“
He doesn’t have to love your CD collection. He doesn’t have to love your shoes. But any good, mature guy better make an attempt to love your friends and family—especially when they’re great.
”
”
Greg Behrendt (He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys)
“
A CD. How quaint. We have these in museums.
”
”
Eoin Colfer (The Eternity Code (Artemis Fowl, #3))
“
Listen to you sounding all badass. I bet you're just listening to a CD called 'The Sounds of Crime' while you cruise for chicks outside the Old Navy in your Camaro.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1))
“
My love is a thousand French poets puking black blood on your Cure CD collection.
”
”
Henry Rollins (Eye Scream)
“
God,' he said, 'I have to have you.'
'Take me. Own me. Use me. Pick a verb. Just please.'
'Fuck you. I'm going to fuck you. That's my verb.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Resist (Songs of Submission, #6))
“
Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.
”
”
Brian Eno (A Year With Swollen Appendices)
“
Satan never wastes a fiery dart on an area covered in armor.
”
”
Beth Moore (Daniel Audio CD Set: Lives of Integrity, Words of Prophecy)
“
Tobey puts the CD on. Then he comes over and hugs me. I lean my head on his chest.
'I want to know everything about you,' he whispers.
”
”
Susane Colasanti (When It Happens)
“
We can't all come and go by Bubble!
”
”
Stephen Schwartz (Wicked: Easy Piano CD Play-Along Volume 26)
“
without any assistance or guidance from you
i have loved you assiduously for 8 months 2 wks & a day
i have been stood up four times
i've left 7 packages on yr doorstep
forty poems 2 plants & 3 handmade notecards i left
town so i cd send to you have been no help to me
on my job
you call at 3:00 in the mornin on weekdays
so i cd drive 27 1/2 miles cross the bay before i go to work
charmin charmin
but you are of no assistance
i want you to know
this waz an experiment
to see how selifsh i cd be
if i wd really carry on to snare a possible lover
if i waz capable of debasin my self for the love of another
if i cd stand not being wanted
when i wanted to be wanted
& i cannot
so
with no further assistance & no guidance from you
i am endin this affair
this note is attached to a plant
i've been waterin since the day i met you
you may water it
yr damn self
”
”
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
“
It seemed like the best weapons in my life had always been the most innocuous: empty plastic bins, a blank CD, an unmarked syringe, my smile in a dark room.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Forever (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #3))
“
I want to be your last. I want to ruin you for other men.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Submit (Songs of Submission, #3))
“
Was there anyone before you?
You might have thought so at the the time.
I feel like no one's ever loved me before.
I'm sure they did their best, but you always belonged to me.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Resist (Songs of Submission, #6))
“
Poetry is the language of intensity. Because we are going to die, an expression of intensity is justified.
”
”
C.D. Wright (Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil)
“
If you have never seen beauty in a moment of suffering, you have never seen beauty at all.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Tease (Songs of Submission, #2))
“
I have found that people who can successfully resist temptation invariably lead depressingly stunted lives.
”
”
C.D. Payne (Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp, Book One)
“
What if you die from loving me?”
“What if I die from not loving you?
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Spin (Songs of Corruption, #1))
“
I'm through accepting limits
''cause someone says they're so
Some things I cannot change
But till I try, I'll never know!
Too long I've been afraid of
Losing love I guess I've lost
Well, if that's love
It comes at much too high a cost!
”
”
Stephen Schwartz (Wicked: Easy Piano CD Play-Along Volume 26)
“
What we have isn’t something we made. It’s something that existed before we even met.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Burn (Songs of Submission, #5))
“
The truth is that I love you. The rest is unnecessary complication.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Resist (Songs of Submission, #6))
“
The minute I told you to spread your legs and you did it, you were mine. When I told you to beg for it and you did, you were mine. When you put your hands behind your back without being told, I owned you.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Submit (Songs of Submission, #3))
“
You know what my grandma used to say?”
“There’s no place like home?” I asked, trying again for a smile, this one less trembly than before.
“No,” he said, still looking serious, still holding on to his end of the CD.
“Tomorrow will be better.”
“But what if it’s not?” I asked.
Walcott smiled and let go of the CD. “Then you say it again tomorrow. Because it might be. You
never know, right? At some point, tomorrow will be better.
