“
Rejection is an opportunity for your selection.
”
”
Bernard Branson
“
Nothing gives you confidence like being a member of a small, weirdly specific, hard-to-find demographic.
”
”
Mindy Kaling (Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns))
“
Twenty years of joy and support and friendship, that’s a success. Twenty years of anything with another person is a success. If a band stays together twenty years, it’s a miracle. If a comedy duo stays together twenty years, they’re a triumph. Is this night a failure because it will end in an hour? Is the sun a failure because it’s going to end in a billion years? No, it’s the fucking sun. Why does a marriage not count? It isn’t in us, it isn’t in human beings, to be tied to one person forever.
”
”
Andrew Sean Greer (Less)
“
Some guys step on a rake in the dark, and get mad and go punch somebody. Others step on a rake in the dark and fall down laughing at themselves. I know which kind of guy I'd rather be. So do my friends.
”
”
Spider Robinson (Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (Callahan's, #1))
“
He clamped his eyes shut and waited for the pang of something he could no longer name to subside; it plucked at steel threads holding him together and reverberated through his system.
”
”
J. Rose Black (Losing My Breath)
“
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love.
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.
Let every eye negotiate for itself,
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing)
“
A friendship where you're always trying to be considerate of the other person, always worrying about what they think, always responding to every single text, always seeking their approval and then finally connecting with them, isn't friendship at all.
”
”
Wataru Watari (やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている。1)
“
Light flashed in her eyes. In fact, it clung to her—flaring around her skin, her hair, her whole body. It was a trick of the eyes, his mind, when adrenaline hit his system. But she glowed. Vivid. Alive. And for a moment, he’d have given anything to be like her.
”
”
J. Rose Black (Losing My Breath)
“
I ejaculated about ten minutes ago and the stuff was black. So everything is not normal."
Silence greeted that happy little announcement. Man, if he had hauled off and sucker-punched V, he would have gotten less of a shocked-out reaction.
”
”
J.R. Ward (Lover Revealed (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #4))
“
A question that always makes me hazy is it me or are the others crazy'
Albert Einstein
”
”
Victoria Ward (The Unconventional Life of Jenna Jaghe)
“
Though I have always made it my practice to be pleasant to everybody, I have not once actually experienced friendship. I have only the most painful recollections of my various acquaintances with the exception of such companions in pleasure as Horiki. I have frantically played the clown in order to disentangle myself from these painful relationships, only to wear myself out as a result. Even now it comes as a shock if by chance I notice in the street a face resembling someone I know however slightly, and I am at once seized by a shivering violent enough to make me dizzy. I know that I am liked by other people, but I seem to be deficient in the faculty to love others. (I should add that I have very strong doubts as to whether even human beings really possess this faculty.) It was hardly to be expected that someone like myself could ever develop any close friends—besides, I lacked even the ability to pay visits. The front door of another person’s house terrified me more than the gate of Inferno in the Divine Comedy, and I am not exaggerating when I say that I really felt I could detect within the door the presence of a horrible dragon-like monster writhing there with a dank, raw smell.
”
”
Osamu Dazai (No Longer Human)
“
The ones who constantly make us laugh are the hardest of friends to know - for comedians are the caricatures among us.
”
”
Criss Jami (Killosophy)
“
Friendship matters first.
”
”
Kristine Cuevas (Never Love your Best Friend (Dream Trilogy #1))
“
Every human relationship begins with a coincidence. Even the most fundamental relationship - that of parent and child - begins entirely with a coincidence. The child is produced by whatever serendipity brought its parents together, and the fact that the child was born to its particular parents instead of to another couple is pure happenstance. Thus, children have no choice over the relationship that is most important to their existence.
By contrast, friends and lovers choose each other, but even these choices are reactions to whatever random coincidence made the resulting relationship possible.
