Describing A Beautiful Girl Quotes

I like storms. Thunder torrential rain, puddles, wet shoes. When the clouds roll in, I get filled with this giddy expectation. Everything is more beautiful in the rain. Don't ask me why. But it’s like this whole other realm of opportunity. I used to feel like a superhero, riding my bike over the dangerously slick roads, or maybe an Olympic athlete enduring rough trials to make it to the finish line. On sunny days, as a girl, I could still wake up to that thrilled feeling. You made me giddy with expectation, just like a symphonic rainstorm. You were a tempest in the sun, the thunder in a boring, cloudless sky. I remember I’d shovel in my breakfast as fast as I could, so I could go knock on your door. We’d play all day, only coming back for food and sleep. We played hide and seek, you’d push me on the swing, or we’d climb trees. Being your sidekick gave me a sense of home again. You see, when I was ten, my mom died. She had cancer, and I lost her before I really knew her. My world felt so insecure, and I was scared. You were the person that turned things right again. With you, I became courageous and free. It was like the part of me that died with my mom came back when I met you, and I didn’t hurt if I knew I had you. Then one day, out of the blue, I lost you, too. The hurt returned, and I felt sick when I saw you hating me. My rainstorm was gone, and you became cruel. There was no explanation. You were just gone. And my heart was ripped open. I missed you. I missed my mom. What was worse than losing you, was when you started to hurt me. Your words and actions made me hate coming to school. They made me uncomfortable in my own home. Everything still hurts, but I know none of it is my fault. There are a lot of words that I could use to describe you, but the only one that includes sad, angry, miserable, and pitiful is “coward.” I a year, I’ll be gone, and you’ll be nothing but some washout whose height of existence was in high school. You were my tempest, my thunder cloud, my tree in the downpour. I loved all those things, and I loved you. But now? You’re a fucking drought. I thought that all the assholes drove German cars, but it turns out that pricks in Mustangs can still leave scars.

Her hair gives dawn it's fire, her eyes give dusk her soul" He knew how to use his voice to melt a girl's heart, to make a girl want to believe. I steeled myself against the seductive words. "Excuse me?" "It's a line of poetry describing a beautiful girl, one who doesn't seem to know it.

So sweet and innocent and just... beautiful. I know it's not a typical word to describe a guy, but there is something about the smooth texture of his skin, long blond eyelashes, and the chiseled cheekbones that brings the adjective to mind.

Daniel chuckled. Whoever that poor girl was, he hoped his family was paying her well. And then, finally, she lifted her fingers from the keys as Daisy began her painful violin solo. He watched her exhale, stretching her fingers, and then . . . She looked up. Time stopped. It simply stopped. It was the most maudlin and clichéd way of describing it, but those few seconds when her face was lifted toward his . . . they stretched and pulled, melting into eternity. She was beautiful. But that didn’t explain it. He’d seen beautiful women before. He’d slept with plenty of them, even. But this . . . Her . . . She . . . Even his thoughts were tongue-tied.

[Adapted and condensed Valedictorian speech:] I'm going to ask that you seriously consider modeling your life, not in the manner of the Dalai Lama or Jesus - though I'm sure they're helpful - but something a bit more hands-on, Carassius auratus auratus, commonly known as the domestic goldfish. People make fun of the goldfish. People don't think twice about swallowing it. Jonas Ornata III, Princeton class of '42, appears in the Guinness Book of World Records for swallowing the greatest number of goldfish in a fifteen-minute interval, a cruel total of thirty-nine. In his defense, though, I don't think Jonas understood the glory of the goldfish, that they have magnificent lessons to teach us. If you live like a goldfish, you can survive the harshest, most thwarting of circumstances. You can live through hardships that make your cohorts - the guppy, the neon tetra - go belly-up at the first sign of trouble. There was an infamous incident described in a journal published by the Goldfish Society of America - a sadistic five-year-old girl threw hers to the carpet, stepped on it, not once but twice - luckily she'd done it on a shag carpet and thus her heel didn't quite come down fully on the fish. After thirty harrowing seconds she tossed it back into its tank. It went on to live another forty-seven years. They can live in ice-covered ponds in the dead of winter. Bowls that haven't seen soap in a year. And they don't die from neglect, not immediately. They hold on for three, sometimes four months if they're abandoned. If you live like a goldfish, you adapt, not across hundreds of thousands of years like most species, having to go through the red tape of natural selection, but within mere months, weeks even. You give them a little tank? They give you a little body. Big tank? Big body. Indoor. Outdoor. Fish tanks, bowls. Cloudy water, clear water. Social or alone. The most incredible thing about goldfish, however, is their memory. Everyone pities them for only remembering their last three seconds, but in fact, to be so forcibly tied to the present - it's a gift. They are free. No moping over missteps, slip-ups, faux pas or disturbing childhoods. No inner demons. Their closets are light filled and skeleton free. And what could be more exhilarating than seeing the world for the very first time, in all of its beauty, almost thirty thousand times a day? How glorious to know that your Golden Age wasn't forty years ago when you still had all you hair, but only three seconds ago, and thus, very possibly it's still going on, this very moment." I counted three Mississippis in my head, though I might have rushed it, being nervous. "And this moment, too." Another three seconds. "And this moment, too." Another. "And this moment, too.

I understand what you mean, and I believe in this girl. Anyone you love must be marvellous, and any girl that has the effect you describe must be fine and noble. To spiritualise one's age--that is something worth doing. If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without one, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have been sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and lend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of all your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world.

I watched with my eyes, tasted with my tongue, heard with my ears and felt with my fingers as my beautiful girl reached her climax. The only sense I didn’t use as she came apart was that of speech. There were no words to describe her, nor were there ones I could coherently form in the moment; she was a work of art, and I was speechless” Excerpt From: Raine, Miller. “Eyes Wide Open: The Blackstone Affair, Book 3.” Atria Books, 2013-05-13T22:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

I think true love transcends tiem. The thunderbolt does not. Not if it strkes men the way you described." I start a sprint toward a glade where my favorite orange flowers grow. He catches up with me easily. "Most girls prefer flowers over trees." I brush my fingers on the petals."These flowers blossom quickly. They speak of passion, of beauty." I take a witheting flower that had dropped to the ground and fondle it between my fingers. "But flowers don't last. They wither easily and have limited growth. A tree might not speak of passion but sturdiness. Yet, it grows higher and lasts longer. Some of these trees were here before I was born and they'll be here once I'm gone." My heads falls back as I look at the highest tree. "Real love ought to be more like a tree and less like a flower. That's the kind of love my parents had. It wasn't as consuming as it was everlasting. And you see that tree over there? Now it's showing only green leaves, but in spring it's covered in flowers. Because as reliable as trees are, they can also speak of beauty and passion.

No, Kropotkin never described black women's mutual aid societies or the chorus in Mutual Aid, although he imagined animal society in its rich varieties & the forms of cooperation & mutuality found among ants, monkeys & ruminants. Impossible, recalcitrant domestics weren't yet in his view or anyone else's.

She was such a surprising mix of gentle and brash, of focused and flighty. It was almost as if I could see the little girl in her battling with the responsible woman, figuring out which would lead the way.

