Well Trained Quotes

A cat can never be well-trained because they're too independent. ~ Marjane Satrapi

In my considered opinion, salary is payment for goods delivered and it must conform to the law of supply and demand. If, therefore, the fixed salary is a violation of this law - as, for instance, when I see two engineers leaving college together and both equally well trained and efficient, and one getting forty thousand while the other only earns two thousand , or when lawyers and hussars, possessing no special qualifications, are appointed directors of banks with huge salaries - I can only conclude that their salaries are not fixed according to the law of supply and demand but simply by personal influence. And this is an abuse important in itself and having a deleterious effect on government service. ~ Leo Tolstoy

He could gaze upon a particular deep shade of green and pick out every nuance of the color. Zeluppian Fern Green, his mind would inform him. Gray, said his soul. Just a shade of gray with a greenish name. His well-trained tongue could pick out every flavor of a sweetmeat. Honey from bees fed only cowslip nectar, his mind would tell him, with cherries marinated for twenty-one years in peach-and-saffron brandy. Ash, said his soul. Ash and dust. Even ~ Frances Hardinge

Through concentrating on a specialty too early in life, a man becomes a kind of useful machine, but not a harmoniously developed personality. It is essential that the student acquire an understanding for, and a lively feeling for values. Otherwise, with his specialized knowledge, he more closely resembles a well-trained ~ Hyman George Rickover

I want to remind you all that in order to fight and win the war, it requires an expenditure of money that is commiserate with keeping a promise to our troops to make sure that they're well-paid, well-trained, well-equipped. ~ George W. Bush

Said the reeve to the maid who was fresh to the farm
'Let me show you the beasts of the yard!'
Here's a cow that gives milk, and a pig that's for ham
Here's a cur and a goat and a lamb;
Here's a horse tall and proud, and a well-trained old hawk,
But the thing you should see is this excellent cock! ~ Scott Lynch

A military policeman deals with military lawbreakers. Those lawbreakers are service guys. Highly trained in weapons, sabotage, unarmed combat. Rangers, Green Berets, marines. Not just killers. Trained killers. Extremely well trained, at huge public expense. So the military policeman is trained even better. Better with weapons. Better unarmed. ~ Lee Child

Preachers are not sermon makers, but men makers and saint makers, and he only is well-trained for this business who has made himself a man and a saint. It is not great talents nor great learning nor great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God - men always preaching by holy sermons in the pulpit, by holy lives out of it. These can mold a generation for God. ~ Edward McKendree Bounds

It won't be a question of how well-trained or well-equipped the army is but one of the authority it serves. ~ Adnan Pachachi

The name of the game is continuing to learn. Even if you're very well trained and have some natural aptitude, you still need to keep learning. ~ Charlie Munger

As time went by, matters improved; the armies, especially the British and French Armies, became better at staying alive while killing larger numbers of the enemy which, though hardly a matter for satisfaction in human terms, is what well-trained armies are supposed to do. ~ Robin Neillands

When the emergency brappers went of they did what any dedicated, well-trained and quick-minded Service personnel would do; they paniced.

From the short story What Makes Us Human. ~ Stephen R. Donaldson

Couples, singles, gay, straight, cats, dogs, and well-trained lizards are welcome. No babies. ~ Anna Kendrick

A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages; she must be well trained in the fighting styles of the Kyoto masters and the modern tactics and weaponry of Europe. And besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved. All this she must possess, and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading, meditation, and Oriental discipline. ~ Seth Grahame-Smith

Trust is a skill learned over time so that, like a well-trained athlete, one makes the right moves, usually without much reflection. ~ Robert C. Solomon

Yes ... how else could Demandred explain the skill of the enemy general? Only a man with the experience of an ancient was so masterly at the dance of battlefields. At their core, many battle tactics were simple. Avoid being flanked, meet heavy force with pikes, infantry with a well-trained line, channelers with other channelers. And yet, the finesse of it ... the little details ... these took centuries to master. No man from this Age had lived long enough to learn the details with such care. ~ Robert Jordan

No, you sort of have to put that out of your mind. There's always a possibility that you can have a catastrophic failure, of course. This can happen on any flight. It can happen on the last one as well as the first one. You just plan as best you can to take care of all these eventualities, and you get a well-trained crew, and you go fly. ~ Gus Grissom

Be guided by the axiom: There are no limits to the ability to contribute on the part of a properly selected, well-trained, appropriately supported, and, above all, committed person. ~ Tom Peters

