Here lies the challenge in finding good salespeople. You need excellent empathizers who aren't so empathetic they can't close a sale. And you need people with strong ego needs who can still take a moment to figure out what another person wants. They ...
I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my life, & if it were indispensable for me to keep it up & never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had fini...
In front of us, the ocean stretched for eternity. Around us, reggae mussy floated through the air. In our drying clothes and still-damp hair, we ate junk food and talked. At some point we finished and went for a long walk in the sand. We picked up sh...
I am a man, and men are animals who tell stories. This is a gift from God, who spoke our species into being, but left the end of our story untold. That mystery is troubling to us. How could it be otherwise? Without the final part, we think, how are w...
Because, as I would always tell myself so many years later, lying here in my bed: You can't start out again in life, that's a carriage ride you only take once, but with a book in your hand, no matter how confusing and perplexing it might be, once you...
On weekdays, as soon as she picked Bela from the bus stop and brought her home, she went straight into the kitchen, washing up the morning dishes she'd ignored, then getting dinner started. She measured out the nightly cup of rice, letting it soak in...
Every last minute of my life has been preordained and I'm sick and tired of it. How this feels is I'm just another task in God's daily planner: the Italian Renaissance penciled in for right after the Dark Ages. ... The Information Age is scheduled im...
When you get beef from the butcher, you don’t feel bad for the cow that has been killed. But if someone asked you to wield a knife and kill the cow yourself, you wouldn’t be able to do it.” “Are you saying that you are a cow?” “Exactly.�...
Are you really going back there with me?" I ask. "Hell yes I am. Your wish is finally coming true. I will see your vagina. Plus, I really want to see the look on that woman's face when she gets a peek at your plethora of pubes. Your copious curls, yo...
If running a marathon excites you, create space in your life for it. Adding a new commitment means recalibrating different areas of your world. Logging more miles as your race date approaches means less time invested in other pursuits. Not forever, j...
Opportunity to suspend disbelief is often why we watch movies. The stories and images touch us and shift perspectives in ways we may not allow in our daily lives. As readily as you check your “this isn’t real” attitude at the ticket counter –...
Never during its pilgrimage is the human spirit completely adrift and alone. From start to finish its nucleus is the Atman, the god-within... underlying its whirlpool of transient feelings, emotions, and delusions is the self-luminous, abiding point ...
Plane Ride - In our sport it is natural and necessary to set up goals to inspire us. We all want to achieve the next level, the break-thru performance. What we (all of us) must not forget is that the journey to these goals is the best part. The daily...
He had a book to finish. Ten-thousand words. The other ninety thousand had been difficult. This last tenth seemed impossible. His plot had become derailed. He was unable to see his way through the smoke and coke dust of a mythical railway track that ...
In so far as I listen with interest to a record, it’s usually to figure out how it was arrived at. The musical end product is where interest starts to flag. It’s a bit like jigsaw puzzles. Emptied out of the box, there’s a heap of pieces, all s...
Deckard Shaw: [first lines, speaking to comatose Owen Shaw] They say if you want to glimpse the future, just look behind you. I used to think that was bollocks. And now I realise you can't outrun the past. When we were kids, you started fights with t...
M. Gustave: [interviewing will walking] Experience? Zero: Hotel Kinsky, Kitchen Boy, 6 months. Hotel Berlitz, Mop and Broom Boy, 3 months. Before that I was a Skillet Scrubber. M. Gustave: Experience, zero. [to various workers] M. Gustave: Straighten...
Harry Potter: I'm not coming back Hermione. I've got to finish whatever Dumbledore started, and I don't know where that'll lead me, but I'll let you and Ron know where I am when I can. Hermione Granger: I've always admired your courage Harry, but som...
Neal: Eh, look, I don't want to be rude, but I'm not much of a conversationalist, and I really want to finish this article, a friend of mine wrote it, so... Del: Don't let me stand in your way, please don't let me stand in your way. The last thing I ...
[cleaning their bloody hands] Jules: Fuck, nigga, what the fuck did you do to his towel? Vincent: I was dryin' my hands. Jules: You're supposed to wash 'em first! Vincent: You watched me wash 'em. Jules: I watched you get 'em wet. Vincent: I was wash...
Trudy Cooper: [Trudy has just finished talking to Nurse Murch about Gordo] You're all set. I told her you were stable, well-adjusted, attentive, persevering... I lied. Gordon Cooper: That a girl! What'd she say? Trudy Cooper: She laughed! She knows y...
