Our Pretty Little Symbol World Quotes

We human beings constitute and reconstitute ourselves through cultural traditions, which we experience as our own development in a historical time that spans the generations. To investigate the life-world as horizon and ground of all experience therefore requires investigating none other than generativity - the processes of becoming, of making and remaking, that occur over the generations and within which any individual genesis is always already situated. ... Individual subjectivity is intersubjectively and culturally embodied, embedded, and emergent. ~ Evan Thompson

PRETTY LITTLE LIARS works as a metaphor for our central human experience: we have no way to objectively know about anything, no way to move forward with certainty, and yet move forward we must. We stumble through life, trying to find our own way, not knowing whom to listen to, whom to trust, whom to suspect, what to believe. But in that process we discover our most authentic selves. ~ Norman Buckley

In my gym class, we had something called The Pit, this little alcove where we had to sit if we forgot our gym clothes. It was usually just the crippled kid, the pregnant girl, and me. It was pretty awkward, just hanging with all these freaks who didn't want to show their legs. ~ Danny McBride

My sister had blown out the candle in our breath.That meant our wishes were definitely going to come true ~ Sara Shepard

Herman Melville came to see me at the Consulate, looking much as he used to do (a little paler, and perhaps a little sadder), in a rough outside coat, and with his characteristic gravity and reserve of manner.... [W]e soon found ourselves on pretty much our former terms of sociability and confidence. Melville has not been well, of late; ... and no doubt has suffered from too constant literary occupation, pursued without much success, latterly; and his writings, for a long while past, have indicated a morbid state of mind.... Melville, as he always does, began to reason of Providence and futurity, and of everything that lies beyond human ken, and informed me that he had "pretty much made up his mind to be annihilated"; but still he does not seem to rest in that anticipation; and, I think, will never rest until he gets hold of a definite belief. It is strange how he persists -- and has persisted ever since I knew him, and probably long before -- in wondering to-and-fro over these deserts, as dismal and monotonous as the sand hills amid which we were sitting. He can neither believe, nor be comfortable in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other. If he were a religious man, he would be one of the most truly religious and reverential; he has a very high and noble nature, and better worth immortality than most of us.

[after what would be their last meeting] ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton and I were the first female headliners, where we would book our own opening acts. Before that, it was a standing joke that it was more like we had 'pretty little girl singers' opening for a male headliner. ~ Barbara Mandrell

Archer, Jenna, and I weren't exactly clutching each other and sobbing, but we were pretty shaken as we formed a little huddle. "Okay," I finally said. "Can we all agree that this is maybe the most screwed-up situation we've ever found ourselves in?"
"Agreed," they said in unison.
"Awesome." I gave a little nod. "And do either of you have any idea what we should do about it?"
"Well, we can't use magic," Archer said.
"And if we try to leave, we get eaten by Monster Fog," Jenna added.
"Right. So no plans at all, then?"
Jenna frowned. "Other than rocking in the fetal position for a while?"
"Yeah, I was thinking about taking one of those showers where you huddle in the corner fully clothed and cry," Archer offered.
I couldn't help but snort with laughter. "Great. So we'll all go have our mental breakdowns, and then we'll somehow get ourselves out of this mess. ~ Rachel Hawkins

I know that a brighter view may be taken, and if the sadder has been emphasized in these
letters, it is only because we feel you know less about it.
For more has been written about the successes than about the failures, and it seems to us that it is more important that you should know about the reverses than about the successes of the war. We shall have all
eternity to celebrate the victories, but we have only the few hours before sunset in which to win them. We are not winning them as we should, because the fact of the reverses is so little realized, and the needed reinforcements are not forthcoming, as they would be if
the position were thoroughly understood. Reinforcements of men and women are needed, but, far above all, reinforcements of prayer. And so we have tried to tell you the truth the uninteresting, unromantic truth
about the heathen as we find them, the work as it is. More workers are needed. No words can tell how much they are needed, how much they are wanted here. But we will never try to allure anyone to think of coming by painting coloured pictures, when the facts are in black and white. What if black and white will never attract like colours ? We care not for it ; our business
is to tell the truth. The work is not a pretty thing, to be looked at and admired. It is a fight. And battlefields are not beautiful.
But if one is truly called of God, all the difficulties and discouragements only intensify the Call. If things were ~ Amy Carmichael

