Champagne Love Quotes

Inventory: "Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. Four be the things I'd been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. Three be the things I shall have till I die: Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.

He had never heard anything quite as amazing as that voice. She talked as if she was continuously on the verge of breaking into giggles. And when she giggled she sounded the way Ove imagined champagne bubbles would have sounded if they were capable of laughter.

Sometimes I think of you and I feel giddy. Memory makes me lightheaded, drunk on champagne. All the things we did. And if anyone has said this was the price I would have agreed to pay it. That surprises me; that with the hurt and the mess comes a shift of recognition. It was worth it. Love is worth it.

I get no kick from champagne. Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all. So, tell me why should it be true, that I get a kick out of you?

Love me like Saturday night, like three glasses of champagne, like the room is spinning, like you're drunk on my love.

I'll drink your champagne. I'll drink every drop of it, I don't care if it kills me.

Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane

Kizzy wanted to be a woman who would dive off the prow of a sailboat into the sea, who would fall back in a tangle of sheets, laughing, and who could dance a tango, lazily stroke a leopard with her bare foot, freeze an enemy's blood with her eyes, make promises she couldn't possibly keep, and then shift the world to keep them. She wanted to write memoirs and autograph them at a tiny bookshop in Rome, with a line of admirers snaking down a pink-lit alley. She wanted to make love on a balcony, ruin someone, trade in esoteric knowledge, watch strangers as coolly as a cat. She wanted to be inscrutable, have a drink named after her, a love song written for her, and a handsome adventurer's small airplane, champagne-christened Kizzy, which would vanish one day in a windstorm in Arabia so that she would have to mount a rescue operation involving camels, and wear an indigo veil against the stinging sand, just like the nomads. Kizzy wanted.

Do you know when they say soul-mates? Everybody uses it in personal ads. "Soul-mate wanted". It doesn't mean too much now. But soul mates- think about it. When your soul-whatever that is anyway-something so alive when you make music or love and so mysteriously hidden most of the rest of the time, so colorful and big but without color or shape-when your soul finds another soul it can recognize even before the rest of you knows about it. The rest of you just feels sweaty and jumpy at first. And your souls get married without even meaning to-even if you can't be together for some reason in real life, your souls just go ahead and make the wedding plans. A soul's wedding must be too beautiful to even look at. It must be blinding. In must be like all the weddings in the world-gondolas with canopies of doves, champagne glasses shattering, wings of veils, drums beating, flutes and trumpets,showers of roses. And after that happens-that's it, this is it. But sometimes you have to let that person go. When you are little, people , movie and fairy tales all tell you that one day you're going to meet this person. So you keep waiting and it's a lot harder than they make it sound. Then you meet and you think, okay, now we can just get on with it but you find out that sometimes your sould brother partner lover has other ideas about that.

Never drink diet soda. It shows you have no nerve. Only drink real colas, caffeine-packed energy drinks, or vitamin water. Hate champagne because that’s what everyone expects you to love. Energy drinks are the best party drinks. You never get tired, you never get a hangover, and you can make fun of all the loaded people who think they’re clever but are really acting stupid.

you make autumn mist taste like champagne and turn winter rain into the elixir of life itself.

The thing about old friends is not that they love you, but that they know you. They remember that disastrous New Year's Eve when you mixed White Russians and champagne, and how you wore that red maternity dress until everyone was sick of seeing the blaze of it in the office, and the uncomfortable couch in your first apartment and the smoky stove in your beach rental. They look at you and don't really think you look older because they've grown old along with you, and, like the faded paint in a beloved room, they're used to the look. And then one of them is gone, and you've lost a chunk of yourself. The stories of the terrorist attacks of 2001, the tsunami, the Japanese earthquake always used numbers, the deaths of thousands a measure of how great the disaster. Catastrophe is numerical. Loss is singular, one beloved at a time.

Life can change in the flash of a shooting star, and the people we love can be out of our reach forever.

all day long, everything go right and nothing wrong. May those you love bring love back to you, and may all the wishes you wish come true.

May the sun shine on you all day long, everything go right and nothing wrong. May those you love bring love back to you, and may all the wishes you wish come true.

Love and respect dissolve the human constructs of class and religion.

I only drink Champagne on two occasions, when I am in love and when I am not.

Apparently, covered mirrors protect one from seeing the morbid grief on one's own face. Or glimpsing a loved one's ghost over one's shoulder.

Well, yes, ma'am, I do... I mean, I got everything I need right here with me. I got air in my lungs, a few blank sheets of paper. I mean, I love waking up in the morning not knowing what's gonna happen or, who I'm gonna meet, where I'm gonna wind up. Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people. I figure life's a gift and I don't intend on wasting it. You don't know what hand you're gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you... to make each day count.

It was love, I knew, and it tasted like champagne in my mind.

I’d fallen captive to those expressive dark eyes again. I blamed my inappropriate behavior last night on champagne, but in the sobering light of day, I’d fallen into the same drugged stupor. She was soft. Strong. Real. And seriously curvy.

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.

Feathers blowing in the wind is no more a bird than a pile of crumpled up receipts from champagne, chocolate, and flower purchases is a true indication that a man loves a woman.


I'll be back later! Put that champagne on ice!

I was told The average girl begins to plan her wedding at the age of 7 She picks the colors and the cake first By the age of 10 She knows time, And location By 17 She’s already chosen a gown 2 bridesmaids And a maid of honor By 23 She’s waiting for a man Who wont break out in hives when he hears the word “commitment” Someone who doesn’t smell like a Band-Aid drenched in lonely Someone who isn’t a temporary solution to the empty side of the bed Someone Who’ll hold her hand like it’s the only one they’ve ever seen To be honest I don’t know what kind of tux I’ll be wearing I have no clue what want my wedding will look like But I imagine The women who pins my last to hers Will butterfly down the aisle Like a 5 foot promise I imagine Her smile Will be so large that you’ll see it on google maps And know exactly where our wedding is being held The woman that I plan to marry Will have champagne in her walk And I will get drunk on her footsteps When the pastor asks If I take this woman to be my wife I will say yes before he finishes the sentence I’ll apologize later for being impolite But I will also explain him That our first kiss happened 6 years ago And I’ve been practicing my “Yes” For past 2, 165 days When people ask me about my wedding I never really know what to say But when they ask me about my future wife I always tell them Her eyes are the only Christmas lights that deserve to be seen all year long I say She thinks too much Misses her father Loves to laugh And she’s terrible at lying Because her face never figured out how to do it correctl I tell them If my alarm clock sounded like her voice My snooze button would collect dust I tell them If she came in a bottle I would drink her until my vision is blurry and my friends take away my keys If she was a book I would memorize her table of contents I would read her cover-to-cover Hoping to find typos Just so we can both have a few things to work on Because aren’t we all unfinished? Don’t we all need a little editing? Aren’t we all waiting to be proofread by someone? Aren’t we all praying they will tell us that we make sense She don’t always make sense But her imperfections are the things I love about her the most I don’t know when I will be married I don’t know where I will be married But I do know this Whenever I’m asked about my future wife I always say …She’s a lot like you

No one has ever made me feel like this, no one. So much regret, so much loss, and so much desire all swirled together in my muddled brain. In my muddled heart.

She loved attention. It was like a glass of the best champagne—bubbly and intoxicating—and as with champagne, she always wanted more of it. Still, she didn’t want to seem like an easy mark. “If you must know, I’ve come to join a convent,” Evie said, testing him.

Champagne?" Carl asked. "You know we don't drink champagne, Carl." Ricky laughed. "Yes, but I don't think it's polite in mixed company to gulp down glasses of blood.

L'union libre [Freedom of Love]" My wife with the hair of a wood fire With the thoughts of heat lightning With the waist of an hourglass With the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger My wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of the last magnitude With the teeth of tracks of white mice on the white earth With the tongue of rubbed amber and glass My wife with the tongue of a stabbed host With the tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes With the tongue of an unbelievable stone My wife with the eyelashes of strokes of a child's writing With brows of the edge of a swallow's nest My wife with the brow of slates of a hothouse roof And of steam on the panes My wife with shoulders of champagne And of a fountain with dolphin-heads beneath the ice My wife with wrists of matches My wife with fingers of luck and ace of hearts With fingers of mown hay My wife with armpits of marten and of beechnut And of Midsummer Night Of privet and of an angelfish nest With arms of seafoam and of riverlocks And of a mingling of the wheat and the mill My wife with legs of flares With the movements of clockwork and despair My wife with calves of eldertree pith My wife with feet of initials With feet of rings of keys and Java sparrows drinking My wife with a neck of unpearled barley My wife with a throat of the valley of gold Of a tryst in the very bed of the torrent With breasts of night My wife with breasts of a marine molehill My wife with breasts of the ruby's crucible With breasts of the rose's spectre beneath the dew My wife with the belly of an unfolding of the fan of days With the belly of a gigantic claw My wife with the back of a bird fleeing vertically With a back of quicksilver With a back of light With a nape of rolled stone and wet chalk And of the drop of a glass where one has just been drinking My wife with hips of a skiff With hips of a chandelier and of arrow-feathers And of shafts of white peacock plumes Of an insensible pendulum My wife with buttocks of sandstone and asbestos My wife with buttocks of swans' backs My wife with buttocks of spring With the sex of an iris My wife with the sex of a mining-placer and of a platypus My wife with a sex of seaweed and ancient sweetmeat My wife with a sex of mirror My wife with eyes full of tears With eyes of purple panoply and of a magnetic needle My wife with savanna eyes My wife with eyes of water to he drunk in prison My wife with eyes of wood always under the axe My wife with eyes of water-level of level of air earth and fire

As everyone applauds and sips champagne, I smile back at Rachel, thinking she got it just right. Love and friendship. They are what makes us who we are and what can change us, if we let them.

That’s the thing about love — it’s full of possibilities. It can lead you down so many different paths. Sure, for some of us, it can lead to sadness and regret. But, for others, well, for others it can lead them to the greatest future they could’ve ever hoped for. Love is the most possible thing in the world.

She had always thought that exquisitely happy time at the beginning of her relationship with Nick was the ultimate, the feeling they'd always be trying to replicate, to get back, but now she realized that was wrong. That was like comparing sparkling mineral water to French champagne. Early love is exciting and exhilarating. It's light and bubbly. Anyone can love like that. But love after three children, after a separation and a near-divorce, after you've hurt each other and forgiven each other, bored each other and surprised each other, after you've seen the worst and the best--well, that sort of a love is ineffable. It deserves its own word.

Ah, Evelyn and Vivian, I love you both, I love you for your sad lives, the empty misery of your coming home at dawn. You too are alone, but you are not like Arturo Bandini, who is neither fish, fowl nor good red herring. So have your champagne, because I love you both, and you too, Vivian, even if your mouth looks like it had been dug out with raw fingernails and your old child's eyes swim in blood written like mad sonnets.

Do you know when they say soulmates? Everybody uses it in personal ads. “Soul mate wanted.” It doesn’t mean too much now. But soulmates – think about it. When your soul – whatever that is anyway – something so alive when you make music or love and so mysteriously hidden most of the rest of the time, so colorful and big but without color or shape – when your soul finds another soul it can recognize even before the rest of you knows about it. The rest of you just feels sweaty and jumpy at first. And your souls get married without even meaning to – even if you can’t be together for some reason in real life, your souls just go ahead and make the wedding plans. A soul’s wedding must be too beautiful to even look at. It must be blinding. It must be like all the weddings in the world – gondolas with canopies of doves, champagne glasses shattering, wings of veils, drums beating, flutes and trumpets, showers of roses. And after that happens you know – that’s it. This is it.

I want to hear you say it,” I say, pushing her hair from her eyes. She sighs and I can’t hold back any longer. I stroke her cheek with my hand and lean in to kiss her soft lips. I half expect her to push me back, but I can’t stop myself right now. I have to do it. I have to kiss her. I need to kiss her.

Is anyone anywhere happy? No, not unless they are living in a dream or in an artifice that they or someone else has made. For a time I was lulled in the arms of a blind organism with breasts full of champagne and nipples made of caviar. I thought she was true, and that the true was the beautiful. But the true is the ugly mixed up everywhere, like a peck of dirt scattered through your life. The true is that there is no security, no artifice to stop the unsavory changes, the rat race, the death unwish - the winged chariot, the horns and the motors, the Devil in the clock. Love is a desperate artifice to take the place of those two original parents who turned out not to be omnisciently right gods, but a rather pedestrian pair of muddled suburbanites who, no matter how bumbling they tried, never could quite understand how or why you grew up to your 21st birthday.

We have, by God's grace, been given another day to serve and love, laugh and learn, pray and ponder. Spring is ready to burst into the open air, and we are ready to embrace it.

I see myself beneath her. Being taken and made love to. I feel her. I know her. Taste her champagne mouth. Ignore the ugly teeth. Just shut my eyes and taste her.

There are blondes and blondes and it is almost a joke word nowadays. All blondes have their points, except perhaps the metallic ones who are as blond as a Zulu under the bleach and as to disposition as soft as a sidewalk. There is the small cute blonde who cheeps and twitters, and the big statuesque blonde who straight-arms you with an ice-blue glare. There is the blonde who gives you the up-from-under look and smells lovely and shimmers and hangs on your arm and is always very tired when you take her home. She makes that helpless gesture and has that goddamned headache and you would like to slug her except that you are glad you found out about the headache before you invested too much time and money and hope in her. Because the headache will always be there, a weapon that never wears out and is as deadly as the bravo’s rapier or Lucrezia’s poison vial. There is the soft and willing and alcoholic blonde who doesn’t care what she wears as long as it is mink or where she goes as long as it is the Starlight Roof and there is plenty of dry champagne. There is the small perky blonde who is a little pal and wants to pay her own way and is full of sunshine and common sense and knows judo from the ground up and can toss a truck driver over her shoulder without missing more than one sentence out of the editorial in the Saturday Review. There is the pale, pale blonde with anemia of some non-fatal but incurable type. She is very languid and very shadowy and she speaks softly out of nowhere and you can’t lay a finger on her because in the first place you don’t want to and in the second place she is reading The Waste Land or Dante in the original, or Kafka or Kierkegaard or studying Provençal. She adores music and when the New York Philharmonic is playing Hindemith she can tell you which one of the six bass viols came in a quarter of a beat too late. I hear Toscanini can also. That makes two of them. And lastly there is the gorgeous show piece who will outlast three kingpin racketeers and then marry a couple of millionaires at a million a head and end up with a pale rose villa at Cap Antibes, an Alfa-Romeo town car complete with pilot and co-pilot, and a stable of shopworn aristocrats, all of whom she will treat with the affectionate absent-mindedness of an elderly duke saying goodnight to his butler.

mum's dress. mum loved big parties. she loved dressing up and champagne bubbles tickling her nose, and dancing with her arms above her head, shoes thrown to the edges of the dance floor, and shouting inane happy things at people.

you say you love me with your shot of whiskey you say I'm the one with your glass of champagne but then you don't say a word with your cup of coffee

Stormy, who was larger than life, who taught me how to apply red lipstick “so it lasts even after a night of kisses and champagne,” she said. I

I should probably warn you, my love isn't roses and champagne. I'm obsessive, jealous, and controlling, but I'm faithful and I'll be here when you need someone.

