Beauty Pageant Quotes

It sounded artificial, like a beauty pageant contestant pledging world peace. I did feel sad, but articulating it seemed cheap to me.

I’ll read anything since I’m something of a book slut.

Thanks for the penis, God. I don’t have the balls to be a woman.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped living in the real world. I expected life to be like my books. I expected happily ever after out of every situation and when I didn’t get it, I’d just read another book.

Nothing says I love you like a pre- lubricated butthole.

Fine, Gran. I’ll fist his ass.

I like trees, they will someday be books.

I’m not that kind of Indian,” Shanti said, her practiced smile never leaving her face, though it faltered just a bit, and in that slight wobble was something hard and angry, something that looked like centuries of colonial oppression boiling up into an I’m-going-to-kick-your-ass-in-this-pageant-and-then-take-over-all-your-beauty-out-sourcing-needs hatred.

Besides, this story, my story, is a lot more interesting than some dried up old Russians. Why? This story has dicks, lots and lots of dicks. Oh, so now you’re interested? I should have put dick in the first line.

What do you want ?" It was a hard question, especially if I had to bat en down the sarcasm. I mean, there was the beauty pageant answer of world peace, although I’d probably have to render it in the beauty pageant spelling of world peas.

I was on a kick of reading nothing but gay romance because I was in a bit of a sexual slump, unless you count reading one handed, if you do, I was having lots and lots of sex.

sometimes a little crazy is all you need

He'd been given an assignment to write about teen beauty pageants [...], which he'd accepted because he enjoyed blood sports as much as the next person.

In my mind, she was Lebkuchen Spice—ironic, Germanic, sexy, and off beat. And, mein Gott, the girl could bake a damn fine cookie … to the point that I wanted to answer her What do you want for Christmas? with a simple More cookies, please! But no. She warned me not to be a smart-ass, and while that answer was totally sincere, I was afraid she would think I was joking or, worse, kissing up. It was a hard question, especially if I had to batten down the sarcasm. I mean, there was the beauty pageant answer of world peace, although I’d probably have to render it in the beauty pageant spelling of world peas. I could play the boo-hoo orphan card and wish for my whole family to be together, but that was the last thing I wanted, especially at this late date.

A huge cloud of dust is not a beautiful thing to look at. Very few painters have done portraits of huge clouds of dust or included them in their landscapes or still lifes. Film directors rarely choose huge clouds of dust to play the lead roles in romantic comedies, and as far as my research has shown, a huge cloud of dust has never placed higher than twenty-fifth in a beauty pageant. Nevertheless, as the Baudelaire orphans stumbled around the cell, dropped each half of the battering ram and listening to the sound of crows flying in circles outside, they stared at the huge cloud of dust as if it were a thing of great beauty.

Nope,” says Hannah. “I call bullshit. You don’t deserve to win anything or be in any pageant until you make the effort and do the work. Maybe fat girls or girls with limps or girls with big teeth don’t usually win beauty pageants. Maybe that’s not the norm. But the only way to change that is to be present. We can’t expect the same things these other girls do until we demand it. Because no one’s lining up to give us shit, Will.

When first I was put into prison some people advised me to try and forget who I was. It was ruinous advice. It is only by realising what I am that I have found comfort of any kind. Now I am advised by others to try on my release to forget that I have ever been in a prison at all. I know that would be equally fatal. It would mean that I would always be haunted by an intolerable sense of disgrace, and that those things that are meant for me as much as for anybody else - the beauty of the sun and moon, the pageant of the seasons, the music of daybreak and the silence of great nights, the rain falling through the leaves, or the dew creeping over the grass and making it silver - would all be tainted for me, and lose their healing power, and their power of communicating joy. To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.

I held a beautiful leather-bound copy of Moby Dick in one hand and my Moby dick in the other.

In place of equal respect, the nation offered women the Miss America beauty pageant, established in 1920-the same year women won the vote.

Trump approached staffing the administration like a casting call and sought “the look,” a fixation in keeping with the beauty pageants he had once run.

She's a lot more than nice," Gran said with a leer, "after our last date, I came home with my face looking like a glazed donut. That gal's juices are flowing. She must be on some kind of hormone replacement therapy.

How easily such a thing can become a mania, how the most normal and sensible of women once this passion to be thin is upon them, can lose completely their sense of balance and proportion and spend years dealing with this madness.

Cardigans can be very sexy.” “Really? Go into the bathroom, stare into the mirror, then come back out here and tell me if you’d fuck yourself.

As the wind, wandering over the sea, takes from each wave an invisible portion, and brings to those on shore the ethereal essence of ocean, so the air lingering among the woods and hedges—green waves and billows—became full of fine atoms of summer.

