Laugh Out Loud At Quotes

There are things I've given up on
Like recording funny answering machine messages.
It's part of growing older
And the human race as a group has matured along the same lines.
It seems our comedy dates the quickest.
If you laugh out loud at Shakespeare's jokes
I hope you won't be insulted
if I say you're trying too hard.
Even sketches from the original Saturday Night Live
seem slow-witted and obvious now. ~ David Berman

Write it. Just write it. Write it on receipts in the car while you wait for your kid to finish their piano lessons, scribble on napkins at lunch with friends. Type on crappy typewriters or borrow computers if you have to. Fill notebooks with ink. Write inside your head while you're in traffic and when you're sitting in the doctor's office. Write the truth, write lies. Write the perfect spouse. Write your dreams. Write your nightmares. Write while you cry about what you're writing, write while you laugh out loud at your own words. Write until your fingers hurt, then keep writing more. Don't ever stop writing. Don't ever give up on your story, no matter what "they" say. Don't ever let anybody take away your voice. You have something to say, your soul has a story to tell. Write it. There is never any reason to be afraid. Just write it and then put it out there for the world. Shove it up a flag pole and see who salutes it. Somebody will say it's crap. So what? Somebody else will love it. And that's what writing's about. Love. Love of the art, love of the story, and love for and from the people who really understand your work. Nobody else matters. Love yourself. Love your work. Be brave. Just write. ~ Melodie Ramone

In the hall, Tina whisper hisses, "Retreat! Retreat!" The sounds of heels clip clopping follows before...
stumble crash bang
Mimi laughs her ass off and says, "We have a man down! I repeat. We are a man down!"
Lola laughs hard and yells out, "We're so bad at this! Best mission ever!
The sound of giggles and heels approach my room. I put an arm under my head to elevate it. I want to see what these goofballs are doing. Tina's first through the door and looks sheepish while rubbing her elbow. That is until she see Nat, Helena and Nina all sitting on my bed. Then she yells out, "Pajama party!" And literally throws herself on to my bed, hurt elbow forgotten. She belly flops onto my stomach, My body jolts upwards, the wind is knocked out of me and I groan. Tina looks up at me with wide eyes. She rushed out, "Ash, honey! I'm so sorry!" Then she rubs what she thinks is my stomach. Only its my cock.
Removing her hands from me, I tell her,
"Tina, I don't think Nik would like you in my bed rubbing my junk. ~ Belle Aurora

I won't share you, Dylan. I mean that. If you think for one second now that we're married, you can try and pull some kind of shit over on me, you'd better think again. I can take whatever you can dish out when it comes to pain, embarrassment and humiliation, and whatever else you have going on in that wicked mind of yours, but I'll be damned if I'll share you with another woman. Or man."
What the fuck? I almost laugh at her, but she's so serious she would probably slap the shit out of me. "Calm the hell down. I'm not trying to pull anything over on you, okay? And seriously, a man?"
"Well, I don't know. Maybe one of your secrets is that you like getting pegged in the ass or something."
This time I laugh out loud at her and she narrows her eyes at me.
"Don't ask me to peg you either, because it's never going to happen."
I laugh even louder. Good God this woman is funny. "I promise you that I don't want to be pegged, Isa. ~ Ella Dominguez

Little Miss Sassy Panties is back and I laugh out loud at her. I know she doesn't like it but damn she's fucking comical when she's feisty, but I guarantee, her ass will be paddled and for that sarcasm when the time comes. ~ Ella Dominguez

Unexpectedly, she took several trotting steps and then threw in a couple of feeble attempts at bucking! She felt good enough to try and play! ... Instead of slowing down, she broke into a very awkward canter, punctuated by all sorts of goofy attempts to throw her heels up. I couldn't help but laugh out loud at her faltering display of joyful rejuvenation. ~ Kim Meeder

