Bu Uelos Quotes

Books have given me a magic portal to connect with people of the past and the present. I know I shall never feel lonely or powerless again. ~ Lisa Bu

Bu keyi, Cannot. It was one of the first Mandarin phrases I learned, and it is the phrase of choice for all things forbidden, out of bounds, not possible, or otherwise not allowed. Its meaning seems to vacillate with circumstances: sometimes bu keyi means no, sometimes it suggests maybe, and sometimes it even hints at yes. ~ Deborah Fallows

They can trigger me, bu they'll never figure me out ~ Eminem

There is honing to fear, bu fear itself/ ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The Lama of the Crystal Monastery appears to be a very happy man, and yet I wonder how he feels about his isolation in the silences of Tsakang, which he has not left in eight years now and, because of his legs, may never leave again. Since Jang-bu seems uncomfortable with the Lama or with himself or perhaps with us, I tell him not to inquire on this point if it seems to him impertinent, but after a moment Jang-bu does so. And this holy man of great directness and simplicity, big white teeth shining, laughs out loud in an infectious way at Jang-bu's question. Indicating his twisted legs without a trace of self-pity or bitterness, as if they belonged to all of us, he casts his arms wide to the sky and the snow mountains, the high sun and dancing sheep, and cries, Of course I am happy here! It's wonderful! Especially when I have no choice! ~ Peter Matthiessen

Pak sabar adalah suami bu menanti.
mr patient is the husband of mrs waiting. ~ Toba Beta

The secret of the receptive Must be sought in stillness; Within stillness there remains The potential for action. ~ Sun Bu'er

What does it mean to become a Buddha? "Bu" means "Buddhi," the intellect. One who is above his intellect is a Buddha. ~ Jaggi Vasudev

It was instinct to pull back, to let go before I felt him let go first, bu he didn't allow me. ~ Alexandra Bracken

There is no difference between our methods and those of anybody bu else-the only difference is that our motivation and dedication he is much greater. ~ Dhirubhai Ambani

Assist your Muslim brother, whether he be an oppressor or oppressed. "Bu how shall we doit when he is an oppressor?" enquired a companion. Muhammad replied, "Assisting an oppressor by forbidding and witholding him from oppression. ~ Anonymous

The secret to succeeding in business, is in the first two letters of business... BU. ~ Daniel M. Lewis

Foolish. Stupid. I knew it. I knew my reaction was unreasonable, bu the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. Blaise Pascal said that, and I've always found it to be true. ~ Megan Hart

My English teacher, he's like, he's like Mr. Bu-fu. ~ Frank Zappa

He's been looking at me like I've been drinking, and I can't blame him. My dress is ripped and my words slur. I'm not myself, I think, bu then I realize something even scarier: I am exactly myself. ~ Ally Carter

I've been practicing Buddhism for a while. So, I call myself a Jew-Bu, because my tribe is still Jew. But my philosophy and my practice is really Buddhist. ~ Goldie Hawn

It's not any easier. We can't choose who we fall in love with. Besides, there's nothing abnormal about two guys being together. Nature made you the way you are and me the way I am. We're already living normal lives. ~ Jay Bell

My basic principle for sorting papers is to throw them all away. My clients are stunned when I say this, bu there is nothing more annoying than papers. After all, they will never inspire joy, no matter how carefully you keep them. ~ Marie Kondo

I could never accept
life as it was,
I could never gobble
down all its
poisons
bu there were parts,
tenuous magic parts
open for the
asking. ~ Charles Bukowski

Nothing is ever black and white, Nila. You should know that bu now. Its all how you survive the grey." -Kes ~ Pepper Winters

Think about it. When you die you'll be surrounded bu the people you killed. Who the hells goes around killing people they like? In the Afterdeath we'll be surrounded by our enemies. ~ Michael R. Fletcher

As a woman I have a country; as a woman I cannot divest myself of that country merely bu condemning its government or by saying three times "As a woman my country is the whole world." -Notes Towards a Politics of Location. ~ Adrienne Rich

Using a metaphor in front of a man as unimaginative as Ridcully was like a
red flag to a bu ... was like putting something very annoying in front of
someone who was annoyed by it. ~ Terry Pratchett

It was very clear that this was a very, very old site. There were remains of sod walls. Fishermen assumed it was an old Indian site. Bu Indians didn't use that kind of buildings and houses. ~ Helge Ingstad

The most radical division that it is possible to make of humanity is that which splits it into two classes of creatures: Those who make great demands on themselves, piling up difficulties and duties; and those who demand nothing special of themselves, bu ~ Jose Ortega Y Gasset

At Boston University, I motivated negatively, and I found that although it can work at first, by the end of the year everyone is dying for the year to end and you have lost them. The last two years at BU, I motivated positively and got much better results. ~ Rick Pitino