”
”
Morgan Matson (Amy & Roger's Epic Detour)
“
You are the sun I revolve around, the stars that mark me, the moon rising through me. I’m lost without you. If you won’t have me, I’ll break, I swear to God. I know it’s selfish, and I’m sorry. Let me serve you. Have me as yours. Let me live under you.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Sing (Songs of Submission, #7))
“
This is us together. I own it. This body is my plaything. Your ache is mine. Your orgasm is mine. Your hunger is mine. Your dirty thoughts are mine.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Control (Songs of Submission, #4))
“
Jamie: Maybe you could stop being a neat freak and ease off with barking orders at me.
Dante: I resent the neat-freak statement. And I do not bark.
Jamie: Sure you don't, Popeye.
Dante: And it wouldn't kill you to use the shoe rack. I mean, it's right by the door.
Jamie: Stop putting my CD's in chronological order, and I'll work on the shoe rock thing.
Dante: How about alphabetical order?
Jamie: How about you go to therapy?
”
”
Suzanne Wrightt (Wicked Cravings (The Phoenix Pack, #2))
“
I am a Prince," he replied, being rather dense. "It is the function of a Prince—value A—to kill monsters—value B—for the purpose of establishing order—value C—and maintaining a steady supply of maidens—value D. If one inserts the derivative of value A (Prince) into the equation y equals BC plus CD squared, and sets it equal to zero, giving the apex of the parabola, namely, the point of intersection between A (Prince) and B (Monster), one determines value E—a stable kingdom. It is all very complicated, and if you have a chart handy I can graph it for you.
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente (In the Night Garden (The Orphan's Tales, #1))
“
When this ice cube melts, I’m going to make love to you so slow, everyone in this hotel is going to know my name. It won’t be play. It’s going to be dead serious.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Burn (Songs of Submission, #5))
“
Even in love you need pain
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Monica (Songs of Submission, #7.5; Songs of Dominance, #4))
“
I am suggesting that the radical of poetry lies not in the
resolution of doubts but in their proliferation
”
”
C.D. Wright (Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil)
“
The night I started playing your CD out loud for you, instead of playing it through my headphones?"
Now this made my eyebrows rise. "You listened to it before that night?"
"Every night. I've listened to it every single night since you gave it to me.
”
”
Kimberly Lauren (Beautiful Broken Rules (Broken, #1))
“
Do you suppose the human race invented boredom to make the prospect of death more palatable?
”
”
C.D. Payne (Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp, Book One)
“
It’s all I want. We are bound. I can’t be unfaithful to you any more than the sky can be unfaithful to the sea.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Resist (Songs of Submission, #6))
“
People love to say, “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” What they don’t say is, “And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.” That’s the part of the analogy that’s missing. Working with Andrew was the first time in my life I realized you need someone from the privileged world to come to you and say, “Okay, here’s what you need, and here’s how it works.” Talent alone would have gotten me nowhere without Andrew giving me the CD writer. People say, “Oh, that’s a handout.” No. I still have to work to profit by it.
”
”
Trevor Noah (Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood)
“
I want you to understand something. That man? He’s not some boyfriend in a line of them. He is my alpha and omega. He is the sky over me. Without him, I’m lost. There’s no one else, no one whose soul balances mine the way his does. I’ve waited my life for him, and when he came, I didn’t recognize him. Not until recently. If I lose him, I swear, as God is my witness, I will be alone. No man can match him.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Sing (Songs of Submission, #7))
“
When do we start?”
“Give me a minute to change from vanilla guy to kinky guy.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Burn (Songs of Submission, #5))
“
Today, you are the goddess my universe revolves around.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Submit (Songs of Submission, #3))
“
You’ve been a bitch, goddess. That’s over. From now on, you step when I say walk. You eat when I feed you. You come when I allow it. If I so much as look at your knees, you get on them and open your fucking mouth.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Monica (Songs of Submission, #7.5; Songs of Dominance, #4))
“
Confession can be good for the soul, but it can exact a heavy toll on friendships.
”
”
C.D. Payne (Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp, Book One)
“
Jason wondered why his expression seemed farmiliar. The he realised. Nico Di Angelo had looked the same way after facing cupid.
Leo was heartsick.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Heroes of Olympus Books 1-4 CD Audiobook Bundle (The Heroes of Olympus, #1-4))
“
Despite different cultures, middle-class youth all over the world seem to live their lives as if in a parallel universe. They get up in the morning, put on their Levi's and Nikes, grab their caps and backpacks, and Sony personal CD players and head for school.
”
”
Naomi Klein (No Logo)
“
It's all done.
