Boombox Quotes

In the words of a rap song my neighbor used to play on his boombox when I was a kid: Hold up, wait a minute.

Whatever happened to chivalry? Does it only exist in 80's movies? I want John Cusack holding a boombox outside my window. I wanna ride off on a lawnmower with Patrick Dempsey. I want Jake from Sixteen Candles waiting outside the church for me. I want Judd Nelson thrusting his fist into the air because he knows he got me. Just once I want my life to be like an 80's movie, preferably one with a really awesome musical number for no apparent reason. But no, no, John Hughes did not direct my life.

Whatever happened to chivalry? Does it only exist in 80's movies? I want John Cusack holding a boombox outside my window. I wanna ride off on a lawnmower with Patrick Dempsey. I want Jake from Sixteen Candles waiting outside the church for me. I want Judd Nelson thrusting his fist into the air because he knows he got me. Just once I want my life to be like an 80's movie, preferably one with a really awesome musical number for no apparent reason. But no, no, John Hughes did not direct my life.

Neither of us ever threw anything away. We made a lot of mix tapes while we were together. Tapes for making out, tapes for dancing, tapes for falling asleep. Tapes for doing the dishes, for walking the dog. I kept them all. I have them piled up on my bookshelves, spilling out of my kitchen cabinets, scattered all over the bedroom floor. I don’t even have pots or pans in my kitchen, just that old boom-box on the counter, next to the sink. So many tapes.

The world is getting noisier. We've gone from boomboxes to Walkmen to portable CD players to iPods to any song we want, whenever we want it. We've gone from the four television channels of my childhood to the seeming infinity of cable and streaming. As technology moves us faster and faster through time and space, it seems to feel like story is getting pushed out of the way, I mean, literally pushed out of the narrative. But even as our engagement with stories change, or the trappings around it morph from book to audio to Instagram to Snapchat, we must remember our finger beneath the words. Remember that story, regardless of the format, has always taken us to places we never thought we'd go, introduced us to people we never thought we'd meet and shown us worlds that we might have missed. So as technology keeps moving faster and faster, I am good with something slower. My finger beneath the words has led me to a life of writing books for people of all ages, books meant to be read slowly, to be savored.

Back when people listened to the radio, you kept a tape handy in your boombox at all times so you could capture the hot new hits of the week. The intro would always get cut off, and the DJ would chatter over the end. You also ended up with static, commercials, and jingles, but all that noise just added to the field-recording verisimilitude.

Caylan about Alexi: "Oh my God! Swoon! Heart turn to mush. This is the kind of moment where you hold your chest and fall over onto the bed...Like John Cusack holding up the boombox to to his love interest...this is my boombox!

The movie always ends with the ‘I love you.’ He's holding the boombox outside of her room, and they ride off into the sunset. You never hear they broke up a week later when she wanted an East Coast school and he wanted West Coast. The thing that makes love lasting and true is knowing another person. You feel for them, but do you know them, the good, the bad, and the ugly, in your heart of hearts. - Theo Jefferson from Smolder: A Strong Woman Firefighter Romance

He told me tight. Firm. Warm. He’s everything—late nights chasing fireflies, picking lilacs in blossom, boombox blaring, singing and dancing in the rain, and utter defeat and humiliation. He, frankly, is home. And I’m suddenly sick.