Little Dorrit's old friend held the inkstand as she signed her name, and the clerk paused in taking off the good clergyman's surplice, and all the witnesses looked on with special interest. 'For, you see,' said Little Dorrit's old friend, 'this young lady is one of our curiosities, and has come now to the third volume of our Registers. Her birth is in what I call the first volume; she lay asleep, on this very floor, with her pretty head on what I call the second volume; and she's now a-writing her little name as a bride in what I call the third volume. ~ Charles Dickens

I'm pretty sure I can say that no one in my family ever asked Demetrie what it felt like to be black in Mississippi, working for our white family. It never occurred to us to ask. It was everyday life. It wasn't something people felt compelled to examine.
I have wished, for many years, that I'd been old enough and thoughtful enough to ask Demetrie that question. She died when I was sixteen. I've spent years imagining what her answer would be. And that is why I wrote this book. ~ Kathryn Stockett

I see us milling around our lockers in Tri-County High, laughing and joking and making plans for the weekend, whispering about girls and sex and other undiscovered territories, slapping five, talking cool, dreaming our pretty little high school dreams. ~ James Michael Rice

God could have made every creature just exactly the same, all of us round and shiny like little ball bearings one centimeter across, with all the invisible serial numbers distinguishing us one from another hidden away in the decrees and secret counsels of God. And there we would all be, pretty much all of us really bored. But what He actually did was make the gaudiest show ever, which started at the beginning of our story when Adam looked at Eve for the first time and, as already noted, started speaking poetry. ~ Douglas Wilson

I lay awake listening to the rain, and at first it was as pleasant to my ear and my mind as it had long been desired; but before I fell asleep it had become a majestic and finally a terrible thing, instead of a sweet sound and symbol. It was accusing and trying me and passing judgment. Long I lay still under the sentence, listening to the rain, and then at last listening to words which seemed to be spoken by a ghostly double beside me. He was muttering: The all-night rain puts out summer like a torch. In the heavy, black rain falling straight from invisible, dark sky to invisible, dark earth the heat of summer is annihilated, the splendour is dead, the summer is gone. The midnight rain buries it away where it has buried all sound but its own. I am alone in the dark still night, and my ear listens to the rain piping in the gutters and roaring softly in the trees of the world. Even so will the rain fall darkly upon the grass over the grave when my ears can hear it no more…

The summer is gone, and never can it return. There will never be any summer any more, and I am weary of everything… I am alone.

The truth is that the rain falls for ever and I am melting into it. Black and monotonously sounding is the midnight and solitude of the rain. In a little while or in an age – for it is all one – I shall know the full truth of the words I used to love, I knew not why, in my days of nature, in the days before the rain: 'Blessed are the dead that the rain rains on. ~ Edward Thomas

I awake with a start, shaking the cobwebs of sleep from my mind. It's pitch-dark out, the wind howling. It takes a couple seconds to get my bearings, to realize I'm in my parents' bed, Ryder beside me, on his side, facing me. Our hands are still joined, though our fingers are slack now.
"Hey, you," he says sleepily. "That one was loud, huh?"
"What was?"
"Thunder. Rattled the windows pretty bad."
"What time is it?"
"Middle of the night, I'd say."
I could check my phone, but that would require sitting up and letting go of his hand. Right now, I don't want to do that. I'm too comfortable. "Have you gotten any sleep at all?" I ask him, my mouth dry and cottony.
"I think I drifted off for a little bit. Till…you know…the thunder started up again."
"Oh. Sorry."
"It should calm down some when the eye moves through."
"If there's still an eye by the time it gets here. The center of circulation usually starts breaking up once it goes inland." Yeah, all those hours watching the Weather Channel occasionally come in handy.
He gives my hand a gentle squeeze. "Wow, maybe you should consider studying meteorology. You know, if the whole film-school thing doesn't work out for you."
"I could double major," I shoot back.
"I bet you could."
"What are you going to study?" I ask, curious now. "I mean, besides football. You've got to major in something, don't you?"
He doesn't answer right away. I wonder what's going through hi ~ Kristi Cook