She sang that night like - I cannot say like an angel, for her songs were all of champagne suppers and strolling in the Burlington Arcade; perhaps, then, like a fallen angel - or yet again like a falling one: she sang like a falling angel might sing with the bounds of heaven fresh burst behind him, and hell still distant and unguessed. And as she did so, I sang with her - not loudly and carelessly like the rest of the crowd, but softly, almost secretly, as if she might hear me the better if I whispered rather than bawled.

Kissing Kate is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. And as much as I want to think I’m the good guy, as much as I’ve proclaimed that sleeping with an attached girl isn’t my style, I’m not walking away. I can’t. I have her now. She’s mine. And I’m not going anywhere.

You'll get over it...' It's the cliches that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don't get over it because 'it' is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to greive over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no-one else can fit it. Why would I want them to? I've thought a lot about death recently, the finality of it, the argument ending in mid-air. One of us hadn't finished, why did the other one go? And why without warning? Even death after long illness is without warning. The moment you had prepared for so carefully took you by storm. The troops broke through the window and snatched the body and the body is gone. The day before the Wednesday last, this time a year ago, you were here and now you're not. Why not? Death reduces us to the baffled logic of a small child. If yesterday why not today? And where are you? Fragile creatures of a small blue planet, surrounded by light years of silent space. Do the dead find peace beyond the rattle of the world? What peace is there for us whose best love cannot return them even for a day? I raise my head to the door and think I will see you in the frame. I know it is your voice in the corridor but when I run outside the corridor is empty. There is nothing I can do that will make any difference. The last word was yours. The fluttering in the stomach goes away and the dull waking pain. Sometimes I think of you and I feel giddy. Memory makes me lightheaded, drunk on champagne. All the things we did. And if anyone had said this was the price I would have agreed to pay it. That surprises me; that with the hurt and the mess comes a shaft of recognition. It was worth it. Love is worth it.

This time he was dreaming of a VIP room backstage at the club, filled with champagne and coffee, a gaggle of groupies trying to break down the door so that - in the dream, Simon somehow knew this was their intent - they could tear of his clothes and ravish him.

I want him when you’re done with him,” Rach pipes up, sending me a teasing grin. “You’ll be waiting a while,” I reply, accepting a glass of champagne from Ky. “Like eternity.

It was wondrous. Almost unbelievable. Like champagne bubbles, but in her soul. She felt effervescent. And so in love.

Dear woman, look at yourself in the mirror and be your own favourite person. Every curve, every freckle, every hair on your skin. Because you are worth your tears, your laughter, your joys and your pains. You are worth the broken roads you've traveled, the nights you've spent alone with a bottle of champagne, the times you climbed out of graves. You are worth the smiles only you see, the ones you generously share, then all the others in between. You're worth the love that's meant for you and the pains you've broken through. Dear woman, look at yourself; you love you.

Whether the pain you face now is the consequence of your sin or the sin of others, in God’s providence and in saving faith, Romans 8:28 still reigns: “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” It is not the absence of sin that makes you a believer. It is the presence of Christ in the midst of your struggle that commends the believer and sets you apart in the world.

The lovely effects of champagne were quite gone and only the nasty ones were left; the taste in the mouth, the splitting ache in the brow and the impotence of not being able to clarify one's thoughts.

The love of Christ for his people is not based upon any worthiness within them, nor should your love toward your wife be conditioned upon her actions and your judgment as to whether or not she has earned your love.

As I watched my family sip champagne, I thought about how their lives trailed backward and forward from my death and then, I saw, as Samuel took the daring step of kissing Lindsey in a room full of family, became borne aloft away from it. These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections- sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent- that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life. My father looked at the daughter who was standing there in front of him. The shadow daughter was gone.

You cannot be everyone's cup of tea, but you can be someone's first sip of a cold drink on a sunny day. Or a warming hot chocolate when you come in from the rain. Or the pop of a long-awaited champagne cork. Or a stiff shot of tequila when things go awry. Find your people. Love them hard

Morse poured himself a can of beer. "Champagne's a lovely drink, but it makes you thirsty, doesn't it?

All you need to be married are champagne, a box of cigars, and a double bed,” he said. Or this: “One of the secrets of a happy marriage is never to speak to or see the loved one before noon.

It was Buckley, as my father and sister joined the group and listened to Grandma Lynn’s countless toasts, who saw me. He saw me standing under the rustic colonial clock and stared. He was drinking champagne. There were strings coming out from all around me, reaching out, waving in the air. Someone passed him a brownie. He held it in his hand but did not eat. He saw my shape and face, which had not changed-the hair still parted down the middle, the chest still flat and hips undeveloped-and wanted to call out my name. It was only a moment, and then I was gone.

Trying to Enjoy It (Proceed as if You Look Awesome)...This requires a level of delusion/egomania usually reserved for popes and drag queens, but you can do it. It's like being a little kid again, parading around in a nightgown tucked into your underpants, believing it looks terrific. Your "right mind" knows that you look ridiculous in a half-open dress and giant shoes, but you must put yourself back in third grade, slipping on your mom's quilted caftan and drinking cream soda out of a champagne glass while watching The Love Boat. You have never been more glamorous.

After we became a couple, she composed our time together. She planned days as if they were artistic events. One afternoon we went to Tybee Island for a picnic; we ate blueberries and drank champagne tinted with curacao and listened to Miles Davis, and when I asked the name of her perfume, she said it was L'Heure Bleue. She talked about 'perfect moments.' One such moment happened that afternoon; she'd been napping; I lay next to her, reading. She said, 'I'll always remember the sounds of the sea and of pages turning, and the smell of L'Heure Bleue. For me they signify love.

I pity you Juliet. You don't know what love is. You think it's Valentine's Day, and weekends in Italy. You think it's drinking champagne in some expensive restaurant and being bought stupid bloody underwear. But that's just the trimmings. The decoration. They're just gestures. Without trust, and respect, and kindness, they don't mean shit. I thought love was about caring about someone day in and day out, about being there when it's rucking amazing and still wanting to be there when it feels like crap, I thought it was about forever.

An unreasoning tender love, of the kind sometimes engendered by Papa’s best French champagne or the melancholy cooing of pigeons on a Spring afternoon, filled her heart to overflowing. A love that included Marion, waiting with a flinty smile for Miranda to have done with Edith’s nonsense. Tears sprang to her eyes, but not of sorrow. She had no desire to weep. Only to love, and shaking out her ringlets she got up off the rock where she had been lying in the shade and began to dance.

My story starts at sea, a perilous voyage to an unknown land. A shipwreck. The wild waters roar and heave. The brave vessel is dashed all to pieces. And all the helpless souls within her drowned. All save one. A lady. Whose soul is greater than the ocean, and her spirit stronger than the sea's embrace. Not for her a watery end, but a new life beginning on a stranger shore. It will be a love story. For she will be my heroine for all time. And her name will be Viola." "She was incomprehensible, for, in her, soul and spirit were one - the beauty of her body was the essence of her soul. She was that unity sought for by philosophers through many centuries. In this outdoor waiting room of winds and stars she had been sitting for a hundred years, at peace in the contemplation of herself." "He knew that there was passion there, but there was no shadow of it in her eyes or on her mouth; there was a faint spray of champagne on her breath. She clung nearer desperately and once more he kissed her and was chilled by the innocence of her kiss, by the glance that at the moment of contact looked beyond him out into the darkness of the night, the darkness of the world." "Her heart sank into her shoes as she realized at last how much she wanted him. No matter what his past was, no matter what he had done. Which was not to say that she would ever let him know, but only that he moved her chemically more than anyone she had ever met, that all other men seemed pale beside him." "I used to build dreams about you." "Then she kissed him until the sky seemed to fade out and all her smiles and tears to vanish in an ecstasy of eternal seconds.

Churchill believed marriage to be a simple thing and sought to dispel its mysteries through a series of aphorisms. “All you need to be married are champagne, a box of cigars, and a double bed,” he said. Or this: “One of the secrets of a happy marriage is never to speak to or see the loved one before noon.” Churchill had a formula for family size as well. Four children was the ideal number: “One to reproduce your wife, one to reproduce yourself, one for the increase in population, and one in case of accident.

Are Christians victims of this post-Christian world? No. Sadly, Christians are coconspirators. We embrace modernism’s perks when they serve our own lusts and selfish ambitions. We despise modernism when it crosses lines of our precious moralism. Our cold and hard hearts; our failure to love the stranger; our selfishness with our money, our time, and our home; and our privileged back turned against widows, orphans, prisoners, and refugees mean we are guilty in the face of God of withholding love and Christian witness. And even more serious is our failure to read our Bibles well enough to see that the creation ordinance and the moral law, found first in the Old Testament, is as binding to the Christian as any red letter. Our own conduct condemns our witness to this world.

You can't raise happy kids in a happy family if you aren't happy and don't know who you are. You can't pin your life on someone else's happiness.

Sometimes you were handed a second chance, and all you had to do was close your eyes and step into it.

The air is dry and light and its effect on the mind is similar to that of a glass of Champagne before dinner.

February falls on top of me like a cartoon piano. I reek of champagne, come, and CK One.

You are, of course, allowed to love food and music and champagne and rare sunny afternoons in October. You can love the sight of waterfalls and the smell of old books.

To the only love that lasts,” she said when we raised our champagne glasses. “The love of family and friends.

Champagne lips and tired eyes under endless velvet skies — a love living only for the highs.

Time stood still in a swelling moment where my curiosity drew me to be still in thought as the breaking speed of sound caused my heart to ascend to where my ears did know. An almost desperate attempt is made to catch my breath. Conservatively sitting down near behind the door reading, I make note of the incredible lines that veer beyond the vantage of what beauty I can absorb. She is a woman, if whose flaws were to unveil would only make her even more distinctly unique with beauty. Her ivory-colored complexion bears the brilliance of champagne balanced by a hint of ochre. Ringlets of black thread and pearl lay gracefully alongside her charming features. Her lips look as if they speak of love often, but only to herself. Her style, grace, elegance, and posture display the pure determination that she has made clear in her mind. The slight indent on the bridge of her adorable nose complements her slender face and endearing qualities. Her elegance alone surpasses any expression I’ve ever encountered.

I used to think in my Russian-novel days, that I would cherish a lover who managed through thick and thin, snow and sleet, to have a bunch of Parma violets on my breakfast tray each morning--also rain or shine, Christmas or August, and onward into complete Neverland. Later, I shifted my dream plan--a split of cold champagne one half hour before the tray! Violets, sparkling wine, and trays themselves were as nonexistent as the lover(s), of course, but once again, Why not?

Good. You are, of course, allowed to love food and music and champagne and rare sunny afternoons in October. You can love the sight of waterfalls and the smell of old books, but the love of people is off limits. Do you hear me? Don’t attach yourself to people, and try to feel as little as you possibly can for those you do meet. Because otherwise you will slowly lose your mind . . .

I point at Drew, as I turn to Dawn. "See? My sister finds her soulmate, and not only does she get rewarded with love and happiness, she gets free champagne flutes, and dutch ovens, and fifty-dollar checks. And what do I get? What do I get on a day when I still haven't found anyone to love? When I'm waiting by the phone for some jerk to call me, and acting like a crazy woman, e-mailing him at three a.m., clutching at straws that I might ever find anyone? Do I get gifts? No! I get condemnation from my grandmother, and I get to wear a dress that makes me look like a baked potato.

And you, Lord Bridgerton," she replied in a tone that could have frozen champagne, "are almost as handsome as your brother." Colin snorted again, only this time it sounded as if he were being strangled. "Are you all right?" Miss Sheffield asked. "He's fine," Anthony barked. She ignored him, keeping her attention on Colin. "Are you certain?" Colin nodded furiously. 'Tickle in my throat." "Or perhaps a guilty conscience?" Anthony suggested. Colin turned deliberately from his brother to Kate. "I think I might need another glass of lemonade," he gasped. "Or maybe," said Anthony, "something stronger. Hemlock, perhaps?

Stories don’t change much across continents and centuries. Hearts are broken. Pride is wounded. Souls wander too far from home and become lost. The wrong roads are taken. The incorrect choice is made. Stories echo with loneliness. Grief. Longing. Redemption. Forgiveness. Hope. And love.” Now it was her turn to point at the bookstore. “That building is stuffed with books that, once opened, reveal our communal story. And, if you’re lucky, the words in those books will force you to grapple with the hardest truths of your life. After reducing you to a puddle of tears, they’ll raise you to your feet again. The words will pull you up, higher and higher, until you feel the sun on your face again. Until you’re suddenly humming on the way to the mailbox. Or you’re buying bouquets of gerbera daisies because you crave bright colors. And you’ll laugh again—as freely as champagne bubbling in a tall, glass flute. When’s the last time you laughed like that?

I didn't know that freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is celebrated with champagne. Nor yet a gift, a box of dainties to make you lick your chops. Oh, no! It's a chore, on the contrary, and a long-distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting. No champagne, no friends raising their glasses as they look at you affectionately. Alone in a forbidding room, alone in the prisoner's box before the judges, and alone to decide in the face of oneself or in the face of others' judgement. At the end of all freedom is a court sentence; that's why freedom is too heavy to bear, especially when you're down with a fever, or are distressed, or love nobody.

