Decorating Hate Quotes

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But the helmet had gold decoration, and the bespoke armorers had made a new gleaming breastplate with useless gold ornamentation on it. Sam Vimes felt like a class traitor every time he wore it. He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armor. It was gilt by association.
Terry Pratchett (Night Watch (Discworld, #29; City Watch, #6))
Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet. Age: five thousand three hundred days. Profession: none, or "starlet" Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze? Why are you hiding, darling? (I Talk in a daze, I walk in a maze I cannot get out, said the starling). Where are you riding, Dolores Haze? What make is the magic carpet? Is a Cream Cougar the present craze? And where are you parked, my car pet? Who is your hero, Dolores Haze? Still one of those blue-capped star-men? Oh the balmy days and the palmy bays, And the cars, and the bars, my Carmen! Oh Dolores, that juke-box hurts! Are you still dancin', darlin'? (Both in worn levis, both in torn T-shirts, And I, in my corner, snarlin'). Happy, happy is gnarled McFate Touring the States with a child wife, Plowing his Molly in every State Among the protected wild life. My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair, And never closed when I kissed her. Know an old perfume called Soliel Vert? Are you from Paris, mister? L'autre soir un air froid d'opera m'alita; Son fele -- bien fol est qui s'y fie! Il neige, le decor s'ecroule, Lolita! Lolita, qu'ai-je fait de ta vie? Dying, dying, Lolita Haze, Of hate and remorse, I'm dying. And again my hairy fist I raise, And again I hear you crying. Officer, officer, there they go-- In the rain, where that lighted store is! And her socks are white, and I love her so, And her name is Haze, Dolores. Officer, officer, there they are-- Dolores Haze and her lover! Whip out your gun and follow that car. Now tumble out and take cover. Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. Her dream-gray gaze never flinches. Ninety pounds is all she weighs With a height of sixty inches. My car is limping, Dolores Haze, And the last long lap is the hardest, And I shall be dumped where the weed decays, And the rest is rust and stardust.
Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita)
People so staunch and true, they're fixated, Shining with self-regard like polished stones. And their whole life spent admiring themselves For their own long-suffering. Licking their wounds And flashing them around like decorations. I hate it, I always hated it, and I am A part of it myself.
Seamus Heaney (The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes)
,,,I decided to play the hero. See how it felt. To try.' 'And?' she asks. 'I didn't like it,' he admits. 'Henceforth, I think we should consider our roles as monarchs to be largely decorative. It would be better for the low Courts and the solitary Folk to work things out on their own.' 'I think you have iron poisoning,' she tells him, which could possibly be true but is still a hurtful thing to say when he is making perfect sense.
Holly Black (How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories (The Folk of the Air, #3.5))
The plain old Sam Vimes had fought back. He got rid of most of the plumes and the stupid tights, and ended up with a dress uniform that at least looked as though its owner was male. But the helmet had gold decoration, and the bespoke armourers had made a new, gleaming breastplate with useless gold ornamentation on it. Sam Vimes felt like a class traitor every time he wore it. He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armour. It was gilt by association.
Terry Pratchett (Night Watch (Discworld, #29; City Watch, #6))
And I decided to play the hero. See how it felt. To try." "And?" she asks. "I didn't like it," he admits. "Henceforth, I think we should consider our roles as monarchs to be largely decorative. It would be better for the low Courts and the solitary Folk to work things out on their own." "I think you have iron poisoning," she tells him, which could possibly be true but is still a hurtful thing to say when he is making perfect sense.
Holly Black (How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories (The Folk of the Air, #3.5))
But the helmet had gold decoration, and the bespoke armourers had made a new, gleaming breastplate with useless gold ornamentation on it. Sam Vimes felt like a class traitor every time he wore it. He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armour. It was gilt by association.
