Counter Quotes

Fine! I'll throw on some clothes. Turn around. I'm in my pj's" "I'm a guy. That's like asking a kid not to glance at the candy counter.

The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.

I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.

Sure I do,” countered Lila cheerfully. “There’s Dull London, Kell London, Creepy London, and Dead London,” she recited, ticking them off on her fingers. “See? I’m a fast learner.

It was brave," countered Issa. "It was rare. It was love, and it was beautiful.

Feeding a crowd?' the woman behind the counter asked. Yes, ma'am ,' Fang said sweetly. Yeah, him and all his split personalities, I thought.

If we were teenagers, I could kiss you. But I’m on a platform behind a counter wearing a name tag and we’re too old to be young.

It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. For politeness is like a counter--an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy.

Time moves in one direction, memory another. We are that strange species that constructs artifacts intended to counter the natural flow of forgetting.

You two are too cute,” the counter girl said, setting two cups piled with whipped cream on the counter. She had a sort of lopsided, open smile that made me think she laughed a lot. “Seriously. How long have you been going out?” Sam let go of my hands to get his wallet and took out some bills. “Six years.” I wrinkled my nose to cover a laugh. Of course he would count the time that we’d been two entirely different species. Whoa.” Counter girl nodded appreciatively. “That’s pretty amazing for a couple your age." Sam handed me my hot chocolate and didn’t answer. But his yellow eyes gazed at me possessively—I wondered if he realized that the way he looked at me was far more intimate than copping a feel could ever be. I crouched to look at the almond bark on the bottom shelf in the counter. I wasn’t quite bold enough to look at either of them when I admitted, “Well, it was love at first sight.” The girl sighed. “That is just so romantic. Do me a favor, and don’t you two ever change. The world needs more love at first sight.

...you expect me to fall on my back with my legs spread." "Not necessarily. ... You can fall on your hands and knees if you prefer. Or against the wall. Or on the kitchen counter. I suppose I might let you be on top, if you make it worth my while.

A dozen more questions occurred to me. Not to mention twenty-two possible solutions to each one, sixteen resulting hypotheses and counter-theorems, eight abstract speculations, a quadrilateral equation, two axioms, and a limerick. That's raw intelligence for you.

What's so funny?" Bella mumbled. "I got food in her hair," I told her, chortling again. "I'm not going to forget this, dog," Rosalie hissed. "S'not so hard to erase a blond's memory," I countered. "Just blow in her ear." Get some new jokes, "Rosalie snapped.

Perhaps our greatest distinction as a species is our capacity, unique among animals, to make counter-evolutionary choices.

There were not so many physical threats that could not be countered with a decent hammer.

I trailed off. Patch leaned lazily against the counter. Dark hair flipped out from under his ball cap. A smile tugged at his mouth. My thoughts dissolved and just like that, a new thought broke the surface of my mind. I wanted to kiss him. Right now.

You should know better.ʺ ʺIʹve never known better,ʺ he countered. ʺYou should know that.

The vanity of others runs counter to our taste only when it runs counter to our vanity.

Mad Eye' Moody on the Avada Kedavra curse: "Not nice," he said calmly. "Not pleasant. And there's no counter curse. There's no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and he's sitting right in front of me.

keep looking at me like that," he warned, leaning casually into the counter and sipping his coffee. "see what happens." "i'm going to lose my job over you." "i'd give you another one." i snorted. "as what? your sex slave?" "what a provocative suggestion. let's discuss.

In their figurative game of chess, Anthony Rawlings had Claire in check. Every move she made, he countered.

The Second Rule is that the greatest harm can result from the best intentions. It sounds a paradox, but kindness and good intentions can be an insidious path to destruction. Sometimes doing what seems right is wrong, and can cause harm. The only counter to it is knowledge, wisdom, forethought, and understanding the First Rule. Even then, that is not always enough.

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.

How dare you touch my cookies, you bastard!” Jason said in utter disgust before popping the cookie into his mouth and heading back to his house. “Damn those looked good, too,” Brad grumbled. Haley sighed. “Don’t worry I have a second plate on my counter.” The words were barely out of her mouth when Jason abruptly changed course and headed towards her house. “Well, there was,” she said, watching Jason walk into her house like he owned it. A minute later he walked out of her house, carrying both plates and the gallon of milk she had in her fridge. He headed back to his house, but not before he glared at Brad. “You cookie thieving bastard,” they heard him mutter. Brad rolled his eyes, chuckling. “And people wonder how I lost weight rooming with him in college.

Finally, in October 1945, a man with swampy eyes, feathers of hair, and a clean-shaven face walked into the shop. He approached the counter. "Is there someone here by the name of Leisel Meminger?" "Yes, she's in the back," said Alex. He was hopeful, but he wanted to be sure. "May I ask who is calling on her?" Leisel came out. They hugged and cried and fell to the floor.

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth--certainly the machine will wear out… but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.

I know how you feel," I said. "You run into something you totally don't get, and it's scary as hell. But once you learn something about it, it gets easier to handle. Knowledge counters fear. It always has.

When are you putting me down?" he counters, no longer amused. "I mean, I've got an excellent view of your ass from here, but if you don't mind me staring -" I drop him without thinking. "Goddammit, Juliette - what the hell -" "How's the view from down there?" I stand over his splayed body, arms crossed over my chest. "I hate you.