He said, 'Ifemelu is a fine babe bu she is too much trouble. She can argue. She can talk. She never agrees. But Ginika is just a sweet gil.' He paused, then added, He didn't know that was exactly what I hoped to hear, I'm not interested in girls that are too nice ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Bridge had a lot of long, soft profiles about the administration, .. In contrast, BU Today has shorter, hard pieces - more consistent with online journalism - which people can read every morning when they log on. ~ Craig David

But I'd also learned that-in love-nothing makes sense. I didn't make sense. I didn't understand myself. Down is up and up is purple. The sky is drawer. The moon is goat.
In love, everything was nonsense.
Bu maybe that also means anything is possible. ~ Penny Reid

Wildness had never been a part of her life. Home, work, home, work. That's all her life had consisted of, really. She'd told Maddox that she'd been glad for her solitude, bu the truth was, there were times she'd been starved for touch. Any touch. ~ Gena Showalter

Reading for experience is the only reading that justifies excitement. Reading for facts is necessary bu the less said about it in public the better. Reading for distraction is like taking medicine. We do it, but it is nothing to be proud of. But reading for experience is transforming. ~ Henry Seidel Canby

Art is personal, originating from dreams, ideas, neuroses; art is shared, harkening back to the humans around the fire; art imbues pleasure and power by enabling people to know reality ... Art is a necessity because it is a way of knowing ... Is the need for truth physiological? Art exists out of time ... images may be different bu there is always a repetition- a thread. ~ Zelda Fichandler

Bu is a word that cools many a warm impulse, stifles many a kindly thought, puts a dead stop to many a brotherly deed. No one would ever love his neighbor as himself if he listened to all the Buts that could be said. ~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

The relic from before birth Enters one's heart one day. Be as careful as if you were holding a full vessel, Be as gentle as if you were caressing an infant. The gate of earth should be shut tight, The portals of heaven should be first opened. Wash the yellow sprouts clean, And atop the mountain is thunder shaking the earth. ~ Sun Bu'er

Not just a thief, but a murderer as well. Beneath the handsome man, Kelsea sensed another man, a terrible one, with a life as black as the water in an ice-covered lake. A murderer many, many times.
The idea should have brought horror. Kelsea waited for a long moment, bu what came instead was an even worse realization: it didn't matter at all. ~ Erika Johansen

An accident you're in? It marks you on the outside, maybe. Scars your face or your skin-breaks bones,crushes skulls,leaves the body changed.
An accident witnessed? You're different on the inside. Maybe there's no cut someone else can see, bu there're always injuries on the inside.
Those take a long time to heal. ~ Carol Lynch Williams

She looked so unbearably sad, and it wrecked him.

"You love someone else," she whispered.
Wait.... what?

It took him a moment to realize he hasn't said it aloud. Has she gone mad? "What are you talking about?"

"Billie Bridgerton. You're supposed to marry her. I don't think you remember, bu--"

"I'm not in love with Billie," he interrupted ~ Julia Quinn

I ran track in high school very competitively, and then ran it D-1 at Boston University. I ran there on an athletic scholarship and chose BU because they had both a good track program and an arts program. ~ Uzo Aduba

There is no teacher bu the enemy. No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. ~ Orson Scott Card

You must go ask Gi Bu Sen for advice. He is the only one who knows what sort of monster we face. These are his children, coming to torment us. He will recognize them. I'm having the new samples prepared. Between the three, he will know. "

"There's no other way?"

"Our only other choice is to begin quarantining the city, and then the riots will begin and there will be nothing left to save. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi

'Extinction' issue. Save the species for whom??? Humans' convenience, of course! Individuals of the species are snatched from their homes/family/habitat/held in captivity/forced to mate at great physical/ spiritual pain. When the right numbers are reached, their holocaust starts all over again! Another merry-go-round/ bu$ine$$ a$ u$ual!!! Protectionists/welfarists find it a profitable issue: no controversy/ easy donations! I'd rather see an entire species extinct than in the hands of the humans! ~ Adela Popescu

In the savage horde the most vagabond, as well as in the most civilized nations of Europe, man is only what he is made to be by external circumstances; he is necessarily elevated by his equals; he contracts from them his habits and his wants; his ideas are no longer his own; he enjoys, from the enviable prerogative of his species, a capacity of developing his understanding bu the power of initiation, and the influence of society. ~ Jean Marc Gaspard Itard

He stretched his arm above my head, and my heart skipped a beat. "I've been thinking about this a lot." "This?" David toyed with the hair on top of my head. "This." "K-kissing?" He pressed his body against mine, and I stopped breathing. "Speaking of which." "I haven't brushed my teeth," I blurted, then realized what an extremely stupid thing that was to say. His eyes crinkled. "Hmmm, did you brush them this morning?" "Yes," I croaked. "Good." He tilted his head. "Bu - ~ Shannon Greenland

I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. These are things which he has thought about as a child. Bu t my intellectual development was retarded,as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up. ~ Albert Einstein

