Boy On A Wire Quotes

The novel is apparently autobiographical and is being publicised as such but Doust has done with his material what so many autobiographical novelists fail to do: he has turned it into a shapely story, with no extraneous material or diversions and with an absolutely consistent and convincing narrative voice.' - Sydney Morning Herald ~ Jon Doust

From the opening sentence, it is clear that we are in the presence of a writer with a distinctive voice and uncanny ability to capture the bewilderment and burgeoning anger of a boy struggling to remain true to himself while navigating the hypocritical system he finds himself trapped in … what makes Boy on a Wire much more than a bleak coming-of-age story is Doust's sharp wit. "Justice not only prevails at Grammar School, it is rampant." If you know an angry teenager, give this to him.' - The Age ~ Jon Doust

…a hilarious, angry and sympathetic portrait of boys behaving badly, teeming with sadistic bullies, imperfect heroes, adolescent onanists and ice-cream gorging hedonists.' - The West Australian ~ Jon Doust

I'll just be another human on a planet full of humans, but better equipped because I have demands.
For my family.
For my life.
For the world.
For myself.
What acceptable behay-vyah.
What acceptable behay-vyah ~ A.S. King

The italian nanny was attempting to answer the teachers latest question when the moroccan student interupted, shouting "Excuse me, What is an easter?"
it would seem that depsite having grown up in a muslim country, she would have heard it mentioned once or twice, but no. "I mean it," She said. " I have no idea what you people are talking about."
The teacher called upon the rest of us to explain.
The poles led the charge to the best of their ability. It is," said one, "a party for the little boy of god who call his self jesus and... oh shit." She faltered and her fellow country man came to her aid.
He call his self Jesus and then he die one day on two... morsels of... lumber."
The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm.
he die one day and then he go above of my head to live with your father."
he weared of himself the long hair and after he die. the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples."
he Nice the jesus."
he make the good things, and on the easter we be sad because somebody makes him dead today. ~ David Sedaris

Jack stares at me blankly. 'A what?' he asks.

I choke back the laugh. 'A boy. You know? A Y-chromosome holder? You don't seem to notice them as much as you do the X-carriers.'

'What are you talking about?' Jack asks, 'A boy? She's just a kid.'

I hesitate, wondering how Jack is only just doing the maths on this one now. 'She's seventeen. She's not a kid anymore.'

Jack looks like he's about to go all Incredible Hulk and burst out of his clothes before rampaging through the bar. He jumps off the stool. 'If any boy ever lays a finger on my sister, I'm going to kill him,' he says.

Again I stare at him in silence, thinking of all the girls Jack has laid fingers and much more of his anatomy on besides. Poor Lila. If she ever wants to have a shot at a normal life, as in one that doesn't require a vow of celibacy, she needs to stay in London. ~ Sarah Alderson

We're all a little weird, Isabelle. It's our differences that make us unique and you shouldn't let anyone, even a boy you might like, tell you anything different. ~ Melyssa Winchester

Out of respect for the love of liberty shown by the Chinese people, and also in the belief that the future of the world lies with the yellow man and the brown man now that our erstwhile master, the white-skinned man, has wasted himself through buggery, cell phone usage, and drug abuse, I offer to tell you, free of charge, the truth about Bangalore.
"By telling you my life's story.
"See, when you come to Bangalore, and stop at a traffic light, some boy will run up to your car and knock on your window, while holding up a bootlegged copy of an American business book wrapped carefully in cellophane and with a title like:
TEN SECRETS OF BUSINESS SUCCESS!
or
BECOME AN ENTREPRENEUR IN SEVEN EASY DAYS!
"Don't waste your money on those American books. They're so yesterday.
"I am tomorrow. ~ Aravind Adiga

A birthday is a very big thing. It should be big from the minute you wake up. It should be such a big thing - all day long - that you fall down into sleep that night all worn out from so much bigness. You get a present with paper on it, you can open that in just a minute. And then, depending on what's inside, a birthday can sort of lose its shine. And then what do you got? No birthday. No big thing. So what I wanted for my sweet little boy was a birthday that would be big and last all day long.
Nobody should be able to mess with that, or make it not safe. ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde

My Papa's Waltz: The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt. ~ Theodore Roethke

