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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 4c0200d | A diamond wedding ring, you say?" I studied his face. Was he putting me on? He looked earnest. "As any guy would expect, a diamond is what she's after," I said. "Did you hold out hope you'd get by for anything less?" | crime-noir detective-novel hardboiled military | Ed Lynskey | |
| 9938e8b | From Chapter 1: "You're not a local." I paused, unsure. "Or are you?" "Sort of. Randall Van Dotson is my dad. I'm Rennie." After tossing her head that coy, sweet way girls do, she gave me a candid appraisal." | hardboiled mystery-suspense noir-fiction | Ed Lynskey | |
| b1c1b86 | Have they ever. Isabel never misses a trick. Anytime I step into their foyer, she's dropping hints all over the place. Don't get me wrong because I love both women dearly, and I enjoy playing a game or two of Scrabble, just not on every visit. Why can't we play Monopoly for a change of pace? I love squeezing the play money in my fist and snapping up the swanky properties like Park Place and Boardwalk. | cozy-mystery mystery-novel whodunit women-sleuths | ed lynskey | |
| 90d4db2 | What I can say with honesty is that my research in Russia and in Germany has brought me nothing but the worsening of my eyesight and the waste of years of my life. And I did it all for you. | readers research worsening | Nick Tosches | |
| 05c956b | Sportsman's Hall offered four sporting events: rat killing by a weasel, rat killing by a dog, rat killing by a man, and dogfighting. | gambling sport weasel | Nick Tosches | |
| 602efcd | At the time of the Russian emancipation, about 20 percent of the Russian population lived in serfdom. In the United States at this time, about 10 percent of the population lived in slavery. | russian slavery united-states | Nick Tosches | |
| 04cfbc3 | But the lie often repeated becomes history, and the snake-oil pitchman's forgery of yore becomes the inspirational gospel of a posterity that sees itself as worldly and wise. | gospel history lie posterity | Nick Tosches | |
| 9c6ae31 | Rothstein worked with Park Avenue men as beards in the club-house, and with Broadway characters, such as Morris the Boob on The Lawn, and he probably bet away from the track, too. | lawn morris-the-boob park-avenue rothstein | Nick Tosches | |
| 42b2ab5 | On February 3, 1959, near Fargo, North Dakota, an airplane carrying Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper (J. P. Richardson) crashed, killing all aboard. Waylon Jennings, who was in Holly's band at the time, gave his seat to the Big Bopper at the last minute. | Nick Tosches | ||
| 02cb589 | As explained by Carlos Marighella, the Brazilian guerrilla leader whose writings influenced political terrorists in the 1960s and 1970s, if a government can be provoked into a purely military response to terrorism, its overreaction will alienate the masses, causing them to "revolt against the army and the police and blame them for this state of things." | Chalmers Johnson | ||
| 8aee72e | Americans generally think of Pol Pot as some kind of unique, self-generated monster and his "killing fields" as an inexplicable atavism totally divorced from civilization. But without the United States government's Vietnam-era savagery, he could never have come to power in a culture like Cambodia's," | Chalmers Johnson | ||
| fe114df | Even an empire cannot control the long-term effects of its policies. That is the essence of blowback. | Chalmers Johnson | ||
| d3aabde | economic relations with our East Asian satellites have, for example, hollowed out our domestic manufacturing industries and led us into a reliance on finance capitalism, whose appearance has in the past been a sign of a hitherto healthy economy entering decline. | Chalmers Johnson | ||
| de0e9d7 | In his excellent book Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams (1997), Mitchel Resnick outlines a list of five heuristics associated with the aggregation of interactions: o Positive feedback isn't always negative. o Randomness can help create order. o A flock isn't a big bird. o A traffic jam isn't just a collection of cars. o The hills are alive (i.e., don't forget the environment). | Rich Jolly | ||
| dc065fc | Computer pioneer Alan Kay likes to say that technology is anything that was invented after you were born. | Mitchel Resnick | ||
| 16cacb2 | There's an old saying that a teacher should be a "guide on the side," not a "sage on the stage." | Mitchel Resnick | ||
| b5bc144 | There's a tradition among programmers to see mistakes not as a sign of failure but as "bugs" that can be fixed. An important part of becoming a programmer is to learn strategies for debugging--that is, how to identify and isolate a problem, then make changes to get around the problem." | Mitchel Resnick | ||