For all who believe that peace is not an ideal or pipe dream but anecessity. ~Libba Bray

They believe, and believing changes everything. ~Gemma, The sweet far thing, Libba Bray

Bu the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us forward, into the unknown. ~Circe, The sweet far thing, Libba Bray

Stop, gemma, before you go mad.
Or am I already there? ~Gemma, The sweet far thing, Libba Bray

peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more aruous. ~George Shaw ~ Libba Bray

It was a long time ago.
"Though it seems, sometimes, that most things that matter happened a long time ago, that is not really true. What is true is this: bu the time you realize how much something mattered, time has passed; by the time it stops hurting enough that you can tell about it, first to yourself, and finally to someone else, more time has passed; then, when you sit down to begin the telling, you have to begin this way:
"It was a long time ago. ~ Lois Lowry

At that moment, it just seemed as if his face was perfect. Innocent and strong. And - why not? - exotic, too, bu exotic in the sense of being distinct from most of the other faces we saw every day. A face I would design if I could design a face for the son I was never going to have. It was an Asian face. Not unlike the one I used to see in the mirror so many decades ago, the one I was so ashamed of for its distinctive contours. The one I spent years trying to alter with clothespins and duct tape. ~ Alex Tizon

Even our prayers are to farang, Kanya thinks. A farang antidote for a farang plague.

Take any tool you can find. Make it your own, Jaidee said in times past, explaining why they consorted with the worst. Why they bribed and stole and encouraged monsters like Gi Bu Sen.

A machete doesn't care who wields it, or who made it. Take the knife and it will cut. Take the farang if they will be a tool in your hand. And if it turns on you, melt it down. You will have at least the raw materials.

Take any tool. He was always practical. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi

I sells ladies fings, and vis nun, she comes up to me stall an' afore you can blink an eye, she picks up a couple of bread an' cheeses, tucks 'em in 'er petticoats, an' is off round the Jack Horner, dahn ve frog an' toad, quick as shit off a stick. I couldn't Adam an' Eve it, bu' vats wot she done. When I tells me carvin' knife wot I seen, she calls me an 'oly friar, an' says she'll land me one on me north and south if I calls Sister Monica Joan a tea-leaf. Very fond of Sister, she is. So I never says nuffink to no one, like. ~ Jennifer Worth

Are they not fresh and beautiful?" [Watson] cried ...
Holmes shook his head gravely.
" ... You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed bu their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed here ... They always filled me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson ... that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beauty of the countryside ... But the reason is obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

You know what kills me about Jennifer Lopez? The fact that this woman wakes up one day and she's like, 'You know what? From now on, I'd like people to call me J-Lo,' and then they do it. Only a celebrity can get away with this. George Bush doesn't come out for his morning press conferences: 'From now on, I'd like to be referred to as G-Bu. Y'all know my vice president, Dog Chain. ~ Carol Leifer

It was only nine o'clock, and I was already exhausted.The first half of the day with Bridezilla hadn't helped, but bu two, I think Nonna had slipped her a Xanax (who knows where she got it,although I suspect collusion with Sam Nguyen), and by the time we climbed into the limo at three, Sienna was channeling Grace Kelly in a big way.
The mass was fine, if you like that kinda thing. The photo session was a nightmare, since the flower girl and rng bearer kept kicking each other with their new, hard shoes, and the photographer didn't quite get that, no, I wasn't going to push my hair back so we could see my pretty face, so get over it. ~ Melissa Jensen

We hang on to our values, even if they seem at times tarnished and worn; even if, as a nation and in our own lives, we have betrayed them more often that we care to remember. What else is there to guide us? Those values are our inheritance, what makes us who we are as a people. And although we recognize that they are subject to challenge, can be poked and prodded and debunked and turned inside out bu intellectuals and cultural critics, they have proven to be both surprisingly durable and surprisingly constant across classes, and races, and faiths, and generations. We can make claims on their behalf, so long as we understand that our values must be tested against fact and experience, so long as we recall that they demand deeds and not just words. ~ Barack Obama

We straighten , bu our snickering is barely contained as we attempt to focus our attention on a picture of a discarded Coke can. "This guy's lady love is kind of a slob, don't you think?" he whispers.
I cover my mouth with my hands again.
"A reaaaaaaaal litterbug."
"Stop it," I hiss. My eyes are watering. "Ohmygod look at this one! How did he get her toenail clippings?"
"If you were my girl," he whispers, "I'd take creepy pictures of your trash when I knew you weren't looking."
"If you were my girl," I whisper back," I"d put the creepy pictures in a foreign museum so you wouldn't know that I take creepy pictures. ~ Stephanie Perkins