I've been on 'Criminal Minds' twice! On the first show, a boy brought kids out to the woods and was beating them with a baseball bat, but I got away. Then they brought Tracy, my character, back - as a kidnapped girl. They saved me two times! Tracy lived! ~ Elle Fanning

I was a mixture of a country boy and a town boy, really. Chichester is a town on the coast of England, and I grew up all along that strip of coast that Chichester branches out into. Sometimes I was living in a house in the country, and sometimes I was living in a town. ~ Ed Speleers

I wasn't necessarily frustrated in Fall Out Boy, but there were things that didn't get satisfied, desires left wanting. We didn't all meet on the same kind of music. When bands break up, there are all these buzz words that get tossed around to maintain a front for the audience, but in this case there literally were creative differences. ~ Patrick Stump

Ana Magdalena nods. For an instant the blue eyes fix on his. 'She sees straight through me', he thinks with a jolt. 'Sees through me and doesn't like me'.
It hurts him. It is not something he is used to, being disliked, and being disliked moreover on no grounds. But perhaps it is not a personal dislike. Perhaps the woman dislikes the fathers of all her students, as rivals to her authority. Or perhaps she simply dislikes men, all save the invisible Arroyo.
Well, if she dislikes him he dislikes her too. It surprises him: he does not often take a dislike to a woman, particularly a beautiful woman. And this woman is beautiful, no doubt about that, with the kind of beauty that stands up to the closest scrutiny: perfect features, perfect skin, perfect figure, perfect bearing. She is beautiful yet she repels him. She may be married, but he associates her nevertheless with the moon and its cold light, with a cruel, persecutory chastity. Is it wise to be giving their boy - any boy, indeed any girl - into her hands? What if at the end of the year the child emerges from her grasp as cold and persecutory as herself? For that is his judgement on her - on her religion of the stars and her geometric aesthetic of the dance. Bloodless, sexless, lifeless. ~ J.M. Coetzee

He hesitated a moment, shifted the load to his left arm and mimed a sword stroke in the air. Crowley looked over his shoulder at the serving boy with some concern. "Planning on beheading me, are you?" he asked. Rafe smiled at him. "No sir, Ranger. Just getting the right side, like. Just shift yourself over while I put these down, before I forget which side is which, now." Crowley ~ John Flanagan

Colin. Just the name made Alessandro's gut burn. He knew the man wanted his wife, even if Brianna was too blind to see it. The moron had been cuckolded by the paragon of supposed virtue, his wife Carrie and now he had finally opened his eyes and seen what Alessandro had known all along. Brianna put every other woman in New York to shame. No woman could come near her beauty, her passion, her fire. Colin had tossed her aside for the angelic Carrie and now he was changing his mind. Oh no you don't, you miserable fucker. "Her friend indeed," Bernardo drawled, his Italian accent thick with unmistakable implication. "Dat's da truth. He no make her cry all da time." That was directed at Alessandro, with small dark accusatory eyes. "He nice." Alessandro couldn't look at those eyes without feeling a sickening pang of guilt. She's mine! He wanted to scream. Mine! Mine! Mine! "Oh yes. Very nice. He was very nice when he held her at the cemetery and very nice when he was dancing with her at Adresca." That made Alessandro's head lift in surprise. "Oh yes, my boy. She's been there, cleaning up the rubble and word is that she's working on re-opening it. Her friend Colin has been quite helpful in that endeavour." "I don' like how you say dat," Will said scowling. "Really young William, I only speak the truth," Bernardo taunted. Alessandro's mind was racing. NO! Not Colin. He could not let that imbecile take Brianna away from him. He'd have to be eliminated somehow. Alessandro began to plot a ~ E. Jamie

