Brock Quotes

It always is harder to be left behind than to be the one to go...

The judge had given Brock something that would never be extended to me: empathy. My pain was never more valuable than his potential.

I did not come into existence when he harmed me. She found her voice! I had a voice, he stripped it, left me groping around blind for a bit, but I always had it. I just used it like I never had to use it before. I do not owe him my success, becoming, he did not create me. The only credit Brock can take is for assaulting me, and he could never even admit to that.

Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good.

You wanna tell me, sweetness, how dessert for seventeen people translates into seven pies and two cakes?” Brock asked.

No, it was because Hawk, Brock and Mitch stormed that house at Tack’s side. This meant, to Tack, they were different kinds of brothers. Not of blood. Not of the cut. But that bond was unshakable all the same.

What we needed to raise in others was this instinct. The ability to recognize, in an instant, right from wrong. The clarity of mind to face it rather than ignore it. I learned that before they had chased Brock, they had checked on me. Masculinity is often defined by physicality, but that initial kneeling is as powerful as the leg sweep, the tackling. Masculinity is found in the vulnerability, the crying.

Someone remind me why I didn’t want to be an accountant when I grew up,” Brock drawled. Niko chuckled. “Because accountants don’t get to make things go boom.

I encourage you to sit in that garden, but when you do, close your eyes and I'll tell you about the real garden, the sacred place. Ninety feet away from where you sit there is a spot, where Brock's knees hit the dirt, where the Swedes tackled him to the ground, yelling 'What the fuck are you doing? Do you think this is okay?'. Put their words on a plaque. Mark that spot, because in my mind I've erected a monument. The place to be remembered is not where I was assaulted, but where he fell, where I was saved, where two men declared stop, no more, not here, not now, not ever.

Babe, you think I found the women of my dreams at 45 years old and I'm gonna let anything happen to her, think again. That's a long fuckin' time to wait for what you want. I waited. I found it. I'm pullin' out all the stops to take care of it.

A book is really like a lover. It arranges itself in your life in a way that is beautiful. Even as a kid, my sister, who was the eldest, brought books home for me, and I think I spent more time sniffing and touching them than reading. I just remember the joy of the book, the beauty of the binding. The smelling of the interior. Happy." [Interview with Emma Brockes, The Believer, November/December, 2012]

To deny my messiness would be to deny my humanity. I don’t believe there is such a thing as an immaculate past or a perfect victim. Yet now I felt I was being upheld to an impossible standard of purity, worried that failing to meet it would justify Brock raping me. His attorney would simplify, generalize, and mislabel my history.

When my phone rang at the bakery, this usually meant someone wanted to order a birthday cake. When Brock’s rang at the Station, this usually meant someone had a cap busted in their ass. My job was WAY better.

There is a season for everything under the sun—even when we can’t see the sun.

You just wouldn’t be happy until I had to drag my ass up here to this godforsaken icebox that is. Gotta tell you I’m feelin’ some hate here my man. Or I would be if I could actually feel anything other than Arctic cold gnawing at my vitals.

Fear and love might leave a man complacent, but jealousy will always get him out of the van.

Jenna.” Brock stroked the underside of her chin very gently, lifting her face up toward his. “Would it be all right if I kissed you?

Rolling orange fire silhouetted him from behind, backlighting the warrior’s broad shoulders and casual, long-legged stride. As he strolled away from the inferno, the ends of his loose black coat winged out behind him like a cape befitting the prince of darkness himself. “Holy hell,” Brock murmured. “Tegan.

Brock 'Slim' Lucas looked at his oldest son, his eyes moved to his youngest son and then they slid to his wife. And when his eyes hit her shining ones he realized he had not one thing to wish for. Not one. There was nothing he wanted. He had it all right here.

Brock sighed. “Alright then, Spunky. I was thinking about life, I guess.” Spunky grunted. “In other words, you were thinking about a woman.” “I didn't say that—” “No.” Spunky grinned knowingly. “But your face did.

Sometimes, I like to pick the brightest star and wish upon it. Pop always said to wish on falling stars, but I've never seen any.” “Me, neither.” He paused and finally let himself look at her. “What do you wish for?” Her cheeks turned a soft pink and she smiled. “If I told you,” she whispered, “it wouldn't come true.

Inner stillness is the key to outer strength.

Oh no," I said, because if our life is just one endless song about hope and regret, then "oh no" is apparently that song's chorus, the words we always return to.

Bite off more than you can chew and then chew like hell.