So they sit like overfed fowl and watch Galdran Merindar break the Covenant by making secret pacts to sell our woods overseas?" I retorted.
He paused in the act of reaching for the camp jug. "Break the Covenant? How do you know about that? I don't recall you've ever been to Court."
Tell him about Azmus, and the intercepted letter, and have him send minions to make certain both disappeared? No chance. "I just know. That's all you need to know. But even if it weren't true, Debegri would still go up to take the County of Tlanth by force. Can't any of you Court people see that if it happens to us, it can happen to you? Or are you too stupid?"
"Possibly," he said, still with that dispassionate amusement. "It's also possible your…somewhat misguided actions are inspired by misguided sources, shall we say?"
"Say what you want," I retorted. "It's not like I can duff off in a huff if you're impolite."
He laughed softly, then shook his head. "I ought not to bait you. I apologize."
The implication seemed pretty clear: Soon enough I'd have a hard time of it. The prospect silenced me.
He didn't seem to notice as he brought out the jug and then poured two mugs of steaming water. A moment later he opened a little bag and brought out dried leaves, which he cast into one mug. Another bag provided leaves for the other mug. The wonderful scent of tea wafted through the air. I did not recognize the blend--or blends. Instinct made me sigh; then I realized I'd d ~ Sherwood Smith

If we were honest about it, our lives are all fiascoes. There really isn't anything of importance except maybe who gets handed your heart and what they do with it. And just so you don't spend a lot of time fretting over it, even that may be pretty meager." A few seconds passed. "We're just small, Judy. All of us, even though we do stuff every day of the week to distract ourselves from the fact, it's still true. We're just little and small and maybe if we have some backbone we do a few things worth doing and then we're gone. ~ Tom McNeal

I didn't know it yet, but he would become one of our high school's super-athletes. There were hints of athletic (and, presumably, sexual) prowess there. For one, boys as ridiculously Abercrombie- esque good-looking as he was are always sports stars throughout high school. It is a rule, a self- fulfilling prophecy. It seems as if, sometime during elementary school, coaches make note of the little boys with the most classic bone structure and the best height projections and kidnap them, training them under cover of night. Not all of them will make it in college ball (that's what people call it, right?) because by the time they're all seniors, many of them will have been riding more on the sportsman-like nature of their faces than their actual abilities. But until that day, coaches will keep putting them on the field in the most prominent and visually appealing positions because they just kind of look like that's where they should be. At least I'm pretty sure that is what's going on. ~ Katie Heaney

God damn it, Andre`. I'm about fucking sick of this jacked up shit! Things are going to go my way or else I won't bring the pretty little fucking mannequin to any more of our play dates! Barbie will get locked away under my fucking key! ~ Sai Marie Johnson

Hi, this is Bernard Fanning from Powderfinger. I'm in New York at the moment, and we've been walking around the city, it's pretty strange. I was walking along with Darren and Cogsy yesterday and we saw this guy playing cards, a little two up type swindle, and he ripped this guy off for like one hundred bucks in like, ten seconds, and the guy started complaining so he just packed up his shop and left! And it was the smoothest swindle any of us had ever seen. So that was probably the highlight of our trip here so far. ~ Bernard Fanning

Could it be that our pretty little rabbit has caught the hunter's heart? ~ Charlotte McPherren

It's pretty simple, really, when you think about it: We all start out as little fishes in our daddy's pants, and we all end up a Thanksgiving feast for the worms, and in the meantime we have to find a couple good reasons to give a fuck. ~ Tiffanie DeBartolo

I rise up on my tiptoes. He's already bending his head down, moving his lips toward mine. And then, well, I haven't exactly studied this, but I'm pretty sure that ours is not the most expert kiss in Sualan history. It's a little hard to figure out how we should tilt our heads so our noses don't bump. But this kiss is a promise, a vow. Come to think of it, it doesn't really matter that ours is not the most expert kiss in Sualan history. It's still the best. ~ Margaret Peterson Haddix

We sat at long tables side by side in a big

dusty room where we laughed and carried

on until they told us to pipe down and paint.

The running joke was how we glowed,

the handkerchiefs we sneezed into lighting

up our purses when we opened them at night,

our lips and nails, painted for our boyfriends

as a lark, simmering white as ash in a dark room.

"Would you die for science?" the reporter asked us,

Edna and me, the main ones in the papers.

Science? We mixed up glue, water and radium

powder into a glowing greenish white paint

and painted watch dials with a little

brush, one number after another, taking

one dial after another, all day long,

from the racks sitting next to our chairs.

After a few strokes, the brush lost its shape,

and our bosses told us to point it with

our lips. Was that science?

I quit the watch factory to work in a bank

and thought I'd gotten class, more money,

a better life, until I lost a tooth in back

and two in front and my jaw filled up with sores.

