Chocolate Cake Quotes

Let's face it, a nice creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me.

Art without emotion its like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag.

He showed the words “chocolate cake” to a group of Americans and recorded their word associations. “Guilt” was the top response. If that strikes you as unexceptional, consider the response of French eaters to the same prompt: “celebration.

Why should any guy want to be only friends with a girl? It’s like agreeing to be near a chocolate cake and never eat it. It’s like sitting in a racing car but not driving it.

You see somethin' ya want, baby?" "Maybe. I'm checking things out. Seeing if I'm interested," I shot back with my own evil grin. "I see something I want," he drawled as he came toward me. "You do?" "Hell yeah, I do," he murmured. "I love chocolate." What? My excitement turned to confusion. His arm reached out beside me and took the piece of chocolate cake I'd brought him.

Frank stared at her. "But you throw Ding Dongs at monsters." Iris looked horrified. "Oh, they're not Ding Dongs." She rummaged under the counter and brought out a package of chocolate covered cakes that looked exactly like Ding Dongs. "These are gluten-free, no-sugar-added, vitamin-enriched, soy-free, goat-milk-and-seaweed-based cupcake simulations." "All natural!" Fleecy chimed in. "I stand corrected." Frank suddenly felt as queasy as Percy.

On Saturday, he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon That night he had a stomach ache.

If it were easy to resist, it would not be called chocolate cake.

Uriah drops his tray next to me. It is loaded with beef stew and chocolate cake. I stare at the cake pile. “There was cake?” I say, looking at my own plate, which is more sensibly stocked than Uriah’s. “Yeah, someone just brought it out. Found a couple boxes of the mix in the back and baked it,” he says. “You can have a few bites of mine.” “A few bites? So you’re planning on eating that mountain of cake by yourself?” “Yes.” He looks confused. “Why?” “Never mind.

The kiss. The kiss. The kiss. It was chocolate cake and fizzy passion and goose bumps. No one had ever kissed me like that.

What she did have were Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs, Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Licorice Wands, and a number of other strange things Harry had never seen in his life.

I was waiting for the sun to chase me,” he breathes, drawing me to his chest. In one swift movement, my lips are on his. The world is spinning. He kisses me like this is the moment he’s envisioned all his life. Like this is heaven on Earth. For me, it is. A blissful moment before something that could be the end. The rush before the fear. He whispers, “I fucking love you.” I smile, my lips tingling. “Guess what?” “What?” “I love you more than chocolate cake.

I said, “Juvenile delinquents eat chocolate cake, so chocolate cake must cause juvenile delinquency,” but nobody listened to me. I wasn’t on TV.

More like a chocolate molten lava cake. A dessert so sinful, so luscious, so filled with inner heat it made a girl want to lick each and every crumb right off the plate. That was Jack Pallas.

Mr Freeman: "Art without emotion is like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag." He sticks his finger down his throat. "The next time you work on your trees, don't think about trees. Think about love, or hate, or joy, or pain- whatever makes you feel something, makes your palms sweat, or your toes curl. Focus on that feeling. When people don't express themselves, they die on piece at a time. You'd be shocked at how many adults are really dead inside- walking through their days with no idea who they are, just waiting for a heart attack or cancer or a mack truck to come along and finish the job. It's the saddest thing I know.

She couldn't think of what to make for dinner that would include Ensure, lettuce and chocolate cake. She called Mr. Wong's. Again.

... and holy hell the chocolate is so intense and pure it should be named an element and given a spot on the periodic table. It would be Ch, which isn't even taken.

So I left my wonderfully intelligent family and soaked myself in the bath and considered drowning myself. Then I remembered I still had chocolate cake left over from yesterday so I came back up for air. Some things are worth living for.

It was the first time that I had ever been romantically kissed. It was even better than the chocolate cake.

But what I was really thinking was that you talk about him like...like you talk about a piece of decadent chocolate cake.

In fact, most of the great human innovations of the last few centuries happened under elvin tutelage. Electricity. Penicillin. Chocolate cake.

So what did you bring? Lip gloss and a hairbrush?” Smirking, she unpacked the sandwiches Mort's cook had made for her, along with an ample slice of chocolate cake. “You owe me an apology.” “Omigod, it's a feast! Okay, you're forgiven.

Mallowmelt turned out to be a gooey cake that tasted like fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies soaked in ice cream and covered in frosting and butterscotch

So, what do you do when you know you have two days to live? Eat an entire Bitter Chocolate Death cake all by myself. Reread my favorite novel. Buy eight dozen roses from the best florist in town--the super expensive ones, the ones that smell like roses rather than merely looking like them--and put them all over my apartment. Take a good long look at everyone I love.

When opportunity knocks, you don't leave it standing on the doorstep. You invite it in and feed it chocolate cake.

The fridge had been emptied of all Dudley’s favorite things — fizzy drinks and cakes, chocolate bars and burgers — and filled instead with fruit and vegetables and the sorts of things that Uncle Vernon called “rabbit food.

So what would you have asked for if you won?” He doesn’t hesitate even one beat. “Your peanut butter chocolate cake with my name written in Reese’s Pieces.

There are those people who can eat one piece of chocolate, one piece of cake, drink one glass of wine. There are even people who smoke one or two cigarettes a week. And then there are people for whom one of anything is not even an option.

Why is every mom's concern about sex? There are more important things in life, like school, careers, poetry, books, ice cream, or learning how to make the perfect chocolate cake. It's so damn frustrating.

Meghan pushed her chocolate cheesecake across the table to me. I hadn’t gotten paid yet for November, so I had only ordered coffee. “Here,” she said. “Don’t you want it?” “Sure I want it. I ordered it. But I’m giving it to you.” “Why?” Meghan stood up and got me a fork. “Remember what Nora said about love? In your movie?” “Love is when you have a really amazing piece of cake, and it’s the very last piece, but you let him have it,” I said. “So it’s really amazing cake,” said Meghan. “And I want you to have it.

Some people when they see cheese, chocolate or cake they don't think of calories.

