Dear Young Man Of Color Quotes

Dear Young Black Males, Please listen to me closely. You have to start making smart choices in your life because, if you don't, the judge won't have any problems locking you up and throwing away the key. FYI: They're charging minors as adults in some cases nowadays. Trust me, they don't care about your life. They will wash you up in a heartbeat, simply because you're a black male. Following the crowd will get you caught up. Trying to play the hard role will get you caught up. Trying to show out for others just to make a name for yourself will get you caught up. Stealing, robbing, selling drugs, etc…it will all catch up with you sooner or later. The statics for black males in prison is alarming. Give yourself a chance! Find another way! No matter what upbringing you've had, it's up to you to make a change. You can't live your life making excuses for why you do what you do. Prove them all wrong! Prove to yourself that you're better than the life that was dealt to you. Rise up my brothas! You're much better than that. ~ Stephanie Lahart

Duroy, who felt light hearted that evening, said with a smile: "You are gloomy to-day, dear master."
The poet replied: "I am always so, young man, so will you be in a few years. Life is a hill. As long as one is climbing up one looks towards the summit and is happy, but when one reaches the top one suddenly perceives the descent before one, and its bottom, which is death. One climbs up slowly, but one goes down quickly. At your age a man is happy. He hopes for many things, which, by the way, never come to pass. At mine, one no longer expects anything - but death."
Duroy began to laugh: "You make me shudder all over."
Norbert de Varenne went on: "No, you do not understand me now, but later on you will remember what I am saying to you at this moment. A day comes, and it comes early for many, when there is an end to mirth, for behind everything one looks at one sees death. You do not even understand the word. At your age it means nothing; at mine it is terrible. Yes, one understands it all at once, one does not know how or why, and then everything in life changes its aspect. For fifteen years I have felt death assail me as if I bore within me some gnawing beast. I have felt myself decaying little by little, month by month, hour by hour, like a house crumbling to ruin. Death has disfigured me so completely that I do not recognize myself. I have no longer anything about me of myself - of the fresh, strong man I was at thirty. I have seen death whiten my black hair ~ Guy De Maupassant

Go," said the count deliberately, "go, dear friend, but promise me, if you meet with any obstacle to remember that I have some power in this world; that I am happy to use that power in the behalf of those I love; and that I love you, Morrel."
"I will remember it," said the young man, "as selfish children recollect their parents when they want their aid. When I need your assistance, and the moment may come, I will come to you, count. ~ Alexandre Dumas

Bob was not a young man, and he knew about loss. He knew the quiet that arrived, the blinding force of panic, and he knew that each loss brought with it some odd, barely acknowledged sense of release. He was not an especially contemplative person, and he did not dwell on this. But by October there were many days when the swell of rightness, loose-limbedness, and gentle gravity came to him. It recalled to him being a child, when he found one day he could finally color within the lines. ~ Elizabeth Strout

Oh, dear," Sophia said, looking through the binos. "What happens in the compartment, stays in the compartment. What happens in the...Oh, screw that!"



"It's not his fault!"

Lee Ann McGregor was just turned twelve and an orphan. Also extremely pregnant. She was shivering under a blanket in the relative cool of the saloon, drinking tomato soup as if it was nectar and arguing to spare the life of the young man sitting next to her.

The hangdog young man in question, Kevin White, was seventeen. And currently surrounded by women who were looking at him like a zombie that was in their targeting reticle. Wisely, he was keeping his mouth shut. ~ John Ringo

The older man cocked his head and gave a laugh, "We get all the ladies. But for some reason I don't think you're here looking for me." "I don't know," Kat said. "I'm always in the market for good rappelling harness." "For you, my dear, nothing but the best." "But you are right about something. I'm actually trying to find
" "Young Mr. Hale, I'm assuming." Kate blushed. "Let me guess
I'm not the only one?" "Maybe. But you're the one i hope finds him." He gave a wink and walked away, and Kat didn't feel alone anymore in the big room full of people. ~ Ally Carter

