Go For What Makes You Happy Quotes

Go relentlessly in the direction of your ultimate purpose of life and that which makes you happy. ~ Debasish Mridha

The little Hexagon meditated on this a while and then said to me; "But you have been teaching me to raise numbers to the third power: I suppose three-to-the-third must mean something in Geometry; what does it mean?" "Nothing at all," replied I, "not at least in Geometry; for Geometry has only Two Dimensions." And then I began to shew the boy how a Point by moving through a length of three inches makes a Line of three inches, which may be represented by three; and how a Line of three inches, moving parallel to itself through a length of three inches, makes a Square of three inches every way, which may be represented by three-to-the-second. xxx Upon this, my Grandson, again returning to his former suggestion, took me up rather suddenly and exclaimed, "Well, then, if a Point by moving three inches, makes a Line of three inches represented by three; and if a straight Line of three inches, moving parallel to itself, makes a Square of three inches every way, represented by three-to-the-second; it must be that a Square of three inches every way, moving somehow parallel to itself (but I don't see how) must make Something else (but I don't see what) of three inches every way - and this must be represented by three-to-the-third."

"Go to bed," said I, a little ruffled by this interruption: "if you would talk less nonsense, you would remember more sense. ~ Edwin A. Abbott

This is a life you do not understand. Yes, your home is in the city, and you have furnished it with vanities, with pictures and books; but you have a wife and a servant and a hundred expenses. Asleep or awake you must keep pace with the world and are never at peace. I have peace. You are welcome to your intellectual pastimes and books and art and newspapers; welcome, too, to your bars and your whisky that only makes me ill. Here am I in the forest, quite content. If you ask me intellectual questions and try to trip me up, then I will reply, for example, that God is the origin of all things and that truly men are mere specks and atoms in the universe. You are no wiser than I. But if you should go so far as to ask me what is eternity, then I know quite as much in this matter, too, and reply thus: Eternity is merely unborn time, nothing but unborn time. ~ Knut Hamsun

What happens if you lose?" Jeremy pressed.
"I don't see it as winning or losing. I'm just looking for a middle ground," he [Justin] said. "I get that technology is convenient and has its benefits. We definitely can't live without it. We can't go back to living in caves. But most people are so plugged in, they're not even living in the real world. Our lives aren't grounded by anything. Being too dependent on something makes you a slave to it. And I sure as hell won't worship a digital screen. So I'm looking for a halfway point. A balance. It's not just about ending digital school. It's about having a choice. ~ Katie Kacvinsky

No one wants to suffer, and yet nearly everyone seeks out pain and sacrifice, and then they feel justified, pure, deserving of the respect of their children, husbands, neighbors, God. Don't let's think about that now; all you need to know is that what makes the world go round is not the search for pleasure, but the renunciation of all that is important. ~ Paulo Coelho

Sometimes when you're upset it's so easy to forget what's real and go for what makes you feel better. (131) ~ Charise Mericle Harper

Let me tell you what you feel like when you know you are ready to die.
You sleep a lot, and when you wake up the very first thought in your head is that you wish you could go back to bed.
You go entire days without eating, because food is a commodity that keeps you here.
You read the same page a hundred times.
You rewind your life like a videocassette and see the things that make you weep, things that make you pause, but nothing that makes you want to play it forward.
You forget to comb your hair, to shower, to dress.
And then one day, when you make the decision that you have enough energy left in you to do this one, last, monumental thing, there comes a peace. Suddenly you are counting moments as you haven't for months. Suddenly you have a secret that makes you smile, that makes people say you look wonderful, although you feel like a shell-brittle and capable of cracking into a thousand pieces. ~ Jodi Picoult

Our family makes us who we are, defines us totally. When you go to a therapist or have analysis, whatever reason you go in for, they will always bring you back to your family. We're strong or weak according to what family we have. You might have left them long ago, might not even talk to them, but something lingers; we have no choice. ~ Sandrine Bonnaire

Starry Eyed"

Oh, boy you're starry eyed
Lay back, baby lay back
You've got heaven in your eyes
I like that, boy I like that