If only my mother had a book to hold, she wouldn't have looked so lonely. And maybe this was another reason why people read: not so they would feel less lonely, but so that other people would think they looked less lonely with a book in their hands and therefore not pity them and leave them alone.

I don’t know what I want … other than more of this. More of you.” Brock lifted her beautiful face on the edge of his hand. “Take all you want.

Dear God, please help me to be the kind of person who my dogs think I am.

For a long moment, while Brock stood off observing them, Ned and Barley appraised one another as only Englishmen can who are of the same height and class and shape of head.

I hated when my dad gendered the stupid truck. To retaliate, I called my boobs Brock and Chad, which my dad hated with equal fervor.

I am a victim, I have no qualms with this word, only with the idea that it is all that I am. However, I am not Brock Turner's victim. I am not his anything. I don't belong to him.

I leaned over to whisper in Brock's ear. "I just want you to know I'm a big fan, even though you're kind of a prick and a cheat. So don't take it personally when you get KTFO'd tonight.

Great leaders pay it forward.

My eyes searched his. 'Did you... did you miss me this whole time?' I drew in a shallow breath. 'I missed you.' Brock's gaze held mine. 'Missed you every fucking day, Jillian, with every ounce of who I am.

Because we both knew that sometimes the lies you tell are less frightening than the loneliness you might feel if you stopped telling them.

I was thankful to have Lucas. But it bothered me that having a boyfriend and being assaulted should be related, as if I alone was not enough. At the hospital, it had never occurred to me that it was important I was dating someone. I had only been thinking of me in my body. It should have been enough to say, "I did not want a stranger touching my body." It felt strange to say, "I have a boyfriend, which is why I did not want Brock touching my body." What if you were assaulted and you didn't already belong to a male? Was having a boyfriend the only way to have your autonomy respected?

But maybe this is what happens when you hate someone for so long: the person you hate dies, but the hate stays with you, to keep you company.

Some people, when desperate, retreat to pills or hard liquor. I nap.

My wild man,” I whispered. “My snake charmer.” He closed his eyes and shoved his face in my neck, groaning, “Fuck, Tess.” I turned my head so my lips were at his ear and no lies, no masks, no bullshit, no games, I kept whispering when I told him, “I love you, Brock.

From 'Periodic Table of Elements': A girl ago, a girlhood gone like a phial of ether | Thrown on fire--just | A little jump of flame, like grief, or | Like a penicillin that has lost its skill at killing | Off, it then is gone.

Shepley shook his head. “No way. No fucking way, Trav. The guy’s a maniac!” “Yeah,” Travis smiled, “but he’s not fighting for his girl, is he?” Travis cradled me in his arms, kissing the top of my hair. “You okay, Pigeon?” “This is wrong. This is wrong on so many levels. I don’t know which one to talk you out of first.” “Did you not see me tonight? I’m going to be fine. I’ve seen Brock fight before. He’s tough, but not unbeatable.” “I don’t want you to do this, Trav.

There's nothing as quiet as that moment before one person is about to tell another something neither of them wants to hear.

There she was, the mother of me, like a lit plinth, Heavenly, though I was reared to find this kind Of visitation impractical; she was an unbearable detail Of the supreme celestial map, Of which I had been taught that there was No such thing.

The past comes back once and then it keeps coming back and coming back, not just one part of the past but all of it, the forgotten crowd of your life breaks out of the gallery and comes rushing at you, and there is no sense in hiding from the crowd, it will find you; it's your crowd, you're the only one it's looking for.

The next morning we experienced our very first “full English breakfast,” which consisted of tea, orange juice, cookies, oatmeal, granola, berries, bananas, croissants, grapes, pineapples, prunes, yogurt, five kinds of cold cereal, eggs, hash browns, back bacon, sausage, smoked salmon, tomatoes, mushrooms, beans, toast, butter, jam, jelly, and honey. I don’t know how the British do it.

All of this made me feel better about myself, and I was grateful to the books for teaching me-without my even having to read them- that there were people in the world more desperate, more self-absorbed, more boring than I was. - about memoirs

And then we cowards who loved the whispering evening, the houses, the paths by the river, the dirty red lights of those places, the sweet soundless sorrow— we reached our hands out toward the living chain in silence, but our heart startled us with blood, and no more sweetness then, no more losing ourselves on the path by the river— no longer slaves, we knew we were alone and alive. (Translated By Geoffrey Brock)

The peace within and flowing from sacred spaces and architecture places is clothed in forgiveness, renunciation, and reconciliation.

she had been playing a role all her life, and being good at it was no excuse for giving in to it.

It is important we leave the National Parks the same way when we arrived.

