22
" Consider again the mated pair with which we began the chapter. Both partners, as selfish machines, ‘want’ sons and daughters in equal numbers. To this extent they agree. Where they disagree is in who is going to bear the brunt of the cost of rearing each one of those children. Each individual wants as many surviving children as possible. The less he or she is obliged to invest in any one of those children, the more children he or she can have. The obvious way to achieve this desirable state of affairs is to induce your sexual partner to invest more than his or her fair share of resources in each child, leaving you free to have other children with other partners. This would be a desirable strategy for either sex, but it is more difficult for the female to achieve. Since she starts by investing more than the male, in the form of her large, food-rich egg, a mother is already at the moment of conception ‘committed’ to each child more deeply than the father is. She stands to lose more if the child dies than the father does. More to the point, she would have to invest more than the father in the future in order to bring a new substitute child up to the same level of development. If she tried the tactic of leaving the father holding the baby, while she went off with another male, the father might, at relatively small cost to himself, retaliate by abandoning the baby too. Therefore, at least in the early stages of child development, if any abandoning is going to be done, it is likely to be the father who abandons the mother rather than the other way around. Similarly, females can be expected to invest more in children than males, not only at the outset, but throughout development. So, in mammals for example, it is the female who incubates the foetus in her own body, the female who makes the milk to suckle it when it is born, the female who bears the brunt of the load of bringing it up and protecting it. The female sex is exploited, and the fundamental evolutionary basis for the exploitation is the fact that eggs are larger than sperms. "
― Richard Dawkins , The Selfish Gene
24
" Out of the woman's great brown breast the milk gushed forth for the child, milk as white as snow, and when the child suckled at the one breast it flowed like a fountain from the other, ans she let it flow. There was more than enough for the child, greedy though he was, life enough for many children, and she let it flow out carelessly, conscious of her abundance. There was always more. Sometimes she lifted her breast and let it flow out upon the ground to save her clothing, and it sank into the earth and made a soft, dark, rich spot in the field. The child fat and good-natured and ate of the inexhaustible life his mother gave him. "
― Pearl S. Buck , The Good Earth (House of Earth, #1)
26
" She reached for the milk and honey soap, then poured it into the puff, but when she started washing him with it, he chuckled.
“Uh, sweetheart?”
“Hmm?” Candice mumbled as she stared at some interesting spot on his arm.
“Real men don’t use puffs,” he said, amused and turned on by having Candice’s undivided attention.
She finally managed to drag her gaze away from his forearm and stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “You can’t be serious?” When he only shrugged, she rolled her eyes. “What does it matter what I use, so long as you’re clean?”
“It matters, believe me.” Blade knew he sounded absurd but he couldn’t help it. It was bad enough he’d let her put bandages on a few measly cuts; if word got out he’d let her use a peach-colored puff and milk-and-honey bath soap he’d never hear the end of it.
A man had to put his foot down somewhere. "
― Anne Rainey , Tasting Candy (Vaughn, #2)
27
" He's outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)
And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard's.
And when the larder's looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,
Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke's been stifled,
Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair -
Ay, there's the wonder of the thing! Macavity's not there!
And when the Foreign Office find a Treaty's gone astray,
Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way,
There may be a scrap of paper in the hall or on the stair -
But it's useless to investigate - Mcavity's not there!
And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:
'It must have been Macavity!' - but he's a mile away.
You'll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,
Or engaged in doing complicated long-division sums.
Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibi, and one or two to spaer:
At whatever time the deed took place - MACAVITY WASN'T THERE!
And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time
Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime! "
― T.S. Eliot , Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
28
" Opening the freezer, Easy smiled. God bless the Rixeys’ ice-cream addiction. There were so many containers, it seemed entirely plausible that they’d robbed an ice-cream delivery truck. He sorted through the tubs until he found a container of chocolate.
Bingo.
Next, he grabbed the milk from the fridge. And then he opened a bunch of cabinets until he found a blender at the back of one of them. The layer of dust on its surfaces told of how long it had gone unused. He rinsed and wiped it off, then brought the detachable pitcher to the other counter, where the ice cream lay waiting.
Shane’s expression was two seconds away from amused.
“Not a word, McCallan.”
He held up his hands and shook his head, but he couldn’t hold back the smile. Fucker.
Scoop, scoop, scoop, milk. Lid on, Easy placed the container on the blender and hit mix. Two minutes later, he had something approximating a very thick milk shake. He spooned it into a glass, then gathered the bagel and soup. Next he built his sandwich, sneaking pieces of beef and cheese as he worked.
“Damn, that looks good,” Shane said, pushing off the stool and grabbing a plate for himself. “Think I’ll make some food for me and Sara, too.”
Easy suddenly felt less self-conscious with Shane making food for his woman, too.
Whoa. He froze with a piece of rye bread in his hand. Jenna was not his woman.
But maybe she could be.
