Every Day Quotes Week 40
Title: Every Day Quotes
Rating: K
Oct 7
One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
Marie Curie (1867 - 1934), letter to her brother, 1894
Ducky didn’t like to think of his past guests. They were all long beyond his help now, decomposing in the ground somewhere or cremated and their ashes blown to every corner of the earth. His only hope was that he had managed to achieve justice for them in whatever form that had been possible.
Occasionally, one guest would remind him of a past one. He remembered them all, and felt this was more important than where they had ended up. Everyone continued to live after death if they were in someone’s thoughts. His guests, even if they had no one else, would always have him.
Instead, he chose to focus on his present guests and any that would cross his path in the future. He kept himself, his morgue and his medical examiner’s van ready at all times so he could assist whenever necessary. He thought about the future, about the possibility of a larger freezer when people seemed more determined to kill each other than before, and about how he could help whichever poor soul was on his table at the moment.
Perhaps it was an unhealthy attitude, but although looking at the present and the future made him despair for the human race at times, he felt it helped his guests more. And that was what mattered most to him.
~*~*~*~
Oct 8
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny...'
Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)
Abby Scuito loved science. It could answer the vast majority of questions, as long as a person knew what they were doing.
She also loved her job. She liked following thoughts down unfamiliar pathways, examining evidence with an open mind, discovering as much as possible from something that was often so small it was impossible to see with the naked eye, and determining what truly happened in a situation when various people were lying. She trusted in her science to answer any questions posed, even though sometimes it asked new ones.
Her eyes scanned the meteorological data she had obtained from a weather station. Ducky had given Sergeant Rider a tentative time of death of four to five days before the discovery of his body. Now it was her turn to use the available information and come up with an absolute hour than he could not have died before.
It was all to do with procession, the amount of energy required for a blowfly to grow, which was tied to the temperature, and the weather itself at the time she determined. It could be too windy for a blowfly to deposit eggs on a corpse, or there could be too much rain. If she factored in all the variables, she could come up with a much more precise time than Ducky, but it took a lot longer.
She grinned as the final few figures slotted into place. Ducky was out by a whole day. Gibbs was going to love this…
~*~*~*~
Oct 9
To try to be better is to be better.
Charlotte Cushman (1816 - 1876), quoted in O Magazine, December 2003
Jennifer Shepard wasn’t entirely sure how she managed to crack open an eye to greet her visitor, but considering she had a very nasty bout of the flu and had spent the last three days on the couch in her living room, she thought it an achievement.
Her ex-partner stood before her, taking in the blankets and her pajamas. If she’d had the energy, she would have told him to get out until she was more decent, but he’d seen it all before and she knew she would be wasting her breath. He placed the back of his hand on her forehand and she instinctively leant into his cold touch.
“Thought you were joking about the flu,” he informed her.
She glared at him as much as was possible; she had a feeling it failed completely. “You think I’d voluntarily leave you in charge of my agency?”
His face broke out in his familiar crooked grin.
“Jethro,” she warned.
“Relax,” he told her. “It’s in one piece. Fornell was interested in moving into your office - said it had a nice view.”
She decided to give up on the conversation and snuggled deeper into her blankets. He was either going to tell her about how he’d wrecked her precious agency or how he was undoing all her hard work, and she was too tired to get angry at him.
“Jen?”
“Hmmm.”
“Want some chicken soup?”
~*~*~*~
Oct 10
I hope you become comfortable with the use of logic without being deceived into concluding that logic will inevitably lead you to the correct conclusion.
Neil Armstrong (1930 - 2012), USC 2005 graduation
Tony DiNozzo wondered why he was always the last one in the squad room. Excluding Gibbs, as he just plain lived there, only leaving for basement and boat time. But, more often than not, he ended up working more hours than Ziva and McGee.
Tonight, he definitely wasn’t the last. Gibbs had escorted the Director home hours ago and Tony was having some very happy thoughts on exactly what they were getting up to. Could he use this to win the pool, or would everyone demand more proof?
The Probie, taking advantage of Gibbs’ disappearance, had done a vanishing act with Abby. This left Tony with his partner in the squad room, her tapping away at her computer while he watched the sun set.
“You know you can’t act on logic alone,” he called across to her, determined to break the comfortable silence that had settled over them both.
She glanced up from her work, pausing for a moment. “What?”
“Logic,” he repeated.
