The Reluctant First Lady Quotes

An elegantly crafted novel, "The Reluctant First Lady" clearly documents author Venita Ellick as an exceptionally accomplished writer able to skillfully weave memorable characters into a riveting story line from beginning to end. As engaging as it is entertaining, "The Reluctant First Lady" is highly recommended for both personal reading lists and community library contemporary fiction collections. ~ Midwest Book Review August 2013

When I grow up, maybe I will be
the first one to circle the sea.
Or maybe I will just spend all my day
doing everything my way.
Maybe I will be in a world of my own
I just hope not alone.
I just know that whatever I do
I will never, ever forget about you. ~ Oliver Neubert

It is, in short, the growing conviction that the Negroes cannot win - a conviction with much grounding in experience - which accounts for the new popularity of black power. So far as the ghetto Negro is concerned, this conviction expresses itself in hostility, first toward the people closest to him who have held out the most promise and failed to deliver (Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, etc.), then toward those who have proclaimed themselves his friends (the liberals and the labor movement), and finally toward the only oppressors he can see (the local storekeeper and the policeman on the corner). On the leadership level, the conviction that the Negroes cannot win takes other forms, principally the adoption of what I have called a "no-win" policy. Why bother with programs when their enactment results only in sham? Why concern ourselves with the image of the movement when nothing significant has been gained for all the sacrifices made by SNCC and CORE? Why compromise with reluctant white allies when nothing of consequence can be achieved anyway? Why indeed have anything to do with whites at all?

On this last point, it is extremely important for white liberals to understand what, one gathers from their references to "racism in reverse," the President and the Vice-President of the United States do not: that there is all the difference in the world between saying, "If you don't want me, I don't want you" (which is what some proponents of black power have in effect bee ~ Bayard Rustin

God is the original, master forgiver. Each time we grope our reluctant way through the minor miracle of forgiving, we are imitating his style. I am not at all sure that any of us would have had imagination enough to see the possibilities in this way to heal the wrongs of this life had he not done it first. ~ Lewis B. Smedes

I first got into acting when I was 14, coming back from a junior high school basketball game. My mom picked me up and she had been mentioning, prior to that, this community production of 'Godspell', a couple towns over. I was reluctant, at first, and she bribed me with some great dinner that was in that town, neighboring the theater. ~ Skylar Astin

He found his voice first, though it was a ragged whisper, "Thank you." If I'd had enough breath I'd have laughed. My throat was so dry, that my voice sounded stiff. "Trust me on this, Frost, it was my pleasure." He bent over and laid a kiss on my cheek. "I will try to do better next time." He moved his hands away from me, letting me move, but stayed sheathed inside me as if he were reluctant to let that go. I looked at him, thinking he was joking, but his face was utterly serious. "It gets better than this?" I asked. He nodded solemnly. "Oh, yes." "The queen was a fool," I said softly. He smiled then. "I always thought so. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

I have one priority in life and it's not making millions as it once was.

I have all the money I could ever want, too much, India claims. I'm business driven but it's my girl who is the most important part of my life.

My whole life.

It's that very reason I'm reluctant to bring any shift in our happy bubble.

We both work hard. We play hard together.

That woman is my equal in every aspect of life.

She thrills me, and intrigues me.

I've loved peeling back India's layers.

She's vulnerable is my mean girl and I love the place we've gotten to where she trusts me with all her sad, unsure moments.

She will grieve for her brother for the rest of her life.

She'll always worry about her mom becoming manic depressive again.

She'll forever be a woman who puts everyone else before her own needs.

But what's different in India's life is she now has me who makes sure she's first. In everything.

It's going to kill me to see the happiness drop from her eyes.

