Chicago Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Chicago. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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Multiple experiments with spirit contact transmitted the name Matthew Edward Hall on several occasions. I predict this to be a very important future individual in humanities development. Possibly the second embodiment of Christ on Earth.
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G.I. Gurdjieff (Gurdjieff's Early Talks 1914-1931: In Moscow, St. Petersburg, Essentuki, Tiflis, Constantinople, Berlin, Paris, London, Fontainebleau, New York, and Chicago)
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Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: 'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action'.
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Ian Fleming (Goldfinger (James Bond, #7))
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I married a damned cereal killer
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Nobody's Baby But Mine (Chicago Stars, #3))
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Anything worth having is worth fighting for.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars, #2))
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I guess we're oil and water. (Phoebe) I'd say we're more like gasoline and a blowtorch. (Dan)
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars, #1))
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Chicago is an October sort of city even in spring.
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Nelson Algren (Chicago: City on the Make)
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sometimes knowing when to give up is the real test of character... -annabelle granger
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6))
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It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so very easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root. This was Chicago, on the eve of the greatest fair in history.
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Erik Larson (The Devil in the White City)
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If I could put my brain in her body, the world would be mine for the taking.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6))
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I've heard of a guy in Chicago who advertises in the phone book under "Wizard",though that's probably a urban legend.
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Benedict Jacka (Fated (Alex Verus, #1))
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I must confess a shameful secret: I love Chicago best in the cold.
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Erik Larson (The Devil in the White City)
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Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.
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Dave Barry
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Our plans for the future made us laugh and feel close, but those same plans somehow made anything more than temporary between us seem impossible. It was the first time I’d ever had the feeling of missing someone I was still with.
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Stuart Dybek (The Coast of Chicago: Stories)
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Live steady. Don't fuck around. Give anything weird a wide berth -- including people. It's not worth it. I learned this the hard way, through brutal overindulgence. ...Back to Chicago; it's never dull out there. You never know exactly what kind of terrible shit is going to come down on you in that town, but you can always count on *something*. Every time I go to Chicago I come away with scars.
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Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72)
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Chicago happened slowly, like a migraine.
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Neil Gaiman (American Gods (American Gods, #1))
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She glared at him. "You're doing it again." "What?" "That thing that irritates me." "Smiling?" "Yes. That.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Nobody's Baby But Mine (Chicago Stars, #3))
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You couldn't be satisfied with being an amateur asshole, could you, Jimbo! You had to go and turn pro on me!
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars, #2))
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If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription, who has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer - even if it's not my grandparent. If there's an Arab-American or Mexican-American family being rounded up by John Ashcroft without benefit of an attorney or due process, I know that that threatens my civil liberties. And I don't have to be a woman to be concerned that the Supreme Court is trying to take away a woman's right, because I know that my rights are next. It is that fundamental belief - I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper - that makes this country work.
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Barack Obama
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Did anybody tell you that you're a few french fries short of a Happy Meal?
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (This Heart of Mine (Chicago Stars, #5))
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Disagreements over money are the biggest cause of divorce." She waved her hand. "Absolutely no problem. Your money is our money. My money is my money." She wrote away. "I should make you negotiate with Phoebe.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6))
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It was a kiss made in lonely dreams. A kiss that took its time. A kiss that felt so right she couldn't remember all the reasons it was wrong.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (This Heart of Mine (Chicago Stars, #5))
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I happen to be immature, undisciplined, and self-centered, pretty much a little boy in a man's body, although I'd appreciate it if you didn't quote me on that. -Bobby Tom
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars, #2))
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Yet once you've come to be part of this particular patch, you'll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.
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Nelson Algren (Chicago: City on the Make)
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What keeps a poor child in Appalachia poor is not what keeps a poor child in Chicago poorβ€”even if from a distance, the outcomes look the same. And what keeps an able-bodied black woman poor is not what keeps a disabled white man poor, even if the outcomes look the same.
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Ijeoma Oluo (So You Want to Talk About Race)
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The sixteen hundred dairies in California’s Central Valley alone produce more waste than a city of twenty-one million people-that’s more than the populations of London, New York, and Chicago combined.