Life doesn't always work out
Like you planned it
They say make lemonade out of lemons
But I try and I just can't understand it
All this trying for no good reason
Man makes plans and God laughs
Why do I even bother to ask?
Well, once you and I, we were the king and queen of this town
It doesn't matter now
The sun set on our love, bye baby
Oh, boy you're starry eyed
Lay back, baby lay back
You've got heaven in your eyes
I like that, boy I like that
Life doesn't always work out
Like you planned it
They say make lemonade out of lemons
But I try and I can't understand it
All this bragging for not good reason
Man makes plans and God laughs
Why do I even bother to ask?
Well, once you and I, we were the king and queen of this town
It doesn't matter now
The sun set on our love, bye, bye baby
Oh, boy you're starry eyed
Lay back, baby lay back
You've got heaven in your eyes
I like that, boy I like that
It doesn't matter what they say
Let's go do it anyway
'Cause you and I have an undying kind of love
You can be mine, I'll be yours, be my baby
Oh, boy you're starry eyed
Lay back, baby lay back
You've got heaven in your eyes
I like that, boy I like that
~ Lana Del Rey

Thomas Jefferson observed, "A candle loses nothing when it lights another candle." That is the real nature of partnership. I find that many people don't think that way. They believe that sharing means losing something. But I don't think that's true.

Every person possesses one of two mind-sets: scarcity or abundance. People with a scarcity mind-set believe that there's only so much to go around, so you have to scrap for everything you can and protect whatever you have at all costs. People with an abundance mind-set believe there's always enough to go around. If you have an idea, share it: you can always come up with another one. If you have money, give some of it away; you can always make more. If you have only one piece of pie, let someone else eat it; you can bake another one.

I believe that in this area, you get from life what you expect. You can hoard what little you have and receive no more. Or you can give what you have, and you will be rewarded with abundance. Your attitude makes the difference. So if you partner with another person and give tremendously, one way or another you're going to get back more than you gave. ~ John C. Maxwell

Let me tell you what it is I believe in so that we better understand each other. I believe in a man thinking for himself and being his own master. I believe in going where I want to go, and doing what I want to do, being as fee as the wind. No limits, no obligations, and no laws. There may or may not be a path, but it makes no difference to me because I'm sure that, by whatever means, we'll reach that kingdom and I'll be paid. ~ E.J. Norris

I could be dramatic and go "He saved my life!", but sometimes you just need to see it again. Sometimes you need to see that person want it so badly for all the right reasons, and it makes you realize that no matter what you do you already won. ~ Kevin Drew

*One clue that there's something not quite real about sequential time the way you experience it is the various paradoxes of time supposedly passing and of a so-called 'present' that's always unrolling into the future and creating more and more past behind it. As if the present were this car - nice car by the way - and the past is the road we've just gone over, and the future is the headlit road up ahead we haven't yet gotten to, and time is the car's forward movement, and the precise present is the car's front bumper as it cuts through the fog of the future, so that it's now and then a tiny bit later a whole different now, etc. Except if time is really passing, how fast does it go? At what rate does the present change? See? Meaning if we use time to measure motion or rate - which we do, it's the only way you can - 95 miles per hour, 70 heartbeats a minute, etc. - how are you supposed to measure the rate at which time moves? One second per second? It makes no sense. You can't even talk about time flowing or moving without hitting up against paradox right away. So think for a second: What if there's really no movement at all? What if this is all unfolding in the one flash you call
the present, this first, infinitely tiny split-second of impact when the speeding car's front bumper's just starting to touch the abutment, just before the bumper crumples and displaces the front end and you go violently forward and the steering column comes back at your chest as if shot out of s ~ David Foster Wallace

Look what the cat dragged in," Ms. Skoglund said. "Were you waylaid by all your female admirers?"
"It's nothing like that," the boy said. "Besides, you know I only have eyes for you."
"Sure you do," Ms. Skoglund said. "I mean, why bother with one of those skinny little things your age when you can go for someone who's trying to lose another thirty pounds before her twenty-year class reunion next summer? That makes sense. ~ Jon S. Lewis