And What Good Will Your Vanity Be When The Rapture Comes” says the man with a cart of empty bottles at the corner of church and lincoln while I stare into my phone and I say I know oh I know while trying to find the specific filter that will make the sun’s near-flawless descent look the way I might describe it in a poem and the man says the moment is already right in front of you and I say I know but everyone I love is not here and I mean here like on this street corner with me while I turn the sky a darker shade of red on my phone and I mean here like everyone I love who I can still touch and not pass my fingers through like the wind in a dream but I look up at the man and he is a kaleidoscope of shadows I mean his shadows have shadows and they are small and trailing behind him and I know then that everyone he loves is also not here and the man doesn’t ask but I still say hey man I’ve got nothing I’ve got nothing even though I have plenty to go home to and the sun is still hot even in its endless flirt with submission and the man’s palm has a small river inside I mean he has taken my hand now and here we are tethered and unmoving and the man says what color are you making the sky and I say what I might say in a poem I say all surrender ends in blood and he says what color are you making the sky and I say something bright enough to make people wish they were here and he squints towards the dancing shrapnel of dying light along a rooftop and he says I love things only as they are and I’m sure I did once too but I can’t prove it to anyone these days and he says the end isn’t always about what dies and I know I know or I knew once and now I write about beautiful things like I will never touch a beautiful thing again and the man looks me in the eyes and he points to the blue-orange vault over heaven’s gates and he says the face of everyone you miss is up there and I know I know I can’t see them but I know and he turns my face to the horizon and he says we don’t have much time left and I get that he means the time before the sun is finally through with its daily work or I think I get that but I still can’t stop trembling and I close my eyes and I am sobbing on the corner of church and lincoln and when I open my eyes the sun is plucking everyone who has chosen to love me from the clouds and carrying them into the light-drunk horizon and I am seeing this and I know I am seeing this the girl who kissed me as a boy in the dairy aisle of meijer while our parents shopped and the older boy on the basketball team who taught me how to make a good fist and swing it into the jaw of a bully and the friends who crawled to my porch in the summer of any year I have been alive they were all there I saw their faces and it was like I was given the eyes of a newborn again and once you know what it is to be lonely it is hard to unsee that which serves as a reminder that you were not always empty and I am gasping into the now-dark air and I pull my shirt up to wipe whatever tears are left and I see the man walking in the other direction and I chase him down and tap his arm and I say did you see it did you see it like I did and he turns and leans into the glow of a streetlamp and he is anchored by a single shadow now and he sneers and he says have we met and he scoffs and pushes his cart off into the night and I can hear the glass rattling even as I watch him become small and vanish and I look down at my phone and the sky on the screen is still blood red.

He pulled my skirt up. I began to worry. Everyone knew he had broken in girls before and I didn't want it to happen to me. I said, 'No. Get off, please.' He pulled me down the alley and pushed me to the ground. As I lay on my back worrying about my new blue coat, he pushed his fingers up between my legs — and rammed himself into me. I was crying. His lips were pressed against mine but I was motionless, like a small corpse. He grunted and I knew it was over. He got up, I just lay there on the ground, my tights round my ankles. The clock was striking twelve. As he walked away, he turned and said, 'I've always wanted to do it to you. I like your mouth'. When I got in, my mum said, 'Tracey, what's wrong with you?' I showed her my coat, the dirt and the stains, and told her 'I'm not a virgin any more.' She didn't call the police or make any fuss. She just washed my coat and everything carried on as normal, as though nothing had happened. But for me, my childhood was over, I had become conscious of my physicality, aware of my presence and open to the ugly truths of the world. At the age of thirteen, I realised that there was a danger in innocence and beauty, and I could not live with both. (describing childhood rape)

That girl is crazy. She asked me to describe my cock. I laugh at that, despite everything else going on. What did you tell her? Seriously? What do you THINK I told her? I start to type ‘that she’s lost her mind’ when another text comes through. I told her it was the most beautiful nine inches in the fucking world, baby. ;)

Khatun (queen) is one of the most authoritative and magnificent words in the Mongolian language. It conveys regality, stateliness, and great strength. If something resists breaking no matter how much pressure is applied, it is described as khatun. The word can form part of a boy’s or girl’s names, signifying power and firmness combined with beauty and grace. Because of the admitted qualities of khatun, men have often borne names such as Khatun Temur, literally ‘Queen Iron’, and Khatun Baatar, 'Queen Hero’.

Half of my heart says it would be so simple to share what we've got here with the Charynites in the valley. But the other half of me says I don't want to share it with the enemy, and then I have to work out who the enemy is. I mean, look at what we have," he said, pointing outside at the lushness of their mountain, even in the winter haze. "And look how little they have down there. And why don't I care?" Yata laughed. "Well, from where I'm sitting, it looks as if you do care, Lucian," she said. "Too much in one place, not enough in another, and wouldn't it be simpler if we all shared? Yes, it would be so simple to share. But there's no place for being simple when blood has been shed and the people we love have been torn from us. But forgiveness has to start somewhere. It started with Phaedra. The Monts learned not to hate all Charynites because of her. I learned. Because you may not have seen it, my darling boy, but I hated with a fierceness I can't describe. And do you want to hear something that was breaking my heart, day after day? I forgot the faces of my granddaughters in all that hatred. Hatred smothers all beauty. Beloved Isaboe has little resemblance to her older sisters, but your Phaedra - she made me remember those precious, precious girls, and I wasn't angry anymore. I just missed them, and it's the beauty in here," she said, pointing to her chest, "that made me remember them. Her beauty.

She was beautiful一not a word anyone usually used to describe an eleven-year-old girl. "Cute" was more common, or "pretty". "Beautiful" dug deeper than a girl that age could normally stand up to. But Dee was beautiful.

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog's blanket and the tea-cosy. I can't say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring - I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. Though even that isn't a very good poem. I have decided my best poetry is so bad that I mustn't write any more of it. Drips from the roof are plopping into the water-butt by the back door. The view through the windows above the sink is excessively drear. Beyond the dank garden in the courtyard are the ruined walls on the edge of the moat. Beyond the moat, the boggy ploughed fields stretch to the leaden sky. I tell myself that all the rain we have had lately is good for nature, and that at any moment spring will surge on us. I try to see leaves on the trees and the courtyard filled with sunlight. Unfortunately, the more my mind's eye sees green and gold, the more drained of all colour does the twilight seem. It is comforting to look away from the windows and towards the kitchen fire, near which my sister Rose is ironing - though she obviously can't see properly, and it will be a pity if she scorches her only nightgown. (I have two, but one is minus its behind.) Rose looks particularly fetching by firelight because she is a pinkish person; her skin has a pink glow and her hair is pinkish gold, very light and feathery. Although I am rather used to her I know she is a beauty. She is nearly twenty-one and very bitter with life. I am seventeen, look younger, feel older. I am no beauty but I have a neatish face. I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is really rather romantic - two girls in this strange and lonely house. She replied that she saw nothing romantic about being shut up in a crumbling ruin surrounded by a sea of mud. I must admit that our home is an unreasonable place to live in. Yet I love it. The house itself was built in the time of Charles II, but it was grafted on to a fourteenth-century castle that had been damaged by Cromwell. The whole of our east wall was part of the castle; there are two round towers in it. The gatehouse is intact and a stretch of the old walls at their full height joins it to the house. And Belmotte Tower, all that remains of an even older castle, still stands on its mound close by. But I won't attempt to describe our peculiar home fully until I can see more time ahead of me than I do now. I am writing this journal partly to practise my newly acquired speed-writing and partly to teach myself how to write a novel - I intend to capture all our characters and put in conversations. It ought to be good for my style to dash along without much thought, as up to now my stories have been very stiff and self-conscious. The only time father obliged me by reading one of them, he said I combined stateliness with a desperate effort to be funny. He told me to relax and let the words flow out of me.

The language I learned was pretty, full of passivity and silence. I had no proper language for the issues of blood and anger, yet much of what went on when I was a child made me angry. There were no words a nice girl could use to describe anger; her options were to remain silent or to use indiscreet language, the kind that curls in a room like smoke and soon disappears. We girls were taught to speak safely and to bandage our anger with polite, pretty words. We might talk about the anger only in questions and sighs, unable to curse, yell or break windows in the beautiful garden.

You are a very warm friend to Mr. Martin; but, as I said before, are unjust to Harriet. ... Waiving that point, however, and supposing her to be, as you describe her, only pretty and good-natured, let me tell you, that in the degree she possesses them, they are not trivial recommendations to the world in general, ... and till it appears that men are much more philosophic on the subject of beauty than they are generally supposed; till they do fall in love with well-informed minds instead of handsome faces, a girl, with such loveliness as Harriet, has a certainty of being admired and sought after, of having the power of chusing from among many, consequently a claim to be nice. Her good-nature, too, is not so very slight a claim, comprehending, as it does, real, thorough sweetness of temper and manner, a very humble opinion of herself, and a great readiness to be pleased with other people. I am very much mistaken if your sex in general would not think such beauty, and such temper, the highest claims a woman could possess.

