Anxiety

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Push (1996)

  Jermaine say, "My name start wif jr Rhonda go, H, I J— I point Jermaine. Now it's: Consuelo Jermaine Miz Rain stick head in door. Rhonda say, "Give us five." Miz Rain smile us 'n go back out. Rhonda go, UK, L, M, N, O, P—" UP for Precious!" I hollers. "I'm next." "You got it, you got it," Rhonda say. Consuelo Jermaine Precious "Q, R-" "Rita!" Thas Rita shout that. "I'm R too." Rhonda quiz us, "Which go first me or her?" Jermaine say, "You do," to Rhonda. I don't know why. I remember Jo Ann. I know that J like Jermaine. If she wasn't gone where would she go, in front Jermaine? Behind? Miz Rain come to the door say, first person. Consuelo go. Then Miz Rain come back say, Next, Jermaine go. Then she call me. We go in little room off side. "This gonna be painless," Miz Rain say, "I just want you to read a page from this little book." All the air go out my body. I grab my stomach. Miz Rain look scared. "Precious!" My head water. I see bad things. I see my daddy. I see TVs I hear rap music I want something to eat I want fuck feeling from Daddy I want die I want die. "Precious! Are you alright! Breathe! Relax and breathe. Should I call an ambulance? Nine-one-one? Your mother—" "NO!" "What's wrong Precious?" I struggles for air, "I... the pages look alike to me." I breave in deep, there I said it. Miz Rain sigh sad like. "I think I understand you, Precious. But for now, I want you to try, push yourself Precious, go for it." I reach out my hand for book. "Just do the best you can, if you don't know a word skip—" She stop. "Just look at the page and say the words you do know." I look at the page, it's some people at the beach. Some is white, some is orange and gray (I guess thas spozed to be colored). "What do you think the story is about Precious?" "Peoples at the beach." "That's right." Miz Rain point to a letter, ask me what is it. I say, "A" She point to some more letters. I don't say nuffin'. "Do you know that word?" No, I don't. "Do you know the letters?" Umm hmmm. She point D, then A, then Y. She say do you know that word? No I don't but I say silence. She say, " 'Day,' that word is 'day.' " She point back at A, then "DAY," then point at A, T, say, "What's that word?" I say, "Ate." She say, "Good! Almost! That word is 'at.' " Then point next word. I say, "The"; then she point last word. I say, "Beach," but I'm not sure, I know B in "beach," no B in that word.

• From Every Woman's Battle: Discovering God's Plan for Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment (2003)

  It seemed that my faith was being put to the test. Could I trust that this direction was truly from God, or was my mind playing tricks on me? Could I practice what I was preaching about remaining sexually pure, or would I indulge in living a double life? Could I leave John without looking back, or had he become an idol that I would cling to? Did I want to resist extramarital temptation enough to give up my ministry, sell my dream house, leave my extended family and friends, and move to a place where nothing was familiar to me? Or did I want to hold on to my own kingdom and stay in my comfort zone? These and tons of other questions whirled around in my mind, but they all boiled down to these: Who did I love more? Who did I trust more? Who would I follow? God or John? As Greg and I prayed and asked for confirmation that this direction was, in fact, from God, we felt drawn to the story of Abram. In Genesis 12:1, the Lord said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.” We decided that we would trust and obey, even though the pathway out of this mess was not clear. We posted a FOR SALE BY OWNER sign in the yard of our Dallas dream house. It sold in six days, and we had to be out within three weeks. We told a real estate agent we had to find a house in Lindale—and quickly! The first place he led us to had just been put on the market two days prior—a huge, secluded plot of land with an old log cabin home overlooking a creek in the piney woods of East Texas. While I loved our house in Dallas, this cabin is truly a writer’s paradise and a place where God’s presence is evident. It is also a stone’s throw from the Teen Mania Ministries campus, where God gave me the awesome privilege of giving birth to Well Women Ministries, which helps young women entrenched in sexual and emotional battles. To someone who knew the taste of defeat all too well, the thrill of victory is truly something to be savored—and shared with others.

• From Every Woman's Battle: Discovering God's Plan for Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment (2003)

  • Married eight years, Barb isn’t sure she and Jim are going to make it. They argue frequently and Barb is bitterly disappointed over Jim’s callous style of relating to her. “When I get really upset with him, I always know I can cry on Charlie’s shoulder.” (Charlie is Barb’s old boyfriend who always wanted to marry her.) “I have kept all of Charlie’s love letters and our old pictures together. I’m afraid to get rid of them. After all, he might someday be ‘the one’ if Jim and I don’t work out.” • Since her husband died two years ago, Beatrice worries about her financial situation. “I don’t feel that I am ready to invest in a new relationship and am not even sure I ever want to remarry,” Beatrice says. However, she thinks she may have to begin dating again because she may eventually need a husband to provide for her. I used be overwhelmed at the thought of long-term, lasting fidelity. I often thought, Oh, there’s no way I can be faithful to one man for an entire lifetime! When a mentor asked me, “Can you be faithful for one day?” I scoffed at the ridiculousness of the request. “Of course I can. One day is no big deal! It’s the rest of my life that I’m worried about.” “Life consists of one twenty-four-hour period after another. If you can be faithful for one day, you’ve got it made,” my mentor responded. “You just do the same thing the next day and the next day.” The simplicity of her response floored me. Taking one day at a time and trusting our future to God is all it takes. That’s why Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us today our daily bread.” That is why God rained down bread from heaven each day when the Israelites were wandering in the desert without food—so that His people would learn daily dependence on Him. When we change our focus from the distant future to the immediate present, we gain the strength and courage to overcome the fear of what we may encounter down the road. Don’t focus on whether you can be faithful to one man for a lifetime—just focus on being faithful to him (or to God if you are single) just for today. Then do the same thing tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. WAVING THE WHITE FLAG