You listen to me, Elle. He's the one who needs to be afraid, not you. You're not locked in by his psychic energy field. He doesn't have you trapped. You're strong and you're lethal. Your sisters are as well. Don't you dare sell any of them short. Hell, baby, your house makes people disappear. And we're not going to talk about me, but if that son of a bitch thinks he can take you from me, let him come and try. You're down, but you're not out. Do you understand me? Do you, Elle? Look at me. Don't turn away from me and pay lip service to what I'm saying. I'll kill the bastard for you right now. Say the word and I leave and go to work. It's what I'm best at anyway. There's nowhere he'll be safe and if you think I don't want to, you're very wrong. I dream about it, I think about it, day and night and none of what I do to him is pleasant or civilized. If you want to be scared of someone, you're scared of the wrong fucking man. ~ Christine Feehan

You may go over the world and you will find that every form of religion which has breathed upon this earth has degraded woman... I have been traveling over the old world during the last few years and have found new food for thought. What power is it that makes the Hindoo woman burn herself upon the funeral pyre of her husband? Her religion. What holds the Turkish woman in the harem? Her religion. By what power do the Mormons perpetuate their system of polygamy? By their religion/ Man, of himself, could not do this; but when he declares, 'Thus saith the Lord,' of course he can do it. So long as ministers stand up and tell us Christ is the head of the church, so is man the head of woman, how are we to break the chains which have held women down through the ages? You Christian women look at the Hindoo, the Turkish, the Mormon women, and wonder how they can be held in such bondage...

Now I ask you if our religion teaches the dignity of woman? It teaches us the abominable idea of the sixth century--Augustine's idea--that motherhood is a curse; that woman is the author of sin, and is most corrupt. Can we ever cultivate any proper sense of self-respect as long as women take such sentiments from the mouths of the priesthood? ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Justin: I am falling so in love with you.



Her body electrified. Celeste wiped her eyes and read his text again. The drone of the plane disappeared; the turbulence was no more. There was only Justin and his words.



Justin: I lose myself and find myself at the same time with you.

Justin: I need you, Celeste. I need you as part of my world, because for the first time, I am connected to someone in a way that has meaning. And truth. Maybe our distance has strengthened what I feel between us since we're not grounded in habit or daily convenience. We have to fight for what we have.

Justin: I don't know if I can equate what I feel for you with anything else. Except maybe one thing, if this makes any sense.

Justin: I go to this spot at Sunset Cliffs sometimes. It's usually a place crowded with tourists, but certain times of year are quieter. I like it then. And there's a high spot on the sandstone cliff, surrounded by this gorgeous ice plant, and it overlooks the most beautiful water view you've ever seen. I'm on top of the world there, it seems.

Justin: And everything fits, you know? Life feels right. As though I could take on anything, do anything. And sometimes, when I'm feeling overcome with gratitude for the view and for what I have, I jump so that I remember to continue to be courageous because not every piece of life will feel so in place.

Justin: It's a twenty-foot drop, ~ Jessica Park

This,bellissima," Nonna began, "is true love story...
"The Costas, we were born to the sea and proud, very proud. Son after father after son build their boats and follow the fish.My bisnonno, father of my nonno, is proudest of all. He is the only son of a widowed mother-king of the sea.But he is...ppffftt..." Nonna blew out a breath and fluttered her fingers maybe an inch or two above her own head. "Basso. Piccolo. When he was young, his uncles and cousins at first fear to take him on board.They think the smallest of waves or biggest of tono...tono...What is it?"
"Tuna," I said.
"Si. Silly word. A tuna would flip him from the boat. But no one looks down on him. Ah, you laugh, you. Go on, laugh. They are not much bigger than he. So he is little, but he is proud, because his boat sails highest on the waves and soon brings in the most fish. Like gold, it makes him rich. And when a man becomes rich, he must think of marriage, or the village mamas will think of it for him. Capisci?"
I smiled. "Yeah, I get it. 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
"Ah,si!" Nonna nodded, delighted. "Austen.So smart."
"You know Pride and Prejudice?" I asked. She flicked my ear. "Ow! ~ Melissa Jensen

What will you do if you win the Scorpio Races?"

I look into the bucket.

"Oh, I'll buy fourteen dresses and build a road and name it after myself and try one of everything at Palsson's."

