Champion Girl Quotes

So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.

And elsewhere in the woods, there is another party, one taking place inside a hollow hill, full of night-blooming flowers. There, a pale boy plays a fiddle with newly mended fingers while his sister dances with his best friend. There, a monster whirls about, branches waving in time with the music, There, a prince of the Folk takes up the mantle of king, embracing a changeling like a bother, and, with a human boy at his side, names a girl his champion.

She could forgive the girl who had needed a captain of the guard to offer stability after a year in hell; forgive the girl who had needed a captain to be her champion. But she was her own champion now.

My name is Mia Corvere. Blade of the Red Church. Champion of the Venatus Magni. Chosen of the Dark Mother and Queen of Scoundrels. Never call me girl again.

She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, easily the most breathtaking girl in the room.

What’s the point of keeping in touch with the girl you’re crazy about, when you’re dying?

I look down at our knees, slightly touching. Jeans against jeans. Does she notice the heat transferring from her body to mine? Does she even realize what she's doing to me? I know, I know. I'm not a virgin and the slightest touch of a girl's knee is driving me insane. I don't even know what I'm feeling for Maggie, I just know that I'm feeling. It's something I've tried to avoid and deny until yesterday, when I held her in my arms while her tears spilled onto my shirt. God, our knees touching isn't enough. I need more. She's knotting her fingers together on her lap as if she doesn't know what to do with them. I want to touch her, but what if she pulls away like before? I've never been such a wuss with a girl in my life. I bite my bottom lip as I slide my hand about millionth of a millimeter closer to her hand. She doesn't seem fazed so I move closer. And closer. When the tips of my fingers touch her wrist, she freezes. But she doesn't jerk her hand away. God, her skin is so soft, I think as my fingers trail a path from her wrist to her knuckles to her smooth, manicured nails. I swear touching her like this is driving me nuts. It's more erotic, more intense than any other time with Kendra. I feel awkward and inexperienced as a freshman again. I look up. Everyone else is oblivious to the intensity of emotions running rampant in the back of the public bus. When I look back down at my hand covering hers, I'm grateful she hasn't come to her senses and pulled away. As if she knows my thoughts, we both turn our hands at the same time so our hands are palm against palm...finger against finger. Her hand is dwarfed against mine. It makes her seem more delicate and petite than I'd realize. I feel a need to protect her and be her champion should she ever need one. With a slight shift of my hand, I lace my fingers through hers. I'm holding hands. With Maggie Armstrong. I'm not even going to think about how wrong it is because it feels so right. She's avoided looking right at me, but now she turns her head and our eyes lock. God, how come I never noticed before how long her lashes were and how her brown eyes have specks of gold that sparkle when the sun shine on them? The bus stops suddenly and I look out the window. It's our stop. She must have realized this because she pulls her hand away from mine and stands. I follow behind, still reeling.

After a moment, his father looked up from the list and surveyed her. "Well done, Champion. Well done indeed." Then Celaena and the King of Adarlan smiled at each other, and it was the most terrifying thing Dorian had ever seen. "Tell my exchequer to give you double last month's payment," the king said. Dorian felt his gorge rise- not just for the severed head and her blood- stiffened clothing, but also for the fact that he could not, for the life of him, find the girl had loved anywhere in her face. And from Chaol's expression, he knew his friend felt the same. Celaena bowed dramatically to the king, flourishing a hand before her. Then, with a smile devoid of any warmth, she stared down Chaol before stalking from the room, her dark cape sweeping behind her. Silence.

I learn that day just how someone can use their privilege to champion others and help them rise too.

Something that’s bothered me for a while now is the current profligacy in YA culture of Team Boy 1 vs Team Boy 2 fangirling. [...] Despite the fact that I have no objection to shipping, this particular species of team-choosing troubled me, though I had difficulty understanding why. Then I saw it applied to Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games trilogy – Team Peeta vs Team Gale – and all of a sudden it hit me that anyone who thought romance and love-triangles were the main event in that series had utterly missed the point. Sure, those elements are present in the story, but they aren’t anywhere near being the bones of it, because The Hunger Games, more than anything else, is about war, survival, politics, propaganda and power. Seeing such a strong, raw narrative reduced to a single vapid argument – which boy is cuter? – made me physically angry. So, look. People read different books for different reasons. The thing I love about a story are not necessarily the things you love, and vice versa. But riddle me this: are the readers of these series really so excited, so thrilled by the prospect of choosing! between! two! different! boys! that they have to boil entire narratives down to a binary equation based on male physical perfection and, if we’re very lucky, chivalrous behaviour? While feminism most certainly champions the right of women to chose their own partners, it also supports them to choose things besides men, or to postpone the question of partnership in favour of other pursuits – knowledge, for instance. Adventure. Careers. Wild dancing. Fun. Friendship. Travel. Glorious mayhem. And while, as a woman now happily entering her fourth year of marriage, I’d be the last person on Earth to suggest that male companionship is inimical to any of those things, what’s starting to bother me is the comparative dearth of YA stories which aren’t, in some way, shape or form, focussed on Girls Getting Boyfriends, and particularly Hot Immortal Or Magical Boyfriends Whom They Will Love For All Eternity. Blog post: Love Team Freezer

You won't enjoy it," sighed Crowley. "It's been in the car for more than a fortnight." A heavy bass beat began to thump through the Bentley as they sped past Heathrow. Aziraphale's brow furrowed. "I don't recognize this," he said. "What is it?" "It's Tchaikovsky's 'Another One Bites the Dust'," said Crowley, closing his eyes as they went through Slough. To while away the time as they crossed the sleeping Chilterns, they also listened to William Byrd's "We Are the Champions" and Beethoven's "I Want To Break Free." Neither were as good as Vaughan Williams's "Fat-Bottomed Girls.

I remembered about the pharma coke, went outside and nailed a line so pure it was like getting yelled at by God. Yorkshire tea, Mrs Campbell’s Black Forest, Bayer cocaine – the lunch of champions.

I see England, I see France; I see a little girl’s Underpants!

He was some sort of boxing champion," she told me the night she took me out to celebrate my graduation. "He was always punching someone in the nose." "Macho," I said. "No," she said. "It was the clarity of expression that appealed to him.

The girl with the greyhound was an assistant lighting director for a musical comedy about American history, and she kept her poor greyhound, who was named Lancer, in a one-room apartment fourteen feet wide and twenty-six feet long, and six flights of stairs above the street level. His entire life was devoted to unloading his excrement at the proper time and place. There were two proper places to put it: in the gutter outside the door seventy-two steps below, with the traffic whizzing by, or in a roasting pan, his mistress kept in front of the Westinghouse refrigerator. Lancer had a very small brain, but he must have suspected from time to time, just as Wayne Hoobler did, that some kind of terrible mistake had been made.

It’s Tchaikovsky’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust,’” said Crowley, closing his eyes as they went through Slough. To while away the time as they crossed the sleeping Chilterns, they also listened to William Byrd’s “We Are the Champions” and Beethoven’s “I Want To Break Free.” Neither were as good as Vaughan Williams’s “Fat Bottomed Girls.

