Word For The Day Quotes

The word for the day is: legs - the phrase for the day is: Spread the word. - Major Mac Pecan ~ Ray Palla

Word For The Day KERFUFFLE (kuhr FUF uhl) n. Disorder; uproar; confusion ~ Deb Baker

Word For The Day BOONDOGGLE (BOON dahg'uhl) n. A pointless project. Work of no value, done merely to appear busy. Alternate Word ICKY (IK ee) adj. Very distasteful; disgusting. ~ Deb Baker

Q: Why do you use swear words on your blog, but never the F word?
A: Because I'm saving the F word for the day when I write a blog post about the for-profit health insurance industry and the way its CEOs become wealthy by not only preying on, but exacerbating, other people's personal tragedies.
*ahem*
Happy Monday, everyone :o) ~ Kristin Cashore

Word For The Day PICAYUNE (PIK uh yoon') adj. Trivial or petty, small or small-minded. ~ Deb Baker

I take the sealed envelope from him - ​the one that holds the information about my biological father. I ask him for his cigarette lighter. He hands it to me. I look at Sam and Fito and say, "Word for the day." Sam understands and says, "Nurture." I take the unopened envelope. I am watching myself as I take the lighter and place it over the edge of the paper. I am watching the envelope burn. I am watching the ashes floating up to the heavens. I am hearing myself as I tell my father, "I know who my father is. I have always known." And now I am laughing. And my dad is laughing. And Fito is smiling that incredible smile of his. We are watching Sam dance around the yard as Maggie follows her and jumps up and barks. Sam is shouting out to me and the morning sky, "Your name is Salvador! Your name is Salvador! Your name is Salvador! ~ Benjamin Alire Saenz

In this context, fear of toxicity strikes me as an old anxiety with a new name. Where the word filth once suggested, with its moralist air, the evils of the flesh, the word toxic now condemns the chemical evils of our industrial world. This is not to say that concerns over environmental pollution are not justified - like filth theory, toxicity theory is anchored in legitimate dangers - but that the way we think about toxicity bears some resemblance to the way we once thought about filth. Both theories allow their subscribers to maintain a sense of control over their own health by pursuing personal purity. For the filth theorist, this meant a retreat into the home, where heavy curtains and shutters might seal out the smell of the poor and their problems. Our version of this shuttering is now achieved through the purchase of purified water, air purifiers, and food produced with the promise of purity. ~ Eula Biss

I live three blocks away from the beach, so every day I walk down to the beach to run or go swimming. Hiking is a big one for me - so long as it's something where I'm not thinking about working out, like in a contrived class or the gym. ~ Dylan Penn

RVM's Thought for the Day-Don't be afraid of being Happy. You deserve to be Happy. ~ R.v.m.

It is with enormous distress that France has just learned of the monstrous attacks there is no other word for it that have just struck the United States of America. In these horrifying circumstances, the entire people of France, and I want to emphasize this, stand by the people of America. They express their friendship and solidarity in this tragedy. Naturally, I want to assure President Bush of my total support. France, as you know, has always condemned and unreservedly condemns terrorism, and considers that terrorism must be combated by all possible means. ~ Jacques Chirac

There would seem to be only one question for philosophy to resolve: what must I do? Despite being combined with an enormous amount of unnecessary confusion, answers to the question have at any rate been given within the philosophical tradition of the Christian nations. For example, in Kant's Critique of Practical Reason, or in Spinoza, Schopenhauer and especially Rousseau. But in more recent times, since Hegel's assertion that all that exists is reasonable, the question of what one must do has been pushed to the background and philosophy has directed its whole attention to the investigation of things as they are, and to fitting them into a prearranged theory. This was the first step backwards. The second step, degrading human thought yet further, was the acceptance of the struggle for existence as a basic law, simply because that struggle can be observed among animals and plants. According to this theory the destruction of the weakest is a law which should not be opposed. And finally, the third step was taken when the childish originality of Nietzche's half-crazed thought, presenting nothing complete or coherent, but only various drafts of immoral and completely unsubstantiated ideas, was accepted by the leading figures as the final word in philosophical science. In reply to the question: what must we do? the answer is now put straightforwardly as: live as you like, without paying attention to the lives of others.