As great Pythagoras of yore,
Standing beside the blacksmith's door,
And hearing the hammers, as they smote
The anvils with a different note,
Stole from the varying tones, that hung
Vibrant on every iron tongue,
The secret of the sounding wire.
And formed the seven-chorded lyre. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What's that?"
"My friend St. Clair bought it for me. So I wouldn't feel out of place."
She raises her eyebrows as she pulls back onto the road. "Are there a lot of Canadians in Paris?"
My face warms. "I just felt,you know, stupid for a while. Like one of those lame American tourists with the white sneakers and the cameras around their necks? So he bought it for me, so I wouldn't feel....embarrassed. American."
"Being American is nothing to be ashamed of," she snaps.
"God,Mom,I know.I just meant-forget it."
"Is this the English boy with the French father?"
"What does that have anything to do with it?" I'm angry. I don't like what she's implying. "Besides,he's American. He was born here? His mom lives in San Francisco. We sat next to each other on the plane."
We stop at a red light.Mom stares at me. "You like him."
"OH GOD,MOM."
"You do.You like this boy."
"He's just a friend.He has a girlfriend."
"Anna has a boooy-friend," Seany chants.
"I do not!"
"ANNA HAS A BOOOY-FRIEND!"
I take a sip of coffee and choke. It's disgusting. It's sludge. No, it's worse than sludge-at least sludge is organic. Seany is still taunting me. Mom reaches around and grabs his legs,which are kicking her seat again.She sees me making a face at my drink.
"My,my. Once semester in France, and suddenly we're Miss Sophisticated. Your father will be thrilled."
Like it was my choice! Like I asked to go to Paris! And how dare s ~ Stephanie Perkins

I'd say we're all just ghosts on a wire seeking the prick of an electric thought. ~ Robert Fanney

The Queen inhales deeply. "Nothing I have attempted has improved the situation. What do you suggest, Nicholas?"

"He needs space to . . . acclimate. Time outside the spotlight to process the scope of his new situation and duties. To learn what he needs to, in his way. And make it his own."

"Space." The Queen taps her finger on the table. "Very well. If space is what the boy needs, then space he shall have."

I'm not sure I like the sound of this.




Two weeks later, I know I don't.

Anthorp Castle.

She sent me to fucking Anthorp Castle.

It's not the middle of nowhere - it's the end of nowhere. On the coast, with jagged cliffs and icy ocean on one side, forest on the other - the nearest thing resembling a town an hour's drive away. This isn't "space"; it's banishment.

"Banishment! Be merciful, say 'death.' For exile hath more terror in his look."

Romeo was a pussy, but at this moment, I feel him. ~ Emma Chase

My parents were told by the principal of West Barnstable Elementary School and my teacher that I was a bright boy whose spelling was in the retarded range and whose handwriting was the worst they'd ever seen. I find it embarrassing that I spell so badly. I will do almost anything to avoid being embarrassed, but no effort either on my part or on the part of any teacher has ever dented my utter bafflement when it comes to choosing which letters to put down, how many, and in what order. ~ Mark Vonnegut

I was 12 when I ordered my first guitar out of the worn and discolored pages of the Sears and Roebuck catalog. The story that I bought it on the installment plan is untrue, the invention of a Hollywood press agent. Local color. I paid cash, $8, money I had saved as a hired hand on my uncle Calvin's farm, baling and stacking hay. Prairie hay, used as feed for the cattle in winter. It was mean work for a wiry boy, but ambition made me strong. ~ Gene Autry

Modern barber college, Smith eyes closed suffers a haircut fearing its ugliness 50 cents, a barber student olive-skinned 'Garcia' on his coat, two blond small boys one with feared face and big ears watching from seats, tell him 'You're ugly little boy & you've got big ears' he'd weep and suffer and it wouldn't even be true, the other thinfaced conscious concentrated patched bluejeans and scuffed shoes who watches me delicate, suffering child that grows hard and greedy with puberty. ~ Jack Kerouac

One also, in our milieu, simply didn't meet enough Americans to form an opinion. And when one did - this was in the days of crew-cuts and short-legged pants - they, too, often really did sport crew-cuts and trousers that mysteriously ended several inches short of the instep. Why was that? It obviously wasn't poverty. A colleague of my father's had a daughter who got herself married and found that an American friend she had met on holiday had offered to pay the whole cost of the nuptial feast. I forget the name of this paladin, but he had a crew-cut and amputated trouser-bottoms and a cigar stub and he came from a place called Yonkers, which seemed to me a ridiculous name to give to a suburb. (I, who had survived Crapstone… ) Anyway, once again one received a Henry Jamesian impression of brash generosity without overmuch refinement. There was a boy at my boarding school called Warren Powers Laird Myers, the son of an officer stationed at one of the many U.S. Air Force bases in Cambridgeshire. Trousers at The Leys School were uniform and regulation, but he still managed to show a bit of shin and to buzz-cut his hair. 'I am not a Yankee,' he informed me (he was from Norfolk, Virginia). 'I am a CON-federate.' From what I was then gleaning of the news from Dixie, this was unpromising. In our ranks we also had Jamie Auchincloss, a sprig of the Kennedy-Bouvier family that was then occupying the White House. His trousers managed to avoid covering his ankles also, though the fact that ~ Christopher Hitchens

