Band Aids Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Band Aids. Here they are! All 100 of them:

At some point, you just pull off the Band-Aid, and it hurts, but then it's over and you're relieved.
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
I'd wear any of my private attire for the world to see. But I would rather have an open flesh wound than ever wear a band aid in public.
Lady Gaga
If I should have a daughter…“Instead of “Mom”, she’s gonna call me “Point B.” Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I’m going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.” She’s gonna learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder-woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried. And “Baby,” I’ll tell her “don’t keep your nose up in the air like that, I know that trick, you’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else, find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him.” But I know that she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boats nearby, ‘cause there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks chocolate can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything if you let it. I want her to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind. Because that’s how my mom taught me. That there’ll be days like this, “There’ll be days like this my momma said” when you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna save are the ones standing on your cape. When your boots will fill with rain and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say “thank you,” ‘cause there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it’s sent away. You will put the “wind” in win some lose some, you will put the “star” in starting over and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life. And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting I am pretty damn naive but I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it. “Baby,” I’ll tell her “remember your mama is a worrier but your papa is a warrior and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.” Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you’ve done something wrong but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining. Your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing and when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under your doorstep and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.
Sarah Kay
Thanks, but that's not going to fix anything. It's like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.
C.C. Hunter (Awake at Dawn (Shadow Falls, #2))
You can't patch a wounded soul with a Band-Aid.
Michael Connelly (The Black Echo (Harry Bosch, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #1))
Grief is a curious thing, when it happens unexpectedly. It is a Band-aid being ripped away, taking the top layer off a family. And the underbelly of a household is never pretty, ours no exception.
Jodi Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper)
Hey, if you'd wanted to avoid 'this,' you shouldn't have lured me last night. Now it's too late. You might as well avoid the long, drawn-out pain and get it over with quickly. Sort of like taking off a Band-Aid. Or cutting off a limb." "Wow, who says there's no romance left in the world?
Richelle Mead (Succubus Blues (Georgina Kincaid, #1))
What happened to your fingers?” She’s referring to the Band-Aids that cover four of my ten digits. “Mushrooms. Spongy little bastards don’t appreciate being sliced.
Emma Chase (Tangled (Tangled, #1))
You want to put a band-aid on something that needs stitches.
Eric Jerome Dickey (Cheaters)
My mouth is often wounded by my sharp words, so sometimes when I’m out in public, I’ll wear a large Band Aid over my lips.
Jarod Kintz (This Book Has No Title)
...real childhood scars heal, but not when band-aids replace self-reflection.
Cameron Conaway (Caged: Memoirs of a Cage-Fighting Poet)
Boy bands are sent by God to aid women of all ages in their quest to avoid reality, but specifically to trick young women into believing that males think about topics other than sex.
Penny Reid (Friends Without Benefits (Knitting in the City, #2))
Because you simply cannot draw these things out forever. At some point, you just pull off the Band-Aid and it hurts, but then it’s over and you’re relieved.
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
My mother would take the Band-Aid off, clean the wound, and say, “Things that are covered don’t heal well.” Mother was right. Things that are covered do not heal well.
T.D. Jakes (Healing the Wounds of the Past)
Losing someone is the worst feeling. Loss carves out a deep, hollow pocket. There's no magical way to fill it, no medicine or Band-Aid or surgery to cure it. I suppose that over time you get used to it, but the feeling never totally goes away. And the more time you spend on earth, the more pockets you'll collect. But it's part of living. It's life. - Katrina Svensen
Suzanne Selfors (Coffeehouse Angel)
Tough love and brutal truth from strangers are far more valuable than Band-Aids and half-truths from invested friends, who don’t want to see you suffer any more than you have.
Shannon L. Alder
No amount of soul searching would fix my past. There was no magical Band-Aid I could stick on my heart, no special glue I could use to make myself whole again. I had shattered to pieces like a fragile vase on concrete; some fragments could be roughly cobbled back together, but many of my vital parts had simply turned to dust, pulverized and scattered by the first gust of wind.
Julie Johnson (Like Gravity)
It’s like putting a band-aid on an amputation!
Natasha Anders (The Unwanted Wife (Unwanted, #1))
There is hurt here that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry.
Sarah Kay
Great, the worlds coming to an end and we're fixing it with Band-Aids
Susan Beth Pfeffer (Life As We Knew It (Last Survivors, #1))
You don’t need fashion designers when you are young. Have faith in your own bad taste. Buy the cheapest thing in your local thrift shop - the clothes that are freshly out of style with even the hippest people a few years older than you. Get on the fashion nerves of your peers, not your parents - that is the key to fashion leadership. Ill-fitting is always stylish. But be more creative - wear your clothes inside out, backward, upside down. Throw bleach in a load of colored laundry. Follow the exact opposite of the dry cleaning instructions inside the clothes that cost the most in your thrift shop. Don’t wear jewelry - stick Band-Aids on your wrists or make a necklace out of them. Wear Scotch tape on the side of your face like a bad face-lift attempt. Mismatch your shoes. Best yet, do as Mink Stole used to do: go to the thrift store the day after Halloween, when the children’s trick-or-treat costumes are on sale, buy one, and wear it as your uniform of defiance.
