Gratitude

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 Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  I met your mama at the revival here a few months back. She asked me to keep an eye on you chillens while she’s gone.”White people didn’t use the word “chillens.” She said it as though she were making fun of it somehow. I studied her a little harder. She wore her mostly gray hair pulled back into a bun like many of the women who came to the tent, but her knee-length wraparound skirt looked newer than the clothes they wore. Her attitude was different, too, more in charge, or maybe it was the rolled-up shirtsleeves.“You sure you’re not from the government or something?”Again, the tight-lipped smile. This time the skin around her eyes crinkled.“I’m sure. How can I convince you?” She pulled two chocolate bars out of her pocket and waved them through the air.“I’m convinced.” I grabbed the candy bars and handed one to Gary. We ripped them open. I wanted to eat mine slowly, square by square, but I couldn’t, and it was gone too fast.She cocked her head toward me and raised one eyebrow. “What do you say?”On the other side of Sister Coleman, Gary held up his half-eaten chocolate bar. “Thanks.”How did he manage to make a candy bar last so long? Sister Coleman nodded her approval. Gary beamed a chocolate-covered smile her way. She laughed and hugged him. Everyone loved my brother.I tugged at her sleeve. “Got any more?”Sister Coleman joined us regularly on the porch after that day. She never went inside the house and the Smiths never came out on the porch when she was there. If we were still in our pajamas at the end of the day, she sucked in her breath and wagged her head. She asked what we had eaten and usually disapproved of our answers: beans, cornbread crumbled into powdered milk, or “Nothing yet, ’cause we’re fasting.”“You chillens need to eat regular.”She told us about Bug, her adopted son. He was my age but he couldn’t see, hear, walk, or talk. God was going to heal him soon. Sometimes she and her sinner husband took Bug to their lake house. She could tell he liked to feel the breeze from the water, because he closed his eyes and stopped making noises for a minute.Gary jumped from the swing. “You have a lake?”“We don’t own the lake, but we have a house there.”My only experience with lakes was glimpsing them through a car window as we drove past. “You live there?”“No. We live at our other house.”Two houses, and one of them on a lake. This woman was more interesting all the time.Sister Coleman began to lobby my mother through letters and phone calls to let Gary and me move in with her family. She told Mama the Smiths neglected us, that we asked—begged, even—to come live with her. She promised she would give us a good home, and that my mom wouldn’t have to pay her anything.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  The tears came on, tears of gratitude now, not anger like before. The Object sobbed. With awe I beheld the storm of emotion racking her. She dipped her head. She pressed her snuffling, wet face against mine and, for the first and last time, we kissed. We were hidden by the backrest, by the wall of hair, and who was the farmer to tell any- way? The Object's anguished lips met mine, and there was a sweet taste and a taste of salt. "I'm all snotty," she said, lifting her face up again. She managed to laugh. But already the car was stopping. The farmer was jumping out, shouting things. He swung open the back door. Two orderlies ap- peared and lifted me onto a stretcher. They wheeled me across the sidewalk into the hospital doors. The Object remained at my side. She took my hand. For a moment she seemed to register her near nakedness. She looked down at herself when her bare feet hit the cold linoleum. But she shrugged this off. All the way down the hall, until the orderlies told her to stop, she held on to my hand. As though it were a string of Piraeus yarn. "You can't come in, miss," the orderlies said. "You have to wait here." And so she did. But still she didn't let go of my hand. Not for a while longer yet. The stretcher was wheeled down the corridor and my arm stretched out toward the Object. I had already left on my voyage. I was sailing across the sea to another country. Now my arm was twenty feet long, thirty, forty, fifty. I lifted my head from the stretcher to gaze at the Object. To gaze at the Ob- scure Object. For once more she was becoming a mystery to me. What ever happened to her? Where is she now? She stood at the end of the hall, holding my unraveling arm. She looked cold, skinny, out of place, lost. It was almost as if she knew we would never see each other again. The stretcher was picking up speed. My arm was only a 394 thin ribbon now, curling through the air. Finally the inevitable mo- ment came. The Object let go. My hand flew up, free, empty. Lights overhead, bright and round, as at my birth. The same squeaking of white shoes. But Dr. Philobosian was nowhere to be found. The doctor who smiled down at me was young and sandy- haired. He had a country accent. "I'm gonna ask you a few questions, okay?" "Okay" "Start off with your name." "Callie." "How old are you, Callie?" "Fourteen." "How many fingers am I holding out?" "Two." "I want you to count backward for me. Start from ten." "Ten, nine, eight . And all the while, he was pressing me, feeling for breaks. "Does ." . this hurt?" "No." "This?"

• From Middlesex (2002)

