Bling Quotes

Something shines out, a truth so self-evident that the words dictate themselves. We’re cashing in a billion years of planetary savings bonds and blowing it on assorted bling.

It's not what you have on the outside that glitters in light, it's what you have on the inside that shines in the dark.

I like big books and I cannot lie. You other readers can’t deny That when a kid walks in with The Name of the Wind Like a hardbound brick of win. Story bling. Wanna swipe that thing Cause you see that boy is speeding Right through the book he’s reading. I’m hooked and I can’t stop pleading. Wanna curl up with that for ages, All thousand pages. Reviewers tried to warn me. But with that plot you hooked Me like Bradley. Ooh, crack that fat spine. You know I wanna make you mine. This book is stella ’cause it ain’t some quick novella.

Through lightest dark or darkest light, You dont need no bling to join the fight. We're mercs with mouths and so much more, Yippee-ki-yay, we're the Deadpool Corps!

We’re cashing in a billion years of planetary savings bonds and blowing it on assorted bling.

Bling" is not an indication of riches. It is a product of value-based spending, to enrich the pockets of those outside of ones sphere of influence...the haves' bleeding the have-nots'.

You show new ways through the dark,’ Clack-Jones added. ‘You see the trogs,’ said Screech-Bling. ‘You see Bob the Titan.’ Will smiled and squeezed his hand. ‘Nyx hates what you represent – change.’ Howl-Smith nodded wisely. ‘Or at least the potential for it.

Not only a fanatic and an incendiary (two of the insults that dogged Defoe most closely in his lifetime), the author of Robinson Crusoe was also an egregious spiv, and a slave to bling.

falafel joint, jazz joint, gyro joint, corner. Schoolyard, creperie, realtor, corner. Tenement, tenement, tenement museum, corner. Pink Pony, Blind Tiger, muffin boutique, corner. Sex shop, tea shop, synagogue, corner. Bollywood, Buddha, botanica, corner. Leather outlet, leather outlet, leather outlet, corner. Bar, school, bar, school. People's Park, corner. Tyson mural, Celia Cruz mural, Ladi Di mural, corner. Bling shop, barbershop, car service corner.

To me, travel is more valuable than any stupid piece of bling money can buy.

Andrea much in London?’ ‘No. She was more Kardashian bling.

Now it was as if everybody had become their own fan. Everybody was their own paparazzi.

To se someone really getting to know who they are is a beautiful, beautiful, thing.

The easiest way to bling your brightest is to be yourself because it requires 0% effort.

Just because someone sees or hears pr feels something other folks can't, doesn't mean they're crazy. A bling man don't call us crazy for seeing.

You will be remembered more for your bangs in life, than the bling.

It's a song, I realize, after a second, as it continues blaring. Hotline Bling.

But, even without kings, a confederation of merchants have always self-assembled. These Gogs have always peacocked, dressed up for special occasions, put on a bit of bling to elicit envy, all within the warm bubble of wealth—albeit outside of Abrahamic-thinking. (Re 21:15) Michael Ben Zehabe, Ruth: a woman’s guide to husband material, pg 5

I do wish you girls would reconsider my previous offer. You would be my queens...I could dress you in diamonds from head to toe. The Mole Man has so much bling and no one to share it with.' Please...don't say bling...ever again.

I'm not into caps with lots of diamonds on them, like KP.

Another time somebody gave a talk about poetry. He talked about the structure of the poem and the emotions that come with it; he divided everything up into certain kinds of classes. In the discussion that came afterwards, he said, “Isn’t that the same as in mathematics, Dr. Eisenhart?” Dr. Eisenhart was the dean of the graduate school and a great professor of mathematics. He was also very clever. He said, “I’d like to know what Dick Feynman thinks about it in reference to theoretical physics.” He was always putting me on in this kind of situation. I got up and said, “Yes, it’s very closely related. In theoretical physics, the analog of the word is the mathematical formula, the analog of the structure of the poem is the interrelationship of the theoretical bling-bling with the so-andso”–and I went through the whole thing, making a perfect analogy. The speaker’s eyes were _beaming_ with happiness. Then I said, “It seems to me that no matter _what_ you say about poetry, I could find a way of making up an analog with _any_ subject, just as I did for theoretical physics. I don’t consider such analogs meaningful.