John Waters (Role Models)
Ozone depletion, lack of water, and pollution are not the disease—they are the symptoms. The disease is overpopulation. And unless we face world population head-on, we are doing nothing more than sticking a Band-Aid on a fast-growing cancerous tumor.
Dan Brown (Inferno (Robert Langdon, #4))
I left the only way you can leave. You pull your life off all at once - like a Band-Aid.
John Green (Paper Towns)
How very American, he thought, to look at a disease as homosexual or heterosexual, as if viruses had the intelligence to choose between different inclinations of human behavior.
Randy Shilts (And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic)
A year ago… Eighteen months ago even but not now! Don’t you realise that this is too little too late?” She shook her head in frustration. “It’s like putting a band-aid on an amputation!
Natasha Anders (The Unwanted Wife (Unwanted, #1))
Charity … is the opium of the privileged; from the good citizen who habitually drops ten kobo from his loose change and from a safe height above the bowl of the leper outside the supermarket; to the group of good citizens (like youselfs) who donate water so that some Lazarus in the slums can have a syringe boiled clean as a whistle for his jab and his sores dressed more hygienically than the rest of him; to the Band Aid stars that lit up so dramatically the dark Christmas skies of Ethiopia. While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.
Chinua Achebe (Anthills of the Savannah)
There are two ways to remove a Band-Aid : slowly and painfully, or quickly and painfully. Your choice.
John Wood (Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur's Odyssey to Educate the World's Children)
For some, excavating the past isn’t an adventure, it’s more akin to tearing a Band-Aid off an open wound.
Raquel Cepeda (Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina)
Band-aids don't fix bullet holes
Taylor Swift
Where there is willpower there is a Band Aid that's eventually going to fall off. You only need willpower to get what you don't want or you only want to want. By want to want, I mean, something you wish you wanted but don't really.
Augusten Burroughs (This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.)
Fang swerved closer to me, big and supremely graceful, like a black panther with wings. Oh, God. I'm so stupid. Forget I just said that. "He needs a Band-Aid," I said. A look passed between me and Fang, full of suppressed humor, relief, understanding,love — Forget I said that too. I don't know what's wrong with me.
James Patterson (Max (Maximum Ride, #5))
What society judged was not the severity of the disease but the social acceptability of the individuals affected with it…
Randy Shilts (And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic)
A critic looking at these tightly focused, targeted interventions might dismiss them as Band-Aid solutions. But that phrase should not be considered a term of disparagement. The Band-Aid is an inexpensive, convenient, and remarkably versatile solution to an astonishing array of problems. In their history, Band-Aids have probably allowed millions of people to keep working or playing tennis or cooking or walking when they would otherwise have had to stop. The Band-Aid solution is actually the best kind of solution because it involves solving a problem with the minimum amount of effort and time and cost.
Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference)
I was told The average girl begins to plan her wedding at the age of 7 She picks the colors and the cake first By the age of 10 She knows time, And location By 17 She’s already chosen a gown 2 bridesmaids And a maid of honor By 23 She’s waiting for a man Who wont break out in hives when he hears the word “commitment” Someone who doesn’t smell like a Band-Aid drenched in lonely Someone who isn’t a temporary solution to the empty side of the bed Someone Who’ll hold her hand like it’s the only one they’ve ever seen To be honest I don’t know what kind of tux I’ll be wearing I have no clue what want my wedding will look like But I imagine The women who pins my last to hers Will butterfly down the aisle Like a 5 foot promise I imagine Her smile Will be so large that you’ll see it on google maps And know exactly where our wedding is being held The woman that I plan to marry Will have champagne in her walk And I will get drunk on her footsteps When the pastor asks If I take this woman to be my wife I will say yes before he finishes the sentence I’ll apologize later for being impolite But I will also explain him That our first kiss happened 6 years ago And I’ve been practicing my “Yes” For past 2, 165 days When people ask me about my wedding I never really know what to say But when they ask me about my future wife I always tell them Her eyes are the only Christmas lights that deserve to be seen all year long I say She thinks too much Misses her father Loves to laugh And she’s terrible at lying Because her face never figured out how to do it correctl I tell them If my alarm clock sounded like her voice My snooze button would collect dust I tell them If she came in a bottle I would drink her until my vision is blurry and my friends take away my keys If she was a book I would memorize her table of contents I would read her cover-to-cover Hoping to find typos Just so we can both have a few things to work on Because aren’t we all unfinished? Don’t we all need a little editing? Aren’t we all waiting to be proofread by someone? Aren’t we all praying they will tell us that we make sense She don’t always make sense But her imperfections are the things I love about her the most I don’t know when I will be married I don’t know where I will be married But I do know this Whenever I’m asked about my future wife I always say …She’s a lot like you
Rudy Francisco
Gratitude isn´t a Band-Aid, Ellie. You still have to experience your feelings to work through them. Gratitude is meant to make it bearable. Sometimes gratitude gets you through the day, and sometimes it just gets you from one moment to the next.