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  So in fact it’s a search for truth that is directed, through the examination, at the cogitationes coming to buffet the soul in their unbroken stream. But it’s not a matter of knowing if one’s idea is true or false, if one’s judgment is correct or not—which was the task of the Stoic examination.94 In short, it’s not a matter of knowing if one is mistaken or not, but of sorting between those ideas that are indeed as they appear to be and those that are illusory. The problem is knowing if one is being fooled. The examination doesn’t consist in determining if fasting is good or not. The monk knows it is good. But he doesn’t know whether the arrival of this idea is owing to the Deceiver, who, hiding beneath a salutary principle, is secretly preparing his downfall. The examination, then, does have the effect of producing a discretio, a differentiation that enables one to follow the straight path. But it doesn’t separate true opinions from false opinions. It seeks the origin of the idea, its mark, that which might alter its value. One tests “the quality of the thoughts”—qualitas cogitationum95—by interrogating oneself on the secret depths from which they issued, the ruses whose instruments and illusions they may be, and that cause one to be deluded not so much, or not only, about the things of which they are the idea—about their objective reality as people will say later—but about them: their nature, their substance, their author. By carefully examining his thoughts, by constantly deciding between those that should be welcomed and those that should be rejected, the obedient and well-directed monk doesn’t consider the content of these thoughts, but the action of the thought within the thinker: What Cassian calls the arcana conscientiae. A problem of the thinking subject and the relation of the subject to his own thought (who is thinking in my thought? am I not being deceived in a certain way?), and no longer a question of the object that’s thought or the relation of thought to its object. When one considers the Stoic type of examination—in which it was necessary to verify the rightness of opinions as a way of ensuring reason’s hold on the movement of the passions—one sees the distance separating it from this questioning of the movement of thought, of its origin in the subject, and of one’s illusions about oneself that the thought may give rise to.

• From Another Country (1962)

  She said, “I have to tell you something, Richard. I don’t know how you’ll take it, or where we can go from here.” She paused, and his face changed. Be quick! she told herself. “I have to tell you because we can never come back together, we can never have any future if I don’t.” Her stomach contracted again, dryly. She wanted to run to the bathroom, but she knew that that would do no good. The spasm passed. “Vivaldo and I have never touched each other. I’ve”—be quick!—“been having an affair with Eric.” His voice, when he spoke, seemed to have no consciousness behind it, to belong to no one; it was a mere meaningless tinkle on the air: “Eric?” She walked to the bar and leaned on it. “Yes.” How the silence rang and gathered! “Eric?” He laughed. “Eric?” It’s his turn now, she thought. She did not look at him; he was rising to his feet; he stumbled, suddenly drunken, to the bar. She felt him staring at her—for some reason, she thought of an airplane trying to land. Then his hand was on her shoulder. He turned her to face him. She forced herself to look into his eyes. “Is that the truth?” She felt absolutely cold and dry and wanted to go to sleep. “Yes, Richard. That’s the truth.” She moved away and sat down in the chair again. She had, indeed, delivered herself up: she thought of the children and fear broke over her like a wave, chilling her. She stared straight before her, sitting perfectly still, listening: for no matter what else was lost, she would not give up her children, she would not let them go. “It’s not true. I don’t believe you. Why Eric? Why did you go to him?” “He has something—something I needed very badly.” “What is that, Cass?” “A sense of himself.” “A sense of himself,” he repeated, slowly. “A sense of himself.” She felt his eyes on her, and also felt, with dread, how slowly the storm in him gathered, how long it would take to break. “Forgive your coarse-grained husband, but I’ve always felt that he had no sense of himself at all. He’s not even sure he knows what’s between his legs, or what to do with it—but I guess I have to take that back now.” Here we go, she thought. She said, wearily, helplessly, “I know it sounds strange, Richard.” Tears came to her eyes. “But he’s a very wonderful person. I know. I know him better than you do.” He said, making a sound somewhere between a grunt and a sob, “I guess you do—though he may have preferred it the other way around. Did you ever think of that? You must be one of the very few women in the world—” “Don’t, Richard. Don’t. It won’t change anything, it won’t help.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  The housewife, traveling alone, who had been, during their passage, a rather flirtatious girl, became a housewife once again: her face responded to her proddings as abjectly as her hat. The businessman who had spoken to Yves about the waters of Lake Michigan, and the days when he had hiked and fished there, relentlessly put all of this behind him, and solemnly and cruelly tightened the knot in his tie. Yves was not wearing a tie, he was wearing a light blue shirt, with short sleeves, and he carried a light sport jacket; and he thought now, with some terror, that this had probably been a mistake; he was not really in America yet, after all, and might not be allowed to enter. But there was nothing he could do about it now. He straightened his collar and put on his jacket and ran his fingers through his hair—which was probably too long. He cursed himself and wished that he could ask one of his fellow passengers for reassurance. But his seatmate, a young man who played the organ in Montana, was now frowning and breathing hard and straightening as much of himself as could decently be reached. He had been very friendly during the journey and had even asked Yves to come and see him, if he ever came to Montana; but now Yves realized that he had not been given any address, and that he knew only the man’s first name, which was Peter. And it was only too clear that he could not ask for any information now. Nearly everyone on the plane knew—for he had been very high-spirited and talkative—that he was French, and coming to the States for the first time; and some of them knew that he had a friend in New York, who was an actor. This had all seemed perfectly all right while they were in the middle of the air. But now, on the ground, and in the light, hard and American, of sober second thought, it all seemed rather suspect. He felt helplessly French: and he had never felt French before. And he felt their movement away from him, decently but definitely, with nervous, and, as it were, backward smiles; they were making it clear that he could make no appeal to them, for they did not know who he was. It flashed through him that of course he had a test to pass; he had not yet entered the country; perhaps he would not pass the test. He watched them fill the aisles, and he moved backward from them, into his familiar loneliness and contempt. “Good luck,” said his seatmate quickly, and took his place in the line; he would probably have said the same words, as quickly, and in the same tone of voice, to a friend about to be carried off to prison.

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  IWe can put aside the recourse to testimonies or inquiries that make it possible to be sure of the repentance and good dispositions of those requesting reconciliation. In the period following the great persecutions, Saint Cyprian’s letters show the importance of the problem: the difficulty of finding the right balance between rigor and indulgence, the dogged efforts of some lapsi to regain the peace of the Church, and the mulishness with which it was sometimes refused them—in any case, the painfulness of the discussions. Saint Cyprian comes back to the matter several times: in a way, between the two dangers of reconciling too quickly or of leaving the sinners without hope, the decision will always be blind: “It being given to us to see and to judge, we only see the exterior of everyone; as to plumbing the depths of the heart, and penetrating the soul, we cannot.”35 An argument that inclines him not to a severity, but to a leniency for which he reproaches himself at times.36 He fears, like everyone else, that “incorrigible minds,” “men defiled by adulteries or the contagion of sacrifices,” will come back and corrupt righteous souls—yet he thinks the task is not so much to exclude those whose sincerity is not certain, but rather to work toward their healing.37 Besides, the reconciliation that is granted here below is not binding to God. He who sees everything, even into the secrets of the heart that elude us, is not committed to pardon when someone has taken advantage of his people’s indulgence: “God will judge of those things which we have looked upon imperfectly and will correct the judgment of his servants.”38

• From Another Country (1962)

  1Vivaldo dreamed that he was running, running, running, through a country he had always known, but could not now remember, a rocky country. He was blinded by the rain beating down, the tough, wet vines dragged at his legs and feet, and thorns and nettles tormented his hands and arms and face. He was both fleeing and seeking, and, in his dream, the time was running out. There was a high wall ahead of him, a high, stone wall. Broken glass glittered on top of the wall, sharp points standing straight up, like spears. He was reminded of music, though he heard none: the music was created by the sight of the rain which fell in long, cruel, gleaming shafts, and by the bright glass which reared itself bitterly against it. And he felt an answering rearing in his own body, a pull fugitive and powerful and dimly troubling, such as he might have felt for a moment had there been the movement and power of a horse beneath him. And, at the same time, in his dream, as he ran or as he was propelled, he was weighed down and made sick by the certainty that he had forgotten—forgotten—what? some secret, some duty, that would save him. His breath was a terrible captive weight in his chest. He reached the wall. He grasped the stone with his bleeding hands, but the stone was slippery, he could not hold it, could not lift himself up. He tried with his feet; his feet slipped; the rain poured down.

• From Every Woman's Battle: Discovering God's Plan for Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment (2003)

  Another way of looking at the scope of the problem is to picture a bell curve. According to our experiences, we figure around 10 percent of men have no sexual-temptation problem with their eyes and their minds. At the other end of the curve, we figure there’s another 10 percent of men who are sexual addicts and have a serious problem with lust. They’ve been so beaten and scarred by emotional events that they simply can’t overcome that sin in their lives. They need more counseling and a transforming washing by the Word. The rest of us comprise the middle 80 percent, living in various shades of gray when it comes to sexual sin.3 I believe the same illustration is true for women. There may be 10 percent of us who are the June Cleaver type of gal who is as pure as the driven snow and would never dream of longing after any other man besides Ward. Then there are perhaps another 10 percent of us who are the Playboy Bunny type of girl, constantly tossing out innuendos, shooting seductive glances, and enjoying the spoils of war. The rest of us probably fall into that 80 percent range that struggle with sexual and emotional integrity by varying degrees. Thinking you are the only one who feels overwhelmed by sexual temptations will make you more vulnerable for failure because you will be less likely to ask for help to change. If this is your struggle, you can benefit from genuine intimacy in female friendships. This is something I’ve come to depend on in my quest to maintain sexual integrity. Your friends can offer you a lifeline to hold on to when the temptation gets too deep to stand alone. WINNING THE BATTLE WITH TRUTH If any of these myths awakened you to the fact that you are standing in the line of fire in this struggle for sexual integrity, I encourage you to dispel these myths in your mind with the truth from God’s Word. MYTH 1: There’s nothing wrong with comparing myself or my husband to other people. TRUTH: “When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.” (2 Corinthians 10:12) MYTH 2: I am mature enough to watch any movie or television show, read any book, listen to any music, or surf any Web sites without being affected in any way. TRUTH: “The good [woman] brings good things out of the good stored up in [her] heart, and the evil [woman] brings evil things out of the evil stored up in [her] heart.” (Luke 6:45) MYTHS 3 and 4: It doesn’t hurt anyone if I fantasize about someone other than my husband when we make love, and thinking about what kind of man I’d like to have if my husband were to die is not a big deal, as long as I am not plotting how to carry that out!

• From Another Country (1962)

  I haven’t done her much good.” “You don’t know that. Cass knew what she was doing. I think she had a much clearer idea than you—because you, you know,” and he grinned, “you aren’t very clear-headed.” “I think I was hoping—perhaps we were hoping—that Richard would never find out and that Yves would get here—before——” “Yes. Well, life isn’t ever that tidy.” “ You’re very clear-headed,” Eric said. “Naturally.” He grinned and reached out and pulled Eric to him. “And you must do the same for me, baby, when I’m in trouble. Be clear -headed.” “I’ll do my best,” said Eric, gravely. Vivaldo laughed. “No one could ever hate you. You’re much too funny.” He pulled away. “What time are you meeting Cass?” “At four. At the Museum of Modern Art.” “God. How’s she going to get away? Or is Richard coming along?” Eric hesitated. “She isn’t sure that Richard’s coming back today.” “I see. I think, maybe, we’d better have a cup of coffee—? I’m going to the john.” And he leapt out of bed and slammed the bathroom door behind him. Eric walked into the kitchen, which was only slightly less disordered than he now felt himself to be, and put coffee on the stove. He stood there a moment, watching the blue flame in the gloom of the small room. He took down two coffee cups and found the milk and sugar. He returned to the big room and cleared the night table of books and of urgently scrawled notes—nearly all of which, beneath his eyes, as he wrote them on small scraps of paper, had hardened into irrelevance—and emptied the ashtray. He picked up his clothes, and Vivaldo’s, from the floor, piling them on a chair, and straightened the sheets on the bed. He put the cups and the milk and sugar on the night table, discovered that there were only five cigarettes left, and searched in his pockets for more, but there were none. He was hungry, but the refrigerator was empty. He thought that, perhaps, he could find the energy to dress and run down to the corner delicatessen for something—Vivaldo was probably hungry, too. He walked to the window and peeked out through the blinds. The rain poured down like a wall. It struck the pavements with a vicious sound, and spattered in the swollen gutters with the force of bullets. The asphalt was wide and white and blank with rain.

• From Another Country (1962)

  She was a fairly impartial mother, or tried to be; but sometimes Michael’s shy, grave charm moved her as Paul’s more direct, more calculating presence seldom could. “What do you care?” she said, and ruffled his reddish blond hair. “And, anyway, how do you know?” She looked at Paul. “I bet that woman let you stay up until all hours. What time did you go to bed last night?” Her tone, however, had immediately allied them against her. She was their common property; but they had more in common with each other than they had with her. “Not so late,” Paul said, judiciously. He winked at his brother and began to eat his breakfast. She held back a smile. “What time was it, Michael?” “I don’t know,” Michael said, “but it was real early.” “If that woman let you stay up one minute past ten o’clock—” “Oh, it wasn’t that late,” said Paul. She gave up, poured herself another cup of coffee, and watched them eat. Then she remembered Ida’s call. She dialed Vivaldo’s number. There was no answer. He was probably at Jane’s, she thought, but she did not know Jane’s address, or her last name. She heard Richard moving about in the bedroom and eventually watched him stumble into the shower. When he came out, she watched him eat a while before she said, “Richard—? Rufus’s sister just called.” “His sister? Oh, yes, I remember her, we met her once. What did she want?” “She wanted to know where Rufus was.” “Well, if she doesn’t know, how the hell does she expect us to know?” “She sounded very worried. She hasn’t seen him, you know—in a long time.” “She’s complaining? Bastard’s probably found some other defenseless little girl to beat up.” “Oh—that hasn’t got anything to do with it. She’s worried about her brother, she wants to know where he is.” “Well, she hasn’t got a very nice brother; she’ll probably run into him someplace one of these days.” He looked into her worried face. “Hell, Cass, we saw him last night, there’s nothing wrong with him.” “Yes,” she said. Then: “She’s coming here this afternoon.” “Oh, Christ. What time?” “I told her about three or four. I thought Vivaldo would be here by then.” “Well, good.” He stood up. They walked into the living room. Paul stood at the window, looking out at the wet streets. Michael was on the floor, scribbling in his notebook. He had a great many notebooks, all of them filled with trees and houses and monsters and entirely cryptic anecdotes. Paul moved from the window to come and stand beside his father. “Are we going to go now?” he asked. “It’s getting late.” For Paul never forgot a promise or an appointment.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “What are you going to do now? When does”—he gestured toward the letter, which was somewhere beneath his belly button—“Yves get here?” “In about two weeks. According to that letter. It may be a little longer. It may be sooner.” “Have you told Cass that?” “No. I’ll tell her tomorrow.” “How do you think she’ll take it?” “Well, she’s always known he was on his way. I don’t know how she’ll take—his actual arrival.” In the streets, they heard footsteps, walking fast, and someone whistling. Eric stared at the wall again, frowning heavily. Other voices were heard in the street. “I guess the bars are beginning to close,” said Eric. “Yes.” Vivaldo leaned up, looking toward the blinds which held back the jungle. “Eric. How’s one going to get through it all? How can you live if you can’t love? And how can you live if you do?” And he stared at Eric, who said nothing, whose face gleamed in the yellow light, as mysteriously impersonal and as fearfully moving as might have been a death mask of Eric as a boy. He realized that they were both beginning to be drunk. “I don’t see how I can live with Ida, and I don’t see how I can live without her. I get through every day on a prayer. Every morning, when I wake up, I’m surprised to find that she’s still beside me.” Eric was watching him, perfectly rigid and still, seeming scarcely to breathe, only his unmoving eyes were alive. “And yet”—he caught his breath—“sometimes I wish she weren’t there, sometimes I wish I’d never met her, sometimes I think I’d go anywhere to get this burden off me. She never lets me forget I’m white, she never lets me forget she’s colored. And I don’t care, I don’t care—did Rufus do that to you? Did he try to make you pay?” Eric dropped his eyes, and his lips tightened. “Ah. He didn’t try. I paid.” He raised his eyes to Vivaldo’s. “But I’m not sad about it any more. If it hadn’t been for Rufus, I would never have had to go away, I would never have been able to deal with Yves.” And then, rising and walking to the window, from which more and more voices rose, “Maybe that’s what love is for.” “Are you sleeping with anyone besides Cass?” Eric turned. “No.” “I’m sorry. I just thought you might be. I’m not sleeping with anyone except Ida.” “We can’t be everywhere at once,” said Eric. They listened to the footfalls and voices in the street: someone was singing, someone called, someone was cursing. Someone ran. Then silence, again. “You know,” said Eric, “it’s true that you can make kids without love. But if you do love the person you make the kids with, it must be something fantastic.” “Ida and I could have great kids,” said Vivaldo. “Do you think you will?”

• From Another Country (1962)

  The boy handed him a telegram and a book for him to sign. He gave the boy twenty cents and walked back into the apartment. He thought that the telegram came, probably, from Eric’s agent or producer; but he looked at it more carefully and realized that it was a cable and that it came from Europe. He propped it against Eric’s telephone. He scribbled a note: I’ve borrowed your other raincoat. NOTE CABLEGRAM. He paused. Then he scribbled, It was a great day. And added, love, Vivaldo. He placed the note in the center of Eric’s desk, weighting it down with an ink bottle. Then he was ready, he looked about the room. The bed was still unmade; he left it that way; the bottle was still on the floor, the glasses on the night table. Everything was absolutely still, silent, except for the rain. He looked again at the cablegram, which leaned lightly, charged, waiting, against the telephone. Telegrams always frightened him a little. He closed the door behind him, tested it to make certain that it was locked, and walked out, at last, into the unfriendly rain. Eric saw her at once, standing near the steps, just beyond the ticket-taker. She was pacing in a small circle and her back, as he entered, was to him. She wore her loose brown raincoat and her head was covered with a matching hood; and she played with the tip, white bone in the shape of a claw, of her thin umbrella. The museum was crowded, full of the stale, Sunday museum stink, aggravated, now, by the damp. He came through the doors behind a great cloud of windy, rainy, broad-beamed ladies; and they formed, before him, a large, loud, rocking wall, as they shook their umbrellas and themselves and repeated to each other, in their triumphant voices, how awful the weather was. Three young men and two young girls, scrubbed and milky, gleaming with their passion for improvement and the ease with which they moved among abstractions, were surrendering their tickets and passing through the barrier. Others were on the steps, going down, coming up, stationary, peering at each other like half-blinded birds and setting up a hideous whirr, as of flying feathers and boastful wings. Cass, small, pale, and old-fashioned in her hood, restlessly pacing, disenchantedly watched all this; she glanced indifferently toward the resounding ladies, but did not see him; he was still trying to get through, or around, the wall. He looked toward the people on the steps again, wondering why Cass had wished to meet here; it was only too probable that these sacred and sterile halls contained, blocking a corridor or half-hidden by a spinning mass of statuary, someone that they knew. Cass, resignedly lit a cigarette half-turning in her small, imaginary cage. People now came crushing in through the doors behind him, and their greater pressure spat him past the ladies. He touched Cass on the shoulder.

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  6. Giving account. The imminence of famine and death, the need for a constant protection, and the concern with salvation dominate relations of the sheep and the shepherd; they don’t allow for the latter to ever be innocent of the bad things that happen to them; the least of his faults—negligence, avidity, egoism—risks leading them to their perdition: “If they are driven hard just one day, all the animals will die.”60 A fault the shepherd would immediately pay for himself, for if the flock is lost, it is he himself who will lose; and he will go hungry in his turn if he reduces it to famine: “the shepherds have become stupid…therefore they have not prospered and all their flock is scattered.”61 But he will also have to report his failings to the one who handed over his animals for him to lead. Ambivalence of pastoral power: it is total, it has to oversee everything down to details; the shepherd takes responsibility for everything having to do with the flock, his power is undivided in its exercise, its only limit and its only law being the well-being of the animals themselves. But the time comes when the shepherd must report everything. The pastorate is a power that is born in the morning and dies with the evening; a “transit” power not only by its object, but also by the form according to which it is delegated and given back. The shepherd receives the flock only to return it. Even if he is king, he has charge of it only because he was chosen: “You took me from the middle of the mountains, you called me to be the shepherd of men, you entrusted me with the scepter of justice.”62 He will be asked for an accounting of his faults and if he has lost the flock, he will be punished. Yahweh will ask: “Where then is the flock you were entrusted with, the sheep that were our pride?”63 And seeing that the shepherds have failed, he will tell them: “Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done.”64 The shepherd’s power is caught in a long network of responsibilities where the faults are tied both to immediate sanctions and deferred punishments; he is subjected to a perpetual “accounting”—counting of the animals in his care and given back, a toting up of the living and the dead, a reckoning of mistakes, poor decisions, and instances of negligence.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  ITO AND SUMERAGI were right on time. Monday morning, 9:00 a.m. sharp, they pulled up to the building, each wearing a dark suit and dark tie, each carrying a black briefcase. I thought of all the samurai movies I’d seen, all the books I’d read about ninjas. This was how it always looked before the ritual killing of the bad shogun. They walked straight through our lobby and into our conference room and sat down. Without a word of small talk we stacked our books in front of them. Sumeragi lit a cigarette, Ito uncapped a fountain pen. They commenced. Pecking at calculators, scratching at legal pads, drinking bottomless cups of coffee and green tea, they slowly peeled back the layers of our operation and peered inside. I walked in and out, every fifteen minutes or so, to ask if they needed anything. They never did. The bank auditor arrived soon after to collect all our cash receipts. A fifty-thousand-dollar check from United Sporting Goods really had been in the mail. We showed him: It was right on Carole Fields’s desk. This was the late check that set all the dominoes in motion. This, plus the normal day’s receipts, covered our shortfall. The bank auditor telephoned United Sporting Goods’ bank in Los Angeles and asked that their account be charged immediately, the funds transferred to our account at Bank of California. The Los Angeles bank said no. There were insufficient funds in the United Sporting Goods account. United Sporting Goods had also been playing the float. Already feeling a splitting headache coming on, I walked back into the conference room. I could smell it in the air. We’d reached that fateful moment. Leaning over the books, Ito realized what he was looking at and did a slow double-take. Exeter. Secret factory. Then I saw the realization dawn that he was the sucker who’d paid for it. He looked up at me and pushed his head forward on his neck, as if to say: Really? I nodded. And then... he smiled. It was only a half smile, a mohair sweater smile, but it meant everything. I gave him a weak half smile in return, and in that brief wordless exchange countless fates and futures were decided. PAST MIDNIGHT, ITO and Sumeragi were still there, still busy with their calculators and legal pads. When they finally left for the day they promised to return early the next morning. I drove home and found Penny waiting up. We sat in the dining room, talking. I gave her an update. We agreed that Nissho was done with their audit; they’d known everything they needed to know before lunch. What followed, and was yet to follow, was simply punishment. “Don’t let them push you around like this!” Penny said. “Are you kidding?” I said. “Right now they can push me around all they want. They’re my only hope.” “At least there are no more surprises,” she said. “Yes,” I said.