They [my eyes] immediately started to tear up, tears being your eyes' way of forbidding you to look away,of forcing you to look at the world you've made or unmade.

Apparently, you become yourself to someone when that someone finally learns your secrets.

Because this is one of the things I learned on my own: you need to say things simply, especially when they're complicated.

There was no other love that could compare with the love of woman for woman.

Shalom is the medicine I’d prescribe for Jerusalem—a deep, God-breathed indwelling of peace and prosperity and blessing. An end to the unrest and a sense of wholeness is what the Holy City needs. It’s what the Middle East needs. It’s what I need.

Brock Sumner lifted her from her feet, kissing her in the air, turning her in gentle circles. Then he sighed, too. Very quietly. Very satisfyingly. “Yes,” he whispered, “But not as much as I love you.” “Now that,” she said quietly, “is a matter worth arguing.

There is always someone smarter than you; you’d think we die from the constant pain of our mental inferiority, except that most of the time we’re too stupid to feel it.

I think, that love endures, but that it isn't everything, and it isn't ever what we want it to be...

Peace is not just a desired state of being for people, but also enables the flourishing of nature as well as human-created landscapes.

Benghazi was just one of at least 157 attacks on our diplomatic facilities over a 15-year period, 9 of which resulted in U.S. fatalities.

There was no doubt even for a child as young as I'd been, that she'd raised his ghost. I knew then, the only thing that really ever haunts a person is regret.

The battle belongs to the Lord, and we already know that He wins the war.

Work is easy when it’s full of meaning and shared with others.

After a dream like that, you're grateful that it was just a dream, that no matter how bad your actual life, it couldn't be worse than your dream life.

Courage, I now see, is a journey involving self-doubt and self-examination, with the end never in sight.

You can wait only so long for a blackened window to be illuminated.

Show me a guy who's afraid to look bad, and I'll show you a guy you can beat every time.

And I thought that maybe this was what it means to get old: to have someone much younger remind you of how you weren't the same person you used to be.

Juices of fruits and vegetables are pure gifts from Mother Nature and the most natural way to heal your body and make yourself whole again.

I didn't mean it' he said again. She tried to smile, but had to sniff instead. Her face was wet, and her nose was running. He thought she looked beautiful.

The weird in me found the weird in you. I was a lost kid until I met you, and the best part of my life, hands down, has been you being my friend.

There is something underwhelming about scholarly hate mail — the sad literary allusions, the refusal to use contractions – and so I didn't pay much attention to those letters at all.

...Maybe this was another reason why people read: not so that they would feel less lonely, but so that other people would think they looked less lonely with a book in their hands and therefore not pity them and leave them alone.

When he did that, I didn't hate him anymore, I really didn't, and maybe this is why people do so many hateful things to the people that who love them: because it's so easy to stop hating someone if you've already started loving them.

Because this is another thing your average American man in crisis does: he tries to go home, forgetting, momentarily, that he is the reason he left home in the first place, that the home is not his anymore, and that the crisis is him.

In January 2006, Phantom of The Opera broke the record for the longest-running show in Broadway history, overtaking Cats and reminding us what real entertainment is about: candles, dry ice, big hair, and the sort of synthesized chord progressions only achieved by a collapse at the keyboard.

He says, "I would walk around the township and I could point them out, which girls had been abused. You could see it in them. There's a luminosity to incest. The taboo is so strong and the damage so great. Luminosity--do you understand? It travels across oceans and down generations. They shine with it.

But then again, I was pretty certain I'd make more mistakes, so I didn't dwell on the one I'd just made too long. This is another thing I'll put in my arsonist's guide: if you make a mistake, don't dwell on it too long, because you'll make more of them.

Bottom half of the seventh, Brock's boy had made it through another inning unscratched, one! two! three! Twenty-one down and just six outs to go! and Henry's heart was racing, he was sweating with relief and tension all at once, unable to sit, unable to think, in there, with them! Oh yes, boys, it was on!

Can a story be good only if it produces an effect? If the effect is a bad one, but intended, has the story done its job? Is it then a good story? If the story produces an effect other than the intended one, is it then a bad story? Can a story be said to produce an effect at all? Can a story actually do anything at all?

In truth I was very pleased with myself and with my story and all that had happened in it. Because you can't help being impressed with your own story. Because if you're not impressed with your own story, then who will be?

You can never tell how you sound over the phone, that evil piece of machinery, and I would stop using one, we all would, if only there weren't these great distances we need to put between us and the people we need to talk to.

That was his phrase - "the high ramparts of my defensiveness"- and I remembered it in case I ever decide to build and then describe my own ramparts.