“It is not about logic,” she replied. “It is about following orders without question.”
“You could show a little emotion every now and then,” he pointed out.
She shook her head; he watched as her hair moved in the lamplight. “Emotion is not necessary to -”
“Sometimes it is,” he interrupted.
Clearly frustrated, she glared at him. “Sometimes emotions get in the way of doing your job.”
“Okay.” He spread his palms in defeat. “Touchy subject. I’ll shut up.” He waited until she had glared at him one final time and returned to her typing, before he muttered under his breath, “Sometimes you can only go by your emotions.”
~*~*~*~
Oct 11
There is no human reason why a child should not admire and emulate his teacher's ability to do sums, rather than the village bum's ability to whittle sticks and smoke cigarettes. The reason why the child does not is plain enough - the bum has put himself on an equality with him and the teacher has not.
Floyd Dell
Leroy Jethro Gibbs was very aware that he kept himself aloof from his team. He didn’t join in with their pranks, he avoided their jokes, and he shut down conversations that were not relevant to their current case.
His team disliked this behavior, but he hadn’t become Team Leader to win any popularity contests. As far as he was concerned, his job was to be separate. His team needed to know he was different to them; they needed to see him focused on each investigation and worrying solely about it.
He knew some team leaders acted differently; they kept themselves on the same level as their team and maintained friendships. He couldn’t see how this worked. If he gossiped with DiNozzo, discussed silly feminine things with Ziva and showed an interest in McGee’s computers, his team might like him more, but it wouldn’t get the job done. His team needed to admire him, to respect him, and they couldn’t do that if he took sides in their arguments or shared scuttlebutt with them.
Despite his best efforts to remain aloof, he was not above showing he cared when necessary. He protected his team as a mother bear did her cubs. He backed them up, supported them whenever they needed his help, and truly cared about them.
However he handled his team, they had become his misfit family.
~*~*~*~
Oct 12
So you see, imagination needs moodling - long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.
Brenda Ueland
Tony DiNozzo did not believe in hard work.
Considering he worked on Agent Gibbs’ team, this ran the risk of being a suicidal habit. Gibbs expected his agents to work every hour possible and then some, to work until justice was achieved, whatever the personal cost. He didn’t believe in breaks and vacations on principle.
But Tony believed genius could not be rushed. He preferred to work smart rather than work hard. While his teammates slaved away over their computers and phones, he napped, allowed ideas to work their way around his brain, considered various options and decided which path to follow. If his mind had time to think, it would produce excellent results.
This work ethic clashed with his teammates, especially since in his downtime he liked to gossip like an old woman or pull pranks. Ziva spent a large amount of her time threatening to remove various limbs, while the Probie, who couldn’t harm a fly, simply sighed continually and tried to avoid the inevitable headslaps resulting from Tony’s behavior. He got less than he expected; apparently Gibbs understood how genius worked. On the inside anyway - el jefe definitely preferred to see him working hard and keeping his mouth shut.
He began to doodle on a random piece of paper. Time to allow his brain to percolate.
~*~*~*~
Oct 13
There but for the grace of God go [I].
John Bradford, Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins
Jennifer Shepard did not dislike paperwork, but when the files on her desk seemed to resemble half the Amazonian rainforest, she had a few issues with it.
She worked long hours mainly to keep on top of it all. The hours a normal person kept in the office were often spent in meetings and in MTAC, overseeing operations, politely persuading the higher-ups to give her agency more money, managing the latest media crisis a certain Agent Gibbs had caused. She played telephone tag with senators and lunched with congressmen.
But she still had all her paperwork to deal with, and hence she worked long into the night. How Morrow had seemed so relaxed all the time was beyond her; she wanted to find a way to prevent half this paper crossing her desk. Did she really need to check every case file personally? Surely Legal would be better suited to making sure there were no holes in a case.
Her feet propped up on her desk, high heels long kicked off and abandoned on the floor, she picked up the next case file. One of Gibbs’. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh as she read between the lines or resist the urge to kill him for his reckless ways. But as she opened it, something fluttered to the carpet.
She picked it up, slightly bemused to find it was a newspaper clipping. Since when did he bother to read a newspaper? The article was short, informing its readers of the death of Charlotte Billingham, who had met her demise tripping and breaking her neck while wearing four inch stilettos.
Glancing at her own four inch stilettos on the floor, she smirked. Jethro always knew how to tease her.