There were two monsters sharing this planet with us when I was a boy, however, and I celebrate their extinction today. They were determined to kill us, or at least to make our lives meaningless. They came close to success. They were cruel adversaries, which my little friends the beavers were not. Lions? No. Tigers? No. Lions and tigers snoozed most of the time. The monsters I will name never snoozed. They inhabited our heads. They were the arbitrary lusts for gold, and, God help us, for a glimpse of a little girl’s underpants.

He was a responsible adult. And that one semester of college didn’t count. It had been his time to explore and experiment. He’d even kissed a girl, and he liked it.

I believe the church of Jesus Christ should be first in line to champion the empowerment of women and girls throughout the world to become contributing members in their societies.

Gandhi, the champion of Indian freedom, is on one of his umpteenth hunger strikes.

Usually, if a girl drew your attention to something, she already had a plan in mind.

Fortitude creates winners and champions that aren't always perfect but perfectly persistent

Pim is expecting the invasion any day now. Churchill has had pneumonia, but is gradually getting better. Gandhi, the champion of Indian freedom, is on one of his umpteenth hunger strikes.

In three weeks, the women's team had done more for soccer in the United States than any team had ever done. Yet, the United States Soccer Federation was unprepared and unwelcoming in its acerbic response to the women's success. With petty, resentful, chauvinistic behavior, the federation would bungle what should have been its greatest moment as a national governing body. Its leaders would criticize DiCicco instead of congratulating him, they would threaten to sue the women over an indoor victory tour and they would wait an unacceptably long period before entering into contract negotiations with the team. Then, at the end of the year, the federation would offer a deal that the women found insulting. Unwilling to trust that the federation was bargaining in good faith, the women would boycott a trip to a tournament in Australia. They would become champions of the world, embraced by the president, by the largest crowd ever to watch women play and by the largest television audience for soccer in this country, embraced by everyone, it seemed, but the officials who ran the sport with the vision of a student council. Increasingly, it appeared, the only amateurs left in sports were the people running the federations that governed them.

Sometimes I dream of revolution, a bloody coup d’etat by the second rank—troupes of actors slaughtered by their understudies, magicians sawn in half by indefatigably smiling glamour girls, cricket teams wiped out by marauding bands of twelfth men—I dream of champions chopped down by rabbit-punching sparring partners while eternal bridesmaids turn and rape the bridegrooms over the sausage rolls and parliamentary private secretaries plant bombs in the Minister’s Humber—comedians die on provincial stages, robbed of their feeds by mutely triumphant stooges— —and—march— —an army of assistants and deputies, the seconds-in-command, the runners-up, the right-handmen—storming the palace gates wherein the second son has already mounted the throne having committed regicide with a croquet-mallet—stand-ins of the world stand up!—

She was every Cora she'd ever been: Cora X, Cora Kaufmann, Cora Carlisle. She was an orphan on a roof, a lucky girl on a train, a dearly loved daughter by chance. She was a blushing bride of seventeen, a sad and stoic wife, a loving mother, an embittered chaperone, and a daughter pushed away. She was a lover and a lewd cohabitator, a liar and a cherished friend, and aunt and a kindly grandmother, a champion of the fallen, and a late-in-coming fighter for reason over fear. Even in those final hours, quiet and rocking, arriving and departing, she knew who she was.

When it comes to fighting, physical strength really has very little to do with it. One of the tenets that judo is founded upon is “Maximum efficiency, minimum effort.” That has really defined my career. It is the foundation of all the techniques and everything I do. It’s one reason why I don’t get tired. It’s one reason why I am able to fight girls who are a head taller than me, or chicks who are on steroids. People who cheat or dope lack the one thing every true champion must have: belief. No drug or amount of money or favoritism can ever give you belief in yourself.

Be a man. Not any old man, not mankind, but manhood. To do this you don’t need to play pro football and grow hair on your chest and seduce every third woman you meet long as she’s female. All you have to do is hunt, fish (or talk sense about ’em as if you had) and go bug-eyed when the girls go by. If a sunset moves you so much you have to express yourself, do it with a grunt and a dirty word. Or you say, ‘That Beethoven, he blows a cool symphony.’ Never champion a real underdog unless it’s a popular type, like a baseball team. Always treat other men as if you were sore at something and will wipe it off on them if they give you the slightest excuse. I mean sore, Louis, not vexed or in a snit. And stay away from women. They have an intuition that’ll find you nine times out of ten. The tenth time she falls for you, and there’s nothing funnier.” “I think,” Loolyo said after a time, “that you hate human beings.

I lost my second judo tournament. I finished second, losing to a girl named Anastasia. Afterward, her coach congratulated me. "You did a great job. Don't feel bad, Anastasia is a junior national champion." I felt consoled for about a second, until I noticed the look of disgust on Mom's face. I nodded at the coach and walked away. Once we were out of earshot she lit into me. "I hope you know better than to believe what he said. You could have won that match. You had every chance to beat that girl. The fact that she is a junior national champion doesn't mean anything. That's why they have tournaments, so you can see who is better. They don't award medals based on what you won before. If you did your absolute best, if you were capable of doing nothing more, then that's enough. Then you can be content with the outcome. But if you could have done better, if you could have done more, then you should be disappointed. You should be upset you didn't win. You should go home and think about what you could have done differently and then next time do it differently. Don't you ever let anyone tell you that not doing your absolute best is good enough. You are a skinny blonde girl who lives by the beach, and unless you absolutely force them to, no one is ever going to expect anything from you in this sport. You prove them wrong.

Ah, this is more like it. Tchaikovsky,’ said Aziraphale, opening a case and slotting its cassette into the Blaupunkt. ‘You won’t enjoy it,’ sighed Crowley. ‘It’s been in the car for more than a fortnight.’ A heavy bass beat began to thump through the Bentley as they sped past Heathrow. Aziraphale’s brow furrowed. ‘I don’t recognize this,’ he said. ‘What is it?’ ‘It’s Tchaikovsky’s “Another One Bites the Dust”,’ said Crowley, closing his eyes as they went through Slough. To while away the time as they crossed the sleeping Chilterns, they also listened to William Byrd’s ‘We are the Champions’ and Beethoven’s ‘I Want To Break Free’. Neither were as good as Vaughan Williams’s ‘Fat-Bottomed Girls’.

Not purposefully contributing to the oppression felt by people already marginalised by the system doesn't make me a champion of human rights. I might not be actively making things worse for another human being, but that doesn't mean I'm doing anything to make things better. What it might mean is that I maintain a conscious neutrality on the social circumstances which make their lives harder while enjoying the benefits that come my way simply because those systems are designed in my favour.

astonishment, it made the girls themselves gleam. Katherine, like many before her, was entranced by it. It wasn’t just the glow—it was radium’s all-powerful reputation. Almost from the start, the new element had been championed as “the greatest find of history.”7 When scientists had discovered, at the turn of the century, that radium could destroy human tissue, it was quickly put to use to battle cancerous tumors, with remarkable results. Consequently—as a life-saving and thus, it was assumed, health-giving element—other uses had sprung up around it. All of Katherine’s life, radium had been a magnificent cure-all, treating not just cancer, but hay fever, gout, constipation…anything you could think of. Pharmacists sold radioactive dressings and pills; there were also radium clinics and spas for those who could afford them. People hailed its coming as predicted in the Bible: “The sun of righteousness [shall] arise with healing in his wings, and ye shall go forth and gambol as calves of the stall.”8