But the swamp don't mind. How could it? It's all just life, going over itself, returning and cycling and eating itself to grow. I mean, it's not that it's not Noisy here. Sure it is, there's no escaping Noise, not nowhere at all, but it's quieter than the town. The loud is a different kind of loud, because swamp loud is just curiosity, creachers figuring out who you are and if yer a threat. Whereas the town knows all about you already and wants to know more and wants to beat you with what it knows till how can you have any of yerself left at all? ~ Patrick Ness

Parking himself on the chaise lounge, he stared at the gown that Lassiter had handled so roughly. The fine satin was bunched up in waves, the disorder creating a wonderful, shimmering display over on the bed.
"My beloved is dead," he said out loud.
As the sound of the words faded, something was suddenly, stupidly clear: Wellesandra, blooded daughter of Relix, was never filling out that bodice again. She was never going to put the skirting over her head and wriggle into the corset, or free the ends of her hair from the lace-ups in the back. She wasn't going to look for matching shoes, or get pissed off because she sneezed right after she put her mascara on, or worry about whether she was going to spill on the skirting.
She was ... dead. ~ J.R. Ward

By contrast, my wife at fifty-two yeas old seems to me just as attractive as the day I first met her. If I were to say this out loud, she would say, 'Douglas, that's just a line. No one prefers wrinkles, no one prefers grey.' To which I'd reply, 'But none of this is a surprise. I've been expecting to watch you grow older ever since we met. Why should it trouble me? It's the face itself that I love, not that face at twenty-eight or thirty-four or fourty-three. It's that face.'
Perhaps she would have liked to hear this but I had never got around to saying it out loud. I had always presumed there would be time and now, sitting on the edge of the bed at four a.m., no longer listening out for burglars, it seemed that it might be too late. ~ David Nicholls

I scoot over to Poundcake. "Stay here. In ten minutes, open up on him to cover our crossing." Staring up at me all doe-eyed and trusting. "You know, Private, it's customary to acknowledge an order from your commanding officer." Poundcake nods. I try again: "With a 'yes, sir.'" He nods again. "Like, out loud. With words." Another nod. Okay, at least I tried. ~ Rick Yancey

Doesn't help that you're like the hottest priest on the planet."
Soren looked sharply at her. Eleanor went pale.
"I said that out loud."
"Should I pretend I didn't hear it? ~ Tiffany Reisz

She shivered as he left her to go to the fire, and find water and cloths. He leaned into the light, and brightness and shadows moved across his body. He was beautiful. She admired him, and he flashed a grin at her. Almost as beautiful as you are conceited, she thought at him, and he laughed out loud. ~ Kristin Cashore

Mario'd fallen in love with the first Madam Psychosis programs because he felt like he was listening to someone sad read out loud from yellow letters she'd taken out of a shoebox on a rainy P.M, stuff about heartbreak and people you loved dying and U.S. woe, stuff that was real. It is increasingly hard to find valid art that is about stuff that is real in this way. The older Mario gets, the more confused he gets about the fact that everyone at E.T.A. over the age of about Kent Blott finds stuff that's really real uncomfortable and they get embarrassed. It's like there's some rule that real stuff can only get mentioned if everybody rolls their eyes or laughs in a way that isn't happy. ~ David Foster Wallace

We all have stories. Sometimes the pain lies so heavily inside us that it can only be whispered. Sometimes it can't be spoken out loud at all. So you think you're different? There are many silences. You've got one kind but each of us has her own. Listen and you will hear them all around you. [...] You're not alone in your pain, never have been. We're all part of each other's pain and can be a part of each other's healing too. ~ Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa

If producing a regular column is living out loud, then keeping a daily blog is living at the top of your lungs. For a couple of months there, I was shrieking like a banshee. ~ Ayelet Waldman

Normal?" he thought, "I have a genie in my closet! There's absolutely nothing normal about that!" "Yes, Mom?" he asked as calmly as he could manage as he opened the door. Stefan's mom looked over his shoulder at the messy room, shook her head slightly and decided to leave that fight for another day. She was here to tell Stefan the truth about the Magical Charms box and hopefully, he would forgive her. It had been an honest mistake after all. As she glanced around the room, Stefan stopped breathing and slowly followed her gaze over to the bed. Oh the relief! His blanket had fallen neatly over the Magical Charms box, completely concealing it. He let his breath out in a loud sigh. "Are you alright, Stefan? ~ Merriweather Hope