What is beauty? Why is this world obsessed with beauty? It is a pathetic way of measuring your worth in the eyes of another. How can one person or the majority decide who is beautiful and who is not? Why are people all over the world being driven to adopt standards of beauty? Why do we have beauty pageants? The world is making people want to "look beautiful" but not "be beautiful." The world is making the new generation self- conscious about external looks. The new generation is becoming superficial. There is no depth in people. True beauty is not in how we look. It is in how we love, care, and share.

Bitches will take your ass down if you try to publish that. Peace out.

I was not raped! I had a boxing lesson! Are you both crazy?

My house completed, and tried and not found wanting by a first Cape Cod year, I went there to spend a fortnight in September. The fortnight ending, I lingered on, and as the year lengthened into autumn, the beauty and mystery of this earth and outer sea so possessed and held me that I could not go. The world to-day is sick to its thin blood for lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water welling from the earth, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot. In my world of beach and dunes these elemental presences lived and had their being, and under their arch there moved an incomparable pageant of nature and the year.

Kay Cannon was a woman I’d known from the Chicago improv world. A beautiful, strong midwestern gal who had played lots of sports and run track in college, Kay had submitted a good writing sample, but I was more impressed by her athlete’s approach to the world. She has a can-do attitude, a willingness to learn through practice, and she was comfortable being coached. Her success at the show is a testament to why all parents should make their daughters pursue team sports instead of pageants. Not that Kay couldn’t win a beauty pageant - she could, as long as for the talent competition she could sing a karaoke version of ‘Redneck Woman’ while shooting a Nerf rifle.

Can we all agree that the sexiest thing in the world is a nice ass in a jockstrap? Is there anything better in creation? I think not.

Whatever this guy was about to dish out, I was prepared to respond with, “Thank you, sir, and, may I have another?

I was one sexy, cardigan-clad HoMoFo.

my story, is a lot more interesting than some dried up old Russians. Why? This story has dicks, lots and lots of dicks.

It was then I discovered the worst horror of all – my kindle was dead. “Nooooo!!!!!!” I screamed. “This can’t be happening. Oh, shit, Shane, I’ve got nothing to read. We have to get out of here!

No one ever spoke above a whisper in the staff lounge, but I felt the need to shush her anyway. I gave her my best librarian frown and put one finger to my lips. It works every time. We librarians are like practitioners of Jedi mind-control when it comes to shushing.

It had been a long while since I’d watched any television, and things had only gotten weirder. Beauty pageants for infants; ruddy men in trucker caps fighting over abandoned storage lockers; public shamings of compulsive hoarders and pre-diabetics; affluent suburban women made up like transvestite hookers, competing with each other in feats of coarseness and cruelty; barely literate pregnant teens with tattoos, unfocused eyes, and futures like wrecked cars; apoplectic crypto-fascists spitting bile and paranoia; a carnival midway of weight loss devices, hair growth creams, erectile dysfunction potions, and pottery from which herbs grew like green hair. It was like the day room of a surrealist mental hospital, or any big city ER on a summer Saturday night.

Perfect may not always be pretty but excellence is always elegant.

I got several slaps on my bare ass from the strangers who had just watched me take a beating. I decided boxing is super-gay.

Now I was truly offended. “I don’t read romance novels,” I hissed, “I read gay fiction.

He dropped in front of me and did the leg spread. Lycra is proof that God exists.

I wouldn’t call it performance anxiety exactly, because my dick was so hard I could have let him do pull ups on it. One-handed pull ups, I admit, but still – pull ups.

High-pitched squeal like a beauty pageant contestant found best in show, Oprah audience member given a new Chevy, rookie actress surprised with an unlikely Oscar.

Then it hits me: High school is exactly like a beauty pageant. Of course. Walking down a hallway is like being on stage, being judged by your appearance.

Beauty isn't on the outside. I learned that in the pageants. I met some beautiful women who were ugly on the inside and some who were incredible. Beauty is how we go on, the life we create around us. Living a life that's meaningful. I'm not sure I'm there, to be honest. I'm trying hard. We all are.

Like the fact that he’s my twin brother and I know you’ll eventually ask us to double-penetrate you.” I tried very hard to look shocked. “I don’t even know what that means, Shane.” “And you’re never going to find out.

fired up my e-reader to get lost in Easter Lust. It’s a story about a bunny rabbit shifter who meets a chicken shifter. They come together, fall in love, and then, tragically, discover they’re both submissive bottoms.

She’s a lot more than nice,” Gran said with a leer, “after our last date, I came home with my face looking like a glazed donut. That gal’s juices are flowing. She must be on some kind of hormone replacement therapy.” “Gran!

