Decent Dressing Quotes

Charles could care less about shoes - and he suspected he wasn't alone among men in his feelings. Shoe, no shoe, he didn't care. Naked was good, though over the past couple of weeks he was beginning to think that dressed in his clothes was a decent second best.

What would you do if you had to make a run for it?’ His voice is husky as he stares, mesmerized, at the unraveling thread. ‘I’d grab my shoes and run.’ ‘Dressed like this? In front of lawless men?’ His eyes drift up to my midriff. ‘If you’re worried about pervs breaking into the house, it’s not going to make a difference whether I’m in this outfit or in baggy jeans and a sweatshirt. Either they’re decent human beings or they’re not. Their actions are on them.’ ‘It’ll be tough for them to take any action while I’m pummeling their faces. Disrespect will not be tolerated.’ I half smile at him. ‘Because you’re all about respect.’ He sighs as if a little disgusted with himself. ‘Lately, I seem to be all about you.

There will be days that you don’t want to dress up and if you have some decent looking athletic wear, you can give the illusion that you’ve just been working out, as opposed to giving up on life.

But her attention was on the prince across from her, who seemed utterly ignored by his father and his own court, shoved down near the end with her and Aedion. He ate so beautifully, she thought, watching him cut into his roast chicken. Not a drop moved out of place, not a scrap fell on the table. She had decent manners, while Aedion was hopeless, his plate littered with bones and crumbs scattered everywhere, even some on her own dress. She’d kicked him for it, but his attention was too focused on the royals down the table. So both she and the Crown Prince were to be ignored, then. She looked at the boy again, who was around her age, she supposed. His skin was from the winter, his blue-black hair neatly trimmed; his sapphire eyes lifted from his plate to meet hers. “You eat like a fine lady,” she told him. His lips thinned and color stained his ivory cheeks. Across from her, Quinn, her uncle’s Captain of the Guard, choked on his water. The prince glanced at his father—still busy with her uncle—before replying. Not for approval, but in fear. “I eat like a prince,” Dorian said quietly. “You do not need to cut your bread with a fork and knife,” she said. A faint pounding started in her head, followed by a flickering warmth, but she ignored it. The hall was hot, as they’d shut all the windows for some reason. “Here in the North,” she went on as the prince’s knife and fork remained where they were on his dinner roll, “you need not be so formal. We don’t put on airs.” Hen, one of Quinn’s men, coughed pointedly from a few seats down. She could almost hear him saying, Says the little lady with her hair pressed into careful curls and wearing her new dress that she threatened to skin us over if we got dirty. She gave Hen an equally pointed look, then returned her attention to the foreign prince. He’d already looked down at his food again, as if he expected to be neglected for the rest of the night. And he looked lonely enough that she said, “If you like, you could be my friend.” Not one of the men around them said anything, or coughed. Dorian lifted his chin. “I have a friend. He is to be Lord of Anielle someday, and the fiercest warrior in the land.

Standing there, watching them, it occurred to me that when Hitler watched Joe and the boys fight their way back from the rear of the field to sweep ahead of Italy and Germany seventy-five years ago, he saw, but did not recognize, heralds of his doom. He could not have known that one day hundreds of thousands of boys just like them, boys who shared their essential natures—decent and unassuming, not privileged or favored by anything in particular, just loyal, committed, and perseverant—would return to Germany dressed in olive drab, hunting him down.

I don't hurt other people intentionally. I'm not a bad person. I have a decent job. So I like to put on high heels and a little dress. Does that make me a monster? -Edgar Saturnino, 24 (Lamentations 5:23)

No one has really seen me in years.” Blake looked at the sky. “Sometimes I wonder how they know I don’t have a home. I try to dress decently.” He waved a hand at his jeans and army jacket. “I think it just seeps out of me. I’m not the same as everyone else.” He shook his head, pulling himself out of his despair, and looked at Livia again. “But when you saw me for the first time, you actually saw me. You saw me, and then you smiled like I was just the same as everyone else on that platform.

O: You’re quite a writer. You’ve a gift for language, you’re a deft hand at plotting, and your books seem to have an enormous amount of attention to detail put into them. You’re so good you could write anything. Why write fantasy? Pratchett: I had a decent lunch, and I’m feeling quite amiable. That’s why you’re still alive. I think you’d have to explain to me why you’ve asked that question. O: It’s a rather ghettoized genre. P: This is true. I cannot speak for the US, where I merely sort of sell okay. But in the UK I think every book— I think I’ve done twenty in the series— since the fourth book, every one has been one the top ten national bestsellers, either as hardcover or paperback, and quite often as both. Twelve or thirteen have been number one. I’ve done six juveniles, all of those have nevertheless crossed over to the adult bestseller list. On one occasion I had the adult best seller, the paperback best-seller in a different title, and a third book on the juvenile bestseller list. Now tell me again that this is a ghettoized genre. O: It’s certainly regarded as less than serious fiction. P: (Sighs) Without a shadow of a doubt, the first fiction ever recounted was fantasy. Guys sitting around the campfire— Was it you who wrote the review? I thought I recognized it— Guys sitting around the campfire telling each other stories about the gods who made lightning, and stuff like that. They did not tell one another literary stories. They did not complain about difficulties of male menopause while being a junior lecturer on some midwestern college campus. Fantasy is without a shadow of a doubt the ur-literature, the spring from which all other literature has flown. Up to a few hundred years ago no one would have disagreed with this, because most stories were, in some sense, fantasy. Back in the middle ages, people wouldn’t have thought twice about bringing in Death as a character who would have a role to play in the story. Echoes of this can be seen in Pilgrim’s Progress, for example, which hark back to a much earlier type of storytelling. The epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest works of literature, and by the standard we would apply now— a big muscular guys with swords and certain godlike connections— That’s fantasy. The national literature of Finland, the Kalevala. Beowulf in England. I cannot pronounce Bahaghvad-Gita but the Indian one, you know what I mean. The national literature, the one that underpins everything else, is by the standards that we apply now, a work of fantasy. Now I don’t know what you’d consider the national literature of America, but if the words Moby Dick are inching their way towards this conversation, whatever else it was, it was also a work of fantasy. Fantasy is kind of a plasma in which other things can be carried. I don’t think this is a ghetto. This is, fantasy is, almost a sea in which other genres swim. Now it may be that there has developed in the last couple of hundred years a subset of fantasy which merely uses a different icongraphy, and that is, if you like, the serious literature, the Booker Prize contender. Fantasy can be serious literature. Fantasy has often been serious literature. You have to fairly dense to think that Gulliver’s Travels is only a story about a guy having a real fun time among big people and little people and horses and stuff like that. What the book was about was something else. Fantasy can carry quite a serious burden, and so can humor. So what you’re saying is, strip away the trolls and the dwarves and things and put everyone into modern dress, get them to agonize a bit, mention Virginia Woolf a few times, and there! Hey! I’ve got a serious novel. But you don’t actually have to do that. (Pauses) That was a bloody good answer, though I say it myself.

What would you do if you had to make a run for it?” His voice is husky as he stares, mesmerized, at the unraveling thread. “I’d grab my shoes and run.” “Dressed like this? In front of lawless men?” His eyes drift up to my midriff. “If you’re worried about pervs breaking into the house, it’s not going to make a difference whether I’m in this outfit or in baggy jeans and a sweatshirt. Either they’re decent human beings or they’re not. Their actions are on them.

Sometimes when I am dusting the mirror with the grapes I look at myself in it, although I know it is vanity. In the afternoon light of the parlour my skin is a pale mauve, like a faded bruise, and my teeth are greenish. I think of all the things that have been written about me - that I am inhuman female demon, that I am an innocent victim of a blackguard forced against my will and in danger of my own life, that I was too ignorant to know how to act and that to hang me would be judicial murder, that I am fond of animals, that I am very handsome with a brilliant complexion, that I have blue eyes, that I have green eyes, that I have auburn and also have brown hair, that I am tall and also not above the average height, that I am well and decently dressed, that I robbed a dead woman to appear so, that I am brisk and smart about my work, that I am of a sullen disposition with a quarrelsome temper, that I have the appearance of a person rather above my humble station, that I am a good girl with a pliable nature and no harm is told of me, that I am cunning and devious, that I am soft in the head and little better than an idiot. And I wonder, how can I be all of these different things at once?

Go on,” Ali told me. “Get dressed. Make your bed. And for heaven’s sakes, Bryn, brush your hair. You’re starting to look like a cavegirl.” “Bryn want kill dinosaur,” I said, pantomiming what I thought passed for a decent dinosaur-killing motion. For the first time in weeks, Ali laughed. “Go on. And if you’re very good, Ali show Bryn big heaping secret. Fiiiiiirrrre. Make tasty warm dinosaur meat.” I snorted. “Dork.” “Right back at ya, kiddo.

As Michael Harrington put it sixty years ago: “It is much easier in the United States to be decently dressed than it is to be decently housed, fed, or doctored.”6

Are you decent?" Tick-Tick called through the door. I said what I was supposed to: "No, but I'm dressed.

She did not understand why women complicated their lives with corsets and petticoats, so she sewed herself a coarse cassock that she simply put over her and without further difficulties resolved the problem of dress, without taking away the feeling of being naked, which according to her lights was the only decent way to be when at home.

when a girl who you’ve been fucking for months still makes your dick hard just by wearing a cute little dress, it makes it really damn hard for a decent guy to be a gentleman.