In a way it was like a bunch of guys in a game. They were falling behind every minute that passed, but they had lost interest in the score. It was as if they were just a ton behind and had given up on the win. And maybe deep inside they didn't want to peep the score, maybe they knew what was happening but just didn't want to think about it anymore. I could understand that. I had played enough ball in my life, and was deep enough into my game to know I had to be in the hunt for a win or I could lose who I was. And once I lost who I was, my inner me, then all the CDs and all the iPods and all the bling in the world wasn't going to make it right. The strange thing was that everybody was feeling the same thing, that there was a huge game going on, and that the game was going to decide who was a winner and who lost. But so many of the brothers on the corner didn't have a play...I could feel for them because they were just like me in most ways, thinking that everybody should have a number, everybody should have the same playing time, and knowing it wasn't going to happen.

For good or for bad, we define ourselves in many ways by the gadgets we use and the clothes we wear. We don't want to surround ourselves with cheap products. Nobody really aspires to that. We also don't want to pay for a diamond-encrusted ereader. We don't need bling; we just need to feel like the design speaks to us.

Life’s just a movie. And some of us are in good ones and some in bad. Well, I think mine is the best there is. And this is how my movie ends.

You need to wear this." Amelia holds up a chunky silver necklace studded with gemstones. I can't help scrunching up my face. It's one fugly piece of bling.

loves her bling,

But in reality, with Mr. Ellison there is an essence of probity about him; unlike Dorian Grey, him and his hidden portrait are both wonderful. When he speaks there is a certain intonation he gets that reveals so much about him, that you can't help but to feel rapt, and so few get to hear his unspoken thought because they are fixated on the bling and the big show.

New Rule: Let the Pope be Pope. An animal-rights group in Italy has asked Pope Benedict to give up his fur-trimmed cape and hat. To which the Pope replied, "Don't be hatin' on my cape, bitch." Sorry, but Popes are the original divas, they invented bling, they've been wearing outlandish outfits for a thousand years--almost as long as Elton John. The clothes, the jewels, the fancy palace...Those aren't just symbols of the Papacy, they are the Papacy. The day the Pope shows up on the balcony in a pair of jeans and polo shirt is the day a billion Catholics go, "What the hell were we thinking?

People say - popular culture advocates - government demands that we sell our souls, for nothing but the cheapest of baubles and bling, if even that. If you do sell, the result is a gray, cheerless, and dreary existence.

This is why we can’t have nice things: bears chase the bulls while China shops. Ah, unbearable lightness of bling! Everyone waits for one-eyed kings. The sharpest corners wait for shins. This is why we can’t have nice things.

The pen moves; the ideas form, as if by spirit hand. Something shines out, a truth so self-evident that the words dictate themselves. We’re cashing in a billion years of planetary savings bonds and blowing it on assorted bling. And what Douglas Pavlicek wants to know is why this is so easy to see when you’re by yourself in a cabin on a hillside, and almost impossible to believe once you step out of the house and join several billion folks doubling down on the status quo.

Let’s act, read, protest, protect, picket, learn, advocate for, fight against, but let’s be careful that in the midst of all that accomplishing and organizing, we don’t bulldoze over a world that’s teeming with beauty and hope and redemption all around us and in the meantime. Before the wars are over, before the cures are found, before the wrongs are righted, Today, humble Today, presents itself to us with all the ceremony and bling of a glittering diamond ring: Wear me, it says. Wear me out. Love me, dive into me, discover me, it pleads with us.

Everyone lives in a proverbial music video for a few hours. Then they leave the blinged out universe of faux-independence and fleeting adulthood and return to their parents’ homes. Their parents’ homes replete with marble floors and gold chandeliers and expectations of virginal daughters.

Once upon a time, the American girl was a shining symbol of something fresh, spirited, and fully self-confident. Mark Twain said, “The average American girl possesses the valuable qualities of naturalness, honesty, and inoffensive straightforwardness; she is nearly barren of troublesome conventions and artificialities.

A door behind the desk opened, and a short, wiry man entered. His short-sleeved dress shirt was shiny and unbuttoned down to the navel, revealing a host of gold chains and, uh, bling. His arms were knotted, ropy muscle. Have you ever seen someone who gave you the chills just by entering a room? This guy had that. Even the big bouncer, who had to be a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than the short guy, took half a step back. A hush fell over us. The short, wiry man had the narrow face of a ferret and what I can only describe as psycho eyes. I know that you are not supposed to judge people by their looks, but a blind man would be able to see that this guy was serious bad news. “Hello

If you had to watch your life over and over again forever, it would be hell if your life were shit. I absolutely get it. If we don’t live lives we can be proud of, we’re fucked

I’m not in your movie. You’re in mine.