He also noticed me watching. “Gotta stretch after a run.” “Don’t I know it, ” I said, because, you know, I did attend gym class once upon a time. I eventually got out of it with a hard-won, totally bogus asthma diagnosis that placed me right where I wanted to be – the library. But I did remember the bit about stretching after a run.

I mean, are you even really gay?” I sighed. “Of course I’m gay. I’ve got something up my butt right now.” Twyla’s eyes widened in shock and her lips spread into a delighted grin. “You do? Oh, my God! What is it? Is it like a… place holder?” I shook my head and laughed into my hand. “There’s nothing up my butt. A placeholder? You’re nuts.

There’s going to be just a teeny bit of angst (this is a romance book) and then there’s going to be a Happily Ever After. And, oh yes, dicks and butts, lots of dicks and butts. Seriously, keep a wet wipe handy, there’s some really hot stuff in here.

Because business, in many ways, is like politics or beauty pageants. The talented do, at times, rise to the top. But those with guts, gumption, unbounded energy, hot desire, and the ability to push people around do very well, too, even the ugly ones.

De Profundis by Oscar Wilde (this excerpt inspired my book, The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap. Wilde wrote it to his lover while in prison.) When first I was put into prison some people advised me to try and forget who I was. It was ruinous advice. It is only by realizing what I am that I have found comfort of any kind. Now I am advised by others to try on my release to forget that I have ever been in a prison at all. I know that would be equally fatal. It would mean that I would always be haunted by an intolerable sense of disgrace, and that those things that are meant for me as much as for anybody else – the beauty of the sun and moon, the pageant of the seasons, the music of daybreak and the silence of great nights, the rain falling through the leaves, or the dew creeping over the grass and making it silver – would all be tainted for me, and lose their healing power, and their power of communicating joy. To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.

Dorian, Dorian," she cried, "before I knew you, acting was the one reality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. I thought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night and Portia the other. The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia were mine also. I believed in everything. The common people who acted with me seemed to me to be godlike. The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came—oh, my beautiful love!— and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me what reality really is. To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in which I had always played. To-night, for the first time, I became conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not what I wanted to say. You had brought me something higher, something of which all art is but a reflection.

Even though Clover City feels like one big joke sometimes, it's my joke. My charming joke of a town that thrives on beauty pageants and dance teams and a football team that couldn't figure out how to win a game if the other team had forfeited, but underneath it all, it's more than that small-town stereotype. It's a shithole. But it's my little shithole.

I’d have to read and escape into another world where cops don’t literally mean nightstick when they say nightstick and pucker is a noun.

If there had been jockstraps back in Michelangelo’s day, then his boy toy David would be wearing a marble one right now.

Don’t worry, though, I’m sure you’re still both tighter than the knots on a tree.

I tore open the foil packet and slipped on the condom, lined myself up at heaven’s loading dock and… my phone rang.

Laurelhurst is big and full of walking/jogging trails, meadows to let your doggie run free, and tree after tree after tree. I like trees, they will someday be books.

my dick was so hard I could have let him do pull ups on it. One-handed pull ups, I admit, but still – pull ups.

Leaders are readers and learners are earners.

Be a character of excellence, not excuses

I told you.” “But… everybody says their family’s crazy. Yours really is batshit.

You can live one night without your kindle.” Does this bastard know me at all? “I can’t Shane, I really can’t.

Health-food stores are, by their nature, assholish places. Portland is itself rather assholish, so, walking into a health-food store in Portland is like walking into assholishness squared.

where they went far beyond us was in the special application of religious feeling to every field of life. They had no ritual, no little set of performances called "divine service," save those religious pageants I have spoken of, and those were as much educational as religious, and as much social as either. But they had a clear established connection between everything they did—and God. Their cleanliness, their health, their exquisite order, the rich peaceful beauty of the whole land, the happiness of the children, and above all the constant progress they made—all this was their religion. They applied their minds to the thought of God, and worked out the theory that such an inner power demanded outward expression. They lived as if God was real and at work within them.

He kissed me and then pulled back, looking very serious. “I love you, Mason.” There it was. The magical phrase. In every book I’d ever read it was accompanied by either tears or long descriptions of deep stirrings in the chest that sounded suspiciously like coronaries. This wasn’t like that at all. It was just a simple statement of how things were. “I love you, too.” “Good,” he said with an easy smile.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped living in the real world. I expected life to be like my books. I expected happily ever after out of every situation and when I didn’t get it, I’d just read another book.

As for the dick, sorry, nothing to write home about. It’s perfectly average, but looks great since it’s attached to an undersized body. These things are all about proportion. Anyway, average all the way, which means, although I would like to get screams of ecstasy from those generous souls who let me stick it in them, I usually end up getting moans of contentment (could be boredom, but let’s go with contentment).

Crowns are not just for the head. It is for the shoulders. When you become a queen it is about shouldering the responsibility to innovate leadership so we can impel others to use their influence, vision and talents.

My mom is all about being prim, proper, and classy. Enter beauty pageants, marry a rich man, and live lavishly. I think she just wanted me to have the life she couldn’t have, and when I did the opposite, she resented me for it.” “At least you'll end up marrying a rich man.” “Now I can never marry you. It's my life's purpose to disappoint her in every decision I make.” “Don't underestimate me, Addie. I'll become a poor man for you.

[The Edwardian era] was a time of booming trade, of great prosperity and wealth in which the pageant of London Society took place year after year in a setting of traditional dignity and beauty. The great houses—Devonshire, Dorchester, Grosvenor, Stafford and Lansdowne House—had not yet been converted into museums, hotels and flats, and there we danced through the long summer nights till dawn. The great country-houses still flourished in their glory, and on their lawns in the green shade of trees the art of human intercourse was exquisitely practised by men and women not yet enslaved by household cares and chores who still had time to read, to talk, to listen and to think.

We’re going to kick butt at the competition, Tessie, and when we win I promise I’ll let you bash my brother’s head in with the trophy.” I chuckle at his enthusiasm and shake my head. “It’s not a wrestling match, Stone, it’s a beauty pageant, and my trophy will most likely be a plastic tiara.” “Well don’t those things have sharp pointy combs? You can dig them into his eye or something.” “You have a really twisted mind, you know that?” “Thank you, shortcake.

Of course, the illegals have always been called names other than human--wetback, taco-bender. (A Mexican worker said: "If I am a wetback because I crossed a river to get here, what are you, who crossed an entire ocean?') In politically correct times, "illegal alien" was deemed gauche, so "undocumented worker" came into favor. Now, however, the term preferred by the Arizona press is "undocumented entrant." As if the United States were a militarized beauty pageant. Maye it is.

No, I don't want any clothes, I don't want anything, I just want to get out of here,' she whimpers, and he jerks her arm, saying, 'Judy, do this for me.' I watched that scene again and again, wanting to drain it of its power. It's the spectacle of a woman being forced to participate in the perpetual, harrowing, non-consensual beauty pageant of femininity, of being made to confront her status as an object that might or might not be deemed acceptable, capable of arousing the eye.

She was a beauty queen!'' ''Holy shit.'' Harrison dissolved into a fit of laughter. ''No way is Redding pulling that one off. Look at her. Her hair's shorter than mine. ''My hair is convenient for my job,'' I said, running a hand over inch-long, blond locks that had been trapped under a hot wig the day before, ''and besides, I thought short hair was fashionable.'' ''Short, yes,'' Harrison said, ''but you're sporting the Britney Spears Nervous Breakdown style. Not a hit among men or the beauty pageant circuit

Ohmigosh. No food at all.” Tiara sank down on the sand as if the full weight of their predicament had finally hit her. She blinked back tears. And then that megawatt smile that belonged on cereal boxes across the nation reappeared. “I am going to be so superskinny by pageant time!

He allows Job to question and grieve, to yearn and weep. But what he offers Job is not an explanation but an encounter. For Job is summoned to behold God’s goodness in the staggering pageant of creation, one so mighty in its loveliness that at its end, Job considers himself answered.

I had thought the Upper East Side could shield me from the beauty pageants and cockfights of the art scene in which I’d “worked” in Chelsea. But living uptown had infected me with its own virus when I first moved there. I’d tried being one of those blond women speed walking up and down the Esplanade in spandex, Bluetooth in my ear like some self-important asshole, talking to whom—Reva? On the weekends, I did what young women in New York like me were supposed to do, at first: I got colonics and facials and highlights, worked out at an overpriced gym, lay in the hammam there until I went blind, and went out at night in shoes that cut my feet and gave me sciatica.

I mean, let’s face it--I know I’m nothing special. I’m not beauty-pageant perfect like Morgan, or fashion-model gorgeous like Lucy. Unlike Ryder and Nan, I don’t have state-championship trophies lining my walls. My singing voice is only so-so, I can’t draw or play a musical instrument, and if the school plays are any indicator, I can’t act for shit, either.

Nina stood there, in all her former beauty queen pageant glory, tall and slim and panther-like. Nina's dark hair always seemed to capture whatever available light there was, and her skin, much to Ellie's annoyance, was flawless. Today she was wearing a black wraparound dress that accentuated every curve and parted in just the right place to show off the best part of her legs.

