Unbend Me Instructions Quotes

There aren't any rules to running away from your problems. No checklist of things to cross off. No instructions. Eeny, meeny, pick a path and go. That's how my dad does it anyway because apparently there's no age limit to running away, either. He wakes up one day, packs the car with everything we own, and we hit the road. Watch all the pretty colors go by until he finds a town harmless enough to hide in. But his problems always find us. Sometimes quicker than others. Sometimes one month and sometimes six. There's no rule when it comes to that, either. Not about how long it takes for the problems to catch up with us. Just that they will - that much is a given. And then it's time to run again to a new town, a new home, and a new school for me.

But if there aren't any rules, I wonder why it feels the same every time. Feels like I leave behind a little bit of who I was in each house we've left empty. Scattering pieces of me in towns all over the place. A trail of crumbs dotting the map from everywhere we've left to everywhere we go. And they don't make any pictures when I connect dots. They are random like the stars littering the sky at night. ~ Brian James

Idly, I flipped through the ledger's pages, for I cannot resist a book set before me no matter its kind. Writing draws my eye; I am impelled as by sorcery to read even if it is an accountant's list or a solicitor's instructions or, as here, nothing more than a record of travelers who have passed through this inn. ~ Kate Elliot

I experienced direct telepathy with other people, and during one such incident, I I received a channelling of cosmic information from some being in another realm. It came directly through a friend who was tripping on acid, and as he began speaking stream-of-consciousness to me and my girlfriend - and both of us were very stoned on grass - his words conveyed cosmic instructions and information we all three knew to be profoundly important and meaningful. ~ Susan Schneider

The gods have provided me with clear and compelling signs of what it means to live in conformity to nature. They did their part. So far as their gifts, aid, and inspiration are concerned, nothing prevented me from following the path prescribed by nature. If from time to time I have strayed from this path, the fault lies with me and with my failure to heed the gods' signs, or rather, their explicit instructions. ~ Marcus Aurelius

Your wife," said Arthur, looking around, "mentioned some toothpicks." He said it with a hunted look, as if he was worried that she might suddenly leap out from behind a door and mention them again.

Wonko the Sane laughed. It was a light easy laugh, and sounded like one he had used a lot before and was happy with.

"Ah yes," he said, "that's to do with the day I finally realized that the world had gone totally mad and built the Asylum to put it in, poor thing, and hoped it would get better."

This was the point at which Arthur began to feel a little nervous again.

"Here," said Wonko the Sane, "we are outside the Asylum." He pointed again at the rough brickwork, the pointing, and the gutters. "Go through that door" - he pointed at the first door through which they had originally entered - "and you go into the Asylum. I've tried to decorate it nicely to keep the inmates happy, but there's very little one can do. I never go in there myself. If I ever am tempted, which these days I rarely am, I simply look at the sign written over the door and I shy away."

"That one?" said Fenchurch, pointing, rather puzzled, at a blue plaque with some instructions written on it.

"Yes. They are the words that finally turned me into the hermit I have now become. It was quite sudden. I saw them, and I knew what I had to do."

The sign read:

"Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Ins ~ Douglas Adams

For my twenty-seventh birthday, I was really looking forward to your father's gift...But there was no box. There was no bag with tissue sticking out of the top. We sat down on his bed, in his closet room, as he gave me an envelope...Instead, there was a blank card with these instructions: 'Write down all of your goals.' Then he had me recite them back to him. And after every goal I read out loud to him, he replied, 'So it shall be. '... And despite having put anal beads up another grown man's ass in a previous relationship, I had never experienced and activity that was so intimate. And straight up free. ~ Ali Wong

Make Believe

When I wake up in the morning
Not all is what it seems
I drift through a world of make believe
Between my real life and my dreams.

Strange Adventures from the space book
That I read the night before
Crowd in upon on my drowsiness
Through imagination's door.

Between sleeping and waking
The alarm clock's jangalang cry
Becomes the roaring fire-railed rocket
That hurls me through the sky.

My bed's a silver spacecraft
Which I pilot all alone
Whisp'ring through endless stratospheres
Towards planets still unknown.

Outside through the mists of morning
The spinning lights of cars
In my make-believe space voyage
Become eternities of stars.