As part of an effort to prod college seniors to get tetanus shots, a group of students was given a lecture meant to educate them about the dangers of tetanus and the importance of getting inoculated against it. A large majority of those students reported that they were convinced and planned to get their shots, but in the end only 3 percent got them. Bu another group of students, who were presented with the same lecture, had a 28 percent inoculation rate. The difference? The second group was given a map of the campus and asked to plan their route to the health center and pick a date and time to go. Sometimes, you see, motivation isn't our problem. Rather, we need to identify life's everyday mental obstacles - regret, fatigue, overconfidence, fear, to name just four - and put ourselves into position to hurdle them. ~ Gary Belsky

Our way was to share a fire until it burned down, ayi? To speak to each other until every person was satisfied. Younger men listened to older men. Now the Beelezi tell us the vote of a young, careless man counts the same as the vote of an elder.' In the hazy heat Tata Ndu paused to take off his hat, turn it carefully in his hands, then replace it above the high dome of his forehead. No one breathed. 'White men tell us: Vote, bantu! They tell us: You do not all have to agree, ce n'est pas necessaire! If two men vote yes and one says no, the matter is finished. A bu, even a child can see how that will end. It takes three stones in the fire to hold up the pot. Take one away, leave the other two, and what? The pot will spill into the fire. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

We argued most of the way home. I thought it would be nicest for Hal to take his two dollars in to Mother first, bu Muriel didn't think so. She always wanted to do things as if it were a play. "That wouldn't be any good," she said. "If Hal goes in first and gives her the money, she'll start crying right away. But if you give her yours first, she'll just say we were smart children to make so much money. And then I'll give her mine, and she'll say, 'Why, why ... where in the world did you get so much money?' And then Phillip can give her his, and she'll look like she thought maybe we'd robbed a bank. And then when Hal gives her his, we'll all want to cry."
It worked just the way she thought it would. ~ Ralph Moody

Leap Before You Look

The sense of danger must not disappear:
The way is certainly both short and steep,
However gradual it looks from here;
Look if you like, but you will have to leap.

Tough-minded men get mushy in their sleep
And break the by-laws any fool can keep;
It is not the convention but the fear
That has a tendency to disappear.

The worried efforts of the busy heap,
The dirt, the imprecision, and the beer
Produce a few smart wisecracks every year;
Laugh if you can, but you will have to leap.

The clothes that are considered right to wear
Will not be either sensible or cheap,
So long as we consent to live like sheep
And never mention those who disappear.

Much can be said for social savior-faire,
Bu to rejoice when no one else is there
Is even harder than it is to weep;
No one is watching, but you have to leap.

A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep
Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear:
Although I love you, you will have to leap;
Our dream of safety has to disappear. ~ W.H. Auden

Consistently and uninterruptedly continued inflation must eventually lead to collapse. The purchasing power of money will fall lower and lower, until it eventually disappears altogether. It is true that an endless process of depredation can be imagined. We can imagine the purchasing power of money getting continually lower without ever disappearing altogether, and prices getting continually higher without it ever becoming impossible to obtain commodities in exchange for notes. Eventually this would lead to a situation in which even retail transactions were in terms of millions and billions and even higher figures; bu t the monetary system itself would remain. But such an imaginary state of affairs is hardly within the bounds of possibility. In the long run, a money which continually fell in value would have no commercial utility. It could not be used as a standard of deferred payments. For all transactions in which commodities or services were not exchanged for cash, another medium would have to be sought. In fact, a money that is continually depreciating becomes useless even for cash transactions. Everybody attempts to minimize his cash reserves, which are a source of continual loss. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

After that summer, after being friends with Won-a-nee and her young, I never killed another otter. I had an otter cape for my shoulders, which I used until it wore out, but never again did I make a new one. Nor did I ever kill another cormorant for its beautiful feathers, though they have long, think necks and make ugly sounds when they talk to each other. Nor did I kill seals for their sinews, using instead kelp to bind the things that needed it. Nor did I kill another wild dog, nor did I try to speak another sea elephant.
Ulape would have laughed at me, and other would have laughed, too -- my father most of all. Yet this is the way I felt about the animals who had become my friends and those who were not, bu in time could be. If Ulape and my father had come back and laughed, and all the other had come back and laughed, still I would have felt the same way, for animals and birds are like people, too, though they do no talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place. ~ Scott O'Dell

My first question is- do you have a name?
"A name? Yes."
"Ah!" said the wolf. It wrote several extensive notes. "And what is that name?"
"George."
"I see," said the wolf. "And how long have you been George?"
"How long? As in, how long have I been alive?"
"oh, were you here in some way before you were alive?" asked the wolf, interested.
"I...don't really know," said George. " I don't think so."
"So you don't know if you were here? Or if you were here before your George-time? Is it possible for you to be here, bu not know it?"
"My what time? no, I mean, I was born, and then they just named me George."
"So you are not George," said the wolf. George is just a name. A word. A propulsion of air modified by the flexing of throat parts."
"Well, I am George, but...yes. Yes, and...no."
"Is it possible that you became George at a later time, having been originally named that thing?" asked the wolf. " What if the naming had been different, would you still be George?"
"I...yes?"
"Really?" breathed the wolf in awe. "This is all so confusing." Yet he seemed very pleased with George's answers. " I don't know how you all do it. It seems so marvelously complex to simply...be. ~ Robert Jackson Bennett