She'll go into fix it mode and when she can't, she'll get angry and stressed. ~ V. Theia

I recall being quite captivated when we first met," he said lightly. "Helpless, I daresay."
Farah's snort turned into a reluctant laugh. "Don't be charming. It doesn't suit you."
The glimmer in his blue eye became a twinkle, the curve of his mouth lifted a little too far to be called a smirk anymore. But a smile? Almost... "No one's ever accused me of being charming before."
"You don't say." Lord, were they- flirting? ~ Kerrigan Byrne

I am always concerned when people, finding out that I am a writer, apologise and say, "I'm not much of a reader actually. I know I ought to, but I just don't seem able to find the time," and then go on to tell me how they feel obliged to finish any book they begin. Well, of course, I say, you will be reluctant to open one in the first place, knowing what it might entail. It isn't meant to be like that, I assure them. If you begin a book and you don't like it, just throw it away. Or take it round to a charity shop. It's like going to a party: some people you linger with, knowing you get on. Some people you exchange greeting with and move on fast. It's nothing against them. They're just not your kind of person. It's the same with books. You must be prepared to discard. And though you may feel it's a waste of money not reading a book you don't get on with, that's like not opening the windows when the weather turns warm for fear of wasting the central heating. So, as I say, now is a good point to abandon the book. You have my permission - even my encouragement. ~ Fay Weldon

We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:19). When we don't love or feel joy or peace or passion, it's because we do not know his love or his joy or peace or passion. He is a person, not a magic pill you take when your life or your soul is broken. He is a person. He is a person you talk to and listen to and love and respect. He's someone you decide to spend time with and dream with, whom you follow and learn from and hurt with, and to whom you ask things - someone you choose over anybody else, over anything else. He is a person - the person who defines my life, sweeps in and changes me. When I let him in. We all want to be free, joyful, and peaceful, but we get reluctant to hand God everything. But that is part of the path to the things he promises us. ~ Jennie Allen

I was quite reluctant in the first instance to come to use the word bisexual with regard to myself because I didn't feel any different inside from the way I had always felt. I always found men attractive. I still find men attractive. I figure out of, you know, every 200 men that pass on the street, I'm going to go, 100 of those are nice looking guys. Now, with every 200 women that pass on the street, maybe one is going to turn my head. ~ Tom Robinson

I have chosen to use the terms lesbian existence and lesbian continuum because the word lesbianism has a clinical and limiting ring Lesbian existence suggests both the fact of the historical presence of lesbians and our continuing creation of the meaning of that existence I mean the term lesbian continuum to include a range - through each woman's life and throughout history - of woman-identified experience; not simply the fact that a woman has had or consciously desired genital sexual experience with another woman. If we expand it to embrace many more forms of primary intensity between and among women, including the sharing of a rich inner life, the bonding against male tyranny, the giving and receiving of practical and political support; if we can also hear in it such associations as marriage resistance and the 'haggard' behavior identified by Mary Daly (obsolete meanings 'intractable,' 'willful,' 'wanton,' and 'unchaste' a woman reluctant to yield to wooing') - we begin to grasp breadths of female history and psychology that have lain out of reach as a consequence of limited, mostly clinical, definitions of 'lesbianism.'

Lesbian existence comprises both the breaking of a taboo and the rejection of a compulsory way of life It is also a direct or indirect attack on male right of access to women But it is more than these, although we may first begin to perceive it as a form of nay-saying to patriarchy, an act or resistance It has of course included role playing, sel ~ Adrienne Rich

The great challenge to the modern period, and its peculiar danger, has been that in it man for the first time confronted man without the protection of differing circumstances and conditions. And it has been precisely this new concept of equality that has made modern race relations so difficult, for there we deal with natural differences which by no possible and conceivable change of conditions can become less conspicuous. It is because equality demands that I recognize each and every individual as my equal, that the conflicts between different groups, which for reasons of their own are reluctant to grant each other this basic equality, take on such terribly cruel forms. ~ Hannah Arendt

Between one heartbeat and the next, a man can dream his entire life; tomorrow will open up in front of him and yesterday will retreat into time's abyss. There is no better place for personal memories than obscurity. Once lived, the past has very little value. And yet we carry its lifeless body into all future moments, allowing it to crush us with its weight, to identify us, and to speak for us. Even the most capable adults seem reluctant to make a decision without first consulting the past - the corpse - and listening to its endless rebukes. A wise man will ignore such counsel and observe the world from an infinite perspective. ~ Miguel Ruiz

First, when a strategic inflection point sweeps through the industry, the more successful a participant was in the old industry structure, the more threatened it is by change and the more reluctant it is to adapt to it. Second, whereas the cost to enter a given industry in the face of well-entrenched participants can be very high, when the structure breaks, the cost to enter may become trivially small, giving rise to Compaqs, Dells and Novells, each of which emerged from practically nothing to become major corporations. What's common among these companies is that they all instinctively followed the rules for success in a horizontal industry. ~ Andrew S. Grove