Because, ten-year-olds of the world, you shouldn't believe what your teachers tell you about the beauty and specialness and uniqueness of you. Or, believe it, little snowflake, but know it won't make a bit of difference until after puberty. It's Newton's lost law: anything that makes you unique later will get your chocolate milk stolen and your eye blackened as a kid. Won't it, Sebastian? Oh, yes, it will, my little Mandarin Chinese-learning, Poe-reciting, high-top-wearing friend. God bless you, wherever you are.

As a diversion, few things were as effective as chocolate cake.

Friendship and chocolate cake—they do not heal all ills, but they certainly help.

I'd feed you the cake just to watch your lips wrap around the fork. Then I'd watch your beautiful throat muscles work swallowing the sticky sweetness, fantasizin' about smearin' chocolate frosting down your neck so I could lick it off. Slowly. And when I finished feedin' you, I'd press my mouth to yours for a thorough taste of you and the cake.

Afterwards, go to a pub for lunch. I've got $260 in my savings account and I really want you to use it for that. Really, I mean it--lunch is on me. Make sure you have pudding--sticky toffee, chocolate fudge cake, ice-cream sundae, something really bad for you. Get drunk too if you like (but don't scare Cal). Spend all the money. And after that, when days have gone by, keep an eye out for me. I might write on the steam in the mirror when you're having a bath, or play with the leaves on the apple tree when you're out in the garden. I might slip into a dream. Visit my grave when you can, but don't kick yourself if you can't, or if you move house and it's suddenly too far away. It looks pretty there in the summer (check out the website). You could bring a picnic and sit with me. I'd like that.

After all, life will hand each one of us our fair share of despair and loss and suffering—and then some. That’s certain. But just as certain: It will also give us slices of chocolate cake, and sunny, seventy-two-degree days, and breezes that rustle the trees. Good things are so easy to overlook, but that doesn’t make them any less there.

When you're stressed, you eat ice cream, cake, chocolate and sweets. Why? Because stressed spelled backwards is desserts.

There is nothing, she would think, more delicious that the icing of bought chocolate cake, eaten in the silence and privacy of the night.

He laughed. It was a great laugh, all low and dark and rich. If chocolate cake had a laugh, it would be like that.

And this fucking frankfurter… I swallowed the fucking bratwurst bitch, sauerkraut shit, German pieceofshit Chocolate Cake insults, which were all throwing a party in my mouth. They each begged me to let them come out and play.

I had a slab of German chocolate cake the size of a child’s tombstone. Ralph

Mallowmelt turned out to be a gooey cake that tasted like fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies soaked in ice cream and covered in frosting and butterscotch.

And when all of the flourless chocolate cakes & chocolate mousse or ganache cakes have come and gone, there will still be nothing like a fudgy brownie, dry & crackled on top, moist & dense within, with a glass of cold milk.

Why do you hate me?” griped Marcus. Roni barely resisted the urge to whack her mate over the head. “I just want a little taste.” “So get your own.” “You took the last slice.” “There are other cakes.” “But I don’t like them. I like chocolate cake.” When he just stared at her wearing a sulky expression, she sighed. “Let me put this another way. Do you enjoy sex?” “Yes.” “Then you’ll share with me, and you’ll like it.

In the long run, completing a marathon makes us happier than eating a chocolate cake. Raising a child makes us happier than beating a video game. Starting a small business with friends while struggling to make ends meet makes us happier than buying a new computer. These activities are stressful, arduous, and often unpleasant. They also require withstanding problem after problem. Yet they are some of the most meaningful moments and joyous things we’ll ever do. They involve pain, struggle, even anger and despair—yet once they’re accomplished, we look back and get all misty-eyed telling our grandkids about them.

Aelin let out a long sigh. "Will you let me cry in bed for the rest of today like a pathetic worm," she asked at last, "if I promise to get to work on rebuilding tomorrow?" Rowan arched a brow, joy flowing through him, free and shining as a stream down a mountain. "Would you like me to bring you cakes and chocolate so your wallowing can be complete?" "If you can find any.

Self-help author Brianna Wiest suggests: “True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake; it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.

This is an ode to all of those that have never asked for one. A thank you in words to all of those that do not do what they do so well for the thanking. This is to the mothers. This is to the ones who match our first scream with their loudest scream; who harmonize in our shared pain and joy and terrified wonder when life begins. This is to the mothers. To the ones who stay up late and wake up early and always know the distance between their soft humming song and our tired ears. To the lips that find their way to our foreheads and know, somehow always know, if too much heat is living in our skin. To the hands that spread the jam on the bread and the mesmerizing patient removal of the crust we just cannot stomach. This is to the mothers. To the ones who shout the loudest and fight the hardest and sacrifice the most to keep the smiles glued to our faces and the magic spinning through our days. To the pride they have for us that cannot fit inside after all they have endured. To the leaking of it out their eyes and onto the backs of their hands, to the trails of makeup left behind as they smile through those tears and somehow always manage a laugh. This is to the patience and perseverance and unyielding promise that at any moment they would give up their lives to protect ours. This is to the mothers. To the single mom’s working four jobs to put the cheese in the mac and the apple back into the juice so their children, like birds in a nest, can find food in their mouths and pillows under their heads. To the dreams put on hold and the complete and total rearrangement of all priority. This is to the stay-at-home moms and those that find the energy to go to work every day; to the widows and the happily married. To the young mothers and those that deal with the unexpected announcement of a new arrival far later than they ever anticipated. This is to the mothers. This is to the sack lunches and sleepover parties, to the soccer games and oranges slices at halftime. This is to the hot chocolate after snowy walks and the arguing with the umpire at the little league game. To the frosting ofbirthday cakes and the candles that are always lit on time; to the Easter egg hunts, the slip-n-slides and the iced tea on summer days. This is to the ones that show us the way to finding our own way. To the cutting of the cord, quite literally the first time and even more painfully and metaphorically the second time around. To the mothers who become grandmothers and great-grandmothers and if time is gentle enough, live to see the children of their children have children of their own. To the love. My goodness to the love that never stops and comes from somewhere only mothers have seen and know the secret location of. To the love that grows stronger as their hands grow weaker and the spread of jam becomes slower and the Easter eggs get easier to find and sack lunches no longer need making. This is to the way the tears look falling from the smile lines around their eyes and the mascara that just might always be smeared with the remains of their pride for all they have created. This is to the mothers.