In the LGBT community, the opposite of pride is self- hatred. But in the Bible, the opposite of pride is faith. Was pride keeping me from faith, or was pride keeping me from self-hatred? That was when the question inserted itself like a foot in the door: Did pride distort self-esteem the way lust distorts love? This was the first of my many betrayals against the LGBT community: whose dictionary did I trust? The one used by the community that I helped create or the one that reflected the God who created me? As soon as the question formed itself into words, I felt convicted of the sin of pride. Pride was my downfall. I asked God for the mercy to repent of my pride at its root.

The majority enjoy a young girl as they enjoy a glass of champagne, at one effervescent moment-oh, yes, that is really beautiful, and with many a young girl that is undoubtedly the most one can attain, but here there is more. If an individual is too fragile to stand clarity and transparency, well, then one enjoys what is unclear, but apparently she can stand it. The more devotedness one can bring to erotic love, the more interesting. This momentary enjoyment is a rape, even if not outwardly but nevertheless mentally, and in a rape there is only imagined enjoyment; it is like a stolen kiss, something nondescript. No, if one can bring it to a point where a girl has but one task for her freedom, to give herself, so that she feels her whole happiness in this, so that she practically begs for this devotedness and yet is free-only then is there enjoyment, but this always takes a discerning touch

The key to contagious grace—the grace that allows the margins to move to the center, the grace that commands you to never fear the future, the grace that reveals that what humbles you cannot hurt you if Jesus is your Lord—that grace is ours when we do what Mary says to do in this scene. She says to the servants (and the Holy Spirit says to us): “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). Simple, right? No. We cannot will ourselves into the deep obedience that God requires. We can’t obey until we ourselves have received this grace and picked up our cross. We can’t obey until we have laid down our life, with all our false and worldly identities and idols. We can’t obey until we face the facts: the gospel comes in exchange for the life we once loved. But when we die to ourselves, we find the liberty to obey. As Susan Hunt explains, “When God’s grace changes our status from rebel to redeemed, we are empowered by his Spirit to obey him. We are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:2) into his likeness (2 Cor. 3:18). Joyful obedience is the evidence of our love for Jesus (John 14:15).”2

This champagne is terribly good—the bubbles go straight to your head. Don’t worry,” he added with a wink, “I’ll be sure to join you dancing on the table after you’ve had a few glasses.” “My partner in crime and debauchery,” I said, clinking our glasses together. “I am a lucky woman, indeed.

[The party] was held at her cousin's house and it lasted for three days. For the duration, they all slept only from dawn to noon and lived on little but oysters and champagne and pastry. Each evening there was music and dancing, and then late in the nights, under a moon growing to full, they went out on the slow water in rowing boats. It was a strange time of war fever, and even young men previously considered dull and charmless suddenly acquired an aura of glamour shimmering about them, for they all suspected that shortly many of them would be dead. During those brief days and nights, any man that wished might become somebody's darling.

Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, or a foe. Four be the things I'd been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient Champagne. Three be the things I shall have till I die: Laughter and hope, and a sock in the eye.

The Hermit I’d gladly climb the highest steeple To escape those middle minded people Jet Set Wedding I wake up screaming clutching my wedding band The garnet ring is still a constant companion on my finger But what happened to the marriage? Fruitland Ave He taught her not to love nor hate And he my friend was double gate The Closing (On Death and Acceptance) When he died the funeral took place at her bank And sadly enough she’s down to her very last frank The Misogynist He sits on his throne a hilltop alone For women’s neurosis cause men’s psychosis Home Sweet Home The neurotic builds the dreamhouse The psychotic becomes his spouse Monogamy I’d rather be someone’s concubine, smell the honeysuckle Taste the wine, than end up being a clinging vine The Gour Maid I like champagne, and french brie, and camembert And men that don’t get in my hair

Dr. Steve had broken Madame Dabney’s heart in a bitter love triangle with a Pakistani belly dancer in the Champagne region of France. RUMOR (probably).

I tasted lemon and whiskey and rain and champagne, and it seemed like the most delicious combination of flavors in existence.

Love isn’t always beautiful. It’s not always caviar and champagne and beautiful sunsets. Sometimes it is simply a familiar voice when your world is darkened by pain.

Champagne is evil. It's pretty and fun and it loves you and it's evil.

Because when life handed you an opportunity you didn't turn your back or drag your feet. You made a choice and you leapt.

We develop a taste for God’s standards only by disciplining our minds, hands, money, and time. In God’s economy, what we love we will discipline.

Faith in Jesus foregrounds the trust that says, “I love my neighbor because she is mine, and not because she loves me back.

Do you love Edna?’. ‘Of course!’ he announced, wildly waving a bottle of champagne in the air, ‘…whoever Edna is.

The closest I can come to describing how I felt at that moment was I was sentient champagne. I loved the feeling of being exposed to the air, fizzing over my bottle’s edge.

Because of you. I fell in love with you, Alexis Brown, and I don’t want to lose you over a glass of champagne.

Layers of champagne tulle billowed around her hips and the plunging neckline kept drawing his eye.

Angels pawning Halos, Swan-diving through warm drops of rain, Soaking up champagne-shaded rays of bliss.

He was a loveable rogue, and very costly to be around, always bumping into expensive things and demanding champagne, but always bright and lively and the center of attention.

While they were dancing, the buoyancy that the champagne had given her left her all at once, and she slumped and felt suddenly tired and miserable about all the things that Denys should have said and done and hadn't. At the end of the dance there was one awful moment when she was bored. She didn't want to go and be kissed in the garden, she didn't want to drink any more, and Denys was in no mood for conversation; what was there to do? She was bored. It was a terrible, treacherous thought to feel like that when you were with someone you loved.

He had yet to fall in love to the degree that he felt he was capable of falling, had never written villanelles or declaration veiled in careful metaphor, nor sold his blood plasma to buy champagne or jonquils, nor haunted a mailbox or a phone booth or a certain café, nor screamed his beloved's name in the streets at three in the morning, heedless of the neighbors.

Every night is Christmas Eve on old East Main, Sailors and their sweethearts all agree. Neon signs of red and green Shine upon the friendly scene, Welcoming you in from off the sea. Santa's bag is filled with all your dreams come true: Nickel beers that sparkle like champagne, Barmaids who all love to screw, All of them reminding you It's Christmas Eve on old East Main.

My mother was born on Valentine’s Day and because of that, I have oddly always loved Valentine’s Day. I have friends who absolutely hate the day. And I get that, I do. I can see through it as much as the next person, but I still believe that at its core, it’s a day to recognize love. A day to send a note to someone, eye a new crush, make out, open champagne or sparkling apple cider, pop a cinnamon flavored gummy, and just remember for a moment that even if you’re not in love at the moment, love exists. That even when we don’t have love, there is the possibility of love.

She didn’t want to slide gently from this world. She wanted to go out with strawberries and champagne on her lips. With her loves holding her hand, and with the surety that she would be missed. The

However like all little animals, it has to be nurtured and fed. It needs humour, interest, joy, love, compassion and a healthy bit of charity. It loves the unexpected and the unpredictable. It enjoys new challenges and experiences. Good wine makes it jump around a bit, good food makes it happy. Soft light make it dewy-eyed, happy memories light up its eyes. Good champagne is its preferred liquid.

When my daughters were baptized, we had a big celebration with cupcakes and champagne. Together with our community we sang “Jesus Loves Me” over the newly baptized. It was a proclamation: before you know it, before you doubt it, before you confess it, before you can sing it yourself, you are beloved by God, not by your effort but because of what Christ has done on your behalf. We are weak, but he is strong.

I’d watched the election of Barack Obama with them, in Harlem: the celebration had spilled out onto the streets and erupted into dancing, outdoor champagne-drinking, euphoria. This [the 1/21/17 Women's March on Washington, DC] was different. It was like laughter at a funeral—what else can you do but hold on to who you are and who you love? What can you do but try to stay sane and fight like hell for what life is all about?

I mean, I love waking up in the morning not knowing what’s gonna happen or, who I’m gonna meet, where I’m gonna wind up. Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people. I figure life’s a gift and I don’t intend on wasting it. You don’t know what hand you’re gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you… to make each day count.

I think relationships are a lot like a champagne. This bottle here" - I lift it and por us each a little more - " it's crazy expensive. My dad got all of us Vooper kids a vintage from the year we were born for our twenty-first birthdays and told us to save it for the right time. We always interpreted that as save it for a special occasion. Engagements. Weddings. Celebrations. Baseball, if you're my brother." I hold the neck of the bottle, study the label. "But my dad didn't say save it for a special occasion. He said save it for the right time. It's a crucial differenc? Here? With me? he asks, his voice rough. "Apparently. And that's sort of my point." I set the bottle down and look at him. " I don't think you can plan for the right time. Or the right woman. As far as timing's concerned, maybe sometimes you've got to make it the right time and simply trust it's the right woman.

Don’t be afraid of aging. As the saying goes, don’t be afraid of anything but fear itself. Find “your” perfume before you turn thirty. Wear it for the next thirty years. No one should ever see your gums when you talk or laugh. If you own only one sweater, make sure it’s cashmere. Wear a black bra under your white blouse, like two notes on a sheet of music. One must live with the opposite sex, not against them. Except when making love. Be unfaithful: cheat on your perfume, but only on cold days. Go to the theater, to museums, and to concerts as often as possible: it gives you a healthy glow. Be aware of your qualities and your faults. Cultivate them in private but don’t obsess. Make it look easy. Everything you do should seem effortless and graceful. Not too much makeup, too many colors, too many accessories …  Take a deep breath and keep it simple. Your look should always have one thing left undone—the devil is in the details. Be your own knight in shining armor. Cut your own hair or ask your sister to do it for you. Of course you know celebrity hairdressers, but only as friends. Always be fuckable: when standing in line at the bakery on a Sunday morning, buying champagne in the middle of the night, or even picking the kids up from school. You never know. Either go all gray or no gray hair. Salt and pepper is for the table.

Lady Glendora herself had a love for the mountains and lakes, but it was a love of that kind which requires to be stimulated by society, and which is keenest among cold chickens, picnic-pies, and the flying of champagne corks.

Doctors discovered this because some prescription drugs, as a side effect, suppress the ability to taste carbon dioxide. The resulting medical condition is known as the “champagne blues,” since all carbonated beverages taste flat.

My poor Eunice looked so tired when she huffed off the bus with her many bags that I nearly tackled her in a rejuvenating embrace, but I was careful not to make a scene, waving my roses and champagne at the armed men to prove that I had enough Credit to afford Retail, and then kissed her passionately on one cheek (she smelled of flight and moisturizer), then on the straight, thin, oddly non-Asian nose, then the other cheek, then back to the nose, then once more the first cheek, following the curve of freckles backward and forward, marking her nose like a bridge to be crossed twice. The champagne bottle fell out of my hands, but, whatever futuristic garbage it was made of, it didn't break.

She wanted to remind him, whether his family was there or not. She wanted. And wanted. And endured in her wanting: the damp seat, the dry chicken, more champagne, the headache the champagne brought, the midges, the chat, his failure, no refusal, to look, look at me, I caused a thunderstorm with my passion and I sit here shaking under my skin and you don't notice because you're trying so hard not to notice, but all the people at the table there are really only you and me and you know it, the air is charged with it, it's a heat, a hot wind, and Marina and Seely are a sham next to it, Annabel ceases to exist, is simply obliterated in the gale of it, this isn't a fantasy, not my imagination, I can tell by the way you lift your fork, by the set of your jaw, by that sixth cigarette you are smoking me, or would if you could; but how long can we sustain it, how long till eruption, till the storm returns again and they can all see what it is, what it really is?

At times, in that basement, she woke up tasting the sound of the accordion in her ears. She could feel the sweet burn of champagne on her tongue. Sometimes she sat against the wall, longing for the warm finger of paint to wander just once more down the side of her nose, or to watch the sandpaper texture of her father's hands. If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter and bread with only the scent of jam spread out on top of it.

Imagine that Abundance is a wonderful guest that you would love to come and stay. Clean the house, prepare great food, have fresh linen on the beds, light fires, chill the champagne, buy or grow fresh flowers … just be ready for Abundance to drop in unexpectedly.

As for Baron Buttlär, well...he had a wonderful blond moustache. Whenever he came to Berlin he consumed a great deal of champagne and pursued love affairs. A moustache like that made such behaviour practically obligatory, and it also made fine, upstanding fathers and husbands anxious.

How can I love my neighbor without misleading her into thinking I approve of everything she does?” First, remember that Christians cannot give good answers to bad questions. No one approves of everything that others do. No one. It is a false question. The better question is this: “How can my neighbors know that because I live under God’s authority rather than the compulsions of my own selfish desires, their secrets are safe with me?” The answer is simple: love the sinner and hate your own sin. Or, as Mark says, “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another” (Mark 9:50).

Then I began writing. It was about a German aviator in World War I. Baron Von Himmlen. He flew a red Fokker. And he was not popular with his fellow fliers. He didn't talk to them. He drank alone and he flew alone. He didn't bother with women, although they all loved him. He was above that. He was too busy. He was busy shooting Allied plans out of the sky. Already he had shot down 110 and he war wasn't over. His red Fokker, which he referred to as the "October Bird of Death," was known everywhere. Even the enemy ground troops knew him as he often flew low over them, taking their gunfire and laughing, dropping bottles of champagne to them suspended from little parachutes. Baron Von Himmlen was never attacked by less than five Allied planes at a time. He was an ugly man with scars on his face, but he was beautiful if you looked long enough -- it was in the eyes, his style, his courage, his fierce aloneness.

The fortnight in Venice passed quickly and sweetly- perhaps too sweetly; I was drowning in honey, stingless. On some days life kept pace with the gondola, as we nosed through the side canals and the boatman uttered his plaintive musical bird-cry of warning; on other days with the speed-boat bouncing over the lagoon in a stream of sun-lit foam; it left a confused memory of fierce sunlight on the sands and cool, marble interiors; of water everywhere, lapping on smooth stone, reflected in a dapple of light on painted cielings; of a night at the Corombona palace such as Byron might have known, and another Byronic night fishing for scampi in the shallows of Chioggia, the phosphorescent wake of the little ship, the lantern swinging in the prow, and the net coming up full of weed and sand and floundering fishes; of melon and prosciutto on the balcony in the cool of the morning; of hot cheese sandwiches and champagne cocktails at Harrys Bar.