  "He sure did." "Now you have to fix the church." "What?" "The church. You have to fix it." "Sure, sure," Naval Cadet Stephanides said, and maybe he even in- tended to. He was grateful to be alive and to have his future back. But with one thing or another, Milton would put off his trip to Bithynios. Within a year's time he was married; later, he was a father. The war ended. He graduated from Annapolis and served in the Ko- rean War. Eventually he returned to Detroit and went into the family business. From time to time Desdemona would remind her son about his outstanding obligation to St. Christopher, but my father always found an excuse for not fulfilling it. His procrastination would have disastrous effects, if you believe in that sort of thing, which, some days, when the old Greek blood is running high, I do. 196 My parents were married in June of 1946. In a show of generos- ity, Michael Antoniou attended the wedding. An ordained priest now, he presented a dignified, benevolent figure, but by the second hour of the reception it was clear he was crushed. He drank too much champagne at dinner and, when the band began playing, sought out the next best thing to the bride: the bridesmaid, Zoe Stephanides. Zoe* looked down at him— about a foot. He asked her to dance. The next thing she knew, they had started off across the ballroom floor. "Tessie told me a lot about you in her letters," said Michael Anto- niou. "Nothing too bad, I hope." "Just the opposite. She told me what a good Christian you are." His long robe concealed his small feet, making it difficult for Zoe to follow. Nearby, Tessie was dancing with Milton in his white naval uniform. As the couples passed each other, Zoe glared comically at Tessie and mouthed the words, "I'm going to kill you." But then Mil- ton twirled Tessie around and the two rivals came face-to-face. "Hey there, Mike," said Milton cordially. "It's Father Mike now," said the vanquished suitor. "Got a promotion, eh? Congratulations. I guess I can trust you with my sister." He danced away with Tessie, who looked back in silent apology. Zoe, who knew how infuriating her brother could be, felt sorry for Father Mike. She suggested they get some wedding cake. 197 eh ovo omnifl

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  As Chiang lay in prison, he could only imagine the worst. Several days later he received a visit from Zhou Enlai—a former friend and now a leading Communist. Politely and respectfully, Zhou argued for a united front: Communists and Nationalists against the Japanese. Chiang could not begin to hear such talk; he hated the Communists with a passion, and became hopelessly emotional. To sign an agreement with the Communists in these circumstances, he yelled, would be humiliating, and would lose me all honor among my own army. It's out of the question. Kill me if you must. Zhou listened, smiled, said barely a word. As Chiang's rant ended he told the Nationalist general that a concern for honor was something he understood, but that the honorable thing for them to do was actually to forget their differences and fight the invader. Chiang could lead both armies. Finally, Zhou said that under no circumstances would he allow his fellow Communists, or anyone for that matter, to execute such a great man as Chiang Kai-shek. The Nationalist leader was stunned and moved. The next day, Chiang was escorted out of prison by Communist guards, transferred to one of his own army's planes, and sent back to his own headquarters. Apparently Zhou had executed this policy on his own, for when word of it reached the other Communist leaders, they were outraged: Zhou should have forced Chiang to fight the Japanese, or else should have ordered his execution—to release him without concessions was the height of pusillanimity, and Zhou would pay. Zhou said nothing and waited. A few months later, Chiang signed an agreement to halt the civil war and join with the Communists against the Japanese. He seemed to have come to his decision on his own, and his army respected it—they could not doubt his motives. Working together, the Nationalists and the Communists expelled the Japanese from China. But the Communists, whom Chiang had previously almost destroyed, took advantage of this period of collaboration to regain strength. Once the Japanese had left, they turned on the Nationalists, who, in 1949, were forced to evacuate mainland China for the island of For-mosa, now Taiwan. Now Mao paid a visit to the Soviet Union. China was in terrible shape and in desperate need of assistance, but Stalin was wary of the Chinese, and lectured Mao about the many mistakes he had made. Mao argued back. The Charmer • 89 Stalin decided to teach the young upstart a lesson; he would give China nothing. Tempers rose. Mao sent urgently for Zhou Enlai who arrived the next day and went right to work.

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  But Julie helped me to discover the novel I wanted to write—a story of what theologians call “radical hope,” the idea that hope is available to all of us at all times, even unto death. I hope you like this little book. If you do, know that it wasn’t because of me. It was because my parents welcomed me home, because Harvey portrayed mental illness as more than merely tragic, because Ilene and Julie believed in my work and devoted years to this novel, and because readers have read it with care and generosity for now more than a decade. So that’s the story of my Great Perhaps. Thanks for being part of it. A CONVERSATION WITH JOHN GREEN Below you’ll find answers to some of the questions I’ve been asked most often by readers in the years since Looking for Alaska was published. I’m always happy to answer questions about my intent when writing the story, but with the caveat that authorial intent is not that important. If you find something useful or true in a story, it is useful and true regardless of whether the author put it there on purpose. —JG What inspired using “Alaska” as the name Alaska chooses for herself? The idea initially came to me while watching the movie The Royal Tenenbaums, which features “Stephanie Says,” a Velvet Underground song I’d loved in high school. Part of the chorus goes, “She’s not afraid to die / The people all call her Alaska.” I liked the name Alaska because it’s grand and mysterious and far away. It’s part of our country, but for most of us it’s a distant and mythologized part, in much the same way that Alaska herself is (disastrously) mythologized by her classmates. I also liked it because of what it actually means. It is often translated “that which the sea breaks against,” and I think that is Alaska’s experience of herself: She feels that the sea is breaking against her, again and again. Alaska isn’t introduced as fully as the other characters. Did you intentionally focus on the effect she has on people, rather than describing her? The first time Pudge and Alaska have a real conversation, she’s sitting next to him in the dark and he can’t really see her. And throughout the story, there are times when he’s looking at her without seeing her, or there’s something between them that prevents him from seeing her whole face, or he only sees the back of her head, etc. That was all meant to indicate how incompletely he sees Alaska, something she mentions to him repeatedly.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  “Oh, okay.” The tension in Thalia’s posture releases. “What an edgelord. Her and her transgender blues.” Thalia spits the word “transgender” derisively, with a hard g. “Who?” Katrina asks. “A trans punk singer.” Katrina hesitates, then decides to address the moment. “I’m sorry I pointed it out. I didn’t know it was a sore subject.” “It’s okay,” Reese says. “Thalia and I are both a bit raw today. Anyway, it’s not your fault. Signs are meant to be read. So people should be thoughtful of what they put on them.” Katrina gives a slight nod, relieved that the tension has trailed away. “Speaking as someone in marketing, it’s not what I’d have chosen. You have to imagine a high percentage of her audience is trans. Can you imagine a trans woman buying that book? I mean, what, is she going to read it on the subway? It’d be like holding up a label on herself. Or go into a bookstore and be like: ‘Hi, I’m looking for Tranny.” This observation endears Katrina to Reese with unexpected force. That Katrina has imagined a trans woman buying the memoir and reading it, and how that might feel, required a descent into empathy three or four flights deeper than even Reese herself had taken. In the apartment, Iris sits on a stool at the kitchen counter in panties and a tank top, sipping on white wine chilled with ice cubes. In a fig leaf of decency, she has at least tucked before Katrina’s arrival. She’s interrogating Thalia about the funeral, collecting information on who was there and what was said. She insouciantly dismisses those poor unfortunates on her years-long shit list with insults that make florid use of her abandoned English degree—insults being the only circumstance in which she puts it to use: Those Truvada libertines! Ugh, I cant stand a hooker with a financial advisor! Listening to that dickbag’s opinions is a form of self-harm! Her? She’s like Starbucks—any idiot can enjoy her and, two hours later, forget he did. Insults are Iris’s version of mourning. She and Thalia are putting on a show for Katrina’s benefit, while pretending indifference to her presence. Where do they get the energy? At certain moments, when Thalia has wrested back the stage for one of her own monologues, Reese catches Iris regarding Katrina with undisguised curiosity. Finally, Iris can no longer contain herself, and comments directly though obliquely to Katrina, “God, I wish I had subordinates to have affairs with me.” Katrina catches the inference and makes a face. Iris says, “Oh please. I’m Reese’s roommate and plus I have known Amy for as long as Reese has! Who else is she going to gossip with?” Why, Reese asks herself, has she not taken any one of the thousands of opportunities presented to her to smother Iris in her sleep?