Comfort eating or pure greed? Most likely a mixture of both. Pieces of cake or biscuits or chocolate could instantly sweeten the sourness of my life. If you have been called gay all day in the playground, a cake when you returned home from school offered some consolation. A fairy cake of course.

Is that … chocolate cake?” “I thought you might need some.” “Need, not want?” A ghost of a smile was on her lips, and he almost sagged in relief as he said, “For you, I’d say that chocolate cake is most definitely a need.” She crossed from the fireplace to where he stood, stopping a hand’s breadth away and staring up at him. Some of the color had returned to her face. He should step back, put more distance between them. But instead, he found himself reaching for her, a hand slipping around her waist and the other twining itself through her hair as he held her tightly to him. His heart thundered through him so hard he knew she could feel it. After a second, her arms came up around him, her fingers digging into his back in a way that made him realize how close they stood. He shoved that feeling down, even as the silken texture of her hair against his fingers made him want to bury his face in it, and the smell of her, laced with mist and night, had him grazing his nose against her neck. There were other kinds of comfort that he could give her than mere words, and if she needed that kind of distraction … He shoved down that thought, too, swallowing it until he nearly choked on it. Her fingers were moving down his back, still digging into his muscles with a fierce kind of possession. If she kept touching him like that, his control was going to slip completely. And then she pulled back, just far enough to look up at him again, still so close their breath mingled. He found himself gauging the distance between their lips, his eyes flicking between her mouth and her eyes, the hand he had entwined in her hair stilling. Desire roared through him, burning down every defense he’d put up, erasing every line he’d convinced himself he had to maintain.

I love you more than applesauce, than peaches and a plum, than chocolate hearts and cherry tarts and berry bubblegum. I love you more than lemonade and seven-layer cakes, than lollipops and candy drops and thick vanilla shakes. I love you more than marzipan, than marmalade on toast, oh, I love pies of any size, but I love YOU the most.

I wish the Fallen would just come to us for a change.” Ironically, Fallen Angels dropped from the sky and surrounded us. “I wish I had a chocolate cake!” I exclaimed, staring up. No cake appeared, though I did get a few wry glances. Andrew’s body shook with silent laughter while Lucia gave me raised eyebrows. “What? It worked for the Fallen Angels.

You’re the cake that looks normal until people dig in and find out it’s spectacular. You’re the chocolate fucking cake, Sam, and you won’t even choose it.

I'm also getting a piece of chocolate cake... "Can I have a bite?" he asked, his voice smooth and sexy. A bite of what? she wanted to ask, but didn't. She wasn't ready for that level of flirting. "Get your own slice, Gallagher." "I can do that, Blake. I'm in the mood for something sweet it seems.

Art without emotion is like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag.

It’s quite simple, really. Someone offers me chocolate cake or donuts or something, I kind of black out, then come to and I’m covered in crumbs and feel like I want to barf, and yet I have no recollection of eating anything. It’s the strangest thing.

It’s an open horizon before us, as far as the eye can see: no angst and no games, just mutual delight. So simple, but so rich. Like chocolate. Not a gold-dusted truffle or a foofy pastry tower teetering on a crystal platter, but a plain, honest bar of the best chocolate in the world.

She walks away, and I am too stunned to follow her. At the end of the hallways she turns and says, "Have a piece of cake for me, all right? The chocolate. It's delicious." She smiles a strange, twisted smile, and adds," I love you, you know." And then she's gone. I stand alone in the blue light coming from the lamp above me, and I understand: She has been to the compound before. She remembered this hallways. She knows about the initiation process. My mother was a dauntless.

A slice of chocolate cake - priorities! - a scoop of chicken potpie, slice of chocolate cake, scoop of yam casserole, slice of chocolate cake, two scoops of mashed potatoes, a slice of chocolate cake, a scoop of buttery green beens, a slice of chocolate cake -

I realized after I got Jesus, I'd marry "that good woman who put me right with the Lord, got me away from the bottle and taught me what life is really all about." Which was to say, some church girl that resembles a pile of loose fat upholstered with pale goopy skin, and whose whole life is chocolate cake and visiting her sister.

She pushed back from the table. "I've got some stuff I need to do." "The Walking Dead said there was chocolate cake." "Jamie," Roarke said mildly. "Sorry," Jamie said reluctantly. "Mister Walking Dead, also known as Summerset, said there was chocolate cake." "And if you eat it all, I'll kill you in your sleep. Then you can join The Walking Dead. Roarke, I need to talk to you." As they started out, she heard Jamie ask: "Think they're gonna go do it?" And heard the quick slap of Feeney's hand on the teenaged skull. "Are we going to go do it?" Roarke grabbed her hand. "Want me to have Feeney knock you, too?" "I'm a bit quicker than Jamie yet. But I take that to mean we're not going back upstairs for a fast tumble." "How many times a day do you think about sex?" He gave her a considering look. "Would that be actively thinking of it, or just having the concept of it lurking there, like Jamie's invisible document?

A cupcake temple?' Her chest still tight with anxiety, Bertie forced herself to imagine it: bricks of pound cake mortared with buttercream and chocolate ganache, torches like striped birthday candles set into the walls, pilgrims upon the Path of Delectable Righteousness delivering daily tributes of almond paste and raspberry filling. . . .

She put her hand on his shoulder and gave a soft squeeze. She did not know what else to do. First her mother, then her father and Fanen, and finally Hilfred—they were all gone. Mauvin was slipping away as well. The boy who loved his sword more than Wintertide presents, sweet chocolate cake, or swimming on a hot day refused to touch it anymore. The eldest son of Count Pickering, who had once challenged the sun to a duel because it had rained on the day of a hunt, spent his days watching ducks.