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Gene Baur (Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food)
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Why don't I just hand you my panties and be done with it.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6))
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She thought it over, but couldn’t see any immediate loopholes other than the threat of her inner slut emerging, and she could darned well control that little bitch.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Natural Born Charmer (Chicago Stars, #7))
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Didn't you learn anything from my mistakes?" he asks. Shit, when Alex was in the Latino Blood back in Chicago I worshiped him. "You don't want to hear my answer to that.
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Simone Elkeles
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I think being a liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, non-committed to a cause - but examining each case on its merits. Being left of center is another thing; it's a political position. I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they're not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen. If they're preordained dogmatists for a cause, then they can't be very good journalists; that is, if they carry it into their journalism." [Interview with Ron Powers (Chicago Sun Times) for Playboy, 1973]
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Walter Cronkite
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she knew what she wanted and it wasn't / me. / I know more women like that than any / other kind.
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Charles Bukowski (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
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I have struck a city - a real city - and they call it Chicago. The other places don’t count. Having seen it, I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages
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Rudyard Kipling
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When hiring, mix Harvard Nerds with Chicago Improvisers and stir.
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Tina Fey (Bossypants)
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Writer's block? I've heard of this. This is when a writer cannot write, yes? Then that person isn't a writer anymore. I'm sorry, but the job is getting up in the fucking morning and writing for a living.
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Warren Ellis
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In case you haven't noticed, as the result of a shamelessly rigged election in Florida, in which thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily disenfranchised, we now present ourselves to the rest of the world as proud, grinning, jut-jawed, pitiless war-lovers with appalling powerful weaponry - who stand unopposed. In case you haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazi's once were. And with good reason. In case you haven't noticed, our unelected leaders have dehumanized millions and millions of human beings simply because of their religion and race. We wound 'em and kill 'em and torture 'em and imprison 'em all we want. Piece of cake. In case you haven't noticed, we also dehumanize our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class. Send 'em anywhere. Make 'em do anything. Piece of cake. The O'Reilly Factor. So I am a man without a country, except for the librarians and a Chicago paper called "In These Times." Before we attacked Iraq, the majestic "New York Times" guaranteed there were weapons of destruction there. Albert Einstein and Mark Twain gave up on the human race at the end of their lives, even though Twain hadn't even seen the First World War. War is now a form of TV entertainment, and what made the First World War so particularly entertaining were two American inventions, barbed wire and the machine gun. Shrapnel was invented by an Englishman of the same name. Don't you wish you could have something named after you? Like my distinct betters Einstein and Twain, I now give up on people too. I am a veteran of the Second World War and I have to say this is the not the first time I surrendered to a pitiless war machine. My last words? "Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse." Napalm came from Harvard. Veritas! Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler. What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations and made it all their own?
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (A Man Without a Country)
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We’re only human.” β€œOne of us, anyway. The other’s a reptile.” β€œHarsh, Annabelle. Very harsh.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6))
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She's as plastic as you are. If you ever have kids, they'll come out of the birth canal with Fisher-Price stamped on their butts.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6))
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Let me tell your something. I'm from Chicago. I don't break.
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Barack Obama
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Jon Spiro had not hired Pex and Chips for their debating sills. In the job interview, they had only been set one task. A hundred applicants were handed a walnut and asked to smash it however they could. Only two succeeded. Pex had shouted at the walnut for a few minutes, then flattened it between his giant palms. Chips had opted for a more controversial method. He placed the walnut on the table, grabbed is interviewer by the ponytail, and used the man's forehead to smash the nut. Both men were hired on the spot. They quickly established themselves as Arno Blunt's most reliable leiutenants for in-house work. They were not allowed outside Chicago, as this could involve map reading, something Pex and Chips were not very good at.
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Eoin Colfer (The Eternity Code (Artemis Fowl, #3))
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There's nothing sexier in a man than intelligence.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars, #1))
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... Chicago divided your heart. Leaving you loving the joint for keeps. Yet knowing it never can love you.
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Nelson Algren (Chicago: City on the Make)
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Chicago happened slowly, like a migraine. First they were driving through countryside, then, imperceptibly, the occasional town became a low suburban sprawl, and the sprawl became the city.
