ŷ������

“Wallace travelled independently and was challenged every step. He had no government or military support system. He had little cash �� he earned enough to survive by sending natural history specimens to his agent in London for sale to collectors and museums. He had visceral moments of excitement when he discovered a beautiful new butterfly or adopted a baby orangutan he had just orphaned by shooting its mother. He lived simply, often in the rainforest on isolated islands, in a manner completely different to the expected behavior of other Western explorers and colonials.”
― Paul Spencer Sochaczewski, "Look Here, Sir, What a Curious Bird": Searching for Ali, Alfred Russel Wallace's Faithful Companion

“She was overwhelmed with a premonition. Deja vu but from the future, looking back to this moment looking forward.”
― William Kely McClung, Black Fire

“It’s a humbling realization that sometimes what we think we want may not align with what God knows we truly need.”
― Gregory S. Works, Triumph: Life on the Other Side of Trials, Transplants, Transition and Transformation

“The sound of a thousand whispering ghosts surrounded her.”
― Steven Decker, Time Chain

“I came to Australia as a damaged grown up adult, and it took me years to heal, so my perspective of the national Australian pride is not full. It [assimilation] penetrates, it’s
accepted, it’s tolerated, and I think the third generation it is absorbed. I don’t know about the second generation, - Holocaust survivor, Kitia Altman”
― Peter Brune, Suffering, Redemption and Triumph: The first wave of post-war Australian immigrants 1945-66

“This distorted lens may lead someone studying human sexuality to ask: “Where are you on a spectrum from straight to gay?�� This question would miss a pattern we found in our data suggesting that people's arousal systems are not bundled by the gender of whatever it is that turns them on: 4.5% of men find the naked male form aversive but penises arousing, while 6.7% of women find the female form arousing, but vaginas aversive. Using simplified community identifications like the gay-straight spectrum to investigate how and why arousal patterns develop is akin to studying historic human migration patterns by distributing a research survey asking respondents to report their position on a spectrum from “white�� to “person of color.�� Yes, “person of color,�� like the concept of “gay,�� is a useful moniker to understand the life experiences of a person, but a person’s place on a “white�� to “person of color�� spectrum tells us little about their ethnicity, just as a person’s place on a scale of gay to straight tells us little about their underlying arousal patterns.

The old way of looking at arousal limits our ability to describe sexuality to a grey scale. We miss that there is no such thing as attraction to just “females,�� but rather a vast array of arousal systems that react to stimuli our society typically associates with “females�� including things like vaginas, breasts, the female form, a gait associated with a wider hip bone, soft skin, a higher tone of voice, the gender identity of female, a person dressed in “female�� clothing, and female gender roles. Arousal from any one of these things correlates with the others, but this correlation is lighter than a gay-straight spectrum would imply. Our data shows it is the norm for a person to derive arousal from only a few of these stimuli sets and not others. Given this reality, human sexuality is not well captured by a single sexual spectrum.

Moreover, contextualizing sexuality as a contrast between these communities and a societal “default�� can obscure otherwise-glaring data points. Because we contrast “default�� female sexuality against “other�� groups, such as the gay community and the BDSM community, it is natural to assume that a “typical�� woman is most likely to be very turned on by the sight of male genitalia or the naked male form and that she will be generally disinterested in dominance displays (because being gay and/or into BDSM would be considered atypical, a typical woman must be defined as the opposite of these “other,�� atypical groups).

Our data shows this is simply not the case. The average female is more likely to be very turned on by seeing a person act dominant in a sexual context than she is to be aroused by either male genitalia or the naked male form. The average woman is not defined by male-focused sexual attraction, but rather dominance-focused sexual attraction. This is one of those things that would have been blindingly obvious to anyone who ran a simple survey of arousal pathways in the general American population, but has been overlooked because society has come to define “default�� sexuality not by what actually turns people on, but rather in contrast to that which groups historically thought of as “other.”
― Simone Collins, The Pragmatist's Guide to Sexuality