Though I don't quite look up, I can still feel his gaze on me. It's a heavy thing, this look of his. He says, "What's the real answer?"

But when I try to think of a real answer, it reminds me of Father Mooneyham saying that Gabe had sat in the confessional and cried, and it makes me think of how, no matter what happens in the races, the best option still has Gabe sailing away in a boat. So I snap, "Do you think I just turn my secrets out for everyone?"

He is unfazed. "I didn't know they were secrets," he says. "Or I wouldn't have asked."

It makes me feel ungenerous, since he'd answered so honestly. "I'm sorry," I say. "My mother always said that I was born out of a bottle of vinegar instead of born from a womb and that she and my father bathed me in sugar for three days to wash it off. I try to behave, but I always go back to the vinegar." When Dad was in one of his rare, fanciful moods, he told guests that the pixies left me on the doorstep because I bit their fingers too often. My favorite was always when Mum said that before I was born, it rained for seven days and seven nights solid, and when she went out into the yard to ask the sky what it was weeping for, I dropped out of the clouds at her feet and the sun came out. I alw ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Hey, I'm not a total idiot," said Nagasawa. "Of course life frightens me sometimes. I don't happen to take that as the premise for everything else, though. I'm going to give it a hundred percent and go as far as I can. I'll take what I want and leave what I don't want. That's how I intend to live my life, and if things go bad, I'll stop and reconsider at that point. If you think about it, an unfair society is a society that makes it possible for you to exploit your abilities to the limit." "Sounds like a pretty self-centered way to live," I said. "Maybe so, but I'm not just looking up at the sky and waiting for the fruit to drop. In my own way, I'm working hard. I'm working ten times harder than you are." "That's probably true," I said. ~ Haruki Murakami

Well, there is a piece of famous advice, grand advice even if it is German, to forget what you can't bear. The strong can forget, can shut out history.
Very good. Even if it is self-flattery to speak of strength--these aesthetic philosophers, they take a posture, but power sweeps postures away. Still, it's true you can't go on transposing one nightmare into another, Nietzsche was certainly right about that. The tender-minded must harden themselves. Is this world nothing but a barren lump of coke? No, no, but what sometimes seems a system of prevention, a denial of what every human being knows.
I love my children, but I am the world to them, and bring them nightmares.
I had this child by my enemy. And I love her. The sight of her, the odor of her hair, this minute, makes me tremble with love. Isn't it mysterious how I love the child of my enemy?
But a man doesn't need happiness for himself.
No, he can put up with any amount of torment--with recollections, with his own familiar evils, despair.
And this is the unwritten history of man, his unseen, negative accomplishment, his power to do without gratification for himself provided there is something great, something into which his being, and all beings can go. He does not need meaning as long as such intensity has scope. Because then it is self-evident; it is meaning. ~ Saul Bellow

You've already said that," Alex says. "Why should I go?"

"You're the only person I have," I say. "And I want us all to be together. It will be good for us."

"Oh, so now I'm back in the picture again."

"Alex. Something bigger than you is occurring right now. I'm sorry about your unhappy childhood."

She glares at me in that special way of hers and Joanie's that makes me feel worthless and foul-smelling.

"So we'll tell Scottie we're going on a vacation while Mom is in the hospital?"

"It's for a day or two," I say. "Scottie's been in the hospital every day for almost a month now. She needs a break. It's not good for her. I'd like you to be in charge of answering any questions she may have. She looks up to you. She'll hang on whatever you say."

I'm hoping a leadership role, a specific chore, will make Alex act like an adult and treat Scottie well.

"Can you do that?"

She shrugs.

"If you can't handle things, let me know. I'll help. I'm here for you."

Alex laughs. I wonder if there are parents who can say things to their kids like "I love you" or "I'm here for you" without being laughed at. I have to admit it's a bit uncomfortable. Affection, in general, is unpleasant to me.

"What if Mom doesn't make it for two days?"

"She will," I say. "I'll tell her what we're doing."