The first thing to get in your head is that every single
Girl can be caught - and that you'll catch her if
You set your toils right. Birds will sooner fall dumb in
Springtime,
Cicadas in summer, or a hunting-dog
Turn his back on a hare, than a lover's bland inducements
Can fail with a woman, Even one you suppose
Reluctant will want it. ~ Ovid

We have all seen them circling pastures, have looked up from the mouth of a barn, a pine clearing, the fences of our own backyards, and have stood amazed by the one slow wing beat, the endless dihedral drift. But I had never seen so many so close, every limb of the dead oak feathered black; and I cut the engine let the river grab the jon boat and pull it toward the tree ... Then as I passed under their dream, I saw for the first time its soft countenance the raw fleshy jowls, wrinkled and generous like the faces of the very old who have grown to empathize with everything. And I drifted away from them, reluctant, looking back at their roost, calling them what they are- transfiguring angels who pray over the leaf graves of the anonymous lost with mercy enough to consume us all and give us wings. ~ David Bottoms

Lost in the stormy kiss, Elizabeth felt her legs gliding down his as he gently lowered her against him until her feet touched the floor. But when his fingers pulled at the ribbon that held her gown in place at her shoulder, she jerked free of his kiss, automatically clamping her hand over his. "What are you doing?" she asked in a quaking whisper. His fingers stilled, and Ian lifted his heavy-lidded gaze to hers.
The question took him by surprise, but as he stared into her green eyes Ian saw her apprehension, and he had a good idea what was causing it. "What do you think I'm doing?" he countered cautiously.
She hesitated, as if unwilling even to accuse him of such an unspeakable act, and then she admitted in a small, reluctant voice, "Disrobing me."
"And that surprises you?"
"Surprises me? Of course it does. Why wouldn't it?" Elizabeth asked, more suspicious than ever of what Lucinda had told her.
Quietly he said, "What exactly do you know about what takes place between a husband and wife in bed?"
"You-you mean 'as it pertains to the creation of children'?" she said, quoting his words to her the day she agreed to become betrothed to him.
He smiled with tender amusement at her phrasing. "I suppose you can call it that-for now."
"Only what Lucinda told me." He waited to hear an explanation, and Elizabeth reluctantly added, "She said a husband kisses his wife in bed and that it hurts the first time, and that is how it is done."
Ian hes ~ Judith McNaught

It's more the way a tough guy who doesn't like cats might look at a kitten and notice for the first time that it can be kind of cute. Sort of a reluctant, private acknowledgment that maybe cats aren't all bad. ~ Susan Ee

I feel compelled to make another 'nonapology.' Many readers are likely to be concerned about my use of masculine pronouns in relation to God. I think I both understand and appreciate this concern. It is a matter to which I have given much thought. I have generally been a strong supporter of the women's movement and action that is reasonable to combat sexist language. But first of all, God is not neuter. He is exploding with life and love and even sexuality of a sort. So 'It' is not appropriate. Certainly I consider God androgynous. He is as gentle and tender and nurturing and maternal as any woman could ever be. Nonetheless, culturally determined though it may be, I subjectively experience His reality as more masculine than feminine. While He nurtures us, He also desires to penetrate us, and while we more often than not flee from His love like a reluctant virgin, He chases after us with a vigor in the hunt that we most typically associate with males. As CS Lewis put it, in relation to God we are all female. Moreover, whatever our gender or conscious theology, it is our duty---our obligation---in response to His love to attempt to give birth, like Mary, to Christ in ourselves and in others.

