Bam Bam Quotes

It sucks that we miss people like that. You think you've accepted that someone is out of your life, that you've grieved and it's over, and then bam. One little thing, and you feel like you've lost that person all over again.

Leo lowered his screwdriver. He looked at the ceiling and shook his head like, What am I gonna do with this guy? "I try very hard to be annoying," Leo said. "Don't insult my ability to annoy. And how am I supposed to resent you if you go apologizing? I'm a lowly mechanic. You're like the prince of the sky, son of the Lord of the Universe. I'm supposed to resent you." "Lord of the Universe?" (Jason) "Sure, you're all-bam! Lightning man. And 'Watch me fly. I am the eagle that soars-" (Leo) "Shut up, Valdez." (Jason) Leo managed a little smile. "Yeah, see. I do annoy you." "I apologize for apologizing." (Jason) "Thank you." He went back to work, but the tension had eased between them. Leo still looked sad and exhausted-just not quite so angry.

If a woman wanted a man to think of her constantly, she should tell him he could only have her once a wee and bam - concentration blown.

You can be the idea dragon and I can be the WHAM BAM SHOVE A PINEAPPLE UP HIS SNOUT dragon!

Most bullies are the product of a stressful and often abusive home life. Next time a bully threatens or attacks you, just yell, 'Don't abuse me like your parents abuse you!' Then call children's services and tell them you saw this bully crying in the bathroom and you're worried about him. Bam! He just got moved to a foster home.

You mix Greek and Roman, you know what you get? You get BAM!

Lock grinned at Gwen. “He’s fun,” he said, reaching out and cuffing Mitch without even looking at him. “He just keeps trying to get back up.” Bam! “It’s great.” Bam! “Like ‘The Little Lion Who Could.’” Bam!

I know I shouldn’t introduce my own memoir with this amount of insecurity, but my personal life philosophy is always to assume the worst, then you’re never disappointed. BAM! Highlight that previous sentence, baby!

Needy people are like newborns, I have come to realize. One intoxicated night and BAM! You are stuck with this problem. You finally take it home and it wants to keep you up all night and cries when it isn’t sucking on various parts of your anatomy. It wants you there for everything – rocking, feeding, burping, changing... It’s ridiculous. If I wanted a kid I would have one. Until then, grow the hell up and stand on your own two feet, you little crazy.

The world is crazy. You need a license to drive a car and go fishing. You don't need a license to start a family. Two people have sex and BAM! Perfectly innocent kid is born whose life will be screwed up by her parents forever.

The farm god rolled his eyes. He pointed at the corn plant, and BAM! Nico di Angelo appeared in an exposion of corn silk. Nico looked around in panic. "I-I had the weirdest nightmare about popcorn.

Jesus waited three days to come back to life. It was perfect! If he had only waited one day, a lot of people wouldn't have even heard he died. They'd be all, "Hey Jesus, what up?" and Jesus would probably be like, "What up? I died yesterday!" and they'd be all, "Uh, you look pretty alive to me, dude..." and then Jesus would have to explain how he was resurrected, and how it was a miracle, and the dude'd be like "Uhh okay, whatever you say, bro..." And he's not gonna come back on a Saturday. Everybody's busy, doing chores, workin' the loom, trimmin' the beard, NO. He waited the perfect number of days, three. Plus it's Sunday, so everyone's in church already, and they're all in there like "Oh no, Jesus is dead", and then BAM! He bursts in the back door, runnin' up the aisle, everyone's totally psyched, and FYI, that's when he invented the high five. That's why we wait three days to call a woman, because that's how long Jesus wants us to wait.... True story.

Have you never seen a movie? Read a comic book? That's always how it starts - just a little temptation, just a little taste of evil, and then BAM, your light saber turns red and you're breathing through a big black mask and slicing off your son's hand just to be mean." They looked at him blankly.

It couldn’t have been easy to walk through Sauchiehall Street after closing on a Saturday with some mouthy wee bam shouting, “Fuck me, is that no’ her out of Scooby-Doo?” at you at the top of his lungs.

Some nasty bitch of a woman from the coven of moral and ethical standards tried to fry Rache" the pixy said apparently proud of it. "I pixed the Tink-blasted dildo, and Rache's black-arts boyfriend blew her right out the front door. "Bam!

Another snowball, this time it impacted on my shoulder. I dusted the snow off my coat with my free hand and gave him the biggest stinkeye I could muster. “How old are you again? Twelve?” He grinned, teeth white as the snow he gathered. “Old enough to make you come, young enough to make you hate me for it.” “Oh jeez,” I muttered, shaking my head, and turned around. Bam. Snowball to the back of my head.

I, too, like the sound of the rain on the roof. I also like the lightning. It's like some great cosmic flashlight. It makes me think that someone is searching for me. And I don't mind the BAM of thunder because that makes me think that, perhaps, I have been found. That's the way a good book makes me feel, as if I have been found, understood, seen. --Maureen O'Toople in the short story "Your Question for Author Here

I glance down his body. He's still wearing his shorts and his shirt, and I still have my T-shirt on. Jeez-- talk about wham, bam, thank you ma'am.

Greetings, O Great Gazoo. How nice of you to join us here on planet Earth again. (Cael) Thanks, Barney. How’s Betty and Bam Bam doing? (Acheron) Great, if I could only get them away from Wilma and Pebbles. Those women are nothing but trouble. (Cael) Nah, they’re good women. It’s the ones in red who are always the downfall of good men. (Acheron)

Yeah, you bet Romani.' Percy bared his forearm and showed them the brand he'd got at Camp Jupiter- the SPQR mark, with the trident of Neptune. 'You mix Greek and Roman, and you know what you get? You get BAM!' He stomped his foot, and the empousai scrambled back. One fell off the boulder where she'd been perched.

