Comeback Is Real Quotes

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Are you a female dog?" "What?" Massie asked. "Why?" "Because you are acting like a real bitch!
Lisi Harrison (The Clique (The Clique, #1))
When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial.
Fernando Pessoa
The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back. That's real glory. Thats the essence of it.
Vince Lombardi
LADY LAZARUS I have done it again. One year in every ten I manage it-- A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade, My right foot A paperweight, My face a featureless, fine Jew linen. Peel off the napkin O my enemy. Do I terrify?-- The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth? The sour breath Will vanish in a day. Soon, soon the flesh The grave cave ate will be At home on me And I a smiling woman. I am only thirty. And like the cat I have nine times to die. This is Number Three. What a trash To annihilate each decade. What a million filaments. The peanut-crunching crowd Shoves in to see Them unwrap me hand and foot-- The big strip tease. Gentlemen, ladies These are my hands My knees. I may be skin and bone, Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman. The first time it happened I was ten. It was an accident. The second time I meant To last it out and not come back at all. I rocked shut As a seashell. They had to call and call And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls. Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I've a call. It's easy enough to do it in a cell. It's easy enough to do it and stay put. It's the theatrical Comeback in broad day To the same place, the same face, the same brute Amused shout: 'A miracle!' That knocks me out. There is a charge For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge For the hearing of my heart-- It really goes. And there is a charge, a very large charge For a word or a touch Or a bit of blood Or a piece of my hair or my clothes. So, so, Herr Doktor. So, Herr Enemy. I am your opus, I am your valuable, The pure gold baby That melts to a shriek. I turn and burn. Do not think I underestimate your great concern. Ash, ash-- You poke and stir. Flesh, bone, there is nothing there-- A cake of soap, A wedding ring, A gold filling. Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware. Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air. -- written 23-29 October 1962
Sylvia Plath (Ariel)
This fettered concept of motherhood is outdated. You can go and come back and go and come back and I shall always be here. I shall always be here. That is real Love for you, and don’t let anyone tell you any different.
Yrsa Daley-Ward (bone)
The bag was a hybrid I had picked up at a store called Suitcase City while I was plotting my comeback. [...] It had a logo on it -- a mountain ridgeline with the words "Suitcase City" printed across it like the Hollywood sign. Above it, skylights swept the horizon, completing the dream image of desire and hope. I think that logo was the real reason I liked the bag. Because I knew Suitcase City wasn't a store. It was a place. It was Los Angeles.
Michael Connelly (The Brass Verdict (The Lincoln Lawyer, #2; Harry Bosch Universe, #19))
To understand, I destroyed myself. To understand is to forget about loving. I know nothing more simultaneously false and telling than the statement by Leonardo da Vinci that we cannot love or hate something until we’ve understood it. Solitude devastates me; company oppresses me. The presence of another person derails my thoughts; I dream of the other’s presence with a strange absent-mindedness that no amount of my analytical scrutiny can define. Isolation has carved me in its image and likeness. The presence of another person – of any person whatsoever – instantly slows down my thinking, and while for a normal man contact with others is a stimulus to spoken expression and wit, for me it is a counterstimulus, if this compound word be linguistically permissible. When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Yes, talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial, and in them intelligence gleams like an image in a mirror. The mere thought of having to enter into contact with someone else makes me nervous. A simple invitation to have dinner with a friend produces an anguish in me that’s hard to define. The idea of any social obligation whatsoever – attending a funeral, dealing with someone about an office matter, going to the station to wait for someone I know or don’t know – the very idea disturbs my thoughts for an entire day, and sometimes I even start worrying the night before, so that I sleep badly. When it takes place, the dreaded encounter is utterly insignificant, justifying none of my anxiety, but the next time is no different: I never learn to learn. ‘My habits are of solitude, not of men.’ I don’t know if it was Rousseau or Senancour who said this. But it was some mind of my species, it being perhaps too much to say of my race.
Fernando Pessoa
God can do great things, work real transformations, but we need to let him take it down to the heart.