”
”
Zack Love (Sex in the Title: A Comedy about Dating, Sex, and Romance in NYC (Back When Phones Weren't So Smart))
“
Roxy, stop being so obnoxious!" -Joy
"I'm never obnoxious; I'm just concerned." -Roxy
”
”
Katie MacAlister (Sex and the Single Vampire (Dark Ones #2))
“
In the Shakespearean comedies, the wedding is the end, and there isn't much indication of what happily ever after will look like day to day. In real life, shouldn't a wedding be an awesome party you throw with your great pal, in the presence of a bunch of your other friends? A great day, for sure, but not the beginning and certainly not the end of your friendship with a person you can't wait to talk about gardening with for the next forty years.
”
”
Mindy Kaling (Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns))
“
When I was in eighth grade, I used a self-timing camera to take nude pictures of myself in various stages of erection. I then exchanged my biology teacher’s slides with the images. The teacher, in a state of panic, kept rapidly pressing the ‘next’ button. It was like a pornographic flip-book. That was the last straw in a very heavy pile of straws. I was expelled, and I ended up transferring mid-year from boarding school to a public school near home.
”
”
Dani Alexander (Shattered Glass (Shattered Glass, #1))
“
A loner, by nature, burdens no one with their existence. By avoiding entanglements with others, they cause no harm. We are extremely ecologically friendly, clean, and environmentally aware creatures.
”
”
Wataru Watari (やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている 3)
“
To my beloved friends, there’s simply no life without you guys. Thanks for the advice and the love and the billion dinners and laughs. Without you all . . . I’d look for new friends and get them.
”
”
Martin Short (I Must Say: My Life as a Humble Comedy Legend)
“
Build mutual friendships. Just be ready to end them when your friends start trying to eat you.
”
”
Jesse Petersen (Married with Zombies (Living with the Dead, #1))
“
But despite these and many other differences, Evan and Heeb had become close friends – an improbability that could have been produced only by the even greater improbabilities that brought them together.
”
”
Zack Love (Sex in the Title: A Comedy about Dating, Sex, and Romance in NYC (Back When Phones Weren't So Smart))
“
Men know that most women want to have an emotional connection with someone before they sleep with them. Men know that a lot of women think it's romantic to be friends first, and then the friendship blossoms into a relationship. Men know that they have to jump through all these hoops first, before they can get laid. And that's really all romance and courtship is to a man: hoops he has to jump through to get laid.
”
”
Oliver Markus (Why Men And Women Can't Be Friends)
“
Wrinkles was her big gray cat. Sierra named him Wrinkles because when he was a little baby he had a wrinkly face. He slept in Sierra's room, but not always on the bed. Mommy said that was 'cause Wrinkles had an attitude. Most cats had attitudes, actually.
”
”
Karen Kingsbury (Beyond Tuesday Morning (9/11, #2))
“
The official recruiting process for their posse began. Because Carlos, Narc, and Trevor each had high SQs, Heeb and Evan reasoned that adding the three to their group would raise the average SQ of each group member (much the way that colleges recruit individuals with higher test scores to increase the average test scores of their matriculated students).
”
”
Zack Love (Sex in the Title: A Comedy about Dating, Sex, and Romance in NYC (Back When Phones Weren't So Smart))
“
So you spoke to Laurence Myer?”
“Oh, no. I added him though. We’ve achieved virtual friendship.
”
”
Chloe Seager (Dating Disasters of Emma Nash)
“
Keep your southern fried bullshit to yourself. And know this, Charlie is the sweetest girl I've ever met and if you hurt her, or infect her with some kind of disease, you will die. Slowly.
”
”
Eve Dangerfield (Degrees of Control)
“
That’s the difference, a true friend is happy for you no matter what you do and what you have and quite frankly I didn’t have the time for meaningless conversations or friendships that drained me of my energy.
”
”
Christie Barlow (A Year in the Life of a Playground Mother (A School Gates Comedy #1))
“
The unlikely group that resulted from the union of five diverse characters in their late twenties operated with surprising harmony. This cohesiveness could be attributed to two factors: 1) everyone’s issues and embarrassing pasts were plainly disclosed prior to the gang’s formation and 2) the clan had been expressly conceived as a male support group.