My letters seeking a job, though truthful, diminished the full truth. Face would blanch if the facts had been complete: "Dear Sir," I thought. "Do you have a position for a journeyman burglar, con man, forger and car thief; also with experience as armed robber, pimp, card cheat and several other things. I smoked marijuana at twelve (in the 40's) and shot heroin at sixteen. I have no experience with LSD and methedrine. They came to popularity since my imprisonment. I've buggered pretty young boys and feminine homosexuals (but only when locked up away from women). In the idiom of jails, prisons and gutters (some plush gutters) I'm a motherfucker! Not literally, for I don't remember my mother. In my world the term, used as I used it, is a boast of being hell on wheels, outrageously unpredictable, a virtuoso of crime. Of course by being a motherfucker in that world I'm a piece of garbage in yours. Do you have a job? ~ Edward Bunker

Abruptly, they seemed alike to me and equally dear: my father, my son. I felt as though my father had been waiting for this moment to be born to me as the young man he'd been, so touchingly willing to bear witness to his conscience; and the surprise of this new sense of him, this birth, was a gift to me, a sudden balm in those days of my most intense grief. ~ Sue Miller

Smoothly he asked Winslow if he had been to any Christmas parties.
"Certainly not, my dear Orbell."
"Have you really neglected everyone?"
"I gave up going to my colleagues' wives' parties before you were born, my dear young man," Winslow said.
He added: "I have no small talk."
He made the remark with complacency, as though he had an abnormal amount of great talk. ~ C.P. Snow

And you must appear willing to marry me," Oliver said.
"I understand."
"Do you? It means you'll have to act as if you enjoy my company."
To his surprise, a small smile curved her lips. "I believe I can manage that." Then, as if realizing she was softening, she wiped the smile from her face. "But you must behave responsibly, too."
"By not trying to seduce you, you mean."
She started. "No! I mean, yes…I mean, you already said you have more urgent concerns." Alarm rose in her cheeks. "Oh dear, I forgot that you also said you have no honor or morals."
He'd made similar assertions half his life, yet tonight he regretted making them. Shocking young ladies seemed to have lost some of its appeal.
"All the same, Miss Butterfield, I promise that your virtue is safe from me." When she looked skeptical, he added, "You're not the sort of woman I prefer." A respectable woman came with strings attached.
"Of course I'm not," she said with a roll of her eyes. "Anyone can see that."
That took him aback.
She went on. "A man with no morals isn't going to want a woman who has them. She'd never let him do anything wicked."
Freddy coughed, as if choking on something. Oliver understood why. Miss Butterfield had an unnerving way of cutting everything down to its essence.
"Yes," he said, for lack of a better response. "Quite." Then he narrowed his gaze on her. "So what did you mean when you said I had to 'behave responsibly'?"
"You prom ~ Sabrina Jeffries

I grew up watching my father make plates that featured penises as centerpieces. Pink, proud, and stiff, encircled by cerulean Greek key, Dad's creations made me feel scared and small. I saw a private part of the man I could not measure up to. At six years old, I lived in a world shaded by his ceramic glazes. There was love and color, but anger, too, in the way he kneaded his clay, palms pounding the rich, wet earth into shapes of his choosing. ~ Royal Young

My dear Alicia, of what a mistake were you guilty in marrying a man of his age! Just old enough to be formal, ungovernable, and to have the gout; too old to be agreeable, too young to die. ~ Jane Austen

There's this mental illness, right? It's called 'anhedonia.' It means 'without pleasure.' You can look it up, though all you really need to do is look around." She motioned to the door the other women had disappeared through, and to the world at large. "A good deal of people, mostly women, spend their entire lives in this state. It's a sort of half-death. But if you recognize this, you can fix it...You focus on bliss. Small pleasures. Fill your day with as many as you can fit into twenty-four hours. You devote every possible moment not to fulfilling another person-a man-but yourself."-Suzanne
"Sounds hedonistic"- Joanna
"But once you can do this, you start attracting everyone to you. You dont need compare yourself to some other girl, no matter how young or firm or perky she is.....Trust me. A woman like this, one at her best? We're the color of the world. We're the light and the beauty. So focus on your pleasure, and the man you want can't help but realize...that he may be a prince...but your a goddess.-Suzanne ~ Vicki Pettersson

My dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he's always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. ~ Cornel West

By December 1975, a year had passed since Mr. Harvey had packed his bags, but there was still no sign of him. For a while, until the tape dirtied or the paper tore, store owners kept a scratchy sketch of him taped to their windows. Lindsey and Samuel walked in the neighboorhood or hung out at Hal's bike shop. She wouldn't go to the diner where the other kids went. The owner of the diner was a law and order man. He had blown up the sketch of George Harvey to twice its size and taped it to the front door. He willingly gave the grisly details to any customer who asked- young girl, cornfield, found only an elbow.
Finallly Lindsey asked Hal to give her a ride to the police station. She wanted to know what exactly they were doing.
They bid farewell to Samuel at the bike shop and Hal gave Lindsey a ride through a wet December snow.
From the start, Lindsey's youth and purpose had caught the police off guard. As more and more of them realized who she was, they gave her a wider and wider berth. Here was this girl, focused, mad, fifteen...
When Lindsey and Hal waited outside the captain's office on a wooden bench, she thought she saw something across the room that she recognized. It was on Detective Fenerman's desk and it stood out in the room because of its color. What her mother had always distinguished as Chinese red, a harsher red than rose red, it was the red of classic red lipsticks, rarely found in nature. Our mother was proud of her ability fo wear Chinese re ~ Alice Sebold

Among them is a renegade king, he who sired five royal heirs without ever unzipping his pants. A man to whom time has imparted great wisdom and an even greater waistline, whose thoughtless courage is rivalled only by his unquenchable thirst.

At his shoulder walks a sorcerer, a cosmic conversationalist. Enemy of the incurable rot, absent chairman of combustive sciences at the university in Oddsford, and the only living soul above the age of eight to believe in owlbears.

Look here at a warrior born, a scion of power and poverty whose purpose is manifold: to shatter shackles, to murder monarchs, and to demonstrate that even the forces of good must sometimes enlist the service of big, bad motherfuckers. His is an ancient soul destined to die young.

And now comes the quiet one, the gentle giant, he who fights his battles with a shield. Stout as the tree that counts its age in aeons, constant as the star that marks true north and shines most brightly on the darkest nights.

A step ahead of these four: our hero. He is the candle burnt down to the stump, the cutting blade grown dull with overuse. But see now the spark in his stride. Behold the glint of steel in his gaze. Who dares to stand between a man such as this and that which he holds dear? He will kill, if he must, to protect it. He will die, if that is what it takes.

"Go get the boss," says one guardsman to another. "This bunch looks like trouble."

And they do. T ~ Nicholas Eames

This is the legend of Cassius Clay,
The most beautiful fighter in the world today.
He talks a great deal, and brags indeed-y,
of a muscular punch that's incredibly speed-y.
The fistic world was dull and weary,
But with a champ like Liston, things had to be dreary.
Then someone with color and someone with dash,
Brought fight fans are runnin' with Cash.
This brash young boxer is something to see
And the heavyweight championship is his des-tin-y.
This kid fights great; he's got speed and endurance,
But if you sign to fight him, increase your insurance.
This kid's got a left; this kid's got a right,
If he hit you once, you're asleep for the night.
And as you lie on the floor while the ref counts ten,
You'll pray that you won't have to fight me again.
For I am the man this poem's about,
The next champ of the world, there isn't a doubt.
This I predict and I know the score,
I'll be champ of the world in '64.
When I say three, they'll go in the third,
10 months ago

So don't bet against me, I'm a man of my word.
He is the greatest! Yes!
I am the man this poem's about,
I'll be champ of the world, there isn't a doubt.
Here I predict Mr. Liston's dismemberment,
I'll hit him so hard; he'll wonder where October and November went.
When I say two, there's never a third,
Standin against me is completely absurd.
When Cassius says a mous ~ Muhammad Ali