I think I should learn to get along better with people," he explained to Miss Benson one day, when she came upon him in the corridor of the literature building and asked what he was doing wearing a fraternity pledge pin (wearing it on the chest of the new V-neck pullover in which his mother said he looked so collegiate). Miss Benson's response to his proposed scheme for self-improvement was at once so profound and so simply put that Zuckerman went around for days repeating the simple interrogative sentence to himself; like Of Times and the River, it verified something he had known in his bones all along, but in which he could not placed his faith until it had been articulated by someone of indisputable moral prestige and purity : "Why," Caroline Benson asked the seventeen-year-old boy, "should you want to learn a thing like that? ~ Philip Roth

If I'm afraid of someone on the street, I'll turn to him (it's always a boy) and say, "Excuse me, do you happen to know what time it is?" This is my way of saying to the person, "I see you as a friend, and there is no need to hurt me or take my stuff. Also, I don't even have a watch and I am probably not worth mugging." So far, it's worked like gangbusters ... And I've discovered that most people I'm afraid of are actually very friendly. ~ Rebecca Stead

The guy was still staring at me. I felt rather blushy. Finally I decided that the proper strategy was to stare back. Boys do not have a monopoly on the Staring Business, after all [ ... ] After awhile the boy smiled, and then finally his blue eyes glanced away. When he looked back at me, I flickered my eyebrows up to say, I win. ~ John Green

Curran smiled.
"What's so funny?"
"Your panties have a bow," he said.
I looked down. I was wearing a short tank top - not mine - and my blue panties with a narrow white strip of lace at the top and a tiny white bow. Would it have killed me to check what I was wearing before I pulled the blanket down? "What's wrong with bows?"
"Nothing." He was grinning now. "I expected barbed wire. Or one of those steel chains."
Wiseass. "I'm secure enough in myself to wear panties with bows on them. Besides, they are comfy and soft."
"I bet." He almost purred.
I gulped. Okay, I needed to either crawl back into bed and cover myself with the blanket or get the hell to the bathroom and back. Since I didn't fancy peeing on myself, the bathroom was my only option.
"I don't suppose you'd mind giving me a bit of privacy for my trip?"
"Not a chance," he said.
I tried to get off the bed. Everything was under control until my weight actually hit my legs and then the room decided to crawl sideways. Curran caught me. His arm hugged my back, his touch sending an electric shiver along my skin. Oh no.
"Need some help, ass kicker?"
"I'm fine, thanks." I pushed away from him. He held on to me for a second, letting me know that he could restrain me against my will with laughable ease, and let go. I clenched my teeth. Enjoy it while it lasts. I'll be back on my feet soon.
I walked away from him, successfully maintaining vertical position, and ze ~ Ilona Andrews

In India when I was a boy they had great big green lizards there, and if you shouted or shot them their tails would fall off. There was only one boy in the school who could catch lizards intact. No one knew quite how he did it. He had a special soft way of going up to them, and he'd bring them back with their tails on. That strikes me as the best analogy I can give you. To try and catch your poem without its tail falling off. ~ Lawrence Durrell

There was a noise out back and Megan stalked to the end of the hall to look out the window. The door to the shed was just closing.
Finn.
He was just as bad as his brother. Finn had stranded her that morning too and he hadn't said a word to her about Spanish class, even though he never would have passed that pop quiz they had taken without her help. Megan turned and stormed down the hallway. Maybe she was too scared to say anything to Evan, but Finn…she was going to give that boy a piece of her mind.
"You guys all suck, you know that?" Megan shouted, flinging open the door to the shed.
Finn dropped his paintbrush on the leg of his jeans, where it left a streak of orange before hitting the dirty floor.
"Sorry?" he said.
"You! You suck!" Megan fumed.
"We've been over this. I know I suck."
"Not your art. You! You…guys!" Megan shouted.
Finn blinked. "Actually, I think I'm kind of an okay guy."
"Oh, please!" Megan said, squaring off in front of him. "I mean, what's wrong with you people? Were you all born like this? Because it's gotta be in your genes. Either that or you've all gotten each other in one too many choke holds over the years and you've deprived your brains of too much oxygen. Which is it?"
"Megan, I think you need to sit down," Finn said, carefully reaching for her shoulders. Keeping her at arm's length, he steered her over to the old bench and pushed her down until she had to let her knees go and fall into the sea ~ Kate Brian

Rest you here, enchanter, while the light fades,
Vision narrows, and the far
Sky-edge is gone with the sun.
Be content with the small spark
Of the coal, the smell
Of food, and the breath
Of frost beyond the shut door.
Home is here, and familiar things;
A cup, a wooden bowl, a blanket,
Prayer, a gift for the god, and sleep.
(And music, says the harp, And music.)
Rest here, enchanter, while the fire dies.
In a breath, in an eyelid's fall,
You will see them, the dreams;
The sword and the young king,
The white horse and the running water,
The lit lamp and the boy smiling.
Dreams, dreams, enchanter! Gone with the harp's echo
when the strings
Fall mute; with the flame's shadow when the fire
Dies.
Be still, and listen.
Far on the black air Blows the great wind, rises
The running tide, flows the clear river.
Listen, enchanter, hear
Through the black air and the singing air
The music…. ~ Mary Stewart

That settles it," said Mr. Trapwood. "We're going back to the pension. We're going to pack. We're going to be on the Bishop first thing tomorrow. Sir Aubrey will have to send someone else out. Nothing is worth another day in this hellhole."
Mr. Low did not answer. He had caught a fever and was lying in the bottom of a large canoe owned by the Brothers of the São Gabriel Mission, who had arranged for the crows to be taken back to Manaus. His eyes were closed and he was wandering a little in his mind, mumbling about a boy with hair the color of the belly of the golden toad which squatted on the lily leaves of the Mamari River.
There had, of course, been no golden-haired boys; there hadn't been any boys at all. What there had been was a leper colony, run by the Brothers of Saint Patrick, a group of Irish missionaries to whom the crows had been sent.
"They're good men, the Brothers," a man on the docks had told them as they set off on their last search for Taverner's son. "They take in all sorts of strays--orphans, boys with no homes. If anyone knows where Taverner's lad might be, it'll be them."
Then he had spat cheerfully into the river because he was a crony of the chief of police and liked the idea of Mr. Low and Mr. Trapwood spending time with the Brothers, who were very holy men indeed and slept on the hard ground, and ate porridge made from manioc roots, and got up four times in the night to pray.
The Brothers' mission was on a swampy part of the r ~ Eva Ibbotson

Thought itself needs words. It runs on them like a long wire. And if it loses the habit of words, little by little it becomes shapeless, somber. ~ Ugo Betti

He had a sensitive drained face
the face of a small boy lost on the Fairgrounds
after everyone has gone home. ~ Robert Nichols

And what do you know, John's hands flew through the positions
of ASL in various l-got-this combinations.
"Is he deaf" the guy behind the cash register asked in a stage
whisper. As if someone using American Sign Language was some kind
of freak.
"No. Blind."
"Oh."
As the man kept staring, Qhuinn wanted to pop him. "You going
to help us out here or what?"
"Oh ... yeah. Hey, you got a tattoo on your face." Mr. Observant
moved slowly, like the bar codes on those bags were creating some kind of wind resistance under his laser reader. "Did you know that?"
Really. "I wouldn't know."
'Are you blind, too?"
No filter on this guy. None. "Yeah, I am."
"Oh, so that's why your eyes are all weird."
"Yeah. That's right."
Qhuinn took out a twenty and didn't wait for change-murder
was just a liiiiiittle too tempting. Nodding to John, who was also measuring the dear boy for a shroud, Qhuinn went to walk off.
"What about your change ?" the man called out.
"I'm deaf, too. I can't hear you."
The guy yelled more loudly, "I'll just keep it then, yeah?"
"Sounds good," Qhuinn shouted over his shoulder.
Idiot was stage-five stupid. Straight up. ~ J.R. Ward

And then Frankie understood that the boy was going on alone. Perhaps there had been only one sponsor in another country for the child. There were many perhaps. But it was clear now that the mother was sending her son onward. ... She drew him to her and kissed him on one cheek and then the other cheek, so slowly, looking at every bit of his face, and then she reached and folded him to her. The train stopped with a jerk and went quiet. ... ~ Sarah Blake

He loved her. It was dead simple, the way he loved her. Seamless. His love was like a wall that he'd built around her, and there wasn't a chink or flaw in it. Or so he thought. But then she started to float out of the real world, his world, and he was like a little boy trying to dam a stream with stones and mud, knowing that the water would always break through at a place he wasn't looking at. There was nothing desperate about the way he did it, though. He was always calm, it seemed. Expecting the worst and determined not to crack. She started to get up in the night and turn on all the taps, and he would get up too and stand quietly beside her watching the endless flow of water as if he found it as fascinating as she did. Then he'd guide her back to bed before turning the taps off. One night I heard something and went into the living room and saw the two of them standing out on the balcony. He'd wrapped his dressing gown around her, and I heard him say, "Yes, you are right, Marijke. The traffic is like a river of stars. Would you like to watch is some more, or go back to bed? ~ Mal Peet

I asked the boy who wept what it felt like, crystal meth, the prettiest name for a drug besides heroin. Crystal methamphetamine. His head fell back. He closed his eyes, then opened them. 'Come on, you know . . . you're just high as fuck.' Then in a dramatic whisper: 'Everything goes silent like a midnight of the mind. ~ Hannah Lillith Assadi

You joined the wrong team, boy. You fought for a lost cause," he said, alongside a bunch of trash talk degrading my family, my religion, and myself, not to mention all kinds of threats against my family to pay for "my crimes," which goes against any common sense. I knew that he had no power, but I knew that he was speaking on behalf of the most powerful country in the world, and obviously enjoyed the full support of his government. ~ Mohamedou Ould Slahi

I think about the people I know with the absolutely largest hearts, people with a stunning capacity for endurance and grace and kindness against the most screaming terrors and pains. My Mom and Dad, for example, enduring the death of their first child at six months old, the boy the brother I never met, dying quietly in his stroller on the porch in the moment that my mother stepped back inside to get a pair of gloves because the crisp brilliant April wind was filled with a whistling cutting wind....

Fifty years later after five more children and two miscarriages she is standing in the kitchen with her usual eternal endless cup of tea and I ask her: How do you get over the death of your child?

And she says, in her blunt honest direct terse kind way,
You don't.
Her face harrowed like a hawk for a moment in the swirling steam of the tea.
p112-13 ~ Brian Doyle

Scuse me, my lady," the boy said, "but we thought ye'd want ter know that tha' new stray, the black wot's been hangin' 'bout, looks like she's ready ter have her kittens."
"Abigail?"
"Aye, if tha's wot yer callin' her. She's settled in ter a corner of tha' feed room in the haymow."
"Of course I want to know. I'll go check on her now. While I do, see if you can find a good sturdy box, medium sided and broad; an herb box would do nicely. And some soft blankets and laundered rags. She and her kittens might feel more secure in there for the first few weeks, until at least the babies open their eyes."
"Aye, Lady Esme."
"Oh, bring me a pan of clean warm water too. You never know when there might be trouble during a delivery. I want to be ready to help if need be. ~ Tracy Anne Warren

To infinity then. (Bubba)
What's that mean? (Nick)
It's something my dad used to say when I was a kid. To infinity, meaning you'd see something through to the end. (Bubba)
Infinity is never-ending. (Nick)
That's right, which means you keep going and going no matter what happens or what obstacles you meet. Over, under, around or through. There's always a way. And if you have to chase something to infinity, strap on your big-boy pants, hiking boots, and go. (Bubba) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

The first day of kindergarten when the little boy in a blue polo shirt had sat next to me and told me he'd be my friend when I couldn't stop crying after my dad had dropped me off. The boy who'd brought me a tray of brownies, a stack of movies, and sat with me on the couch all week after I broke my leg in fifth grade. The boy who'd blushed whenever I talked to him or looked his way when we became teenagers. The same boy who made it his business to make sure all the other boys treated me right. ~ Nicole Williams

For me, when I am on the wire, I do not have a problem of eliminating or blocking fear. I do not really feel fear, although it is a fearful activity to walk in thin air, as I do without any safety device, but I am not fearful. ~ Philippe Petit