Ezechiel 24, 12). But then there is even something more beautiful. The Holy Spirit who is Love, sees us as holy, immaculate, beautiful under our guises of thieves and adulterers. (…) It’s as if evil cannot touch the deepest part of mankind. He re-establishes our virginity no matter how many times we have prostituted our bodies, spirits and hearts. In this, God is truly God, the only one who can ‘make everything new again’. It is not so important that He will renew heaven and earth. What is most important is that He will renew our hearts. This is Christ’s work. This is the divine Spirit of the Church.

If you sell your soul to get ahead it will cost more than you bargained for. When you earn your success and never take something for nothing, no one can lay claim to what’s rightfully yours. My biggest investors, now deceased, ask nothing of me. They are the only ones I owe for a debt I can never repay; but it’s the only kind that will ever be worth carrying.

The only person who will put you first all the time, is YOU. Sometimes the only thing you achieve by being selfless is that you end up giving less to self. Nothing wrong with making your life a priority! You owe it to yourself. – HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Stop telling me I’m oppressed.....I’m not a victim. I don’t know why feminists are so hellbent on characterizing me as one.....Feminists don’t speak for me. They’re not my voice. They’re not my representation. I owe them nothing, except maybe a shred of sympathy. How miserable must they be to see oppression at every turn?...You DON’T speak for me. You DON’T represent me or my concerns....We’re living proof that the modern day feminist movement is a crock. Feminists are victims of their own delusions, and we’ll never buy what they’re selling.

Maybe there were people who lived those lives. Maybe this girl was one of them. But what about the rest of us? What about the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. That was how you survived when you weren’t chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.

Oranges and unicorns say the bells of St. . . .” She looked to Harriet for inspiration. “Clunicorns?” “Somehow I don’t think so.” “Moonicorns.” Sarah cocked her head to the side. “Better,” she judged. “Spoonicorns? Zoomicorns.” And . . . that was enough. Sarah turned back to her book. “We’re done now, Harriet.” “Parunicorns.” Sarah couldn’t even imagine where that one had come from. But still, she found herself humming as she read. Oranges and lemons say the bells of St. Clements. Meanwhile, Harriet was muttering to herself at the desk. “Pontoonicorns xyloonicorns . . .” You owe me five farthings say the bells of St. Martins. “Oh, oh, oh, I have it! Hughnicorns!” Sarah froze. This she could not ignore. With great deliberation, she placed her index finger in her book to mark her place and looked up. “What did you just say?” “Hughnicorns,” Harriet replied, as if nothing could have been more ordinary. She gave Sarah a sly look. “Named for Lord Hugh, of course. He does seem to be a frequent topic of conversation.

O highest and best, most powerful, most all-powerful, most merciful and most just, most deeply hidden and most nearly present, most beautiful and most strong, constant yet incomprehensible, changeless yet changing all things, never new, never old, making all things new, bringing the proud to decay and they know it not: always acting and always at rest, still gathering yet never wanting; upholding, filling and protecting, creating, nourishing, and bringing to perfection; seeking, although in need of nothing. You love, but with no storm of passion; you are jealous, but with no anxious fear; you repent, but do not grieve; in your anger calm; you change your works, but never change your plan; you take back what you find and yet have never lost; never in need, you are yet glad of gain; never greedy, yet still demanding profit on your loans; to be paid in excess, so that you may be the debtor, and yet who has anything which is not yours? You pay back debts which you never owed and cancel debts without losing anything.

I owe nothing to anyone, I swear it! Who hired you? I can pay, just tell me who hired—” “God hired me!” Rachel’s rebuke was like the crack of a toxic whip. Like poisoned thunder. “Humanity owes my kind a debt of flesh for every drop of blood we shed for you. For every one of us that died to save you.

Aren't you a Republican? Just about everyone is in the whole town of Learning." "No, I'm not a Republican. And I'm not no Democrat. I'm not nothing." "Why not?" "Because I'm not allowed to vote." "Me either. You have to be twenty-one to vote. I'm only twelve." "Reckon I'm soon looking at sixty." "Then why can't you vote? Is it because you're a Shaker?" "No, it's account of I can't read or write. When a man cannot do these things, people think his head is weak. Even when he's proved his back is strong. "Who decides?" "Men who look at me and take me not for what I be. Men who only see my mark, my X, when I can't sign my name. They can't see how I true a beam to build our barn, or see that the rows of corn in my field are straight as fences. They just seem me walk the street in Learning in clothes made me by my own woman. They do not care that my coat is strudy and keeps me warm. They'll not care that I owe no debt and I am beholding to no man.

Already the people murmur that I am your enemy because they say that in verse I give the world your me. They lie, Julia de Burgos. They lie, Julia de Burgos. Who rises in my verses is not your voice. It is my voice because you are the dressing and the essence is me; and the most profound abyss is spread between us. You are the cold doll of social lies, and me, the virile starburst of the human truth. You, honey of courtesan hypocrisies; not me; in all my poems I undress my heart. You are like your world, selfish; not me who gambles everything betting on what I am. You are only the ponderous lady very lady; not me; I am life, strength, woman. You belong to your husband, your master; not me; I belong to nobody, or all, because to all, to all I give myself in my clean feeling and in my thought. You curl your hair and paint yourself; not me; the wind curls my hair, the sun paints me. You are a housewife, resigned, submissive, tied to the prejudices of men; not me; unbridled, I am a runaway Rocinante snorting horizons of God's justice. You in yourself have no say; everyone governs you; your husband, your parents, your family, the priest, the dressmaker, the theatre, the dance hall, the auto, the fine furnishings, the feast, champagne, heaven and hell, and the social, "what will they say." Not in me, in me only my heart governs, only my thought; who governs in me is me. You, flower of aristocracy; and me, flower of the people. You in you have everything and you owe it to everyone, while me, my nothing I owe to nobody. You nailed to the static ancestral dividend, and me, a one in the numerical social divider, we are the duel to death who fatally approaches. When the multitudes run rioting leaving behind ashes of burned injustices, and with the torch of the seven virtues, the multitudes run after the seven sins, against you and against everything unjust and inhuman, I will be in their midst with the torch in my hand.

This question, “What do I owe my parents?” frequently distorts people’s lives well into, and sometimes throughout, adulthood. In fact, our children owe us nothing. It was our decision to bring them into the world. If we loved them and provided for their needs it was our task as parents, not some selfless act. We knew from the beginning that we were raising them to leave us and it was always our obligation to help them do this unburdened by a sense of unending gratitude or perpetual debt.

you are just a girl in a very large world that owes you nothing. Not one thing in your life will come easy. This is the way of girlhood in Napoli. I wish it was not so. I wish I could have given you a better start, but understand, every woman must be a fighter, Elena, because history has tricked men into thinking women are less.

Hold your tongue, or I'll kill you! You'll kill me? No, excuse me, I will speak. I came to treat myself to that pleasure. Oh, I love the dreams of my ardent young friends, quivering with eagerness for life! 'There are new men,' you decided last spring, when you were meaning to come here, 'they propose to destroy everything and begin with cannibalism. Stupid fellows! they didn't ask my advice! I maintain that nothing need be destroyed, that we only need to destroy the idea of God in man, that's how we have to set to work. It's that, that we must begin with. Oh, blind race of men who have no understanding! As soon as men have all of them denied God -- and I believe that period, analogous with geological periods, will come to pass -- the old conception of the universe will fall of itself without cannibalism, and, what's more, the old morality, and everything will begin anew. Men will unite to take from life all it can give, but only for joy and happiness in the present world. Man will be lifted up with a spirit of divine Titanic pride and the man-god will appear. From hour to hour extending his conquest of nature infinitely by his will and his science, man will feel such lofty joy from hour to hour in doing it that it will make up for all his old dreams of the joys of heaven. Everyone will know that he is mortal and will accept death proudly and serenely like a god. His pride will teach him that it's useless for him to repine at life's being a moment, and he will love his brother without need of reward. Love will be sufficient only for a moment of life, but the very consciousness of its momentariness will intensify its fire, which now is dissipated in dreams of eternal love beyond the grave'... and so on and so on in the same style. Charming! Ivan sat with his eyes on the floor, and his hands pressed to his ears, but he began trembling all over. The voice continued. (The devil) The question now is, my young thinker reflected, is it possible that such a period will ever come? If it does, everything is determined and humanity is settled for ever. But as, owing to man's inveterate stupidity, this cannot come about for at least a thousand years, everyone who recognises the truth even now may legitimately order his life as he pleases, on the new principles. In that sense, 'all things are lawful' for him. What's more, even if this period never comes to pass, since there is anyway no God and no immortality, the new man may well become the man-god, even if he is the only one in the whole world, and promoted to his new position, he may lightheartedly overstep all the barriers of the old morality of the old slaveman, if necessary. There is no law for God. Where God stands, the place is holy. Where I stand will be at once the foremost place... 'all things are lawful' and that's the end of it! That's all very charming; but if you want to swindle why do you want a moral sanction for doing it? But that's our modern Russian all over. He can't bring himself to swindle without a moral sanction. He is so in love with truth-.

Jesus did the job that you couldn’t do, and He is faithful to keep you. You didn’t save yourself, and you can’t keep yourself saved. You are a Son and not a slave. You don’t owe God anything; absolutely nothing. You never did. He was never banking on you to make up for your failures and faults. He took care of those long before you ever realized it.

Finally, and inevitably, the flat universe will further flatten into a nothingness that mirrors its beginning. Not only will there be no cosmologists to look out on the universe, there will be nothing for them to see even if they could. Nothing at all. Not even atoms. Nothing. If you think that’s bleak and cheerless, too bad. Reality doesn’t owe us comfort.

Were you locked in your room?" enquired Sir Richard. "Oh no! I daresay I should have been if Aunt had guessed what I meant to do, but she would never think of such a thing." "Then--forgive my curiosity!--why did you climb out of the window?" asked Sir Richard. "Oh, that was on account of Pug!" replied Pen sunnily. "Pug?" "Yes, a horrid little creature! He sleeps in a basket in the hall, and he always yaps if he thinks one is going out. That would have awakened Aunt Almeria. There was nothing else I could do." Sir Richard regarded her with a lurking smile. "Naturally not. Do you know, Pen, I owe you a debt of gratitude?" "Oh!" she said again. "Do you mean that I don't behave as a delicately bred femaile should?" "That is one way of putting it, certainly." "It is the way Aunt Almeria puts it." "She would, of course." "I am afraid," confessed Pen, "that I am not very well-behaved. Aunt says that I had a lamentable upbringing, because my father treated me as though I had been a boy. I ought to have been, you understand." "I cannot agree with you," said Sir Richard. "As a boy you would have been in no way remarkable; as a female, believe me, you are unique." She flushed to the roots of her hair. "I think that is a compliment." "It is," Sir Richard said, amused. "Well, I wasn't sure, because I am not out yet, and I do not know any men except my uncle and Fred, and they don't pay compliments. That is to say, not like that.