Mia Sheridan (Most of All You)
Prejudice makes prisoners of both the hated and the hater.
Randy Shilts (And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic)
I can’t be the Band-Aid for her wounds. I need to be what helps them heal.
Colleen Hoover (Layla)
Because while the truth hurts, it’s like a Band-Aid when you rip it off. The pain goes away. It’s the lies and questioning that keep you aching for a long time.
Vi Keeland (Sex, Not Love)
It's simply the way things are when people come together out of hurt rather than happiness. When you try to use people as band-aids you merely reinfect the wound, and every moment you spend with them is like a speck of glass working itself deeper into your flesh.
Michael Marshall Smith (What You Make It)
What, no Power Rangers Band-Aids ?" "Shut up, Garett." "Yes, ma'am.
Cindy Gerard (To the Edge (The Bodyguards #1))
I suppose that means you don’t want any band-aids, either,” I said, a touch more bitterly than I’d meant to.
J.M. Richards (Tall, Dark Streak of Lightning (Dark Lightning Trilogy, #1))
I was never one to pull a band aid off slowly. Besides, we could be struck by lightning right now and I don't think I'd feel it or care. I want you inside me, Jack. Now. Not slowly, but like right now.
Natasha Boyd (Eversea (Butler Cove, #1))
So often parents of abused children feel helpless. When a child falls, and scrapes her knees parents can erase the hurt by kissing it and putting a Band-Aid on it, but not so with the pain of sexual abuse.
Erin Merryn (Living for Today: From Incest and Molestation to Fearlessness and Forgiveness)
... it is possible to heal. It is even possible to thrive. Thriving means more than just an alleviation of symptoms, more than Band-Aids, more than functioning adequately. Thriving means enjoying a feeling of wholeness, satisfaction in your life and work, genuine love and trust in your relationships, pleasure in your body.
Ellen Bass (The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse)
Life was full of surprises, with too many bruises and not enough Band-Aids.
Nikki Sixx (The Heroin Diaries: Ten Year Anniversary Edition: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star)
Danni was his reward for all the bullshit he'd gone through, the torture, the anger, hatred and the bitter loneliness. She was going to be the band-aid for his tortured soul.
R.L. Mathewson (Tall, Dark & Heartless (Pyte/Sentinel, #3))
Grief is a curious thing, when it happens unexpectedly. It is a Band-Aid being ripped away, taking the top layer off a family. And the underbelly of a household is never pretty, ours no exception. There were times I stayed in my room for days on end with headphones on, if only so that I would not have to listen to my mother cry. There were the weeks that my father worked round-the-clock shifts, so that he wouldn't have to come home to a house that felt too big for us.
Jodi Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper)
Emma hears me come up the stairs and asks me to watch a movie with her. I stick Band-Aids on my weeping cuts, put on pink pajamas so we match, and snuggle with her under her rainbow comforter. She arranges all of her stuffed animals around us in a circle, everyone facing the TV, then presses play...Ghosts dare not enter here.
Laurie Halse Anderson (Wintergirls)
Abel lifted her up - another gesture from former times, from when she'd been smaller - and carried her to the bathroom to find the Band-aid. Suddenly, Anna thought, she's growing up. One day, she'll be too big to be carried around like that. One day, he won't be able to hold onto her, she'll move on, and he'll be left all alone. Maybe the responsibility for Micha is more of an anchor than a burden. A lifeboat. A wooden plank to hold onto so you don't drown.
Antonia Michaelis (The Storyteller)
Pull the BandAid off a little too fast, and tell 'em what they don't wanna hear.
Sam Hyde
You can’t put a Band-Aid on open-heart surgery.
Sierra Rose (My Despicable Ex (The Ashly Roberts Saga, #1))
Insanity triumphed because sane people were silent.
Randy Shilts (And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic)
You might as well humor me and let the Band-Aid boys check you out.
Pamela Clare (Striking Distance (I-Team, #6))
How could a little nick control something I had no control over? It wasn’t until he wiped it clean and applied a band-aid that the physical pain of the cut took hold, but I didn’t even care. That was a minimal price to pay in order to lessen the internal pain.
S.M. Koz
The equation Bubble Tea = Something to Look Forward To depressurizes the misery of capitalism and is a Hello Kitty band-aid on the festering wound of Neo-Liberalism.
Vanessa Veselka (Zazen)
...Because it's easier to slap on a Band-Aid than to open a would and clean it out.
Becca Fitzpatrick (Dangerous Lies)
You've got to learn to let go and let your children fall, and fail. If you try to protect them from hurt, and always rush to their side with Band-Aids, they won't learn about life, and what is true, what works, what helps, and what are real consequences of certain kinds of behavior. When they do get hurt, which they will, they won't know how to take care of their grown selves. They won't even know where the aspirin is kept.
Anne Lamott (Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son)
No, really. I can do it. It's okay." Because you simply cannot draw these things out forever. At some point, you just pull off the Band-Aid and it hurts, but then it's over and you're relieved.
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
Sage would survive. I'd survive. We were better off apart. Painful and quick, just like ripping off a Band-Aid. Well, more like gouging a piece of shrapnel out of my stomach, pouring a bottle of gin into the wound, lighting it on fire, and sewing my guts up with a dirty bootlace. But the concept was the same.