We sued: Edna, Katherine, Quinta, Larice and me,

but when we got to court, not one of us

could raise our arms to take the oath.

My teeth were gone by then. "Pretty Grace

Fryer," they called me in the papers.

~ Eleanor Swanson

The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. ~ Carl Sagan

I was walking ahead of our little group and, as the Wallace princesses approached, I stepped off the sidewalk into the dew-dampened grass to let them pass. Aunt Belle saw this; she hurried up to me and asked, "Why did you get off the walk when you met those girls?" I replied, as if it should have been clear to anyone, "Because they are the prettiest girls in town! And I didn't want them to get their feet wet!" Aunt Belle grabbed me above the right elbow with both of her hands and shook me until I actually saw blue stars, roughly pushed me back onto the sidewalk, and growled between clenched teeth, emphasizing each word: "DON'T YOU EVER, EVER GET OFF THE SIDEWALK FOR ANYONE! YOU ARE AS PRETTY AS ANYONE! DO YOU UNDERSTAND? ~ Mildred Armstrong Kalish

I think back to our fearsome disaster of a night together, with the Old Yeller and the awkward and her pretty much jumping me in an alley. And then her pretty much jumping me in the car. Me pretty much wanting to jump out of my whole existence. And suddenly, I feel really grateful for that whole crazy-ass experience. I'm not sure where I'd be if it hadn't happened, but … chances are it wouldn't be here. It's not like I know where stuff's going to go from this point. Probably more difficult, scary, confusing, stressful-as-all places. But I've got a crazy old bastard trying to force-feed me citrus in the name of my own health, and that? That's not something I'd trade.

"Thanks, Cora," I say.

"Yeah," she replies, with this little smile that's almost gentle, "sure. ~ Hannah Johnson

Dandelions represent the easy way. You pick up a dandelion and it's so soft, and it's so easy and even fun sometimes to blow the seeds everywhere. And you don't even realize what you're doing. Nothing happens right then, except you get a pretty little show in the breeze. It's not until later, sometimes, a long time later, that you look out in your garden and realize what you did.

It's easy, love, to pull back, to hide in yourself, to run and say you're just taking some time, to keep all of your emotions inside, maybe even to think you're protecting me from something. It would be easier still for me to let you do that. To watch you blow those dandelion seeds everywhere, and pretend it won't damage anything. To pretend we won't wake up one summer morning to discover we've allowed a huge patch of weeds to grow between us, opening up cracks in the foundation of our marriage.

Thorns, on the other hand... they're not easy. They hurt. They make you want to give up on the whole plant sometimes. But if you don't give up, love, if you fight through it, allow yourself to be hurt - the result is beautiful and strong. And it will last forever if you care for it. ~ Breeana Puttroff

Lego was our fourth film, because we did two Cloudys, so yeah there's a little bit of shorthand that's involved and then you can anticipate things- because for me it's like, I get a script for a movie and I go, "Wow that's a pretty good script", then you sign on and a couple months later they show you the first cut and you're like, "Whoa, how did that happen?" ~ Mark Mothersbaugh

So how about you?" she asked. "Why did you and your" - she broke out the air quotes again - "'life partner' decide to move to Clam Bay?"

"Not really a good reason for it, I guess. Just bad judgment on... Wait. What did you call us?"

"Oh, I'm sorry." She blushed. "Was that the wrong term? I didn't mean to offend."

"You think... Uh, we're not gay."

She laughed. "Oh, it's all right. Nobody here cared about something like that. We're pretty tolerant of alternative lifestyles."

"We're not gay," he said with a little more force than intended. "We're just friends."

"Are you married?"

"No."

"Girlfriends?"

"Not at the moment."

"Confirmed bachelors?" She raised an eyebrow/

"Not confirmed," he replied.

"So two single guys from the big city move to our little town and open a bed-and-breakfast. But you're not gay."

"We're just friends," he said.

"Right. Because straight men open bed-and-breakfasts all the time."

"These straight men did."

"Straight men names Philip and Vance."