I call it your source-fracture wound, the original break in your heart from long ago. It may have happened in an instant--a little rejection, a shocking abandonment, or a slight misattunement that suddenly made you realize how alone you were in this world. Or perhaps it was a bit-bu-bit splintering as over the years you met with an intermittent meanness, an unpredictable but repetitive abuse, or a neglect that stole your childhood inches at a time. Wherever, however, or whenever it happened, one thing we can assume is that no adult helped you make accurate meaning of your confusing and painful experience. No grown up sat you down and lovingly said, "No, honey, it's not that you're stupid. It's that your big brother is scared and insecure." "It's not that you don't matter, angel. It's that Daddy has a drinking problem and needs help." "It's not that you're not enough. It's that Mommy has clinical depression, dear, and it's neither your fault nor yours to fix." Without this mature presence to help explain to you what was happening to your little world, you probably came to some pretty strong and wrong conclusions about who you were and what was possible for you to have in life. And those conclusions became a habit of consciousness, a filter through which you interpret and then respond to the events of your life, making your grief all the more complex. ~ Katherine Woodward Thomas

Very few people know where they will die,
But I do; in a brick-faced hospital,
Divided, not unlike Caesarean Gaul,
Into three parts; the Dean Memorial
Wing, in the classic cast of 1910,
Green-grated in unglazed, Aeolian
Embrasures; the Maud Wiggin Building, which
Commemorates a dog-jawed Boston bitch
Who fought the brass down to their whipcord knees
In World War I, and won enlisted men
Some decent hospitals, and, being rich,
Donated her own granite monument;
The Mandeville Pavilion, pink-brick tent
With marble piping, flying snapping flags
Above the entry where our bloody rags
Are rolled in to be sponged and sewn again.
Today is fair; tomorrow, scourging rain
(If only my own tears) will see me in
Those jaundiced and distempered corridors
Off which the five-foot-wide doors slowly close.
White as my skimpy chiton, I will cringe
Before the pinpoint of the least syringe;
Before the buttered catheter goes in;
Before the I.V.'s lisp and drip begins
Inside my skin; before the rubber hand
Upon the lancet takes aim and descends
To lay me open, and upon its thumb
Retracts the trouble, a malignant plum;
And finally, I'll quail before the hour
When the authorities shut off the power
In that vast hospital, and in my bed
I'll feel my blood go thin, go white, the red,
The rose all leached away, and I'll go dead.
Then will the bu ~ L.E. Sissman

The BFMSS [British False Memory Syndrome Society]
The founder of the 'false memory' movement in Britain is an accused father. Two of his adult daughters say that Roger Scotford sexually abused them in childhood. He denied this and responded by launching a spectacular counter-attack, which enjoyed apparently unlimited and uncritical air time in the mass media and provoke Establishment institutions that had made no public utterance about abuse to pronounce on the accused adults' repudiation of it.
p171-172

The 'British False Memory Syndrome Society' lent a scientific aura to the allegations - the alchemy of 'falsehood' and 'memory' stirred with disease and science. The new name pathologised the accusers and drew attention away from the accused. But the so-called syndrome attacked not only the source of the stories but also the alliances between the survivors' movement and practitioners in the health, welfare, and the criminal justice system. The allies were represented no longer as credulous dupes but as malevolent agents who imported a miasma of the 'false memories' into the imaginations of distressed victims.

Roger Scotford was a former naval officer turned successful property developer living in a Georgian house overlooking an uninterrupted valley in luscious middle England. He was a rich man and was able to give up everything to devote himself to the crusade.
He says his family life was normal and that he had been a 'Dr Spock father'. Bu ~ Beatrix Campbell

In every age a general misdirection of what may be called sexual "taste"... [is] produce[d by the devil and his angels]. This they do bu working through the small circle of artists, dressmakers, actresses, and advertisers who determine the fashionable type. The aim is to guide each sex away from those members of the other with whom spiritually helpful, happy, and fertile marriages are most likely. Thus [they] have now for many centuries triumphed over nature to the extent of making certain secondary characteristics of the male (such as the beard) disagreeable to nearly all the females-and there is more in that than you might suppose. As regards the male taste [they] have varied a good deal. At one time [they] have directed it to the statuesque and aristocratic type of beauty, mixing men's vanity with their desires and encouraging the race to breed chiefly from the most arrogant and prodigal women. At another, [they] have selected an exaggeratedly feminine type, faint and languishing, so that folly and cowardice, and all the general falseness and littleness of mind which go with them, shall be at a premium. At present [they] are on the opposite tack. The age of jazz has succeeded the age of the waltz, and [they] now teach men to like women whose bodies are scarcely distinguishable from those of boys. Since this is a kind of beauty even more transitory than most, [they] thus aggravate the female's chronic horror of growing old (with many [successful] results) and render her les ~ C.S. Lewis