Terry Pratchett (Night Watch (Discworld, #29))
It is not the dead rather the ones who lives through war have seen the dreadful end of the war, you might have been victorious, unwounded but deep within you, you carry the mark of the war, you carry the memories of war, the time you have spend with your comrades, the times when you had to dug in to foxholes to avoid shelling, the times when you hate to see your comrade down on the ground, feeling of despair, atrocities of the war, missing families, home. They live through hell and often the most wounded, they live with the guilt, despair, of being in the war, they may be happy but deep down they are a different person. Not everyone is a hero. You live with the moments, time when you were unsuccessful, when your actions would have helped your comrades, when your actions get your comrades killed, you live with regret, joyous in the victory can never help you forget the time you have spent. You are victorious for the people you have lost, the decisions you have made, the courage you have shown but being victorious in the war has a price to pay, irrevocable. You can't take a memory back from a person, even if you lose your memory your imagination haunts you as deep down your sub conscious mind you know who you are, who you were. Close you eyes and you can very well see your past, you cant change your past, time you have spent, you live through all and hence you are a hero not for the glorious war for the times you have faced. Decoration with medals is not going to give your life back. the more you know, more experiences doesn't make it easy rather make its worse. Arms and ammunition kills you once and free you from the misery but the experiences of war kills you everyday, makes you cherish the times everyday through the life. You may forgot that you cant walk anymore, you may forget you cant use your right hand, you may forgot the scars on your face but you can never forgot war. Life without war is never easy and only the ones how survived through it can understand. Soldiers are taught to fight but the actual combat starts after war which you are not even trained for. You rely on your weapon, leaders, comrades, god, luck in the war but here you rely on your self to beat the horrors,they have seen hell, heaven, they have felt the mixed emotions of hope, despair, courage, victory, defeat, scared.
Pushpa Rana (Just the Way I Feel)
That until now she was a Christmas tree that had been decorated by someone who hated Christmas.
Elizabeth Mckenzie (The Portable Veblen)
Horrible house! Iris shivered. She hated it. A gracious well-built house, harmoniously furnished and decorated (Ruth Lessing was never at fault!). And curiously, frighteningly vacant. They didn’t live there. They occupied it. As soldiers, in a war, occupied some lookout post.
Agatha Christie (Sparkling Cyanide (Colonel Race, #4))
Oh I could be out, rollicking in the ripeness of my flesh and others’, could be drinking things and eating things and rubbing mine against theirs, speculating about this person or that, waving, indicating hello with a sudden upward jutting of my chin, sitting in the backseat of someone else’s car, bumping up and down the San Francisco hills, south of Market, seeing people attacking their instruments, afterward stopping at a bodega, parking, carrying the bottles in a paper bag, the glass clinking, all our faces bright, glowing under streetlamps, down the sidewalk to this or that apartment party, hi, hi, putting the bottles in the fridge, removing one for now, hating the apartment, checking the view, sitting on the arm of a couch and being told not to, and then waiting for the bathroom, staring idly at that ubiquitous Ansel Adams print, Yosemite, talking to a short-haired girl while waiting in the hallway, talking about teeth, no reason really, the train of thought unclear, asking to see her fillings, no, really, I’ll show you mine first, ha ha, then no, you go ahead, I’ll go after you, then, after using the bathroom she is still there, still in the hallway, she was waiting not just for the bathroom but for me, and so eventually we’ll go home together, her apartment, where she lives alone, in a wide, immaculate railroad type place, newly painted, decorated with her mother, then sleeping in her oversized, oversoft white bed, eating breakfast in her light-filled nook, then maybe to the beach for a few hours with the Sunday paper, then wandering home whenever, never- Fuck. We don't even have a baby-sitter.
Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius)
Milwaukee, Rebecca. Order and sobriety and a devotion to cleanliness that scours out the soul. Decent people doing their best to live decent lives, three's nothing really to hate them for, they do their jobs and maintain their property and love their children (most of the time); they take family vacations and visit relatives and decorate their houses for the holidays, collect some things and save up for other things; they're good people (most of them, most of the time), but if you were me, if you were young Pete Harris, you felt the modesty of it eroding you, depopulating you, all those little satisfactions and no big, dangerous ones; no heroism, no genius, no terrible yearning for anything you can't at least in theory actually have. If you were young lank-haired, pustule-plagued Pete Harris you felt like you were always about to expire from the safety of your life, its obdurate sensibleness, that Protestant love of the unexceptional; the eternal certainty of the faithful that flamboyance and the macabre are not just threatening but - worse - uninteresting.
Michael Cunningham (By Nightfall)
...I decided to play the hero. See how it felt. To try.' 'And?' she asks. 'I didn't like it,' he admits. 'Henceforth, I think we should consider our roles as monarchs to be largely decorative. It would be better for the low Courts and the solitary Folk to work things out on their own.' 'I think you have iron poisoning,' she tells him, which could possibly be true but is still a hurtful thing to say when he is making perfect sense.