”
”
Zack Love (Sex in the Title: A Comedy about Dating, Sex, and Romance in NYC (Back When Phones Weren't So Smart))
“
If you call a gypsy a vagabond, I think you do him wrong,
For he never goes a-travelling but he takes his home along.
And the only reason a road is good, as every wanderer knows,
Is just because of the homes, the homes, the homes to which it goes.
”
”
Joyce Kilmer
“
I know this sounds very Neanderthal but I want a man that would just take me, ravage me, and do what he pleases with me. I frankly don’t care what he does or how he does it. I just want it to be fucktastic. I want some bodies slamming, head banging, and wild animalistic beastie craze sex. You Jane, me Tarzan kind of sex.
”
”
Dee Dinh (Sin of Attraction: Sin of Attraction (Sin Series - Book One))
“
He detested hierarchy and enjoyed the friendship of people in all walks of life. He was, like Shakespeare, an actor with a talent for comedy.
”
”
Richard P. Feynman (The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman (Helix Books))
“
I made a mistake, a huge mistake, but that doesn’t mean I should settle for any less respect.
”
”
Snehil Niharika (That’ll Be Our Song)
“
Sometimes in life, all you need to know is when to quit.
”
”
Snehil Niharika (That’ll Be Our Song)
“
Sid-Arya—like birds.
”
”
Snehil Niharika (That’ll Be Our Song)
“
If the sky falls, we shall catch larks./Když nebe padá , zjímáme skřivani.
”
”
Czech Proverb
“
She nodded and smiled, but I could feel that she was slightly disappointed in me. Like Ms Parker when I answer every question in English with ‘It’s a metaphor for desire.
”
”
Chloe Seager (Friendship Fails of Emma Nash)
“
I’m saying it’s a success. Twenty years of joy and support and friendship, that’s a success. Twenty years of anything with another person is a success. If a band stays together twenty years, it’s a miracle. If a comedy duo stays together twenty years, they’re a triumph. Is this night a failure because it will end in an hour? Is the sun a failure because it’s going to end in a billion years? No, it’s the fucking sun. Why does a marriage not count? It isn’t in us, it isn’t in human beings, to be tied to one person forever. Siamese twins are a tragedy.
”
”
Andrew Sean Greer (Less (Arthur Less, #1))
“
Rosy ferried the drinks back to the table, slid the Guinness his way. “You said you have a show. Is it a comedy?”
“No, but you will laugh, I hope, after hearing my qualifications.” His eyes glittered. “I do magic, with a twist. The twist is, my clothes are the first thing to disappear.”
Rosy gaped.
“Yes. I do magic… naked. I not only have a big ego.” Marek wiggled his middle finger. “I have a big wand.
”
”
R.G. Manse (Screw Friendship (Frank Friendship, #1))
“
No! No, Arthur, no, it’s the opposite! I’m saying it’s a success. Twenty years of joy and support and friendship, that’s a success. Twenty years of anything with another person is a success. If a band stays together twenty years, it’s a miracle. If a comedy duo stays together twenty years, they’re a triumph. Is this night a failure because it will end in an hour? Is the sun a failure because it’s going to end in a billion years? No, it’s the fucking sun. Why does a marriage not count? It isn’t in us, it isn’t in human beings, to be tied to one person forever. Siamese twins are a tragedy. Twenty years and one last happy road trip. And I thought, Well, that was nice. Let’s end on success.” “You can’t do this,
”
”
Andrew Sean Greer (Less (Arthur Less, #1))
“
Affection and Eros were too obviously connected with our nerves, too obviously shared with the brutes. You could feel these tugging at your guts and fluttering in your diaphragm. But in Friendship—in that luminous, tranquil, rational world of relationships freely chosen—you got away from all that. This alone, of all the loves, seemed to raise you to the level of gods or angels. But then came Romanticism and "tearful comedy" and the "return to nature" and the exaltation of Sentiment; and in their train all that great wallow of emotion which, though often criticised, has lasted ever since. Finally, the exaltation of instinct, the dark gods in the blood; whose hierophants may be incapable of male friendship. Under this new dispensation all that had once commended this love now began to work against it. It had not tearful smiles and keepsakes and baby-talk enough to please the sentimentalists. There was not blood and guts enough about it to attract the primitivists. It looked thin and etiolated; a sort of vegetarian substitute for the more organic loves.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves (Harvest Book))
“
If desire were really one to one, self to self, there would never be a problem of infidelity, but desire will always, without confusion, demand a particular class, Caring for a unique object is an illusion, but the feeling must be unique, and though that feeling may not be natural, it is duty. You must love your neighbour like yourself, uniquely. From the personal point of view, sexual desire, because of its impersonal and unchanging character, is a comic contradiction. The relation between every pair of lovers is unique, but in bet they can only do what all mammals do. All the relation in friendship a relationship of spirit, can be unique. In sexual relationship love the only uniqueness can be fidelity.