Rating: K
Oct 7
One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
Marie Curie (1867 - 1934), letter to her brother, 1894
Ducky didn’t like to think of his past guests. They were all long beyond his help now, decomposing in the ground somewhere or cremated and their ashes blown to every corner of the earth. His only hope was that he had managed to achieve justice for them in whatever form that had been possible.
Occasionally, one guest would remind him of a past one. He remembered them all, and felt this was more important than where they had ended up. Everyone continued to live after death if they were in someone’s thoughts. His guests, even if they had no one else, would always have him.
Instead, he chose to focus on his present guests and any that would cross his path in the future. He kept himself, his morgue and his medical examiner’s van ready at all times so he could assist whenever necessary. He thought about the future, about the possibility of a larger freezer when people seemed more determined to kill each other than before, and about how he could help whichever poor soul was on his table at the moment.
Perhaps it was an unhealthy attitude, but although looking at the present and the future made him despair for the human race at times, he felt it helped his guests more. And that was what mattered most to him.
~*~*~*~
Oct 8
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny...'
Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)
Abby Scuito loved science. It could answer the vast majority of questions, as long as a person knew what they were doing.
She also loved her job. She liked following thoughts down unfamiliar pathways, examining evidence with an open mind, discovering as much as possible from something that was often so small it was impossible to see with the naked eye, and determining what truly happened in a situation when various people were lying. She trusted in her science to answer any questions posed, even though sometimes it asked new ones.
Her eyes scanned the meteorological data she had obtained from a weather station. Ducky had given Sergeant Rider a tentative time of death of four to five days before the discovery of his body. Now it was her turn to use the available information and come up with an absolute hour than he could not have died before.
It was all to do with procession, the amount of energy required for a blowfly to grow, which was tied to the temperature, and the weather itself at the time she determined. It could be too windy for a blowfly to deposit eggs on a corpse, or there could be too much rain. If she factored in all the variables, she could come up with a much more precise time than Ducky, but it took a lot longer.
She grinned as the final few figures slotted into place. Ducky was out by a whole day. Gibbs was going to love this…
~*~*~*~
Oct 9
To try to be better is to be better.
Charlotte Cushman (1816 - 1876), quoted in O Magazine, December 2003
Jennifer Shepard wasn’t entirely sure how she managed to crack open an eye to greet her visitor, but considering she had a very nasty bout of the flu and had spent the last three days on the couch in her living room, she thought it an achievement.
Her ex-partner stood before her, taking in the blankets and her pajamas. If she’d had the energy, she would have told him to get out until she was more decent, but he’d seen it all before and she knew she would be wasting her breath. He placed the back of his hand on her forehand and she instinctively leant into his cold touch.
“Thought you were joking about the flu,” he informed her.
She glared at him as much as was possible; she had a feeling it failed completely. “You think I’d voluntarily leave you in charge of my agency?”
His face broke out in his familiar crooked grin.
“Jethro,” she warned.
“Relax,” he told her. “It’s in one piece. Fornell was interested in moving into your office - said it had a nice view.”
She decided to give up on the conversation and snuggled deeper into her blankets. He was either going to tell her about how he’d wrecked her precious agency or how he was undoing all her hard work, and she was too tired to get angry at him.
“Jen?”
“Hmmm.”
“Want some chicken soup?”
~*~*~*~
Oct 10
I hope you become comfortable with the use of logic without being deceived into concluding that logic will inevitably lead you to the correct conclusion.
Neil Armstrong (1930 - 2012), USC 2005 graduation
Tony DiNozzo wondered why he was always the last one in the squad room. Excluding Gibbs, as he just plain lived there, only leaving for basement and boat time. But, more often than not, he ended up working more hours than Ziva and McGee.
Tonight, he definitely wasn’t the last. Gibbs had escorted the Director home hours ago and Tony was having some very happy thoughts on exactly what they were getting up to. Could he use this to win the pool, or would everyone demand more proof?
The Probie, taking advantage of Gibbs’ disappearance, had done a vanishing act with Abby. This left Tony with his partner in the squad room, her tapping away at her computer while he watched the sun set.
“You know you can’t act on logic alone,” he called across to her, determined to break the comfortable silence that had settled over them both.
She glanced up from her work, pausing for a moment. “What?”
“Logic,” he repeated.