The first thing he taught me was how to make love. 　　Before you laugh, know that I’d always hated that phrase. It sounded so corny, so old. Hippies made love. People my mom’s age, though I preferred to believe I was an immaculate conception. 　　People my age hooked up, fucked, had sex. We didn’t attach frilly ideas of oneness and eternity to a basic biological act. Most of us were from single-parent homes. Those who weren’t wished they were when their parents screamed and beat the shit out of each other. We grew up sexualized, from toddler beauty pageants to the constant reminder that adults were waiting to lure us into vans with candy. The invention of MMS gave us a platform for the distribution of amateur porn. 　　That’s a lot of conditioning to break through.

One day a little old lady came and asked my name, saying she couldn’t read my nametag. I told her and reached for the little slip of paper she held, but she put it behind her back. It seemed she wanted to chat before giving it up. Fine with me. We chatted about our matching cardigans (the fact that I dress like a little old lady was not lost on me) and we chatted about how the Portland weather bothered her bones. We talked for a long while about her husband and how much she’d grown to hate him over the years. Then, since I guessed I’d earned her trust, she handed me her slip of paper. It was for a book on exotic poisons. I got her the book and spent the next few weeks scanning the obituaries for every old man that had died. So, yes, folks I may be an accomplice to murder. Don’t say there’s no excitement at the library.

Trump was actively involved in the pageants. After Miss Universe Alicia Machado, a Venezuelan, gained considerable weight in 1996, Trump publicly excoriated her. He staged a photo op to show Machado exercising at a Manhattan gym. In front of about eighty reporters and photographers, Trump said, “When you win a beauty pageant, people don’t think you’re going to go from 118 to 160 in less than a year, and you really have an obligation to stay in a perfect physical state.” Machado called the photo op an ambush designed to humiliate her. “He had his triumphant entry,” she recalled, “and I got to feel like a hamster on a wheel for an hour. I was his first Miss Universe when he just bought the company. Unfortunately, this also meant that I experienced, firsthand, his rage and racism and all the misogyny a person can demonstrate.” Trump wrote years later that he did what he did to protect her from being fired: “God, what problems I had with this woman. First, she wins. Second, she gains fifty pounds. Third, I urge the committee not to fire her.” Trump

ITEM. Eleven women from the Miss Black America Pageant all claimed Mike Tyson touched them on their rears. So the founder of the pageant filed a $607 million lawsuit against Mike Tyson. Several of the contestants eventually admitted they had lied in the hope of getting publicity and cashing in on the award money.49 Think about it. If each woman had the potential for being awarded $20 to $30 million, aren’t we really bribing women to make false accusations? And the Miss Black America Pageant itself got more publicity than it had received in its history. The lawsuit made tabloid headlines; the dropping of the lawsuit was buried in the back pages. When we fail to give as much attention to an accusation being false as to the original accusation, the accused is left with an image problem. When this image problem was added to Tyson’s already tarnished image, Tyson was doubtless more likely to be found guilty when one of the Miss Black America contestants (Desiree Washington) accused him of date rape than he would have if tabloid headlines had recently been saying “Black Beauties Bribed by Big Bucks.

When, without the bitterness of impotent rebellion, we have learnt both to resign ourselves to the outward rules of Fate and to recognise that the non-human world is unworthy of our worship, it becomes possible at last so to transform and refashion the unconscious universe, so to transmute it in the crucible of imagination, that a new image of shining gold replaces the old idol of clay. In all the multiform facts of the world--in the visual shapes of trees and mountains and clouds, in the events of the life of man, even in the very omnipotence of Death--the insight of creative idealism can find the reflection of a beauty which its own thoughts first made. In this way mind asserts its subtle mastery over the thoughtless forces of Nature. The more evil the material with which it deals, the more thwarting to untrained desire, the greater is its achievement in inducing the reluctant rock to yield up its hidden treasures, the prouder its victory in compelling the opposing forces to swell the pageant of its triumph. Of all the arts, Tragedy is the proudest, the most triumphant; for it builds its shining citadel in the very centre of the enemy's country, on the very summit of his highest mountain; from its impregnable watchtowers, his camps and arsenals, his columns and forts, are all revealed; within its walls the free life continues, while the legions of Death and Pain and Despair, and all the servile captains of tyrant Fate, afford the burghers of that dauntless city new spectacles of beauty. Happy those sacred ramparts, thrice happy the dwellers on that all-seeing eminence. Honour to those brave warriors who, through countless ages of warfare, have preserved for us the priceless heritage of liberty, and have kept undefiled by sacrilegious invaders the home of the unsubdued.

There is indeed a poetical attitude to be adopted towards all things, but all things are not fit subjects for poetry. Into the secure and sacred house of Beauty the true artist will admit nothing that is harsh or disturbing, nothing that gives pain, nothing that is debatable, nothing about which men argue. He can steep himself, if he wishes, in the discussion of all the social problems of his day, poor-laws and local taxation, free trade and bimetallic currency, and the like; but when he writes on these subjects it will be, as Milton nobly expressed it, with his left hand, in prose and not in verse, in a pamphlet and not in a lyric. This exquisite spirit of artistic choice was not in Byron: Wordsworth had it not. In the work of both these men there is much that we have to reject, much that does not give us that sense of calm and perfect repose which should be the effect of all fine, imaginative work. But in Keats it seemed to have been incarnate, and in his lovely ODE ON A GRECIAN URN it found its most secure and faultless expression; in the pageant of the EARTHLY PARADISE and the knights and ladies of Burne-Jones it is the one dominant note. It is to no avail that the Muse of Poetry be called, even by such a clarion note as Whitman’s, to migrate from Greece and Ionia and to placard REMOVED and TO LET on the rocks of the snowy Parnassus. Calliope’s call is not yet closed, nor are the epics of Asia ended; the Sphinx is not yet silent, nor the fountain of Castaly dry. For art is very life itself and knows nothing of death; she is absolute truth and takes no care of fact; she sees (as I remember Mr. Swinburne insisting on at dinner) that Achilles is even now more actual and real than Wellington, not merely more noble and interesting as a type and figure but more positive and real.

You're hot." 'You're pretty hot too" His eyebrows did that question mark thing again. "What?" My stomach started to cramp because sometimes your body is slightly ahead of your brain. My stomach knew that something had gone terribly, mortifyingly wrong. My brain, on the other hand, plowed ahead on the path of self-destruction and took my mouth with it. "You said I'm hot. I said you're hot, too" His eyes grew wide and a little blush of color came to his cheeks. "No, I asked if you were hot because it's June and you're wearing a sweater." Please, God, make the death by duck shit quick, or fuck it, make it slow and agonising, but let's get it started.

I felt as though the temple curtain had been drawn aside without warning and I, a goggle-eyed stranger somehow mistaken for an initiate, had been ushered into the sanctuary to witness the mystery of mysteries. I saw a phantasmagoria, a living tapestry of forms jeweled in minute detail. They danced together like guests at a rowdy wedding. They changed their shapes. Within themselves they juggled geometrical shards like the fragments in a kaleidoscope. They sent forth extensions of themselves like the flares of suns. Yet all their activity was obviously interrelated; each being's actions were in step with its neighbors'. They were like bees swarming: They obviously recognised each other and were communicating avidly, but it was impossible to know what they were saying. They enacted a pageant whose beauty awed me. As the lights came back on, the auditorium seemed dull and unreal.I'd been watching various kinds of ordinary cells going about their daily business, as seen through a microscope and recorded by the latest time-lapse movie techniques. The filmmaker frankly admitted that neither he nor anyone else knew just what the cells were doing, or how and why they were doing it. We biologists, especially during our formative years in school, spent most of our time dissecting dead animals and studying preparations of dead cells stained to make their structures more easily visible—"painted tombstones," as someone once called them. Of course, we all knew that life was more a process than a structure, but we tended to forget this, because a structure was so much easier to study. This film reminded me how far our static concepts still were from the actual business of living. As I thought how any one of those scintillating cells potentially could become a whole speckled frog or a person, I grew surer than ever that my work so far had disclosed only a few aspects of a process-control system as varied and widespread as life itself, of which we'd been ignorant until then.

In any pageant, or in any game or contest, there are winners and there are losers. You might be a winner, Myriah, and that would be wonderful. Daddy and Gabbie and I and even Laura would be very proud of you, but you might be a loser, too. There are going to be lots more losers than winners and I want you to know that we’ll be proud of you if you lose. We’ll be proud of you for having the courage to be in the pageant, and for the work and rehearsing you’ll do.” “I know,” said Myriah, giving her mother a hug. “Thank you.” “One more thing,” said her mother. “I think you should know that for some girls, this pageant won’t be just fun and games. I hope it’ll be fun for you, but for others it will be work. They’ll take it very seriously. You might be competing against girls who have been winners in other pageants, or who have won beauty contests or talent contests. They’ll know how pageants work. And they might, just might, not be very friendly. I want you to understand what you’re getting into, that’s all. Okay?” “Okay,” said Myriah.

Dorian, Dorian," she cried, "before I knew you, acting was the one reality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. I thought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night and Portia the other. The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia were mine also. I believed in everything. The common people who acted with me seemed to me to be godlike. The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came—oh, my beautiful love!—and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me what reality really is. To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in which I had always played. To-night, for the first time, I became conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not what I wanted to say. You had brought me something higher, something of which all art is but a reflection. You had made me understand what love really is. My love! My love!

To-morrow the rediscovery of romantic love, The photographing of ravens; all the fun under Liberty's masterful shadow; To-morrow the hour of the pageant-master and the musician, The beautiful roar of the chorus under the dome; To-morrow the exchanging of tips on the breeding of terriers, The eager election of chairmen By the sudden forest of hands. But to-day the struggle, To-morrow for the young poets exploding like bombs, The walks by the lake, the weeks of perfect communion; To-morrow the bicycle races Through the suburbs on summer evenings. But to-day the struggle. To-day the deliberate increase in the chances of death, The conscious acceptance of guilt in the necessary murder; To-day the expending of powers On the flat ephemeral pamphlet and the boring meeting, Today the makeshift consolations: the shared cigarette, The cards in the candlelit barn, and the scraping concert, The masculine jokes; to-day the Fumbled and unsatisfactory embrace before hurting. The stars are dead. The animals will not look. We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say alas but cannot help or pardon.

Dorian, Dorian," she cried, "before I knew you, acting was the one reality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. I thought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night and Portia the other. The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia were mine also. I believed in everything. The common people who acted with me seemed to me to be godlike. The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came--oh, my beautiful love!--and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me what reality really is. To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in which I had always played. To-night, for the first time, I became conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not what I wanted to say. You had brought me something higher, something of which all art is but a reflection. You had made me understand what love really is. My love! My love! Prince Charming! Prince of life! I have grown sick of shadows. You are more to me than all art can ever be.

Life was well enough, she thought; well enough, and a gay enough business for those who had the means to make it so, and the temperament to find it so. Life was no great matter, and nor, certainly, was death; but it was well enough. We come and we go; we are born, we live, and we die; this poor ball, thought Rome, serves us for all that; and on the whole, we make too much complaint of it, expect, one way and another, too much of it. It is, after all, but a turning ball, which has burst, for some reason unknown to science, into a curious, interesting and rather unwholesome form of animal and vegetable life. (…) Funny, hustling, strutting, vain, eager little creatures that we are, so clever and so excited about the business of living, so absorbed and intent about it all, so proud of our achievements, so tragically deploring our disasters, so prone to talk about the wreckage of civilization, as if it mattered much, as if civilizations had not been wrecked and wrecked all down human history, and it all came to the same thing in the end. Nevertheless, thought Rome, we are really rather wonderful little spurts of life. The brief pageant, the tiny, squalid story of human life upon this earth, has been lit, among the squalor and the greed, by amazing flashes of intelligence, of valor, of beauty, of sacrifice, of love.

Right when Marston and Peter must have been meeting with Gaines and Mayer to talk about what Wonder Woman ought to look like, a new superhero made his debut. Captain America.19 He quickly became Timely Comics’ most popular character. Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941) (illustration credit 23.7) Marston wanted his comic book’s “under-meaning,” about “a great movement now under way—the growth in the power of women,” to be embodied in the way Wonder Woman carried herself, how she dressed, and what powers she wielded. She had to be strong, and she had to be independent. Everyone agreed about the bracelets (inspired by Olive Byrne’s): it helped Gaines with his public relations problem that she could stop bullets with them; that was good for the gun problem. Also, this new superhero had to be uncommonly beautiful; she’d wear a tiara, like the crown awarded at the Miss America pageant. Marston wanted her to be opposed to war, but she had to be willing to fight for democracy. In fact, she had to be superpatriotic. Captain America wore an American flag: blue tights, red gloves, red boots, and, on his torso, red and white stripes and a white star. Like Captain America—because of Captain America—Wonder Woman would have to wear red, white, and blue, too. But, ideally, she’d also wear very little. To sell magazines, Gaines wanted his superwoman to be as naked as he could get away with.

Farewell, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles; Farewell, ye honour'd rags, ye glorious bubbles; Fame's but a hollow echo, Gold, pure clay; Honour the darling but of one short day; Beauty, th' eye's idol, but a damask'd skin; State, but a golden prison, to live in And torture free-born minds; embroider'd Trains, Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins; And Blood allied to greatness is alone Inherited, not purchas'd, nor our own. Fame, Honour, Beauty, State, Train, Blood and Birth, Are but the fading blossoms of the earth. I would be great, but that the sun doth still Level his rays against the rising hill: I would be high, but see the proudest oak Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke: I would be rich, but see men, too unkind Dig in the bowels of the richest mind: I would be wise, but that I often see The fox suspected, whilst the ass goes free: I would be fair, but see the fair and proud, Like the bright sun, oft setting in a cloud: I would be poor, but know the humble grass Still trampled on by each unworthy ass: Rich, hated wise, suspected, scorn'd if poor; Great, fear'd, fair, tempted, high, still envy'd more. I have wish'd all, but now I wish for neither. Great, high, rich, wise, nor fair: poor I'll be rather. Would the World now adopt me for her heir; Would beauty's Queen entitle me the fair; Fame speak me fortune's minion, could I " vie Angels " with India with a speaking eye Command bare heads, bow'd knees, strike justice dumb, As well as blind and lame, or give a tongue To stones by epitaphs, be call'd " great master " In the loose rhymes of every poetaster ? Could I be more than any man that lives, Great, fair, rich wise, all in superlatives; Yet I more freely would these gifts resign Than ever fortune would have made them mine. And hold one minute of this holy leisure Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure. Welcome, pure thoughts; welcome, ye silent groves; These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves. Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring: A pray'r-book, now, shall be my looking-glass, In which I will adore sweet virtue's face. Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares, No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-fac'd fears; Then here I'll sit, and sigh my hot love's folly, And learn t' affect an holy melancholy: And if contentment be a stranger then, I'll ne'er look for it, but in heaven, again.

For a moment we just sit there silently, our heads tipped back as we stare at the sky. A minute passes, maybe two. And then Ryder’s hand grazes mine before settling on the ground, our pinkies touching. I suck in a breath, my entire body going rigid. I’m wondering if he realizes it, if he even knows he’s touching me, when just like that, he draws away. Ryder clears his throat. “So…I hear you’re going out with Patrick on Friday.” “And?” I ask. That brief connection that we’d shared is suddenly gone--poof, just like that. “And what?” he answers with a shrug. “Oh, I’m sure you’ve got an opinion on this--one you’re just dying to share.” Because Ryder has an opinion on everything. “Well, it’s just that Patrick…” He shakes his head. “Never mind. Forget I brought it up.” “No, go on. It’s just that Patrick what?” “Seriously, Jemma. It’s none of my business.” “C’mon, Ryder, get it out of your system. What? Patrick is looking to get a piece? Is using me? Is planning on standing me up?” I can’t help myself; the words just tumble out. “I was going to say that I think he really likes you,” he says, his voice flat. I bite back my retort, forcing myself to take a deep, calming breath instead. That was not what I had expected him to say--not at all--and it takes me completely by surprise. Patrick really likes me? I’m not sure how I feel about that--not sure I want it to be true. “What do you mean, he really likes me?” I ask stupidly. “Just what I said. It’s pretty simple stuff, Jemma. He likes you. I think he always has.” “And you know this how?” He levels a stare at me. “Trust me on this, okay? He’s got problems, sure, but he’s a decent guy. Don’t break his heart.” I scramble to my feet. “I agreed to go out with him--once. And I’m probably going to cancel, anyway, because after today’s news, I’m really not in the mood. But the last thing I need is dating advice from you.” “How come every conversation we have ends like this--with you going off on me? You didn’t use to be like this. What happened?” He’s right, and I hate myself for it--hate the way he makes me feel inside, as if I’m not good enough. I mean, let’s face it--I know I’m nothing special. I’m not beauty-pageant perfect like Morgan, or fashion-model gorgeous like Lucy. Unlike Ryder and Nan, I don’t have state-championship trophies lining my walls. My singing voice is only so-so, I can’t draw or play a musical instrument, and if the school plays are any indicator, I can’t act for shit, either.

If she had anything to say about it, the pageant would be called off and the dignity of Sweet Valley womanhood would be preserved. The truth was, no one seemed to care as much about the beauty pageant issue as she did.

Certain things are expected of you when you’re a demon. Take the grotesque bodies, for example. Powerful, lethal, but definitely not beauty pageant material. Which is why the more talented among the demon race normally reverted to a basic human form. Those that couldn’t take human form were destined to a life of servitude or as a meal on legs.

It might be said that this feeling for violence and brutality, for the pageant and panorama of fascism on the Continent, formed her principal disinterested aesthetic pleasure. She had few others. She read practically nothing: she did not respond to music or pictures: she never went to the theatre and very seldom to the movies: and although she had an instinctive ability to dress well and effectively when she desired, she did not even like pretty things. She only liked what affected her personally and physically and immediately – sleep, warmth, a certain amount of company and talk, drinks, getting drunk, good food, taxis, ease. She was not even responsive to adulation, save when, coming from a man, it promised to further these necessities. She was atrophied. She looked like a Byron beauty, but she was a fish.