Is that my mother calling something
That my dreams can't understand?
Or can it be crackling instructions
From far off Mission Command?

Gareth Owen ~ John Foster

First," I said, "I'm sorry about the other day. I must have had the book open at the wrong place."
The violet eyes glanced up at me, and then became confused and looked away. "It's all right," she said.
"Then you're not mad at me?"
She shook her head. "Not any more."
"That's fine," I said. "Now we can start even again. Next time I'll read the instructions on the bottle. ~ Charles Williams

But if the me I was supposed to be being was something else - yes, no shit, I'd love to be that. Do you have the rest of the instructions, jackass? (...) I wasn't being me - but wasn't wasn't being me being me? How else was I wasn't be? ~ Ze Frank

I followed your instructions exactly, I promise. I don't lie."
Vic rubbed the back of his neck. "Right, sorry. Didn't mean to imply anything. I'm just worried, that's all."
Kellan stared at him for a moment before his lower lip began trembling. Vic rushed forward in case Kellan was in any pain and needed his help. He grabbed his upper arms.
"What's wrong?"
A tear fell from Kellan's eye. "No one's cared about what happens to me for a very long time."
Vic yanked Kellan into his embrace, cradling and rocking him. He closed his eyes, rested his head on Kellan's, losing the battle to remain indifferent to the young man. Just because he was doomed to never finding his true fated mate, it didn't mean he couldn't care about and love another. Even if in his mind it was odd that he should fall so hard and fast for Kellan, for a swan, that didn't make it wrong.
The way Kellan pressed his cheek to his chest and hugged him back so tightly was nothing short of a confirmation that he was feeling the same way. He still intended to try and slow things down, if only to allow poor Kellan the chance to adjust to his new world, along with discovering his place within it.
Kellan loosened his hold and gazed up at Vic. "Is it okay that I like you and think you're very handsome?"
Yup. That's a rather direct confirmation. "Only if it's okay that I like you and think you're very beautiful."
Kellan grinned. "Really? You think I'm beautiful? Finn alwa ~ M.M. Wilde

Did you read the instructions?" He shook his head. "Why, were you afraid they'd take your man card away?" "Are you going to help me or just make fun of me?" "Can't I do both? ~ Ilona Andrews

he attended a Buddhist retreat in the north of England at which the principal teachers were a small group of Buddhist nuns. He no longer remembers any details about the tradition they belonged to, but he remembers well the profound effect their teachings had on him. At the core of the retreat were instructions on how participants could develop a practice of meditation through using the breath as a focus to remain anchored in the present moment. "What the nuns pointed me to was the part of their tradition kept alive through monastic practice for 2,500 years," he says. "This was the importance of staying in the present moment, the importance of calm abiding, the practice of concentration in Buddhism known as samatha." This time spent in the company of nuns, listening to their guidance, was "a seminal moment. ~ Christine Toomey

Now, Reverend Father Abbot asked me to make the following announcements:

"First, for the next three days we shall sing the Little Office of Our Lady before Matins, asking her intercession for peace.

"Second, general instructions for civil defense in the event of a space-strike or missile-attack alert are available on the table by the entrance. Everybody take one. ~ Walter M. Miller Jr.

With concerted effort, I can follow written instructions, but don't ask me to simply grasp how to operate a smartphone. ~ Michael Dirda

Let's see, you will need a project plan, resource allocation, a timeline, test cycles, a budget, a contingency budget, lots of diagrams, flowcharts, a media release, a strategic vision, a charter, technical specifications, business rules, travel expenses, a development environment, deployment instructions, a user acceptance test, stationary, overtime schedule, a mock-up, prototypes ... "
"Tell me," she said, "did the people who built the pyramids have any of those?"
"Mostly, they had beer. Come to think of it, if there had been such a thing as a Business Analyst in ancient Egypt, then the hieroglyph for it would have been very graphical, if you know what I mean. ~ Sorin Suciu

For me, this is a familiar image - people in the organization ready and willing to do good work, wanting to contribute their ideas, ready to take responsibility, and leaders holding them back, insisting that they wait for decisions or instructions. ~ Margaret J. Wheatley