Brian Katcher (Almost Perfect)
You simply cannot draw these things out forever. At some point, you just pull off the Band-Aid and it hurts, but then it's over and you're relieved.
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
How can you leave someone if you let them this deep inside you? It's so much harder that way. Messy. Complicated. No Band-Aids.
Laura Zielen
Looks like I’ll be the one babysitting you all. (Jericho) It’s okay, sweetie. I make a mean Band-aid. (Delphine)
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Dream Warrior (Dream-Hunter, #4; Dark-Hunter, #17))
Tony chuckled. “So how does my other underwear fit you?” “Like covering a banana with a Band-Aid.
Kaje Harper (Breaking Cover (Life Lessons, #2))
Throw a pair of Band-Aids over your eyelids, and open your eyes to your wounds.
Jarod Kintz (This is the best book I've ever written, and it still sucks (This isn't really my best book))
Are you a person who peels off a band-aid slowly or just rips it off all at once?" Casey contemplated Alexa's warning, recognizing it for what it was.
Donna McDonald (Dating a Cougar (Never Too Late, #1))
Whachoo want, white boy? Burn cream? A Band-Aid? Then he raised his own enormous palms to me, brought them up real close so I could see them properly; the hideous constellation of water-filled blisters, angry red welts from grill marks, the old scars, the raw flesh where steam or hot fat had made the skin simply roll off. They looked like the claws of some monstrous science-fiction crustacean, knobby and calloused under wounds old and new. I watched, transfixed, as Tyrone - his eyes never leaving mine - reached slowly under the broiler and, with one naked hand, picked up a glowing-hot sizzle-platter, moved it over to the cutting board, and set it down in front of me. He never flinched.
Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly)
Most importantly, the epidemic was only news when it was not killing homosexuals. In this sense, AIDS remained a fundamentally gay disease, newsworthy only by the virtue of the fact that it sometimes hit people who weren't gay,
Randy Shilts (And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic)
The medics were the most popular, respected, and appreciated men in the company. Their weapons were first-aid kits, their place on the line was wherever a man called out that he was wounded.
Stephen E. Ambrose (Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest)
What you need is a chick from Camden,' Van Patten says, after recovering from McDermott's statement. Oh great,' I say. 'Some chick who thinks it's okay to fuck her brother.' Yeah, but they think AIDS is a new band from England,' Price points out. Where's dinner?' Van Patten asks, absently studying the question scrawled on his napkin. 'Where the fuck are we going?' It's really funny that girls think guys are concerned with that, with diseases and stuff,' Van Patten says, shaking his head. I'm not gonna wear a fucking condom,' McDermott announces. I have read this article I've Xeroxed,' Van Patten says, 'and it says our chances of catching that are like zero zero zero zero point half a decimal percentage or something, and this no matter what kind of scumbag, slutbucket, horndog chick we end up boffing.' Guys just cannot get it.' Well, not white guys.
Bret Easton Ellis
I smell guilt. There is a stench of guilt upon the air. I see you all, whole and healthy, with your powers intact — such prompt appearances! — and I ask myself . . . why did this band of wizards never come to the aid of their master, to whom they swore eternal loyalty? And I answer myself, they must have believed me broken, they thought I was gone. They slipped back among my enemies, and they pleaded innocence, and ignorance, and bewitchment. . . . And then I ask myself, but how could they have believed I would not rise again? They, who knew the steps I took, long ago, to guard myself against mortal death? They, who had seen proofs of the immensity of my power in the times when I was mightier than any wizard living? And I answer myself, perhaps they believed a still greater power could exist, one that could vanquish even Lord Voldemort . . . perhaps they now pay allegiance to another. . .
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4))
Um…you’re four blocks away. Why can’t you walk?” “I’m naked.” Sometimes the truth was like a band-aid in need of removal; one had to get it over with as quickly as possible. “And I’m sitting in a bougainvillea bush.” Jason was silent. Even his silence sounded angry. Praline knew he should have sent a text.
Marshall Thornton (The Perils of Praline)
Ice cream is just a Band-Aid. Pain is still there when you wake up.
Elizabeth Rudnick (Tweet Heart)
And somewhere in between then and now irony slipped its way into my vocabulary. Laughter became the antidote for guilt. Sacrifice grew to be a Band-Aid for shame.
Sarah Kay (No Matter the Wreckage: Poems)
My mom says tears are just too much emotion, like when the bathtub overfills...and she says hugs are like Band-Aids.
Viola Shipman (The Charm Bracelet)
At some point, you just pull of the Band-Aid and it hurts, but then its over and you're relieved.
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
Sorrow. It never goes away. All you can do is act like it's fixed, when in reality all you've done is put a tiny Band-Aid over a gaping, bleeding hole that'll never be repaired.
Lani Lynn Vale (Shock Advised (Kilgore Fire, #1))
Pine sap is antiseptic, astringent, anti-inflammatory and antibacterial. Best damn Band-Aid in the world, Harry, remember that.