My grandmother say you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas. A hard head makes a soft behind. Life is like a box of chocolates you never know what you're going to get.

if he were a pony I would offer him food, stroke his ears and scratch his neck; but he curls his lip at the idea of cake and I am seriously not going to stroke him. That would be just gross.

How to be jolly even when times are bad 1. Eat more gingerbread, chocolate, jam and cake. 2. Say the word ‘Christmas’. 3. Give someone a present. Like a toy, or a book, or a kind word, or a big hug. 4. Laugh, even if there is nothing to laugh about. Especially then. 5. Think of a happy memory. Or a happy future. 6. Wear something red. 7. Believe. (extract from How to Be Jolly: The Father Christmas Guide to Happiness)

Self-denial is not denying to ourselves luxuries such as chocolates, cakes, cigarettes and cocktails (although it might include this); it is actually denying or disowning ourselves, renouncing our supposed right to go our own way.

Perhaps Mother was trying to shame her into losing weight. In truth, it only made Chloe more miserable, and being miserable only made her eat more. Filling herself up with chocolate, crisps and cake felt like being given a much-needed hug.

Was it tacky to get a cake during a hostage crisis? What was the protocol? She pictured chocolate frosting with white lettering: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HOPE YOUR DAUGHTER ISN’T DEAD. But this year was her fiftieth, a year with a zero. Veronica had to do something. So on her way to the condo she’d swung by a bakery and picked up a small German chocolate cake. It was her mom’s favorite—or at least it had been, a decade ago.

At some point, a cake was produced, with red and gold Gryffindor icing, and twelve pink candles. When Remus cut it open (all the while encouraged to make a wish, but not able to think of one single thing he wanted) he was amazed to find that it was made up of four different flavours – a quarter chocolate, a quarter lemon drizzle, a quarter Victoria sponge and a quarter coffee and walnut. “Like your toast.” Sirius grinned, looking thrilled at the expression of surprise on Remus’ face, “Thought you might get bored if it was all one flavour.

I don't like flowers, chocolate, cakes or diamonds either, I am definitely not a hard one to impress.

Mondays taste like split-pea soup, Tuesdays taste like gobbledygook, Wednesdays taste like licorice, Thursdays taste like deep-fried fish, Fridays taste like the color red, Saturdays taste like gingerbread, Sundays taste like chicken breast, But birthdays! Birthdays taste the best! Birthdays taste like chocolate cake, Balloons, presents, and sirloin steak.

But what my car needs is gas, not memories! How can you make a car go on memories?' B.D. scratched under her Admiral's hat. 'What'd you think gas was, girl? 'Course there's all sorts of fuel, wind and wishes and chocolate cake and collard greens and water and brawn, but you're wanting the kind that burns in an engine. That kind of gas is nothing more than the past stored up and fermented and kept down in the cellar of the earth till it's wanted. Gas is saved-up sunlight. Giant ferns and apples of immortality and dimetrodons and cyclopses and werewhales drank up the sun as it shone on their backs a million years ago and used it to be a bigger fern or make more werewhales or drop seeds of improbability.' Her otter's paws moved quick and sure, selecting a squat, square bottle here and a round rosy one there. 'It so happens sunshine has a fearful memory. It sticks around even after its favorite dimetrodon dies. Gets hard and wily. Turns into something you can touch, something you can drill, something you can pour. But it still remembers having one eye and slapping the ocean's face with a great heavy tail. It liked making more dinosaurs and growing a frond as tall as a bank. It likes to make things alive, to make things go.

When you finish a negative sentence, it grows immediately into a paragraph, and then into a thesis, into so many words that grab your ankles and hold you in place. When a negative thought comes into your mind, you have to literally say out loud, “I have no time now.” People will look at you strangely, but you have to just keep saying it until it lodges in your mind. Release the negative thought before you put a period on the end of it. If you put a period on the end of it, you’re in the morass. On the other hand, if you don’t finish the negative thought, you can get it out of your brain by replacing it with a positive. What kind of positive? What I always say in my talks is that it is a moist chocolate Bundt cake with soft chocolate chips. No frosting.

Blessings are waiting, so don't miss the flight Your Birth Day Gonna be very shiny bright Look everywhere and adore every single sight May your BirThDay be filled with chocolates, Cakes & Candle Light May the happiness hugs you like soo tight Take me serious, because I am gentle and polite

One of the odder services the Villa Candessa provided for its long-term guests was its “likeness cakes”—little frosted simulacra fashioned after the guests by the inn’s Camorr-trained pastry sculptor. On a silver tray beside the looking glass, a little sweetbread Locke (with raisin eyes and almond-butter blond hair) sat beside a rounder Jean with dark chocolate hair and beard. The baked Jean’s legs were already missing. A few moments later, Jean was brushing the last buttery crumbs from the front of his coat. “Alas, poor Locke and Jean.” “They died of consumption,” said Locke.

Was it tacky to get a cake during a hostage crisis? What was the protocol? She pictured chocolate frosting with white lettering: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HOPE YOUR DAUGHTER ISN’T DEAD. But this year was her fiftieth, a year with a zero. Veronica had to do something. So on her way to the condo she’d swung by a bakery and picked up a small German chocolate cake. It was her mom’s favorite—or at least it had been, a decade ago.-page 218 of The Thousand Dollar Tan Line

[T]he parent-child relationship was one way, you gave them all your love and they were under no obligation to pay a penny back. Of course, if they did love you then that was the icing on the cake with cherries on top. And chocolate shavings and those little silver balls that cracked your fillings.

…ten year olds of the world, you shouldn’t believe what your teachers tell you about the beauty and specialness and uniqueness of you. Or, believe it, little snowflake, but know it won’t make a bit of difference until after puberty. It’s Newton’s lost law: anything that makes you unique later will get your chocolate milk stolen and your eye blackened as a kid.