Finn's story is over.
His whole life.
That was it.
Not even nineteen years, and he'll never, ever do anything else ever again. Finn won't go off to college or celebrate his birthday. He won't get another haircut or get the oil changed in his car. He won't bite a hangnail on his thumb or buy another CD. Finn Smith has done everything he will ever get to do.
He won't get to be with Autumn.
”
”
Laura Nowlin (If Only I Had Told Her (If He Had Been with Me #2))
“
I feel like no one’s ever loved me before.”
“I’m sure they did their best, but you always belonged to me.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Resist (Songs of Submission, #6))
“
You forgot to cross off anal sex.”
“I tried it once. Didn’t like it. If you’re better at it, I’ll have another crack.” I paused. “No pun intended.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Submit (Songs of Submission, #3))
“
I’m yours. My pleasure is yours. My wet pussy is yours. You own me, Jonathan. You are the master of my fuck.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Control (Songs of Submission, #4))
“
My lips on your body trace the story of my love.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Sing (Songs of Submission, #7))
“
I can’t fuck a commitment out of you. That’ll be worthless. I have to have your heart, Monica. The real thing. Without fear.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Burn (Songs of Submission, #5))
“
He looked as if he wanted to tear me open and crawl inside me. And I wanted him to. Fuck me. Fuck my identity. Fuck my own skin and soul.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (HardBall)
“
Don’t tell me,” I snickered. “You’re in a club that gathers together like raving Trekkies to share secrets of the afterlife. I bet you even have an Enigma CD you crank up to get in the mood.” “Don’t be silly.” His face lit up with an enormous grin. “We listen to Enya, not Enigma.
”
”
J.A. Saare (Dead, Undead, or Somewhere in Between (Rhiannon's Law, #1))
“
I understand words like no and stop. Outside of those, your body is my playground.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Tease (Songs of Submission, #2))
“
Consider, if you will, the morning boner. What a metaphor of hope and renewal! How can anyone give way to despair when one’s groin greets each day with such a gala spectacle of physical optimism?
”
”
C.D. Payne (Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp, Book One)
“
You’re mine. Your orgasms are mine. Your pleasure is mine to give.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Submit (Songs of Submission, #3))
“
I want you all to myself. I want to know what they didn’t do so I can do it. So I can keep you longer.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Tease (Songs of Submission, #2))
“
An honorable man would have given her up before she fell in love, choosing a small hurt over a bigger one later. But I wasn’t that honorable. I wanted her more than I’d wanted anything in a long time, and I would have her until she couldn’t bear it any longer.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Control (Songs of Submission, #4))
“
I’ve never heard of a man trying to sandwich another woman between fingering me and fucking me in the same day.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Beg Tease Submit (Songs of Submission, #1-3))
“
I kissed him like I kissed him every time since he fell into my arms— like it might be the last.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Sing (Songs of Submission, #7))
“
Give me a number between one and ten.”
“Two.”
“Forget that, then. Between five and ten.”
“Seven.”
“That’s how many times you’re coming before sunrise...
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Resist (Songs of Submission, #6))
“
To encapsulate the notion of Mardi Gras as nothing more than a big drunk is to take the simple and stupid way out, and I, for one, am getting tired of staying stuck on simple and stupid.
Mardi Gras is not a parade. Mardi Gras is not girls flashing on French Quarter balconies. Mardi Gras is not an alcoholic binge.
Mardi Gras is bars and restaurants changing out all the CD's in their jukeboxes to Professor Longhair and the Neville Brothers, and it is annual front-porch crawfish boils hours before the parades so your stomach and attitude reach a state of grace, and it is returning to the same street corner, year after year, and standing next to the same people, year after year--people whose names you may or may not even know but you've watched their kids grow up in this public tableau and when they're not there, you wonder: Where are those guys this year?
It is dressing your dog in a stupid costume and cheering when the marching bands go crazy and clapping and saluting the military bands when they crisply snap to.
Now that part, more than ever.
It's mad piano professors converging on our city from all over the world and banging the 88's until dawn and laughing at the hairy-shouldered men in dresses too tight and stalking the Indians under Claiborne overpass and thrilling the years you find them and lamenting the years you don't and promising yourself you will next year.
It's wearing frightful color combination in public and rolling your eyes at the guy in your office who--like clockwork, year after year--denies that he got the baby in the king cake and now someone else has to pony up the ten bucks for the next one.
