Every Day Quotes Week 41
Title: Every Day Quotes
Rating: K
Oct 14
I think that when you invite people to your home, you invite them to yourself.
Oprah Winfrey (1954 - ), 20th Anniversary DVD
Ducky entered the squad room with a smile on his face. Today was a good day. It was Sunday morning, the sun was shining, and his guests had all been dealt with and were awaiting familial arrangements.
Jethro and his team were in their usual places, having unfortunately drawn the weekend shift. But for once, it looked as though naval personnel and marines had refrained from killing each other; Jethro would never allow Anthony to get away with making paper airplanes so obviously on his desk if they had any work to do.
“Good morning, Ducky.” Ziva was the first to notice him, her Mossad training picking up on his movements and determining who he was without turning around.
“Boker tov,” he replied, finding himself embroiled in the familiar round of greetings. Jethro simply looked up from his work and raised his eyebrows.
Ducky resisted a grin; for a man who said almost nothing, Jethro could be very expressive when he wished to be.
“I was wondering if anyone had any important plans tonight.” He addressed them all, watching as they each shook their heads in turn. “A lady friend has given me a magnificent chicken for my tea tonight, and I couldn’t possibly eat it alone. Since you drew the weekend shift, I thought you might wish to partake of it with me.”
Anthony cheered so loudly at the idea that Jethro looked as though he would rise out of his seat to deliver a headslap. Meanwhile, Ziva and Timothy began thanking him and wondering if they could supply anything.
“Of course not,” he assured them. “Come as you are whenever Jethro allows you to leave.”
He smiled to himself as he made for the elevator. Naturally, the invitation needed to be extended to others.
~*~*~*~
Oct 15
Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.
Hyman Rickover (1900 - 1986)
“Why do we have to do this?”
Timothy McGee looked up at Tony’s whine. “The Director felt some of the regulations needed clarifying,” he explained, wondering on which planet Tony’s mind had been during the meeting in the conference room.
“I got that,” Tony snorted. “But ‘no beverages in MTAC’, ‘no unauthorized games on agency computers’, ‘no magazines that could lead to a sexual harassment suit’? Come on!”
While Tim privately felt Ziva would only report Tony’s issues of GSM lying around if he pulled an insane prank on her, the games on Tony’s computer definitely needed to go. He spent far too much of his time playing on them.
And it wasn’t as though anyone (expect possibly Abby) would find the unauthorized games on his computer.
“It’s just a few changes,” Tim pointed out. “And anyway, there are all in the regulations. They’ve always been there. The Director just feels some of them are being flouted a little too much.”
“A few changes!” Tony protested. “Except for the ban on hacking, which applies to you, every single one of them affects me!”
Tim sighed. “Look, I know the Director said this behavior would be cracked down on. But have you ever paid attention in the past?”
Tony shook his head; Tim wasn’t even slightly surprised.
“There’ll be a crackdown,” Tim confided. “For about two weeks. And then everyone will forget about it and you can carry on as you did before.”
“Oh,” Tony realized, as Gibbs appeared from his latest coffee run and hit him across the back of the head.
“Except for Gibbs,” Tim muttered under his breath. “He never forgets.”
~*~*~*~
Oct 16
Determine never to be idle... It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
Jimmy Palmer couldn’t remember the last time he had been deliberately idle in Autopsy.
His job as Doctor Mallard’s assistant was to learn everything he could and take the weight off his mentor’s shoulders. In doing this, he tried his hand at every task, believing he learnt best by having a go. He stitched up corpses, he anticipated the instruments Doctor Mallard would need and handed them to him before he could ask, he kept the chemical cupboard in Autopsy fully stocked at all times, and he kept the whole place sparkling clean.
It was a tiring job, but his mentor thanked him and praised him whenever necessary. He felt as though he was learning the ropes and slowly but surely getting to understand how a medical examiner went about his work. He dealt with grieving families and funeral homes that didn’t care. He made sure Janitorial knew what they needed.
One day, he would have his own practice somewhere. And he would have to stand on his own two feet, without an assistant of his own. He had to be confident and able to do every task required of him; he couldn’t keep turning to Doctor Mallard to help him. With all the tasks to learn, he didn’t have time to be idle, to play around and slack off. He needed to keep his nose to the grindstone.
And one day, he would get to where he wanted to be.
~*~*~*~
Oct 17
Good habits result from resisting temptation.
Ancient Proverb
Abby Scuito stared at the cupcake sitting on the desk that was normally covered with evidence.
It was the sole item on the table, sitting right in the very centre. A triple chocolate cupcake, covered in lashings of chocolate icing and chocolate curls sprinkled liberally on top. It sat in all its glory, filling her lab with the scent of chocolate and tempting her to eat it.
Except she couldn’t. It was her last day of cutting chocolate from her diet; tomorrow she could eat it, today she couldn’t. Tony had gotten his dates mixed up when he had bought this for her. Unable to stand the kicked puppy dog look on his face, she had solemnly informed him she would take it off his hands and not eat it until tomorrow.
Mainly because she was almost completely certain the cupcake wouldn’t survive in the squad room.
And so it sat on her table, tempting her. She stared at it, crouched down at eye level. There had never been a better cupcake inside her lab, never been a more delicious cupcake sitting on her table. Perhaps she could just steal one single chocolate curl, no one would ever know…
She snatched her hand back. No, she would control herself. It would be her reward for surviving a month without chocolate. Smiling to herself, she turned around and continued her work.
~*~*~*~
Oct 18
The married are those who have taken the terrible risk of intimacy and, having taken it, know life without intimacy to be impossible.
Carolyn Heilbrun (1926 - )
Leroy Jethro Gibbs had more than his fair share of ex-wives behind him. When he thought about it, he knew why he had married each one of them.
His marriage to Shannon had been perfect. He had not been able to conceive the idea of living without her; even when he had been overseas, he had counted the time until he was back by her side. Until she had been ripped from him forever.
When he had finally found his feet, he had attempted to recreate his marriage. He had found redheads who loved him and married them. But he hadn’t loved them back and that was deliberate. He couldn’t love someone in the same way he had loved Shannon for fear that history would repeat itself, for fear he would never recover a second time.
He knew that was where he had gone wrong. If he had loved any one of his new wives, he could have made an attempt to hold another marriage together. But he hadn’t loved them, he’d loved the idea of another safe, stable marriage, and thus doomed the whole enterprise from the start.
Finally, he had figured out where he was going wrong. And then he started gathering a team around him, finding people as flawed as himself and drawing them together in a pseudo-family. Now he had a second family, one he wouldn’t give up for the world.
~*~*~*~
Oct 19
I admit it's tempting to wish for the perfect boss, or the perfect parent, or the perfect outfit, but maybe the best any of us can do is not quit. Play the hand we've been given and accessorize the outfit we've got.
Allan Heinberg, Sex and the City, A 'Vogue' Idea, 2002
“Can you imagine what it would be like if we had a different boss?” Tony wondered out loud.
“You mean like Patterson?” Ziva questioned. “Because I would have to inform him of his body odor problem.”
“I think he already knows about that, Zee-vah,” he retorted.
“Because you refuse to have a conversation with the man without holding your nose,” McGee piped up.
“Back on topic.” Tony decided, ignoring that it was usually him who derailed team conversations. “What would it be like if we had the perfect boss?”
“We already have him,” Ziva answered instantly. “Except he needs to be more cheerful and give us more time off.”
“See, that’s what I mean,” Tony grinned. “We have a good boss -” He paused and looked around, wanting to be absolutely certain the boss in question wasn’t skulking around somewhere waiting to deliver three stinging headslaps. “But we don’t have a perfect one.”
“Kinder,” McGee decided, apparently satisfied Gibbs wasn’t about to kill them all. “One who understood computers.”
Tony snorted. “No one is as intimate with computers as you,” he countered. “I think… I’d prefer a female boss.”
“So you could google her?” Ziva queried, a knowing smile on her face.
“Ogle,” McGee corrected helpfully.
“With long legs, a killer smile, stunning… You’re right behind me, aren’t you Boss?”
The headslap was harder than usual.
“Thank you, Boss.”
“Don’t thank me.” Director Shepard came into his line of sight. “I’m sure he’ll be very interested to hear what you’ve been discussing.”
~*~*~*~
Oct 20
Money alone sets all the world in motion.
Publilius Syrus (~100 BC), Maxims
Tony DiNozzo continued to search through Ziva’s desk even as he heard her objection.
He knew he was risking various limbs, but he could deal with that later. He had something more important to handle first. Finding his wallet.
He knew he’d had it this morning; McGee had owed him ten bucks after losing a bet, and he’d tucked the bill into his wallet. But he wasn’t sure what had happened to it since. Gibbs had sent him to Ducky, Ducky had sent him to Abby, and Abby had kept him in her lab for half an hour with a tale about Agent Wofford chasing an alligator down the road while on assignment in Florida after the creature had swallowed her badge.
He could easily have lost his precious wallet at any of these points, but he doubted it. Ziva had spent the past few days practicing her pickpocket skills; he’d already lost his car keys, comb, Mighty Mouse stapler and letter opener to her. And now she had stolen his wallet. Probably in revenge for the ten bucks McGee had owed him.
“Remove that hand from my drawer before I remove it for you and beat you to death with it,” she warned.
“I need my wallet,” he reminded her. “I’m taking Laura from Legal out for lunch.”
“I do not have your wallet, ahabal,” she replied. “Now remove your hand immediately.”
Rating: K
Oct 14
I think that when you invite people to your home, you invite them to yourself.
Oprah Winfrey (1954 - ), 20th Anniversary DVD
Ducky entered the squad room with a smile on his face. Today was a good day. It was Sunday morning, the sun was shining, and his guests had all been dealt with and were awaiting familial arrangements.
Jethro and his team were in their usual places, having unfortunately drawn the weekend shift. But for once, it looked as though naval personnel and marines had refrained from killing each other; Jethro would never allow Anthony to get away with making paper airplanes so obviously on his desk if they had any work to do.
“Good morning, Ducky.” Ziva was the first to notice him, her Mossad training picking up on his movements and determining who he was without turning around.
“Boker tov,” he replied, finding himself embroiled in the familiar round of greetings. Jethro simply looked up from his work and raised his eyebrows.
Ducky resisted a grin; for a man who said almost nothing, Jethro could be very expressive when he wished to be.
“I was wondering if anyone had any important plans tonight.” He addressed them all, watching as they each shook their heads in turn. “A lady friend has given me a magnificent chicken for my tea tonight, and I couldn’t possibly eat it alone. Since you drew the weekend shift, I thought you might wish to partake of it with me.”
Anthony cheered so loudly at the idea that Jethro looked as though he would rise out of his seat to deliver a headslap. Meanwhile, Ziva and Timothy began thanking him and wondering if they could supply anything.
“Of course not,” he assured them. “Come as you are whenever Jethro allows you to leave.”
He smiled to himself as he made for the elevator. Naturally, the invitation needed to be extended to others.
~*~*~*~
Oct 15
Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.
Hyman Rickover (1900 - 1986)
“Why do we have to do this?”
Timothy McGee looked up at Tony’s whine. “The Director felt some of the regulations needed clarifying,” he explained, wondering on which planet Tony’s mind had been during the meeting in the conference room.
“I got that,” Tony snorted. “But ‘no beverages in MTAC’, ‘no unauthorized games on agency computers’, ‘no magazines that could lead to a sexual harassment suit’? Come on!”
While Tim privately felt Ziva would only report Tony’s issues of GSM lying around if he pulled an insane prank on her, the games on Tony’s computer definitely needed to go. He spent far too much of his time playing on them.
And it wasn’t as though anyone (expect possibly Abby) would find the unauthorized games on his computer.
“It’s just a few changes,” Tim pointed out. “And anyway, there are all in the regulations. They’ve always been there. The Director just feels some of them are being flouted a little too much.”
“A few changes!” Tony protested. “Except for the ban on hacking, which applies to you, every single one of them affects me!”
Tim sighed. “Look, I know the Director said this behavior would be cracked down on. But have you ever paid attention in the past?”
Tony shook his head; Tim wasn’t even slightly surprised.
“There’ll be a crackdown,” Tim confided. “For about two weeks. And then everyone will forget about it and you can carry on as you did before.”
“Oh,” Tony realized, as Gibbs appeared from his latest coffee run and hit him across the back of the head.
“Except for Gibbs,” Tim muttered under his breath. “He never forgets.”
~*~*~*~
Oct 16
Determine never to be idle... It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
Jimmy Palmer couldn’t remember the last time he had been deliberately idle in Autopsy.
His job as Doctor Mallard’s assistant was to learn everything he could and take the weight off his mentor’s shoulders. In doing this, he tried his hand at every task, believing he learnt best by having a go. He stitched up corpses, he anticipated the instruments Doctor Mallard would need and handed them to him before he could ask, he kept the chemical cupboard in Autopsy fully stocked at all times, and he kept the whole place sparkling clean.
It was a tiring job, but his mentor thanked him and praised him whenever necessary. He felt as though he was learning the ropes and slowly but surely getting to understand how a medical examiner went about his work. He dealt with grieving families and funeral homes that didn’t care. He made sure Janitorial knew what they needed.
One day, he would have his own practice somewhere. And he would have to stand on his own two feet, without an assistant of his own. He had to be confident and able to do every task required of him; he couldn’t keep turning to Doctor Mallard to help him. With all the tasks to learn, he didn’t have time to be idle, to play around and slack off. He needed to keep his nose to the grindstone.
And one day, he would get to where he wanted to be.
~*~*~*~
Oct 17
Good habits result from resisting temptation.
Ancient Proverb
Abby Scuito stared at the cupcake sitting on the desk that was normally covered with evidence.
It was the sole item on the table, sitting right in the very centre. A triple chocolate cupcake, covered in lashings of chocolate icing and chocolate curls sprinkled liberally on top. It sat in all its glory, filling her lab with the scent of chocolate and tempting her to eat it.
