Fistfight In The Parking Quotes

​ "This place is fun, Downtown is fun!" I said, looking at the blurred lights of the lamps on the street. "No wonder you left me for this… I wouldn't be surprised if a ghost came out." I closed my fist, trying to catch the lights. "Now I get it, Dan! You're a ghost!"
​ "Am I?" he talked to me in an accommodating way, like anyone would do with a friend too drunk to think clearly.
​ "Yes! There's even two of you now."
​ "Of course, that would be the only possible reason." We reached the parking lot.
​ "Say Dan, have you come back to help me with Shallie? But if you're a ghost, can you just call her for me?" I grabbed his arm. "Can you? Can you bring her to me?" Suddenly all the fake happiness I was feeling before left me in a deep, black desperation. Dan's expression changed too, and got darker.
​ "I'm not a ghost, Drew," he said, calmly, securing the helmet under my chin. "I'm sorry," he added. ~ Elen Chase

There were three of them, three police cars left askew across the road in a way that transcended mere parking. It sent out a massive signal to the world saying that the law was here now taking charge of things, and that anyone who just had normal, good and cheerful business to conduct in Lupton Road could just fuck off. ~ Douglas Adams

Gate C22

At gate C22 in the Portland airport
a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed
a woman arriving from Orange County.
They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after
the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons
and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,
the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other
like he'd just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island,
like she'd been released at last from ICU, snapped
out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down
from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing.

Neither of them was young. His beard was gray.
She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine
her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish
kisses like the ocean in the early morning,
the way it gathers and swells, sucking
each rock under, swallowing it
again and again. We were all watching–
passengers waiting for the delayed flight
to San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots,
the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man selling
sunglasses. We couldn't look away. We could
taste the kisses crushed in our mouths.

But the best part was his face. When he drew back
and looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almost
as though he were a mother still open from giving birth,
as your mother must have looked at you, no matter
what happened after–if she beat you or left you ~ Ellen Bass

I've got a better idea," says my mother. "Tell me about what you did today. Tell me about New York." So I do, I tell the lifelong New Yorker who chucked it for the woods about the streets of the city: how the subway was so crowded this morning I had to let four trains pass in a row and I was a half hour late to work; how I had a meeting in Times Square and I saw an army of painted topless women posing with tourists for money; how I saw two people dressed up as Disney characters get into a fistfight; how I ate a hot dog from a stand after my client meeting bombed and when I finished it I ate another, on one of the chairs scattered in Bryant Park. A string quartet was playing nearby, under a sponsor banner. "The music part was the part that saved me," I say. "All of it would have saved me," says my mother. ~ Jami Attenberg

Good." She seemed relieved, "They're here." She stood up and
walked to the front of the parking lot just as four beautiful, tricked-out Choppers, all manned by women, pulled in and halted next to the girl.
"Check it out." Angelina elbowed her friends, "Lesbians. In Texas . ~ Shelly Laurenston

There's something about taking the cart back instead of leaving it in the parking lot ... It's significant ... Because somebody has to take them in ... And if you know that, and you do it for that one guy, you do something else. You join the world ... You move out of your isolation and become universal. ~ Andre Dubus

Today, reality is created mainly by television and movies. The media producers have become a priest-caste who guide, direct, and manage reality.

"I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more . . . "

"Don't follow leaders! Watch your parking meters!"

