Otto Bera

“Catholic.”
― Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

“Mom, please don't use 'the happy voice.' It reminds me of the day Tinkles died."
"Who was Tinkles?" Sue asked around a mouthful of pancake.
"My cat. When I was five, Tinkles died choking on a mouse that was a bit ambitious for a kitten to eat."
"It was terribly traumatic for Aurelia because it was the first time she'd experienced loss." 
"What did you do to help her get through it?" 
Rosalind smiled at Mother Guardian. "Well, after a good cry, we performed an autopsy."
Aurelia reached for her mother's hand. "I never thanked you for that.”
― Therisa Peimer, Taming Flame

“to show us the way—the easier life is to handle.
'So, to begin, we have to put a sticky note on the bathroom mirror, or tell a friend to call us first thing in the morning, anything to remind ourselves to set up an expectation for Synchronicity first thing each day. Eventually, it becomes a habit.

And once all the mysterious coincidences are happening and our destiny seems to be unfolding, all that is left is to stay in that flow.”
He paused dramatically.

“And to do that,” he went on, “we have to learn to communicate what’s going on with us to others.”
“What?”
“Think about what happens when we lose the Flow,” he explained.
“Doesn’t it occur because we hit some situation where we have to interact with others who aren’t in a flow, and who can’t readily see the meanings we are seeing? The effect is to knock us out of it altogether.”

I thought about what happened to me with the skeptic. It was certainly true in that case.
“When I’m in the flow,” I said, “I usually try to get away from most people, so they can’t knock me out of it.”
“I know,” Wil said in a mock accusatory tone.

“Are you saying' 'I asked, “that I should have taken the time to talk with that skeptic, even though that’s not what I wanted to do?”

“No, I’m suggesting that you should have been open and truthful with him, maybe asking him to wait a minute while you talked to the people at the table. He was needling you, but you didn’t lose your flow because of him.
You lost it because you didn’t find a way to honestly communicate who you were and what you were doing.”

“I don’t think he was interested in hearing anything from me.”

“You’re missing the point. I’m not telling you to defend yourself or to convince him of anything. You just have to give him the truth of the situation as you see it, with the main purpose being to keep yourself centered in the flow.”
― James Redfield, The Twelfth Insight: The Hour of Decision

“Around two or three times a year, we would notice the wind blowing harder than usual, which meant a giant wave was coming.”
― Steven Decker, Addicted to Time