Holly Black (How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories (The Folk of the Air, #3.5))
The small pergola that Michael had built was covered in loops of jasmine, and Lara's flower beds were blazing with color. Blowsy white peonies, dusky purple irises with golden stripes, pale orange poppies with sooty centers. The first tea roses of the year were budding. Elinas, pink petals tipped with crimson, and the ivory Jeanne Moreaus that smelled faintly of lemons. Lara wanted to pick one and put it on the breakfast tray, but Michael hated cut flowers. She went back inside and began to set the tray. Her mother's blue Venetian glass dish filled with raspberries. Orange juice in a white jug. A honey pot with a wooden dipper. Sunshine streamed in through the window, warming the terra-cotta tiles beneath her bare feet. She could not have cut flowers in the house so she had pictures of them instead. Two huge framed Georgia O'Keefe poppy prints. An apron with a pattern of climbing roses. A wooden clock that Phil had given her with a pendulum in the shape of a red rose.
Ella Griffin (The Flower Arrangement)
Philoctetes. Hercules. Odysseus. Heroes. Victims. Gods and human beings. All throwing shapes, every one of them Convinced he's in the right, all them glad To repeat themselves and their every last mistake, No matter what. People so deep into Their own self-pity, self-pity buoys them up. People so staunch and true, they're fixated, Shining with self-regard like polished stones. And their whole life spent admiring themselves For their own long-suffering. Licking their wounds And flashing them around like decorations. I hate it, I always hated it, and I am A part of it myself
Seamus Heaney
I DIDN’T START OUT AS A BOOK LOVER,” admits Phillip Lim. “Initially, it was more about pragmatism: seeking knowledge having to do with research on work, on my interiors, building a home, even a word I wanted to understand more. But what I love about books is, once you start, you get to go deeper and deeper and deeper into a subject, and from there you go to another book, and another book, and soon after, you have a wall of books. And then you have two walls of books. And then—” The designer indicates the floor-to-ceiling bookcases that serve as the focal point of his loft apartment. “Books are how I learn,” Lim continues, “but I’m not nostalgic. I hate to look back; books inform you, but then they also become decoration. That may sound horrible to a true book lover, but I feel I honor them by making these objects part of my aesthetic world.” PHILLIP LIM
Nina Freudenberger (Bibliostyle: How We Live at Home with Books)
Wiser and more capable men than I shall ever be have put their findings before you, findings so rich and so full of anger, serenity, murder, healing, truth, and love that it seems incredible the world were not destroyed and fulfilled in the instant, but you are too much for them: the weak in courage are strong in cunning; and one by one, you have absorbed and have captured and dishonored, and have distilled of your deliverers the most ruinous of all your poisons; people hear Beethoven in concert halls, or over a bridge game, or to relax; Cézannes are hung on walls, reproduced, in natural wood frames; van Gogh is the man who cut off his ear and whose yellows became recently popular in window decoration; Swift loved individuals but hated the human race; Kafka is a fad; Blake is in the Modern Library; Freud is a Modern Library Giant; Dovschenko’s Frontier is disliked by those who demand that it fit the Eisenstein esthetic; nobody reads Joyce any more; Céline is a madman who has incurred the hearty dislike of Alfred Kazin, reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune book section, and is, moreover, a fascist; I hope I need not mention Jesus Christ of whom you have managed to make a dirty gentile. However
Walker Evans (Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families)
onto the couch opposite his, noting the differences between this sitting room and the one I’d left. The colors were lighter and there were no weapons or barbaric shields over the fireplace. All at once, I hated the apricot and cream decor and the white hearth with the insipid oil landscape above it. This room lacked complexity, fierceness, passion . . . It lacked everything that Vlad was. “So he’s covering Gretchen’s expenses for the year.” Of course he hadn’t told me that. Vlad seldom mentioned his thoughtful deeds. “That’s very generous of him.” My dad glanced around pointedly. “He can afford it.” “He can also mesmerize her into forgetting she ever met him and drop her back at her apartment without a cent,” I said in a crisp tone. “Come on, Dad. Give credit where it’s due.” That salt-and-pepper head snapped up. “I do. He promised to bring you back safely and he did. He promised to let us return to our lives when the danger had passed and I believe him. But he refused to promise to leave you alone, and from how you look now, he’s made good on his intentions not to.” I was a grown woman, but I didn’t think I would ever feel comfortable discussing my sex life with my dad. In this case, though, he had nothing to worry about. “It’s
Jeaniene Frost (Twice Tempted (Night Prince, #2))
Books are an absolute necessity. I always have at least two with me wherever I go, to say nothing of my digital collection, and whenever I can get my hands on a delicious new reading piece, I will finish it at a slackened pace, to savour it with all the esteem it deserves, gratulating in its pleasance, deliciating in every word with ardent affection. I have an extensive library that I could never do without, and there are at least four books decorating every surface in my house. A table is not properly set without a book to furnish it. Half of my great collection is non-fiction, mostly science and history books, ranging from the archaeological to the agricultural, and my fiction section is dedicated to the classics, mostly books published before the world forgot about exquisite prose. I have all the greats in hardcover, but I do not read those: hardcover is for smelling and touching only. For all my favourite authors, I have reading copies, which I might take with me anywhere, to read in cafes or to be used as a swatting tool for unwanted visitors, but books are always fashionable even as ornaments; everyone likes a reader, for a good collection of books betrays a intellectualism that is becoming at anytime. Never succumb to the friable wills of those who reject the majesty of books: there is nothing so repelling as willful illiteracy.