When Bob Dylan sang these lines in the 1960s, he was performing philosophy, transmitting powerful new ideas for which his mass audience was ready. Dylan thus triggered off heretical, sinful acts of resistance to authority, rejection of militarism, refusal to join the mechanical factory culture. ~ Timothy Leary

I do take pride in saying that in spite of being in public life for so long, there is not a single case against me, not even for wrongly parking a scooter or driving on the wrong side. ~ Narendra Modi

He placed our stuff on the table and then sat, straddling the bench. Patting the spot next to him, he grinned.
I dropped my bag on the tan pavers and as I swung a leg over the bench, I stopped to look at him. He was watching me through thick lashes, head still tilted, grinning so that lone dimple was begging to be touched. I realized that this was the first moment Rider and I had been alone. No prying eyes. No adults watching over us. No one walking past us as there had been in the parking lot yesterday. We were alone, just him and me, like it had been so many times in the past.
I don't know why I did what I did next, but a decade of emotion swirled up inside me. Maybe it had to do with everything he'd done for me in the past. Maybe it was just because he was sitting right there and we were in the present.
And I never felt more present than I did in that moment.
Bending over, I wrapped my arms around his wide shoulders and I squeezed him. Probably the lamest hug in history, but it felt good. It felt magnificent when he rose up a little and circled his arms around my waist. His hug was better.
When I pulled back, his hands slid off my waist, to my hips, and lingered for a moment. A strange sensation curled low in my stomach. He let go, but the heated awareness remained. "What was that for?"
Shrugging, I sat, tucking both legs under the table. My face was hot. "I...I just wanted to."
"Well, you can do that whenever you want to. I don't mind. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

It's naïve to give yourself credit for hitting a triple if you were born on third base. He also said that it is equally naïve to expect a person who was born in the parking lot to get to third base without your help. ~ Scott Sauls

Labor Day. We could hear their bellow and grind from the Route 19 overpass. Below, the river gleamed like a flaw in metal. Leaving the parking lot behind, we billy-goated down the fisherman's trail, one by one, the way all mountain people do. Loud clumps of bees clustered in the fireweed and boneset, and the trail underfoot crunched with cans, condom wrappers, worm containers. A half-buried coal bucket rose from the dirt with a galvanized grin. The laurel hell wove itself into a tunnel, hazy with gnats. There, a busted railroad spike. The smell of river water filled our noses. ~ Matthew Neill Null

Now what happens?" asked the man in black.
"We face each other as God intended," Fezzik said. "No tricks, no weapons, skill against skill alone."
"You mean you'll put down your rock and I'll put down my sword and we'll try to kill each other like civilized people, is that it? ~ William Goldman

Squawking pierced the funeral's hushed atmosphere as hundreds of black birds flew overhead in a rush of beating wings. They settled on a cluster of leafless trees that overlooked the parking lot. Even the trees were wearing black. ~ Michelle Hodkin

People with a lot of money aren't in the business of throwing it away, and those paying footballers' wages, organising parking spaces for dead sharks, and even, dare I say it, buying iPads, are doing it because, for them, it's worth the money. ~ Ian Watson

the right. Smith had watched the area and this parking spot in particular every Sunday for the last month. Nobody ever came to the building or parked in the back on a Sunday afternoon. He expected ~ Roger Stelljes

To have been part of a Pharaonic slave system that had at its apex a divine sun king led him to understand unreality as the greatest force in life. And his life was now, he felt, one monumental unreality, in which everything that did not matter - professional ambitions, the private pursuit of status, the colour of wallpaper, the size of an office or the matter of a dedicated car parking space - was vested with the greatest significance, and everything that did matter - pleasure, joy, friendship, love - was deemed somehow peripheral. It made for dullness mostly and weirdness generally. ~ Richard Flanagan

We'd rather have faithful Jews, Baptists or Buddhists than some of the Catholics who nearly run you over in the parking lot after Mass. ~ George Patterson

Converting car parking to bike parking is one of the cheapest, easiest, and most effective ways for any city to make a sizeable dent in the bad economics of our current transportation system. ~ Elly Blue

Cooper grinned at me. "So, are you going to see me off at the airport? Stand in the terminal lounge, staring out the window, waiting for my plane to take off?"
I snorted. "Um, no. I was going to drop you off at the departure terminal so I didn't have to get a parking spot."
He gaped and narrowed his eyes. "When you get home, do me a favour and Google the word chivalry," he said flatly. "It's spelled c-h-i-v - "
"Shut up," I said with a laugh.
"Or even look up the definition of 'nice boyfriend'. I'm pretty sure it says 'does not drop off loved one at terminal gate' or 'does not tell boyfriend to shut up'. ~ N.R. Walker