I want you to know that it is not always easy to love me. That sometimes my chest is a field full of landmines, and where you went last night, you can't go tomorrow. There is no manual, there is no road map, no help line you can call; my body does not come with instructions, and sometimes even I don't know what to do with it. This cannot be easy. But still, you touch me anyway. ~ Ivan E. Coyote

I had almost slid back into a more alert version of the contented state I'd been in when I woke up, when Rita jolted me out of my reverie. "Finish up, everybody," she said happily. "We have an awful lot to do today." It seemed like an ominous pronouncement. A lot to do? Like what? I tried to recall whether I had seen a lengthy list of tasks to perform - tasks so urgent that they could invade and conquer a Saturday I had hoped to dedicate to loafing. Nothing came to mind, and no list appeared. Rita was clearly so focused on whatever the jobs might be that she assumed we could all get our instructions from her telepathically. Perhaps my psychic antenna had blown down, but I had no idea at all what I was supposed to prepare for, and it seemed a little bit churlish to ask. ~ Jeff Lindsay

He kissed like a fucking dream. Like Deane filled out an application, requested, "Send me a boy who kisses like this," and the universe followed instructions to the letter. ~ Suanne Laqueur

I always thought my father [influenced me most] because he was so well read, I tried to model myself on him, but really as I go through life I realise it was my mother who gave me the most valuable instructions. I didn't understand or accept it at the time. She taught me to read and to pray - two things that have really stayed with me. ~ Patti Smith

We need a test!" I jump up out of the chair and pat my body down. "Where's my wallet?"

"In your pocket," she replies dryly.

"I'll be back!" I race out of the house and drive the short distance between Dom's estate and the nearest village. After I find a drug store and buy one of each kind of pregnancy test they have, I race back to my hopefully pregnant wife.

"That was fast," she murmurs with a grin. She was still sitting in the lounge chair, sipping her coffee.

"Should you be drinking coffee?" I ask.

"Let's not get crazy," she responds. I need coffee.

"I got one of each kind," I announce and opened the bag, sending small white and blue boxes scattering.

"Uh, Caleb, we only need one."

"What if we can't figure them out?" I ask and pick one up to examine it. "All of the instructions are in Italian."

She laughs hysterically and then stands, wiping her eyes.

"It's not funny."

"Yes, it is. Pregnancy tests are pretty universal, Caleb. You pee on it and a line either appears or it doesn't." She rubs my arm sweetly and kisses my shoulder before plucking the box out of my fingers. "I'll be back."

"I'm coming with you." I begin to follow her but she turns quickly with her hands out to stop me.

"Oh no, you aren't. You are not going to watch me pee on this stick."

I scowled down at her and cross my arms over my chest. "I've helped you b ~ Kristen Proby

When you make machines that are capable of obeying instructions slavishly, and among those instructions are 'duplicate me' instructions, then of course the system is wide open to exploitation by parasites. ~ Richard Dawkins

After I returned from that morning, our telephone rang incessantly with requests for interviews and photos. By midafternoon I was exhausted. At four o'clock I was reaching to disconnect the telephone when I answered one last call.
Thank heavens I did! I heard, "Mrs. Robertson? This is Ian Hamilton from the Lord Chamberlain's office."
I held my breath and prayed, "Please let this be the palace."
He continued: "We would like to invite you, your husband, and your son to attend the funeral of the Princess of Wales on Saturday in London." I was speechless. I could feel my heart thumping. I never thought to ask him how our name had been selected. Later, in London, I learned that the Spencer family had given instructions to review Diana's personal records, including her Christmas-card list, with the help of her closest aides.
"Yes, of course, we absolutely want to attend," I answered without hesitating. "Thank you so much. I can't tell you how much this means to me. I'll have to make travel plans on very short notice, so may I call you back to confirm? How late can I reach you?"
He replied, "Anytime. We're working twenty-four hours a day. But I need your reply within an hour." I jotted down his telephone and fax numbers and set about making travel arrangements.
My husband had just walked in the door, so we were able to discuss who would travel and how. Both children's passports had expired and could not be renewed in less than a day from the suburbs wh ~ Mary Robertson

Someone like Ashlee Simpson, she lip-synchs on 'Saturday Night Live,' gets totally called out la Milli Vanilli, and no one really cares that much. It doesn't make me hate Ashlee; she's just taking instructions. ~ Henry Rollins