We are so well trained that we are our own domesticator. We are an autodomesticated animal. We can now domesticate ourselves according to the same belief system we were given, and using the same system of punishment and reward. We punish ourselves when we don't follow the rules according to our belief system; we reward ourselves when we are the "good boy" or "good girl". ~ Miguel Ruiz

Stop relying only on technology. Technology can help the qualified, well-trained human being but cannot replace him. ~ Isaac Yeffet

Suddenly she was all too aware how different she was. A woman among all these man. A natural from a humble background among rich young men chosen from powerful families. A beginner among the well trained. ~ Trudi Canavan

When we can trust that it's we who think, feel, and act rather than the ghosts of our parents or well-trained robots, we learn that we can also love, be in relationships, and be in the world without losing ourselves. ~ Bud Harris

I head someone say once that passionate people live violent lives. At the time I didn't really get it but if what they meant was the way love waits in ambush traps your well trained sense of control and tortures you into a confession you'd just as soon not make I now understand. ~ Jay Kopelman

A well-trained dog is like religion, it sets the deserving at their ease and is a terror to evildoers. ~ Elizabeth Goudge

A well-trained cat doesn't exist because a cat remains a cat. ~ Marjane Satrapi

No machine can wind a better sounding or tighter wind than a well trained person, ~ Leo Fender

I do not care how brave a president is; I do not care how many medals he may wear. I do not care how well trained his guards may be. If he violates the will of the people, he shall be eliminated. ~ Ferdinand Marcos

A fine man", observed my sister, pouring mead for the two of us. "Well trained. ~ Juliet Marillier

It is a leader's job instead to take responsibility for the success of each member of his crew. It is the leader's job to ensure that they are well trained and feel confident to perform their duties. To give them responsibility and hold them accountable to advance the mission. ~ Simon Sinek

Being deeply learned and skilled, being well trained and using well spoken words; This is good luck. ~ Gautama Buddha

They're engineers," she said. She was thinking, What did he expect? He must have dealt with engineers at GM. "Emotionally, they're all thirteen years old, stuck at the age just before boys stop playing with toys, because they've discovered girls. They're all still playing with toys. They have poor social skills, dress badly - but they're extremely intelligent and well trained, and they are very arrogant in their way. Outsiders are definitely not allowed to play. ~ Michael Crichton

I'm the well-trained fruit tree, he thought. Full of well-trained feelings and abilities and all of them grafted onto me - all bearing for someone else to pick. ~ Frank Herbert

Even before I recognized him, I smiled politely. Well trained, I would have smiled so at my executioner. ~ Megan Whalen Turner

I blaze with a deep sullen magic, smell lust like a heron on fire; all words I form into castles then storm them with soldiers of air. What I seek is not there for asking. My armies are fit and well trained. This poet will trust her battalions to fashion her words into blades. At dawn I shall ask them for beauty, for proof that their training went well. At night I shall beg their forgiveness as I cut their throats by the hill. My navies advance through the language, destroyers ablaze in high seas. I soften the island for landings. With words, I enlist a dark army. My poems are my war with the world. I blaze with a deep southern magic. The bombardiers taxi at noon. There is screaming and grief in the mansions and the moon is a heron on fire. ~ Pat Conroy

[S]cience has contributed a great deal to war and violence, and people well trained in science are sometimes not entirely rational and are even dogmatic. We have to find a way to teach reflectively, not just scientifically. ~ Nel Noddings

This is a proof of a well-trained mind, to rejoice in what is good and to grieve at the opposite.
[Lat., Ergo hoc proprium est animi bene constituti, et laetari bonis rebus, et dolere contrariis.] ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

A well-trained, sensible doctor is one of the most valuable assets of a community. ~ William Osler

The ad does not say "Buy this!"; it says, "Be assured that if you buy and display this product, others are being well trained to feel ugly and inferior in your presence, just as you feel ugly and inferior compared with this goddess. ~ Geoffrey Miller

The years were never an element, because my parents didn't age, they simply sickened. My father was mean and cocky like Cagney all the way to the dump. Flat on his back, his bones poking this way and that like the corpses in the camps, he still had a fiery eye, as though, but for those two coals, the grate held ash. There's no easy way out of this life, and I do not look forward to the day they put those tubes up my nose, and a catheter shows my pee the way out like some well-trained servant. I saw how my father's body broke his spirit like a match; and I saw how my mother's broken spirit took her body under the way a ship stinks after being disemboweled by an errant bag of ice. ~ William H Gass