Before the Law stands a doorkeeper on guard. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country who begs for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot admit the man at the moment. The man, on reflection, asks if he will be allowed, then, to enter later. 'It is possible,' answers the doorkeeper, 'but not at this moment.' Since the door leading into the Law stands open as usual and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man bends down to peer through the entrance. When the doorkeeper sees that, he laughs and says: 'If you are so strongly tempted, try to get in without my permission. But note that I am powerful. And I am only the lowest doorkeeper. From hall to hall keepers stand at every door, one more powerful than the other. Even the third of these has an aspect that even I cannot bear to look at.' These are difficulties which the man from the country has not expected to meet, the Law, he thinks, should be accessible to every man and at all times, but when he looks more closely at the doorkeeper in his furred robe, with his huge pointed nose and long, thin, Tartar beard, he decides that he had better wait until he gets permission to enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at the side of the door. There he sits waiting for days and years. He makes many attempts to be allowed in and wearies the doorkeeper with his importunity. The doorkeeper often engages him in brief conversation, asking him about his home and about other matters, bu ~ Franz Kafka

Listen, kid. This is what happens: Somebody-girl usually-got a free spirit, doesn't get on too good with her parents. These kids, they're like tied-down helium balloons. They strain against the string and strain against it, and then something happens, and that string gets cut, and they just fly away. And maybe you never see the balloon again. It lands in Canada or somethin', gets work at a restaurant, and before the balloon even notices, it's been pouring coffee in that same dinner to the same sad bastards for thirty years. Or maybe three or four years from now or three or four days from now, the prevailing winds take the balloon back home, because it needs money, or it sobered up, or it misses its kid brother. But listen, kid, that string gets cut all the time."
"Yeah, bu-"

"I'm not finished, kid. The thing about these balloons is that there are so goddamned many of them. The sky is choked full of them, rubbing up against one another as they float to here or from there, and every one of those damned balloons ends up on my desk, one way or another, and after awhile a man can get discouraged. Everywhere the balloons, and each of them with a mother and father, or God forbid both, and after a while, you can't even see'em individually. You look up at all the balloons in the sky and you can see all of the balloons, but you cannot see any one balloon. ~ John Green

Not that long ago I wrote in a poem that 'life is so filled with meaning, there is no reason to try to reduce it'. That is how I feel and have felt like for years. Some sense of meaninglessness can come from an attack from others, at times subconscious, slowly but surely eroding one's self-respect and therefore sense of self, on all the meanings, infinite as they are, that are already right there. You can even be "raised" to do this self-destructive work yourself. The so called absurdity of life is a construction that creates a template for meaninglessness in itself. Humans revolting in this way against self-made systems. Perhaps to remove some responsibility of being human, because it is, wrongly, seen as a burden. What is truly a burden is to feel as if nothing in life is important. It is also the easiest thing to do. If you don't find meaning in for instance seeing a black squirrel running up the trunk of a tree, you probably won't find any meaning in travelling to the end of the world. It is a kind of explanatory greed this "search for meaning" that can literally destroy a world, and it is the equivalent of replacing the deepest of life's mysteries with a nice looking garage. To numb before being looked at and experienced as a kind of totally lost "translation" is how the written language can be used at its worst. Meaning is already everywhere, expressing, unfolding itself, living and dying, changing and breathing. The noise distracting from that is what is meaningless bu ~ Rune Kjær Rasmussen

Colby was quietly shocked to find Tate not only at his door the next morning, but smiling. He was expecting an armed assault following their recent telephone conversation. "I'm here with a job offer."
Colby's dark eyes narrowed. "Does it come with a cyanide capsule?" he asked warily.
Tate clapped the other man on the shoulder. "I'm sorry about the way I've treated you. I haven't been thinking straight. I'm obliged to you for telling me the truth about Cecily."
"You know the baby's yours, I gather?"
Tate nodded. "I'm on my way to Tennessee to bring her home," he replied.
Colby's eyes twinkled. "Does she know this?"
"Not yet. I'm saving it for a surprise."
"I imagine you're the one who's going to get the surprise," Colby informed him. "She's changed a lot in the past few weeks."
"I noticed." Tate leaned against the wall near the door. "I've got a job for you."
"You want me to go to Tennessee?" Colby murmured dryly.
"In your dreams, Lane," Tate returned. "No, not that. I want you to head up my security force for Pierce Hutton while I'm away."
Colby looked around the room. "Maybe I'm hallucinating."
"You and my father," Tate muttered, shaking his head. "Listen, I've changed."
"Into what?"
"Pay attention. It's a good job. You'll have regular hours. You can learn to sleep without a gun under your pillow. You won't lose any more arms." He added thoughtfully, "I've been a bad friend. I was jealous of you."
"Bu ~ Diana Palmer