This helping-people business was an attractive idea, I'll admit, because up to now I'd not done much more than be, and when I wasn't just being, I'd caused some pain, too.

Prayer is meant to happen everywhere. After all, Daniel prayed in the lion’s den. Jonah prayed in a fish’s stomach. Elijah prayed in the desert. And Jesus prayed on the cross.

I definitely felt out of place at first, not unlike being lactose intolerant in Wisconsin.

The Kingdom of Heaven wants to rest in our hearts.

Without some constraints, there is no real freedom, only chaos, and chaos always leads to misery.

You could have saved her," he said, and I realized that he had started crying, crying being that thing you do when you haven't done enough and you're afraid it's too late to start.

Because this is one of the things I learned from Exley: anything can be a beginning as long as you call it one.

As it concerns Clinton coverage, the Times will have a special place in journalism hell.

I almost touch her on the arm as she touched me on the arm, to console her. But I fear that my touch won't tingle her arm as hers tingled mine, and how unbearably sad that would be.

Success is a combination of Effort, Talent and Hard Work .there’s got to be hard work and mental toughness. It’s not just one thing that gets you there, it’s an accumulation of things.

They looked at each other for a while their gazes steady, unblinking. It was the way people stare at each other not when they're in love but afterward, when they finally realize all the many horrible and beautiful things locked up within that love.

I bet it was also the triumphant Aha! and not the truth itself that had fueled all those famous literary detectives I knew not much about except their names - Philip Marlowe, Sherlock Holmes, Joe and Frank Hardy. I felt like yelling something celebratory on my way home, something like, Yeah! or Fuck, yeah! just like Marlowe would have yelled, just like the Hardys would have yelled, and maybe Holmes, too, although maybe that's why he kept Watson around; to tell Holmes to simmer down and not get too far ahead of himself.

... I also empathized, because she'd tried to do these things out of love, and because she had bumbled the attempt, and I suppose this - the ability to empathize with the people we hate - is exactly the quality that makes us human beings, which makes you wonder why anyone would want to be one.

When I was a boy, I would read those postcards and know exactly why my father was doing what he was doing: he was taking a stab at greatness, that is, if greatness is simply another word for doing something different from what you were already doing--or maybe greatness is the thing we want to have so that other people will want to have us, or maybe greatness is merely the grail for our unhappy, striving selves, the thing we think we need but don't and can't get anyway.

I encourage you to sit in that garden, but when you do, close your eyes, and I’ll tell you about the real garden, the sacred place. Ninety feet away from where you sit there is a spot, where Brock’s knees hit the dirt, where the Swedes tackled him to the ground, yelling, What the fuck are you doing? Do you think this is okay? Put their words on a plaque. Mark that spot, because in my mind I’ve erected a monument. The place to be remembered is not where I was assaulted, but where he fell, where I was saved, where two men declared stop, no more, not here, not now, not ever.

How did he get so terribly smart, so determined? Maybe it was the pain I'd caused that made him that way, and if that were true, then I'd sort of had a hand in it, in making him as smart and devious as he was. I was really starting to dislike the guy. But I also felt a little proud, like Dr. Frankenstein must have felt when his monster turned on him, because after all, it was Dr. Frankenstein who had made the monster strong and cunning enough to turn on him.

Regan?" "Where are you?" "You called." He was so relieved to hear her voice ti took him a few seconds to catch up with the question. "I'm in Tennessee." Where else would he be? "No, really? And here I thought you'd flown to the moon in the last week." She took a shuddering breath, some of the strength leaving her voice. "So, did you know you live in the woods? Like way out there. What the hell is wrong with you? Who chooses to live surrounded by rabid animals who are only too happy to eat your face off?" How the hell did she know... Brock slammed on his brakes and nearly fishtailed off the highway. Thank God no one else was on the road or he would have caused a wreck. "Where are you?" "I'd think that was obvious. I'm in your front yard, engaged in a staring contest with a squirrel." "Do not move." He jerked the wheel and flipped a bitch in the middle of the road. "I'm coming." "I'm not moving. I'm pretty sure this little beast will go for my throat the second I do. So... hurry.

For years, my mother must have hated Deirdre; for years she must have wished her dead. And now that Deirdre was dead, my mother looked no different than she had when she thought Deirdre was alive - not guilty, nor relieved, nor happy. How was this possible? How could my mother know Deirdre was dead and still look at the world as if it were the same world, at the fire as if it were the same fire? But maybe this is what happens when you hate someone for so long: the person you hate dies, but the hate stays with you, to keep you company