He wanted to argue, but he was suddenly beginning to question it himself. ~ A. Lee Martinez

March 6, 1961

I remembered a party in a house outside of Ann Arbor. There was a jazz band -- piano, bass, drums, and sax -- playing in one of the large rooms. A heavy odor of marijuana hung in the air. The host appeared now and then looking pleased, as if he liked seeing strangers in every room, the party out of his control. It wasn't wild, but with a constant flow of people, who knows what they're doing. It became late and I was a little drunk, wandering from one part of the house to another. I entered a long hall and was surprised by the silence, as if I had entered another house. A girl at the other end of the hall was walking toward me. I saw large blue eyes and very black hair. She was about average height, doll-like features delicate as cut glass, extremely pretty, maybe the prettiest girl I'd ever seen. When she came up to me I took her in my arms and kissed her. She let it happen. We were like creatures in a dream. Holding her hand, I drew her with me and we passed through rooms where people stood about, and then left the house. As we drove away, she said her name was Margo. She was a freshman at the university, from a town in northern Michigan. I took her home. It was obvious she'd never gone home with a man. She didn't seem fearful, only uncertain, the question in her eyes: "What happens next?" What happened next was nothing much. We fell asleep in our clothes. I wasn't the one to make her no different from everyone. ~ Leonard Michaels

9/11/01
Gina:
Especially today, with the enormity of current events, I want to convey to you again, how much you mean to me and how proud I am to be your husband. The hard work that you are engaged in right now is exhausting, invisible and largely thankless in the short term.
But honey, please know that buried at the core of this tedium is the most noble and important work in the world- God's work; the fruits of which you and I will be lucky enough to enjoy as we grow old together. Watching these little guys grow into men is a privilege that I am proud to share with you, and the perfect fulfillment of our marriage bonds.
You are a great mom.
You are a great wife.
You are my best friend.
You are very pretty.
Happy Birthday.

-Matt ~ Michael Spehn

There is something about Christmas that requires a rug rat. Little kids make Christmas fun. I wonder if could rent one for the holidays. When I was tiny we would by a real tree and stay up late drinking hot chocolate and finding just the right place for the special decorations. It seems like my parents gave up the magic when I figured out the Santa lie. Maybe I shouldn't have told them I knew where the presents really came from. It broke their hearts.
I bet they'd be divorced by now if I hadn't been born. I'm sure I was a huge disappointment. I'm not pretty or smart or athletic. I'm just like them- an ordinary drone dressed in secrets and lies. I can't believe we have to keep playacting till I graduate. It's a shame we just can't admit that we have failed at family living, sell the house, split up the money, and get on with our lives. Merry Christmas. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

402Emotional position is part of it, but as an individual you are not your emotions, neither are you your intellect. These are things that you have . They're not things that you are . Therefore you have to start to become aware of the different requirements that human beings have, the different areas that they like to be satisfied in. Which means becoming aware of yourself. I mean, as a writer you're gonna have to understand pretty much the whole universe. But the best place to start is by understanding the inner universe. The entire universe – for one thing – only exists in your perceptions. That's all you're gonna see of it. To all practical intents and purposes this is purely some kind of lightshow that's being put on in the kind of neurons in our brain. The whole of reality. So. To understand the universe there's worse advice than that which was carved above the shrine of the Delphi oracle. Where it just said: "Know thyself". Understand yourself. Know thyself is a magical goal, but like I say to me there is very little difference between magic and creative art in any sense – the laws of one apply perfectly well to the other. ~ Alan Moore

The gamin Gavroche puts in a strong plea for mercy, and his sister Eponine, if Hugo had chosen to take more trouble with her, might have been a great, and is actually the most interesting, character. But Cosette - the cosseted Cosette - Hugo did not know our word or he would have seen the danger - is merely a pretty and rather selfish little doll, and her precious lover Marius is almost ineffable. ~ George Saintsbury

This is apparently a little promotional ¶ where we're supposed to explain "how and why we came to" the subject of our GD series book (the stuff in quotations is the editor's words). The overall idea is to humanize the series and make the books and their subjects seem warmer and more accessible. So that people will be more apt to buy the books. I'm pretty sure this is how it works. The obvious objection to such promotional ¶s is that, if the books are any good at all, then the writers' interest and investment in their subjects will be so resoundingly obvious in the texts themselves that these little pseudo-intimate Why I Cared Enough About Transfinite Math and Where It Came From to Spend a Year Writing a Book About It blurblets are unnecessary; whereas, if the books aren't any good, it's hard to see how my telling somebody that as a child I used to cook up what amounted to simplistic versions of Zeno's Dichotomy and ruminate on them until I literally made myself sick, or that I once almost flunked a basic calc course and have seethed with dislike for conventional higher-math education ever since, or that the ontology and grammar of abstractions have always struck me as one of the most breathtaking problems in human consciousness - how any such stuff will help. The logic of this objection seems airtight to me. In fact, the only way the objection doesn't apply is if these ¶s are really nothing more than disguised ad copy, in which case I don't see why anyone reading them should ~ David Foster Wallace