Wyatt’s two sisters I knew very well, and most amiable and clever girls they were. His wife he had newly married, and I had never yet seen her. He had often talked about her in my presence, however, and in his usual style of enthusiasm. He described her as of surpassing beauty, wit, and accomplishment. I was, therefore, quite anxious to make her acquaintance.

I do love Oregon." My gaze wanders over the quiet, natural beauty surrounding us, which isn't limited to just this garden. "Being near the river, and the ocean, and the rocky mountains, and all this nature ... the weather." He chuckles. "I've never met anyone who actually loves rain. It's kind of weird. But cool, too," he adds quickly, as if afraid to offend me. "I just don't get it." I shrug. "It's not so much that I love rain. I just have a healthy respect for what if does. People hate it, but the world needs rain. It washes away dirt, dilutes the toxins in the air, feeds drought. It keeps everything around us alive." "Well, I have a healthy respect for what the sun does," he counters with a smile." "I'd rather have the sun after a good, hard rainfall." He just shakes his head at me but he's smiling. "The good with the bad?" "Isn't that life?" He frowns. "Why do I sense a metaphor behind that?" "Maybe there is a metaphor behind that." One I can't very well explain to him without describing the kinds of things I see every day in my life. The underbelly of society - where twisted morals reign and predators lurk, preying on the lost, the broken, the weak, the innocent. Where a thirteen-year-old sells her body rather than live under the same roof as her abusive parents, where punks gang-rape a drunk girl and then post pictures of it all over the internet so the world can relive it with her. Where a junkie mom's drug addiction is readily fed while her children sit back and watch. Where a father is murdered bacause he made the mistake of wanting a van for his family. In that world, it seems like it's raining all the time. A cold, hard rain that seeps into clothes, chills bones, and makes people feel utterly wretched. Many times, I see people on the worst day of their lives, when they feel like they're drowing. I don't enjoy seeing people suffer. I just know that if they make good choices, and accept the right help, they'll come out of it all the stronger for it. What I do enjoy comes after. Three months later, when I see that thirteen-year-old former prostitute pushing a mower across the front lawn of her foster home, a quiet smile on her face. Eight months later, when I see the girl who was raped walking home from school with a guy who wants nothing from her but to make her laugh. Two years later, when I see the junkie mom clean and sober and loading a shopping cart for the kids that the State finally gave back to her. Those people have seen the sun again after the harshest rain, and they appreciate it so much more.

The Milesians did not model their women after Helen, reported to be the most beautiful woman of their times, & who, reportedly, had five husbands.Nor did they model their women after the Athenian housewives. Instead, Milesians celebrated womanly beauty from the physical endowments of two naked slave girls, Briseis & Chryseis-the bones of contention between Achilles & Agamemnon. Tradition cast Briseis as a tall brunette with a dark complexion & with a very distinguished appearance.Whilst Chryseis was described as fair, slender & small in stature.[INTRO]

From here to Jerusalem no woman has a more beautiful neck; it was smooth and soft to the touch. She had a bosom as white has the snow upon a branch, when it has just fallen. Her body as well made and svelte; you would not have had to seek anywhere on earth to find a woman with a more beautiful body. She had a pretty chaplet of gold embroidery. There was never a girl more elegant or better arrayed; nor would I have described her right. Above the chaplet of gold embroidery was one of fresh roses, and in her hand she held a mirror, and she had arranged her hair with a rich head-band.

I had many things to say, I did not have the words to say them. Painfully aware of my limitations, I watched helplessly as language became an obstacle. It became clear that it would be necessary to invent a new language. But how was one to rehabilitate and transform words betrayed and perverted by the enemy? Hunger—thirst—fear—transport—selection—fire—chimney: these words all have intrinsic meaning, but in those times, they meant something else. Writing in my mother tongue—at that point close to extinction—I would pause at every sentence, and start over and over again. I would conjure up other verbs, other images, other silent cries. It still was not right. But what exactly was "it"? "It" was something elusive, darkly shrouded for fear of being usurped, profaned. All the dictionary had to offer seemed meager, pale, lifeless. Was there a way to describe the last journey in sealed cattle cars, the last voyage toward the unknown? Or the discovery of a demented and glacial universe where to be inhuman was human, where disciplined, educated men in uniform came to kill, and innocent children and weary old men came to die? Or the countless separations on a single fiery night, the tear- ing apart of entire families, entire communities? Or, incredibly, the vanishing of a beautiful, well-behaved little Jewish girl with golden hair and a sad smile, murdered with her mother the very night of their arrival? How was one to speak of them without trembling and a heart broken for all eternity?

At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go see the child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or a woman much older falls silent for a day or two, then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone, youth or girl, man or woman. Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the houses with yellow-lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

A school-girl may be found in every school who attracts and influences all the others, not by her virtues, nor her beauty, nor her sweetness, nor her cleverness, but by something that can neither be described nor reasoned upon. It is the something alluded to in the old lines:— 'Love me not for comely grace, For my pleasing eye and face; No, nor for my constant heart,— For these may change, and turn to ill, And thus true love may sever. But love me on, and know not why, So hast thou the same reason still To dote upon me ever.' A woman will have this charm, not only over men but over her own sex; it cannot be defined, or rather it is so delicate a mixture of many gifts and qualities that it is impossible to decide on the proportions of each. Perhaps it is incompatible with very high principle; as its essence seems to consist in the most exquisite power of adaptation to varying people and still more various moods; 'being all things to all men.' At any rate, Molly might soon have been aware that Cynthia was not remarkable for unflinching morality; but the glamour thrown over her would have prevented Molly from any attempt at penetrating into and judging her companion's character, even had such processes been the least in accordance with her own disposition.

I only have the story in two parts from Miss Throckmorton-Jones. The first time she spoke she was under the influence of laudanum. Today she was under the influence of what I can only describe as the most formidable temper I’ve ever seen. However, while I may not have the complete story, I certainly have the gist of it, and if half what I’ve heard is true, then it’s obvious that you are completely without either a heart or a conscience! My own heart breaks when I imagine Elizabeth enduring what she has for nearly two years. When I think of how forgiving of you she has been-“ “What did the woman tell you?” Ian interrupted shortly, turning and walking over to the window. His apparent lack of concern so enraged the vicar that he surged to his feet and stalked over to Ian’s side, glowering at his profile. “She told me you ruined Elizabeth Cameron’s reputation beyond recall,” he snapped bitterly. “She told me that you convinced that innocent girl-who’d never been away from her country home until a few weeks before meeting you-that she should meet you in a secluded cottage, and later in a greenhouse. She told me that the scene was witnessed by individuals who made great haste to spread the gossip, and that it was all over the city in a matter of days. She told me Elizabeth’s fiancé heard of it and withdrew his offer because of you. When he did that, society assumed Elizabeth’s character must indeed be of the blackest nature, and she was summarily dropped by the ton. She told me that a few days later Elizabeth’s brother fled England to escape their creditors, who would have been paid off when Elizabeth made an advantageous marriage, and that he’s never returned.” With grim satisfaction the vicar observed the muscle that was beginning to twitch in Ian’s rigid jaw. “She told me the reason for Elizabeth’s going to London in the first place had been the necessity for making such a marriage-and that you destroyed any chance of that ever happening. Which is why that child will now have to marry a man you describe as a lecher three times her age!” Satisfied that his verbal shots were finding their mark, he fired his final, most killing around. “As a result of everything you have done, that brave, beautiful girl has been living in shamed seclusion for nearly two years. Her house, of which she spoke with such love, has been stripped of its valuables by creditors. I congratulate you, Ian. You have made an innocent girl into an impoverished leper! And all because she fell in love with you on sight. Knowing what I now know of you, I can only wonder what she saw in you!

