During Quotes

Well, I guess that answers my question." The deep velvet voice startles me.
I jump, grab my pillow like I'm going to use it as a weapon.
Will stands in the doorway, sipping from a metallic travel mug. His gray T-shirt stretches across his shoulders and chest in a way that makes my throat close up.
"What question?" I ask, breathless.
"Whether you're as beautiful in the morning as you are during the rest of the day."
"Oh," I say dumbly, pushing the tangle of hair back off my shoulders, certain I don't look good right now, just rolling out of bed. Not that I take pains with my appearance on the average day, but still...who looks their best fresh out of bed? "You're here again," I murmur.
"Apparently."
"Can't stay away?"
"Apparently not."
I'm okay with that. Great, in fact.
"I made you breakfast," he adds.
"You can cook?" I'm impressed.
He grins. "I live in a bachelor household, remember? My mom died when I was a kid. I hardly remember her. I kind of had to learn to cook."
"Oh," I murmur, then sit up straighter. "Wait a minute. How'd you get in here?"
"Opened the front door." He takes another sip from his mug and looks at me like I'm in trouble. "Your mom really should lock the door when she leaves."
I arch a brow. "Would that have kept you out?"
He smiles a little. "You know me well. ~ Sophie Jordan

How many cities of forty thousand, which is the population of Burlington, have a foreign policy? Well, we did. During my tenure as mayor we made the point that excessive spending on the military and unnecessary wars meant fewer resources to address the needs of ordinary people. Somewhere in the Reagan Library, or wherever these things are kept, there is a letter from the mayor of Burlington opposing the U.S. funding of contras in Nicaragua. The letter stated, "Stop the war against the people of Nicaragua. Use our tax dollars to feed the hungry and house the homeless. Stop killing the innocent people of Nicaragua." As ~ Bernie Sanders

Dessert is my reward for having met my goals during the day. Really, dessert is an event rather than a specific item. ~ Jen Lancaster

So, you're dead asleep, and you get a call. Something terrible's happened, and I'm dead. What do you do?"
It took him a moment to quell the terror, to ignore the small, dark place inside him that feared getting that call every day. "Before or after I fall prostrate with grief?"
"Before, during, and after. Do you peruse your wardrobe and select a coordinating outfit - down to the footwear? Do you deal with your hair so it's perfectly groomed?"
"With my considerable skills and innate instincts that would take no time at all."
"Keep it up and I'll dump red sauce all over your fashionable smarty-pants."
"That statement is one of the countless reasons why, under the circumstances you described, I'd be lucky to remember to dress at all. ~ J.D. Robb

Three cable lines are still active in SF and these are as follows: California and the two Powell Cable Lines. The last two are most popular among locals and tourists as they even travel to the sheer area in the north, including the Lombard Street. Riding these cars can be pretty fun, but lines tend to be long at times especially during late mornings and afternoons. ~ Jennifer Bean

I will say nothing against the course of my existence. But at bottom it has been nothing but pain and burden, and I can affirm that during the whole of my 75 years, I have not had four weeks of genuine well-being. It is but the perpetual rolling of a rock that must be raised up again forever. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

This reality requires you to bury your nature and conform. This is the only way to survive. It is within this reality one often shares a minuscule of what one could share. Competition and scarcity dominate the mind and the heart shuts down. The lure with which one acquires is left with with subsequent hollowness. There was nothing to be had as all it was, was appearance. The conqueror leaves empty-handed. During a lonely moment, one can go and touch inside. It is here that the spirit shows how life is wasted by living a lie. ~ Elise Icten

During our last year in the mountains new people came deep into our lives and nothing was ever the same again. The winter of the avalanches was like a happy and innocent winter in childhood compared to the next winter, a nightmare winter disguised as the greatest fun of all, and the murderous summer that was to follow. It was that year that the rich showed up. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

If I met you last night, and brought you back to my place, or followed you to yours, and we had sex, that's what we asked for from each other. It's what I got, and what you got. I don't know you. You don't know me. Thanks for playing, and we're done. If by some fluke anything was said at some point during this entire exchange that made me curious enough to see you again, I would.
Has that happened before? A couple of times. Did it last? Clearly, no. ~ Tammara Webber