Violet had carefully chosen some long-hanging, loose-fitting basketball shorts to wear over her swimsuit, in hopes of keeping her injuries at least partially hidden. But it didn’t take long before one . . . and then two . . . and then at least twenty of her friends had noticed her bandages peeking out from beneath the swishing fabric, and she was forced to recount her morning accident. Jay loved hearing her tell the story, and every time he heard her talking about it, he would come over so that he could interject, and of course embellish, his role in the events. In his version, he was her champion, practically carrying her from the woods and performing near-miraculous medical feats to save her legs from complete amputation. Violet, and annoyingly every other girl within earshot, couldn’t help but giggle while he jokingly sang his own praises. Violet happened to walk up just in time to hear Jay recounting his version once more to a group of eager admirers. “Hero? I wouldn’t say hero . . .” he quipped. Violet rolled her eyes, turning to Grady Spencer, a friend of theirs from school. “Can you believe him?” Grady gave her a concerned look. “Seriously, are you okay, Violet? It sounds like it was pretty bad.” Violet was embarrassed that Jay’s exaggerations were actually dredging up real sympathy from others. “It’s fine,” she assured him, and when Grady didn’t look convinced, she added, “Really, I just tripped.” She reached out and shoved Jay. “Will you knock it off, hero? You’re making an ass out of yourself.

What I hadn't expected was to be blindsided by a history lesson that betrayed every hard-won experience I'd had as a player and now a coach at the same school I'd attended. . . Whoever was responsible for sending a championship team into virtual obscurity was either a serious egomaniac or just plain mean. It stung. After all, wasn't the story told at today's funeral the stuff of legacies? Of school lore passed on to the next class, and the next, building institutional pride as well as magical identities that made every kid in the state want to play there?

One might have thought that on learning of Quinta’s death—this woman the company doctors had professed was not going to die—the United States Radium Corporation might, at last, have softened. But one would be wrong. Berry did manage to win a settlement of $8,000 ($113,541) for Mae Canfield in the new year, but the company had a straitjacket clause attached. The only way they would pay his client any money, they said, was if Berry himself was incorporated into the deal. He was far too knowledgeable about their activities—and becoming far too skilled in court—to be left off a leash. And so Raymond Berry, legal champion, the pioneering attorney who had been the only lawyer to answer Grace’s call for help, found himself forced into signing his name to the following statement: “I agree not to be connected with, directly or indirectly, any other cases against the United States Radium Corporation, nor to render assistance to any persons in any actions against said Company, nor to furnish data or information to any such persons in matters against said Company.”37 Berry was gone. He had been a serious fighter against the firm, an irksome thorn in their side. But now, with surgical precision, they had plucked him out and banished him. They were two settlements down, but the United States Radium Corporation was winning the war.

Monster. And yet … For her friends, for her family, she would gladly be a monster. For Rowan, for Dorian, for Nehemia, she would debase and degrade and ruin herself. She knew they would have done the same for her. She slung the washcloth into the water and sat up. Monster or no, never in ten thousand years would she have let Dorian face his father alone. Even if Dorian had told her to go. A month ago, she and Rowan had chosen to face the Valg princes together—to die together, if need be, rather than do so alone. You remind me of what the world ought to be; what the world can be, she’d once said to Chaol. Her face burned. A girl had said those things; a girl so desperate to survive, to make it through each day, that she hadn’t questioned why he served the true monster of their world. Aelin slipped back under the water, scrubbing at her hair, her face, her bloody body. She could forgive the girl who had needed a captain of the guard to offer stability after a year in hell; forgive the girl who had needed a captain to be her champion. But she was her own champion now. And she would not add another name of her beloved dead to her flesh. So when she awoke the next morning, Aelin wrote a letter to Arobynn, accepting his offer. One Valg demon, owed to the King of the Assassins. In exchange for his assistance in the rescue and safe return of Aedion Ashryver, the Wolf of the North.

Ah, this is more like it. Tchaikovsky,” said Aziraphale, opening a case and slotting its cassette into the Blaupunkt. “You won’t enjoy it,” sighed Crowley. “It’s been in the car for more than a fortnight.” A heavy bass beat began to thump through the Bentley as they sped past Heathrow. Aziraphale’s brow furrowed. “I don’t recognize this,” he said. “What is it?” “It’s Tchaikovsky’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust,’” said Crowley, closing his eyes as they went through Slough. To while away the time as they crossed the sleeping Chilterns, they also listened to William Byrd’s “We Are the Champions” and Beethoven’s “I Want To Break Free.” Neither were as good as Vaughan Williams’s “Fat-Bottomed Girls.

Athletes, by and large, are people who are happy to let their actions speak for them, happy to be what they do. As a result, when you talk to an athlete, as I do all the time in locker rooms, in hotel coffee shops and hallways, standing beside expensive automobiles—even if he’s paying no attention to you at all, which is very often the case—he’s never likely to feel the least bit divided, or alienated, or one ounce of existential dread. He may be thinking about a case of beer, or a barbecue, or some man-made lake in Oklahoma he wishes he was waterskiing on, or some girl or a new Chevy shortbed, or a discothèque he owns as a tax shelter, or just simply himself. But you can bet he isn’t worried one bit about you and what you’re thinking. His is a rare selfishness that means he isn’t looking around the sides of his emotions to wonder about alternatives for what he’s saying or thinking about. In fact, athletes at the height of their powers make literalness into a mystery all its own simply by becoming absorbed in what they’re doing. Years of athletic training teach this; the necessity of relinquishing doubt and ambiguity and self-inquiry in favor of a pleasant, self-championing one-dimensionality which has instant rewards in sports. You can even ruin everything with athletes simply by speaking to them in your own everyday voice, a voice possibly full of contingency and speculation. It will scare them to death by demonstrating that the world—where they often don’t do too well and sometimes fall into depressions and financial imbroglios and worse once their careers are over—is complexer than what their training has prepared them for. As a result, they much prefer their own voices and questions or the jabber of their teammates (even if it’s in Spanish). And if you are a sportswriter you have to tailor yourself to their voices and answers: “How are you going to beat this team, Stu?” Truth, of course, can still be the result—“We’re just going out and play our kind of game, Frank, since that’s what’s got us this far”—but it will be their simpler truth, not your complex one—unless, of course, you agree with them, which I often do. (Athletes, of course, are not always the dummies they’re sometimes portrayed as being, and will often talk intelligently about whatever interests them until your ears turn to cement.)