As a journalist, I have seen things that have scarred me. I have interacted with people who have haunted me. I have heard things that have pained me. As a result, I have long struggled with the notion of faith. I have said more times than I can count, "If there is a God, how can he allow this to happen? How can he let so many people suffer?" Several years ago, I married a man of strong faith. One day he sent an email to me that said this: "On a street corner I saw a cold, shivering girl in a thin dress, with no hope of a decent meal. I got angry and said to God, 'Why did you permit this? Why don't you do something about it?' God replied, 'I certainly did something about it. I made you." Whenever I start to blame God for what I encounter in the world, I stop and remind myself that maybe it is I who should be doing more. We get so hung up on the notion of success that we can easily forget about being of service to others. I have actually found that giving of oneself is far more fulfilling than gifting oneself.

poor people are presented in the Theology of Liberation as decent, that is, asexual or monogamous heterosexual spouses united in the holy sacrament of marriage, people of faith and struggle who do not masturbate, have lustful thoughts at prayer times, cross-dress, or enjoy leather practices. However, if we keep falsifying human relationships in the name not only of God (a habit to which we have grown accustomed) we must remember that we do it also in our love for justice.

When evening comes, I go back home, and go to my study. On the threshold I take off my work clothes, covered in mud and filth, and put on the clothes an ambassador would wear. Decently dressed, I enter the ancient courts of rulers who have long since died. There I am warmly welcomed, and I feed on the only food I find nourishing, and was born to savor. I am not ashamed to talk to them, and to ask them to explain their actions. And they, out of kindness, answer me. Four hours go by without my feeling any anxiety. I forget every worry. I am no longer afraid of poverty, or frightened of death. I live entirely through them.

Like That" Love me like a wrong turn on a bad road late at night, with no moon and no town anywhere and a large hungry animal moving heavily through the brush in the ditch. Love me with a blindfold over your eyes and the sound of rusty water blurting from the faucet in the kitchen, leaking down through the floorboards to hot cement. Do it without asking, without wondering or thinking anything, while the machinery’s shut down and the watchman’s slumped asleep before his small TV showing the empty garage, the deserted hallways, while the thieves slice through the fence with steel clippers. Love me when you can’t find a decent restaurant open anywhere, when you’re alone in a glaring diner with two nuns arguing in the back booth, when your eggs are greasy and your hash browns underdone. Snick the buttons off the front of my dress and toss them one by one into the pond where carp lurk just beneath the surface, their cold fins waving. Love me on the hood of a truck no one’s driven in years, sunk to its fenders in weeds and dead sunflowers; and in the lilies, your mouth on my white throat, while turtles drag their bellies through slick mud, through the footprints of coots and ducks. Do it when no one’s looking, when the riots begin and the planes open up, when the bus leaps the curb and the driver hits the brakes and the pedal sinks to the floor, while someone hurls a plate against the wall and picks up another, love me like a freezing shot of vodka, like pure agave, love me when you’re lonely, when we’re both too tired to speak, when you don’t believe in anything, listen, there isn’t anything, it doesn’t matter; lie down with me and close your eyes, the road curves here, I’m cranking up the radio and we’re going, we won’t turn back as long as you love me, as long as you keep on doing it exactly like that.

A man who degraded and threatened women made you want to do everything possible. Howl and scream; march; give a speech; call Congress around the clock; fall in love with someone decent; show a young woman that all is not lost, despite the evidence; change the way it feels to be a woman walking down a street at night anywhere in the world, or a girl coming out of a KwikStop in Macopee, Massachusetts, in daylight, holding an ice cream. She wouldn’t have to worry about her breasts, whether they would ever grow, or grow big enough. She wouldn’t have to think anything physical or sexual about herself at all unless she wanted to. She could dress the way she liked. She could feel capable and safe and free, which was what Faith Frank had always wanted for women.

Her fingernails were cut short and workmanlike, but were painted in pink and white stripes. The smartphone leaning dangerously from the pocket of her loose dress was a similarly aggressive shade of candyfloss, which seemed a crime against an otherwise perfectly decent model. She was the most overtly feminine person he had met since his kindergarten days, when small girls came bedecked with bows, ruffles and sparkly purses.

She forced herself to sit up primly on the edge of the marble bench, repressing firmly the nausea she felt at its warm pressure, and she smoothed the black linen of her dress across her lap, and tucked in her hair, which had somehow come loose, and crossed her ankles decently, and took her black-edged handkerchief from her bosom and dried her eyes and wiped away the dampness and grime from her face. Now, she thought; I may go mad, but at least I look like a lady.

Bradley Headstone, in his decent black coat and waistcoat, and decent white shirt, and decent formal black tie, and decent pantaloons of pepper and salt, with his decent silver watch in his pocket and its decent hair-guard round his neck, looked a thoroughly decent young man of six-and-twenty. He was never seen in any other dress, and yet there was a certain stiffness in his manner of wearing this, as if there were a want of adaptation between him and it, recalling some mechanics in their holiday clothes. He had acquired mechanically a great store of teacher's knowledge. He could do mental arithmetic mechanically, sing at sight mechanically, blow various wind instruments mechanically, even play the great church organ mechanically. From his early childhood up, his mind had been a place of mechanical stowage. The arrangement of his wholesale warehouse, so that it might be always ready to meet the demands of retail dealers history here, geography there, astronomy to the right, political economy to the left—natural history, the physical sciences, figures, music, the lower mathematics, and what not, all in their several places—this care had imparted to his countenance a look of care; while the habit of questioning and being questioned had given him a suspicious manner, or a manner that would be better described as one of lying in wait. There was a kind of settled trouble in the face. It was the face belonging to a naturally slow or inattentive intellect that had toiled hard to get what it had won, and that had to hold it now that it was gotten. He always seemed to be uneasy lest anything should be missing from his mental warehouse, and taking stock to assure himself.

Surely, our greatest parental hope is that our children attain a state of righteousness. It is the only sure road to happiness. But to attain such a state requires that they be decent as well as compliant. I know many, many young people who are not "righteous" in the usual sense. But they are wonderfully decent people with many praiseworthy qualities. They are not "devout" in the sense that they attend church faithfully, dress or groom themselves traditionally, or publicly declare their devotions, but they are kind, honest, hard working, concerned for others, and unselfish.

Dumb and decent can often look the same. It’s depressing, but the truth often is. It’s just as well. You’re still in a safety mode. If you had tried to kill me, you’d have been knocked unconscious, and I don’t think I need to tell you where, when, and in what state of dress you’d have woken.

She was wearing a dress of some soft dark red material, and sitting as she was with the light from the long narrow window behind her, she reminded Kemp of a stained glass figure he had once seen in a cathedral abroad. The long oval of her face and the slight angularity of her shoulders helped the illusion. Saint Somebody or other, they had told him—but Lady Alexandra Farraday was no saint—not by a long way. And yet some of these old saints had been funny people from his point of view, not kindly ordinary decent Christian folk, but intolerant, fanatical, cruel to themselves and others.

When evening comes, I go back home, and go to my study. On the threshold, I take off my work clothes, covered in mud and filth, and I put on the clothes an ambassador would wear. Decently dressed, I enter the ancient courts of rulers who have long since died. There, I am warmly welcomed, and I feed on the only food I find nourishing and was born to savor. I am not ashamed to talk to them and ask them to explain their actions and they, out of kindness, answer me. Four hours go by without my feeling any anxiety. I forget every worry. I am no longer afraid of poverty or frightened of death. I live entirely through them.

Pumpkins. That's what we resemble-- pumpkins, in our orange graduation robes. 'This color makes me look so fat,' Angie says, straightening her cap. 'Why can't our school have decent colors?' 'You're not fat,' Michael says, dressed in shirt and tie. You're glowing. Like a nuclear pumpkin. Very attractive, really.

Adam wet his dry lips and tried to ask and failed and tried again. "Why do they have to do it?" he said. "Why is it?" Cyrus was deeply moved and he spoke as he had never spoken before. "I don't know," he said. "I've studied and maybe learned how things are, but I"m not even close to why they are. And you must not expect to find that people understand what they do. So many things are done instinctively, the way a bee makes honey or a fox dips his paws into a stream to fool dogs. A fox can't say why he does it, and what bee remembers winter or expects it to come again? When I knew you had to go I thought to leave the future open so you could dig out your own findings, and then it seemed better if I could protect you with the little I know. You'll go in soon now--you've come to the age." "I don't want to," said Adam quickly. "You'll go in soon," his father went on, not hearing. "And I want to tell you so you won't be surprised. They'll first strip off your clothes, but they'll go deeper than that. They'll shuck off any little dignity you have--you'll lose what you think of as your decent right to live and be let alone to live. They'll make you live and eat and sleep and shit close to other men. And when they dress you up again you'll not be able to tell yourself from the others. You can't even wear a scrap or pin a note on your breast to say, 'This is me--separate from the rest.'" "I don't want to do it," said Adam. "After a while," said Cyrus, "you'll think no thought the others do not think. You'll know no word the others can't say. And you'll do things because the others do them. You'll feel the danger in any difference whatever-- a danger to the whole crowd of like-thinking, like-acting men." "What if I don't?" Adam demanded. "Yes," said Cyrus, "sometimes that happens. Once in a while there is a man who won't do what is demanded of him, and do you know what happens? The whole machine devotes itself coldly to the destruction of his difference. They'll beat your spirit and your nerves, your body and your mind, with iron rods until the dangerous difference goes out of you. And if you can't finally give in, they'll vomit you up and leave you stinking outside--neither part of themselves nor yet free. It's better to fall in with them. They only do it to protect themselves [...]