If in poetry court she was called
to testify on matters where
I was condemned to imprisonment: parking my ego
at a broken meter, line violations, forced rhyme,
dealing stanzaics to children, shooting
off my mouth, getting cute, for even this
latest attempt at verse, she would tell the whole truth,
she would admit from the pit
of her unsung brilliance,
from all of the paintings and poems
she herself has been making
and storing in the vast empire of her
singing soul, your Honor, my daughter is guilty
of plagiarizing my cells. ~ Kristen Henderson

Your demons may have been ejected from the building, but they're out in the parking lot, doing push-ups.) ~ Dan Harris

He parks in the far corner of the lot, explaining that it is more logical to do this and then walk for fifteen seconds than it is to spend fifteen minutes looking for a closer space. ~ Neal Stephenson

Another drunk goes up to a parking meter, puts in a quarter, the dial goes to 60. The drunk says, "Huh. I lost 100 pounds!" ~ Henny Youngman

Zoe rubbed her forehead and grimaced. "America is one toll booth after another. In Noshahr I could park anything in front of our compound, but not in free America. I tried to buy a goat to roast. I am not going to tell you the trouble that caused."
"You can't roast goat in America?"
"You can roast," Zoe said, "but there are certain rules about goats. And it made the neighborhood children cry. The details are too tedious for the telephone. ~ Michael Ben Zehabe

In just two years, CSAS ignited the flame Grandmother lit years before. Carl would never succeed in his attempts to extinguish it. But his parental authority was able to keep it dormant and unthreatening for several years. At Ooltewah High School, I was like a lion forced into captivity after a liberating romp in the jungle. Nothing challenged me. Nothing motivated me. Nothing moved me. My claustrophobia itched to the point where clawing at my own skin seemed to be my only method of relief. With no social outlets and no intellectual nourishment, I caved into self-destruction. My bulimia amplified from throwing up obligatory family dinners to driving to grocery stores, Dollar Generals, and gas stations, shoving junk food into my purse in between security camera reach, devouring the calories in the corners of desolate parking lots, and scurrying into remote public restrooms in the outskirts of town. My knees would rest on the cold, sticky tile floors as I wrapped my arms around bleach-scented toilets as if embracing an old friend. ~ Maggie Georgiana Young

As it is, I guess I find "Jack & Diane" a little disgusting.
As a child of immigrant professionals, I can't help but notice the wasteful frivolity of it all. Why are these kids not home doing their homework? Why aren't they setting the table for dinner or helping out around the house? Who allows their kids to hang out in parking lots? Isn't that loitering? ~ Mindy Kaling

Pink Balloons

My name is Olivia King

I am five years old

My mother bought me a balloon. I remember the day she walked through the front door with it. The curly hot pink ribbon trickling down her arm, wrapped around her wrist. She was smiling at me as she untied the ribbon and wrapped it around my hand.

"Here Livie, I bought this for you."

She called me Livie.

I was so happy. I'd never had a balloon before. I mean, I always saw balloon wrapped around other kids wrist in the parking lot of Wal-Mart, but I never dreamed I would have my very own.

My very own pink balloon.

I was excited! So ecstatic! So thrilled! I couldn't believe my mother bought me something! She'd never bought me anything before! I played with it for hours. It was full of heliu and it danced and swayed and floated as I drug it around from room to room with me, thinking of places to take it. Thinking of places the balloon had never been before. I took it in the bathroom, the closet, the laundry room, the kitchen, the living room. I wanted my new best friend to see everything I saw! I took it to my mother's bedroom!

My mothers

Bedroom?

Where I wasn't supposed to be?

With my pink

balloon...