Sometimes I dream of revolution, a bloody coup d’etat by the second rank—troupes of actors slaughtered by their understudies, magicians sawn in half by indefatigably smiling glamour girls, cricket teams wiped out by marauding bands of twelfth men—I dream of champions chopped down by rabbit-punching sparring partners while eternal bridesmaids turn and rape the bridegrooms over the sausage rolls and parliamentary private secretaries plant bombs in the Minister’s Humber—comedians die on provincial stages, robbed of their feeds by mutely triumphant stooges— —and—march— —an army of assistants and deputies, the seconds-in-command, the runners-up, the right-handmen—storming the palace gates wherein the second son has already mounted the throne having committed regicide with a croquet-mallet—stand-ins

The definitive characteristic of the sexosophy of Christendom is the doctrine of the split between saintly love and sinful lust. This doctrine is all-pervasive. It penetrates all the institutions of contemporary Christendom . . . The cleft between saintly love and sinful lust is omnipresent in the sexuoerotic heritage of our culture. Love is undefiled and saintly. Lust is defiling and sinful. Love exists above the belt, lust below. Love is lyrical. Lust is lewd. Love is heralded in public. Lust is hidden in private. Love displayed is championed, but championships for lust are condemned. Love is candid, and speaks its name. Lust is clandestine and euphemizes its name. In some degree or other, the cleavage between love and lust gets programed into the design of the lovemaps of all developing boys and girls.12

That which had made Helmholtz so uncomfortably aware of being himself and all alone was too much ability. What the two men shared was the knowledge that they were individuals. But whereas the physically defective Bernard had suffered all his life from the consciousness of being separate, it was only quite recently that, grown aware of his mental excess, Helmholtz Watson had also become aware of his difference from the people who surrounded him. This Escalator-Squash champion, this indefatigable lover (it was said that he had had six hundred and forty different girls in under four years), this admirable committee man and best mixer had realized quite suddenly that sport, women, communal activities were only, so far as he was concerned, second bests. Really, and at the bottom, he was interested in something else. But in what? In what?

And to all the young people in particular, I hope you will hear this. I have, as Tim said, spent my entire adult life fighting for what I believe in. I’ve had successes and I’ve had setbacks. Sometimes, really painful ones. Many of you are at the beginning of your professional public and political careers. You will have successes and setbacks, too. This loss hurts, but please never stop believing that fighting for what’s right is worth it. It is. It is worth it. And so we need, we need you to keep up these fights now and for the rest of your lives. And to all the women, and especially the young women, who put their faith in this campaign and in me, I want you to know that nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion. Now, I, I know, I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday, someone will, and hopefully sooner than we might think right now. And, and to all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.

As I became older, I was given many masks to wear. I could be a laborer laying railroad tracks across the continent, with long hair in a queue to be pulled by pranksters; a gardener trimming the shrubs while secretly planting a bomb; a saboteur before the day of infamy at Pearl Harbor, signaling the Imperial Fleet; a kamikaze pilot donning his headband somberly, screaming 'Banzai' on my way to my death; a peasant with a broad-brimmed straw hat in a rice paddy on the other side of the world, stooped over to toil in the water; an obedient servant in the parlor, a houseboy too dignified for my own good; a washerman in the basement laundry, removing stains using an ancient secret; a tyrant intent on imposing my despotism on the democratic world, opposed by the free and the brave; a party cadre alongside many others, all of us clad in coordinated Mao jackets; a sniper camouflaged in the trees of the jungle, training my gunsights on G.I. Joe; a child running with a body burning from napalm, captured in an unforgettable photo; an enemy shot in the head or slaughtered by the villageful; one of the grooms in a mass wedding of couples, having met my mate the day before through our cult leader; an orphan in the last airlift out of a collapsed capital, ready to be adopted into the good life; a black belt martial artist breaking cinderblocks with his head, in an advertisement for Ginsu brand knives with the slogan 'but wait--there's more' as the commercial segued to show another free gift; a chef serving up dog stew, a trick on the unsuspecting diner; a bad driver swerving into the next lane, exactly as could be expected; a horny exchange student here for a year, eager to date the blonde cheerleader; a tourist visiting, clicking away with his camera, posing my family in front of the monuments and statues; a ping pong champion, wearing white tube socks pulled up too high and batting the ball with a wicked spin; a violin prodigy impressing the audience at Carnegie Hall, before taking a polite bow; a teen computer scientist, ready to make millions on an initial public offering before the company stock crashes; a gangster in sunglasses and a tight suit, embroiled in a turf war with the Sicilian mob; an urban greengrocer selling lunch by the pound, rudely returning change over the counter to the black patrons; a businessman with a briefcase of cash bribing a congressman, a corrupting influence on the electoral process; a salaryman on my way to work, crammed into the commuter train and loyal to the company; a shady doctor, trained in a foreign tradition with anatomical diagrams of the human body mapping the flow of life energy through a multitude of colored points; a calculus graduate student with thick glasses and a bad haircut, serving as a teaching assistant with an incomprehensible accent, scribbling on the chalkboard; an automobile enthusiast who customizes an imported car with a supercharged engine and Japanese decals in the rear window, cruising the boulevard looking for a drag race; a illegal alien crowded into the cargo hold of a smuggler's ship, defying death only to crowd into a New York City tenement and work as a slave in a sweatshop. My mother and my girl cousins were Madame Butterfly from the mail order bride catalog, dying in their service to the masculinity of the West, and the dragon lady in a kimono, taking vengeance for her sisters. They became the television newscaster, look-alikes with their flawlessly permed hair. Through these indelible images, I grew up. But when I looked in the mirror, I could not believe my own reflection because it was not like what I saw around me. Over the years, the world opened up. It has become a dizzying kaleidoscope of cultural fragments, arranged and rearranged without plan or order.

Do you know how to play?” I asked. Hannah gave me one of her vexed looks. “Goodness, Andrew, if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t know the first thing about marbles. Your brain is a regular sieve these days.” I tapped my forehead to remind her I’d been sick. She looked so contrite I felt guilty. “Will you teach me all over again?” Hannah poured her marbles onto the quilt and sighed. Without raising her eyes, she said, “Girls my age are supposed to be ladies, but sometimes I get mighty tired of trying to be what I’m not.” Cradling an aggie almost as shiny as Andrew’s red bull’s-eye, she cocked her head, studied her targets, and shot. The aggie hit a glass marble and sent it spinning off the bed. Hannah grinned and tried again. When all the marbles except the aggie were scattered on the floor, Hannah seized my chin and tipped my face up to hers. Looking me in the eye, she said, “If you promise not to tell a soul, I’ll give you as many lessons as you want. No matter what Papa thinks, I’d rather play marbles than be a lady, and that’s the truth.” “Ringer,” I said sleepily. “Do you know how to play ringer?” Hannah ruffled my hair. “You must be pulling my leg, Andrew. That’s what we always play. It’s your favorite game.” I yawned. “Starting tomorrow, we’ll practice every day till I get even better than I used to be.” “When I’m finished with you, you’ll be the all-time marble champion of Missouri.