It's taken me no time to see, just how much you really mean to me. [Name], it's taken less than a week to realize i want you in my life, And not just as a friend, I don't want to watch as another guys wanders into your life and sweeps you off your feet,Call me selfish, but I'm the only boy I want to see you with, I don't want another boy to hold you in his arms, and push your hair behind your ear, and call you beautiful, I don't want another boy to kiss you gently on the forhead and tell you his feelings about you are indescribable through words. I don't want another boy to hold your hand. I want to be the boy who gets to do all of those things. I want to be the boy who gets to call you his, more than anything. I'm not perfect, I'm far from it. but i know that im going to treat you as perfect as possible, and i knowi'm never once going to let you down. I'm going to give you everything you deserve, and im going to make you the happiest girl in the world, Because, to me you're so much more than just every other girl. You're perfect. There's many girls in the world but none of them are you, And you're the only one I've fallen for so fast, and you're the only one i know for a fact i want to call mine. There's just so much about you that has pushed me off the edge, and made me fall harder than I have before. Your eyes for example those beautiful eys of yours, I have never seen anthing as beautiful in my life as your eyes. That gorgeous,color that just makes illuminates beauty, and makes my heart stop, And youre smile, I have no idea why you dont show it off to everyone. You told me you don't like your smile, but i have no idea how you couldn't, It's pefect. I could look at that smile all day long, and i mean it. I never want to see your face without it, because that smile is absolutely beautiful. There's so much about you, that's unique to you, that makes you who you are, and makes you so perfect. There's no other girl on this entire planet that has the same eyes, and smile, you do, And that's reason enough for me to want you, and no toher girl, And that's why defines you from every other girl, how beautiful you really are.I understand, any guy could tell you you're beautiful, but I'm not any guy. I'm me, and im not just telling you you're beautiful, [Name], I'm telling you you're the most beautiful girl in the whole world, and I want you to believe me when i tell you that, I want you to see youself as beautiful as I see you, I want to look you in the eyes, face to face, and tell you you're the most beautiful girl in the whole world, then hold you close to me, and never let you go, I don't want you to think I'm another guy who's going to lie to you, and break your heart. I want you to believe I really do mean all of this, because I do, with all of my heart, I want to spend nights with you in my arms, i want to kiss you on the forhead every night before bed, I want to try and put my feelings for you into words, just to see that beautiful smile of yours, I want to call you mine, and no one else's, I want you, and no one else, and I can't stress how much i really mean that. Imagine laying in the snow, on a calm winter night, looking up at a clear, starry, full moon night, holding hands, not speaking a word, just laying beside one another, listening, to a gentle breeze, taking in how beautiful stars, and the moon are, Feeling completely at peace with everything, like we're in a land far away from everything, and nothing could possibly take that away that feeling of safety , and complete inner happiness. That's howw I'd describe my feelings for you are. Absolutely perfect in every way. If I am lucky enough to see you tomorrow, I'm going to take your breath away, and prove to you I really am the boy who you deserve. I'm going to make you the happiest girl in the entire world. I feel like I may be falling for you way to fast, and way to soon, but I don't care. not one bit, I've never been so sure of anything.

Bast fidgeted. Kvothe laughed, a fond expression wiping the irritation from his face. “So is describing a beautiful woman as easy as looking at one for you?” Bast looked down and blushed, and Kvothe laid a gentle hand on his arm, smiling. “My trouble, Bast, is that she is very important. Important to the story. I cannot think of how to describe her without falling short of the mark.” “I…I think I understand, Reshi,” Bast said in conciliatory tones. “I’ve seen her too. Once.” Kvothe sat back in his chair, surprised. “You have, haven’t you? I’d forgotten.” He pressed his hands to his lips. “How would you describe her then?” Bast brightened at the opportunity. Straightening up in his chair he looked thoughtful for a moment then said. “She had perfect ears.” He made a delicate gesture with his hands. “Perfect little ears, like they were carved out of…something.” Chronicler laughed, then looked slightly taken aback, as if he’d surprised himself. “Her ears?” he asked as if he couldn’t be sure if he had heard correctly. “You know how hard it is to find a pretty girl with the right sort of ears,” Bast said matter-of-factly. Chronicler laughed again, seeming to find it easier the second time. “No,” he said. “No, I’m sure I don’t.” Bast gave the story collector a deeply pitying look. “Well then, you’ll just have to take my word for it. They were exceptionally fine.” “I think you’ve struck that chord well enough, Bast,” Kvothe said, amused.

Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, god damnit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick. Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived. Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness. Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so god damned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.

I have time for only one drink,” Jordan said, glancing at the ormolu clock on the opposite wall. “I’ve promised Alexandra to stand at her side at a ball tonight and beam approvingly at a friend of hers.” Whenever Jordan mentioned his wife’s name, Ian noted with amusement, the other man’s entire expression softened. “Care to join us?” Ian shook his head and accepted his drink from the footman. “It sounds boring as hell.” “I don’t think it’ll be boring, precisely. My wife has taken it upon herself to defy the entire ton and sponsor the girl back into the ranks. Based on some of the things Alexandra said in her note, that will be no mean feat.” “Why is that?” Ian inquired with more courtesy than interest. Jordan sighed and leaned his head back, weary from the hours he’d been working for the last several weeks and unexcited at the prospect of dancing attendance on a damsel in distress-one he’d never set eyes on. “The girl fell into the clutches of some man two years ago and an ugly scandal ensued.” Thinking of Elizabeth and himself, Ian said casually, “That’s not an uncommon occurrence, evidently.” “From what Alex wrote me, it seems this case is rather extreme.” “In what way?” “For one thing, there’s every chance the young woman will get the cut direct tonight from half the ton-and that’s the half that will be willing to acknowledge her. Alex has retaliated by calling in the heavy guns-my grandmother, to be exact, and Tony and myself, to a lesser degree. The object is to try to brave it out, but I don’t envy the girl. Unless I miss my guess, she’s going to be flayed alive by the wagging tongues tonight. Whatever the bastard did,” Jordan finished, downing his drink and starting to straighten in his chair, “it was damaging as hell. The girl-who’s purported to be incredibly beautiful, by the way-has been a social outcast for nearly two years.” Ian stiffened, his glass arrested partway to his mouth, his sharpened gaze on Jordan, who was already starting to rise. “Who’s the girl?” he demanded tautly. “Elizabeth Cameron.” “Oh, Christ!” Ian exploded, surging out of his chair and snatching up his evening jacket. “Where are they?” “At the Willington’s. Why?” “Because,” Ian bit out, impatiently shrugging into his jacket and tugging the frilled cuffs of his shirt into place, “I’m the bastard who did it.” An indescribable expression flashed across the Duke of Hawthorne’s face as he, too, pulled on his evening jacket. “You are the man Alexandra described in her note as an ‘unspeakable cad, vile libertine,’ and ‘despoiler of innocents’?” “I’m all that and more,” Ian replied grimly, stalking toward the door with Jordan Townsende beside him. “You go to the Willingtons’ as quickly as you can,” he instructed. “I’ll be close behind you, but I’ve a stop to make first. And don’t, for God’s sake, tell Elizabeth I’m on my way.” Ian flung himself into his coach, snapped orders to his driver, and leaned back, counting minutes, telling himself it couldn’t possibly be going as badly for her as he feared it would. And never once did he stop to think that Jordan Townsende had no idea what motives could possibly prompt Elizabeth Cameron’s “despoiler” to be bent on meeting her at the Willington’s ball.