Turgenev made the witty remark that there are inver ~ Leo Tolstoy

I'll wait for you. Come back.
The words were not meaningless, but they didn't touch him now.
It was clear enough - one person waiting for another was like an arithmetical sum, and just as empty of emotion.
Waiting.
Simply one person doing nothing, over time, while another approached. Waiting was a heavy word. ~ Ian McEwan

You'll sleep in my bed every night. There are times when I'll want to bind you in the bed so that you're helpless and dependent on me for everything. I'll make love to you while you're spread out and tied to my bedposts. Where your body will be available to me whenever I choose to take it. And I'll take you often, Joss. Before we go to bed at night. During the night. And first thing in the morning before you're fully awake. I'll slide into your beautiful body and I'll be the first thing you feel each morning. I'll be the last thing you know when you go to sleep at night. And you'll go to bed knowing you are mine and that you belong, heart and soul, to me. You'll never have cause to doubt it because not a day will go by that I won't prove that to you. ~ Maya Banks

All the novices looked as if they could be blown off their mounts by a stiff wind. He didn't usually allow for second-guessing, but he was about to make an exception. Deciding to go forward with the cattle drive had been about the stupidest idea he'd ever had.
"Ready to go, boss?" Frank asked as he rode up.
Zane let his gaze settle on the two kids, then he shook his head. "No, but we're leaving anyway."
Frank grinned. "Me and the boys are taking bets on who falls off their horse first. You're gonna have to let us know who it is and when it happens for the pool."
Zane pulled his hat down low. For the first time in years, he wanted to be somewhere other than the ranch. Greenhorns. The whole lot of them. Frank and the boys were right. Someone would be tumbling from a horse, and if Zane was lucky, that would be the least of his troubles.
"Have fun," Frank said with an expression that announced "better you than me."
Zane nodded. "I know you're not much for praying, but you might want to put in a good word with the Almighty."
"Sure thing, boss. You're going to need all the help you can get."
Zane nodded. "You'll be able to reach me on my cell phone. We'll be staying within range of the towers."
"I'll be here."
Zane wished he would be, as well.
A sharp whistle warned him that his life was about to stampede out of control. ~ Susan Mallery

Life, lift the full goblet
away with all sorrow
The circle of friendship what freedom would sever? To-day is our own, and a fig for to-morrow
Here's to the Fourth and our country forever. ~ Franklin P. Adams

Rachel gestured toward the city beyond the alley. "The people out there? Humans who spend every day under the Demons' heels? They've given their share. They've made up for the blood of my kin with their sweat and their agony. Their debt is paid.
"But you," she pointed a damning finger down at him. "You have given nothing. You've shed no blood, and you've suffered no pain. Your debt is unpaid, Hammon. I am here for compensation. ~ S.G. Night

His voice bellowed with strength and courage, "People of Israel, Yahweh has spoken to me and has told me to be strong and courageous, for we will inherit this land that Yahweh had sworn to our forefathers! But we must be careful to do according to all the law that Moses commanded us! We must not turn from it to the right or to the left, and only then will we have success wherever we go! The book of the Law shall not depart from our mouths, but we shall meditate on it day and night, for Yahweh our Elohim is with us wherever we go!" The people applauded. Caleb beamed with honor. They had been through so much. They had survived thirst and starvation in a desert land, the death of loved ones, rebellion, plagues, famines, and wars. And now, finally, finally they were about to gain their inheritance. Their eternal wandering would be over. ~ Brian Godawa

NO, WE DO NOT HAVE PENS!
Bring your own. You'll need them. You see, like every other department in the city, Records runs on Almighty Forms. There are forms that tell the Night Mayor's office what we hunters are doing - starting an investigation, ending one, or reaching various points along the way. There are forms that make things happen, from installing rat traps to getting lab work done. There are forms with which to requisition peep-hunting equipment, from tiger cages to Tasers. (The form for commandeering a genuine NYC garbage truck may be thirty-four pages long, but one day I will think of some reason to fill it out, I swear to you.) There are even forms that activate other forms or switch them off, that cause other forms to mutate, thus bringing newly formed forms into the world. Put together, all these forms are the vast spiral of information that defines us, guides our growth, and makes sure our future looks like our past - they are the DNA of the Night Watch. ~ Scott Westerfeld