We danced to John Michael Montgomery’s “I Swear.” We cut the seven-tiered cake, electing not to take the smear-it-on-our-faces route. We visited and laughed and toasted. We held hands and mingled. But after a while, I began to notice that I hadn’t seen any of the tuxedo-clad groomsmen--particularly Marlboro Man’s friends from college--for quite some time. “What happened to all the guys?” I asked. “Oh,” he said. “They’re down in the men’s locker room.” “Oh, really?” I asked. “Are they smoking cigars or something?” “Well…” He hesitated, grinning. “They’re watching a football game.” I laughed. “What game are they watching?” It had to be a good one. “It’s…ASU is playing Nebraska,” he answered. ASU? His alma mater? Playing Nebraska? Defending national champions? How had I missed this? Marlboro Man hadn’t said a word. He was such a rabid college football fan, I couldn’t believe such a monumental game hadn’t been cause to reschedule the wedding date. Aside from ranching, football had always been Marlboro Man’s primary interest in life. He’d played in high school and part of college. He watched every televised ASU game religiously--for the nontelevised games, he relied on live reporting from Tony, his best friend, who attended every game in person. “I didn’t even know they were playing!” I said. I don’t know why I shouldn’t have known. It was September, after all. But it just hadn’t crossed my mind. I’d been a little on the busy side, I guess, getting ready to change my entire life and all. “How come you’re not down there watching it?” I asked. “I didn’t want to leave you,” he said. “You might get hit on.” He chuckled his sweet, sexy chuckle. I laughed. I could just see it--a drunk old guest scooting down the bar, eyeing my poufy white dress and spouting off pickup lines: You live around here? I sure like what you’re wearing… So…you married? Marlboro Man wasn’t in any immediate danger. Of that I was absolutely certain. “Go watch the game!” I insisted, motioning downstairs. “Nah,” he said. “I don’t need to.” He wanted to watch the game so badly I could see it in the air. “No, seriously!” I said. “I need to go hang with the girls anyway. Go. Now.” I turned my back and walked away, refusing even to look back. I wanted to make it easy on him. I wouldn’t see him for over an hour. Poor Marlboro Man. Unsure of the protocol for grooms watching college football during their wedding receptions, he’d darted in and out of the locker room for the entire first half. The agony he must have felt. The deep, sustained agony. I was so glad he’d finally joined the guys.

Whether I liked to admit it or not, every girl secretly wants her own personal champion, someone who’ll rush in and beat the crap out of anyone who looks at her sideways. The kicker, of course, is there’s a fine line between a knight in shining armor and a chauvinistic jerk. I want someone who will go to bat for me, not take away my bat and tell me to sit nicely on the bench where I won’t get dirty, if you know what I mean.

In spite of Deborah’s reassurance, Rita had known somehow that I was right in the middle of things and in grave danger, and she responded like a true champion. She was waiting for me at the door in a state of ditherhood that was unmatched in my experience. “Oh, Dexter,” she sniffled as she half-drowned me in hugs and kisses. “We were so—It was on the news, and I saw you there, but even after Deborah called,” she said, and kissed me again. “The children were watching TV, and Cody said, ‘It’s Dexter,’ and I looked—It was a newsbreak,” she said, I suppose reassuring me that I had not made a surprise guest appearance on SpongeBob. “Oh, my God,” she went on, pausing to shudder and then hug me, burying her head up to the shoulders in my neck. “You shouldn’t have to do those things,” she said, with a great deal of justice. “You’re supposed to do forensics and—You don’t even have a gun, and it isn’t—How can they—But your sister said, and on TV they said it was the cannibals and they had you, and at least you found that girl, which I know was very important, but oh, my God, cannibals, I can’t even think how—And they had you, and they could have—” And she finally broke off, possibly from oxygen deprivation, and concentrated on snuffling into my shirt for a minute. I

Addison ran up to Jimmy and scooped him up into her arms. "I knew you could do it, Jimmy. Good job." "Thanks," Jimmy said as he smiled and hugged Addison. A reporter clicked his camera. The picture of a little girl hugging her friend, the Champion of Callas County, hangs to this day in the Frog Jumping Hall of Fame next to a small plaque that reads: "Because he never gave up, Jimmy is considered to be the best jumping frog in history." Activities, Ideas and Education 1.Draw pictures of Jimmy doing all the things he does in this story. •As an egg wiggling •As a tadpole swishing his tail •As a tadpole with legs racing around the pond •As a froglet climbing out of the pond •As a grown frog going to the race track •Talking to Addison at the pond •At the starting line ready to jump •Jumping higher than the trees •Landing

Rimsha Masih fiasco—in which they had championed the execution of a fourteen-year-old mentally disabled Christian girl for the crime of blasphemy, only to be roundly rebuffed by a rare confluence of sane elements within Pakistan’s legal system, media, civil society, and clergy, who collectively revealed that she had been framed by a property-coveting local mullah—they

A walking tour should be gone upon alone, because freedom is of the essence; because you should be able to stop and go on, and follow this way or that, as the freak takes you; and because you must have your own pace, and neither trot alongside a champion walker, nor mince in time with a girl.

champion, you know. I’ve never met a girl who showed more promise as a Scavenger. She’ll go far in life.” I was gonna ask him about Naomi

To all the readers’ groups out there, we are so grateful for you. For getting the word out about books. And not just ours—everyone’s. Thank you for fostering and perpetuating a love of reading. Great Thoughts, Great Readers, Bunch of Book Baristas, Literary Love, Readers Coffeehouse, RW Book Club, Bookworms Anonymous, and Kristy Barrett of A Novel Bee—we adore you all. And a shout out to our favorite Bookstagrammers—Natasha Minoso (@bookbaristas), Vilma Gonzalez (@vilmairisblog), Abby Endler (@crimebythebook), Chelsea Humphrey (@suspensethrill), Jen Cannon (@literarylove), Samantha “Sam” Ellen (@cluesandreviews), Kate Olsen (@theloudlibrarylady), Athena Kaye (@athena.kaye), Suzanne Leopold (@suzanneleopold), Kayleigh Wilkes (@bookish.mama13), Uma Kayla G (@booklover12), Bethany Clark (@blclark513), Courtney Marzilli (@blissbeautybooks), Julie Caldwell (@juliejustreads), and Jaymi Couch (@bookfairies_oc). And to amazing book champions Jen Lynette, Deborah Blanchard, Barbara Khan, Bianca O’Brien, Sharlene Moore, Cindy Burnett, Marilyn Grable, Linda Zagon, and Jenny Collins Belk. And so many more! We appreciate every one of you. And always, special love to Jenny Tropea O’Regan (@jenny_oregan).

Landon reappeared, wearing a shirt, and pointed to the trash bag. “All done with that? I’m taking them to the garage.” Colby did a quick scan of the kitchen. “Yeah, looks like we got it all.” “Cool.” He knotted the top together then lifted the bag. Glass bottles rattled inside. “This shit stinks. Our friends are pigs.” Matt pretended to clear his throat. “Says the beer pong champ.” He lifted his hands, his face masked in innocence. “Didn’t say a thing.” “Ha-ha, okay, okay. Yeah, so maybe I contributed.” Landon shouldered the weighted bag. “A lot. But I also kicked your ass.” “We,” I chimed in. “Considering how drunk you were, we should probably respect the solid seventy/thirty split of the win.” Landon opened the garage door and paused. “Hold that thought.” “Uh-oh, you got him all fired up now.” Matt laughed and plopped down on the couch in the now clean living room. “You got anything for a headache?” Colby nodded, reached into the kitchen cabinet where he stored the ibuprofen, then tossed him the bottle. The garage door reopened and Landon stepped through already talking. “Okay, so if I’m not mistaken, you’re saying you did seventy percent of the winning?” “Seems about right.” I grinned, just to egg him on. “What I’m thinking is we should just call it fifty/fifty because my drunkenness just took my superior beer pong skills down to average-guy range.” “Oh? So that’s what we want to call it? Hmm…Okay, if this helps keep your ego nice and inflated, I guess I can get on board with that.” “Hey now…” He forced back a smile. “Kidding. We all know I suck at beer pong. If it hadn’t been for my champion of a partner and Matt’s extreme inebriation, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. It was a team effort and we…how did you say it? Mopped the floors with the blood of our enemies?” “Damn girl, you’re feisty. This isn’t no red wedding. I just said we kicked some ass.” “Oh, you didn’t say something like that? Wow, now I see how the inflated ego comes about. That kind of win just really goes straight to the head. I’m like crazy with power.” “I’d say.” He laughed. “And remind me to never play against you.