Rose never would have done anything like that,' he countered. He paused to reconsider, and I could've sworn there was a hint of a smile there. 'Well at least not in such a public setting.'- Dimitri Belikov

Oh, my god!" I said, throwing my hands over my eyes and hurtling my body against the counter. "What?" "You're naked." "I'm not naked." "I'm blind." "You're not blind. I'm wearing pants." "Oh." That was embarrassing.

A group of people shouldered their way up to the bar counter at Neil's back, pushing him into Andrew. Andrew didn't budge beneath his weight. He was something solid to lean against, something violent and fierce and unmoving. Neil couldn't remember what it felt like to have someone hold him up. It was terrifying and liberating all at once. His life was out of his control now; he was giving it to Andrew and hoping Andrew would keep it safe.

Rose!" I looked to my right and saw Adrian cutting across the lawn toward me, oblivious to the slush's effects on his designer shoes. "Did you just call me 'Rose'?" I asked. "And not 'little dhampir'? I don't think that's ever happened." "It happens all the time," he countered, catching up to me.

I scowled and stabbed begrudginly at the stack before scooping up a bite with my fork, but it toppled over and plopped into my lap. I groaned and banged my head on the counter. Mom frowned, 'You have to be smarter than the pancakes, Ellie.

Housework is a treadmill from futility to oblivion with stop-offs at tedium and counter productivity.

The early women rise before I do. Their lamps splinter the gloom of the kitchens. They chatter in whispers as they brew tea for the cooks. Windows are open to counter the heat of the ovens. Outside, the sky is as black as my soul.

The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato. Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

Mrs. Spence picks up a roll of toilet paper from the counter and scrunches her nose. “Ask Caymen about that,” Xander says. Great, now I have to explain to his mother about my vandalism? “Your son called me with a toilet paper emergency. I rushed right over.” She looks confused so Xander says, “She’s kidding, Mom.

The 1st day, I stood in the kitchen leaning against the counter watching Annie feed the cats, and I knew I wanted to do that forever.

Let's go. We're supposed to rendezvous with the Captain at the lake. Oh, and try to keep the noise down. You sound like a panicked moose crashing through the woods," the smarter man chided. "Oh yeah. Like you could hear me over your specially trained 'woodland-animal footsteps,'" Rough Voice countered. "It was like listening to two deer humping each other.

I stare at him. "You can't risk not winning. Not because of me." Sean doesn't lift his eyes from the counter. "We make our move when you make yours. You on the inside, me on the outside. Corr can come from the middle of the pack; he's done it before. It's one side you won't have to worry about." I say, "I will not be your weakness, Sean Kendrick." Now he looks at me. He says, very softly, "It's late for that, Puck.

Counter Girl (in candy shop): You two are cute. Seriously. How long have you been going out? Sam: Six years.

An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence. This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment.

The point is, when you ask, “What do you want for dinner?” we’re thinking about screwing you on the kitchen counter. When you’re telling us about the sappy film you watched with your girlfriends last week, we’re thinking about the porno we saw on cable last night. When you show us the designer shoes you bought on sale, we’re thinking how nice they would look on our shoulders. I just thought you’d want to know. Don’t shoot the messenger

Love you,” Xavier said just before he drifted back to sleep. “Love you more,” I said playfully. “Not a chance,” Xavier said, fully awake now. “I’m bigger, I can contain more love.” “I’m smaller, therefore my love particles are more compressed, which means I can fit more in.” Xavier laughed. “That argument makes no sense. Overruled.” “I’m just basing it on how much I miss you when you’re not around,” I countered. “How can you possibly know how much I miss you?” he said. “Have you got some sort of built-in miss-o-meter that can give us a reading?” “I’m a girl; of course I have a built-in miss-o-meter.

I am not a person of opinions because I feel the counter arguments too strongly.

Aubrey, crouching on a nearby counter, watched me with squinty eyes, apparently pondering why anyone would willingly immerse themselves in water ever, let alone for extended periods of time.

I can’t go into detail, but it’s why I went to the special meeting at the Pentagon.

He trapped my hand against his chest and yanked my sleeve down past my wrist, covering my hand with it. Just as quickly, he did the same thing with the other sleeve. He held my shirt by the cuffs, my hands captured. My mouth opened in protest. Reeling me closer, he didn’t stop until I was directly in front of him. Suddenly he lifted me onto the counter. My face was level with his. He fixed me with a dark, inviting smile. And that’s when I realized this moment had been dancing around the edge of my fantasies for several days now. "Take off your hat," I said, the words tumbling out before I could stop them. He slid it around, the brim facing backward. I scooted to the edge of the counter, my legs dangling one on either side of him. Something inside of me was telling me to stop—but I swept that voice to the far back of my mind. He spread his hands on the counter, just outside my hips. Tilting his head to one side, he moved closer. His scent, which was all damp dark earth, overwhelmed me. I inhaled two sharp breaths. No. This wasn’t right. Not this, not with Patch. He was frightening. In a good way, yes. But also in a bad way. A very bad way. "You should go," I breathed. "You should definitely go." "Go here?" His mouth was on my shoulder. "Or here?" It moved up my neck. My brain couldn’t process one logical thought. Patch’s mouth was roaming north, up over my jaw, gently sucking at my skin... "My legs are falling asleep," I blurted. It wasn’t a total lie. I was experiencing tingling sensations all through my body, legs included. "I could solve that." Patch’s hands closed on my hips.