Michelle Franklin (I Hate Summer: My tribulations with seasonal depression, anxiety, plumbers, spiders, neighbours, and the world.)
It is a painful irony that silent movies were driven out of existence just as they were reaching a kind of glorious summit of creativity and imagination, so that some of the best silent movies were also some of the last ones. Of no film was that more true than Wings, which opened on August 12 at the Criterion Theatre in New York, with a dedication to Charles Lindbergh. The film was the conception of John Monk Saunders, a bright young man from Minnesota who was also a Rhodes scholar, a gifted writer, a handsome philanderer, and a drinker, not necessarily in that order. In the early 1920s, Saunders met and became friends with the film producer Jesse Lasky and Lasky’s wife, Bessie. Saunders was an uncommonly charming fellow, and he persuaded Lasky to buy a half-finished novel he had written about aerial combat in the First World War. Fired with excitement, Lasky gave Saunders a record $39,000 for the idea and put him to work on a script. Had Lasky known that Saunders was sleeping with his wife, he might not have been quite so generous. Lasky’s choice for director was unexpected but inspired. William Wellman was thirty years old and had no experience of making big movies—and at $2 million Wings was the biggest movie Paramount had ever undertaken. At a time when top-rank directors like Ernst Lubitsch were paid $175,000 a picture, Wellman was given a salary of $250 a week. But he had one advantage over every other director in Hollywood: he was a World War I flying ace and intimately understood the beauty and enchantment of flight as well as the fearful mayhem of aerial combat. No other filmmaker has ever used technical proficiency to better advantage. Wellman had had a busy life already. Born into a well-to-do family in Brookline, Massachusetts, he had been a high school dropout, a professional ice hockey player, a volunteer in the French Foreign Legion, and a member of the celebrated Lafayette Escadrille flying squad. Both France and the United States had decorated him for gallantry. After the war he became friends with Douglas Fairbanks, who got him a job at the Goldwyn studios as an actor. Wellman hated acting and switched to directing. He became what was known as a contract director, churning out low-budget westerns and other B movies. Always temperamental, he was frequently fired from jobs, once for slapping an actress. He was a startling choice to be put in charge of such a challenging epic. To the astonishment of everyone, he now made one of the most intelligent, moving, and thrilling pictures ever made. Nothing was faked. Whatever the pilot saw in real life the audiences saw on the screen. When clouds or exploding dirigibles were seen outside airplane windows they were real objects filmed in real time. Wellman mounted cameras inside the cockpits looking out, so that the audiences had the sensation of sitting at the pilots’ shoulders, and outside the cockpit looking in, allowing close-up views of the pilots’ reactions. Richard Arlen and Buddy Rogers, the two male stars of the picture, had to be their own cameramen, activating cameras with a remote-control button.
Bill Bryson (One Summer: America, 1927)
You were raised with a very special status in Tibet. You must have come to this recognition of oneness over time.” “Yes, I have grown in my wisdom from study and experience. When I first went to Peking, now Beijing, to meet Chinese leaders, and also in 1956 when I came to India and met some Indian leaders, there was too much formality, so I felt nervous. So now, when I meet people, I do it on a human-to-human level, no need for formality. I really hate formality. When we are born, there is no formality. When we die, there is no formality. When we enter hospital, there is no formality. So formality is just artificial. It just creates additional barriers. So irrespective of our beliefs, we are all the same human beings. We all want a happy life.” I couldn’t help wondering if the Dalai Lama’s dislike of formality had to do with having spent his childhood in a gilded cage. “Was it only when you went into exile,” I asked, “that the formality ended?” “Yes, that’s right. So sometimes I say, Since I became a refugee, I have been liberated from the prison of formality. So I became much closer to reality. That’s much better. I often tease my Japanese friends that there is too much formality in their cultural etiquette. Sometimes when we discuss something, they always respond like this.” The Dalai Lama vigorously nodded his head. “So whether they agree or disagree, I cannot tell. The worst thing is the formal lunches. I always tease them that the meal looks like decoration, not like food. Everything is very beautiful, but very small portions! I don’t care about formality, so I ask them, more rice, more rice. Too much formality, then you are left with a very little portion, which is maybe good for a bird.” He was scooping up the last bits of dessert.