You worked so hard to achieve.' It blinds us to everything else, to the moments we've joyfully experienced, to happy times and the bonds created during those occasions. How is it that hatred ~ Paulo Coelho

In my opinion, Chief Justice Roberts put it best during his recent confirmation hearings. And he said, and I quote, "The framers were not the sort of people, having fought a revolution to get the right of self-government to sit down and say, 'Well, let's take all the difficult issues before us and let's have the judges decide them.' That would have been the farthest thing from their mind," however, I fear that the Supreme Court forgets this advice. ~ Mike DeWine

What was unique about me being in City Hall during the Giuliani Administration, I was the only one who wasn't an attorney. I may have been the only one who didn't work in a prosecutor's office. So I took a completely different point of view on how the city should be run. Very close to a business, very close on metrics and numbers. ~ Joe Lhota

I'll tell you, Liz Cheney is going to be a very good candidate. I worked with her during the Bush campaigns. She's smart, she's focused, she's disciplined - and she's got a great back story. She's got a large family. She's a great mom. And she's a hard worker. I think she's going to be a very effective campaigner. ~ Mark McKinnon

Insomnia is his mind's revenge for all the tricky thoughts he has carefully avoided during the daylight hours. ~ Alain De Botton

Whatever thought grips the mind at the time of death is the one which will propel it and decide for it the nature of its future birth. Thus if one wants to attain god after death, one has to think of him steadfastly ... This is not as simple as it sounds, for at the time of death the mind automatically flies to the thought of an object (i.e. money, love) which has possessed it during its sojourn in the world. Thus one must think of god constantly. ~ Stephen Mitchell

With two kids it's hard to find down time to write so I often write during their nap time. ~ Tori Spelling

It takes personal sacrifice to communicate when conditions are right for the other person-during the meal preparation, after a date, a hurt, a victory, a disappointment, or when someone wants to share a confidence. One must be willing to forego personal convenience to invest time in establishing a firm foundation for family communication. When communication in the family seems to be bogging down, each individual should look to himself for the remedy. ~ Marvin J. Ashton

But did you know that during the past quarter century, no presidential election has been won by more than ten million ballots cast? Yet every federal election during the same time period had at least one hundred million people of voting age who did not bother to vote! ~ Andy Andrews

During this time I had the singular good fortune of being able to discuss the problem constantly with Einstein. Some experiments done at Einstein's suggestion yielded no decisively new result. ~ Walther Bothe

There were moments of racial unity. Lawrence Goodwyn found in east Texas an unusual coalition of black and white public officials: it had begun during Reconstruction and continued into the Populist period. The state government was in the control of white Democrats, but in Grimes County, blacks won local offices and sent legislators to the state capital. The district clerk was a black man; there were black deputy sheriffs and a black school principal. A night-riding White Man's Union used intimidation and murder to split the coalition, but Goodwyn points to "the long years of interracial cooperation in Grimes County" and wonders about missed opportunities. ~ Howard Zinn

Other animals are exceptionally good at identifying and reacting to predators, rivals and friends. They never act as if they believe that rivers or trees are inhabited by spirits who are watching. In all these ways, other animals continually demonstrate their working knowledge that they live in a world brimming with other minds as well as their knowledge of those minds' boundaries. their understanding seems more acute, pragmatic, and frankly, better than ours at distinguishing real from fake. So, I wonder, do humans really have a better developed Theory of Mind than other animals? ...Children talk to dolls for years, half believing or firmly believing that the doll hears and feels and is a worthy confidante. Many adults pray to statues, fervently believing that they're listening. ...All of this indicates a common human inability to distinguish conscious minds from inanimate objects, and evidence from nonsense. Children often talk to a fully imaginary friends whom they believe listens and has thoughts. Monotheism might be the adult version. ...In the world's most technologically advanced, most informed societies, a majority people take it for granted that disembodied spirits are watching, judging, and acting on them. Most leaders of modern nations trust that a Sky-God can be asked to protect their nation during disasters and conflicts with other nations. All of this is theory of mind gone wild, like an unguided fire hose spraying the whole universe with presumed consciousness. ~ Carl Safina