"I shall, however, break with tradition and use the neuter for Satan. While I know Satan to be lustful to penetrate us, I have not in the least experienced this desire as sexual or creative---only hateful and destructive. It is hard to determine the sex of a snake. ~ M. Scott Peck

When, without the bitterness of impotent rebellion, we have learnt both to resign ourselves to the outward rules of Fate and to recognise that the non-human world is unworthy of our worship, it becomes possible at last so to transform and refashion the unconscious universe, so to transmute it in the crucible of imagination, that a new image of shining gold replaces the old idol of clay. In all the multiform facts of the world--in the visual shapes of trees and mountains and clouds, in the events of the life of man, even in the very omnipotence of Death--the insight of creative idealism can find the reflection of a beauty which its own thoughts first made. In this way mind asserts its subtle mastery over the thoughtless forces of Nature. The more evil the material with which it deals, the more thwarting to untrained desire, the greater is its achievement in inducing the reluctant rock to yield up its hidden treasures, the prouder its victory in compelling the opposing forces to swell the pageant of its triumph. Of all the arts, Tragedy is the proudest, the most triumphant; for it builds its shining citadel in the very centre of the enemy's country, on the very summit of his highest mountain; from its impregnable watchtowers, his camps and arsenals, his columns and forts, are all revealed; within its walls the free life continues, while the legions of Death and Pain and Despair, and all the servile captains of tyrant Fate, afford the burghers of that dauntless city new spectacl ~ Bertrand Russell

I love to walk through snow, to climb mountains, to smell the fresh air and I love to dream about flying. Soaring through the air, watching the earth from above, feeling the wind in my face and touching the clouds would be an amazing experience. ~ Oliver Neubert

Even in childhood I watched the hours flow, independent of any reference, any action, any event, the disjunction of time from what was not itself, its autonomous existence, its special status, its empire, its tyranny. I remember quite clearly that afternoon when, for the first time, confronting the empty universe, I was no more than a passage of moments reluctant to go on playing their proper parts. Time was coming unstuck from being - at my expense. ~ Emil M. Cioran

In a gradually unsubtlizing progression, within a couple more sales-quarters most consumers were now using masks so undeniably better-looking on videophones than their real faces were in person, transmitting to one another such horrendously skewed and enhanced masked images of themselves, that enormous psychosocial stress began to result, large numbers of phone-users suddenly reluctant to leave home and interface personally with people who, they feared, were now habituated to seeing their far-better-looking masked selves on the phone and would on seeing them in person suffer (so went the callers' phobia) the same illusion-shattering aesthetic disappointment that, e.g., certain women who always wear makeup give people the first time they ever see them without makeup. ~ David Foster Wallace

Sugar had grown up in Charleston, South Carolina: possibly the most luscious of the world's garden cities. Behind every wrought-iron gate or exposed-brick wall in the picturesque peninsula blooming between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers lay a sweet-scented treasure trove of camellias, roses, gardenias, magnolias, tea olives, azaleas and jasmine, everywhere, jasmine.
With its lush greenery, opulent vines, sumptuous hedgerows and candy-colored window boxes, it was no wonder the city's native sons and daughters believed it to be the most beautiful place on earth.
In her first years of exile Sugar had tried to cultivate a reminder of the luxuriant garden delights she had left behind, struggling in sometimes hostile elements to train reluctant honeysuckle and sulky sweet potato vines or nurture creeping jenny and autumn stonecrop. ~ Sarah-Kate Lynch

Somer reclines in her airplane seat, watching through the window as the glimmering lights of Mumbai recede into the darkness of night. In the seat next to her, Asha is already asleep, her head and pillow resting on Somer's lap, her feet in Krishnan's. They should both try to sleep as well, but she knows Krishnan, like her, is reluctant to disturb Asha. He extends his hand to Somer, and she takes it. They rest their interlocking hands on Asha's sleeping body between them, just as they did the first time they made this journey. ~ Shilpi Somaya Gowda

The rhetoric of 'law and order' was first mobilized in the late 1950s as Southern governors and law enforcement officials attempted to generate and mobilize white opposition to the Civil Rights Movement. In the years following Brown v. Board of Education, civil rights activists used direct-action tactics in an effort to force reluctant Southern States to desegregate public facilities. Southern governors and law enforcement officials often characterized these tactics as criminal and argued that the rise of the Civil Rights Movement was indicative of a breakdown of law and order. Support of civil rights legislation was derided by Southern conservatives as merely 'rewarding lawbreakers.'
For more than a decade – from the mid 1950s until the late 1960s – conservatives systematically and strategically linked opposition to civil rights legislation to calls for law and order, arguing that Martin Luther King Jr.'s philosophy of civil disobedience was a leading cause of crime. ~ Michelle Alexander