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Neil Gaiman (American Gods (American Gods, #1))
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Mister Dresden," he said. "And Miss Rodriguez, I believe. I didn't realize you were an art collector." "I am the foremost collector of velvet Elvii in the city of Chicago," I said at once. "Elvii?" Marcone inquired. "The plural could be Elvises, I guess," I said. "But if I say that too often, I start muttering to myself and calling things 'my precious,' so I usually go with the Latin plural.
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Jim Butcher (Death Masks (The Dresden Files, #5))
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So, Beav, tell me about yourself." "I'm Blue." "Sweetheart, if I had your dubious taste in men, I wouldn't be too happy, either." "My name is Blue. Blue Bailey.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Natural Born Charmer (Chicago Stars, #7))
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I have always had a special affinity for libraries and librarians, for the most obvious reasons. I love books. (One of my first Jobs was shelving books at a branch of the Chicago Public Library.) Libraries are a pillar of any society. I believe our lack of attention to funding and caring for them properly in the United States has a direct bearing on problems of literacy, productivity, and our inability to compete in today's world. Libraries are everyman's free university.
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John Jakes (Homeland (Crown Family Saga, #1))
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I loved going to the library. It was the first time I ever saw Black newspapers and magazines like JET, Ebony, the Baltimore Afro-American, or the Chicago Defender. And I’ll never forget my librarian.
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John Lewis (March: Book One (March, #1))
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Are you demented, you stupid badger ? Is that your problem ? Or are you just an idiot ?" "As to that, I... Did you just call me a badger ?" "A bastard. I called you a bastard.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (This Heart of Mine (Chicago Stars, #5))
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No marshmallows. "I don't believe this! I'm going to write the president of General Mills! Don't they have any quality control?" "I'm sure it's just a fluke" "Doesn't make any difference whether it's a fluke or not. It shouldn't have happened. When a person buys a box of lucky charms he's got expectations
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Nobody's Baby But Mine (Chicago Stars, #3))
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The door closed behind her (Phoebe), and the two men regarded each other for a moment. Viktor spoke first. "I must have your promise, Coach, that you won't hurt her." Dan: "I won't." Viktor: "You spoke a little too quickly for my taste. I don't quite believe you." Dan: "I'm a man of my word, and I promise I won't hurt her." He flexed his hands. "When I murder her, I'll do it real quick so she won't feel a thing." Viktor sighed. "That's exactly what I was afraid of.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars, #1))
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Gracie: You have an unusual house. Have you lived here long? Bobby Tom: A couple of years. I don't much like it myself, but the architect is real proud of it. She calls it urban Stone Age with a Japanese Tahitian influence. I sort of just call it ugly.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars, #2))
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You can't do extraordinary things in the world if you're spending time criticizing others because they don't look or behave the way you think they should.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Natural Born Charmer (Chicago Stars, #7))
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And even now she beats her head against the bars in the same old way and wonders if there is a bigger place the railroads run to from Chicago where maybe there is romance and big things and real dreams that never go smash.
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Carl Sandburg
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You know that we've got a few problems we need to talk through before we get married." "I'm not getting rid of Pooh." "See, there you go being antagonistic. Marriage means learning to compromise." "I didn't say I wouldn't compromise. I promise to take the ribbon out of her topknot before you walk her.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars, #1))
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Give me hunger, pain and want, Shut me out with shame and failure From your doors of gold and fame, Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger! But leave me a little love.
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Carl Sandburg (Chicago Poems)
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I think about my education sometimes. I went to the University of Chicago for awhile after the Second World War. I was a student in the Department of Anthropology. At that time they were teaching that there was absolutely no difference between anybody. They may be teaching that still. Another thing they taught was that no one was ridiculous or bad or disgusting. Shortly before my father died, he said to me, β€˜You know – you never wrote a story with a villain in it.’ I told him that was one of the things I learned in college after the war.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Slaughterhouse-Five)
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Make-up? What happened? You look almost female." "Thanks. You look almost straight.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Natural Born Charmer (Chicago Stars, #7))
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Life sure is easier when you're rich." "And a natural born charmer. Don't forget that part." "How could I?" she retorted. "It's the only thing we have in common.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Natural Born Charmer (Chicago Stars, #7))
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I think this is the way love feels to people like you and me. Threatening and dangerous. We have to be in control, and love takes that away. People like us… We can't tolerate vulnerability. But despite our best efforts, sooner or later love seems to catch up with us. And then…And then we fall apart.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6))
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Anyone who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.