The Bible is not a book for the faint of heart
it is a book full of all the greed and glory and violence and tenderness and sex and betrayal that benefits mankind. It is not the collection of pretty little anecdotes mouthed by pious little church mice
it does not so much nibble at our shoe leather as it cuts to the heart and splits the marrow from the bone. It does not give us answers fitted to our small-minded questions, but truth that goes beyond what we even know to ask. ~ Rich Mullins

She laughs. "You're so much like your father. Sometimes I wonder if you got any of my DNA at all."

I've never really seen any similarities between my dad and me. Except our love of business - our drive to succeed. We've always been evenly matched in that respect. Otherwise, my father's as straight-laced as they come. A dedicated, loyal family man through and through. Pretty much the opposite of me in every way.

"I am?"

She's still chuckling. "One day I'll tell you how your dad and I really ended up together at Columbia. And I'll include all the dirty little details he never wanted you to know."

If that story involves sex in any way, I don't want to hear it.

Ever.

As far as I'm concerned, my parents have had sex two times in their entire lives. Once for Alexandra and once for me. That's it. On some level I realize I'm deluding myself, but this is one topic where I prefer to live in denial. ~ Emma Chase

Speaking of novels,' I said, 'you remember we decided once, you, your husband and I, that Proust's rough masterpiece was a huge, ghoulish fairy tale, an asparagus dream, totally unconnected with any possible people in any historical France, a sexual travestissement and a colossal farce, the vocabulary of genius and its poetry, but no more, impossibly rude hostesses, please let me speak, and even ruder guests, mechanical Dostoevskian rows and Tolstoian nuances of snobbishness repeated and expanded to an unsufferable length, adorable seascapes, melting avenues, no, do not interrupt me, light and shade effects rivaling those of the greatest English poets, a flora of metaphors, described - by Cocteau, I think - as "a mirage of suspended gardens," and, I have not yet finished, an absurd, rubber-and-wire romance between a blond young blackguard (the fictitious Marcel), and an improbable jeune fille who has a pasted-on bosom, Vronski's (and Lyovin's) thick neck, and a cupid's buttocks for cheeks; but - and now let me finish sweetly - we were wrong, Sybil, we were wrong in denying our little beau ténébreux the capacity of evoking "human interest": it is there, it is there - maybe a rather eighteenth-centuryish, or even seventeenth-centuryish, brand, but it is there. Please, dip or redip, spider, into this book [offering it], you will find a pretty marker in it bought in France, I want John to keep it. Au revoir, Sybil, I must go now. I think my telephone is ringing. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Healing your wounds will hurt, so cry.
Cry your pretty little heart out until you have nothing left to shed, that's how beauty is grown;
through the darkest of our days we become the light. ~ Nikki Rowe

Back home, my favorite part of Mass was during communion, when I'd stand at the rail and hold a little gold platter under people's chins. The pretty girls would line up for communion (I confess to Almighty God). They'd kneel (and to you my brothers and sisters), cast their eyes demurely down (I have sinned through my own fault), and stick out their tongues (in my thoughts and in my words). Their tongues would shine, reflected in the gold platter, and since the wafer was dry, the girls would maybe lick their lips (and I ask Blessed Mary ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you my brothers and sisters) before they swallowed (to pray for me to the Lord our God). It was all I could do not to pass out. ~ Rob Sheffield

What an unreliable thing is time
when I want it to fly, the hours stick to me like glue. And what a changeable thing, too. Time is the twine to tie our lives into parcels of years and months. Or a rubber band stretched to suit our fancy. Time can be the pretty ribbon in a little girl's hair. Or the lines in your face, stealing your youthful colour and your hair ... But in the end, time is a noose around the neck, strangling slowly. ~ Rohinton Mistry

The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it. Our northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under those censures; for tho' their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others. ~ Thomas Jefferson

One of Victor's friends had a pet called "Terry the Truth Cat." When she was little and her father thought she was lying he would pick up the cat and say, "You kids tell me the truth or Terry gets it." I guess it was supposed to help with honesty but it seems pretty fucked up. Plus, I don't think I could threaten a cat. Maybe we could get Terry the Truth Turtle and threaten him with a fake gun. We'd be trying to get our daughter, Hailey, to tell the truth and he'd just hide his head in his shell like, "I'm not part of this. I'm not with you guys." But I don't like guns so maybe we could hold it over a pot of boiling ~ Jenny Lawson