”
”
W.H. Auden (Lectures on Shakespeare (W.H. Auden: Critical Editions))
“
As anyone who has experienced it will know, war is many contradictory things. There is brutality and heroism, comedy and tragedy, friendship, hate, love and boredom. War is absurd yet fundamental, despicable yet beguiling, unfair yet with its own strange logic. Rarely are people 'back home' exposed to these contradictions — society tends only to highlight those qualities it needs, to construct its own particular narrative.
”
”
Tim Hetherington (Tim Hetherington: Infidel)
“
Here I am, here to please, to knock on your heart, tug on your sleeve, and sir, do you have a moment to discuss your life goals? The state of the economy? The state that wants secession? The recession of hair, of tides? The ceasefire and the forest fire and the brand-new flavor of fire-roasted pretzels? The exegesis of today’s front-page headlines? The story of how the world will end, slash, how the world began, slash, what kind of world is this, anyway, slash, how ‘bout that certain team that plays that certain sport? How about the environment? The economy? The bathroom? As in, can I use yours? Do you like comedy? Would you perhaps consider a list of vintage novelties you played with as a child? A listicle of popsicles you ate as a child? The story of your inner child? The story of the baby and the bathwater? The story of the baby otter and the baby giraffe and their unlikely friendship? “Can you just skip the stories and give me the pamphlet?
”
”
Hilary Leichter (Temporary)
“
Though I have always made it my practice to be pleasant to everybody, I have not once actually experienced friendship. I have only the most painful recollections of my various acquaintances with the exception of such companions in pleasure as Horiki. I have frantically played the clown in order to disentangle myself from these painful relationships, only to wear myself out as a result. Even now it comes as a shock if by chance I notice in the street a face resembling someone I know however slightly, and I am at once seized by a shivering violent enough to make me dizzy. I know that I am liked by other people, but I seem to be deficient in the faculty to love others. (I should add that I have very strong doubts as to whether even human beings really possess this faculty.) It was hardly to be expected that someone like myself could ever develop any close friends—besides, I lacked even the ability to pay visits. The front door of another person’s house terrified me more than the gate of Inferno in the Divine Comedy, and I am not exaggerating when I say that I really felt I could detect within the door the presence of a horrible dragon-like monster writhing there with a dank, raw smell.
”
”
Osamu Dazai (No Longer Human)
“
Twenty years of joy and support and friendship, that’s a success. Twenty years of anything with another person is a success. If a band stays together twenty years, it’s a miracle. If a comedy duo stays together twenty years, they’re a triumph. Is this night a failure because it will end in an hour? Is the sun a failure because it’s going to end in a billion years? No, it’s the fucking sun. Why does a marriage not count? It isn’t in us, it isn’t in human beings, to be tied to one person forever. Siamese twins are a tragedy. Twenty years and one last happy road trip. And I thought, Well, that was nice. Let’s end on success.