War -- is a last ditch moral nightmare. People begin worshiping a mysterious slouching beast, following after, bowing down, offering gifts, making much of zero; and worse. Love of death, idolatry, fear of life; that roughshod trek of war and warmakers throughout the world, hand in hand with death. Long live death! They wouldn't worship it if they weren't in love. Or if they weren't in fear. The second being a state of devouring, at least, as the first. I think the clue is the second masquerading as the first -- just as the beast is the ape of god; to do some thing successfully, you have to, above all, hide what your up to. In this way fear can ape love. Death can demand a tribute owed to life, the ape can play God. Such reflections are of course ill at ease by some: those to whom the state is a given, the church is a given, Western culture a given, war a given, consumerism a given, paying taxes a given. All the neat slots of existence into which one fits, birth to death and every point in between. Nothing to be created, no one to be responsible to, nothing to risk, no objections to lodge. Life is a mechanical horizontal sidewalk, of the kind you sometimes ride at airports between buildings. One is carried along, a zonked spectator... Every nation-state tends towards the imperial -- that is the point. Through banks, armies, secret police propaganda courts and jails, treaties, taxes, laws and orders, myths of civil obedience, assumptions of civic virtue at the top. Still it should be said of the political left, we expect something better. And correctly. We put more trust in those who show a measure of compassion, who denounce the hideous social arrangements that make war inevitable and human desire omnipresent; which fosters corporate selfishness, panders to appetites and disorder, waste the earth.

- I am a stranger. You do not need to lie to me or pretend. Only with friends do you need masks - Surely it is only with friends that one can be at peace. - It is easier with strangers, for they touch your life but for an instant. You will not disappoint them, for you owe them nothing; neither do they expect anything. Friends you can hurt, for they expect everything.

And then there's this: no matter how many bullshit stories you have or don't have, there are no guarantees in life. Nothing is owed to us. That "not knowing" is scary, but the tools to help us--writing, breathing, yoga, connecting--are all we have. And honestly, sometimes the tools are Netflix and coffee as well as breathing and yoga and writing. But we must have tools.

Isn't that what every girl dreamed? That she'd wake and find herself a princess? Or blessed with magical powers and a grand destiny. Maybe there were people who lived those lives, maybe this girl was one of them but what about the rest of us? What about the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns, we learn to ring magic from the ordinary, that's how you survived when you weren't chosen, when there was no royal bloods in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.

He buys Playboy magazines and looks through them once, then gives them to me. That’s what it’s like to be rich. Here’s what it’s like to be poor. Your wife leaves you because you can’t find a job because there aren’t any jobs to find. You empty the jar of pennies on the mantel to buy cigarettes. You hate to answer the phone; it can’t possibly be good news. When your friends invite you out, you don’t go. After a while, they stop inviting. You owe them money, and sometimes they ask for it. You tell them you’ll see what you can scrape up. Which is this: nothing.

Sometimes you got to lie on the outside to keep your voice loud on the inside. We don’t owe the master the truth. He owes us. Nothing comes from the master. He is the thief in the night. He steals it all. And every time we have to say ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir,’ he steals some more. But we can survive it, if we stay loud in here,” she said, throwing a fist hard against her breast.

Such is time, and because of this we are fascinated and troubled by it in equal measure-and perhaps because of this, too, dear reader, my brother, my sister, you are holding this book in your hands. Because it is nothing but a fleeting structure of the world, an ephemeral fluctuation in the happening of the world, that which is capable of giving rise to what we are: beings made of time. That to which we owe our being, giving us the precious gift of our very existence, allowing us to create the fleeting illusion of permanence that is the origin of all our suffering.

Did we win?” “I’m here, aren’t I?” He must be running. Her body jounced painfully against his chest with every lurching step. He needed his cane. “I don’t want to die.” “I’ll do my best to make other arrangements for you.” She closed her eyes. “Keep talking, Wraith. Don’t slip away from me.” “But it’s what I do best.” He clutched her tighter. “Just make it to the schooner. Open your damn eyes, Inej.” She tried. Her vision was blurring, but she could make out a pale, shiny scar on Kaz’s neck, right beneath his jaw. She remembered the first time she’d seen him at the Menagerie. He paid Tante Heleen for information – stock tips, political pillow talk, anything the Menagerie’s clients blabbed about when drunk or giddy on bliss. He never visited Heleen’s girls, though plenty would have been happy to take him up to their rooms. They claimed he gave them the shivers, that his hands were permanently stained with blood beneath those black gloves, but she’d recognised the eagerness in their voices and the way they tracked him with their eyes. One night, as he’d passed her in the parlour, she’d done a foolish thing, a reckless thing. “I can help you,” she’d whispered. He’d glanced at her, then proceeded on his way as if she’d said nothing at all. The next morning, she’d been called to Tante Heleen’s parlour. She’d been sure another beating was coming or worse, but instead Kaz Brekker had been standing there, leaning on his crow-head cane, waiting to change her life. “I can help you,” she said now. “Help me with what?” She couldn’t remember. There was something she was supposed to tell him. It didn’t matter any more. “Talk to me, Wraith.” “You came back for me.” “I protect my investments.” Investments. “I’m glad I’m bleeding all over your shirt.” “I’ll put it on your tab.” Now she remembered. He owed her an apology. “Say you’re sorry.” “For what?” “Just say it.” She didn’t hear his reply.

Many from my generation raised their children with the shadow of this hatred and fear. It does your children no good to teach them to be afraid. This is their life! They should celebrate every minute of it. You brought them into this world, you must support them, help them, not push them down with negative thinking. This is an important lesson that we survivors must understand. If you are not free in your heart, don’t take away your children’s freedom. I always tell my children, ‘I brought you into this world because I wanted to love you. You owe me nothing but that. All I need from

Sapiens instinctively divide humanity into two parts, ‘we’ and ‘they’. We are people like you and me, who share our language, religion and customs. We are all responsible for each other, but not responsible for them. We were always distinct from them, and owe them nothing. We don’t want to see any of them in our territory, and we don’t care an iota what happens in their territory. They are barely even human.

Anger is a consuming thing, a burning takeover. It sets up shop in your heart and head and murders anything else attempting to makes it way in. Life becomes obsessed with it, clouded with it, engrossed in it. You justify feeling with delusions that you're owed retribution. You condone thoughts and vengeful acts, feeding yourself with the idea that it's warranted. But that nourishment comes at a price. It costs you pieces of your soul, your love, your worth. You disregard your beliefs, your conscience. You adopt apathy like it's salvation because you know in your heart of hearts that you would deteriorate into nothing without it. Because you don't want to let it go. It makes you feel powerful, that anger. It makes you feel important. So you will let it eat you alive, consume every part of you until all that's left is hollow revenge.

The Accounting of Love and Hospitality - Sermon on the Account Do enough for others that it's impossible For them to keep accounts Of what they owe you Or what you've done. Lose the account yourself, Expect nothing in return. Make a habit of giving things away. Pay for other people's meal, Friends and strangers. Keep no accounts on that either. Take what is offered to you, But expect or demand nothing. Tell the people in your life That you appreciate them As often as you can. There may be a day when you can't. Tell your kids and spouse that you love them, Often and every night. Remind yourself What it is you love about them. Look for ways to be kind and helpful, There are plenty to find. Do things without telling others You've done them. Don't even remind yourself. Do acts of kindness, then let them go. Live a life without clinging to expectations About who you should be. Your friends and family will change, Everything does, you will. Life has a lot of additions and subtraction; Change is inevitable. Spend time mindfully changing yourself Towards kindness and patience. At the end of your life, Which could be any moment, Let the ones that knew you Have lived a better life because you were there. Let your accounts be settled And forgive other people's.

One dollar at compound interest, at twenty-four per cent., for one hundred years, would produce a sum equal to our national debt. Interest eats night and day, and the more it eats the hungrier it grows. The farmer in debt, lying awake at night, can, if he listens, hear it gnaw. If he owes nothing, he can hear his corn grow. Get out of debt as soon as you possibly can. You have supported idle avarice and lazy economy long enough.

You say that I mean ⁣ nothing ⁣ to you, ⁣ but you search for my eyes ⁣ in the face of every woman ⁣ you meet. ⁣ You search for my warmth ⁣ in the soul of every woman ⁣ you seek. ⁣ You think that ⁣ if time and circumstance ⁣ forced you to force me ⁣ out of your life, ⁣ that time and circumstance ⁣ owe you ⁣ a woman like me. ⁣ Search, my darling. ⁣ Search. ⁣ I do not come ⁣ twice ⁣ in the eternity that passed⁣ nor in the one to come.

But still, it was not the desire to ‘write’ that was his real motive. To get out of the money-world—that was what he wanted. Vaguely he looked forward to some kind of moneyless, anchorite existence. He had a feeling that if you genuinely despise money you can keep going somehow, like the birds of the air. He forgot that the birds of the air don’t pay room-rent. The poet starving in a garret—but starving, somehow, not uncomfortably—that was his vision of himself. The next seven months were devastating. They scared him and almost broke his spirit. He learned what it means to live for weeks on end on bread and margarine, to try to ‘write’ when you are half starved, to pawn your clothes, to sneak trembling up the stairs when you owe three weeks’ rent and your landlady is listening for you. Moreover, in those seven months he wrote practically nothing. The first effect of poverty is that it kills thought. He grasped, as though it were a new discovery, that you do not escape from money merely by being moneyless. On the contrary, you are the hopeless slave of money until you have enough of it to live on—a ‘competence’, as the beastly middle-class phrase goes.

According to business and economics professor Paul Harvey, “a great source of frustration for people with a strong sense of entitlement is unmet expectations.”1 If you believe that you’re special, and all you have to do is find your singular passion and turn it into a perfect job, that’s a recipe for disaster. The reality is that the world owes you nothing. You only become “special” by developing skills that are in demand, which takes focus, grit, and long-term work.

Let me thank you again and again, in the name of all my family, for that generous compassion which induced you to take so much trouble, and bear so many mortifications, for the sake of discovering them." "If you will thank me," he replied, "let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you." Elizabeth

Rules only have meaning as long as you're abiding by them. As soon as you start ignoring them, it turns out that you don't owe anyone anything, you're not obligated to make up all kinds of silly stories about things you actually know nothing about. Then it turns out that you can get by just fine without all those made-up stories, and there aren't any rules - what they're showing you doesn't exist anymore, so there's nothing to say. It's all a sham, they're just trying to use you... and it's all perfectly legal, of course. It's like school all over again. The thing is that we all grew up a long time ago, but we're still being treated like kids, like unintelligent, deceitful, irrational bastards who need to be coerced and corrected and have the right answers beaten out of them.