Alex looks uncomfortable with this idea, that what I'll say wil ~ Kaui Hart Hemmings

What's the matter, Rea?" he said, still sounding half asleep.
"What makes you think . . .?"
"You wouldn't have called this late unless you need to talk. Give me a minute to pull my jeans on and I'll go out in the hallway so I won't wake the other guys."
Reagen heard several men moan or swear in the background. When times were good, Noah had a room to himself, but when times were bad in the road game he'd sometimes bunk on the floor in someone else's room.
"I'm listening," he said after a minute.
She wanted to hear his voice more than talk, but that would sound strange, so she told him about her dream and how frightened she'd been.
"I wish I were there to hug you, Rea. We could cuddle up. You could tell me everything while I slept."
"I wish you were too." Neither one said anything for a few breaths, and then she whispered, "I miss you so much sometimes. They'd probably never be as close as they'd been in high school. He was a different man and she'd changed as well, but she still missed the Noah who was half kid, half man.
"What are you wearing?" he whispered, and for a moment she swore she could hear him smiling.
"Shut up."
He laughed. "Just asking. Who knows, one night I might get lucky and you'd be just out of th shower."
"You never give up trying to make me blush." Her bad mood had vanished.
"Come on, Rea, give me a break. I've been wondering what you like naked for years. If I ever get too old to wonder, I hope y ~ Jodi Thomas

Actors can be very precious about their work and their scenes, but I think good actors have a strong understanding of narrative and are very often not as precious about that stuff. They just can't be because they understand what makes for a better film, and that it's the job of the actor to work toward that, and then if you want you can go to acting class or workshops. But making movies is not workshops. ~ Kristen Stewart

I want you - "
"Then fucking have me."
" - but I don't want this."
Alex wants to grab Henry and shake him, wants to scream in his face, wants to smash every priceless antique in the room.
"What does that even mean?"
"I don't want it!" Henry practically shouts. His eyes are flashing, wet and angry and afraid. "Don't you bloody see? I'm not like you. I can't afford to be reckless. I don't have a family who will support me. I don't go about shoving who I am in everyone's faces and dreaming about a career in fucking politics, so I can be more scrutinized and picked apart by the entire godforsaken world. I can love you and want you and still not want that life. I'm allowed, all right, and it doesn't make me a liar; it makes me a man with some infinitesimal shred of self-preservation, unlike you, and you don't get to come here and call me a coward for it. ~ Casey McQuiston

What is it about being married you miss?' Alan asked.

'Well, I miss my wife, you know," I said. 'But I also miss the feeling of, I don't know, comfort. The sense you're where you're supposed to be, with someone you're supposed to be with. I sure as hell don't feel that out here. We go places that we have to fight for, with people who might be dead the next day or the day after that. No offense.'

'None taken,' Keyes said.

'There's no stable ground out here,' I said. 'There's nothing out here I feel really safe about. My marriage had its ups and downs like anyone's, but when it came down to it, I knew it was solid. I miss that sort of security, and that sort of connection with someone. Part of what makes us human is what we mean to other people, and what people mean to us. I miss meaning something to someone, having that part of being human. That's what I miss about marriage. ~ John Scalzi

The psychic said I would have two children. This makes me shake my head. I know you are not supposed to leave a baby alone. Not even for a minute. But after a while I think, What could happen to a baby in the time it would take for me to run to the corner for a cappuccino on the go? So I do it, I run to the corner and get the cappuccino. And then I think how close the store is that is having the sale on leather gloves. Really, I think, it is only a couple of blocks. So I go to the store and buy the gloves. And it hits me--how long it has been since I have gone to a movie. A matinee! So I do that, too. I go to a movie. And when I come out of the theater it occurs to me that it has been years since I have been to Paris. Years. So I go to Paris, and come back three months later and find a skeleton in the crib. ~ Amy Hempel

If you go to heaven, better earn it. If you go to hell, better earn it too! Either way, you'd better burn for what you live for and for where you are going. And you better get there knowing you burned for it. What do you feel? What do you want? What do you burn for? This is what makes you human, this is what gives you a soul. This is what earns you heaven or hell. ~ C. JoyBell C.