”
”
Andrew Sean Greer (Less)
“
I have spoken of reinventing marriage, of marriages achieving their rebirth in the middle age of the partners. This phenomenon has been called the 'comedy of remarriage' by Stanley Cavell, whose Pursuits of Happiness, a film book, is perhaps the best marriage manual ever published. One must, however, translate his formulation from the language of Hollywood, in which he developed it, into the language of middle age: less glamour, less supple youth, less fantasyland. Cavell writes specifically of Hollywood movies of the 1930s and 1940s in which couples -- one partner is often the dazzling Cary Grant -- learn to value each other, to educate themselves in equality, to remarry. Cavell recognizes that the actresses in these movie -- often the dazzling Katherine Hepburn -- are what made them possible. If read not as an account of beautiful people in hilarious situations, but as a deeply philosophical discussion of marriage, his book contains what are almost aphorisms of marital achievement. For example: ....'[The romance of remarriage] poses a structure in which we are permanently in doubt who the hero is, that is, whether it is the male or female who is the active partner, which of them is in quest, who is following whom.'
Cary grant & Katherine Hepburn "Above all, despite the sexual attractiveness of the actors in the movies he discusses, Cavell knows that sexuality is not the ultimate secret in these marriage: 'in God's intention a meet and happy conversation is the chiefest and noblest end of marriage. Here is the reason that these relationships strike us as having the quality of friendship, a further factor in their exhilaration for us.'
"He is wise enough, moreover, to emphasize 'the mystery of marriage by finding that neither law nor sexuality (nor, by implication, progeny) is sufficient to ensure true marriage and suggesting that what provides legitimacy is the mutual willingness for remarriage, for a sort of continuous affirmation. Remarriage, hence marriage, is, whatever else it is, an intellectual undertaking.
”
”
Carolyn G. Heilbrun (Writing a Woman's Life)
“
No! No, Arthur, no, it’s the opposite! I’m saying it’s a success. Twenty years of joy and support and friendship, that’s a success. Twenty years of anything with another person is a success. If a band stays together twenty years, it’s a miracle. If a comedy duo stays together twenty years, they’re a triumph. Is this night a failure because it will end in an hour? Is the sun a failure because it’s going to end in a billion years? No, it’s the fucking sun. Why does a marriage not count? It isn’t in us, it isn’t in human beings, to be tied to one person forever. Siamese twins are a tragedy. Twenty years and one last happy road trip. And I thought, Well, that was nice. Let’s end on success.
”
”
Andrew Sean Greer (Less (Arthur Less, #1))
“
It truly is a team sport, and we have the best team in town. But it’s my relationship with Ilana that I cherish most. We have such a strong partnership and have learned how we work most efficiently: I need coffee, she needs tea. When we’re stressed, I pace around and use a weird neck massager I bought online that everyone makes fun of me for, and she knits. When we’re writing together she types, because she’s faster and better at grammar. We actually FaceTime when we’re not in the same city and are constantly texting each other ideas for jokes or observations to potentially use (I recently texted her from Asheville: girl with flip-flops tucked into one strap of tank top). Looking back now at over ten years of doing comedy and running a business with her I can see how our collaboration has expanded and contracted. But it’s the problem-solving aspect of this industry, the producing, the strategy, the realizing that we could put our heads together and figure out the best solution, that has made our relationship and friendship what it is. Because that spills into everything. We both have individual careers now, but those other projects have only been motivating and inspiring to each other and the show. We bring back what we’ve learned on the other sets, in the other negotiations, in the other writers’ rooms or press situations. I’m very lucky to have jumped into this with Ilana Rose Glazer, the ballsy, curly-haired, openhearted, nineteen-year-old girl that cracked me up that night at the corner of the bar at McManus. So many wonderful things have happened since we began working together, but there are a lot of confusing, life-altering things in there too, and it’s such a relief to have someone who completely understands the good and the bad.