When grief impounds our thinking and eats our brains, it seeps through all the cracks of our daily living. Only the soothing wind of comforting words may counter the withering twilight and the frostiness of darkness. ("All the words he always wanted to tell her.")

Words are not enough. Not mine, cut off at the throat before they breathe. Never forming, broken and swallowed, tossed into the void before they are heard. It would be easy to follow, fall to my knees, prostrate before the deli counter. Sweep the shelves clear, scatter the tins, pound the cakes to powder. Supermarket isles stretching out in macabre displays. Christmas madness, sad songs and mistletoe, packed car parks, rotten leaves banked up in corners. Forgotten reminders of summer before the storm. Never trust a promise, they take prisoners and wishes never come true. Fairy stories can have grim endings and I don’t know how I will face the world without you.

They weren’t bad books,” Phin countered patiently. “They were books that you didn’t enjoy. It’s not the same thing at all. The only bad books are books that are so badly written that no one will publish them. Any book that has been published is going to be a ‘good book’ for someone.

You missed breakfast," Jason announced as Trevor stepped into the large busy kitchen filled with Bradfords and food. "That's fine. I'm not really hungry," he said, barely aware or caring that all activity in the busy kitchen suddenly stopped as every Bradford in the room, even one year old Cole stopped trying to climb onto the counter to get at the large platter of cookies his mother made to stare at him in disbelief.

Jenks enthusiastically leaned against the counter and opened the box. Bypassing the plastic knife, he broke off about a third of it and took a huge bite. Ivy watched, appalled, and I shrugged. His mouth moving as he hummed, Jenks finished unpacking the sacks. I was half dead, Ivy was whoring herself to keep me safe, but Jenks was okay as long as he had chocolate.

It is tempting when looking at the life of anyone who has committed suicide to read into the decision to die a vastly complex web of reasons; and, of course, such complexity is warranted. No one illness or event causes suicide; and certainly no one knows all, or perhaps even most, of the motivations behind the killing of the self. But psychopathology is almost always there, and its deadliness is fierce. Love, success, and friendship are not always enough to counter the pain and destructiveness of severe mental illness

…we all lie to ourselves; we tell our own selves more lies than we ever do other people.

Hamish smiled and rubbed his hands together. "Sure we can. What do you say? Pigs in a Blanket?" He leaned over the cool counter and raised his eyebrows at Gabrielle. "The only way I'll get under a blanket with you is if both of us are on fire," she told him.

Where in the bloody hell did that come from?" asks the other person behind the counter. Or more precisely, on top of the counter, where her ridiculously attractive, English-accented boyfriend is perched. He's the other thing I like about Anna. Wherever she goes, he follows. He nods toward the baby wipe. "What else are you carrying in your pockets? Dust rags? Furniture polish?" "Watch it," she says. "Or I'll scrub your arms, Étienne." He grins. "As long as you do it in private.

If I were a poet, that’s what I’d write about. People who worked in the middle of the night. Men who loaded trains, emergency room nurses with their gentle hands. Night clerks in hotels, cabdrivers on graveyard, waitresses in all-night coffee shops. They knew the world, how precious it was when a person remembered your name, the comfort of a rhetorical question, “How’s it going, how’s the kids?” They knew how long the night was. They knew the sound life made as it left. It rattled, like a slamming screen door in the wind. Night workers lived without illusions, they wiped dreams off counters, they loaded freight. They headed back to the airport for one last fare.

A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul.

Ten thousand dollars." I hear Lily's gasp of disbelief behind me. Oh fuck. "Fifteen" Twenty," counters Christian quietly. Twenty-five," the stranger says. "One hundred thousand dollars," he says his voice ringing clear and loud through the marquee. "What the fuck?" Lily hisses audibly behind me, and a general gasp of dismay and amusement ripple through the crowd.

i can’t help thinking that ‘getting a life’ is something only a complete idiot could believe. like you can just drive to a store and get a life. see it in its shiny box and look inside the plastic window and catch a glimpse of yourself in a new life and say, ‘wow, i look much happier - i think this is the life i need to get!’ take it to the counter, ring it up, put it on your credit card. if getting a life was that easy, we’d be one blissed-out race. but we’re not. so it’s like, mom, your life isn’t out there waiting, so don’t think all you have to do is find it and get it. no, your life is right here. and, yeah, it sucks. lives usually do. so if you want things to change, you don’t need to get a life. you need to get off your ass.

First,” he said, coming behind me and placing his hands on the counter, just outside of mine, “choose your tomato.” He dipped his head so his mouth was at my ear. His breath was warm, tickling my skin. “Good. Now pick up the knife.” “Does the chef always stand this close?” I asked, not sure if I liked or feared the flutter his closeness caused inside me. “When he’s revealing culinary secrets, yes.

As humanity perfects itself, man becomes degraded. When everything is reduced to the mere counter-balancing of economic interests, what room will there be for virtue? When Nature has been so subjugated that she has lost all her original forms, where will that leave the plastic arts? And so on. In the mean time, things are going to get very murky.