Can you tell me in one sentence what is meant by logotherapy?" he asked. "At least, what is the difference between psychoanalysis and logotherapy?" "Yes," I said, "but in the first place, can you tell me in one sentence what you think the essence of psychoanalysis is?" This was his answer: "During psychoanalysis, the patient must lie down on a couch and tell you things which sometimes are very disagreeable to tell." Whereupon I immediately retorted with the following improvisation: "Now, in logotherapy the patient may remain sitting erect but he must hear things which sometimes are very disagreeable to hear. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

It is as heroic as he makes it sound. "Why have I never heard anything about all this - and not just from you? Sophie never said a word. Hell, I didn't even know that people escaped over the mountains or that there was a concentration camp just for women who resisted the Nazis." "Men tell stories," I say. It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. "Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over. Your sister was as desperate to forget it as I was. Maybe that was another mistake I made - letting her forget. Maybe we should have talked about it. ~ Kristin Hannah

A porpoise sounded twenty yards away from us in an explosion of breath, startling us. . . . Then another porpoise broke the water and rolled toward us. A third and a fourth porpoise neared the board and we could feel great secret shapes eyeing us from below. I reached out to touch the back of one, its skin the color of jade, but as I reached the porpoise dove and my hand touched moonlight where the dorsal fin had been cutting through the silken waters. The dolphins had obviously smelled the flood tide of boyhood in the sea and heard the hormones singing in the boy0scented water. None of us spoke as the porpoises circled us. The visitation was something so rare and perfect that we knew by instinct not to speak – and then, as quickly as they had come, the porpoises moved away from us, moved south where there were fish to be hunted.
"Each of us would remember that night floating on the waves all during our lives. It was the year before we went to high school when we were poised on the slippery brink between childhood and adulthood, admiring our own daring as we floated free from the vigilance and approval of adult eyes, ruled only by the indifference of stars and fate. It was the purest moment of freedom and headlong exhilaration that I had ever felt. A wordless covenant was set among us the night of the porpoises. ~ Pat Conroy

During the whole campaign, from June 27 to July 31, there has been no shirking or hesitation, to tiring on the part of a single man so far as I have seen; the brigade commanders reported none. ~ John Buford

I should perhaps warn you that I am about to faint from anxiety and general depression, though. The film I saw last night was especially grueling, a teen-age beach musical. I almost collapsed during the singing sequence on surfboard. ~ John Kennedy Toole

During the mid-1980s dairy farmers decided there was too much cheap milk at the supermarket. So the government bought and slaughtered 1.6 million dairy cows. How come the government never does anything like this with lawyers? ~ P. J. O'Rourke

It was actually very difficult., especially during the first five years of the start-up stage, when all the odds seemed to be against us - this is probably true for most entrepreneurs. To succeed, you really have to put your heart and soul into it. (p. 71) ~ Injap Sia

MY LIFE IS LIKE A MOVIE; IF YOU WALK OUT DURING THE BAD/BORING/DULL TIMES, YOU MIGHT JUST MISS THE GOOD/EXCITING/HAPPY TIMES ~ Delisa Ansah

You Can See Russia From America!

There are two small Islands in the middle of the Bering Straits that are 2.4 miles apart, and have the "International Date Line" running between them. The larger Island to the west is Russian and is named Ratmanov Island. It is considered the last island in the far eastern reach of Asia.

Little Diomede Island or Ignaluk Island, belongs to Alaska and is the easternmost of the two islands. It is as far west as you can go before reaching the "International Date Line." Although the two islands are within easy sight of each other they are 24 hours apart, with one being in tomorrow and the other being in today. There are approximately 170, mostly Native Americans, living on the smaller American island.

During winter, an ice bridge usually spans the distance between these two islands, therefore there are times when it is possible to walk between the United States and Russia. This little stroll can be dangerous and is not advised; however at this location you can definitely see Russia from America. ~ Hank Bracker

You, that have toiled during youth, to set your son upon higher ground, and to enable him to begin where you left off, do not expect that son to be what you were, - diligent, modest, active, simple in his tastes, fertile in resources. You have put him under quite a different master. Poverty educated you; wealth will educate him. You cannot suppose the result will be the same. ~ Anna Letitia Barbauld

I wonder if Socrates and Plato took a house on Crete during the summer. ~ Woody Allen