The first thing I did was lock myself in the bathroom and unwind my binders. I was moist and sour from adrenaline and fear sweat and I felt like I would die if I didn't rinse off. There was no soap and the rusty, lukewarm water dribbled out of the showerhead like blood from the wrist of a reluctant suicide. Still, it was better than nothing. ~ Christa Faust

'The Red' is the first book in a trilogy that gained a big following as a self-published e-book, and is now out in paper from Saga. It introduces us to reluctant hero Shelley, a former anti-war activist who chooses to join the military rather than serve jail time after being arrested at a protest. ~ Annalee Newitz

I want to lengthen, not shorten, my attention span, and most of the material splendors of the twenty-first century bully me in the opposite direction. The fault is mine, I'll admit. I'm too slow-witted, reluctant to evolve, constitutionally unable to get with the program. I can't afford the newest gadgets and I'm not a natural multitasker. ~ Phillip Connors

It was like dawn, and then dusk cascading over the Himalayas. First, the gradual brightening over snow and contour, then the shining, sparkling sun mirrored; and then as the moment of joy passed – the lingering colour-changing light; reluctant to leave. That faint, bittersweet almost-light, and then indigo outlines and inky black. ~ Radhika Mukherjee

He (Alexander Woollcott) always praises the first production of each season, being reluctant to stone the first cast. ~ Walter Winchell

Her face deeply moved him. Why, he could at first not say. It gave him the impression of youth--spring flowers, yet age--a sense of having been used to the bone, wasted; this came from the eyes, which were hauntingly familiar, yet absolutely strange. He had a vivid impression that he had met her before, but try as he might he could not place her although he could almost recall her name, as he had read it in her own handwriting. No, this couldn't be; he would have remembered her. It was not, he affirmed, that she had an extraordinary beauty--no, though her face was attractive enough; it was that something about her moved him. Feature for feature, even some of the ladies of the photographs could do better; but she lapsed forth to this heart--had lived, or wanted to--more than just wanted, perhaps regretted how she had lived--had somehow deeply suffered: it could be seen in the depths of those reluctant eyes, and from the way the light enclosed and shone from her, and within her, opening realms of possibility: this was her own. Her he desired. His head ached and eyes narrowed with the intensity of his gazing, then as if an obscure fog had blown up in the mind, he experienced fear of her and was aware that he had received an impression, somehow, of evil. He shuddered, saying softly, it is thus with us all. Leo brewed some tea in a small pot and sat sipping it without sugar, to calm himself. But before he had finished drinking, again with excitement he examined the face and found ~ Bernard Malamud

Were you ever going to tell me?"

"About the Grail?" He returned to the couch and handed her a glass. "I wasn't planning on it."

She knocked back the rum and swallowed, setting the empty glass on the table. Impressive.

She met his eyes. "So even if we had slept together last night, you were going to keep telling me you were descended from a pirate, not an actual pirate."

He took a swig, his gaze locked on hers. "Would you have believed me?"

"No." She shrugged. "Just wondering how long you would have lied to me."

"I could ask you the same thing."

She rolled her eyes. "I played you. There's a difference." She shrugged. "Besides that, was before our no lies between us deal."

"I see this as more of an omission." He finished off his drink and placed the glass beside hers. "In my defense, I've never told anyone who I really am. You're the first."

She raised a brow. "Are you saying I should feel…special?"

"Aye." He cleared his throat. "I've never taken a bullet for anyone either, not even my crew."

"Thanks for that." A reluctant smile curved her lips as she met his eyes. "Pretty heroic for a pirate."

He chuckled. "It's less heroic when you're certain you won't die."

"But you knew it would hurt."

He nodded slowly. "True."

She pinched her fingertips close together in the air. "It might've been a tiny bit heroic."