I covered my ears as she screamed at me, wiping the evidence off her nose! She slapped me across the face as she told me how bad I was! How much I misbehaved! How I never ~ Colleen Hoover

My mom's smile is genuine,
A lilac beaming
In the presence of her Sun.

Indentions in the sand prove
Time's linear progression,

Her hair yet unblighted,
Carrying midnight's consistency.

Clear tracks fading as the
Movement slips further
In the past.

Cheekbones
High, soft,
In summer's hue,
Hopeful.

Each step's unknown impact,
A future looking back.

My father's strength:
One whose
Life is in his arms.

Squinting past the camera,
He rests upon a rock
Like caramel corn half eaten,

Just to the left
Of man-made concrete convention

Daylight's eraser
Removing color to his right.

Dustin sits
In my father's lap,
Open mouth of a drooling
Big mouth bass;

Muscle tone
Of a well exercised
Jelly fish,

He looks at me
Half aware;

His wheelchair
Perched at the edge
Of parking lot gravel grafted
Like a scar on nature's beach,

Opening to the ironic splendor
Of a bitter tasting lake.

I took the picture.

Age 11.

Capturing the pinnacle arc
Of a son
To my lilac
Who
Outlived him and weeps,

Still.

Their sky has staple holes –

Maybe that's how the
Light
Leaked out. ~ Darcy Leech

LAST NIGHT IN THE CITY
Written in the style of Andrew Fusek Peters…… by Charlotte Eden Aged 9. My granddaughter

Last night I saw the city boasting.
Fat and ugly office blocks gloated
over poor and empty parking lots,
and conceited takeaways mocked
the fish and chip shops

Last night I saw the city sleeping.
The sun, as hot as an oven, began
to rest its brightness,
and the moon awoke from
his deep slumber.

Last night I saw the city breathing.
Airports inhaled the landing planes,
while cars wheezed in the
Cold, frosty night.

Last night I saw the city crying.
The gleaming stars poured from
the night sky, and landed
in a cracked, glass puddle.

Last night I saw the city chuckling.
Owls laughed at the bats' jokes,
while hedgehogs made fun of the
hibernating squirrels.

Last night I saw the city performing.
The thin trees danced in the puffing wind,
and the stars put on a show
in the moonlight.

Charlotte Eden
June 2016. Copyright ~ Ann Perry

Something you have to say to me, my pretty little bad boy?" Genesis said softly, walking over to stand so close to Curtis he could feel Genesis' heart beating. Curtis chuckled. "Why do you keep calling me a bad boy? You know I'm not." "My brother told me what you did in the parking lot, how you took your cue from Ruxs." Genesis held Curtis' injured arm like it was newborn baby. "I think it's amazing." Curtis blushed terribly. "It was nothing." "If you say so. But I find it very, very attractive." Genesis' voice had gotten even deeper, sexier. "All that toughness, wrapped up in such a pretty package." Curtis ~ A.E. Via

Art is a bad word in Hollywood. You use art too many times and they show you the elevator and then your name is taken off the parking lot. ~ Dennis Hopper

Ginny Cupper took me in her car out to the spread fields of Indiana. Parking near the edge of woods and walking out into the sunny rows of corn, waving seeds to a yellow horizon. She wore a white blouse and a gray patch of sweat under her arms and the shadow of her nipples was gray. We were rich. So rich we could never die. Ginny laughed and laughed, white saliva on her teeth lighting up the deep red of her mouth, fed the finest food in the world. Ginny was afraid of nothing. She was young and old. Her brown arms and legs swinging in wild optimism, beautiful in all their parts. She danced on the long hood of her crimson Cadillac, and watching her, I thought that God must be female. She leaped into my arms and knocked me to the ground and screamed into my mouth. ~ J.P. Donleavy