Jon Cohen (Harry's Trees)
I’ll leave you guys to get acquainted. Somebody show Leo to dinner when it’s time?” “I got it,” one of the girls said. Nyssa, Leo remembered. She wore camo pants, a tank top that showed off her buff arms, and a red bandanna over her mop of dark hair. Except for the smiley-face Band-Aid on her chin, she looked like one of those female action heroes, like any second she was going to grab a machine gun and start mowing down evil aliens. “Cool,” Leo said. “I always wanted a sister who could beat me up.
Rick Riordan
It takes money to make money, even begging. Humans are herd animals. If a stranger’s bleeding to death beside the road, most people won’t stop to offer a Band-Aid. But get the ball rolling with a couple Good Samaritans, and before you know it you’ve got more eager philanthropists than you know what to do with.
Sol Luckman (Beginner's Luke (Beginner's Luke, #1))
I thought of what my father had told me one summer day. I’d fallen down, and my knee was all scraped up and bleeding. We sat on the back porch, and he cleaned my wound and put a Band-Aid on it. The sky had cleared after a summer storm. I’d been crying, and he tried to get me to smile. “Your eyes are the color of sky. Did you know that?” I don’t know why I remembered this. Maybe it was because I knew he was telling me he loved me.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz (The Inexplicable Logic of My Life)
I sat in a room the color of egg yolk for two hours while the officer got my story down. The whole time I was thinking about Natalie going to autopsy, and how I would like to sneak in and put a fresh Band-Aid on her knee.
Gillian Flynn (Sharp Objects)
I can't stall any longer. I think of what my therapist would tell me to do if she was sitting right next to me, watching me act like a coward. She'd say rip the Band-Aid off. Allow the wound to breathe..to heal itself. The worst part is in the anticipation of the tear, not the tear itself.
Vi Keeland (Worth the Fight (MMA Fighter, #1))
We will not have any of these cases in the Soviet Union,” said a Soviet delegate confidently. Don Francis couldn’t resist saying to Marc Conant in his loudest stage whisper, “And they won’t, all right.” In a stern Russian accent, Francis continued: “You have AIDS—bang, bang, bang.” The Soviets were not amused.
Randy Shilts (And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic)
There was no excuse, in this country and in this time, for the spread of a deadly new epidemic. For this was a time in which the United States boasted the world’s most sophisticated medicine and the world’s most extensive public health system, geared to eliminate such pestilence from our national life.
Randy Shilts (And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic)
…perverts around the world will also band together to capture the military in their respective countries. In those reactionary countries in which the deviates seem to be having some trouble in gaining control, we will send aid to them as rebels to help them in toppling their governments. When we have at last overthrown all existing governments, the world will enjoy not war but global orgies conducted with the utmost protocol and the most truly international spirit, for these people do transcend simple national differences.
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
Once, headed uptown on the 9 train, I noticed a sign posted by the Metropolitan Transit Authority advising subway riders who might become ill in the train. The sign asked that the suddenly infirm inform another passenger or get out at the next stop and approach the stationmaster. Do not, repeat, do not pull the emergency brake, the sign said, as this will only delay aid. Which was all very logical, but for the following proclamation at the bottom of the sign, something along the lines of, “If you are sick, you will not be left alone.” This strikes me as not only kind, not only comforting, but the very epitome of civilization, good government, i.e., the the crux of the societal impulse. Banding together, pooling our taxes, not just making trains, not just making trains that move underground, not just making trains that move underground with surprising efficiency at a fair price—but posting on said trains a notification of such surprising compassion and thoughtfulness. I found myself scanning the faces of my fellow passengers, hoping for fainting, obvious fevers, at the very least a sneeze so that I might offer a tissue.
Sarah Vowell
Our internal conflict is understandable—why shouldn’t the government, after years of slavery and Jim Crow, not eliminate black debt by subsidizing black housing, and otherwise funding black lives? The answer is simple: because a painkiller cannot eliminate cancer. No short-term fix, no Band-Aid over the deeply infected wound, will ever fix the underlying problems that plague our community.
Candace Owens (Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation)
Instructions for a Broken Heart I will find a bare patch of earth, somewhere where the ruins have fallen away, somewhere where I can fit both hands, and I will dig a hole. And into that hole, I will scream you, I will dump all the shadow places of my heart—the times you didn’t call when you said you’d call, the way you only half listened to my poems, your eyes on people coming through the swinging door of the café—not on me—your ears, not really turned toward me. For all those times I started to tell you about the fight with my dad or when my grandma died, and you said something about your car, something about the math test you flunked, as an answer. I will scream into that hole the silence of dark nights after you’d kissed me, how when I asked if something was wrong—and something was obviously so very wrong—how you said “nothing,” how you didn’t tell me until I had to see it in the dim light of a costume barn—so much wrong. I will scream all of it. Then I will fill it in with dark earth, leave it here in Italy, so there will be an ocean between the hole and me. Because then I can bring home a heart full of the light patches. A heart that sees the sunset you saw that night outside of Taco Bell, the way you pointed out that it made the trees seem on fire, a heart that holds the time your little brother fell on his bike at the fairgrounds and you had pockets full of bright colored Band-Aids and you kissed the bare skin of his knees. I will take that home with me. In my heart. I will take home your final Hamlet monologue on the dark stage when you cried closing night and it wasn’t really acting, you cried because you felt the words in you and on that bare stage you felt the way I feel every day of my life, every second, the way the words, the light and dark, the spotlight in your face, made you Hamlet for that brief hiccup of a moment, made you a poet, an artist at your core. I get to take Italy home with me, the Italy that showed me you and the Italy that showed me—me—the Italy that wrote me my very own instructions for a broken heart. And I get to leave the other heart in a hole. We are over. I know this. But we are not blank. We were a beautiful building made of stone, crumbled now and covered in vines. But not blank. Not forgotten. We are a history. We are beauty out of ruins.