On behalf of those you killed, imprisoned, tortured, you are not welcome, Erdogan! No, Erdogan, you’re not welcome in Algeria. We are a country which has already paid its price of blood and tears to those who wanted to impose their caliphate on us, those who put their ideas before our bodies, those who took our children hostage and who attempted to kill our hopes for a better future. The notorious family that claims to act in the name of the God and religion—you’re a member of it—you fund it, you support it, you desire to become its international leader. Islamism is your livelihood Islamism, which is your livelihood, is our misfortune. We will not forget about it, and you are a reminder of it today. You offer your shadow and your wings to those who work to make our country kneel down before your “Sublime Door.” You embody and represent what we loathe. You hate freedom, the free spirit. But you love parades. You use religion for business. You dream of a caliphate and hope to return to our lands. But you do it behind the closed doors, by supporting Islamist parties, by offering gifts through your companies, by infiltrating the life of the community, by controlling the mosques. These are the old methods of your “Muslim Brothers” in this country, who used to show us God’s Heaven with one hand while digging our graves with the other. No, Mr. Erdogan, you are not a man of help; you do not fight for freedom or principles; you do not defend the right of peoples to self-determination. You know only how to subject the Kurds to the fires of death; you know only how to subject your opponents to your dictatorship. You cry with the victims in the Middle East, yet sign contracts with their executioners. You do not dream of a dignified future for us, but of a caliphate for yourself. We are aware of your institutionalized persecution, your list of Turks to track down, your sinister prisons filled with the innocent, your dictatorial justice palaces, your insolence and boastful nature. You do not dream of a humanity that shares common values and principles, but are interested only in the remaking of the Ottoman Empire and its bloodthirsty warlords. Islam, for you, is a footstool; God is a business sign; modernity is an enemy; Palestine is a showcase; and local Islamists are your stunned courtesans. Humanity will not remember you with good deeds Humanity will remember you for your machinations, your secret coups d’état, and your manhunts. History will remember you for your bombings, your vengeful wars, and your inability to engage in constructive dialogue with others. The UN vote for Al-Quds is only an instrument in your service. Let us laugh at this with the Palestinians. We know that the Palestinian issue is your political capital, as it is for many others. You know well how to make a political fortune by exploiting others’ emotions. In Algeria, we suffered, and still suffer, from those who pretend to be God and act as takers and givers of life. They applaud your coming, but not us. You are the idol of Algerian Islamists and Populists, those who are unable to imagine a political structure beyond a caliphate for Muslim-majority societies. We aspire to become a country of freedom and dignity. This is not your ambition, nor your virtue. You are an illusion You have made beautiful Turkey an open prison and a bazaar for your business and loved ones. I hope that this beautiful nation rises above your ambitions. I hope that justice will be restored and flourish there once again, at least for those who have been imprisoned, tortured, bombed, and killed. You are an illusion, Erdogan—you know it and we know it. You play on the history of our humiliation, on our emotions, on our beliefs, and introduce yourself as a savior. However, you are a gravedigger, both for your own country and for your neighbors. Turkey is a political miracle, but it owes you nothing. The best thing you can do

A woman's hand, your hand in its starry paleness only to help you walk downstairs, refracts its beam into my own. Its slightest touch branches out inside me and in a moment will trace above us those delicate canopies where the inverted sky stirs its blue leaves with misty aspen or willow. As for me, to what do I actually owe this remission of a pain that so many others suffer because of less guilt than I feel today? Before I met you I'd known misfortune, despair. Before I met you, come on, those words mean nothing. You know very well that when I first laid eyes on you I recognized you without the slightest hesitation. And from what borders did you come, so fearfully protected against everyone, what initiation to which no one or almost no one was admitted has consecrated what you are.

She remembered the first time she’d seen him at the Menagerie. He paid Tante Heleen for information—stock tips, political pillow talk, anything the Menagerie’s clients blabbed about when drunk or giddy on bliss. He never visited Heleen’s girls, though plenty would have been happy to take him up to their rooms. They claimed he gave them the shivers, that his hands were permanently stained with blood beneath those black gloves, but she’d recognized the eagerness in their voices and the way they tracked him with their eyes. One night, as he’d passed her in the parlor, she’d done a foolish thing, a reckless thing. “I can help you,” she’d whispered. He’d glanced at her, then proceeded on his way as if she’d said nothing at all. The next morning, she’d been called to Tante Heleen’s parlor. She’d been sure another beating was coming or worse, but instead Kaz Brekker had been standing there, leaning on his crow-head cane, waiting to change her life. “I can help you,” she said now. “Help me with what?” She couldn’t remember. There was something she was supposed to tell him. It didn’t matter anymore. “Talk to me, Wraith.” “You came back for me.” “I protect my investments.” Investments. “I’m glad I’m bleeding all over your shirt.” “I’ll put it on your tab.” Now she remembered. He owed her an apology. “Say you’re sorry.” “For what?” “Just say it.

But wasn't that what every girl dreamed? That she'd wake and find herself a princess? Or blessed with magical powers and a grand destiny? Maybe there were people out there who lived those lives... But what about the rest of us? What about the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. That was how you survived when you weren't chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.

Perry continued, his voice even but firm as granite; "Do you prefer the easy platitudes? You said you didn't. How dare you speak about God like He's some frivolous clown? Do you think you're the only one who has suffered in this world? Every apostle but one died a martyr’s death. By the time of Nero the streets of Rome were lined with Christians hanging on crosses. Emperors would wrap them in wax and light them on fire, using their burning bodies as torches. Even Gods own Son was nailed to a cross. What makes you think you should be spared pain and difficulty? Anne started to speak but nothing came out so Perry continued. "I'm grieved at your loss but I won't waste time joining you in your pity party. Everyone faces hardship, disappointment and, sooner or later, tragedy. It's called Life. If you want to talk about how unfair God is you'll need to find a different audience, because I'm not going to listen to it" Perry watched Anne's jaw tighten and her eyes narrow as if to hold back the hurricane of fury swirling within her. "You owe me an apology", she said through tight lips. "You owe God an apology", Perry countered in the same still voice. A TREASURE DEEP

Nobody owes me anything; but if you’ll lend me five shillings!” said Grace, in her agony. Miss Prettyman, as she made her way through this difficulty, thought of Major Grantly and his love. It would have been of no use, she knew. Had she brought them together on that Monday, Grace would have said nothing to him. Indeed such a meeting at such a time would have been improper. But, regarding Major Grantly, as she did, in the light of a millionaire, — for the wealth of the archdeacon was notorious, — she could not but think it a pity that poor Grace should be begging for five shillings.

In view of the possibility of finding meaning in suffering, life's meaning is an unconditional one, at least potentially. That unconditional meaning, however, is paralleled by the unconditional value of each and every person. It is that which warrants the indelible quality of the dignity of man. Just as life remains potentially meaningful under any conditions, even those which are most miserable, so too does the value of each and every person stay with him or her, and it does so because it is based on the values that he or she has realized in the past, and is not contingent on the usefulness that he or she may or may not retain in the present. More specifically, this usefulness is usually defined in terms of functioning for the benefit of society. But today's society is characterized by achievement orientation, and consequently it adores people who are successful and happy and, in particular, it adores the young. It virtually ignores the value of those who are otherwise, and in so doing blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness. If one is not cognizant of this difference and holds that na individual's value stems only from his present usefulness, then, believe me, one owes it only to personal inconsistency not to plead for euthanasia along the lines of Hitler's program, that is to say, "mercy" killing of all those who have lost their social usefulness, be it because of old age, incurable illness, mental deterioration, or whatever handicap they may suffer. Confounding the dignity of man with mere usefulness arises from a conceptual confusion that in turn may be traced back to the contemporary nihilism transmitted on many an academic campus and many an analytical couch. Even in the setting of training analyses such an indoctrination may take place. Nihilism does not contend that there is nothing, but it states that everything is meaningless. And George A. Sargent was right when he promulgated the concept of "learned meaninglessness." He himself remembered a therapist who said, "George, you must realize that the world is a joke. There is no justice, everything is random. Only when you realize this will you understand how silly it is to take yourself seriously. There is no grand purpose in the universe. It just is. There's no particular meaning in what decision you make today about how to act." One must generalize such a criticism. In principle, training is indispensable, but if so, therapists should see their task in immunizing the trainee against nihilism rather than inoculating him with the cynicism that is a defense mechanism against their own nihilism.

The end is brother to the beginning. He who is sent out is obliged to return. No one may resist what must come to pass. No individual may gainsay that which all humans must suffer. A man shall return what he has borrowed. All humans are strangers on this Earth. They must pass from something to nothing. Every man’s life runs along on fast feet: this moment, living; in the turning of a hand, dead. To briefly conclude: every human owes the debt of death and has inherited death. If you weep for your wife’s youth, you are wrong to do so; as soon as a human has life, so soon is he old enough to die.

You think ninety percent of the things I want to do are silly." "i think my allowing you to do all these things is silly." She winced visibly. "We need less of this allow stuff.Besides, you owe me a night out without any trouble." "You had trouble tonight?" Gary asked. "There was no trouble." Gregori was clearly puzzled. "You're always getting in fights. Everywhere we go,you just can't help yourself," Savannah accused ndignantly. "You picked the one tonight." "You picked a fight?" Gary was astounded. "I did not pick a fight," Gregori denied. "A few men were determined to mug us,so I provided them with an interesting experience. There was no fight. Had I actually struck them physical blows, they would be in the hospital." His white teeth gleamed, the silver eyes glittering with more than danger, with a hint of amusement. "As it is,they just think they should be hospitalized.There is nothing wrong with any of them.I was quite gentle for Savannah's sake.Which,I see, she does not appreciate." "I would appreciate going out and behaving normally." "I was behaving in my normal fashion, cherie," he reminded her gently. "I take it we're going on a vampire hunt tomorrow night," Gary said, laughter in his voice.