She [Justice sandra Day O'Connor] wrote - and this is one we should all remember - she wrote that even war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens. She held that even this president is not above the law. ~ Patrick Leahy

It's as if there's a landscape - we'll call it childhood - which exists in our mind. It's completely familiar. Unspeakably familiar. Until in the middle of the night, when the sky is blackest, lightning cracks through the firmament. And in that crush of sound, amid the madness and the blinding flash, you see your world: home, trees, rooftops, your own hand, in an entirely new way. Illumined by fire. Flashed for half a second and then gone. And it's that image, that savage, rip-through-the-curtain vision, that lingers. Not the reality you see every day. Not the world you walk around in. No, it's that spookhouse glimpse, the scorching peek through the blackness, that stays in the brain. ~ Jerry Stahl

Fanfare for the Makers

A cloud of witnesses. To whom? To what?
To the small fire that never leaves the sky.
To the great fire that boils the daily pot.

To all the things we are not remembered by,
Which we remember and bless. To all the things
That will not notice when we die,

Yet lend the passing moment words and wings.

So fanfare for the Makers: who compose
A book of words or deeds who runs may write
As many who do run, as a family grows

At times like sunflowers turning towards the light.
As sometimes in the blackout and the raids
One joke composed an island in the night.

As sometimes one man's kindness pervades
A room or house or village, as sometimes
Merely to tighten screws or sharpen blades

Can catch a meaning, as to hear the chimes
At midnight means to share them, as one man
In old age plants an avenue of limes

And before they bloom can smell them, before they span
The road can walk beneath the perfected arch,
The merest greenprint when the lives began

Of those who walk there with him, as in default
Of coffee men grind acorns, as in despite
Of all assaults conscripts counter assault,

As mothers sit up late night after night
Moulding a life, as miners day by day
Descend blind shafts, as a boy may flaunt his kite

In an empty nonchalant sky, as anglers play
The ~ Louis MacNeice

Oh boy, Christy's been reading steamy romances again, haven't you?" Holly said, frowning. "Honey, those aren't real. I wish they were, but they aren't. That kind of man doesn't exist. Take my word for it."

"Holly's right," Sophie said. "Reality is frostbite and vacuum-cleaner horror experiences, five-minute lays, unskilled fingers, and other rather unappealing appendages probing all over the place and frustrating the hell out of you. And nasty, expensive divorces, of course. ~ Elle Aycart

Then it came about that a simple atmospheric variation was sufficient to provoke in me that modulation, without there being any need for me to await the return of a season. For often in one we find a day that has strayed from another, that makes us live in that other, evokes at once and makes us long for its particular pleasures, and interrupts the dreams that we were in process of weaving, by inserting out of its turn, too early or too late, this leaf torn from another chapter in the interpolated calendar of Happiness. But ~ Marcel Proust

I put my hand in my pocket and squeeze my rocks and wonder if there is a word for the marks you get on your palm when you squeeze something so hard that the skin is on the verge of ripping. ~ Amy Zhang

Dreams last so long
Even after you're gone
I know you love me
And soon you will see
You were meant for me
And I was meant for you
Go about my business, I'm doing fine
Besides, what would I say if I had you on the line
Same old story, not much to say
Hearts are broken every day
I'm half alive but I feel mostly dead
I try to tell myself it'll be all right
I just shouldn't think anymore tonight ~ Jewel

Journaling Tips

-Try to write every day. Set aside a special time--perhaps right before you go to bed--to reflect on what happened during that day. Writing things down soon after they happen will help you to be honest and objective. If you wait, you may not remember the details as well, and maladaptive thinking patterns may cloud your interpretations.

-Record the date and time for every entry. Also, give each entry a title that reflects what you wrote about. This will help when you search for old entries about a particular day or topic.

-Don't worry about spelling, grammar, and punctuation, or organization. Being a perfectionist will lead to frustration. You aren't going to be graded on your journal--just write whatever comes to mind.

-Leave blank space for future comments. Reflecting on entries weeks, months, or even years after you wrote them will help you record your progress.

-Keep the journal in a safe place. Journal writing is most effective when you are completely honest. This may be hard if you are afraid your parents or siblings might read it. ~ Heather Moehn

The terrible, cold, cruel part is Wall Street. Rivers of gold flow there from all over the earth, and death comes with it. There, as nowhere else, you feel a total absence of the spirit: herds of men who cannot count past three, herds more who cannot get past six, scorn for pure science and demoniacal respect for the present. And the terrible thing is that the crowd that fills the street believes that the world will always be the same and that it is their duty to keep that huge machine running, day and night, forever. ~ Federico Garcia Lorca

ELECTION (Gk. eklog, "choice," a "picking out"). Bible Meaning. This word in the Scriptures has three distinct applications. (1) To the divine choice of nations or communities for the possession of special ~ Merrill F. Unger

Every single time I get sent to her, she asks me questions that sound like they came from some "How to Talk to Statistical Black Children Who Come to Your Office Often" handbook.

How is your home life? (None of your business.)

Have you witnessed any traumatic events lately, such as shootings? (Just because I live in the "ghetto" doesn't mean I dodge bullets every day.)

Are you struggling to come to terms with your father's murder? (It was twelve years ago. I barely remember him or it.)

Are you struggling to come to terms with your mother's addiction? (She's been clean for eight years. She's only addicted to soap operas these days.)

What's good with you, homegirl, nah'mean? (Okay, she hasn't said that, but give her time.) ~ Angie Thomas

When I hear the word 'independent' I reach for my revolver. At this point, what the hell does that mean? The English Patient is an independent film. Hootie and the Blowfish are alternative music. I'm the Queen of Denmark. I don't know what it means anymore. ~ Jim Jarmusch

such communities we join with scores of faith-filled women and men to live the great political and theological as ifs. Politically, we live as if our nation were true to its foundational documents of liberty and justice for all; as if people mattered in themselves and not for their economic or social status; as if consumerism and the shopping mall did not determine the meaning of our lives; as if our way of life were not dependent on fossil fuel; as if we were a sister nation among all the other countries of the world; as if right made might and not the other way around. Living out these as ifs in the midst of community creates a prophetic possibility at a local level, the space for modeling how things could be, ought to be, and one day will be. The characteristics of St. Francis's communities on which we have been reflecting give us a blueprint for such as if living. ~ Marie Dennis

He wasn't in a lot of pain, was he?" he asks. "Not that I could tell." He was convulsing but not in pain. I doubt he was feeling much. "That's my biggest fear. That he'll be in a lot of pain when it happens. It scares me to death." "So you've thought about it," I blurt out. I want to take it back immediately, but it's too late. "Thought about it." He snorts. "It's all I ever fucking think about. Ever." His voice cracks on the last word. "I'm his big brother. I'm supposed to be able to save him from anything that could hurt him. But I can't save him from this." I just listen because there's nothing I can say to comfort him. A teardrop rolls down his cheek, and he brushes it away with a hurried swipe. "He knows how much you care," I say. It's probably the wrong thing to tell him. "The fucker better know how I feel about him. I'd die for every last one of them. I wish it was me instead of him. I'd trade places with him in a heartbeat." "He wouldn't let you." It's the truth. ~ Tammy Falkner

I work on one book at a time. And yes, I am immersed. Six days a week for four to six hours a day. In between books, I stop writing for as much as two to three months, but during that time, I do research and think, plot and plan the book. ~ M.J. Rose

With grades like hers, she ought to go there.' 'So that's where I ended up. Six years I went and I never liked it. All I could think of was getting out. And you know, I've got certificates of merit for never having ben late or missed a day of school. That's how much I hated the place. Get it?'
'No, I don't get it.'
'It's cause I hated the place so much. I wasn't going to let it beat me. ~ Haruki Murakami

Keep a clear conscience. Contentment is the manna that is laid up in the ark of a good conscience: O take heed of indulging any sin! it is as natural for guilt to breed disquiet, as for putrid matter to breed vermin. Sin lies as Jonah in the ship, it raiseth a tempest. If dust or motes be gotten into the eye, they make the eye water, and cause a soreness in it; if the eye be clear, then it is free from that soreness; if sin be gotten into the conscience, which is as the eye of the soul, then grief and disquiet breed there; but keep the eye of conscience clear, and all is well. What Solomon saith of a good stomach, I may say of a good conscience, "to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet:"Pr. 27. 7 so to a good conscience every bitter thing is sweet; it can pick contentment out of the cross. A good conscience turns the waters of Marah into wine. Would you have a quiet heart? Get a smiling conscience. I wonder not to hear Paul say he was in every state content, when he could make that triumph, "I have lived in all good conscience to this day." When once a man's reckonings are clear, it must needs let in abundance of contentment into the heart. Good conscience can suck contentment out of the bitterest drug, under slanders; "our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience."2 Cor. 1. 12 In case of imprisonment, Paul had his prison songs, and could play the sweet lessons of contentment, when his feet were in the stocks.Ac. 16. 25 Augustine calls it "the paradise of a g ~ Thomas Watson

I glanced at Badly Drawn Jesus, then pulled the gun from my pocket. On Judgment Day, I'd be able to proudly state that when I thought the hordes of Hell were coming for a local girl, I stood ready to shoot at them with a small-caliber pistol. ~ David Wong

The summer my daughters were six and four, we were at the beach one day and went for a long walk. It was astonishingly hot, and the sun, bouncing off a clear sea and blinding sand, was relentless. Wearing bikini bottoms but no tops, my children alternated between making sandpiles and running into the sea to cool off. The beach was empty. Eventually a woman and her son appeared in the distance, moving lazily in our direction. The boy seemed to be around the same age. Eventually the children came together, playing in the water with on another but not talking. His mother and I, farther back in each direction, waved and smiled.
I thought we would just keep walking, but when we got close to the children, she said loudly, 'You really should put tops on them.' At first, I didn't understand her.
'Thanks,' I replied. 'They're covered in sunscreen.'
'They're girls,' she said. It wasn't until she was near my daughters that she'd realized this.
I was dumbfounded. She might have been equally dumbfounded if I had taken the time to explain that her statement was an overtly sexist sexualization. The four children were physically indistinguishable, physically active on a hot beach. When I made no move toward shielding her son from the girls' scary, tempting, and corrupting bodies, she pulled him out of the water by the arm. They rushed down the beach before it crossed my mind to whip off my own top. Aggression takes many forms. ~ Soraya Chemaly

The ship, which appeared to belong to another band, was just passing by for a look. She was bigger than the Old Glory, but not by much. The words Lucky Seven had been painted on her belly, but the seven had been crossed out, as had the six below it. The word five was scrawled underneath, but Clay only spotted four people at the rail and wondered silently if the ship was due for another paint job. ~ Nicholas Eames

Like the turtle's shell, the sense of self serves as a shield against stimulation and as a burden which limits mobility into possibly dangerous areas. The turtle rarely has to think about what's on the other side of his shell; whatever it is, it can't hurt him, can't even touch him. So, too, adults insist on the shell of a consistent self for themselves and their children and appreciate turtles for friends; they wish to be protected from being hurt or touched or confused or having to think. If a man can rely on consistency, he can afford not to notice people after the first few times. But I imagined a world in which each individual might be about to play the lover, the benefactor, the sponger, the attacker, the friend: and once known as one of the next day he might yet be anything. Would we pay attention to this person? Would life be boring? Would life be livable? I saw then clearly for the first time that the fear of failure keeps us huddled in the cave of self - a group of behavior patterns we have mastered and have no intention of risking failure by abandoning. ~ Luke Rhinehart

A man has to have goals - for a day, for a lifetime - and that was mine, to have people say, 'There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived. ~ Ted Willams