But she gives me this eye. This champion eye. A winner’s eye. Cocky, like no eyes I've ever seen before. Tom Brady doesn’t have anything on this kind of cocky right here. My luck, this girl’s some UFC champion. Christ.

I don’t want to leave, because it means I’ll have to open my eyes and June will be gone, replaced with this girl that I don’t know.

Seeing that no more Xana champions took to the air, Kuni and Mata’s men jeered at Namen’s camp from atop the walls: “Who’s the girlie now?” “Tanno Namen is an old lady more skilled with the embroidery needle than the sword!” “Namen, what’s for dinner?” “Maybe the girls from Xana should go back to Pan before it’s too late.” Some

I’m acknowledging that my ten-year-old self—the four-square champion who also won the slingshot contest on our street—has saved my butt at least as many times as my well-mannered social scientist self. I can’t rise strong unless I bring all of my wayward girls and fallen women back into the fold. I need them, and they need me.

Getting to fifty-fifty is incredibly complex and nuanced, requiring many detailed solutions that will take decades to fully play out. To accelerate the process, change needs to start at the top. Like Stewart Butterfield, CEOs need to make hiring and retaining women an explicit priority. In addition, here is the bare minimum of what we can do at an individual and a systemic level: First of all, people, be nice to each other. Treat one another with respect and dignity, including those of the opposite sex.That should be pretty simple. Don’t enable assholes. Stop making excuses for bad behavior, or ignoring it. CEOs must embrace and champion the need to reach a fair representation of gender within their companies, and develop a comprehensive plan to get there. Be long-term focused, not short-term. It may take three weeks to find a white man for the job, but three months to find a woman. Those three months could save three years of playing catch-up in the future. Invest in not just diversity but inclusion. Even if your company is small, everything counts. And take the time to educate your employees about why this is important. Companies need to appoint more women to their boards. And boards need to hold company leadership to account to get to fifty-fifty in their employee ranks, starting with company executives. Venture capital firms need to hire more women partners, and limited partners should pressure them to do so and, at the very least, ask them what their plans around diversity are. Investors, both men and women, need to start funding more women and diverse teams, period. LPs need to fund more women VCs, who can establish new firms with new cultural norms. Stop funding partnerships that look and act the same. Most important, stop blaming everybody else for the problem or pretending that it is too hard for us to solve. It’s time to look in the mirror. This is an industry, after all, that prides itself on disruption and revolutionary new ways of thinking. Let’s put that spirit of innovation and embrace of radical change to good use. Seeing a more inclusive workforce in Silicon Valley will encourage more girls and women studying computer science now.

The

The girl who questioned me could find examples of women from small cities like Rutland who have risen from modest circumstances to fulfill their dreams. Or she could persuade herself that she’d be the pioneer, that she’d be the first Rutland kid to achieve some wonderful dream and that she’d be a role model for others.

Ugh. Fine, we can hold off the late-night exploring—for now. But I’m still super disappointed in you, Foster. You’ve got the Fitzster passed out cold right there. And you know Elwin would be down with sneaking him a few funky elixirs. You could be giving him hairy feet and purple freckles and pretty pink ringlets. But what have you been doing instead?” He snatched the knotted piece of extra bandage from her lap and held it up by the corner, like it was some icky dead thing. “Do I want to know why I found you staring at this like it holds the secrets of the universe?” “It’s called trying to improve my telekinesis,” she grumbled, reaching for the scrap—but of course Keefe raised his arm and dangled it just out of her reach. And he was too far away to punch. “Why would you need to improve that?” he asked. “Need I remind you that you’re the Ultimate Splotching Champion? Also the Girl Who Dropped Bronte on His Grumpy Butt—which you should be bragging about more, by the way. Why isn’t that embroidered across all of your Foxfire uniforms?

Ten years ago Lukio fled Kiryat-Yearim, where he'd been adopted by the Levite family who guarded the Ark of the Covenant. Feeling betrayed by everyone, he returned to his birthplace in Philistia to become a famous fighter. Now the champion of Ashdod, Lukio has achieved every goal with the help of his ruthless cousin. But just as he is set to claim the biggest prize of all, the daughter of the king, his past collides with his present in the form of Shoshana, the girl he left behind. From Between The Wild Branches

Dwayne’s waitress at the Burger Chef was a seventeen-year-old white girl named Patty Keene. Her hair was yellow. Her eyes were blue.

Men think that they’re champions if they don’t behave like beasts. Hurrah, you’ve done the absolute minimum.

She could forgive the girl who had needed a captain of the guard to offer stability after a year in hell; forgive the girl who had needed a captain to be her champion. But she was her own champion now. And she would not add another name of her beloved dead to her flesh.

She had never lived in a place so white. She had been the only black girl before -in restaurants, in advanced-placement classes- but even then, she was surrounded by Filipinos and Samoans and Mexicans. Now she looked out into lecture halls filled with white kids from rural Michigan towns; in discussion sections, she listened to white classmates champion the diversity of their school, how progressive and accepting it was, and maybe if you had come from some farm town, it seemed that way. She felt the sly type of racism here, longer waits for tables, white girls who expected her to walk on the slushy part of the sidewalk, a drunk boy outside a salsa club yelling that she was pretty for a black girl. In a way, subtle racism was worse because it made you feel crazy. You were always left wonderings, was that actually racist? Had you just imagined it?

Children run away from problems. Children hide. I didn't want to remain a child. I couldn't help but think back to when Olive had rescued me...I could see now that she'd saved me in 1941 precisely because she had known that I was still a child. She could tell that I was not yet someone who was accountable for her own actions...Olive had seen me for what I was - an immature and unformed girl, who could not yet be expected to stand in the painful field of honor. I had needed a wise and caring adult to save me, and Olive had been that champion. She had stood in the field of honor on my behalf. But I had been young then. I wasn't young anymore. I would have to do this myself. But what would an adult - a formed person, a person of honor - do in this circumstance? Face the music, I suppose. Fight her own corner...Forgive somebody perhaps. But how?...British army engineers during the Great War, who used to say: We can do it, whether it can be done or not. Eventually, all of us will be called upon to do the thing that cannot be done. That is the painful field...

Decades ago, I trained myself to mistrust that girl’s perceptions. No doubt she projected as many pixels onto the world’s screen as she took in. So while I trust the stories I recall in broad outline, their interpretation through my old self is suspect. Forget reporting the external events right, try judging them when you’re an alumna of custodial care. When I reach to grasp a solid truth from that time, smoke pours through my fingers. Yet driving east with all my belongings wedged into Warren’s small white car, I feel swept off my feet as any storybook maiden by her champion. It’s Thanksgiving weekend, and the holiday burger taken at a roadside diner is a feast.

PROSTITUTION – AN ACT OF SEX (A POEM) BY E.T.H…AINA Hey young girl, Why do you want sex often and often? Oh! Dogs ate your placenta! And now your clitoris is always itchy. Hey little bro, why is your penis always nodding Like a read headed agama lizard? And you always want to insert it somewhere. Lemme open your eyes to some things. Girlie, to you, prostitution is just a practice Of engaging in sexual relations for payment or benefits. Hear this, prostitution is sexual harassment, Sexual exploitation, often worse. You become in your mind what your client does or says. It is internally damaging and disgraceful as he uses you to learn various sex patterns What he can’t do with the girl he truly loves. From Backstairs Boogy to Deep Impact, from the Head Game to Arc de Triomp And from Ladder Loving to the Pinwheel, from Electric Slide to Passion Propeller He uses you like a public convenience – a toilet After all, he pays for your ungodly service. After being used as a sex-slave, You’ll still suffer spiritually – what a pity. Girl, remember when the act of sex takes place, There is a spiritual union. Brotherly, hear this, he that has sex with a prostitute Becomes one body with her. He leaves a part of his DNA in her. Something a condom can’t protect you against. Back to you, young girl. You think sex is just pleasurable You moan – f**k me hard, give it to me, Baby Oh, I’m enjoying it. Oh, I’ve almost reached orgasm Then you cum and he cums – loba’tan! You think it’s over, right? You may not know – but he might be using you to enhance his wealth And your insufficient glory is depleting. Bro, you have done it, ten rounds. Champion! But what has gone out of you If only you have a spiritual eye – then you will be sober. Your sperm has been saved inside a black and red ritual calabash She will use it to boost her fame. Bro, it is finished! Wait, you think it is over, right? What if you contract diseases – chlamydia, HIV and AIDS If things fall apart, you tend to suffer on earth And fire will burn you in heaven. Na me talk ham – so, think ham oooo Copyright @2019 E.T.H…AINA All right reserved: no part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any forms or by any means, electronically, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the poet -E.T.H…AINA (hercules_temitope@yahoo.com)/+2348184171204

The Goblet of Fire now shone more brightly than anything in the whole Hall, the sparkling bright, bluey-whiteness of the flames almost painful on the eyes. Everyone watched, waiting. . . . A few people kept checking their watches. . . . “Any second,” Lee Jordan whispered, two seats away from Harry. The flames inside the goblet turned suddenly red again. Sparks began to fly from it. Next moment, a tongue of flame shot into the air, a charred piece of parchment fluttered out of it — the whole room gasped. Dumbledore caught the piece of parchment and held it at arm’s length, so that he could read it by the light of the flames, which had turned back to blue-white. “The champion for Durmstrang,” he read, in a strong, clear voice, “will be Viktor Krum.” “No surprises there!” yelled Ron as a storm of applause and cheering swept the Hall. Harry saw Viktor Krum rise from the Slytherin table and slouch up toward Dumbledore; he turned right, walked along the staff table, and disappeared through the door into the next chamber. “Bravo, Viktor!” boomed Karkaroff, so loudly that everyone could hear him, even over all the applause. “Knew you had it in you!” The clapping and chatting died down. Now everyone’s attention was focused again on the goblet, which, seconds later, turned red once more. A second piece of parchment shot out of it, propelled by the flames. “The champion for Beauxbatons,” said Dumbledore, “is Fleur Delacour!” “It’s her, Ron!” Harry shouted as the girl who so resembled a veela got gracefully to her feet, shook back her sheet of silvery blonde hair, and swept up between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables. “Oh look, they’re all disappointed,” Hermione said over the noise, nodding toward the remainder of the Beauxbatons party. “Disappointed” was a bit of an understatement, Harry thought. Two of the girls who had not been selected had dissolved into tears and were sobbing with their heads on their arms. When Fleur Delacour too had vanished into the side chamber, silence fell again, but this time it was a silence so stiff with excitement you could almost taste it. The Hogwarts champion next . . . And the Goblet of Fire turned red once more; sparks showered out of it; the tongue of flame shot high into the air, and from its tip Dumbledore pulled the third piece of parchment. “The Hogwarts champion,” he called, “is Cedric Diggory!” “No!” said Ron loudly, but nobody heard him except Harry; the uproar from the next table was too great. Every single Hufflepuff had jumped to his or her feet,

The champion wrestler, 15 years of experience, taken down by a small woman and seasoning?” He flashes his teeth in a feral grin. “I think I’m in love.” “Well then, lover boy. Let’s go get our girl.

When we first started dating, he introduced me to all his friends and colleagues as his little firecracker. That's what he started calling me after our third date, when he brought me to a Redskins party at his friend Eric's place. Eric had decided to make buffalo chili, but, in what became clear to both me and everyone else at the party, he had no idea what he was doing. Two hours into the party, after all of us had blown through the bags of tortilla chips and pretzels, Eric was still chopping red peppers. Determined not to let a room of fifteen people go hungry, I rolled up my sleeves, marched into the kitchen, and grabbed my knife. "Okay, Bobby Flay," I said as I wielded my knife. "Time to get this show on the road." I chopped and minced and crushed at rapid-fire speed, and in no time, dinner was served. "Get a load of this firecracker," Eric said as he watched me work my magic. After that, the name sort of stuck. For a while, the nickname seemed like a good thing. Every time I would rail against fad diets or champion the importance of sustainable agriculture or lament the lack of food options in inner cities, Adam would laugh and say, "That's my little firecracker." He made me feel special, as if I were a vital part of his life. His parents were the only people from whom he seemed to hide me, and though it bothered me a little, I understood. I was the anti-Sandy. That's what made me attractive. But he hasn't called me his little firecracker in what feels like months now, and lately I feel as if he's hiding me from everyone. When did this little firecracker become a grenade?

I’m marrying the girl I promised to marry when we were five years old, and she said yes between the swings and the slide. Frankie, you’re my best friend, my lover, my champion, and my heart. Everything I am, is yours, Beautiful. Well, except for the part that keeps these knuckleheads in touch with their deeper feelings.

From what I’ve been told, there are several growth phases in a natural sleep cycle. Studies have shown that at 1:30 or 2 a.m., kids begin to secrete the growth hormone,” he says. “If somebody interrupts that secretion cycle to get you up to train at 5 in the morning throughout your childhood, what does that do to your body?

Mr. Douglas dearly love to play chess and he played anyone anywhere anytime. His favorite games were against mrs. Robinson, who was a Deft and masterful player and Who as a girl had been County Champion. Where was that? Mr Douglas had asked when that little tidbit slipped out one day. Oh, long ago and far away, she said, smiling, and mr. Robinson laughed aloud in the kitchen, and missed your Douglas had thought Dash not for the first time, either - that someday, if he was very lucky, he too would be able to speak in complex secret affectionate amused code with someone in such a way that people who heard you would not know what you meant but would understand full well that you were speaking a dual language of your own made of sweat and laughter and tears and work and time and arguments and lust and labor and respect and annoyance and witness and some sort of reverence that has nothing whatsoever to do with religion and everything to do with love. from Martin Marten by Brian Doyle

Nobody hits you while I've got breath in my body." Shock sent her heart crashing against her ribs. Jonas had fought William not because of what happened at Eton but because he wouldn't see her hurt. He'd been her champion, not avenger of his own wrongs. An astonishing surge of emotion that extended far beyond mere gratitude left her reeling. Roberta had been her protector when she'd been a little girl but since then, she'd fought every battle alone. "Thank you," she whispered, the words utterly inadequate. Briefly forgetting their audience, she lifted his fist and pressed a reverent kiss to his broken knuckles. "But you can't kill him." With her kiss, the inhuman chill slowly drained from Jonas's expression. Thank heaven. Once more he looked like the man she knew. He sucked in a choked breath and she felt his coiled tension ease. "As you wish.