| 7b6e4da | projects, passion, peers, and play. In short, we believe the best way to cultivate creativity is to support people working on projects based on their passions, in collaboration with peers and in a playful spirit. | Mitchel Resnick | ||
| 8fb810c | Along the way, I began to develop an understanding about not only the process for making a miniature golf course, but the general process for making anything: how to start with an initial idea, develop preliminary plans, create a first version, try it out, ask other people to try it out, revise plans based on what happens--and keep doing that, over and over. By working on my project, I was gaining experience with the Creative Learning Spira.. | Mitchel Resnick | ||
| ed9cbaa | Most schools in most countries place a higher priority on teaching students to follow instructions and rules (becoming A students) than on helping students develop their own ideas, goals, and strategies | Mitchel Resnick | ||
| 85999a7 | Openness can enhance creativity in many different ways--not just for organizations like the LEGO Group, but also for individuals. And the benefits of openness are greater now than ever before, thanks to digital technologies. If you're making videos, websites, or other digital creations, you can get ideas and suggestions from people around the world--and also make use of code, artwork, and music created by other people. On the flip side, you.. | Mitchel Resnick | ||
| 6a6d5be | opposite: I believe the rest of school (indeed, the rest of life) should become more like kindergarten. | Mitchel Resnick | ||
| 3fb9a35 | For most of their history in China, Pugs were treasured dogs. By law, they could only be owned by nobility or by Buddhist monks. However, because they were held in such high regard, they were also used as pawns in international relations. In 732 C.E., China gave a Pug to Japan as a gift to cement diplomatic relations. The Japanese became infatuated with this dog, and it became the first of many given to Japanese diplomats. | Liz Palika | ||
| 01e9c12 | You're so quiet and subdued! You worry me. Are you well?" "Quite well. Deflated, perhaps. I have been deserted by my enemies. The affair is over. I am done." | meaning mission success | Jack Vance | |
| 8441563 | For the first time Gersen saw indigenous fauna of Moudervelt: a band of lizard-foxes, with gray-green pangolin scales and a single optic orb. They reared high to watch Gersen pass by; when he slowed the car they advanced with dancing sidelong steps, for purposes Gersen could not guess. He drove on, leaving the troop staring after him. | dream-like eerie fauna foxes kafkaesque surreal | Jack Vance | |
| c802dcd | His decision was preordained, and derived from a perverse quirk in his mentality. At his deepest, most essential level, Hack knew himself for an insipid mediocrity, of no intellectual distinction and no particular competence in any direction. This was an insight so shocking that Hack never allowed it past the threshold of consciousness, and he conducted himself as if the reverse were true. So, while his innermost elements winced and grimace.. | bureaucrat mediocrity milton-hack the-man-from-zodiac | Jack Vance | |
| bf1bcea | Day and far into the opalescent Embelyon night [Turjan of Miir] worked under Pandelume's unseen tutelage. He learned the secret of renewed youth, many spells of the ancients, and a strange abstract lore that Pandelume termed 'Mathematics.' "Within this instrument," said Pandelume, "resides the Universe. Passive in itself and not of sorcery, it elucidates every problem, each phase of existence, all the secrets of time and space. Your spells .. | jack-vance | Jack Vance | |
| 921a68f | You're an idealist. The idealists are always the revolutionaries, the cat's paws. Then the realists consolidate, compromise and liquidate the opposition. | crusade-to-maxis dyal-travec idealism realism revolution | Jack Vance | |
| faf7c7f | While Milke gingerly carried the packet of explosive across the lake, Paskell stood by the port watching. Milke surveyed the landscape with fine calculation, setting down the packet, moving it a few yards to the right, another few yards toward the defile. Finally satisfied, he looked back to Paskell for approval. Paskell signaled casually, and his hand fell against the detonation switch. He looked out toward Milke, hastily jumped into his [.. | black-humor bumbling near-death prospecting pusillanimity three-legged-joe | Jack Vance | |
| 8ee0f78 | Do they look Russian?" Vance did not sound concerned. "Big shaved heads, jeans, and T-shirts. Yeah, old man, I'd say they look pretty Russian. I mean they're not wearing Cossack outfits, but hey, it's the next best thing." | Jack Silkstone | ||
| 4b51e47 | The red sun pulled itself from sleep and glared upon the world that it must still serve, though itself of more than pensionable age. | George R.R. Martin | ||
| a65e47d | Le persone che vivevano in massa, penso Shorn, erano come ciottoli su di una spiaggia: ciascuna levigava il suo vicino, fino a quando tutte erano assolutamente uniformi. | Jack Vance | ||