We always used to celebrate together at the end of a picture. Clark insisted on it. Maybe we’d include the director, maybe not. It was just a kind of ritual that the two of us had. We would share a bottle of champagne while he read poetry to me, usually the sonnets of Shakespeare. He loved poetry, and read beautifully, with great sensitivity, but he wouldn’t dare let anyone else know it. He was afraid people would think him weak or effeminite and not the tough guy who liked to fish and hunt. I was the only one he trusted. He never wanted me to tell about this, and here I am giving him away, but I never mentioned it while he was alive.

She had always thought that exquisitely happy time at the beginning of her relationship with Nick was the ultimate, the feeling they’d always be trying to replicate, to get back, but now she realized that was wrong. That was like comparing sparkling mineral water to French champagne. Early love is exciting and exhilarating. It’s light and bubbly. Anyone can love like that. But love after three children, after a separation and a near-divorce, after you’ve hurt each other and forgiven each other, bored each other and surprised each other, after you’ve seen the worst and the best – well, that sort of love is ineffable. It deserves its own word.

Fucking love you,” he murmurs against my lips. “I’ll follow you anywhere, Stevie.” I put that conversation on pause and instead nudge his nose with mine and kiss him once more. “Linds!” he shouts back over his shoulder. “Let’s pop those bottles of champagne! We won the Stanley Cup, and I got my girl back. Now we can celebrate!

The list of frequently used nouns included: struggle for peace, woman, love, constitution, deputy, congress, delegation, friend, mother, little girl, salmon, sturgeon, red (black) caviar, champagne, vodka, watermelon, cherry, sour cherry, horseradish, and beefsteak. “Fini!” exclaimed Piri happily: she was done gluing the mirror.

When we are too functional, we forget the point of hospitality in the home: fellowship, not entertainment. Don't let pride stop you from opening your home. Ignore the cat hair on the couch (or in the mac and cheese). It likely won't kill anyone as decisively as loneliness will. Add as much water to the pot to stretch the soup. If you run out of food, make pancakes, and put the kids in charge of making that meal. See how much fun that is. And know that someone is spared from another humiliating fall into internet pornography because he is instead walking with you and your kids and dogs, as you share the Lord's Day, one model of how the Lord gives you daily grace and a way of escape. Know that someone is spared the fear and darkness of depression because she is needed at your house, always on the Lord's Day, the day she is never alone, but instead safely in community, where her place at the table is needed and necessary and relied upon. Know that someone is drawn into Christ's love because the Bible reading and psalm singing that come at the close of the meal include everyone, and that it reminds us that no one is scapegoated in this Christ-bearing community. Know that host and guest are equally precious and fragile, and that you will play both roles throughout the course of this life. The doors here open wide. They must.

God is calling us to so greatly love others that we do not desire for them anything that might separate them from God. Holy sexuality is a love so big that it treasures the purity of another, exonerating that person's status as an image bearer or a daughter or son of the King, and not dehumanizing him or her through manipulating lust.

A marriage is a private bond between two people. But a wedding is a party for everyone, a celebration of life and love, a gathering of friends and relatives to rejoice in life’s good food, champagne, dancing, laughter, and a golden moment in the passage of life. A marriage lasts years, through the good times and bad, and all the banal, boring everyday goings-on of living. A wedding is a brief flash, a unique, exceptional festivity with singing and flowers and good will among men—and women. A marriage is real life. A wedding is a fairy tale. But a wedding is also a promise that we will hold dear the joys of the fairy tale close to our hearts as we go through the years of our marriage.

We violate those we love when we try to supplant Christ by trying to fill his role, or by removing ourselves from this lavish outpouring of love by refusing to take God’s point of view on the matter of sin—its nature, origin, and consequences. Christ loves his people best. We cannot love as he did. We cannot suffer as he did. We cannot redeem our lives, our worlds, or our relationships.

So, how’d you two get together?” “New Year’s Eve.” Oli plopped on the couch again and poured a slim flute of champagne. “We fucked each other’s brains out, and next thing I knew it was true love.” “Are you being a smart-ass?” “Nope.” He handed me the glass and tapped his flute against mine. “Here’s to making David and Caleb happy, and ensuring they’re over each other.” “I’ll drink to that.

Author Joe Rigney has traced the movement in this term, empathy, and he suggests that while empathy certainly has a place in our lives, we all tend to use the term selectively.17 We empathize with perceived victims only. (Who, for example, wants to empathize with a murderer or rapist?) Selective empathy is one of the key contributors to tribalism and polarization. To Rigney, empathy is dangerous because if the highest form of love is standing in someone else’s shoes, no one is left standing in a place of objective truth. If someone is drowning in a river, jumping in with him may break up his loneliness, but having two drowned people produces an even greater problem. Sympathy allows someone to stand on the shore, on the solid ground of objective truth where real help might be found.

One splendid summer afternoon Kaspar realized he had never been happier in his life or both of his lives, past and present. Not fireworks-orgasms-and-champagne happy, but on waking in the morning he was glad almost every single day to be exactly where he was. He had never before experienced the feeling of genuine, constant well-being and it was a true revelation. The longer the satisfaction continued, the less he thought about his previous life as a mechanic and the extraordinary things he’d once seen and been able to do. Misery may love company but happiness is content to be alone. The funny irony of his existence now was, as long as he was this happy and content with his lot, Kaspar didn’t need to make much of an effort to “walk away” from his mechanic’s life because now he was sated with this one both in mind and heart.

Parades terrify me,” Max piped up. Jason nodded in understanding and slid the champagne toward him and Reid. “Parades?” I couldn’t help but ask. “Really?” Max shot me a look of terror. “The clowns are allowed out of their tiny cars, Colton. Have you ever even been to a parade? They hand candy and balloons to small children and have permanent smiles on their faces. No one”—he shuddered—“should have a permanent smile.

Our communists aren’t like your communists. In New York they’re always on the street demonstrating, but their demands are absurd. Slash rents! Free groceries and electricity for the poor! They demand that landlords open up their vacant apartments to house the unemployed. They even demand that the Communist Party distribute unemployment relief instead of the Labor Department. They might as well demand cake and champagne!

She had always understood that love could have an intense physical effect; could fill a space somewhere in the chest, could turn knees weak, could raise the pulse; could intoxicate, just as could a strong martini or a glass of champagne. Could, she thought, and would…but only if you allowed it, only if you opened whatever portals of the heart needed to be opened. And some people, of course, found it difficult to do that.

Harry, you are dreadful! I don't know why I like you so much." "You will always like me, Dorian," he replied. "Will you have some coffee, you fellows? Waiter, bring coffee, and fine-champagne, and some cigarettes. No, don't mind the cigarettes--I have some. Basil, I can't allow you to smoke cigars. You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want? Yes, Dorian, you will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit." "What nonsense you talk, Harry!" cried the lad, taking a light from a fire-breathing silver dragon that the waiter had placed on the table. "Let us go down to the theatre. When Sibyl comes on the stage you will have a new ideal of life. She will represent something to you that you have never known." "I have known everything," said Lord Henry, with a tired look in his eyes, "but I am always ready for a new emotion. I am afraid, however, that, for me at any rate, there is no such thing. Still, your wonderful girl may thrill me. I love acting. It is so much more real than life. Let us go. Dorian, you will come with me. I am so sorry, Basil, but there is only room for two in the brougham. You must follow us in a hansom.

I was splayed on my bed in sweats, staring at the ceiling, when suddenly I gave birth to The Idea: one area of the country club would be filled with gold bamboo chairs, architecturally arranged orchids and roses, and antique lace table linens. Violins would serenade the guests as they feasted on cold tenderloin and sipped champagne. Martha Stewart would be present in spirit and declare, “This is my daughter, whom I love. In her I am well pleased.

Now did the Reverend Samuel Pentecost, whose light had hitherto been hidden under a bushel, prove at last that he could do something by proving that he could eat. Now did Pedgift Junior shine brighter than ever he had shone yet in gems of caustic humour and exquisite fertilities of resource. Now did the squire, and the squire’s charming guest, prove the triple connection between Champagne that sparkles, Love that grows bolder, and Eyes whose vocabulary is without the word No

Theology doesn’t save us. We are saved only by the electing love of the Father and the mercy of the Son, so there are true believers who affiliate with gay Christianity to their own harm. But one thing is clear. False religions operate through the diligence of false teachers, whose master, Satan, never sleeps. If Satan is always awake, it is dangerous for the Christian at any time to be spiritually asleep, secure and careless. . . . The saint’s sleeping time is Satan’s tempting time.22

Without slavery, as a matter of fact, there is no definitive solution. I very soon realized that. Once upon a time, I was always talking of freedom: At breakfast I used to spread it on my toast, I used to chew it all day long, and in company my breath was delightfully redolent of freedom. With that key word I would bludgeon whoever contradicted me; I made it serve my desires and my power. I used to whisper it in bed in the ear of my sleeping mates and it helped me to drop them. I would slip it… Tchk! Tchk! I am getting excited and losing all sense of proportion. After all, I did on occasion make a more disinterested use of freedom and even – just imagine my naiveté -- defended it two or three times without of course going so far as to die for it, but nevertheless taking a few risks. I must be forgiven such rash acts; I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know that freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is celebrated with champagne. Nor yet a gift, a box of dainties designed to make you lick your chops. Oh, no! It’s a choice, on the contrary and a long-distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting. No champagne, no friends raising their glasses as they look at your affectionately. Alone in a forbidding room, alone in the prisoner's box before the judges, and alone to decide in face of oneself or in the face others' judgment. At the end of all freedom is a court sentence; that's why freedom is too heavy to bear, especially when you're down with a fever, or are distressed, or love nobody.

The work of a believer is responsive, not initiative. We respond to God’s love because we must. Like Peter, when called to do the impossible, we do not look to our limitations, but we ponder this: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life” (John 6:68). Owen says this: “Mortification of any sin must be by a supply of grace. Of ourselves, we cannot do it.”31 The gospel does not take us halfway there. God takes us all the way home. But if what you seek is grace apart from Christ’s blood, you will never get home.

I’m capable of being a good father. The only thing I did right is choose the best mother for both of you. She has everything I lack. And already, I know she’s going to love you the way that every child deserves to be loved.” I sigh and correct myself. “The way every person deserves to be loved. She deserves that, too. A full life with a husband who can step up for her. Someone to be the protector she never had. To be the kind of husband that she always wanted. But I don’t have it in me to love her that way. Because if I lose her…

Rayna does not get sick on planes. Also, Rayna does not stop talking on planes. By the time we land at Okaloosa Regional Airport, I’m wondering if I’ve spoken as many words in my entire life as she did on the plane. With no layovers, it was the longest forty-five minutes of my whole freaking existence. I can tell Rachel’s nerves are also fringed. She orders an SUV limo-Rachel never does anything small-to pick us up and insists that Rayna try the complimentary champagne. I’m fairly certain it’s the first alcoholic beverage Rayna’s ever had, and by the time we reach the hotel on the beach, I’m all the way certain. As Rayna snores in the seat across from me, Rachel checks us into the hotel and has our bags taken to our room. “Do you want to head over to the Gulfarium now?” she asks. “Or, uh, rest up a bit and wait for Rayna to wake up?” This is an important decision. Personally, I’m not tired at all and would love to see a liquored-up Rayna negotiate the stairs at the Gulfarium. But I’d feel a certain guilt if she hit her hard head on a wooden rail or something and then we’d have to pay the Gulfarium for the damages her thick skull would surely cause. Plus, I’d have to suffer a reproving look from Dr. Milligan, which might actually hurt my feelings because he reminds me a bit of my dad. So I decide to do the right thing. “Let’s rest for a while and let her snap out of it. I’ll call Dr. Milligan and let him know we’ve checked in.” Two hours later, Sleeping Beast wakes up and we head to see Dr. Milligan. Rayna is particularly grouchy when hungover-can you even get hungover from drinking champagne?-so she’s not terribly inclined to be nice to the security guard who lets us in. She mutters something under her breath-thank God she doesn’t have a real voice-and pushes past him like the spoiled Royalty she is. I’m just about aggravated beyond redemption-until we see Dr. Milligan in a new exhibit of stingrays. He coos and murmurs as if they’re a litter of puppies in the tank begging to play with him. When he notices our arrival he smiles, and it feels like a coconut slushy on a sweltering day and it almost makes up for the crap I’ve been put through these past few days.

Five years from today. Where, exactly, do you want to be?" Her eyes lit up. Sadie loves that kind of question. "Ooh. Wow. Let me think. December, getting close to Christmas. I'll be twenty-one..." "Passed out under the tree with a fifth of Jack, half a 7-Eleven rotisserie chicken, and a cat who poops in your shoes." Frankie returned our startled glances with his lizard look. "Oh, wait. That's me. Sorry." I opted to ignore him. "Five years to the day,Sadie." She glanced quickly between Frankie and me. "Do we need a time-out here?" "Nope," I said. "Carry on." "Okay. Five years. I will be in New York visiting the pair of you because, while NYU is fab, I will be halfwau through my final year of classics at Cambridge, trying to decide whether I want to be a psychologist or a pastry chef. You," she said sternly to Frankie, "will be drinking appropriate amounds of champagne with your boyfriend, a six-three blond from Helsinki who happens to design for Tory Burch. Ah! Don't say anything. It's my future. You can choose a different designer when it's you go. I want the Tory freebies." She turned to me. "We will be sipping said champagne in the middle of the Gagosian Galley, because it is the opening night of your first solo exhibit. At which everything will sell." She punctuated the sentence by poking the air with a speared black olive. "I love you," I told her. Then, "But that wasn't really about you." "Oh,but it was," she disagreed, going back to her salad. "It's exactly where I want to be. Although" -she grinned over a tomato wedge- "I might have the next David Beckham in tow." "The next David Beckham is a five-foot-tall Welshman named Madog Cadwalader. He has extra teeth and bow legs." "Really?" Sadie asked. Frankie snorted. "No.Not really.