It was dusk when Ian returned, and the house seemed unnaturally quiet. His uncle was sitting near the fire, watching him with an odd expression on his face that was half anger, half speculation. Against his will Ian glanced about the room, expecting to see Elizabeth’s shiny golden hair and entrancing face. When he didn’t, he put his gun back on the rack above the fireplace and casually asked, “Where is everyone?” “If you mean Jake,” the vicar said, angered yet more by the way Ian deliberately avoided asking about Elizabeth, “he took a bottle of ale with him to the stable and said he was planning to drink it until the last two days were washed from his memory.” “They’re back, then?” “Jake is back,” the vicar corrected as Ian walked over to the table and poured some Madeira into a glass. “The servingwomen will arrive in the morn. Elizabeth and Miss Throckmorton-Jones are gone, however.” Thinking Duncan meant they’d gone for a walk, Ian flicked a glance toward the front door. “Where have they gone at this hour?” “Back to England.” The glass in Ian’s hand froze halfway to his lips. “Why?” he snapped. “Because Miss Cameron’s uncle has accepted an offer for her hand.” The vicar watched in angry satisfaction as Ian tossed down half the contents of his glass as if he wanted to wash away the bitterness of the news. When he spoke his voice was laced with cold sarcasm. “Who’s the lucky bridegroom?” “Sir Francis Belhaven, I believe.” Ian’s lips twisted with excruciating distaste. “You don’t admire him, I gather?” Ian shrugged. “Belhaven is an old lecher whose sexual tastes reportedly run to the bizarre. He’s also three times her age.” “That’s a pity,” the vicar said, trying unsuccessfully to keep his voice blank as he leaned back in his chair and propped his long legs upon the footstool in front of him. “Because that beautiful, innocent child will have no choice but to wed that old…lecher. If she doesn’t, her uncle will withdraw his financial support, and she’ll lose that home she loves so much. He’s perfectly satisfied with Belhaven, since he possesses the prerequisites of title and wealth, which I gather are his only prerequisites. That lovely girl will have to wed that old man; she has no way to avoid it.” “That’s absurd,” Ian snapped, draining his glass. “Elizabeth Cameron was considered the biggest success of her season two years ago. It was pubic knowledge she’d had more than a dozen offers. If that’s all he cares about, he can choose from dozens of others.” Duncan’s voice was laced with uncharacteristic sarcasm. “That was before she encountered you at some party or other. Since then it’s been public knowledge that she’s used goods.” “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” “You tell me, Ian,” the vicar bit out. “I only have the story in two parts from Miss Throckmorton-Jones. The first time she spoke she was under the influence of laudanum. Today she was under the influence of what I can only describe as the most formidable temper I’ve ever seen. However, while I may not have the complete story, I certainly have the gist of it, and if half what I’ve heard is true, then it’s obvious that you are completely without either a heart or a conscience! My own heart breaks when I imagine Elizabeth enduring what she has for nearly two years. When I think of how forgiving of you she has been-“ “What did the woman tell you?” Ian interrupted shortly, turning and walking over to the window.

I like storms. Thunder, torrential rain, puddles, wet shoes. When the clouds roll in, I get filled with this giddy expectation. Everything is more beautiful in the rain. Don't ask me why. But it’s like this whole other realm of opportunity. I used to feel like a superhero, riding my bike over the dangerously slick roads, or maybe an Olympic athlete enduring rough trials to make it to the finish line. On sunny days, as a girl, I could still wake up to that thrilled feeling. You made me giddy with expectation, just like a symphonic rainstorm. You were a tempest in the sun, the thunder in a boring, cloudless sky. I remember I’d shovel in my breakfast as fast as I could, so I could go knock on your door. We’d play all day, only coming back for food and sleep. We played hide and seek, you’d push me on the swing, or we’d climb trees. Being your sidekick gave me a sense of home again. You see, when I was ten, my mom died. She had cancer, and I lost her before I really knew her. My world felt so insecure, and I was scared. You were the person that turned things right again. With you, I became courageous and free. It was like the part of me that died with my mom came back when I met you, and I didn’t hurt if I knew I had you. Then one day, out of the blue, I lost you, too. The hurt returned, and I felt sick when I saw you hating me. My rainstorm was gone, and you became cruel. There was no explanation. You were just gone. And my heart was ripped open. I missed you. I missed my mom. What was worse than losing you, was when you started to hurt me. Your words and actions made me hate coming to school. They made me uncomfortable in my own home. Everything still hurts, but I know none of it is my fault. There are a lot of words that I could use to describe you, but the only one that includes sad, angry, miserable, and pitiful is “coward.” I a year, I’ll be gone, and you’ll be nothing but some washout whose height of existence was in high school. You were my tempest, my thunder cloud, my tree in the downpour. I loved all those things, and I loved you. But now? You’re a fucking drought.

My bisnonno is such a man...Fine, you laugh again. Not so handsome,I think,but just as proud. He struts through the square with his new shoes. He buys a carriage. But he gives to the poor,too, to the Church.He is kind to his siters; he is a friend to many.He is raffinato, a gentleman. And the girl he chooses? Hmm? Hmm?" "I don't know, Nonna. Elizabeth Benedetto?" "Hah!" Nonna slapped her hand hard against her knee. It bounced soundlessly off the leopard plush. "Elisabetta. Elisabetta, daughter of a man who works on another's boat. Elisabetta who has many sisters and who is intended for the Church if she does not marry. I don't remember her family name, if I ever knew. Maybe Benedetto.Why not? It does not matter.What matters is that no one understands why Michelangelo Costa chooses this girl. No one can...oh,the word...to say a picture of: descrivere." "Describe?" "Si. Describe.No one can describe her.Small,they think. Brown, maybe. Maybe not so pretty, not so ugly. Just a girl. She sits by the seawall mending nets her family does not own. She is odd,too,her neighbors think.They think it is she who leaves little bit of shell and rock when she is done with the nets, little mosaico on the wall. So why? the piu bella girls ask, the ones with long,long necks, and long black hair, and noses that turn up at the end. Why this odd, nobody girl in her ugly dresses, with her dirty feet? "Michelangelo sends his cousins to her with gifts. A cameo, silk handkerchiefs, a fine pair of gloves. Again,the laugh.Then, you would not have laughed at a gift of gloves, piccola. Oh,you girls now. You want what? E-mails and ePods?" "That's iPods,Nonna." "Whatever. See,that word I know. Now, Elisabetta sends back the little girst. So my bisnonno sends bigger: pearls, meters of silk cloth, a horse. These,too,she will not take. And the people begin to look,and ask: Who is she, this nobody girl,to refuse him? No money,no beauty,no family name.You are a fool,they tell her. Accept. Accept! "And my proud bisnonno does not understand. He can have any girl in the town.So again,he gathers the gifts, he carries them himself, leads the horse. But Elisabetta is not to be found. She is not at her papa's house or in the square or at the seawall. Michelangelo fears she has gone to the convent. But no. As he stands at the seawall, a seabird,a gull, lands on his shoulder and says-" "Nonna-" "Shh! The girl tells him to follow the delfino....delfin? Dolphin! So he looks, and there, a dolphin with its head above the water says, 'Follow!' So he follows,the sack with gifts for Elisabetta on his back,like a peddler, the horse trailing behind.The dolphin leads him around the bay to a beach, and there is Elisabetta, old dress covered in sand,feet bare, just drawing circles in the sand. She starts to run, but Michelangelo calls to her. 'Why,' he asks her. 'Why do you hide? Why will you not take my gifts?' And she says..." I'd been fighting a losing battle with yawning for a while. I was failing fast. "I have no idea. 'I'm in love with someone else.'?