Clarissa had a theory in those days - they had heaps of theories, always theories, as young people have. It was to explain the feeling they had of dissatisfaction; not knowing people; not being known. For how could they know each other? You met every day; then not for six months, or years. It was unsatisfactory, they agreed, how little one knew people. But she said, sitting on the bus going up Shaftesbury Avenue, she felt herself everywhere; not 'here, here, here'; and she tapped the back of the seat; but everywhere. She waved her hand, going up Shaftesbury Avenue. She was all that. So that to know her, or any one, one must seek out the people who completed them; even the places. Odd affinities she had with people she had never spoke to, some women in the street, some man behind a counter - even trees, or barns. It ended in a transcendental theory which, with her horror of death, allowed her to believe, or say that she believed (for all her scepticism), that since our apparitions, the part of us which appears, are so momentary compared with the other, the unseen part of us, which spreads wide, the unseen might survive, be recovered somehow attached to this person or that, or even haunting certain places, after death. Perhaps - perhaps.

Many partners of addicts have told me they feel bad about themselves for staying in the relationship because of the betrayal they’ve experienced. They imagine that the people who know their past judge them to be stupid for staying with the person who’s caused them so much pain. I often counter this thinking, explaining that leaving may seem quick and easy because they can pretend they’re okay and the problem has disappeared. However, if you leave your relationship, you’ll be stuck with your pain and sorrow without the person you loved to help you sort it out. Why is this true? Because even though it feels as if your pain comes from your partner, it’s actually coming from inside you.

Ohhh, a lovers’ quarrel!” Ro clapped her hands. “Those are my favorite. Anyone have snacks? I feel like we should have snacks for this.” “That’s not what this is,” Sophie told her. “We’re not...never mind.” Ro grinned, flashing pointed teeth. “If you say so.” “Fosters not ready to face her feelings,” Keefe stage-whispered. “I’m ready to strangle you,” Sophie countered.

I know I hated magic for a reason," Janco said. "Congratulations. This is the first time you've had a VALID reason to hate something," Ari countered. "Remember your campaign against sand?" "Sand! Horrid little stuff. Gets everywhere. I had a perfectly good argue--" "Janco." Ari's voice rumbled deep in his throat. In a heartbeat, Janco switched gears. "Well, this blood magic sounds worse than sand.

Okay, so here’s our plan for tonight. First we’ll bone down to take the edge off. Then we’ll order a pizza and replenish our energy, and after that, round two. Sound good?” … “Have you considered seeing a psychiatrist about your delusions?” I ask politely. “Because, sweetie, there's no chance in hell of us boning tonight.” “Fine. How about we go down on each other instead?” “How about you leave?” “Counter offer - I stay and we dry hump.

To be changed by ideas was pure pleasure. But to learn ideas that ran counter to values and beliefs learned at home was to place oneself at risk, to enter the danger zone. Home was the place where I was forced to conform to someone else’s image of who and what I should be. School was the place where I could forget that self and, through ideas, reinvent myself.

Da. This is going very well already." Thomas barked out a laugh. "There are seven of us against the Red King and his thirteen most powerful nobles, and it's going well?" Mouse sneezed. "Eight," Thomas corrected himself. He rolled his eyes and said, "And the psycho death faerie makes it nine." "It is like movie," Sanya said, nodding. "Dibs on Legolas." "Are you kidding?" Thomas said. "I'm obviously Legolas. You're . . ." He squinted thoughtfully at Sanya and then at Martin. "Well. He's Boromir and you're clearly Aragorn." "Martin is so dour, he is more like Gimli." Sanya pointed at Susan. "Her sword is much more like Aragorn's." "Aragorn wishes he looked that good," countered Thomas. "What about Karrin?" Sanya asked. "What--for Gimli?" Thomas mused. "She is fairly--" "Finish that sentence, Raith, and we throw down," said Murphy in a calm, level voice. "Tough," Thomas said, his expression aggrieved. "I was going to say 'tough.' " As the discussion went on--with Molly's sponsorship, Mouse was lobbying to claim Gimli on the basis of being the shortest, the stoutest, and the hairiest-- "Sanya," I said. "Who did I get cast as?" "Sam," Sanya said. I blinked at him. "Not . . . Oh, for crying out loud, it was perfectly obvious who I should have been." Sanya shrugged. "It was no contest. They gave Gandalf to your godmother. You got Sam.

If we don’t counter the onslaught of the insidious triviality of transgression in our daily environment and if we gradually lose grip on the pervading taint of apathy and disrespect, we need irrevocably restructure our thinking and adjust the mechanism of our action. Taking everything for granted and accepting anything uncontested, might generate disjunction, arouse extreme heartbreak and, finally, turn our living into a scourge. ("Even if the world goes down, my mobile will save me" turn into )

I want pancakes.” “What? Right now?” “No. For breakfast.” “Oh.” He yawned. “You’d better get up early then.” “Me? I’m not going to make them.” “Yeah?” His sleepy voice carried mock sympathy. “Who’s going to make them for you then?” “You are.” “Am I? You think I’m going to make you pancakes? Is that how you think it’s going to be?" "You’re so good at,” I whined. “Besides, if you do, I’ll sit on the counter in a short robe while you cook.” His soft laughter segued into another yawn. “Oh. Well then.” He kissed my ear again. “Maybe I’ll make you pancakes.

I'm so disappointed, Ichigo, so very disappointed. Sadly, your sword exhibits only fear. When you counter, it's because you fear being killed. When you attack, you fear killing. And when you protect someone, you fear you could let them die. At this point, the only thing your sword speaks is sensless fright, and that's not good. What you don't need in battle is fear. Nothing will come of it. When you counter, you don't let them cut you. When you protect someone, you don't let them die. And when you attack, you kill." -Kisuke Urahara (Bleach)

I told him the story of the day I'd been mending pottery with one of the maids in the kitchen at Keramzin, waiting for him to return from one of the hunting trips that had taken him from home more and more frequently. I'd been fifteen, standing at the counter, vainly trying to glue together the jagged pieces of a blue cup. When I saw him crossing the fields, I ran to the doorway and waved. He caught sight of me and broke into a jog. I had crossed the yard to him slowly, watching him draw closer, baffled by the way my heart was skittering around in my chest. Then he'd picked me up and swung me in a circle, and I'd clung to him, breathing in his sweet, familiar smell, shocked by how much I'd missed him. Dimly, I'd been aware that I still had a shard of that blue cup in my hand, that it was digging into my palm, but I didn't want to let go. When he finally set me down and ambled off into the kitchen to find his lunch, I had stood there, my palm dripping in blood, my head still spinning, knowing that everything had changed. Ana Kuya had scolded me for getting blood on the clean kitchen floor. She'd bandaged my hand and told me it would heal. But I knew it would just go on hurting.

I don't know what's going on with you,' the man says from across the counter, 'but I'm not taking your money.' He blows into a straw and pinches both ends shut. I shake my head and reach back for my wallet. 'No, I'll pay.' He winds the straw tighter and tighter. 'I'm serious. It was only a milkshake. And like I said, I don't know what's going on, and I don't know how I can help, but something's clearly gone wrong in your life, so I want you to keep your money.' His eyes search mine, and I know he means it. I don't know what to say. Even if the words would come, my throat is so tight it won't let them escape.

There is an anaesthetic of familiarity, a sedative of ordinariness which dulls the senses and hides the wonder of existence. For those of us not gifted in poetry, it is at least worth while from time to time making an effort to shake off the anaesthetic. What is the best way of countering the sluggish habitutation brought about by our gradual crawl from babyhood? We can't actually fly to another planet. But we can recapture that sense of having just tumbled out to life on a new world by looking at our own world in unfamiliar ways.

You think I'm playing at some game? You think iron will keep you safe? Hear my words, manling. Do not mistake me for my mask. You see light dappling on the water and forget the deep, cold dark beneath. Listen. You cannot hurt me. You cannot run or hide. In this I will not be defied. I swear by all the salt in me: if you run counter to my desire, the remainder of your brief mortal span will be an orchestra of misery. I swear by stone and oak and elm: I'll make a game of you. I'll follow you unseen and smother any spark of joy you find. You'll never know a woman's touch, a breath of rest, a moment's peace of mind. And I swear by the night sky and the ever-moving moon: if you lead my master to despair, I will slit you open and splash around like a child in a muddy puddle. I'll string a fiddle with your guts and make you play it while I dance. You are an educated man. You know there are no such things as demons. There is only my kind. You are not wise enough to fear me as I should be feared. You do not know the first note of the music that moves me. -Bast

Having a dissenting opinion on movies, music, or clothes, or owning clever or obscure possessions, is the way middle-class people fight one another for status...Hipsters, then, are the direct result of this cycle of indie, authentic, obscure, ironic, clever consummerism...It is ironic in the sense the very act of trying to run counter to the culture is what creates the next wave of culture people will in turn attempt to counter.

We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived. Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn't matter. . . Recording the details of our lives is a stance against bombs with their mass ability to kill, against too much speed and efficiency. A writer must say yes to life, to all of life: the water glasses, the Kemp's half-and-half, the ketchup on the counter. It is not a writer's task to say, "It is dumb to live in a small town or to eat in a café when you can eat macrobiotic at home." Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist – the real truth of who we are: several pounds overweight, the gray, cold street outside, the Christmas tinsel in the showcase, the Jewish writer in the orange booth across from her blond friend who has black children. We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips so there can be no more noes in the world, noes that invalidate life and stop these details from continuing.

Why don't we talk about your love life? Clary countered. "What about you and Alec?" "Alec refuses to acknowledge that we have a relationship, and so I refuse to acknowledge him. He sent me a fire message asking for a favor the other day. It was addressed to 'Warlock Bane' as if I were a perfect stranger. He's still hung up on Jace, I think, though that relationship will never go anywhere. A problem I imagine you know nothing about...

The children came to a perfume shop. In the show window was a large jar of freckle salve, and beside the jar was a sign, which read: DO YOU SUFFER FROM FRECKLES? 'What does the sign say?' ask Pippi. She couldn’t read very well because she didn’t want to go to school as other children did. 'It says, "Do you suffer from freckles?"' said Annika. 'Does it indeed?' said Pippi thoughtfully. 'Well, a civil question deserves a civil answer. Let’s go in.' She opened the door and entered the shop, closely followed by Tommy and Annika. An elderly lady stood back of the counter. Pippi went right up to her. 'No!' she said decidedly. 'What is it you want?' asked the lady. 'No,' said Pippi once more. 'I don’t understand what you mean,' said the lady. 'No, I don’t suffer from freckles,' said Pippi. Then the lady understood, but she took one look at Pippi and burst out, 'But, my dear child, your whole face is covered with freckles!' 'I know it,' said Pippi, 'but I don’t suffer from them. I love them. Good morning.' She turned to leave, but when she got to the door she looked back and cried, 'But if you should happen to get in any salve that gives people more freckles, then you can send me seven or eight jars.

All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously.” At the time Switters had disputed her assertion. Even at seventeen, he was aware that depression could have chemical causes. “The key word here is roots,” Maestra had countered. “The roots of depression. For most people, self-awareness and self-pity blossom simultaneously in early adolescence. It's about that time that we start viewing the world as something other than a whoop-de-doo playground, we start to experience personally how threatening it can be, how cruel and unjust. At the very moment when we become, for the first time, both introspective and socially conscientious, we receive the bad news that the world, by and large, doesn't give a rat's ass. Even an old tomato like me can recall how painful, scary, and disillusioning that realization was. So, there's a tendency, then, to slip into rage and self-pity, which if indulged, can fester into bouts of depression.” “Yeah but Maestra—” “Don't interrupt. Now, unless someone stronger and wiser—a friend, a parent, a novelist, filmmaker, teacher, or musician—can josh us out of it, can elevate us and show us how petty and pompous and monumentally useless it is to take ourselves so seriously, then depression can become a habit, which, in tern, can produce a neurological imprint. Are you with me? Gradually, our brain chemistry becomes conditioned to react to negative stimuli in a particular, predictable way. One thing'll go wrong and it'll automatically switch on its blender and mix us that black cocktail, the ol’ doomsday daiquiri, and before we know it, we’re soused to the gills from the inside out. Once depression has become electrochemically integrated, it can be extremely difficult to philosophically or psychologically override it; by then it's playing by physical rules, a whole different ball game. That's why, Switters my dearest, every time you've shown signs of feeling sorry for yourself, I've played my blues records really loud or read to you from The Horse’s Mouth. And that’s why when you’ve exhibited the slightest tendency toward self-importance, I’ve reminded you that you and me— you and I: excuse me—may be every bit as important as the President or the pope or the biggest prime-time icon in Hollywood, but none of us is much more than a pimple on the ass-end of creation, so let’s not get carried away with ourselves. Preventive medicine, boy. It’s preventive medicine.” “But what about self-esteem?” “Heh! Self-esteem is for sissies. Accept that you’re a pimple and try to keep a lively sense of humor about it. That way lies grace—and maybe even glory.

You want me to level, here it is: I need you. I need you because I love you. Three months without you will be hell. But even if we weren’t together, I would still need you. You’re a good fighter, you’ve worked as a bodyguard, and you know magic. We may not have many magic users, but we don’t know if those packs do, and if they hit us with magic, we have no way to counter.” He spread his arms. “But I love you and I don’t want you to be hurt. I’m not going to ask you to come with me. That would be like stepping in front of a moving train and saying, ‘Hey, honey, come stand next to me.’” I hopped off the wall and stood next to him. “Anytime.” He just looked at me. “I’ve never killed a train before. It might be fun to try.” “Are you sure?” “One time I was dying in a cage inside a palace that was flying over a magic jungle. And some idiot went in there, chased the palace down, fought his way through hundreds of rakshasas, and rescued me.” “I remember,” he said. “That’s when I realized you loved me,” I said. “I was in the cage and I heard you roar.

Abby must have been the one who found the safe house, because Townsend didn't like it. "The building across the street is under construction," he snarled as soon as we'd carried our bags inside. "The elevator has key card access, and I've hacked into the surveillance cameras from every system on the block," Abby argued. "We have a three-hundred-sixty-degree visual." "Excellent." Townsend dropped his bag. "Now the circle can see us from every angle." "Don't mind Agent Townsend, girls," Abby told us. "He's a glass-half-empty kind of spy." "Also known as the good kind," he countered. Abby huffed.

Pied Beauty— " Glory be to God for dappled things-- For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings; Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough; And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise Him.

Lieutenant Linh said, “Thank you for this valuable information, it gives us an opportunity to take counter-measures to nullify the American attack! I have here, over a thousand young and inexperienced soldiers who are a bit fearful of the Americans. Our young soldiers are asking questions like, “Will an old carbine bullet kill a big American?” and “Would a bullet actually kill a big black American?” He went on to say, “I reassure them that their bullets will kill Americans if they strike at the right spot!” Later on, he was to say, “Four days later, the Americans came. We watched with heavy hearts as their helicopters endlessly were landing men.

Barrons Books and Baubles had been ransacked! Tables were overturned, books torn from shelves and strewn everywhere, baubles broken. Even my little TV behind the counter had been destroyed. "Barrons?" I called warily. It was night and the lights were on. My illusory Alina had told me more than an hour had passed. Was it the same night, nearly dawn? Or was it the night following our theft attempt? Had Barrons come back from Wales yet? Or was he still there, searching for me? When I‘d been so rudely ripped from reality, who or what had come through those basement doors? I heard footsteps, boots on hardwood, and turned expectantly toward the connecting doors. Barrons was framed in the doorway. His eyes were black ice. He stared at me a moment, raking me from head to toe. "Nice tan, Ms. Lane. So, where the fuck have you been for the past month?

It all matters. That someone turns out the lamp, picks up the windblown wrapper, says hello to the invalid, pays at the unattended lot, listens to the repeated tale, folds the abandoned laundry, plays the game fairly, tells the story honestly, acknowledges help, gives credit, says good night, resists temptation, wipes the counter, waits at the yellow, makes the bed, tips the maid, remembers the illness, congratulates the victor, accepts the consequences, takes a stand, steps up, offers a hand, goes first, goes last, chooses the small portion, teaches the child, tends to the dying, comforts the grieving, removes the splinter, wipes the tear, directs the lost, touches the lonely, is the whole thing. What is most beautiful is least acknowledged. What is worth dying for is barely noticed.

Auri hopped down from the chimney and skipped over to where I stood, her hair streaming behind her. "Hello Kvothe." She took a half-step back. "You reek." I smiled my best smile of the day. "Hello Auri," I said. "You smell like a pretty young girl." "I do," she agreed happily. She stepped sideways a little, then forward again, moving lightly on the balls of her bare feet. "What did you bring me?" she asked. "What did you bring me?" I countered. She grinned. "I have an apple that thinks it is a pear," she said, holding it up. "And a bun that thinks it is a cat. And a lettuce that thinks it is a lettuce." "It's a clever lettuce then." "Hardly," she said with a delicate snort. "Why would anything clever think it was a lettuce?" "Even if it is a lettuce?" I asked. "Especially then," she said. "Bad enough to be a lettuce. How awful to think you are a lettuce too." She shook her head sadly, her hair following the motion as if she were underwater. I unwrapped my bundle. "I brought you some potatoes, half a squash, and a bottle of beer that thinks it is a loaf of bread." "What does the squash think it is?" she asked curiously, looking down at it. She held her hands clasped behind her back "It knows it's a squash," I said. "But it's pretending to be the setting sun." "And the potatoes?" she asked. "They're sleeping," I said. "And cold, I'm afraid." She looked up at me, her eyes gentle. "Don't be afraid," she said, and reached out and rested her fingers on my cheek for the space of a heartbeat, her touch lighter than the stroke of a feather. "I'm here. You're safe.

Well, if you like honesty," Ro said, following him over to Keefe, "it stinks here, too. Everything smells like . . . " "Fresh air?" Sophie guessed. "Awww, my girl keeps getting snarkier and snarkier," Keefe said proudly. "I'm not your girl," Sophie snapped back. "And don't think I'm done being mad at you!" "Ohhh, a lovers' quarrel!" Ro clapped her hands. "Those are my favorite. Anyone have snacks? I feel like we should have snacks for this." "That's not what this is," Sophie told her. "We're not . . . never mind." Ro grinned, flashing pointed teeth. "If you say so." "Foster's not ready to face her feelings," Keefe stage-whispered. "I'm ready to strangle you," Sophie countered.

Granny and Elsa used to watch the evening news together. Now and then Elsa would ask Granny why grown-ups were always doing such idiotic things to each other. Granny usually answered that it was because grown-ups were generally people, and people are generally shits. Elsa countered that grown-ups were also responsible for a lot of good things in between all the idiocy – space exploration, the UN, vaccines and cheese slicers, for instance. Granny then said the real trick of life was that almost no one is entirely a shit and almost no one is entirely not a shit. The hard part of life is keeping as much on the ‘not-a-shit’ side as one can.

Mom: 'I really have to stop doing this. I need to get a life.' I think she's directing this at herself, or the universe, not really at me. Still, I can't help thinking that 'getting a life' is something only a complete idiot could believe. Like you can just drive to a store and get a life. See it in its shiny box and look inside the plastic window and catch a glimpse of yourself in a new life and say, 'Wow, I look much happier - I think this is the life I need to get!" Take it to the counter, ring it up, put it on your credit card. If getting a life was that easy, we'd be one blissed-out race. But we're not. So it's like, Mom, your life isn't out there waiting, so don't think all you have to do is find it and get it. No, your life is right here. And yeah, it sucks. Lives usually do. So if you want things to change, you don't need to get a life. You need to get off your ass.

Tara. I'm a vampire," Pearl said. "Yeah, whatever, and I'm queen of the sea." "Your Marine Majesty, I'm a vampire," Pearl said. Concentrating, she slid her fangs out. "Tara. Tara!" She curled back her lips to expose the points. "See" Tara screamed. "I won't hurt you," Pearl said. Calm down. Sheesh." Tara continued to scream. Pearl considered biting her merely to shut her up. Regrettably that would be counter productive. Studying her nails, she waited for Tara to quit screaming. She noticed that Tara didn't try to exit the car, which was an interesting choice. "You aren't running away," Pearl said. "Duh, it's raining outside," Tara said.

With a new awareness, both painful and humorous, I begin to understand why the saints were rarely married women. I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children. It has to do primarily with distractions. The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls--woman's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life. The problem is not merely one of Woman and Career, Woman and the Home, Woman and Independence. It is more basically: how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel.

Are you really surprised by the endurance of religion? What ideology is likely to be more durable than one that conforms, at every turn, to our powers of wishful thinking? Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter our innate biases and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which we have developed a refined methodology for separating what a person hopes is true from what he has good reason to believe. The methodology isn't perfect, and the history of science is riddled with abject failures of scientific objectivity. But that is just the point-these have been failures of science, discovered and corrected by-what, religion? No, by good science.

Charlotte: "It’s too bad they don’t give out diplomas for what you learn at the mall, because I could graduate with honors in that subject. No really. Since I’ve worked there, I’ve become an expert on all things shopping-related. For example, I can tell you right off who to distrust at the mall: 1) Skinny people who work at Cinnabon. I mean, if they’re not eating the stuff they sell, how good can it be? 2) The salesladies at department store makeup counters. No matter what they tell you, buying all that lip gloss will not make you look like the pouty models in the store posters. 3) And most importantly—my best friend’s boyfriend, Bryant, who showed up at the food court with a mysterious blonde draped on his arm.

The old man spoke of nothing but shoes. He spoke of them with such love and emotion that a woman in our group had crowned him “the shoe poet.” The woman disappeared a day later but the nickname survived. “The shoes always tell the story,” said the shoe poet. “Not always,” I countered. “Yes, always. Your boots, they are expensive, well made. That tells me that you come from a wealthy family. But the style is one made for an older woman. That tells me they probably belonged to your mother. A mother sacrificed her boots for her daughter. That tells me you are loved, my dear. And your mother is not here, so that tells me that you are sad, my dear. The shoes tell the story.” I paused in the center of the frozen road and watched the stubby old cobbler shuffle ahead of me. The shoe poet was right. Mother had sacrificed for me.

[Greens] don't come through the back door the same as other groceries. They don't cower at the bottom of paper bags marked 'Liberty.' They wave over the top. They don't stop to be checked off the receipt. They spill out onto the counter. No going onto shelves with cans in orderly lines like school children waiting for recess. No waiting, sometimes for years beyond the blue sell by date, to be picked up and taken from the shelf. Greens don't stack or stand at attention. They aren't peas to be pushed around. Cans can't contain them. Boxed in they would burst free. Greens are wild. Plunging them into a pot took some doing. Only lobsters fight more. Either way, you have to use your hands. Then, retrieving them requires the longest of my mother's wooden spoons, the one with the burnt end. Swept onto a plate like the seaweed after a storm, greens sit tall, dark, and proud.

She said no, okay?" All the eyes that had been on me suddenly jerked toward Adrian. He leaned forward, fixing his gaze on Sonya and Dimitri, and I saw something in those pretty eyes I'd never seen before: anger. They were like emerald fire. "How many times does she have to refuse?" Adrian demanded. "If she doesn't want to, then that's all there's to it. This has nothing to do with her. This is our science project. She's here to protect Jill and has plenty to do there. So stop harassing her already!"" "Harassing is kind of a strong word," Dimitri said, calm in the face of Adrian's outburst. "Not when you keep pushing someone who wants to be left alone," countered Adrian. He shot me a concerned look before fixing his anger back on Sonya and Dimitri. "Stop ganging up on her." Sonya glanced uncertainly between us. She looked legitimately hurt. As astute as she was, I don't think she'd realized how much this bothered me. "Adrian... Sydney... we aren't trying to upset anyone. We just really want to get to the bottom of this. I thought all of you did too. Sydney's always been so supportive. "It doesn't matter," growled Adrian. "Take Eddie's blood. Take Belikov's blood. Take your own for all I care. But if she doesn't want to give hers, then that's all there is to it. She said no. This conversation is done.

Diana gave her a measured look and ducked down behind the counter. She came up a moment later with a sword about the length of Clary's forearm. "What do you think of this?" Clary stared at the weapon. It was undoubtedly beautiful. The cross-guard, grip and pommel were gold chased with obsidian, the blade a silver so dark it was nearly black. "It's a shortsword. You might want to look at the other side," said Diana, and she flipped the sword over. On the opposite side of the blade, down the center ridge, ran a pattern of black stars. "Oh." Clary's heart thumped painfully; she took a step away and nearly bumped into Jace, who had come up behind her, frowning. "That's a Morgenstern sword." "Yes, it is." The sword-seller's eyes were shrewd. "Long ago the Morgensterns commissioned two blades from Wayland the Smith-a matched set. You have doubtless seen the the larger sword already, for Valentine Morgenstern carried it, and now his son carries it after him." "You know who we are," Jace said. It wasn't a question. "Who Clary is." "The Shadowhunter world is small," said Diana, and she looked from one of them to the other. "I'm on the Council. I've seen you give testimony, Valentine's daughter." Clary looked doubtfully at the blade. "I've seen two men bear the larger version of that sword, and I hated them both. There are no Morgensterns in this world now who are dedicated to anything but evil." Jace said, "There's you." "I'll give it to you," said Diana. "You're right that people hate the Morgensterns; it's not the sort of item I could sell elsewhere. Or would necessarily want to. It should go to good hands." "I don't want it," Clary said. "If you flinch from it, you give it power over you," said Diana. "Take it, and cut your brother's throat with it, and reclaim the honor of your blood.