”
”
Abbi Jacobson (I Might Regret This: Essays, Drawings, Vulnerabilities, and Other Stuff)
“
Considering that I tried to be friendly with everyone, I was never honoured with anyone's “friendship”. Horiki and other friends for entertainment like him, do not count. Every communication left me with a bitter feeling, and to get rid of it I had to play out a barbed comedy routine, but it only wore me out even more. And if I happened to accidentally meet someone I knew, or even a person who just looked like one of the rare people I knew, it sent shivers down my spine. When it happened that I was well regarded, I was not able to love people. (Speaking of which, I doubt that in this world such “love for people” exists.) Consequently, “friendship“ was something I was unable to reach, I could not even manage such a simple gesture as a “friendly visit“. I associated the gates of other people's houses with the gates of hell, behind which a bloodthirsty and monstrous dragon was waiting for me. I had no friends. I had nowhere to go.
”
”
Osamu Dazai (No Longer Human (Confessions of a Faulty Man))
“
Any relationship beyond acquaintanceship is composed of one to three qualities: passion, intimacy, and commitment. Simple friendship has one: intimacy. You can have other friends and you do not feel passionately about one another, or we are dealing with another animal. Most romantic relationships begin with a dollop of passion, often to the exclusion of anything else. The person in your arms is the best in the world, though you barely know him or her. You have never felt this way. Any gaps or deficits are temporarily puttied over by passion. When most people envision romantic love, this is where they stop. Romantic comedies but only rarely deal with washing your lover's dishes because they must be up early for work. No one wants to see the mundane when they can flip the channel to a desperate, emotionally-stunted frottage. The passion of infatuation triggers the release of addictive chemicals. We would rather get another hit than cope with the relative dullness of intimacy and commitment.
”
”
Thomm Quackenbush (Holidays with Bigfoot)
“
Doing comedy for a living is, in a lot of ways, like a pony and a camel trying to escape from the zoo. It’s a ridiculous endeavor and has a low probability of success, but most importantly, it is way easier if you’re with a friend.
”
”
Amy Poehler
“
This feels like an oversimplification of a complicated addition to an irreplaceable relationship. I’ve watched enough romantic comedies to know that this is probably going to end badly for one of us, and my money is on me.
”
”
B.K. Borison (Lovelight Farms (Lovelight, #1))
“
Completely captivated, I held my breath as he played the first chord. Damn, I wanted those long fingers on me, moving, plucking, eliciting a myriad of beautiful noises.
”
”
Cindi Madsen, Big Dick Energy
“
No need to look wary,” she said. “If I was going to do some matchmaking with you and Violet, you’d be together before you had any idea I was involved.”
“Wow. You just said something scary as though it was supposed to be reassuring.”
She smiled brightly. “Grandmas can do anything.
”
”
Amanda Hamm (The Art of Friendship (Romance Arts #4))
“
would sit down to a traditional roast and listen to the radio – the BBC comedy Round the Horne
”
”
Esme Young (Behind the Seams: My Life in Creativity, Friendship and Adventure)
“
I want a place with stories and genuine laughter, Dollars on crossbeams, bra’s strung from the rafter
No focus group menu and sanitized spaces,
I’ll settle for friends in old seedy places!
Nick Schlonski
”
”
RB Conch (Seedy Places: Key West Comedies Book 1)
“
That’s okay. There are some people we can’t let go of. As long as we’re holding on to the right ones, I think that’s okay.
”
”
Ali Hidalgo (That Bubbling Feeling (Chasing Feelings Book 1))
“
So interesting that Shore decided there might be a book in it. He set out to find fertile pairs—people who had been together for at least five years and produced interesting work. By the time he was done he had interviewed a comedy duo; two concert pianists who had started performing together because one of them had stage fright; two women who wrote mysteries under the name “Emma Lathen”; and a famous pair of British nutritionists, McCance and Widdowson, who were so tightly linked that they’d dropped their first names from the jackets of their books. “They were very huffy about the idea that dark bread was more nutritious than white bread,” recalled Shore. “They had produced the research that it wasn’t so in 1934—so why didn’t people stop fooling around with the idea?” Just about every work couple that Shore called were intrigued enough by their own relationships to want to talk about them. The only exceptions were “a mean pair of physicists” and, after flirting with participating, the British ice dancers Torvill and Dean. Among those who agreed to sit down with Miles Shore were Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman.