• From Another Country (1962)

  The first to arrive was Richard’s editor, Loring Montgomery, a chunky, spectacled, man, with smooth, graying hair, who was younger than he looked—nearly ten years younger, in fact, than Richard. He had a diffident manner and a nervous giggle. With him was Richard’s agent, a dark-haired, dark-eyed young woman, who wore much silver and a little gold, and whose name was Barbara Wales. She, too, had a giggle but it was not nervous, and a great deal of manner but it was not diffident. She apparently felt that her status as Richard’s agent created a bond of intimacy between herself and Cass; who, helplessly and miserably mesmerized, and handicapped by the volume of Miss Wales’ voice and the razorlike distinctness of her syllables, trotted obediently behind her into the bedroom where coats and hats were to be deposited and where the women could repair their make-up. “The bar is over here,” Richard called, “whatever you’re drinking, come and get it.” “I could stand another drink,” Vivaldo said. “I’ve been drinking all day and I can’t get drunk.” “Are you trying to?” asked Ida. He looked at her and smiled. “No,” he said, “no, I’m not trying to. But if I were, I couldn’t make it, not today.” They stood facing the window. “You’re going to have supper with me, aren’t you?” “You’re not hungry, already?” “No. But I’m going to be hungry around suppertime.” “Well,” she said, “ask me around suppertime.” “You’re not suddenly going to decide you have to go home, or anything? You’re not going to run out on me?” “No,” she said, “I’m going to stick with you until the bitter end. You’ve got to talk to that agent, you know.” “Do I have to?” He looked in the direction of the glittering Miss Wales. “Of course you do. I’m sure it’s one of the reasons Richard wanted you here this afternoon. And you have to talk to the editor, too.” “Why? I haven’t got anything to show him.” “Well, you will. I’m sure Richard arranged all this partly for you. Now, you’ve got to cooperate.” “And what are you going to be doing while I’m having all these conferences?” “I’ll talk to Cass. Nobody’s really interested in us; we don’t write.” He kissed her hair. “You are the cutest thing,” he said. The doorbell rang. This time it was Steve Ellis, who had come with his wife. Ellis was a short, square man with curly hair and a boyish face. The face was just beginning, as is the way with boyish faces, not so much to harden as to congeal. He had a reputation as the champion of doomed causes, reaction’s intrepid foe; and he walked into the drawing rooms of the world as though he expected to find the enemy ambushed there. His wife wore a mink coat and a flowered hat, seemed somewhat older than he, and was inclined to be talkative.

• From Another Country (1962)

  I want that more than I’ve ever wanted anything in the world.” Then the door opened and Cass stood before them, dressed in a rusty orange frock, her hair pulled back and falling around her shoulders. She held a cigarette in one hand, with which she made a gesture of exaggerated welcome. “Come in, children,” she said, “I’m delighted to see you, but there’s absolute chaos in this house today. Everything’s gone wrong.” She closed the door behind them. They heard a child screaming somewhere in the apartment, and Richard’s voice raised in anger. Cass listened for a moment, her forehead wrinkled with worry. “That’s Michael,” she said, helplessly, “He’s been impossible all day—fighting with his brother, with his father, with me. Richard finally gave him a spanking and I guess he’s going to leave him in his room.” Michael’s screams diminished and they heard the voices of Michael and his father working out, apparently, the terms of a truce. Cass lifted her head. “Well. I’m sorry to keep you standing in the hall. Take off your things, I’ll show you into the living room and give you things to drink and to nibble on—you’ll need them, lunch is going to be late, of course. Ida, how are you? I haven’t seen you in God knows when.” She took Ida’s coat and shawl. “Do you mind if I don’t hang them up? I’ll just dump them in the bedroom, other people are coming over after lunch.” They followed her into the large bedroom. Ida immediately walked over to the large, full-length mirror and worriedly patted her hair and applied new lipstick. “I’m just fine, Cass,” she said, “but you’re the one—! You got a famous husband all of a sudden. How does it feel?” “He’s not even famous yet, ” said Cass, “and, already I can’t stand it. Somehow, it just seems to reduce itself to having drinks and dinners with lots of people you certainly wouldn’t be talking to if they weren’t”—she coughed—“in the profession . God, what a profession. I had no idea.” Then she laughed. They started toward the living room. “Try to persuade Vivaldo to become a plumber.” “No, dear,” said Ida, “I wouldn’t trust Vivaldo with no tools whatever. This boy is just as clumsy as they come. I’m always expecting him to fall over those front feet he’s got. Never saw anybody with so many front feet.” The living room was down two steps and the wide windows opened on a view of the river. Ida seemed checked, but only for an instant by the view of the river. She walked into the center of the room. “This is wonderful. You people have really got some space.” “We were really very lucky,” Cass said. “The people who had it had been here for years and years and they finally decided to move to Connecticut—or someplace like that.