It was nine French fries because I counted. Was it a lie that Aja said he ate ten French fries? Did a small lie like that matter? Bree didn't look at me or talk to me again all day. The Earth sun was not shining inside me. It was as dark as midnight in there. That evening, I was surprised Bree still came over to talk about the party. She frowned and said, "Well, we still have to figure out the food." Mom and Dad were in the study working on the loud-soft problem. The ~ Darcy Pattison

Until Miri could not help it any longer and she laughed out loud.
The sound broke the game. Peder looked at her. He reached out, and she thought he meant to grab her straw or perhaps yank her hair as he used to when they were little. But her put his hand behind her head and, leaning forward, pulled her face to his. He kissed her. One long, slow kiss. ~ Shannon Hale

My uncle Alex Vonnegut, a Harvard-educated life insurance salesman who lived at 5033 North Pennsylvania Street, taught me something very important.
He said that when things were really going well we should be sure to NOTICE it. He was talking about simple occasions, not great victories: maybe drinking lemonade on a hot afternoon in the shade, or smelling the aroma of a nearby bakery; or fishing, and not caring if we catch anything or not, or hearing somebody all alone playing a piano really well in the house next door.
Uncle Alex urged me to say this out loud during such epiphanies: If this isn't nice, what is? ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Hullo," he said sleepily, rubbing a hand along his jaw.
He's here in my room, right in the middle of the afternoon. Great God, there's a boy in my bed in my room-
I came to life. "Get out!"
He yawned, a lazy yawn, a yawn that clearly indicated he had no intention of leaving. In the moody gray light his body seemed a mere suggestion against the covers, his hair a shaded smudge against the paler lines of his collar and face.
"But I've been waiting for you for over an hour up here, and bloody boring it's been, too. I've never known a girl who didn't keep even mildly wicked reading material hidden somewhere in her bedchamber. I've had to pass the time watching the spiders crawl across your ceiling."
Voices floated up from downstairs, a maids' conversation about rags and soapy water sounding horribly loud, and horribly close.
I shut the door as gently as I could and pressed my back against it, my mind racing. No lock, no bolt, no key, no way to keep them out if they decided to come up…
Armand shifted a bit, rearranging the pillows behind his shoulders.
I wet my lips. "If this is about the kiss-"
"No." He gave a slight shrug. "I mean, it wasn't meant to be. But if you'd like-"
"You can't be in here!"
"And yet, Eleanor, here I am. You know, I remember this room from when I used to live in the castle as a boy. It was a storage chamber, I believe. All the shabby, cast-off things tossed up here where no one had to look at them." He ~ Shana Abe

So anyway," he continued.
That's when we heard the loud knocking on the pickup window. I jumped through the roof--it was after 2:00 A.M. Who on earth could it be? The Son of Sam--it had to be! Marlboro Man rolled down the window, and a huge cloud of passion and steam escaped. It wasn't the Son of Sam. Worse--it was my mother. And she was wearing her heather gray cashmere robe.
"Reeee?" she sang. "Is that yoooou?" She leaned closer and peered through the window.
I slid off of Marlboro Man's lap and gave her a halfhearted wave. "Uh…hi, Mom. Yeah. It's just me."
She laughed. "Oh, okay…whew! I just didn't know who was out here. I didn't recognize the car!" She looked at Marlboro Man, whom she'd met only one time before, when he picked me up for a date.
"Well, hello again!" she exclaimed, extending her manicured hand.
He took her hand and shook it gently. "Hello, ma'am," he replied, his voice still thick with lust and emotion. I sank in my seat. I was an adult, and had just been caught parking at 2:00 A.M. in the driveway of my parents' house by my robe-wearing mother. She'd seen the foggy windows. She'd seen me sitting on his lap. I felt like I'd just gotten grounded.
"Well, okay, then," my mom said, turning around. "Good night, you two!" And with that, she flitted back into the house.
Marlboro Man and I looked at each other. I hid my face in my hands and shook my head. He chuckled, opened the door, and said, "C'mon…I'd better get you home ~ Ree Drummond