The greatest word in the human vocabulary has only four letters and no definition that has ever been adequate. We love our dogs, we love our children. We love God and chocolate cake. We fall in love and fall out of love. We die for love and we kill for love. We can’t spend it, we can’t eat it when we’re starving or drink it when we’re dying of thirst. It’s no good against the bitter cold of winter, and even a cheap electric fan will do more for you on a hot summer day. But ask most human beings what they value above all else in this life, and five will get you ten, it’s love. We’re a screwy species, I thought.

What did you do?" said Charles. "You know that night all our shoes went into the hall," said Nirupam. "Well, we had a feast that night. Dan Smith made me get up the floorboards and get the food out. He says I have no right to be so large and so weak," Nirupam said resentfully, "and I was hating him for it, when I took the boards up and found a pair of running shoes, with spikes, hidden there with the food. I turned those shoes into a chocolate cake. I knew Dan was so greedy that he would eat it all himself. And he did eat it. He didn't let anyone else have any. You may have noticed that he wasn't quite himself the next day." So much had happened to Charles that particular day, that he could not remember Dan seeming anything at all. He didn't have the heart to explain all the trouble Nirupam had caused him. "Those were my spikes," he said sadly. He wobbled along on the mop rather awed at the thought of iron spikes passing through Dan's stomach. "He must have a digestion like an ostrich!" "The spikes were turned into cherries," said Nirupam. "The soles were the cream. The shoes as a whole became what is called a Black Forest gateau.

More than nine million people a year come to the Smokies, many of them to picnic. So bears have learned to associate people with food. Indeed, to them people are overweight creatures in baseball caps who spread lots and lots of food out on picnic tables and then shriek a little and waddle off to get their video cameras when old Mr. Bear comes along and climbs onto the table and starts devouring their potato salad and chocolate cake. Since the bear doesn’t mind being filmed and indeed seems indifferent to his audience, pretty generally some fool will come up to it and try to stroke it or feed it a cupcake or something. There is one recorded instance of a woman smearing honey on her toddler’s fingers so that the bear would lick it off for the video camera. Failing to understand this, the bear ate the baby’s hand.

Harvard neuroscientists Jason Mitchell and Diana Tamir found that disclosing information about the self is intrinsically rewarding. In one study, Mitchell and Tamir hooked subjects up to brain scanners and asked them to share either their own opinions and attitudes (“I like snowboarding”) or the opinions and attitudes of another person (“He likes puppies”). They found that sharing personal opinions activated the same brain circuits that respond to rewards like food and money. So talking about what you did this weekend might feel just as good as taking a delicious bite of double chocolate cake.

Many other products, while not rationed, were nonetheless in short supply. A visiting American found that he could buy chocolate cake and a lemon meringue pie at Selfridges, but cocoa was impossible to find. Shortages made some realms of hygiene more problematic. Women found tampons increasingly difficult to acquire. At least one brand of toilet paper was also in perilously short supply, as the king himself discovered. He managed to sidestep this particular scarcity by arranging shipments direct from the British embassy in Washington, D.C. With kingly discretion, he wrote to his ambassador, “We are getting short of a certain type of paper which is made in America and is unprocurable here. A packet or two of 500 sheets at intervals would be most acceptable. You will understand this and its name begins with B!!!” The paper in question was identified by historian Andrew Roberts as Bromo soft lavatory paper.

But what about the apparent absurdity of the idea of dignity, freedom, and reason, sustained by extreme military discipline, including of the practice of discarding weak children? This “absurdity” is simply the price of freedom—freedom is not free, as they put it in the film [300]. Freedom is not something given, it is regained through a hard struggle in which one should be ready to risk everything. Spartan ruthless military discipline is not simply the opposite of Athenian “liberal democracy,” it is its inherent condition, it lays the foundation for it: the free subject of Reason can only emerge through ruthless self-discipline. True freedom is not a freedom of choice made from a safe distance, like choosing between a strawberry cake and a chocolate cake; true freedom overlaps with necessity, one makes a truly free choice when one’s choice puts at stake one’s very existence—one does it because one simply “cannot do otherwise.” When one’s country is under foreign occupation and one is called by a resistance leader to join the fight against the occupiers, the reason given is not “you are free to choose,” but: “Can’t you see that this is the only thing you can do if you want to retain your dignity?

THE HYGGE MANIFESTO 1. ATMOSPHERE Turn down the lights. 2. PRESENCE Be here now. Turn off the phones. 3. PLEASURE Coffee, chocolate, cookies, cakes, candy. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! 4. EQUALITY “We” over “me.” Share the tasks and the airtime. 5. GRATITUDE Take it in. This might be as good as it gets. 6. HARMONY It’s not a competition. We already like you. There is no need to brag about your achievements. 7. COMFORT Get comfy. Take a break. It’s all about relaxation. 8. TRUCE No drama. Let’s discuss politics another day. 9. TOGETHERNESS Build relationships and narratives. “Do you remember the time we . . . ?” 10. SHELTER This is your tribe. This is a place of peace and security.

If you, the reader, really, REALLY, want to know what was going on in Little Turtle, go feed your dog or your neighbor’s dog some chili, slathered in hot sauce and maybe throw in some chocolate cake. Okay wait for it, WAIT. Now about a half hour later, your dog’s innards are pretty much going to rupture, so make sure he’s outside. Now while this steaming pile of shit is still warm and fetid, place it in a plastic shopping bag—DON’T TIE IT UP! Now place the carrying handles one on each ear and inhale deeply. You must walk around with this bag draped across your face continually. Is this starting to punch through? Now, every time the dog crap begins to harden up and lose some of its edge, go grab yourself another refreshing pile of fresh dog offal. While you are breathing deeply of this savory concoction, try to eat some enchiladas or maybe some lasagna. Oh hell, just try to sleep with that thing affixed to your face.