Louie Giglio (The Comeback: It's Not Too Late and You're Never Too Far)
Sometimes i just get bored live in real life, so i will hide my self in to the fiction by writing and reading, then comeback to real life as new me.
Vindri Prachmitasari
It’s like saving up that perfect comeback you read in a book or heard on TV—it always sounds good in your head, but it never quite fits in real life.
Rysa Walker (The Delphi Effect (The Delphi Trilogy #1))
4. COMMENT: “RACIST? I’M NOT RACIST! YOU’RE THE REAL RACIST!” Often heard when: You call out racism. Why it should be laid to rest: “I’m rubber and you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you” hasn’t been a valid line of defense since elementary school. Comeback: “Just like talking about global warming doesn’t make me a greenhouse gas, talking about racism doesn’t make me a racist.
Franchesca Ramsey (Well, That Escalated Quickly: Memoirs and Mistakes of an Accidental Activist)
The less we choose to need, and the less we rely on comfortable, favorable circumstances for peace of mind, the more control we have over our thoughts, emotions, and behavior. “Pain is the purifier,” he taught. “Walk towards suffering. Love suffering. Embrace it.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
That it’s possible. You just have to fight. It will not be easy. But you can manage. Because life is giving you as much pain as you are capable [of living] with. And on the end of that path, the goal will be reachable. You will have suffered to do [it], but it doesn’t matter.” I can think of no better words to encapsulate what it means to accept the reality of a difficult situation. It will not be easy. You will suffer. But it doesn’t matter.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
Joan [Blondell] had always kept it real, always kept her priorities straight. “I wasn’t that ambitious. I enjoyed a home life more than a theatrical career. I just took what they gave me, because I wanted to get home quickly.” Joan, said one writer, personified everyone’s “good friend,” on- and off-camera. “Of all the stars I have interviewed,” wrote Charles Higham, “I have liked Joan Blondell the best. She is unique in my experience in being an actress who is devoid of ego, self-congratulation and self-pity, and would not dream of quoting a favorable review of herself. She is down-to-earth and human and real. This is almost unheard of in Saran-wrapped Hollywood.” Her accessibility, straightforwardness and her quick-with-a-comeback attitude was her appeal, and it never diminished as she got older.
Ray Hagen (Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames)
Isolation has carved me in its image and likeness. The presence of another person – of any person whatsoever – instantly slows down my thinking, and while for a normal man contact with others is a stimulus to spoken expression and wit, for me it is a counterstimulus, if this compound word be linguistically permissible. When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Yes, talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial, and in them intelligence gleams like an image in a mirror.
Fernando Pessoa (The Book of Disquiet)
The truth was that the city was losing manufacturing jobs at a pace five times worse than the national average, and one of the reasons for its loss of 800,000 industrial jobs since 1962 was, expert after expert concluded, the decline of rail freight service. Several government studies had to concede, despite the bias toward the more glamorous and profit-intensive Trump-like development of these yards, that “a substantial market demand” existed for a real rail terminal at either 60th or 34th Streets. In fact, the ailing railroad industry was beginning to make a strong comeback outside of New York by the end of the seventies, aided by escalating fuel costs, which were putting truckers at a sudden disadvantage. A West Side terminal at either of the Trump yards would not only have positioned the city to take advantage of this economic shift, it would also have dramatically reduced truckload traffic through clogged Manhattan streets. Trump’s simultaneous hold on both of the potential terminal sites for almost half a decade may have been a fatal blow to a manufacturing revival in New York.
Wayne Barrett (Trump: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Deals, the Downfall, the Reinvention)
Mom, she's a yoga teacher. She doesn't do..." He lowered his voice just fractionally. "Real jobs." Aja heard it loud and clear, and looked at him incredulously. "I don't do real jobs?" "Don't be ridiculous," Lucinda said to Michael. Aja's chest tightened with gratitude before she added, "This isn't a real job, it's a task that someone needs to do, and Aria seems to fit the bill." She leveled that cool blue gaze on Aja. "Don't you?" "I don't think so," Aja said, suddenly taken over by a cool resentment. She looked from Lucinda to Michael. "I can't believe you two are arguing back and forth about how incompetent and... and... desperate I apparently seem to you. Not that I should have to defend myself to you, but my little job helps a lot of people. Would you have any more respect for me if I was called a physical therapist instead of a yoga instructor? Because that's basically what I am." Her anger rose disproportionate to the offense, and she tried to keep her voice controlled. "The hospital thinks so, anyway, as they have kept me employed there for five years. They consider it to be a real job when they pay me." For a moment, Lucinda and Michael both seemed stunned into silence.