I've bespelled this locket, for you; my own, my mate. The day has come when death forced us to part. You must know that I for you, forever, I shall wait. So until we meet again I hold your love safely within my heart.
Remember, your oath was to temper strength with mercy. No matter how long apart we shall be, I hold you to that oath
eternally ... eternally ... ~ P.C. Cast

At your next book club meeting, picture me sitting quietly in the corner, taking notes on your preferences. Imagine the next day you get an email from me trying to sell you a new grill - or a book - or accessories for your Glock. That's the Amazon/Goodreads deal. It's appalling. But everywhere in the press, you'll read about the genius of Amazon.
(Michael Herrmann and the booksellers of Gibson's) ~ G.R. Reader

I have to live for the day, and not worry about or try to know what tomorrow brings ... if I've learned one thing from all that'shappened to me, it's that if you would know what tomorrow brings, you may not want to live it. ~ Monica Seles

I have come to understand that when we enter this world, we all do so with two wings. One is the Wing of Infinite Power. This is your connection with the Universe, and whether you know it or not, that wing is flapping by your side supporting you twenty-four hours a day 365 days a year from now to eternity. The other wing is that which you have consciously activated. This is the Wing of Self-Action. This wing has to fly equally as hard as the Wing of Infinite Power. When it does, you will have flight into the world of unlimited possibilities where anything and everything is possible for you. Then and only then will you understand how truly powerful you are and that you have all it takes within you to create what you desire. ~ Robert Anthony

You can begin a story in the middle and create confusion by striking out boldly, backward and forward. You can be modern, put aside all mention of time and distance and, when the whole thing is done, proclaim, or let someone else proclaim, that you have finally, at the last moment, solved the space-time problem. Or you can declare at the very start that it is impossible to write a novel nowadays, but then, behind your own back so to speak, give birth to a whopper, a novel to end all novels. I have also been told that it makes a good impression, an impression of modesty so to speak, if you begin by saying that a novel can't have a hero anymore because there are no more individualists, because individuality is a thing of the past, because man- each men and all men together- is alone in his loneliness and no one is entitled to individual loneliness, and all men lumped together make up a "lonely mass" without names and without heroes. (...) I shall begin far away from me, for no one ought to tell the story of his life who hasn't the patience to say a word or two at least half of his grandparents before plunging into his own existence. And so to you personally, dear reader, who are no doubt leading a muddled life outside this institution, to you my friends and weekly visitors, I introduce Oskar's maternal grandmother ~ Gunter Grass

At the end of the day, we all crawl, exhausted, to some doorstep. Some crawl to the doorstep of their new home, the one they have sought for miles without giving up their goal, exhausted by their determination. And others crawl to the doorstep of their prison, the one they have sought to escape, but gave up, exhausted by their determination. And we all enter our new home with a sigh of relief and put our feet up. Some rejoice. Others grow bitter. And yet, we are tired just the same. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

Let me tell you a joke, Rora said.
Mujo wakes up one day, after a long night of drinking, and asks himself what the meaning of life is. He goes to work, but realizes that is not what life is or should be. He decides to read some philosophy and for years studies everything from the old Greeks onward, but can't find the meaning of life. Maybe it's the family, he thinks, so he spends time with his wife, Fata, and the kids, but finds no meaning in that and so he leaves them. He thinks, Maybe helping others is the meaning of life, so he goes to medical school, graduates with flying colors, goes to Africa to cure malaria and transplants hearts, but cannot discover the meaning of life. He thinks, maybe it's the wealth, so he becomes a businessman, starts making money hand over fist, millions of dollars, buys everything there is to buy, but that is not what life is about. Then he turns to poverty and humility and such, so he gives everything away and begs on the streets, but still he cannot see what life is. He thinks maybe it is literature: he writes novel upon novel, but the more he writes the more obscure the meaning of life becomes. He turns to God, lives the life of a dervish, reads and contemplates the Holy Book of Islam - still, nothing. He studies Christianity, then Judaism, then Buddhism, then everything else - no meaning of life there. Finally, he hears about a guru living high up in the mountains somewhere in the East. The guru, they say, knows what the meaning of lif ~ Aleksandar Hemon