To be well trained is to be trained in a kingdom dimension ~ Sunday Adelaja

A large number of well-trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: low-level textbooks semipopular articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking involved. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general. these have not been found-yet the optimism has died hard and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks. ~ David M. Raup

He was dealing with well-trained individuals. They were still goons, to be sure, but they'd clearly graduated with honors from a top-flight goon school ~ Mark Greaney

The irreducible, ultimate element in religious faith is the insistence that we are created things; male and female He created them; without God we are nothing. And yet, when men and women have children and become parents, they unmistakably become creators, incompetent, accidental and partial creators, no doubt, but creators none the less. It is their inescapable duty, and, with luck, their occasional delight to care and watch over their creations; even if this creative power is partly illusory because chromosomes and chance decide the whole business, parents cannot act as if it is illusory; they cannot sincerely believe in their ultimate helplessness. They must behave like shepherds, however clumsy, and not like sheep, however well trained.
The Sermon on the Mount is a wonderful, intoxicating sermon. But it is a sermon for bachelors. ~ Ferdinand Mount

Colonel Ridge Zirkander had walked the hall to General Ort's office so many times he suspected his boots were responsible for the threadbare state of the drab gray carpet runner. The two privates standing guard on either side of the door were too well trained to exchange knowing smirks, ~ Lindsay Buroker

If you can smile in the face of uncertainty, you are well trained. ~ Lodro Rinzler

A well-trained mind has less difficulty in submitting to than in guiding an ill-trained mind. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

As he spoke, he whipped a tape measure and a large round magnifying glass from his pocket. With these two implements he trotted noiselessly about the room, sometimes stopping, occasionally kneeling, and once lying flat upon his face ... As I watched him I was irresistibly reminded of a pure-blooded well-trained foxhound as it dashes backwards and forwards through the covert, whining in its eagerness, until it comes across the lost scent. For twenty minutes or more he continued his researches, measuring with the most exact care the distance between marks which were entirely invisible to me, and occasionally applying his tape to the walls in an equally incomprehensible manner. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Gentleman Jim [dog] was cheerful enough, partly because his owner was so well trained... He had alsot trained him to get up when he didn't want to, simply by climbing slowly and painfully on top of him and squeezing all the breath out of him as he slept. On the occasions this didn't work and Gordon seemed to be simply lapsing into a coma, Gentleman Jim would unroll his massive tongue, containing over a half a pint of drool, and dribble it slowly into his ear until Gordon finally awoke... ~ Livi Michael

They proceed from conclusion to evidence; our greatest resource is the mind, and the mind is not well-trained by being taught to assume what has to be proved… Don't allow your thinking to be done for you by any party or faction, however high-minded. Distrust any speaker who talks confidently about 'we,' or speaks in the name of 'us.' Distrust yourself if you hear these tones creeping into your own style. The search for security and majority is not always the same as solidarity; it can be another name for consensus and tyranny and tribalism. ~ Christopher Hitchens

The torture squad was so well trained that they were performing almost perfect crimes, avoiding leaving any obvious evidence. Nothing was left to chance. They hit in predefined places. They practiced horrible methods, the aftermath of which would only manifest later. The interrogators turned the A/C all the way down ~ Mohamedou Ould Slahi

The characteristics of a good musician can be summarized as follows: 1. A well-trained ear. 2. A well-trained intelligence. 3. A well-trained heart. 4. A well-trained hand. All four must develop together, in constant equilibrium. As soon as one lags behind or rushes ahead, there is something wrong. So far most of you have met only the requirement of the fourth point: the training of your fingers has left the rest far behind. You would have achieved the same results more quickly and easily, however, if your training in the other three had kept pace. ~ Zoltan Kodaly

A well trained person needs only a knife to survive. ~ Mors Kochanski

Nonviolent Peaceforce ... is building a large-scale professional force of well-trained unarmed peacekeepers ... This nonviolent peacekeeping provides an alternative to which we may say YES when we say NO to war. ~ Mel Duncan