• From Another Country (1962)

  For how long? And how do you know that?” “How do you — not know it?” “Why—everytime I saw them, they seemed perfectly natural and happy together——” “But many of the times you say you’ve been with them. you couldn’t have been with them because Ida’s been with Steve! ” She still could not quite get it through her head, even though she knew that it was true and although she knew that precious seconds were passing, and that she must soon begin to fight for herself. “How do you know? ” “Because Steve told me! He’s got a real thing about her, he’s going out of his mind.” Now, she did begin to calculate—desperately, cursing Ida for not having given her warning. But how could she have? She said, coldly, “Ellis at the mercy of a great passion—? don’t make me laugh.” “Oh, I know you think we’re made of the coarsest of coarse clay, and are insensitive to all the higher vibrations. I don’t care. You can’t have been seeing much of Ida—that I know. Have you been seeing much of Vivaldo? Answer me, Cass.” She said, wonderingly—for it was this she could not get through her head: “And Vivaldo doesn’t know ——” “And you don’t, either? You’re the only two in town who don’t. What mighty distractions have you two found?” She winced and looked up at him. She saw that he was controlling himself with a great and terrible effort; that he both wanted to know the truth, and feared to know it. She could not bear the anguish in his eyes, and she looked away. How could she ever have doubted that he loved her! “Have you been seeing a lot of Vivaldo? Tell me.” She rose and walked to the window. She felt sick—her stomach seemed to have shrunk to the size of a small, hard, rubber ball. “Leave me alone. You’ve always been jealous of Vivaldo, and we both know why, though you won’t admit it. Sometimes I saw Vivaldo, sometimes I saw Vivaldo with Ida, sometimes I just walked around, sometimes I went to the movies.” “Till two o’clock in the morning?” “Sometimes I’ve come in at midnight, sometimes I’ve come in at four! Leave me alone! Why is it so important to you now? I’ve lived in this house like a ghost for months, half the time you haven’t known I was here—what does it matter now?” His face was wet and white and ugly. “ I have lived here like a ghost, not you. I’ve known you were here, how could I not know it?” He took one step toward her. He dropped his voice. “Do you know how you made your presence known? By the way you look at me, by the contempt in your eyes when you look at me. What have I done to deserve your contempt? What have I done, Cass?

• From Another Country (1962)

  It had been a long time. He had become bored by the people with whom one turned on, and really rather bored with marijuana. Either it did not derange his senses enough, or he was already more than sufficiently deranged. And he found the hangover crushing and it interfered with his work and he had never been able to make love on it. Still, it had been a long time. It was only ten past eleven, he did not know what he was going to do with himself. He wanted to enter into, or to forget, the chaos at his center. “Maybe,” he said. “Let me buy a round first. What’re you drinking?” “We could make it on back to my pad,” said Harold, scowling his little scowl. “I’m having beer,” said Lorenzo. His expression indicated that he would rather have had something else, but did not wish to seem to be taking advantage of Vivaldo. Vivaldo turned to Belle. “And you?” She dropped her hand and leaned forward. “Do you think I could have a brandy Alexander?” “God,” he said, “if you can drink it, I guess they can make it.” She leaned back again, unsmiling, oddly ladylike, and he looked at Harold. “Beer, dad,” Harold said. “Then we’ll split.” So he walked over to the bar, and ordered the round, making a special trip to carry the brimming, viscous Alexander. He knew that Lorenzo liked rye and so he bought him a straight one and a bottle of beer, and a beer for Harold, and a double bourbon for himself. Let’s go for broke, he thought, the hell with it. Let’s see what happens. And he really could not tell, because he did not want to know, whether he was acting out of panic or recklessness or pain. There was certainly something he did not want to think about: he did not want to think about where Ida was, or what she was doing now. Not now, later for you, baby. He did not want to go home and lie awake, waiting, or walk up and down, staring at his typewriter and staring at the walls. Later for all that, later. And beneath all this was the void where anguish lived and questions crouched, which referred only to Vivaldo and to no one else on earth. Down there, down there, lived the raw, unformed substance for the creation of Vivaldo, and only he, Vivaldo, alone, could master it. “Here’s how,” he said, and, unsteadily, they raised their glasses, and drank. “Thanks, Vivaldo,” said Lorenzo, and downed his whiskey in a single swallow. Vivaldo looked at the young face, which was damp and a little gray and would soon be damper and grayer.

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  10. How to combine strategies. Throughout, I’ll offer real-life examples from people I’ve talked to and share current research to help you navigate these emotionally taxing moments. More importantly, though, this book will show you how to build and embrace an identity as someone who wants and is able to interact with angry people productively and effectively. It takes more than just tools to be successful in navigating the anger and hostility of others. Those tools are important, of course. You need to have them and you need to be able to use them. Beyond that, though, you need to have healthy outcomes in mind and you need to be able to stick to those goals as things get heated. This book will show you how to keep those goals in mind and embrace an identity as a calm and confident navigator of other people’s anger. * This has actually happened more than once in the past two years. In one instance, a flight attendant had her nose broken after being punched twice by a passenger. In another, a flight attendant was punched multiple times and had several teeth chipped. * I asked a librarian friend of mine about this after the call and she said that, like any service-type job, she had to deal with angry patrons sometimes. She also told me that she had felt the same uptick in hostility as the person who called me. * People are sometimes surprised to learn that I put myself in this category. While I am unlikely to express my anger in a hostile or aggressive way, I find myself frequently angry about a variety of social issues. * I heard from more than one person that they found reading my last book personally challenging for this very reason. They told me they had started to see the harm they might be doing to themselves and others, and seeing that harm made introspection really scary for them. PART ONE UNDERSTANDING ANGRY PEOPLE