Tomorrow I will try to enjoy looking at flowers all day. I will rub away my worries with an alcohol-soaked cottonball. Because my dreams have been so trou­bling, I want to dream a dream filled with blossoming flowers, a dream of gravure of primary hues, like a colorful picture book. I would like to compose a refreshing poem, in a 7-point font, for each illustration of my dreams.

The bare tree branches on the maples outside her office window seemed to count to her as they swayed. One, two, three hundred and sixty five days, she thought. Something was waiting on the edges of her life. She opened her desk drawer hesitantly. John’s face gradually appeared in a photo she had brought in that day. BLING Allison shut the drawer with a slam and looked up at her screen. A chat box window had popped up.

A door behind the desk opened, and a short, wiry man entered. His short-sleeved dress shirt was shiny and unbuttoned down to the navel, revealing a host of gold chains and, uh, bling. His arms were knotted, ropy muscle. Have you ever seen someone who gave you the chills just by entering a room? This guy had that. Even the big bouncer, who had to be a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than the short guy, took half a step back. A hush fell over us. The

He didn’t stop when they got there, though. Just slowed down, in his drag-ass, baby-smelling, style-free Subaru wagon, long enough to check out a banner announcing, in baseball-jersey script, the imminent opening for business, between the United Federation of Donuts and the King of Bling, of a trading card store called Mr. Nostalgia’s Neighborhood. Beyond the fourth grade or so, Archy had never taken much interest in baseball cards, but he could feel the underlying vibe of that particular madness. Although he knew he would never be able to set foot in that building again without breaking his heart, he understood that the new operation held promise, and in principle, at least, he approved. The merchandise was not the thing, and neither, for that matter, was the nostalgia. It was all about the neighborhood, that space where common sorrow could be drowned in common passion as the talk grew ever more scholarly and wild.

Madness was all very well if you were Alma and in a profession where insanity was a desirable accessory, a kind of psycho-bling. You couldn’t get away with it down Martin’s Yard, though. In the reconditioning business there was no real concept of delightful eccentricity. You’d find yourself as the recipient of a pharmaceutical lobotomy provided on the National Health, as a result of which your waistband would expand as your abilities to think, talk and respond to stimuli contracted. This

Tiffany launches “Hum-Bling” jewellery range in time for the Oscars “Winning an Oscar is a humbling experience – everyone says so,” explained a Tiffany spokesperson at the launch of the new designs. “So what better to wear during your humbling triumph than a piece of triumphant Hum-Bling? It’s a more brazen bejewelled look than you’d perhaps associate with Tiffany, but that’s because it’s proclaiming its humility in a voice so commanding that no one will dare contradict it. Sometimes you need a megaphone to make people hear the quietness inside.

So why was Kim Kardashian famous? Because she was very good at marketing herself, that was all - and today, that was enough. Corporations are now people and people are now products, known as "brands". At a time when the 1 percent was getting richer, the 99 percent was suddenly trying to Keep up with the Kardashians.

Americans abroad have long been accused of such blinging arrogance and display. I find the charge generally unfair. Arrogance is incorrectly ascribed to what is really the cultural clumsiness of an insular (if continental) people less exposed to foreign ways and languages than most other people on Earth. True, America as a nation is not very good at humility. But it would be completely unnatural for the dominant military, cultural and technological power on the plant to adopt the demeanor or, say, Liechtenstein. The ensuing criticism is particularly grating when it comes from the likes of the French, British, Spanish, Dutch (there are many others) who just yesterday claimed dominion over every land and people their Captain Cooks ever stumbled upon.

Time did exist here, in small amounts (well some of the time) – and there were feint eddies and currents of time here, things that were barely tangible. Feint forces of the universe they were, nearly indiscernible from the nothingness like a warm breeze on a hot summer night. How long he had been here, he knew not – but he was slowly learning to master these barely tangible waves like a new surfer with one foot on the sandy beach and the other on a shiny new board of Hatred. Revenge splashed around his feet like the cold waves of the ocean of Time. Nearby, two other inmates collided with each other, bounced apart spread-eagled and spiraled off into the distance in infinite slowness. The Wetsuit of Insanity clung to his spiritual body, isolating him from the timelessness that seemed to exist here. A wind of Change blew at him from behind and he pushed off from the beach with iron determination and a mental clarity hereto before unknown to him. Something in the microcosm that didn’t even have a name went ‘bling’ and against all the laws of probability, Brad Xyl opened his eyes.