Once there was and once there was not a devout, God-fearing man who lived his entire life according to stoic principles. He died on his fortieth birthday and woke up floating in nothing. Now, mind you, floating in nothing was comforting, light-less, airless, like a mother’s womb. This man was grateful. But then he decided he would love to have sturdy ground beneath his feet, so he would feel more solid himself. Lo and behold, he was standing on earth. He knew it to be earth, for he knew the feel of it. Yet he wanted to see. I desire light, he thought, and light appeared. I want sunlight, not any light, and at night it shall be moonlight. His desires were granted. Let there be grass. I love the feel of grass beneath my feet. And so it was. I no longer wish to be naked. Only robes of the finest silk must touch my skin. And shelter, I need a grand palace whose entrance has double-sided stairs, and the floors must be marble and the carpets Persian. And food, the finest of food. His breakfast was English; his midmorning snack French. His lunch was Chinese. His afternoon tea was Indian. His supper was Italian, and his late-night snack was Lebanese. Libation? He had the best of wines, of course, and champagne. And company, the finest of company. He demanded poets and writers, thinkers and philosophers, hakawatis and musicians, fools and clowns. And then he desired sex. He asked for light-skinned women and dark-skinned, blondes and brunettes, Chinese, South Asian, African, Scandinavian. He asked for them singly and two at a time, and in the evenings he had orgies. He asked for younger girls, after which he asked for older women, just to try. The he tried men, muscular men, skinny men. Then boys. Then boys and girls together. Then he got bored. He tried sex with food. Boys with Chinese, girls with Indian. Redheads with ice cream. Then he tried sex with company. He fucked the poet. Everybody fucked the poet. But again he got bored. The days were endless. Coming up with new ideas became tiring and tiresome. Every desire he could ever think of was satisfied. He had had enough. He walked out of his house, looked up at the glorious sky, and said, “Dear God. I thank You for Your abundance, but I cannot stand it here anymore. I would rather be anywhere else. I would rather be in hell.” And the booming voice from above replied, “And where do you think you are?

We don't get to move from puppy love straight to the golden years of a decades-old marriage, where every joke and wrinkle is a testament to the enduring strength of your bond. First we have to really learn each other. And, in doing so, we have the opportunity to learn about ourselves in the context of that most wonderful, enriching, confounding entity: a committee relationship. It's not always as dreamy or exhilarating as falling in love. But this stage isn't about champagne and sweet nothings; it's about bricks and mortar. The idea is to build a solid foundation for your love - hopefully one that will serve you for many years to come.

But as the weeks rolled on, I realized it wasn’t a lack of glamour that was bothering me. Instead, I kept thinking back to a line Valerie liked to include in her commencements: “Put yourself in the path of lightning.” For just one night, a seventeen-minute comedy monologue was the center of political attention. It was the place to address controversies, to take shots at opponents, to project confidence to the public we served. Now, however, lightning was once again striking the campaign trail. More and more speeches—for both the president and senior staff—were the ones I could not legally write. I kind of liked having job security. I kind of loved drinking Kennedy Center beer. But nothing was as intoxicating as being part of the action. Not long after the dinner, I asked Favs if I could leave the White House for the campaign. He agreed, but proposed a plan that kept me in Washington: I would work on political speeches for POTUS, but from the Democratic National Committee in D.C. Which is how I found myself, a few weeks later, standing beside a conference table covered in turkey pinwheels and cheap champagne. Straut said something generous. Coworkers wrapped leftovers in paper napkins. I turned in my blue badge and BlackBerry. Just like that, I was no longer a government employee.

Sometimes it was exhilaratingly easy to be happy again. Other times they found that they did have to “try,” and the trying seemed stupid and pointless and Alice would wake up in the middle of the night thinking of all the times Nick had hurt her and wondering why she hadn’t stayed with Dominick. But then there were the other times, unexpected quiet moments, where they’d catch each other’s eyes, and all the years of hurt and joy, bad times and good times, seemed to fuse into a feeling that she knew was so much stronger, more complex and real, than any of those fledgling feelings for Dominick, or even the love she’d first felt for Nick in those early years. She had always thought that exquisitely happy time at the beginning of her relationship with Nick was the ultimate, the feeling they’d always be trying to replicate, to get back, but now she realized that was wrong. That was like comparing sparkling mineral water to French champagne. Early love is exciting and exhilarating. It’s light and bubbly. Anyone can love like that. But love after three children, after a separation and a near-divorce, after you’ve hurt each other and forgiven each other, bored each other and surprised each other, after you’ve seen the worst and the best—well, that sort of a love is ineffable. It deserves its own word.

I met a man. I met a man. I let him throw me raound the bed. And smoked, me, spliffs and choked my neck until I said I was dead. I met a man who took me for walks. Long ones in the country. I offer up. I offer up in the hedge. I met a man I met with her. She and me and his friend to bars at night and drink champagne and bought me chips at every teatime. I met a man with condoms in his pockets. Don't use them. He loves children in his heart. No. I met a man who knew me once. who saw me around when I was a child. Who said you're a fine looking woman now. Who said come back marry me live on my farm. No. I met a man who was a priest I didn't I did. Just as well as many another one would. I met a man. I met a man. who said he'd pay me by the month. who said he'd keep me up in style and I'd be waiting when he arrived. No is what I say. I met a man who hit me a smack. I met a man who cracked my arm. I met a man who said what are you doing out so late at night. I met a man. I met a man. And wash my mouth out with soap. I wish I could. That I did then. I met a man. A stupid thing. I met a man. Should have turned on my heel. I thought. I didn't know to think. I didn't even know to speak. I met a man. I kept on walking. I met a man. I met a man. And I lay down. And slapped and cried and wined and dined. I met a man and many more and I didn't know you at all.

All women want is to be wanted, appreciated, and respected. At least the good ones. Yeah, there are bitches out there who want Gucci bags, drink expensive champagne, and feel loved by receiving material objects, or being married to the rich guy. Then there are the women who talk incessantly about themselves and need constant praise and validation regardless of who it's coming from. But I promise you there are also women out there who just want to experience another person, have a connection, bring meaning to their lives by exploring life with someone who gets them." I looked to Jeff. "Who is this woman? She's like the Einstein of emotional intelligence." "She's also good in bed," Jeff said.

I understand felicitations are in order.” Ian started. His betrothal to Christina, which was about to be broken, was not yet common knowledge. “Christina Taylor is a lovely young woman. I knew her grandfather and her uncles, and, of course, her father, the Earl of Melbourne. She’ll make you a fine wife, Ian.” “Inasmuch as bigamy is a crime in this country, I find that unlikely.” Startled by the discovery that his information was apparently incorrect, Edward took another swallow of champagne and asked, “May I ask who the fortunate young woman is, then?” Ian opened his mouth to tell him to go to hell, but there was something alarming about the way his grandfather was slowly putting his glass down.

She fluttered around like a dainty bird, and when she caught those ugly squawking hens you couldn't believe she'd actually do anything. When she went right ahead and geeked 'em that whole larruping crowd went bonzo wild. There never was such a snap and twist of the wrist, such a vampire flick of the jaws over a neck or such a champagne approach to the blood. She'd shake her star-white hair and the bitten-off chicken head would skew off into the corner while she dug her rosy little fingernails in and lifted the flopping, jittering carcass like a golden goblet, and sipped! Absolutely sipped at the wriggling guts! She was magnificent, a princess, a Cleopatra, an elfin queen! That was your mama in the geek pit.

From harsh and shrill and clamant, the voices grew blurred and inarticulate. Bad sentences were helped out by worse gestures, and at one table, Scabius could only express himself with his napkin, after the manner of Sir Jolly Jumble in the first part of the Soldier’s Fortune of Otway. Basalissa and Lysistrata tried to pronounce each other’s names, and became very affectionate in the attempt; and Tala, the tragedian, robed in roomy purple and wearing plume and buskin, rose to his feet and with swaying gestures began to recite one of his favourite parts. He got no further than the first line, but repeated it again and again, with fresh accents and intonations each time, and was only silenced by the approach of the asparagus that was being served by satyrs dressed in white muslin. Clitor and Sodon had a violet struggle over the beautiful Pella, and nearly upset a chandelier. Sophie became very intimate with an empty champagne bottle, swore it had made her enceinte, and ended by having a mock accouchement on the top of the table; and Belamour pretended to be a dog, and pranced from couch to couch on all fours, biting and barking and licking. Mellefont crept about dropping love philtres into glasses. Juventus and Ruella stripped and put on each other’s things, Spelto offered a prize for who ever should come first, and Spelto won it! Tannhäuser, just a little grisé, lay down on the cushions and let Julia do whatever she liked.

In you Hate was always stronger than Love...You did not realize that there is no room for both passions in the same soul. They cannot live together in that fair carven house. Love is fed by the imagination, by which we become wiser than we know, better than we feel, nobler than we are: by which we can see Life as a whole; by which, and by which alone, we can understand others in their real as in their ideal relations. Only what is fine, and finely conceived, can feed Love. But anything will feed Hate. There was no glass of champagne you drank, not a rich dish you ate of in all those years that did not feed your Hate and make it fat...Hate so blinded you that you could see no further than the narrow, walled-in, and already lust-withered garden of your common desires.

She wanted desperately to put out her hand and clutch his arm and explain why she was sad, and not because of Tom, who had suddenly become quite unimportant, but because she loved him so much and he didn't care two straws for her. 'I'm very happy,' she said a shade too loudly. As the waiter went past she took another glass of champagne. 'Happy? Oh yes, and I'm sure you will be— -because you will make your own happiness. You'll tend it with all the care of someone holding a last candle in the dark. You'll learn to make do with second best; a great many men and women do, you know. Just a few know what real happiness is— to love someone so much that nothing else matters any more, only the two of you and the life you share.' Gideon smiled faintly. 'We could have been like that, you and I. You know that deep in your heart, don't you, my darling? And do you know something else? If it would make you happy, I would give up all I have and live in a desert with you, or on top of a mountain. I'd pluck the moon from the sky and hang the stars round your beautiful neck. The world could be paradise.' He sighed. 'But most of us, as I said, make do with second best.' Amelia drank in every word, her insides glowing with excitement. He loved her—he must, to talk to her like that. She had only to explain... The next minute she knew that she never would. He laughed suddenly and the mockery in his laugh was so blatant that she winced. 'What nonsense one talks at weddings! Come and meet Fiona; we came together—we've known each other for a long time.

Whenever there was an opening for a new show, she would invite him; there would be champagne and hors d’oeuvres, women in smart dresses and men in well-cut suits. Anne would circulate around the room, stopping to talk with the people clustered in front of the paintings—wild, abstract splashes of color or more somber, tonal works. Marco didn’t understand any of it. The most beautiful, the most arresting thing in the room, for him, would always be Anne. He would stay out of her way, stand over by the bar eating cheese, or off to the side, and watch her do her thing. She had been trained for it, getting her degree in art history and modern art, but more than that, she had an instinct for it, a passion. Marco had not grown up with art, but it was part of her life, and he loved her for it.

The wine would be copious, the conversation scintillating, and the amenities deluxe. How could he say no? The answer, as always: money, money, money. Lewis relayed the cost, all inclusive, and, though the amount was staggering (Less checked twice to be sure it was not in Moroccan dirhams), he was, as always, already too much in love. Bedouin music was already playing in his ears; camels were already grunting in the darkness; he was already standing up from embroidered pillows and walking out into the desert night, champagne in hand, to let the floury Sahara warm his toes as, above him, the Milky Way glowed with his birthday candles. For it was somewhere in the Sahara that Arthur Less would turn fifty. He swore he would not be alone. Memories of his fortieth, wandering the broad avenues of Las Vegas, still came to him in worser moments. He would not be alone.

Maybe you could tell us how you and Jordan met, Nick.” All conversation at the table stopped. Frankly, Nick was surprised it had taken this long for someone to ask. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jordan take a nervous sip of her wine. He knew this was the part of the evening she’d dreaded, the part where they told more lies to her friends. Perhaps he could help her out with that. “Jordan and I met two weeks ago, at her store,” he said. “On the night of the big snowstorm.” Pete chuckled. “You really must’ve been jonesing for wine to go out in that mess.” Nick reached across the table and linked his fingers through Jordan’s. “I think Fate had a higher purpose for bringing me to her store that night.” He winked at her. I’ve got this. Melinda melted. “That’s so sweet.” “Then what happened?” Corinne prompted. Nick faced Jordan’s friends. For her sake, he’d tell the truth—perhaps not the whole truth—but at least nothing but. “Well, I asked Jordan a few questions, some quips were exchanged, and I distinctly recall her making a sarcastic comment about chardonnay. I can’t tell you exactly what happened from there, but five days later I found myself at Xander Eckhart’s party drinking pink champagne.” Her friends laughed. Charles raised his glass. “That’s how it happens, Nick. A cute smile, a few clever words, and five years later you’re watching Dancing with the Stars on Monday nights instead of football.” “Hey, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” Pete said indignantly. As the group teased Pete, Nick felt Jordan squeeze his knee underneath the table. She spoke softly as she held his gaze. “Thank you.” It took far more effort than it should have to make his tone sound as cavalier as always. “Any time, Rhodes

And wrapped in this risk and danger are God’s embrace and promise to work all things (even evil ones) to the good of those who love him. When we read in the book of Romans, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose” (8:28), we are not to be Pollyanna about this. Many of the “things” we will face come with the razor edges of a fallen and broken world. You can’t play poker with God’s mercy—if you want the sweet mercy then you must also swallow the bitter mercy. And what is the difference between sweet and bitter? Only this: your critical perspective, your worldview. One of God’s greatest gifts is the ability to see and appreciate the world from points of view foreign to your own, points of view that exceed your personal experience. That is what it means to me to grow in Christ—to exceed myself as I stretch to him.