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  In a book about transness and pregnancy, what are the odds to have gotten a trans editor in Victory Matsui, and a pregnant editor in Caitlin McKenna, both of whom happen to be brilliant? My editors truly made this a better book. And then I was lucky enough to have Emma Caruso come in at the last moment and put the finishing touches on their work. My agent, Kent Wolf, has the best hair in publishing, which I think must be how he has been so successful in advocating for me—well, great hair and that he is kind, smart, and quietly badass. Thank you to Chris Jackson and the One World team for taking a chance on my writing. Jackson Howard, thank you for seeing something in my writing and kicking off this process. Believe it or not, I have an actual mother to thank: Suzanne Torrey, thank you for a lifetime of wisdom. Thank you as well to my father, Scott Peters. David N., this book wouldn’t exist without you. I am grateful to Olive Melissa Minor for joyously spending the first half of her life with me, for both our marriage and our divorce, and the lessons of each reflected in this book. Lastly, to Chrystin Ondersma, my future, whose thoughts, words, and love cannot be separated from the text. BY TORREY PETERS Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones The Masker ABOUT THE AUTHOR Torrey Peters is the author of the novellas Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones and The Masker, which she likes to give out for free on her website (www.torreypeters.com). She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and a Master of Comparative Literature from Dartmouth. She grew up in Chicago and now lives in Brooklyn. Penguin Random House What's next on your reading list? Discover your next great read! Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author. Sign up now.