Instructions for a Broken Heart
I will find a bare patch of earth, somewhere where the ruins have fallen away, somewhere where I can fit both hands, and I will dig a hole.
And into that hole, I will scream you, I will dump all the shadow places of my heart - the times you didn't call when you said you'd call, the way you only half listened to my poems, your eyes on people coming through the swinging door of the café - not on me - your ears, not really turned toward me. For all those times I started to tell you about the fight with my dad or when my grandma died, and you said something about your car, something about the math test you flunked, as an answer. I will scream into that hole the silence of dark nights after you'd kissed me, how when I asked if something was wrong - and something was obviously so very wrong - how you said "nothing," how you didn't tell me until I had to see it in the dim light of a costume barn - so much wrong. I will scream all of it.
Then I will fill it in with dark earth, leave it here in Italy, so there will be an ocean between the hole and me.
Because then I can bring home a heart full of the light patches. A heart that sees the sunset you saw that night outside of Taco Bell, the way you pointed out that it made the trees seem on fire, a heart that holds the time your little brother fell on his bike at the fairgrounds and you had pockets full of bright colored Band-Aids and you kissed the bare skin of his knees. I will take t ~ Kim Culbertson

I studied how to use the clothes washer. The handy instructions on the lid helped; so did the box of suds. It instructed me to separate the whites from the coloreds. Laundry will be the last American institution to desegregate. ~ Huston Piner

Can you please also give me instructions for dancing?"

"Excuse me?"

"I need instructions for dancing. Like how do I move my body to music in front of other people? Break it down. Step by step."

"Seriously? Dancing isn't one of those things that come with instructions. It's not like putting together Ikea furniture."

"Please help me."

"Well, first of all, this is not the sort of music that will be playing." She motions to the pianist, who is bald and bearded, which I've always found to be a bizarre combination. You would think you would want cranial and mandibular hair consistency.

"No Ravel's Bolero. Got it."

"No classical music, period. They'll probably just play all the crap that's on the radio."

"I amend my original request. I need instructions for dancing to noise."

"You just move your body to the beat. Feel the music." Miney puts her arms up and sways to sounds I do not hear. She closes her eyes, leans on the tips of her toes, and jumps. After approximately ninety seconds, she stops and looks at me. "Your turn."

"I don't think so." Miney doesn't respond. She just waits.

"Fine." I copy her, jump up and down, though I don't actually jump down, which is a misnomer. I let gravity do its job. My sneakers make discordant squeaks along the marble floor.

"No. Stop. You look like you're having a seizure. Think of dancing like having a conversation but ~ Julie Buxbaum

I've always felt a little lost in life, like I never received complete instructions on who I'm supposed to be. Everyone else around me seemed to know exactly who they were. Their lives would fly right by me; their GPS's locked on to destinations while I just sat idling in the street. In high school I never did any extracurricular activities because I couldn't figure out if I was a sports person or a music person. And it was no different in college. I wandered through four different majors, unable to decide who I wanted to be. I just felt like a blank slate.

And if I was a blank slate, Micah York was The Starry Night - authentic, beautiful, perfect. He was my exact antithesis which is what attracted me to him in the first place. He was born knowing exactly who he was and what he was about. His confidence and certainty in himself was an all but tangible element of him. ~ C.K. Walker

Training new hunters was the worst and I wonder if Marek had latched onto the fact that I was infact, finding him hard to teach.

"It's down! Now shoot it in the head!" I yell, Marek follows my instructions, I peer down to see where he'd shot it. I notice he got the werewolf in the leg I raise my eyebrow "Impressive." he may have missed the eye but Marek injured it. Marek looks at me "Am I really that hard to teach?" he asks me. ~ Charon Lloyd-Roberts

Muslim Girlhood

I never found myself in a pink aisle.
There was no box for me
with glossy cellophane like heat
and a neat packet of instructions in six languages.

Evenings, I watched TV like a religion I moderately believed.
I watched to see how the others lived, not knowing I was the other - no laugh track in my living room, no tidy and punctual resolution waiting.

I took tests in which Jane & William had so many apples.

I fasted through birthday parties
and Christmas parties
and ate leftover tajine at plastic lunch tables,
picked at pepperoni from slices like blemishes and tried not to complain.