I chose the specialty of surgery because of Matron, that steady presence during my boyhood and adolescence. 'What is the hardest thing you can possibly do?' she said when I went to her for advice on the darkest day of the first half of my life.
I squirmed. How easily Matron probed the gap between ambition and expediency. 'Why must I do what is hardest?'
'Because, Marion, you are an instrument of God. Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can play the 'Gloria'?
'But, Matron, I can't dream of playing Bach ... I couldn't read music.
'No, Marion,' she said her gaze soft ... 'No, not Bach's 'Gloria'. Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you. The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you. ~ Abraham Verghese

The industrial real estate market completed one of its strongest demand cycles in history as several factors ignited the fire. For projects coming on line in 2005, record-low interest rates during the design phase 12 to 18 months prior provided additional incentive for development and absorption. ~ Brian Gordon

Most of us inherit one shame or another. [...] I met a guy named Mike during my travels in Alaska. We've stayed in touch. He's blond and blue-eyed, and does not fit comfortably in most chairs and beds because he's six foot nine. He's often embarrassed by his height and sometimes tells people he's six foot eight. He stoops on purpose. Once, while waiting to be seated at a restaurant, he and I stood in front of a full-length mirror. His reflection wasn't all there. His head was cut off. There were so many ways to be invisible. ~ Alex Tizon

More may have been learned about the brain and the mind in the 1990s - the so-called decade of the brain - than during the entire previous history of psychology and neuroscience. ~ Antonio Damasio

Hundreds of years ago during the Unity, there'd been a selection to choose those who'd take shelter in the pods and those who wouldn't. It had divided their ancestors and his, but she couldn't let that happen again. How could she value one person's life over another? ~ Veronica Rossi

I'm a Bristol person too, I lived in Bristol during the war. ~ Julian Glover

There is an open circle."
This mantra is what my high school coaches would say to me during wrestling practice when they knew that I was physically exhausted and was about to rest for a moment. There was an open circle on the wrestling mat, and if I was interested I could get out there and do more.
"There is an open circle."
Meaning there is still more that you could do. Don't rest now; this is where the difference is made. To work when you are mentally and physically exhausted gets you to the next level.
"There is an open circle. ~ JohnA Passaro

I read papers, try to watch news programs on television, but, as a rule, recorded. During the day I have no time for that, so I watch something taped. As for the newspapers, I try to get through them every day. Additionally, of course, I look through news bulletins. ~ Vladimir Putin

There can be funny moments during sad stories ~ Ammon Shea

I would say that not many German people are still alive, who experienced what happened during the third reich. We don't have to go to the Stasi, we can go to the Gestapo, and see what happens, when your human rights, your ability to a freedom of expression and a freedom of thought is infringed upon. This is terribly, terribly dangerous territory. ~ Ray McGovern

Anger, resentment, jealousy, desire for revenge, lust, greed, antagonisms, and rivalries are the obvious signs that I have left home. And that happens quite easily. When I pay careful attention to what goes on in my mind from moment to moment, I come to the disconcerting discovery that there are very few moments during the day when I am really free from these dark emotions, passions and feelings.

Constantly falling back into an old trap, before I am even fully aware of it, I find myself wondering why someone hurt me, rejected me, or didn't pay attention to me. Without realizing it, I find myself brooding about someone else's success, my own loneliness, and the way the world abuses me. Despite my conscious intentions, I often catch myself daydreaming about becoming rich, powerful, and very famous. All of these mental games reveal to me the fragility of my faith that I am the Beloved One on whom God's favor rests. I am so afraid of being disliked, blamed, put aside, passed over, ignored, persecuted, and killed, that I am constantly developing strategies to defend myself and thereby assure myself of the love I think I need and deserve. And in so doing I move far away from my father's home and choose to dwell in a "distant country. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Patience's design flaw became obvious for the first time in my life: the outcome is decided not during the course of play but when the cards are shuffled, before the game even begins. How pointless is that? ~ David Mitchell

Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, for modernity, and for prosperity. The wealthy pay more because they have benefitted more. Taxes, well laid and well spent, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare. Taxes protect property and the environment; taxes make business possible. Taxes pay for roads and schools and bridges and police and teachers. Taxes pay for doctors and nursing homes and medicine. During an emergency, like an earthquake or a hurricane, taxes pay for rescue workers, shelters, and services. For people whose lives are devastated by other kinds of disaster, like the disaster of poverty, taxes pay, even, for food. ~ Jill Lepore