Becoming a porn star is pretty much exactly like becoming a superhero. One day, an intrepid, fresh-faced young woman discovers that she has a talent. She chooses a new name – something over the top, flamboyant, a little arrogant, with a tinge of the epic. Somebody makes her a costume – skintight – revealing, a flattering color, nothing much left to the imagination. She explores her power, learns a specialty move or two, sweats her way through a training montage, throwing out punny quips here, there, and everywhere. She inhabits an archetype. She takes every blow that comes her way like she doesn't even feel it. Then she goes out into the big, bad night and saves people from loneliness. From the assorted villanies that plague the common man. From despair and bad dreams. From tedium. Oh, sure, her victories are short-lived. She finishes off her foes in one glorious masterstroke, but the minute she's gone, all the wickedness and darkness of the scheming, teeming world comes rushing back in. But when you need her, here she comes to save the day, doing it for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. ~ Catherynne M. Valente

I'm not a young man, and I can find intensity in a lot of different ways, sometimes without even raising my voice. When I was younger, it was all about how I need three extra sets of lungs to get enough wind to get out the thing at the screaming level I need to, because that's the way it needs to be. Now, I see that there's a whole lot of other colors on the palette. ~ Henry Rollins

As soon as we entered I plunged into the giddy whirl of the waltz. That delightful exercise has always been dear to me; I know of nothing more beautiful, more worthy of a beautiful woman and a young man; all dances compared with the waltz are but insipid conventions or pretexts for insignificant converse. It is truly to possess a woman, in a certain sense, to hold her for a half hour in your arms, and to draw her on in the dance, palpitating in spite of herself, in such a way that it can not be positively asserted whether she is being protected or seduced. Some deliver themselves up to the pleasure with such modest voluptuousness, with such sweet and pure abandon, that one does not know whether he experiences desire or fear, and whether, if pressed to the heart, they would faint or break in pieces like the rose. Germany, where that dance was invented, is surely the land of love. ~ Alfred De Musset

But I hear Beauchamp in the next room; you can dispute together, and that will pass away the time."
"About what?"
"About the papers."
"My dear friend," said Lucien with an air of sovereign contempt, "do I ever read the papers?"
"Then you will dispute the more."
"M. Beauchamp," announced the servant.
"Come in, come in," said Albert, rising and advancing to meet the young man.
"Here is Debray, who detests you without reading you, so he says."
"He is quite right," returned Beauchamp; "for I criticise him without knowing what he does. ~ Alexandre Dumas

People don't like us, my dear. The idea that someone who can play with their emotions, who can "mystically" get them to do certain things, makes them uncomfortable. What they do not realize - and what you must realize - is that manipulating is at the core of our social interaction. (...) Think about it. What is a man doing when he seeks the affection of a young lady? Why, he is trying to manipulate her to regard him favorably. What happens when two old friends sit down for a drink? They tell stories, trying to impress each other. Life as a human being is about posturing and influence. This isn't a bad thing, in fact, we depend upon it. These interactions teach us how to respond to others. ~ Brandon Sanderson

(Hadley and Mary in the Garden at Blanchard House)
He laughed, a harsh sound, all sign of humor leaving his eyes. "Don't let any of it fool you, my dear, for even the most tarnished silver can acquire a fine and gleaming polish. And believe me, there is far more tarnish here than an innocent and unschooled eye such as yours can discern."
"Why would you speak so of yourself?" Mary protested.
He reached for a red-gold curl that had escaped her lace cap and coiled it around his !nger. "I would forewarn you, Miss Edwardes that I am a man, and men in general are not to be trusted ... " He held her gaze as he slowly released the ringlet, allowing his fingers to skim her cheek. " ... especially not by pretty young virgins. ~ Victoria Vane

Their eyes met and locked. If Cumbria were to take the form of a man, here he stood. Half-tamed, and that half much in doubt, forbiddingly beautiful and dangerous to the unwary. A voice in the back of her head warned that she ought to keep her silence, but she plowed on.

"You belong here." Without thought, she stepped toward him and touched his cheek, following the line back to his temple. His skin felt warm, the heat of him filled her. Inside her, in her heart and in her soul, she knew him. She knew everything about him that mattered. All of him was inside her right now, complete and right and heartbreaking because he was lost. He turned his head and for a moment, she felt the warmth of his breath against her gloved palm.