Bronywyn jumped at the abrupt and very loud pounding at her door. She pushed herself up to a sitting position on her bed and glanced out the window.It was pitch-black outside, hours before dawn. Only one person would be causing a commotion at such an hour and be able to get away with it. Ranulf. She rubbed he eyes and tried to ignore the deafening banging, hoping he would get the hint.He did not.
"Bronwyn,open this door or I swear on all the things you hold sacred,I will break it down. ~ Michele Sinclair

That seemed to relax him a little, that simple nothing of a reassurance, as though there was ever a doubt that she wasn't exactly where she wanted to be at this very moment. As if there was even the slightest chance that she would rather be with Grady than Jay. He squeezed her hand, still holding it, and pulled her down so that she was leaning over his chest.
"Kiss me again," he challenged, only half joking.
It was so weird to hear him say that, to hear those words out loud. They had kissed. More than once. More than a lot. They had passed the point of being "just friends" by a long shot.
She leaned down and gave him a dry, sisterly little peck. And then she leaned back up again and smiled at him innocently. She wished she could make a halo appear above her head for effort.
Jay made a sound at her that was like a growl, and then he pulled her down...hard. He flipped her over so that she was lying on her back and he was poised above her, and taking full advantage of his upper hand, he moved his lips over hers with a feather-light touch, in a way that was anything but innocent. Until she parted his lips and let him kiss her again...completely...thoroughly. She heard herself moan, and she could feel the throbbing of her own pulse flickering hotly through her veins.
He lifted his head and started down at her, rubbing his thumb across her lower lip. "That's what I was talking about. A real kiss."
She thought that he was probably trying to gloat, but s ~ Kimberly Derting

At school, they were driven, quiet, invisible, model students, Aglionby Academy's 11-percent-of-our-student-body-is-diverse-click-the-link-to-find-out-more-about-our-overseas-exchange-programs. Here, they slouched. They would not slouch at school. Here, they were angry. They could not afford to be angry at school. Here, they were loud. They did not trust themselves to be loud at school. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Someone must be having a big party, Shyla thought as she turned into her neighborhood, the rhythmic salsa beat of Latin music was so loud.

A car she didn't recognize was parked in the middle of her driveway. She had to drive over the grass in order to get around it. She pushed the automatic opener to raise the garage door. Another car was parked where she normally parked, and it wasn't Carl's. It belonged to Pilar. Leaving her car where it was, she got out and went into the house through the back door from the garage.

Inside the house, the noise was almost deafening. Two young children were thrashing one another in the middle of the family room while some woman, presumably their mother, yelled at them in Spanish. The woman barely noticed Shyla.

Shyla went into the living room and could hear other voices and laughter coming from her bedroom. There, she found a young woman going through her jewelry box, and someone else holding up one of her bras. When they saw Shyla, they stopped laughing.

Pilar and another elderly woman were just coming down the stairs when Shyla went back into the living room.

"Shyla, why are you home?" Pilar asked, then shrugged.

Shyla could hardly hear her over the noise. "I live here," she said, too stunned to say anything else. She went back into the family room and turned off the compact disc player. There, on the floor, lay her great grandmother's china clock, broken. ~ Barbara Casey

isn't it time for your soul, which has been ashamed of your meat for so long, to thank your meat for finally doing something wonderful?" I thought that over. "That sounds right, too," I said. "You have to actually do it," she said. "How?" I said. "Hold your hand in front of your eye," she said, "and look at those strange and clever animals with love and gratitude, and tell them out loud: 'Thank you, Meat.'" So I did. I held my hands in front of my eyes, and I said out loud and with all my heart: 'Thank you, Meat. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Then I looked at its top sheet, and there was the name – A CLOCKWORK ORANGE – and I said: 'That's a fair gloopy title. Who ever heard of a clockwork orange?' Then I read a malenky bit out loud in a sort of very high preaching goloss: ' - The attempt to impose upon man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round the bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation, against this I raise my swordpen - ~ Anthony Burgess