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  of Preferences for Alternative Therapies.” New England Journal of Medicine 306: 1259–62. Payne, J. W., D. J. Laughhunn, and R. Crum. 1980. “Translation of Gambles and Aspiration Level Effects in Risky Choice Behavior.” Management Science 26: 1039–60. Pratt, J. W., D. Wise, and R. Zeckhauser. 1979. “Price Differences in Almost Competitive Markets.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 93: 189–211. Savage, L. J. 1954. The Foundation of Statistics. New York: Wiley. Schlaifer, R. 1959. Probability and Statistics for Business Decisions. New York: McGraw-Hill. Schoemaker, P.J.H., and H. C. Kunreuther. 1979. “An Experimental Study of Insurance Decisions.” Journal of Risk and Insurance 46: 603–18. Slovic, P., B. Fischhoff, and S. Lichtenstein. 1982. “Response Mode, Framing, and InformationProcessing Effects in Risk Assessment.” In New Directions for Methodology of Social and Behavioral Science: Question Framing and Response Consistency, ed. R. Hogarth. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 21–36. Thaler, R. 1980. “Toward a Positive Theory of Consumer Choice.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 1: 39–60. ———. 1985. “Using Mental Accounting in a Theory of Consumer Behavior.” Marketing Science 4: 199–214. Tversky, A. 1977. “On the Elicitation of Preferences: Descriptive and Prescriptive Considerations.” In Conflicting Objectives in Decisions, ed. D. Bell, R. L. Kenney, and H. Raiffa. New York: Wiley, 209–22. Tversky, A., and D. Kahneman. 1981. “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice.” Science 211: 453–58. von Neumann, J., and O. Morgenstern. 1947. Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Acknowledgments I am fortunate to have many friends and no shame about asking for help. Every one of my friends has been approached, some of them many times, with requests for information or editorial suggestions. I apologize for not listing them all. A few individuals played a major role in making the book happen. My thanks go first to Jason Zweig, who urged me into the project and patiently tried to work with me until it became clear to both of us that I am impossible to work with. Throughout, he has been generous with his editorial advice and enviable erudition, and sentences that he suggested dot the book. Roger Lewin turned transcripts of a set of lectures into chapter drafts. Mary Himmelstein provided valuable assistance throughout. John Brockman began as an agent and became a trusted friend. Ran Hassin provided advice and encouragement when it was most needed. In the final stages of a long journey I had the indispensable help of Eric Chinski, my editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He knew the book better than I did and the work became an enjoyable collaboration—I had not imagined that an editor could do as much as Eric did. My daughter, Lenore Shoham, rallied round to help me through the hectic final months, providing wisdom, a sharp critical eye, and many of the sentences in the “Speaking of” sections. My wife, Anne Treisman, went through a lot and did a lot—I would have given up long ago without her steady support, wisdom, and endless patience.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  I would like to thank Catherine Léouzon, who some years ago introduced me to Les Liaisons Dangereuses and the world of Valmont. I would like to thank David Frankel, for his deft editing and for his much-appreciated advice; Molly Stern at Viking Penguin, for overseeing the project and helping to shape it; Radha Pancham, for keeping it all organized and being so patient; and Brett Kelly, for moving things along. With heavy heart I would like to pay tribute to my cat Boris, who for thirteen years watched over me as I wrote and whose presence is sorely missed. His successor, Brutus, has proven to be a worthy muse. Finally, I would like to honor my father. Words cannot express how much I miss him and how much he has inspired my work. iX Contents Acknowlegments • ix Preface • xix Part One The Seductive Character page 1 The Siren page 5 A man is often secretly oppressed by the role he has to play— by always having to be responsible, in control, and rational. The Siren is the ultimate male fantasy figure because she offers a total release from the limitations of his life. In her presence, which is always heightened and sexually charged, the male feels transported to a realm of pure pleasure. In a world where women are often too timid to project such an image, learn to take control of the male libido by embodying his fantasy. The Rake page 17 A woman never quite feels desired and appreciated enough. She wants attention, but a man is too often distracted and unresponsive. The Rake is a great female fantasy-figure—w hen he desires a woman, brief though that moment may be, he will go to the ends of the earth for her. He may be disloyal, dishonest, and amoral, but that only adds to his appeal. Stir a woman's repressed longings by adapting the Rake's mix of danger and pleasure. The Ideal Lover page 29 Most people have dreams in their youth that get shattered or worn down with age. They find themselves disappointed by people, events, reality, which cannot match their youthful ideals. Ideal Lovers thrive on people's broken dreams, which become lifelong fantasies. You long for romance? Adventure? Lofty spiritual communion? The Ideal Lover reflects your fantasy. He or she is an artist in creating the illusion you require. In a world of disenchantment and baseness, there is limitless seductive power in following the path of the Ideal Lover. xi xii • Contents The Dandy page 41 Most of us feel trapped within the limited roles that the world expects us to play. We are instantly attracted to those who are more fluid than we are—t hose who create their own persona.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  and after all, she was the one in control. What Adams failed to realize was the hall. There, among the that once her defenses were lowered, she was oblivious to how deeply he cushions, reclined a had engaged her emotions. She had not charmed him, he had charmed her. handsome old man with a What he wanted all along was what he got: a personal memoir written by a long beard, whom my brother recognized at once sympathetic foreigner, who gave the world a rather engaging portrait of a as the master of the house. man of whom many were suspicious. • "What can I do for you, Of all the seductive tactics, entering someone's spirit is perhaps the my friend?" asked the old man, as he rose to welcome most devilish of all. It gives your victims the feeling that they are seducing my brother. • When you. The fact that you are indulging them, imitating them, entering their Shakashik replied that he spirit, suggests that you are under their spell. You are not a dangerous se- was a hungry beggar, the old man expressed the ducer to be wary of, but someone compliant and unthreatening. The atten- deepest compassion and tion you pay to them is intoxicating—since you are mirroring them, rent his fine robes, crying: everything they see and hear from you reflects their own ego and tastes. "Is it possible that there should be a man as hungry What a boost to their vanity. All this sets up the seduction, the series of ma- as yourself in a city where neuvers that will turn the dynamic around. Once their defenses are down, I am living? It is, indeed, a they are open to your subtle influence. Soon you will begin to take over the disgrace that I cannot dance, and without even noticing the shift, they will find themselves enter- endure!" Then he comforted my brother, ing your spirit. This is the endgame. adding: "I insist that you stay with me and partake Women are not at their ease except with those who take of my dinner." • With this the master of the house chances with them, and enter into their spirit. clapped his hands and — N I N O N D E L ' E N C L O S called out to one of the slaves: "Bring in the basin and ewer." Then he said to my brother: "Come Keys to Seduction forward, my friend, and wash your hands." • Shakashik rose to do so, One of the great sources of frustration in our lives is other people's but saw neither ewer nor stubbornness. How hard it is to reach them, to make them see things basin. He was bewildered our way. We often have the impression that when they seem to be listening to see his host make to us, and apparently agreeing with us, it is all superficial—the moment we gestures as though he were pouring water on his hands