I reach out and trace the dragon relic on his back, my fingers lingering on the raised silver scars, and he stiffens. They're all short, thin lines, too precise to be a whip, no rhyme or reason to their pattern but never intersecting. 'What happened?' I whisper, holding my breath. 'You really don't want to know.' He's tense, but doesn't move away from my touch. 'I do.' They don't look accidental. Someone hurt him deliberately maliciously, and it makes me want to hunt the person down and do the same to them. His jaw flexes as he looks over his shoulder, and his eyes meet mine. I bite my lip, knowing this moment can go either way. He can shut me out like always or he can actually let me in. 'There's a lot of them,' I murmur, dragging my fingers down his spine. 'A hundred and seven.' He looks away. The number makes my stomach lurch, and then my hand pauses. A hundred and seven. That's the number Liam mentioned. 'That's how many kids under the age of majority carry the rebellion relic.' 'Yeah.' I shift so I can see his face. 'What happened, Xaden?' He brushes my hair back, and the look that passes is over his face is so close to tender that it makes my heart stutter. 'I saw the opportunity to make a deal,' he says softly. 'And I took it.' 'What kind of deal leaves you with scars like that?' Conflict rages in his eyes, but then he sighs. 'The kind where I take personal responsibility for the loyalty of the hundred and seven kids the rebellion's leaders left behind, and in return, we're allowed to fight for our lives in the Riders Quadrant instead of being put to death like our parents.' He averts his gaze. 'I chose the chance of death over the certainty.' The cruelty of the offer and the sacrifice he made to save the others hits like a physical blow. I cradle his cheek and guide his face back to mine. 'So if any of them betray Navarre...' I lift my brows. 'Then my life is forfeit. The scars are a reminder.' It's why Liam says he owes him everything. 'I'm so sorry that happened to you.' Especially when he wasn't the one who led the rebellion. He looks at me like he sees into the very depths of who I am. 'You have nothing to apologise for.

The papers were always talking about the debt owed to society. According to them, it had to be paid . But that doesn't speak to the imagination. What really counted was the possibility of escape, a leap to freedom, out of the implacable ritual, a wild run for it that would give whatever chance for hope there was. .. Despite my willingness to understand, I just couldn't accept such arrogant certainty. Because, after all, there really was something ridiculously out of proportion between the verdict such certainty was based on and the imperturbable march of events from the moment the verdict was announced. .. How had I not seen that there was nothing more important than an execution, and that when you come right down to it, it was the only thing a man could truly be interested in? If I ever got out of this prison I would go and watch every execution there was. But I think it was a mistake even to consider the possibility. .. But I wasn't being reasonable. It was a mistake to let myself get carried away by such imaginings, because the next minute I would get so cold that I would curl up into a ball under my blanket and my teeth would be chattering and I couldn't make them stop. .. So the thing that bothered me most was that the condemned man had to hope the machine would work the first time. And I say that’s wrong . And in a way I was right. But in another way I was forced to admit that that was the whole secret of good organization. In other words, the condemned man was forced into a kind of moral collaboration. It was in his interest that everything go off without a hitch.

Men are selfish and petty,” argued Erlang Shen, Grand Marshal of the Heavenly Forces. “Their life spans are so short that they give no thought to the future of the land. If we lend them aid, they will drain this earth and squabble among themselves. There will be no peace.” “But they are suffering now.” Erlang Shen’s twin sister, the beautiful Sanshengmu, led the opposing faction. “We have the power to help them. Why do we withhold it?” “You are blind, sister,” said Erlang Shen. “You think too highly of mortals. They give nothing to the universe, and the universe owes them nothing in return. If they cannot survive, then let them die.

Things I've Learned in 18 Years of Life   1) True love is not something found, rather [sic] something encountered. You can’t go out and look for it. The person you marry and the person you love could easily be two different people. So have a beautiful life while waiting for God to bring along your once-in-a-lifetime love. Don't allow yourself to settle for anything less than them. Stop worrying about who you're going to marry because God's already on the front porch watching your grandchildren play.   2) God WILL give you more than you can handle, so you can learn to lean on him in times of need. He won't tempt you more than you can handle, though. So don't lose hope. Hope anchors the soul.   3) Remember who you are and where you came from. Remember that you are not from this earth. You are a child of heaven, you're invaluable, you are beautiful. Carry yourself that way.   4) Don't put your faith in humanity, humanity is inherently flawed. We are all imperfect people created and loved by a perfect God. Perfect. So put your faith in Him.   5) I fail daily, and that is why I succeed.   6) Time passes, and nothing and everything changes. Don't live life half asleep. Don't drag your soul through the days. Feel everything you do. Be there physically and mentally. Do things that make you feel this way as well.   7) Live for beauty. We all need beauty, get it where you can find it. Clothing, paintings, sculptures, music, tattoos, nature, literature, makeup. It's all art and it's what makes us human. Same as feeling the things we do. Stay human.   8) If someone makes you think, keep them. If someone makes you feel, keep them.   9) There is nothing the human brain cannot do. You can change anything about yourself that you want to. Fight for it. It's all a mental game.   10) God didn’t break our chains for us to be bound again. Alcohol, drugs, depression, addiction, toxic relationships, monotony and repetition, they bind us. Break those chains. Destroy your past and give yourself new life like God has given you.   11) This is your life. Your struggle, your happiness, your sorrow, and your success. You do not need to justify yourself to anyone. You owe no one an explanation for the choices that you make and the position you are in. In the same vein, respect yourself by not comparing your journey to anyone else's.   12) There is no wrong way to feel.   13) Knowledge is everywhere, keep your eyes open. Look at how diverse and wonderful this world is. Are you going to miss out on beautiful people, places, experiences, and ideas because you are close-minded? I sure hope not.   14) Selfless actions always benefit you more than the recipient.   15) There is really no room for regret in this life. Everything happens for a reason. If you can't find that reason, accept there is one and move on.   16) There is room, however, for guilt. Resolve everything when it first comes up. That's not only having integrity, but also taking care of your emotional well-being.   17) If the question is ‘Am I strong enough for this?’ The answer is always, ‘Yes, but not on your own.’   18) Mental health and sanity above all.   19) We love because He first loved us. The capacity to love is the ultimate gift, the ultimate passion, euphoria, and satisfaction. We have all of that because He first loved us. If you think about it in those terms, it is easy to love Him. Just by thinking of how much He loves us.   20) From destruction comes creation. Beauty will rise from the ashes.   21) Many things can cause depression. Such as knowing you aren't becoming the person you have the potential to become. Choose happiness and change. The sooner the better, and the easier.   22) Half of happiness is as simple as eating right and exercising. You are one big chemical reaction. So are your emotions. Give your body the right reactants to work with and you'll be satisfied with the products.

Be strong, they say. For what? For whom? Is grief not allowed when you have experienced a loss? There is no need to be strong. There is no need to suppress your pain. You are entitled to the questions that fill your head. The whys and hows are natural. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But please know this: it isn’t your fault. There was nothing you could have done. You have the right to ask questions and you have the right to fall apart. You don’t owe anyone an explanation when you are alone at night and your grief overtakes you. I see you, curled into a ball, begging for answers. Pleading for the feeling of emptiness to be replaced with something, anything other than despair.

Nothing between us was ever planned - not even you. We were both twenty-four years old when you were born, the normal age for most Americans, but among the class we found ourselves, we ranked as teenage parents. With a whiff of fear, we were very often asked if we planned to marry. Marriage was presented to us as a shield against other women, other men, or the corrosive monotony of dirty socks and dishwashing. But your mother and I knew too many people who'd married and abandoned each other for less. The truth of us was always that you were our ring. We'd summoned you out of ourselves, and you were not given a vote. If only for that reason, you deserved all the protection we could muster. Everything else was subordinate to this fact. If that sounds like a weight, it shouldn't. The truth is that I owe you everything I have. Before you, I had my questions but nothing beyond my own skin in the game, and that was really nothing at all because I was a young man, and not yet clear of my own human vulnerabilities. But I was grounded and domesticated by the plain fact that should I now go down, I would not go down alone.

Life owes us nothing just because we are granted it. But, we do owe our own lives everything. Our life is a gift. When you see that for yourself, you see that the lives of others is also a gift. There's no such thing as "gone too soon" or "before their time." Our end date is not guaranteed. We are given just one life. And, that life- no matter how young or how old it is when it leaves us in the physical form - is put here for us to learn, grow and love in some capacity. Your legacy doesn't have to wait until you're dead and gone to be seen. Live it with each breath you take. Live it through your actions toward others. Live it with the time you have now. I want to see my life's impact during my time here on earth. Posthumous appreciation is overrated.

It’s our turf,” the younger woman barked. “Actually it’s my turf.” The thugs spun to me. “Let’s see . . . You’re hassling people in my territory, so you owe me a fee. A couple of fingers ought to do it. Do we have a volunteer?” The small thug pulled a bowie knife from a sheath on his waist. I kept coming. “That’s a mistake.” The thug crouched down. He clenched his knife, like he was drowning and it was a straw that would pull him out. A little crazy light danced in his eyes. “Come on, whore. Come on.” The oldest bluff in the book: get a crazy glimmer in your eyes, look like you’re ready to fight, and the other guy might back off. Heh. “That might work better for you if you held the knife properly. You were doing okay until you pulled the blade. Now I know that you have no clue how to use it and I’ll have to chop your hand off and shove that knife up your ass just to teach you a lesson. Nothing personal. I have a reputation to uphold.” I pulled Slayer out. I had years of practice to back me up and I made the draw fast. The two bravos behind the knife-wielding thug backed away. I looked at Slayer’s blade. “Well, check this out. Mine is bigger. Let’s go, knife-master. I don’t have all day.

I think we must only a few of us go," Laurence said, low. "I will take a few volunteers - " "Oh, the devil you will!" Granby exclaimed furiously. "No, this time I damned well put my foot down, Laurence. Send you off to go scrambling about in that warren with no notion where you are going, and nothing more likely than running into a dozen guards round every corner; I should like to see myself do it. I am not going back to England to tell them I sat about twiddling my thumbs whilst you got yourself cut to pieces. Temeraire, you are not to let him go, do you hear me? He is sure to be killed; I give you my word." "If the party are sure to be killed, I am not going to let anyone go!" Temeraire said, in high alarm, and sat up sharp, quite prepared to physically hold anyone back who made an attempt to leave. "Temeraire, this is plain exaggeration," Laurence said. "Mr. Granby, you overstate the case, and you overstep your bounds." "Well, I don't," Granby said defiantly. "I have bit my tongue a dozen times over, because I know it is wretched hard to sit about watching and you haven't been trained up to it, but you are a captain, and you must be more careful of your neck. It isn't only your own but the Corps' affair if you snuff it, and mine too." "If I may," Tharkay said quietly, interrupting when Laurence would have remonstrated further with Granby, "I will go; alone I am reasonably sure I can find a way to the eggs, without rousing any alarm, and then I can return and guide the rest of the party there." "Tharkay," Laurence said, "this is no service you owe us; I would not order even a man under oath of arms to undertake it, without he were willing." "But I am willing," Tharkay gave his faint half-smile, "and more likely to come back whole from it than anyone else here." "At the cost of running thrice the risk, going and coming back and going again," Laurence said, "with a fresh chance of running into the guards every time through." "So it is very dangerous, then," Temeraire said, overhearing to too much purpose, and pricking up his ruff further. "You are not to go, at all, Granby is quite right; and neither is anyone else." "Oh, Hell," Laurence said, under his breath. "It seems there is very little alternative to my going," Tharkay said. "Not you either!" Temeraire contradicted, to Tharkay's startlement, and settled down as mulish as a dragon could look; and Granby had folded his arms and wore an expression very similar. Laurence had ordinarily very little inclination to profanity, but he was sorely tempted on this occasion. An appeal to Temeraire's reason might sway him to allow a party to make the attempt, if he could be persuaded to accept the risk as necessary for the gain, like a battle; but he would surely balk at seeing Laurence go, and Laurence had not the least intention of sending men on so deadly an enterprise if he were not going himself, Corps rules be damned.