"My poor, dear Captain Alexander. You are too young to feel such desolation. You think you've lost your heart, but you haven't. It's here at Pennhyll. It's in the ground and the air, the trees and the stone, everywhere you look. You have only to take it. Take what is yours. ~ Carolyn Jewel

I know I grew up in the time when a young man in a baggy suit and slicked-down hair stood spraddle-legged in the crossroads of history and talked hot and mean about the colored, giving my poor and desperate people a reason to feel superior to somebody, to anybody. I know that even as the words of George Wallace rang through my Alabama, the black family who lived down the dirt road from our house sent fresh-picked corn and other food to the poor white lady and her three sons, because they knew their daddy had run off, because hungry does not have a color. ~ Rick Bragg

Dear God," said Will, looking from Charlotte to Nate and back again. "Is there anything that makes women sillier than the sight of a wounded young man?"
Tessa slitted her eyes at him. "You might want to clean the rest of the blood of your face before you continue arguing in that vein."
Will threw his arms up in the air and stalked off. Charlotte looked at Tessa, a half smile curving the side of her mouth. "I must say, I rather like the way you manage Will."
Tessa shook her head. "No one manages Will. ~ Cassandra Clare

Dear bullies, see that young boy you made fun of for crying? Last night his best friend committed suicide. See the girl you called fat? She's starving herself. See the old man you just made fun of cause of the ugly scars? He fought for our country. Post this if you're against bullying. I bet 95% of you won't. ~ Marija Not Sure If She Penned It But I Snagged It From Her I Love It

A rescuer appeared out of the forest.
"You screamed, madam?"
"Why, Lord Mersey, what are you doing here?"
"Following you, of course. Spot of bother?"
"Little bit of one, yes."
The young man looked with interest at Sophronia's opponents, one holding a collapsed Dimity, one bleeding from a gash to the arm, and the third bleeding from a wound to the back.
"My dear Ria, you hardly need my help."
"Hardly. ~ Gail Carriger

Because, dear, trouble comes to us all in this life: we set our hearts on things which it isn't God's will for us to have, and then we go sorrowing; the people we love are taken from us, and we can joy in nothing because they are not with us; sickness comes, and we faint under the burden of our feeble bodies; we go astray and do wrong, and bring ourselves into trouble with our fellow men. There is no man or woman born into this world to whom some of these trials do not fall, and so I feel that some of them must happen to you; and I desire for you, that while you are young you should seek for the strength from your Heavenly Father, that you may have a support which will not fail you in the evil day. ~ George Eliot

Fallen women are afforded a species of freedom.
Footnote: There is of course no such thing as a fallen woman, unless we are speaking of a woman who recently tripped on the stairs. One of the most difficult elements of this world is the way its social rules are simultaneously rigid and arbitrary. It is impermissible to engage in physical love before binding legal marriage, unless one is a young man of means. Men must be bold and assertive, but only if they are light-skinned. Any persons may fall in love regardless of station, but only if one is a woman and the other a man. I urge you not to navigate your own life by such faulty borders, my dear. There are, after all, other worlds. ~ Alix E. Harrow

Poirot asked:

'Whatdo you see so plainly? The witnesses? The counsel? The judge? The accused standing in the dock?'

Fogg said quietly:

'That's the reason, of course! You've put your finger on it. I shall always seeher…Funny thing, romance. She had the quality of it. I don't know if she was really beautiful…She wasn't very young-tired looking-circles under her eyes. But it all centered round her. The interest-the drama. And yet, half the time,she wasn't there. She'd gone away somewhere, quite far away-just left her body there, quiescent, attentive, with the little polite smile on her lips. She was all half tones, you know, lights and shades. And yet, with it all, she was more alive than the other-that girl with the perfect body, and the beautiful face, and the crude young strength. I admired Elsa Greer because she had guts, because she could fight, because she stood up to her tormentors and never quailed! But I admired Caroline Crale because she didn't fight, because she retreated into her world of half lights and shadows. She was never defeated because she never gave battle.'

He paused:

'I'm only sure of one thing. She loved the man she killed. Loved him so much that half of her died with him…'

Mr Fogg, K.C., paused and polished his glasses.