I prayed at the wrong times in the wrong tongue.
I hungered for Jell-O & Starburts & margarine;
could read mono- and diglycerides by five,
knew what gelatin meant, and
where it came from. ~ Leila Chatti

Jesus Christ and General Jackson, this is the hottest potato they've ever handed me!" - Admiral "Bull" Halsey upon receiving instructions to take the Pacific Fleet and defend Guadalcanal at all costs. ~ Ian W. Toll

It's only second period, and the whole school knows Emma broke up with him. So far, he's collected eight phone numbers, one kiss on the cheek, and one pinch to the back of his jeans. His attempts to talk to Emma between classes are thwarted by a hurricane of teenage females whose main goal seems to be keeping him and his ex-girlfriend separated.
When the third period bell rings, Emma has already chosen a seat where she'll be barricaded from him by other students. Throughout class, she pays attention as if the teacher were giving instructions on how to survive a life-threatening catastrophe in the next twenty-four hours. About midway through class, he receives a text from a number he doesn't recognize.
If you let me, I can do things to u to make u forget her.
As soon as he clears it, another one pops up from a different number.
Hit me back if u want to chat. I'll treat u better than E.
How did they get my number? Tucking his phone back into his pocket, he hovers over his notebook protectively, as if it's the only thing left that hasn't been invaded. Then he notices the foreign handwriting scribbled on it by a girl named Shena who encircled her name and phone number with a heart. Not throwing it across the room takes almost as much effort as not kissing Emma.
At lunch, Emma once again blocks his access to her by sitting between people at a full picnic table outside. He chooses the table directly across from her, but she seems oblivious, absently so ~ Anna Banks

Science is an intellectual journey, and to me, it's not the destination, it's the journeyto get there. It's a way of thinking and it's an intellectual curiosity, a desire to know how the world works, and to know what the fundamental principles of the world are, and to know our place in it. I think once we stop asking questions like "what is the age of the universe," or "how are the instructions of DNA carried out on a microscopic level," once we stop asking questions like that, we're dead. ~ Alan Lightman

Instructions for Dad.

I don't want to go into a fridge at an undertaker's. I want you to keep me at home until the funeral. Please can someone sit with me in case I got lonely? I promise not to scare you.
I want to be buried in my butterfly dress, my lilac bra and knicker set and my black zip boots (all still in the suitcase that I packed for Sicily). I also want to wear the bracelet Adam gave me.
Don't put make-up on me. It looks stupid on dead people.
I do NOT want to be cremated. Cremations pollute the atmosphere with dioxins,k hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide. They also have those spooky curtains in crematoriums.
I want a biodegradable willow coffin and a woodland burial. The people at the Natural Death Centre helped me pick a site not for from where we live, and they'll help you with all the arrangements.
I want a native tree planted on or near my grave. I'd like an oak, but I don't mind a sweet chestnut or even a willow. I want a wooden plaque with my name on. I want wild plants and flowers growing on my grave.
I want the service to be simple. Tell Zoey to bring Lauren (if she's born by then). Invite Philippa and her husband Andy (if he wants to come), also James from the hospital (though he might be busy).
I don't want anyone who doesn't know my saying anything about me. THe Natural Death Centre people will stay with you, but should also stay out of it. I want the people I love to ge ~ Jenny Downham

It seemed to me,' said Wonko the Sane, 'that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane. ~ Douglas Adams

Prayer of Application to the Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit who solves all promblems, who lights all roads so that I can attain my goal. You who give me the divine giftto forgive and forget all evil against meand that in all instances of my life you are with me. I want in this short prayer to thank you for all things and to confirm once again that I never want to be separated from you, even and in spite of all matrial illusion. I want to be with you in eternal glory. Thank you for your mercy toward me and mine.
The person must say this prayer for three consecutive days. After three days the favor requested will be granted even if it may appear difficult. This prayer,including these instructions must be published immediately after the favor is granted without mentioning the favor; only your initials should appear at the bottom.
MK ~ James Redfield

Of God in my life. I surrender my mind, my heart, my need for safety, and my need for rational explanations and orderly instructions to God's will for me. I trust that all that is in my life is as it should be. I release ~ Caroline Myss

