Award Wishes Quotes

Having waited my entire life to get an award for something, anything...I now get awards all the time for being mentally ill. It’s better than being bad at being insane, right? How tragic would it be to be runner-up for Bipolar Woman of the Year?

And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation. So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.

The optimist sees the doughnut but the pessimist see 452 calories and a shed load of sugar ...

Title 'Yikin heykellerimi' ->'Destroy and shatter the statues you have built of me' O nation I am Kemal Mustafa If my thoughts and beliefs are not of this day and age If my wisdom isn't still the most authentic mentor Then let my tongue cleave to the roof of my palate I apoligize Forget everything I said Destroy and shatter the statues you have built of me If freedom isn’t still the supreme value If you’d rather have slaves stay chained Forget everything I said Destroy and shatter the statues you have built of me If you see no sense in living a civilized life If you want to be sent back in time to the middle ages and wish to put a crown on the head of a man who spits into the face of art Forget everything I said Destroy and shatter the statues you have built of me If the pain of war violence was not enough If peace at home, peace in the world has no meaning If to be awarded requires an arms race Forget everything I said Destroy and shatter the statues you have built of me If you miss the fez and the veil and prefer to light the night If you’re still hoping to find healing from a dervish, a sheik or an amulet Forget everything I said Destroy and shatter the statues you have built of me If you say women should not be equal to men and should be covered in black sheets in order to flee from the wrath of bigots If you say you don’t want to see our women and daughters to get an education just because you believe this is their fate Forget everything I said Destroy and shatter the statues you have built of me If freedom and democracy is too much for you to handle If you have a longing for the sultan of the Sultanate and are still not able to determine the significance of being a nation Be servants, stay on the path of religion and wait for şeyhülislam to lay down the law for you Forget everything I said Destroy and shatter the statues you have built of me And LEAVE ME ALONE… -Musafa Kemal Atatürk

There is a concept called body autonomy. It’s generally considered a human right. Bodily autonomy means a person has control over who or what uses their body, for what, and for how long. It’s why you can’t be forced to donate blood, tissue, or organs. Even if you are dead. Even if you’d save or improve 20 lives. It’s why someone can’t touch you, have sex with you, or use your body in any way without your continuous consent. A fetus is using someone’s body parts. Therefore under bodily autonomy, it is there by permission, not by right. It needs a persons continuous consent. If they deny and withdraw their consent, the pregnant person has the right to remove them from that moment. A fetus is equal in this regard because if I need someone else’s body parts to live, they can also legally deny me their use. By saying a fetus has a right to someone’s body parts until it’s born, despite the pregnant person’s wishes, you are doing two things: 1. Granting a fetus more rights to other people’s bodies than any born person. 2. Awarding a pregnant person less rights to their body than a corpse.

[People] ask themselves, what is suitable for my position? What is usually done by persons of my station and percuniary circumstances? Or (worse still) what is usually done by persons of a station and circumstances superior to mine? I do not mean that they choose what is customary in preference to what suits their own inclinations. It does not occur to them to have any inclination, except for what is customary. Thus the mind itself is bowed to the yoke: even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they like in crowds; they exercise choice only among things that are commonly done: peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes: until by dint of not following their own nature they have no nature to follow: their human capacities are withered and starved: they become incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly their own.

Considering thus how much honor is awarded to antiquity, and how many times—letting pass infinite other examples—a fragment of an ancient statue has been bought at high price because someone wants to have it near oneself, to honor his house with it, and to be able to have it imitated by those who delight in that art, and how the latter then strive with all industry to represent it in all their works; and seeing, on the other hand, that the most virtuous works the histories show us, which have been done by ancient kingdoms and republics, by kings, captains, citizens, legislators, and others who have labored for their fatherland, are rather admired than imitated—indeed they are so much shunned by everyone in every least thing that no sign of that ancient virtue remains with us—I can do no other than marvel and grieve… From this it arises that the infinite number who read [the histories] take pleasure in hearing of the variety of accidents contained within them without thinking of imitating them, judging that imitation is not only difficult but impossible—as if heaven, sun, elements, men had varied in motion, order, and power from what they were in antiquity. Wishing, therefore, to turn men from this error, I have judged it necessary to write on all those books of Titus Livy...

First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation. So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all. Secondly, writing is survival. Any art, any good work, of course, is that. Not to write, for many of us, is to die.

Terrified he was about to say the three most terrifying words in the English language, I opened my ridiculous mouth, and blurted, "I stole your underwear." Gwen Hamilton, winner of the Dumbest Confession Award.

It's a little weird that I'm getting an award for being nice and generous and kind... which is what we're all supposed to do for one another. That's the point of being human. I think that kindness is an innate quality that we all have. We need to see more of it in the world. I want everyone to know that we all really, really love one another. Deep down, we all love one another. We need to get back to that. My wish is that we all try.

A simple comparison between the inducements that were given the early Spanish and the early British New World settlers reveals the fundamental difference between the two invasions: the Spanish, with the repartimiento, were awarded not land but large numbers of native people to enslave and do with what they wished; the English, with the “headright,” were provided not with native people but with fifty acres of land for themselves and fifty acres more for each additional settler whose transatlantic transportation costs they paid.

You know,” he said, “when you were little and tired like this, I’d throw you over my shoulder and carry you home like a sack of rice. Sometimes I wish you were still that little. I wish I could still do that.” “Da-ad. That is so embarrassing,” is what she said. But sometimes she wished it, too. Sometimes she wished it with all her heart.

The sovereign people, legislators, and reformers, see in public offices, to speak plainly, only opportunities for pecuniary advancement. And, because it regards them as a source of profit, it decrees the eligibility of citizens. For of what use would this precaution be, if there were nothing to gain by it? No one would think of ordaining that none but astronomers and geographers should be pilots, nor of prohibiting stutterers from acting at the theatre and the opera. The nation was still aping the kings: like them it wished to award the lucrative positions to its friends and flatterers. Unfortunately, and this last feature completes the resemblance, the nation did not control the list of livings; that was in the hands of its agents and representatives. They, on the other hand, took care not to thwart the will of their gracious sovereign.

Is that...the Looney Tunes theme?" Mer and St. Clair cock their ears. "Why,yes.I believe it is," St. Clair says. "I heard 'Love Shack' a few minutes ago," Mer says. "It's official," I say. "America has finally ruined France." "So can we go now?" St. Clair holds up a small bag. "I'm done." "Ooo,what'd you get?" Mer asks. She takes his bag and pulls out a delicate, shimmery scarf. "Is it for Ellie?" "Shite." Mer pauses. "You didn't get anything for Ellie?" "No,it's for Mum.Arrrgh." He rakes a hand through his hair. "Would you mind if we pop over to Sennelier before we go home?" Sennelier is a gorgeous little art supply sore,the kind that makes me wish I had an excuse to buy oil paints and pastels. Mer and I went with Rashmi last weekend. She bought Josh a new sketchbook for Hanukkah. "Wow.Congratulations,St. Clair," I say. "Winner of today's Sucky Boyfriend award.And I thought Steve was bad-did you see what happened in calc?" "You mean when Amanda caught him dirty-texting Nicole?" Mer asks. "I thought she was gonna stab him in the neck with her pencil." "I've been busy," St. Clair says. I glance at him. "I was just teasing." "Well,you don't have to be such a bloody git about it." "I wasn't being a git. I wasnt even being a twat, or a wanker, or any of your other bleeding Briticisms-" "Piss off." He snatches his bag back from Mer and scowls at me. "HEY!" Mer says. "It's Christmas. Ho-ho-ho. Deck the halls. Stop fighting." "We weren't fighting," he and I say together. She shakes her head. "Come on,St. Clair's right. Let's get out of here. This place gives me the creeps." "I think it's pretty," I say. "Besides, I'd rather look at ribbons than dead rabbits." "Not the hares again," St. Clair says. "You're as bad as Rashmi." We wrestle through the Christmas crowds. "I can see why she was upset! The way they're hung up,like they'd died of nosebleeds. It's horrible. Poor Isis." All of the shops in Paris have outdone themselves with elaborate window displays,and the butcher is no exception. I pass the dead bunnies every time I go to the movies. "In case you hadn't noticed," he says. "Isis is perfectly alive and well on the sixth floor.

And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation. So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all. Secondly, writing is survival.

I would not be among you to-night (being awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) but for the mentors, colleagues and students who have guided and aided me throughout my scientific life. I wish I could name them all and tell you their contributions. More, however, than anyone else it was the late Rudolf Schoenheimer, a brilliant scholar and a man of infectious enthusiasm, who introduced me to the wonders of Biochemistry. Ever since, I have been happy to have chosen science as my career, and, to borrow a phrase of Jacques Barzun, have felt that 'Science is, in the best and strictest sense, glorious entertainment'.

Often people come to me and say "As a best-selling author with many published works to your name, and a basement full of awards, most of them in need of a good polish, you must have some words of advice for the world that you wish to share." And I do. It's this. If you have a 25lb long-haired calico cat whose fur is all matted into evil dreadlocks, and who is too fat to properly clean herself, do not put fresh batteries into an ancient beard trimmer and attempt to shave her. You will only cause distress to the cat, and create a mess. There are professionals who will happily do this kind of thing, for a small fee. Leave it to them. (This has been a public service announcement on behalf of Furball the cat, currently believed to be hiding in the attic in a severely traumatized state.)

Bell treated his friend and colleague Watson generously. Though he had no legal obligations to do so, he awarded Watson 10 percent of the company, allowing Watson to retire rich at the age of just twenty-seven. Able to do anything he wanted, Watson devoted the rest of his life to just that. He traveled the world, read widely, and took a degree in geology at MIT for the simple satisfaction of improving his brain. He then started a shipyard, which quickly grew to employ four thousand men, producing a scale of stress and obligation way beyond anything he wished for, so he sold the business, converted to Islam, and became a follower of Edward Bellamy, a radical philosopher and quasi communist who for a short period in the 1880s enjoyed phenomenal esteem and popularity. Tiring of Bellamy, Watson moved to England in early middle age and took up acting, for which he showed an unexpected talent. He proved particularly adept at Shakespearean roles and performed many times at Stratford-upon-Avon before returning to America and a life of quiet retirement. He died, contented and rich, at his winter home on Pass-Grille Key, Florida, just shy of his eighty-first birthday in 1934.

I have been all over the world cooking and eating and training under extraordinary chefs. And the two food guys I would most like to go on a road trip with are Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlmann, both of whom I have met, and who are genuinely awesome guys, hysterically funny and easy to be with. But as much as I want to be the Batgirl in that trio, I fear that I would be woefully unprepared. Because an essential part of the food experience that those two enjoy the most is stuff that, quite frankly, would make me ralph. I don't feel overly bad about the offal thing. After all, variety meats seem to be the one area that people can get a pass on. With the possible exception of foie gras, which I wish like heckfire I liked, but I simply cannot get behind it, and nothing is worse than the look on a fellow foodie's face when you pass on the pate. I do love tongue, and off cuts like oxtails and cheeks, but please, no innards. Blue or overly stinky cheeses, cannot do it. Not a fan of raw tomatoes or tomato juice- again I can eat them, but choose not to if I can help it. Ditto, raw onions of every variety (pickled is fine, and I cannot get enough of them cooked), but I bonded with Scott Conant at the James Beard Awards dinner, when we both went on a rant about the evils of raw onion. I know he is often sort of douchey on television, but he was nice to me, very funny, and the man makes the best freaking spaghetti in tomato sauce on the planet. I have issues with bell peppers. Green, red, yellow, white, purple, orange. Roasted or raw. Idk. If I eat them raw I burp them up for days, and cooked they smell to me like old armpit. I have an appreciation for many of the other pepper varieties, and cook with them, but the bell pepper? Not my friend. Spicy isn't so much a preference as a physical necessity. In addition to my chronic and severe gastric reflux, I also have no gallbladder. When my gallbladder and I divorced several years ago, it got custody of anything spicier than my own fairly mild chili, Emily's sesame noodles, and that plastic Velveeta-Ro-Tel dip that I probably shouldn't admit to liking. I'm allowed very occasional visitation rights, but only at my own risk. I like a gentle back-of-the-throat heat to things, but I'm never going to meet you for all-you-can-eat buffalo wings. Mayonnaise squicks me out, except as an ingredient in other things. Avocado's bland oiliness, okra's slickery slime, and don't even get me started on runny eggs. I know. It's mortifying.

To Miss Granger, wishing you a speedy recovery, from your concerned teacher, Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming-Smile Award.” Ron looked up at Hermione, disgusted. “You sleep with this under your pillow?

Digging that hole just to see if you are strong enough to climb out of it is a trait we as humans have developed to put meaning and purpose in our lives. But when you get tired of digging and climbing, you realize that life has no purpose. We constantly search for a way to win the 'Game of Life' until we realize it is impossible. Life is a game no one can win. I wish there was a point where someone (God) handed us an award and said 'Good Job, you won. Now move on to the next step'. This is why I believe life is missing purpose, meaning, and a goal. I also believe that is why we as humans get caught up in games, competition, sports, religion, and even war. These are all events that will come to an end with a winner and a loser. They are definite and absolute, they fill that void we have in our lives. Some could argue that life is definite and absolute, and I would agree, however, how do you win? Fun, Love, Money, Power, Prestige? All of these disappear when we die, thus removing all meaning and purpose. So cheer on your favorite team, challenge someone to a game of chess, and pray to God for redemption, but know why you do it. Be real with yourself, because you are scared, seeking purpose, and stuck playing a game you cannot win.

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The mandatory system was designed to give colonialism a cleaner, more modern look. The Allied powers refrained from dividing up the conqueror’s spoils as in the past; rather they invited themselves to serve as “trustees” for backward peoples, with the ostensible purpose of preparing them for independence. This new form of colonialism was said to incorporate international law, as well as the principles of democracy and justice, and respect the wishes of the inhabitants of each country. Awarded by the League of Nations, mandates could, theoretically, be revoked by it.42 In reality though, the postwar system was merely a reworking of colonial rule.

The afternoon circled toward dusk, its last light suspended in an amber glow. I walked out over the tough grasses and flinty stone of the steppe, needing a few moments to be alone. I wished to breathe deeply in that vast landscape awash in light and mystery. These days and places are affirmations; they approach the numinous. The beckoning steppe, and the creatures it harbored, was revealed as radiantly and assiduously as moon passing out of eclipse. It was as if the spirit of the place had become visible, had for a brief creak of time taken material form. I stood and watched how the light fell, flaring the flatlands in a copper-edged glow, sending silver sparks skimming across the endless sea.

Over the past three decades I’ve appeared in nearly a hundred movies and television shows. I’ve been a leading man and a supporting actor and worked in almost every genre. But whatever else I’ve done or whatever else I might do, The Princess Bride will always be the work with which I am most closely associated; and Westley, with his wisp of a mustache and ponytail, the character with whom I will be forever linked. Not Glory, which earned higher critical praise upon release and won more awards; not Days of Thunder or Twister, both of which were summer blockbusters. Not even Saw, which was shot in eighteen days on a budget smaller than most movies spend on catering, and earned more than $100 million; and that’s just fine by me.

research university that primarily awards master’s degrees and PhDs, JNU saw the number of seats offered to students wishing to enroll in a master’s or a doctoral program plummet by 84 percent, from 1,234 to 194 in one year.101 Furthermore, admissions committees were made up solely of experts appointed by the JNU vice-chancellor, flouting university statutes and guidelines followed by the University Grants Commission (UGC), which stipulate that academics should be involved.102 This made it possible to hire teachers from Hindu nationalist circles,103 with few qualifications,104 and some facing charges of plagiarism.105 In particular, several former ABVP student activists from JNU have been appointed as assistant professors even after being disqualified by the committee in charge of short-listing applicants.106 The vice-chancellor replaced deans in the School of Social Sciences without following appointment procedures, cutting the number of researchers by 80 percent and ceasing to apply rules JNU had set to ensure diversity through a mechanism taking into account the social background and geographic origin of its applicants.107 The new recruitment procedure strongly disadvantaged Dalits, Adivasis, and OBCs, who used to make up nearly 50 percent of the student intake and who now accounted for a mere 7 percent. The vice-chancellor also issued ad hoc promotions, nominating recently appointed faculty members to the post of full professor. Conversely, the freeze on promotions for “antigovernment” teachers who should have been promoted on the basis of seniority prompted some of the diktat’s victims to take the matter to court.108 However, even after the court—taking note of the illegality of the rejection procedure—ordered a reexamination of the claimants’ promotions, the latter were once again denied.109

After years of exchanging memes, texting life updates, wishing each other happy birthday, saying ghoulishly adult things like We should catch up sometime.

But the truth is you know exactly where you are with a Dick Francis, especially the early ones, which seem to me infinitely superior as works of literature to the razzmatazz stylistics of the highly pulicized and award-winning novels by young X, who jives egocentrically across the page, but fails to make one wish to turn it.... Although the above is clearly mere prejudice, feebly masquerading as taste and judgement, it is still an undeniable fact of my nature that I'm unable to follow any prose or verse that doesn't in some sense tell a story.

I thought i think i’m thinking the bangladeshi people bangladeshi some of people not the lot’s of people because lot’s of actor actress lot’s of journalistht is a giving me the hi giving me the is a good way wishes for the award but lot’s of but few people is all over in the country view of journalisht few of people is not the happy for the award because of zelas

One day, my secretary got a phone call from someone who said the White House was calling. President Reagan wished to invite me to a dinner in honor of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Thinking it was a prank, my secretary asked them to send the invitation. Sure enough, a huge, embossed envelope soon arrived. It looked like I’d just won an Academy Award. The dinner was to be held not in the grand salons where state occasions normally occur, but upstairs in the private family quarters. I had never been to the White House. I had no idea what was expected of me.

Do not be deceived by them. They will tell you that they are good and that they wish you well. They will promise you many things that you know are impossible. Slowly, as you listen to them, you will hope for what cannot be. The Evil One will tell you that you must be something which you cannot be and ridicule you when you fail to become what you cannot become. That is why they are evil.

Many Nigerians get excited when the government execute such projects as newly constructed schools, roads, health centers and other government funded projects which they tag as developmental projects. They get excited over what they perceive as a performing government carrying out its corporate responsibilities. But they are ignorant of the fact that public funds cannot disappear in a vacuum, it has to be accounted for; therefore contracts must be awarded to make the stealing legal and official. Yet, the people only wish that more of such projects can be executed; they fail to understand that with a defective procurement process in place, the more projects a government executes under this abnormal process; the more kickbacks its officials receive, the more money is stolen, the more corruption is patronized. In fact, under our present abnormal procurement process, the more project a government executes, the more money its officials steal through each contract inflation and kickbacks. If we therefore do not fix our public procurement lapses; stealing through contract inflation and kickbacks will become an inevitable and official act of corruption as it has seemingly already become!

In Hollywood today, the simple truth is that there are two types of movie studios: Disney, and those that wish they were Disney. Understanding why studios have turned so aggressively toward franchises, sequels, and superheroes and away from originality, risks, and mid-budget dramas takes more than an appreciation for the financial pressures faced by executives like Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal. Just as Olympic swimmers can’t help but pace themselves against Michael Phelps, Sony and its competitors have for years been jealous of and frustrated by Disney. Hollywood is a herd industry. Its executives are constantly looking out the side window or at the rearview mirror and asking, “Why aren’t we doing that?” For those peering at Disney, that means slashing the number of movies made per year by two-thirds. It also means largely abandoning any type of film that costs less than $100 million, is based on an original idea, or appeals to any group smaller than all the moviegoers around the globe. Disney doesn’t make dramas for adults. It doesn’t make thrillers. It doesn’t make romantic comedies. It doesn’t make bawdy comedies. It doesn’t make horror movies. It doesn’t make star vehicles. It doesn’t adapt novels. It doesn’t buy original scripts. It doesn’t buy anything at film festivals. It doesn’t make anything political or controversial. It doesn’t make anything with an R-rating. It doesn’t give award-winning directors like Alfonso Cuarón or Christopher Nolan wide latitude to pursue their visions.

Alex Landau, a Black transracial adoptee, had such a life-threatening encounter in 2009, when he was just nineteen. Stopped by the police and accused of making an illegal left turn, he was ordered out of his car and searched. Landau’s White father had never had “the talk” that is a rite of passage in African American families—when Black parents explain to their teenage sons how to behave if stopped by the police. Landau asserted his rights with the three police officers present and asked to see a warrant before they searched his car. The officers responded by punching him in the face. He was knocked to the ground and remembers hearing one of the officers saying, “Where’s your warrant now, you f—ing n—?” When his mother arrived at the jail, she was horrified to find her son there with forty-five stitches in his face. Though the officers were cleared of any misconduct, the City of Denver awarded Landau a $795,000 settlement. He and his mother are now working to educate other transracial families. Landau says, “I know my mother wishes she could have had the insight herself to prepare me for the ugly realities that can occur.

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I was good. My brother was bad. My brother knew that the teachers and school cops treated us differently because of our oversized clothes and natural hair. He defended himself in defied them. They responded with repeated punishment through suspensions. I decided I would prove the teachers wrong by earning good grades and becoming a lawyer one day. After I scored high on gifted and talented tests, everything changed. Our home filled with my laminated citizenship certificates, academic awards, sports trophies, and medals. The celebration of my obedience increased my brother's justifiable defiance and the school's punishment. I wish we would have both known then how to organize. Maybe I would have resisted the urge to be respectable.

This is what award-winning author and international journalist TIMERI MURARI had to say: Dear Anant I managed to read 'Skewed Fantasy' a charming story on Chitra and her problems with NRIs and her dreams. Best wishes Timeri

were greatly improved by the fact that all the hair had gone from her face and her eyes were turning slowly back to brown. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any new leads?’ she added in a whisper, so that Madam Pomfrey couldn’t hear her. ‘Nothing,’ said Harry gloomily. ‘I was so sure it was Malfoy,’ said Ron, for about the hundredth time. ‘What’s that?’ asked Harry, pointing to something gold sticking out from under Hermione’s pillow. ‘Just a Get Well card,’ said Hermione hastily, trying to poke it out of sight, but Ron was too quick for her. He pulled it out, flicked it open and read aloud: ‘To Miss Granger, wishing you a speedy recovery, from your concerned teacher, Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League and five times winner of Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming-Smile Award.’ Ron looked up at Hermione, disgusted.

Are you writing in your diary?” Even through the whisper I can tell he’s laughing. “No.” I feel in the dark for my backpack and cram the journal inside. “Please. Just admit you were drawing hearts around someone’s name.” “I didn’t even do that in junior high,” I say, my high-pitched whisper threatening to break into full voice. “Like I believe that.” He whisper-laughs again. A mattress spring creaks and I can hear movement near the head of his bed. A second later I can just make out Darren’s outline as he folds a pillow in half and lies on his side, facing me. I grab my own pillow and mirror him. Nina’s snoring deepens and Tate rolls over. I hold my head perfectly still and sense Darren do the same. It feels like we’re about to get caught breaking some kind of rule, lying on our beds the wrong direction. We’re quiet for so long, I’m sure Darren’s fallen back to sleep. I let my eyes close and start counting my toes again. “I keep a journal too.” His whisper seems much closer than I expected. In the soft light from above, I can see the glisten of his eyes looking right at me. I swallow and my throat makes an embarrassingly loud gurgling noise. “Is it full of hearts?” I manage to ask. The corner of his mouth pulls up. “That’s pretty much all I put in there. Hearts and flowers and more hearts.” My bed shakes from the chuckle I’m containing. “Hey, as long as it’s not poetry.” “What’s wrong with poetry?” “Nothing.” I bite my lip, worried I offended him. “You write poems?” “Sure. I’ve won awards for it.” “Oh. Wow. That’s…cool,” I manage, reluctant to admit that poetry’s one of those things I don’t understand. At all. And people who do “get” it enough to write their own make me nervous with their intellectual prowess. “Kiddiiiiing,” he draws out in a gravelly breath. “Make up your mind,” I tease, secretly hoping he really is kidding. “Do you or don’t you?” Eyes completely adjusted now, I can see him raise his hand and cross his fingers. “Don’t. Scout’s honor.” “Funny,” I say, snatching his hand and yanking it down. “Did you already forget how to promise?” I worm my pinkie around his and squeeze. He squeezes back and lowers our joined hands to the bed. My heartbeat is strong in my ears. Do I pull away first? Do I wait for him to? What if he doesn’t? What if we fall asleep like this?

I’m strangling her. She’s not the one I want to eliminate. All this suppressing and holding her down, keeping her caged, perpetuating this fraud, this sham. I can’t do it anymore.” He shook his head. “I can’t.” He raised his chin and looked at me. “It won’t go away. No matter how much I wish, or pray, she’s always with me. She is me. I am her. I want to be her. I want to be Luna.” “You

In 1937, Szent-Györgyi was notified that he was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The prize committee had argued long and acrimoniously about selecting Szent-Györgyi, so much so that after the final meeting, when the chairman, Hans Christian Jacobaus, came out to make the announcement, he fell dead on the spot with a heart attack. The award carried $40,000 and a gold medal. In Szent-Györgyi’s own words: “The Nobel Prize was the only big lump sum of money I have ever seen, I had to do something with it. The easiest way to drop this hot potato was to invest it. Since I knew World War II was coming, I was afraid that if I bought shares that would rise in war, I would wish for the war. So I asked my broker to buy shares that would go down in the event of war. I lost money but I saved my soul.

I hate it, how high-stakes the fashion aspect of it has become. A long time ago, Janeane Garofalo wore cutoffs and a T-shirt to an awards show, and that’s always been my gold standard. I wish everyone could relax and be able to just wear whatever you want, and feel good and be comfortable. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but anybody who criticizes someone for what they’re wearing or how they look is a piece of shit. Happy-face emoji.

often notice that every writer seems to claim the best-selling and multi-award-winning writer; curiously, I wish to realize which ones feel and experience, failure in this context.