Except when Yankees are around," Moss said. "Then they'll swear up and down that they didn't know what was going on. Some prick will probably write a book that shows how they didn't really massacre their Negroes after all." "Oh, yeah? Then where'd the smokes go?" Goodman asked. "I mean, they were there before the war, and then they weren't. So what happened?" "Well, we killed a bunch of 'em when we bombed Confederate cities." Moss was a well-trained attorney; he could spin out an argument whether he believed in it or not. "Some died in the rebellion. Some went up to the USA. Some died of hunger and disease - there was a war on, you know. But a massacre? Nah. Never happened." Barry Goodman's mouth twisted. "That's disgusting. That'd gag a maggot, damned if it wouldn't." "Bet your ass," Moss said. "You think it won't happen, though? Give it twenty years - thirty at the outside." "Disgusting, ~ Harry Turtledove

When the politicians complain that TV turns the proceedings into a circus, it should be made clear that the circus was already there, and that TV has merely demonstrated that not all the performers are well trained. ~ Edward R. Murrow

Do not let the Obama administration fool you with all their cunning Alinsky methods. And if you don't know what that method is, I implore you to get the book 'Rules for Radicals,' by Saul Alinsky. Mr. Obama is very well trained in these methods. ~ Jon Voight

A 'well regulated militia' was thus one that was well-trained and equipped, not one that was 'well-regulated' in the modern sense of being subjected to numerous government prohibitions and restrictions. ~ Glenn Reynolds

I find that dancers are only well trained in ballet these days. ~ Twyla Tharp

I tend to place kids in a class with dogs, preferring the quiet, the smart, and the well trained. ~ Sue Grafton

A well-trained mind directs circumstance. ~ Toba Beta

A well trained skydiving instructor can't save one from a broken parachute. ~ Bryan Way

Grace is in a great measure a natural gift; elegance implies cultivation; or something of more artificial character. A rustic, uneducated girl may be graceful, but an elegant woman must be accomplished and well trained. It is the same with things as with persons; we talk of a graceful tree, but of an elegant house or other building. Animals may be graceful, but they cannot be elegant. The movements of a kitten or a young fawn are full of grace; but to call them "elegant" animals would be absurd. ~ Richard Whately

Anybody who has anybody in the armed forces, I don't care how well-trained they are, there's nothing safe about it. ~ Ice-T

A well-trained mind responded to symptoms.
An ordinary mind reacted after it happened. ~ Toba Beta

My promise is fulfilled," he said.
"It is," she coolly replied. "I shall be sorry to lose you as a soldier. I would be inclined to offer you a more agreeable weapon should you like to stay."
"I am well-trained, woman, unlike most of your men," the giant scoffed. "The weapon in my hand does not matter as much as the skill behind it."
"I cannot disagree." She smiled at him and handed him a few rations for his impending journey. "That should last you a day if you are careful. I would give you more, but unfortunately cannot spare anything beyond that." She stood back from him, expecting him to take his leave, but he only stood in his place, looked down at the rations in his hand, and sighed. "If you wish to revisit your home, you are more than welcome to return to it. I shall not attempt to stop you or alert the others, as promised."
The giant gave her a pensive look and remained in his place.
She waited for an explanation owing to his dejected looks and immobility, but received none, leading her to believe the matter of his captivity was graver than she had expected. ~ Michelle Franklin

In poor countries, we still need better ways to measure the effectiveness of the many government workers providing health services. They are the crucial link bringing tools such as vaccines and education to the people who need them most. How well trained are they? Are they showing up to work? ~ Bill Gates

A well-trained man knows how to answer questions; an educated man knows what questions are worth asking. ~ E. Digby Baltzell

History has proven that a well-trained individual, with nothing but a rock, has a better chance of survival than a novice with the latest technological marvel. ~ Max Brooks

The main difference lies in wage levels, which is because our workers are not yet as well trained as in other countries. We are a poor country. This is why we must accept the conditions that prevail in international markets. But our trade unions do represent the rights of workers. ~ Nguyen Minh Triet

She had been too well-trained to allow her emotions to take control of her at the time, but the feelings were too strong to quietly recede into a regimen of critical thought. Deep inside her they stewed, logic and reason slowly boiling off. Reduced to their essence, her feelings became more potent, condensed into an emotional certainty. I should have saved them. ~ Matt K. Turner

An accomplished woman is one who has a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing and the modern languages; she must be well trained in the fighting styles of the Kyoto masters and the modern tactics and weaponry of Europe. ~ Seth Grahame-Smith

Well-trained medical doctors and engineers leave Nigeria to the developed countries. We want to reverse that. ~ Goodluck Jonathan

So instead she settled on, "Did my father put you up to this?"
Hale exhaled a quick laugh and shook his head. "He hasn't returned my calls since Barcelona." He leaned closer and whispered, "I think he might still be mad at me."
"Yeah, well, that makes two of us."
"Hey," Hale snapped. "We all agreed that that monkey seemed perfectly well trained at the time. ~ Ally Carter

To have much learning, to be skillful in handicraft, well-trained in discipline, and to be of good speech
this is the greatest blessing. ~ Gautama Buddha

Marriage and the up-bringing of children in the home require as well-trained a mind and as well-disciplined a character as any other occupation that might be considered a career. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth." Psalm 127:4

Arrows in the wrong hands can cause a lot of destruction. Well-trained arrows, however, can save a nation. No arrow will change course mid-flight. I am not saying that a right environment guarantees our children's salvation. It most certainly does not. Children are born sinners. We do however, give them a great head start by helping them to curb passions and learn self-control and other godly traits. They must ultimately repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for personal salvation, and they will still deal with sin as we all must. We do, however, prepare the soil for receiving the seed of God's word. Seed sown in good soil will bear much fruit. ~ Joseph Stephen

You're not going to college to get educated. You're going there to get trained. They'll train you to want what you don't need. They'll train you to manipulate words so they don't mean anything anymore. They'll train you to forget what it is that you already know. They'll train you so good, you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that shit. They'll give you a corner office and invite you to fancy dinners, and tell you you're a credit to your race. Until you want to actually start running things, and then they'll yank on your chain and let you know that you may be a well-trained, well-paid nigger, but you're a nigger just the same. ~ Barack Obama

British actors behave like Europeans; they are also extremely well trained. ~ Jean-Jacques Annaud

I'm the well-trained fruit tree. Full of well-trained feelings and abilities and all of them grafted onto me ~ Frank Herbert

He was thinking of Max MacKilligan as his girlfriend? The crazy female who'd decimated an entire team of well-trained mercenaries with her badger teammates? Or who didn't seem too concerned that he'd almost eaten a child? That woman he was thinking of as his girlfriend? ~ Shelly Laurenston

In the theatre, if you say 'Macbeth', all the actors will start looking very anxious. I'm so well-trained not to say it in the theatre that I can hardly say it in normal life. ~ Anna Chancellor

I was perhaps about 10 years old when a local farmer rang us up to say he had found a young badger and would we take it in. So we did; it was a female called Bessy and she lived in the boiler room. She was extremely intelligent, had a very low opinion of cats but loved the dogs. She was pretty well trained; she went in the car. ~ Owen Paterson

We'd also have to infiltrate the army too, because they are well trained to kill us all. ~ John Lennon

It was imperative that the growing discord in our family be made to appear minor. The indication that my father truly was beside himself was the way he had carried his argument with us to others. But we couldn't give in to that - we were well trained. We knew our roles and our strategies without hesitation and without consultation. The paramount value of looking right is not something you walk away from after a single night. After such a night as we had, in fact, it is something you embrace, the broken plank you are left with after the ship has gone down. ~ Jane Smiley

He's probably their battle poet, too."
"You mean he makes up heroic songs about famous battles?"
"No, no. He recites poems that frighten the enemy ... When a well-trained gonnagle starts to recite, the enemy's ears explode. ~ Terry Pratchett

There are three ways that men get what they want: by planning, by working, and by praying. Any great military operation takes careful planning or thinking. Then you must have well trained troops to carry it out: that's working. But between the plan and the operation there is always an unknown. That unknown spells defeat or victory; success or failure. It is the reaction of the actors to the ordeal when it actually comes. Some people call that getting the breaks. I call it God. God has His part or margin in everything. That's where prayer comes in. ~ George S. Patton Jr.

But simple luck is the random birthright of the hapless. When seasoned by the subtleties of accident, harmony, favor, wisdom, and inevitability, luck takes on the cast of serendipity. Serendipity happens when a well-trained mind looking for one thing encounters something else: the unexpected. It comes from being in a position to seize opportunity from the happy marriage of time, place, and chance. ~ Margot Lee Shetterly

The proof of a well-trained mind is that it rejoices in which is good and grieves at the opposite. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