One can’t blame Marion for telling Eddie all the times of the day and the week she avoided. For instance, when children got out of school—not to mention all museums, all zoos. And parks in any decent weather, when the children would be sure to be there with their nannies or their parents; and every daytime baseball game—all Christmas shopping, too. What had she left out? All summer and winter resorts, the first warm days of the spring, the last warm days of the fall—and every Halloween, of course. And on her list of things never to do: she never went out for breakfast, she gave up ice cream . . . Marion was always the well-dressed woman alone in a restaurant—she would ask for a table at the latest time they served. She ordered her wine by the glass and ate her meals with a novel.

If these weren't the worst odds he had ever faced,they came damn close.Still, he sensed the wings of panic moving through the riders and thought he might have a decent enough chance. Thought but was destined never to know, for just then a great fluttering shattered the forest stillness,a sound somewhere between the howl of wind and the throb of drums.A terrible beating that grew louder and louder as the air thickened,becoming almost solid,and the men began to scream. Ravens filled the sky.They swarmed from the surrounding trees,darting at the riders,going for their eyes. Even as they did,out into the clearing before the lodge ran a band of stout little men, weirdly dressed,sporting long beards, and looking as though they had just crawled from beneath a bridge. They seized the bridles of the horses and whispered to the animals, causing them to rear so violently that the riders were tumbled from their saddles and fell one after another to the ground. The birds swooped lower, still attacking,as the men huddled,arms wrapped around their heads,thrashing frantically.Before Dragon's startled gaze,the little men loosed the horses and turned to go.One,who looked somehow familiar, gave him a cocky grin and waved. Friends in high places...and low.

Serena’s body isn’t built to emulate the look of the model in an Ann Taylor shift dress. It’s built – through an exacting and grueling regimen – to decimate her opponents. And his suggestion that the body, too, is beautiful and sexy – in spite of, or even because of, its threat to the norms of white femininity – will continue to be threatening until the standards of beauty are decentered from those of the white upper class.

Standing there watching them, it occurred to me that when Hitler watched Joe and the boys fight their way back from the rear of the field to sweep ahead of Italy and Germany seventy-five years ago, he saw, but did not recognize heralds of his doom. He could not have known that one day hundreds of thousands of boys just like them, boys who shared their essential natures--decent and unassuming, not privileged or favored by anything in particular, just loyal, committed, and perseverant--would return to Germany dressed in olive drab, hunting him down. "They are almost all gone now--the legions of young men who saved the world in the years just before I was born. But that afternoon, standing on the balcony of Haus West, I was swept with gratitude for their goodness and their grace, their humility and their honor, their simple civility and all the things they taught us before they flitted across the evening water and finally vanished into the night.

It is natural if you feel as strongly as most decent people do about racial discrimination to welcome books that give it short shrift; but to assess books on their racial attitude rather than their literary value, and still more to look on books as ammunition in the battle, is to take a further and still more dangerous step from literature-as-morality to literature-as-propaganda—a move toward conditions in which, hitherto, literary art has signally failed to thrive. ("Didacticism in Modern Dress" from Only Connect (2nd ed., 1980).

At her dressing table putting on earrings. She is a pretty woman in the prime of life, and her ignorance of financial necessity is complete. Her neck is graceful, her breasts gleamed as they rose in the cloth of her dress, and, seeing the decent and healthy delight she took in her own image, I could not tell her that we were broke. She had sweetened much of my life, and to watch her seemed to freshen the wellsprings of some clear energy in me that made the room and the pictures on the wall and the moon that could see outside the window all vivid and cheerful.

Livia.” He seemed thrilled to let the word roll off his tongue. “Do you know that I’m invisible?” “No one has really seen me in years.” Blake looked at the sky. “Sometimes I wonder how they know I don’t have a home. I try to dress decently.” He waved a hand at his jeans and army jacket. “I think it just seeps out of me. I’m not the same as everyone else.” He shook his head, his eyes reflecting a weary despair. As he looked at Livia again, the despair was chased away with a grin. “But when you saw me for the first time, you actually saw me. You saw me, and then you smiled like I was just the same as everyone else on that platform.

Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf As soon as Wolf began to feel That he would like a decent meal, He went and knocked on Grandma’s door. When Grandma opened it, she saw The sharp white teeth, the horrid grin, And Wolfie said, “May I come in?” Poor Grandmamma was terrified, “He’s going to eat me up!” she cried. And she was absolutely right. He ate her up in one big bite. But Grandmamma was small and tough, And Wolfie wailed, “That’s not enough! I haven’t yet begun to feel That I have had a decent meal!” He ran around the kitchen yelping, “I’ve got to have a second helping!” Then added with a frightful leer, “I’m therefore going to wait right here Till Little Miss Red Riding Hood Comes home from walking in the wood.” He quickly put on Grandma’s clothes, (Of course he hadn’t eaten those). He dressed himself in coat and hat. He put on shoes, and after that He even brushed and curled his hair, Then sat himself in Grandma’s chair. In came the little girl in red. She stopped. She stared. And then she said, “What great big ears you have, Grandma.” “All the better to hear you with,” the Wolf replied. “What great big eyes you have, Grandma.” said Little Red Riding Hood. “All the better to see you with,” the Wolf replied. He sat there watching her and smiled. He thought, I’m going to eat this child. Compared with her old Grandmamma She’s going to taste like caviar. Then Little Red Riding Hood said, “But Grandma, what a lovely great big furry coat you have on.” “That’s wrong!” cried Wolf. “Have you forgot To tell me what BIG TEETH I’ve got? Ah well, no matter what you say, I’m going to eat you anyway.” The small girl smiles. One eyelid flickers. She whips a pistol from her knickers. She aims it at the creature’s head And bang bang bang, she shoots him dead. A few weeks later, in the wood, I came across Miss Riding Hood. But what a change! No cloak of red, No silly hood upon her head. She said, “Hello, and do please note My lovely furry wolfskin coat.

Pretty soft!' he cried. 'To have to come and live in New York! To have to leave my little cottage and take a stuffy, smelly, over-heated hole of an apartment in this Heaven-forsaken, festering Gehenna. To have to mix night after night with a mob who think that life is a sort of St Vitus's dance, and imagine that they're having a good time because they're making enough noise for six and drinking too much for ten. I loathe New York, Bertie. I wouldn't come near the place if I hadn't got to see editors occasionally. There's a blight on it. It's got moral delirium tremens. It's the limit. The very thought of staying more than a day in it makes me sick. And you call this thing pretty soft for me!' I felt rather like Lot's friends must have done when they dropped in for a quiet chat and their genial host began to criticise the Cities of the Plain. I had no idea old Rocky could be so eloquent. 'It would kill me to have to live in New York,' he went on. 'To have to share the air with six million people! TO have to wear stiff collars and decent clothes all the time! To - ' He started. 'Good Lord! I suppose I should have to dress for dinner in the evenings. What a ghastly notion!' I was shocked, absolutely shocked. 'My dear chap!' I said, reproachfully. 'Do you dress for dinner every night, Bertie?' 'Jeeves,' I said coldly. 'How many suits of evening clothes have we?' 'We have three suits full of evening dress, sir; two dinner jackets- ' 'Three.' 'For practical purposes, two only, sir. If you remember, we cannot wear the third. We have also seven white waistcoats.' 'And shirts?' 'Four dozen, sir.' 'And white ties?' 'The first two shallow shelves in the chest of drawers are completely filled with our white ties, sir.' I turned to Rocky. 'You see?' The chappie writhed like an electric fan. 'I won't do it! I can't do it! I'll be hanged if I'll do it! How on earth can I dress up like that? Do you realise that most days I don't get out of my pyjamas till five in the afternoon and then I just put on an old sweater?' I saw Jeeves wince, poor chap. This sort of revelation shocked his finest feelings.

Sometimes substituting race for gender also is an interesting exercise. Say a country, a close Western ally and trading partner, had a population half white, half black. The whites had complete control of the blacks. They could beat them if they disobeyed. They deprived them of the right to leave the house without permission; to walk unmolested without wearing the official segregating dress; to hold any decent job in the government, or to work at all without the permission of the white in control of them. Would there have been uproar in our countries by now? Would we have imposed trade sanctions and subjected this country to international opprobrium? You bet. Yet countries such as Saudi Arabia, which deprive half their population of these most basic rights, have been subjected to none of these things. It

Nikolay Anastasyevitch Ananyev, the engineer, was a broad-shouldered, thick-set man, and, judging from his appearance, he had, like Othello, begun the "descent into the vale of years," and was growing rather too stout. He was just at that stage which old match-making women mean when they speak of "a man in the prime of his age," that is, he was neither young nor old, was fond of good fare, good liquor, and praising the past, panted a little as he walked, snored loudly when he was asleep, and in his manner with those surrounding him displayed that calm imperturbable good humour which is always acquired by decent people by the time they have reached the grade of a staff officer and begun to grow stout. His hair and beard were far from being grey, but already, with a condescension of which he was unconscious, he addressed young men as "my dear boy" and felt himself entitled to lecture them good-humouredly about their way of thinking. His movements and his voice were calm, smooth, and self-confident, as they are in a man who is thoroughly well aware that he has got his feet firmly planted on the right road, that he has definite work, a secure living, a settled outlook. . . . His sunburnt, thicknosed face and muscular neck seemed to say: "I am well fed, healthy, satisfied with myself, and the time will come when you young people too, will be wellfed, healthy, and satisfied with yourselves. . . ." He was dressed in a cotton shirt with the collar awry and in full linen trousers thrust into his high boots. From certain trifles, as for instance, from his coloured worsted girdle, his embroidered collar, and the patch on his elbow, I was able to guess that he was married and in all probability tenderly loved by his wife.

Rider scooped Willow into his arms and carried her outside to the nearest tree, Miriam right behind him. Awkwardly shifting his burden, he sat in the shade and settled Willow in his lap. "Mrs. Brigham, could you lend me a hand?" he asked anxiously. "I think we should loosen her clothing or something." Rider propped Willow's limp form over one arm, giving Miriam access to the back of the girl's dress. As the corset came into view, he snorted in disgust. "Unlace that contraption, too. No wonder she fainted; she can't breathe." Miriam looked aghast. "Oh, but I can't do that! It wouldn't be decent." "She's wearing something under it, isn't she?" "Well, yes, but--" "Good God, I'll do it myself!" His free hand produced a small knife from his pants pocket. The blade flashed and before Miriam could stop him, the corset ribbons were severed. Immediately, Willow inhaled deeply. Rider shifted her back into the bend of his arm and gently patted her cheeks. "Come on, little girl, open those big blue eyes." Inhaling another deep breath, Willow gradually came around. She blinked at the leafy roof overhead, then focused a confused gaze on Rider's smiling face. "What happened? How did I get out here?" Glancing around, she impatiently brushed a few errant strands of hair from her eyes. "Oh, my dear, you fainted," Miriam fussed. "Fainted! I've never fainted in my life. I'm not the fainting kind." "Maybe not under normal circumstances," Rider contradicted, "but you did faint. And it's little wonder, trussed up in that ridiculous corset. Wearing that thing in this heat is insane!" "Really, Mr. Sinclair." Miriam scowled. "I hardly think this is an appropriate subject in mixed company." "I'm sorry, Mrs. Brigham, but it's the truth." "I don't care what either one of you says," Willow broke in. "I did not faint." Rider grimaced in disgust. "Just dozed off again, huh?

By encouraging your child to be honest, respectful, on time, trustworthy, responsible, decent, and hardworking, you are giving them a gift far more long lasting than any toy, dress, or game. These gifts are for a lifetime. Give them the tools they will need to be productive, accountable, and reliable adults. This contribution to their lives requires stamina, courage, and backbone.

The decent people are famous and known with their virtual decency, but not their shape or the dress.

I don’t want to spend the next twenty-five years growing my ass and decorating my cubicle with photos of places I’ll never get to visit and/or counting down the days to my one week of paid vacation wherein I will take an all-you-can-eat cruise down to Mexico and end up with norovirus so I can spend the entire trip puking and shitting my guts out in a cabin the size of walk-in closet while the poor maid sneaks around me dressed in a full hazmat suit to leave clean towels and Mexican Pepto-Bismol. I cannot see myself doing the same mind-numbing job day in and day out, hoping that the company doesn’t go under, thereby ruining my chances of a decent retirement, during which I can join a real book club where we giggle about mommy porn and cross-stitch naughty sayings while we pass around plastic plates of Triscuits topped with canned cheese product and pimientos for color as the party host fills our glasses with Costco boxed wine and I sip surreptitiously from my flask that reads “Vodka never disappoints.” It may be okay for these women, but I can’t do it. I want more. (Although I do want that flask, so keep your eyes peeled in your travels, yeah?) Does that make me a jerk?

Luca is going to faint when he sees you in this dress. Poor thing will spend the entire ceremony and reception counting the minutes until Siena strips you out of it for him.” Cass flinched as the bell above the shop door jangled, announcing the arrival of another patron. Balmy street air rushed into the fitting area as a masculine voice called out, “Bongiorno. Anyone here?” It was Marco, Mada’s fiancé. “We’re in here,” Madalena called. “You can come in. She’s decent.” Cass touched a hand to her face. Her skin felt warm. Suddenly, the pinned fabric felt heavy and confining. She didn’t want anyone else to see her like this. Too late. Marco slipped into the fitting room and whistled long and low as he let the door close behind him. “Signorina Cassandra, you look stunning,” he said, shaking his wavy brown hair back from his face. “I swear if I weren’t already betrothed, I might ask for your hand right this second.” Madalena gave him a dark look, and he pretended to see her for the first time. “Only joking, my goddess,” he said, moving to stand behind her. He swept her dark braids to one side and pressed his lips to her exposed neck. Signor Sesti coughed as he returned from the back room, and Marco pulled his mouth away from Mada’s skin. “Mi dispiace, Signore.” Marco straightened the golden medallion that hung around his neck. He gestured to his wife-to-be. “But can you blame me?” “Marco.” Madalena swatted at him, pretending to be angry. But it was as though his presence had made a flame come to life inside of her; she was glowing, radiating happiness and desire. For the first time, Cass understood what it was like to burn in such a manner. But all of her burning was for Falco, the boy she’d never be allowed to marry, not for Luca, her fiancé. Cass closed her eyes momentarily, remembering the surge of emotion that had coursed through her when Falco had first touched his lips to hers. She remembered the way her body had trembled, the way she felt as if she were emerging from a cold, dark tunnel into the light of day for the first time. Luca would never make her feel that way. Ever.

The Virgin imaginary in Latin America is the permanent dichotomy of lust and love: this is why poor people are presented in the Theology of Liberation as decent, that is, asexual or monogamous heterosexual spouses united in the holy sacrament of marriage, people of faith and struggle who do not masturbate, have lustful thoughts at prayer times, cross-dress, or enjoy leather practices. However, if we keep falsifying human relationships in the name not only of God (a habit to which we have grown accustomed) we must remember that we do it also in our love for justice.

to his, before pulling out slowly, leaving a void inside of me that quickly fills with a warm, honey-like fulfillment. I gather my breath and straighten up, leaning against the wall. My heart is pounding in my chest and my knees are shaking. All I can think is, I’ve never been fucked like this before. Dylan kisses the back of my neck gently and I purr happily. “Was it good?” I ask, softly. “You’re always good,” he says, brushing my hair over my shoulder to plant another soft peck along the upper part of my neck. “You’re just…perfect for me.”   As I get dressed afterward, Dylan stands near the doorway in the manner that boyfriends, husbands, and – well, whatever the hell we are – have waited for women since the beginning of time. Impatiently, inexplicably, and long-since ready. Once I’m finished with my outfit selection, make-up, and hair, I step out of the bathroom and walk towards him. “Ready now?” he says, doing a decent job of hiding

Cyra.” Teka raised an eyebrow at me outside the ship’s little bathroom when I got up for my shift. I was dressed only in underwear and my sweater from the day before. I avoided her eyes as I searched the ship’s storage room for a spare mechanic’s uniform. We were all running out of clothes. Hopefully they would provide for us on Ogra. Teka cleared her throat. She was leaning against the wall, arms folded, a plain black eye patch covering her missing eye. “I don’t have to worry about little Kereseth-Noavek spawn running around someday, do I?” She yawned. “Because I really don’t want to.” “No,” I said with a snort. “Like I’d take that risk.” “Never?” She frowned a little. “There’s this thing called ‘contraception,’ you know.” I shook my head. “Nothing is certain.” The little mocking expression she always wore when she was looking at me faded, leaving her serious. “My currentgift,” I explained, holding up a hand to show her the shadows that curled around my knuckles, stinging me, “is an instrument of torture. You think I would risk inflicting that torture on something growing inside me? Even if it’s a very limited risk?” I shook my head. “No.” She nodded. “That’s very decent of you.” I added, “It’s not like…that is the only thing you can do with someone, anyway.” She brought her hands up to her face, groaning. “I did not want any information that specific!” she said, voice muffled. “Then don’t ask probing questions, genius.

I let out a slow breath, looking at Darius’s mother instead. Holy fake tits! Mommy Acrux was stunningly beautiful and perfectly put together, her pale pink dress was cut with a sweetheart neckline which revealed a lot of cleavage. It was really hard to look away from it. I thought I had a pretty decent rack but beside her curvaceous glory I was a pancake with a face. Real flowers bloomed along the side of her dress, opening and closing their petals in various shades of blue to compliment her husband’s attire and I guessed that meant she held the Element of Earth, though I’d never seen magic used in such a pretty, pointless way before. Her face was painted with the exact right amount of makeup to accentuate her beauty. She had Darius’s dark hair, bronzed skin and deep brown eyes and she hung on her husband’s arm like the definition of arm candy. The men in the room were not so subtly checking her out but I couldn’t blame them. Hell, I even fancied her. The butler clearly had more work to do and he stepped forward to announce us to his High Lord and Lady. “May I present the Celestial Heirs, Max Rigel, Seth Capella, Caleb Altair and Master Acrux,” he said. The Heirs all moved forward to greet the Acruxes and I stifled my surprise as each of them bowed their heads to Daddy Acrux. Mommy Acrux offered out air kisses and embraces which pulled the Heirs against those breasts for a moment. Seth smirked as he moved aside and Darius approached last. His father barely spared him a glance and his mother didn’t offer him one of the hugs but she brushed a hand against his cheek. “How lovely to see you, Darius dear,” she murmured, her tone was sultry and she didn’t actually seem to be particularly pleased to see her son. “I’ve missed you, Mother,” Darius replied, his voice sounding like it was on autopilot even to me. (Tory)

I tried to date, like a normal twenty-something, but it didn’t work out. There’s something off about you when you’ve been abused, when you’re damaged, broken. You’re different. Men can sniff out the pain in you, like dogs picking up on a scent. I’d put my makeup on, wear my nicest dresses, go on dates and try to be on my best behaviour but they never bought it. They could see the cracks in my eyes, the holes in my soul, the emptiness waiting to be filled. Men aren’t knights in shining armour – that’s fairytale bullshit. They’re not looking for someone to save. Men like simple girls. Off-the-shelf girls. Ready to go. Easy company. Decent hearts. They’re not there to heal you or rescue you. I thought my looks would help. A bat of my lashes will make a man do a favour for me, but it won’t make a good guy fall for me. My pretty face isn’t valuable enough currency to make up for the scars. The men I dated picked up on the trauma, the voids, the hurt, and they didn’t want it in their lives. They didn’t want it in their homes. They didn’t want its legacy in their children.

He had scarcely released it when the door opened, and the Honourable Cedric walked in, magnificently arrayed in a brocade dressing-gown of vivid and startling design. ‘What the deuce is the matter?’ he asked plaintively. ‘Never heard such an ungodly racket in my life! Ricky, dear old boy, you ain’t dressed ?’ ‘Yes,’ sighed Sir Richard. ‘It is a great bore, however.’ ‘But, my dear fellow, it ain’t nine o’clock!’ said Cedric in horrified tones. ‘Damme if I know what has come over you! You can’t start the day at this hour: it ain’t decent!’ ‘I know, Ceddie, but when in Rome, one – er – is obliged to cultivate the habits of the Romans. Ah, allow me to present Major Daubenay – Mr Brandon!’ ‘Servant, sir!’ snapped the Major, with the stiffest of bows. ‘Oh, how d’ye do?’ said Cedric vaguely. ‘Deuced queer hours you keep in the country!’ ‘I am not here upon a visit of courtesy!’ said the Major. ‘Now, don’t tell me you’ve been quarrelling, Ricky!’ begged Cedric. ‘It sounded devilish like it to me. Really, dear boy, you might have remembered I was sleeping above you. Never at my best before noon, y’know. Besides, it ain’t like you!

I pulled my phone out of the pocket of my dress and waved it in Mum’s concerned face. The sum total of humanity’s quest for knowledge in my hand and all I needed to know was how to cook some carrots. If the internet was going to take down civilization, the least I was owed was a decent recipe for root vegetables.

If only you'd take that silly cap off your head and get some decent dresses, the idea would come to him in no time." "How uninspiring to have a gentleman fall in love with your wardrobe.

She stepped up to the door and knocked. The television voice cut off, replaced by the sound of pattering activity. “Just a moment,” said a male voice. The door opened. It was Martin, aka Theodore the gardener, in pajama pants and no top, a towel hanging around his neck. Unclothed, he had the kind of build that made her want to say, “Yow.” She was glad she was wearing her favorite dress. “Trick or treat?” she said. “What?” “Sorry to interrupt.” She indicated the towel. “You’re working out?” “Miss, uh, Erstwhile, right? Yes, hello. No, I just couldn’t find my shirt. Are you lost?” “No, I was walking and I…I don’t suppose you could give me the Knicks-Pacers score?” Martin stared blankly for a moment, then looking around as if trying to spy out eavesdroppers, pulled her inside and shut the door behind her. “You could hear that?” “The TV? Yes, a little, and I saw the light through your window.” “Blasted paper-thin curtains.” He grimaced and ran his fingers through his hair. “You are going to catch me at everything bad, aren’t you? Let’s hope you’re not her spy. She’ll have my balls for stew.” “Who, Mrs. Wattlesbrook?” “Yes, in whose presence I signed a dozen nondisclosure and proper-behavior and first-child and I don’t know what other kinds of promises, in one of which I swore to keep any modern thingies out of sight of the guests.” “Tell me that Wattlesbrook isn’t her real name.” “It is, actually.” “Oh, no,” she said with a laugh in her voice. “Oh, yes.” He sat on the edge of his bed. “I take it, then, you’re not spying for her? Good. Yes, dear Mrs. Wattlesbrook, descended from the noble water buffalo. It’s a decent job, though. Best pay for being a gardener I’ve ever had.” He met her eyes. “I’d hate to lose it, Miss Erstwhile.” “I’m not going to tattletale,” she said in tired big-sister tones. “And you can’t call me Miss Erstwhile when you have a towel around your neck. To real people I’m Jane.” “I’m still Martin.

Getting Rid of the Mud We have a custom at weddings. Before you go to the wedding canopy, there is the veiling of the bride. At the veiling of the bride, I usually gather together all the blood relatives into a room, to ask them each to forgive each other, because it’s impossible to grow up in a family, with siblings and parents, without having some secret anger. And you don’t want people to have to go into the next phase of life with all this karmic load. So that is why bringing in those people is so important. That way they can forgive each other and really bless each other. It is a very powerful thing. On one occasion, a young girl was present while we were doing this forgiveness, and she wanted to know how to do it. I tell you, it was a wonderful thing that she asked this question. She really wanted to know how to do it. It was as if nobody had ever shown her how to do forgiving. So I said to her, “Could you imagine that you have a beautiful shiny white dress on, and here comes this big clump of mud and dirties it? You would want to clean it off, wouldn’t you?” “Oh, yes,” she said. “Could you imagine then, instead of the mud being on the outside on your dress, the mud is on your heart?” “Uh huh.” “And being angry with people and not forgiving them is like mud on your heart.” “I sure want to get rid of that,” she said. “OK, how are you going to go about doing that?” I suggested that she close her eyes, raise up her hands in her imagination, and draw down some golden light and let it flow over that mud on her heart until it was all washed away. In this way she really understood forgiving. Do you understand how important it is, just as with this child, to respond decently when somebody says, “You ought to …,” and starts giving you advice and you want to say, “I’ve been trying to do it myself. You don’t have to scold me—show me how to do it”? This is the issue in all spiritual direction work. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

She either looked like a glamorous movie star or a cheap hooker. It depended on how deeply she was panicking when she looked at her reflection. The black dress was soft and snug. It was V-necked and long-sleeved, so perfectly respectable. But Hailey had gotten her to wear one of her high-dollar bras and the boobs were not respectable at all. Even decently covered up, they demanded attention.

What Sadiq found when he reached the welcoming shores of the United States was a history of institutional racism and Asian exclusion laws for which he was unprepared. White nationalism would already be working against the Mufti’s message. Later he would write that if Jesus Christ comes to America and applies for admission to the United States under the immigration laws, [he] would not be allowed to enter this country because: 1. He comes from a land which is out of the permitted zone. 2. He has no money with him. 3. He is not decently dressed. 4. His hands have holes in the palms. 5. He remains bare-footed, which is a disorderly act. 6. He is against fighting for the country. 7. He believes in making wine when he thinks necessary. 8. He has no credential to show that he is an authorized preacher. 9. He believes in practicing the Law of Moses [polygamy].7

Aren’t our dresses exquisite?” Performing a few happy waltz steps, Corinna turned in a circle. “Um, yes. Pull your sleeves up, Juliana, will you?” She tugged at them, but the dress was designed to be off the shoulder. “They won’t go.” He eyed their dresses’ high waistlines and scooped necklines, designed to accentuate the bust. “You’re all going to cover”—at an apparent loss for words, he patted his own chest—“with one of those scarf things, right?” “A fichu?” Madame sniffed. “I think not. These are evening gowns, my lord.” “They don’t look like the pictures my sisters showed me.” “The pictures were but a starting point, my lord. By the time the fashion plates make it here from France, they’re already beginning to pass out of style.” “We shall not be caught in last month’s fashions,” Juliana added. “These gowns are the thing.” “Not in this house, they aren’t!” “Griffin. Good news. The foundry will have the new part cast by the end of the day.” Tris walked in, scanned the room with a low whistle, and settled on Alexandra. “By George, you ladies will put every other girl to shame.” “My sisters won’t be wearing these dresses,” Griffin said. “Of course they will.” Tris tore his gaze from Alexandra and turned to his friend. “While I take apart the pump, you’ll want to head out to the vineyard and see that work on the new pipeline is resumed.” “Very well.” Griffin turned to leave, then swiveled back. “I’m not paying for those dresses,” he warned. “Not until they’re made decent.” Madame Rodale gave a little French-sounding “hmmph.” Tris laughed. “Listen to yourself, old man. You’ve been on campaign far too long. Don’t you want men to find your sisters appealing? Irresistible? Marriageable?” “Not if they’re men like…” “Like us?” Tris suggested helpfully. Griffin’s “hmmph” put the mantua-maker’s to shame. “I need to get to the vineyard,” he muttered and left. “Madame

Shara met me at the airport in London, dressed in her old familiar blue woolen overcoat that I loved so much. She was bouncing like a little girl with excitement. Everest was nothing compared to seeing her. I was skinny, long-haired, and wearing some very suspect flowery Nepalese trousers. I short, I looked a mess, but I was so happy. I had been warned by Henry at base camp not to rush into anything “silly” when I saw Shara again. He had told me it was a classic mountaineers’ error to propose as soon as you get home. High altitude apparently clouds people’s good judgment, he had said. In the end, I waited twelve months. But during this time I knew that this was the girl I wanted to marry. We had so much fun together that year. I persuaded Shara, almost daily, to skip off work early from her publishing job (she needed little persuading, mind), and we would go on endless, fun adventures. I remember taking her roller-skating through a park in central London and going too fast down a hill. I ended up headfirst in the lake, fully clothed. She thought it funny. Another time, I lost a wheel while roller-skating down a steep busy London street. (Cursed skates!) I found myself screeching along at breakneck speed on only one skate. She thought that one scary. We drank tea, had afternoon snoozes, and drove around in “Dolly,” my old London black cab that I had bought for a song. Shara was the only girl I knew who would be willing to sit with me for hours on the motorway--broken down--waiting for roadside recovery to tow me to yet another garage to fix Dolly. Again. We were (are!) in love. I put a wooden board and mattress in the backseat so I could sleep in the taxi, and Charlie Mackesy painted funny cartoons inside. (Ironically, these are now the most valuable part of Dolly, which sits majestically outside our home.) Our boys love playing in Dolly nowadays. Shara says I should get rid of her, as the taxi is rusting away, but Dolly was the car that I will forever associate with our early days together. How could I send her to the scrapyard? In fact, this spring, we are going to paint Dolly in the colors of the rainbow, put decent seat belts in the backseat, and go on a road trip as a family. Heaven. We must never stop doing these sorts of things. They are what brought us together, and what will keep us having fun. Spontaneity has to be exercised every day, or we lose it. Shara, lovingly, rolls her eyes.

A gentleman doesn’t go down to dine unless he’s properly bathed, and you, I fear, will take a deal of bathing.” “I am not a gentleman,” the child said, the truculence back in full force. The earl glanced down at his own naked chest and recalled that grown men were not necessarily an easy thing for not-so-grown men to compare themselves to. He shrugged into a dressing gown and tossed his shirt to the child. “For your modesty. Now let’s be about it, shall we? The sooner we’re clean, the sooner we eat.” He eyed the child’s hair and suspected getting clean might involve a quantity of shampoo, but merely held out his hand again. “Come along, child.” “I am not a gentleman,” the child said again, scooting back against the sofa. “We can remedy that,” the earl said with what he hoped was a reassuring tone. “A little scrubbing, some decent attire, small refinements of speech.” He slipped the child’s shirt off in a single motion. “If I can master it in not quite thirty-two years, there is certainly hope for you.” “I am not a gentleman,” the child ground out, standing on the sofa cushions and swatting at the earl’s hands, “and I do not want to be a gentleman.” “Then you can be a pirate,” the earl reasoned. “But if you are eating my food, you shall do so with clean fingers.” He made a deft grab for the scruffy britches, yanking them down over narrow hips and bony knees with a swift jerk. The child stood up on the sofa, naked and indignant. “I am not a gentleman. I do not want to be a gentleman!” “Jesus, God, and the Apostles!” The earl swiftly wrapped the child in his shirt and stood panting in shock. “You are a benighted damned female!” “Do I still have to take a bath?

were married. We hadn’t been together long enough for me to explain, or demonstrate, to her that every hunting trip is not a killing trip—and that more often than not you don’t get anything. Nope, I intended to show her that I was a predator machine. So I didn’t feel sad at all when the deer simply disappeared from view at the crack of the rifle. I am certain that it did not feel a thing. When I hiked down to it, I learned that I was still a decent shot, at least. I had aimed for a spot right between the buck’s eyes, and that’s where I had placed the bullet. It took me ten minutes of rooting around in the brush to find the three-point side of its antler, which had been separated from the rest of the skull by the 180-grain Silvertip. Before I started field dressing the deer, I sat down next to it in the brush, with my feet pointed straight down the hill and my hand holding my Buck knife resting on the buck’s gray coat. I needed to do some introspection for a second, on a deep level, to consider and ponder why and how I am able and supposed to kill deer, and on a more pragmatic level, to remember how to gut one of these things out. In my more-or-less educated opinion, it’s morally acceptable and

My fantasy was that I was the long-lost switched-at-birth child of wealthy eccentrics. One day, they would find me and take me away from the gypsy caravan that was my life, and give me hot meals, a decent dress, and a pony.

guess I have my answer. "Let's go." I hop off the hood of my beater and lower my dress so that I'm decent.

Insight 1: Human decision making serves evolutionary goals. The traditional way of thinking about human behavior is based almost completely on a consideration of people’s surface goals—getting a decent bargain on a pair of dress shoes, for example, or picking a fine restaurant for a date next Saturday. But humans, like all animals, evolved to make choices in ways that promote deeper evolutionary purposes. Once we start looking at modern choices through this ancestral lens, many decisions that appear foolish and irrational at the surface level turn out to be smart and adaptive at a deeper evolutionary level. Insight 2: Human decision making is designed to achieve several very different evolutionary goals. Economists and psychologists have often assumed that humans seek a single broad goal: to feel good or to maximize benefits. In actuality, all humans pursue several very different evolutionary goals, such as acquiring a mate, protecting themselves from danger, and attaining status. This is an important distinction. Depending on which evolutionary goal they currently have in mind, consciously or subconsciously, people will have very different biases and make very different choices.

After five years of Jimmy’s possessiveness, I was done. I was twenty-seven with no children. I had a wonderful teaching career. I drove a fairly new Avenger. I didn’t have the most expensive labels in my closet, but I dressed decently.

Hunter bent his head and pressed his face against her hair. The next instant she felt his lips on her neck. She also felt his hand on her posterior. Frustrated by her high neckline and her full skirts, he made a fist in the calico. “So much wannup. Where are you, Blue Eyes?” He started to lift her dress. Loretta reached behind her and caught his hand. “Wha--what’re you doin’?” He lifted his head, eyes alight with teasing mischief. “I search for my woman. You are in there.” “I’m not your woman yet. Have you no shame? It’s broad daylight. People might see.” “They will see you are my woman.” “They’ll see my drawers, that’s what they’ll see!” He abandoned his hold on her skirt to run his palm up her back. “No bones. That is good.” Loretta’s face flamed when she realized he was referring to the whale bones of a corset. A decent man didn’t mention such things. “You haven’t brought me Amy,” she reminded him. “Our bargain doesn’t start until you do.” “I have spoken it. It is done.” “Amy first.” Before she realized what he was about to do, he swept her off her feet and put her on the horse, then leaped up behind her. Cinching an arm around her waist, he bent his head and said, “This Comanche will sure enough find her quick.

Sorry, I meant decent. Average at best. I forgot I need to keep your ego in check at all times.” “Well, I can’t say the same about you. Average, I mean. The way you look in that dress…” I shake my head in disbelief. “You look like you’re going to say something a little bit evil, break my heart, and I’ll end up thanking you for it.

One of the basic Nazi aims was to demoralize, humiliate, ruin us, not only physically but also spiritually. They did everything in their power to push us into the bottomless depths of degradation. Their spies were constantly among us to keep them informed about every thought, every feeling, every reaction we had, and one never knew who was one of their agents. There was only one law in Auschwitz - the law of the jungle - the law of self preservation. Women who in their former lives were decent self-respecting human beings now stole, lied, spied, beat the others, and - if necessary - killed them, in order to save their miserable lives. Stealing became an art, virtue, something to be proud of. We called it “organization”. Those who were working near the crematories had an opportunity to “organize” an occasional can of food, a pair of shoes, a dress, a cooking pot, a comb, which they then sold on the black market operating in the latrine for food, for special favors, and - if the buyers were men - for “love”. … Only the strong, the cruel, the merciless survived.

Sonnet of Short Dress There is no short dress, only short sight, No obscene outfit, only eyes of obscenity. The world is no man's family heirloom, That it should be cherished by the men only. Instead of restricting a girl's right to expression, Teach boys, short dress isn't a sign of consent. If women cannot walk around freely as men do, Better sentence all men to lifetime imprisonment. Let all girls hear it loud, wear what you like to wear, Walk around naked if that's what you really want. And when an animal makes unwanted advances, Activate your knee 'n crush their beloved balls to pulp. Girls don't need protecting, they ain't fragile showpiece. Let's just raise boys as decent humans, not entitled bullies.

You need decent clothes! You're too old to dress like a troubled teenage emo.

As Our Lady called for penance and prayers to save souls at Fatima, dressing decently can be a beautiful offering to heaven that will reap many, many rewards.

Not all women are like Anise. There are plenty of decent and loving girls out there looking for a wonderful guy like you. You’re fun, you’re caring, you’re handsome . . . you have so much going for you. You just haven’t found that special girl who will be The One for you yet. That’s all.

How will I know what to wear?” “Dress like…like we’re going to a half-decent pub.

It is much easier in the United States to be decently dressed than it is to be decently housed, fed, or doctored.”[6]

Over and over, she had tended that dress as it wore out, knotting the first loose threads, catching the next tiny rent, mending and hiding the splits one after the other, wearing the dress as long as the fabric could be decently held together, until eventually there came a tear too wide to be bound up, and the dress had to go. Perhaps her life with Bud had been like that and had been destined to end even without his death.

Not for us the sloppy dress and three days’ growth of beard almost mandatory for a Belgian mercenary. Not for us the indecent short shorts and socks rolled down school-girl fashion. With us to be unshaven was a crime. “Fancy dress” was my enemy, and a decent soldierly appearance my foremost demand.

As Michael Harrington put it sixty years ago: “It is much easier in the United States to be decently dressed than it is to be decently housed, fed, or doctored.

Innocent girl! There in the distance she walked, She skipped, she frolicked and with a stranger she talked, Just for a while, maybe a moment or two, Still wondering what next to do, Maybe keep talking or just keep walking, Then the stranger left, but it was her innocence that he was stalking, I followed the stranger, and he followed the young girl, She was dressed decently with her each ear adorned with a pearl, Then as she reached the edge of the park, Where it is usually cold and dark, The stranger stood before her, And then he followed her, wherever she went it seemed he was with her, The girl seemed worried and uncomfortable, And desperately looked for means to feel a bit secure and comfortable, The stranger was resolved to keep bothering her, As I wondered what pleasure from this hideous act he might incur, He was about to assault her dignity, Without any remorse, any forethought and with no sign of pity, The girl closed her eyes, And I wonder in that moment what she felt about herself and about the inaction of the skies, It was then I decided to come forward, And I asked her if there was anything making her feel awkward, "Yes, yes," she said hurriedly, "It is him, he has been stalking me shamelessly," Then I turned toward this person, And I asked him if to justify his behaviour he had any valid reason, He shrugged his shoulders and walked away, The innocence of the young girl was saved today, But tomorrow when none of us is there, What shall she do and who will offer her strength in her moments of fear, Maybe it is time to change something forever, If we cannot do it now, then we may never, Today the stranger left, But who shall compensate the young girl for the theft, That robbed her of her freedom and innocence, Well I guess nobody can, because whenever she will be on a street, she will always feel the stranger’s presence!

And his name was called, shrilly in his ears. His mind walked in to face the accusers: Vanity, which charged him with being ill dressed and dirty and vulgar; and Lust, slipping him the money for his whoring; Dishonesty, to make him pretend to talent and thought he did not have; Laziness and Gluttony arm in arm. Tom felt comforted by these because they screened the great Gray One in the back seat, waiting—the gray and dreadful crime. He dredged up lesser things, used small sins almost like virtues to save himself. There were Covetousness of Will’s money, Treason toward his mother’s God, Theft of time and hope, sick Rejection of love. Samuel spoke softly but his voice filled the room. “Be good, be pure, be great, be Tom Hamilton.” Tom ignored his father. He said, “I’m busy greeting my friends,” and he nodded to Discourtesy and Ugliness and Unfilial Conduct and Unkempt Fingernails. Then he started with Vanity again. The Gray One shouldered up in front. It was too late to stall with baby sins. This Gray One was Murder. Tom’s hand felt the chill of the glass and saw the pearly liquid with the dissolving crystals still turning over and lucent bubbles rising, and he repeated aloud in the empty, empty room, “This will do the job. Just wait till morning. You’ll feel fine then.” That’s how it had sounded, exactly how, and the walls and chairs and the lamp had all heard it and they could prove it. There was no place in the whole world for Tom Hamilton to live. But it wasn’t for lack of trying. He shuffled possibilities like cards. London? No! Egypt—pyramids in Egypt and the Sphinx. No! Paris? No! Now wait—they do all your sins lots better there. No! Well, stand aside and maybe we’ll come back to you. Bethlehem? Dear God, no! It would be lonely there for a stranger. And here interpolated—it’s so hard to remember how you die or when. An eyebrow raised or a whisper—they may be it; or a night mottled with splashed light until powder-driven lead finds your secret and lets out the fluid in you. Now this is true, Tom Hamilton was dead and he had only to do a few decent things to make it final.

Now I’m no art critic, but in a time seen as a bridge between the late middle ages and the early renaissance, where the church played such a substantial part in the day to day running of people's lives, Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, which is painted on oak with a square middle panel flanked by two doors that close over the centre like shutters, is rather racy. When the outer shutters are folded over they show a grisaille painting of the earth during creation. But it’s the three scenes of the inner triptych that fascinate me. If you’re unfamiliar with the painting, I’ll do my best to describe it for you. Apologies in advance if I miss anything out. It’s regular sort of stuff, you know, naked women being fondled by demons, a bloke being kissed by a pig dressed as a nun, another bloke being eaten by some kind of story book character while loads of blackbirds fly out of his arse, a couple locked in a glass sphere and – let’s not beat about the Bosch here – locked in each other’s embrace as well. There are loads of people feeding each other fruit, doing handstands, hatching out of eggs, climbing up ladders to get inside the bodies of other people and looking at demon’s arses. There’s a couple getting caught shagging by giant birds, and a white bloke and a black Rastafarian with ‘locks (400 years before the Rastafari movement was founded) about to have a snog. You’ve got God giving Eve to a very puny-looking, limp-dicked Adam, and there’s a bunch of people sitting around a table inside the body of another bloke while an old woman fills up on wine from a decent-sized barrel while a kind of giant metal face pukes out loads of naked blokes who go running into a trumpet and another bloke being fed a cherry by a giant bird while a white bloke shows a black lady something in the sky. It’s all going on! There's loads of those ‘living dead’ mateys walking about, and a bloke carrying giant grapes past a topless girl with, it has to be said, pretty decent tits. She’s balancing a giant dice on her head while doing something strange to another bloke’s arse while a rabbit in clothes walks past. You can’t see what she’s doing because there’s a table in the way but beside them is a serpent-type creature with just one massive boob and a pretty pert nipple. One huge tit the size of his chest! Of all things, he’s holding a backgammon board up in the air. I’d say Bosch was a tit man, wouldn’t you? But there’s more. There’s a crowd of naked girls – black & white - in a water pool, all balancing cherries on their heads; read into that what you will. There are just LOADS of naked women in this water pool, including one of the black girls who’s balancing a peacock on her head. There are dozens of nudists riding horses around them in a circle. Some are sharing the same horse, so I must admit that in places it appears to be a little intimate. And now what have we got! There’s a couple cavorting inside a giant shell which is being carried on the back of another bloke. Why doesn’t he just put it down and climb in and have a threes-up? There are people with wings, creatures reading books and just more and more nudists. There’s a naked woman lying back, and this other bloke with his face extremely close to her nether regions! What on earth does the blighter think he’s playing at? There’s loads of grey half men-half fish, some balancing red balls on their heads like seals, and another fellow doing a handstand underwater while holding onto his nuts. You’ve got a ball in a river with people climbing all over it, while a bloke inside the ball is touching a lady in what appears to be a very inappropriate manner! There’s a kind of platypus-type fish reading a book underground and Theresa May triggering Article 50 of Brexit (just kidding about the Theresa May bit).

Finally, it was our turn and my stomach churned with anxiety and nerves. As we raced out onto the stage to form our positions before the curtain went up, Sara turned to me and said, “Break a leg, Julia!” “What?” I frowned. “That’s for good luck,” she smirked and then faced the audience whose applause was deafening once again. We lunged into our routine, with Sara in the front row, doing the somersaults that she was so good at and as usual, her precision and timing were excellent. The applause erupted again and with a flick of her long ponytail, she executed a very tricky interchange with Alex and then moved to the back. Alex attacked his moves with his usual gusto and the sharp, expressive movements which made him the stand out hip-hop dancer that he was. I felt a rush of pride at being a part of such a cool routine but just as I moved to the front position, I felt my leg give way under me. It was a completely involuntary reaction and one I was powerless to prevent. I was supposed to kneel down and support the weight of one of the smaller girls on my bent knee but unfortunately, it was the leg that I had injured that morning. There was no way I could bear her weight and the sharp pain caused my knee to drop just as Abbie pressed down on it to raise herself into the air. With a gasp from the audience, she went tumbling to the ground. Bright red with embarrassment, she glared at me in horror and all I could do was help her up and try to resume the timing and movements of the routine going on around us. Fortunately, Abbie had no trouble getting back into rhythm, but I just seemed to lose my place and was not able to recover. As if in slow motion, I felt myself limping around the stage after the others and then looking down, I realized that blood was oozing from my leg and onto the floor. I tried to ignore it and focus on the moves that I knew so well, but I was simply unable to get it together. Gratefully, Millie took over my spot and I moved once again to the back row, trying to camouflage myself amongst the others. The scene around me was almost surreal and I felt as though I were a spectator watching the event unfold from afar. The swirling, twisting and turning of the dancers in front of me, along with the steady thumping beat of the latest hip-hop song that everyone knew so well, all seemed to mesh together into a whirlpool of crazy colors and sounds. Then, feeling a slight nudge in my lower back, I was pushed towards the front of the stage. An instant flash of recall had me leaping into the air. Everyone still considered this moment the highlight of our routine. It was the grand finale and my chance to relinquish my status as actually being a decent dancer and choreographer. Flinging my arms and legs forward, I came down onto the stage, one foot at a time. Then reminiscent of that morning’s episode in the school driveway, rather than gripping onto the stage in a final dramatic stomp, my foot slid forward and just kept on going until my whole body landed horizontally on the floor with a loud bang. In a blur of dizziness, I sat up and looked around then saw that I had slipped on a pool of blood; blood that had oozed from the gash in my knee and onto the stage. At that very moment, I was overcome with a sudden rush of nausea and unable to stop the sudden convulsion, I vomited all over the floor in front of me. Too terrified to open my eyes, I wished I could turn back the clock. Back to the day of our dress rehearsal when everything had gone so smoothly. My final leap had been the high point of the day, where even Miss Sheldon and also Alex our expert hip hop dancer, had congratulated me on my performance. I dared to glance fearfully out into the audience. Everyone appeared aghast and I could see the shocked expressions of my mom and dad. Then, realizing I was surrounded by worried faces peering down at me, everything suddenly went black.

I once met an eighty-nine-year-old woman who had, of her own volition, checked herself into a Boston nursing home. Usually, it’s the children who push for a change, but in this case she was the one who did. She had congestive heart failure, disabling arthritis, and after a series of falls she felt she had little choice but to leave her condominium in Delray Beach, Florida. “I fell twice in one week, and I told my daughter I don’t belong at home anymore,” she said. She picked the facility herself. It had excellent ratings and nice staff, and her daughter lived nearby. She had moved in the month before I met her. She told me she was glad to be in a safe place—if there’s anything a decent nursing home is built for, it is safety. But she was wretchedly unhappy. The trouble was that she expected more from life than safety. “I know I can’t do what I used to,” she said, “but this feels like a hospital, not a home.” It is a near-universal reality. Nursing home priorities are matters like avoiding bedsores and maintaining residents’ weight—important medical goals, to be sure, but they are means, not ends. The woman had left an airy apartment she furnished herself for a small beige hospital-like room with a stranger for a roommate. Her belongings were stripped down to what she could fit into the one cupboard and shelf they gave her. Basic matters, like when she went to bed, woke up, dressed, and ate, were subject to the rigid schedule of institutional life. She couldn’t have her own furniture or a cocktail before dinner, because it wasn’t safe.

Do you remember when you told me that you’d bought something ridiculously luxurious, and it was a mango?” he asks. “I was so fucking jealous of you. I wished that I could feel what that was like. I wanted to want something like that. I wanted to have that so badly.” I don’t have answers to any of his problems. I don’t even have solutions to mine. But this one thing? This, I can handle. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s get some mangoes.” We pull off the freeway a few miles later and follow the computer’s directions to a little grocery store. Fifteen minutes later, we’re sitting in a rest stop, cutting our mangoes to bits. “Here,” I tell him. “Trade me. Pretend you’re me. Let me tell you what it was like when I had that mango.” He shuts his eyes obligingly. “I didn’t have a lot of money,” I tell him. “And that meant one thing and one thing only—fried rice.” He smiles despite himself. “Kind of a stereotype, don’t you think?” “Whose stereotype? Rice is peasant food for more than half the world. It’s easy. It’s cheap. You can dress it up with a lot of other things. A little bit of onion, a bag of frozen carrots and peas. A carton of eggs. With enough rice, that can last you basically forever. It does for some people.” “It actually sounds good.” “If you have a decent underlying spice cabinet, you can break up the monotony a little. Fried rice with soy sauce one day. Spicy rice the next. And then curry rice. You can fool your tongue indefinitely. You can’t fool your body. You start craving.” He’s sitting on the picnic table, his eyes shut. “For me, the thing I start craving first is greens. Lettuce. Pea shoots. Anything that isn’t coming out of a bag of frozen veggies. And fruit. If you have an extra dollar or two, you buy apples and eat them in quarters, dividing them throughout the day.” I slide next to him on the table. The sun is warm around us. “But you get sick of apples, too, pretty soon. And so that’s where I want you to imagine yourself: sick to death of fried rice. No respite. No letting up. And then suddenly, one day, someone hands you a debit card and says, ‘Hey. Here’s fifteen thousand dollars.’ No, I’m not going to buy a stupid purse. I’m going to buy this.” I hold up a piece of mango to his lips. He opens his mouth and the fruit slides in. His lips close on my fingers like a kiss, and I can’t bring myself to draw away. He’s warmer than the sun, and I feel myself getting pulled in, closer and closer. “Oh, God.” He doesn’t open his eyes. “That’s so good.” I feed him another slice, golden and dripping juice. “That’s what it felt like,” I tell him. “Like there’s a deep-seated need, something in my bones, something missing. And then you take a bite and there’s an explosion of flavor, something bigger than just the taste buds screaming, yes, yes, this is what I need.” I hand him another piece of mango. He bites it in half, chews, and then takes the other half. “That’s what it felt like,” I say. “It felt like I’d been starving myself. Like I…” He opens his eyes and looks at me. “Like there was something I needed,” I say softly. “Something I’ve needed deep down. Something I’ve been denying myself because I can’t let myself want it.” My voice trails off. I’m not describing the taste of mango anymore. My whole body yearns for his. For this thing I’ve been denying myself. For physical affection. For our bodies joined. For his arms around me all night. It’s going to hurt when he walks away. But you know what? It’ll hurt more if he walks away and we leave things like this, desperate and wanting, incomplete. My voice drops. “It’s like there’s someone I’ve been denying myself. All this time.

As Ross entered the kitchen, he saw Ernest sitting at the scrubbed wooden table. The boy wolfed down a plate of breakfast as if it were the first decent meal he'd had in months. Sophia stood at the range with the scrawny cook-maid, apparently showing her how to prepare the morning's fare. "Turn them like this," Sophia was saying, expertly flipping a row of little cakes on a griddle pan. The kitchen atmosphere was especially fragrant today, spiced with frying bacon, coffee, and sizzling batter. Sophia looked fresh and wholesome, the trim curves of her figure outlined by a white apron that covered her charcoal-gray dress. Her gleaming hair was pinned in a coil at the top of her head and tied with a blue ribbon. As she saw him standing in the doorway, a smile lit her sapphire eyes, and she was so dazzlingly pretty that Ross felt a painful jab low in his stomach. "Good morning, Sir Ross," she said. "Will you have some breakfast?" "No, thank you," he replied automatically. "Only a jug of coffee. I never..." He paused as the cook set a platter on the table. It was piled with steaming batter cakes sitting in a pool of blackberry sauce. He had a special fondness for blackberries. "Just one or two?" Sophia coaxed. Abruptly it became less important that he adhere to his usual habits. Perhaps he could make time for a little breakfast, Ross reasoned. A five-minute delay would make no difference in his schedule. He found himself seated at the table facing a plate heaped with cakes, crisp bacon, and coddled eggs. Sophia filled a mug with steaming black coffee, and smiled at him once more before resuming her place at the range with Eliza. Ross picked up his fork and stared at it as if he didn't quite know what to do with it. "They're good, sir," Ernest ventured, stuffing his mouth so greedily that it seemed likely he would choke. Ross took a bite of the fruit-soaked cake and washed it down with a swallow of hot coffee. As he continued to eat, he felt an unfamiliar sense of well-being. Good God, it had been a long time since he'd had anything other than Eliza's wretched concoctions. For the next few minutes Ross ate until the platter of cakes was demolished. Sophia came now and then to refill his cup or offer more bacon. The cozy warmth of the kitchen and the sight of Sophia as she moved about the room caused a tide of unwilling pleasure inside him.

Now, no one likes to grill more than I do. But everyone in the business knows there's a huge difference between grill and sauté. Grill guys- and by no means would I want to imply that grilling isn't an art- but grill guys tend to be the cavemen of the kitchen. The guys who don't possess much in the way of artistic flair but can give you a perfectly pink tenderloin of venison after sprinkling it with salt and pepper, searing it, and poking it a couple of times. These are not the men for delicate seasonings and sauce making. They stick to the meat, mostly. And they can take a lot of heat. Sautéing is the highest station in the kitchen, below the sous chef and chef. And I, for one, goddammit, have piled enough skyscraper salads to be given consideration. I'm not working my way up the kitchen ladder for my goddamn health. I know all too well the sting of vinegar in an open cut. Oh yes, that salad you're eating as a light appetizer? My bare hands have massaged dressing into every leaf. Lettuce loves me. But I've got ambition and, I don't mind saying, a decent palate. I believe I'm capable of executing the finer sauce nuances. I want to start my own place. I want to be The Chef. And the only way to do this (aside from buying a place outright) is by becoming the greatest cook I can be. Which means kicking ass on the line, not just salads and desserts. These are my hopes. These are my dreams.

When she was still a child, her daughter had asked Marina, ‘Why do Russians have such bad teeth and greasy hair?’ Marina could have answered this question, but she chose to remain silent; there would have been too much to explain, about how every culture had its own habits: Americans change their T-shirts twice a day and wash every time they come near a shower. But a Russian, from one generation to the next, washed once a week in the bathhouse, on Saturdays, and changed his underwear at the same time. Many of them lived in communal housing, where there was no bathroom at all. And she would also have had to talk about how every shabbily dressed Russian child at their age read as many books in a year as she and her brother were likely to read in a lifetime. And how every decent Russian adult knew as many poems by heart as a professor of philology in this country had ever known.

I’d taken some of the money Jayda had given me to go thrifting for something decent to wear. I had an appreciation for vintage dresses, thanks to my mother, who’d always told me that dresses and skirts were a woman’s rebellion against the world’s ruthless nature. Soft and vulnerable and bold at the same time.

A dozen crows in their clerical dress of decent black were idling among the graves. They rose up to flap about me as I came down the lane like a host of winged curates all ready to do my bidding.

You'll go in soon," his father went on, not hearing. "And I want to tell you so you won't be surprised. They'll first strip off your clothes, but they'll go deeper than that. They'll shuck off any little dignity you have- you'll lose what you think of as your decent right to live and to be let alone to live. They'll make you live and eat and sleep and shit close to other men. And when they dress you up again you'll not be able to tell yourself from the others. You can't even wear a scrap or pin a note on your breast to say, 'This is me-separate from the rest.' " "I don't want to do it," said Adam. "After a while," said Cyrus, "you'll think no thought the others do not think. You'll know no word the others can't say. And you'll do things because the others do them. You'll feel the danger in any difference whatever-a danger to the whole crowd of like-thinking, like-acting men.