“It is not about logic,” she replied. “It is about following orders without question.”
“You could show a little emotion every now and then,” he pointed out.
She shook her head; he watched as her hair moved in the lamplight. “Emotion is not necessary to -”
“Sometimes it is,” he interrupted.
Clearly frustrated, she glared at him. “Sometimes emotions get in the way of doing your job.”
“Okay.” He spread his palms in defeat. “Touchy subject. I’ll shut up.” He waited until she had glared at him one final time and returned to her typing, before he muttered under his breath, “Sometimes you can only go by your emotions.”
~*~*~*~
Oct 11
There is no human reason why a child should not admire and emulate his teacher's ability to do sums, rather than the village bum's ability to whittle sticks and smoke cigarettes. The reason why the child does not is plain enough - the bum has put himself on an equality with him and the teacher has not.
Floyd Dell
Leroy Jethro Gibbs was very aware that he kept himself aloof from his team. He didn’t join in with their pranks, he avoided their jokes, and he shut down conversations that were not relevant to their current case.
His team disliked this behavior, but he hadn’t become Team Leader to win any popularity contests. As far as he was concerned, his job was to be separate. His team needed to know he was different to them; they needed to see him focused on each investigation and worrying solely about it.
He knew some team leaders acted differently; they kept themselves on the same level as their team and maintained friendships. He couldn’t see how this worked. If he gossiped with DiNozzo, discussed silly feminine things with Ziva and showed an interest in McGee’s computers, his team might like him more, but it wouldn’t get the job done. His team needed to admire him, to respect him, and they couldn’t do that if he took sides in their arguments or shared scuttlebutt with them.
Despite his best efforts to remain aloof, he was not above showing he cared when necessary. He protected his team as a mother bear did her cubs. He backed them up, supported them whenever they needed his help, and truly cared about them.
However he handled his team, they had become his misfit family.
~*~*~*~
Oct 12
So you see, imagination needs moodling - long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.
Brenda Ueland
Tony DiNozzo did not believe in hard work.
Considering he worked on Agent Gibbs’ team, this ran the risk of being a suicidal habit. Gibbs expected his agents to work every hour possible and then some, to work until justice was achieved, whatever the personal cost. He didn’t believe in breaks and vacations on principle.
But Tony believed genius could not be rushed. He preferred to work smart rather than work hard. While his teammates slaved away over their computers and phones, he napped, allowed ideas to work their way around his brain, considered various options and decided which path to follow. If his mind had time to think, it would produce excellent results.
This work ethic clashed with his teammates, especially since in his downtime he liked to gossip like an old woman or pull pranks. Ziva spent a large amount of her time threatening to remove various limbs, while the Probie, who couldn’t harm a fly, simply sighed continually and tried to avoid the inevitable headslaps resulting from Tony’s behavior. He got less than he expected; apparently Gibbs understood how genius worked. On the inside anyway - el jefe definitely preferred to see him working hard and keeping his mouth shut.
He began to doodle on a random piece of paper. Time to allow his brain to percolate.
~*~*~*~
Oct 13
There but for the grace of God go [I].
John Bradford, Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins
Jennifer Shepard did not dislike paperwork, but when the files on her desk seemed to resemble half the Amazonian rainforest, she had a few issues with it.
She worked long hours mainly to keep on top of it all. The hours a normal person kept in the office were often spent in meetings and in MTAC, overseeing operations, politely persuading the higher-ups to give her agency more money, managing the latest media crisis a certain Agent Gibbs had caused. She played telephone tag with senators and lunched with congressmen.
But she still had all her paperwork to deal with, and hence she worked long into the night. How Morrow had seemed so relaxed all the time was beyond her; she wanted to find a way to prevent half this paper crossing her desk. Did she really need to check every case file personally? Surely Legal would be better suited to making sure there were no holes in a case.
Her feet propped up on her desk, high heels long kicked off and abandoned on the floor, she picked up the next case file. One of Gibbs’. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh as she read between the lines or resist the urge to kill him for his reckless ways. But as she opened it, something fluttered to the carpet.
She picked it up, slightly bemused to find it was a newspaper clipping. Since when did he bother to read a newspaper? The article was short, informing its readers of the death of Charlotte Billingham, who had met her demise tripping and breaking her neck while wearing four inch stilettos.
Glancing at her own four inch stilettos on the floor, she smirked. Jethro always knew how to tease her.