Oh, it's just a trash can. Chill out." (Marco) BAM! BAM! BAM! "Okay, so it's four trash cans," (Marco) " BAM! BAM! BAM! "Do you hate trash cans? Is that your problem? Do you just HATE TRASH CANS?!!" (Jake)

Why can’t we have one of those quick pregnancies like Bella and Edward? Gwen from Torchwood. Scully. Deanna Troi. Or even Cordelia when that demon impregnated her. Twenty-four hours later bam! Demon child.

want her to be mine. I don’t want the “wham bam thank you ma’am” with her.

BAM said the Lady, move on

From the people who brought you "zero tolerance," I present the Gun-Free Zone! Yippee! Problem solved! Bam! Bam! Everybody down! Hey, how did that deranged loner get a gun into this Gun-Free Zone?

Hey, pal," Matthew whispered. He was the only person who could get away with calling Ronan pal. Matthew Lynch was a bear of a boy, square and solid and earnest. His head was covered with soft, golden curls completely unlike any of his other family members. And in his case, the perfect Lynch teeth were framed by an easy, dimpled smile. He had two brands of smile: the one that was preceded by a shy dip of his chin, a dimple, and then BAM, smile. And the one that teased for a moment before BAM, an infectious laugh. Females of all ages called him adorable. Males of all ages called him buddy. Matthew failed at many more things than either of his older brothers, but unlike Declan or Ronan, he always tried his hardest. Ronan had dreamt one thousand nightmares about something happening to him.

He could be so charming and irreverent and witty, and then-bam!-a switch flipped and he reverted right back to the cocky asshole everyone reported him to be.

Here's an interesting form of murder we came up with: assassination. You know what's interesting about assassination? Well, not only does it change those popularity polls in a big fucking hurry, but it's also interesting to notice who it is we assassinate. Did you ever notice who it is? Stop to think who it is we kill? It's always people who've told us to live together in harmony and try to love one another. Jesus, Gandhi, Lincoln, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, John Lennon, they all said, "Try to live together peacefully." BAM! Right in the fucking head. Apparently we're not ready for that.

I can be the WHAM BAM SHOVE A PINEAPPLE UP HIS SNOUT dragon!

the wham-bam-thank-you-and-maybe-I’ll-call-you-later-ma’am vibe from him? That’s called a Loganism,

We were arguing and the next thing I know – BAM. We’re going at it.” “Geez, that’s… that’s hot.

But I suppose if you're friends of Magnus's ..." He went completely still. His runes faded. Then he leaped out of my hand and flew towards Annabeth, his blade twitching as if he was stiffing the air. "Where is she? Where are you hiding the babe?" Annabeth backed towards the rail. "Whoa, there, sword. Personal space?" "Jack, behave," Alex said. "What are you doing?" "She's around here somewhere," Jack insisted. He flew to Percy. "Aha! What's in your pocket, sea boy?" "Excuse me?" Percy looked a bit nervous about the magical sword hovering at his waistline. Alex lowered his Ray-Bans. "Okay, now I'm curious. What do you have in your pocket, Percy? Enquiring swords want to know." Percy pulled a plain-looking ballpoint pen from his jeans. "You mean this?" "BAM!" Jack said. "Who is this vision of loveliness?" "Jack," I said. "It's a pen." "No, it's not! Show me! Show me!" "Uh ... sure." Percy uncapped the pen. Immediately it transformed into a three-foot-long sword with a leaf-shaped blade of glowing bronze.. Compared to Jack, the weapon looked delicate, almost petite, but from the way Percy wielded it I had no doubt he'd be able to hold his own on the battlefields of Valhalla with that thing. Jack turned his point towards me, his runes flashing burgundy. "See Magnus? I told you it wasn't stupid to carry a sword disguised as a pen!" "Jack, I never said that!" I protested. "You did.

I went to bed without reading, instead staring out my window with the curtains drawn, wondering about boys. Why did they behave so oddly? One minute their teasing was relentless, and then bam!― they’d stun you with a thoughtful gesture. Either way, their actions made you want to cry. Maybe that was the intent.

When you break up with someone, and I’m not talking casual breakups here, it’s hard to take the sudden absence of such an important person in your life. It reminded me of when I’d stopped going to school and the weird uneasy feeling I’d gotten afterward, like I was forgetting to do something. My life until that point had pivoted around some form of education, and all of a sudden, it was gone. Homework, classes, running around, and then – bam – nothing but a life of work stretching out before you. No one prepares you for that feeling or even mentions it. You just suddenly have a gap and have to decide how to fill it. A break up is like that gap, only much, much more painful. One day the person you talked to constantly or did stuff with is just absent. Gone. Poof. And even though I’m not one of those people who has to be in a relationship all the time, I was feeling at a loss.

Homework, classes, running around, and then—bam—nothing but a life of work stretching out before you. No one prepares you for that feeling or even mentions it. You just suddenly have a gap and have to decide how to fill it.

Like HIV, depression was a king at playing hide-and-seek. It concealed itself in reservoirs deep inside the mind, waiting for the walls you built around it to eventually erode. Depression could be at undetectable levels for months or years. You'd be all happy and stable and think you were cured, you were a survivor, and then BAM, out of nowhere it resurged.

I feel for you man. Put a ring on it and bam, the legs slam shut.

Did you see the look on that guy's face when he hit the ground? He was all like "Come here, defenceless little girl,' and then you were like 'BAM! Take that, suck-face! I've got superpowers!

There were times, many, many times, when she just didn't get him. She'd heard on numerous occasions that men were bad, wicked creatures, who'd do terrible things at a moment's notice. You wore the wrong skirt or bent over at an inopportune time and BAM. They slipped their penises into you.

Being dropped by your stalker is pretty bad. I mean he watches you week-in, week-out for almost a year, and then you have sex and he’s like ‘wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. We no longer require your position as victim. Don’t call us; we’ll call you. It’s not you…it’s me. We’re just at different stages of our stalker/stalkee relationship. I need space.’ How pathetic are you? You’re actually ticked off that your stalker is no longer skulking around in the shadows. That’s just…pitiful.

You think you are in control of your own destiny, and then – Bam – one day you realize you were nothing more than a puppet on someone else’s strings. When that happens, your first instinct is to snip the strings and kick the shit out of the puppeteer.

I'm a savant when it comes to character judgment," he tells her. "For instance, most people wouldn't see anything in you besides attitude and a need for stronger deodorant, but I think you can handle the storks almost as well as Connor handled the Graveyard." Bam gives him a halfhearted glare. "Can you ever give a compliment without also making it an insult?" "No," he admits. "Not possible. It's the essence of my charm.

There is much unexplained in the world. It behoves one to be wary at all times. Just when you think you've got the hang of it, along comes string theory, collateralised debt obligations or Björk's new album, and bam! You're as confused as you were when you first started.

What all you young kids fail to remember is that the excitement and freshness of that new relationship doesn't last. Everyone-- every relationship--hits those rough patches when you argue and don't get along so well and it's so easy to be tempted to go for freshness again to feel appreciated and desired.If not ---Bam, you're miserable and getting your kicks elsewhere.But if you keep that freshness alive in your relationship you'll get through it. Mark my Words

Are you serious?" She asked. "Are you telling me you've got superpowers? 'Cause that'd be pretty much be made of awesome." She grinned at me and shook in her excited, trembly way. "Um. Yeah. Kind of. I mean, I'm just learning how to use them, and they're kind of fickle--but they came in handy tonight, didn't they?" "Heck, yeah, they did!" April squealed. "Did you see the look on that guy's face when he hit the ground? Seriously, that was the coolest thing ever. He was all like, 'come here defenseless little girl,' and you were like,'BAM! Take that suck-face! I've got superpowers!

but my personal life philosophy is always to assume the worst, then you’re never disappointed. BAM!

You said I have magical powers, so what’s the big deal? I’ll voodoo some shit up, bring out my spidey-senses, and bam.” ~ Nexi

Man, all those years in college we didn’t get along, I could’ve just given you a pie and, bam, new best friend.

baraye bayane eshgh hamvare niyazi be vazhe haye asheghane nist , balke ziro bam o ashk o labkhand lazem ast. "Christian Bobin

He was around the desk in two strides, reaching out for me. I knocked his hand away, grabbed the staple gun, pressed it into his crotch, and bam, bam, bam, bam . . . I stapled his nuts.

God's love descends on some like dew on a flower, blessed be He, but sometimes we trudge along our comfortable lives and bam, He descends on us like a splash of gasoline... and then He strikes a match.

In fiction, the characters have their own lives. They may start as a gloss on the author’s life, but they move on from there. In poetry, especially confessional poetry but in other poetry as well, the poet is not writing characters so much as emotional truth wrapped in metaphor. Bam! Pow! A shot to the gut.

I thought I had died, and that I might not ever come back. I don’t know what happened. All of a sudden, BAM!, there I was. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

You got it. Wham, bam, start the apocalypse, ma'am.

I'm the master of distractions. A couple of hand gestures and BAM! I'll pull the underwear clean off your butt.

my personal life philosophy is always to assume the worst, then you’re never disappointed. BAM! Highlight that previous sentence, baby! It’ll be one of many quotable life-nuggets you’ll be able to pull from this thing.

There is a strange emptiness to life without myths. I am African American — by which I mean, a descendant of slaves, rather than a descendant of immigrants who came here willingly and with lives more or less intact. My ancestors were the unwilling, unintact ones: children torn from parents, parents torn from elders, people torn from roots, stories torn from language. Past a certain point, my family’s history just… stops. As if there was nothing there. I could do what others have done, and attempt to reconstruct this lost past. I could research genealogy and genetics, search for the traces of myself in moldering old sale documents and scanned images on microfiche. I could also do what members of other cultures lacking myths have done: steal. A little BS about Atlantis here, some appropriation of other cultures’ intellectual property there, and bam! Instant historically-justified superiority. Worked great for the Nazis, new and old. Even today, white people in my neck of the woods call themselves “Caucasian”, most of them little realizing that the term and its history are as constructed as anything sold in the fantasy section of a bookstore. These are proven strategies, but I have no interest in them. They’ll tell me where I came from, but not what I really want to know: where I’m going. To figure that out, I make shit up.

When President Howard Taft was campaigning for office, someone threw a cabbage at him, and he quipped, "I see one of my adversaries has lost his head." BAM! You just got Taft-ed. Take a seat cabbage head.

The bells gave tongue: Gaude, Sabaoth, John, Jericho, Jubilee, Dimity, Batty Thomas and Tailor Paul, rioting and exulting high up in the dark tower, wide mouths rising and falling, brazen tongues clamouring, huge wheels turning to the dance of the leaping ropes. Tin tan din dan bim bam bom bo--tan tin din dan bam bim bo bom--tan dan tin bam din bo bim bom--every bell in her place striking tuneably, hunting up, hunting down, dodging, snapping, laying her blows behind, making her thirds and fourths, working down to lead the dance again. Out over the flat, white wastes of fen, over the spear-straight, steel-dark dykes and the wind-bent, groaning poplar trees, bursting from the snow-choked louvres of the belfry, whirled away southward and westward in gusty blasts of clamour to the sleeping counties went the music of the bells--little Gaude, silver Sabaoth, strong John and Jericho, glad Jubilee, sweet Dimity and old Batty Thomas, with great Tailor Paul bawling and striding like a giant in the midst of them. Up and down went the shadows of the ringers upon the walls, up and down went the scarlet sallies flickering roofwards and floorwards, and up and down, hunting in their courses, went the bells of Fenchurch St. Paul.

Still, Lindsay stops getting dressed, even though he's only half-done, because he gets this urge to ambush the kid with a hug. Just that, nothing else. He wraps his arms around Valentine's skinny body and pulls him close and rests his cheek on the still-damp hair and inhales the cherry-almond scent of his shampoo, and Valentine says, "Oh!" in a really odd way, like he's just read a particularly interesting fact on the back of a Penguin biscuit wrapper. Lindsay's got his eyes shut but he can feel the kid's hands creeping up his bare arms, over his shoulders. One stays there and the other comes to rest on the back of his neck, fingers playing idly with the ends of his hair, and several minutes pass without sound or movement, just the gentle thud of heartbeats. "What's that for?" Valentine asks, when Lindsay finally lets him go. "Don't know. Nothing. Just seemed the kind of thing you'd like. BAM, surprise ninja cuddles.

Bam! That's me off the cuff. Blunt and in your face. No editing. I think it. I say it. You read it. Sometimes I don't even think it, I just say it.

Ted: Barney, the 3 days rule is insane. I mean, who even came up with that? Barney: Jesus. Marshall: Barney, don't do this, not with Jesus. Barney: Seriously, Jesus started the whole wait-three-days thing. He waited three days to come back to life. It was perfect. Barney: If he'd have only waited one day, a lotta people wouldn't have even heard that he died. They'd be all "Hey, Jesus. What up?" And Jesus would probably be like, "What up? I died yesterday." Barney: Then they'd be all, "Uh, look pretty alive to me dude." And then Jesus would have to explain how he was resurrected and how it was a miracle. And then the dude would be like "Ah, oh-kay, whatever you say "bro"." Robin: Wow, ancient dialogue sounds so stilted now. Barney: And you're not gonna come back on a Saturday, everybody's busy! Doin' chores, workin' the loom, trimmin' their beards. No, he waits the exact, right number of days - three. Ted: Ok, I promise, I'll wait 3 days. Just please stop talking. Barney: Plus, it's Sunday, so everyone's in church already. They're all in there - "Oh no, Jesus is dead." Barney: Then BAM! He bursts through the back door, runs up the aisle, everyone's totally psyched and FYI, that's when he invented the high-five. Barney: Three days, Ted. We wait three days to call a woman because that's how long Jesus wants us to wait. True story.

You know, I saw that on the news last week. People walking down the street, minding their own business, and BAM their lips turn elastic and wrap themselves around a friend's man. Happens all the time. It's a side-effect from the 'Stupid Pill'. Must have refilled your prescription before you left town.

She's wearing the same red and yellow BAM! T-shirt from before, which means (a) she slept in, (b) she owns several identical T-shirts, or (c) she's a cartoon character—all of which are appealing alternatives.

You may be running short of create juice because you mind isn't interested. Eddie isn't naping because he's tired; he's napping because he's bored out of his mind. Drool is running down his chin. So wake him up. BAM! WHERE DID THAT COME FROM, EDDIE?! THERE'S A BODY ON THE KITCHEN TABLE?! WHAT'S GOING ON?! Eddie will jump out of his recliner in a panic. WHAT? A BODY?! AN EXPLOSION? WHY WOULD THE HOUSE EXPLODE? WHAT'S GOIND ON?!

Evet evet evet, işte buydu. Gençlik bitmeliydi, ah evet. Ama gençlik, hayvanmış gibi olmaktır zaten sadece. Hayır, sadece hayvanmış gibi olmak değil de hani şu sokaklarda satıldığını dikizlediğimiz minik oyuncaklardan biri olmak gibidir, teneke ve içi zemberekli ve üstünde kurma dolu olan ve gırr gırr gırr diye kurunca gitmeye başlayan, yürüyen filan minik heriflerden biri olmak gibidir, ey kardeşlerim. Ama dosdoğru gider ve bir şeylere çarpar bam bam ve yaptıklarını, elinde olmadan yapar. Genç olmak, bu minik makinelerden biri olmak gibidir. (syf. 167)

It doesn’t matter what the end looks like—what matters is that it came. Bam, you’re done. But life, Axi? There are degrees of life. You can live it well or half-asleep. You can go sledding down a sand dune, or you can spend your life in front of the TV. And I don’t mean to sound like a stupid after-school special, but you have to keep living the way we did these last weeks. Risk, Axi. That’s the secret. Risk everything.” I nodded, trying not to cry again. “Okay. But I might not keep stealing cars.” “That’s all right,” he said.

[Will you absorb the core, Tiny?] [Absorb?] BAM! [Ow!] [Absorb it, dammit!] BAM! [Ow!] BAM!

never experienced anything like the prickling sensation before. From then on, my life was never the same. The prickle would show up and bam, I

I Was Just Walking By And The Thing Came Out Of Nowhere And Bam! Beaked Me Right In The Eye.

I've never seen or touched anything." "Can you explain then how you had children?" "You're right. It's true I have four kids. Four! But still I have never seen the male organ. He came into the bedroom, he turned off the light, and then Bam! Bam! Bam! and voila I was pregnant! What's more, I was granted four girls. So I have never seen penises.

Maybe so, but Luke Stark pushed me against the wall and told me he was gonna fuck me, I'd say, 'When and what you want me to wear?' And I would not care if he did pull a slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am. I'd just take my orgasm and go. You hear what I'm sayin' to you? Shirleen asked.

He wrote that Ybón had little hairs coming up to her almost her bellybutton and that she crossed her eyes when he entered her but what really got him was not the bam-bam-bam of sex – it was the little intimacies that he'd never in his whole life anticipated, like combing her hair or getting her underwear off a line or watching her walk naked to the bathroom or the way she would suddenly sit on his lap and put her face into his neck. The intimacies like listening to her tell him about being a little girl and him telling her that he'd been a virgin all his life. He wrote that he couldn't believe he'd had to wait for this so goddamn long. (Ybón was the one who suggested calling the wait something else. Yeah, like what? Maybe, she said, you could call it life.) He wrote: So this is what everybody's always talking about! Diablo! If only I'd known. The beauty! The beauty!

I ended up in the nurse’s office after falling asleep in second period. She only agreed to not call my parents if I stayed under her supervision and rested. She wasn’t taking any chances with Dr. Lahey’s daughter and the heroine who’d saved the Ishida’s only girl, who, by the way, Ayden mentioned wasn’t back at school. She probably got to recover in her native habitat. Some far off exotic locale, lounging on a tropical beach drinking fruity umbrella drinks brought to her by hunky, scantily clad beach boys who rubbed her back with suntan oil and hung on her every word while I ran for my life in the Waiting World, woke from a coma, and, bam, back at school with ten million pounds of schoolwork to make up, and no beach boys. Except for Ayden. He’d make a good beach boy. But don’t get too excited. He’s just a pretend boyfriend. “You alright?” the nurse asked. “Fine.” “You’re sighing and making odd noises.” “Sorry.

And if he can’t be politically killed?” Ngo smiled at Johnny. He unfolded his index finger, cocked his thumb, and then snapped it down. “Bam,” he said softly. “Bam, bam, bam.” “No,” Johnny said, surprised at the hoarseness in his own voice “That’s never an answer. Never.” “No? I thought it was an answer you Americans used quite often.

Couples stray,” said Edgar. “Part of the breaking-in process.” “Not breaking in, breaking.” Nicola differed sharply. “You can glue people together again. But then your relationship’s like any other repaired object, with cracks, blobs of epoxy, a little askew. It’s never the same. I can see you haven’t a notion what I’m on about, so you’ll have to take my word for it.” “Christ, you’re a babe in the woods.” Edgar stopped slicing tomatoes. “You got it ass-backward. A marriage perched like porcelain on the mantelpiece is doomed. Sooner or later grown-ups treat each other like shit. You gotta be able to kick the thing around, less like china than an old shoe—bam, under the bed, or walk it through some puddles. No love’s gonna last it if can’t take abuse.

Then, out of the blue, Aaron Winer saved the day. He took her to some movie and made out with her in the back row. The next day, at school, they were boyfriend and girlfriend. Bam! Problem solved. I pretended to be bitter about this, but in fact I was so relieved that I started laughing hysterically in history class and had to be excused to go the nurse.

Why do we say razzle-dazzle instead of dazzle-razzle? Why super-duper, helter-skelter, harum-scarum, hocus-pocus, willy-nilly, hully-gully, roly-poly, holy moly, herky-jerky, walkie-talkie, namby-pamby, mumbo-jumbo, loosey-goosey, wing-ding, wham-bam, hobnob, razza-matazz, and rub-a-dub-dub? I thought you'd never ask. Consonants differ in "obstruency"—the degree to which they impede the flow of air, ranging from merely making it resonate, to forcing it noisily past an obstruction, to stopping it up altogether. The word beginning with the less obstruent consonant always comes before the word beginning with the more obstruent consonant. Why ask why?

Seriously, though.” He gestures around the bar. “This place is full of women who’d sell their firstborn to go home with you. Pick one and sex this other chick right out of your head.” “My dick won’t let me,” I mutter. Beau snickers. “Can you repeat that, please?” “My dick is being difficult,” I explain irritably. “I tried to jerk off to porn last night, and swear to God, damn thing wouldn’t get hard. Then I thought of All—this girl,” I correct myself, because I promised Allie I wouldn’t tell anyone about our night together “—and bam” I snap my fingers. “Hard as a rock.” Beau eyes me thoughtfully. “You know, I don’t think we’re dealing with a Bella’s-magical-blood situation here.” “No?” “No. I think you’ve imprinted on this girl’s pussy.

I struggled with anxiety and loneliness, even in a crowded room. I never felt like I was enough. I ate Tums like candy. And I know this sounds all beauty-contestant-answerish, but I just wanted inner peace, a place to come in out of the rain. I needed, well, God, really, but you couldn’t have told me that then, not until the crap hit the fan. You know, those no-one-can- save-you-but-God things? An actual life or death experience. I’m not kidding, I didn’t think I was going to live, but instinctively I cried out and BAM! There God was, not judgmental and mean, but the ultimate friend. He came through in a big way! I’ll be honest with you, I flippin’ drank the Kool-Aid. 

You think you have it all under control. Your path so perfectly mapped out. And then one day you’re driving along and bam! You get rammed from behind on the freeway. And you never saw it coming. People are like that too. Unpredictable. No matter how well you think you know somebody? How confident you are of their feelings, their reactions? They can still surprise you. And in the most devastating of ways.

Just a short while ago the Republicans were objects of fear and hatred—now they’re just pathetic assholes. Barry took them to the paint and cut their throats. (O-BAM-a!) Now they walk around like white frat boys in Bed-Stuy, talking tough to show they aren’t scared as the urine streams down their chinos into their cordovans. Obama has these dweebs so turned around all they can do is get behind some fat junkie DJ, a gibberish-spewing PsychoBimbette from the Far North, and a tele-dork who gives adrenaline-crazed, 1950s-style “chalk talks” (speaking of little white dicks) like some health-class instructor in a sex-offender unit.

Ms. Terwilliger didn’t have a chance to respond to my geological ramblings because someone knocked on the door. I slipped the rocks into my pocket and tried to look studious as she called an entry. I figured Zoe had tracked me down, but surprisingly, Angeline walked in. "Did you know," she said, "that it’s a lot harder to put organs back in the body than it is to get them out?" I closed my eyes and silently counted to five before opening them again. “Please tell me you haven’t eviscerated someone.” She shook her head. “No, no. I left my biology homework in Miss Wentworth’s room, but when I went back to get it, she’d already left and locked the door. But it’s due tomorrow, and I’m already in trouble in there, so I had to get it. So, I went around outside, and her window lock wasn’t that hard to open, and I—” "Wait," I interrupted. "You broke into a classroom?" "Yeah, but that’s not the problem." Behind me, I heard a choking laugh from Ms. Terwilliger’s desk. "Go on," I said wearily. "Well, when I climbed through, I didn’t realize there was a bunch of stuff in the way, and I crashed into those plastic models of the human body she has. You know, the life size ones with all the parts inside? And bam!" Angeline held up her arms for effect. "Organs everywhere." She paused and looked at me expectantly. "So what are we going to do? I can’t get in trouble with her." "We?" I exclaimed. "Here," said Ms. Terwilliger. I turned around, and she tossed me a set of keys. From the look on her face, it was taking every ounce of self-control not to burst out laughing. "That square one’s a master. I know for a fact she has yoga and won’t be back for the rest of the day. I imagine you can repair the damage—and retrieve the homework—before anyone’s the wiser.” I knew that the “you” in “you can repair” meant me. With a sigh, I stood up and packed up my things. “Thanks,” I said. As Angeline and I walked down to the science wing, I told her, “You know, the next time you’ve got a problem, maybe come to me before it becomes an even bigger problem.” "Oh no," she said nobly. "I didn’t want to be an inconvenience." Her description of the scene was pretty accurate: organs everywhere. Miss Wentworth had two models, male and female, with carved out torsos that cleverly held removable parts of the body that could be examined in greater detail. Wisely, she had purchased models that were only waist-high. That was still more than enough of a mess for us, especially since it was hard to tell which model the various organs belonged to. I had a pretty good sense of anatomy but still opened up a textbook for reference as I began sorting. Angeline, realizing her uselessness here, perched on a far counter and swing her legs as she watched me. I’d started reassembling the male when I heard a voice behind me. "Melbourne, I always knew you’d need to learn about this kind of thing. I’d just kind of hoped you’d learn it on a real guy." I glanced back at Trey, as he leaned in the doorway with a smug expression. “Ha, ha. If you were a real friend, you’d come help me.” I pointed to the female model. “Let’s see some of your alleged expertise in action.” "Alleged?" He sounded indignant but strolled in anyways. I hadn’t really thought much about asking him for help. Mostly I was thinking this was taking much longer than it should, and I had more important things to do with my time. It was only when he came to a sudden halt that I realized my mistake. "Oh," he said, seeing Angeline. "Hi." Her swinging feet stopped, and her eyes were as wide as his. “Um, hi.” The tension ramped up from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds, and everyone seemed at a loss for words. Angeline jerked her head toward the models and blurted out. “I had an accident.” That seemed to snap Trey from his daze, and a smile curved his lips. Whereas Angeline’s antics made me want to pull out my hair sometimes, he found them endearing.

I used to think that destiny was fluid, because isn’t that the point of every Disney movie and Saturday-morning cartoon? You make your own choices. You decide how life goes. I always thought that your fate line would change if something happened, bam, something goes wrong and the line on your palm goes all wonky to reflect that. Nope. It still looks fine.

You want me to let you go?” I ask, leaning down, pausing just shy of her lips. “Yes.” “Ask nicely,” I tell her. “Say ‘Lorenzo Gambini, I beg of you, please, let me go and I’ll suck your dick.’” She laughs again, harder. “You wish.” “I do,” I say. “No doubt about it.” “Lorenzo Gambini,” she whispers between kisses, “I beg of you, please... fuck me.” I kiss her once more before pulling back, shifting position, smirking. “Well, since you asked so nicely...” I thrust hard, sliding right in first goddamn try. BAM.

But once in a while one loses his heart and once I think I did too, but never Mama. Her heart stays right in place and it's wham-bam-don't-give-a-damn every single time. Whatever she's got, that thing that can say good-bye like good-byes don't mean anything, I didn't get that. And the glass unicorn with the shiny gold horn and hooves that sits by my bed proves it, proves that I can't let go of things like Mama can.

So…you're not going to tell me what they mean? C'mon. What's the Hob? Why Forks?” When I stand, I switch to my blatantly rude, you're-an-idiot tone. This is the one that always pisses off my mom. To be sure he's not missing my insult this time, I also cross my arms and speak very slowly like I'm speaking to a toddler. “The Hob is from The Hunger Games books. It's the underground market where the characters trade food and information. Forks would be the town in Twilight. The setting. In boy-speak, Forks equals the planet Tatooine for Star Wars. You know—Anakin Skywalker's childhood home? Or are you not familiar with any global blockbusters? I suppose I could use Sesame Street or Pokémon for a reference—if it would help you understand better?” Bam. That should seal it. I couldn't have sounded more like a total bitch. He nods. “No, I've got it. My bedroom was Tatooine for all of third and fourth grade. Boy-speak…that's funny.” He laughs again, and it sounds warm and—and—not at all offended!

But…” Hazel gripped his shoulders and stared at him in amazement. “Frank, what happened to you?” “To me?” He stood, suddenly self-conscious. “I don’t…” He looked down and realized what she meant. Triptolemus hadn’t gotten shorter. Frank was taller. His gut had shrunk. His chest seemed bulkier. Frank had had growth spurts before. Once he’d woken up two centimeters taller than when he’d gone to sleep. But this was nuts. It was as if some of the dragon and lion had stayed with him when he’d turned back to human. “Uh…I don’t…Maybe I can fix it.” Hazel laughed with delight. “Why? You look amazing!” “I—I do?” “I mean, you were handsome before! But you look older, and taller, and so distinguished—” Triptolemus heaved a dramatic sigh. “Yes, obviously some sort of blessing from Mars. Congratulations, blah, blah, blah. Now, if we’re done here…?” Frank glared at him. “We’re not done. Heal Nico.” The farm god rolled his eyes. He pointed at the corn plant, and BAM! Nico di Angelo appeared in an explosion of corn silk. Nico looked around in a panic. “I—I had the weirdest nightmare about popcorn.” He frowned at Frank. “Why are you taller?” “Everything’s fine,” Frank promised. “Triptolemus was about to tell us how to survive the House of Hades. Weren’t you, Trip?” The farm god raised his eyes to the ceiling, like, Why me, Demeter? “Fine,” Trip said. “When you arrive at Epirus, you will be offered a chalice to drink from.” “Offered by whom?” Nico asked. “Doesn’t matter,” Trip snapped. “Just know that it is filled with deadly poison.” Hazel shuddered. “So you’re saying that we shouldn’t drink it.” “No!” Trip said. “You must drink it, or you’ll never be able to make it through the temple. The poison connects you to the world of the dead, lets you pass into the lower levels. The secret to surviving is”—his eyes twinkled—“barley.” Frank stared at him. “Barley.” “In the front room, take some of my special barley. Make it into little cakes. Eat these before you step into the House of Hades. The barley will absorb the worst of the poison, so it will affect you, but not kill you.” “That’s it?” Nico demanded. “Hecate sent us halfway across Italy so you could tell us to eat barley?” “Good luck!” Triptolemus sprinted across the room and hopped in his chariot. “And, Frank Zhang, I forgive you! You’ve got spunk. If you ever change your mind, my offer is open. I’d love to see you get a degree in farming!” “Yeah,” Frank muttered. “Thanks.” The god pulled a lever on his chariot. The snake-wheels turned. The wings flapped. At the back of the room, the garage doors rolled open. “Oh, to be mobile again!” Trip cried. “So many ignorant lands in need of my knowledge. I will teach them the glories of tilling, irrigation, fertilizing!” The chariot lifted off and zipped out of the house, Triptolemus shouting to the sky, “Away, my serpents! Away!” “That,” Hazel said, “was very strange.” “The glories of fertilizing.” Nico brushed some corn silk off his shoulder. “Can we get out of here now?” Hazel put her hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Are you okay, really? You bartered for our lives. What did Triptolemus make you do?” Frank tried to hold it together. He scolded himself for feeling so weak. He could face an army of monsters, but as soon as Hazel showed him kindness, he wanted to break down and cry. “Those cow monsters…the katoblepones that poisoned you…I had to destroy them.” “That was brave,” Nico said. “There must have been, what, six or seven left in that herd.” “No.” Frank cleared his throat. “All of them. I killed all of them in the city.” Nico and Hazel stared at him in stunned silence. Frank

I heard the “bam, bam, bam” of a woodpecker high in the top of a box elder snag. The cry of a kingfisher and the scream of a blue jay blended perfectly with the drum like beat. A barking red squirrel, glued to the side of a hackberry tree, kept time to the music with the beat of his tail. Each noise I heard and each sight I saw was very familiar to me but I never grew tired of listening and watching. They were a God-sent gift and I enjoyed them all.

There is nothing more powerful, more radical, more transformational than love. No other substance or force. And do not be deceived, for it is all of these things, and then far more than that. It can't be circumscribed by our desires or dictated by the whim of our moods. Not the Great Love of the Universe, as I like to call it. Not the Love that set everything in motion, keeps it in motion, which moves through all things and yet bulldozes nothing, not even our will. Try it. Just try it and you'll see. If you love that Great Love first, because It loved you first, and then love yourself as you have been loved, and love others from that love...WOW! BAM! Life without that kind of faith-that's death. Therein lies the great metaphor...Life without faith IS death. For life, as it was intended to be, is love. Start loving and you'll really start living. There is no other force in the universe comparable to that.

He said he had only a few days ago believed in blasphemy as the way to salvation, but that you couldn't even believe in that because then you were believing in something to blaspheme. As for the Jesus who was reported to have been born at Bethlehem and crucified on Calvary for man's sins, Haze said, He was too foul a notion for a sane person to carry in his head, and he picked up the boy's water bucket and bammed it on the concrete pavement to emphasize what he was saying.

So that’s how you de-Forkle!” Dex said. “I should’ve guessed it was callowberries. My dad uses them in his anti-inflammatory ointments. They smell like flareadon poop.” “Taste like it too,” Mr. Forkle agreed. “So all we need to do is crush a few of those into your breakfast, and bam! Instant Forkle-reveal?” Keefe asked. “I’ve been consuming callowberries for thirteen years, Mr. Sencen. Do you honestly think I wouldn’t notice the smell?” “I dunno—I’m really good at hiding things in people’s food.” Mr. Forkle ignored him,

Is that true?” I asked Dad. “Are they gone for good?” Dad shifted in his seat, uneasy. “Not necessarily. But Sophie, the risk involved in bringing them back…It’s almost too great to fathom.” “I can fathom all kinds of things,” I told him. “Try me.” I think I might have seen pride in Dad’s eyes. Or maybe it was just a gleam of Why is my offspring so insane? Still, he answered me. “If you destroy both the ritual and the witch or warlock who used it, the spell itself can be reversed.” I shrugged. “That doesn’t sound so hard.” “I wasn’t finished. They must be destroyed simultaneously.” Swallowing, I tried to sound cheerful. “Again, not so bad. Get Lara to hold the piece of paper, zap them both with, um, some fire or something, and bam! Instant demon reversal.” “And they must be destroyed in the pit where the demons were raised,” Dad continued, as if I hadn’t said anything. Seriously, he had to stop doing that. “Oh, and as the piece de resistance, you’ll need to do a spell to close the pit itself, with both the ritual and the witch inside it. And that’s such an intense ritual that it could actually pull whatever’s around the pit into it as well.” “Like, the person doing the spell?” “Like, the whole damn island the put is on.” “Oh. Okay. Well, that is definitely…challenging. But not impossible. And we have the grimoire, that’s one bonus, right? Even if the demon-raising ritual isn’t in it.” “Sophie Alice Mercer,” Mom said warningly, just as Dad said, “Atherton,” and Aislinn said, “Brannick.” I threw my hands up. “Look, it doesn’t matter what you call me. I’ll hyphenate, how about that?

Yeah, well, my point is he stuck his neck out for you, and from what I know of him, he doesn’t really seem like the type to do something like that so lightly. Maybe he’s biding his time … or,’ she raised her finger, ‘maybe he’s scared of something … or someone. It’s probably his twin. The bossman. Old blue-eyes-creepysmile. What’s his name again?’ ‘You know his name,’ I said. ‘And can you keep your voice down, please? I’ve taken a vow of secrecy and anyone could be listening to you right now.’ Millie rolled her eyes. ‘And no, I doubt Valentino would be thrilled at the idea of me making out with his brother. Especially after everything that happened with Nic.’ ‘You know,’ said Millie who was now narrowing her eyes, ‘for someone with such a romantic name, he’s a real killjoy, isn’t he? He’s all, Ooh look at me, I’m sensitive and kind and I have a beautiful long name and pretty eyes, and then BAM! Psyche! I’m going to shoot you. You know what I call that, Soph? I call that false advertising, and I’m pretty sure it’s illegal.

Do not despair—many are happy much of the time; more eat than starve, more are healthy than sick, more curable than dying; not so many dying as dead; and one of the thieves was saved. Hell's bells and all's well—half the world is at peace with itself, and so is the other half; vast areas are unpolluted; millions of children grow up without suffering deprivation, and millions, while deprived, grow up without suffering cruelties, and millions, while deprived and cruelly treated, none the less grow up. No laughter is sad and many tears are joyful. At the graveside the undertaker doffs his top hat and impregnates the prettiest mourner. Wham, bam, thank you Sam.

Plunge a sponge into Lake Erie. Did you absorb every drop? Take a deep breath. Did you suck the oxygen out of the atmosphere? Pluck a pine needle from a tree in Yosemite. Did you deplete the forest of foliage? Watch an ocean wave crash against the beach. Will there never be another one? Of course there will. No sooner will one wave crash into the sand than another appears. Then another, then another. This is a picture of God’s sufficient grace. Grace is simply another word for God’s tumbling, rumbling reservoir of strength and protection. It comes at us not occasionally or miserly but constantly and aggressively, wave upon wave. We’ve barely regained our balance from one breaker, and then, bam, here comes another.

This is Glesca.... Any time you're confused, take a wee minute to remind yourself of that inescapable fact: this is Glesca. We don't do subtle, we don't do nuanced, we don't do conspiracy. We do pish-heid bampot bludgeoning his girlfriend to death in a fit of paranoid rage induced by forty-eight hours straight on the batter. We do coked-up neds jumping on a guy's heid outside a nightclub because he looked at them funny. We do drug-dealing gangster rockets shooting other drug-dealing gangster rockets as comeback for something almost identical a fortnight ago. We do bam-on-bam. We do tit-for-tat, score-settling, feuds, jealousy, petty revenge. We do straightforward. We do obvious. We do cannaemisswhodunit. When you hear hoofbeats on Sauchiehall Street, it's gaunny be a horse, no' a zebra...'.

Math. It’s your favorite subject. Which surprises you. Last year your teacher tried to convince you that you had a real “aptitude” for math, but all you got in the end was a B minus. The truth is you weren’t even trying. But then you got low Cs and Ds in all your other classes and you weren’t trying there, either, so maybe you are good at math after all. You like it because either you’re right or you’re wrong. Not like social studies and definitely not like English, where you always have to explain your answers and support your opinions. With math it’s right or it’s wrong and you’re done with it. But even that’s changing, my teacher said now you have to explain how you solved the problem and support your answer, saying that having the right answer isn’t as important as explaining how you got it and bam, just like that, you hate math.

I don’t get it.” He sighed, standing up and throwing his dinner into the trash can. As he turned back to me, I saw total confusion in his eyes. “When I was thirteen, my dad bought my mom a new car. She came home from the grocery store one day, and bam—there it was. Red bow and everything. And she said all the same things you’re saying. It’s too much, you shouldn’t have done this—everything. And my dad kissed her, handed her the keys, and said, ‘Let’s go for a drive.’ And that was it. She gave in.” He leaned against a sawhorse, dragging his hands through his hair. “You know why? Because she knew how much it meant to him. Everything he did was to make her happy.” His voice deepened toward the end, sounding rough and a little choppy. His blue eyes were huge, and I could see his jaw clenching. He cleared his throat. Twice. Then he swallowed hard. Shit. “So keep the car, don’t keep the car, whatever. I just wanted to do something nice for you, because I could.” His voice wobbled a bit, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I was in front of him, pulling him close and wrapping his strong arms around me. I held him tight. A minute later, I felt him hang on. Sweet boy.

Do you want to hold her?” Qhuinn asked. Xcor recoiled as if someone had inquired whether he’d like a hot poker in his hands. Then he recovered, shaking his head as he made a manly show of scrubbing his tears away like they were permanent marker on his cheeks. “I don’t think I’m quite ready for that. She looks…so delicate.” “She’s strong, though. She’s got her mahmen’s blood in her, too.” Qhuinn looked at Blay. “And she’s got good parents. They both do. We’re in this together, people, three fathers and one mom, two kids. Bam!” Xcor’s voice got low. “A father…?” He laughed softly. “I went from having no family, to having a mate, a brother, and now…” Qhuinn nodded. “A son and a daughter. As long as you are Layla’s hellren, you are their father, too.” Xcor’s smile was transformative, so wide that it stretched his face into something she had never seen. “A son and a daughter.” “That’s right,” Layla whispered with joy. But then instantly that expression on his face was gone, his lips thinning out and his brows dropping down like he was ready to go on the attack. “She is never dating. I don’t care who he is—” “Right!” Qhuinn put his palm out for a high five. “That’s what I’m talking about!” “Now, hold on,” Blay interjected as they clapped hands. “She has every right to live her life as she chooses.” “Yes, come on,” Layla added. “This double-standard stuff is ridiculous. She’s going to be allowed…” As the argument started up, she and Blay fell in beside each other, and Qhuinn and Xcor lined up shoulder to shoulder, their massive forearms crossed over their chests. “I’m good with a gun,” Xcor said like that was the end of things. “And I can handle the shovel,” Qhuinn tacked on. “They’ll never find the body.” The two of them pounded knuckles and looked so dead serious that Layla had to roll her eyes. But then she was smiling. “You know something?” she said to the three of them. “I really believe…that it’s all going to be okay. We’re going to work it out, together, because that’s what families do.” As she rose up on her tiptoes and kissed her male, she said, “Love has a way of fixing everything…even your daughter starting to date.” “Which is not going to happen,” Xcor countered. “Ever.” “My man,” Qhuinn said, backing him up. “I knew I liked you—” “Oh, for the love,” Layla muttered as the debate resumed, and Blay started laughing and Qhuinn and Xcor continued bonding. -Qhuinn, Xcor, Layla, & Blay