Beth Harbison (The Cookbook Club: A Novel of Food and Friendship)
our government is still breaking our treaty obligations. If you coolly strip away the endless administrative rhetoric about budgets and governance, the endless studies and the endemic lack of broad policies coming from the Department of Indian Affairs, you begin to realize that we are still caught up in the racist assimilation policies of a century ago. Let me take a broader example. We all know that the treaties involved a massive loss of land for First Nations. What most of us pretend we don’t know is that this remarkable generosity was tied to permanent obligations taken on by colonial officials, then by the Government of Canada; that is, by the Crown; that is, by you and me. So we got the use of land – and therefore the possibility of creating Canada – in return for a relationship in which we have permanent obligations. We have kept the land. We have repeatedly used ruses to get more of their land. And we have not fulfilled our side of the agreement. We pretend that we do not have partnership obligations. It’s pretty straightforward. We criticize. We insult. We complain. We weasel. Surely, we say, these handouts have gone on long enough. But the most important handout was to us. Bob Rae put it this way at the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Treaty Conference in June 2014: “It’s ridiculous to think people would say: ‘I have all this land, millions and millions and millions of acres of land, I’m giving it to you for a piece of land that is five miles by five miles and a few dollars a year.’ To put it in terms of a real estate transaction, it’s preposterous. It doesn’t make any sense.” So the generosity was from First Nations to newcomers. And we are keeping that handout – the land – offered in good faith by friends and allies.
John Ralston Saul (The Comeback: How Aboriginals Are Reclaiming Power And Influence)
Like movies and TV shows about kids my age? If they were actually trying to show our real lives, it would literally just be a bunch of kids staring at their phones. They'll have to stop making movies about kids born past the year 2000.
Ella Berman (The Comeback)
Only the disciplined ones are free in life,” he said in a 2018 speech at England’s Oxford Union. “If you aren’t disciplined, you are a slave to your moods. You are a slave to your passions. That’s a fact.
Fitzgerald Matt (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
Self-awareness plays a key role in stopping fear and laziness from standing in the way of accepting a reality that must be accepted in order to make the best of a bad situation.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
Science has demonstrated that some athletes have a higher tolerance for pain and suffering than others do, and that those who have a higher tolerance are more accepting of these sensations.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
The same willingness to face reality that allows certain athletes to accept a negative turn of events also helps them bear what must be borne to address the bad situation.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
His key insight was that yearning, or wishing things were different than they are, is the root of all suffering, and that letting go of this desire is the secret to happiness.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
That it’s possible. You just have to fight. It will not be easy. But you can manage. Because life is giving you as much pain as you are capable [of living] with. And on the end of that path, the goal will be reachable. You will have suffered to do [it], but it doesn’t matter.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
That desperate tug-of-war between the desire to persevere and the overwhelming temptation to quit. And he loved it.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
Achieve complete mastery of his mind by pushing back the limits of his capacity to suffer until those limits disappeared.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
This pain and suffering. This was my trophy ceremony.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
Frankl focused his psychologist’s eye on ultrarealists he encountered in these awful places, writing that “the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement,” which proved that “any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
How interesting it is that the attitude that ultrarealists choose to adopt in situations where their attitude is the only thing they can control is one of finding meaning in their suffering.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
As with post-traumatic growth, it’s not the scare itself but the subsequent perspective shift that enhances gratitude.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
I’m scared shitless.” Knowing and accepting that a few things were bound to go wrong.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
I beat cancer, I had kids, and I did this with a disability. You couldn’t knock me off that mountaintop.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
Molly almost goes out of her way to describe how loving and supportive her parents have always been, emphasizing in particular the fact that, while she was growing up, her mom couldn’t have cared less whether Molly ran or didn’t run, and if she ran, whether she ran well or poorly, as long as she was happy.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