Kim Culbertson (Instructions for a Broken Heart)
I glanced down at her—she was watching my face. My eyes rolled to the back of my head. I bit my lip as I felt her hand wrap around me. The throbbing got worse. Then her other hand reached in through the band of my shorts, her palm rubbing against my head, so fucking lightly. Grandmas. Mothballs. Band-Aids. Oranges. "Fuck," I grunted when I felt her fingers curl around my shorts, pulling them down. My dick twitched. She must have seen it. Her eyes got huge before a smile pulled on her lips. Then she dipped her head
Jay McLean (More Than Her (More Than, #2))
When we encounter a friend who's depressed or afraid, we automatically try to take that distress away and to cheer the person up. While we may be operating with the best of intentions, this Band-Aid approach only reinforces the condition. Unless people experience their pain completely and begin to undrstand it, they will not only fail to overcome it, they'll also lose the opportunity of using it to advance their own growth. Pain can get you somewhere, and that somewhere can be a life-enhancing experience. We all tend to forget that pain can signal change. Alleviating the symptoms of pain in someone, without helping them to get at its underlying source, robs them of an important to for self-exploration. It's also a way of placating that reinforces the person'S need to cave in and succumb to another. This attitude undermines healthy character development and contributes to psychospiritual, moral, and ultimately social decay.
Adele von Rust McCormick (Horse Sense and the Human Heart: What Horses Can Teach Us About Trust, Bonding, Creativity and Spirituality)
Wait,” Kaidan called from behind me. I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, but kept walking. Then I felt his hand around my wrist, spinning me in a half circle and pulling me to his chest. His face was so close. He reached down and cupped my face with one woolly hand, and wiped the top corner of my lip hard with his thumb. I flinched back. “What are you doing?” “I...” He appeared to have no idea himself. “I wanted to see your freckle.” A vulnerable tenderness flashed across his face, more painful to see than the coldness. It took every ounce of strength I had not to beg for one last kiss. As fast as his expression had softened, it was back to stone again. “What do you want from me, Kai?” “For starters?” His voice lowered to sexy, dangerous depths. “I want to introduce myself to every freckle on your body.” A powerful shiver ripped through me. “So, just something physical, then?” I clarified. “That's all you want?” “Tell me you hate me,” he demanded. I felt the air of his words against my face. “But I don't hate you. I couldn't.” “You could,” he assured me, pulling me tighter. “And you should.” “I'm letting you go.” My voice shook. “But only because I have to. I need to move on with my life, but I'll never hate you.” “The one who got away,” Kaidan murmured. “Nobody got away,” I corrected him. “And so help me, if you start comparing us to an unfinished game that went into overtime-” He released me and I stumbled back a step. I had to get away before I started clinging and begging him to admit his feelings, whatever they might have been. It was necessary to rip off this Band-Aid, and fast. So, as I'd done at the airport, I walked away from him, dragging my heart behind me. I didn't look back. Game over.
Wendy Higgins (Sweet Evil (Sweet, #1))
The only real problem came with a track called ‘The Last Song’. Bernie’s lyrics were about a man dying of AIDS being reconciled with his estranged father, who had excommunicated him when he found out he was gay. They were beautiful, but I just couldn’t cope with singing them. It was just after Freddie’s death. Somewhere in Virginia, I knew Vance Buck was dying, too. Every time I tried to get the vocal down, I started crying. Eventually I managed it and ‘The Last Song’ was subsequently used as the finale of And the Band Played On, a docudrama about the discovery of, and the fight against, HIV.