Once alone with Kestrel, Arin drew the plant out of his pocket: a handful of green with a wirelike stem and slender-tipped leaves. He set it on the table before her. Her eyes flashed, became jewels of joy. It was treasure, the way she looked at him. “Thank you,” she breathed. “I should have searched for it sooner,” he said. “You shouldn’t have had to ask.” He touched three fingers to the back of her hand, the Herrani gesture that could acknowledge thanks for a gift, but could also be used to ask forgiveness. Kestrel’s hand was smooth. Glistening, as if it had been oiled. She drew it back. She changed. Arin saw her change, saw the happiness bleed out of her. She said, “What do I owe you for this?” “Nothing,” he said quickly, confused. Didn’t he owe her? Hadn’t she fought for him once? Hadn’t he used her trust to upend her world?

To these statements, Socrates, no one can offer a reply; but when you talk in this way, a strange feeling passes over the minds of your hearers: They fancy that they are led astray a little at each step in the argument, owing to their own want of skill in asking and answering questions; these littles accumulate, and at the end of the discussion they are found to have sustained a mighty overthrow and all their former notions appear to be turned upside down. And as unskilful players of draughts are at last shut up by their more skilful adversaries and have no piece to move, so they too find themselves shut up at last; for they have nothing to say in this new game of which words are the counters; and yet all the time they are in the right. The observation is suggested to me by what is now occurring. For any one of us might say, that although in words he is not able to meet you at each step of the argument, he sees as a fact that the votaries of philosophy, when they carry on the study, not only in youth as a part of education, but as the pursuit of their maturer years, most of them become strange monsters, not to say utter rogues, and that those who may be considered the best of them are made useless to the world by the very study which you extol.

Then Hedge asked, ‘Can you do it, Quick? Some place with…with eternal torment. Can you do that, wizard? I asked if you can do that!’ Quick Ben faced Fiddler, a question in his eyes. Oh no, Quick, this one isn’t for me to say— ‘Fiddler, help me decide. Please.’ Gods, even Quick Ben’s grieving. Who was this warrior? ‘You’re High Mage, Quick Ben. Do what needs doing.’ The wizard turned back to Hedge. ‘Hood owes me, Hedge.’ ‘What kind of answer is that?’ But Quick Ben turned, gestured, and a dark blur rose round the Letherii, closed entirely about the man’s body, then shrank, as if down into the sand, until nothing remained. There was a faint scream as whatever awaited the Letherii had reached out to take hold of him. Then the wizard snapped out a hand and pulled Fiddler close, and his face was pale with rage. ‘Don’t you pity him, Fid. You understand me?

to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty one owes to one's self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion - these are the two things that govern us. And yet, I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream - I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediævalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal - to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world takes place also. You, yourself, have had passions that made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame -

It’s about Nietzsche’s theory of universal debt. Your parents make it possible for you to believe a far better myth than Santa. They let you think that you, as a kid, don’t owe the world a thing. The world can give you, even if just for a few minutes, utter joy without requiring anything from you. It’s not about consumerism. As far as you know, no one buys you these presents. They come out of nothingness, with fantasies of elves attached. You aren’t required to be grateful to your parents or anything like that. They can give to you and nothing is required in return. When you get old enough, when you have kids, you get to enact this myth for them. It has nothing to do with any fat man in a red suit, no matter what we tell ourselves. It’s about owing nothing, and then realizing that you have to do this job of perpetuating this… this fantasy world, whether you like it or not.

Well, anyhow, the practical outcome of all these damn democratic ideas, is that men of our quality -- yes, damn it! we have a quality -- excuse themselves from the hard and thankless service they owe -- not to the crowd, Dick, but to the race. (Much good it will do is to shirk like that in the long run.) We will not presume, we say, no. We shrug our shoulders and leave the geese, the hungry sheep, the born followers, call them what you will, to the leaders who haven't our scruples. The poor muts swallow those dead old religions no longer fit for human consumption, and we say 'let 'em.' They devour their silly newspapers. They let themselves be distracted from public affairs by games, by gambling, by shows and coronations and every soft of mass stupidity, while the stars in their courses plot against them. We say nothing. Nothing audible. We mustn't destroy the simple faith that is marching them to disaster. We mustn't question their decisions. That wouldn't be democratic. And then we sit here and say privately that the poor riff-raff are failing to adapt themselves to those terrible new conditions -- as if they had had half a chance of knowing how things stand with them. They are shoved about by patriotisms, by obsolete religious prejudices, by racial delusions, by incomprehensible economic forces. Amid a growth of frightful machinery...

It’s amazing how gullible people are,” DeLoy continues. “But you have to remember what a huge comfort the religion is. It provides all the answers. It makes life simple. Nothing makes you feel better than doing what the prophet commands you to do. If you have some controversial issue that you’re dealing with—let’s say you owe a lot of money to somebody, and you don’t have the means to pay them—you go in and talk to the prophet, and he might tell you, ‘You don’t have to pay the money back. The Lord says it’s Okay.’ And if you just do what the prophet says, all the responsibility for your actions is now totally in his hands. You can refuse to pay the guy, or even kill somebody, or whatever, and feel completely good about it. And that’s a real big part of what holds this religion together: it’s not having to make those critical decisions that many of us have to make, and be responsible for your decisions.

We owe all to Jesus crucified. What is your life, my brethren, but the cross? Whence comes the bread of your soul but from the cross? What is your joy but the cross? What is your delight, what is your heaven, but the Blessed One, once crucified for you, who ever liveth to make intercession for you? Cling to the cross, then, put both arms around it! Hold to the Crucified, and never let Him go. Come afresh to the cross at this moment, and rest there now and for ever! Then, with the power of God resting upon you, go forth and preach the cross! Tell out the story of the bleeding Lamb. Repeat the wondrous tale, and nothing else. Never mind how you do it, only proclaim that Jesus died for sinner. The cross held up by a babe’s hands is just as powerful as if a giant held it up. The power lies in the word itself, or rather in the Holy Spirit who works by it and with it. O glorious Christ, when I have had a vision of Thy cross, I have seen it at first like a common gibbet, and Thou wast hanging on it like a felon; but, as I have looked, I have seen it begin to rise, and tower aloft till it has reached the highest heaven, and by its mighty power has lifted up myriads to the throne of God. I have seen its arms extend and expand until they have embraced all the earth. I have seen the foot of it go down deep as our helpless miseries are; and what a vision I have had of Thy magnificence, O Thou crucified One! Brethren, believe in the power of the cross for the conversion of those around you. Do not say of any man that he cannot be saved. The blood of Jesus is omnipotent. Do not say of any district that it is too sunken, or of any class of men that they are too far gone: the word of the cross reclaims the lost. Believe it to be the power of God, and you shall find it so. Believe in Christ crucified, and preach boldly in His name, and you shall see great and gladsome things. Do not doubt the ultimate triumph of Christianity. Do not let a mistrust flit across your soul. The cross must conquer; it must blossom with a crown, a crown commensurate with the person of the Crucified, and the bitterness of His agony. His reward shall parallel His sorrows. Trust in God, and lift your banner high, and now with psalms and songs advance to battle, for the Lord of hosts is with us, the Son of the Highest leads our van. Onward, with blast of silver trumpet and shout of those that seize the spoil. Let no man’s heart fail him! Christ hath died! Atonement is complete! God is satisfied! Peace is proclaimed! Heaven glitters with proofs of mercy already bestowed upon ten thousand times ten thousand! Hell is trembling, heaven adoring, earth waiting. Advance, ye saints, to certain victory! You shall overcome through the blood of the Lamb.

So, did you see that community center I was talking about?” “What? Where?” “We walked right past it, just before that grocery store. I mentioned it on the way to the city? You just drop in and take classes. They’ve got all sorts of stuff. I bet you can get a student rate, even.” “But I’m not a student—” “You’re young enough that they’ll assume—” “—and how am I supposed to find the time to take dance classes, now that I’m the dessert?” “I’m starting to really regret using that metaphor,” Silas says, grinning. “And let me explain something, Rosie.” He takes a swig of the coffee and presses his lips together, searching for words. “I’m from a long, long, long, long line of woodsmen. My brothers are all supertalented. They all built their own rooms. For god’s sake, Lucas built a freaking wooden hot tub in his bedroom with wooden monkeys pouring water into it.” “Monkeys?” “Don’t ask. Anyway, I can do some woodworking. I know my way around the forest, I can handle an ax better than most, I can make a tree grow where nothing else will, I can live off berries and hunt for my food, and I’ve known about the Fenris since I could crawl. I’m a woodsman, for all intents and purposes. But that doesn’t mean I live for it any more than the fact that you’re good at hunting means you have to live for that. So maybe breaking out of the hunting lifestyle for a few hours here and there will help you figure out if it’s really for you or not.” I shake my head, confused as to why he’d even think that was possible. “I can’t just not hunt, Silas. So yeah, I take a few random classes, and what if I decide that I hate hunting and want to quit? That doesn’t mean I can. I owe Scarlett my life, and if she wants to cash in by having me spend my life hunting beside her, so be it. It’d kill her if she ever thought I wanted to quit.” “Rosie,” Silas says quietly. “I’m not suggesting you drop your sister like a bad habit and take up intense ballet training.

The presumption to rule the entire world for the benefit of all its inhabitants was startling. Evolution has made Homo sapiens, like other social mammals, a xenophobic creature. Sapiens instinctively divide humanity into two parts, ‘we’ and ‘they’. We are people like you and me, who share our language, religion and customs. We are all responsible for each other, but not responsible for them. We were always distinct from them, and owe them nothing. We don’t want to see any of them in our territory, and we don’t care an iota what happens in their territory. They are barely even human. In the language of the Dinka people of the Sudan, ‘Dinka’ simply means ‘people’. People who are not Dinka are not people. The Dinka’s bitter enemies are the Nuer. What does the word Nuer mean in Nuer language? It means ‘original people’. Thousands of miles from the Sudan deserts, in the frozen ice-lands of Alaska and north-eastern Siberia, live the Yupiks. What does Yupik mean in Yupik language? It means ‘real people’.3

Another benefit of a sender filter is that it resets expectations. The most crucial line in my description is the following: “I’ll only respond to those proposals that are a good match for my schedule and interests.” This seems minor, but it makes a substantial difference in how my correspondents think about their messages to me. The default social convention surrounding e-mail is that unless you’re famous, if someone sends you something, you owe him or her a response. For most, therefore, an inbox full of messages generates a major sense of obligation. By instead resetting your correspondents’ expectations to the reality that you’ll probably not respond, the experience is transformed. The inbox is now a collection of opportunities that you can glance at when you have the free time—seeking out those that make sense for you to engage. But the pile of unread messages no longer generates a sense of obligation. You could, if you wanted to, ignore them all, and nothing bad would happen. Psychologically, this can be freeing.