When I auditioned for the show, I didn't realize it was an MTV production, which is going to make for really good tunes during the episodes, if nothing else. ~ Neil Patrick Harris

Real thick strings - your hands start to get fatigued. As much as you practice, and as much experience as you have, and as long as you've been playing, there is a fatigue point during the show, as with anything that's physical. So I wanted to basically pace myself better. ~ John Petrucci

During our glorious year of 1974–5, while I was dithering over gravitational waves, and Stephen was leading our merged group in black hole research, Stephen himself had an insight even more radical than his discovery of Hawking radiation. He gave a compelling, almost airtight proof that, when a black hole forms and then subsequently evaporates away completely by emitting radiation, the information that went into the black hole cannot come back out. Information is inevitably lost.
This is radical because the laws of quantum physics insist unequivocally that information can never get totally lost. So, if Stephen was right, black holes violate a most fundamental quantum mechanical law.
How could this be? The black hole's evaporation is governed by the combined laws of quantum mechanics and general relativity - the ill-understood laws of quantum gravity; and so, Stephen reasoned, the fiery marriage of relativity and quantum physics must lead to information destruction.
The great majority of theoretical physicists find this conclusion abhorrent. They are highly sceptical. And so, for forty-four years they have struggled with this so-called information-loss paradox. It is a struggle well worth the effort and anguish that have gone into it, since this paradox is a powerful key for understanding the quantum gravity laws. Stephen himself, in 2003, found a way that information might escape during the hole's evaporation, but that did not quell theorists' struggles. Stephe ~ Stephen Hawking

A blanket can be wrapped around one's head and used as a helmet. It's particularly appropriate if you wear your blanket helmet during a pillow fight with me, because unbeknownst to you, I'll have a brick stuffed at the bottom of my pillowcase. ~ Jarod Kintz

What happens a lot with songwriting is that a melody or rhythm or something stays with you like catching a cold. And during that time what happens is that I can then fit things on to it, it all fits and glues together. Sometimes it's crazy cos it can almost be anything. But if you catch the cold then the nonsense makes sense. It's like you're getting beamed it, like with a ouija board and something's pushing your hand. It's not a pleasant experience necessarily. ~ Thom Yorke

It remains to be seen the extent to which the critical needs of seniors in low income high rises, people with home medical needs and those with disabilities have been adequately planned for and met during widespread power outages. I fear the answers. ~ Sheri Fink

There are moments, and it is only a matter of five or six seconds, when you feel the presence of the eternal harmony ... a terrible thing is the frightful clearness with which it manifests itself and the rapture with which it fills you. If this state were to last more than five seconds, the soul could not endure it and would have to disappear. During these five seconds I live a whole human existence, and for that I would give my whole life and not think that I was paying too dearly ... ~ Oliver Sacks

The BBC, during its 24 hours on the air, plays a very wide range of stuff. And it's not commercial. ~ Robin Trower

All those poor elves I haven't set free yet, having to stay over during Christmas because there aren't enough hats! ~ J.K. Rowling

People would always say horror movies always thrive during times of war; that's just what people would say. And I don't know if they thrived during World War II or Vietnam, but I thought that's kind of strange, why would that happen. I don't know if people rearrange their priorities; in good times, they freak out and start pointing the fingers at video games and TV, but when horrible things are happening in the world, it [horror movie] just seems a little ridiculous. ~ Rob Zombie

And she never had, Doug mused, because war and politics go for the big view and trample all over the little guy. France during the Revolution or a steamy pit of a jungle in Nam. It never changed. He knew just what it felt like to be helpless. He wasn't going to feel that way ever again. ~ Nora Roberts