'Dear me,' he said. 'I seem to be saying some very strange things! I was quite a young man at the time, you know. Just an ambitious youngster. These things make ~ Agatha Christie

My dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so ~ Jane Austen

Are you that dreadful man with the circus, Fourmyle?" "Sure you are. Smile." "I am, madam. You may touch me." "Why, you actually seem proud. Are you proud of your bad taste?" "The problem today is to have any taste at all." "The problem today is to have any taste at all. I think I'm lucky." "Lucky but dreadfully indecent." "Indecent but not dull." "And dreadful but delightful. Why aren't you cavorting now?" "I'm 'under the influence,' Madam." "Oh dear. Are you drunk? I'm Lady Shrapnel. When will you be sober again?" "I'm under your influence, Lady Shrapnel." "You wicked young man. Charles! Charles, come here and save Fourmyle. I'm ruining him. ~ Alfred Bester

I suspect that it refers to that friend of our childhood, the prince of the old folk tale; the young man who travels for seven miles and comes to seven gates guarded by seven dragons, and passes through all sorts of perils, which are marked at once by moral heroism and mathematical symmetry. It is he who is to be exhibited in as a despot and oppressor; as a despot of elfland and an oppressor of seven-headed dragons. As he is rather a remote as well as a romantic figure, it may be a little difficult for historians to discover what were his true colours. His true colours, so far as I am concerned, are silver and gold and crimson, and all the colours of the rainbow. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Dear Valentine,' said the young man, 'you are too far above my love for me to dare speak of it to you, yet every time that I see you I need to tell you that I adore you, so that the echo of my own words will gently caress my heart when I am no longer with you. ~ Alexandre Dumas

The car came opposite her, and she curtsied so low that recovery was impossible, and she sat down in the road. Her parasol flew out of her hand and out of her parasol flew the Union Jack. She saw a young man looking out of the window, dressed in khaki, grinning broadly, but not, so she thought, graciously, and it suddenly struck her that there was something, beside her own part in the affair, which was not as it should be. As he put his head in again there was loud laughter from the inside of the car.

Mr. Wootten helped her up and the entire assembly of her friends crowded round her, hoping she was not hurt.

"No, dear Major, dear Padre, not at all, thanks," she said. "So stupid: my ankle turned. Oh, yes, the Union Jack I bought for my nephew, it's his birthday to-morrow. Thank you. I just came to see about my coke: of course I thought the Prince had arrived when you all went down to meet the 4.15. Fancy my running straight into it all! How well he looked."

This was all rather lame, and Miss Mapp hailed Mrs. Poppit's appearance from the station as a welcome diversion. . . . Mrs. Poppit was looking vexed.

"I hope you saw him well, Mrs. Poppit," said Miss Mapp, "after meeting two trains, and taking all that trouble."

"Saw who?" said Mrs. Poppit with a deplorable lack both of manner and grammar. "Why"--light seemed to break on her odious countenance. "Why, you don't think that was the Prince, do you, Miss Mapp? He arrived her ~ E.F. Benson

Dear Young Black Males… Our Future Black Kings: I'm 100% rooting for you, I wholeheartedly believe in you, I deeply care about you, I genuinely love you, and I honestly want to see you succeed in EVERY area of your life. ~ Stephanie Lahart

I had long since managed a degree of detachment when dealing with photographs from homicide cases. They no longer upset me as they once did, although I make it a point not to dwell on them. By the time I stood in Shirley Lewis's office, I had seen thousands of body pictures. I had seen pictures of Kathy Devine and Brenda Baker in Thurston County, but that was months before it was known there was a "Ted." Of course, there were no bodies to photograph in the other Washington cases, and I had had no access to Colorado or Utah pictures. Now, I was staring down at huge color photographs of the damage done to girls young enough to be my daughters - at pictures of damage alleged to be the handiwork of a man I thought I knew. That man who only minutes before had smiled the same old grin at me, and shrugged as if to say, "I have no part of this." It hit me with a terrible sickening wave. I ran to the ladies' room and threw up. ~ Ann Rule