Mardi Gras is the love of life. It is the harmonic convergence of our food, our music, our creativity, our eccentricity, our neighborhoods, and our joy of living. All at once.
”
”
Chris Rose (1 Dead in Attic: Post-Katrina Stories)
“
Live is meaningful only if you gave it a meaning.
”
”
T. Harv Eker (The Millionaire Mind Intensive 16 CD set "The Secret Psychology of Wealth" Volume I & II)
“
Baby,” I said, smiling until I felt my face might snap in two, “I’m a sure thing tonight.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Control (Songs of Submission, #4))
“
I’ll break you with my love and put you back together.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Spin (Songs of Corruption, #1))
“
Did I ever tell you that I want to wear a big yellow smiley-face mask and then put on the CD version of Bobby McFerrin’s ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ and then take a girl and a dog—a collie, a chow, a sharpei, it doesn’t really matter—and then hook up this transfusion pump, this IV set, and switch their blood, you know, pump the dog’s blood into the hardbody and vice versa, did I ever tell you this?
”
”
Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho (Vintage Contemporaries))
“
Julia closed her eyes and concentrated on the words to Lacrimosa, sung loudly and hauntingly by the multi-voice choir in Latin…
Day of Weeping,on which will rise from ashes guilty man for judgment. So have mercy, O Lord, on this man. Compassionate Lord Jesus, grant them rest. Amen.
What is wrong with Gabriel that he listens to this over and over again? And what does it say about me that I can’t help but feel close to him when I listen to it? All I’ve done is replace his photograph with his cd — I’m just not sleeping with it under my pillow.
I am one sick puppy.
”
”
Sylvain Reynard (Gabriel's Inferno (Gabriel's Inferno, #1))
“
I feel your hands on your phone when you read my texts. I
go to the Stock after your shifts just to stand where you’ve stood. I fall asleep on the pillow you used
when you were in my bed. I need to share whatever piece of the world you’re in. Tell me you don’t
feel the same.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Burn (Songs of Submission, #5))
“
She could rule the world. She already ruled me.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Ruin (Songs of Corruption, #2))
“
Almost none of the poetries I admire stick to their labels, native or adopted ones. Rather, they are vagrant in their identifications. Tramp poets, there you go, a new label for those with unstable allegiances.
”
”
C.D. Wright
“
So if you care to find me/
Look to the western sky/
As someone told me lately/
Everyone deserves the chance to fly!/
And if I'm flying solo/
At least I'm flying free/
Tell those who'd ground me/
Take a message back from me/
Tell them how I am defying gravity!/
I'm flying high defying gravity/
And soon I'll match them in renown./
And nobody in all of Oz/
No Wizard that there is or was/
Is ever gonna bring me down!/
”
”
Stephen Schwartz (Wicked: Easy Piano CD Play-Along Volume 26)
“
Love is an ever-fixed mark. Be my ever-fixed mark. Be my north star.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (HardBall)
“
Poetry seems especially like nothing else so much as itself. Poetry is not like, it is the very lining of the inner life.
”
”
C.D. Wright (Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil)
“
There are moments in every relationship that define when two people start to fall in love.
A first glance
A first smile
A first kiss
A first fall…
(I remove the Darth Vader house shoes from my satchel and look down at them.)
You were wearing these during one of those moments.
One of the moments I first started to fall in love with you.
The way you gave me butterflies that morning
Had absolutely nothing to do with anyone else,
and everything to do with you.
I was falling in love with you that morning
because of you.
(I take the next item out of the satchel. When I pull it out and look up, she brings her hands to her mouth in shock.)
This ugly little gnome
With his smug little grin…
He's the reason I had an excuse to invite you into my house.
Into my life.
You took a lot of aggression out on him over those next few months.
I would watch from my window as you would kick him over every time you walked by him.
Poor little guy.
You were so tenacious.
That feisty, aggressive, strong-willed side of you….
The side of you that refused to take crap from this concrete gnome?
The side of you that refused to take crap from me?
I fell in love with that side of you
because of you.
(I set the gnome down on the stage and grab the CD)
This is your favorite CD
‘Layken’s shit.’
Although now I know you intended for shit to be possessive, rather than descriptive.
The banjo started playing through the speakers of your car
and I immediately recognized my favorite band.
Then when I realized it was your favorite band, too?
The fact that these same lyrics inspired both of us?
I fell in love with that about you.
That had absolutely nothing to do with anyone else.
I fell in love with that about you
because of you.
(I take a slip of paper out of the satchel and hold it up. When I look at her, I see Eddie slide her a napkin. I can’t tell from up here, but that can only mean she’s crying.)
This is a receipt I kept.
Only because the item I purchased that night was on the verge of ridiculous.
Chocolate milk on the rocks? Who orders that?
You were different, and you didn’t care.
You were being you.
A piece of me fell in love with you at that moment,
because of you.
This? (I hold up another sheet of paper.)
This I didn’t really like so much.
It’s the poem you wrote about me.
The one you titled 'mean?'
I don’t think I ever told you…
but you made a zero.
And then I kept it
to remind myself of all the things I never want to be to you.
(I pull her shirt from my bag. When I hold it into the light, I sigh into the microphone.)
This is that ugly shirt you wear.
It doesn’t really have anything to do with why I fell in love with you.
I just saw it at your house and thought I’d steal it.
”
”
Colleen Hoover (Point of Retreat (Slammed, #2))
“
You're both the best and worst submissive I've never met." "And you're the only dominant I've ever met." "I want to be your last. I want to ruin you for other men." "Better get cracking then, Drazen." "Sir." "Drazen, sir." He smirked.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Submit (Songs of Submission, #3))
“
Look at me, kitten.” I did and felt safe. Deacon wouldn’t let anything happen to me. “Who do you see?” he asked. “My master.” “I have you, darling.” He gripped my chin tightly. “I have you.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Use (Forbidden #2))
“
I've decided Mom's boyfriends are a lot like U.S. Presidents. You keep thinking they can't get any worse. And then she comes up with a Lance Wescott.
”
”
C.D. Payne (Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp, Book One)
“
Make no mistake, I will hurt you to protect you.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Spin (Songs of Corruption, #1))
“
Don't put me in a position where I have to defend myself against this again.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Spin (Songs of Corruption, #1))
“
I tried to stay away,” he said. “I’ve never wanted a woman this much in my life. I’d burn cities to have you. I’d fight armies. I’d commit murder to take you right now.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Spin (Song of Corruption, #1))
“
Bend over the sink. I’m going to show you who owns what around here.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Breathe (Submission, #3.5; Songs of Submission, #9.5))
“
...Tomorrow I'm going to destroy you. I'm going to mark your body and ruin your mind. By noon, you won't know whether to laugh or cry. But tonight? Tonight I will revere you. I will build an altar of myself. I will frame you in stars.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Sing (Songs of Submission, #7))
“
You turned my existence into a life.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Beg Tease Submit (Songs of Submission, #1-3))
“
I want a life with you, because you accept me. All of me. I am whole with you. Only you.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Rule (Corruption, #3))
“
The first time I saw her, I had to hold my breath. The first time she spoke, I exhaled.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Marriage Games (The Games Duet, #1))
“
Scars are the proof we lived.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Ruin (Songs of Corruption, #2))
“
Where did you learn to do that?”
“Los Angeles High School of Performing Arts,” I said. “They taught me how to open my throat to sing. Then Kevin Wainwright taught me how to put his dick down it.”
He laughed. “I’d like to thank LA Unified and Kevin Whatever for this moment.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Beg Tease Submit (Songs of Submission, #1-3))
“
The mason stirs.
Words!
Pens are too light.
Take a chisel to write.
”
”
Basil Bunting (Briggflatts (Book, DVD & CD))
“
I’d been dominant because I knew myself, and in knowing myself, I had the confidence to bind and hit and hurt, because I’d know when to stop.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Monica (Songs of Submission, #7.5; Songs of Dominance, #4))
“
Uniformity, in its motives, its goals, its far-ranging consequences, is the natural enemy of poetry, not to mention the enemy of trees, the soil, the exemplary life therein.
”
”
C.D. Wright
“
If I kiss you now," he whispered as if he'd read her mind....
"I won't be able to stop there."
~Armand
”
”
C.D. Hussey (La Luxure: Discover Your Blood Lust (Human Vampire #1))
“
Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophise, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils,... nor, I think, will the human race." (Republic 473c-d)
”
”
Plato (The Republic)
“
My name is Monica, and I am not submissive. I stand six feet tall in heels. I am descended from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. I can sing like an angel, and growl like a lion. I am not owned. I am music.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Submit (Songs of Submission, #3))
“
Every day,” he whispered, “I’ll take you like this. In the morning, before coffee, I fuck you. At night, I fuck you harder. In our bedroom, our living room, our kitchen, I’ll love you in every room. Amore mio, I’ll break you with my love and put you back together. And when I retire, you still call me Capo because you’re mine. Always mine.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Spin (Song of Corruption, #1))
“
Alex:
OK, that sounds like a challenge! Well firstly, I would have brought you to a hotel along the coast so that your suite would have the best sea view in the hotel. You could fall asleep listening to the waves crashing against the rocks, I would sprinkle the bed with red rose petals and have candles lit all around the room, I would have your favorite CD playing quietly in the background.
But I wouldn’t propose to you there. I would bring you to where there was a huge crowd of people so they could all gasp when I got down on one knee and proposed. Or something like that. Note I have italicized all important buzz words.
Rosie:
Oh.
Alex:
Oh? That’s all you can say? One word for the most important night of our lives?
”
”
Cecelia Ahern (Love, Rosie)
“
We aren’t some casual fuck, and we never were. Not from the first night. Not from the first time I laid eyes on you. You were built for me. I denied it as long as I could, but we were meant to be together. You are the sea under my sky. We’re bound at the horizon.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Control (Songs of Submission, #4))
“
Were you feeling all right?"
"No, not at all."
"Bellyache?"
"Yeah, a two-month bellyache called Vivian-itis. Symptoms include desperate longing and inability to do anything but feel like a douchebag. Patient can't do shit on the field but stand there like an ass, wondering what the fuck he's doing with his life. It's chronic. No known cure.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (HardBall)
“
As much as I think about sex, I can only with extreme difficulty conceive of myself actually performing the act. And here's another thing I wonder about. How could you ever look a girl in the eye after you've had your winkie up her wendell? I mean, doesn't that render normal social conversation impossible? Apparently not.
”
”
C.D. Payne (Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp, Book One)
“
Nobody reads poetry, we are told at every inopportune moment. I read poetry. I am somebody. I am the people, too. It can be allowed that an industrious quantity of contemporary American poetry is consciously written for a hermetic constituency; the bulk is written for the bourgeoisie, leaving a lean cut for labor. Only the hermetically aimed has a snowball's chance in hell of reaching its intended ears. One proceeds from this realization. A staggering figure of vibrant, intelligent people can and do live without poetry, especially without the poetry of their time. This figure includes the unemployed, the rank and file, the union brass, banker, scientist, lawyer, doctor, architect, pilot, and priest. It also includes most academics, most of the faculty of the humanities, most allegedly literary editors and most allegedly literary critics. They do so--go forward in their lives, toward their great reward, in an engulfing absence of poetry--without being perceived or perceiving themselves as hobbled or deficient in any significant way. It is nearly true, though I am often reminded of a Transtromer broadside I saw in a crummy office building in San Francisco:
We got dressed and showed the house
You live well the visitor said
The slum must be inside you.
If I wanted to understand a culture, my own for instance, and if I thought such an understanding were the basis for a lifelong inquiry, I would turn to poetry first. For it is my confirmed bias that the poets remain the most 'stunned by existence,' the most determined to redeem the world in words..
”
”
C.D. Wright (Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil)
“
I had to have her, and I did. She got on her knees when I told her to. She slipped easily into play and out again, becoming her witty, intelligent self seamlessly. She wasn't intimidated by me. She teased and challenged me. She kissed like she meant it, and from the very first night, she enjoyed fucking without reservation or shame. Monica was, in a word, perfect.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Control (Songs of Submission, #4))
“
People love to say, "Give man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime." What they don't say is, "And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod." That's the part of the analogy that's missing. Working with Andrew is the first time in my life I realized you need someone from the privileged world to come to you and say, "Okay, here's what you need, and here's how it works." Talent alone would have gotten me nowhere without Andrew giving me the CD writer. People say , "Oh, that's a handout." No. I still have to work to profit by it. But I don't stand a chance without it.
”
”
Trevor Noah (Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood)
“
Jonathan Drazen," I said, squeezing his hand. "You're a manipulative bastard, a brazen liar, and a sadist. You've brought me to my knees. You've dominated me. You've told me who I am and then challenged me to be it. If you made me strong enough to stand up to the world, let me stand by you. If you completed the woman I am, let me be that woman in your honor. Every part of my body is dedicated to you. Every note I sing. Every breath in my lungs. My pleasure and pain. Take me. Let me serve you. Let me be yours.