We entered the cool cave of the practice space with all the long-haired, goateed boys stoned on clouds of pot and playing with power tools. I tossed my fluffy coat into the hollow of my bass drum and lay on the carpet with my worn newspaper. A shirtless boy came in and told us he had to cut the power for a minute, and I thought about being along in the cool black room with Joey. Let's go smoke, she said, and I grabbed the cigarettes off the amp. She started talking to me about Wonder Woman. I feel like something big is happening, but I don't know what to do about it. With The Straight Girl? I asked in the blankest voice possible. With everything. Back in the sun we walked to the edge of the parking lot where a black Impala convertible sat, rusted and rotting, looking like it just got dredged from a swamp. Rainwater pooling on the floor. We climbed up onto it and sat our butts backward on the edge of the windshield, feet stretched into the front seat. Before she even joined the band, I would think of her each time I passed the car, the little round medallions with the red and black racing flags affixed to the dash. On the rusting Chevy, Joey told me about her date the other night with a girl she used to like who she maybe liked again. How her heart was shut off and it felt pretty good. How she just wanted to play around with this girl and that girl and this girl and I smoked my cigarette and went Uh-Huh. The sun made me feel like a restless country girl even though I'd never b ~ Michelle Tea

A war always comes to someone else. In Salinas we were aware that the United States was the greatest and most powerful nation in the world. Every American was a rifleman by birth, and one American was worth ten or twenty foreigners in a fight. Pershing's expedition into Mexico after Villa had exploded one of our myths for a little while. We had truly believed that Mexicans can't shoot straight and besides were lazy and stupid. When our own Troop C came wearily back from the border they said that none of this was true […] Somehow we didn't connect Germans with Mexicans. We went right back to our own myths. One American was as good as twenty Germans. This being true, we had only to act in a stern manner to bring the Kaiser to heel. He wouldn't dare interfere with our trade--but he did. He wouldn't stick out his neck and and sink our ships--and he did. It was stupid, but he did, and so there was nothing for it but to fight him. The war, at first anyway, was for other people. We, I, my family and friends, had kind of bleacher seats, and it was pretty exciting. And just as war is always for somebody else, so it is also that somebody else always gets killed. And Mother of God! that wasn't true either. The dreadful telegrams began to sneak sorrowfully in, and it was everybody's brother. Here we were, over six thousand miles from the anger and the noise, and that didn't save us […] The draftees wouldn't look at their mothers. They didn't dare. We'd never thought the war could happen ~ John Steinbeck

We will have gone from men telling us condescendingly to not bother our pretty little heads about important things like politics, to not bothering our pretty little heads without even being told not to! The suffragettes struggled and suffered so much on our behalf; what a travesty of everything they stood for, if we simply look away as though we can't be bothered. ~ Marianne Williamson

My wife and I have spent most of our lives in France, and we are both pretty well bilingual, my wife more purely than I, since as a little girl she went to school in French Switzerland. ~ Patrick O'Brian

Detecting a note of inordinate concern for the young woman, Fred quizzed, "Could it be that our pretty little rabbit has caught the hunter's heart?"
Rider felt distinctly uncomfortable under Fred's all-too-knowing eyes. "Don't be ridiculous. This is a job, not a honeymoon!"
"Why,you're in love with her, aren't you?"
"Hell,no! What gave you that half-cocked idea?"
"You objected too fast." Fred smiled.
"How could I love a woman like her? For God's sake, Fred, she acts more like a man than a woman. It's just that..." Rider rubbed at the back of his neck. "Damn, the woman walks around naked under that shirt of hers, jiggling and bouncing. Naturally, I'm attracted. You would be, too! But believe me, Fred, lust is all I feel for her."
"You got it bad, my friend." Fred chuckled. "When we get done talking here, I suggest you take Annie over there"-he jerked his head toward a brunette-"upstairs for a good romp in the sack."
"Maybe I should.I've tried to avoid Willow but just thinking about her gets me randy."
Even as he mouthed the words, Rider knew he would not do as Fred suggested. There was only one woman who could cure his ache and, unfortunately for him, no other would do. ~ Charlotte McPherren