He sent messages to all fifteen of my former suitors, asking if they were still interested in marrying me-“ “Oh, my God,” Alex breathed. “-and, if they were, he volunteered to send me to them for a few days, properly chaperoned by Lucinda,” Elizabeth recited in that same strangled tone, “so that we could both discover if we still suit.” “Oh, my God,” Alex said again, with more force. “Twelve of them declined,” she continued, and she watched Alex wince in embarrassed sympathy. “But three of them agreed, and now I am to be sent off to visit them. Since Lucinda can’t return from Devon until I go to visit the third-suitor, who’s in Scotland,” she said, almost choking on the word as she applied it to Ian Thornton, “I shall have to pass Berta off as my aunt to the first two.” “Berta!” Bentner burst out in disgust. “Your aunt? The silly widgeon’s afraid of her shadow.” Threatened by another uncontrollable surge of mirth, Elizabeth looked at both her friends. “Berta is the least of my problems However, do continue invoking God’s name, for it’s going to take a miracle to survive this.” “Who are the suitors?” Alex asked, her alarm increased by Elizabeth’s odd smile as she replied, “I don’t recall two of them. It’s quite remarkable, isn’t it,” she continued with dazed mirth, “that two grown men could have met a young girl at her debut and hared off to her brother to ask for her hand, and she can’t remember anything about them, except one of their names.” “No,” Alex said cautiously, “it isn’t remarkable. You were, are, very beautiful, and that is the way it’s done. A young girl makes her debut at seventeen, and gentlemen look her over, often in the most cursory fashion, and decide if they want her. Then they apply for her hand. I can’t think it is reasonable or just to betroth a young girl to someone with whom she’s scarcely acquainted and then expect her to develop a lasting affection for him after she is wed, but the ton does regard it as the civilized way to manage marriages.” “It’s actually quite the opposite-it’s rather barbaric, when you reflect on it,” Elizabeth stated, willing to be diverted from her personal calamity by a discussion of almost anything else. “Elizabeth, who are the suitors? Perhaps I know of them and can help you remember.” Elizabeth sighed. “The first is Sir Francis Belhaven-“ “You’re joking!” Alex exploded, drawing an alarmed glance from Bentner. When Elizabeth merely lifted her delicate brows and waited for information, Alex continued angrily, “Why, he’s-he’s a dreadful old roué. There’s no polite way to describe him. He’s stout and balding, and his debauchery is a joke among the ton because he’s so flagrant and foolish. He’s an unparalleled pinchpenny to boot-a nipsqueeze!” “At least we have that last in common,” Elizabeth tried to tease, but her glance was on Bentner, who in his agitation was deflowering an entire healthy bush. “Benter,” she said gently, touched by how much he obviously cared for her plight, “you can tell the dead blooms from the live ones by their color.” “Who’s the second suitor?” Alex persisted in growing alarm. “Lord John Marchman.” When Alex looked blank, Elizabeth added, “The Earl of Canford.” Comprehension dawned, and Alex nodded slowly. “I’m not acquainted with him, but I have heard of him.” “Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” Elizabeth said, choking back a laugh, because everything seemed more absurd, more unreal by the moment.

This is how one of them described his game to me: “A lot of girls, they stubborn, so you gotta work on them. You say, ‘I’m trying to get serious with you.’ You call them beautiful. You say, ‘You know I love you.’ You think about it at night, and then you wake up in the morning and you got a picture in your phone.” “You wake up a happy man,” his friend said. “Yeah, a new man.

I stopped glorifying women as beautiful only if they were also thin. In fact, beautiful was the very last thing I decided I would tell Gigi she was each day, after brilliant, hilarious, curious, creative, and daring. There are so many important things to be in this world, it's unfair to devote so much of what describes us to our body size.

My lady—” Lock began but Kat held up a hand. “Okay, I just have to say this. Before we go any farther, could both of you please stop calling me ‘my lady?’ It’s getting really old. We’re not at the freaking Renaissance Fair, you know. I mean, what’s next? Are you going to offer to buy me a tankard of mead and joust for my honor?” Both the brothers looked thoroughly confused. “Buy you what?” Deep said. “What’s a joust?” Lock asked. Kat blew out a breath in frustration. “Never mind. The point is, I want you to stop calling me ‘my lady.’ All right?” Lock frowned. “But it’s the only proper term of address for an elite female.” Kat had a feeling she was getting in deeper and deeper, but she couldn’t help asking. “What’s an elite female?” Lock’s dark brown eyes were suddenly as hot as his brother’s had been earlier when he’d scented her. “One with a shape like yours, my lady.” His big hands described a generous hourglass in the air. “Most of the females on Twin Moons are lean and tough—our lifestyle and diet make them that way.” “But there are a few,” Deep went on, taking up where his brother had left off. “A lucky few whom the Mother has marked with curving hips and ripe breasts, full to overflowing.” His black eyes flickered hungrily over her body as he spoke and Kat had to fight the urge to cover herself. She suddenly felt naked under the blue silk gown. “They are blessed by the Mother—goddesses who walk among us. We call them the elite,” Lock continued, still eyeing her. “And naturally we thought you were an Earth elite. Were we wrong?” Kat stared at them, unbelieving. “Uh, I guess so. But on Earth we call it ‘plus sized.’” “Plus sized?” Deep raised an eyebrow at her. “You know—more to love? Pleasingly plump? Big beautiful woman?” His eyes gleamed. “Most intriguing. I like all those descriptions.” “I do, too.” Lock gave her a ravenous look. Kat felt the sudden urge to pinch herself. Are they seriously saying they come from a planet of skinny-minnies but they think plus sized girls are hotter? Did somebody slip me some crazy pills? She shook her head, trying to clear away the mental images the brothers’ words brought to mind. “Look,” she said sternly. “It’s great you’re so into women with curves, but we are getting way, way, way off point here. One, I’d prefer if you just called me Kat. And two, we need to do this…whatever it is we’re going to do and try to locate Sophie and Sylvan. They’ve been missing for hours now.” “Very

To understand this, you need frist to Know some words which are formed from Arabic to English by me : 1- farcashize (V) : يُفركش 2- farcashization (N) : الفركشة 3- farcashized/farcashizational (Adj) : مُفركش 4- farcashizationally (Adv) : مُفركشآ The logic of the dating does not express the relationship, it is the relationship, otherwise the time that I spend with special someone is a neutral phenomenon and the observation of the neutral phenomenon in the term of the relationships changes its nature. Like every single Sudanese man, I know that I would like to be a one-man multinational fashion phenomenon but to be described as farcashizational man by some students is something I don't expect it at all. The phenomenon of farcashization becomes a part of Sudanese girl's speech, unfortunately it is like gossiping, I was chicken-hearted when my closed friend told me that many female students at EDC said that we were in love together and then you were farcashized by me. At that time we were laughing but deeply inside myself, an idea was rambling which was "maybe I am one of their desires" because when one has achieved the object of one's desires, it is evident that one's real desire was not the ignorant possession of the desired object but to know it as possessed as actually contemplated as within one, so maybe I was farcashizationally farcashized by my friend in thier mind as a wish that the same thing to be done with me by them and that leads to say "girls are dangerous creatures especially when they are your students". When there is both love and friendship, we dwell in the realm of the relationship and when there is neither love nor friendship, we exist in a vacuity of relationships, we can feel and we can express feelings but the more we feel, the further off we are, so what is not yet felt can't be shown and what is already desired can't be hidden so farcashization and desire are not distant, it's their principle that can't be seen. It would be a very naive sort of dogmatism to assume that every beautiful girl is an impossible creature to be got or to accept the man as he is and she is always going to embarrass and farcashize him, as if she is an indocile black wild cat, the beautiful girl is not a unique and homogeneous but she is immensely diversified, having as many different schemes and patterns as there are different ways of beauty, so the phenomenons which we find in our certain relationships such as farcashization are not transferable with all people but the attitude of the relationship, therefore the dating of two people is like the contact of two chemical substances, if there is any reaction between them depending on that attitude, both are transformed. Finally there is no relationship between any two partners looks like what we really see, yours doesn't, mine doesn't and people are much more complicated than what we imagine, then their relationships are more perplexing too, so you can't judge any relationship according the actions of the relationship's partners, it is true of every relation.

Discussion Questions In the introduction, the author describes how she came to be a book girl. When did you realize you were a book girl? What people or circumstances contributed to your love of reading? In the introduction, the author identifies what she sees as the top three gifts of reading: it fills our hearts with beauty, gives us strength for the battle, and reminds us that we’re not alone. What gifts have you encountered from the reading life? In chapter 1, the author offers some guidelines about how to choose books and how to discern what constitutes good reading. How do you choose what book to read next? Are there people in your life whose recommendations you particularly resonate with? Have you ever found yourself in a reading slump? How did you get out of it? Are there certain books or types of books that help you when you’ve gotten out of the rhythm of reading? In chapter 2, the author gives suggestions for reading in fellowship. Do any of these recommendations resonate with you? Are there any that you’d like to begin to implement? In chapter 3, the author says, “We understand our worlds through the words we are given.” Can you think of a time when a passage from a book gave you empathy for or a deeper understanding of a person or situation in your life? The author gives her “Beloved Dozen” list in chapter 3. What titles would you include on your must-read list? In chapter 4, the author says, “A great book meets you in the narrative motion of your own life, showing you in vividly imagined ways exactly what it looks like to be evil or good, brave or cowardly, each of those choices shaping the happy (or tragic) ending of the stories in which they’re made.” In what ways have books shaped the story of your life? In chapter 5, the author describes the role literature played in making her faith her own: “Tolkien’s story helped me to recognize Scripture as my story, the one in whose decisive battles I was caught, the narrative that drew me into the conflict, requiring me to decide what part I would play: heroine, coward, lover, or villain.” What impact have books had on your faith and your discovery of self? Are there particular books or passages that have been especially meaningful to you on your spiritual journey? In chapter 7, the author describes how books gave her mutual ground on which to connect with her siblings. Have you ever had a similar experience of appreciating someone or identifying with them as a result of a shared reading experience? What mentors fostered a love of reading for you? Who are you passing along the gift of reading to? What books on the author’s books lists do you love too? What additional titles would you include? What books have you added to your to-read list after finishing this book?