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  In a book about transness and pregnancy, what are the odds to have gotten a trans editor in Victory Matsui, and a pregnant editor in Caitlin McKenna, both of whom happen to be brilliant? My editors truly made this a better book. And then I was lucky enough to have Emma Caruso come in at the last moment and put the finishing touches on their work. My agent, Kent Wolf, has the best hair in publishing, which I think must be how he has been so successful in advocating for me—well, great hair and that he is kind, smart, and quietly badass. Thank you to Chris Jackson and the One World team for taking a chance on my writing. Jackson Howard, thank you for seeing something in my writing and kicking off this process. Believe it or not, I have an actual mother to thank: Suzanne Torrey, thank you for a lifetime of wisdom. Thank you as well to my father, Scott Peters. David N., this book wouldn’t exist without you. I am grateful to Olive Melissa Minor for joyously spending the first half of her life with me, for both our marriage and our divorce, and the lessons of each reflected in this book. Lastly, to Chrystin Ondersma, my future, whose thoughts, words, and love cannot be separated from the text. BY TORREY PETERS Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones The Masker ABOUT THE AUTHOR Torrey Peters is the author of the novellas Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones and The Masker, which she likes to give out for free on her website (www.torreypeters.com). She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and a Master of Comparative Literature from Dartmouth. She grew up in Chicago and now lives in Brooklyn. Penguin Random House What's next on your reading list? Discover your next great read! Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author. Sign up now.

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  year?” Maintaining one’s vigilance against biases is a chore—but the chance to avoid a costly mistake is sometimes worth the effort. One of the best-known studies of availability suggests that awareness of your own biases can contribute to peace in marriages, and probably in other joint projects. In a famous study, spouses were asked, “How large was your personal contribution to keeping the place tidy, in percentages?” They also answered similar questions about “taking out the garbage,” “initiating social engagements,” etc. Would the self-estimated contributions add up to 100%, or more, or less? As expected, the self-assessed contributions added up to more than 100%. The explanation is a simple availability bias: both spouses remember their own individual efforts and contributions much more clearly than those of the other, and the difference in availability leads to a difference in judged frequency. The bias is not necessarily self-serving: spouses also overestimated their contribution to causing quarrels, although to a smaller extent than their contributions to more desirable outcomes. The same bias contributes to the common observation that many members of a collaborative team feel they have done more than their share and also feel that the others are not adequately grateful for their individual contributions. I am generally not optimistic about the potential for personal control of biases, but this is an exception. The opportunity for successful debiasing exists because the circumstances in which issues of credit allocation come up are easy to identify, the more so because tensions often arise when several people at once feel that their efforts are not adequately recognized. The mere observation that there is usually more than 100% credit to go around is sometimes sufficient to defuse the situation. In any event, it is a good thing for every individual to remember. You will occasionally do more than your share, but it is useful to know that you are likely to have that feeling even when each member of the team feels the same way. The Psychology of Availability A major advance in the understanding of the availability heuristic occurred in the early 1990s, when a group of German psychologists led by Norbert Schwarz raised an intriguing question: How will people’s impressions of the frequency of a category be affected by a requirement to list a specified number of instances? Imagine yourself a subject in that experiment: First, list six instances in which you behaved assertively. Next, evaluate how assertive you are.

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  In the meantime, whenever you see an essentialism-steeped news story about emotion, if you even feel a twinge of doubt, then you’re playing a role in this scientific revolution. Like most important paradigm shifts in science, this one has the potential to transform our health, our laws, and who we are. To forge a new reality. If you’ve learned within these pages that you are an architect of your experience—and the experiences of those around you—then we’re building that new reality together. Acknowledgments They say that it takes a village to raise a child, and this book, which my daughter took to calling her “baby brother,” was no exception. The sheer number of people who contributed their comments, criticism, science, and support over the past three and a half years is a testament to both the richness of the subject area and the wonderful friends, family, and colleagues that I am so fortunate to know. This book had a nontraditional family with more than the usual number of parents. It began life with the editors Courtney Young and Andrea Schulz at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and eighteen months later, both had been wooed away by compelling job offers. For a few months, I was a single parent with support from Bruce Nichols, publisher at HMH and effectively the book’s great-great-grandfather. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt then hired Alex Littlefield as the new editor, who had a strikingly different vision of child-rearing from mine (leading to a stormy adolescence), but as is often the case, the best ideas come from vigorous debate, and I thank Alex for the way we ultimately shepherded a leaner and stronger book to its graduation day and released it into the world. I’m extremely grateful to the book’s adopted uncle, Jamie Ryerson at the New York Times, who helped at the last minute to trim three chapters that had become too lengthy and overwhelmingly technical. I am in awe of Jamie’s skill to pare down material to the absolute essentials while retaining its style and voice. He may look like a mild-mannered editor, but when he stands in just the right light, you can see his knightly armor glinting in the sun. Max Brockman, who is my agent and the village wizard, played an absolutely essential role in bringing this book to life. Not only did he navigate me through the ins and outs of the business, but each time we hit a hurdle during the long writing process, he was always ready with wise council. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  For sharing their expertise in developmental psychology, I offer warm thanks to Linda Camras and Harriet Oster, who were my guides to the emotional capacities of infants and young children. I am also indebted to Fei Xu, Susan Gelman, and Sandy Waxman for reviewing chapter 5, and for their willingness to trample the traditional scientific boundary between cognitive and emotional development, to help me explore the idea that words scaffold the development of emotion concepts in infancy. I am also grateful to Susan Carey for discussions of innate concepts. Chapter 11 on emotion and the legal system would not have been possible without my dear friends Judy Edersheim and Amanda Pustilnik and their insights and encouragement during our long discussions about psychology, neuroscience, and the law; that chapter is best viewed as a collaboration between the three of us. I am grateful to former U.S. federal judge Nancy Gertner for inviting me to contribute to her course on the law and neuroscience at Harvard Law School. I’d also like to thank the many others from the Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital for inviting me into their village. Thanks also to Nita Farahany for the DNA example in chapter 11. This book was made possible by many generous colleagues across diverse fields who offered me their insights. On primate cognition: Eliza Bliss-Moreau, Herb Terrace, and Tetsuro Matsuzawa. On topics related to culture: Aneta Pavlenko, Batja Mesquita, Jeanne Tsai, Michele Gelfand, and Rick Shweder. On the history of smiling: Colin Jones and Mary Beard. On autism: Jillian Sullivan, Matthew Goodwin, and Oliver Wilde-Smith. On essentialism: Susan Gelman, John Coley, and Marjorie Rhodes. On affective realism and economics: Marshall Sonenshine. On contemplative philosophy and practice: Christy Wilson Mendenhall, John Dunne, Larry Barsalou, Paul Condon, Wendy Hasenkamp, Arthur Zajonc, and Tony Back. More generally, an enthusiastic thank-you goes to Jerry Clore for being consistently thoughtful, curious, and supportive; to Helen Mayberg for our multi-year conversation about the puzzle of depression; and to Joe LeDoux, whom I greatly admire for many reasons, not least for his incredible open-mindedness. My discussions with other insightful colleagues also shaped this book, including Amitai Shenhav, Dagmar Sternad, Dave DeSteno, David Borsook, Derek Isaacowitz, Elissa Epel, Emre Demiralp, Iris Berent, Jo-Anne Bachorowski, the late Michael Owren, Jordan Smoller, Philippe Schyns, Rachael Jack, José-Miguel Fernández-Dols, Kevin Ochsner, Kurt Gray, Linda Bartoshuk, Matt Lieberman, Maya Tamir, Naomi Eisenberger, Paul Bloom, Paul Whalen, Margaret Clark, Peter Salovey, Phil Rubin, Steve Cole, Tania Singer, Wendy Mendes, Will Cunningham, Beatrice de Gelder, Leah Summerville, and Joshua Buckholtz.