Do you have boundaries? Bask in those boundaries. Fuck saying yes to things you don't want to do. Oh my Lord, you do not have the time for that. Can I tell you what makes me anxious on top of my existing anxiousness? Thinking, 'Shit, now I have to go to [THIS THING I WOULD RATHER SLIP INTO A COMA THAN ATTEND].' And you know what? No. Nope! No thanks. No one is ever cooler or more successful because they went to that one party at that girl they hate's house that one time. They are usually just annoyed they didn't make dinner plans with a friend they actually like. ~ Anne T. Donahue

He was right! Said you'd go straight after 'em, sword and knife. What's with you?"
"You said, 'A trap.' I thought it was them," I muttered through suddenly numb lips. "Wasn't it?"
"Didn't you see the riding of greeners?" Bran retorted. "It was Debegri, right enough. He had paid informants in those inns, for he was on the watch for your return. Why d'you think Vidanric sent the escort?"
"Vidanric?"
"His name," Branaric said, still staring at me with that odd gaze. "You could try to use it--only polite. After all, Shevraeth is just a title, and he doesn't go about calling either of us Tlanth."
I'd rather cut out my tongue, I thought, but I said nothing.
"Anyway--life, sister--if he'd wanted me dead, why not in the comfort of his own home, where he could do a better job?"
I shook my head. "It made sense to me."
"It makes sense when you have a castle-sized grudge." He sighed. "It was the Renselaeus escort, hard on their heels, that attacked Debegri's gang and saved my life. Our friend the Marquis wasn't far behind--he'd just found out about the spies, he said. Between us we pieced together what happened, and what I said, and what you'd likely do. I thought you'd stay home. He said you'd ride back down the mountain breathing fire and hunting his blood. He was right." He stared to laugh, but it came out a groan, and he closed his eyes for a long breath. Then, "Arrow clipped me on the right, or I'd be finished. But I can't talk long--I'm alrea ~ Sherwood Smith

You know when I first met you, you scared the shit out of me." She pulls a "whoops" face and glances at the minister, who sighs because he knows us well enough to know this is just how we talk. Then she returns her focus to me and clears her throat. "You were so intense and determined to get to know me and I couldn't understand why you would want to, for a lot of reasons, reasons that you know about because you know me better than anyone." Her voice wobbles a little and she lets go of the paper and wipes her sweaty palm on her jacket. "But eventually you sort of wore on me." Her lips quirk and it makes me grin. "You became my light in my dark life and you made me feel so loved that I'd forget how to breathe. You were the only one who could make me laugh, smile, have fun, not give up. You were always there for me and somehow, through the crazy, intense years, you fought your way into my soul and ended up becoming my everything. You became my lifeline, the one person I could rely on no matter what, whether I was upset or pushing you away - you were always there for me. And I love you for it and for the amazing person that you are, for writing me songs and tattooing them on your skin, for wearing a ridiculous O ring on your finger," she says, trying to smile but I can tell she's getting overwhelmed by her emotions. "And for loving me enough not to let me give up, not matter how hard I fought. ~ Jessica Sorensen

Do what you love.
Do what makes your heart sing.
And NEVER do it for the money,
Go to work to spread joy. ~ Marianne Williamson

Committing myself to the task of becoming fully human is saving my life now...to become fully human is something extra, a conscious choice that not everyone makes. Based on my limited wisdom and experience, there is more than one way to do this. If I were a Buddhist, I might do it by taking the bodhisattva vow, and if I were a Jew, I might do it by following Torah. Because I am a Christian, I do it by imitating Christ, although i will be the first to admit that I want to stop about a day short of following him all the way.

In Luke's gospel, there comes a point when he turns around and says to the large crowd of those trailing after him, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple" (14:26). Make of that what you will, but I think it was his way of telling them to go home. He did not need people to go to Jerusalem to die with him. He needed people to go back where they came from and live the kinds of lives that he had risked his own life to show them: lives of resisting the powers of death, of standing up for the little and the least, of turning cheeks and washing feet, of praying for enemies and loving the unlovable. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

Where did the voice of Alfarata go, Ma?"
"Goodness!" Ma said. "Aren't you asleep yet?"
"I'm going to sleep," Laura said. "But please tell me where the voice of Alfarata went?"
"Oh I suppose she went west," Ma answered. "That's what the Indians do."
"Why do they do that, Ma?" Laura asked. "Why do they go west?"
"They have to," Ma said.
"Why do they have to?"
"The government makes them, Laura," said Pa. "Now go to sleep."
He played the fiddle softly for a while. Then Laura asked, "Please, Pa, can I ask just one more question?"
"May I," said Ma.
Laura began again. "Pa, please, may I--"
"What is it?" Pa asked. It was not polite for little girls to interrupt, but of course Pa could do it. ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

Do you realize what a beacon you've become?"