You promised to be on your best behavior," I reminded him, breathless.
"You kissed me," he growled. His voice had gone very deep.
"Well, but you started it by kissing my neck."
"True. I hadn't planned that." His sultry voice, paired with those blazing eyes, told me I needed to get away from him. I hurried to the end of the bed, where I jumped off and began to pace back and forth, yanking out my loose hairband and pulling my hair back into a tight ponytail. I tried hard not to think about the taste of his lips. I'd had my first kiss, and I'd never be the same.
"Why did you stop?" he asked.
"Because you were moving on to other things."
He scratched his chin and cheek. "Hmm, moved too quickly. Rookie mistake."
I crossed my arms again, watching him speculate internally like a coach outlining a play that had gone wrong. Incredible. Then he sized me up in his sights again.
"But I can see you still want me."
I gave him my meanest stare, but it was hard to look at him. Gosh, he was hot! And a total player. The kiss meant nothing to him.
"Oh," he said with mock sadness, "there it goes. Mad instead? Well, sort of. You can't seem to muster a really good anger - "
"Stop it!"
"Sorry, was I saying that out loud?"
"I can read people, too, you know. Well, not you, but at least I have the decency to try not to notice, to give them some sort of emotional privacy!"
"Yes, how very decent of you." He hadn't moved from his langu ~ Wendy Higgins

It's the what if? The what then? And we know that if we go for it, if we risk it, we immediately stand to lose it. But weirdly, some part of us believes the feeling is two-way, because it must be; it's too special not to be. We believe that something's been shared, even if the evidence we have is ... what? A look that lasted a breath longer then we're used to? A second glance, when the glance could easily have been to check whether there are any cabs coming, or whether the jacket we're wearing that's caught their eyes would look good on their boyfriend, or why it is we seem to be staring at them.
I saw you. You don't use overhead handles on the train. Hoped it would jolt and you would fall to me. But no.
I smiled. These small moments, never said out loud, as formed and perfect as sweet little haikus, romance and longing carved out in the dust of a grubby city. ~ Danny Wallace

It's not politically correct to say that you love one child more than you love your others. I love all of my kids, period, and they're all your favorites in different ways. But ask any parent who's been through some kind of crisis surrounding a child
a health scare, an academic snarl, an emotional problem
and we will tell you the truth. When something upends the equilibrium
when one child needs you more than the others
that imbalance becomes a black hole. You may never admit it out loud, but the one you love the most is the one who needs you more desperately than his siblings. What we really hope is that each child gets a turn. That we have deep enough reserves to be there for each of them, at different times.
All this goes to hell when two of your children are pitted against each other, and both of them want you on their side. ~ Jodi Picoult

I don't like getting up in front of people and being the loud one when everybody's out quiet and you're the only one talking. I'm not a fan of that. I'm fine when I get in front of a camera, I don't care. You'll never see me on stage. Not at all. ~ Travis Fimmel

She reads the front of the card out loud. "Make it stop." Holy shit. She stares at it for a moment, repeating the phrase. "Make it stop? What in the hell does that even mean?" she asks. ~ Colleen Hoover

I need to be able to hear what is being said to me by the voices I create. Just on the other side of creativity is the nuthouse - and I often notice people looking at me strangely when I am talking out loud, but there is no other way. ~ Jeanette Winterson