If most of us want good closing images, we have to change society. If we must watch our life over and over again forever on the day we die then we need our own revolution, starting from within. Or we’ll be in hell. Hell is yourself. Or rather hell is watching your shit life being replayed for eternity. Everyone should place the movie of their life on an LCD screen built into the headstone of their grave, and set on an infinite loop. Then anyone who stops by the grave to look at your movie will soon know whether you’ve gone to heaven or hell.

We live in the society of the capitalist spectacle, mate, the more spectacular the better. Build it and they will come, as that old baseball movie says. We worship the event, the occasion, the unmissable show. We want Super Sunday, the Thriller in Manila, the showdown of the century…the things that bring the highest profits for the capitalist organisers. If you’re not at the event, you’re nobody. Life has passed you by. That’s the tyranny of the spectacle. Yet, if you think about it, the spectacle is the biggest joke of all – because all the people at the event are desperate not to be losers. Who wants to be in a collection of people fleeing from fear of failure? Losers and the spectacle go together, the winners performing and the losers watching. The spectacle is how losers numb the pain, how they crave to be part of something, on the winning side for once. The LLN have decided to harness the society of the spectacle too, but not the capitalist version where small groups perform to large groups and get paid a fortune. Instead, the LLN offer the spectacle of life. And Revolution is the greatest spectacle of all.

I had to drive through a very poor and largely Hispanic section of Miami to get to the apartment complex where Casey Martin had died. There were a lot of beautiful women on the sidewalks and at the outdoor cafés, a lot of tough guys and a lot of guys who weren’t tough but trying to look like they were. The streets were alive with what criminally passed for music nowadays, and there were smells of cooking in the air that suggested savory tastes. Small, hole-in-the-wall shops marked one end, and some more upscale stores the other. The dividing line between the two was discernible not just by the stores, but the women. The women and even younger girls at the lower income end seemed softer, friendlier, quicker with a genuine smile. The ones walking into the trendy places were just as pretty, more expensively dressed, but more apt to express scorn than produce a spontaneous smile. The upscale women appeared to be from a different planet. For them, everything was sexist, everything a slight. They were eternal victims, even though the entire world was in their favor. The women at the poor end fell in love, watched out for their men, while the more affluent were stand-offish and demanding, making certain any man “lucky” enough to be with them lived in the right zip code, had the right amount of bling to give them, and above all, had been properly neutered. The balls of their boyfriends and husbands — sometimes they had both — were always in their handbag, somewhere between the trendy lip liner and eye shadow. A kiss from one of the poor girls was a sweet gift, filled with passion and tenderness, even if it could only last a night. A kiss from an uptown girl meant you’d checked off all her right boxes, and she needed to fulfill her duty. Girls without money were from Venus, girls with money were from Mars.

There were two faces pressed cheek to cheek and looking at the camera: an overly tanned older man, grimacing and shiny, and the trophy wife. They were holding up champagne flutes in hands loaded down with bling. #ilovemyshipwreckedparents. “Hashtag asskiss,” said Rafe. “Parents? She’s not even his mother!” said Sukey. “Unless she had him when she was three,” said Jen. I quit the app.

Shawl of esophagus, eyeball earrings, not to be monotonous, with fingernail blings. "You're not getting out of here. You're not getting out." It sings.

He is concerned about his son, but he said, look, my name is Nicholas Frank Prugo and that’s my son’s name too.

Girls and boys who describe themselves as lonely are more likely to endorse the statement: “My favorite celebrity just helps me feel good and forget about all of my troubles.

After all, infamy wasn’t what it used to be. Now it was just another kind of fame.

For him even now I would die.

The American Revolution probably never would have come off without the energy and fight inherent in a population that, in 1776, was roughly 50 percent under the age of 16.

But that was just it—it was about joining the establishment, not fighting it.

In 1998, I did a story for New York my editor headlined “Make Moves, Blow Up, Get Paid,

Leopold and Loeb were the first bad rich kids of the American narrative. They were also bad rich kids who wanted to be famous.

You're making up for the both of us in the colour department. Your bling is so bright I wish I had carried my sunglasses with me. You're blinding me with all that sparkle." He pressed his lips together to prevent his smile from slipping. "It's called dressing up," she shot back. "You should try it sometime.