I kind of conned you into believing you were falling in love with a healthy person,” he said. I shrugged. “I’d have done the same to you.” “No, you wouldn’t’ve, but we can’t all be as awesome as you.” He kissed me, then grimaced. “Does it hurt?” I asked. “No. Just.” He stared at the ceiling for a long time before saying, “I like this world. I like drinking champagne. I like not smoking. I like the sound of Dutch people speaking Dutch. And now…I don’t even get a battle. I don’t get a fight.” “You get to battle cancer,” I said. “That is your battle. And you’ll keep fighting,” I told him. I hated it when people tried to build me up to prepare for battle, but I did it to him, anyway. “You’ll…you’ll…live your best life today. This is your war now.” I despised myself for the cheesy sentiment, but what else did I have? “Some war,” he said dismissively. “What am I at war with? My cancer. And what is my cancer? My cancer is me. The tumors are made of me. They’re made of me as surely as my brain and my heart are made of me. It is a civil war, Hazel Grace, with a predetermined winner.” “Gus,” I said. I couldn’t say anything else. He was too smart for the kinds of solace I could offer. “Okay,” he said. But it wasn’t. After a moment, he said, “If you go to the Rijksmuseum, which I really wanted to do—but who are we kidding, neither of us can walk through a museum. But anyway, I looked at the collection online before we left. If you were to go, and hopefully someday you will, you would see a lot of paintings of dead people. You’d see Jesus on the cross, and you’d see a dude getting stabbed in the neck, and you’d see people dying at sea and in battle and a parade of martyrs. But Not. One. Single. Cancer. Kid. Nobody biting it from the plague or smallpox or yellow fever or whatever, because there is no glory in illness. There is no meaning to it. There is no honor in

Now, what did my brother do to earn your ire this time?-insist that you are better off with a boring young man who will love you for your dowry? Hang your puppy like that dastardly Heathcliff?” The last was meant to make her laugh, she knew, and laugh she did. And when she was done, she was in a much better humor. “You have read Wuthering Heights?” He nodded. “I have. Don’t look at me like that! You do not believe me?” “I believe you, but I must confess my surprise. You do not seem the kind of man who would read novels.” A sly smile curved his thin lips. “My dear girl. Who reads novels?” “Mostly women, I would suspect,” she replied, setting her empty champagne flute on the tray of a footman. Yet another passed with a fresh tray of full glasses and she took one of those. “Exactly. If one wants to converse with a woman, one should have a variety of subjects at hand.” “But you only want to talk to them so you can seduce them.” “You shock and wound me.” Rose grinned. “Impossible.

Cassandra, I can't marry you and go about business as usual the next day. Newlyweds need privacy." He had a point. But he looked so disgruntled, Cassandra couldn't resist teasing. With a glance of wide-eyed innocence, she asked, "What for?" Tom appeared increasingly flustered as he tried to come up with an explanation. Cassandra waited, gnawing on the inside of her lips. Tom's face changed as he saw the dance of laughter in her eyes. "I'll show you what for," he said, and lunged for her. Cassandra fled with a shriek, skirting nimbly around the table, but he was as fast as a leopard. After snatching her up with ease, he deposited her on the settee, and pounced. She giggled and twisted as the amorous male weight of him lowered over her. The scent of him was clean but salted with sweat, a touch of bay rum cologne sharpened with body warmth. His face was right above hers, a few locks of dark hair tumbling on his forehead. Grinning at her efforts to dislodge him, he braced his forearms on either side of her head. She'd never played with a man like this, and it was incredibly entertaining and fun, and the tiniest bit scary in a way that excited her. Her giggles collapsed slowly, like champagne froth, and she wriggled as if to twist away from him even though she had no intention of doing so. He countered by settling more heavily into the cradle of her hips, pressing her into the cushions. Even through the mass of her skirts, she felt an unfamiliar pressure of his arousal. The thick ridge fit perfectly against the juncture of her thighs, aligning intimately with her in a way that was both embarrassing and stirring. A stab of desire went through her as she realized this was how it would be... the anchoring weight of him, all hard muscle and heat... his eyes heavy-lidded and hot as he stared down at her. Dazedly she reached up and pulled his head to hers. A whimper of pleasure escaped her as he kissed her thoroughly, wringing sensation from her softness, licking deep.

He carefully poured the juice into a bowl and rinsed the scallops to remove any sand caught between the tender white meat and the firmer coral-colored roe, wrapped around it like a socialite's fur stole. Mayur is the kind of cook (my kind), who thinks the chef should always have a drink in hand. He was making the scallops with champagne custard, so naturally the rest of the bottle would have to disappear before dinner. He poured a cup of champagne into a small pot and set it to reduce on the stove. Then he put a sugar cube in the bottom of a wide champagne coupe (Lalique, service for sixteen, direct from the attic on my mother's last visit). After a bit of a search, he found the crème de violette in one of his shopping bags and poured in just a dash. He topped it up with champagne and gave it a swift stir. "To dinner in Paris," he said, glass aloft. 'To the chef," I answered, dodging swiftly out of the way as he poured the reduced champagne over some egg yolks and began whisking like his life depended on it. "Do you have fish stock?" "Nope." "Chicken?" "Just cubes. Are you sure that will work?" "Sure. This is the Mr. Potato Head School of Cooking," he said. "Interchangeable parts. If you don't have something, think of what that ingredient does, and attach another one." I counted, in addition to the champagne, three other bottles of alcohol open in the kitchen. The boar, rubbed lovingly with a paste of cider vinegar, garlic, thyme, and rosemary, was marinating in olive oil and red wine. It was then to be seared, deglazed with hard cider, roasted with whole apples, and finished with Calvados and a bit of cream. Mayur had his nose in a small glass of the apple liqueur, inhaling like a fugitive breathing the air of the open road. As soon as we were all assembled at the table, Mayur put the raw scallops back in their shells, spooned over some custard, and put them ever so briefly under the broiler- no more than a minute or two. The custard formed a very thin skin with one or two peaks of caramel. It was, quite simply, heaven. The pork was presented neatly sliced, restaurant style, surrounded with the whole apples, baked to juicy, sagging perfection.

Dryness and the Dark Night”:2 A certain scientist devoted his life to developing a strain of butterfly that would be the most beautiful combination of colors ever seen on this planet. After years of experimentation, he was certain that he had a cocoon that would produce his genetic masterpiece. On the day that the butterfly was expected to emerge, he gathered together his entire staff. All waited breathlessly as the creature began to work its way out of the cocoon. It disengaged its right wing, its body, and most of its left wing. Just as the staff were ready to cheer and pass the champagne and cigars, they saw with horror that the extremity of the left wing of the butterfly was stuck in the mouth of the cocoon. The creature was desperately flapping its other wing to free itself. As it labored, it grew more and more exhausted. Each new effort seemed more difficult, and the intervals between efforts grew longer. At last the scientist, unable to bear the tension, took a scalpel and cut a tiny section from the mouth of the cocoon. With one final burst of strength, the butterfly fell free onto the laboratory table. Everybody cheered and reached for the cigars and the champagne. Then silence again descended on the room. Although the butterfly was free, it could not fly. . . The struggle to escape from the cocoon is nature’s way of forcing blood to the extremities of a butterfly’s wings so that when it emerges from the cocoon it can enjoy its new life and fly to its heart’s content. In seeking to save the creature’s life, the scientist had truncated its capacity to function. A butterfly that cannot fly is a contradiction in terms. This is a mistake that God is not going to make. The image of God watching Anthony has to be understood. God holds back his infinite mercy from rushing to the rescue when we are in temptation and difficulties. He will not actively intervene because the struggle is opening and preparing every recess of our being for the divine energy of grace. God is transforming us so that we can enjoy the divine life to the full once it has been established. If the divine help comes too soon, before the work of purification and healing has been accomplished, it may frustrate our ultimate ability to live the divine life.

Servers moved among the guests with trays of hors d'oeuvres and the signature cocktail, champagne with a honey infused liqueur and a delicate spiral twist of lemon. The banquet was bursting with color and flavor- flower-sprinkled salads, savory chili roasted salmon, honey glazed ribs, just-harvested sweet corn, lush tomatoes and berries, artisan cheeses. Everything had been harvested within a fifty-mile radius of Bella Vista. The cake was exactly what Tess had requested, a gorgeous tower of sweetness. Tess offered a gracious speech as she and Dominic cut the first slices. "I've come a long way from the city girl who subsisted on Red Bull and microwave burritos," she said. "There's quite a list of people to thank for that- my wonderful mother, my grandfather and my beautiful sister who created this place of celebration. Most of all, I'm grateful to Dominic." She turned to him, offering the first piece on a yellow china plate. "You're my heart, and there is no sweeter feeling than the love we share. Not even this cake. Wait, that might be overstating it. Everyone, be sure you taste this cake. It's one of Isabel's best recipes.

In real life I'm waking up alone It's one more night you didn't make it home And one more time you won't pick up the phone In real life you never bring me flowers When you're here it's only for an hour I'm getting used to being on my own Because in real life you're not what I thought Real life, this isn't what I want Guess things aren't always what they seem But in my dreams, I'm waking up to roses Champagne, kisses and I know it's always, always Gonna be, gonna be this way In my dreams, you're standing right beside me Two hearts finally colliding Then I wake up and realize, realize this is real life Real life, this is real life, real life, real life Real life, whoa-oh, whoa-oh, whoa-oh, oh, real life In real life it doesn't always work out People fall in love and then they fall out Hearts can break and never make a sound Because in real life you're not what I thought Real life, this isn't what I want Guess things aren't always what they seem But in my dreams, I'm waking up to roses Champagne, kisses and I know it's always, always Gonna be, gonna be this way In my dreams, you're standing right beside me Two hearts finally colliding Then I wake up and realize, realize this is real life.

Your brother is the most ridiculous, hardheaded, stupid man I know!” Rose half expected Archer to chastise her. Instead, he took a second glass of champagne from the footman passing with the tray and offered it to her. “And you are surprised by this?” “Astonishingly, yes.” She took a long, unladylike swallow of the crisp, bubbly liquid. “I’m astounded. Ah, here are two scoundrels you should know to avoid.” His grin told her he considered them quite the opposite. They were good-looking men, one tall and dark, the other almost as tall with brown hair and blue eyes and enough of the Kane countenance that she picked him for Grey's relation instantly. They met Archer enthusiastically, and then turned polite curiosity in her direction. "Lady Rose Danvers," Archer said jovially. "May I present the Earl of Autley." The dark man bowed over her offered hand. "And my cousin, Mr. Aiden Kane?" The man who looked a bit like Grey smiled and took her hand next. "It's lovely to meet you, Lady Rose," the earl said smoothly. "I hope you are enjoying your time in London?" "Oh, yes," she replied. "Lord Archer has been a very entertaining companion." "I don't doubt it," Aiden said with a grin as he clapped Archer on the shoulder.

Marlboro Man was out of town, on a trip to the southern part of the state, looking at farm ground, the night I began conceiving of the best way to arrange the reception menu. I was splayed on my bed in sweats, staring at the ceiling, when suddenly I gave birth to The Idea: one area of the country club would be filled with gold bamboo chairs, architecturally arranged orchids and roses, and antique lace table linens. Violins would serenade the guests as they feasted on cold tenderloin and sipped champagne. Martha Stewart would be present in spirit and declare, “This is my daughter, whom I love. In her I am well pleased.” Martha’s third cousin Mabel would prefer the ballroom on the other end of the club, however, which would be the scene of an authentic chuck wagon spread: barbecue, biscuits and gravy, fried chicken, Coors Light. Blue-checkered tablecloths would adorn the picnic tables, a country band would play “All My Exes Live in Texas,” and wildflowers would fill pewter jugs throughout the room. I smiled, imagining the fun. In one fell swoop, our two worlds--Marlboro Man’s country and my country club--would collide, combine, and unite in a huge, harmonious feast, one that would officially usher in my permanent departure from city life, cappuccino, and size 6 clothes.

There was also a package wrapped in pale blue paper and tied with a matching ribbon. Picking up a small folded note that had been tucked under the ribbon, Beatrix read: A gift for your wedding night, darling Bea. This gown was made by the most fashionable modiste in London. It is rather different from the ones you usually wear, but it will be very pleasing to a bridegroom. Trust me about this. -Poppy Holding the nightgown up, Beatrix saw that it was made of black gossamer and fastened with tiny jet buttons. Since the only nightgowns she had ever worn had been of modest white cambric or muslin, this was rather shocking. However, if it was what husbands liked... After removing her corset and her other underpinnings, Beatrix drew the gown over her head and let a slither over her body in a cool, silky drift. The thin fabric draped closely over her shoulders and torso and buttoned at the waist before flowing to the ground in transparent panels. A side slit went up to her hip, exposing her leg when she moved. And her back was shockingly exposed, the gown dipping low against her spine. Pulling the pins and combs from her hair, she dropped them into the muslin bag in the trunk. Tentatively she emerged from behind the screen. Christopher had just finished pouring two glasses of champagne. He turned toward her and froze, except for his gaze, which traveled over her in a burning sweep. "My God," he muttered, and drained his champagne. Setting the empty glass aside, he gripped the other as if he were afraid it might slip through his fingers. "Do you like my nightgown?" Beatrix asked. Christopher nodded, not taking his gaze from her. "Where's the rest of it?" "This was all I could find." Unable to resist teasing him, Beatrix twisted and tried to see the back view. "I wonder if I put it on backward..." "Let me see." As she turned to reveal the naked line of her back, Christopher drew in a harsh breath. Although Beatrix heard him mumble a curse, she didn't take offense, deducing that Poppy had been right about the nightgown. And when he drained the second glass of champagne, forgetting that it was hers, Beatrix sternly repressed a grin. She went to the bed and climbed onto the mattress, relishing the billowy softness of its quilts and linens. Reclining on her side, she made no attempt to cover her exposed leg as the gossamer fabric fell open to her hip. Christopher came to her, stripping off his shirt along the way. The sight of him, all that flexing muscle and sun-glazed skin, was breathtaking. He was a beautiful man, a scarred Apollo, a dream lover. And he was hers.

She had always thought that exquisitely happy time at the beginning of her relationship with Nick was the ultimate, the feeling they’d always be trying to replicate, to get back, but now she realized that was wrong. That was like comparing sparkling mineral water to French champagne. Early love is exciting and exhilarating. It’s light and bubbly. Anyone can love like that. But love after three children, after a separation and a near-divorce, after you’ve hurt each other and forgiven each other, bored each other and surprised each other, after you’ve seen the worst and the best—well, that sort of a love is ineffable. It deserves its own word. And quite possibly she could have achieved that feeling with Dominick one day. It was never so much that Dominick was wrong for her and that Nick was right. She may have had a perfectly happy life with Dominick. But Nick was Nick. He knew what she meant when she said, “Oh my dosh.” They could look at an old photo together and travel back in time to the same place; they could begin a million conversations with “Do you remember when . . .”; they could hear the first chords of an old song on the radio and exchange glances that said everything without words. Each memory, good and bad, was another invisible thread that bound them together, even when they were foolishly thinking they could lead separate lives. It was as simple and complicated as that.