Dalai Lama XIV (The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World)
It’s just a kiss,” she says softly. “Why are you all torn up about a kiss?” She’s studying me way too closely. “I’m not torn up,” I protest. “You’ve been moping ever since I told you about the fundraiser, Sean,” she says. “What’s your problem? It’s for charity, for God’s sake.” She lays her free hand on her chest. “My kiss is going to feed victims of domestic violence. I’m doing my part for a better community.” I look down at her mouth. God, I could just slide my fingers into her hair, pull her to me, and kiss her right here and now. But I won’t. Because she doesn’t want me. “I can’t believe you’re going kiss some stranger,” I bite out. “Don’t do it.” “I’ve kissed men before, Sean,” she reminds me. I wish she would keep that shit to herself. “What if it’s some big, goofy guy with really bad breath?” I ask. “What if it’s some big, brawny guy who smells like you and kisses like a god?” she asks. She smiles, the corners of her lips tilting up so prettily. Her fingertips touch my forearm lightly, and she traces the tattoos that decorate my arm from wrist to shoulder. Every hair on my body stands up, and I lift my hand from her knee and thread my fingers with hers so she’ll stop. “If I’m lucky, he’ll be all tatted up, too.” She looks off into the distance, her gaze no longer on me. “Honey, if you want to kiss someone who looks like me and smells like me, I think I can accommodate you so you don’t have to kiss some stranger.” Her eyes shift back to meet mine, and she may as well have just punched me in the gut. She looks into my eyes and stares as if she’s looking into my soul. She can look into it anytime. Shit, I’d give it to her, if she wanted it. But it’s not me she wants. She’s made that abundantly clear. “If I ever kissed you, I would never be able to stop,” I say quietly. My voice sounds like it’s been dragged down a gravel road and back, and I fucking hate that she can affect me this way. “Prove it,” she says, and then she licks her cherry-red lips. She doesn’t break eye contact. I move quickly. This is the first time she’s ever made an offer like this, and my gut tells me that she’s going to take it back. I cup her neck with my palm and pull her toward me. My gentle tug brings her flush against my chest, and the weight of her settles against me and feels so right. Her lips are so close to mine that her inhale is my exhale. My hand quivers as it holds her nape, so I work my fingers into the hair at the back of her head. I hold her still and look into her green eyes. “Tell me you want me to kiss you and you got me, honey,” I whisper. She shivers and inches up my chest ever so slightly, her mouth moving closer to mine. So close. Just a little closer. I can almost taste her. “I want you to kiss me,” she whispers. “Please.” Suddenly, the door opens, and Lacey jumps up, separating us in one final, powerful leap. Fuck. I pull the pillow from behind my head and shove it in my lap, sitting up on the side of the bed. Friday,
Tammy Falkner (Just Jelly Beans and Jealousy (The Reed Brothers, #3.4))
Humble' is another way or saying 'simple' or 'poor' like we can't have fun; we can't roll up the rugs and dance, or tap the sap, or make decorations for a tree. It's pious and is just the sort of thing that lectures a room or depresses it, and you have to have a wall hanging because the old biddies say so, but you don't like it and you wish you didn't need it. In fact, you absolutely hate it.
Allan Dare Pearce (Paris in April)
Cake Shop Accused Of Religious Discrimination For Refusing To Write Anti-Gay Slur On Bible Cake American Voices • Opinion • ISSUE 51•03 • Jan 22, 2015 A bakery in Arizona is facing a religious discrimination complaint after refusing to comply with a customer’s order to decorate a cake shaped like a Bible with the words “God hates gays” and an image of two men holding hands with an “X” over it. What do you think? “A homemade anti-gay cake is more meaningful anyway.
Anonymous
The couch and I were what I would describe as frenemies. I loved to hate it. It was too small for my frame. I had tried to tell my wife that fact when we bought it off of Craigslist, but she assured me that it went perfectly with our room decor and it was a good deal.