”
”
Michael Lewis (The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds)
“
What if you do the banana peel slip and tumble like a comedy superstar? But hold your hats, my intrepid spirit; what if you unleash the power of those magical wings and soar like a dazzling phoenix? Embrace the slapstick mishaps, for they're just part of the comedy show leading to your grand finale! So, let's unleash your wit and fly into the unknown, where laughter and greatness await your sensational performance!
”
”
lifeispositive.com
“
The Severed Nose. What would you do if you came home one evening and found a severed nose lying on a plate on your dining room table? Disposal. Frank, a self-proclaimed scumbag, is hired to murder an old man...but the old bastard just won't DIE!!! Elrod McBugle on the Loose. A comedy for kids (and adults who were warped as kids). Out of Whack. A coming-of-age comedy about love, friendship, and the realization that trying to yank somebody's panties off in a passionate manner can only lead to wedgies. How to Rescue a Dead Princess. A ridiculous spoof of fantasy novels. Lots and lots and lots of jokes, but I'm willing to admit that it perhaps tries a bit too
”
”
Jeff Strand (Cyclops Road)
“
These people, they were different to anyone I’d met. They’d offered their friendship, their trust, without a second thought. I’d always been wary about new people in my life. That same old barrier I put up to protect myself. I didn’t let anyone close enough to be able to hurt me. My father had left, as though I was as insubstantial as air. As a child, I’d struggled to come to terms with it. He’d been there every single day, and then he wasn’t. So what were we to him? A stopgap until something he determined as better came along? With the Aunt Margot feud, and subsequent alienation of the family, it felt as though people abandoned us like we were yesterday’s newspaper. Could I fall into friendships with these girls, and then leave? Maybe it was time for me to stop worrying about anything other than living in the moment. I was missing out on so much, standing on the edge of life, waiting for something that might never happen.
”
”
Rebecca Raisin (Secrets At Maple Syrup Farm: The perfect cosy small-town romance to fall in love with this autumn! Perfect for fans of Laurie Gilmore.)
“
I feel weird and not at all like myself, like Stefan Salvatore when he gets the taste for human blood after 150 years.
”
”
Chloe Seager (Friendship Fails of Emma Nash)
“
As it turns out, not being distracted by constant Snapchats from Steph means I’m actually getting lots of stuff done. I bet having a fight with her best mate is how Coco Chanel got started.
”
”
Chloe Seager (Friendship Fails of Emma Nash)
“
The influence of the mid-to-late-Sixties English counterculture is clearer in The Beatles’ music than in that of any of their rivals. This arose from a conflux of links, beginning with their introduction by Brian Epstein to the film director Richard Lester, continuing with McCartney’s friendships with Miles and John Dunbar, and culminating in the meeting of Lennon and Yoko Ono. Through Lester and his associates - who included The Beatles’ comedy heroes Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers - the group’s consciousness around the time of Sgt. Pepper was permeated by the anarchic English fringe theatre, with its penchant for Empire burlesque (e.g., The Alberts, Ivor Cutler, Milligan and Antrobus’s The Bed Sitting Room). This atmosphere mingled with contemporary strains from English Pop Art and Beat poetry; the ‘happenings’ and experimental drama of The People Show, Peter Brook’s company, and Julian Beck’s Living Theatre; the improvised performances of AMM and what later became the Scratch Orchestra; the avant-garde Euro-cinema of Fellini and Antonioni; and the satire at Peter Cook’s Establishment club and in his TV show with Dudley Moore, Not Only . . . But Also (in which Lennon twice appeared). From the cultural watershed of 1965-6 onwards, The Beatles’ American heroes of the rock-and-roll Fifties gave way to a kaleidoscopic mélange of local influences from the English fringe arts and the Anglo-European counterculture as well as from English folk music and music-hall.
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Ian MacDonald (Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties)