Taxonomists Have Noted Quotes

All of the elements of the comic way tend to spread to others, insinuating joy where it was previously absent. Conversation has a way of leaping among persons, as it does at parties and celebratory gatherings. Storytelling always begets storytelling. It is difficult to watch others at play without wanting to join them. This is not only a human phenomenon, for researchers have consistently noted that animals at play are often imitated by other animals. So wherever it is possible to initiate a playful activity, it will have a good chance of replicating itself through other parts of the system. ~ Joseph Rusling Meeker

Had we really succeeded therefore in altering the period of vibration, which Maxwell, as I have just noted, held to be impossible? Or was there some disturbing circumstances from one or more factors which distorted the result? ~ Pieter Zeeman

It is noted that from 1967 to 1995 essays on negative emotions far outnumbered those on positive emotions in the psychological literature. The ratio was 21:1. Even those supreme perpetrators of pop nihilism, The New York Times and The Washington Post, have a better ratio than psychological literature. They average 12 negative stories to every one that might be construed to be non-negative. Many of their non-negative stories, however, cover success in sports and entertainment.

I demand that the purveyors of despair who pretend to be dispassionate observes of the human condition go ahead and disclose that the 10 most beautiful words in the English languages are chimes, dawn, golden, hush, lullaby, luminous, melody, mist, murmuring, and tranquil; that Java sparrows prefer the music of Back over that of Schoenberg; that math experts have determined there are 1/96 trillion ways to lace up your shoes; that the Inuit term for making love is translated as 'laughing together in bed;' and that according to Buckminster Fuller, "pollution is nothing but resources we're not harvesting. ~ Rob Brezsny

Then know that I'll be laughing at your ineptitude every time your enemies strike you, and if you fail to return with my daughter, I'll have your heart and your head for decorations. (Zephyra)
Your words are noted, my most prickly rose. And I shall endeavor to keep your amusement at a bare minimum. (Stryker) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Voltaire noted in 1763: The interest I have in believing in something is not a proof that the something exists. ~ Jerry A. Coyne

The mystery is how a [theory] that is vulnerable to such obvious counterexamples survived for so long. I can explain it only by a weakness of the scholarly mind that I have often observed in myself. I call it theory-induced blindness: once you have accepted a theory and used it as a tool in your thinking, it is extraordinarily difficult to notice its flaws. If you come upon an observation that does not seem to fit the model, you assume that there must be a perfectly good explanation that you are somehow missing. You give the theory the benefit of the doubt, trusting the community of experts who have accepted it. Many scholars have surely thought at one time or another of stories such as [the above examples], and casually noted that these stories did not jibe with utility theory. But they did not pursue the idea to the point of saying, "This theory is seriously wrong because it ignores the fact that utility depends on the history of one's wealth, not only on present wealth." As the psychologist Daniel Gilbert observed, disbelieving is hard work, and System 2 is easily tired. ~ Daniel Kahneman

This time, after a moment, he called her bluff.

"Perhaps Philippa and I should be thrown together a little more. She might become attached to me if she knew me better." Kate, brightening visibly, ignored the gleam in his eye.

"That would make her sorry for you?"

"It might. The object of any sort of clinical study deserves compassion, don't you think?"

"Snakes don't," said Katherine inconsequently. "I hate snakes."

"And yet you feed them on honey cakes and forbid them to defend themselves."

"Defencelessness is not a noted characteristic of serpents. Anyhow, I can't have them lying rattling about the house. It gets on the nerves."

"It does if you handle it by rattling back. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

The sail unfurled on its own. The oars unlocked, pushed into the water and began to row by themselves. We sailed under starry skies, the waves calm and glittering, no land to be seen in any direction.
"The ship ... is self-driving." I noted.
Next to me, Njord popped into existence, looking no worse for being caught in the collapse of Aegir's hall.
He chuckled. "Well, yes, Magnus, of course the ship is self-driving. Were you trying to row it the old-fashioned way?"
I ignored my friends glaring at me. "Um, maybe."
"All you have to do is will the ship to take you where you want to go," Njord told me. "Nothing else is required."
I thought about all that time I'd spent with Percy Jackson learning bowlines and mizzenmasts, only to find out that the Viking gods had invented Google-boats. I bet the ship would even magically assist me if I needed to fall off the mast. ~ Rick Riordan

As James Surowiecki noted in a New Yorker article, given a choice between developing antibiotics that people will take every day for two weeks and antidepressants that people will take every day for ever, drug companies not surprisingly opt for the latter. Although a few antibiotics have been toughened up a bit, the pharmaceutical industry hasn't given us an entirely new antibiotic since the 1970s. ~ Bill Bryson

In order to continue in office, any government (not simply a 'democratic' government) must have the support of the majority of its subjects. This support, it must be noted, need not be active enthusiasm; it may well be passive resignation as if to an inevitable law of nature. ~ Murray Rothbard

They waded around the circle of battle, cautiously stalking and measuring each other for hints of weakness. Wulfgar noted the impatience on Heafstaag's face, a common flaw among barbarian warriors. He would have been much the same were it not for the blunt lessons of Drizzt Do'Urden. A thousand humiliating slaps from the drow's scimitars had taught Wulfgar that the first blow was not nearly as important as the last. ~ R.A. Salvatore

On Turgenev: He knew from Lavrov that I was an enthusiastic admirer of his writings; and one day, as we were returning in a carriage from a visit to Antokolsky's studio, he asked me what I thought of Bazarov. I frankly replied, 'Bazaraov is an admirable painting of the nihilist, but one feels that you did not love him as mush as you did your other heroes.'

'On the contrary, I loved him, intensely loved him,' Turgenev replied, with an unexpected vigor. 'When we get home I will show you my diary, in which I have noted how I wept when I had ended the novel with Bazarov's death.'

Turgenev certainly loved the intellectual aspect of Bazarov. He so identified himself with the nihilist philosophy of his hero that he even kept a diary in his name, appreciating the current events from Bazarov's point of view. But I think that he admired him more than he loved him. In a brilliant lecture on Hamlet and Don Quixote, he divided the history makers of mankind into two classes, represented by one or the other of these characters. 'Analysis first of all, and then egotism, and therefore no faith,--an egotist cannot even believe in himself:' so he characterized Hamlet. 'Therefore he is a skeptic, and never will achieve anything; while Don Quixote, who fights against windmills, and takes a barber's plate for the magic helmet of Mambrino (who of us has never made the same mistake?), is a leader of the masses, because the masses always follow those who, taking no heed of the s ~ Pyotr Kropotkin

Why are you all quarrelling about whether certain miracles were or were not performed nineteen centuries ago in Palestine? Why must you be certain of those particular miracles, before you can believe in God? To-day, at this very moment, you are surrounded by miracles. Birth, death, sunrise, springtime, winter - are not all these miracles? You have forgotten them because you see them every day. In your silly self-conceit, you assure yourselves that all this is perfectly natural, and that science has long ago explained it all - but you forget that your science has only noted the existence of these miracles, and that their secret belongs as much as ever to the Almighty Ruler of the Universe in whom you find it so difficult to believe. ~ Aimee Dostoyevsky

No job security," Denth said, leaning back in his chair. "The kinds of things we do, they tend to be dangerous and unpredictable. Our employers have a habit of dying off on us."
"Though usually not from the chills," Tonk Fah noted. "Swords tend to be the method of choice. ~ Brandon Sanderson

Many people have noted the contrast between the hysterical 'hurt' professed by Muslims and the readiness with which Arab media publish stereotypical anti-Jewish cartoons. At a demonstration in Pakistan against the Danish cartoons, a woman in a black burka was photographed carrying a banner reading 'God Bless Hitler'. In ~ Richard Dawkins

People of a "scientific" bent have been known to ridicule those, like Harry, who believe unlikely notions such as the idea that the Universe was created in six days and that the first human being was formed by God breathing into a lump of clay. It should be noted that the latest scientific theories entail that (1) all of the matter in the Universe was once compressed into an area smaller than the point of a pin; and (2) life came about when a chance collision of molecules accidentally lined up three million nucleic acids in exactly the right order to form a self-replicating protein. ~ Robert Kroese

We cannot provide a definition of those products from which the age takes it name, the feuilletons. They seem to have formed an uncommonly popular section of the daily newspapers, were produced by the millions, and were a major source of mental pabulum for the reader in want of culture.

They reported on, or rather "chatted" about, a thousand-and-one items of knowledge. The cleverer writers poked fun at their own work. Many such pieces are so incomprehensible that they can only be viewed as self-persiflage on the part of the authors.

In some periods interviews with well-known personalities on current problems were particularly popular. Noted chemists or piano virtuosos would be queried about politics, for example, or popular actors, dancers, gymnasts, aviators, or even poets would be drawn out on the benefits and drawbacks of being a bachelor, or on the presumptive causes of financial crises, and so on.

All that mattered in these pieces was to link a well-known name with a subject of current topical interest.

It is very hard indeed for us to put ourselves in the place of those people so that we can truly understand them. But the great majority, who seem to have been strikingly fond of reading, must have accepted all these grotesque things with credulous earnestness.

If a famous painting changed owners, if a precious manuscript was sold at auction, if an old palace burned down, the readers of many thousands of feature arti ~ Hermann Hesse

The national curriculum for the Swedish preschool is twenty pages long and goes on at length about things like fostering respect for one another, human rights, and democratic values, as well as a lifelong desire to learn. The document's word choices are a pretty good clue to what Swedish society wants and expects from toddlers and preschoolers. The curriculum features the word "play" thirteen times, "language" twelve times, "nature" six times, and "math" five times. But there is not a single mention of "literacy" or "writing." Instead, two of the most frequently used words are "learning" (with forty-eight appearances) and "development" (forty-seven).

The other Scandinavian countries have similar early childhood education traditions. In Finland, formal teaching of reading doesn't start until the child begins first grade, at age seven, and in the Finnish equivalent of kindergarten, which children enroll in the year they turn six, teachers will only teach reading if a child is showing an interest in it. Despite this lack of emphasis on early literacy, Finland is considered the most literate country in the world, with Norway coming in second, and Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden rounding out the top five, according to a 2016 study by Central Connecticut State University. John Miller, who conducted the study, noted that the five Nordic countries scored so well because "their monolithic culture values reading. ~ Linda Åkeson McGurk

the book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, he wrote about how he survived a Nazi concentration camp by creating a Why every day: a reason to live, to try - a reason not to give up. It would have been much easier to give up, Frankl noted, and most did. ~ Robert J. Langone

The earth will never be the same again
Rock, water, tree, iron, share this greif
As distant stars participate in the pain.
A candle snuffed, a falling star or leaf,
A dolphin death, O this particular loss
A Heaven-mourned; for if no angel cried
If this small one was tossed away as dross,
The very galaxies would have lied.
How shall we sing our love's song now
In this strange land where all are born to die?
Each tree and leaf and star show how
The universe is part of this one cry,
Every life is noted and is cherished,
and nothing loved is ever lost or perished. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

One recipe for happiness is to have to sense of entitlement.' To this she added a star and noted at the bottom of the page: 'This is not a lesson I have ever been in a position to learn. ~ Alan Bennett

When I gaze into the stars, they look down upon me with pity from their serene and silent spaces, like eyes glistening with tears over the little lot of man. Thousands of generations, all as noisy as our own, have been swallowed up by time, and there remains no record of them any more. Yet Arcturus and Orion, Sirius and Pleiades, are still shining in their courses, clear and young, as when the shepherd first noted them in the plain of Shinar! ~ Thomas Carlyle

We were having a ... discussion. I told him I needed to think about what he'd said and then he said I didn't need to think, I live in my head, I shut things out. He says I haven't given him me. He says I have a hand held up, fending him off," I answered. Tracy and Camille's eyes went back to each other. "See you do that too," Elvira noted. ~ Kristen Ashley

Against the monster, I've always wanted meaning. Not for its own sake, because in the usual course of things, who needs the self-consciousness of it? Let meaning be immanent, noted in passing, if at all. But that won't do when the monster has its funnel driven into the back of your head and is sucking the light coming through your eyes straight out of you into the mouth of oblivion. So like a cripple I long for what others don't notice they have: ordinary meaning. Instead, I have words. The monster doesn't take words. It may take speech, but not words in the head, which are its minions. The army of the tiny, invisible dead wielding their tiny, spinning scythes, cutting at the flesh of the mind. Unlike ordinary blades, they sharpen with use. They're keenest in repetition. Self-accusation being nothing if not repetitive. There is nothing deep about this. It is merely endless. ~ Adam Haslett

While approximately one in every 400 children and adolescents have Type I diabetes; recent Government reports indicate that one in every three children born in 2000 will suffer from obesity, which as noted is a predominant Type II precursor. ~ Tim Holden

We have all probably noted those sudden moments of quiet - those strange and almost miraculous moments in the life of a big city when there is a cessation of traffic noise - just an instant when there is only the sound of footsteps which serves to emphasize a sudden peace. During those seconds it is possible to notice the sunlight, to notice our fellow humans, to take breath. ~ Dorothy Day

According to Bartholomew, an important goal of St. Louis zoning was to prevent movement into 'finer residential districts . . . by colored people.' He noted that without a previous zoning law, such neighborhoods have become run-down, 'where values have depreciated, homes are either vacant or occupied by color people.' The survey Bartholomew supervised before drafting the zoning ordinance listed the race of each building's occupants. Bartholomew attempted to estimate where African Americans might encroach so the commission could respond with restrictions to control their spread.

The St. Louis zoning ordinance was eventually adopted in 1919, two years after the Supreme Court's Buchanan ruling banned racial assignments; with no reference to race, the ordinance pretended to be in compliance. Guided by Bartholomew's survey, it designated land for future industrial development if it was in or adjacent to neighborhoods with substantial African American populations.

Once such rules were in force, plan commission meetings were consumed with requests for variances. Race was frequently a factor. For example, on meeting in 1919 debated a proposal to reclassify a single-family property from first-residential to commercial because the area to the south had been 'invaded by negroes.' Bartholomew persuaded the commission members to deny the variance because, he said, keeping the first-residential designation would preserve homes in the area as unaffordable to African Am ~ Richard Rothstein

In addition to the alienation of farmers, large parts of the Mittelstand, growing numbers of industrialists and of the nationalist right by 1928, there was a further worrying trend facing the regime, the progressive disillusionment of young people and of the literary and cultural elites. The First World War and its aftermath had shaken loose many of the traditional ties binding young people to their families and to their local communities. As the Koblenz authorities noted in the early 1920s, 'the present sad appearance of the young, their debasement on the steeets, in pubs and dance halls results from the absence of firm authority by fathers and by schools during the war. The children of that time are today s young people who have little sense of authority and discipline.' In Cologne, it was observed that young people were spending too much time on 'visits to pubs, excessive drinking and dancing'. As ~ Ruth Henig

The true and the approximately true are apprehended by the same faculty; it may also be noted that men have a sufficient natural instinct for what is true, and usually do arrive at the truth. Hence the man who makes a good guess at truth is likely to make a good guess at probabilities. ~ Aristotle.

You never called me back," he said. "I called you so many times and you never called me back."
Magnus looked at Alec as if he'd lost his mind. "Your city is under attack," he said. "The wards have been broken, and the streets are full of demons. And you want to know why I haven't called you?"
Alec set his jaw in a stubborn line. "I want to know why you haven't called me back."
Magnus threw his hands up in the air in a gesture of utter exasperation. Alec noted with interest that when he did it, a few sparks escaped from his fingertips, like fireflies escaping from a jar. "You're an idiot."
"Is that why you haven't called me? Because I'm an idiot?"
"No." Magnus strode toward him. "I didn't call you because I'm tired of you only wanting me around when you need something. I'm tired of watching you be in love with someone else - someone, incidentally, who will never love you back. Not the way I do."
"You love me?"
"You stupid Nephilim," Magnus said patiently. "Why else am I here? Why else would I have spent the past few weeks patching up all your moronic friends every time they got hurt? And getting you out of every ridiculous situation you found yourself in? Not to mention helping you win a battle against Valentine. And all completely free of charge! ~ Cassandra Clare

We have produced some good walkers and saunterers, and some noted climbers; but as a staple recreation, as a daily practice, the mass of the people dislike and despise walking. ~ John Burroughs

Socrates sat up on the bed, bent his leg and rubbed it with his hand,
and as he rubbed he said: "What a strange thing that which men call
pleasure seems to be, and how astonishing the relation it has with what
is thought to be its opposite, namely pain! A man cannot have both at the
same time. Yet if he pursues and catches the one, he is almost always
bound to catch the other also, like two creatures with one head. I think
c that if Aesop had noted this he would have composed a fable that a god
wished to reconcile their opposition but could not do so, so he joined their
two heads together, and therefore when a man has the one, the other
follows later. This seems to be happening to me. My bonds caused pain
in my leg, and now pleasure seems to be following. ~ Plato

In that instant I regretted my indiscretion, and I have never really known if it was a form of compensation of because I needed to vomit up my pent-up anger that I did something unusual for me and told him about the ups and downs my family had experienced in the previous two months since my younger brother controversially came out a homosexual. I unleashed all the resentment I felt toward my parents for having punished the kid so cruelly. As I spoke, I noted that I had been so obtuse that until that exact moment, as I confided the details and feelings I hadn't even revealed to my wife to a person I barely knew, I had concentrated my resentment on my parents' attitude because in reality I had been ignoring the true origins of what had happened: the persistence of an institutionalized homophobia, of an extended ideological fundamentalism that rejected and repressed anything different and preyed on the most vulnerable ones, on those who don't adjust to the canons of orthodoxy. Then I understood that not just my parents but I myself had been the pawn of ancestral prejudices, of the surrounding pressures of the time, and, above all, the victim of fear, as much as or more (without a doubt, more) than William. I felt a certain rancor toward my brother, precisely because it was my brother who had been declared a faggot: I could understand and even accept that two professors may have gone the other way, but this wasn't the same as knowing - and having others know - that the one who we ~ Leonardo Padura

The cooking was invigorating, joyous. For Julia, the cooking fulfilled the promises that Le Cordon Bleu had made but never kept. Where Le Cordon Bleu always remained rooted in the dogma of French cuisine, Julia strove to infuse its rigors with new possibilities and pleasures. It must have felt liberating for her to deconstruct Carême and Escoffier, respecting the traditions and technique while correcting the oversight. "To her," as a noted food writer indicated, "French culinary tradition was a frontier, not a religion." If a legendary recipe could be improved upon, then let the gods beware. ~ Bob Spitz

As you can see," Daisy said, "one glass is filled with soap water, one with clear, and one with blue laundry water. The other, of course, is empty. The glasses will predict what kind of man you will marry."

They watched as Evie felt carefully for one of the glasses. Dipping her finger into the soap water, Evie
waited for her blindfold to be drawn off, and viewed the results with chagrin, while the other girls erupted with giggles.

"Choosing the soap water means she will marry a poor man," Daisy explained.
Wiping off her fingers, Evie exclaimed good-naturedly, "I s-suppose the fact that I'm going to be m-married at all is a good thing."

The next girl in line waited with an expectant smile as she was blindfolded, and the glasses were repositioned. She felt for the vessels, nearly overturning one, and dipped her fingers into the blue water. Upon viewing her choice, she seemed quite pleased. "The blue water means she's going to marry a noted author," Daisy told Lillian. "You try next!"

Lillian gaveher a speaking glance. "You don't really believe in this, do you?"

"Oh, don't be cynical - have some fun!" Daisy took the blindfold and rose on her toes to tie it firmly around Lillian's head.

Bereft of sight, Lillian allowed herself to be guided to the table. She grinned at the encouraging cries of the young women around her. There was the sound of the glasses being moved in front of her, and she waited with h ~ Lisa Kleypas

As he lifted his head, he saw himself in the crude metal sheets that were supposed to be mirrors. Even though the reflection was dull, he noted his ugliness and thought of Throe just now. In spite of the fact that the soldier had been out fighting all night, his handsome visage had appeared fresh as a daisy, his well-bred looks overshadowing the reality that he had slayer blood on his clothes and had been scraped and bruised.
Xcor, however, could have taken rest for two weeks straight, eaten a large meal, and fed from a fucking Chosen, and he would still appear as repulsive. ~ J.R. Ward

She laughed softly. "Therapy isn't so much about what I think as you do."
"Then why do it at all?"
"Because we don't always know what it is we're thinking or feeling. When you have a guide, it's easier to figure things out. You'll often discover that you already know what to do. I can help you ask questions and go places you mihgt not have on your own."
"Well, you're good at the qujestion part." I noted dryly. ~ Richelle Mead

The Allied governments, for example, with the British as executors, maintained in place the food blockade of Germany that had been in effect since 1917. A British authority would note that "in the last two years of the war, nearly 800,000 noncombatants died in Germany from starvation or diseases attributed to undernourishment. The biggest mortality was among children between the ages of 5 and 1 5, where the death rate increased by 55 percent. . . a whole generation [the one which had been born and lived during Hitler's rise to power] grew up in an epoch of undernourishment and misery such as we [British] have never in this country experienced."3 A distinguished American authority on United States foreign policy in the first half of the twentieth century, Stanford University professor Thomas A. Bailey, noted that "the Allied slow starvation of Germany's civilian population was quiet, unspectacular, and censored."4 The Englishman Gilbert Murray, writing in 1933, noted that future historians would probably regard the establishment and continuation of the blockade as one of those many acts of almost incredible inhumanity which made World War I conspicuous in history.
-- Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, p. 122 ~ Russel H.S. Stolfi

Nosoi?" Percy planted his feet in a fighting stance. "You know, I keep thinking, I have now killed every single thing in Greek mythology. But the list never seems to end."
"You haven't killed me yet," I noted.
"Don't tempt me. ~ Rick Riordan

Had his room been facing west he would have noted the sparkling twenty-five-mile vista to the sea which looks almost like the Mediterranean. He would have noted how the streets of L.A. undulate over short hills as though a finger is poking the landscape from underneath. How laid over this crosshatch are streets meandering on the diagonal creating a multitude of ways to get from one place to another by traveling along the hypotenuse. These are the avenues of the tryst which enable Acting Student A to travel the eighteen miles across town to Acting Student B's garage apartment in nine minutes flat after a hot-blooded phone call at midnight. Had he been facing seaward on a balcony overlooking the city the writer might have heard drifting out of a tiny apartment window the optimistic voice of a shower singer imbued with the conviction that this is a place where it is possible to be happy. ~ Steve Martin

Marriage," "mating," and "love" are socially constructed phenomena that have little or no transferable meaning outside any given culture. The examples we've noted of rampant ritualized group sex, mate-swapping, unrestrained casual affairs, and socially sanctioned sequential sex were all reported in cultures that anthropologists insist are monogamous simply because they've determined that something they call "marriage" takes place there. No wonder so many insist that marriage, monogamy, and the nuclear family are human universals. With such all-encompassing interpretations of the concepts, even the prairie vole, who "sleeps with anyone," would qualify. ~ Christopher Ryan

I shall destroy capitalism! Do you hear! I shall destroy every single capitalist! And I shall start with you, you dog, if you don't help us with the bomb!'
Allan noted that the had managed to be both a rat and a dog in the course of a minute or so. And that Stalin was being rather inconsistent, because now he wanted to use Allan's services after all.
But Allan wasn't going to sit there and listen to this abuse any longer. He had come to Moscow to help them out, not to be shouted at. Stalin would have to manage on his own.
'I've been thinking,' said Allan.
'What,' said Stalin angrily.
'Why don't you shave off that moustache?'
With that the dinner was over, because the interpreter fainted. ~ Jonas Jonasson

While infrasonic vibrations at around 6 hertz may influence the brain and produce various effects in humans, it seems that there must be other types of energy, or other frequencies, to explain phenomena that were noted to have occurred at the Great Pyramid more than one hundred years ago. Sir William Siemens, an Anglo-German engineer, metallurgist, and inventor, experienced a strange energy phenomenon at the Great Pyramid when an Arab guide called his attention to the fact that, while standing on the summit of the pyramid with hands outstretched, he could hear a sharp ringing noise. Raising his index finger, Siemens felt a prickling sensation.
Later on, while drinking out of a wine bottle he had brought along, he experienced a slight electric shock. Feeling that some further observations were in order, Siemens then wrapped a moistened newspaper around the bottle, converting it into a Leyden jar. After he held it above his head for a while, this improvised Leyden jar became charged with electricity to such an extent that sparks began to fly. Reportedly, Siemens' Arab guides were not too happy with their tourist's experiment and accused him of practicing witchcraft. Peter Tompkins wrote, "One of the guides tried to seize Siemens' companion, but Siemens lowered the bottle towards him and gave the Arab such a jolt that he was knocked senseless to the ground. Recovering, the guide scrambled to his feet and took off down the Pyramid, crying loudly. ~ Christopher Dunn

As he noted in his pocketbook, Although they are destitute of Taverns, yet have they Coffa-houses, which something resemble them. There sit they chatting most of the day; and sippe of a drinke called Coffa (of the berry that it is made of) in little China dishes, as hot as they can suffer it: blacke as soote, and tasting not much unlike it. ~ Markman Ellis

I have time for only one drink," Jordan said, glancing at the ormolu clock on the opposite wall. "I've promised Alexandra to stand at her side at a ball tonight and beam approvingly at a friend of hers."
Whenever Jordan mentioned his wife's name, Ian noted with amusement, the other man's entire expression softened.
"Care to join us?"
Ian shook his head and accepted his drink from the footman. "It sounds boring as hell."
"I don't think it'll be boring, precisely. My wife has taken it upon herself to defy the entire ton and sponsor the girl back into the ranks. Based on some of the things Alexandra said in her note, that will be no mean feat."
"Why is that?" Ian inquired with more courtesy than interest.
Jordan sighed and leaned his head back, weary from the hours he'd been working for the last several weeks and unexcited at the prospect of dancing attendance on a damsel in distress-one he'd never set eyes on. "The girl fell into the clutches of some man two years ago and an ugly scandal ensued."
Thinking of Elizabeth and himself, Ian said casually, "That's not an uncommon occurrence, evidently."
"From what Alex wrote me, it seems this case is rather extreme."
"In what way?"
"For one thing, there's every chance the young woman will get the cut direct tonight from half the ton-and that's the half that will be willing to acknowledge her. Alex has retaliated by calling in the heavy guns-my grandmother, to be exact, and Tony and mys ~ Judith McNaught

No Arab country produces graduates who can compete with their East Asian counterparts; the only Muslim country whose graduates meet world standards is Turkey. University graduates throughout the Arab world have miserable prospects. "The average unemployment rate for the age group 15-24 years in the Group of Arab Countries reaches to 30%, compared with an average rate of world 14.4%," according to the Arab Labor Organization. "Problem [sic] of high unemployment rates among the educated graduates from universities and colleges, which reaches to 26.8% in Morocco and 19.3% in Algeria, 17.7 % in Jordan. It was noted that 94% of the unemployed in the Arab Republic of Egypt are in the age group 15-29 years, reflecting a lack of consistency of education plans to the needs of the Labor market."9 ~ David Goldman

I have finally mastered what to do with the second tennis ball. Having small hands, I was becoming terribly self-conscious about keeping it in a can in the car while I served the first one. I noted some women tucked the second ball just inside the elastic leg of their tennis panties. I tried, but found the space already occupied by a leg. Now, I simply drop the second ball down my cleavage, giving me a chest that often stuns my opponent throughout an entire set. ~ Erma Bombeck

Excuse me," a breathy female voice came from beside her, and she lifted her head. A stunning blonde in a dress cut down to her belly button and up to her crotch hovered beside the table.
"Yes?" she asked, not certain whether to scream or laugh.
"Are you Richard Addison?" the woman breathed, ignoring Sam.
Rick blinked. "Oh, me. I thought you were talking to her. Yes, I am."
"Could I have your autograph?"
"Certainly. Do you have a pen?" The woman held out a napkin and a pen, and Rick signed his name. "There you go."
"How about your phone number?" The woman gave a low giggle, but pressed the napkin back into Rick's hand.
Sam would have stood, but Rick kicked her under the table. "Ouch," she grumbled, glaring at him.
"I'm sorry, but I don't give out my phone number."
"Are you sure?" Belly Button Girl licked her lips.
"If I might make a comment," Rick continued, granting her a warm smile, though Sam noted that his eyes remained cool and untouched, "I'm a bit occupied right now, enjoying the company of a very lovely young lady with whom I enjoy spending my every spare moment." He
straightened further, lowering his voice to a bare murmur. "So I thank you for your interest, but I am never in a million years going to give you my phone number. Good evening."
Her face turning scarlet under its inch of makeup, the woman turned away, departing with a sway of her perfect hips. "You're so cool," Sam breathed.
"You could at lea ~ Suzanne Enoch

An important feature of good characterization in a novel is that the characters are dimensionalized and are not all of one piece. Human beings, as Singer noted, have contradictions. ~ Joseph Telushkin