"A - I beg your pardon?"

"A beacon of hope," says the woman, smiling. "As soon as we announced we'd be doing this interview, our viewers started calling in, e-mails, text messages, telling us you're an angel, a talisman of goodness . . ."

Ma makes a face. "All I did was I survived, and I did a pretty good job of raising Jack. A good enough job."

"You're very modest."

"No, what I am is irritated, actually."

The puffy-hair woman blinks twice.

"All this reverential - I'm not a saint." Ma's voice is getting loud again. "I wish people would stop treating us like we're the only ones who ever lived through something terrible. I've been finding stuff on the Internet you wouldn't believe."

"Other cases like yours?"

"Yeah, but not just - I mean, of course when I woke up in that shed, I thought nobody'd ever had it as bad as me. But the thing is, slavery's not a new invention. And solitary confinement - did you know, in America we've got more than twenty-five thousand prisoners in isolation cells? Some of them for more than twenty years." Her hand is pointing at the puffy-hair woman. "As for kids - there's places where babies lie in orphanages five to a cot with pacifiers taped into their mouths, kids getting raped by Daddy every night, kids in prisons, whatever, making carpets till they go blind - ~ Emma Donoghue

Every fop and fool in London has been sniffing after her." Having said that, Jason returned his attention for the report. "Go ahead and read off the names, if you must."
Frowning in surprise at Jason's dismissive attitude, Charles took the seat across the desk from him and put on his spectacles. "First, there is young Lord Crowley, who has already asked my permission to court her."
"No. Too impulsive," Jason decreed flatly.
"What makes you say so?" Charles said with a bewildered look.
"Crowley doesn't know Victoria well enough to want to 'court' her, as you so quaintly phrased it."
"Don't be ridiculous. The first four men on this list have already asked my permission to do the same thing- providing, of course, that your claim on her is not unbreakable."
"No, to all those four men- for the same reason," Jason said curtly, leaning back in his chair, absorbed in the report in his hand. Who's next?"
"Crowley's friend, Lord Wiltshire."
"Too young. Who's next?"
"Arthur Landcaster."
"Too short," Jason said cryptically. "Next?"
"William Rogers," Charles shot back in a challenging voice, "and he's tall, conservative, mature, intelligent, and handsome. He's also the heir to one of the finest estates in England. I think he would do very well for Victoria."
"No."
"No?" Charles burst out. "Why not?"
"I don't like the way Roger sits a horse."
"You don't like_" Charles bit out in angry disbelief; then ~ Judith McNaught

This is a very common thing among male groups of friends. There is a person who's always taking heat from everyone else for various reasons. Not that I'm defending this behavior though, fuck no, I hate it when guys are like this; it's barbaric and stupid.

Unfortunately I think it's like an unconscious thing that just comes natural to guys when we're in groups. We take the piss out of each other all the time, prodding until we know the limits of each other and crossing the lines once in a while to test the boundaries.

Some guys who're overly-nice or don't fully understand this dynamic get completely shit on by it. If you keep excusing small actions by others that violate your boundaries, they'll just keep pushing and pushing, giving less and less respect until they know how far they're allowed to go. Having people knowing your limits and making sure to not cross them equates to respect, which is what we're after.

This doesn't mean you should to tell them all to fuck off now; that wouldn't work anymore because you've allowed them this far into your territory. It'd seem like an overreaction from you, which makes sense, right?

"We were just joking around yesterday about the same things, he seemed cool with it, but now he's all pissed for some reason, this guys a whack..."

The key thing to note if you want to avoid this in the future is to either find "nicer" friends, or to let people know when they cross a boundary. This may ~ Anonymous