It was a decision she would not regret, performing well enough right out of the gate that no further persuasion was required to convince Jamie to drop other sports and focus exclusively on running for the next three years.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
Our inability to fulfill our (true) needs can sometimes give rise to self-deceptions intended to disguise this painful reality. Most psychotherapeutic methods involve helping patients liberate themselves from self-deception. What makes reality therapy different is the centrality of this project to the method. Reality therapy is all about getting people to stop bullshitting themselves so they can get on with the business of solving the real problem. At no point does the reality therapist ever allow a patient to get away with denying reality, no matter how painful accepting it may be initially.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
Even the most talented artists have flaws and limitations that no amount of training can overcome, just as even the most exceptional individuals have hang-ups and quirks that no amount of personal growth can erase. The artists we consider great are those who make their flaws and limitations somehow complement their strengths and contribute to their signature style.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
For the ultrarealist, goals exist not to be achieved but to stimulate striving and to drive progress toward the fulfillment of potential. This is why champions set goals that are hard to achieve, and why they welcome opportunities to raise their game.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
Ultrarealists have something many of us don’t—an extraordinary readiness to face reality—and if you want to fulfill your own potential, you want that too.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
This isn’t how I would have chosen my life to turn out at all, but maybe this is my way of fulfilling my life’s purpose and trying to raise awareness for these rare diseases that really do actually need it.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
A girl need not necessarily have the perfect start in life to fulfill such a dream.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial.
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial
Fernando Pessoa
The new Rob saw the restoration of his ability to run as a gift, a precious and fragile blessing that he wished to honor by racing not for respect or attention as before but for the inner journey, and by listening to his body and respecting rest, and also by investing himself in the trail running community.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
You’re brutal.” “Not brutal. Honest. So, she left and you…” Her head tilts to the side. “Just let her go. Just like that? You didn’t fight for her?” “This is real life. It isn’t some cheesy romance movie, Ariana.” “Obviously not. Future NHL star with up-and-coming songwriter. Best childhood friends turned high school enemies with a second chance at love. But no. You’re a colossal idiot. Not romance movie material at all. You let her go. Wuss move. If you were in a romance movie, you’d chase after her to the airport, or announce your love for her in front of the entire college. You wouldn’t run like a coward with your tail between your legs.” “She’s not flying anywhere.” “Totally missing the point, brother. If you don’t go after her, you’ve got zero chance. Personally, I think the odds are low even if you go after her, but a slim chance is better than no chance.” She glances around. “How about I stay another night? Before we have to go back to school on Monday.” “After that inspiring speech, how could I possibly say no?” I duck to avoid the second swat aimed at me.
Nikki Jewell (The Comeback (Lakeview Lightning #1))
He’s not in costume, but he’s got a plastic axe clutched in his left hand and judging by the glare he’s levelled at his friend, he’s wishing it was a real one.
Nikki Jewell (The Comeback (Lakeview Lightning #1))
I’m serious too, Kate. You shouldn’t be working. You should be listening. I chose this playlist myself. It’s my grand gesture. To show you how I feel.” “I don’t give a shit about how you feel!” “Well, that’s harsh.” She crosses her arms, and her foot taps on the floor. “You know, I didn’t want to do this, but you’ve left me no choice. You’re obviously too immature to handle this like an adult. So…I’m going to tell your father.” Right. She’s the one who’s going to tell Daddy on me, but I’m being immature. Of course. And I thought of that already too. “My father’s in California for the next two weeks. I’m not overly concerned about what he might do to me via telephone.” She opens her mouth to try again, but I continue. “You could try talking to Frank. But he’s in the Hamptons, at that year-round golf course Trump just opened. George is in his office.” She turns, but my next words make her pause. “I should warn you, though…he’s got a real soft spot for romantics. I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you. And he’s my godfather.” She stares at me a minute. She’s trying to think of a comeback. I’m just glad I cleared all the heavy objects off my desk. You know, the ones she probably wants to chuck at my head right about now.
Emma Chase (Tangled (Tangled, #1))
A metaphor for this, and also a fact, which is lovely and also terrible in this case, is the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, which I got to visit recently. It’s about three miles wide and runs from one end of the peninsula to the other, and it’s the most demilitarized piece of real estate on the earth. There are, as you know, eight species of Asian cranes. All of them are either endangered or nearly endangered, and two of them are making a comeback because they do their winter foraging in the demilitarized zone, which has been made into an unintentional national park. And if North and South Korea ever settle their problems and remove the last nuclear trip wire of the Cold War, that land will probably be developed, and those two species, which are ten million years old, will be gone from the earth.
Edward O. Wilson (The Poetic Species: A Conversation with Edward O. Wilson and Robert Hass)
The millennials who are getting incendiary think pieces in The New York Times are mad about this, the systemic screwing over of the world via staggering debt on a personal and national level, environmental devastation, culture wars, real wars, and Monsanto. But among a growing population a different take on this shitty situation is being espoused. We don’t care. Nihilism is making a comeback, folks. Not necessarily taken into our hearts but at least shouted back at the world in the face of its indifference. Sing it with me now. I don’t care. I love it. 
Anonymous
This sense of control is the essence of what it feels like to be an ultrarealist. When you've cultivated the ability to fully accept, embrace, and address any situation, you are no longer dependent on external circumstances. While you still want things to go your way, it no longer really matters if they do or don't. In either case, you know you'll be able to make the best of the situation. You're in control of the only thing you truly can control, which is your mind, and it feels like freedom.
Matt Fitzgerald (The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life)
Castro’s revolution, with all of its supposedly good intentions, put a stop to the growth of Havana. Of course it put an end to the Mafia controlling the casinos and entertainment, but for them it was a minor setback. They just packed their bags and went to Las Vegas where they expanded and developed “The Strip!” Batista and his followers fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic, Europe and South Florida. Many Cubans lost everything they had but others fled taking their wealth with them. The upheaval in 1959 marked the beginning of austerity for this former freewheeling city. The communistic de-privatization of all businesses, along with the embargo imposed by the United States, created a serious decline in Havana’s economy. The constant pressure to nationalize, as well as the severe crackdown by the régime to keep people in line, curtailed growth and placed an enormous hardship on the Cuban people. Since the Castro Revolution, the people of Havana have been severely affected, because of the absence of commerce with its former trading partner, the United States, located only 90 miles to the north. In all Havana has taken a severe toll economically, with its dilapidated houses, and the pre-1959 cars on the streets of the city being a testimony to the bygone era. It is only now that with the hope of normalization between the governments of Cuba and the United States that perhaps the people will benefit. For the greatest part, the Port of Havana has also been bypassed, chiefly due to the restrictions placed on them by the United States. However, the Cuban government is now attempting a comeback by attracting tourism from Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas, Latin America, Asia and Europe. The city of Havana has renovated the Sierra Maestra Cruise Port, but only very few cruise companies consider Havana a port of call. Slowly, German and British ships started to arrive, including the Fred Olsen Cruises and Carnival Cruise Line. Technically Real Estate Brokers and Automobile Dealers are illegal in Cuba, although real-estate offices and car dealerships are blatantly open for business. The buying and selling of real estate and cars, which was forbidden for many years, can now be done because of some changes brought about by Raúl Castro, but only by full-time residents of Cuba. However, gray market sales are thriving through the use of friends and family as proxies.
Hank Bracker
After parking in the west lot, far from a certain gang member with a reputation that could scare off even the toughest Fairfield football players, Sierra and I walk up the front steps of Fairfield High. Unfortunately, Alex Fuentes and the rest of his gang friends are hanging by the front doors. “Walk right past them,” Sierra mutters. “Whatever you do, don’t look in their eyes.” It’s pretty hard not to when Alex Fuentes steps right in front of me and blocks my path. What’s that prayer you’re supposed to say right before you know you’re going to die? “You’re a lousy driver,” Alex says with his slight Latino accent and full-blown-I-AM-THE-MAN stance. The guy might look like an Abercrombie mode with his ripped bod and flawless face, but his picture is more likely to be taken for a mug shot. The kids from the north side don’t really mix with kids from the south side. It’s not that we think we’re better than them, we’re just different. We’ve grown up in the same town, but on totally opposite sides. We live in big houses on Lake Michigan and they live next to the train tracks. We look, talk, act, and dress different. I’m not saying it’s good or bad; it’s just the way it is in Fairfield. And, to be honest, most of the south side girls treat me like Carmen Sanchez does…they hate me because of who I am. Or, rather, who they think I am. Alex’s gaze slowly moves down my body, traveling the length of me before moving back up. It’s not the first time a guy has checked me out, it’s just that I never had a guy like Alex do it so blatantly…and so up-close. I can feel my face getting hot. “Next time, watch where you’re goin’,” he says, his voice cool and controlled. He’s trying to bully me. He’s a pro at this. I won’t let him get to me and win his little game of intimidation, even if my stomach feels like I’m doing one hundred cartwheels in a row. I square my shoulders and sneer at him, the same sneer I use to push people away. “Thanks for the tip.” “If you ever need a real man to teach you how to drive, I can give you lessons.” Catcalls and whistles from his buddies set my blood boiling. “If you were a real man, you’d open the door for me instead of blocking my way,” I say, admiring my own comeback even as my knees threaten to buckle. Alex steps back, pulls the door open, and bows like he’s my butler. He’s totally mocking me, he knows it and I know it. Everyone knows it. I catch a glimpse of Sierra, still desperately searching for nothing in her purse. She’s clueless. “Get a life,” I tell him. “Like yours? Cabróna, let me tell you somethin’,” Alex says harshly. “Your life isn’t reality, it’s fake. Just like you.” “It’s better than living my life as a loser,” I lash out, hoping my words sting as much as his words did. “Just like you.” Grabbing Sierra’s arm, I pull her toward the open door. Catcalls and comments follow us as we walk into the school. I finally let out the breath I must have been holding, then turn to Sierra. My best friend is staring at me, all bug-eyed. “Holy shit, Brit! You got a death wish or something?” “What gives Alex Fuentes the right to bully everyone in his path?” “Uh, maybe the gun he has hidden in his pants or the gang colors he wears,” Sierra says, sarcasm dripping from every word. “He’s not stupid enough to carry a gun to school,” I reason. “And I refuse to be bullied, by him or anyone else.
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
The real Charia would be making an inevitable comeback and she hated the thought of him possibly witnessing, or worse, experiencing, that dark side of her again. Until then, she simply wanted to remain in this secluded bubble with him.
Michelle Geel (Crimson Tide)
am full beyond words. And as is usual with me, I wept just a little. It’s silly weak, kiddish and all that, but, gee, to have done something real … One can if one will. Now I know it. We measure by material accomplishments, that is, in the eyes of society.… I think I am registering a comeback, to employ the vernacular. Now to burst into print and to begin—not to shine—but to show phosphorescent tendencies that may assemble into a little glow. Big fires from little sparks grow. You’re with me, dad’s with me; and there are many I rather feel will jump on top when my bus gets going. I have youth; I am acquiring faith, i.e. courage, confidence, right’s might: I am learning every day and developing every hour.… Fool that I am, I’d like to cry for a week, just from sheer happiness.… This year I am sure is the most glorious in my college so far after all.—If only I could find a girl, now. That is a big problem for me to thrash out—and it must be for myself, by myself, and with no other source or guide, less perchance it be Experience. I have so long avoided and put off telling this to you: but you must see it. After Emma, I have lost faith in your sex. That affair you never knew in detail. I can tell you of it some day, but not here and now.… Why I write this, I cannot say. I don’t know. But as I see engagements about me by the score—not that I think it even tolerable in one so young—but because I realize that I of equal age (in years) do not feel the slightest attraction or inclination to … (page missing)
William Wright (Harvard's Secret Court: The Savage 1920 Purge of Campus Homosexuals)