I still had moments when my nerves got to me, but whenever I'd start to get anxious, Kyla Ross would remind me, "Simone, just do what you do in practice." And before I went out for each event, she'd high-five me and say, "Just like practice, Simone!" I'd say the same thing to her when it was her turn to go up. "Just like practice" became our catchphrase.
As I walked onto the mat to do my floor exercise, I held on to that phrase like it was a lifeline, because I was about to perform a difficult move I'd come up with in practice - a double flip in the layout position with a half twist out. The way it happened was, I'd landed short on a double layout full out earlier that year during training, and I'd strained my calf muscle on the backward landing. Aimee didn't want me to risk a more severe injury, so she suggested I do the double layout - body straight with legs together and fully extended as I flipped twice in the air - then add a half twist at the end. That extra half twist meant I'd have to master a very tricky blind forward landing, but it would put less stress on my calves.
I thought the new combination sounded incredibly cool, so I started playing around with it until I was landing the skill 95 percent of the time. At the next Nationals Camp, I demonstrated the move for Martha and she thought it looked really good, so we went ahead and added it to the second tumbling pass of my floor routine. I'd already performed the combination at national meets that year, bu ~ Simone Biles

Since we've ruled out another man as the explanation for all this, I can only assume something has gone wrong at Havenhurst. Is that it?"
Elizabeth seized on that excuse as if it were manna from heaven. "Yes," she whispered, nodding vigorously.
Leaning down, he pressed a kiss on her forehead and said teasingly, "Let me guess-you discovered the mill overcharged you?" Elizabeth thought she would die of the sweet torment when he continued tenderly teasing her about being thrifty. "Not the mill? Then it was the baker, and he refused to give you a better price for buying two loaves instead of one."
Tears swelled behind her eyes, treacherously close to the surface, and Ian saw them. "That bad?" he joked, looking at the suspicious sheen in her eyes. "Then it must be that you've overspent your allowance." When she didn't respond to his light probing, Ian smiled reassuringly and said, "Whatever it is, we'll work it out together tomorrow."
It sounded as though he planned to stay, and that shook Elizabeth out of her mute misery enough to say chokingly, "No-it's the-the masons. They're costing much more than I-I expected. I've spent part of my personal allowance on them besides the loan you made me for Havenhurst."
"Oh, so it's the masons," he grinned, chuckling. "You have to keep your eye on them, to be sure. They'll put you in the poorhouse if you don't keep an eye on the mortar they charge you for. I'll have to talk with them in the morning."
"No!" she bu ~ Judith McNaught

I dispelled my invisibility for a few seconds in his full view, a finger resting provocatively on my lower lip, giving him a come-hither look under a streetlight. His jaw and the bottle of Żubrówka dropped at the same time. It shattered, drawing his eyes to the sidewalk, and I took the opportunity afforded by his distraction to disappear again.

"That was mean," Oberon said, watching the man look wildly around for me and pawing at his eyes as if to clear them.

Why? I asked. I've done him no harm.

"Yes, you have. You will haunt him for the rest of his life. I know from experience."

You're haunted by someone flashing you on a street corner?

"No. It was a dog park. Atticus and I were just arriving and she was leaving."

Oh, here we go.

"She was so fit and her coat was tightly curled and she had a perfect pouf on the end of her tail like a tennis ball. I saw her for maybe five seconds, until she hopped into a Honda and her human drove her away. And now I can't see a Honda without seeing her."

But that's a good thing, isn't it? Kind of romantic? A vision of perfection you can treasure forever, unspoiled by reality.

"Well, I don't know. In reality I'd like to try spoiling her, if she was in the mood."

Look, Oberon, that man is lonely. He's too skinny and sweaty, and I'm willing to bet you five cows that he's socially awkward or he wouldn't be staggering drunk at this hour. Bu ~ Kevin Hearne

Well, she would marry a man who didn't need or want her fortune. Mr. Pinter didn't fall into that category.
And given how blank his expression became as his gaze met hers, she'd been right to be skeptical. he would never be interested in her in that way.
He confirmed it by saying, with his usual formality, "I doubt any man would consider your ladyship unacceptable as a wife."
Oh, when he turned all hoity-toity, she could just murder him. "Then we agree that the gentlemen in question would find me satisfactory," she said, matching his cold tone. "So I don't see why you assume they'd be unfaithful."
"Some men are unfaithful no matter how beautiful their wives are," Mr. Pinter growled.
He thought her beautiful?
There she went again, reading too much into his words. He was only making a point. "But you have no reason to believe that these gentleman would be. Unless there's some dark secret you already know about them that I do not?"
Glancing away, he muttered a curse under his breath. "No."
"Then here's your chance to find out the truth about their characters. Because I prefer facts to opinions. And I was under the impression that you do, too."
Take that, Mr. Pinter! Hoist by your own petard. The man always insisted on sticking to the facts.
And he was well aware that she'd caught him out, for he scowled, then crossed his arms over his chest. His rather impressive chest, from what she could tell beneath his black coat and plain bu ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Dear Mr. Chance and Ms. Brattle. Sorry about the mess. Great bed. Loved it. As a matter of fact, loved the whole house. Actually, I tried to kill your kids when I found them here. Yeah, funny story. Maybe not funny, hah hah.'"
Astrid heard nervous laughter from the media people, or maybe just from the hotel staff who were hovering around the edges grabbing a glimpse of the Hollywood royalty.
"'Anyway, I missed and they got away. I don't know what will happen to Sanjit and that stick-up-his butt Choo and the rest, but whatever happens next, it's not on me. However . . .'"
Astrid took a dramatic pause.
"'However, the rest of what happened was on me. Me, Caine Soren. You'll probably be hearing a lot of crazy stories from kids. But what they didn't know was that it was all me. Me. Me me. See, I had a power I never told anyone about. I had the power to make people do bad things. Crimes and whatnot. Especially Diana, who never did anything wrong on her own, by her own will, I mean. She - and the rest of them - were under my control. The responsibility is on me. I confess. Haul me away, officers.'"
Astrid suddenly felt her throat tightening, although she'd read the letter many times already, and knew what it said. Rotten son of a . . . And then this.
Redemption. Not a bad concept.
Well, partial redemption.
"It's signed Caine Soren. And below that, 'King of the FAYZ.'"
It was a full confession. A lie: a blatant, not-very-convincing lie. Bu ~ Michael Grant

Rigor Mortis." I say, almost as an apology. But he won't have any of it. He locks onto my gaze. He doesn't lean forward, but he doesn't need to, suddenly the room feels like it's filled with him. His presence floats in the air like a noxious gas, and I'm breathing it in.
"Ike, you don't get it. That's why I wanted to talk to you. Do you think I have the right to talk to anyone? Do you think its fun to have a 'human' brain in a pet's body? Sure, I have Kamu. And that's fugging great, but guess what? Kamu is queen to be, and emotionally unstable." I've never heard Rig talk this powerfully before, but he doesn't seem scary, just sad. "And then I get someone else I can actually talk to, Ike, I get you. And you don't treat me like I'm a pet and you talk about Kamu like she needs to be protected and you are there. You are there, and you keep being there, and the only one who's ever there is Kamu, but now there is Ike. And Ike is perfect, albeit a bit dense, but perfect."
"Rig, I'm really sorry bu-" I start, I don't know how much more of this I can take. With each sentence Rig loses some of his force, he sounds more pathetic and lost.
"I'm not done." He pronounces the words in such a voice that it makes me shut up more than the context of the sentence does. "And all I want is to be with this boy who is there, this boy who is my friend, this boy who isn't always caught up in politics. All I want is to have my one good break." He finishes. I keep holding his eye cont ~ Ginny Albinson

I still felt a little bit sick for needing the help of a Librarian. It was frustrating. Terribly frustrating. In fact, I don't think I can accurately - through text - show you just how frustrating it was. But because I love you, I'm going to try anyway. Let's start by randomly capitalizing letters. "We cAn SenD fOr a draGOn to cArry us," SinG saId As we burst oUt oF the stAirWeLL and ruSHED tHrough ThE roOm aBovE. "ThAT wILl taKe tOO Long," BaStiLlE saiD. "We'Ll haVe To graB a VeHiCle oFf thE STrEet," I sAid. (You know what, that's not nearly frustrating enough. I'm going to have to start adding in random punctuation marks too.) We c! RoS-Sed thrOu? gH t% he Gra## ND e ` nt < Ry > WaY at "A" de-aD Ru) n. OnC $ e oUts/ iDE, I Co* Uld sEe T ^ haT the suN wa + S nEar to s = Ett = ING - it w.O.u.l.d Onl > y bE a co@ uPle of HoU[ rs unTi ^ L the tR} e} atY RATiF ~ iCATiON ha, pPenEd. We nEeDeD!! to bE QuicK?.? UnFOrTu() nAtelY, tHE! re weRe no C? arriA-ges on tHe rOa ^ D for U/ s to cOmMan > < dEer. Not a ON ~ e ~. THerE w + eRe pe/ Ople wa | lK | Ing aBoUt, BU? t no caRr# iaGes. (Okay, you know what? That's not frustrating enough either. Let's start replacing some random vowels with the letter Q.) I lqOk-eD arO! qnD, dE# sPqrA# te, fRq? sTr/ Ated (like you, hopefully), anD aNn | qYeD. Jq! St eaR& lIer, tHqr ^ E hq.d BeeN DoZen! S of cq? RrIqgEs on The rQA! d! No-W tHqRe wA = Sn't a SqnGl + e oN ^ q. "ThE_rQ!" I eXclai $ mqd, poIntIng. Mqv = Ing do ~ Wn th_e Rqa ~ Brandon Sanderson