Today has its own bling to spark you brighter.

any other day a visit to Belmont’s villa would appeal to his curious nature, but the timing’s wrong. Nile is bristling with frustration while he waits for the metal door to click open, admitting him to the rock star’s empire. He expected a huge mansion, covered in bling, with an Olympic-sized pool, but Belmont’s home is a miracle of clean lines and polished

...I tried to give a little bling to my writing, like you asked us to do. Maybe something will come to me in another entry, but, for now, I guess I do not have any glitter in my word-crafting drawer.

I don’t know if there’s some airport video,” he said, “but she was, like, rolling Lindsay’s suitcase, wearing Lindsay Lohan’s purse and Lindsay Lohan’s clothes—she was just, like, fully Lindsay Lohan.

Two days later after Rachel left, on August 26, the LAPD, with Lohan’s permission, released the surveillance footage of her home to TMZ. Now there were two videos circulating, Lohan’s and Patridge’s, making it all but plain to see that they had captured images of the same people, and that there was a connection between the Hollywood Hills burglaries.

And it might have blown over, if Nick had not confessed. The police, at this point, did have very little evidence. They had no stolen property. They had some fingerprints they couldn’t place. The Patridge video was grainy enough that some good defense lawyer conceivably could have argued it away. If Nick hadn’t confessed to committing multiple crimes with his friends, it’s possible that nothing much would have ever happened to any of them. Why he did confess is one of the most puzzling aspects of this story.

Many things were returned, but all of the celebrities said in Grand Jury testimony that they only got back a fraction of what was stolen. Many said they were still finding things missing.

Women go out with men for years until they really figure out who a man is.

I’ve gone to visit her several times now and I can really see the growth and the change and the lightbulb really starting to turn on. And it’s really an incredible thing to watch. To see someone really getting to know who they are is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Theme Song: Your Man – Down With Webster Bling Bling – ALTÉGO Let It All Go – Birdy & RHODES I Think You’re the Devil – Ellee Duke Legendary – Welshly Arms Wonderland – Taylor Swift Skin – Rihanna MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT – Elley Duhé Blue – Madison Beer Devil I Know – Allie X MONEY ON THE DASH – Elley Duhé & Whethan Way Down We Go – KALEO How Do I Say Goodbye – Dean Lewis Do Me – Kim Petras Crying On The Dancefloor – Sam Feldt, Jonas Blue, Endless Summer & Violet Days Wicked – GRANT Love and War – Fleurie Silence – Marshmello (feat. Khalid) Fire on Fire – Sam Smith

VO: The UN High Court in the Hague has agreed to hear the case of Svetlana Stringer, a woman who claims the netshow Lifejack! had no right to select her for surveillance and create a documentary about her love life and family problems without her permission. Her attorneys argue that unless the High Court makes a stand, continual blurring of the lines of privacy by the media will mean that soon no one will have a right to any private life at all. Attorneys for the American network that makes Lifejack! insist that a waiver Ms. Stringer signed several years ago to allow herself to be filmed for another program— a documentary on music education made when she was a teenager—means she has given up her right to resist surveillance. (visual: Bling Saberstrop, attorney for ICN) SABERSTROP: “UN guidelines on privacy are just that—guidelines, not laws. We consider this to be a case where the plaintiff wants to have her cake and eat it, too—privacy only when she wants it.

thought that watch was fucking hideous, man. Tasteless, tacky, boujee bling. It just went well with my portfolio of ugly objects. Course I said it looked cool, why would I tell him the truth?

They could have come around to the back parking lot like everyone else, but instead they came in the front, where the cameras were.

The King's Perspective There's a story of a king And this story is very true Some say it's just a rumor Some say it's just a ruse They called the man King Flip But that wasn't really his name His name was Filipileetos But that's too hard to say King FLip had a penchant For really expensive things He liked anything shiny And anything with bling He had the nicest castle Out of all the lands But that didn't stop him From wanting one even more grand So he bought a town called perspective And made the people build him a castle At the top of their highest mountain He didn't care if it was a hassle When the work was finally done He decided to go inspect it But when he arrived in the town of Perspective It was exactly as he'd left it He couldn't find a castle It wasn't on the mountain It wasn't on the breach It wasn't on the mainland He immediately grew angry And sought his just revenge On all those who had fooled him On the town, his army did descend When the people were all dead A red cardinal then appeared "King Flip, what have you done? You killed good people, I do fear." King Flip tried to explain That the town deserved to die For his castle was never build Or he would see it with his own eyes The bird said, "But King, you merely assumed. You didn't even try Look from a different perspective, Don't just look from your own two eyes." The bird then led him over to where The castle should surely be He then moved aside a boulder And King Flip feel to his knees For inside the mountain was the castle The most magnificent one ever build King Flip couldn't believe his eyes He quickly became wracked with guilt He had killed so many people. People he should have protected Simply because he couldn't see the castle from their perspective "Hide their bodies!" King Flip yelled "Hide every last one! Put them inside the mountain And then close those doors for good!" The kings army hid the bodies And King Flip fled the land HE went back to his old castle And never spoke of Perspective again Some say this story isn't true Some say it never existed But look at any map and you'll see There is no longer a town called Perspective.

I try to sell myself but I am really laughing, because I just love the music, not the bling

... quand tu gravis la montagne que tout le monde vise et que tu atteins le sommet, quand ton rêve est à portée de main, et bien tu t'aperçois que c'est un leurre, un piège. On nous fait croire que le bonheur est forcément ailleurs, toujours plus haut, toujours plus bling, toujours plus loin, mais quand tu suis le parcours tracé sur la carte, et que tu arrives au bout de la course, là tu t'interroges: "Eh, au fait, qui a dessiné ce plan? Qui dessine nos rêves?

In my peripheral vision I saw someone sit next to me at the table. I turned and saw a man with a stubble-covered shaved head. There were scars on the top of his skull. His skin was olive dark, and when he smiled I saw a gold tooth that matched the gold chain dangling from his neck, urban bling-bling style. Handsome probably, in a dangerous, bad-boy way. He wore a wifebeater white T under an unbuttoned gray short-sleeve shirt. His sweatpants were black. “Look under the table,” he said to me. “Are you going to show me your wee-wee?” “Look—or die.” His accent was not French—something smoother and more refined. Nearly British or maybe Spanish, almost aristocratic. I tilted my chair back and looked. He was holding a gun on me. I left my hands on the lip of the table and tried to keep my breath steady. My eyes lifted and met his. I checked the surroundings. There was a man with sunglasses standing on the corner for absolutely no reason, trying very hard to pretend that he wasn’t watching us. “Listen to me or I will shoot you dead.” “As opposed to alive?” “What?” “Shoot someone dead versus shoot someone alive,” I said. Then: “Never mind.” “Do you see the green vehicle on the corner?” I did—not far from the sunglassed man who was trying not to look at us. It looked like a minivan or something. Two men sat in the front. I memorized the license plate and began to plan my next move. “I see it.” “If you don’t want to be shot, follow my instructions exactly. We are going to get up slowly, and you are going to get in the back of the vehicle. You will not make a fuss—” And that was when I smashed the table into his face. The

a country with a well-educated middle class and a statuesque, catwalk-ready Facebook generation that embraces African and American fashions to create an elegant and athletic style of bling and beauty.

I happily trailed behind her as she excitedly guided me from stall to stall ... I wasn't even interested in the bling on her rear pockets anymore. I was interested in her, not bedding her, but her. Her expression was pure glee. Innocent. I was already in love with her because of the way she loved her horses. She was as at home with them as I was.

Winners do the little things that count These are simple things winners do to keep growing and bettering themselves. You don’t have to spend three hours a day studying. Just take advantage of the time you’re not using right now. Podcasts are another great tool. You can download messages and listen to them whenever you want. This year we will give away 100 million copies of my messages at no charge. You can sign up for them on iTunes and listen as often as you want. That’s a growth plan. If you want to keep growing you need to have good mentors, people who have been where you want to go, people who know more than you. Let them speak into your life. Listen to their ideas. Learn from their mistakes. Study how they think and how they got to where they are. I heard about a company that held a sales class for several hundred employees. The speaker asked if anyone knew the names of the top three salespeople. Every person raised a hand. He then asked how many of them had gone to lunch with these top salespeople and taken time to find out how they do what they do? Not one hand went up. There are people all around us whom God put in our paths on purpose so we can gain wisdom, insight, and experience, but we have to be open to learning from them. Look around and find the winners you could learn from. I say this respectfully: Don’t waste your valuable time with people who aren’t contributing to your growth. Life is too short to hang around people who are not going anywhere. Destination disease is contagious. If you’re with them long enough, their lack of ambition and energy will rub off on you. Winners need to associate with inspiring people who build you up, people who challenge you to go higher, not anyone who pulls you down and convinces you to settle where you are. Your destiny is too important for that. Young people often get caught up in trying to be popular instead of trying to be their best. I’ve found that in twenty years nobody will care whether you were popular in high school. Those who need attention and act up or wear a lot of bling and don’t study because it isn’t cool will find things change after high school.

One of the greatest decorum scenes in movie history graces the climax of 8 Mile, Eminem’s semiautobiography. He gets talked into a competition at a dance club in downtown Detroit where hip-hop artists (orators, if you will) take turns insulting each other. The audience chooses the winner by applause. Eventually, the contest comes down to two people: Eminem and a sullen-looking black guy. (Well, not as sullen as Eminem. Nobody can be that sullen.) Eminem wears proper attire: stupid skullcap, clothes a few sizes too big, and as much bling as he can afford. If he showed up dressed like Cary Grant, he would look terrific—to you and me. But the dance club crowd would find him wildly indecorous. Clothing is the least of his decorum problems, though. He happens to be white, and everyone else in the room is black. Eminem nonetheless manages to devastate his adversary by revealing a nasty little secret: this putative gangbanger attended a prep school! All the poor guy’s hip-hop manners are pointless, because the audience finds them phony.

To put it in the purest form, it is what you do that makes you shine and will last. It is not about the flashy possessions you chase after that gives you “bling” (as this generation says).

The Mob loved Sinatra not just because he was Italian-American, but because he had crossed over into a nether world in which they could never belong. And he got there because he could do something few people in the world could do as well, and no one in the same way: he could sing.

the real stars—the ones who made it all the way up to that peak where they’ve been granted by adoring fans an almost godlike status—have always been special in some way, blessed with dazzling gifts and/or beauty, both talented and given to hard work.

He further said Neiers “seemed to be a good girl” and had achieved the “highest level in Pilates you can earn.” (When I later contacted the Pilates Method Alliance, the governing body of Pilates in the United States, they said no such ranking exists.)

I’m an indigo child,” Alexis said in her squeaky baby voice, after she’d settled into a chair. “Which means I have a special energy, a spiritual energy.

She later told me that she’d been ordained through an online course, “the Ernest Holmes7 Religious Science Ministerial Program, whose teachings include ancient wisdom principles from spiritual teachings since the beginning of time.

The national hysteria over hippies and punks alike fell right in line with Puritan minister Ezekiel Rogers’ admonition of 1657: “I find great Trouble and Grief about the Rising Generation. Young People are stirred here [in the colonies]; but they strengthen one another in Evil, by Example, by Counsel.

I’m Captain Florida, the state history pimp Gatherin’ more data than a DEA blimp West Palm, Tampa Bay, Miami-Dade Cruisin’ the coasts till Johnny Vegas gets laid Developer ho’s, and the politician bitches Smackin’ ’em down, while I’m takin’ lots of pictures Hurricanes, sinkholes, natural disaster ’Scuse me while I kick back, with my View-Master (S:) I’m Captain Florida, obscure facts are all legit (C:) I’m Coleman, the sidekick, with a big bong hit (S:) I’m Captain Florida, staying literate (C:) Coleman sees a book and says, “Fuck that shit” Ain’t never been caught, slippin’ nooses down the Keys Got more buoyancy than Elián González Knockin’ off the parasites, and takin’ all their moola Recruiting my apostles for the Church of Don Shula I’m an old-school gangster with a psycho ex-wife Molly Packin’ Glocks, a shotgun and my 7-Eleven coffee Trippin’ the theme parks, the malls, the time-shares Bustin’ my rhymes through all the red-tide scares (S:) I’m the surge in the storms, don’t believe the hype (C:) I’m his stoned number two, where’d I put my hash pipe? (S:) Florida, no appointments and a tank of gas (C:) Tequila, no employment and a bag of grass Think you’ve seen it all? I beg to differ Mosquitoes like bats and a peg-leg stripper The scammers, the schemers, the real estate liars Birthday-party clowns in a meth-lab fire But dig us, don’t diss us, pay a visit, don’t be late And statistics always lie, so ignore the murder rate Beaches, palm trees and golfing is our curse Our residents won’t bite, but a few will shoot first Everglades, orange groves, alligators, Buffett Scarface, Hemingway, an Andrew Jackson to suck it Solarcaine, Rogaine, eight balls of cocaine See the hall of fame for the criminally insane Artifacts, folklore, roadside attractions Crackers, Haitians, Cuban-exile factions The early-bird specials, drivin’ like molasses Condo-meeting fistfights in cataract glasses (S:) I’m the native tourist, with the rants that can’t be beat (C:) Serge, I think I put my shoes on the wrong feet (S:) A stack of old postcards in another dingy room (C:) A cold Bud forty and a magic mushroom Can’t stop, turnpike, keep ridin’ like the wind Gotta make a detour for a souvenir pin But if you like to litter, you’re just liable to get hurt Do ya like the MAC-10 under my tropical shirt? I just keep meeting jerks, I’m a human land-filler But it’s totally unfair, this term “serial killer” The police never rest, always breakin’ in my pad But sunshine is my bling, and I’m hangin’ like a chad (S:) Serge has got to roll and drop the mike on this rap . . . (C:) Coleman’s climbin’ in the tub, to take a little nap . . . (S:) . . . Disappearin’ in the swamp—and goin’ tangent, tangent, tangent . . . (C:) He’s goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (Fade-out) (S:) I’m goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (C:) Fuck goin’ platinum, he’s goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (S:) . . . Wikipedia all up and down your ass . . . (C:) Wikity-Wikity-Wikity . . .

And then something different happened. In the 1980s and ‘90s, more so than at any other time in American history, youth culture wasn’t challenging the status quo. Young people didn’t want to change the system – they wanted to game the system. They wanted money. The pursuit of the almighty dollar had always been the purview of soulless grown-ups and parents, but now kids – certainly not all kids, but youth culture overall – were promoting the idea that “getting paid” was cool. […] The goal was success that came from the ruthless pursuit of money for its own sake – in fact, often the more ruthless the pursuit, the cooler it was thought to be.

If you can’t do the things that make you the best person you can be, you shouldn’t do anything at all.

If we don’t live lives we can be proud of, we’re fucked.

BIG FEET, BIGGER HEART If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need. Deuteronomy 15:7–8 Former NBA star Dikembe Mutombo is seven feet two and has size 22 feet. “I’ve no control over that. The Almighty has plans for us to make a place so we can go on and make a difference,” he said. “It all has to do with my faith; I am deeply religious. It goes back to my roots, to my mom and my dad.” Some estimate that he earned more than $100 million while playing with the Denver Nuggets and the Philadelphia 76ers. He didn’t blow the dough on fast cars and bling. Instead, he put the money in the bank and decided to give back. (He must know that the fastest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your wallet.) He created the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation and built a hospital and research center in the Congo, named after his mom, Biamba. In 1999, his mother had a stroke, just a couple of hours after talking to her son on the phone. Because she couldn’t get to a hospital, she died in her living room. He couldn’t even attend her funeral because of that nation’s civil war. Mutombo donated millions of his own money to create the hospital in honor of his mother and her faith. “I come from a large family, but I was not raised with a fortune,” he said. “Something more was left me, and that was family values.” SWEET FREEDOM IN Action Today, don’t listen to liberals when they mock “family values” like they’re some relic of an ancient past. Rather, pass them on to your kids and watch what God does to change the world.

Oi! Bad girl. Maybe I should have led with the fancy collar first.” From his other back pocket, he brought forth a pink nylon collar with rhinestones stitched all around. Ooh. Pretty, shiny. Resist the bling. She looked away, and he laughed.

The surest way for a man to exhibit his social status—the finest bourgeois bling—is to find the most highly paid woman you can, working in the most high-profile job, and shut her down.

They say love is blind, I say love alone is sight.

We’re all extras in others’ movies. Why not be the stars?

Are you a revolutionary? Don’t sit on the fence. Be a man of action, someone who makes a difference.

We live in the Movie Age. We should make a list of the movies we’ve loved and hated, the ones that bored us, inspired us, made us laugh or cry, sick or elated. Then we need to compare those movies with our own life. Would anyone else want to watch the movie of our life? Would we want to watch it ourselves? Maybe we’d be the only person in the cinema even though admission was free. Maybe even we would walk out. And if it was that bad, shouldn’t we be doing something about it? When Hollywood movies really stink, the directors want their names removed from the credits. “Alan Smithee” is the name that gets used instead. How many of us are in Alan Smithee movies? If we could avoid using our real name, we would.

Would we want the headstone over our grave to say, “No point in watching the movie of this person’s life. It was a bore, reality TV at its worst. This person didn’t do anything interesting with his life, and had no good adventures. He did everything conventionally, just going through the same routines as everyone else. He had a couple of girlfriends, got married to one, had children, bought a house, held down a dreary job, paid off his mortgage, retired…died. Millions of others did exactly the same, a story not worth telling, a life not worth living, a movie not worth seeing