I can only imagine the sort of havoc Oliver must have wreaked as a boy."
Oliver handed Minerva in, then climbed in to sit beside her. "We weren't that bad."
"Don't listen to him," Minerva exclaimed, her eyes twinkling. "One dull evening, he and his friends went to a ball dressed in the livery of the hired footmen. Then they proceeded to drink up the liquor, flirt and wink at the elderly ladies until they were all blushing, and make loud criticisms of the entertainment. After the lady of the house caught on to their scheme and rounded up some stout young men to throw them out, they stole a small stone cupid she had in her garden and sent her a ransom note for it."
"How the devil do you know that?" Oliver asked. "You were, what, eleven?"
"Twelve," Minerva said. "And it was all Gran's servants could talk about. Made quite a stir in society, as I recall. What was the ransom? A kiss for each of you from the lady's daughter?"
A faint smile touched Oliver's lips. "And she never did pay it. Apparently her suitors took issue with it. Not to mention her parents."
"Good heavens," Maria said.
"Come to think of it," Oliver mused aloud, "I believe Kirkwood still has that cupid somewhere. I should ask him."
"You're as bad as Freddy and my cousins," Maria chided. "They put soap on all the windows of the mayor's carriage on the very day he was supposed to lead a procession through Dartmouth. You should have seen him blustering when he discovered it."
Sabrina Jeffries

You are only given one life, one chance at fully living it ... take risks, believe in your dreams, explore the world and her people, live out loud! ~ Danell Lynn

Cade studied her for a moment, then sat forward in his chair. "Seriously, what is it about this guy? He's just a rich computer geek with good hair."

Rylann smiled. "I think there's a little more to it than that."

"Christ, you are smitten." He threw up his hands. "What is going on with everyone these days? Sam Wilkins is babbling about a meet-cute, Cameron's sneaking off to get hitched, and now you're all starry-eyed over the Twitter Terrorist. Has everyone been sneaking happy pills out of the evidence room when I'm not looking?"

"No, just some really good pot."

Cade laughed out loud at that. "You are a funny one, Pierce. I'll say that."

"So does that mean we're still on for Starbucks later today?"

He studied her suspiciously. "You're not going to want to talk about Kyle Rhodes the whole time, are you?"

"Actually, yes. And then we'll go shoe shopping together and get mani-pedis." She threw him a get-real look. "We'll talk about the same stuff we always talk about."

With a grin, he finally nodded. "Fine. Three o'clock, Pierce. I'll swing by your office ~ Julie James

Even if you escaped this place, which is impossible," Death said, "you would never reach her.

I glanced up at Death. "So my plan should be to wait here, docile, until you murder me? Along with the rest of your lackeys?"

Saying these words out loud was like a corner turned, a line crossed. One answer rang through me.

Never.

After my mother's sacrifice for me, I'd be damned if I rolled over now. I owed it to her to fight.

I had a new mission: self-preservation. I had to get this cuff off, so I could protect myself from Death. Sooner or later the novelty of having me here, his princess in the tower, would wear off.

I needed to be ready.

"Why didn't you tell me about Jack earlier? And Matthew? Why not just torpedo me from the beginning?"

"My reasons are my own. But I did warn you not to give Deveaux your innocence."

I rolled my eyes at his terminology. "Really, Father Time? And what business is it of yours anyway? ~ Kresley Cole

I made it the mantra of those days; when I paused before yet another series of switchbacks or skidded down knee-jarring slopes, when patches of flesh peeled off my feet along with my socks, when I lay alone and lonely in my tent at night I asked, often out loud: Who is tougher than me?
The answer was always the same, and even when I knew absolutely there was no way on this earth that it was true, I said it anyway: No one. ~ Cheryl Strayed

Rina!" I shouted, but the radio was up loud -something sad and gooey- and she didn't hear me. I hit the horn, twice, startling the minivan with a Pro-Choice sticker in front of me, which quickly changed lanes. We kept cruising neck and neck, with Rina full-out brawling now, singing along with the radio, tears running down her face, completely oblivious to both me and the speed limit. I reached under my seat and searched around until I came up with an empty plastic Coke bottle, which I then hurled at her windshield. she jerked back from the wheel as it bounced off, then whipped her around, eyes wide, and finally saw me.
"Shit!" she screamed, hitting the automatic window control to open the one nearest me. "What the hell are you doing? ~ Sarah Dessen

Well, you won't unless you come to lunch with me," Cal said. "I'm holding it for ransom. There's a gun
to its heel right now."
"I have lunch at my desk," Min began, and thought,Oh, for crying out loud, could I beany more
pathetic ?
"Emilio is experimenting with a lunch menu. He needs you. I need you. ~ Jennifer Crusie