She was too well-trained to panic. ~ Steve Sheinkin

He nodded. "Okay. We got it out in the open. Here it is. This is your moment to be angry at your own laziness and wallow in self-pity. A moment is all you get, because any minute Adam Pierce might set Houston on fire. Take a few minutes for your pity party. Would five be enough?"
"You're an asshole."
"Yes, but I'm a very well-trained asshole. I'm offering you the use of my expertise. So suck it up, get over this bump, and let's go. Are you with me?"
You know what? No: if he ever fell in love, it wouldn't be great romantic devotion. It would be an exercise in frustration and lust, and at the end of it his significant other would strangle him. ~ Ilona Andrews

So the particular strengths of the colon are beginning to become clear. A colon is nearly always preceded by a complete sentence, and in its simplest usage it rather theatrically announces what is to come. Like a well-trained magician's assistant, it pauses slightly to give you time to get a bit worried, and then efficiently whisks away the cloth and reveals the trick complete. ~ Lynne Truss

I was born and trained to communicate music, just as the sons were born and trained to hunt, and I was lucky to have grown up in Hungary, a country that lives and breathes music-that has a passionate belief in the power of music as a celebration of life. ~ Georg Solti

The Englishman walks before the law like a trained horse in the circus. He has the sense of legality in his bones, in his muscles. ~ Maxim Gorky

I started piano lessons when I was four; I was being classically trained at the Colburn School. ~ Jacqueline Emerson

A dog creates, transcribes, a new landscape for you. A dog like Colter sharpens your joy of all the seasons, and for a while, sometimes a long while, such a dog seems capable, by himself alone, of holding time in place--of pinning it, and holding it taught. And then when he is gone, it is as if the world is taken away.

Dogs like that are young for what seems like a very long time....

One you have lost a dog--especially the first you trained from a pup, the one you first set sail into the world with--you can never fully give of yourself to another dog. You can never again look at a dog you love without hedging a tiny bit, if only subconsciously, against the day when that dog, too, must leave. You can never again hunt or enter the future so recklessly, so joyously, with that weight of forethought....

As I sleep restlessly, night after night, or more often, as I lie there awake, I can see him running and I feel guilty that I am not there to honor the birds he is finding... One way or the other, he is still out there running. He will never rest.... I will always want him to know a moment's rest, and peace, and he will always know in his hot heart that the only peace to be gotten is by never resting, by always pushing on.

He is my Colter.... I am still his, and he is still mine. ~ Rick Bass

Don't leave me", "Don't go away", "Don't forget me"... it seems to me, a tragedy, that these words so divine are the words that everyone is trained to never say. We are trained to never say and to never listen, to these words. These are the sentiments we were born into this world with as infants, the purest form of soul, the same sentiments we are trained to murder in ourselves and in others. We wage a war against what it means to be alive and then we wonder why we're killing ourselves. If I say these things to someone, and they still leave me, I have not lost anything because I have truly lived. ~ C. JoyBell C.

My neighbour turned to me again, and asked me what work it was that was taking me to Athens. For the second time I felt the conscious effort of his enquiry, as though he had trained himself in the recovery of objects that were falling from his grasp. I remembered the way, when each of my sons was a baby, they would deliberately drop things from their high chair in order to watch them fall to the floor, an activity as delightful to them as its consequences were appalling. They would stare down at the fallen thing – a half-eaten rusk, or a plastic ball – and become increasingly agitated by its failure to return. Eventually they would begin to cry, and usually found that the fallen object came back to them by that route. It always surprised me that their response to this chain of events was to repeat it: as soon as the object was in their hands they would drop it again, leaning over to watch it fall. Their delight never lessened, and nor did their distress. I always expected that at some point they would realise the distress was unnecessary and would choose to avoid it, but they never did. The memory of suffering had no effect whatever on what they elected to do: on the contrary, it compelled them to repeat it, for the suffering was the magic that caused the object to come back and allowed the delight in dropping it to become possible again. Had I refused to return it the very first time they dropped it, I suppose they would have learned something very different, though what tha ~ Rachel Cusk

I miss the good old days when Daimons were warriors and combat trained. The ones I found tonight knew nothing about fighting, and I'm sick of the whole 'my gun will solve all' mentality. (Wulf) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

There's nothing to be said for being famous. It's a pain. You can't be rude to people - it's inexcusable not to be nice. Anyway, it's not in my nature. I was trained to be nice. ~ Terry Wogan

Regret is my compass. I am an alchemist, trained in the transmutation of my nervous system. I have installed trained guides beside me. I am saving at least one life."
"I keep writing. I must. Over and over and over. The same story a million ways. ~ Lee Gutkind