My stutter started soon after, and the doctors said it was from the head injury. My mom said that when I stuttered it looked like my brain and I were trying to say ten things at once. My voice just wouldn’t work. “You can’t focus on the one idea you need to talk about,” she told me. “Just say the one thing, Jess.” She is the youngest of three—the Drew girls of McGregor, Texas—and her middle sister Connie was a speech therapist. Aunt Connie advised her to get me to calm down. “Take a breath,” my mother would say, getting down to my level to look me in the eye. That only worked so well. If you want someone to calm down, try telling them “calm down” and see where it gets you. But Connie had another idea, something that worked with other people who stuttered. Singing. “What you’re trying to say,” Mom said to me one day, “sing it to me.” I turned the phrase over in my mind, smoothing the edges of its consonants and vowels until the words became the breaths of a song. A lyric I could control. “I want Cheeeeeeri-ohhhhs,” I sang. I can’t describe that release. The rush of simply being understood. “Yes, you can have Cheerios,” my mother yelled. “You can have whatever you want! You sound so beautiful.” For the next two years, singing was the only time I didn’t stutter. I sang for everything I wanted, like some Disney princess making a wish. Around four, the stutter became more pronounced and my parents took me to a therapist. He used art therapy and asked me to draw myself in the family. I drew my parents standing in front of our house, then put myself inside looking out from a window. He told my parents I had a fear of abandonment. Looking back, I know my parents never left me alone, and maybe I was even around them too much. But somehow, I still had a fear that they would leave me.

In contrast to the “everyday smiley catalog girl” or the “generically” handsome guy, the editorial model is seen as “unique” and “strong.” An editorial model is typically described as having an unusual or, to use a term that comes up often in the business, an “edgy” look. Producers define edgy as an “atypical” or an “odd” kind of quality. Everyone in the fi eld had a tough time putting edgy into words. Beyond its rudimentary physical markers of youth and skinniness, edgy is an amorphous quality, perhaps most easily defi ned negatively. Edgy is not commercially pretty but is code for a look that departs from conventional norms of attractiveness. It is the uncanny, sitting on the border between beautiful and ugly, familiar and strange, at once attracting and repulsing its viewer.

Beauty always made a target of its possessor. Every other human quality was hidden easily enough --- intelligence, talent, selfishness, even madness --- but beauty could not be concealed. "Do you ever wish you didn't look the way you did?" Anita asked. "All the time," Misery said. "I hate the way I look." [...] "No, I didn't mean like that. I just meant---" "Having to be afraid," Eliza said. "Yeah." No need to say more. No need to describe all the things you had to do to keep the eyes away. No need to discuss how hard it was to get the attention of the person you wanted attention from without being seen as desperate for everyone's attention. No need to catalog all the walls you had to put up; not just the walls that protected you from physical danger --- though there were plenty of those, too --- but the walls you had to build around your heart. They said no man was an island, and Anita figured that was probably true. But women were; they had to be. And even if someone bothered to sail over ad disembark, he'd soon discover that there was always a castle at the center of the island, surrounded by a deep moat, with a rickety drawbridge and archers manning the battlements and a big pot of oil poised above the gate, ready to boil alive anyone who dared to cross the threshold.

Close at Kudzo In the South, we have a saying to describe how we feel about those around us: “close as kudzu,” which means we’re all connected at the roots. Of course, the first reply of some Yankee is: “What’s kudzu?” If you’re going to be a Grits, sugah, you absolutely have to know the answer to this question. Kudzu is a beautiful green leafy vine. If you’ve ever driven through the Deep South, you’ve seen it growing along the side of the road--and right over everything in its path, from trees and bushes to cars, homes, and utility poles. If you stand still long enough in the South, kudzu will grow right over you. The vines grow as much as a foot a day, and in some places one plant can literally stretch for miles. That’s why we say we’re close as kudzu down here--we’re all part of one culture, and we’re all connected in some way. The thing about kudzu is, it’s not even native. It was brought over from Japan for the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. In the 1930s, the government planted it across the South as a means of erosion control. Like many before and sine, kudzu fell in love with the South, and just decided to stay. And who can really blame it, now?

Well, I can’t describe her exactly—except to say that she was beautiful. She was—tremendously alive. —F. Scott Fitzgerald

It was a misalliance. Gargi’s diet was literary sarson ka saag; Jeannie was American apple pie. Gargi wanted appreciation for what he wrote; Jeannie never bothered to learn Punjabi and was therefore unable to become a part of her husband’s claque. Gargi was gregarious, open-hearted in his hospitality, with not much in his kitty to be open-hearted about; Jeannie cherished the privacy of her home and could not stomach people dropping in at all hours. She also had an enormous appetite for food, which embarrassed Gargi for the simple reason that his friends might think he did not give her enough to eat at home. It was Gargi who took the irrevocable step to break up the marriage by committing adultery. Gargi wrote an emotionally charged account of his lustful encounter with one of his girl students in a garage, through the window of which could see his wife and children. It was a detailed and lusty account of the love-making, describing even the size of her breasts and her nipples. And that was the end of his marriage with the beautiful Jeannie. In

All I’m saying is that Paris is a lot more than what you say in your song. Paris isn’t just a beauty queen. She’s full of passion. She’s the city of the French Revolution. And every other revolution as a matter of fact. Paris is also today the epicenter of every important strike. Never take the subway on a strike day. Or you’ll be crammed in with hundreds of other people wishing you could be anywhere else in the world. Paris is a city full of life, like every big city. Paris can be a very dirty city too. There’s lots of pollution. All I’m trying to say is that you should describe Paris as she really is, its different layers. Not some soapy, postcard version of it. Put more emotion in it.

Eve Merrion had developed from a kindly, light-hearted girl into a mature woman of wide information and generous mind. Her sister, Emmeline, had married an officer in the Indian Army, and her environment since her marriage had crystallized all that was conventional in her. “Empire, Prestige, Dignity”—these were Emmeline’s values, described laughingly by Eve as “E.P.D.” In the narrow sphere of army life and thought, Emmeline had grown into what her sister ruefully described as “a perfect lady, perfect within the limitations of social convention.” Emmeline, at thirty-three, was a beautiful woman, still slender, her fine skin unspoiled by tropical suns, though there were wrinkles around her fine dark eyes, and something in her expression told of weariness and disillusionment.

Addison is a beautiful woman. That’s an understatement, actually. When I was a young boy, I overheard my grandfather describe a woman, saying, “That one could end friendships, start wars and make a glutton suck in his gut.

Don’t the poets describe the fairest men and women in exactly the same way?” I teased back. “They have rosebud lips, cheeks as red as apples, large, soulful eyes, dark velvety eyebrows, curly black hair, and a beauty mark just like yours.” Her long, throaty laugh kept me company as she descended the stairs. As it faded I wondered, if boys and girls were so similar as love objects, both in painting and in poetry, why were they treated so differently when they grew into men and women? What was the difference between having a tool and not having one?

Rozemyne’s round, somewhat babyish face was now slim and more refined. Even her fingers were long and slender. Her body looked soft and overtly feminine—and as she had yet to come of age, she had the transient beauty of a girl approaching adulthood. It’s the blessing of the gods... That was the only thought I could muster. Nothing else could describe what I was seeing. Rozemyne had always been pretty, but it had never crossed my mind that she might grow into someone so beautiful.