She decided at that moment that she wanted Gina for a friend... if Gina wasn't already a friend. She rather hoped that the Champion was. The more she thought about it, the more she hoped. Really, Gina had been very nice to someone that she'd had no real reason to like. After all, if it wasn't for Andie, where would she be now? 'On some other uncomfortable Quest?' Well, maybe. Or maybe still at the Chapter-House. And Andie was the one who had thrust herself on a reluctant Gina. The Champion had no reason to be happy about that. 'But she said herself that having me along made getting around the countryside easier.' Still, when it came right down to it, Andie had been an inconvenience. Yet Gina had never made things uncomfortable for Andie. And once she'd been revealed as being another girl- 'I'd really like her for a friend.' She looked around at the other young women clustered about the makeshift table, which looked as if someone had taken a slab of the fallen stone of the fortress walls and set it on four stumpy columns. Actually, someone probably had- that someone being one of the dragons. 'I'd like to have all of them for friends,' she found herself deciding in surprise. Uncommon trial and hardship, danger and uncertainty had brought them together, but they were making the most of it, and even seemed to be finding ways to enjoy themselves. They'd come to some sort of understanding, it seemed, because she honestly couldn't tell any differences of rank among them by the way they behaved toward one another.

Mr. Bronson,” she said a bit unsteadily, “I—I will see you at supper.” Bronson's face wore an expression of seriousness identical to her own. “Let Rose eat with us,” he said. “Don't any upper-class children have supper with their families?” Holly took a long moment to answer. “In some country homes the children are allowed to eat en famille. However, in most well-to-do households the children take separate nursery meals. Rose has become accustomed to the arrangement at the Taylor' mansion, and I should dislike to change a familiar ritual—” “But there she had other children to eat with, didn't she?” Bronson pointed out. “And here she has to take most meals by herself.” Holly glanced into her daughter's small face. Rose seemed to be holding her breath, waiting with silent excitement to see if her unexpected champion would succeed at gaining her a place at the adults' dinner table. It would be easy for Holly to insist that Rose adhere to the traditional mealtime separation between grown-ups and children. However, as Bronson and the little girl both stared at her expectantly, Holly realized with a flash of amused despair that yet another boundary was to be broken. “Very well,” she said. “If Rose behaves well, she may take meals with the family from now on.” To Holly's surprise, Rose flew to Bronson with an exclamation of happiness and threw her arms around his leg. “Oh, Mr. Bronson,” she cried, “thank you!” Grinning, Bronson disentangled her little arms and sank to his haunches. “Thank your mother, princess. I only asked. She was the one who gave permission.” Bouncing back to Holly, Rose decorated her face with kisses. “Darling,” Holly murmured, trying not to smile, “let's go upstairs and change your pinafore and wash your face before dinner. We can't have you looking like a ragamuffin.” “Yes, Mama.” Rose's small hand took hers, and she skipped eagerly as she led Holly away.

Lois Lane was part of the Superman dynamic from the very start. The intrepid star newspaper reporter had made her first appearance in 1938’s Action Comics #1, the same issue where Superman made his debut. She was infatuated with the powerful, godlike Superman, while repulsed by his meek pantywaist alter ego, her rival reporter Clark Kent. Lois’ 1940s persona of tough crusading reporter was in the mold of Hollywood dames like Rosalind Russell. Lois’ tireless effort to get her next headline, along with her impulsive personality, often put her in danger, from which Superman would have to rescue her. But the 40s Lois was no pushover. She was a modern career woman, and her dream was to get her greatest scoop: Superman’s secret identity. The Superman/Lois Lane relationship had many complicated factors that would prevent a romance from ever reaching fruition, while still providing the right tension to sustain the relationship for decades. First off, they were literally from different worlds. Superman was the last survivor of the doomed planet Krypton, and was raised by simple midwestern farm folk. Lois Lane was very much a woman of 20th century America: emancipated, headstrong, and unwilling to take “no” for an answer. Superman’s timid farm boy Clark Kent persona crumbled before Lois’ ferocious, emasculating temperament, while his heroic Man of Steel found himself constantly confounded by her impetuous nature. Meanwhile, the very issue of Superman’s secret identity always threw a wrench into his romance with Lois. Besides the basic duplicity, Superman becomes his own rival, squelching any chance for a healthy relationship. Superman loves Lois Lane, but tries to win her heart as meek Clark Kent, with the rationale that he wants to be sure Lois really loves him for himself, not for his glamorous superhuman persona. But since he’s created a wallflower persona that Lois will never find attractive, he sabotages any chance for love. Lois, for her part, is enamored with Superman, yet has a burning desire to discover his secret identity. Lois never considers that she risks losing Superman’s love if she learns his secret identity, or that the world may lose its champion and protector. (...) If the Lois Lane of the ’40s owed much to the tough talking heroines of that decade’s screwball comedies, the Lois of the ’50s was defined by the medium of the new era—television.

Nate had written this long essay. I’ll be honest, I don’t remember all the words and he even admitted in his paper he needed some help from his girlfriend to fully express how he felt about us, but the conclusion remains with me to this day. He said our friendship had taught him how to live, love and matter. He was this star athlete who stood six foot five inches tall—a beefy guy with more muscle mass than any champion MMA fighter—and he was describing our friendship with such depth. Jasmine asked me to honor her son’s memory by living, loving and by only doing meaningful things. Those three simple wishes I took to heart and I’ve been on a crusade ever since to make good on my promise to her. Even though she died two years ago, I’ve still kept my word to her.

Just because it’s all he’s capable of doesn’t mean it’s enough for you, and just because he gives what he’s capable of doesn’t make him great. This is exaggeration of the worst kind and it will set you up for a fall. Ever seen someone settle? It’s because they decide that something is better than nothing, but that something may be very insubstantial. It’s like you’re saying “Wow! Look at how much of a limited contribution is coming from a limited man!”, which is like celebrating the obvious and championing mediocrity.

I know I haven’t had the best reputation: a girl who does movies, tied to dozens of scandals, a lot of them involving married men, rumored to have participated in bloody rituals connected to Satanism and spending a month with a tribe of cannibals. Yes, a few of my first opponents from the Pantheon eventually ended up in a mental hospital after I played my games with them...

I don’t understand any of this,” Nox said, still keeping back a step. “You don’t have to. But you’re not going back to prison if you fail, and you’re not going to be the Champion, even if you make it to the duels. So you need to leave.” “Do I want to know what’s killing the Champions?” “No,” she said, unable to keep the fear from her voice. “You don’t. You just have to trust me—and trust that I’m not trying to eliminate my competition by tricking you.” “All this time, I thought you were just some pretty girl from Bellhaven who stole jewels to get her father’s attention. Little did I know that the blond-haired girl was Queen of the Underworld.