Beaches Movie Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Beaches Movie. Here they are! All 95 of them:

I want to make you smile. For real. Always. We're going to go for dinners, and see movies, and walk on the beach. We'll go hang-gliding, or bungee jumping, or whatever you want to do. Whatever makes you smile and laugh more. Let me make you smile.
K.A. Tucker (Ten Tiny Breaths (Ten Tiny Breaths, #1))
She felt like Lady in Lady and the Tramp, one of Hanna's favorite movies as a kid. When Jim Dear and Darling had a new baby, they kicked Lady to the curb. Except Hanna didn't even have a scruffy bad-boy stray she could run off with because her supposed boyfriend was going to be hundreds of miles away soaking up sunshine on a nude beach with a skank.
Sara Shepard (Pretty Little Secrets: A Pretty Little Liars Collection (Pretty Little Liars, #4.5))
...normally I consider nostalgia to be a toxic impulse. It is the twinned, yearning delusion that (a) the past was better (it wasn´t) and (b) it can be recaptured (it can´t) that leads at best to bad art, movie versions of old TV shows, and sad dads watching Fox news. At worst it leads to revisionist, extremist politics, fundamentalist terrorism, and the victory-in Appalachia in particular-of a narcissist Manhattan cartoon maybe-millionaire and cramped-up city creep who, if he ever did go up to Rocky Top in real life, would never come down again.
John Hodgman (Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches)
My mind was quickly consumed with thoughts of my girlfriend and all the good times we had had, like one of those cheesy montages ni eighties movies, when the angsty protagonist envisions himself and his ex holding hands on the beach, feeding a small puppy, getting into some kind of zany wrestling match with whipped cream. I interrupted my cliché memories by saying aloud: "Ugh, I'm feeling pretty low about this whole thing." "You just gotta try to put it out of your head," he said, folding the paper halfway down to look at me. "I know, it's just hard. I mean, I still have stuff at her place. What am I going to do about that? I still have a TV...," I said. "Fuck the TV. Leave the TV. Cut your ties." "It's a fifteen-hundred-dollar TV," I insisted. "Go get that fucking TV.
Justin Halpern (Sh*t My Dad Says)
Time spent for temporary happiness like movie or outing or weekend on a beach is all synthetic; with shelf life of a day or two. Work for your bigger dreams that should last for whole life. Then movie and beach would seem more interesting, realising that you have done something.
Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma (Guru with Guitar)
A good movie had never once affected me in the same life-changing way a good book could. Books had the power to alter my view of the world forever. A great movie could change my perceptions for a day.
Pat Conroy (Beach Music)
This was going to be what my kids grew up believing Christmas was all about and I loved it. Cuddling on the sofa watching Christmas movies and drinking hot cocoa while I laid my hand on Blair's stomach and enjoying my boy kick. This was something money couldn't buy. Not this kind of happiness. ~Rush Finlay
Abbi Glines (Forever Too Far (Rosemary Beach, #3; Too Far, #3))
Winter denial: therein lay the key to California Schadenfreude--the secret joy that the rest of the country feels at the misfortune of California. The country said: "Look at them, with their fitness and their tans, their beaches and their movie stars, their Silicon Valley and silicone breasts, their orange bridge and their palm trees. God, I hate those smug, sunshiny bastards!" Because if you're up to your navel in a snowdrift in Ohio, nothing warms your heart like the sight of California on fire. If you're shoveling silt out of your basement in the Fargo flood zone, nothing brightens your day like watching a Malibu mansion tumbling down a cliff into the sea. And if a tornado just peppered the land around your Oklahoma town with random trailer trash and redneck nuggets, then you can find a quantum of solace in the fact that the earth actually opened up in the San Fernando Valley and swallowed a whole caravan of commuting SUVs.
Christopher Moore (The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror (Pine Cove, #3))
Out into the staff quarters. Over to the entrance to the movie theater. Tohr stopped dead. “If this is another Beaches marathon, I’m going to Bette your ass until you can’t sit down.” “Aw, look at you! Trying to be finny.” “Seriously, if you have any compassion in you at all, you’ll let me go to bed—” “I have peanut M&M’s up there.” “Not my style.” “Raisinets.” “Feh.” “Sam Adams.” Tohr narrowed his eyes. “Cold?” “Downright icy.” Tohr crossed his arms over his chest and told himself he was not pouting like a five-year-old. “I want Milk Duds.” “Got ’em. And popcorn.” With a curse, Tohr yanked open the door and ascended into the dimly lit red cave.
J.R. Ward (Lover Reborn (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #10))
Like we were costars in a movie and when the cameras weren’t on, we didn’t have all that much to talk about. But we wanted the same life, you know?
Emily Henry (Beach Read)
Plus, it seems cool. To spend a little time off the grid.” She smiles and rolls her eyes. “I know, you’re probably thinking I’ve seen The Beach one too many times.” “No,” I say, sipping my beer and grinning. “I was thinking you read The Beach too many times. You strike me as a book-before-the-movie kind of girl.” She clinks her bottle against mine. “Fuck yeah.
Rachel Hawkins (Reckless Girls)
Because when you meet a person, you only see part of his life, but never the whole movie.
Iddo Gefen (Jerusalem Beach)
I could spend whole days at Cinecittà. There, I am the greatest director of all time. On the town side, I reshoot the close-ups for Touch of Evil. Down at the beach, I rework the dolly shots for Stagecoach, and offshore I re-create the storm rocking the smugglers of Moonfleet.
Jean-Dominique Bauby (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)
I didn’t write this piece to attract a potential mate, as the title might lead a reader to believe. That said, I like long walks on the beach, cuddling by the fire, and watching silent movies at full volume and then screaming into the phone when anybody calls. If interested, please send a brief e-mail to jarodkintz@jarodkintz.com telling a little about yourself, and why you think I’m perfect for you.
Jarod Kintz (Great Listener Seeks Mute Women)
That which interests most people leaves me without any interest at all. This includes a list of things such as: social dancing, riding roller coasters, going to zoos, picnics, movies, planetariums, watching tv, baseball games; going to funerals, weddings, parties, basketball games, auto races, poetry readings, museums, rallies, demonstrations, protests, children’s plays, adult plays … I am not interested in beaches, swimming, skiing, Christmas, New Year’s, the 4th of July, rock music, world history, space exploration, pet dogs, soccer, cathedrals and great works of Art. How can a man who is interested in almost nothing write about anything? Well, I do. I write and I write about what’s left over: a stray dog walking down the street, a wife murdering her husband, the thoughts and feelings of a rapist as he bites into a hamburger sandwich; life in the factory, life in the streets and rooms of the poor and mutilated and the insane, crap like that, I write a lot of crap like that
Charles Bukowski (Shakespeare Never Did This)
Finally,’ I said. ‘Something we agree on.’ ‘I bet we agree on a lot.’ He plucked a mangled maple-nut donut out and sat back, examining it in the fluorescent light. ‘Such as?’ ‘All the important stuff,’ Gus said. ‘The chemical composition of Earth’s atmosphere, whether the world needs six Pirates of the Caribbean movies, that White Russians should only be drunk you’re already sure you’re going to vomit anyway.
Emily Henry (Beach Read)
Everything about my best friend was misleading to the men of Chicago. She was eccentric and loud, prone to heavy drinking and all-night partying, comfortable with casual hookups, always the funniest and most shocking person in any room, and she posted mostly nude selfies with increasing regularity. She was enigmatic, the closest to the stereotypical male fantasy I’d ever seen outside of a movie, but deep down she was, completely, a romantic.
Emily Henry (Beach Read)
Now normally I consider nostalgia to be a toxic impulse. It is the twinned, yearning delusion that (a) the past was better (it wasn’t) and (b) it can be recaptured (it can’t) that leads at best to bad art, movie versions of old TV shows, and sad dads watching Fox News. At worst it leads to revisionist, extremist politics, fundamentalist terrorism, and the victory—in Appalachia in particular—of a narcissist Manhattan cartoon maybe-millionaire
John Hodgman (Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches)
I often ask, "What do you want to work at? If you have the chance. When you get out of school, college, the service, etc." Some answer right off and tell their definite plans and projects, highly approved by Papa. I'm pleased for them* but it's a bit boring, because they are such squares. Quite a few will, with prompting, come out with astounding stereotyped, conceited fantasies, such as becoming a movie actor when they are "discovered" "like Marlon Brando, but in my own way." Very rarely somebody will, maybe defiantly and defensively, maybe diffidently but proudly, make you know that he knows very well what he is going to do; it is something great; and he is indeed already doing it, which is the real test. The usual answer, perhaps the normal answer, is "I don't know," meaning, "I'm looking; I haven't found the right thing; it's discouraging but not hopeless." But the terrible answer is, "Nothing." The young man doesn't want to do anything. I remember talking to half a dozen young fellows at Van Wagner's Beach outside of Hamilton, Ontario; and all of them had this one thing to say: "Nothing." They didn't believe that what to work at was the kind of thing one wanted. They rather expected that two or three of them would work for the electric company in town, but they couldn't care less, I turned away from the conversation abruptly because of the uncontrollable burning tears in my eyes and constriction in my chest. Not feeling sorry for them, but tears of frank dismay for the waste of our humanity (they were nice kids). And it is out of that incident that many years later I am writing this book.
Paul Goodman (Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized System)
Fred was afraid of the night, afraid his body would slip away from him, dissolve in that purple velvet with diamond eyes, the tropical night. The tropical night did not lie inert, like a painted movie backdrop, but was filled with whisperings, and seemed to have arms like the foliage. Beauty was a drug. The small beach shone like mercury at their feet.