“Ala Moire’s voice whispered in Alastair Munro’s head. “Well done, Alastair. The young King’s heart is for good and God is pleased. In future times he will be known as the Peacemaker and will become the greatest of all the Dewar kings.��
History would remember Dewar the Third’s reign as the greatest of the age, sixty years of peace and prosperity, of law and order, and most of all, of humility and love. His journey had begun.
Robert Reid �� White Light Red Fire”
― Robert Reid, White Light Red Fire

“No need to listen for the fall. This is the world's end.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“Writing simply means no dependent clauses, no dangling things, no flashbacks, and keeping the subject near the predicate. We throw in as many fresh words we can get away with. Simple, short sentences don't always work. You have to do tricks with pacing, alternate long sentences with short, to keep it vital and alive.... Virtually every page is a cliffhanger--you've got to force them to turn it."~”
― Dr. Seuss

“Whatever you sow, you reap! Your thoughts are seeds, and the harvest you reap will depend on the seeds you plant.”
― Rhonda Byrne, The Secret

“But these last months had turned him around and now Gen saw there could be as much virtue in letting go of what you knew as there had ever been in gathering new information. He worked as hard at forgetting as he had ever worked to learn.”
― Ann Patchett

“was sprawled on the family-room couch, half asleep in front of a Clint Eastwood movie. A can of ginger ale and an empty bag of pretzels sat on the table in front of him. He opened one eye and saw Maura, then looked at Greg and winked. “Hey, little buddy . . . I see your ladyfriend is here.�� Greg felt the urge to lash out, like he’d done with Eileen and Brittany at school on Friday morning. But this time he didn’t take the bait. He said, “We’re just copying some artwork. For a project we’re doing. And it’s gonna make noise. We have to.�� Ross heaved himself up off the couch, shut off the TV, burped, mumbled, “’Scuse me�� in Maura’s general direction, and went looking for a quieter place to waste another hour or two. Greg said, “I got this paper that’s good and bright, but it’s not as thick as regular copy paper. Makes it easier to fold.�� After placing the first master sheet face down on the glass, he pushed Print, and then held up the copy for Maura to see. Pointing at a gray area, he said, “See that? I can change the settings and make that part darker. It ought to be solid black. Except for that, it’s a good copy.�� The machine beeped as Greg made the change, and then he pushed the Print button.”
― Andrew Clements, Lunch Money

“L'idéal de la beauté féminine est variable; mais certaines exigences demeurent constantes; entre autres, puisque la femme est destinée à être possédée, il faut que son corps offre les qualités inertes et passives d'un objet.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, Le deuxième sexe, I

“Giving words to ideas was too dangerous in their world. When Poppa did give words to something, though, it was for a reason. It had weight.”
― James McBride, Deacon King Kong

“Humility is not an attribute but a key to development.”
― Zoltan Andrejkovics, The Invisible Game: The Mindset of a Winning Team

“The loudest voices for immigration reform are required to have names like 'Running Bull' or 'Brave Eagle.”
― T. Rafael Cimino, Mid Ocean

“There comes a moment in every life when you must let go with your hands—with both hands.”
― John Irving, Avenue of Mysteries

“I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. Humans are caught - in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too - in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well - or ill?”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Vozač je rekao djedu koliko koštaju karte i dok je djed vrlo pažljivo prebrojavao novac - jer je svjetlo u autobusu bilo preslabo - vozač se okrenuo prema putnicima, digao desnu ruku i rekao: „How!�� i prasnuo u smijeh, i svi su prasnuli u smijeh. Tada sam se počeo bolje osjećati znajući da su prijateljski nastrojeni i ne zamjeraju nam što nismo imali vozne karte.
Onda smo pošli prema stražnjem dijelu autobusa i tamo sam vidio jednu bolesnu ženu. Oko očiju joj je bilo neprirodno crnilo, a usne su joj bile jarko crvene kao od krvi. Kad smo prošli pokraj nje, stavila je ruku iznad usta i zavrištala: „Wa...huuu!�� Ali sigurno ju je ubrzo prestalo boljeti jer se počela smijati i svi ostali su se smijali. Čovjek koji je sjedio pokraj nje se također smijao i pritom se lupao po nozi. Imao je veliku sjajnu kopču na kravati pa sam znao da su oni bogati i mogu platiti liječnika ako im je potreban.”
― Forrest Carter, Malo drvo