Anna M. Aquino
Very bad,” she muttered. Benedict looked up. “Did you say something?” She crossed her arms mutinously. “Just that you’re a very bad man.” He chuckled. She’d known he would chuckle, and it still irritated her. He pulled the curtain away from the window and looked out. “We’re nearly there,” he said. He’d said that he was taking her directly to his mother’s residence. Sophie remembered the grand house in Grosvenor Square as if she’d been there the night before. The ballroom was huge, with hundreds of sconces on the walls, each adorned by a perfect beeswax candle. The smaller rooms had been decorated in the Adam style, with exquisitely scalloped ceilings and pale, pastel walls. It had been Sophie’s dream house, quite literally. In all her dreams of Benedict and their fictional future together, she’d always seen herself in that house. It was silly, she knew, since he was a second son and thus not in line to inherit the property, but still, it was the most beautiful home she’d ever beheld, and dreams weren’t meant to be about reality, anyway. If Sophie had wanted to dream her way right into Kensington Palace, that was her prerogative. Of course, she thought with a wry smile, she wasn’t likely ever to see the interior of Kensington Palace. “What are you smiling about?” Benedict demanded. She didn’t bother to glance up as she replied, “I’m plotting your demise.” He grinned— not that she was looking at him, but it was one of those smiles she could hear in the way he breathed. She hated that she was that sensitive to his every nuance. Especially since she had a sneaking suspicion that he was the same way about her. “At least it sounds entertaining,” he said. “What does?” she asked, finally moving her eyes from the lower hem of the curtain, which she’d been staring at for what seemed like hours. “My demise,” he said, his smile crooked and amused. “If you’re going to kill me, you might as well enjoy yourself while you’re at it, because Lord knows, I won’t.” Her jaw dropped a good inch. “You’re mad,” she said. “Probably.” He shrugged rather casually before settling back in his seat and propping his feet up on the bench across from him. “I’ve all but kidnapped you, after all. I should think that would qualify as the maddest thing I’ve ever done.” “You could let me go now,” she said, even though she knew he never would. “Here in London? Where you could be attacked by footpads at any moment? That would be most irresponsible of me, don’t you think?” “It hardly compares to abducting me against my will!” “I didn’t abduct you,” he said, idly examining his fingernails. “I blackmailed you. There’s a world of difference.” Sophie was saved from having to reply by the jolt of the carriage as it ground to a halt. -Sophie & Benedict
Julia Quinn (An Offer From a Gentleman (Bridgertons, #3))
the address before moving on to the next letter, dated February of 1935. Her first words were to ask why he had never written to her. She supposed that he was very busy, or that the letter might have been lost in the post. She wrote her address again in large letters decorated with colored pencils and lined with tiny blue flowers. She was doing well and enjoying her life in London. The letter was short. She asked that he write back again at the end and that he might even come to see her that summer. He lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and thinking of her as she wrote the letter. He ripped open the next envelope. This letter was only a few words. May 12, 1935 Dear Christopher, Please reply to this. I am worried. I can’t come back to see you but wish that I could. Your father told me that you are trying to move on, but please just let me know that you are all right, that you don’t hate me.
Eoin Dempsey (Finding Rebecca)
said, ‘I don’t know what she expects to find out — we haven’t seen him in ten months.’ The word haven’t stuck out to her. As if they would again. It was always difficult to wrap your head around news like that. He’d sounded calm on the phone, as though he’d come to terms with this eventuality already, even before the news came in. Though when the reality of it all hit home the emotion couldn’t be denied.  She knew from personal experience. She’d felt indifferent when her mum told her that her dad was dead. It was only three days later that the realisation set in, when she came downstairs and the birthday decorations were still up. Her mother was slumped on the sofa, an empty bottle of red wine lying on its side next to her, the contents soaked into the fabric.  She remembered pausing at the bottom of the stairs and looking at her mother, passed out drunk. She’d always hated her father for looking like that.