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Richard Peck (A Year Down Yonder (A Long Way from Chicago, #2))
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I don't need to be fixed anymore. That job's already been done. I love you, Annabelle. -Heath Champion-
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6))
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Bobby Tom told me he’s not afraid of the Chargers’ defense.” β€œBobby Tom’ll tell you he’s not afraid of nuclear war, so I wouldn’t put too much stock in his opinion.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars, #1))
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Love must not suffocate but breathe on its own.
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Soraya Naomi (For Fallon (Chicago Syndicate, #1))
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Be quiet, or I swear to God I'll take you right here
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (This Heart of Mine (Chicago Stars, #5))
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Leave the fireworks for those who cast no spark of their own.
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Karen Abbott (Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul)
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I am an American, Chicago born – Chicago, that somber city – and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man's character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles.
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Saul Bellow (The Adventures of Augie March)
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Ironic, isn't it, what religion does to people?" "I guess it's more ironic what people do to religion.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Dream a Little Dream (Chicago Stars, #4))
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Losing your family….it puts fear in a different perspective,” he said. β€œBesides, I got by all right. I stayed on the fringe around Chicago, hoped around tent cities and Red Cross camps. Worked for some people who didn’t ask questions. Avoided case-workers and foster care. And thought about you.” β€œMe?” I huffed, completely unsettled. In awe at how vanilla my life seemed. In awe of what he’d endured, He turned then, meeting my eyes for the first time. When he spoke, his voice was gentle, and unashamed. β€œYou. The only thing in my life that doesn’t change. When everything went to hell, you were all I had.
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Kristen Simmons (Article 5 (Article 5, #1))
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There you are," he said when she bobbed up. "I was getting worried." "What are you doing?" "Waiting till you're ready to drown." He smiled and eased back down on the seat. "And then I'm going to save your life. Dan did it for Phoebe and I'm going to do it for you." "Dan didn't try to murder her first!" she screamed. "I go the extra mile.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (This Heart of Mine (Chicago Stars, #5))
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Bobby Tom: You're supposed to be my assistant, not a baby-sitter! Gracie: One and the same.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars, #2))
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Give me those keys.” β€œI will not!” β€œYou win, Professor. I’ll buy you a car. Now give me the damn keys.” β€œI have a car.” β€œA real car. A Mercedes, a BMW, whatever you want.” β€œI don’t want a Mercedes or a BMW.” β€œThat’s what you think.” β€œStop bullying me.” β€œI haven’t even started.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Nobody's Baby But Mine (Chicago Stars, #3))
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We're in the Chicago suburbs, ruling our 'hood and the streets that lead here. It's a street war, where other suburban gangs fight us for territory. Three blocks away are mansions and million-dollar houses. Right here, in the real world, the street war rages on. The people in the million-dollar houses don't even realize a battle is about to begin less than a half mile from their backyards.
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Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
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They've drunk everything in the house, including a pitcher of African violet plant food I'd just mixed up and was stupid enough to leave on the counter." Tremaine punched Eddie in the shoulder. "I told you it tasted weird." Eddie shrugged. "Tasted okay to me.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6))
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He wanted to shake her until every one of her chattering teeth hit the ground. "What the hell are you trying to say? Why did she choose me?" Jodie eyed him warily. "Because she thinks you're stupid.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Nobody's Baby But Mine (Chicago Stars, #3))
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Something brushed his leg, and he gazed down into the face of Pippi Tucker. The theme from Jaws raced through his head.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6))
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I never thought I'd have to give you-a former Sunday School teacher-a lecture on ethics." "Former Sunday School teachers don't go around without their underwear." "You show me where it says that in the Bible.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars, #2))
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Do you really expect me to fall apart every time another woman throws herself at you? Because, if that's so, I'll be a nervous wreck before the honeymoon's over. Although, if they do it in front of me..." He went still. "Did you just propose to me?" She bristled. "Do you have a problem with that?" The scoreboard lit up, and he gave the world a high five. "God, I love you.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Natural Born Charmer (Chicago Stars, #7))
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You're beautiful, every part of you. I love your hair, the way it looks, the way it feels. I love touching it, smelling it. I love the way you wrinkle your nose when you laugh. It makes me laugh, too, every time. And I love watching you eat. Sometimes you can't shovel it in fast enough, but when you get interested in a conversation, you forget there's anything in front of you. God knows, I love making love with you. I can't even talk about that without wanting you. I love your pathetic attachment to those seniors. I love how hard you work.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6))
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The years went by, and Mary Alice and I grew up, Slower than we wanted to, faster than we realized.