Some of those are over a hundred years old," Alessandro explained as he unlocked the door. "Dat's older den you or mommy!" Will said. He stopped and looked at the white marble fountain in the middle of the walkway with a figurine that had water coming out of its mouth and falling into the fountain. He lifted on his tip toes to look inside of the vessel. "Der's water in der. How come it don' fall out?" Will asked. Bree pulled out a penny and handed it to him. "Here, make a wish." Will closed his eyes tight. "I wish for lotsa presents fo' my berfday," he announced and tossed in the penny. Bree snorted. "You're not supposed to say your wish out loud." "Oh. Okay, gimme nudder one. I say it in my head dis time," Will said. ~ E. Jamie

Relaxing the shoulders is vital for relaxation in general. However, owing to the effects of gravity, relaxation is problematic unless we let the shoulders remain in their natural place. Let the shoulders drop, or settle in harmony with gravity, into their most comfortable position. It isn't too difficult to do this for a moment, but to sustain this condition unconsciously in our lives is another matter. We raise our shoulders unnaturally when we lean on a desk or hold the telephone between our shoulders and ears, when we are shocked by a loud noise, and who knows how many other times throughout the day. And the unsettling of the shoulders doesn't have to be large to produce anxiety, stiff necks, and headaches. Just slightly raising them will create tension, and this tension throws the nervous system out of balance.

When do we raise the shoulders in daily life? What are we feeling at that moment and leading up to that moment? Remembering that the body reflects the mind, and that the raising of the shoulders not only creates tension but also is a physical manifestation of psychological tension itself, what are the roots of this tension? Bringing the mind into the moment, let's observe ourselves in a state free of preconceived ideas or beliefs. Don't guess at these questions. Observe yourself in relationship to others and the universe ~ H.E. Davey

Her pretty name of Adina seemed to me to have somehow a mystic fitness to her personality.

Behind a cold shyness, there seemed to lurk a tremulous promise to be franker when she knew you better.

Adina is a strange child; she is fanciful without being capricious.

She was stout and fresh-coloured, she laughed and talked rather loud, and generally, in galleries and temples, caused a good many stiff British necks to turn round.

She had a mania for excursions, and at Frascati and Tivoli she inflicted her good-humoured ponderosity on diminutive donkeys with a relish which seemed to prove that a passion for scenery, like all our passions, is capable of making the best of us pitiless.

Adina may not have the shoulders of the Venus of Milo...but I hope it will take more than a bauble like this to make her stoop.

Adina espied the first violet of the year glimmering at the root of a cypress. She made haste to rise and gather it, and then wandered further, in the hope of giving it a few companions. Scrope sat and watched her as she moved slowly away, trailing her long shadow on the grass and drooping her head from side to side in her charming quest. It was not, I know, that he felt no impulse to join her; but that he was in love, for the moment, with looking at her from where he sat. Her search carried her some distance and at last she passed out of sight behind a bend in the villa wall.

I don't pretend to be s ~ Henry James

Her voice is soft and kind. "Danny, do you feel safe at home?"

No.

There it is. I don't feel safe at home. I open my mouth to say something, and as I do I realize that like my other, I can't give it a name. Not out loud. Not even to Valkyrja. Because if I admit it, if I call it what it is, then I can't hide from it anymore either. It becomes real in a way I am not ready for. Might never be ready for. Ther will be no illusions of safety, no peaceful times alone in my room.