You needn't manhandle me," she hissed, though she didn't fight him.
"Trust me, Miss Butterfield, you'll know when I'm manhandling you." He stopped before a chair. "Sit," he commanded, pushing her into it. "And try to restrain your urge to attack people for half a moment, will you?"
"I was not-"
"As for you," he growled at her companion, "give me the satchel that caused all this furor."
"Yes, sir…I mean, my lord."
Oliver took the satchel from the young man, whose face was drained of all color. Clearly, he lacked his companion's fierceness. ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Black ia the color that is no color at all.
Black is the color of a child's still, empty bedroom. The heaviest hour of night - the one that traps you in your bunk, suffocating in another nightmare. It is a uniform stretched over the broad shoulders of an angry young man. Black is the mud, the lidless eye watching your every breath, the low vibrations of the fence that stretches up to tear at the sky. ~ Alexandra Bracken

Th-thurlow...?"
His face,so very like her own, lit with pleasure. "Rycca,dear sister! I rejoice to find you well!"
They hugged fiercely while Dragon looked on with as much contentment as he could have mustered had he personally arranged the reunion of the twins.
"I don't understand," Rycca said when she could speak again.Her throat was very tight and tears gleamed in her eyes but she could not stop smiling. "Why are you here?"
"I heard a wild rumor in Normandy, about you fleeing from the marriage arranged for you by the king himself," he said,with a chiding shake of his head. "Really,Rycca,what were you thinking? Dragon here an exemplary fellow.How could you have not wanted to marry him?"
Over her brother's shoulder,Rycca sent the fine fellow in question a look that would have turned a lesser mann to ash. Dragon merely raised his eyebrows, the very image of wounded innocence.
"It was a little more complicated than he may have explained to you."
"Nonsense," Thurlow said with all the certainty of a very young man whose heart is nonetheless in the right place. "I love you dearly, sister,but we both know you can be a tad impulsive. Fortunately,I am assured Dragon will take excellent care of you."
Rycca laughed then and reached out a hand to her husband,who took it with a grin.She she drew him to her,she said softly, "As I will care for him, brother. ~ Josie Litton

Dantes had entered the Chateau d'If with the round, open, smiling face of a young and happy man, with whom the early
paths of life have been smooth. and who anticipates a future corresponding with his past. This was now all changed. The oval face was lengthened, his smiling mouth had assumed the firm and marked
lines which betoken resolution; his eyebrows were arched beneath a brow furrowed with thought; his eyes were full of melancholy, and from their depths occasionally sparkled gloomy fires of misanthropy and hatred; his complexion, so long kept from the sun, had now that pale color which produces, when the features are encircled with black hair, the aristocratic beauty of the man of the north; the profound learning he had acquired had besides diffused over his features a refined intellectual expression; and he had also acquired, being naturally of a goodly stature, that vigor which a frame possesses which has so long concentrated all its force within itself. ~ Alexandre Dumas

Dear Deborah,

Words do not come easily for so many men. We are taught to be strong, to provide, to put away our emotions. A father can work his way through his days and never see that his years are going by. If I could go back in time, I would say some things to that young father as he holds, somewhat uncertainly, his daughter for the very first time. These are the things I would say:

When you hear the first whimper in the night, go to the nursery leaving your wife sleeping. Rock in a chair, walk the floor, sing a lullaby so that she will know a man can be gentle.

When Mother is away for the evening, come home from work, do the babysitting. Learn to cook a hotdog or a pot of spaghetti, so that your daughter will know a man can serve another's needs.

When she performs in school plays or dances in recitals, arrive early, sit in the front seat, devote your full attention. Clap the loudest, so that she will know a man can have eyes only for her.

When she asks for a tree house, don't just build it, but build it with her. Sit high among the branches and talk about clouds, and caterpillars, and leaves. Ask her about her dreams and wait for her answers, so that she will know a man can listen.

When you pass by her door as she dresses for a date, tell her she is beautiful. Take her on a date yourself. Open doors, buy flowers, look her in the eye, so that she will know a man can respect her.