Lisa Kessler

He didn't always tell his father when it happened, because the old man's face turned mottled blue over his doublet, and unless Will got in first, he would send a runner round all the estates, and the threshing would stop while grousing, reluctant men straggled back for their pikes and swords and mail shirts, taking a long time about it, waiting for Buccleuch the Younger to come up, furious on his sweating horse, and tell them curtly to get back to the fields. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

Yea, she hath passed hereby, and blessed the sheaves,
And the great garths, and stacks, and quiet farms,
And all the tawny, and the crimson leaves.
Yea, she hath passed with poppies in her arms,
Under the star of dusk, through stealing mist,
And blessed the earth, and gone, while no man wist.
With slow, reluctant feet, and weary eyes,
And eye-lids heavy with the coming sleep,
With small breasts lifted up in stress of sighs,
She passed, as shadows pass, among the sheep;
While the earth dreamed, and only I was ware
Of that faint fragrance blown from her soft hair.
The land lay steeped in peace of silent dreams;
There was no sound amid the sacred boughs.
Nor any mournful music in her streams:
Only I saw the shadow on her brows,
Only I knew her for the yearly slain,
And wept, and weep until she come again. ~ Frederic Manning

The search for human freedom can never be complete without freedom for women. ~ Betty Ford

I checked my e-mail first. The only new one was from Lady Elaine. I opened it with a surge of trepidation that proved anticlimactic. The e-mail informed me that Paul would be starting classes tomorrow (read: today) and that I should be prepared. Yeah, way to get the message through on time there, Ms. I Can Predict the Future. It also included his new class schedule so that I could stalk him more conveniently.

Even better ~ Mindee Arnett

It's not fear of striking out that makes me reluctant to step up to the plate. It's the fear of getting hit in the head by a 90 mph fastball, the pitcher coming off of the mound to stomp me with her cleats while I am down, the rest of the opposing team rushing out of the dugout hurling insults as they kick me and spit on me, while all along the crowd in the stands is cheering them on and laughing at my failure. So, no, it's not the fear of striking out that keeps me from stepping up to the plate. ~ Jim Copeland

My wife is my first audience. She's a tough lady, so I can't say that I ever scare her. Except, of course, when she sees me the way I look before breakfast. ~ Dean Koontz

I had made the suggestion to her more than once before; but it was an odd fact that the most difficult and hostile clients were often the most reluctant to leave, as though they wanted to stay and plague you out of spite. ~ C.J. Sansom

So... what's the trick?" At Loch's questioning look he sniffed. "You planning to run off under an illusion? Maybe your unicorn will fly you away? You've had an angle this whole time. I respect that. So... what's it going to be this time, young lady?"
"The trick," Loch said, drawing her blade, "is that this time, the young lady kicks your ass."
The first rays of dawn shimmered off their blades as steel met steel. ~ Patrick Weekes

Chace went to the bar to order the first round, two lagers. The barman was old, and old-fashioned, and when he served her one pine, presumably for Wallace, and a half, presumably for her, she sent the half back.
"No, another pint, if you please."
The barman's eyes turned critical. "Not terribly ladylike."
"I'm a terrible lady. ~ Greg Rucka

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The mind is reluctant to embrace deep change, and will play devious games to maintain the status quo. ~ Kristin Linklater

First the flame and then the flood:
In the end it's Blackthorn blood.
Seek thou to forget what's past
First thirteen and then the last.
Search not the book of angels gray,
Red or white will lead you far astray.
To regain what you have lost,
Find the black book at any cost. ~ Cassandra Clare

The surer of himself an admiral is, the finer the tactical development of his fleet, the better his captains, the more reluctant must he necessarily be to enter into a melee with equal forces, in which all these advantages will be thrown away, chance reign supreme, and his fleet be place on terms of equality with an assemblage of ships which have never before acted together. ~ Alfred Thayer Mahan

Burn stepped up to the side of the horse and pulled Sora from Crash's arms. Crash was reluctant to let go. ~ T.L. Shreffler

Meetings run best when there are clear rules or norms to follow. These are sometimes difficult to set at the start of the meeting. People may feel reluctant to speak up and suggest rules or there may be pressure to start discussing the agenda items. ~ Ingrid Bens

Ryland had been always loyal to the journeyman shoemaker he had baptised in the river, and he gives us this record: - "If all the people had lifted up their voices and wept, as the children of Israel did at Bochim, I should not have wondered at the effect. It would only have seemed proportionate to the cause, so clearly did he prove the criminality of our supineness in the cause of God." The text was Isaiah's (liv. 2, 3) vision of the widowed church's tent stretching forth till her children inherited the nations and peopled the desolate cities, and the application to the reluctant brethren was couched in these two great maxims written ever since on the banners of the missionary host of the kingdom - EXPECT GREAT THINGS FROM GOD. ATTEMPT GREAT THINGS FOR GOD. ~ George Smith