The wild is an integral part of who we are as children. Without pausing to consider what or where or how, we gather herbs and flowers, old apples and rose hips, shiny pebbles and dead spiders, poems, tears and raindrops, putting each treasured thing into the cauldron of our souls. We stir our bucket of mud as if it were, every one, a bucket of chocolate cake to be mixed for the baking. Little witches, hag children, we dance our wildness, not afraid of not knowing. But there comes a time when the kiss of acceptance is delayed until the mud is washed from our knees, the chocolate from our faces. Putting down our wooden spoon with a new uncertainty, setting aside our magical wand, we learn another system of values based on familiarity, on avoiding threat and rejection. We are told it is all in the nature of growing up. But it isn't so. Walking forward and facing the shadows, stumbling on fears like litter in the alleyways of our minds, we can find the confidence again. We can let go of the clutter of our creative stagnation, abandoning the chaos of misplaced and outdated assumptions that have been our protection. Then beyond the half light and shadows, we can slip into the dark and find ourselves in a world where horizons stretch forever. Once more we can acknowledge a reality that is unlimited finding our true self, a wild spirit, free and eager to explore the extent of our potential, free to dance like fireflies, free to be the drum, free to love absolutely with every cell of our being, or lie in the grass watching stars and bats and dreams wander by. We can live inspired, stirring the darkness of the cauldron within our souls, the source, the womb temple of our true creativity, brilliant, untamed

Instructions for Dad. I don't want to go into a fridge at an undertaker's. I want you to keep me at home until the funeral. Please can someone sit with me in case I got lonely? I promise not to scare you. I want to be buried in my butterfly dress, my lilac bra and knicker set and my black zip boots (all still in the suitcase that I packed for Sicily). I also want to wear the bracelet Adam gave me. Don't put make-up on me. It looks stupid on dead people. I do NOT want to be cremated. Cremations pollute the atmosphere with dioxins,k hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide. They also have those spooky curtains in crematoriums. I want a biodegradable willow coffin and a woodland burial. The people at the Natural Death Centre helped me pick a site not for from where we live, and they'll help you with all the arrangements. I want a native tree planted on or near my grave. I'd like an oak, but I don't mind a sweet chestnut or even a willow. I want a wooden plaque with my name on. I want wild plants and flowers growing on my grave. I want the service to be simple. Tell Zoey to bring Lauren (if she's born by then). Invite Philippa and her husband Andy (if he wants to come), also James from the hospital (though he might be busy). I don't want anyone who doesn't know my saying anything about me. THe Natural Death Centre people will stay with you, but should also stay out of it. I want the people I love to get up and speak about me, and even if you cry it'll be OK. I want you to say honest things. Say I was a monster if you like, say how I made you all run around after me. If you can think of anything good, say that too! Write it down first, because apparently people often forget what they mean to say at funerals. Don't under any circumstances read that poem by Auden. It's been done to death (ha, ha) and it's too sad. Get someone to read Sonnet 12 by Shakespeare. Music- "Blackbird" by the Beatles. "Plainsong" by The Cure. "Live Like You Were Dying" by Tim McGraw. "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" by Sufian Stevens. There may not be time for all of them, but make sure you play the last one. Zoey helped me choose them and she's got them all on her iPod (it's got speakers if you need to borrow it). Afterwards, go to a pub for lunch. I've got £260 in my savings account and I really want you to use it for that. Really, I mean it-lunch is on me. Make sure you have pudding-sticky toffee, chocolate fudge cake, ice-cream sundae, something really bad for you. Get drunk too if you like (but don't scare Cal). Spend all the money. And after that, when days have gone by, keep an eye out for me. I might write on the steam in the mirror when you're having a bath, or play with the leaves on the apple tree when you're out in the garden. I might slip into a dream. Visit my grave when you can, but don't kick yourself if you can't, or if you move house and it's suddenly too far away. It looks pretty there in the summer (check out the website). You could bring a picnic and sit with me. I'd like that. OK. That's it. I love you. Tessa xxx

Jerry took a large slice of wheaten bread, spread with golden butter, and bit into it with her small white teeth. It was a natural gesture - she was very hungry indeed - but to Sam, there was something symbolic about it. Jerry was like bread, he thought. She was like good wholesome wheaten bread, spread thick with honest farm butter; and the thought crossed his mind, that a man might eat bread forever and ever, and not tire of it, and it would never clog his palate like sweet cakes or pastries or chocolate éclairs.

Under the mellowing influence of good food and good music, Adam relaxed, and I discovered that underneath that overbearing, hot-tempered Alpha disguise he usually wore was a charming, over-bearing, hot-tempered man. He seemed to enjoy finding out that I was as stubborn and disrespectful of authority as he’d always suspected. He ordered dessert without consulting me. I’d have been angrier, but it was something I could never have ordered for myself: chocolate, caramel, nuts, ice cream, real whipped cream, and cake so rich it might as well have been a brownie. “So,” he said, as I finished the last bit, “I’m forgiven?” “You are arrogant and overstep your bounds,” I told him, pointing my clean fork at him. “I try,” he said with false modesty. Then his eyes darkened and he reached across the table and ran his thumb over my bottom lip. He watched me as he licked the caramel from his skin. I thumped my hands down on the table and leaned forward. “That is not fair. I’ll eat your dessert and like it—but you can’t use sex to keep me from getting mad.” He laughed, one of those soft laughs that start in the belly and rise up through the chest: a relaxed, happy sort of laugh. To change the subject, because matters were heating up faster than I was comfortable with, I said, “So Bran tells me that he ordered you to keep an eye out for me.” He stopped laughing and raised both eyebrows. “Yes. Now ask me if I was watching you for Bran.” It was a trick question. I could see the amusement in his eyes. I hesitated, but decided I wanted to know anyway. “Okay, I’ll bite. Were you watching me for Bran?” “Honey,” he drawled, pulling on his Southern roots. “When a wolf watches a lamb, he’s not thinking of the lamb’s mommy.” I grinned. I couldn’t help it. The idea of Bran as a lamb’s mommy was too funny. “I’m not much of a lamb,” I said. He just smiled.

I also find Mill’s words to be of use when considering relationships. Often we want our friends, partners and people we love to be like us, because that allows us to feel validated and accepted. It is a powerful thing to find people in this world who share our values and instincts. But it is also important to celebrate the differences between our partners and us. Would we really want to be in a relationship where the other person reminds us every day of ourselves? Wouldn’t it just be like having rich chocolate cake every day? Do we even especially like people who are very much like us? Don’t we find ourselves cynical of their motives, believing we can see right through them? Love seems to come without a template. We may think we know what we want in a partner and then one day find ourselves in love for very different reasons. In the same way that differing, developed individuals contribute to Mill’s view of society and make it worth belonging to, so too the differences between people in a relationship can be precisely the substance of what makes it valuable. And then, rather than falling for that old fallacy of entering into a relationship thinking you will ‘change’ the other person to more comfortably reflect your values, you might see the qualities that separate them from you as precisely the features to celebrate. These qualities can complement our own: our laid-back approach to life can be challenged by the more active, dynamic ambition we might see in a partner, or vice versa. When the time comes, it will be useful to have them in mind as a role model. And to echo Mill: as our partners develop their own unique qualities, they can become of more value to themselves and therefore to the relationship as a whole.

I've been keeping an eye out for the Charlie Brown Valentine's Day special. I know it will be on soon, and I never miss a Charlie Brown special. The best one is the Halloween show about the Great Pumpkin - which I've only missed one year in my life, due to the local ABC station having technical difficulties - but all the Peanuts shows make me feel like I'm one step closer to Halloween. The thing I like about the shows isn't the characters - it's the background. The colors are so amazing it almost takes my breath away. Every time I watch The Great Pumpkin I feel like I'm going to have a seizure during the scenes where Snoopy is in a dogfight. Just look at the background in those scenes. It really is too much to take. I can barely keep from holding my head in my hands and involuntarily groaning like I have a mouthful of the best chocolate cake ever made. I look at them and can literally smell the crisp autumn air - even in this cell. No horror movie in the world makes me feel the magick of Halloween as strongly as The Great Pumpkin.

Yes, ma’am, but can I get a piece of the chocolate cake to go?” She gave me a long look. “You that hungry?” Laughing, I shook my head and decided to go for it. She wasn’t going to let it drop, anyway. “No, Cooper’s waiting for us at their house”—I gestured to a wide-eyed Sawyer—“because he had to work late, so this will be a nice surprise.” The wily old woman gave me a knowing look. “Nice to think of his roommate.” “No, he’s our other boyfriend.” And it was out. Sawyer was waiting for the ceiling to come crashing down, but she grinned. “I got a book like that at home. I’ll get you boys a big piece to take to your fella.” Alice walked off, still grinning and mumbling something about how she wished things had been different back in her day. I had to laugh. She’d have been hell on wheels when she was young no matter what the social norms had been then. Shaking his head and clearly trying to figure out what had happened, Sawyer watched her walk away. He and Cooper must have had a difficult time growing up, but I was glad he was getting to see that there were people out there who wouldn’t care. And then there were dirty old ladies who were going to have entirely too much fun caring.

Speaking of chocolate, what kind of cake are we having for the shower?” “I don’t know.” Sincerely shocked, Peabody jerked around in her seat. “You didn’t get cake?” “I don’t know. Probably.” Because the idea of the shower, what she had to do, hadn’t done, should do, made her stomach jitter, Eve squirmed. “Look, I called the caterer, okay? I did it myself. I didn’t dump it on Roarke, I didn’t ask—God forbid—Summerset to handle it.” “Well, what did you ask for? What’s the theme?” The jitters escalated into a roiling. “What do you mean, theme?” “You don’t have a theme? How can you have a baby shower without a theme?” “Jesus Christ, I need a theme? I don’t even know what that means. I called the caterer. I did my job. I told her it was a baby shower. I told her how many people, more or less. I told her when and where. She started asking me all kinds of questions, which gives me a fucking headache, and I told her not to ask me all kinds of questions or she was fired. Just to do whatever needed doing. Why isn’t that enough?” Peabody’s sigh was long and heartfelt. “Give me the caterer’s info, and I’ll check in with her. Does she do the decorations, too?” “Oh, my God. I need decorations?” “I’m going to help you, Dallas. I’m going to run interference with the caterer. I’m going to come over early on the day and help get it set up.” Eve narrowed her eyes and tried to ignore the joy and relief bubbling in her breast. “And what’s this going to cost me?” “Nothing. I like baby showers.” “You’re a sick, sick woman.

Hey.’ Annabeth slid next to me on the bench. ‘Happy birthday.’ She was holding a huge misshapen cupcake with blue icing. I stared at her. ‘What?’ ‘It’s August eighteenth,’ she said. ‘Your birthday, right?’ I was stunned. It hadn’t even occurred to me, but she was right. I had turned sixteen this morning – the same morning I’d made the choice to give Luke the knife. The prophecy had come true right on schedule, and I hadn’t even thought about the fact that it was my birthday. ‘Make a wish,’ she said. ‘Did you bake this yourself?’ I asked. ‘Tyson helped.’ ‘That explains why it looks like a chocolate brick,’ I said. ‘With extra-blue cement.’ Annabeth laughed. I thought for a second then blew out the candle. We cut it in half and shared, eating with our fingers. Annabeth sat next to me and we watched the ocean. Crickets and monsters were making noise in the woods, but otherwise it was quiet. ‘You saved the world,’ she said. ‘We saved the world.’ ‘And Rachel is the new Oracle, which means she won’t be dating anybody.’ ‘You don’t sound disappointed,’ I noticed. Annabeth shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t care.’ ‘Uh-huh.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?’ ‘You’d probably kick my butt.’ ‘You know I’d kick your butt.’ I brushed the cake off my hands. ‘When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable … Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal.’ Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. ‘Yeah?’ ‘Then up on Olympus,’ I said, ‘when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking –’ ‘Oh, you so wanted to.’ ‘Well, maybe a little. But I didn’t, because I thought – I didn’t want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking …’ My throat felt really dry. ‘Anyone in particular?’ Annabeth asked, her voice soft. I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile. ‘You’re laughing at me,’ I complained. ‘I am not!’ ‘You are so not making this easy.’ Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands around my neck. ‘I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it.’ When she kissed me, I had the feeling my brain was melting right through my body.

We passed the Irish club, and the florist’s with its small stiff pink-and-white carnations in a bucket, and the drapers called ‘Elvina’s’, which displayed in its window Bear Brand stockings and knife-pleated skirts like cloth concertinas and pasty-shaped hats on false heads. We passed the confectioner’s – or failed to pass it; the window attracted Karina. She balled her hands into her pockets, and leant back, her feet apart; she looked rooted, immovable. The cakes were stacked on decks of sloping shelves, set out on pink doilies whitened by falls of icing sugar. There were vanilla slices, their airy tiers of pastry glued together with confectioners’ custard, fat and lolling like a yellow tongue. There were bubbling jam puffs and ballooning Eccles cakes, slashed to show their plump currant insides. There were jam tarts the size of traffic lights; there were whinberry pies oozing juice like black blood. ‘Look at them buns,’ Karina would say. ‘Look.’ I would turn sideways and see her intent face. Sometimes the tip of her tongue would appear, and slide slowly upwards towards her flat nose. There were sponge buns shaped like fat mushrooms, topped with pink icing and half a glace cherry. There were coconut pyramids, and low square house-shaped chocolate buns, finished with a big roll of chocolate-wrapped marzipan which was solid as the barrel of a cannon.

Then Bacchus and Silenus and the Maenads began a dance, far wilder than the dance of the trees; not merely a dance of fun and beauty (though it was that too) but a magic dance of plenty, and where their hands touched, and where their feet fell, the feast came into existence- sides of roasted meat that filled the grove with delicious smells, and wheaten cakes and oaten cakes, honey and many-colored sugars and cream as thick as porridge and as smooth as still water, peaches, nectarines, pomegranates, pears, grapes, straw-berries, raspberries- pyramids and cataracts of fruit. Then, in great wooden cups and bowls and mazers, wreathed with ivy, came the wines; dark, thick ones like syrups of mulberry juice, and clear red ones like red jellies liquefied, and yellow wines and green wines and yellow-green and greenish-yellow. But for the tree people different fare was provided. When Lucy saw Clodsley Shovel and his moles scuffling up the turf in various places (when Bacchus had pointed out to them) and realized that the trees were going to eat earth it gave her rather a shudder. But when she saw the earths that were actually brought to them she felt quite different. They began with a rich brown loam that looked almost exactly like chocolate; so like chocolate, in fact, that Edmund tried a piece of it, but he did not find it all nice. When the rich loam had taken the edge off their hunger, the trees turned to an earth of the kind you see in Somerset, which is almost pink. They said it was lighter and sweeter. At the cheese stage they had a chalky soil, and then went on to delicate confections of the finest gravels powdered with choice silver sand. They drank very little wine, and it made the Hollies very talkative: for the most part they quenched their thirst with deep draughts of mingled dew and rain, flavored with forest flowers and the airy taste of the thinnest clouds.

The plane banked, and he pressed his face against the cold window. The ocean tilted up to meet him, its dark surface studded with points of light that looked like constellations, fallen stars. The tourist sitting next to him asked him what they were. Nathan explained that the bright lights marked the boundaries of the ocean cemeteries. The lights that were fainter were memory buoys. They were the equivalent of tombstones on land: they marked the actual graves. While he was talking he noticed scratch-marks on the water, hundreds of white gashes, and suddenly the captain's voice, crackling over the intercom, interrupted him. The ships they could see on the right side of the aircraft were returning from a rehearsal for the service of remembrance that was held on the ocean every year. Towards the end of the week, in case they hadn't realised, a unique festival was due to take place in Moon Beach. It was known as the Day of the Dead... ...When he was young, it had been one of the days he most looked forward to. Yvonne would come and stay, and she'd always bring a fish with her, a huge fish freshly caught on the ocean, and she'd gut it on the kitchen table. Fish should be eaten, she'd said, because fish were the guardians of the soul, and she was so powerful in her belief that nobody dared to disagree. He remembered how the fish lay gaping on its bed of newspaper, the flesh dark-red and subtly ribbed where it was split in half, and Yvonne with her sleeves rolled back and her wrists dipped in blood that smelt of tin. It was a day that abounded in peculiar traditions. Pass any candy store in the city and there'd be marzipan skulls and sugar fish and little white chocolate bones for 5 cents each. Pass any bakery and you'd see cakes slathered in blue icing, cakes sprinkled with sea-salt.If you made a Day of the Dead cake at home you always hid a coin in it, and the person who found it was supposed to live forever. Once, when she was four, Georgia had swallowed the coin and almost choked. It was still one of her favourite stories about herself. In the afternoon, there'd be costume parties. You dressed up as Lazarus or Frankenstein, or you went as one of your dead relations. Or, if you couldn't think of anything else, you just wore something blue because that was the colour you went when you were buried at the bottom of the ocean. And everywhere there were bowls of candy and slices of special home-made Day of the Dead cake. Nobody's mother ever got it right. You always had to spit it out and shove it down the back of some chair. Later, when it grew dark, a fleet of ships would set sail for the ocean cemeteries, and the remembrance service would be held. Lying awake in his room, he'd imagine the boats rocking the the priest's voice pushed and pulled by the wind. And then, later still, after the boats had gone, the dead would rise from the ocean bed and walk on the water. They gathered the flowers that had been left as offerings, they blew the floating candles out. Smoke that smelt of churches poured from the wicks, drifted over the slowly heaving ocean, hid their feet. It was a night of strange occurrences. It was the night that everyone was Jesus... ...Thousands drove in for the celebrations. All Friday night the streets would be packed with people dressed head to toe in blue. Sometimes they painted their hands and faces too. Sometimes they dyed their hair. That was what you did in Moon Beach. Turned blue once a year. And then, sooner or later, you turned blue forever.