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  I am especially grateful to my collaborators for their friendship, commitment, and rompingly insightful discussions as we pursued some of the research you’ve just read about. First and foremost, my deepest thanks to Larry Barsalou for his foundational work on concepts; Larry is one of the most creative, rigorous thinkers of his generation, and I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to work with him. Nothing can convey the gratitude that I feel toward Jim Russell, who, when I was a young assistant professor, took my ideas seriously when many of our colleagues thought I was nuts. His seminal work on the affective circumplex is so well-accepted in the field that people rarely cite him for it anymore! Larry and Jim maximize discovery and explanation in their scientific pursuits, rather than fame and fortune, and I find this particularly inspiring (because sometimes in science, the latter interferes with the former). In this way, they remind me of my dissertation advisors, Mike Ross and Eric Woody, to whom I will be forever grateful. I also owe a very big thank-you to Brad Dickerson for helping me to chip away at the false boundaries between emotion and cognition, to Moshe Bar for our work on how affect influences vision (and many other projects), to Tor Wager for our meta-analysis collaboration, and to Paula Pietromonaco for our longstanding collaboration on emotion in relationships. I am particularly grateful to Debi Roberson for making it possible, by our collaboration, for my lab to study the Himba of Namibia, and Alyssa Crittenden for likewise making it possible to study emotion perception in the Hadza of Tanzania. The influence of my newer collaborations can also be seen in this book, and so I send enthusiastic thanks to Kyle Simmons, who works with me on the architecture and function of the predictive brain; Martijn van den Heuvel for listening to my far-out ideas about network connectivity and brain hubs that often turn out to be not so crazy; Wim Vanduffel and Dante Mantini for our work on brain networks in macaques; Talma Hendler for our collaboration on network dynamics while watching emotional films; Wei Gao for allowing me to join the adventure of studying the developing newborn brain; Tim Johnson for his partnership in showing that pattern classification does not provide evidence for neural fingerprints; Stacy Marcella for opening my eyes to the possibilities for studying simulation and prediction with computational models in virtual reality; and Dana Brooks, Deniz Erdogmus, Jennifer Dy, Sarah Brown, Jaume Coll-Font, and the rest of the B/SPIRAL group at Northeastern University for their patience and interest in immigrating to my village, and for crafting a computational framework to test the theory of constructed emotion.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  I went directly to the sheriff’s office inside the jail and explained to the overweight, middle-aged sheriff what the child had told me, and I insisted that they immediately place him in a protected single cell. The sheriff listened with a distracted look on his face, but when I said I was going to see the judge, he agreed to move the child into a protected area immediately. I then went back across the street to the courthouse and found the judge, who called the prosecutor. When the prosecutor arrived in the judge’s chambers, I told them that the child had been sexually abused and raped. They agreed to move him to a nearby juvenile facility within the next several hours. I decided to take on the case. We ultimately got Charlie’s case transferred to juvenile court, where the shooting was adjudicated as a juvenile offense. That meant Charlie wouldn’t be sent to an adult prison, and he would likely be released before he turned eighteen, in just a few years. I visited Charlie regularly, and in time he recovered. He was a smart, sensitive child who was tormented by what he’d done and what he’d been through. At a talk I gave at a church months later, I spoke about Charlie and the plight of incarcerated children. Afterward, an older married couple approached me and insisted that they had to help Charlie. I tried to dissuade these kind people from thinking they could do anything, but I gave them my card and told them they could call me. I didn’t expect to hear from them, but within days they called, and they were persistent. We eventually agreed that they would write a letter to Charlie and send it to me to pass on to him. When I received the letter weeks later, I read it. It was remarkable. Mr. and Mrs. Jennings were a white couple in their mid-seventies from a small community northeast of Birmingham. They were kind and generous people who were active in their local United Methodist church. They never missed a Sunday service and were especially drawn to children in crisis. They spoke softly and always seemed to be smiling but never appeared to be anything less than completely genuine and compassionate. They were affectionate with each other in a way that was endearing, frequently holding hands and leaning into each other. They dressed like farmers and owned ten acres of land, where they grew vegetables and lived simply.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  "No words can convey the loveliness of her appearance," wrote the Duchess d'Abrantes. "The very room grew brighter as she entered. The whole ensemble was so harmonious that her appearance was greeted with a buzz of admiration which continued with utter disregard of all the other women." The key: everything must dazzle, but must also be harmonious, so that no single ornament draws attention. Your presence must be charged, larger than life, a fantasy come true. Ornament is used to cast a spell and distract. The Siren can also use clothing to hint at the sexual, at times overtly but more often by suggesting it rather than screaming it—that would make you seem manipulative. Related to this is the notion of selective disclosure, the revealing of only a part of the body—but a part that will excite and stir the imagination. In the late sixteenth century, Marguerite de Valois, the infa- The Siren • 15 mous daughter of Queen Catherine de Médicis of France, was one of the first women ever to incorporate decolletage in her wardrobe, simply be- cause she had the most beautiful breasts in the realm. For Josephine Bona- parte it was her arms, which she carefully always left bare. Movement and demeanor. In the fifth century B.C., King Kou Chien chose the Chinese Siren Hsi Shih from among all the women of his realm to seduce and destroy his rival Fu Chai, King of Wu; for this purpose, he had the young woman instructed in the arts of seduction. Most important of these was movement—how to move gracefully and suggestively. Hsi Shih learned to give the impression of floating across the floor in her court robes. When she was finally unleashed on Fu Chai, he quickly fell under her spell. She walked and moved like no one he had ever seen. He became obsessed with her tremulous presence, her manner and nonchalant air. Fu Chai fell so deeply in love that he let his kingdom fall to pieces, allowing Kou Chien to march in and conquer it without a fight. The Siren moves gracefully and unhurriedly. The proper gestures, movement, and demeanor for a Siren are like the proper voice: they hint at something exciting, stirring desire without being obvious. Your air must be languorous, as if you had all the time in the world for love and pleasure. Your gestures must have a certain ambiguity, suggesting something both innocent and erotic. Anything that cannot immediately be understood is supremely seductive, and all the more so if it permeates your manner. Symbol: Water.