The light was crude. It made Artaud's eyes shrink into darkness, as they are deep-set. This brought into relief the intensity of his gestures. He looked tormented. His hair, rather long, fell at times over his forehead. He has the actor's nimbleness and quickness of gestures. His face is lean, as if ravaged by fevers. His eyes do not seem to see the people. They are the eyes of a visionary. His hands are long, long-fingered.
Beside him Allendy looks earthy, heavy, gray. He sits at the desk, massive, brooding. Artaud steps out on the platform, and begins to talk about " The Theatre and the Plague."
He asked me to sit in the front row. It seems to me that all he is asking for is intensity, a more heightened form of feeling and living. Is he trying to remind us that it was during the Plague that so many marvelous works of art and theater came to be, because, whipped by the fear of death, man seeks immortality, or to escape, or to surpass himself? But then, imperceptibly almost, he let go of the thread we were following and began to act out dying by plague. No one quite knew when it began. To illustrate his conference, he was acting out an agony. "La Peste" in French is so much more terrible than "The Plague" in English. But no word could describe what Artaud acted out on the platform of the Sorbonne. He forgot about his conference, the theatre, his ideas, Dr. Allendy sitting there, the public, the young students, his wife, professors, and directors.
His face was ~ Anais Nin

decade after the first edition of this book was published, Yan Wong and I met in the fitting surroundings of the Oxford Museum of Natural History to discuss the possibility of producing a new, tenth anniversary edition. Yan, once my undergraduate pupil, had been employed as my research assistant during the writing of the original edition, before he left for his lecturing position in Leeds and his career as a television presenter. He played an enormously important part in the conception and execution of the first edition, and he was credited as joint author of several of the chapters. During the course of our discussion ten years on, we realised that much new information had come in, especially from the molecular genetics laboratories of the world. Yan undertook the bulk of the revision and I proposed to the publisher that this time he should be properly credited as joint author of the whole book. ~ Richard Dawkins

Buddha is said to have given a "silent sermon" once during which he held up a flower and gazed at it. After a while, one of those present, a monk called Mahakasyapa, began to smile. He is said to have been the only one who had understood the sermon. According to legend, that smile (that is to say, realization) was handed down by twenty-eight successive masters and much later became the origin of Zen. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Women tend to open themselves up more during sex. Because their subtle physical bodies are so much more sensitive they tend to pick up the total energy of the man they have sex with. ~ Frederick Lenz

Of course our school life was not free from pranks. The property of the townspeople was moved to strange places in the night. One morning as the janitor was starting the furnace he heard a loud bray from one of the class rooms. His investigation disclosed the presence there of a domestic animal noted for his long ears and discordant voice. In some way during the night he had been stabled on the second floor. About as far as I deem it prudent to discuss my own connection with these escapades is to record that I was never convicted of any of them and so must be presumed innocent. ~ Calvin Coolidge

The modern Middle East was largely created by the British. It was they who carried the Allied war effort in the region during World War I and who, at its close, principally fashioned its peace. It was a peace presaged by the nickname given the region by covetous British leaders in wartime: 'The Great Loot.' ~ Scott Anderson

Regardless of what position people originally took, once the decision is made, everyone supports it. That's why it is critical that no one hold anything back during the discussion. ~ Patrick Lencioni

During this same year of 1896 another desire began to grow in me. I began to feel an ever greater yearning to love Jesus Crucified very much, and at the same time a desire to suffer with him and to help him in his sufferings. ~ Gemma Galgani

I believe that one should not think too much about nature when painting, at least not during the painting's conception. The colour sketch should be made exactly as one has perceived things in nature. But personal feeling is the main thing. ~ Paula Modersohn-Becker

Right now I felt like a person learning that a surgeon had left a pair of scissors inside her during a operation. ~ Alexandra Kleeman

I don't think he cheated on me. During the marriage, I think he was there. ~ Marla Maples

My life after childhood has two main stories: the story of the hustler and the story of the rapper, and the two overlap as much as they diverge. I was on the streets for more than half of my life from the time I was thirteen years old. People sometimes say that now I'm so far away from that life - now that I've got businesses and Grammys and magazine covers - that I have no right to rap about it. But how distant is the story of your own life ever going to be? The feelings I had during that part of my life were burned into me like a brand. It was life during wartime. ~ Jay-Z

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

In solitude, struggles occur that no one else knows about. Inner battles are fought here that seldom become fodder for sermons or illustrations for books. God, who probes our deepest thoughts during protracted segments of solitude, opens our eyes to things that need attention. It is here He makes us aware of those things we try to hide from others. ~ Charles R. Swindoll

Let's make sure that there is certainty during uncertain times in our economy. ~ George W. Bush

In one area in Serbia two villages have been reduced to ashes. In Greece 220 men of one village have been shot. In France there are extensive shootings while I write. Certainly more than a thousand people are murdered in this way every day and another thousand German men are habituated to murder. May I know this and yet sit at my table in my heated flat and have tea? What shall I say when I am asked: And what did you do during that time? How can anyone know these things and still walk around free? ~ Helmuth James Graf Von Moltke

Whatever clutter may be getting in your way during a conversation or communication, use the simple acronym HEAR to enter a more spacious and less defensive awareness. HEAR stands for: hold all assumptions; enter the emotional world; absorb and accept; and reflect, then respect. H ~ Donald Altman

The knowledge of "Where am I going?" comes during the process of implementation and dedication to the task ~ Sunday Adelaja

Not much was really invented during the Renaissance, if you don't count modern civilization. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

It was during my study in Israel that I came to the realization that most of what I had learned in my courses in religion in the United States was outdated or in error. In order to understand what the biblical position is on any subject and, particularly on the subject of sex, one has to do it from a Hebrew perspective. ~ Roy B. Blizzard

The E-Meter, short for "electropsychometer," is an "electronic instrument that measures mental state and change of state in individuals," according to the church. During the process, the preclear, or PC (person getting the auditing), is asked a set of questions or given directions as he holds on to two empty "cans" hooked up to the meter. It is believed that the thoughts in a person's mind affect the flow of energy between the cans and cause the needle on the dial to move. ~ Leah Remini

Most advertisers spend millions upon millions of dollars to buy commercial time during the Super Bowl, and millions in creating eye-popping ads, hoping to create catchy, unforgettable commercials. Unfortunately, most Super Bowl commercials end up being unmemorable. Costly mistakes for brands and creative flameouts for advertising firms. ~ Peter Diamandis

He has little use for scholars, but you are his sole grandchild, and as such, he is willing to overlook your failings as long as you conduct yourself as a princess of the court during your time of service. Do not disappoint him, Andromeda. Your grandfather's mercy is not endless. ~ Nalini Singh

Here: an exercise in choice. Your choice. One of these tales is true.
She lived through the war. In 1959 she came to America. She now lives in a condo in Miami, a tiny French woman with white hair, with a daughter and a grand-daughter. She keeps herself to herself and smiles rarely, as if the weight of memory keeps her from finding joy.
Or that's a lie. Actually the Gestapo picked her up during a border crossing in 1943, and they left her in a meadow. First she dug her own grave, then a single bullet to the back of the skull.
Her last thought, before that bullet, was that she was four months' pregnant, and that if we do not fight to create a future there will be no future for any of us.
There is an old woman in Miami who wakes, confused, from a dream of the wind blowing the wildflowers in a meadow.
There are bones untouched beneath the warm French earth which dream of a daughter's wedding. Good wine is drunk. The only tears shed are happy ones. ~ Neil Gaiman

The modern scene in decoration is not a unified or controlled one. The unified control of the arts during the reign of Louis XIV no longer exists; today the designer is free to achieve a wider variety and more personal approach to the interior. ~ Van Day Truex

I would hit a scene about my mother screaming at me during her breakdown, drunk or using pills, and she'd turn into a monster. Which she wasn't. She was a human: somebody who loved me and somebody with a problem. ~ Leigh Newman

When we founded Facebook, we put a lot of hours into it and worked hard every day. 'The Social Network' painted this picture that we were partying all the time, when really we only attended 2 or 3 parties during Facebook's first year. ~ Dustin Moskovitz

Fundamentals in the gaming sector remained relatively healthy during the first quarter. ~ Brian Gordon

During the rule of the Shah, arrogance, aggression, territorial expansion at the expense of the Arabs and attempts to harm Iraq's national sovereignty and the rights of the Arab nation were a constant pattern. Iraq and the Arab nation were regarded as a sphere of influence for the expansionist plans of Iranian interests. That policy has been followed throughout history by the State of Persia against its neighbours to the west, and as we have shown. ~ Saddam Hussein

Columbia was a wonderful label for me. Wonderful. The records I made there garnered me an audience. I won a number of polls during the years that I was at Columbia. The Downbeat Jazz Poll. Leonard Feather, who was a huge critic back in the day, different polls that he had. The Playboy poll, a number of polls. So the music was great. ~ Aretha Franklin