Elton John (Me)
10 facts about abusive relationships (what i wish i'd known) 1. it's not always loud. it's not always obvious. the poison doesn't always hit you like a gunshot. sometimes, it seeps in quietly, slowly. sometimes, you don't even know it was ever there until months after. 2. love is not draining. love is not tiring. this is not how it is supposed to be. 3. apologies are like band-aids, when what you really need is stitches– they don't actually fix anything long-term. soon enough, you'll be bleeding again, but they will never give you what you really need. 4. this is not your fault. you did not turn them into this. this is how they are, how they've always been. you can't blame yourself. 5. there will be less good days than bad days but the good days will be so amazing that it will feel like everything is better than it actually is. your mind is playing tricks on itself and your heart is trying to convince itself that it made the right choice. 6. they do not love you. they can not love you. this is not love. 7. you're not wrong for wanting to run, so do it. listen to what your gut is telling you. 8. you will let them come back again and again before you realize that they only change long enough for you to let them in one more time. 9. it's okay to be selfish and leave. there is never any crime in putting yourself first. when they tell you otherwise, don't believe them. don't let them tear you down. they want to knock you off your feet so that they can keep you on the ground. 10. after, you will look back on this regretting all the chances given, all the time wasted. you will think about what you know now, and what you would do differently if given the chance. part of you will say that you would never have even given them the time of the day, but another part of you, the larger one, will say that even after everything, you wouldn't have changed a thing. and as much as it will bother you, eventually, you will realize that that is the part that is right. because as much as it hurts, as much as you wish you'd never felt that pain, it has taught you something. it has helped you grow. they brought you something that you would have never gotten from somebody else. at the end of the day, you will accept that even now, you wouldn't go about it differently at all.
Catarine Hancock (how the words come)
REBO BAND [ sings:] A gangster, aye, a gangster, O! ’Tis well to be a gangster. A blaster ever by thy side, A stately barge in which to ride, A fair, young damsel to thee tied, ’Tis well to be a gangster. A gangster, aye, a gangster, O! ’Tis well to be a gangster. Full many servants lend thee aid, More guards than a Naboo brigade, And bounty hunters on parade— ’Tis well to be a gangster. A gangster, aye, a gangster, O! ’Tis well to be a gangster. The drinks all flowing fast and free, A sarlacc pit not far from thee, A rancor for thine enemy, ’Tis well to be a gangster. A gangster, aye, a gangster, O! ’Tis well to be a gangster.
Ian Doescher (William Shakespeare's The Jedi Doth Return (William Shakespeare's Star Wars, #6))
That maybe I’m the answer,’ I blurted. ‘To healing your heart. I could … you know, be your boyfriend. As Lester. If you wanted. You and me. You know, like … yeah.’ I was absolutely certain that up on Mount Olympus, the other Olympians all had their phones out and were filming me to post on Euterpe-Tube. Reyna stared at me long enough for the marching band in my circulatory system to play a complete stanza of ‘You’re a Grand Old Flag’. Her eyes were dark and dangerous. Her expression was unreadable, like the outer surface of an explosive device. She was going to murder me. No. She would order her dogs to murder me. By the time Meg rushed to my aid, it would be too late. Or worse – Meg would help Reyna bury my remains, and no one would be the wiser. When they returned to camp, the Romans would ask, What happened to Apollo? Who? Reyna would say. Oh, that guy? Dunno, we lost him. Oh, well! the Romans would reply, and that would be that. Reyna’s mouth tightened into a grimace. She bent over, gripping her knees. Her body began to shake. Oh, gods, what had I done? Perhaps I should comfort her, hold her in my arms. Perhaps I should run for my life. Why was I so bad at romance? Reyna made a squeaking sound, then a sort of sustained whimper. I really had hurt her! Then she straightened, tears streaming down her face, and burst into laughter. The sound reminded me of water rushing over a riverbed that had been dry for ages. Once she started, she couldn’t seem to stop. She doubled over, stood upright again, leaned against a tree and looked at her dogs as if to share the joke. ‘Oh … my … gods,’ she wheezed. She managed to restrain her mirth long enough to blink at me through the tears, as if to make sure I was really there and she’d heard me correctly. ‘You. Me? HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA.
Rick Riordan (The Tyrant's Tomb (The Trials of Apollo, #4))
I’d come across a strap-on penis. It seemed pretty old and was Band-Aid colored, about three inches long and not much bigger around than a Vienna sausage, which was interesting to me. You’d think that if someone wanted a sex toy she’d go for the gold, sizewise. But this was just the bare minimum, like getting AAA breast implants. Who had this person been hoping to satisfy, her Cabbage Patch doll? I thought about taking the penis home and mailing it to one of my sisters for Christmas but knew that the moment I put it in my knapsack, I’d get hit by a car and killed. That’s just my luck. Medics would come and scrape me off the pavement, then, later, at the hospital, they’d rifle through my pack and record its contents: four garbage bags, some wet wipes, two flashlights, and a strap-on penis.
David Sedaris (Calypso)
Ohhhhh." A lush-bodied girl in the prime of her physical beauty. In an ivory georgette-crepe sundress with a halter top that gathers her breasts up in soft undulating folds of the fabric. She's standing with bare legs apart on a New York subway grating. Her blond head is thrown rapturously back as an updraft lifts her full, flaring skirt, exposing white cotton panties. White cotton! The ivory-crepe sundress is floating and filmy as magic. The dress is magic. Without the dress the girl would be female meat, raw and exposed. She's not thinking such a thought! Not her. She's an American girl healthy and clean as a Band-Aid. She's never had a soiled or a sulky thought. She's never had a melancholy thought. She's never had a savage thought. She's never had a desperate thought. She's never had an un-American thought. In the papery-thin sundress she's a nurse with tender hands. A nurse with luscious mouth. Sturdy thighs, bountiful breasts, tiny folds of baby fat at her armpits. She's laughing and squealing like a four year-old as another updraft lifts her skirt. Dimpled knees, a dancer's strong legs. This husky healthy girl. The shoulders, arms, breasts belong to a fully mature woman but the face is a girl's face. Shivering in New York City mid-summer as subway steam lifts her skirt like a lover's quickened breath. "Oh! Ohhhhh." It's nighttime in Manhattan, Lexington Avenue at 51st Street. Yet the white-white lights exude the heat of midday. The goddess of love has been standing like this, legs apart, in spike-heeled white sandals so steep and so tight they've permanently disfigured her smallest toes, for hours. She's been squealing and laughing, her mouth aches. There's a gathering pool of darkness at the back of her head like tarry water. Her scalp and her pubis burn from the morning's peroxide applications. The Girl with No Name. The glaring-white lights focus upon her, upon her alone, blond squealing, blond laughter, blond Venus, blond insomnia, blond smooth-shaven legs apart and blond hands fluttering in a futile effort to keep her skirt from lifting to reveal white cotton American-girl panties and the shadow, just the shadow, of the bleached crotch. "Ohhhhhh." Now she's hugging herself beneath her big bountiful breasts. Her eyelids fluttering. Between the legs, you can trust she's clean. She's not a dirty girl, nothing foreign or exotic. She's an American slash in the flesh. That emptiness. Guaranteed. She's been scooped out, drained clean, no scar tissue to interfere with your pleasure, and no odor. Especially no odor. The Girl with No Name, the girl with no memory. She has not lived long and she will not live long.
Joyce Carol Oates (Blonde)
If your fiancé tended to come sailing in windows without notice, you didn’t have extra time to run and gather up messes. She dropped everything into the hamper and stepped into a hot, steamy shower, soap with no cloying scent, just clean. Just her again. And her eyes shut while she was standing there. She’d slip down the shower wall and go to sleep there, but she was already getting stiff. She got out, delved into the medicine cabinet for a couple of Advil and chased them down with a glass of water. Clean, clear water. A miracle. She stood watching crystal liquid swirl down the drain and thought somehow she’d never asked herself how water got that clean. She splashed it up in her face, dried her Band-Aids with a towel And went and turned on her computer. Last thing. Last defining thing – on any day.-Lois Lane
C.J. Cherryh (Lois & Clark: A Superman Novel)
From the moment they're recruited to the time they're 'rescued' and deported, trafficked women are terrorized. Every single day they face a world stacked heavily against them. Their only friends are the dedicated women and men who form the thin front line against trafficking--an often thankless job. Those working for nongovernmental aid agencies and organizations are the real heroes in this bleak morass. Still, their work is merely a Band-Aid solution. In the vast majority of cases, NGO workers report that their funding is ad hoc and wholly inadequate to meet even basic needs. If we truly want a fair shot at saving these women, we need to open not only our minds but also our wallets. We need to focus on programs that care compassionately for the victims and we need to implement them immediately, worldwide. The most urgent priorities are safe shelters and clinics equipped and staffed to offer medical and psychological treatment. We need to understand that most of these women have been psychologically and physically ripped apart. And we need to be prepared for the fac thtat most have been infected with various sexually transmitted diseases.
Victor Malarek (The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade)
Jay insisted on carrying her up the back steps and into the kitchen, and this time Violet didn’t complain when he lifted her. He set her down gently on the kitchen counter, and then he rummaged through the cupboard while Violet told him where the Band-Aids were. He came with bandages, gauze, cotton balls, antibacterial wash, and two tubes of ointment. It seemed like overkill to Violet, but she didn’t say anything. She wanted to see what he planned to do. “Okay, this is probably gonna sting,” he warned as he leaned over and began cleaning her wounds. It did sting, more than Violet let on, and she had to bite her lip as the tears came back all over again. But she let him keep working without even flinching, which was no small feat as he stripped away the layers of dirt from her skin. The wounds were big, and round, and raw. She thought she looked like a little kid with the giant scrapes on her knees, and she imagined that they were going to scab over and possibly even scar. She felt like such an idiot for falling over her own two clumsy feet. But Jay was gentle, and he took his time, being careful not to hurt her. She admired his patience and took perverse pleasure in his touch. He didn’t look up to see how she was doing; he just kept working until he was satisfied that her scrapes were cleaned out. And then he picked up the antibacterial wash and some cotton balls. Violet sucked in her breath when he brushed the soaked cotton ball against the angry red abrasions. Jay looked up at her but didn’t stop dabbing at them. Instead he blew on her knees as he labored over them, just like her mother used to do when Violet was a little girl. She thought it was sweet, and she swore that she was even more attracted to him than ever in that tender moment. When he finished with the wash, he gingerly patted an antibiotic ointment on her knees before covering them with bandages. “There,” he said, admiring his own handiwork. “Good as new.” Violent glanced at the ridiculously huge Band-Aids on her knees and looking at him doubtfully. “You really think so? ‘Good as new’?” He smiled. “I think I did pretty good. It’s not my fault you can’t walk.
Kimberly Derting (The Body Finder (The Body Finder, #1))