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Richard Peck (A Long Way from Chicago (A Long Way from Chicago, #1))
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You were the best birthday present I ever got." "Thank you." "I wanted to give you something back, but I've got to warn you that it's not half as good as my present. Even so, you have to keep it." "All right." He draped the pink bow around his neck and grinned. "Happy birthday, Rosebud.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Nobody's Baby But Mine (Chicago Stars, #3))
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Just out of curiosity, sweetheart; did you ever talk to your doctor about givin' you some tranquilizers?
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars, #2))
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The engine roared to life. He ran toward her. She shot our of her parking space. He rushed to the side of her car. "Stop it, Kristy! You're overreacting! Let's talk about this." That was when she did the unthinkable. She rolled down the window, thrust out her hand, and gave Reverend Ethan Bonner the bird.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Dream a Little Dream (Chicago Stars, #4))
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I recall an August afternoon in Chicago in 1973 when I took my daughter, then seven, to see what Georgia O’Keeffe had done with where she had been. One of the vast O’Keeffe β€˜Sky Above Clouds’ canvases floated over the back stairs in the Chicago Art Institute that day, dominating what seemed to be several stories of empty light, and my daughter looked at it once, ran to the landing, and kept on looking. "Who drew it," she whispered after a while. I told her. "I need to talk to her," she said finally.
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Joan Didion (The White Album)
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I did not say anything. I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stock yards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.
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Ernest Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms)
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His mother?" Gracie couldn't believe it. Suzy Denton looked much too young to be his mother. And much too respectable. "But you're not a-" She cut herself off in mid-sentence as she realized what she'd almost let slip. Suzy's wedding ring clicked against the steering wheel as she gave it a hard smack. "I'm going to kill him! He's been telling that hooker story again, hasn't he?
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars, #2))
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You don’t know anyone at the party, so you don’t want to go. You don’t like cottage cheese, so you haven’t eaten it in years. This is your choice, of course, but don’t kid yourself: it’s also the flinch. Your personality is not set in stone. You may think a morning coffee is the most enjoyable thing in the world, but it’s really just a habit. Thirty days without it, and you would be fine. You think you have a soul mate, but in fact you could have had any number of spouses. You would have evolved differently, but been just as happy. You can change what you want about yourself at any time. You see yourself as someone who can’t write or play an instrument, who gives in to temptation or makes bad decisions, but that’s really not you. It’s not ingrained. It’s not your personality. Your personality is something else, something deeper than just preferences, and these details on the surface, you can change anytime you like. If it is useful to do so, you must abandon your identity and start again. Sometimes, it’s the only way. Set fire to your old self. It’s not needed here. It’s too busy shopping, gossiping about others, and watching days go by and asking why you haven’t gotten as far as you’d like. This old self will die and be forgotten by all but family, and replaced by someone who makes a difference. Your new self is not like that. Your new self is the Great Chicago Fireβ€”overwhelming, overpowering, and destroying everything that isn’t necessary.
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Julien Smith (The Flinch)
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Honey lamb, there are a lot of things in this world I feel insecure about. Religion. Our national economic policies. What color socks to wear with a blue suit. But I've got to tell you that my performance in that hotel room last night isn't one of them.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars, #1))
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He grinned, and right then it occurred to him that he hadn't enjoyed himself so much with a woman in a very long time. If Annabelle Granger were a few inches taller, a hell of a lot more sophisticated, better organized, less bossy, and more inclined to worship at his feet, she'd have made a perfect wife.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6))
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You’ve got this job offer in Charlotte. I know. But if you want, that’s something we can figure out together. I made a commitment to Cameron, so I need to stay in Chicago until she’s back from maternity leave. But after that, I can—” β€œI didn’t take the job in Charlotte.” β€œOh. Right.” He exhaled, trying to catch up to speed. β€œWell. You should know that I had at least two minutes left on that speech. Really quality stuff.” β€œSorry. I just thought this might be a good time to mention that I love you, too.” She made a rolling gesture. β€œBut, pleaseβ€”carry on.” He grinned. Sassy as ever.
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Julie James (Love Irresistibly (FBI/US Attorney, #4))
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There on the dune, beside the table, one of the camel boys has his arm around the other, and they sit there like that as they watch the sun. The dunes are turning the same shades of adobe and aqua as the buildings of Marrakech. Two boys, arms around each other. To Less, it seems so foreign. It makes him sad. In his world, he never sees straight men doing this. Just as a gay couple cannot walk hand in hand down the streets of Marrakech, he thinks, two men, best friends, cannot walk hand in hand down the streets of Chicago. They cannot sit on a dune like these teenagers and watch a sunset in each other’s embrace. This Tom Sawyer love for Huck Finn.
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Andrew Sean Greer (Less)
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She gave Pretty Boy a surreptitious glance. Did he honestly expect her to believe he was gay? True, there were the gay boots and those stunning good looks. But, even so, he blasted enough heterosexual mega-wattage to light up the entire female population. Which he’d undoubtedly been doing since he shot out of the birth canal, glimpsed his reflection in the obstetrician’s eyeglasses, and gave the world a high five.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Natural Born Charmer (Chicago Stars, #7))
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When did my house turn into a hangout for every grossly overpaid, terminally pampered professional football player in northern Illinois?" "We like it here," Jason said. "It reminds us of home." "Plus, no women around." Leandro Collins, the Bears' first-string tight end emerged from the office munching on a bag of chips. "There's times when you need a rest from the ladies." Annabelle shot out her arm and smacked him in the side of the head. "Don't forget who you're talking to." Leandro had a short fuse, and he'd been known to take out a ref here and there when he didn't like a call, but the tight end merely rubbed the side of his head and grimaced. "Just like my mama." "Mine, too," Tremaine said with happy nod. Annabelle spun on Heath. "Their mother! I'm thirty-one years old, and I remind them of their mothers." "You act like my mother," Sean pointed out, unwisely as it transpired, because he got a swat in the head next.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6))
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Kevin stopped where he was and stood there simply gazing at her. Molly sat cross-legged in the meadow with the sun shining on her bare shoulders and a pair of yellow butterflies fluttering like hair bows around her head. She was all the dreams he'd lost at dawn-dreams of everything he hadn't understood he needed until now. She was his playmate, his confidante, the lover who made his blood rush. She was the mother of his children and the companion of his old age. She was the joy of his heart.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (This Heart of Mine (Chicago Stars, #5))
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It is a bit of a clichΓ© to characterize life as a rambling journey on which we can alter our course at any given time--by the slightest turn of the wheel, the wisdom goes, we influence the chain of events and thus recast our destiny with new cohorts, circumstances, and discoveries. But for the most of us, life is nothing like that. Instead, we have a few brief periods when we are offered a handful of discrete options. Do I take this job or that job? In Chicago or New York? Do I join this circle of friends or that one, and with whom do I go home at the end of the night? And does one make time for children now? Or later? Or later still? In that sense, life is less like a journey than it is a game of honeymoon bridge. In our twenties, when there is still so much time ahead of us, time that seems ample for a hundred indecisions, for a hundred visions and revisions--we draw a card, and we must decide right then and there whether to keep that card and discard the next, or discard the first card and keep the second. And before we know it, the deck has been played out and the decisions we have just made shape our lives for decades to come.
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Amor Towles (Rules of Civility)
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I thought you didn’t like animals.” β€œI love animals. Where did you get that idea?” Marmie put her paws on his leg, and he picked her up. β€œFrom my dog?” β€œThat’s a dog? Jeez, I’m sorry. I thought it was an industrial-waste accident.” His long, lean fingers slid through the cat’s fur. β€œSlytherin.” She slapped the lid back onto the flour container. What kind of man liked a cat more than he liked an exceptionally fine French poodle? β€œWhat did you call me?” β€œIt’s a literary reference. You wouldn’t understand.” β€œHarry Potter. And I don’t appreciate name calling.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (This Heart of Mine (Chicago Stars, #5))
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All right, sweetheart; here's your last question, and it's a real challenge, so don't let yourself get distracted by these jealous women. To make sure all twelve of our future children are going to be legitimate, what New York City football team did Joe Namath play for?" Gracie's face fell. Lord. Any fool should know the answer to this one. New York City... What football team was from New York City? Her expression brightened. "The New York City YANKEES!" A roar of laughter went up from the crowd, accompanied by more than a few loud groans. Bobby Tom silenced them all with a glare. At the same time, the glitter in his eyes dared any of them to contradict her. When he was certain everyone understood the message, he turned back to Gracie and gathered her into his arms. With a tender look and a gentle brush of his lips, he said "Exactly right, sweetheart. I had no idea you knew so much about football" And that was how every last person in Telarosa, Texas, came to understand that Bobby Tom Denton had finally and forever fallen head over heels in love.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars, #2))
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Were these boys in their right minds? Here were two boys with good intellect, one eighteen and one nineteen. They had all the prospects that life could hold out for any of the young; one a graduate of Chicago and another of Ann Arbor; one who had passed his examination for the Harvard Law School and was about to take a trip in Europe,--another who had passed at Ann Arbor, the youngest in his class, with three thousand dollars in the bank. Boys who never knew what it was to want a dollar; boys who could reach any position that was to boys of that kind to reach; boys of distinguished and honorable families, families of wealth and position, with all the world before them. And they gave it all up for nothing, for nothing! They took a little companion of one of them, on a crowded street, and killed him, for nothing, and sacrificed everything that could be of value in human life upon the crazy scheme of a couple of immature lads. Now, your Honor, you have been a boy; I have been a boy. And we have known other boys. The best way to understand somebody else is to put yourself in his place. Is it within the realm of your imagination that a boy who was right, with all the prospects of life before him, who could choose what he wanted, without the slightest reason in the world would lure a young companion to his death, and take his place in the shadow of the gallows? ...No one who has the process of reasoning could doubt that a boy who would do that is not right. How insane they are I care not, whether medically or legally. They did not reason; they could not reason; they committed the most foolish, most unprovoked, most purposeless, most causeless act that any two boys ever committed, and they put themselves where the rope is dangling above their heads.... Why did they kill little Bobby Franks? Not for money, not for spite; not for hate. They killed him as they might kill a spider or a fly, for the experience. They killed him because they were made that way. Because somewhere in the infinite processes that go to the making up of the boy or the man something slipped, and those unfortunate lads sit here hated, despised, outcasts, with the community shouting for their blood. . . . I know, Your Honor, that every atom of life in all this universe is bound up together. I know that a pebble cannot be thrown into the ocean without disturbing every drop of water in the sea. I know that every life is inextricably mixed and woven with every other life. I know that every influence, conscious and unconscious, acts and reacts on every living organism, and that no one can fix the blame. I know that all life is a series of infinite chances, which sometimes result one way and sometimes another. I have not the infinite wisdom that can fathom it, neither has any other human brain
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Clarence Darrow (Attorney for the Damned: Clarence Darrow in the Courtroom)
β€œ
All right," she said in a low, determined voice. 'I'll go along with this. But you are not, under any circumstances, to refer to me again as 'the future Mrs. Bobby Tom,' do you understand? Because if you say that just once, just once, I will personally tell the entire world that our engagement is a fraud. Furthermore, I will announce that you are-are-" Her mouth opened and closed, She's stared out strong, but now she couldn't think of anything terrible enough to throw at him. An ax murderer?" he offered helpfully. When she didn't reply, he tried again. " A vegetarian?" It came to her in a flash. "Impotent!
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars, #2))
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I knew it! I knew you'd hate my body!" She slammed her hands on her hips, marched over to the bed, and glared down at him. "Well, for your information, mister, all those cute little sex kittens in your past might have had perfect bodies, but they don't know a lepton from a proton,and if you think that I'm going to stand here and let you judge me by the size of my hips and because my belly's not flat, then you're in for a rude awakening." She jabbed her finger at him. "This is the way a grown woman looks, buster! This body was designed by God to be functional, not to be stared at by some hormonally imbalanced jock who can only get aroused by women who still own Barbie dolls" "Damn. Now I've got to gag you." With one swift motion, he pulled her down on the bed, rolled on top of her, and covered her lips with his own.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Nobody's Baby But Mine (Chicago Stars, #3))
β€œ
This election is about the past vs. the future. It's about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today or whether we reach for a politics of common sense and innovation, a politics of shared sacrifice and shared prosperity. There are those who will continue to tell us that we can't do this, that we can't have what we're looking for, that we can't have what we want, that we're peddling false hopes. But here is what I know. I know that when people say we can't overcome all the big money and influence in Washington, I think of that elderly woman who sent me a contribution the other day, an envelope that had a money order for $3.01 along with a verse of scripture tucked inside the envelope. So don't tell us change isn't possible. That woman knows change is possible. When I hear the cynical talk that blacks and whites and Latinos can't join together and work together, I'm reminded of the Latino brothers and sisters I organized with and stood with and fought with side by side for jobs and justice on the streets of Chicago. So don't tell us change can't happen. When I hear that we'll never overcome the racial divide in our politics, I think about that Republican woman who used to work for Strom Thurmond, who is now devoted to educating inner city-children and who went out into the streets of South Carolina and knocked on doors for this campaign. Don't tell me we can't change. Yes, we can. Yes, we can change. Yes, we can. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can seize our future. And as we leave this great state with a new wind at our backs and we take this journey across this great country, a country we love, with the message we carry from the plains of Iowa to the hills of New Hampshire, from the Nevada desert to the South Carolina coast, the same message we had when we were up and when we were down, that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we will hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubt and fear and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words -- yes, we can.
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Barack Obama
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[Kevin and Molly's adorable banter] "I'm not carrying anything until I see what's on your panties." "It's Daphne, okay?" "I'm supposed to believe you're wearing the same underpants you had on yesterday?" "I have more than one pair" "I think you're lying. I want to see for myself." He dragged her deeper into the pines. While Roo circled them barking, he reached for the snap on her shorts. "Quiet, Godzilla! There's some serious business going on here." Roo obediently quieted. She grabbed his wrists and pushed. "Get away." "That's not what you were saying last night." "Somebody'll see." "I'll tell them a bee got you, and I'm taking out the stinger." "Don't touch my stinger!" She grabbed for her shorts, but they were already heading for her knees. "Stop that!" He peered down at her panties. "It's the badger. You lied to me." "I wasn't paying attention when I got dressed." "Hold still. I've just about found that stinger." She heard herself sigh. "Oh, yeah..." His body moved against hers. "There it is.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (This Heart of Mine (Chicago Stars, #5))
β€œ
Maybe I should let my faithful manservant answer the rest of your questions, since he seems to have all the answers." "I'm saving her time," Bodie replied. "She brings you a redhead, you'll give her grief. Look for women with class, Annabelle. That's most important. The sophisticated types who went to boarding schools and speak French. She has to be the real thing because he can spot a phony a mile away. And he likes them athletic." "Of course he does," she said dryly. "Athletic, domestic, gorgeous, brilliant, socially connected, and pathologically submissive. It'll be a snap." "You forgot hot." Heath smiled. "And defeatist thinking is for losers. If you want to be a success in this world, Annabelle, you need a positive attitude. Whatever the client wants, you get it for him. First rule of a successful business." "Uh-huh. What about career women?" "I don't see how that would work." "The kind of potential mate you're describing isn't going to be sitting around waiting for her prince to show up. She's heading a major corporation. In between those Victoria's Secret modeling gigs." He lifted an eyebrow. "Attitude, Annabelle. Attitude.
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Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6))