| 224f448 | At the last moments of the universe, with eternal darkness converging from all sides, surely someone will arise and cry out: 'Hold back the end for a final moment, while I pay tribute to the gallant brewmasters who have provided us a pathway of golden glory down the fading corridors of time!' And then, is it not possible that a bright gap will appear in the dark, through which the brewmasters are allowed to proceed, to build a finer univers.. | Jack Vance | ||
| e1c0635 | He didn't realize it, but with those words he had played directly into Sabri Ramirez's hands. The scenario was now a lock. When Jack Mulhoney turned back to his radio, he only heard static. 7:47 p.m. Vance watched as the frigate got off a warning tracer, but to no effect. The Hind ignored it, as a stream of 57mm rockets from under the chopper's stubby starboard wing flared down, while the radar-slaved machine gun beneath the nose opened.. | Thomas Hoover | ||
| 25a6902 | In the back of the van, the teenager was sitting on a layer of small bricks wrapped in wax paper. He was clutching what looked like a slot car controller, his fist clenched around it. "Release-activated detonator," Ice stated calmly, "and probably at least half a ton of C4." "I've seen this before," said Vance. "You see how he's clean-shaven, head and all. I've seen this before in Yemen. He's been purified for the big bang. Poor bastard's w.. | Jack Silkstone | ||
| b15f9d8 | How did you know the CIA would send me?" Vance asked. "That, my friend, was Allah's will, or perhaps it was because I asked for you personally. It depends what you believe." | Jack Silkstone | ||
| 3d7fa1f | Remember, Bish," Vance growled, "this is a covert op. No blowing shit up or jazzing up the local law enforcement. If Dostiger realizes we're onto him, he'll just get the fuck out of Dodge. Keep this clean, not like that shitfight in the Philippines." The recent Philippines operation that Vance was alluding to had started as a simple case of surveillance, followed by a precise assassination. Instead, Bishop and his team had taken it upon the.. | Jack Silkstone | ||
| 3fd6d18 | Then that hunch of yours has turned out pretty well." "It's a bit early but it would seem so." "Getting more like Bishop every week." Vance grinned. Chua frowned. "Unlikely. Unless I start chasing random women and getting myself ambushed every five minutes." | Jack Silkstone | ||
| fdc48d8 | The perplexing thing was that Elon seemed to drift off into a trance at times. People spoke to him, but nothing got through when he had a certain, distant look in his eyes. This happened so often that Elon's parents and doctors thought he might be deaf. "Sometimes, he just didn't hear you," said Maye. Doctors ran a series of tests on Elon, and elected to remove his adenoid glands, which can improve hearing in children. "Well, it didn't chan.. | Ashlee Vance | ||
| fd49c1f | To the furthest reach of my memory, Rogol Domedonfors ruled the city. He knew lore of all ages, secrets of fire and light, gravity and countergravity, the knowledge of superphysic numeration, metathasm, corolopsis. | jack-vance | Jack Vance | |
| 15f9da6 | Race you back. Bet you twenty bob I win." Mitch pressed the ignition button of his customized ride. The 1,000cc engine roared to life. "You serious? God knows what you've done to that thing. Probably goes like a jackrabbit on meth." "Come on, Vance, everyone knows you and Flash are the biker heads. There's no way yours is stock." Vance grinned as he climbed into his ATV, barely fitting inside the roll cage. He turned over the engine and it .. | Jack Silkstone | ||
| d4c7491 | Let me get this straight," asked Vance. "You want to fund us to run around the world whacking all those evil fuckers that the CIA never let us touch?" "Not how I would have described it, but yes, that is the crux of the concept." There was silence at the table as the three men considered Tariq's proposal. Ice broke the silence. "I'm in." Mitch followed suit. "Me too. I need a new" | Jack Silkstone | ||
| 6d21d09 | So this is the renegade running black ops in my Emirates," Beecroft said. "I'm sorry: black ops?" Vance returned the scornful gaze, equally unimpressed with the ambassador. Beecroft sported a portly frame and ruddy complexion, the result of years on the cocktail circuit. "Yes, the CIA didn't seek my approval for your little mission." The ambassador's voice was clipped and pompous. His chins wobbled as he spoke. "Last time I checked, the CIA.. | Jack Silkstone | ||
| 1718462 | Major Chua speaking." "Hey bud, it's Vance." "You're supposed to be dead." "That's no way to greet an old friend." Chua looked down at the phone; the caller ID was blank and yet the call was still coming through on the encrypted military network. "Vance, where are you calling from?" "I'm on a beach under a palm tree." | Jack Silkstone |