I have in my files a copy of a letter written by Major Sullivan Ballou, a Union officer in the 2nd Rhode Island. He writes to his wife on the eve of the Battle of Bull Run, a battle he senses will be his last. He speaks tenderly to her of his undying love, of “the memories of blissful moments I have spent with you.” Ballou mourns the thought that he must give up “the hope of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our sons grown up to honorable manhood around us.” Yet in spite of his love the battle calls and he cannot turn from it. “I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter . . . how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and sufferings of the Revolution . . . Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break” and yet a greater cause “comes over me like a strong wind and bears me unresistably on with all these chains to the battle field.

The front is a cage, and you have to wait nervously in it for whatever happens to you. Here we lie under a criss-cross of shell trajectories, and we live in the tension of uncertainty. Chance is hovering over us. If there is a shot, all I can do is duck; I don’t know for sure and I can’t influence where it is going to come down. It’s awareness of chances that makes us so indifferent. A few months ago, I was playing cards in a dugout; after a bit I got up and went out to go talk to some men I knew in another dugout. When I got back, there was nothing left of the first one, a direct hit from a heavy shell had flattened it. I went back to the other dugout and got there just in time to help dig the men out. While I was away it had been buried. It is simply a matter of chance whether I am hit or whether I go on living. I can be squashed flat in a bomb-proof dugout, and I can survive ten hours in the open under heavy barrage without a scratch. Every soldier owes the fact that he is still alive to a thousand lucky chances and nothing else. And every soldier believes in and trust to chance.

I’d learned the lesson loud and clear, one that has been re-taught to me and so many other women and femmes who have been targets of harassment and abuse: The world owes you nothing. If you are so brave as to express your gender in public, you will be harassed, you will be hurt, you may even be assaulted, and no one will have to apologize for how they treated you. They will get away with it every single time. They will make you feel ashamed of feeling hurt. They will make you feel like you are just whining. And speaking up will only make it worse. Watching people who love you—who support you and want the best for you—try to take on the world and fight for you, only to lose, will only make it hurt more. So you stop talking about what you’re facing. You stop talking about how much you’re hurting. You stop telling people how shitty the world is to you because you are gender nonconforming. You end an email with a smile, take the abuse, and pretend it doesn’t hurt you. You learn you have no real power, that the only power you do have is the power not to flinch when you are punched, not to cry when you are stung, not to acknowledge that abuse leads to injury.

I don't understand it all,' said Thomas [to Nathan]. 'I've wondered all my life what I owe to love. There was a time I felt that because I loved a man, he was in my debt--that he'd made me love him, and so he owed me his love in return. And now he is dead, and I can never receive even a part of what I gave! But the world turned and I came to believe that all we owe to love is humility and gratitude that we were ever loved at all. You think it's humble to say it cannot be real--that she's [Grace's] mistaken, since you're not free. But that's a kind of pride. Real humility is submitting with wonder and gratitude to being loved--real wisdom is submitting with wonder and gratitude to being loved--real wisdom is understanding how amazing it is, how improbable and really absurd, that she was summoned out of nothing, as we all were, and happens to breathe this air when you breathe it, and see this world when you see it, and that out of all the billions of fellow travelers it is your word she waits for as she sits alone in her room! Well: that's a responsibility and probably a terrible one, and I can't help you with it. You must work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, and let me work out mine.

And as we stood there, a curious thing happened: a kind of window opened in the rain, just as if a cloud had been hitched aside like a curtain, and in the space between we saw a landscape that took our breath away. The high ground along which the road ran fell away through a black, woody belt, and beyond it, for more miles than you can imagine, lay the whole basin of the Black Country, clear, amazingly clear, with innumerable smokestacks rising out of it like the merchant shipping of the world laid up in an estuary at low tide, each chimney flying a great pennant of smoke that blew away eastward by the wind, and the whole scene bleared by the light of a sulphurous sunset. No one need ever tell me again that the Black Country isn't beautiful. In all Shrophire and Radnor we'd seen nothing to touch it for vastness and savagery. And then this apocalyptic light! It was like a landscape of the end of the world, and, curiously enough, though men had built the chimneys and fired the furnaces that fed the smoke, you felt that the magnificence of the scene owed nothing to them. Its beauty was singularly inhuman and its terror – for it was terrible, you know – elemental. It made me wonder why you people who were born and bred there ever write about anything else.

Not now, Em." I hopped over a paver, my pace just shy of making me pant. "If not now, when?" "How about never?" "Yeah, that's not going to work." He snorted with feeling. "You're operating under the misconception that I owe you anything. I don't." Definitely touchy. "And I didn't owe you anything when you asked about Dark Castle. But I told you how I felt anyway." "That's on you." We rounded a corner, heading toward the tennis court. I had no idea where he was going; maybe he simply thought he could wear me out and pull away. "You're right." I stopped on the trail, my arms falling to my sides as I caught my breath. To hell with it. I didn't need to be chasing a man who didn't want to be bothered. Weirdly, as if compelled, Lucian came to a halt and half turned my way to glare at me from over his wide shoulder. His body remained tense and poised to take flight once more. "We owe each other nothing," I said, raising my voice enough to be clear over the ten feet that separated us. "But no one lives in a complete void. Your grandmother and Sal walk on eggshells around you." Oh, but that got him. Red suffused his neck, and he stalked back my way, coming within touching distance. "You know nothing about them. Or me." Yeah, that hurt. It shouldn't have, but it did. "I know enough. They worry about you. They love you." Lucian's nostrils flared. "I mean it, Emma. I do not do well with guilt trips." "If you feel guilty, that's on you.

One night, when Violet’s parents had gone out, he teased her about it, whispering against her throat, “I should probably be dating girls my own age now that you’ll be over-the-hill.” Jay was stretched out on Violet’s bed as she curled against him. Violet laughed, rising to the bait. “Fine,” she challenged, pulling away and leaning up on her elbow. “I’m sure there are plenty of men my own age who would be willing to finish what you’ve started.” Jay stiffened, and Violet realized that she’d struck a nerve. “What is it?” He shook his head, and Violet thought he might say, “Nothing,” so when he answered, his words caught her off guard. “Is there someone else, Vi?” Violet frowned, baffled by the unfamiliar jealousy she saw on his face. She wondered what in the world he meant as she reached down and smoothed a strand of hair from his forehead. “What are you talking about, Jay?” His eyes met hers. “I saw you with that guy at the movies, Vi. Who was he?” Violet closed her eyes. She wasn’t ready yet. She didn’t want to tell him about the FBI, about Sara and Rafe or what she’d learned about Mike’s mother. She wondered briefly if he knew about Mike’s mom-if his friend had ever confided in him. But somehow she doubted it. Jay wasn’t like her; he didn’t keep secrets. “It’s not like that,” she explained, hoping that would be enough. Jay got up and went to the window, pushing the curtain aside. Every muscle in his body was rigid. “Like what, Vi? What’s going on? Something’s been bothering you lately. Why can’t you tell me?” He was right. She owed it to him to at least try. “I don’t know how to explain, but I just feel like everything’s changed between us-“ “Of course it’s changed, Violet, what’d you expect?” Violet tried to ignore the bitterness in his voice, telling herself she had no right to be hurt. “It used to be that I would never keep secrets from you. You were my best friend. But now that we’re dating, it’s just…different. I feel like I have to watc what I say, or you get all worried. Sometimes I just want you to be the old Jay again, so I can talk to you.” Violet crept up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her cheek against his back.

The gang of us sat around, and moved our thighs on the horsehair or on the split-bottom and stared down at the unpainted boards of the floor or at the design on the linoleum mat in the middle of the floor as though we were attending a funeral and owed the dead man some money. The linoleum mat was newish, and the colors were still bright—reds and tans and blues slick and varnished-looking—a kind of glib, impertinent, geometrical island floating there in the midst of the cornerless shadows and the acid mummy smell and the slow swell of Time which had fed into this room, day by day since long back, as into a landlocked sea where the fish were dead and the taste was brackish on your tongue. You had the feeling that if the Boss and Mr. Duffy and Sadie Burke and the photographer and the reporters and you and the rest got cuddled up together on that linoleum mat it would lift off the floor by magic and scoop you all up together and make a lazy preliminary circuit of the room and whisk right out the door or out the roof like the floating island of Gulliver or the carpet in the Arabian Nights and carry you off where you and it belonged and leave Old Man Stark sitting there as though nothing had happened, very clean and razor-nicked, with his gray hair plastered down damp, sitting there by the table where the big Bible and the lamp and the plush-bound album were under the blank, devouring gaze of the whiskered face in the big crayon portrait above the mantel shelf.

July 14, 1861 Camp Clark, Washington My very dear Sarah: The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days — perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more… I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans on the triumph of the Government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and sufferings of the Revolution. And I am willing — perfectly willing — to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt… Sarah my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me unresistibly on with all these chains to the battle field. The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them for so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our sons grown up to honorable manhood, around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me — perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have often times been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness… But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights … always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again…

Stephen Colbert: [sitting to Stewart’s right at the anchor desk] Actually, Jon, we’re not quite done. Jon Stewart: [rolling away from Colbert on his chair and nearly toppling off the riser] Don’t do this. Stephen Colbert: [rolling after Stewart and grabbing him by the arm] No—you can’t stop anyone, because they don’t work for you anymore! Huge mistake! Jon Stewart: Please don’t do this. Stephen Colbert: Here’s the thing: You said to me and to many other people here years ago never to thank you, because we owe you nothing. Jon Stewart: [quietly] That’s right. Stephen Colbert: It’s one of the few times I’ve known you to be dead wrong… We owe you because we learned from you, by example, how to do a show with intention, with clarity. How to treat people with respect. You are infuriatingly good at your job, okay? [Stewart covers his eyes, which appear to be filled with tears] And all of us who were lucky enough to work with you—and you can edit this out later—for sixteen years are better at our jobs because we got to watch you do yours. And we are better people for having known you… Personally, I do not know how this son of a poor, Appalachian turd miner—I do not know what I would do if you hadn’t brought me on this show. I’d be back in those hills, mining turds with Pappy! Jon—and it’s almost over—I know you are not asking for this, but on behalf of so many people whose lives you changed over the past sixteen years, thank you. And now, I believe your line—correct me if I’m wrong—is “We’ll be right back.

