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Bargaining Quotes

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Bargaining Quotes

“Obviously he stood ready to speak for all. He was of course Karuso, and he began to bargain for the assembly with eloquence and great pertinacity. It was an affair that could not be hurried. The wage itself was a pretext, but the bargaining was important. Had I agreed immediately to the little money he demanded, all would have felt cheated and the poorer for it. The whole process was essentially a provision of wisdom and an affair of primitive honour that should not be minimized. It was a drama designed also to bring out the human factors to which Karuso was committing them all. I knew they would stop bargaining, not only when the wage seemed fair, but also when they felt they knew what kind of people we were.”

“Like Mom, Zoe thought–like Mom used to. And that’s where they differed, for Zoe wrote quiet poetry suffused with twilight and questions. It’s not even good poetry, she thought. I don’t have talent, it’s her. I should be the one ill; she has so much to offer, so much life. “You’re a dark one,” her mother said sometimes with amused wonder. “You’re a mystery.”

“Another form of bargaining, which many people do, and she did too, is to replay the final painful moments over and over in her head as if by doing so she could eventually create a different outcome. It is natural to replay in your mind the details. Deep in your heart you know what is true. Your mouth speaks the words, “My cat has died,” but you still don’t really want to believe it. You go over and over and over it in your mind. Your heart replays the scene for you for the express purpose of teaching you to accept what has happened. While your heart tries to “rewire” your mind to accept it, your mind keeps looking for a different answer. It doesn’t like the truth. Like anything else, when you hear it enough, you finally accept that it is true.”

“I'll make a bargain with you.' ... Cassian maintained a casual stance. 'If you do an hour of exercises right now, I'll owe you a favour.' 'I don't need any favours from you.' 'Then name your price.' He struggled to calm his racing heart. 'An hour of training for whatever you want.' 'That's a fool's bargain for you.' Her eyes narrowed. 'I thought you were a general. Aren't you supposed to be good at negotiating?' His mouth quirked upward. She wasn't fighting him. 'For you, I have no strategies.' She studied him with unflinching focus. 'Anything I want?' 'Anything.' He added wryly, 'Anything short of you ordering me to fall out of the sky and smash my head on the earth.' She didn't smile the way he'd hoped. Her eyes turned to chips of ice. 'You truly believe me capable of such a thing?' No,' he said without hesitation. Her mouth tightened. Like she didn't believe him. ... She surveyed him again, and Cassian willed himself to stand still, to appear open and nonthreatening and not like his very heart was in his bloody, outstretched hands. She said at last, 'Fine. Let's just say it will be a favour. Of whatever size I wish.' It was dangerous to allow this. Deadly. Stupid. But he said. 'Yes.' He extended his hand. One last time. Keep reaching out your hand. 'A bargain.' He met her steely expression with his own. 'You train with me for an hour, and I'll owe you one favour of whatever size you wish.' 'Agreed.' She slid her hand into his and shook firmly.”

“The last week hadn’t been any better, come to think of it. On Monday they arrived at Gorda, just to find that the cargo of electronics he was to ship to Beowulf had been taken by another freighter for a lower fee. It took him until Wednesday before he found another cargo – which had to reach Earth by Saturday. The last straw was when his crew mutinied a day out of the Hermes system and demanded a pay increase. The union tended to call that sort of thing “collective bargaining”, not actually mutiny, but hey – the results are the same. He tended to favor the term “piracy”, but this wasn’t the high seas and out here, there were real pirates to worry about. His former crew had also wanted more time off and a better cook – at least one who knew how which end of a frying pan to hold. He was unable to comply, and so was forced to stop at Beowulf anyway. That was the last time he saw them. Fortunately for him, Weaver, Fuller and Jang opted to stay with him. Whether it was out of loyalty, or perhaps just convenience, he never knew.”

“She wished she had cancer instead. She'd trade Alzheimer's for cancer in a heartbeat. She felt ashamed for wishing this, and it was certainly a pointless bargaining, but she permitted herself the fantasy anyway. With cancer, she'd have something to fight. There was surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. There was the chance that she could win. Her family and the community at Harvard would rally behind her battle and consider it noble. And even if it defeated her in the end, she'd be able to look them knowingly in the eye and say good-bye before she left.”

“If you sell your soul to get ahead it will cost more than you bargained for. When you earn your success and never take something for nothing, no one can lay claim to what’s rightfully yours. My biggest investors (parents & grandparents), now deceased, ask nothing of me. They are the only ones I owe for a debt I can never repay; but its the only kind that will ever be worth carrying.”

“Rhysand's moon-white skin began to darken into nothing but shadow. 'Wait.' The darkness consuming him paused. For Tamlin... for Tamlin I would sell my soul; I would give up everything I had for him to be free. 'Wait,' I repeated. The darkness vanished, leaving Rhysand in his solid form as he grinned. 'Yes?' I raised my chin as high as I could manage. 'Just two weeks?' 'Just two weeks,' he purred, and knelt before me. 'Two teensy, tiny weeks with me every month is all I ask.' 'Why? And what are to... to be the terms?' I said, fighting past the dizziness. 'Ah,' he said, adjusting the lapel of his obsidian tunic. 'If I told you those things, there'd be no fun in it, would there?' ... I couldn't think entirely of the enormity of what I was about to give- or else I might refuse again. I met Rhysand's gaze. 'Five days.' 'You're going to bargain?' Rhysand laughed under his breath. 'Ten days.' I held his stare with all my strength. 'A week.' Rhysand was silent for a long moment, his eyes travelling across my body and my face before he murmured. 'A week it is.' 'Then it's a deal,' I said. A metallic taste filled my mouth as magic stirred between us.”

“I'll give you the knife, and we'll look for your name together." "We're still enemies," he said. "Of course we are. And I'll keep trying to defeat you, and you'll keep trying to stop me. But in the meantime, we'll look for your name." I waited. I knew what he would say next: Let me do something about those virgin hands, and we'll have a deal. It was only logical, for obviously I could get the knife whenever I liked, and as long as I remained a virgin, I could still use it to fulfill the Rhyme. No matter how much I desired his kisses, the thought of letting him possess me entirely was still terrifying. But I'd come here prepared to offer up that much. I couldn't back out now. "Deal," he said. I blinked. He reached up and tapped my wrist. "All right!" I jerked thee knife away. He caught my wrist, took the knife, and threw it across the room. "You're worried about the knife but not my hands?" I demanded. "Well, I'm the mighty demon lord and I have your knife. It seems only fair to leave you some advantages." "But--" I realized with a wave of embarrassment that despite my relief, I was also disappointed. My face heated. He grinned as if he knew and kissed my palm.”

“Perhaps a necklace of tears to weep so that she won't have to? A pin of teeth to bite annoying husbands? No.' He continues to walk through the small space. He lifts a ring. 'To bring on a child?' And then, seeing my face, lifts a pair of earrings, one in the shape of a crescent moon and the other in the shape of a star. 'Ah, yes. Here. This is what you want.' 'What do they do?' I ask. He laughs. 'They are beautiful- isn't that enough?' I give him a skeptical look. 'It would be enough, considering how exquisite they are, but I bet it isn't all.' He enjoys that. 'Clever girl. They are not only beautiful, but they add to beauty. They make someone more lovely than they were, painfully lovely. Her husband will not leave her side for quite some time.' The look on his face is a challenge. He believes I am too vain to give such a gift to my sister. How well he knows the selfish human heart. Taryn will be a beautiful bride. How much more do I, her twin, want to put myself in her shadow? How lovely can I bear her to be? And yet, what better gift for a human girl wedded to the beauty of the Folk? 'What would you take for them?' I ask. 'Oh, any number of little things. A year of your life. The luster of your hair. The sound of your laugh.' 'My laugh is not such a sweet sound as all that.' 'Not sweet, but I bet it's rare,' he says, and I wonder at his knowing that. 'What about my tears?' I ask. 'You could make another necklace.' He looks at me, as though evaluating how often I weep. 'I will take a single tear,' he says finally. 'And you will take an offer to the High King for me.”

“I know the hard ground and the taste of the salt water I’m made of and the way even getting out of bed feels impossible some days. I know how some moments there’s not even enough air. I know the desperate and the bargains you want to make with the universe and every last prayer you’ve prayed to gods you don’t even believe in. But stupid? No, love. Not stupid. Not you. You are infinitely, impossibly, beautifully human.”

“You could hate a sofa, of course—that is, if you could hate a sofa. But it didn't matter. You still had to get together $4.80 a month. If you had to pay $4.80 a month for a sofa that started off split, no good, and humiliating—you couldn't take any joy in owning it. And the joylessness stank, pervading everything. The stink of it kept you from painting the beaverboard walls; from getting a matching piece of material for the chair; even from sewing up the split, which became a gash, which became a gaping chasm that exposed the cheap frame and the cheaper upholstery. It withheld the refreshment in a sleep slept on it. It imposed a furtiveness on the loving done on it. Like a sore tooth that is not content to throb in isolation, but must diffuse its own pain to other parts of the body—making breathing difficult, vision limited, nerves unsettled, so a hated piece of furniture produces a fretful malaise that asserts itself throughout the house and limits the delight of things not related to it.”

“The organized labor movement as it is constituted today is as much a concomitant of a capitalist economy as is capital. Organized labor is predicated upon the basic premise of collective bargaining between employers and employees. This premise can obtain only for an employer-employee type of society. If the labor movement is to maintain its own identity and security, it must of necessity protect that kind of society.”

“In his fierce, bold determination to see the lives of modern-day slaves up close, Benjamin Skinner reminds me of the British abolitionist of two hundred years ago, Zachary Macaulay, who once traveled on a slave ship across the Atlantic, taking notes. Skinner goes everywhere, from border crossings to brothels to bargaining sessions with dealers in human beings, to bring us this vivid, searing account of the wide network of human trafficking and servitude which spans today's globe.”

“Collective bargaining has always been the bedrock of the American labor movement. I hope that you will continue to anchor your movement to this foundation. Free collective bargaining is good for the entire Nation. In my view, it is the only alternative to State regulation of wages and prices - a path which leads far down the grim road of totalitarianism. Those who would destroy or further limit the rights of organized labor - those who would cripple collective bargaining or prevent organization of the unorganized - do a disservice to the cause of democracy.”

“If you have free universal health care and free education supported by public school taxes, then you have more bargaining power with your bosses, but if everything is privatized, and ordinary Americans have to pay for everything through their wages, then they're at the mercy of their employers. If the workers know they'll be ruined if they lost their jobs, they're not going to be uppity. You want to break their spirit.”