Except she couldn’t. It was her last day of cutting chocolate from her diet; tomorrow she could eat it, today she couldn’t. Tony had gotten his dates mixed up when he had bought this for her. Unable to stand the kicked puppy dog look on his face, she had solemnly informed him she would take it off his hands and not eat it until tomorrow.
Mainly because she was almost completely certain the cupcake wouldn’t survive in the squad room.
And so it sat on her table, tempting her. She stared at it, crouched down at eye level. There had never been a better cupcake inside her lab, never been a more delicious cupcake sitting on her table. Perhaps she could just steal one single chocolate curl, no one would ever know…
She snatched her hand back. No, she would control herself. It would be her reward for surviving a month without chocolate. Smiling to herself, she turned around and continued her work.
~*~*~*~
Oct 18
The married are those who have taken the terrible risk of intimacy and, having taken it, know life without intimacy to be impossible.
Carolyn Heilbrun (1926 - )
Leroy Jethro Gibbs had more than his fair share of ex-wives behind him. When he thought about it, he knew why he had married each one of them.
His marriage to Shannon had been perfect. He had not been able to conceive the idea of living without her; even when he had been overseas, he had counted the time until he was back by her side. Until she had been ripped from him forever.
When he had finally found his feet, he had attempted to recreate his marriage. He had found redheads who loved him and married them. But he hadn’t loved them back and that was deliberate. He couldn’t love someone in the same way he had loved Shannon for fear that history would repeat itself, for fear he would never recover a second time.
He knew that was where he had gone wrong. If he had loved any one of his new wives, he could have made an attempt to hold another marriage together. But he hadn’t loved them, he’d loved the idea of another safe, stable marriage, and thus doomed the whole enterprise from the start.
Finally, he had figured out where he was going wrong. And then he started gathering a team around him, finding people as flawed as himself and drawing them together in a pseudo-family. Now he had a second family, one he wouldn’t give up for the world.
~*~*~*~
Oct 19
I admit it's tempting to wish for the perfect boss, or the perfect parent, or the perfect outfit, but maybe the best any of us can do is not quit. Play the hand we've been given and accessorize the outfit we've got.
Allan Heinberg, Sex and the City, A 'Vogue' Idea, 2002
“Can you imagine what it would be like if we had a different boss?” Tony wondered out loud.
“You mean like Patterson?” Ziva questioned. “Because I would have to inform him of his body odor problem.”
“I think he already knows about that, Zee-vah,” he retorted.
“Because you refuse to have a conversation with the man without holding your nose,” McGee piped up.
“Back on topic.” Tony decided, ignoring that it was usually him who derailed team conversations. “What would it be like if we had the perfect boss?”
“We already have him,” Ziva answered instantly. “Except he needs to be more cheerful and give us more time off.”
“See, that’s what I mean,” Tony grinned. “We have a good boss -” He paused and looked around, wanting to be absolutely certain the boss in question wasn’t skulking around somewhere waiting to deliver three stinging headslaps. “But we don’t have a perfect one.”
“Kinder,” McGee decided, apparently satisfied Gibbs wasn’t about to kill them all. “One who understood computers.”
Tony snorted. “No one is as intimate with computers as you,” he countered. “I think… I’d prefer a female boss.”
“So you could google her?” Ziva queried, a knowing smile on her face.
“Ogle,” McGee corrected helpfully.
“With long legs, a killer smile, stunning… You’re right behind me, aren’t you Boss?”
The headslap was harder than usual.
“Thank you, Boss.”
“Don’t thank me.” Director Shepard came into his line of sight. “I’m sure he’ll be very interested to hear what you’ve been discussing.”
~*~*~*~
Oct 20
Money alone sets all the world in motion.
Publilius Syrus (~100 BC), Maxims
Tony DiNozzo continued to search through Ziva’s desk even as he heard her objection.
He knew he was risking various limbs, but he could deal with that later. He had something more important to handle first. Finding his wallet.
He knew he’d had it this morning; McGee had owed him ten bucks after losing a bet, and he’d tucked the bill into his wallet. But he wasn’t sure what had happened to it since. Gibbs had sent him to Ducky, Ducky had sent him to Abby, and Abby had kept him in her lab for half an hour with a tale about Agent Wofford chasing an alligator down the road while on assignment in Florida after the creature had swallowed her badge.
He could easily have lost his precious wallet at any of these points, but he doubted it. Ziva had spent the past few days practicing her pickpocket skills; he’d already lost his car keys, comb, Mighty Mouse stapler and letter opener to her. And now she had stolen his wallet. Probably in revenge for the ten bucks McGee had owed him.
“Remove that hand from my drawer before I remove it for you and beat you to death with it,” she warned.
“I need my wallet,” he reminded her. “I’m taking Laura from Legal out for lunch.”
“I do not have your wallet, ahabal,” she replied. “Now remove your hand immediately.”