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  His seminal work on the affective circumplex is so well-accepted in the field that people rarely cite him for it anymore! Larry and Jim maximize discovery and explanation in their scientific pursuits, rather than fame and fortune, and I find this particularly inspiring (because sometimes in science, the latter interferes with the former). In this way, they remind me of my dissertation advisors, Mike Ross and Eric Woody, to whom I will be forever grateful. I also owe a very big thank-you to Brad Dickerson for helping me to chip away at the false boundaries between emotion and cognition, to Moshe Bar for our work on how affect influences vision (and many other projects), to Tor Wager for our meta-analysis collaboration, and to Paula Pietromonaco for our longstanding collaboration on emotion in relationships. I am particularly grateful to Debi Roberson for making it possible, by our collabo ration, for my lab to study the Himba of Namibia, and Alyssa Crittenden for likewise making it possible to study emotion perception in the Hadza of Tanzania. The influence of my newer collaborations can also be seen in this book, and so I send enthusiastic thanks to Kyle Simmons, who works with me on the architecture and function of the predictive brain; Martijn van den Heuvel for listening to my far-out ideas about network connectivity and brain hubs that often turn out to be not so crazy; Wim Vanduffel and Dante Mantini for our work on brain networks in macaques; Talma Hendler for our collaboration on network dynamics while watching emotional films; Wei Gao for allowing me to join the adventure of studying the developing newborn brain; Tim Johnson for his partnership in showing that pattern classification does not provide evidence for neural fingerprints; Stacy Marcella for opening my eyes to the possibilities for studying simulation and prediction with computational models in virtual reality; and Dana Brooks, Deniz Erdogmus, Jennifer Dy, Sarah Brown, Jaume Coll-Font, and the rest of the B/SPIRAL group at Northeastern University for their patience and interest in immigrating to my village, and for crafting a computational framework to test the theory of constructed emotion. This book would not have been possible without the support of the larger village of colleagues who generously shared their expertise on my journey from the land of clinical psychology to the land of neuroscience, with stops in social psychology, psychophysiology, and cognitive science along the way. My friends Jim Blascovich and Karen Quigley mentored me in the basics of the peripheral nervous system, and Karen taught me facial EMG.