I understand you.—You do not suppose that I have ever felt much.—For four months, Marianne, I have had all this hanging on my mind, without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature; knowing that it would make you and my mother most unhappy whenever it were explained to you, yet unable to prepare you for it in the least.— It was told me,—it was in a manner forced on me by the very person herself, whose prior engagement ruined all my prospects; and told me, as I thought, with triumph.— This person's suspicions, therefore, I have had to oppose, by endeavouring to appear indifferent where I have been most deeply interested;—and it has not been only once;—I have had her hopes and exultation to listen to again and again.— I have known myself to be divided from Edward for ever, without hearing one circumstance that could make me less desire the connection.—Nothing has proved him unworthy; nor has anything declared him indifferent to me.— I have had to contend against the unkindness of his sister, and the insolence of his mother; and have suffered the punishment of an attachment, without enjoying its advantages.— And all this has been going on at a time, when, as you know too well, it has not been my only unhappiness.— If you can think me capable of ever feeling—surely you may suppose that I have suffered NOW. The composure of mind with which I have brought myself at present to consider the matter, the consolation that I have been willing to admit, have been the effect of constant and painful exertion;—they did not spring up of themselves;—they did not occur to relieve my spirits at first.— No, Marianne.—THEN, if I had not been bound to silence, perhaps nothing could have kept me entirely—not even what I owed to my dearest friends—from openly shewing that I was VERY unhappy.

The milk is long since out of date, the bread all has mold and I think you could start a bacterial plague with what’s in the crisper here…” “Order a pizza,” he suggested. “There’s a place down on the corner that still owes me ten pizzas, paid for in advance.” “You can’t eat pizza for breakfast!” “Why can’t I? I’ve been doing it for a week.” “You can cook,” she said accusingly. “When I’m sober,” he agreed. She glowered at him and went back to her chore. “Well, the eggs are still edible, barely, and there’s an unopened pound of bacon. I’ll make an omelet.” He collapsed into the chair at the kitchen table while she made a fresh pot of coffee and set about breaking eggs. “You look very domesticated like that,” he pointed out with a faint smile. “After we have breakfast, why don’t you come to bed with me?” She gave him a shocked glance. “I’m pregnant,” she reminded him. He nodded and laughed softly. “Yes, I know. It’s an incredible turn-on.” Her hand stopped, poised in midair with a spoon in it. “Wh…What?” “The eggs are burning,” he said pleasantly. She stirred them quickly and turned the bacon, which was frying in another pan. He thought her condition was sexy? She couldn’t believe he was serious. But apparently he was, because he watched her so intently over breakfast that she doubted if he knew what he was eating. “Mr. Hutton told the curator of the museum in Tennessee that I wasn’t coming back, and he paid off the rent on my house there,” she said. “I don’t even have a home to go to…” “Yes, you do,” he said quietly. “I’m your home. I always have been.” She averted her eyes to her plate and hated the quick tears that her condition prompted. Her fists clenched. “And here we are again,” she said huskily. “Where?” he asked. She drew in a harsh breath. “You’re taking responsibility for me, out of duty.” He leaned back in his chair. The robe came away from his broad, bronzed chest as he stared at her. “Not this time,” he replied with a voice so tender that it made ripples right through her heart. “This time, it’s out of love, Cecily.” Cecily doubted her own ears. She couldn’t have heard Tate saying that he wanted to take care of her because he loved her. He wasn’t teasing. His face was almost grim. “I know,” he said. “You don’t believe it. But it’s true, just the same.” He searched her soft, shocked green eyes. “I loved you when you were seventeen, Cecily, but I thought I had nothing to offer you except an affair.” He sighed heavily. “It was never completely for the reasons I told you, that I didn’t want to get married. It was my mother’s marriage. It warped me. It’s taken this whole scandal to make me realize that a good marriage is nothing like the one I grew up watching. I had to see my mother and Matt together before I understood what marriage could be.

So your vow of poverty means nothing to you,” I said, amused at his flaring nostrils. How easy it was to goad him. “A fact made even clearer when you look out your window at the hundred or more starving people freezing to death on those docks. They seemed to view the arrival of our ship as a last hope.” “I can’t control how many people choose to leave our shores, or how few ships are here to transport them. The Winter of Purification is upon us. I do not question the will of the gods; I merely serve.” “I think it’s your own will you follow. You always were obsessed with Frostblood purity.” “Only the strongest will remain.” His eyes shifted to Arcus. “No true Frostblood would object to that.” “Is that what you’re posturing as?” I demanded. “A true Frostblood? Last I checked, you had no gift to speak of.” He drew himself up. “I’ve always thought the mark of a true Frostblood was in his character.” “Excuse me?” I laughed at the idea of him having anything resembling character. “Oh, and I suppose that’s why those people out there are freezing? Because they have no character?” My voice rose. “I think it’s because they don’t have your connections, your wealth, and your guile. You plunder their lands to fill your coffers, spending your coin on food and fine clothing while common folk starve! The proof is in these invoices and ledgers.” I grabbed a wad of scrolls and tossed them at him. They hit his chest and scattered. “Do you deny it?” “I don’t owe them anything, damn you!” Spittle flew, hitting my heated skin with a sizzle. “I certainly owe you no explanations. You are nothing but an upstart rebel who was pretty enough to attract the attentions of a scarred and ugly king!” The words reverberated in my head. It was one thing to insult me, but to say that about Arcus… “I’m so glad you gave me an excuse to do this,” I said hoarsely, raising my fiery palms. “Even your bones will be ashes.

Be calm! I entreat you to hear me, before you give vent to your hatred on my devoted head. Have I not suffered enough that you seek to increase my misery? Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it. Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine; my joints more supple. But I will not be tempted to set myself in opposition to thee. I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king, if thou wilt also perform thy part, the which thou owest me. Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other, and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is most due. Remember, that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous." "Begone! I will not hear you. There can be no community between you and me; we are enemies. Begone, or let us try our strength in a fight, in which one must fall." "How can I move thee? Will no entreaties cause thee to turn a favourable eye upon thy creature, who implores thy goodness and compassion? Believe me, Frankenstein: I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity: but am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow-creatures, who owe me nothing? they spurn and hate me. The desert mountains and dreary glaciers are my refuge. I have wandered here many days; the caves of ice, which I only do not fear, are a dwelling to me, and the only one which man does not grudge. These bleak skies I hail, for they are kinder to me than your fellow-beings. If the multitude of mankind knew of my existence, they would do as you do, and arm themselves for my destruction. Shall I not then hate them who abhor me? I will keep no terms with my enemies. I am miserable, and they shall share my wretchedness. Yet it is in your power to recompense me, and deliver them from an evil which it only remains for you to make so great that not only you and your family, but thousands of others, shall be swallowed up in the whirlwinds of its rage. Let your compassion be moved, and do not disdain me. Listen to my tale: when you have heard that, abandon or commiserate me, as you shall judge that I deserve. But hear me. The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned. Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder; and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man! Yet I ask you not to spare me: listen to me; and then, if you can, and if you will, destroy the work of your hands.

You don’t have to sleep on the floor. I know it’s uncomfortable.” “I think I owe you more than a night on the floor.” “You broke your arm tonight. It’ll be stiff, even if you healed it. I don’t want my ally wounded.” She knew, after all the ways she’d flirted with him before, that any invitation could be misconstrued. Especially in a bed with little space between them, entirely in the dark. But there was no misconstruing the way her stomach somersaulted when she felt the mattress shift as he sat down. When he lay beside her and warmth like fire spread through her from her head to her toes. Nothing good would come of this. This was Alistair Lowe, she reminded herself. The one everyone had declared her greatest rival. The boy her mother had warned her about. After they’d slain all the other champions—her ex-best friend among them—it would only be the two of them left. Maybe that would be months from now. Maybe it would be days. But that was what this alliance led up to. Not a kiss stolen in the dark, or a priceless gift given without being asked. A duel. Sobered, Isobel turned so her back was to him. Several minutes had passed, and Alistair hadn’t moved. She wasn’t even sure if he was still awake. “Tell me a monster story,” she whispered. He stirred, then drowsily murmured, “Have you ever heard of a nightcreeper?” “I haven’t.” “They’re drawn to places with complete darkness because their bodies are made of shadow.” Isobel noted the complete darkness around them and slid deeper beneath the blankets. “They can see in the darkness no better than you can, but their eyes are burned away by the faintest light. That’s what they search for—eyes. New ones that don’t scorch in the daylight, that they pluck out and use to replace their own. So they can finally feast outside.” Isobel’s dread receded, her fears replaced by make-believe ones. When she did fall asleep, she didn’t dream of Briony’s demise. She didn’t dream of how it would feel to kiss Alistair or to curse him. She dreamed of fears that, for once, felt surmountable.

Spearing a quail egg with her fork, Evie popped it into her mouth. “What is to be done about Mr. Egan?” His shoulders lifted in a graceful shrug. “As soon as he is sober enough to walk, he’ll be dismissed.” Evie brushed away a stray lock of hair that had fallen over her cheek. “There is no one to replace him.” “Yes, there is. Until a suitable manager can be found, I’ll run the club.” The quail egg seemed to stick in her throat, and Evie choked a little. Hastily she reached for her wine, washed it down, and regarded him with bulging eyes. How could he say something so preposterous? “You can’t.” “I can hardly do worse than Egan. He hasn’t managed a damned thing in months… before long, this place will be falling down around our ears.” “You said you hated work!” “So I did. But I feel that I should try it at least once, just to be certain.” She began to stammer in her anxiety. “You’ll pl-play at this for a few days, and then you’ll tire of it.” “I can’t afford to tire of it, my love. Although the club is still profitable, its value is in decline. Your father has a load of outstanding debt that must be settled. If the people who owe him can’t muster the cash, we’ll have to take property, jewelry, artwork… whatever they can manage. Having a good idea of the value of things, I can negotiate some acceptable settlements. And there are other problems I haven’t yet mentioned… Jenner has a string of failing Thoroughbreds that have lost a fortune at Newmarket. And he’s made some insane investments— ten thousand pounds he put into an alleged gold mine in Flintshire— a swindle that even a child should have seen through.” “Oh God,” Evie murmured, rubbing her forehead. “He’s been ill— people have taken advantage—” “Yes. And now, even if we wanted to sell the club, we couldn’t without first putting it in order. If there were an alternative, believe me, I would find it. But this place is a sieve, with no one who is capable or willing to stop the holes. Except for me.” “You know nothing about filling holes!” she cried, appalled by his arrogance. Sebastian responded with a bland smile and the slightest arch of one brow. Before he could open his mouth to reply, she clapped her hands over her ears. "Oh, don't say it, don't!" When she saw that he was obligingly holding his silence-though a devilish gleam remained in his eyes-she lowered her hands cautiously.