Morgan Greene (Bare Skin (DS Jamie Johansson #1))
My dad was always tough to please. He thought pushing me would make me a man, but I was never man enough. All I ever wanted from him was a word of praise, a proud smile.” “What about your mother?” He smiled tenderly. “God, she was incredible. She always loved him, no matter what. And I didn’t have to do anything to make her think I was a hero. If I fell flat on my face she’d just beam and say, ‘Did you see that great routine of Ian’s? What a genius!’ When I was in that musical, she thought I was the best thing to hit Chico, but my dad asked me if I was gay.” He chuckled. “My mom was the best-natured, kindest, most generous woman who ever lived. Always positive. And faithful?” He laughed, shaking his head. “My dad could be in one of his negative moods where nothing was right—the dinner sucked, the ball game wasn’t coming in clear on the TV, the battery on the car was giving out, he hated work, the neighbors were too loud… And my mom, instead of saying, ‘Why don’t you grow the fuck up, you old turd,’ she would just say, ‘John, I bet I have something that will turn your mood around—I made a German chocolate cake.’” Marcie smiled. “She sounds wonderful.” “She was. Wonderful. Even while she was fighting cancer, she was so strong, so awesome that I kept thinking it was going to be all right, that she’d make it. As for my dad, he was always impossible to please, impossible to impress. I really thought I’d grown through it, you know? I got to the point real early where I finally understood that that’s just the kind of guy he was. He never beat me, he hardly even yelled at me. He didn’t get drunk, break up the furniture, miss work or—” “But what did he do, Ian?” she asked gently. He blinked a couple of times. “Did you know I got medals for getting Bobby out of Fallujah?” She nodded. “He got medals, too.” “My old man was there when I was decorated. He stood nice and tall, polite, and told everyone he knew about the medals. But he never said jack to me. Then when I told him I was getting out of the Marine Corps, he told me I was a fuckup. That I didn’t know a good thing when I had it. And he said…” He paused for a second. “He said he’d never been so ashamed of me in his whole goddamn life and if I did that—got out—I wasn’t his son.” Instead of crumbling into tears on his behalf, she leaned against him, stroked his cheek a little and smiled. “So—he was the same guy his whole stupid life.” Ian felt a slight, melancholy smile tug at his lips. “The same guy. One miserable son of a bitch.” “There’s
Robyn Carr (A Virgin River Christmas (Virgin River #4))
Anyone who ever lost someone hates Christmas. Christmas takes your pain and turns it up to eleven. It taunts your loss with every glistening treetops and 'First Noel'. It reminds you that there is no respite, no let-up. Your grief is unrelenting and even if you manage to put it away, like a box of decorations, it will always come back. Reappearing every year, as familiar as Jacob Marley's rotting ghost.
C.J. Tudor (The Other People)
Season's Greetings by Stewart Stafford Season's Greetings To those we are needing, While I am leading The Festive charge. Christmas love is fleeting, The snow is sleeting, And there's every chance of feeling, A thaw in my cold heart. Season's Greetings everywhere, Let War cease and all be fair, A heart that's full of Christmas cheer, Bravely faces the New Year. And so, we feast and celebrate, For those we've lost, we contemplate, Christmas is an emotional stocktake, Of those still here and those that are late. The year winds down to that last date, Resolutions tempting fate, New Fear's Eve, many hate, And choose to socially-isolate. Season's Greetings while you can, To every woman, child, and man, Season's Greetings, don't you wait Hold back now, and it's too late. And in the end, all we do, Is create memories for the few, Who mattered while we strode this earth, Then back to the place before our birth. Season's Greetings, decorations down, Bittersweet crunching sounds, Topple the tree to live again, Twelfth Night, the inevitable end. © Stewart Stafford, 2020. All rights reserved.
Stewart Stafford
Crumple hated the idea of being upstaged by an interior decorator again.  He had a box full of jelly donuts, enough coffee to wake up a hibernating bear, and was eager as a beaver to find the killer himself.
K.M. Morgan (The Deadly Directorial Affair (Daisy McDare #3))
Therefore, you have no cause to evade anyone who stands before you and needs your service. Suppose he’s a stranger. The Lord, however, has stamped him with His own mark that’s familiar to you, and for that reason God forbids you to despise your own flesh. Suppose he is contemptible and worthless. The Lord, however, shows him to be one whom He has condescended to decorate with His own image. Suppose you owe him nothing for what he’s done. But God—to whom you know you are obligated because of His many wonderful benefits to you—puts Himself, as it were, in that person’s place. Suppose he is unworthy of even your smallest labors for his sake. But the image of God, according to which this person is commended to you, warrants your giving of yourself and your all. Supposing a man not only deserves nothing good from you, but he has also provoked you with injustices and injuries—even this is not just cause for you to stop embracing him with affection and fulfilling your duties of love to him. He has deserved, you might say, something much different from me. But what has the Lord deserved? When He orders you to forgive that man for whatever sin he has committed against you, He calls you to do so not because that man deserves it, but because God Himself has forgiven you (Luke 17:3–4). This is the only path to achieving that which is not only difficult for, but entirely adverse to, our human nature—that is, loving those who hate us, repaying evil with good, and blessing those who curse us.