”
”
C.D. Reiss (Sing (Songs of Submission, #7))
“
When I first met Cara, she was twelve and angry at the world. Her parents had split up, her brother was gone, and her mom was infatuated with some guy who was missing vowels in his unpronounceable last name. So I did what any other man in that situation would do: I came armed with gifts. I bought her things that I thought a twelve-year-old would love: a poster of Taylor Lautner, a Miley Cyrus CD, nail polish that glowed in the dark. "I can't wait for the next Twilight movie," I babbled, when I presented her with the gifts in front of Georgie. "My favorite song on the CD is 'If We Were a Movie.' And I almost went with glitter nail polish, but the salesperson said this is much cooler, especially with Halloween coming up."
Cara looked at her mother and said, without any judgment, "I think your boyfriend is gay.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (Lone Wolf)
“
1.
I told you that I was a roadway of potholes, not safe to cross. You said nothing, showed up in my driveway wearing roller-skates.
2.
The first time I asked you on a date, after you hung up, I held the air between our phones against my ear and whispered, “You will fall in love with me. Then, just months later, you will fall out. I will pretend the entire time that I don’t know it’s coming.”
3.
Once, I got naked and danced around your bedroom, awkward and safe. You did the same. We held each other without hesitation and flailed lovely. This was vulnerability foreplay.
4.
The last eight times I told you I loved you, they sounded like apologies.
5.
You recorded me a CD of you repeating, “You are beautiful.” I listened to it until I no longer thought in my own voice.
6.
Into the half-empty phone line, I whispered, “We will wake up believing the worst in each other. We will spit shrapnel at each other’s hearts. The bruises will lodge somewhere we don’t know how to look for and I will still pretend I don’t know its coming.”
7.
You photographed my eyebrow shapes and turned them into flashcards: mood on one side, correct response on the other. You studied them until you knew when to stay silent.
8.
I bought you an entire bakery so that we could eat nothing but breakfast for a week. Breakfast, untainted by the day ahead, was when we still smiled at each other as if we meant it.
9.
I whispered, “I will latch on like a deadbolt to a door and tell you it is only because I want to protect you. Really, I’m afraid that without you I mean nothing.”
10.
I gave you a bouquet of plane tickets so I could practice the feeling of watching you leave.
11.
I picked you up from the airport limping. In your absence, I’d forgotten how to walk. When I collapsed at your feet, you refused to look at me until I learned to stand up without your help.
12.
Too scared to move, I stared while you set fire to your apartment – its walls decaying beyond repair, roaches invading the corpse of your bedroom. You tossed all the faulty appliances through the smoke out your window, screaming that you couldn’t handle choking on one more thing that wouldn’t just fix himself.
13.
I whispered, “We will each weed through the last year and try to spot the moment we began breaking. We will repel sprint away from each other. Your voice will take months to drain out from my ears. You will throw away your notebook of tally marks from each time you wondered if I was worth the work. The invisible bruises will finally surface and I will still pretend that I didn’t know it was coming.”
14.
The entire time, I was only pretending that I knew it was coming.
”
”
Miles Walser
“
There are no specific memories of the first time I used ketamine, which was around age 17 or 18. The strongest recollection of ketamine use regarded an instance when I was concurrently smoking marijuana and inhaling nitrous oxide. I was in an easy chair and the popular high school band Sublime was playing on the CD player. I was with a friend. We were snorting lines of ketamine and then smoking marijuana from a pipe and blowing the marijuana smoke into a nitrous-filled balloon and inhaling and exhaling the nitrous-filled balloon until there was no more nitrous oxide in the balloon to achieve acute sensations of pleasure, [adjective describing state in which one is unable to comprehend anything], disorientation, etc. The first time I attempted this process my vision behaved as a compact disc sound when it skips - a single frame of vision replacing itself repeatedly for over 60 seconds, I think. Everything was vibrating. Obviously I couldn't move. My friend was later vomiting in the bathroom a lot and I remember being particularly fascinated by the sound of it; it was like he was screaming at the same time as vomiting, which I found funny, and he was making, to a certain degree, demon-like noises. My time 'with' ketamine lasted three months at the most, but despite my attempts I never achieved a 'k-hole.' At a party, once, I saw a girl sitting in bushes and asked her what she was doing and she said "I'm in a 'k-hole.'" While I have since stopped doing ketamine because of availability and lack of interest, I would do ketamine again because I would like to be in a 'k-hole.
”
”
Brandon Scott Gorrell