Candles blazing, the people closet to me in the world sang "Happy Birthday," and I grinned like a fool and tried not to cry because it was so wonderful and so disarming - almost like being transported back to a moment in childhood that I had not actually lived through. I blew out the candles and everyone cheered. "Thank you all for being here with me," I said, too choked up to manage more. It is so easy to go through your days stewing about someone stealing your parking spot without giving the same attention to your child's arms around your neck, to grumble about the ever-increasing cost of groceries without realizing just how good it is have warm toast and a fresh cup of coffee while sitting across from the one you love. ~ Camille Pagan

You say that about everything," I complained, trailing after him. "Everything is a long story, too long to tell me. I suppose after two hundred years, or whatever, things get a little convoluted, but can't you paraphrase? How do you know the Rectors?"
When we rounded the corner, it became apparent there wouldn't be time for any stories at all, paraphrased or not. Not because the gray clouds that were hanging so threateningly overhead had burst open, the way I was half expecting them to, but because the family we'd seen earlier, along with Mr. Smith and the people holding the clipboards, were climbing into their various vehicles in the parking lot right in front of us.
It shouldn't have been a big deal. We were just an ordinary young couple, taking a late afternoon stroll through the cemetery.
I'd forgotten that, due to the "vandalism" that had occurred there earlier in the week, the cemetery gates (which John had kicked apart in a fit of temper) had been ordered locked twenty-four hours a day by the chief of police.
So it kind of was a big deal.
Still, that didn't explain why one of the women-the grandmother, if her gray hair was any indication-took one look at my face, made the sign of the cross, cried, "Dios mio!" then passed out cold right in front of us. ~ Meg Cabot

And how do you know he has a big dick? You've seen him once. And it was a five-second 'Oh, that's my boss, Kline' conversation while we were walking across the parking lot. You haven't even met him in person."

"Five seconds is all I need." She tapped the side of her head. "You know my cockdar is off the chain. I can sense a giant swinging penis pendulum from at least ten miles away. It's a God-given talent, Georgie."

I choked on my wine. "Let's not bring God into this."

She raised an eyebrow. "God knows the G-spot needs a more than adequate-sized wiener to get the job done."

"I'm pretty sure that comment just got you wait-listed for heaven. ~ Max Monroe

She held his eyes. "Truth."
"How did Taylor get you to that party, really?" He gave her a quick once-over. "Especially looking like that."
She shifted to look out at the darkness. "I changed my mind. Dare."
Gabriel slid his cell phone out of his picket and held it out. "Okay. Here. I dare you to call your father and tell him you're sitting in a dark parking lot with me."
"Ooooh." She glared up at him without any real malice. "I don't think I like this game."
He smiled. "Come on, pony up. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

Veterans get priority in the training room and better parking, but there is not a whole lot of difference in terms of how they're treated in the competition for playing time. To me it doesn't matter if a guy is a 10-year veteran or a rookie. If the rookie is better, he finds his way onto the field. ~ Brendan Daly

In her world, the law was upside down. People had to break the law to live. The prohibition on drug-dealing, a serious crime in most countries, is not viewed in the same way – as protective of society – by North Koreans. It is viewed as a risk, like unauthorized parking. If you can get away with it, where's the harm? ~ Hyeonseo Lee

She told her journal about me passing by her in the parking lot, about how on that night I had touched her-literally, she felt it, reached out. What I had looked like then. How she dreamed about me. How she had fashioned the idea that a spirit could be a sort of second skin for someone, a protective layer somehow. How maybe if she was assiduous she could free us both. I would read over her shoulder as she wrote down her thoughts and wonder if anyone might believe her one day.
When she was imagining me, she felt better, less alone, more connected to something out there. To someone out there. She saw the corn field in her dreams, and a new world opening, a world where maybe she could find a foothold too.
"You're a really good poet Ruth," she imagined me saying, and her journal would release her into a daydream of being such a good poet that her words had the power to resurrect me. ~ Alice Sebold

She had found the car abandoned in a parking lot. That's what she would tell them. She didn't steal the car. And even worse, she had a gun. She didn't steal that, either. No, she doesn't have a license to carry it. She found that, too. ~ Ann Greyson