“As the body floated in darkness, his soul gathered itself, and waited for what was to come.”
― William Kely McClung, Super Ninja: The Sword of Heaven

“Falconers,�� she continued, sternly. “Pull yourselves together. People are dying. The police don’t have the family history to solve murders forty years apart.”
― Susan Rowland, Murder on Family Grounds

“The requirement for anyone running for elected office to have held a position of public service, such as fireman, school teacher, librarian, scout leader, or policeman was never actually passed into law.
Still the range of day jobs that some of our Congress people now hold are pretty amazing.
Somehow these days a background as a lawyer is a big minus.”
― Nancy Omeara, The Most Popular President Who Ever Lived [So Far]

“While an elderly man in his mid-eighties looks curiously at a porno site, his grandson asks him from afar, “‘What are you reading, grandpa?’�� “‘It’s history, my boy.’�� “The grandson comes nearer and exclaims, “‘But this is a porno site, grandpa, naked chicks, sex . . . a lot of sex!’�� “‘Well, it’s sex for you, my son, but for me it’s history,�� the old man says with a sigh.�� All of people in the cabin burst into laughter. “A stale joke, but a cool one,�� added William More, the man who just told the joke. The navigator skillfully guided the flying disc among the dense orange-yellow blanket of clouds in the upper atmosphere that they had just entered. Some of the clouds were touched with a brownish hue at the edges. The rest of the pilots gazed curiously and intently outwards while taking their seats. The flying saucer descended slowly, the navigator’s actions exhibiting confidence. He glanced over at the readings on the monitors below the transparent console: Atmosphere: Dense, 370 miles thick, 98.4% nitrogen, 1.4% methane Temperature on the surface: ��179°C / ��290°F Density: 1.88 g/cm³ Gravity: 86% of Earth’s Diameter of the cosmic body: 3200 miles / 5150 km.”
― Todor Bombov, Homo Cosmicus 2: Titan: A Science Fiction Novel

“Soon the trees affected not only her mood but her understanding. Each year a trunk put on a new ring of growth, and within those rings she found the tree's own story. She listened to the scent of it, the feel, the sound, and her mind gave it words- soil, water, sap, light...and before, night and rain, dry and sun, wind and night...the drowsy stillness of leaves in a rainfall, the sparkling eagerness of leaves in the sun, and always the pulling up of the branches, the tugging down of the roots, the forever growing in tow directions, joing sky and soil, and a center to keep it strong...
-Rin, Forest Born”
― Shannon Hale

“When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.”
― Founding Fathers, The United States Constitution

“How terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as extraordinary as living.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“Six-Pack didn't despise George W. Bush to the degree that Ketchum did, but she thought the president was a smirking twerp and a dumbed-down daddy's boy, and she agreed with Ketchum's assessment that Bush would be as worthless as wet crap in even the smallest crisis. If a fight broke out between two small dogs, for example, Ketchum claimed that Bush would call the fire department and ask them to bring a hose; then the president would position himself at a safe distance from the dogfight, and wait for the firemen to show up. The part Pam liked best about this assessment was that Ketchum said the president would instantly look self-important, and would appear to be actively involved--that is, once the firefighters and their hose arrived, and provided there was anything remaining of the mess the two dogs might have made of each other in the interim.”
― John Irving, Last Night in Twisted River

“I hope these words will be of some help and comfort to those who read them.
Nobody knows when they will be tested and there are no right or wrong answers, we are all of us lost when tragedy comes to call. All we can ever do is to be there, give love and do the best we can, often that is all it needs.”
― Peter B. Forster, More Than Love, A Husband's Tale

“The strange dance with the Infected continued, but the Loopers in the middle of the room were building into a frenzy, playing or fighting or maybe fucking each other �� who the hell knew? Jessie fought not to throw up at the thought.”
― William Kely McClung, LOOP

“To catch a wild animal, you have to use the right bait.
What happens to the bait? I haven't decided yet.”
― March Lions, The Last Sunset