It is ironic that Keynesianism originated as a weapon to combat depression, but became universally accepted and "successful" only during (and because of!) the postwar expansion. At the first sign of renewed world recession, Keynesian theory has proved itself to be a snare and a delusion that has gone into immediate bankruptcy. The resulting "post-Keynesian synthesis" is also the theoretical reason for the reactionary exhumation of the simplistic, neoclassical, and monetarist economic theory of the 1920s. This revival of old theory is highlighted by the award of Nobel prizes in economics to Friedrich von Hayek, whose theoretical work was done before the Great Depression, and Milton Friedman, whose lone voice echoed in the wilderness until the new world economic crisis put his unpopular and antipopulist theories on the agenda of business board rooms and government cabinet rooms in one capitalist country after another. The real reason for the recent interest in fifty-year-old theories is that capital now wants them to legitimize its attack on the welfare state and "unproductive" expenditures on social services, which capital claims to need for "productive" investment in industry, including armaments. ~ Andre Gunder Frank

It's an old, established rule, but "golden hour" lighting is ideal because the first and last hours of sunlight are diffuse and warm. For that reason, women with photos taken outside during those hours tended to look great. ~ Amy Webb

If you happen to catch on fire during the show, do not panic or wave your arms around or scream or we wil give something to panic and wave you arms around and scream about. ~ Demetri Martin

Today, the lay midwife is a response to a growing home-birth movement. In my own community most physicians have decided to withhold prenatal care from the home-birther. This is judgmental and vindictive. These doctors have decided that home birth is not safe, and by withholding prenatal care they are doing their best to make sure it is unsafe. Often it is lay midwives who step forward to fill the void and help eliminate the unnecessary dangers of home birth. They are essential for screening out women who really should not have a home birth. For considerably less money than a physician charges, they spend many more hours with a pregnant woman before, during, and after the birth. and in most places they courageously face the opposition of the established medical community. ~ Susan McCutcheon

Generally, I don't pencil, especially with the autobiographical comics, although I've usually planed out composition in my head during the scripting stage. I like to work directly in ink, to keep the spontaneity and expression conveyed by a less worked over line. ~ Jeffrey Brown

Everyone knows the first rule of business is "Look good during confrontations." Or if it isn't, it should be. ~ Sophie Kinsella

I am one of those lucky marvels whose husband has banned them from the kitchen, the last and now permanent ban was during an Everton Three (door slamming on hand) when he'd lamented, in a crazed manner to no one in particular after my failed tomato soup experiment, 'She'd burn air, so she would,' accompanied by wild pacing around the tomato splattered linoleum. ~ Lily Graham

During my addled career as a trout fisherman I have gone on a lot of wild-goose chases, and I ruefully expect to go on a lot more before I hang up my waders ~ John D. Voelker

Packed with interwoven personal narratives which the author ties together to show the fragility and molding of Buryat memory and Buryat shamanism's purpose during the transition from state socialism to neoliberal capitalism in Mongolia ... Buyandelger has created an emotive, accessible, and well-researched ethnography sure to arouse sympathy and interest in readers. ~ Michael Warren

Like Mardi Gras and Halloween rolled into a public party at the Playboy mansion, Rio during Carnaval is like no other place on earth. And the freak-flags fly like the color guard of an invading army. ~ James Schannep

Now that it's officially summer, here's my advice to parents who want to continue teaching their kids during the next two months and learn something themselves: visit Civil War battlefields. ~ Marvin Olasky

Another example may be the robust revival today of traditional or pre-revolutionary beliefs, rituals, customs, ceremonies, and even superstitions, most of which were once strenuously denounced and suppressed during the nation's drive for a cosmopolitan modernity. ~ Xiaobing Tang

Though President Obama promised during the 2008 campaign to pass the DREAM Act, he never made it a priority and failed to bring Republicans and Democrats together to do it in his first term. ~ Juan Williams

The mistake that people make in the focusing illusion involves attention to selected moments and neglect of what happens at other times. The mind is good with stories, but it does not appear to be well designed for the processing of time. During the last ten years we have learned many new facts about happiness. But we have also learned that the word happiness does not have a simple meaning and should not be used as if it does. Sometimes scientific progress leaves us more puzzled than we were before. ~ Daniel Kahneman