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  I am also grateful to Susan Carey for discussions of innate concepts. Chapter 11 on emotion and the legal system would not have been possible without my dear friends Judy Edersheim and Amanda Pustilnik and their insights and encouragement during our long discussions about psychology, neuroscience, and the law; that chapter is best viewed as a collaboration between the three of us. I am grateful to former U.S. federal judge Nancy Gertner for inviting me to contribute to her course on the law and neuroscience at Harvard Law School. I’d also like to thank the many others from the Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital for inviting me into their village. Thanks also to Nita Farahany for the DNA example in chapter 11 . This book was made possible by many generous colleagues across diverse fields who offered me their insights. On primate cognition: Eliza Bliss-Moreau, Herb Terrace, and Tetsuro Matsuzawa. On topics related to culture: Aneta Pavlenko, Batja Mesquita, Jeanne Tsai, Michele Gelfand, and Rick Shweder. On the history of smiling: Colin Jones and Mary Beard. On autism: Jillian Sullivan, Matthew Goodwin, and Oliver Wilde-Smith. On essentialism: Susan Gelman, John Coley, and Marjorie Rhodes. On affective realism and economics: Marshall Sonenshine. On contemplative philosophy and practice: Christy Wilson Mendenhall, John Dunne, Larry Barsalou, Paul Condon, Wendy Hasenkamp, Arthur Zajonc, and Tony Back. More generally, an enthusiastic thank-you goes to Jerry Clore for being consistently thoughtful, curious, and supportive; to Helen Mayberg for our multi-year conversation about the puzzle of depression; and to Joe LeDoux, whom I greatly admire for many reasons, not least for his incredible open-mindedness. My discussions with other insightful colleagues also shaped this book, including Amitai Shenhav, Dagmar Sternad, Dave DeSteno, David Borsook, Derek Isaacowitz, Elissa Epel, Emre Demiralp, Iris Berent, Jo-Anne Bachorowski, the late Michael Owren, Jordan Smoller, Philippe Schyns, Rachael Jack, José-Miguel Fernández-Dols, Kevin Ochsner, Kurt Gray, Linda Bartoshuk, Matt Lieberman, Maya Tamir, Naomi Eisenberger, Paul Bloom, Paul Whalen, Margaret Clark, Peter Salovey, Phil Rubin, Steve Cole, Tania Singer, Wendy Mendes, Will Cunningham, Beatrice de Gelder, Leah Summerville, and Joshua Buckholtz. I benefited greatly from valuable comments and criticisms offered by early readers: Aaron Scott (who is also the extraordinary graphic designer who created most of the figures), Ann Kring (my most faithful reader, who provided valuable insights on every draft), Ajay Satpute, Aleza Wallace, Amanda Pustilnik, Anita Nevyas-Wallace, Anna Neumann, Christy Wilson-Mendenhall, Dana Brooks, Daniel Renfro, Deborah Barrett, Eliza Bliss-Moreau, Emil Moldovan, Eric Anderson, Erika Siegel, Fei Xu, Florin Luca, Gibb Backlund, Herbert Terrace, Ian Kleckner, Jiahe Zhang, Jolie Wormwood, Judy Edersheim, Karen Quigley, Kristen Lindquist, Larry Barsalou, Lorena Chanes, Nicole Betz, Paul Condon, Paul Gade, Sandy Waxman, Shir Atzil, Stephen Barrett, Susan Gelman, Tonya LeBel, Victor Danilchenko, and Zac Rodrigo .

• From My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018)

  self-control, I told her. She said she was trying to be more sensitive to my needs. When she would once have given me advice or commented on the state of the apartment, she now bit her tongue. She complained less. She also started giving me hugs and air kisses whenever she said good-bye. She did this by bending over me on the sofa. I imagine she got in the habit because of her bedbound mother. It made me feel like I was on my deathbed, too. In fact, I appreciated the affection. By Thanksgiving I’d been hibernating for almost six months. Nobody but Reva had touched me. • • • I DIDN’T TELL Dr. Tuttle about my blackouts. I was afraid she’d cut me off out of fear of potential lawsuits. So when I went to see her in December, I just complained that the insomnia had crept up with a vengeance. I lied that I could stay down for no more than a few hours at a time. Bouts of sweat and nausea made me dizzy and restless, I told her. Imaginary noises shook me awake so violently “I thought my building had been bombed or struck by lightning.” “You must have a callus on your cortex,” Dr. Tuttle said, clucking her tongue. “Not figuratively. Not literally, I mean. I’m saying, parenthetically,” she held up her hands and cupped them side by side to demonstrate the punctuation. “You’ve built up a tolerance, but it doesn’t mean the drugs are failing.” “You’re probably right,” I replied. “Not probably.” “Parenthetically speaking, I mean, I probably need something stronger.” “Aha.” “Pillwise, I mean.” “You’re not being sarcastic, I hope,” Dr. Tuttle said. “Of course not. I take my health completely seriously.” “Well, in that case.” “I’ve heard of an anesthetic they give to people for endoscopies. Something that keeps you awake during the procedure, but you can’t remember anything afterward. Something like that would be good. I have a lot of anxiety. And I have an important business meeting coming up later this month.” Really, I just wanted something especially powerful to blindfold me through the holidays. “Give these a try,” Dr. Tuttle said, sliding a sample bottle of pills across her desk. “Infermiterol. If those don’t put you down for the count, I’ll complain directly to the manufacturer in Germany. Take one and let me know how it goes.” “Thank you, doctor.” “Any plans for Christmas?” she asked, scribbling my refills. “Seeing the folks? Where are you from again? Albuquerque?” “My parents are dead.” “I’m sorry to hear that. But I’m not surprised,” Dr. Tuttle said, writing in her file. “Orphans usually suffer from low immunity, psychiatrically speaking. You may consider getting a pet to build up your relational skills. Parrots, I hear, are nonjudgmental.” “I’ll think about that,” I said, taking the sheaf of prescriptions she’d written, and the Infermiterol sample.