Anaïs Nin (Seduction of the Minotaur)
At some point I asked her if she was at peace with the idea of dying. She looked at me like I was stupid and insane. “No,” she said. “I want to live.” You idiot! would have finished the sentence nicely. It was one of the only times she seemed really disappointed in me. I realized I had learned everything I know about death from movies. There is no peace in dying.
John Hodgman (Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches)
Did you know you can take your bus anywhere you want to go? Say yes three times with me. Yes, yes, yes. You can take it to the movies, the beach or the North Pole. Just say where you want to go and believe that it will be so. Because every journey and ride begins with a desire to go somewhere and do something and if you have a desire then you also have the power to make it happen.
Jon Gordon (The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work, and Team with Positive Energy (Jon Gordon))
Up until 1950 most families’ discretionary income did not cover much more than an occasional meal away from home; a beer or two after work; a weekly trip to the movies, amusement park, or beach; and perhaps a yearly vacation, usually spent at the home of relatives. Few households had washing machines and dryers. Refrigerators had only tiny spaces for freezing ice and had to be defrosted at least once a week. Few houses had separate bedrooms for all the children.
Stephanie Coontz (Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy)
Have you ever been to the beach and wanted to feed the seagulls? The problem is you tear off a little crust from your sandwich and toss it to one, and ten more show up. Toss a little more and a flock descends. You start to wonder: if I run out of bread, will I become the meal? Turkeys are different. They startle easily and run for the barn. In the wild, they run for the hills. Of course, they’re very tasty. Benjamin Franklin thought them majestic enough to be an emblem for our country. I’m sorry, but Thanksgiving would be downright depressing. There’s our national symbol lying stuffed and roasted and ready to carve up for hungry guests. And then we have the eagles. Our forefathers were trained in the Bible. […]They would have known Isaiah 40:31. “Those who wait upon the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.” They were making war on the greatest power in the world of the time; the world was watching them. What could this band of commoners do? What troubles me about our country today is how many seagulls there are, scrambling for more. Remember the movie “Finding Nemo”? “Mine, mine, mine!” And we sure have a lot of gutless turkeys running for the barn whenever hard decisions have to be made; like how to keep our country solvent so our children won’t be in soup lines… Where are the eagles? That’s what I want to know. Please, God, we need us some eagles!
Francine Rivers
Cannes was to blame, he told himself defensively. It was a city made for the indulgence of the senses, all ease and sunshine and provocative flesh. “What had he seen, what had he learned? He had seen all kinds of movies, good and bad, mostly bad. He had been plunged into a carnival, a delirium of film. In the halls, on the terraces, on the beach, at the parties, the art or industry or whatever it deserved to be called in these few days was exposed at its essence. The whole thing was there—the artists and pseudo-artists, the businessmen, the con men, the buyers and sellers, the peddlers, the whores, the pornographers, critics, hangers-on, the year’s heroes, the year’s failures. And then the distillation of what it was all about, a film of Bergman's and one of Bunuel's, pure and devastating.
Irwin Shaw (Evening in Byzantium)
The surviving human beings there could do nothing but wait for the end to come. They chose different ways to live out their final days. That was the plot.** It was a dark movie offering no hope of salvation. (Though, watching it, Aomame reconfirmed her belief that everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.) ** On the Beach, the 1959 movie, director: Stanley Kramer, writer: John Paxton, starring: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire & Anthony Perkins. On the Beach, the 1957 novel, writer: Nevil Shute.
Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
Every morning a great wall of fog descends upon the city of San Francisco. It begins far out at sea. It forms over the Farallons, covering the sea lions on their rocks, and then it sweeps onto Ocean Beach, filling the long green bowl of Golden Gate Park. The fog obscures the early morning joggers and the lone practitioners of tai chi. It mists up the windows of the Glass Pavilion. It creeps over the entire city, over the monuments and movie theaters, over the Panhandle dope dens and the flophouses in the Tenderloin. The fog covers the pastel Victorian mansions in Pacific Heights and shrouds the rainbow-colored houses in the Haight. It walks up and down the twisting streets of Chinatown; it boards the cable cars, making their clanging bells sound like buoys; it climbs to the top of Coit Tower until you can’t see it anymore; it moves in on the Mission, where the mariachi players are still asleep; and it bothers the tourists. The fog of San Francisco, that cold, identity-cleansing mist that rolls over the city every day, explains better than anything else why that city is what it is.
Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
What the fuck do you know about chemo? Only what I see in movies. And I mean movies like Love Story and Beaches.I wasn't talking about the Exorcist.You an ass. A total ass. But I'm an ass who'll sit next to you while you vomit. that kind of ass is few and far between,my little pea soup spewing devil child.
Erica Orloff (Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven?)
California during the 1940s had Hollywood and the bright lights of Los Angeles, but on the other coast was Florida, land of sunshine and glamour, Miami and Miami Beach. If you weren't already near California's Pacific Coast you headed for Florida during the winter. One of the things which made Miami such a mix of glitter and sunshine was the plethora of movie stars who flocked there to play, rubbing shoulders with tycoons and gangsters. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between the latter two. Miami and everything that surrounded it hadn't happened by accident. Carl Fisher had set out to make Miami Beach a playground destination during the 1930s and had succeeded far beyond his dreams. The promenade behind the Roney Plaza Hotel was a block-long lovers' lane of palm trees and promise that began rather than ended in the blue waters of the Atlantic. Florida was more than simply Miami and Miami Beach, however. When George Merrick opened the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables papers across the country couldn't wait to gush about the growing aura of Florida. They tore down Collins Bridge in the Gables and replaced it with the beautiful Venetian Causeway. You could plop down a fiver if you had one and take your best girl — or the girl you wanted to score with — for a gondola ride there before the depression, or so I'd been told. You see, I'd never actually been to Florida before the war, much less Miami. I was a newspaper reporter from Chicago before the war and had never even seen the ocean until I was flying over the Pacific for the Air Corp. There wasn't much time for admiring the waves when Japanese Zeroes were trying to shoot you out of the sky and bury you at the bottom of that deep blue sea. It was because of my friend Pete that I knew so much about Miami. Florida was his home, so when we both got leave in '42 I followed him to the warm waters of Miami to see what all the fuss was about. It would be easy to say that I skipped Chicago for Miami after the war ended because Pete and I were such good pals and I'd had such a great time there on leave. But in truth I decided to stay on in Miami because of Veronica Lake. I'd better explain that. Veronica Lake never knew she was the reason I came back with Pete to Miami after the war. But she had been there in '42 while Pete and I were enjoying the sand, sun, and the sweet kisses of more than a few love-starved girls desperate to remember what it felt like to have a man's arm around them — not to mention a few other sensations. Lake had been there promoting war bonds on Florida's first radio station, WQAM. It was a big outdoor event and Pete and I were among those listening with relish to Lake's sultry voice as she urged everyone to pitch-in for our boys overseas. We were in those dark early days of the war at the time, and the outcome was very much in question. Lake's appearance at the event was a morale booster for civilians and servicemen alike. She was standing behind a microphone that sat on a table draped in the American flag. I'd never seen a Hollywood star up-close and though I liked the movies as much as any other guy, I had always attributed most of what I saw on-screen to smoke and mirrors. I doubted I'd be impressed seeing a star off-screen. A girl was a girl, after all, and there were loads of real dolls in Miami, as I'd already discovered. Boy, was I wrong." - Where Flamingos Fly
Bobby Underwood (Where Flamingos Fly (Nostalgic Crime #2))
Now normally I consider nostalgia to be a toxic impulse. It is the twinned, yearning delusion that (a) the past was better (it wasn’t) and (b) it can be recaptured (it can’t) that leads at best to bad art, movie versions of old TV shows, and sad dads watching Fox News. At worst it leads to revisionist, extremist politics, fundamentalist terrorism,
John Hodgman (Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches)
There are two ways to turn devils into angels: First, acknowledge things about them that you genuinely appreciate. Uncle Morty took you to the beach when you were a kid. Your mom still sends you money on your birthday. Your ex-wife is a good mother to your children. There must be something you sincerely appreciate about this person. Shift your attention from the mean and nasty things they have said or done to the kind and helpful things they have said or done—even if there are just a few or even only one. You have defined this person by their iniquities. You can just as easily—actually, more easily—define them by their redeeming qualities. It’s your movie. Change the script. Perhaps you are still arguing that the person who has hurt you has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. She is evil incarnate, Rosemary’s baby conceived with Satan himself, poster child for the dark side of the Force, destined to wreak havoc and horror in the lives of everyone she touches. A nastier bitch never walked the earth. Got it. Let’s say all of this is true—the person who troubles you is a no-good, cheating, lying SOB. Now here’s the second devil-transformer. Consider: How has this person helped you to grow? What spiritual muscles have you developed that you would not have built if this person had been nicer to you? Have you learned to hold your power and self-esteem in the presence of attempted insult? Do you now speak your truth more quickly and directly? Are you now asking for what you want instead of passively deferring? Are you setting healthier boundaries? Have you deepened in patience and compassion? Do you make more self-honoring choices? There are many benefits you might have gained, or still might gain, from someone who challenges you.
Alan Cohen (A Course in Miracles Made Easy: Mastering the Journey from Fear to Love)
I don’t have a best friend to tell all my secrets to or call at two o’clock in the morning if I feel sad or anxious. I don’t have a group of friends to call about pulling together a last-minute gathering either. In fact, I’m a loner. I’ve always been that way and I’ve never had a problem with it. I like to go to the movies alone, exercise alone, and daydream on my towel at the beach alone. And,
Amélie Antoine (Interference)
Without rich people who want it done now, who would animate the free world? In theory, you want everyone to live peacefully according to their needs, along the banks of a river. In fact, you worry that you'd die of boredom there. In fact, you get a buzz from someone like Carole Potter, who keeps prize chickens and could teach a graduate course in landscaping; who maintains a staff of four (more in the summers, during High Guest Season); a handsome, slightly ridiculous husband; a beautiful daughter at Harvard and an incorrigible son doing something or other on Bondi Beach; Carole who is charming and self-deprecating and capable, if pushed, of a hostile indifference crueler than any form of rage; who reads novels and goes to movies and theater and yes, yes, bless her, buys art, serious art, about which she actually fucking knows a thing or two.
Michael Cunningham (By Nightfall)
I don’t have a best friend to tell all my secrets to or call at two o’clock in the morning if I feel sad or anxious. I don’t have a group of friends to call about pulling together a last-minute gathering either. In fact, I’m a loner. I’ve always been that way and I’ve never had a problem with it. I like to go to the movies alone, exercise alone, and daydream on my towel at the beach alone. And, of course, I like to be alone with my camera.
Amélie Antoine (Interference)
One of my favorite album covers is On the Beach. Of course that was the name of a movie and I stole it for my record, but that doesn't matter. The idea for that cover came like a bolt from the blue. Gary and I traveled around getting all the pieces to put it together. We went to a junkyard in Santa Ana to get the tail fin and fender from a 1959 Cadillac, complete with taillights, and watched them cut it off a Cadillac for us, then we went to a patio supply place to get the umbrella and table. We picke up the bad polyester yellow jacket and white pants at a sleazy men's shop, where we watched a shoplifter getting caught red-handed and busted. Gary and I were stoned on some dynamite weed and stood there dumbfounded watching the bust unfold. This girl was screaming and kicking! Finally we grabbed a local LA paper to use as a prop. It had this amazing headline: Sen. Buckley Calls For Nixon to Resign. Next we took the palm tree I had taken around the world on the Tonight's the Night tour. We then placed all of these pieces carefully in the sand at Santa Monica beach. Then we shot it. Bob Seidemann was the photographer, the same one who took the famous Blind Faith cover shot of the naked young girl holding the airplane. We used the crazy pattern from the umbrella insides for the inside of the sleeve that held the vinyl recording. That was the creative process at work. We lived for that, Gary and I, and we still do.
Neil Young (Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream)
Last year we stepped onto an elevator. We politely asked the white lady behind us If she could please take the next lift To continue social distancing. Her face flared up like a cross in the night. Are you kidding me? she yelled, Like we'd just declared Elevators for us only Or Yous must enter from the back Or No yous or dogs allowed Or We have the right to refuse Humanity to anyone Why it's so perturbing for privileged groups to follow restrictions of place & personhood. Doing so means for once wearing the chains their power has shackled on the rest of us. It is to surrender the one difference that kept them separate & thus superior. Meanwhile, for generations we've stayed home, [segre] gated, kept out of parks, kept out of playgrounds, kept out of pools, kept out of public spaces, kept out of outside spaces, kept out of outer space, kept out of movie theaters, kept out of malls, kept out of restrooms, kept out of restaurants, kept out of taxis, kept out of buses, kept out of beaches, kept out of ballot boxes, kept out of office, kept out of the army, kept out of the hospitals, kept out of hotels, kept out of clubs, kept out of jobs, kept out of schools, kept out of sports, kept out of streets, kept out of water, kept out of land, kept out of kept in kept from kept behind kept below kept down kept without life. Some were asked to walk a fraction / of our exclusion for a year & it almost destroyed all they thought they were. Yet here we are. Still walking, still kept.
Amanda Gorman (Call Us What We Carry: Poems)
I found a photo of Mom standing between Mick and Dad, who were both wearing basketball uniforms. Mom was perfectly groomed, of course, and looking very ladylike. I said I must have been adopted. Ma-ma-oo laughed and said that when Mom was a little girl, she was always doing things like tying two cookie sheets to her shoes and attempting to ski because she'd seen one of her movie star idols in a magazine, elegantly poised on the slopes of Switzerland. Mom flew down the hill, hit a bump and crashed into a bush. She broke her leg and earned the nickname "Crash.
Eden Robinson (Monkey Beach)
Go sat quietly, the orange of the streetlight creating a rock-star halo around her profile. “This is going to be a real test for you, Nick,” she murmured, not looking at me. “You’ve always had trouble with the truth—you always do the little fib if you think it will avoid a real argument. You’ve always gone the easy way. Tell Mom you went to baseball practice when you really quit the team; tell Mom you went to church when you were at a movie. It’s some weird compulsion.” “This is very different from baseball, Go.” “It’s a lot different. But you’re still fibbing like a little boy. You’re still desperate to have everyone think you’re perfect. You never want to be the bad guy. So you tell Amy’s parents she didn’t want kids. You don’t tell me you’re cheating on your wife. You swear the credit cards in your name aren’t yours, you swear you were hanging out at a beach when you hate the beach, you swear your marriage was happy. I just don’t know what to believe right now.” “You’re kidding, right?” “Since Amy has disappeared, all you’ve done is lie. It makes me worry. About what’s going on.” Complete silence for a moment.
Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl)
You know that one scene that shows up at the end of every heist movie, where the crooks recline on the beach with Mai Tais in hand, the ocean lapping peacefully in the background, both flashing that incredulous grin, astonished that they managed to pull off their audacious scheme? Those were our friends the capitalists, back in the summer of 1981, when the Republicans under President Ronald Reagan proposed massive cuts in the tax rates for unearned income, capital gains, and income tax rates even for the rich—and the Democrats responded by pushing for even more massive cuts. In
Jeremy Gantz (The Age of Inequality: Corporate America's War on Working People)
A nice lady opens the door on Peachtree Street and she’s got one of those faces that feels familiar like you’ve known her all her life. She buys a bunch of colored paper for her daughter who likes to draw. You ask how old her daughter is and she is four years younger than you. You ask what school she went to and she says that she kept her at home. You see her daughter peek at you from the hall and you think that maybe she was born wrong too. You figure she has never left this house. And you want to get her out of it. The next week you ask the woman if you can visit with her daughter. She brings you down the hall and into the sun room where her daughter is drawing. She’s quiet for a while and then she looks up and tells you she likes to sit in here and watch the birds outside. The light falls in on her hair like beach sunshine in the movies. There’s plants growing all around her. It’s like a jungle and you sit in the wicker chair across from her and wait for her to talk to you, like she’s a magical animal behind all the vines and leaves. All you can figure is that she’s just very, very shy. You think maybe you would have been this way too if you didn’t grow up in such a loud family.
Ashleigh Bryant Phillips (Sleepovers)
We parents are in the process of losing parts of ourselves, of waking up each morning to find ourselves changed by our children. We may fantasize that we are not really changed, that we can go back to poring over Wittgenstein, immersing ourselves in the latest movies, being beach bums- whatever it was that we were before the child or children came into our lives. But part of what we have lost is the part of our identity that is the person-without-children. The parent we are now has a life inextricably entwined not only without our past life and our private selves but also with the lives of our children.
Daniel Gottlieb (Voices in the Family: A Therapist Talks About Listening, Openness & Healing)
How to Come Out as Gay Don’t. Don’t come out unless you want to. Don’t come out for anyone else’s sake. Don’t come out because you think society expects you to. Come out for yourself. Come out to yourself. Shout, sing it. Softly stutter. Correct those who say they knew before you did. That’s not how sexuality works, it’s yours to define. Being effeminate doesn’t make you gay. Being sensitive doesn’t make you gay. Being gay makes you gay. Be a bit gay, be very gay. Be the glitter that shows up in unexpected places. Be Typing . . . on WhatsApp but leave them waiting. Throw a party for yourself but don’t invite anyone else. Invite everyone to your party but show up late or not at all. If you’re unhappy in the closet but afraid of what’s outside, leave the door ajar and call out. If you’re happy in the closet for the time being, play dress-up until you find the right outfit. Don’t worry, it’s okay to say you’re gay and later exchange it for something else that suits you, fits, feels better. Watch movies that make it seem a little less scary: Beautiful Thing, Moonlight. Be southeast London, a daytime dance floor, his head resting on your shoulder. Be South Beach, Miami, night of water and fire, your head resting on his shoulder. Be the fabric of his shirt the muscles in his shoulder, your shoulder. Be the bricks, be the sand. Be the river, be the ocean. Remember your life is not a movie. Accept you will be coming out for your whole life. Accept advice from people and sources you trust. If your mother warns you about STDs within minutes of you coming out, try to understand that she loves you and is afraid. If you come out at fifteen, this is not a badge of honor, it doesn’t matter what age you come out. Be a beautiful thing. Be the moonlight, too. Remember you have the right to be proud. Remember you have the right to be you.
Dean Atta (The Black Flamingo)
There is a section of the museum (of memory and human rights) that I like the best...Guides describe it as the heart of the museum. From an observation platform surrounded by candles, which aren't actually candles but little bulbs, more than a thousand photographs of many of the regime's victims are visible, hung high op on one wall. The photographs were donated by the victims' families, so we see them at home, at celebrations, at the beach, smiling at teh camera the way we all do when we want to leave a record of ourselves at our best. There are beautiful women who look like movie stars, who must have fixed themselves up flirtatiously, thinking they'll give the photo to a boyfriend, a lover.
Nona Fernández (The Twilight Zone)
Can we walk for a bit?” he says. “Yes, that would be lovely.” But as I start getting up I lose my footing and slip and fall—right over the shingle. If I’d been doing a stunt in an action-adventure movie it would have probably looked spectacular but in the context of a romantic makeup it looks totally ridiculous. “Are you OK?” Noah calls over to me. I scramble up, my face red with embarrassment. “That was an awesome body roll. I wanna try.” Noah takes a step back before hurling himself over the shingle. He crashes into me and we land on the beach in a tangled heap. And as we laugh our heads off, the very last traces of tension between us disappear. “I’ve missed you so much, Inciting Incident,” he whispers. — Zoe Sugg (Girl Online (Girl Online, #1))
Zoe Sugg
Your gran says you’re not eating enough,’ she says, and we keep moving. ‘She also says you’ve turned into a zombie who hides in her room, sleeps all day and spends her nights at the beach with her mother, who has always turned into a zombie.’ Rose throws cans of tuna in the trolley while I’m trying to get a look at myself in the cake tins to see if I do actually look like the undead. The news isn’t entirely good. ‘She has no idea what a zombie actually is,’ Rose says. ‘So I wouldn’t worry.’ ‘Cal introduced her to zombies. Shaun of the Dead is her top movie of all time.’ ‘Jesus,’ Rose says. ‘We didn’t even get to watch TV when we were growing up. Now she’s watching Simon Pegg films and telling me my niece needs to have sex. But don’t worry,’ she says, looking at my horrified face. ‘I set her straight about that. I told her to leave you alone.’ ‘Good.’ ‘I told her zombies don’t have sex
Cath Crowley (Words in Deep Blue)
I begin this chapter with President Ronald Reagan’s Farewell Speech on January 11, 1989. President Reagan encouraged the rising generation to “let ’em know and nail ’em on it”—that is, to push back against teachers, professors, journalists, politicians, and others in the governing generation who manipulate and deceive them: An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn’t get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-sixties. But now, we’re about to enter the nineties, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren’t sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven’t reinstitutionalized it. We’ve got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom—freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It’s fragile; it needs [protection]. So, we’ve got to teach history based not on what’s in fashion but what’s important—why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, 4 years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-Day, I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late father, who’d fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, “We will always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did.” Well, let’s help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we won’t know who we are. I’m warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. Let’s start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual. And let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen, I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven’t been teaching you what it means to be an American, let ’em know and nail ’em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.1
Mark R. Levin (Plunder and Deceit: Big Government's Exploitation of Young People and the Future)
Malibu catches fire. It is simply what Malibu does from time to time. Tornadoes take the flatlands of the Midwest. Floods rise in the American South. Hurricanes rage against the Gulf of Mexico. And California burns. The land caught fire time and again when it was inhabited by the Chumash in 500 B.C.E. It caught fire in the 1800s when Spanish colonizers claimed the area. It caught fire on December 4, 1903, when Frederick and May Rindge owned the stretch of land now called Malibu. The flames seized thirty miles of coastland and consumed their Victorian beach house. Malibu caught fire in 1917 and 1929, well after the first movie stars got there. It caught fire in 1956 and 1958, when the longboarders and beach bunnies trickled to its shores. It caught fire in 1970 and 1978, after the hippies settled in its canyons. It caught fire in 1982, 1985, in 1993, 1996, in 2003, 2007, and 2018. And times in between. Because it is Malibu’s nature to burn.
Taylor Jenkins Reid (Malibu Rising)
Are you chuckling yet? Because then along came you. A big, broad meat eater with brash blond hair and ruddy skin that burns at the beach. A bundle of appetites. A full, boisterous guffaw; a man who tells knock know jokes. Hot dogs - not even East 86th Street bratwurst but mealy, greasy big guts that terrifying pink. Baseball. Gimme caps. Puns and blockbuster movies, raw tap water and six-packs. A fearless, trusting consumer who only reads labels to make sure there are plenty of additives. A fan of the open road with a passion for his pickup who thinks bicycles are for nerds. Fucks hard and talks dirty; a private though unapologetic taste for porn. Mysteries, thrillers, and science fiction; a subscription to National Geographic. Barbecues on the Fourth of July and intentions, in the fullness of time, to take up golf. Delights in crappy snack foods of ever description: Burgles. Curlies. Cheesies. Squigglies - you're laughing - but I don't eat them - anything that looks less like food than packing material and at least six degrees of separation from the farm. Bruce Springsteen, the early albums, cranked up high with the truck window down and your hair flying. Sings along, off-key - how is it possible that I should be endeared by such a tin ear?Beach Boys. Elvis - never lose your roots, did you, loved plain old rock and roll. Bombast. Though not impossibly stodgy; I remember, you took a shine to Pearl Jam, which was exactly when Kevin went off them...(sorry). It just had to be noisy; you hadn't any time for my Elgar, my Leo Kottke, though you made an exception for Aaron Copeland. You wiped your eyes brusquely at Tanglewood, as if to clear gnats, hoping I didn't notice that "Quiet City" made you cry. And ordinary, obvious pleasure: the Bronx Zoo and the botanical gardens, the Coney Island roller coaster, the Staten Island ferry, the Empire State Building. You were the only New Yorker I'd ever met who'd actually taken the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. You dragged me along once, and we were the only tourists on the boat who spoke English. Representational art - Edward Hopper. And my lord, Franklin, a Republican. A belief in a strong defense but otherwise small government and low taxes. Physically, too, you were such a surprise - yourself a strong defense. There were times you were worried that I thought you too heavy, I made so much of your size, though you weighed in a t a pretty standard 165, 170, always battling those five pounds' worth of cheddar widgets that would settle over your belt. But to me you were enormous. So sturdy and solid, so wide, so thick, none of that delicate wristy business of my imaginings. Built like an oak tree, against which I could pitch my pillow and read; mornings, I could curl into the crook of your branches. How luck we are, when we've spared what we think we want! How weary I might have grown of all those silly pots and fussy diets, and how I detest the whine of sitar music!
Lionel Shriver (We Need to Talk About Kevin)
Our relationship quickly grew. I was living in Long Beach at the time; Chris was in San Diego. Conservatively speaking, that’s a two-hour drive. But Chris drove it often. He’d get off work, hop in his pickup, and be at my condo before dark. And not just on the weekends: he often rose before the sun to get to work in Coronado Beach. We’d go out to eat, maybe take in a movie, play miniature golf, bowl, see friends--the usual date stuff. But our most fun was just hanging out together. I pinned a picture of Chris up near my desk. (It’s the profile picture on his Facebook page, if you’re interested.) Under it, I taped a quote that went along the lines of: Life is not about the number of breaths you take; it’s the moments that take your breath away. Chris was all about those breathtaking moments--riding broncs in the rodeo, jumping out of planes. He worked hard and played hard--but was just as likely to relax completely, sitting comfortably on the couch with a beer or whatever as he took it easy. It was a paradox; I loved both sides.
Taya Kyle (American Wife: Love, War, Faith, and Renewal)
As they’re walking on the beach, in the dark sky above the person’s life is played out for them to see. As each scene is played, like a movie reel, the person notices that two sets of footprints were left in the sand behind them. And as they continued, every new scene brought with it a trail of their footprints.” Poppy’s attention honed in on our footprints. “When all the scenes had been played, the person looks back on the trail of footprints and notices something strange. They notice that during the saddest, or most despairing times of their life, there was only one set of footprints. For happier times there was always two sets.” My eyebrows furrowed, wondering where the story was headed. Poppy lifted her chin and blinked in the bright glare of the sun. With watery eyes, she looked at me and continued. “The person is really troubled by this. The Lord said that, when a person dedicates their life to Him, He would walk with them through all the ups and downs. The person then asked the Lord: why, at the worst points of their life, did He abandon them? Why did He leave?” An expression of deep comfort washed over Poppy’s face. “And what?” I prompted. “What does the Lord say?” A single tear fell from her eye. “He tells the person that He had walked with them their whole life through. But, He explains, the times where there is only a single set of footprints were not when He walked beside them, but instead, when He carried them.
Tillie Cole (A Thousand Boy Kisses (A Thousand Boy Kisses, #1))
Galveston?” he asked in that amazing voice, still surprising me by keeping our conversation going. “Yeah. Staying at a beach house and everything. Totally slumming it and having a miserable time, you know?” I gave him a real smile that time. Rip just raised his brows. “I promised her I would go visit, and she promised she would come up too... What’s that face for?” I surprised myself by laughing. “I don’t believe it either. I’ll get lucky if she comes once. I’m not that delusional.” I didn’t imagine the way his cheek twitched again, just a little, just enough to keep the smile on my face. “I’m stuck making my own lunches from now on. I have nobody to watch scary movies with who’s more dramatic than I am screaming at the scary parts. And my house is empty,” I told him, going on a roll. “Your lunches?” was what he picked up on. I wasn’t sure how much he’d had to drink that he was asking me so many questions, but I wasn’t going to complain. “I can’t cook to save my life, boss. I thought everyone knew. Baking is the only thing I can handle.” “You serious?” he asked in a surprised tone. I nodded. “For real?” “Yeah,” I confirmed. “I can’t even make rice in an Instant Pot. It’s either way too dry or it’s mush.” Oh. “An Instant Pot is—” “I know what it is,” he cut me off. It was my turn to make a face, but mine was an impressed one. He knew what an Instant Pot was but not a rom-com. Okay. “Sorry.” He didn’t react to me trying to tease him, instead he asked, “You can’t even make rice in that?” “Nope.” “You know there’s instructions online.” Was he messing with me now? I couldn’t help but watch him a little. How much had he drunk already? “Yeah, I know.” “And you still screw it up?” I blinked, soaking up Chatty Cathy over here like a plant that hadn’t seen the sun in too long. “I wouldn’t say I screw it up. It’s more like… you either need to chew a little more or a little less.” It was his turn to blink. “It’s a surprise. I like to keep people on their toes.” If I hadn’t been guessing that he’d had a couple drinks before, what he did next would have confirmed it. His left cheek twitched. Then his right one did too, and in the single blink of an eye, Lucas Ripley was smiling at me. Straight white teeth. That not-thin but not-full mouth dark pink and pulled up at the edges. He even had a dimple. Rip had a freaking dimple. And I wanted to touch it to make sure it was real. I couldn’t help but think it was just about the cutest thing I had ever seen, even though I had zero business thinking anything along those lines. But I was smart enough to know that I couldn’t say a single word to mention it; otherwise, it might never come out again. What I did trust myself to do was gulp down half of my Sprite before saying, “You can make rice, I’m guessing?” If he wanted to talk, we could talk. I was good at talking. “Uh-huh,” he replied, sounding almost cocky about it. All I could get myself to do in response was grin at him, and for another five seconds, his dimple—and his smile—responded to me.
Mariana Zapata (Luna and the Lie)
A serious reader of fiction is an adult who reads, let's say, two or more hours a night, three or four nights a week, and by the end of two or three weeks he has read the book. A serious reader is not someone who reads for half an hour at a time and then picks the book up again on the beach a week later. While reading, serious readers aren't distracted by anything else. They put the kids to bed, and then they read. They don't watch TV intermittently or stop off and on to shop on-line or to talk on the phone. There is, indisputably, a rapidly diminishing number of serious readers, certainly in America. Of course, the cause is something more than just the multitudinous distractions of contemporary life. One must acknowledge the triumph the screen. Reading, whether serious or frivolous, doesn't stand a chance against the screen: first, the movie screen, then the television screen, now the proliferating computer screen, one in your pocket, one on your desk, one in your hand, and soon one imbedded between your eyes. Why can't serious reading compete? Because the gratifications of the screen are far more immediate, graspable, gigantically gripping. Alas, the screen is not only fantastically useful, it's fun, and what beats fun? There was never a Golden Age of Serious Reading in America but I don't remember ever in my lifetime the situation being as sad for books – with all the steady focus and uninterrupted concentration they require – as it is today. And it will be worse tomorrow and even worse the day after. My prediction is that in thirty years, if not sooner, there will be just as many people reading serious fiction in America as now read Latin poetry. A percentage do. But the number of people who find in literature a highly desirable source of sustaining pleasure and mental stimulation is sadly diminished.
Philip Roth
As they’re walking on the beach, in the dark sky above the person’s life is played out for them to see. As each scene is played, like a movie reel, the person notices that two sets of footprints were left in the sand behind them. And as they continued, every new scene brought with it a trail of their footprints.” Poppy’s attention honed in on our footprints. “When all the scenes had been played, the person looks back on the trail of footprints and notices something strange. They notice that during the saddest, or most despairing times of their life, there was only one set of footprints. For happier times there was always two sets.” My eyebrows furrowed, wondering where the story was headed. Poppy lifted her chin and blinked in the bright glare of the sun. With watery eyes, she looked at me and continued. “The person is really troubled by this. The Lord said that, when a person dedicates their life to Him, He would walk with them through all the ups and downs. The person then asked the Lord: why, at the worst points of their life, did He abandon them? Why did He leave?” An expression of deep comfort washed over Poppy’s face. “And what?” I prompted. “What does the Lord say?” A single tear fell from her eye. “He tells the person that He had walked with them their whole life through. But, He explains, the times where there is only a single set of footprints were not when He walked beside them, but instead, when He carried them.” Poppy sniffed and said, “I don’t care if you’re not religious, Rune. The poem is not only for the faithful. We all have people who carry us through the worst of times, the saddest of times, the times that seem impossible to break free from. In one way or another, whether it’s through the Lord or a loved one or both, when we feel like we can’t walk on anymore, someone swoops in to help us … someone carries us through.” Poppy rested her head on my chest, wrapping herself
Tillie Cole (A Thousand Boy Kisses (NEW BONUS CONTENT))
We weep for characters, and then we go brush our teeth and have to face the fact that the world is warming at such a rapid pace that a terrifying number of amphibians are vanishing every month. And so through plays, through soccer games, through novels, through movies, through video games, through political elections - through story - we rehearse feelings we might eventually need in our own lives. ... Through drama, in the moments of greatest suspense, when the hero is hanging by a support from above, swaying to and fro ... we rehearse anxiety and longing more profoundly than any other emotions. ... And longing is the reach, the extension, the wild desire to attain the next stable platform at the end of the high wire. It's the hope against hope that the water shooting out of the fountain will stay aloft forever. (Anthony Doerr, "The Sword of Damocles: On Suspense, Shower Murders, and Shooting People on the Beach")
Christopher R. Beha (The Writer's Notebook II: Craft Essays from Tin House)
I was sitting in the living room watching Shake ’Em Down for the sixth or seventh time. Too bad the movie’s star, Jack Palms, turned out to be a junkie asshole wife beater. He might have filled that big gap between Bruce Willis and Jason Statham with a few more decent action flicks if he hadn’t had to go to prison.
Tyler Dilts (The Pain Scale (Long Beach Homicide, #2))
could see people standing on the beach staring at the wave, immobilized, in a trance, as if they were watching a movie. They didn’t think that what was happening in the ocean would reach the shore. Even if they ran as fast as they could, they wouldn’t have been able to escape it. They were screening a new clip from Thailand or Indonesia. It showed a little boy climbing up the trunk of a tree as the tidal wave flattened the tall palm trees. “The earthquake started near the Sumatra Islands in Indonesia.
Dorit Sliverman (Lost in the Tsunami: Women's Adventure)
And her apparent eagerness to follow Tyler into the cauldron dried up all my professional zeal, and I had nothing more to say. Samantha just watched me to see what I would do—and for the first time in my life, I had absolutely no idea what that would be. What is the correct facial expression to put on when someone tells you their lifelong fantasy is to be eaten? Should I go for shock? Disbelief? What about moral outrage? I was quite sure the subject had never come up in any of the movies or TV shows I had studied, and even though I am considered a clever and creative person in some circles, I could not imagine anything at all that might be appropriate. So I stared, and Samantha looked back at me, and there we were: a perfectly normal married man with three kids and a promising career who just happened to enjoy killing people, staring at a perfectly normal eighteen-year-old girl who went to a good school and liked Twilight and who wanted to be eaten, sitting next to each other in a walk-in refrigerator at a vampire club in South Beach. I had been trying so hard lately to achieve some close approximation of normal life, but if this was it, I thought I would prefer something else. Outside of Salvador Dalí I really can’t believe the human mind could handle anything more extreme. And at last even the mutual staring began to seem too strange, even for two dedicated non-humans like us, and we both blinked and looked away.
Jeff Lindsay (Dexter is Delicious (Dexter, #5))
Exercise 1: How to Invigorate Your Relationship with Your Romantic Partner STEP 1: Privately, each person should think about time spent with their partner. Without talking about it, each of you should make a list of the shared times together that could best be described as “very pleasant” or “exciting.” Think about things you do at home, for work, in the community, for leisure, on vacation, or anywhere else where you did something with your partner that made you feel excited. For instance, think about when the two of you: Went to a concert or a club Played or watched a sport or games of some kind Shopped Learned a new skill Talked Volunteered Solved a problem Took care of other people, animals, or things Went to a spiritual or religious event/workshop/meeting Played music Had sex (the more details, the better) Worked out Relaxed Spent time in a different environment than you are usually in (beach versus mountains, suburbs versus city, noisy versus quiet, teeming with people versus sparsely populated) Engaged in strenuous physical and/or mental exercise Joined an organization that you both believed in Pursued a hobby Worked on the house, the yard, the car, the boat Cooked new recipes Went to the movies Sat in the same room and did your own thing, like read, did needlework, or worked crossword puzzles Planned the family budget Took a class Something else (the sky is the limit—add any activities that fueled you)
Todd Kashdan (Curious?: Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life)
Frankie spun around, and couldn’t believe his tired eyes. Standing there – like a cowboy in the old Western movies Frankie’s dad often fell asleep in front of – was none other than Drew Bird. The Guard With The Scar had moved next to the Close-But-Not-Close-Enough-Emperor, and Frankie saw him translate Drew’s question. The toffee-toothed figure on the stage grinned as he replied. ‘He wants to know what game you suggest,’ said Ping, her voice weak. Instantly, Drew Bird produced the old dirty bottle from behind his back; the exact one that had been tossed into the South China Sea on behalf of Alfie Fish, found by Oscar Bugg on a war-torn Japanese beach in 1945, and then brought to Frankie Fish in Australia by the mystery-hunting Texan twins – and then half-filled with river water just days earlier. If Drew was feeling nervous, he certainly didn’t show it. Arms folded, head tilted to one side, Drew asked his next question, which made Frankie gasp in shock. ‘Do you know anything about bottle-flipping, Close-But-Not-Quite-Emperor dude?
Peter Helliar (Frankie Fish and the Great Wall of Chaos)
Greg realised these weren’t his closing images at all. They were the opening images of the new movie of his life, the movie he’d be happy to watch on an infinite loop. His life would be a collection of the most wondrous pearls scattered over a beach of gold in this new Eden. He’d have to polish every moment, to make each gleam and shine like a perfect mirror because he might be seeing himself reflected back in those mirror moments. Forever.
Mike Hockney (The Last Bling King)
Overtown remained the center of black life in Miami until the arrival of I-95, the vast stretch of American highway that ran from Maine down the East Coast all the way to Miami. It stomped right through the middle of Miami’s most prominent black neighborhood in 1965, a ravenous millipede with a thousand concrete legs. Had the 3,000-kilometer highway been halted just 5 kilometers to the north, black Miami might have had a different history. Instead the highway, touted as “slum clearance,” bulldozed through black Miami’s main drags. Gone was much of Overtown’s commercial heart, with its three movie theaters, its public pool, grocery store, and businesses. Goodbye to clubs that had hosted Ella Fitzgerald, to the Sir John Hotel, which had offered their finest suites to black entertainers banned from staying in whites-only Miami Beach. But more important, goodbye to a neighborhood where parents knew which house every child belonged to.
Nicholas Griffin (The Year of Dangerous Days: Riots, Refugees, and Cocaine in Miami 1980)
Here tit is. Enjoy. “It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt. I’ve always been drawn to the eccentric, the eerie, the unbelievable. I’m a lover of books and beaches, movies and mayhem. If you want to know more, just ask! . . . An Eleanor Roosevelt quote? Is Millie a lesbian? Not that I know of, but now I’m questioning everything. ...Oh, and “tits.” Everyone notice she typed tits again? Classic Millie. Loves tits. Maybe she is a lesbian. Focus.
Christina Lauren (My Favorite Half-Night Stand)
Johnson defuses the bomb. Jackie Chan runs around trying to beat up all the guys AND save all the art, which is a 10/10 formula... Then Jackie Chan falls too, but Chris Tucker saves him. NOW THEY ARE TRUE BEST FRIENDS AND THEY GO ON A BEACH VACATION TOGETHER TO HONG KONG. Rush Hour is a flawed thing, a creature of 1998, and it is not my jurisdiction to dismiss its faults. But complicated love is still love.
Lindy West (Shit, Actually: The Definitive, 100% Objective Guide to Modern Cinema)
The only thing I was still looking forward to was marriage. Before I was taken, it was all I thought about, what I daydreamed about, what I dreamed about still. My parents were happy together, and I saw the romances in movies. Maybe that’s why I gave my affection so freely: I wanted desperately to be loved. With that thought in my head, I looked up… And I saw him. Before I could check my thoughts, She asked me who I thought was so handsome. I hated being caught like that. But it was just admiration from afar. Surely that was harmless. There’s this boy on the beach. He’s tall and has dirty blonde hair. He’s very good-looking. She wanted to know what was so special about him. I don’t know. Maybe the expression on his face. He looks sad but hopeful somehow. Like he’s thinking about a million questions, but knows he has the answer to every one. She commented that that was a lot to observe in less than five minutes. I’ve become an excellent people-watcher. She laughed. I wondered if She could sense me rolling my eyes
Kiera Cass (The Siren)
The Caribbean is still an exciting destination. I have been to just about every notable island surrounding this sea and have yet to be bored. Some of the islands are administered by other countries like Saint Martín; some are independent countries such as Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The languages differ from island to island and include English, French, Spanish, Dutch Haitian Creole and Papiamento although English is understood on most islands. This time I returned to the Dominican Republic, an island nation that I first visited when Santo Domingo was called Ciudad Trujillo in 1955 and have returned numerous times. I have also been to Haiti the country that shares the Island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic and I have stood at the mountainous border dividing the two countries. Driving around the country offers magnificent views with every turn in the road. On this visit I enjoyed the northern Atlantic coast named the Amber Coast because of the amount of amber found there. The primary site along the northern coast is La Cordillera Septentrional. The amber-bearing stones named clastic rocks are usually washed down the steep inclines along with sandstone and other debris and are even found in deep water at the end of the run. The Amber Coast of the Dominican Republic has mostly low mountains and beautiful beaches. Overlooking the city of Puerto Plata is Mount Isabel de Torres, which is covered by dense jungles but can be ascended by a cableway. Some of these jungle areas were used as sites for the movie Jurassic Park. A new 30 acre tourist port for Carnival Cruise Lines has been constructed in Amber Cove at a cost of $85 Million. It is one of the newest destinations to visit in the Caribbean and well worth the effort.
Hank Bracker
Apple may not do customer research to decide what products to make, but it absolutely pays attention to how customers use its products. So the marketing team working on the iMovie HD release scheduled for Macworld, on January 11, 2005, decided to shoot a wedding. The ceremony it filmed was gorgeous: a sophisticated, candlelit affair at the Officers’ Club of San Francisco’s Presidio. The bride was an Apple employee, and the wedding was real. There was one problem with the footage, however. Steve Jobs didn’t like it. He watched it the week before Christmas, recalled Alessandra Ghini, the marketing executive managing the launch of iLife. Jobs declared that the San Francisco wedding didn’t capture the right atmosphere to demonstrate what amateurs could do with iMovie. “He told us he wanted a wedding on the beach, in Hawaii, or some tropical location,” said Ghini. “We had a few weeks to find a wedding on a beach and to get it shot, edited, and approved by Steve. The tight time frame allowed for no margin for error.” With time short and money effectively no object, the team went into action. It contacted Los Angeles talent agencies as well as hotels in Hawaii to learn if they knew of any weddings planned—preferably featuring an attractive bride and groom—over the New Year’s holiday. They hit pay dirt in Hollywood: A gorgeous agency client and her attractive fiancé were in fact planning to wed on Maui during the holiday. Apple offered to pay for the bride’s flowers, to film the wedding, and to provide the couple with a video. In return, Apple wanted rights for up to a minute’s worth of footage of its choosing.
Adam Lashinsky (Inside Apple)
Any asshole can fall in love on a private beach in a tropical locale, surrounded by lush flora and adorable fauna, shining suns and chirping birds. Give me ten uninterrupted minutes without some ding-dong demanding something or subtweeting me or making me do work and I could fall in love with my worst fucking enemy. Seriously. What’s not to love about being expertly lit and drunk at two in the afternoon? But I’m going to need you to love me on the bus, dude. And first thing in the morning. Also, when I’m drunk and refuse to shut up about getting McNuggets from the drive-thru. When I fall asleep in the middle of that movie you paid extra to see in IMAX. When I wear the flowered robe I got at Walmart and the sweatpants I made into sweatshorts to bed. When I am blasting “More and More” by Blood Sweat & Tears at seven on a Sunday morning while cleaning the kitchen and fucking up your mom’s frittata recipe. When I bring a half dozen gross, mangled kittens home to foster for a few nights and they shit everywhere and pee on your side of the bed. When I go “grocery shopping” and come back with only a bag of Fritos and five pounds of pork tenderloin. When I’m sick and stumbling around the crib with half a roll of toilet paper shoved in each nostril. When I beg you fourteen times to read something I’ve written, then get mad when you tell me what you don’t like about it and I call you an uneducated idiot piece of shit. Lovebird city.
Samantha Irby (We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.)
You don’t know how lucky you are to have Hollywood knocking on your door. If someone wanted to make a movie about me, I’d quit this job in a nanosecond, move to Hawaii, and spend my days on the beach.
Lee Goldberg (Bone Canyon (Eve Ronin, #2))
When you have an unexpected crush on your childhood best friend, you spend a lot of time imagining the way you might kiss him one day. The fantasies I entertained of this moment were ridiculous cliches, based on movies and TV shows, and the romance novels I used to find in the pool clubhouse at Grandma Clark's condo. These scenarios often involved a helicopter over the Grand Canyon, a ski lift in Colorado, the top of the Eiffel Tower amid fireworks, or an unspecified beach in California.
Aaron Hartzler (What We Saw)
It was a nice distraction to imagine having someone to come home to, someone to cook or watch movies with, someone to share a weekend. All the couple things that were Instagram-worthy: decorating a Christmas tree, selfies on a beach, a kiss on New Year’s. But those dreams were an exotic by-product of a different life, because the reality was that nobody wanted to share hers.
Melissa Payne (The Night of Many Endings)
University, where she is an adjunct professor of education and serves on the Veterans Committee, among about a thousand other things. That’s heroism. I have taken the kernel of her story and do what I do, which is dramatize, romanticize, exaggerate, and open fire. Hence, Game of Snipers. Now, on to apologies, excuses, and evasions. Let me offer the first to Tel Aviv; Dearborn, Michigan; Greenville, Ohio; Wichita, Kansas; Rock Springs, Wyoming; and Anacostia, D.C. I generally go to places I write about to check the lay of streets, the fall of shadows, the color of police cars, and the taste of local beer. At seventy-three, such ordeals-by-airport are no longer fun, not even the beer part; I only go where there’s beaches. For this book, I worked from maps and Google, and any geographical mistakes emerge out of that practice. Is the cathedral three hundred yards from the courthouse in Wichita? Hmm, seems about right, and that’s good enough for me on this. On the other hand, I finally got Bob’s wife’s name correct. It’s Julie, right? I’ve called her Jen more than once, but I’m pretty sure Jen was Bud Pewtie’s wife in Dirty White Boys. For some reason, this mistake seemed to trigger certain Amazon reviewers into psychotic episodes. Folks, calm down, have a drink, hug someone soft. It’ll be all right. As for the shooting, my account of the difficulties of hitting at over a mile is more or less accurate (snipers have done it at least eight times). I have simplified, because it is so arcane it would put all but the most dedicated in a coma. I have also been quite accurate about the ballistics app FirstShot, because I made it up and can make it do anything I want. The other shot, the three hundred, benefits from the wisdom of Craig Boddington, the great hunter and writer, who looked it over and sent me a detailed email, from which I have borrowed much. Naturally, any errors are mine, not Craig’s. I met Craig when shooting something (on film!) for another boon companion, Michael Bane, and his Outdoor Channel Gun Stories crew. For some reason, he finds it amusing when I start jabbering away and likes to turn the camera on. Don’t ask me why. On the same trip, I also met the great firearms historian and all-around movie guy (he knows more than I do) Garry James, who has become
Stephen Hunter (Game of Snipers (Bob Lee Swagger, #11))
We liked cultural vacations over relaxing beach ones, and we liked the same movies. We even had the same Lola Simone songs in our phones.
Abby Jimenez (Yours Truly (Part of Your World, #2))
But I was stuck for a long time by myself at Abraham Lincoln's portrait, standing in the middle of the huge hall as people moved all around me with mostly children. I felt as if time had stopped as I watched Lincoln, facing him, while watching the woman’s back as she was looking out the window. I felt wronged, so much like Truman from the movie, standing there in the middle of the museum alone. I was wondering what would Abraham Lincoln do if he realized he was the slave in his own cotton fields, being robbed by evil thieves, nazis. I had taken numerous photos of Martina from behind, as well as silhouettes of her shadow. I remember standing there, watching as she stood in front of the window; it was almost as if she was admiring the view of the mountains from our new home, as I did take such pictures of her, with a very similar composition to that of the female depicted in the iconic Lincoln portrait looking outwards from the window. I hadn't realized how many photographs I snapped of Martina with her back turned towards me while we travelled to picturesque places. Fernanda and I walked side-by-side in utter silence, admiring painting after painting of Dali's, without exchanging a single word. Meanwhile, Luis and Martina had got lost somewhere in the museum. When I finally found her, she was taking pictures outside of the Rainy Cadillac. We both felt something was amiss without having to say it, as Fernanda knew things I didn't and vice versa. We couldn't bring ourselves to discuss it though, not because we lacked any legal authority between me and Martina, but because neither Fernanda or myself had much parental authority over the young lady. It felt like when our marriages and divorces had dissolved, it was almost as if our parenting didn't matter anymore. It was as if I were unwittingly part of a secret screenplay, like Jim Carrey's character in The Truman Show, living in a fabricated reality made solely for him. I was beginning to feel a strange nauseous feeling, as if someone was trying to force something surreal down my throat, as if I were living something not of this world, making me want to vomit onto the painted canvas of the personalised image crafted just for me. I couldn't help but wonder if Fernanda felt the same way, if she was aware of the magnitude of what was happening, or if, just like me, she was completely oblivious, occasionally getting flashes of truth or reality for a moment or two. I took some amazing photographs of her in Port Lligat in Dali's yard in the port, and in Cap Creus, but I'd rather not even try to describe them—they were almost like Dali's paintings which make all sense now. As if all the pieces are coming together. She was walking by the water and I was walking a bit further up on the same beach on pebbles, parallel to each other as we walked away from Dali's house in the port. I looked towards her and there were two boats flipped over on the two sides of my view. I told her: “Run, Bunny! Run!
Tomas Adam Nyapi (BARCELONA MARIJUANA MAFIA)
Maybe a dashingly handsome man strolls down the beach, our eyes lock on one another, which begins our love story. Our story will be so magical it will make even the best of Hallmark movies seem like nothing.
Melissa Baldwin (Can We Talk?: A Friends to Lovers Romantic Comedy)
As we emerge back into our lives, we may never again take for granted: Hugging a friend. Shaking hands in business. Flying to another location. Being able to work unimpeded. The roar of the crowd in the stadium. Watching a concert with 18,000 fans. Laughing in a movie theater. Visiting the elders in society. Shopping easily for food. Getting a haircut. The school rush each morning. Sitting on the freeway with others. Dining at our favorite restaurant. Visiting our grandchildren. Enjoying our work at the office. Dancing with your loved ones. Or a walk on the beach. Perhaps when this ends, we will discover that we have evolved more into the people we had wished we were prior to this giant life lesson. And perhaps our appreciation of one another will help us discover the very best in ourselves.
Brian Weiner
That world opened up to me on my first visit to Atlanta during “Freaknik,” a sort of spring break without the beach for black college kids. I wasn’t in college, but I went anyway. While all the kids were getting numbed out, drinking and partying, I was waking up to possibility. For the first time in my life, I saw there were black people doing great things with their lives. There were black doctors, lawyers, business owners, and well-off families going to restaurants, the theater, and movies. I knew Atlanta was the place for me.
Tyler Perry (Higher Is Waiting)
Mornings they get up late, eat breakfast in their cottages, then cross the road and spend the day gathered on the beach in front of Pasco’s place, one of about a dozen clapboard houses set on concrete pylons near the breakwater on the east end of Goshen Beach. They set up beach chairs, or just lie on towels, and the women sip wine coolers and read magazines and chat while the men drink beer or throw in a fishing line. There’s always a nice little crowd there, Pasco and his wife and kids and grandkids, and the whole Moretti crew—Peter and Paul Moretti, Sal Antonucci, Tony Romano, Chris Palumbo and wives and kids. Always a lot of people dropping by, coming in and out, having a good time. Rainy days they sit in the cottages and do jigsaw puzzles, play cards, take naps, shoot the shit, listen to the Sox broadcasters jaw their way through the rain delay. Or maybe drive into the main town two miles inland and see a movie or get an ice cream or pick up some groceries.
Don Winslow (City on Fire (Danny Ryan, #1))
If your pre-Frugal Hedonism socialising revolved mostly around eating out, bars, and movies, it’s time to seed your social life with a whole new crop of cheap thrills. Bring people wild berry picking with you! Invite them along to catch a train to the beach for a day. Hold a story-telling night. Play ultimate Frisbee, or chess. Take a long ramble with a friend and a dog – maybe make a date to do it weekly. Invite people round for casual dinners, lunches, breakfast and picnics. Offer to ask someone you know for help with taking up the cuffs on a pair of pants, an IT problem, or a trombone lesson. Then eat lunch together.
Annie Raser-Rowland (The Art of Frugal Hedonism: A Guide to Spending Less While Enjoying Everything More)
California
Sarah Nathan (Teen Beach Movie: Includes an exclusive interview with Ross Lynch & Maia Mitchell! (Disney Junior Novel (ebook)))
Would you rather be the mayor from the movie Jaws who keeps the beaches open when there’s a killer shark out there? Or do you want to be the sheriff who turns out to be right about the killer shark, and saves thousands of people’s lives?
Meg Cabot (The Quarantine Princess Diaries)
Saint Joseph, Michigan is a hamlet catered specifically to the tastes of rich, vacationing city folk. In the summer, these wealthy tourists haul their yachts out of storage and settle into their lakeside summer homes. When they aren’t oiling up on the beach, they flock to quaint ice cream parlors and overpriced clothing and art stores along Dove Street. Of course, none of the permanent residents of St. Joe can afford to buy anything from those boutiques, but we do get a little pleasure when yuppies get their stilettos stuck in the cracks of our brick-paved roads. Apart from the beach and movie theater, it’s our main source of entertainment.
Jennifer Brightside (The Local Color)
I saw this movie once, when I was a kid, it was set in a prison about these two guys and they were friends for years. One of them finally escaped and later the other got paroled and went looking for him. He found him on a beach in Mexico, working on a boat. They got back together. I saw that when I was, like, ten or something and that was my dream for a long time. I’d get out of school, find my brother and get him and we’d both live together, near a beach, like the end of that movie. That was my fantasy, that’s what kept me going, right up until my old man told me my brother was … dead.
Todd Travis (Sex, Marry, Kill)
But before, not so long ago - my own rose from prom still OK on the mirror, dried but not a corpse - you were just Ed Slaterton, jocky hero, handsome in the student newspaper and star of a million strands of gossip. Now Annette was a person to me, standing right there, and not just an oh-my-God-have-you-heard, and I tried to put it together in my head, the print and the negative, the boyfriend and the celebrity shadow, like Theodora Sire sat next to me in history, borrowing pencils, but was still a movie star above my bed. Because as you came out of the dark to me, you were the boy I was kissing and wanted to kiss more, back to find me at a party like anybody might do, but you were Ed Slaterton too, and not the cad you are now, but just Ed Slaterton, co-captain, with a beer in your hand and Jillian Beach on your arm.
Daniel Handler (Why We Broke Up)
Think about it, a hypothetical movie called The Wages of Pleasure, where four handsome men in two Mercedes Benz cars deliver body oils, perfumes and soaps to a coterie of young beautiful woman in a Playboy Mansion somewhere nearby on a paradise beach. A hollow, bland movie devoid of tension, suspense, action, suffering and fear.
Kenneth Francis (The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd)
When they weren't on the beach or sailing, Alicia and Jack were indoors, usually in the basement watching movies. Alicia missed so many important films during those frightening years.
Michelle Gable (The Summer I Met Jack)
We was just kids, we did kid stuff. And we didn’t have things to do like people in the city. We couldn’t catch the bus to the beach or the movies or hang out in big shopping malls. We had to ride everywhere or shanks it. Go for a milkshake at the roadhouse, check out the tip. Because there was no KFC or Subway. We’d walk along the highway looking for eagle feathers.
Tim Winton (The Shepherd's Hut)
Our Christian subculture is marked by church hopping. We stay put as long as it suits us, until we are offended or decide we’re not being “fed.” So, wanting to quietly validate our own identities, we tend to silo ourselves into churches where everyone looks like us, talks like us, likes the same movies, and won’t embarrass us in public. But what if we took a cue from popular culture’s push for diversity and realized that surrounding ourselves with our duplicates only makes us more self-centered?
Joseph Beach (Ordinary Church: A Long and Loving Look)
O-kay…where does one go to people-watch lovers?” “Places you’d go on a date. Movies, dinner, the park, the beach, the mall.” “Seriously?” he gaped incredulously. “If you were gonna ask someone out, you’d take them to the mall? Dude. Even I know that’s lame.” “Okay, but I’m not writing about only things I like. I want to write in a language everyone understands. Get it?” “But the mall?” I sighed in mock defeat. “Pretend you just landed a hot date with the guy or girl of your dreams. Where are you gonna go?” “Somewhere free. I’m on a tight budget.” “The mall is free.” “And boring,” he countered. “And what’s the point of going someplace where you can’t afford anything?” “You can window shop,” I suggested cheerily.
Lane Hayes (Starting from Zero (Starting From #1))
Gentile’s office in downtown Las Vegas, I got on the elevator and turned around and there was a TV camera. It was just the two of us in the little box, me and the man with the big machine on his shoulder. He was filming me as I stood there silent. “Turn the camera off,” I said. He didn’t. I tried to move away from him in the elevator, and somehow in the maneuvering he bumped my chin with the black plastic end of his machine and I snapped. I slugged him, or actually I slugged the camera. He turned it off. The maids case was like a county fair compared with the Silverman disappearance, which had happened in the media capital of the world. It had happened within blocks of the studios of the three major networks and the New York Times. The tabloids reveled in the rich narrative of the case, and Mom and Kenny became notorious throughout the Western Hemisphere. Most crimes are pedestrian and tawdry. Though each perpetrator has his own rap sheet and motivation and banged-up psyche, the crime blotter is very repetitive. A wife beater kills his wife. A crack addict uses a gun to get money for his habit. Liquor-store holdups, domestic abuse, drug dealer shoot-outs, DWIs, and so on. This one had a story line you could reduce to a movie pitch. Mother/Son Grifters Held in Millionaire’s Disappearance! My mother’s over-the-top persona, Kenny’s shady polish, and the ridiculous rumors of mother-son incest gave the media a narrative it couldn’t resist. Mom and Kenny were the smart, interesting, evil criminals with the elaborate, diabolical plan who exist in fiction and rarely in real life. The media landed on my life with elephant feet. I was under siege as soon as I returned to my office after my family’s excursion to Newport Beach. The deluge started at 10 A.M. on July 8, 1998. I kept a list in a drawer of the media outlets that called or dropped by our little one-story L-shaped office building on Decatur. It was a tabloid clusterfuck. Every network, newspaper, local news station, and wire service sent troops. Dateline and 20/20 competed to see who could get a Kimes segment on-air first. Dateline did two shows about Mom and Kenny. I developed a strategy for dealing with reporters. My unusual training in the media arts as the son of Sante, and as a de facto paralegal in the maids case, meant that I had a better idea of how to deal with reporters than my staff did. They might find it exciting that someone wanted to talk to them, and forget to stop at “No comment.” I knew better. So I hid from the camera crews in a back room, so there’d be no pictures, and I handled the calls myself. I told my secretary not to bother asking who was on the line and to transfer all comers back to me. I would get the name and affiliation of the reporter, write down the info on my roster, and
Kent Walker (Son of a Grifter: The Twisted Tale of Sante and Kenny Kimes, the Most Notorious Con Artists in America (True Crime (Avon Books)))
We’re all going to die, everyone knows that, but back in our time we keep ourselves so busy, so occupied with cell phones and texting, television shows, movies, parties, bars, nightclubs, fancy restaurants, sixty-hour-a-week jobs, shopping, buying clothes and furniture and jewelry, working to save up for a car, a house, a second house, a beach house.  Here people have time to live, really live.  I’ve done more, I mean drawing, making friends, doing things that really matter, than I did my entire life before.
Jerry Dubs (Imhotep (Imhotep #1))
California during the 1940s had Hollywood and the bright lights of Los Angeles, but on the other coast was Florida, land of sunshine and glamour, Miami and Miami Beach. If you weren't already near California's Pacific Coast you headed for Florida during the winter. One of the things which made Miami such a mix of glitter and sunshine was the plethora of movie stars who flocked there to play, rubbing shoulders with tycoons and gangsters. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between the latter two. Miami and everything that surrounded it hadn't happened by accident. Carl Fisher had set out to make Miami Beach a playground destination during the 1930s and had succeeded far beyond his dreams. The promenade behind the Roney Plaza Hotel was a block-long lovers' lane of palm trees and promise that began rather than ended in the blue waters of the Atlantic. Florida was more than simply Miami and Miami Beach, however. When George Merrick opened the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables papers across the country couldn't wait to gush about the growing aura of Florida. They tore down Collins Bridge in the Gables and replaced it with the beautiful Venetian Causeway. You could plop down a fiver if you had one and take your best girl — or the girl you wanted to score with — for a gondola ride there before the depression, or so I'd been told.
Bobby Underwood (Where Flamingos Fly (Nostalgic Crime #2))
I am not super-attached to my career,' Audrey Tautou says in that sultry, Gallic voice of hers, a glint of recklessness in her big brown eyes. 'I have several plan Bs: I want to become a sailor; I like to draw; I would love to learn many things, but I don’t have time…' She trails off, leaving an uncertain silence hanging over the Kensington hotel room where we’ve met to discuss her latest film, a delightful comic confection called Beautiful Lies. 'That is the problem, you know,' she continues, more carefully. 'That is the reason why I will quit acting very soon.' She lets out a strange little laugh, a creaky exhalation, as if her own admission has taken her by surprise... 'I didn’t want to have this power,' she says, with a shrug. 'I would rather have freedom; and to find that you have to stop being in big, exposed movies. I don’t surf on the big waves. When I see them coming, I take my board and go straight back to the beach.'... 'I am always surprised to be chosen by a director for a role because I never understand why they like me,' she says. Surely, I suggest, that is false modesty, coming from one of Europe’s most bankable stars. 'Oh no, really, I am serious,' she says, leaning forward and planting her feet back on the carpet. 'I am always surprised to be cast.' Does her track record – in Jeunet’s hits; or in Stephen Frears’s acclaimed Dirty Pretty Things, or as a compellingly self-possessed Coco Chanel in Anne Fontaine’s 2009 biopic – not give her at least a little confidence? 'No,' she says with a scowl, 'pas du tout.' 'A few months ago, I watched one of my old movies and I thought to myself, 'Oh, Jesus!’ Thank God that at the point I made that film I didn’t realise the extent to which I was terrible. Oh, mon dieu! Mon dieu!' But surely, I say, she can take from that the reassurance that she has only improved as an actress. 'Or,' she says, jabbing a finger in the air, 'I say to myself, does it simply mean that if in another 10 years I rewatch the films I am making today I will say, 'Oh mon dieu, how terrible I was then.’ She laughs that odd, breathy laugh again and then looks me dead in the eye. 'You have to be very careful in this life.
Benjamin Secher
Not that,” said June. “I’m not making another movie where I play a sexy Asian lady on a beach—fuck no. She meant Altogether Too Many Murders.” She took a drag on her cigarette. “Good title. Has a ring of truth to it.
Sarah James (Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen)
Visualization As you hone and create your identity and new narrative, being able to picture yourself moving through this new life actually helps it become your reality. As you use imagery as a tool, be aware that there is a huge difference between fantasizing and visualizing. It’s like the saying “If you write it down, it’s a plan; if you don’t, it’s a wish.” Fantasizing is the activity of imagining scenarios that satisfy your desire for gratification and vengeance. Fantasizing is wishing, which is not a bad place to start. Fantasy often uses a third-person POV, like watching yourself in the best movie ever, starring you. It might be fun to fantasize, but as a psychological tool that enables you to get what you want in life, it’s more or less useless. Fantasy is usually about outcome. You imagine yourself being respected or thin, in a sexual or romantic relationship, or on the beach, but you are no closer to realizing those dreams than you were before you fantasized about them. Visualizing is like writing it down to make a plan; more specifically, it is making a model in your mind of the process leading to the desired result. Visualizing is a scientific methodology for rehearsing different reality-based scenarios in your head before an important event or interaction. If you learn to visualize effectively, you can condition yourself to succeed, even in stressful, anxious situations. To visualize for success: First, use the third-person POV to see yourself showing up as required in your life, on task, and with the performance you desire. Next, use the first-person POV, where you enter into the scene and you see and feel the experience. Go over the specifics of a job interview and see yourself being assertive. Feel your steady heart rate. Smell the confidence. Train your brain to associate walking into that interview with assurance and calm. Visualize every sensation and step. The coldness of the doorknob, the plush carpet under your shoes, the overhead lighting, the sound of the copy machine down the hall. Immerse yourself in detail. Script the scene with positive, powerful phrases, like I can and I am. I can get the job done. I am the person you’re looking for. Repeat the scenario. During the week before the specific event or interaction is to take place, practice daily. Later on, when it’s all over, examine how close your visualization was to reality. Even if the two look completely different, you’ll be glad you did all you could to be prepared and to succeed. This is a tried-and-true method of practicing for success. Athletic coaches on the sports field and personal life coaches advocate and outright require this kind of thorough mental preparation. There is no substitute except to rely on luck, which is not really a plan. Prepare, prepare, prepare, and remember what Louis Pasteur said: “Chance seems to favor the prepared mind.
John R. Sharp MD (The Insight Cure: Change Your Story, Transform Your Life)
You know that friend who’s always planning something, and gets a little too enthusiastic? That would probably be me. I love birthday parties because there’s cake, any excuse to wear a costume, and movies that I can’t guess the end to. I’m looking for someone who lives to laugh, who wants the wild, chaotic mess that comes with falling in love, and someone who could sit on the cliffs at Hendry’s Beach and listen to the crashing surf until the sun has slipped into the ocean.
Christina Lauren (My Favorite Half-Night Stand)