Slapping the bread on top of the lettuce, Easy’s thoughts spun—he came up with lots of reasons why it probably wasn’t a good idea, but that didn’t make him want it any less.
Mid-sandwich-making, Shane spoke in low, even tones. “We don’t have to do that thing where I tell you to handle Jenna with care if you’re thinking of starting something with her, do we?”
For. Fuck. Sake.
Not that Easy was particularly surprised by the question. Hadn’t he been half expecting it? And, his brain noted with interest, it wasn’t a warning off.
“Nope.”
“I didn’t think so,” Shane said in that same casual, even tone. “I see how protective you are of her, Easy, and I’m glad for that. I know you’ll treat her right, so I’m not saying a thing about it, except handle with care.”
Nodding, Easy concentrated on making the floor stand still under his feet. “I like her, Shane,” he finally said, echoing the conversation he and Shane had had a few nights ago about Shane’s growing feelings for Sara. And, well, hi, how ya doin’, Mr. Hypocrite, Easy had told Shane he had to come clean with the team. Despite the fact that Easy hadn’t done so himself. Still.
“Yeah,” Shane said, clapping him on the back of the neck and squeezing. “I know.” Wow.
From the thin cabinet next to the oven Easy retrieved a baking sheet to use as a tray. Improvisation he could do. He loaded it down with everything he thought they’d need, lifted it into his arms and then he was all about getting back to Jenna. "
― Laura Kaye , Hard to Hold on To (Hard Ink, #2.5)
29
" When we came out of the cookhouse, we found the boy's father, the Indian man who had been grazing the horses in the pasture, waiting for us. He wanted someone to tell his troubles to. He looked about guardedly, afraid that the Señora might overhear him.
'Take a look at me' he said. I don't even know how old I am. When I was young, the Señor brought me here. He promised to pay me and give me a plot of my own. 'Look at my clothes' he said, pointing to the patches covering his body. 'I can't remember how many years I've been wearing them. I have no others. I live in a mud hut with my wife and sons. They all work for the Señor like me. They don't go to school. They don't know how to read or write; they don't even speak Spanish. We work for the master, raise his cattle and work his fields. We only get rice and plantains to eat. Nobody takes care of us when we are sick. The women here have their babies in these filthy huts.'
'Why don't you eat meat or at least milk the cows?' I asked.
'We aren't allowed to slaughter a cow. And the milk goes to the calves. We can't even have chicken or pork - only if an animal gets sick and dies. Once I raised a pig in my yard' he went on. 'She had a litter of three. When the Señor came back he told the foreman to shoot them. That's the only time we ever had good meat.'
'I don't mind working for the Señor but I want him to keep his promise. I want a piece of land of my own so I can grow rice and yucca and raise a few chickens and pigs. That's all.' 'Doesn't he pay you anything?' Kevin asked. 'He says he pays us but he uses our money to buy our food. We never get any cash. Kind sirs, maybe you can help me to persuade the master . Just one little plot is all I want. The master has land, much land.'
We were shocked by his tale. Marcus took out a notebook and pen. 'What's his name?'. He wrote down the name. The man didn't know the address. He only knew that the Señor lived in La Paz.
Marcus was infuriated. 'When I find the owner of the ranch, I'll spit right in his eye. What a lousy bastard! I mean, it's really incredible'. 'That's just the way things are,' Karl said. 'It's sad but there's nothing we can do about it. "
― Yossi Ghinsberg , Jungle: A Harrowing True Story of Survival
30
" There's a theme that appears in much of your work," I say to Maurice on my last visit to Connecticut, " and I can only hint at it because it's difficult to formulate or describe. It has something to do with the lines: 'As I went over the water/the water went over me' [from As I Went over the Water] or 'I'm in the milk and the milk's in me' [from Night Kitchen]." " Obviously I have one theme, and it's even in the book I'm working on right now. It's not that I have such original ideas, just that I'm good at doing variations on the same idea over and over again. You can't imagine how relieved I was to find out that Henry James admitted he had only a couple of themes and that all of his books were based on them. That's all we need as artists - one power-driven fantasy or obsession, then to be clever enough to do variations… like a series of variations by Mozart. They're so good that you forget they're based on one theme. The same things draw me, the same images…" " What is this one obsession?" " I'm not about to tell you - not because it's a secret, but because I can't verbalize it." " There's a line by Bob Dylan in 'Just Like a Woman' which talks about being 'inside the rain.'" " Inside the rain?" " When it's raining outside," I explain, " I often feel inside myself, as if I were inside the rain… as if the rain were my self. That's the sense I get from Dylan's image and from your books as well." " It's strange you say that," Maurice answers, " because rain has become one of the potent images of my new book. It sort of scares me that you mentioned that line. Maybe that's what rain means. It's such an important ingredient in this new work, and I've never understood what it meant. There was a thing about me and rain when I was a child: if I could summon it up in one sentence, I'd be happy to. It's such connected tissue… "