There will only be times when he's not hurting me. ~ April Daniels

He waited in silence for the blindfold to be tied firmly at the back of his head. 'Right,' said Wilkins, emphatically. 'That should do. How many fingers am I holding up?' 'Three,' said Thomas. 'God damn it to hell, how did you know that? Can you see through the cloth?' 'No. It was a guess.' 'Well you're not supposed to guess. For crying out loud, I'm trying to make sure that you can't see where we're going. We're not here to play guessing games. How many fingers am I holding up?' 'I've no idea. I can't see a bloody thing.' 'Good. It was four, by the way. Not that it matters. Now shut up. ~ Jonathan Coe

I was a young, & had deep loves, & my heart would overflow with enthusiasm! And I mingled with the crowd, I mixed with my fellow men, speaking my thought out loud! And they gaped back at me, without understanding. And I withdrew from them, & they said to me: Arrogant one! And from time to time in my solitude, my loves, my repressed enthusiasms broke out into odes, conversation; & my companions laughed and used to point at me as a madman. So I suffered, doubted, cursed, & no one believed me sincere. It's as if this heart, once so full of strength & love were annihilated. ~ Comte De Lautreamont

Yes, she doesn't really look like either of us, does she? Perhaps she's a girl who's fallen madly in love with me and persists in following me wherever I go."
"My talent is shape-shifting, Will, not acting," said Tessa, and at that Jem laughed out loud. ~ Cassandra Clare

Here's the thing, people: We have some serious problems. The lights are off. And it seems like that's affecting the water flow in part of town. So, no baths or showers, okay? But the situation is that we think Caine is short of food, which means he's not going to be able to hold out very long at the power plant."
"How long?" someone yelled.
Sam shook his head. "I don't know."
"Why can't you get him to leave?"
"Because I can't, that's why," Sam snapped, letting some of his anger show. "Because I'm not Superman, all right? Look, he's inside the plant. The walls are thick. He has guns, he has Jack, he has Drake, and he has his own powers. I can't get him out of there without getting some of our people killed. Anybody want to volunteer for that?"
Silence.
"Yeah, I thought so. I can't get you people to show up and pick melons, let alone throw down with Drake."
"That's your job," Zil said.
"Oh, I see," Sam said. The resentment he'd held in now came boiling to the surface. "It's my job to pick the fruit, and collect the trash, and ration the food, and catch Hunter, and stop Caine, and settle every stupid little fight, and make sure kids get a visit from the Tooth Fairy. What's your job, Zil? Oh, right: you spray hateful graffiti. Thanks for taking care of that, I don't know how we'd ever manage without you."
"Sam…," Astrid said, just loud enough for him to hear. A warning.
Too late. He was going to say what needed saying.
"And t ~ Michael Grant

I dozed, jolting occasionally at the driver's loud pronouncement of upcoming stops. At this early hour the bus hummed along quietly with few passengers, so the stops were infrequent. In the hazy surrealism of predawn, there really was not much to see
what I could make out was mainly countryside, though not what I would call quaint, and certainly no Shakespearean cottages or fairy folk peeping from the trees. ~ Carolyn Weber

That waitress was flirting with me," Dad announced once we were out of the restaurant. He said it in his "whispering voice," which meant it was still loud enough for the waitress, all of her coworkers, and the shoppers at every other store in the mall to overhear.
"Ew," I said. "She was not."
Dad chuckled with delight over how hot and eligible he imagined himself to be. "She kept coming over to 'try to collect my plate' ... "
"Because that is her job," I reminded him.
"And the way she looked at your mother? Pure jealousy!" Dad slipped his arm around Mom's waist. "Poor thing. I left her a big tip. ~ Leila Sales

I'm impressed at your tenacity. You set a goal and you achieved it."

"My goal is Finn," I remind him.

"Everly, we've already established that you haven't been holding out exclusively for Professor Camden," he says, his lip twitching. "Which tells me that while you envision him as the perfect man, you've kept your options open. It tells me that while you might have a vivid fantasy of the perfect happily ever after, you're open" - he checks my response - " reluctantly, to being swept off your feet by someone other than Finn."

Well. I don't know how to respond to that, so what comes out of my mouth is, "Maybe I'm just a nymphomaniac."
This car ride just went from bad to worse.

"If you were a nymphomaniac you'd have given me a blowjob fifty miles ago."

"True," I agree. Damn it! I just said that out loud. I bite my lip and side-eye him. He's wearing a very satisfied smile. ~ Jana Aston