On the wedding day not a few eyes would be wet at the sight of so youthful a man and maiden 'joined together in an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man's innocency,' For such ancient traditions—in spite of the fact that man's innocency could not even survive one bite of an apple shared with a woman—are none the less apt to be deeply moving. There they would kneel, the young newly wed, ardent yet sanctified by a blessing, so that all, or at least nearly all, they would do, must be considered both natural and pleasing to a God in the image of man created. And the fact that this God, in a thoughtless moment, had created in His turn those pitiful thousands who must stand for ever outside His blessing, would in no way disturb the large congregation or their white surpliced pastor, or the couple who knelt on the gold-braided, red velvet cushions. And afterwards there would be plentiful champagne to warm the cooling blood of the elders, and much shaking of hands and congratulating, and many kind smiles for the bride and her bridegroom. Some might even murmur a fleeting prayer in their hearts, as the two departed: 'God bless them!' So now Stephen must actually learn at first hand how straight can run the path of true love, in direct contradiction to the time-honoured proverb. Must realize more clearly than ever, that love is only permissible to those who are cut in every respect to life's pattern; must feel like some ill-conditioned pariah, hiding her sores under lies and pretences.

This neighborhood was mine first. I walked each block twice: drunk, then sober. I lived every day with legs and headphones. It had snowed the night I ran down Lorimer and swore I’d stop at nothing. My love, he had died. What was I supposed to do? I regret nothing. Sometimes I feel washed up as paper. You’re three years away. But then I dance down Graham and the trees are the color of champagne and I remember— There are things I like about heartbreak, too, how it needs a good soundtrack. The way I catch a man’s gaze on the L and don’t look away first. Losing something is just revising it. After this love there will be more love. My body rising from a nest of sheets to pick up a stranger’s MetroCard. I regret nothing. Not the bar across the street from my apartment; I was still late. Not the shared bathroom in Barcelona, not the red-eyes, not the songs about black coats and Omaha. I lie about everything but not this. You were every streetlamp that winter. You held the crown of my head and for once I won’t show you what I’ve made. I regret nothing. Your mother and your Maine. Your wet hair in my lap after that first shower. The clinic and how I cried for a week afterwards. How we never chose the language we spoke. You wrote me a single poem and in it you were the dog and I the fire. Remember the courthouse? The anniversary song. Those goddamn Kmart towels. I loved them, when did we throw them away? Tomorrow I’ll write down everything we’ve done to each other and fill the bathtub with water. I’ll burn each piece of paper down to silt. And if it doesn’t work, I’ll do it again. And again and again and— — Hala Alyan, “Object Permanence

Gary Cooper called to invite me to a dinner party he was giving for Clark Gable at his house. When I accepted and he asked if I would mind picking up Barbara Stanwyck, I was delighted. I had always thought she was one of the greatest. The Lady Eve and Double Indemnity are two of my favorite films and feature two of the many terrific performances she gave through the years. I arrived at her door promptly at 6:30 P.M., a huge bouquet of pink peonies in hand. The maid said she would be right down, took the flowers, and offered me a glass of champagne. Barbara came down a few minutes later, looking terrific in something silver and slinky. She carried on about the flowers as the maid brought them in and joined me for some champagne. I was anxious to get things off to a good start with the right kind of small talk, but unfortunately I was out of touch with the latest gossip. I asked how and where her husband was. An expletive told me how she felt about her husband: “That son of a bitch ran off with some kraut starlet.” As I struggled to pull my foot out of my mouth, she started to laugh and said, “Don’t worry about it, baby, he’s not worth sweating over,” and the rest of the evening went like gangbusters. We arrived at 7:30 on the dot and were met at the door by Rocky, Mrs. Gary Cooper, who hugged Barbara and said, “He’s going to be so glad to see you.” Cooper and Stanwyck had made a couple of great films together, Meet John Doe and Ball of Fire, the latter for Sam Goldwyn, whom she liked even though she referred to him as “that tough old bastard.” Rocky sent Barbara out to the garden to see Coop, took my arm, and showed me around their lovely home. As we walked into the garden, I spotted him laughing with Barbara. Rocky took me over to meet him. He was tall, lean, warm, and friendly. The thing I remember most about him is the twinkle in his deep blue eyes, which were framed by thick dark lashes. He was a movie star.

In a dear little village Remote and obscure A beautiful maiden resided As to whether or not Her intentions were pure Opinions were sharply divided She loved to lie Out 'neath the darkening sky And allow the night breeze To entrance her She whispered her dreams To the birds flying by But seldom received any answer Over the field and along the lane Gentle Alice would love to stray When it came to the end of the day She would wander away Unheeding Dreaming her innocent dreams she strode Quite unaffected by heat or cold Frequently freckled or soaked with rain Alice was out in the lane Who she met there Every day Was a question Answered by none But she'd get there And she'd stay there 'Til whatever she did Was undoubtedly done You might also like Mad Dogs And Englishmen Noël Coward You’re Losing Me (From The Vault) Taylor Swift Cupid (Twin Version) FIFTY FIFTY (피프티피프티) Over the field and along the lane Both her parents would call in vain Sadly, sorrowfully, they'd complain 'Alice is at it again.' Although that dear little village Surrounded by trees Had neither a school, nor a college Gentle Alice acquired From the birds and the bees Some exceedingly practical knowledge The curious secrets that nature revealed She refused to allow to upset her But she thought When observing the beasts of the field That things might have been organised better Over the field and along the lane Gentle Alice would make up And take up Her stand The road was not exactly arterial But it led to a town nearby Where quite a lot of masculine material Caught her rolling eye She was ready to hitchhike Cadillac or motorbike She wasn't proud or choosy All she Was aiming to be Was a pinked-up Minked-up Fly-by-night floozy When old Rogers Gave her pearls as large as Nuts on a chestnut tree All she'd say was 'Fiddle-di-dee! The wages of sin will be the death of me!' Over the field and along the lane Gentle Alice's parents Would wait Hand in hand Her dear old white-headed mother Wistfully sipping champagne Said 'We've spoiled our child Spared the rod Open up the caviar and say "Thank God!" We've got no cause to complain! Alice is at it again!

The blinking message light on the phone screamed at us when we walked into the bedroom of our suite. Marlboro Man audibly exhaled, clearly wishing the world--and his brother and the grain markets and the uncertainties of agriculture--would leave us alone already. I wish they’d leave us alone, too. In light of the recent developments, though, Marlboro Man picked up the phone and dialed Tim to get an update. I excused myself to the bathroom to freshen up and put on a champagne satin negligee in an effort to thwart the external forces that were trying to rob me of my husband’s attention. I brushed my teeth and spritzed myself with Jil Sander perfume before opening the door to the bedroom, where I would seduce my Marlboro Man away from his worries. I knew I could win if only I applied myself. He was just getting off the phone when I entered the room. “Dammit,” I heard him mumble as he plopped down onto the enormous king-size bed. Oh no. Jil Sander had her work cut out for her. I climbed on the bed and lay beside him, resting my head on his arm. He draped his arm across my waist. I draped my leg around his. He sighed. “The markets are totally in the shitter.” I didn’t know the details, but I did know the shitter wasn’t a good place. I wanted to throw out the usual platitudes. Don’t worry about it, try not to think about it, we’ll figure it out, everything will be okay. But I didn’t know enough about it. I knew he and his brother owned a lot of land. I knew they worked hard to pay for it. I knew they weren’t lawyers or physicians by profession and didn’t have a whole separate income to supplement their ranching operation. As full-time ranchers, their livelihoods were completely reliant on so many things outside of their control--weather, market fluctuations, supply, demand, luck. I knew they weren’t home free in terms of finances--Marlboro Man and I had talked about it. But I didn’t understand enough about the ramifications of this current wrinkle to reassure him that everything would be okay, businesswise. And he probably didn’t want me to. So I did the only thing I could think of to do. I assured my new husband everything would be okay between us by leaning over, turning off the lamp, and letting the love between us--which had zero to do with markets or grains--take over.

Celia froze. She couldn't believe it-Proper Pinter was kissing her. Hard, boldly, with more feeling than the duke. Good heavens. Stung by the challenge he'd laid down, she fumbled for the pistol in her reticule, but she'd just got it in her hand when he whispered hoarsely against her lips, "Sweet God, Celia..." He'd never called her by only her Christian name. He'd certainly never said it so...desperately. It made her hesitate with the pistol in her hand. He took her mouth once more, and her world shifted on its axis as his kiss became wilder, more consuming. This wasn't about a challenge anymore-not when he kissed her is if her mouth held the secret to eternity. Such lovely, drugging kisses made her blood dance through her veins. His mouth slanted over hers, and his tongue swept the seam of her lips with an urgency that made her throat ache. Remembering how Ned had kissed her, she parted her lips for him. He went still for the briefest instant. Then with a groan, he slipped his tongue into her mouth. Ohhh, that was amazing. When Ned had done it she'd found it messy and disgusting, but Mr. Pinter's kiss was as opposite to Ned's as sun was to rain. Slow and sensual, he dove inside with hot strokes that had her eager for more. How could this be happening to her? With him? Who could ever have guessed that the passionless Mr. Pinter could kiss so very passionately? Scarcely aware of what she did, she slipper her free hand up to clutch his neck. He pressed into her, flattening her against the wall as he ravished her mouth with no remorse. His whiskers abraded her chin, his mouth tasted of champagne, and the smell of orange trees sweetened the air around them. It was delicious...it was intoxicating. Paradise. She forgot the pistol in her other hand, forgot that they were in full view of anyone who might be outside the orangery windows, forgot that he'd just been lecturing her as if she were some ninnyhammer. Because he was kissing her now as if she were an angel. His angel. And Lord help her, but she wanted him to keep kissing her like that forever. But a noise from the nearby stove-the crackle of a log as it settled-seemed to jerk him to his senses. He tore his lips from hers and stared down at her a moment, his eyes wild, his breathing heavy. A change came over his face, turning his expression to cold stone. "You see, Lady Celia?" he said in his harsh rasp. "A man can do anything he wants if he has a woman alone.

These Claudines, then…they want to know because they believe they already do know, the way one who loves fruit knows, when offered a mango from the moon, what to expect; and they expect the loyal tender teasing affection of the schoolgirl crush to continue: the close and confiding companionship, the pleasure of the undemanding caress, the cuddle which consummates only closeness; yet in addition they want motherly putting right, fatherly forgiveness and almost papal indulgence; they expect that the sights and sounds, the glorious affairs of the world which their husbands will now bring before them gleaming like bolts of silk, will belong to the same happy activities as catching toads, peeling back tree bark, or powdering the cheeks with dandelions and oranging the nose; that music will ravish the ear the way the trill of the blackbird does; that literature will hold the mind in sweet suspense the way fairy tales once did; that paintings will crowd the eye with the delights of a colorful garden, and the city streets will be filled with the same cool dew-moist country morning air they fed on as children. But they shall not receive what they expect; the tongue will be about other business; one will hear in masterpieces only pride and bitter contention; buildings will have grandeur but no flowerpots or chickens; and these Claudines will exchange the flushed cheek for the swollen vein, and instead of companionship, they will get sex and absurd games composed of pinch, leer, and giggle—that’s what will happen to “let’s pretend.” 'The great male will disappear into the jungle like the back of an elusive ape, and Claudine shall see little of his strength again, his intelligence or industry, his heroics on the Bourse like Horatio at the bridge (didn’t Colette see Henri de Jouvenel, editor and diplomat and duelist and hero of the war, away to work each day, and didn’t he often bring his mistress home with him, as Willy had when he was husband number one?); the great affairs of the world will turn into tawdry liaisons, important meetings into assignations, deals into vulgar dealings, and the en famille hero will be weary and whining and weak, reminding her of all those dumb boys she knew as a child, selfish, full of fat and vanity like patrons waiting to be served and humored, admired and not observed. 'Is the occasional orgasm sufficient compensation? Is it the prize of pure surrender, what’s gained from all that giving up? There’ll be silk stockings and velvet sofas maybe, the customary caviar, tasting at first of frog water but later of money and the secretions of sex, then divine champagne, the supreme soda, and rubber-tired rides through the Bois de Boulogne; perhaps there’ll be rich ugly friends, ritzy at homes, a few young men with whom one may flirt, a homosexual confidant with long fingers, soft skin, and a beautiful cravat, perfumes and powders of an unimaginable subtlety with which to dust and wet the body, many deep baths, bonbons filled with sweet liqueurs, a procession of mildly salacious and sentimental books by Paul de Kock and company—good heavens, what’s the problem?—new uses for the limbs, a tantalizing glimpse of the abyss, the latest sins, envy certainly, a little spite, jealousy like a vaginal itch, and perfect boredom. 'And the mirror, like justice, is your aid but never your friend.' -- From "Three Photos of Colette," The World Within the Word, reprinted from NYRB April 1977

