“Mrs. Todds my English teacher gives an automatic if anyone ever writes "I woke up and it was all a dream" at the end of a story. She says it violates the deal between reader and writer, that it's a cop-out, it's the Boy Who Cried Wolf. But every single morning we really do wake up and it really was all a dream.””
“Todd, trust math. As in Matics, Math E. First-order predicate logic. Never fail you. Quantities and their relation. Rates of change. The vital statistics of God or equivalent. When all else fails. When the boulder's slid all the way back to the bottom. When the headless are blaming. When you do not know your way about. You can fall back and regroup around math. Whose truth is deductive truth. Independent of sense or emotionality. The syllogism. The identity. Modus Tollens. Transitivity. Heaven's theme song. The night light on life's dark wall, late at night. Heaven's recipe book. The hydrogen spiral. The methane, ammonia, H2O. Nucleic acids. A and G, T and C. The creeping inevibatility. Caius is mortal. Math is not mortal. What it is is: listen: it's true.””
“True, I only properly started talking with Todd half an hour ago, but every instance of undying love was only half an hour young, once upon a time.””
“The firm’s fourth partner, Jeff Nussbaum, had carved out a niche writing jokes for public figures. It was he who taught me about the delicate balance all public-sector humorists hope to strike. Writing something funny for a politician, I learned, is like designing something stunning for Marlon Brando past his prime. The qualifier is everything. At first I didn’t understand this. In June, President Obama’s speechwriters asked Jeff to pitch jokes for an upcoming appearance at the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Dinner. I sent him a few ideas, including one about the president and First Lady’s recent trip to see a Broadway show: “My critics are upset it cost taxpayer dollars to fly me and Michelle to New York for date night. But let me be clear. That wasn’t spending. It was stimulus.” Unsurprisingly, my line about stimulating America’s first couple didn’t make it into the script. But others did. The morning after the speech, I watched on YouTube as President Obama turned to NBC reporter Chuck Todd. “Chuck embodies the best of both worlds: he has the rapid-fire style of a television correspondent, and the facial hair of a radio correspondent.” That was my joke! I grabbed the scroll bar and watched again. The line wasn’t genius. The applause was largely polite. Still, I was dumbfounded. A thought entered my brain, and then, just a few days later, exited the mouth of the president of the United States. This was magic. Still, even then, I had no illusions of becoming a presidential speechwriter. When friends asked if I hoped to work in the White House, I told them Obama had more than enough writers already. I meant it.””
“Mrs. Todds my English teacher gives an automatic F if anyone ever writes “I woke up and it was all a dream” at the end of a story. She says it violates the deal between reader and writer, that it’s a cop-out, it’s the Boy Who Cried Wolf.””
“if someone wants to find an excuse to not believe that Jesus is the Christ, they will find one, whether it is a poor description of a fig tree cursed and withered, or whether it is simply the tradition of their fathers. Any one who thinks about it with a clear mind will realize that the memories of men fade with time, and that what is important is not the day this happened, but rather that it took place at all”
“mankind. It””
“If it’s not, it’s a coincidence the size of Russia.” “And you don’t believe in even small coincidences, I know.” He looked at the cup of tea, picked it up, and took a sip. “Todd ran the plate on the Camaro.” Jamison stiffened. “And?” “And it was stolen from a couple who live in Woodbridge.””
“hostile. But””
“Todd Essig: Brains don't want, any more than lungs sing or knees set long-jump records. Brains are part of what makes people want and how we want. There is always a situated, contextualized, enculturated person between the brain and wanting.””
“Todd asked when he was typing up my flyer. And I told him I was sick of the president talking down to me. “Like I’m some kind of a… some kind of a…” “Uninformed idiot?” he said. And I told him that was it exactly. “I’m tired of being talked to like I’m an uninformed idiot. I think a lot of Americans are, but we’ll see who’s the idiot when I join that historic march on Washington!” Todd agreed 100 percent, and then he took me to the Greyhound station, where I got on the bus for Seattle.””
“The hypothesis of “discriminative grandparental investment” predicts that behavioral and psychological indicators of investment should follow the degree of certainty inherent in the different types of grandparental relationships: most for MoMo, least for FaFa, and in between these two for MoFa and FaMo. Studies from different cultures have tested the hypothesis of discriminative grandparental solicitude. In one study conducted in the United States, evolutionary psychologist Todd DeKay (1995) studied a sample of 120 undergraduates. Each student completed a questionnaire that included information on biographical background and then evaluated each of the four grandparents on the following dimensions: grandparent’s physical similarity to self, grandparent’s personality similarity to self, time spent with grandparent while growing up, knowledge acquired from grandparent, gifts received from grandparent, and emotional closeness to grandparent. Figure 8.2 summarizes the results from this study. Findings show that the mother’s mother is closer to, spends more time with, and invests most resources in the grandchild, whereas father’s father scores lowest on these dimensions. Findings presumably reflect evolved psychological mechanisms sensitive to the degree of certainty of genetic relatedness.””
“Mary Todd Lincoln was not beloved by anyone, it seemed.””
“Selbst während seines stürmischen Werbens um Martha Clover Todd, eine freigeistige Schönheit aus einer prominenten Familie,””
“Por una parte, está el apoyo tradicional de los judíos norteamericanos, que, cuando el partido demócrata está en el poder, conduce a intentos para proteger Israel respetando al mismo tiempo, y en la medida de lo posible, los derechos de los palestinos. La acción de Clinton para obtener un acuerdo de paz en Camp David respondía a este tipo de motivación.””