When she moves away ~ Lisa Wingate

At eight-thirty that night Ian stood on the steps outside Elizabeth's uncle's town house suppressing an almost overwhelming desire to murder Elizabeth's butler, who seemed to be inexplicably fighting down the impulse to do bodily injury to Ian. "I will ask you again, in case you misunderstood me the last time," Ian enunciated in a silky, ominous tone that made ordinary men blanch. "Where is your mistress?"
Bentner didn't change color by so much as a shade. "Out!" he informed the man who'd ruined his young mistress's life and had now appeared on her doorstep, unexpected and uninvited, no doubt to try to ruin it again, when she was at this very moment attending her first ball in years and trying bravely to live down the gossip he had caused.
"She is out, but you do not know where she is?"
"I did not say so, did I?"
"Then where is she?"
"That is for me to know and you to ponder."
In the last several days Ian had been forced to do a great many unpleasant things, including riding across half of England, dealing with Christina's irate father, and finally dealing with Elizabeth's repugnant uncle, who had driven a bargain that still infuriated him. Ian had magnanimously declined her dowry as soon as the discussion began. Her uncle, however, had the finely honed bargaining instincts of a camel trader, and he immediately sensed Ian's determination to do whatever was necessary to get Julius's name on a betrothal contract. As a result, Ian was the first man ~ Judith McNaught

In front of the mound: a mile of naked strangers. In groups of twenty, like smokes, they are directed to the other side by a man with a truncheon and a whip. It will not help to ink in his face. Several men with barrows collect clothes. There are young women still with attractive breasts. There are family groups, many small children crying quietly, tears oozing from their eyes like sweat. In whispers people comfort one another. Soon, they say. Soon. No one wails and no one begs. Arms mingle with other arms like fallen limbs, lie like shawls across bony shoulders. A loose gray calm descends. It will be soon . . . soon. A grandmother coos at the infant she cuddles, her gray hair hiding all but the feet. The baby giggles when it's chucked. A father speaks earnestly to his son and points at the heavens where surely there is an explanation; it is doubtless their true destination. The color of the sky cannot be colored in. So the son is lied to right up to the last. Father does not cup his boy's wet cheeks in his hands and say, You shall die, my son, and never be remembered. The little salamander you were frightened of at first, and grew to love and buried in the garden, the long walk to school your legs learned, what shape our daily life, our short love, gave you, the meaning of your noisy harmless games, every small sensation that went to make your eager and persistent gazing will be gone; not simply the butterflies you fancied, or the bodies you yearned to see uncovered - look, ~ William H. Gass

Lucky man,"Jules said to me, leaning over to kiss my cheeks. "What I wouldn't give to be in your head." Instead of the usual quick air-kisses, he took his time kissing both of my cheeks tenderly. "Jules!" I gasped, feeling myself blush. He stood, looking up in space, and raised both arms as if in surrender. "Okay, okay, man. Hands off, I get it! But it's not often we get a young pretty human in the house. in fact, it's never. ~ Amy Plum

When I was a young man, I didn't think about having a family. My wife and I were too poor to have babies. Then all of a sudden, one came along and scared the hell out of us because we had no money. Once the baby arrives, you make do somehow. You fall in love with the baby and life adjusts itself. You find you don't need as much money as you thought. When that happens, you can ask the questions that should have come before the baby. ~ Ray Bradbury

If I'd had a mirror I'd have looked at the whole of myself, though, as a matter of fact, I knew what I looked like already. A fat man of forty-five, in a grey herring-bone suit a bit the worse for wear and a bowler hat. Wife, two kids, and a house in the suburbs written all over me. Red face and boiled blue eyes. I know, you don't have to tell me. But the thing that struck me, as I gave my dental plate the once-over before slipping it back into my mouth, was that it doesn't matter. Even false teeth don't matter. I'm fat - yes. I look like a bookie's unsuccessful brother - yes. No woman will ever go to bed with me again unless she's paid to. I know all that. But I tell you I don't care. I don't want the women, I don't even want to be young again. I only want to be alive. And I was alive that moment when I stood looking at the primroses and the red embers under the hedge. It's a feeling inside you, a kind of peaceful feeling, and yet it's like a flame. ~ George Orwell