So, what did you want to watch?’ ‘Thought we might play a game instead,’ he said, holding up a familiar dark green box. ‘Found this on the bottom shelf of your DVD cupboard … if you tilt the glass, the champagne won’t froth like that.’ Neve finished pouring champagne into the 50p champagne flutes she’d got from the discount store and waited until Max had drunk a good half of his in two swift swallows. ‘The thing is, you might find it hard to believe but I can be very competitive and I have an astonishing vocabulary from years spent having no life and reading a lot – and well, if you play Scrabble with me, I’ll totally kick your arse.’ Max was about to eat his first bite of molten mug cake but he paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth. ‘You’re gonna kick my arse?’ ‘Until it’s black and blue and you won’t be able to sit down for a week.’ That sounded very arrogant. ‘Really, Max, Mum stopped me from playing when I was thirteen after I got a score of four hundred and twenty-seven, and when I was at Oxford, I used to play with two Linguistics post-grads and an English don.’ ‘Well, my little pancake girlfriend, I played Scrabble against Carol Vorderman for a Guardian feature and I kicked her arse because Scrabble has got nothing to do with vocabulary; it’s logic and tactics,’ Max informed her loftily, taking a huge bite of the cake. For a second, Neve hoped that it was as foul-tasting as she suspected just to get Max back for that snide little speech, but he just licked the back of the spoon thoughtfully. ‘This is surprisingly more-ish, do you want some?’ ‘I think I’ll pass.’ ‘Well, you’re not getting out of Scrabble that easily.’ Max leaned back against the cushions, the mug cradled to his chest, and propped his feet up on the table so he could poke the Scrabble box nearer to Neve. ‘Come on, set ’em up. Unless you’re too scared.’ ‘Max, I have all the two-letter words memorised, and as for Carol Vorderman – well, she might be good at maths but there was a reason why she wasn’t in Dictionary Corner on Countdown so I’m not surprised you beat her at Scrabble.’ ‘Fighting talk.’ Max rapped his knuckles gently against Neve’s head, which made her furious. ‘I’ll remind you of that little speech once I’m done making you eat every single one of those high-scoring words you seem to think you’re so good at.’ ‘Right, that does it.’ Neve snatched up the box and practically tore off the lid, so she could bang the board down on the coffee table. ‘You can’t be that good at Scrabble if you keep your letters in a crumpled paper bag,’ Max noted, actually daring to nudge her arm with his foot. Neve knew he was only doing it to get a rise out of her, but God, it was working. ‘Game on, Pancake Boy,’ she snarled, throwing a letter rack at Max, which just made him laugh. ‘And don’t think I’m going to let you win just because it’s your birthday.’ It was the most fun Neve had ever had playing Scrabble. It might even have been the most fun she had ever had. For every obscure word she tried to play in the highest scoring place, Max would put down three tiles to make three different words and block off huge sections of the board. Every time she tried to flounce or throw a strop because ‘you’re going against the whole spirit of the game’, Max would pop another Quality Street into her mouth because, as he said, ‘It is Treat Sunday and you only had one roast potato.’ When there were no more Quality Street left and they’d drunk all the champagne, he stopped each one of her snits with a slow, devastating kiss so there were long pauses between each round. It was a point of honour to Neve that she won in the most satisfying way possible; finally getting to use her ‘q’ on a triple word score by turning Max’s ‘hogs’ into ‘quahogs’ and waving the Oxford English Dictionary in his face when he dared to challenge her.

The whole business made me feel like Captain Von Trapp forced to make small talk with Vienna’s high society. The only things missing were Nazi sympathizers (although one can never be certain) and singing children requesting champagne.

She tries to dribble past him, but—" Todd leaped onto the blanket and dived for Elizabeth, tackling her to the ground. "He bumps her to the floor! It's a foul for Wilkins! Free shot for the beautiful forward." Todd smothered her face in tiny kisses. "Your shot, Liz," Todd whispered. Elizabeth fended him off, but she couldn't help laughing. "Todd, sometimes you can be so idiotic." "That's just because I'm so happy," Todd said, picking up his plate and taking a bite of salad. "Last week I was a wrecked man. My girlfriend was leaving me, and I was out for the season. Now I've got the two most important things in the world back again: basketball and my girlfriend." Elizabeth feigned hurt. "You mean I'm only as important as basketball?" Todd paused, pretending to be deep in thought. "Hmm, which is more important?" "Todd, that's not funny," Elizabeth said, picking up her champagne flute and taking a sip of apple cider. Todd nodded solemnly. "You're right, basketball is obviously more important." Elizabeth whacked him in the arm, sending his fork flying out of his hand. Todd put his plate down and his expression turned serious. "Liz, you know you're the most important thing in the world to me." He turned and looked at her, his coffee-colored eyes warm with love. Elizabeth's stomach fluttered at the intensity of his gaze. "Liz, it's so nice to have you back again," Todd said in a husky voice, taking the glass out of her hand and setting it down. "For good." He took her in his arms and kissed her deeply. Elizabeth closed her eyes and returned the embrace with ardor, wrapping her arms around his neck.

His youth had been so long ago that he could remember nothing of it but he presumed, erroneously, that he had tasted the purple fruit, had broken hearts and hymens, had tossed flowers to ladies on balconies, had drunk champagne out of their shoes and generally been irresistible.

After dinner, I popped open a bottle of champagne and we drank from cracked flutes while watching the last of mother nature’s brilliant display. Halfway through the bottle, we made love to the sounds of our popping campfire, the distant rumbling waves, and a breeze rustling overhead palm fronds.

I was excited to taste Jesus. I ended up weeping when the Body of Christ turned out to be cheap white wafer. Ced cried too, but only because he loved Jesus so much he didn’t mind how he tasted. But afterwards, he held my hand. Promised to find a better God that would feed me blueberry cheesecake, french fries, and fancy champagne. And that’s when Sara entered our lives. Saying Jesus would not want us thinking that. In fact, He’s cooking a holy feast for us when we get to heaven. I said Jesus shouldn’t waste food on people who’re never gonna get to heaven. He better be giving it to the poor instead.

Bree lifted her glass of water. “To Sam and Etienne. Finally!” They toasted us with champagne flutes and coffee mugs. I lifted my mug and shared a smile with Sam, counting the minutes until we were alone again.

Yes, it looks like this Charlie fella took the pimpin' playbook and ingeniously rewrote it for a generation of girls pissed off at their folks. As he watches Pussycat sincerely spew this fella's horseshit, Cliff tries to imagine where she came from. If in the fifties, he'd followed through with his intention to give the pimping game a whirl, he never would have gotten close to a pretty, obviously educated gal like this one. But this whole hippie shit put the whole world out of whack. Now she's offering up her snatch for a lift to Chatsworth. Girls who, before, maybe gave you a hand job at the drive-in will now fuck you and your friend. Where those French dudes supplied their girls with champagne, lipstick, pantyhose, and Max Factor, this Charlie dude supplies his with acid and free love and a philosophy that ties it all together.

How does a woman like you stay single?” She grabs a glass of champagne off a tray and smiles at me. “I just haven’t found a guy that can keep me captivated. I’m not willing to settle for anything short of complete devotion. I want epic love, and I’m willing to wait for it.

He kissed her. A kiss about apple pie a la mode with the vanilla creaminess melting in the pie heat. A kiss about chocolate, when you haven’t eaten chocolate in a year. A kiss about palm tress speeding by, trailing pink clouds when you drive down the Strip sizzling with champagne. A kiss about the spotlights fanning the sky and the swollen sea selling like tears all over your legs.

Whether it was all love and no champagne, or all champagne and no love, or half love and half champagne, or three quarters love and one quarter champagne, or one quarter love and three quarters champagne, I cannot say; but certain it is that Hugh became inconveniently tender--tender in the moonlight, tenderer far in the shade. I, in my own mind, ascribed an undue preponderance to the champagne element, and suffered agonies of apprehension lest the grooms behind should overhear his amorous platitudes.

I didn't know that freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is celebrated with champagne. Nor yet a gift, a box of dainties designed to make you lick your chops. Oh no! It's a chore, on the contrary, and a long-distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting. No champagne, no friends raising their glasses as they look at you affectionately. Alone in a forbidding room, alone in the prisoner's bog before the judges, and alone to decide in face of oneself or in the face of others' judgment. At the end of all freedom is a court sentence; that's why freedom is too heavy to bear, especially when you're down with a fever, or are distressed, or love nobody.

Might be worth noting,’ says Quinn eventually, ‘that Morgan made sure to rinse those champagne glasses afterwards. Either he had something to hide or he’s going to make someone a lovely wife one of these days.

You are, of course, allowed to love food and music and champagne and rare sunny afternoons in October. You can love the sight of waterfalls and the smell of old books, but the love of people is off limits. Do you hear me? Don’t attach yourself to people, and try to feel as little as you possibly can for those you do meet. Because otherwise you will slowly lose your mind .

Is that him? The prince?” Nathaniel nodded. “If you can believe it, I used to fancy him. Then he went and grew that mustache. Or he murdered a gerbil and attached it to his face. For the life of me, I can’t tell which.” “She glanced at him in surprise. “I didn’t realize—then do you mean—” “I like girls too, Scrivener.” Amusement danced in Nathaniel’s eyes. “I like both. If you’re going to fantasize about my love life, I insist you do so accurately.” She frowned. “I am not fantasizing about your love life.” “Strange. This is unfamiliar territory. Young women are usually more than happy to devote a sizable portion of their brains to the task of contemplating my splendor.” “What about the ones who throw champagne in your face?” “That only happened once, thank you very much, and there were extenuating—” Suddenly, his cheer vanished.

It's truthfully difficult growing up a woman. When I was a girl, we lived in a small town for the most part and nobody cared to know about anything other than what they already knew. And I was something they didn't know. I really think it was harder for me than the average... girls hate you when you're adorable. Every girl in a small town wants to be the only one worth loving and I've always just had this champagne-bottle personality, unafraid to be soft. But girls took that from me, they really did. They hurt me until I had to toughen up. The best thing about being a woman is that, by now, I've learned how becoming even more like myself is more powerful than any tough exterior I could ever put on. They hate that. It really kills them.

I'd love to cook," she says, "but who has the time? I can't afford to spend two days baking a cake." The implication, of course, is that only unimportant people have that kind of time. Unimportant people like me. I wait for Adam to jump in and save me, but instead he shoves a forkful of lamb into his mouth and feigns deep interest in the contents of his dinner plate. For someone with Adam's political ambitions and penchant for friendly debate, I'm always amazed at the lengths he goes to avoid confrontation with his parents. "I have a full-time job," I say, offering Sandy a labored smile, "and somehow I manage." Sandy delicately places her fork on the table and interlaces her fingers. "I beg your pardon?" My cheeks flush, and all the champagne and wine rush to my head at once. "All I'm saying is... we make time for the things we actually want to do. That's all." Sandy purses her lips and sweeps her hair away from her face with the back of her hand. "Hannah, dear, I am very busy. I am on the board of three charities and am hosting two galas this year. It's not a matter of wanting to cook. I simply have more important things to do." For a woman so different from my own mother- the frosted, well-groomed socialite to my mother's mousy, rumpled academic- she and my mother share a remarkably similar view of the role of cooking in a modern woman's life. For them, cooking is an irrelevant hobby, an amusement for women who lack the brains for more high-powered pursuits or the money to pay someone to perform such a humdrum chore. Sandy Prescott and my mother would agree on very little, but as women who have been liberated from the perfunctory task of cooking a nightly dinner, they would see eye to eye on my intense interest in the culinary arts. Were I a stronger person, someone more in control of her faculties who has not drunk multiple glasses of champagne, I would probably let Sandy's remark go without commenting any further. But I cannot be that person. At least not tonight. Not when Sandy is suggesting, as it seems everyone does, that cooking isn't a priority worthy of a serious person's time. "You would make the time if you wanted to," I say. "But obviously you don't.

In losing you I lost my sun and moon And all the stars that blessed my lonely night. I lost the master word, dear love, the clue That threads the maze of life when I lost you. —WINIFRED LETTS

There are blondes and blondes and it is almost a joke word nowadays. All blondes have their points, except perhaps the metallic ones who are as blond as a Zulu under the bleach and as to disposition as soft as a sidewalk. There is the small cute blonde who cheeps and twitters, and the big statuesque blonde who straight-arms you with an ice-blue glare. There is the blonde who gives you the up-from-under look and smells lovely and shimmers and hangs on your arm and is always very very tired when you take her home. She makes that helpless gesture and has that goddamned headache and you would like to slug her except that you are glad you found out about the headache before you invested too much time and money and hope in her. Because the headache will always be there, a weapon that never wears out and is as deadly as the bravo’s rapier or Lucrezia’s poison vial. There is the soft and willing and alcoholic blonde who doesn’t care what she wears as long as it is mink or where she goes as long as it is the Starlight Roof and there is plenty of dry champagne. There is the small perky blonde who is a little pal and wants to pay her own way and is full of sunshine and common sense and knows judo from the ground up and can toss a truck driver over her shoulder without missing more than one sentence out of the editorial in the Saturday Review. There is the pale, pale blonde with anemia

just wanted to forget what had happened and who I was for a few moments, but seeing all of the judgmental gazes on me, at least the latter wouldn’t happen. Keeping my head high, I showed my perfect spoiled princess face, giving them what they expected. They hated me because they thought I had everything when the things I wanted most were always out of my reach. Money could buy so many things, but never happiness or love. Heck, I couldn’t even choose the job I wanted. Dad would never allow me to be a part of the business, to do what I was born to do and follow the path that ran in my blood. I tossed my hair over my shoulder and ordered a bottle of champagne. My life was filled with all the riches money could buy and other girls hated me for it. I wondered if they’d still hate me if they knew of the invisible shackles around my wrists. Sometimes I just wanted to break free of them, but for me to do that, I’d have to leave the life I knew behind, and worse: my family.

All of this provocative history has turned Paris into the ideal backdrop for romance and desire. People who visit the city can easily fall in lust or in love, whether for the first time or all over again. How can you not feel sexy in a city where everyone looks like he or she has just had sex? As Caroline de Maigret, Audrey Diwan, Sophie Mas, and Anne Berest emphasize in their book, How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits, Always be fuckable: when standing in line at the bakery on a Sunday morning, buying champagne in the middle of the night, or even picking the kids up from school. You never know.

I think you should do it.” “Wait, really?” “Why not? Sabrina and I would love to share our wedding with you. And it opens so many other doors, y’know? Think about it. All your great achievements, we could share together. Like, when you and Allie get married? We’ll be right there with the announcement of our second child. And when you share Allie’s pregnancy? We’ll be there announcing our new house.” Logan chokes on his champagne mid-sip. I narrow my eyes. “Point taken.” “No, wait, it gets even better,” Tucker says enthusiastically. “When Allie gives birth to your first kid, guess who’ll be there! Me again, there to introduce you to our new dog, who I’ll name after your baby to honor you. And when your kid grows up, graduates college, gets engaged, and has a wedding of their own, I’ll be sitting there in the front row. Faking a heart attack.

You’re probably right. You know Bry? He loves to overreact.” Bry? I swallow my thoughts and take a sip of my champagne instead.

And you, Lord Bridgerton,” she replied in a tone that could have frozen champagne, “are almost as handsome as your brother.