It was as if some manual was handed out one day, a manual of instructions about complicated social situations. But I wasn't there the day they handed it out. The worst part was, nobody even told me it was distributed. It was like, they kept it secret from me. ~ John J. Siefring

The ache of those words: Let's hear you. It put a plum in my throat to be the person who wanted to play but could not bear to play. To want the microphone but to stand in the back. To know there is a book in you but to never find the nerve to wrestle it out. I was so screwed up on the issue of performance. It's like I didn't want anyone to hear me, but I couldn't shut up. Or rather, I wanted everyone to hear me, but only in the way I wanted to be heard, which was an impossible wish, because nobody ever followed instructions. ~ Sarah Hepola

Unavoidable circumstances prevent me from giving you ample written instructions. Such however as may be deemed necessary will be prepared and sent to you at the City of Washington in a very few days. ~ Anson Jones

I mean,he decided we'd be better apart,you know?it wasn't a joint decision.like, if your gonna make a decision about me and my life without consulting me,i'd better be dying and unconscious and you'd better be following carefully written instructions. ~ James Patterson

Hideo wants me off the official games and the hunt. Zero has warned me to stay away. But I've never been good at following instructions. I'm a bounty hunter. And if my bounty's still out there somewhere, I have to finish this. ~ Marie Lu

So here we are, in the family planning aisle with a cart full of sports drinks and our hands full of . . . "Trojans, Ramses, Magnum . . . Jeez, these are worse than names for muscle cars," Jase observes, sliding his finger along the display.
"They do sound sorta, well, forceful." I flip over the box I'm holding to read the instructions.
Jase glances up to smile at me. "Don't worry, Sam. It's just us."
"I don't get what half these descriptions mean . . . What's a vibrating ring?"
"Sounds like the part that breaks on the washing machine. What's extra-sensitive? That sounds like how we describe George."
I'm giggling. "Okay, would that be better or worse than 'ultimate feeling' - and look - there's 'shared pleasure' condoms and 'her pleasure' condoms. But there's no 'his pleasure.'"
"I'm pretty sure that comes with the territory," Jase says dryly. "Put down those Technicolor ones. No freaking way."
"But blue's my favorite color," I say, batting my eyelashes at him.
"Put them down. The glow-in-the-dark ones too. Jesus. Why do they even make those?"
"For the visually impaired?" I ask, reshelving the boxes.
We move to the checkout line. "Enjoy the rest of your evening," the clerk calls as we leave.
"Do you think he knew?" I ask.
"You're blushing again," Jase mutters absently. "Did who know what?"
"The sales guy. Why we were buying these?"
A smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. "Of course not. I'm sure it never ~ Huntley Fitzpatrick

Maybe I flatter myself when I think that I have things in common with Hamlet, that I have
an important mission, that I'm temporarily mixed up about how it should be done. Hamlet had one
big edge on me. His father's ghost told him exactly what he had to do, while I am operating
without instructions. But from somewhere something is trying to tell me where to go, what to do
there, and why to do it. Don't worry, I don't hear voices. But there is this feeling that I have a
destiny far away from the shallow and preposterous posing that is our life in New York. And I
roam.
And I roam. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

She felt sweat bead on her forehead, and dug a fingernail into her thumb to stop herself from weeping. She thought about her husband, John, and her two girls. She cursed herself for agreeing to visit the hospital and for not heeding the advice of the deputy director and Tom Dupree. But she still had the presence of mind to know that that wouldn't help her now, so she did her best to concentrate on counting her breaths.
Two minutes later, she decided to survive by whatever means and fought to focus on something more positive to assuage her escalating fear. She told herself that her people would be looking for her, that roadblocks had been set up. They could follow her, after all, at US Air Force bases, via drones, or whatever else they had that even she didn't know about.
Then she did her best to remember what Tom had told her about how to respond if she were ever kidnapped. Do not resist them, she thought. Act upon all reasonable instructions without complaint. Refrain from making retaliatory threats or unrealistic promises. Attempt to build up a rapport, but slowly to avoid it being considered contrived.
But then she began to waver again. For now she was in the hands of men with no humanity, who had snuffed out life as most people sprayed mosquitoes or swatted bugs.
She knew her see-saw emotions were reasonable in the circumstances. But she had to survive. For John. For her girls.
Oh, God, hear my prayer. Help me. ~ Gary Haynes