Socrates: So now you won't acknowledge any gods except the ones we do--Chaos, the Clouds, the Tongue--just these three? Strepsiades: Absolutely-- I'd refuse to talk to any other gods, if I ran into them--and I decline to sacrifice or pour libations to them. I'll not provide them any incense... I want to twist all legal verdicts in my favor, to evade my creditors. Chorus Leader: You'll get that, just what you desire. For what you want is nothing special. So be confident--give yourself over to our agents here. Strepsiades: I'll do that--I'll place my trust in you. Necessity is weighing me down--the horses, those thoroughbreds, my marriage--all that has worn me out. So now, this body of mine I'll give to them, with no strings attached, to do with as they like--to suffer blows, go without food and drink, live like a pig, to freeze or have my skin flayed for a pouch-- if I can just get out of all my debt and make men think of me as bold and glib, as fearless, impudent, detestable, one who cobbles lies together, makes up words, a practiced legal rogue, a statute book, a chattering fox, sly and needle sharp, a slippery fraud, a sticky rascal, foul whipping boy or twisted villain, troublemaker, or idly prattling fool. If they can make those who run into me call me these names, they can do what they want--no questions asked. If, by Demeter, they're keen, they can convert me into sausages and serve me up to men who think deep thoughts. Chorus: Here's a man whose mind's now smart, no holding back--prepared to start. When you have learned all this from me you know your glory will arise among all men to heaven's skies. Strepsiades: And what will I get out of this? Chorus: For all time, you'll live with me a life most people truly envy. Strepsiades: You mean one day I'll really see that? Chorus: Hordes will sit outside your door wanting your advice and more-- to talk, to place their trust in you for their affairs and lawsuits, too, things which merit your great mind. They'll leave you lots of cash behind. Chorus Leader: [to Socrates] So get started with this old man's lessons, what you intend to teach him first of all--rouse his mind, test his intellectual powers. Socrates: Come on then, tell me the sort of man you are--once I know that, I can bring to bear on you my latest batteries with full effect. Strepsiades: What's that? By god, are you assaulting me? Socrates: No--I want to learn some things from you. What about your memory? Strepsiades: To tell the truth, it works two ways. If someone owes me something, I remember really well. But if it's poor me that owes the money, I forget a lot. Socrates: Do you have a natural gift for speech? Strepsiades: Not for speaking--only for evading debt. Socrates: ... Now, what do you do if someone hits you? Strepsiades: If I get hit, I wait around a while, then find witnesses, hang around some more, then go to court.

Where are you from?" She asked without thinking. "I was born in the mountains." Runach said with a shrug. "The place doesn't matter." "Do you have siblings?" "Yes, several. Not all are still living. He smiled faintly. "You are full of questions this afternoon." "The library was a bad influence on me." Runach smiled briefly. "And I believe that was three questions you asked me, which leaves me with three of my own for you to answer." "That was two." "I don't count very well." "I think you count very well," she said grimly. He only smiled again. "I'll contemplate which answers I'll have and let you know." Aisling thought she just might be dreading them, but couldn't bring herself to say as much. "What was your home like?" she asked. "Another question." "You look distracted." He smiled and a dimple peeked out at her from his unscarred cheek. "You are more devious than I give you credit for being. I am keeping a tally, you know. I will expect a like number of answers from you." She stared at him for a moment or two. It was difficult not to, but he didnt seem to mind. "Why?" She asked finally. "Beacause you are a mystery." "And do you care for a mystery?" "I am obsessed by a good mystery," he said frankly. "More than enough to pry a few answers out of you, however I am able." "And what if I am not inclined to give them?" She asked, her mouth suddenly dry. "Then I will wonder about you silently." "In truth?" she asked, surprised. Runach smiled, looking just as surprised. "What else would I do? Beat the answers from you?" "I don't know." She said slowly. "I don't know what soldiers do." He shook his head. "Hedge all you like, if you like." "Your mother must have been a well-bred lady." She said, frowning. "Why do you say that?" "She seems to have taught you decent manners, for your being a mere soldier." "She tried," he agreed, looking out over the sea. Aisling turned and looked at him. "How long ago did you lose her?" Runach took a deep breath and dragged his hand through his hair, before he bowed his head and slid her a look. "That answer will cost you dearly." Her first instinct, as always, was to say nothing. But the truth was, she lived and breathed still. She could tell him perhaps a bit about herself, without bringing the curse down upon her head. Aisling took her own deep breath. "Very well." "My mother died twenty years ago, though I vow it feels like yesterday." "How did she die?" Runach was very still. "My father slew her and half my siblings. Time has done the rest of that terrible work I suppose. She shut her mouth, and put her hand on his arm. "I'm sorry." "I am too," he agreed. Runach shook his head, then reached for her hand to draw it through his arm. "Let's walk whilst you spew out the answers you owe me. You'll be more comfortable that way, I'm sure." "I'm not sure you should worry about my comfort" Aisling managed, "not after those questions." "But I do. And now that I have bared my soul, I think you should worry about my comfort and do the same.

But whether I’m on deck or below it, I’ll never be far.” “Shall I take that as a promise? Or a threat?” She sauntered toward him, hands cocked on her hips in an attitude of provocation. His eyes swept her body, washing her with angry heat. She noted the subtle tensing of his shoulders, the frayed edge of his breath. Even exhausted and hurt, he still wanted her. For a moment, Sophia felt hope flicker to life inside her. Enough for them both. And then, with the work of an instant, he quashed it all. Gray stepped back. He gave a loose shrug and a lazy half-smile. If I don’t care about you, his look said, you can’t possibly hurt me. “Take it however you wish.” “Oh no, you don’t. Don’t you try that move with me.” With trembling fingers, she began unbuttoning her gown. “What the devil are you doing? You think you can just hike up your shift and make-“ “Don’t get excited.” She stripped the bodice down her arms, then set to work unlacing her stays. “I’m merely settling a score. I can’t stand to be in your debt a moment longer.” Soon she was down to her chemise and plucking coins from the purse tucked between her breasts. One, two, three, four, five… “There,” she said, casing the sovereigns on the table. “Six pounds, and”-she fished out a crown-“ten shillings. You owe me the two.” He held up open palms. “Well, I’m afraid I have no coin on me. You’ll have to trust me for it.” “I wouldn’t trust you for anything. Not even two shillings.” He glared at her a moment, then turned on his heel and exited the cabin, banging the door shut behind him. Sophia stared at it, wondering whether she dared stomp after him with her bodice hanging loose around her hips. Before she could act on the obvious affirmative, he stormed back in. “Here.” A pair of coins clattered to the table. “Two shillings. And”-he drew his other hand from behind his back-“your two leaves of paper. I don’t want to be in your debt, either.” The ivory sheets fluttered as he released them. One drifted to the floor. Sophia tugged a banknote from her bosom and threw it on the growing pile. To her annoyance, it made no noise and had correspondingly little dramatic value. In compensation, she raised her voice. “Buy yourself some new boots. Damn you.” “While we’re settling scores, you owe me twenty-odd nights of undisturbed sleep.” “Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “We’re even on that regard.” She paused, glaring a hole in his forehead, debating just how hateful she would make this. Very. “You took my innocence,” she said coldly-and completely unfairly, because they both knew she’d given it freely enough. “Yes, and I’d like my jaded sensibilities restored, but there’s no use wishing after rainbows, now is there?” He had a point there. “I suppose we’re squared away then.” “I suppose we are.” “There’s nothing else I owe you?” His eyes were ice. “Not a thing.” But there is, she wanted to shout. I still owe you the truth, if only you’d care enough to ask for it. If only you cared enough for me, to want to know. But he didn’t. He reached for the door. “Wait,” he said. “There is one last thing.” Sophia’s heart pounded as he reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a scrap of white fabric. “There,” he said, unceremoniously casting it atop the pile of coins and notes and paper. “I’m bloody tired of carrying that around.” And then he was gone, leaving Sophia to wrap her arms over her half-naked chest and stare numbly at what he’d discarded. A lace-trimmed handkerchief, embroidered with a neat S.H.

this I say,—we must never forget that all the education a man's head can receive, will not save his soul from hell, unless he knows the truths of the Bible. A man may have prodigious learning, and yet never be saved. He may be master of half the languages spoken round the globe. He may be acquainted with the highest and deepest things in heaven and earth. He may have read books till he is like a walking cyclopædia. He may be familiar with the stars of heaven,—the birds of the air,—the beasts of the earth, and the fishes of the sea. He may be able, like Solomon, to "speak of trees, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows on the wall, of beasts also, and fowls, and creeping things, and fishes." (1 King iv. 33.) He may be able to discourse of all the secrets of fire, air, earth, and water. And yet, if he dies ignorant of Bible truths, he dies a miserable man! Chemistry never silenced a guilty conscience. Mathematics never healed a broken heart. All the sciences in the world never smoothed down a dying pillow. No earthly philosophy ever supplied hope in death. No natural theology ever gave peace in the prospect of meeting a holy God. All these things are of the earth, earthy, and can never raise a man above the earth's level. They may enable a man to strut and fret his little season here below with a more dignified gait than his fellow-mortals, but they can never give him wings, and enable him to soar towards heaven. He that has the largest share of them, will find at length that without Bible knowledge he has got no lasting possession. Death will make an end of all his attainments, and after death they will do him no good at all. A man may be a very ignorant man, and yet be saved. He may be unable to read a word, or write a letter. He may know nothing of geography beyond the bounds of his own parish, and be utterly unable to say which is nearest to England, Paris or New York. He may know nothing of arithmetic, and not see any difference between a million and a thousand. He may know nothing of history, not even of his own land, and be quite ignorant whether his country owes most to Semiramis, Boadicea, or Queen Elizabeth. He may know nothing of the affairs of his own times, and be incapable of telling you whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the Commander-in-Chief, or the Archbishop of Canterbury is managing the national finances. He may know nothing of science, and its discoveries,—and whether Julius Cæsar won his victories with gunpowder, or the apostles had a printing press, or the sun goes round the earth, may be matters about which he has not an idea. And yet if that very man has heard Bible truth with his ears, and believed it with his heart, he knows enough to save his soul. He will be found at last with Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, while his scientific fellow-creature, who has died unconverted, is lost for ever. There is much talk in these days about science and "useful knowledge." But after all a knowledge of the Bible is the one knowledge that is needful and eternally useful. A man may get to heaven without money, learning, health, or friends,—but without Bible knowledge he will never get there at all. A man may have the mightiest of minds, and a memory stored with all that mighty mind can grasp,—and yet, if he does not know the things of the Bible, he will make shipwreck of his soul for ever. Woe! woe! woe to the man who dies in ignorance of the Bible! This is the Book about which I am addressing the readers of these pages to-day. It is no light matter what you do with such a book. It concerns the life of your soul. I summon you,—I charge you to give an honest answer to my question. What are you doing with the Bible? Do you read it? HOW READEST THOU?