After de Havilland handed him the award, Matthau began, rather formally, “Uh, when one is nominated for an achievement award in any field of endeavour, I suppose it’s natural that one immediately starts thinking of an acceptance speech in the event that one wins. I must confess that I’ve given the matter some thought, but I haven’t been able to come up with anything.” After a burst of audience laughter, he continued, “However, my wife” – and he paused right here, for added emphasis – “wrote something for me.” He removed a piece of paper from his breast pocket, which he began reading: “This award, which I have won tonight, is due in no small part to the constant inspiration and selfless devotion of one beautiful, wise, witty, charming, and rich girl whose being is a monument to pure love. Carol Matthau, thank you.” As he read the note, he paused after each phrase. […] Matthau earned the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and Best Actor Tony for The Odd Couple… Just as he did in his earlier Tony Award acceptance speech, Matthau declared that his words were composed by Carol. In what Variety described as a “poker-faced reading,” he managed to cleverly work in the names of his children, mother-in-law, and wife.

Reclaiming my identity has been a painful birthing process. Something beautiful has been born, but not without blood and tears. The Latino identity is complex...even the very words we use to describe our community cause controversy. How we are counted in official forms like the census have created unintended consequences, or maybe it's by design that we are treated as America's bastard child, as perpetual foreigners no matter how many generations ago we became American.

She wanted to be away, leaving her suite, Drumvagen, and all of its inhabitants behind. Mostly, she wanted to be away from who she was. She wanted to be someone more courageous, like Mairi. Mairi didn't chafe under the role circumstance had given her. Instead, she molded life to fit her, like Lady Pamela. Nor was Mairi the only courageous person she knew. Everyone at Drumvagen was strong-willed and memorable: from Virginia, who had challenged society's rules, to Macrath, who created an empire from an idea, to her mother and Brianag. She was the only one people ignored. 'Oh, yes, Ellice,' people probably said, wrinkling their brows to summon an image of her. Poor dear girl, she's Enid's daughter, correct? Pity the other one didn't survive. Heard she was a beauty, but this girl? Brown hair and brown eyes and a completely malleable nature, they would say, describing her. Once, she'd been endlessly chastised for speaking out of turn, for saying what she thought. Years of being castigated had taught her to keep silent.

What did she know about the Black Forest? Only what she’d been able to glean from the maps in the library and from Luc’s fairy tales: Castles hidden in glens. Trees as tall as city buildings. Wolves and stags and bears. Mad princes who drowned in lakes. None of Mada Vittora’s books described an ancient academy deep in the woods, a place where it always snowed, where girls wanted magic badly enough to die for it.

Manson attracted the attention of another woman, Patricia Krenwinkel, on Manhattan Beach in 1967. Krenwinkel later said that Manson was the first person who had ever told her she was beautiful and that she had sex with him on the first night they met. Thoroughly transfixed by Manson and desperate to become one of his girls, Krenwinkel left her job, car, apartment, and last paycheck behind and returned with the budding family to San Francisco. Krenwinkel gave Manson her father’s credit card and the foursome survived for a while by stealing and writing bad checks. Susan “Sadie” Atkins was the next woman to join the Manson Family. Atkins was an ex-convict who was supporting herself by topless dancing. Manson was drawn to Atkins when he learned that she had danced in a cabaret led by the self-styled leader of the Satanic Church, Anton LaVey. Atkins was a heavy drug-user when she met Manson and was easily convinced to join his family and to set about recruiting more members, preferably male. Atkins was able to lure Bruce Davis to join the family in the fall of 1967, the first male member and a man who was later described as Manson’s right-hand man. Davis met the family when they were in Oregon. Manson had traded his minibus for a full-size yellow school bus and had taken his family on a tour of the American West; he had decided the family should move to Los Angeles. The Haight had become too dangerous, Manson said, life would be better for the family in L.A. What he didn’t tell his family was that the real reason he wanted to move to Los Angeles was to pursue his dreams of stardom. Charles Manson was looking for a record deal.

That’s nice.”  Nicole’s hands are trembling.  She grips her coffee mug hard to make them stop. “That they’d do that for strangers.” “Yes.  Maybe.  I mean, I don’t see it as people helping strangers.” “What do you see it as?” “I see it as people helping people who can’t help themselves at a particular moment in their lives.  We all have times that we fall down and hit the dirt.  Sometimes it’s just harder to get up than others.  That’s where they come in.  Helping hands I guess you could call it.” Nicole nods, thinking about that.  Agnes makes it sound so normal, to check out of life and give up, to stay in John’s house and suffer the abuse for another week, another month, another year.  Just like falling down and having a hard time getting up.  Yeah, right.  Wouldn’t you like to believe that. Nicole snorts in disgust at herself. “What?  You don’t agree?”  Agnes turns to face her. “No.”  Nicole stares into her cup.  “It’s one thing to fall down in the dirt.  It’s another to lie down in it and refuse to get up.” “The point is, you do get up.  You got up.  You’re up.”  She smiles and nudges Nicole’s leg.  “Right?” Nicole wants to smile. She really does.  But her face will only twitch.  “I got up because someone picked me up, not because I did it on my own.” “Pish posh.  Up is up.  Doesn’t matter how you got there.  Besides, doesn’t it feel glorious to know that someone cares enough to do the heavy lifting?”  She sighs loudly and dramatically.  “Oh to be young again and have a strong, handsome Galahad to come by and sweep me off my feet.”  She looks at Nicole and smiles.  “You’re such a lucky girl.” Lucky is the very last word in the English language Nicole would have used to describe herself a month ago, but now that Agnes mentions it, it’s impossible to deny how much it applies today.  “Are you talking about Brian?” “Of course I’m talking about Brian.  Do you see any other Galahads around these parts?”  She sweeps her arm out towards the yard. The smile won’t stay away now.  Nicole feels her face turning pink with it.  “It’s not like that with him.” “Fiddlesticks. That boy is ripe for the picking. What’s stopping you?” Nicole’s smile fades.  “I would think that’s fairly obvious.” Agnes stands.  “You know, there’s a reason why certain expressions never go away and endure the test of time.  It’s because they’re as real today as they were a hundred years ago.” “What expressions?” Nicole asks, confused. “Love is blind.” Agnes reaches out a hand and strokes Nicole’s cheek.  “Love sees inside the person.  It doesn’t stop at the surface.  That stuff is all just window dressing, anyway.  It says nothing about what you’re really getting.  If a man loves you when you look your worst, you know he’s a keeper.  They’re a rare breed, too, so I don’t recommend walking away from it easily.”  

At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go see the child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or a woman much older falls silent for a day or two, then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone, youth or girl, man or woman. Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the houses with yellow- lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I love a girl with a head on her shoulders,” Rudy Jack Nicholsoned while Steve Martining—Rudy’s words; not even Danny could tell you fully what they meant, but it was the only way to accurately describe it. “I hate necks.” “There’s nothing more beautiful to me than a woman in a black evening gown, and a ski mask, with only her breasts and crotch exposed,” Yu exclaimed, characteristically offbeat with the entire conversation.

One of the core dysfunctions of straight culture—and a centerpiece of my analysis—is the misogyny paradox, wherein boys’ and men’s desire for girls and women is expressed within a broader culture that encourages them to also hate girls and women. If you have experienced life as a girl or woman, you know the misogyny paradox all too well. Men shout “compliments” about girls’ and women’s bodies on public streets (“You are looking mighty fine today!” or “You’re a beautiful woman. Why don’t you smile?”) and then, a moment later, when they are not met with a response, hurl violent and misogynistic threats (“Fuck you bitch!”).70 Young boys cannot wait to have sex with girls, and once they do, many describe girls’ bodies in the most abject terms possible, seemingly disgusted by their very objects of desire.71 Men love women’s bodies, we are told, but only after women spend an inordinate amount of time whipping their bodies into a lovable shape—by dieting, shaving, waxing, dying, perfuming, covering with makeup, douching, and starving them.