Aaron C. Denlinger (A Little Book on the Christian Life, Damask)
Emotional Labour: The f Word, by Jane Caro and Catherine Fox "Work inside the home is not always about chores. One of the most onerous roles is managing the dynamics of the home. The running of the schedule, the attention to details about band practice and sports training, the purchase of presents for next Saturday’s birthday party, the check up at the dentist, all usually fall on one person's shoulders. Woody Allen, in the much-publicised custody case for his children with Mia Farrow, eventually lost, in part because unlike Farrow, he could not name the children’s dentist or paediatrician. It’s a guardianship role and it is not only physically time consuming but demands enormous intellectual and emotional attention. Sociologists call it kin work. It involves: 'keeping in touch with relations, preparing holiday celebrations and remembering birthdays. Another aspect of family work is being attentive to the emotions within a family - what sociologists call ‘emotion work.’ This means being attentive to the emotional tone among family members, troubleshooting and facing problems in a constructive way. In our society, women do a disproportionate amount of this important work. If any one of these activities is performed outside the home, it is called work - management work, psychiatry, event planning, advance works - and often highly remunerated. The key point here is that most adults do two important kinds of work: market work and family work, and that both kinds of work are required to make the world go round.' (Interview with Joan Williams, mothersandmore.org, 2000) This pressure culminates at Christmas. Like many women, Jane remembers loving Christmas as a child and young woman. As a mother, she hates it. Suddenly on top of all the usual paid and unpaid labour, there is the additional mountain of shopping, cooking, cleaning, decorating, card writing, present wrapping, ritual phone calls, peacekeeping and emotional care taking. And then on bloody Boxing Day it all has to be cleaned up. If you want to give your mother a fabulous Christmas present just cancel the whole thing. Bah humbug!
Jane Caro and Catherine Fox
You have to love your body as a living organism, not hate it as a flawed decorative statue.
Valerie Frankel (Thin Is the New Happy)
She hated funeral homes with their thick carpets and elegantly appointed decor. She would much prefer an all-out Irish wake where everyone drank too much Guinness and brawls broke out. That's how the dead should be honored- with life and all of it's warts.
Elizabeth Meyette (The Cavanaugh House (Cavanaugh House #1))
Pasteur had received an honorary degree from the University of Bonn in 1868, but returned it later during the height of French-German tension. “Today this parchment is hateful to me,” Pasteur wrote to the university dean, “and it offends me to see my name, which you have decorated with the qualification virum clarissimum, placed under the auspices of a name that will henceforth be loathed by my country, that of Guillermus Rex.
Anne E. Maczulak (Allies and Enemies: How the World Depends on Bacteria (FT Press Science))
Is everything okay?” Joe asks. “Yes!” I agree quickly. “I was just checking out the light fixtures,” I say, nodding to the Starbucks decor. “They’re nice, don’t you think?” Not a total lie. I’ve always appreciated the ambiance here. “They must have them custom-made,” I muse. Brilliant conversational skills, Chloe. “I guess.” Joe shrugs. “I mean, it’s not like you can buy them just anywhere,” I add, because I never quit when I should. “I imagine not,” he agrees. “They don’t want just anyone to get their hands on their exclusive light fixtures.” He says it kindly, like he’s not bothered by my inane light fixture observations. “Right.” I nod. Joe is really so nice. And he’s really good-looking. He’s got beautiful thick dark hair. “Are you Italian?” “No.” He shakes his head. “Well, I don’t think so. I’m adopted so I’ve got no idea. My parents are of Scottish and German descent.” Oh. “I love Italian food,” I respond. Because that’s an appropriate response to sticking your foot in your mouth. “I hate Italian.” Joe frowns and shakes his head, then laughs. “Just kidding. Who doesn’t love Italian food?” Why is Boyd watching? Is this some sort of payback for pretending not to know him the other day at the hospital? I’m sure I can’t be the only girl questioned by the FBI who didn’t want her friends to know about it. Sheesh. Oh, my God. Is he on a stakeout? Is he investigating this date too? No. I mentally shake my head. Not possible. “Have you ever been to Serafina? On 18th? My friend went into labor there last week.” “Um, wow. Okay.” He pauses. “Congratulations to your friend,” he adds slowly, because he’s probably unsure what the correct response is to that tidbit of information.
Jana Aston (Trust (Cafe, #3))
A slave was cheaper than a mule. Slavery, despicable topic, rarely appeared in poetry or onstage or in the paintings that decorated urns and walls. Philosophers ignored it, except to confirm it as the natural fate of inferior beings, and to sound the alarm. Watch out, warned Plato. Slaves, he said, unavoidably hate their owners and only constant vigilance can keep them from murdering us all. And Aristotle maintained that military training for the citizenry was crucial, given the climate of insecurity.
Eduardo Galeano (Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone)