“
I was naturally a loner, content just to live with a woman, eat with her, sleep with her, walk down the street with her. I didn't want conversation, or to go anywhere except the racetrack or the boxing matches. I didn't understand t.v. I felt foolish paying money to go into a movie theatre and sit with other people to share their emotions. Parties sickened me. I hated the game-playing, the dirty play, the flirting, the amateur drunks, the bores.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Women)
“
Emilio appeared with wine before Cal could say anything, and Min beamed at him, grateful for the rescue. "Emilio, my darling. I forgot to mention cake boxes. Two hundred cake boxes."
"Already on it," Emilio said. "Nonna said you'd need them. She said to get four-inch-square boxes for three-inch-square cakes."
"I'm getting the boxes," Min said, nodding. "Sure. Great. Fine. Your grandmother is an angel and you are my hero. And of course, a genius with food."
"And you are my favorite customer." Emilio kissed her cheek and disappeared back into the kitchen.
"I love him," she told Cal.
"I noticed," Cal said. "Been seeing him behind my back, have you?"
"Yes," Min said. "We've been having conversations about cake."
"Whoa," Cal said. "For you, that's talking dirty.
”
”
Jennifer Crusie (Bet Me)
“
To be the mistress of a married man is to have the better role. Do you realize? His dirty shirt, his disgusting underwear, his daily ironing, his bad breath, his hemorrhoid attacks, his fuss, not to mention his bad moods, and his tantrums. Well all that is for his wife.
When a married man comes to his mistress... he's always bleached and ironed, his teeth sparkle, his breath is like perfume, he's in a good mood, he's full of conversation, he is there to have a good time with you.
”
”
Marjane Satrapi (Embroideries)
“
The painters could be identified by dirty fingernails; the writers by conversation in labored monosyllables and aggressive vulgarities which disguised their minds.
”
”
William Gaddis (The Recognitions)
“
Drunk," she said.
"Shrew," he replied.
"Kids!" Michael held up his hands in a T shape. "Time out."
Ava shot Kaleb a dirty look and left the kitchen. Michael followed.
He didn't look back.
"Why don't you tell her how you really feel?" I asked Kaleb when they were gone.
"I have from the beginning." Kaleb put his arms on the table and propped his chin on his fist, gazing at me. "Kind of like I'm about to tell you that I might be in love with you."
"Really?" I laughed. "Because of all of our deep conversations and the quality time we've spent together? Or was it just love at first sight?"
"Something like that," he said, teasing.
”
”
Myra McEntire (Hourglass (Hourglass, #1))
“
It’s very hard to have a productive dialogue with a thirteen-year-old boy, as every gently broached subject becomes an Ultimate Conversation, requiring defense systems and counterattacks to attacks that were never launched. What begins as an innocent observation about his habit of leaving things in the pockets of dirty clothes ends with Sam blaming his parents for his twenty-eighth-percentile height, which makes him want to commit suicide on YouTube.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Here I Am)
“
Pretending to be extroverted when you're an introverted is about as fun as shoving your face into a dirty bucket of ice. I constantly felt on edge and my sensitivity towards social cues surged like an off-brand Spidey sense. I soon found myself developing this fun little habit of replaying past conversations in my head as I spent my days drowning in a ball pit of self-consciousness.
”
”
Meichi Ng (Barely Functional Adult: It’ll All Make Sense Eventually)
“
But before she tells you anything."
I glared at him suspiciously.
"your seed..."Tsaeb winced.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"your...well, your seed. You know, you have to knock her up.
”
”
J.A. Redmerski (Dirty Eden)
“
When I started everything, and by everything, I mean life, suicide was a joke. If I have to ride in that car with you, I'll slash my wrists with a butter knife. It was as real as a unicorn. No, less than that. It was as real as the explosion around an animated coyote. A hundred thousand people threaten to kill themselves every day and make a hundred thousand other people laugh, because like a cartoon, it's funny and meaningless. Gone even before you turn off the TV.
Then it was a disease. Something other people got, if they lived someplace dirty enough to get the infection under their nails. It was not a pleasant dinner table conversation, Cole, and like the flu, it only killed the weak. If you'd been exposed, you didn't talk about it. Wouldn't want to put other people off their feed.
It wasn't until high school that it became a possibility. Not an immediate one, not like It is a possibility I will download this album because the guitar is so sick it makes me want to dance, but possibility in the way that some people said when they grew up, they might be a fireman or an astronaut or a CPA who works late every single weekend while his wife has an affair with the guy who drives the DHL truck. It became a possibility like Maybe when I grow up, I will be dead.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Forever (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #3))
“
I am writing this book because I want to have a real conversation with the public and most especially you. I am honored that my words will enter your consciousness and conscience, that my thoughts will rest in your mind. I take that responsibility seriously.
Call what I’m doing a public service and you’d be correct. It is.
Hollywood is a dirty town up to some dirty tricks.
This is not a tell-all.
This is a tell-it-how-it-is.
”
”
Rose McGowan (Brave)
“
Now it's my turn to give you advice." The tightened his grip, eliminating any doubt about whether he was as ready for this as she was. "Any time you're talking about having hot, dirty sex that makes you come so hard your whole world turns neon, the last thing you want to bring into the conversation is the word 'little'".
”
”
Avery Flynn (The Negotiator (Harbor City, #1))
“
But you sent off that Flounder fellow," Loki said, and I rolled my eyes.
"His name is Finn, and I know you know that," I said as I left the room. Loki grabbed the vacuum and followed me. "You called him by his name this morning."
"Fine, I know his name," Loki admitted. We went into the next room, and he set down the vacuum as I started peeling the dusty blankets off the bed. "But you were okay with Finn going off to Oslinna, but not Duncan?"
"Finn can handle himself," I said tersely. The bedding got stuck on a corner, and Loki came over to help me free it. Once he had, I smiled thinly at him. "Thank you."
"But I know you had a soft spot for Finn," Loki continued.
"My feelings for him have no bearing on his ability to do his job."
I tossed the dirty blankets at Loki. He caught them easily before setting them down by the door, presumably for Duncan to take to the laundry chute again.
"I've never understood exactly what your relationship with him was, anyway," Loki said. I'd started putting new sheets on the bed, and he went around to the other side to help me. "Were you two dating?"
"No." I shook my head. "We never dated. We were never anything."
I continued to pull on the sheets, but Loki stopped, watching me. "I don't know if that's a lie or not, but I do know that he was never good enough for you."
"But I suppose you think you are?" I asked with a sarcastic laugh.
"No, of course I'm not good enough for you," Loki said, and I lifted my head to look up at him, surprised by his response. "But I at least try to be good enough."
"You think Finn doesn't?" I asked, standing up straight.
"Every time I've seen him around you, he's telling you what to do, pushing you around." He shook his head and went back to making the bed. "He wants to love you, I think, but he can't. He won't let himself, or he's incapable. And he never will."
The truth of his words stung harder than I'd thought they would, and I swallowed hard.
"And obviously, you need someone that loves you," Loki continued. "You love fiercely, with all your being. And you need someone that loves you the same. More than duty or the monarchy or the kingdom. More than himself even."
He looked up at me then, his eyes meeting mine, darkly serious. My heart pounded in my chest, the fresh heartache replaced with something new, something warmer that made it hard for me to breathe.
"But you're wrong." I shook my head. "I don't deserve that much."
"On the contrary, Wendy." Loki smiled honestly, and it stirred something inside me. "You deserve all the love a man has to give."
I wanted to laugh or blush or look away, but I couldn't. I was frozen in a moment with Loki, finding myself feeling things for him I didn't think I could ever feel for anyone else.
"I don't know how much more laundry we can fit down the chute," Duncan said as he came back in the room, interrupting the moment.
I looked away from Loki quickly and grabbed the vacuum cleaner.
"Just get as much down there as you can," I told Duncan.
"I'll try." He scooped up another load of bedding to send downstairs.
Once he'd gone, I glanced back at Loki, but, based on the grin on his face, I'd say his earlier seriousness was gone.
"You know, Princess, instead of making that bed, we could close the door and have a roll around in it." Loki wagged his eyebrows. "What do you say?"
Rolling my eyes, I turned on the vacuum cleaner to drown out the conversation.
"I'll take that as a maybe later!" Loki shouted over it.
”
”
Amanda Hocking (Ascend (Trylle, #3))
“
For a moment, I was perfectly relaxed, and I began enjoying the sight of this beautifully candlelit room full of well-dressed people. Then Mr. Merchant made a grab for my décolletage from behind, and I almost spilled the punch.
“One of those dear, pretty little roses slipped out of place,” he claimed, with an insinuating grin. I stared at him, baffled. Giordano hadn’t prepared me for a situation like this, so I didn’t know the proper etiquette for dealing with Rococo gropers. I looked at Gideon for help, but he was so deep in conversation with the young widow that he didn’t even notice. If we’d been in my own century, I’d have told Mr. Merchant to keep his dirty paws to himself or I’d hit back, whether or not any little roses had really slipped. But in the circumstances, I felt that his reaction was rather—discourteous. So I smiled at him and said, “Oh, thank you, how kind. I never noticed.”
Mr. Merchant bowed. “Always glad to be of service, ma’am.” The barefaced cheek of it! But in times when woman had no vote, I suppose it wasn’t surprising if they didn’t get any other kind of respect either.
The talking and laughter gradually died away as Miss Fairfax, a thin-nosed lady wearing a reed-green dress, went over to the pianoforte, arranged her skirts, and placed her hands on the keys. In fact, she didn’t play badly. It was her singing that was rather disturbing. It was incredibly . . . well, high-pitched. A tiny bit higher, and you’d have thought she was a dog whistle.
”
”
Kerstin Gier (Saphirblau (Edelstein-Trilogie, #2))
“
He stops his conversation with Grom and leans over to kiss my forehead. “How do you feel?”
“Hungry.”
Rachel sets a plate full of eggs, jalapenos, bacon, cheese, and a bunch of other ingredients that a less-famished person might care about. I don’t even blow on it before I spoon it into my mouth. As soon as I do, of course, Grom says, “Good morning, Emma.”
I nod politely. “Goo monig,” I tell him around my good.
Galen winks at me, then takes a bite of his own breakfast, which looks like a crab cake the size of his face. Also, it smells like dirty socks and sauerkraut.
”
”
Anna Banks (Of Triton (The Syrena Legacy, #2))
“
...the presence of others has become even more intolerable to me, their conversation most of all. Oh, how it all annoys and exasperates me: their attitudes, their manners, their whole way of being! The people of my world, all my unhappy peers, have come to irritate, oppress and sadden me with their noisy and empty chatter, their monstrous and boundless vanity, their even more monstrous egotism, their club gossip... the endless repetition of opinions already formed and judgments already made; the automatic vomiting forth of articles read in those morning papers which are the recognised outlet of the hopeless wilderness of their ideas; the eternal daily meal of overfamiliar cliches concerning racing stables and the stalls of fillies of the human variety... the hutches of the 'petites femmes' - another worn out phrase in the dirty usury of shapeless expression!
Oh my contemporaries, my dear contemporaries...
Their idiotic self-satisfaction; their fat and full-blown self-sufficiency: the stupid display of their good fortune; the clink of fifty- and a hundred-franc coins forever sounding out their financial prowess, according their own reckoning; their hen-like clucking and their pig-like grunting, as they pronounce the names of certain women; the obesity of their minds, the obscenity of their eyes, and the toneless-ness of their laughter! They are, in truth, handsome puppets of amour, with all the exhausted despondency of their gestures and the slackness of their chic...
Chic! A hideous word, which fits their manner like a new glove: as dejected as undertakers' mutes, as full-blown as Falstaff...
Oh my contemporaries: the ceusses of my circle, to put it in their own ignoble argot. They have all welcomed the moneylenders into their homes, and have been recruited as their clients, and they have likewise played host to the fat journalists who milk their conversations for the society columns. How I hate them; how I execrate them; how I would love to devour them liver and lights - and how well I understand the Anarchists and their bombs!
”
”
Jean Lorrain (Monsieur de Phocas)
“
So, what do you go for in a girl?”
He crows, lifting a lager to his lips
Gestures where his mate sits
Downs his glass
“He prefers tits I prefer ass. What do you go for in a girl?”
I don’t feel comfortable
The air left the room a long time ago
All eyes are on me
Well, if you must know I want a girl who reads
Yeah. Reads.
I’m not trying to call you a chauvinist
Cos I know you’re not alone in this but…
I want a girl who reads
Who needs the written word & uses the added vocabulary
She gleans from novels and poetry
To hold lively conversation In a range of social situations
I want a girl who reads
Who’s heart bleeds at the words of Graham Greene Or even Heat magazine
Who’ll tie back her hair while reading Jane Eyre
And goes cover to cover with each water stones three for two offer but
I want a girl who doesn’t stop there
I want a girl who reads
Who feeds her addiction for fiction
With unusual poems and plays
That she hunts out in crooked bookshops for days and days and days
She’ll sit addicted at breakfast, soaking up the back of the cornflakes box
And the information she gets from what she reads makes her a total fox
Cos she’s interesting & unique & her theories make me go weak at the knees
I want a girl who reads
A girl who’s eyes will analyze
The menu over dinner
Who’ll use what she learns to kick my ass in arguments so she always ends the winner
But she’ll still be sweet and she’ll still be flirty
Cos she loves the classics and the classics are dirty
So late at night she’d always have me in a stupor
As she paraphrases the raunchier moments from the works of
Jilly Cooper See, some guys prefer asses
Some prefer tits
And I’m not saying that I don’t like those bits
But what’s more important
What supersedes
Is a girl with passion, wit and dreams
So I’d like a girl who reads.
”
”
Mark Grist
“
But the blind did not go around very much. They sat, and didn’t seem to have any conversation, and soon you were aware of leisure gone bad. I had learned something of this during Einhorn’s days of dirty mental weather. Or of the soul, not the mind, the sick evil of not even knowing why anything should ail you since you’re resigned to accept all conditions.
”
”
Saul Bellow (The Adventures Of Augie March)
“
You can't hold a conversation in Brazil without jokes . . . you knowhow Brazilians are. Brazilians are women, booze, soccer, carnival, and dirty jokes.
”
”
João Ubaldo Ribeiro (Viva o Povo Brasileiro)
“
The very identity of racist Southerners depends upon contrasting themselves with those dirty black “nigras.” But, conversely, the out-groups feel that they are really and truly “in,” and nourish their collective ego with relishingly indignant conversation about squares, Ofays, Wasps, Philistines, and the blasted bourgeoisie. Even Saint Thomas Aquinas let it out that part of the blessedness of the saints in Heaven was that they could look over the battlements and enjoy the “proper justice” of the sinners squirming in Hell. All winners need losers; all saints need sinners; all sages need fools—that is, so long as the major kick in life is to “amount to something” or to “be someone” as a particular and separate godlet.
”
”
Alan W. Watts (The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are)
“
People change sides. You’ve always been a dirty piece of shit cop. You can be bought, Verner!”
“Just like you, Ingrid. Just like you.”
Conversation between ‘Alis K’ and ‘Jens’
in the novel 'The Informer' by Steen Langstrup
”
”
Steen Langstrup (The Informer (Sabotage Group BB #1))
“
You need every advantage you can get. If some poor undead fellow is busy looking at these”—he flipped the material of my dress outward to get a peek before I slapped his hand away—“then he won’t be looking for this.”
Something hard was pressed against my belly. I wrapped my hands around it and squared my shoulders.
“Is that a stake, Bones, or are you just happy with my new dress?”
He gave me a grin that was filled with more innuendo than an hour’s worth of conversation.
“In this case, it’s a stake. You could always feel around for something more, though. See what comes up.”
“This better be part of that dirty-talk training, or we’re going to give this new stake a go.”
“Now, pet, that’s hardly a romantic rejoinder.
”
”
Jeaniene Frost (Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress, #1))
“
I could always tell when a chorus was coming by watching Kurt’s dirty Converse sneaker as it moved closer and closer to the distortion pedal, and just before he stomped on the button, I would blast into a single-stroke snare roll with all of my might, like a fuse burning fast into the heart of a bomb, signaling the change. The subsequent eruption would often send chills up my neck, as the undeniable power of our collective sound was becoming almost too big for that tiny little space.
”
”
Dave Grohl (The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music)
“
She put up her posters, which mainly consisted of one five-foot-wide panorama of Diego Luna doing a split on the set of Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights-which Penelope had decided would be an excellent conversation topic, because that is a movie everyone likes.
”
”
Rebecca Harrington (Penelope)
“
I try to resist shame as much as possible. It's such a dirty feeling. It starts off small and then soaks through each conversation. It's the only time I second-guess myself, and The Fear makes this anxiety bloom in my chest to proportions I am far too petite to contain.
”
”
Marlowe Granados (Happy Hour)
“
When the bread had been eaten, and we had each had an apple, and the teapot had been drained so that all hat was left was a wadded clot of nettle leaves sitting in some dirty green residue, Dulcie leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.
'Thank you for the lack of conversation. Silence is indeed golden.'
'You're welcome,' I said.
'You don't say much, and I like that. There is poetry in silence but most don't stop to hear it. They just talk, talk, talk, but say nothing because they are afraid of hearing their own heartbeat. Afraid of their own mortality.
”
”
Benjamin Myers (The Offing)
“
Can o'Beans was to remark that a comparison between the American Cowpoke and, say, the Japanese samurai, left the cowboy looking rather shoddy. 'Before a samurai went into battle,' Can o' Beans was to say, 'he would burn incense in his helmet so that if his enemy took his head, he would find it pleasant to his nose. Cowboys, on the other hand, hardly ever bathed or changed their crusty clothing. If a samurai's enemy lost his sword, the samurai gave him his extra one so that the fight might continue in a manner honorable and fair. The cowboy's specialty was to shoot enemies in the back from behind a bush. Do you begin to see the difference?' Spoon and Dirty Sock would wonder how Can o' Beans knew so much about samurai. 'Oh, I sat on the shelf next to a box of imported rice crackers for over a month,' Can o' Beans would explain. 'One can learn a lot conversing with foreigners.
”
”
Tom Robbins (Skinny Legs and All)
“
Hey! How about a coffee?” I pinged her after a few days since our chat.
“Nope!” she replied quickly, and that was awkward.
“Oh!” I managed to respond, just to keep the conversation going.
“I mean...” she kept typing and my heart started pounding even faster, expecting a worse reply
“I prefer beer.
”
”
Kavipriya Moorthy (Dirty Martini)
“
That’s you Christians, all over!—you’ll get up a society, and get some poor missionary to spend all his days among just such heathen. But let me see one of you that would take one into your house with you, and take the labor of their conversion on yourselves! No; when it comes to that, they are dirty and disagreeable, and it’s too much care, and so on.
”
”
Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom's Cabin)
“
That's you Christians, all over! -- you'll get up a society, and get some poor missionary to spend all his days among just such heathen. But let me see one of you that would take one into your house with you, and take the labor of their conversion on yourselves! No; when it comes to that, they are dirty and disagreeable, and it's too much care, and so on.
”
”
Harriet Beecher Stowe
“
Holy shit. Holy shit. I’d held my secret from Jace for nearly nine years, and just one private conversation almost saw me confess it all? This time. That’s what I’d just said. It’s not yours, this time. Because it had been, last time. The baby Jace never even knew about. The baby that eighteen-year-old Angelo had promised to raise as his own, lying to his parents that he was the father after I’d already broken Jace’s heart.
”
”
Jaymin Eve (Dirty Truths (Boys of Bellerose, #2))
“
Then conversation. It’s always about sex. You really get tired of it. Jokes about sex, stories about sexual conquests, lectures on serious science about sex, which is supposed to sound like an expert discussion which is why it tends to get even more disgusting. But you’re not supposed to show your disgust, because if you do, the Scarface will give you this condescending smile: pooh-pooh, I thought you were a woman who’s above that, but women always have a dirty mind.
”
”
Irmgard Keun (The Artificial Silk Girl)
“
Acornology
Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, there was a kingdom of acorns, nestled at the foot of a grand old oak tree. Since the citizens of this kingdom were modern, fully Westernized acorns, they went about their life with a purposeful energy; and since they were mid-life baby-boomer acorns, they engaged in a lot of self-help courses. There were seminars called “Getting All You Can out of Your Shell” and “Who Would You Be Without Your Nutty Story?” There were woundedness and recovery groups for acorns who had been bruised in their fall from the tree. There were spas for oiling and polishing those shells and various acornopathic therapies to enhance longevity and well-being.
One day in the midst of this kingdom there suddenly appeared a knotty little stranger, apparently dropped out of the blue by a passing bird. He was capless and dirty, making an immediate negative impression on his fellow acorns. And to make things worse, crouched beneath the mighty oak tree, he stammered out a wild tale. Pointing up at the tree, he said, “We … are … that!”
Delusional thinking, obviously, the other acorns concluded, but they continued to engage him in conversation: “So tell us, how do we … become that tree?” “Well,” said he, pointing downward, “it has something to do with going into the ground … and cracking open the shell.”
“Insane!” they responded. “Totally morbid! Why then we wouldn’t be acorns anymore.
”
”
Jacob Needleman (Lost Christianity)
“
Your ass is actually very nice. Well, at least what I can see of it. If your ass is that nice, no wonder they have an obsession with your—”
“Concentrate,” I grumble, snapping my fingers in front of his face.
“I’m trying,” he lies, still staring down at my ass. I start to turn to face him instead of sitting comfortably on the bed, just so my ass will be facing the wall, but the door flies open and slams into the wall.
Drake curses, then he grunts a, “Fuck me.”
“The fuck is going on in here?” Drex growls, letting his eyes drop to my exposed back, and apparently my exposed ass. Not my fault this hospital keeps the ridiculous slit in the back of their gowns.
“We’re having a conversation,” I say with a sweet smile. “It’s full of dirty innuendo and intriguing assumptions about my pussy.”
“No the hell it isn’t,” Drake refutes, looking at me like I’ve lost my damn mind.
“But you were just saying that my—”
“Damn it, you crazy woman! Don’t give him a reason to break my arms while I can’t fight back!” Drake barks.
”
”
C.M. Owens (Property of Drex #2 (Death Chasers MC, #2))
“
we don’t hate violence. We hate and fear the wrong kind of violence, violence in the wrong context. Because violence in the right context is different. We pay good money to watch it in a stadium, we teach our kids to fight back, we feel proud when, in creaky middle age, we manage a dirty hip-check in a weekend basketball game. Our conversations are filled with military metaphors—we rally the troops after our ideas get shot down. Our sports teams’ names celebrate violence—Warriors, Vikings, Lions, Tigers, and Bears.
”
”
Robert M. Sapolsky (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst)
“
This is a central point of this book—we don’t hate violence. We hate and fear the wrong kind of violence, violence in the wrong context. Because violence in the right context is different. We pay good money to watch it in a stadium, we teach our kids to fight back, we feel proud when, in creaky middle age, we manage a dirty hip-check in a weekend basketball game. Our conversations are filled with military metaphors—we rally the troops after our ideas get shot down. Our sports teams’ names celebrate violence—Warriors, Vikings, Lions, Tigers, and Bears.
”
”
Robert M. Sapolsky (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst)
“
My God,” she says. “I feel like I’ve gone through a car wash.”
I laugh, or force myself to, because it’s not something I’d normally laugh at.
“What about you?” she says to Scottie. “How did you make out?”
“I’m a boy,” Scottie says. “Look at me.”
Sand has gotten into the bottom of her suit, creating a huge bulge. She scratches at the bulge. “I’m going to go to work now,” she says. I think she’s impersonating me and that Mrs. Speer is getting an unrealistic, humiliating glimpse.
“Scottie,” I say. “Take that out.”
“It must be fun to have girls,” Mrs. Speer says.
She looks at the ocean, and I see that she’s looking at Alex sunbathing on the floating raft. Sid leans over Alex and puts his mouth to hers. She raises a hand to his head, and for a moment I forget it’s my daughter out there and think of how long it has been since I’ve been kissed or kissed like that.
“Or maybe you have your hands full,” Mrs. Speer says.
“No, no,” I say. “It’s great,” and it is, I suppose, though I feel like I’ve just acquired them and don’t know yet. “They’ve been together for ages.” I gesture to Alex and Sid. I don’t understand if they’re a couple or if this is how all kids in high school act these days.
Mrs. Speer looks at me curiously, as if she’s about to say something, but she doesn’t.
“And boys.” I gesture to her little dorks. “They must keep you busy.”
“They’re a handful. But they’re at such a fun age. It’s such a joy.”
She gazes out at her boys. Her expression does little to convince me that they’re such a joy. I wonder how many times parents have these dull conversations with one another and how much they must hide. They’re so goddamn hyper, I’d do anything to inject them with a horse tranquilizer. They keep insisting that I watch what they can do, but I truly don’t give a fuck. How hard is it to jump off a diving board?
My girls are messed up, I want to say. One talks dirty to her own reflection. Did you do that when you were growing up?
“Your girls seem great, too,” she says. “How old are they?”
“Ten and eighteen. And yours?”
“Ten and twelve.”
“Oh,” I say. “Great.”
“Your younger one sure is funny,” she says. “I mean, not funny. I meant entertaining.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s Scottie. She’s a riot.
”
”
Kaui Hart Hemmings (The Descendants)
“
Granted, I didn’t understand most of what Reed said to Will during those three hours. For example, at one point, Reed said: “What if we were to saturate the vocals and make them extra dirty?” And I was like, Huh? Another time, Reed said, “We could turn up the flux on the Echo to around 300, playback level at zero. Let’s try that and see if it makes our balls vibrate.” It was another huh? But even without understanding the conversation, I could plainly surmise, thanks to Will’s reactions to Reed’s comments, Reed was making a powerful contribution to Will’s art.
”
”
Lauren Rowe (Beautiful Liar (The Reed Rivers Trilogy, #2))
“
Hero soon lost interest in the conversation, and left her chair to go and look out of the window into the busy street. When the Viscount at last rose to go she was employed in drawing faces on the dusty window-panes.
'If ever I saw such a troublesome chit!' exclaimed Sherry. 'Now look at your glove! What's more, I dare say Stoke don't like to have his windows looking like that.'
Mr. Stoke, watching in some amusement her ladyship's conscience-stricken scrutiny of one dirty finger-tip, said that he thought her window sketches brightened the room, and earned a grateful smile.
”
”
Georgette Heyer (Friday's Child)
“
Completely confused as to who the real criminals were in this case, the jury had voted to wash their hands of everybody and they let him off. That had been the meaning of the conversation I'd had with him that afternoon, but I hadn't understood what was happening at all. There were many moments in the Vine like that one—where you might think today was yesterday, and yesterday was tomorrow, and so on. Because we all believed we were tragic, and we drank. We had that helpless, destined feeling. We would die with handcuffs on. We would be put a stop to, and it wouldn't be our fault. So we imagined. And yet we were always being found innocent for ridiculous reasons.
...We bought heroin with the money and split the heroin down the middle. Then he went looking for his girlfriend, and I went looking for mine, knowing that when there were drugs around, she surrendered. But I was in a bad condition—drunk, and having missed a night's sleep. As soon as the stuff entered my system, I passed out. Two hours went by without my noticing. I felt I'd only blinked my eyes, but when I opened them my girlfriend and a Mexican neighbor were working on me, doing everything they could to bring me back. The Mexican was saying, "There, he's coming around now."
We lived in a tiny, dirty apartment. When I realized how long I'd been out and how close I'd come to leaving it forever, our little home seemed to glitter like cheap jewelry. I was overjoyed not to be dead. Generally the closest I ever came to wondering about the meaning of it all was to consider that I must be the victim of a joke. There was no touching the hem of mystery, no little occasion when any of us thought—well, speaking for myself only, I suppose— that our lungs were filled with light, or anything like that. I had a moment's glory that night, though. I was certain I was here in this world because I couldn't tolerate any other place. As for Hotel, who was in exactly the same shape I was and carrying just as much heroin, but who didn't have to share it with his girlfriend, because he couldn't find her that day: he took himself to a rooming house down at the end of Iowa Avenue, and he overdosed, too. He went into a deep sleep, and to the others there he looked quite dead. The people with him, all friends of ours, monitored his breathing by holding a pocket mirror under his nostrils from time to time, making sure that points of mist appeared on the glass. But after a while they forgot about him, and his breath failed without anybody's noticing. He simply went under. He died.
I am still alive.
”
”
Denis Johnson (Jesus’ Son)
“
We almost began a perfect conversation, F. said as he turned on the six o'clock news. He turned the radio
very loud and began to shout wildly against the voice of the commentator, who was reciting a list of disasters.
Sail on, sail on, O Ship of State, auto accidents, births, Berlin, cures for cancer! Listen, my friend, listen to the
present, the right now, it's all around us, painted like a target, red, white, and blue. Sail into the target like a
dart, a fluke bull's eye in a dirty pub. Empty your memory and listen to the fire around you. Don't forget your
memory, let it exist somewhere precious in all the colors that it needs but somewhere else, hoist your memory
on the Ship of State like a pirate's sail, and aim yourself at the tinkly present. Do you know how to do this?
Do you know how to see the akropolis like the Indians did who never even had one? Fuck a saint, that's how,
find a little saint and fuck her over and over in some pleasant part of heaven, get right into her plastic altar,
dwell in her silver medal, fuck her until she tinkles like a souvenir music box, until the memorial lights go on
for free, find a little saintly faker like Teresa or Catherine Tekakwitha or Lesbia, whom prick never knew but
who lay around all day in a chocolate poem, find one of these quaint impossible cunts and fuck her for your
life, coming all over the sky, fuck her on the moon with a steel hourglass up your hole, get tangled in her airy
robes, suck her nothing juices, lap, lap, lap, a dog in the ether, then climb down to this fat earth and slouch
around the fat earth in your stone shoes, get clobbered by a runaway target, take the senseless blows again
and again, a right to the mind, piledriver on the heart, kick in the scrotum, help! help! it's my time, my second,
my splinter of the shit glory tree, police, fire men! look at the traffic of happiness and crime, it's burning in
crayon like the akropolis rose! And so on.
”
”
Leonard Cohen (Beautiful Losers)
“
I like to imagine us having this conversation on a great hike together when we come upon a break in the trail—a deep and muddy ditch in the middle of the path. I jump right into the ditch and am calling to you from the bottom. You are standing above, wondering why in the world anyone would jump in. It’s muddy and dirty and probably a little smelly, too, and it looks like it’s going to take a lot of work to get to the other side. But I’m calling you down because I know it’s the only way back up. Christ is here ahead of us, and He promises to lead us out. You can stand at the edge of the ditch for as long as you’d like. You can try to find a way around. You can try to jump over. You can try to turn back. But at the end of the day, the only way forward is the way down. You see, I’ve come to such a ravine more than once on my own journey
”
”
Nicole Unice (The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck)
“
Before I knew anything about church, I'd assumed that most Christians spoke the same language, shared a sense of fellowship, and beyond minor differences had a faith in common that could transcend political boundaries. But if I had imagined that, initiated as a Christian, I was going to achieve some kind of easy bond with other believers, that fantasy was soon shot. Just a few months after I began going to St. Gregory's, I found myself at a restaurant counter in the Denver airport, waiting for a flight home from a reporting trip. A woman—perhaps noticing the silver crucifix I had recently and self-consciously started to wear around my neck—caught my eye and smiled as she took the stool next to me. She had short blond hair and a cross of her own, and was wearing some kind of sexless denim jumper that reeked of piety. I smiled back, and we exchanged small talk about the weather and flight delays, and then she asked me what I was reading. I showed her the little volume of psalms that I'd borrowed from Rick Fabian. “From my church,” I said proudly. “What church is that?” the woman asked. She leaned forward, in a friendly way. “Saint Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, in San Francisco,” I said, as her face rearranged itself, froze, and closed. It may have been the “San Francisco,” I realized later, but the city's name was a reasonable stand-in, by that point, for everything conservative Christians had come to hate about the Episcopal Church as a whole: homosexuality; wealth; feminism; and morally relativist, decadent, rudderless liberalism. The church I'd unknowingly landed in turned out to be a scandal, a dirty joke at airport restaurants, a sign—in fact, thank God, a sure bet—that I was going to eat with sinners.
”
”
Sara Miles (Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion)
“
A child with a secure attachment style will likely grow up into an adult who feels worthy of love and seeks to create meaningful, healthy relationships with people who are physically and emotionally available. Securely functioning adults are comfortable with intimacy, closeness, and their need or desire for others. They don't fear losing their sense of self or being engulfed by the relationship. For securely attached people, 'dependency' is not a dirty word, but a fact of life that can be experienced without losing or compromising the self.
Conversely, securely functioning adults are also comfortable with their independence and personal autonomy. They may miss their partners when they're not together, but inside they feel fundamentally alright with themselves when they're alone. They also feel minimal fear of abandonment when temporarily separated from their partner.
”
”
Jessica Fern (Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy)
“
It is understandable how this shame came into being. The nation made the black man's color a stigma. Even linguistics and semantics conspire to give this impression. If you look in Roget's Thesaurus you will find about 120 synonyms for blacK, and right down the line you will find words like smut, something dirty, worthless, and useless, and then you look further and you find about 120 synonyms for white and they all represent something high, noble, pure, chaste - right down the line. In our language structure, a white lie is a little better than a black lie. Somebody goes wrong in the family and we don't call him a white sheep, we call him a black sheep. We don't say whitemail, but blackmail. We don't speak of white-balling somebody, but black-balling somebody. The word 'black' itself in our society connotes something that is degrading. It was absolutely necessary to come to a moment with a sense of dignity. It is very positive and very necessary.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr. (Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Last Interview And Other Conversations)
“
We almost began a perfect conversation, F. said as he turned on the six o'clock news. He turned the radio very loud and began to shout wildly against the voice of the commentator, who was reciting a list of disasters.
Sail on, sail on, O Ship of State, auto accidents, births, Berlin, cures for cancer! Listen, my friend, listen to the present, the right now, it's all around us, painted like a target, red, white, and blue. Sail into the target like a dart, a fluke bull's eye in a dirty pub. Empty your memory and listen to the fire around you. Don't forget your memory, let it exist somewhere precious in all the colors that it needs but somewhere else, hoist your memory on the Ship of State like a pirate's sail, and aim yourself at the tinkly present. Do you know how to do this?
Do you know how to see the akropolis like the Indians did who never even had one? Fuck a saint, that's how, find a little saint and fuck her over and over in some pleasant part of heaven, get right into her plastic altar, dwell in her silver medal, fuck her until she tinkles like a souvenir music box, until the memorial lights go on for free, find a little saintly faker like Teresa or Catherine Tekakwitha or Lesbia, whom prick never knew but who lay around all day in a chocolate poem, find one of these quaint impossible cunts and fuck her for your
life, coming all over the sky, fuck her on the moon with a steel hourglass up your hole, get tangled in her airy robes, suck her nothing juices, lap, lap, lap, a dog in the ether, then climb down to this fat earth and slouch around the fat earth in your stone shoes, get clobbered by a runaway target, take the senseless blows again
and again, a right to the mind, piledriver on the heart, kick in the scrotum, help! help! it's my time, my second, my splinter of the shit glory tree, police, fire men! look at the traffic of happiness and crime, it's burning in crayon like the akropolis rose! And so on.
”
”
Leonard Cohen (Beautiful Losers)
“
I gave him my best cryptic smile.
He grimaced. “What have you found out?” he asked.
“I’m not at liberty to tell you that.” Not with the Pack suspect.
He leaned forward more, letting the moonlight fall on his face. His gaze was direct and difficult to hold. Our stares locked and I gritted my teeth. Five seconds into the conversation and he was already giving me the alpha-stare. If he started clicking his teeth, I’d have to make a run for it. Or introduce him to my sword.
“You will tell me what you know now,” he said.
“Or?"
He said nothing, so I elaborated. “See, this kind of threat usually has an ‘or’ attached to it. Or an ‘and.’ ‘Tell me and I’ll allow you to live’ or something like that.”
His eyes ignited with gold. His gaze was unbearable now.
“I can make you beg to tell me everything you know,” he said and his voice was a low growl. It sent icy fingers of terror down my spine.
I gripped Slayer’s hilt until it hurt. The golden eyes were burning into my soul. “I don’t know,” I heard my own voice say, “you look kinda out of shape to me. How long has it been since you took care of your own dirty work?”
His right hand twitched. Muscles boiled under the taut skin and fur burst, sheathing the arm. Claws slid from thickened fingers. The hand snapped inhumanly fast. I weaved back and it fanned my face, leaving no scars. A strand of hair fell onto my left cheek, severed from my braid. The claws retracted.
“I think I still remember how,” he said.
A spark of magic ran from my fingers into Slayer’s hilt and burst into the blade, coating the smooth metal in a milky-white glow. Not that the glow actually did anything useful, but it looked bloody impressive. “Any time you want to dance,” I said.
He smiled, slow and lazy. “Not laughing anymore, little girl?”
He was impressive, I’d give him that. I turned the blade, warming up my wrist. The saber drew a tight glowing ellipse in the air, flinging tiny drops of luminescence on the dirty floor. One of them fell close to the Beast Lord’s foot and he moved away. “I wonder if all this changing has made you sluggish.”
“Bring your pig-sticker and we’ll find out.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, #1))
“
At last they came to the lower slopes of the great mountains. Here she met a wild and bedraggled boy. He stumbled across her when she had stopped to rest and suckle the baby. The boy stared at the unlikely pair for a moment, then seated himself on the ground at a respectful distance, obviously preparing to converse. He was the strangest looking boy she had ever seen. Evidently a changeling like herself, for he was tall and straight with long slender limbs, but his hair was golden like the sun and his eyes a deep blue like the sky. He looked to be about fifteen years old, not quite a man, yet man enough to survive. She guessed he must have originated from the fabled district of Shor, in the far south, where it was rumoured that all the people were changelings, and all golden-haired.
Astelle tensed, fully expecting Torking to deliver one of his pain bolts to the curious boy, but the child seemed unperturbed, and simply carried on suckling. This boy's attention was obviously not deemed as a threat. She relaxed and smiled at the youth.
He returned the smile, white teeth startling against his tanned and dirty face. ‘Why are you travelling all alone?’ he asked.
Encouraged by Torking's mindwhispers, Astelle managed to concoct a story very close to the truth.
‘As you can see, my child is rather unusual,’ she explained. ‘I could not bear to raise him among mortals who would constantly deride and insult him – and his father has left me, so I had no choice but to run from my tribe.’
Sympathy appeared in the deep blue eyes. ‘I understand that very well,’ he said. ‘I am an escaped slave. I was captured in infancy, and have no memory of my own people, but all my life I have been mocked and abused because I am different. My name is Bren. I would like to travel with you, if you don't mind. I could take care of you both.’
‘Keep him,’ Torking mindwhispered. ‘He will be useful to fish and hunt for us. But do not tell him that I speak to you.’
Astelle smiled. ‘Thank you Bren,’ she said. ‘I will be glad of your company. I am called Astelle.’
‘A Faen name...’ he said wonderingly.
They began to climb the mountains of Clor.
”
”
Bernie Morris (The Fury of the Fae)
“
Look into this one,' the Bomb says with a strange expression.
It's Cardan as a very small child. He is dressed in a shirt that's too large for him. It hangs down like a gown. He is barefoot, his feet and shirt streaked with mud, but he wears dangling hoops in his ears, as though an adult gave him their earrings. A horned faerie woman stands nearby, and when he runs to her, she grabs his wrists before he can put his dirty hands on her skirts.
She says something stern and shoves him away. When he falls, she barely notices, too busy being drawn in to conversation with other courtiers. I expect Cardan to cry, but he doesn't. Instead, he stomps off to a tree that an older boy is climbing. The boy says something, and Cardan grabs for his ankle. A moment later, the boy is on the ground, and Cardan's small grubby hand is forming a fist. At the sound of the scuffle, the faerie woman turns and laughs, clearly delighted by his escapade.
When Cardan looks back at her, he's smiling, too.
I shove the crystal ball back in to the drawer. Who would cherish this? It's horrible.
”
”
Holly Black (The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air, #2))
“
Do you think she's going to hang out your dirty laundry for all to see?"
"How can you say she has sense after what she pulled today? Bah! You don't know what you're talking about."
"What Willow did today was nothing more than an act of rebellion, a way to let off steam and let you know, in the only way she knew how, that your treatment of her is entirely unacceptable."
"Woman, what you need is a man, then maybe you wouldn't be putting your nose in everybody's business."
"Why,Mr. Vaughn, are you applying for the job?" Miriam asked, with an ill-humored smile.
"Hell,no!"
"Then I suggest you leave my personal life out of this. My life is in perfect order, which is more than can be said for yours!"
Owen grunted and took a pull on his pipe.
Well aware of his bold perusal, Miriam attacked her darning as if it were infinitely more engaging than any conversation with the man across the room from her.
Owen wasn't a handsome man by any standards with his bearlike build and ruddy complexion. And heaven knew he wasn't very likeable either. Thus, Miriam was at a complete loss to explain her powerful attraction to him. Good heavens, she thought, I haven't felt so giddy since that time on my eighteenth birthday when Hiriam pulled me behind Aunt Harriet's coachhouse and we... The landlady's face reddened.
”
”
Charlotte McPherren (Song of the Willow)
“
For a second he thought she might chuckle, and honest to God he didn't know what he would do if she did. "Grey, society didn't give you that scar. A woman you treated with no more regard than your dirty stockings gave you that scar. You cannot blame the actions of one on so many."
HIs fingers tightened into fists at his side. "I do not blame all of society for her actions, of course not."
"How could you? You don't even know who it was, do you?"
"No." But he had suspicions. He was almost completely certain it had been Maggie-Lady Devane. He'd broken her heart the worst of them all.
"Of course you don't." Suddenly her eyes were very dark and hard. "I suspect it could be one of a large list of names, all women who you toyed with and cast aside."
A heavy chill settled over Grey's chest at the note of censure, and disapproval in her tone. He had known this day would come, when she would see him for what he truly was. He just hadn't expected it quite so soon.
"Yes," he whispered. "A long list indeed."
"So it's no wonder you would rather avoid society. I would too if I had no idea who my enemies were. It's certainly preferable to apologizing to every conquest and hope that you got the right one." She didn't say it meanly, or even mockingly, but there was definitely an edge to her husky voice.
"Is this what we've come to, Rose?" he demanded. "You've added your name to the list of the women I've wronged?"
She laughed then, knocking him even more off guard. "Of course not. I knew what I was getting myself into when I hatched such a foolhardy plan. No, your conscience need not bear the weight of me, grey." When she moved to stand directly before him, just inches away, it was all he could do to stand his ground and not prove himself a coward.
Her hand touched his face, the slick satin of her gloves soft against his cheek. "I wish you would stop living under all this regret and rejoin the world," she told him in a tone laden with sorrow. "You have so much to offer it. I'm sure society would agree with me if you took the chance."
Before he could engineer a reply, there was another knock at the door. Rose dropped her hand just as her mother stuck her head into the room.
"Ah, there you are. Good evening, Grey. Rose, Lord Archer is here."
Rose smiled. "I'll be right there, Mama." When the door closed once more, she turned to Grey. "Let us put an end to this disagreeable conversation and put it in the past where it belongs. Friends?"
Grey looked down at her hand, extended like a man's. He didn't want to take it. In fact, he wanted to tell her what she could do with her offer of friendship and barely veiled insults. He wanted to crush her against his chest and kiss her until her knees buckled and her superior attitude melted away to pleas of passion. That was what he wanted.
”
”
Kathryn Smith (When Seducing a Duke (Victorian Soap Opera, #1))
“
Tips for Attending a Dinner Party
When Your World Has Ended and
Another World Is Just Beginning
Savor every little spoonful. Put your fork down between bites and actually listen to the conversation bubbling around you. Remember, you’re here for the experience. At the end of your long, languorous evening, should your host refuse you once, even twice, persevere—wash as many dishes as you can! Relish the feeling of the warm water, the steam on your face, the easy certainty of a dirty bowl made clean again. There is always work to be done, so why not do it? Everything can suddenly be taken away, like we’re just birds flying blissfully into a pane of glass. Enjoy the flavor of these intimate kitchen conversations. Ask more questions than you provide answers. When you do speak about yourself, don’t rehash old party material. Be vulnerable! And remember, before you ask your host where to put things, make sure to look in the cabinets and drawers. She won’t mind if her sugar bowl is put away in the wrong place when she wakes up to a kitchen she didn’t have to clean. As for you, you will probably wake up tomorrow, too. The sun will probably rise. Breath will probably move in and out of your lungs, blood will probably pump despite your amazing broken heart. Right now, you have a body, a mind, and a memory that extends backward through time’s infinite doorways. You are an everyday miracle. Enjoy life. Because even with the promise of forever, nothing lasts.
”
”
Chana Porter (The Seep)
“
Environmental pollution is a regressive phenomenon, since the rich can find ways of insulating themselves from bad air, dirty water, loss of green spaces and so on. Moreover, much pollution results from production and activities that benefit the more affluent – air transport, car ownership, air conditioning, consumer goods of all kinds, to take some obvious examples. A basic income could be construed, in part, as partial compensation for pollution costs imposed on us, as a matter of social justice. Conversely, a basic income could be seen as compensation for those adversely affected by environmental protection measures. A basic income would make it easier for governments to impose taxes on polluting activities that might affect livelihoods or have a regressive impact by raising prices for goods bought by low-income households. For instance, hefty carbon taxes would deter fossil fuel use and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change as well as reduce air pollution. Introducing a carbon tax would surely be easier politically if the tax take went towards providing a basic income that would compensate those on low incomes, miners and others who would lose income-earning opportunities. The basic income case is especially strong in relation to the removal of fossil fuel subsidies. Across the world, in rich countries and in poor, governments have long used subsidies as a way of reducing poverty, by keeping down the price of fuel. This has encouraged more consumption, and more wasteful use, of fossil fuels. Moreover, fuel subsidies are regressive, since the rich consume more and thus gain more from the subsidies. But governments have been reluctant to reduce or eliminate the subsidies for fear of alienating voters. Indeed, a number of countries that have tried to reduce fuel subsidies have backed down in the face of angry popular demonstrations.
”
”
Guy Standing (Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen)
“
Deanna lifted her hand to the back of her neck, stretching it from side to side. Now that he thought about it, she’d been doing that a lot today.
“Do you have a headache?” he asked.
She sighed. “Yeah. I haven’t been sleeping that well, and when we were doing drills yesterday, I tweaked my neck carrying equipment the wrong way.”
Lucky saw a way to get this conversation back on track, so he steered them towards it. “I can help you with that.”
“That’s okay,” she dismissed him. “I don’t want a massage, but thanks.”
“I wasn’t offering a massage, but you’re welcome.”
“But you said you could help me…”
“Yeah, I did. And I can. But I didn’t say anything about a massage,” he corrected her.
“Oh, no, I don’t want to take anything. I try not to take medicine unless I absolute—”
“Ehhh,” he interrupted her, making the sound of a buzzer. “Wrong again. Do you want to try door number three, or should I just tell you what I was offering?”
She chuckled, and his heart swelled with pride. The fact that he had made her laugh so easily made him feel like Leo on the Titanic—like he was the king of the world.
“Fine. Tell me,” she replied, her tone in full sass mode.
“Well, since you asked soooo nicely,” he overemphasized. “I was going to say that I could get rid of your headache if you wanted me to.”
Sounding more than a little skeptical, she asked, “How?”
“By going down on you,” he stated plainly and confidently.
“What!?” she shrieked. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about me between your legs for a good thirty minutes or so. You’ll feel the scratch of my stubble on the side of your thighs, and all you’ll see is the top of my head. I’m talking about touching and kissing and licking you—”
“Okay,” she cut in. “I get the point.”
“Well.” He shrugged. “You asked what I was talking about, so I figured I should be clear.”
Laughter filled her voice as she asked, “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Say those….things… and make them sound so casual? Normal? Not dirty?”
“It’s part of my charm, really. I can make the most innocent things sound dirty and the dirtiest things sound completely innocent,” he explained.
“I believe you.” She was shaking her head and looking out the window, but with the moonlight streaming in, he could see that her face was flushed with what he was going to believe was arousal.
“Just think about it. The offer’s on the table.” With that he turned up the music, which happened to be R&B. He figured a little Marvin Gaye couldn’t do anything but help his cause.
”
”
Melanie Shawn (Lucky Kiss (Hope Falls, #12; Kiss, #2))
“
Minny came ever day to make sure I was breathing, feed me food to keep me living.
All I know is, I ain't saying it. And I know she ain't saying what she want a say either and it's a strange thing happening here cause nobody saying nothing and we still managing to have us a conversation.
"Mama, it would really be so terrible if I never met a husband?"
Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else.
I stare at her, wishing the ceiling fan would fly from its post, crash down on both of us.
I feel tears come up in my eyes, cause three years just ain't long enough. A hundred years ain't gone be long enough.
Eugenia, just because this is a hospital doesn't mean I'm an invalid"
"you kind. you smart. you important."
See, I think if God had intended for white people and colored people to be this close together for so much of the day, he would've made us color-blind.
Every time a Negro complained about the cost of living didn't mean she was begging for money.
But the truth is, I don't care about voting. I don't care about eating at a counter with white people. What I care about is, if, in ten years, a white lady will call my girls dirty and accuse them of stealing the silver.
when you little, you only get to ask two questions, what's your name and how old you is, so you better get em right.
Mister Jonny knows about me. Miss Celia Knows Mister Jony know about me. But Mister Jonny doesn't know that Miss Celia knows he knows.
"Yes ma'am. I tell her." In about a hundred years.
How an awful day could turn even worse. It seems like at some point you'd just run out of awful.
Lots of folks think if you talk back to your husband, you crossed the line. And that justifies punishment.
She can take the most complicated things in life and wrap them up so small and simple, they'll fit right in your pocket.
"Don't you let him cheapen you. If Stuart doesn't know how intelligent and kind I raised you to be, he can march straight on back to State Street. Frankly, I don't care much for Stuart. He doesn't know how lucky he was to have you."
You tell her we love her, like she's our own family.
"You a beautiful person, Minny."
Mississippi is like my mother. I am allowed to complain about her all I want, but God help the person who raises an ill word about her around me unless she is their mother too.
For the dishonesty upon which a society is founded makes every emotion suspect, makes it impossible to know whether what flowed between two people was honest feeling or pity or pragmatism
”
”
Kathryn Stockett (The Help)
“
I heard Imran cursing his ChiefMinister, Pervez Khattak, clearly not for the first time.
“That bastard made me do it!” he roared at Atif Khan.
I was busy on the phone ordering food for Eid, but still added to the conversation. “Mr Chairman, you are the boss. You have to take the blame, not Pervez
Khattak, for wrong decisions”.
He turned in his seat and sniggered at me
“Reham bibi, it is because clean people like you don’t like to get their hands dirty in politics”.
”
”
Reham Khan (Reham Khan)
“
The horsemen are: Criticism This is when you pick on the person rather than complain about a specific behaviour. E.g. “You never clean up after yourself. You must love living in a pig sty.” When a complaint would be, “I find it really irritating when you leave your dirty clothes on the floor. Could you put them in the laundry?” Contempt Behaviour that indicates disgust with a person – sneering, name calling, mocking, etc. Defensiveness Refusing to accept part of the responsibility or even consider one’s own flaws. Changing the subject to the other person’s flaws instead or blaming them for starting it somehow. “You’re the one who…” Stonewalling Refusing to engage in the discussion. The silent treatment. Walking out. Shutting down the conversation.
”
”
Darian Smith (The Psychology Workbook for Writers)
“
A dossier of compromising material on Hillary CLINTON has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services over many years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls rather than any embarrassing conduct. The dossier is controlled by Kremlin spokesman, PESKOV, directly on Putin’s orders. However, it has not yet been distributed abroad, including to TRUMP. Russian intentions for its deployment still unclear.
”
”
Luke Harding (Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win)
“
Your ass is actually very nice. Well, at least what I can see of it. If your ass is that nice, no wonder they have an obsession with your—”
“Concentrate,” I grumble, snapping my fingers in front of his face.
“I’m trying,” he lies, still staring down at my ass. I start to turn to face him instead of sitting comfortably on the bed, just so my ass will be facing the wall, but the door flies open and slams into the wall.
Drake curses, then he grunts a, “Fuck me.”
“The fuck is going on in here?” Drex growls, letting his eyes drop to my exposed back, and apparently my exposed ass. Not my fault this hospital keeps the ridiculous slit in the back of their gowns.
“We’re having a conversation,” I say with a sweet smile. “It’s full of dirty innuendo and intriguing assumptions about my pussy.”
“No the hell it isn’t,” Drake refutes, looking at me like I’ve lost my damn mind.
”
”
C.M. Owens (Property of Drex #2 (Death Chasers MC, #2))
“
American culture is characterized by the 'denial of death,' an avoidance to see, think, or talk about death. This has been described as the 'pornography of death.' Death is an illicit topic. You're morbid for talking about death in polite conversation. In the fantasyland that is the American dream - where bright, shiny people sile at us with perfect teeth from screens, magazine covers, and worship stages - death is our dirty little secret.
”
”
Richard Beck (Stranger God: Meeting Jesus in Disguise)
“
American culture is characterized by the 'denial of death,' an avoidance to see, think, or talk about death. This has been described as the 'pornography of death.' Death is an illicit topic. You're morbid for talking about death in polite conversation. In the fantasyland that is the American dream - where bright, shiny people smile at us with perfect teeth from screens, magazine covers, and worship stages - death is our dirty little secret.
”
”
Richard Beck (Stranger God: Meeting Jesus in Disguise)
“
Everything leads me to believe it,” he replied. “They got their hands on this communist who wasn’t one, while still being one. He had a sub par intellect and was an exalted fanatic—just the man they needed, the perfect one to be accused. . . . The guy ran away, because he probably became suspicious. They wanted to kill him on the spot before he could be grabbed by the judicial system. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen exactly the way they had probably planned it would. . . . But a trial, you realize, is just terrible. People would have talked. They would have dug up so much! They would have unearthed everything. Then the security forces went looking for [a clean-up man] they totally controlled, and who couldn’t refuse their offer, and that guy sacrificed himself to kill the fake assassin—supposedly in defense of Kennedy’s memory! “Baloney! Security forces all over the world are the same when they do this kind of dirty work. As soon as they succeed in wiping out the false assassin, they declare that the justice system no longer need be concerned, that no further public action was needed now that the guilty perpetrator was dead. Better to assassinate an innocent man than to let a civil war break out. Better an injustice than disorder. “America is in danger of upheavals. But you’ll see. All of them together will observe the law of silence. They will close ranks. They’ll do everything to stifle any scandal. They will throw Noah’s cloak over these shameful deeds. In order to not lose face in front of the whole world. In order to not risk unleashing riots in the United States. In order to preserve the union and to avoid a new civil war. In order to not ask themselves questions. They don’t want to know. They don’t want to find out. They won’t allow themselves to find out.” These astonishing observations about Dallas were captured in Peyrefitte’s memoir, C’était de Gaulle (It Was de Gaulle), which was published in France in 2002, three years after the author’s death. Snippets of the conversation appeared in the U.S. press, but the book was not translated and published in America, and de Gaulle’s remarks about the Kennedy assassination were never fully reported outside of France. A
”
”
David Talbot (The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles and the Rise of America's Secret Government)
“
Once upon a time, in a not-so-far-away land, there was a kingdom of acorns, nestled at the foot of a grand old oak tree. Since the citizens of this kingdom were modern, fully Westernized acorns, they went about their business with purposeful energy; and since they were midlife, baby-boomer acorns, they engaged in a lot of self-help courses. There were seminars called “Getting All You Can out of Your Shell.” There were woundedness and recovery groups for acorns who had been bruised in their original fall from the tree. There were spas for oiling and polishing those shells and various acornopathic therapies to enhance longevity and well-being. One day in the midst of this kingdom there suddenly appeared a knotty little stranger, apparently dropped “out of the blue” by a passing bird. He was capless and dirty, making an immediate negative impression on his fellow acorns. And crouched beneath the oak tree, he stammered out a wild tale. Pointing upward at the tree, he said, “We… are… that!” Delusional thinking, obviously, the other acorns concluded, but one of them continued to engage him in conversation: “So tell us, how would we become that tree?” “Well,” he said, pointing downward, “it has something to do with going into the ground …and cracking open the shell.” “Insane,” they responded. “Totally morbid! Why, then we wouldn’t be acorns anymore.” 3
”
”
Beatrice Chestnut (The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge)
“
We fall into a familiar rhythm of filthy kisses and eager hands. Soon we're shedding our clothing onto the floor.
"Mmm, shower," Max mutters against my lips. "I need a shower. I'm so dirty right now."
I lean away, playfully pulling out of his hold, and walk down the hallway to stand by the bathroom door.
"You know, if I'm gonna move in, first I think I'd like a tour of the bathroom, specifically the shower. I need to know what kind of water pressure this place has before I commit to anything."
A mischievous gleam flashes in his eyes. "You've been in that shower once or twice before. And you seemed to enjoy your time in there, if I remember correctly."
"True, but I think I need to test it out one more time. Just to be sure I know what I'm getting."
That half smile I love so much appears. As I stand there, I soak in the bliss of this moment. Max and I are together. After eighteen months of harboring secret crushes on each other, a million friendly conversations---and a few super-awkward ones---and all the conflict and work upheaval and family struggles, we're here. Together. Back in each other's arms and crazy in love.
The motion of his muscled, beautifully tattooed arm yanking off his shirt pulls me back to the very hot moment unfolding. He walks over to me and hoists me over his shoulder. I squeal before falling into a fit of giggles.
"Allow me to give you an up-close-and-personal grand tour of the shower," he says.
"And the bedroom after that?"
"Absolutely."
And for the next few hours, Max Boyson gives me one hell of a grand tour.
”
”
Sarah Echavarre Smith (The Boy With the Bookstore)
“
toward his father also emerges in conversations with his therapist Keith Ablow, who
”
”
Miranda Devine (Laptop from Hell: Hunter Biden, Big Tech, and the Dirty Secrets the President Tried to Hide)
“
Jessie eyed Ebony. As a lawyer, her words had been her sharpest weapons, slicing her adversaries through the heart. Her hands never got dirty, and the only blood on them was from paper cuts. Conversely, Ebony infiltrated the trenches and clawed her way through the shit to ensure public safety
”
”
Jodé Millman (Hooker Avenue)
“
KEN FOUND A QUIET BOOTH toward the back of La Crème, one that gave him a pretty poor view of the dancers but a great view of the older barmaid who’d brought Detective Broome to this den of sin. Earlier Ken had managed to get close enough to hear snippets of the conversation between Detective Broome and the barmaid he called Lorraine. She clearly knew a lot. She was clearly emotional about it. And, he thought, she clearly was not telling all. Ken was so happy, nearly giddy with joy over his upcoming nuptials. He considered various ways to pop the question. This job would pay well, and he’d use the money to buy her the biggest diamond he could find. But the big question was: How should he pop the question? He didn’t want anything cheesy like those men who propose on stadium scoreboards. He wanted something grand yet simple, meaningful yet fun. She was so wonderful, so special, and if any place could hammer that fact home, it was here at this alleged gentlemen’s club. The women here were grotesque. He didn’t understand why any man would want any of them. They looked dirty and diseased and fake, and part of Ken wondered whether men came here for other reasons, not sexual, to feel something different
”
”
Harlan Coben (Stay Close)
“
country. These children are not seen as credible. No one believes them, and all the funding goes to other countries. Our hope is that children in our country will have the same value as people in other countries. It is much easier to send your money to a third world country instead of getting your hands dirty right here. Again, we have this whole segment of children in our country that we call throwaways. We want to eradicate that term, and we want to make every child in our country have value and human dignity. Traffick911
”
”
David Trotter (Heroes of Hope: Intimate Conversations with Six Abolitionists and the Sex Trafficking Survivors They Serve)
“
To serve means to work alongside the neediest, first of all to establish a close human relationship with them, based on solidarity. Solidarity—this word elicits fear in the developed world. They try not to say it. It is almost a dirty word for them. But it’s our word!
”
”
Pope Francis (A Big Heart Open to God: A Conversation with Pope Francis)
“
#11—What if I could only subtract to solve problems? From 2008 to 2009, I began to ask myself, “What if I could only subtract to solve problems?” when advising startups. Instead of answering, “What should we do?” I tried first to hone in on answering, “What should we simplify?” For instance, I always wanted to tighten the conversion fishing net (the percentage of visitors who sign up or buy) before driving a ton of traffic to one of my portfolio companies. One of the first dozen startups I worked with was named Gyminee. It was rebranded Daily Burn, and at the time, they didn’t have enough manpower to do a complete redesign of the site. Adding new elements would’ve been time-consuming, but removing them wasn’t. As a test, we eliminated roughly 70% of the “above the fold” clickable elements on their homepage, focusing on the single most valuable click. Conversions immediately improved 21.1%. That quick-and-dirty test informed later decisions for much more expensive development. The founders, Andy Smith and Stephen Blankenship, made a lot of great decisions, and the company was acquired by IAC in 2010. I’ve since applied this “What if I could only subtract . . . ?” to my life in many areas, and I sometimes rephrase it as “What should I put on my not-to-do list?
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
“
Remember that there was great controversy that George Bush asserted the power simply to detain American citizens without due process or simply to eavesdrop on their conversation without warrant. Here you have something much more severe. Not eavesdropping on American citizens, not detaining them without due process, but killing them without due process. And yet many Democrats and progressives, because it’s President Obama doing it, have no problem with it and are even in favor of it.” Greenwald added: “To say that the President has the right to kill citizens without due process is really to take the Constitution and to tear it into as many little pieces as you can and then burn it and step on it.” For
”
”
Jeremy Scahill (Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield)
“
I would have never taken you for a coward, Mr. Mulberry, but honestly, do you really believe carting out your wards is going to convince me to agree to whatever madness has you seeking me out so late at night?” Everett smiled almost as brightly as the children. “Now, now, Miss Longfellow, there’s no cause to call me a coward. Smart like a fox, perhaps, but—” “You shouldn’t antagonize her, Everett,” Lucetta suddenly said, interrupting Everett’s speech before she turned to Millie. “And you shouldn’t be surprised he brought the children with him, considering everyone knows you have a distinct weakness for the wee ones. However, before the conversation moves forward, I really am going to have to insist that the two of you drop all of this Miss and Mister nonsense. We have a common friend in Oliver Addleshaw. Which means, like it or not, we’re now friends of a sort. And because of that, there’s really no reason for such formality.” “There is if he’s here to ask me to work for him.” “Of course he’s here to ask you to work for him,” Lucetta said. “But that has absolutely nothing to do with calling him by his given name.” Millie opened her mouth, but before she could respond, something that looked remarkably like mud began seeping through the paper wrapped around the flowers she was holding. Moving to the closest table, she unwrapped the paper before setting her sights on Everett again. “Did you pull these flowers right out of the ground, Mr. Mulberry?” Everett smiled. “Please, call me Everett since Lucetta was kind enough to point out we’re friends, and of course I didn’t pull those right out of the ground.” Millie held up the flowers, exposing the roots still clinging to dirt. “You would have me believe you purchased these from a flower shop?” “It’s after ten. There are no flower shops open, but if you must know, I had Rosetta pluck those out of the ground for you.” A little girl of about five raised an incredibly dirty hand and waved at her right as Everett cleared his throat, drawing Millie’s attention. “I think you should view it as a mark in my favor that I remembered the flowers, especially since, again, I’m a little sensitive to them, but . . . you were quite vocal about what it would take to get you to work for me.” He sent her a far-too-charming smile. Ignoring the charm, Millie lifted her chin. “You might as well tell me what disaster struck your household now.” Everett shot a glance to the children and seemed to shudder. “Why would you assume something disastrous happened?” Setting the flowers, roots and all, aside, Millie crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t insult my intelligence, Everett. You wouldn’t be bringing me flowers or children if something of a disastrous nature hadn’t occurred.” “The children are adorable, aren’t they?” “Of course they’re adorable, dear, which I’m sure you were hoping to use to your advantage,” Abigail said as she arrived in the drawing room, pushing a cart that seemed to be heavy with treats.
”
”
Jen Turano (In Good Company (A Class of Their Own Book #2))
“
I guess there’s nothing else to say.” “Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said, crooking a finger. “Come here.” Her throat went dry, and her heart gave a thud. On instinct, she shook her head. His expression turned ruthlessly intent. “Maddie, I’ve been thinking about that mouth of yours for almost twenty-four hours straight. You don’t think I’m going to let you go without touching you, do you?” Had it only been one day? How was that even possible? It seemed as though a lifetime had passed since she’d run out on her wedding. “Um . . .” She swallowed hard and squeaked out, “Yes?” A long pause filled with sexual awareness so thick it practically coated the air. How did he do it, flip the mood? Only moments ago, she’d felt bereft, but with one wicked glance she’d forgotten everything dogging her. “I’ll tell you what.” He smiled, and it was so filled with cunning that the fine hairs on her neck rose in anticipation. “Tell me you won’t regret it and we can end things right here with a friendly pat on the back.” “I-I d-don’t know what you mean,” she lied, loving and hating the direction the conversation had taken. “Do I need to spell it out?” “No?” The word was a question instead of the statement she’d intended. “You want to take care of yourself, right?” She nodded, sensing a trap but unable to stop playing into his hands. He leaned close, placing his elbow on the console, taking up every spare inch of breathing room. “You’re ready to ditch the good Catholic girl and start doing what you want?” The strange mixture of lust and irritation he evoked pulled in her stomach. “Well, when you put it that way.” The curve of his lips held a distinct sexual tilt. “If you get out of this car untouched, tell me you won’t lie in bed late at night and regret it. Tell me you won’t wonder and wish you’d done things differently.” Her pulse hammered and her throat dried up, leaving her unable to breathe, let alone speak. He stroked a path over the line of her jaw, and Maddie forced her eyes to stay open instead of fluttering closed from sheer desire. Why did it feel like an eternity since he’d touched her? Even more troubling, why did his hands feel so right? The slightly rough pads of his fingers trailed down the curve of her neck, leaving an explosion of tingles coursing through her. “And remember, Princess,” he said, in a deep rumble of a voice that vibrated through her as though he were her own personal tuning fork. “Lying is a sin.” She gasped, sucking in the last available bit of air left in the car. “That’s a low blow.” He gave a seductive laugh, filled with heat and promise and the kind of raw passion she’d always dreamed about. “I’m not above playing dirty.” A sly smirk as he rubbed a lazy circle over skin she hadn’t known was sensitive. “In fact, I think you prefer it that way.” “I do not!” Her heart beating far too fast, she clutched at the credit card hard enough to snap it in two. “Liar.” He slipped under the collar of her T-shirt to wrap a possessive hand around the nape of her neck. “I’m waiting.” She gritted her teeth to keep from moaning. How did one man feel so good? Hot and sinful. Irresistible. She whispered, “For what?” “My answer,” he said, inching closer. Their mouths mere inches away. She swallowed hard. The truth sat on the tip of her tongue, and for once in her life, she decided to speak it instead of stuffing it back down. “I’d regret it.” “Exactly,” he said, the word a soft breath against her skin. The pad of his thumb brushed over her bottom lip, sliding over the dampness until it felt swollen. Needy. “I can’t live with myself unless I’ve tasted this mouth.” This
”
”
Jennifer Dawson (Take a Chance on Me (Something New, #1))
“
Imagine America as one house on a suburban lane. Years before he became a Jehovah's Witness, Prince knocked on America's door through his music. He came to the door holding a guitar and an umbrella while concealing a Bible. He flirted his way inside the door and told us he had a dirty mind and was controversial, and then he sat down in the living room on the good couch. And, when America's guard was down, because we thought we were having a conversation about sex, Prince eased out his Bible and said, "Let me also tell you about my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
”
”
Touré (I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon)
“
I wasn't planning to have the big queer conversation with him. I was actually trying to have an awkward as hell conversation about me getting married to Rafael so I could stay in Canada. I figured in this way he would understand: we'd switched countries so many times in so many sketchy ways that it was almost a family tradition.
”
”
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home)
“
Her best friend and the best friend’s cousin also lived in our dorm. I went once to an ice cream shop with them and saw the pity in their eyes when Missy relayed the lack of Titanic in my life. I was put in the help category. Meaning, they thought I needed help and I was no longer in their group because it’s obvy I’m weird.
Dirty Dancing, A Walk to Remember, Hope Floats, and so many other movies were the repertoire of their conversation. I wasn’t allowed in. There were inside jokes, inside quotes, even a weird inside-type of laugh.
The one friend I did have was Kristina. She was a gift from above, though she lived two floors below, and I always jumped at her movie night invite.
Sometimes, I was tempted to ask how high, but I refrained. She wouldn’t have gotten the joke.
See, I could have my own inside jokes. Take that, snotty roommate and two friends.
Insert karate chop here.
”
”
Tijan (Hate to Love You)
“
• to leave the old parents of the psyche, descend to the psychic land unknown, while depending on the goodwill of whomever we meet along the way
• to bind the wounds inflicted by the poor bargain we made somewhere in our lives
• to wander psychically hungry and trust nature to feed us
• to find the Wild Mother and her succor
• to make contact with the sheltering animus of the underworld
• to converse with the psychopomp (the magician)
• to behold the ancient orchards (energic forms) of the feminine
• to incubate and give birth to the spiritual childSelf
• to bear being misunderstood, to be severed again and again from love
• to be made sooty, muddy, dirty
• to stay in the realm of the woodspeople for seven years till the child is the age of reason
• to wait
• to regenerate the inner sight, inner knowing, inner healing of the hands
• to continue onward even though one has lost all, save the spiritual child
• to re-trace and grasp her childhood, girlhood, and womanhood
• to re-form her animus as a wild and native force; to love him; and he, her
• to consummate the wild marriage in the presences of the old Wild
Mother and the new childSelf
”
”
Clarissa Pinkola Estés (Women Who Run With the Wolves)
“
Father Wilfred had told us time and time again that it was our duty as Christians to see what our faith had taught us to see. And consequently Mummer used to come home from the shop with all kinds of stories about how God had seen fit to reward the good and justly punish the wicked. The lady who worked at the bookmakers had developed warts on her fingers from handling dirty money all day long. The Wilkinson girl, who had visited the clinic on the Finchley Road that the women at Saint Jude’s talked about in hushed tones, had been knocked down by a car not a week later and had her pelvis snapped beyond repair. Conversely, an elderly lady who came into the shop every week for prayer cards and had spent much of the previous decade raising money for Cafod, won a trip to Fatima.
”
”
Andrew Michael Hurley (The Loney)
“
I think this is what Christ meant when he said you have to lose your life to find it. I had to lose my faith to find it. You can’t just sign for someone else’s God delivery. You can’t just worship others’ spiritual experience—their rapture, their truth, their conversion—you need to find your own. And to do that, you need to get your hands dirty. Faith isn’t certainty, it’s adventure, something you’re going to come back from dusty and bruised, having seen and done things you never would have even considered before. Your doubt is welcome on this journey, as is your disbelief. You’re going to meet so many different approaches to God—enjoy them all. Collect as many stamps in your passport as you can.
”
”
Pete Holmes (Comedy Sex God)
“
Anna didn't tend to talk much, but every so often she would become frantically loquacious. Her conversation would have something of the make-believe about it, as if she were an actress chattering away on stage but was secretly exhausted and wanted nothing more than to return to reality and be alone. If Francesco even touched on the subject of money or employment, Anna's face immediately darkened and she retreated into silence. Francesco had been forced to tell her upfront that he owned no castle or country estate. Yes, he'd stammered, he was of baronial origins, but his family had fallen into ruin and had almost nothing left. At this revelation, Anna had shown neither regret nor surprise as if this was something she'd known all along or was of little interest to her. A hard, slightly ironic expression appeared on her face. "But of course, of course," she said impatiently, and lowering her eyes, she began to fiddle with her spoon. They both were silent while the last sunlight streaming through the dirty caffè window faded and the room darkened. But the suddenly, as he turned towards Anna, Francesco noticed that her pouting mouth was trembling and that her eyes, which she raised for an instant, were moist and bright. Perhaps she really did harbor a hope that those imaginary holdings of his were real? Or perhaps she was thinking of something else entirely? Francesco was so mortified and unsure of himself that he didn't dare ask her anything. The silence between them grew longer and Anna raised her now dry, wide eyes and remained stiffly in her seat in the corner of the half-empty coffee shop without looking at her companion again. She was so stern and detached that one might have mistaken her for a foreigner passing through, seated all alone at that little table in the caffè. Sitting beside her, Francesco, deeply disappointed that he wasn't privy to her most intimate thoughts, let his gaze wander over the small iron tables, across the streaked marble countertop, to the brazier no longer stoked by the lazy shop boy, its few remaining sparks dying among the ashes. Even without catching his fiancée's eye, he could see her dark eyes glowing in the twilight like those of a visionary fixated on her inner thoughts. This was how the spent their brief and acrimonious engagement.
”
”
Elsa Morante trans. by Jenny McPhee
“
Anna didn't tend to talk much, but every so often she would become frantically loquacious. Her conversation would have something of the make-believe about it, as if she were an actress chattering away on stage but was secretly exhausted and wanted nothing more than to return to reality and be alone. If Francesco even touched on the subject of money or employment, Anna's face immediately darkened and she retreated into silence. Francesco had been forced to tell her upfront that he owned no castle or country estate. Yes, he'd stammered, he was of baronial origins, but his family had fallen into ruin and had almost nothing left. At this revelation, Anna had shown neither regret nor surprise as if this was something she'd known all along or was of little interest to her. A hard, slightly ironic expression appeared on her face. "But of course, of course," she said impatiently, and lowering her eyes, she began to fiddle with her spoon.They both were silent while the last sunlight streaming the dirty caffè window faded and the room darkened. But then suddenly, as he turned towards Anna, Francesco noticed that her pouting mouth was trembling and that her eyes, which she raised for an instant, were moist and bright. Perhaps she really did harbor a hope that those imaginary holdings of his were real? Or perhaps she was thinking of something else entirely? Francesco was so mortified and unsure of himself that he didn't dare ask her anything. The silence between them grew longer and Anna raised her now dry, wide eyes and remained stiffly in her seat in the corner of the half-empty coffee shop without looking at her companion again. She was so stern and detached that one might have mistaken her for a foreigner passing through, seated all alone at that little table in the caffè. Sitting beside her, Francesco, deeply disappointed that he wasn't privy to her most intimate thoughts, let his gaze wander over the small iron tables, across the streaked marble countertop, to the brazier no longer stoked by the lazy shop boy, its few remaining sparks dying among the ashes. Even without catching his fiancée's eye, he could see her dark eyes glowing in the twilight like those of a visionary fixated on her inner thoughts. This was how they spent their brief and acrimonious engagement.
”
”
Elsa Morante (Lies and Sorcery)
“
I unfold my notes and arrange them in order on my leg. I’ve read them under my breath a hundred times in the last couple of days to make sure I can say them aloud when the time comes. It starts with one clear sentence at the top, then breaks down into a flow chart of all the ways I thought the conversation might go and how I could answer. My heart’s pounding hard enough to make me feel dizzy, but I wrap my hand around the base of my throat like it’s the weight of my collar and dial the number I scrawled at the bottom of my notes.
”
”
Riley Nash (Bad Dogs (Dirty Strays #1))
“
Securely functioning adults are comfortable with intimacy, closeness, and their need or desire for others. They don’t fear losing their sense of self or being engulfed by the relationship. For securely attached people, “dependency” is not a dirty word, but a fact of life that can be experienced without losing or compromising the self. Conversely, securely functioning adults are also comfortable with their independence and personal autonomy. They may miss their partners when they’re not together, but inside they feel fundamentally alright with themselves when they’re alone. They also feel minimal fear of abandonment when temporarily separated from their partner. In other words, securely attached people experience relational object constancy, which is the ability to trust in and maintain an emotional bond with people even during physical or emotional separation.
”
”
Jessica Fern (Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy)
“
Buda, perched on steep hills, her sprawling Royal Palace, and her Citadel carved into jagged cliffs which plunge into the river, craves the attention of the visitor arriving down the Danube from Vienna. Pest, on the flat plain that is the continuation of the Puszta, is all business, commerce and intellect, all conversation and art. Fantastic amalgams of Romanesque, Gothic and Byzantine straining to find their Magyar soul face the boulevards, which are unabashed imitations of both Paris and Vienna. The Parliament, ostentatiously outdoing Westminster, spire for spire, Gothic arch for Gothic arch, faces the dirty, gray Danube, the heart of the city.
”
”
Kati Marton (Wallenberg: Missing Hero)
“
A monk's day begins with cleaning. We don't do this because the temple is dirty or messy. We do it to eliminate the suffering in our hearts.
We sweep dust to remove our worldly desires. We scrub dirt to free ourselves of attachments.
The Zen sect of Buddhism is renowned for the cleaning practices of its monks, but cleaning is greatly valued in Japanese Buddhism in general as a way to "cultivate the mind".
Daily housework is an opportunity to contemplate the self.
The Japanese idea of not being wasteful is not just about avoiding waste - it also embodies a spirit of gratitude toward objects. People who don't respect objects don't respect people.
Cleaning should be done in the morning. Cleaning quietly while the silence envelops you - before other people and plants awaken - refreshes and clears your mind.
In the world of Buddhism, reusing items is a standard that guides our day-to-day lives.
To remove impurities from your heart, be sure to keep the bathroom sparkling clean.
Cleaning is training for staying in the now. Therein lies the reason for being particular about cleanliness.
It is important to express gratitude at the changing of the seasons. Only those who do this truly know how to achieve closure in their feelings.
In order to remove impurities from the heart, you must reduce wastefulness in your heart.
People who endlessly chase after new things have lost their freedom to earthly desires. Only those who can enjoy using their imaginations when working with limited resources know true freedom.
It is vital that you get rid of anything that you do not need.
Hospitality starts with cleanliness.
There is an old Zen teaching that says that if you haven't washed your face, everything you do throughout the day will be impolite and hasty.
Succumbing to sleep gluttony is giving in to your wordly desires. Idly sleeping your days away is no way to live.
Quite honestly, a life free of possessions is very comfortable.
There are some things you start to realize when living the Zen life of simplicity, namely, that you only keep things of good quality. Conversely, if you are surrounded only by poor-quality objects that you don't care about, it is impossible to understand what it is to truly value something.
There is an old Zen saying that goes: "Where there is nothing, there is everything." By letting go of everything, you can open up a universe of unlimited possibilities.
”
”
Shoukei Matsumoto (A Monk’s Guide to A Clean House & Mind)
“
Raffe lifted the latch on the heavy door and sidled in. As usal, he gagged as he took his first breath in the cloying, fishy stink of the smoke that rose from the burning seabirds, which were skewered on to the wall spikes in place of candles. In the dim oily light, he could make out the vague outlines of men sitting in twos and threes around the tables, heard the muttered conversations, but could no more recognize a face than see his own feet in the shadows.
A square, brawny woman deposited a flagon and two leather beakers on a table before waddling across to Raffe. Pulling his head down towards hers, she planted a generous
kiss on his smooth cheek. Thought you'd left us,' she said reprovingly. You grown tired of my eel pic?'
How could anyone grow tired of a taste of heaven?' Raffe said, throwing his arm around her plump shoulders and squeezing her.
The woman laughed, a deep, honest belly chuckle that set
her pendulous breasts quivering. Raffe loved her for that. 'He's over there, your friend,' she murmured. 'Been wait ing a good long while.'
Raffe nodded his thanks and crossed to the table set into a
dark alcove, sliding on to the narrow bench. Even in the dirty mustard light he could recognize Talbot's broken nose and thickened ears.
Talbot looked up from the rim of his beaker and grunted. By way of greeting he pushed the half-empty flagon of ale towards Raffe. Raffe waited until the serving woman had set a large portion of eel pie in front of him and retreated out of earshot. He hadn't asked for food, no one ever needed to here. In the Fisher's Inn you ate and drank whatever was put in front of you and you paid for it too. The marsh and river were far too close for arguments, and the innkeeper was a burly man who had beaten his own father to death when he was only fourteen, so rumour had it, for taking a whip to him once too often. Opinion was divided on whether the boy or the father deserved what they suffered at each other's hands, but still no one in those parts would have dreamed of report ing the killing. And since the innkeeper's father lay rotting somewhere at the bottom of the deep, sucking bog, he wasn't in a position to complain.
”
”
Karen Maitland (The Gallows Curse)
“
There was nothing I would not have done to get you out of that sanctuary. You understand that, right?" "Yes." I pulled his fingers to my lips and kissed him back. "I knew you'd come for me. You always do." "Neely, I'm trying to have a serious conversation with you. Stop talking dirty." A surprised laugh bubbled out of me. "I love you." "Good. Now let me heal the headache.
”
”
C.P. Rider (Sabotaged (Sundance, #3))
“
I’m looking at you out of one of those windows over there, and you’re not here for lunch, what are you here for?” “An innocent conversation,” Meany said, and shrugged. “In New Jersey?” Parker pushed a half sandwich on a half
”
”
Richard Stark (Dirty Money (Parker #24))
“
When EMP was up and running, I felt confident that the entire team had my back—literally. Let’s say I was clearing a table and a guest started to engage me in conversation. It’s gross to stand there chatting with an armful of dirty dishes, yet I never wanted to squander an opportunity to connect with a guest. So I’d tuck the dishes behind my back, knowing that no matter how badly my wrists strained, in a second or two, one of my colleagues would notice and be on their way to grab them from me.
”
”
Will Guidara (Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect)
“
I was often frightened, forever dirty and exhausted, but I believed in our purpose too. In time I forgot where it had arisen from—my master’s distress over Aramis’s death, the conversation on Christmas Eve, the priest’s lost brothers and the vows my master had made—and began to believe that war was necessary, important—noble even. Why else would people kill each other with such decency and skill? Why else would soldiers wear uniforms, buttons gleaming, shoes polished like shellac? Battles of course grew jagged and messy, but the lead-up, the deployment, the training, the sacred hierarchy of command was impressive. Only orchestras of musicians, I would discover, had the same admirable ability to tie many humans together in a single purpose.
”
”
Damian Dibben (Tomorrow)
“
You will never overhear the following conversation in a fine-dining establishment. WAITER: Today’s specials. We have Chilean sea bass, which is sautéed in a lemon beurre blanc, and we have a Hot Pocket that is cooked in a dirty microwave. And that comes with a side of Pepto. PATRON: Is your Hot Pocket cold in the middle? WAITER: It’s frozen. But it can be served boiling-lava hot. PATRON: Will it burn my mouth? WAITER: It will destroy your mouth. Everything will taste like rubber for a month. PATRON: Oh, I’ll get the Hot Pocket.
”
”
Jim Gaffigan (Food: A Love Story)
“
Good Communication When a couple has good communication skills, there is no fear. You can express your feelings without fear of emotional or physical violence. You can even disagree and fight, without fearing that your partner will play dirty or stop loving you. Both members of the relationship are able to clearly and directly express their feelings, and don’t avoid the tough conversations. Of course, even healthy relationships aren’t perfect, and communication can’t always be good, but it’s definitely more positive than negative.
”
”
Laura Raskin (Codependency: The End of Codependency: How to Stop Controlling and Enabling Others, Love Yourself, Have Happy Relationships, and be Codependent No More)
“
It’s important, Lemuel.” He took another look and shook his head. “What’d this guy do?” he asked. “Helped plant cocaine on some Cambodians so their vehicle and cash could be confiscated.” “I ain’t following you.” “He’s a cop. You see him again, you let me know.” Lemuel leaned back in his chair and looked out at the road, suddenly disconnected from me and a conversation involving a corrupt white police officer. “Lemuel?” I said. “Got to clean my li’l house now. Dust keep blowing out of the yard t’rew the screen, dirtying up my whole house. Just cain’t keep it clean, no matter what I do. See you another time, Dave.” WE LIVE IN the New South. Legal segregation has slipped into history; the Klan has moved west, into white supremacist compounds, where they feel safe from the people whom they fear; and in Mississippi black state troopers ticket white motorists. But memories can be long, fear is fear, and race is at the heart of virtually every political issue in the states of the Old Confederacy, particularly in the realignment of the two national political parties. As I drove back to New Iberia, the fields of early sugar cane rippling in the breeze, the buttercups blooming along the rain ditches, I wondered about the memories of violence and injustice that my friend Lemuel Melancon would probably never share with me. But they obviously lived inside him, and I knew that as a white man it was presumptuous of me to ask that he set aside the cautionary instincts that had allowed him to be a survivor.
”
”
James Lee Burke (Crusader's Cross (Dave Robicheaux, #14))
“
Is that what other weres smell like to vampires?” I frowned. “I guess. They smelled like normal weres to me.” “But not like you,” Taylor said. “Your smell… you smell so good.” “You smell good to me too, baby,” I murmured, squeezing her hand lightly. I wanted to add that she smelled hot—like she was in need. All evening her scent had been driving me crazy—that warm feminine spice that let me know her pussy was wet and ready to be fucked—to be bred. But I held back—I wanted her to come to me, not the other way around. She blushed, her pale cheeks going pink. “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. I just… I wonder why you smell and taste so different from other weres.” I shrugged. “Who knows? So you didn’t like that guy’s blood?” She made a face. “It was awful. Like tasting dirty motor oil and sweat mixed together.” “What’s mine like?” I asked curiously. She’d been drinking from me for almost a month but this was the first time we’d really had this conversation. Her face lit up. “It’s amazing. Like some kind of really rare, delicious liquor—it warms me up from the inside out. It’s kind of like drinking liquid sunshine.” I barked a laugh. “You’re making me think I should sell the stuff. If everybody liked it as much as you I’d be a millionaire inside a month.” “Don’t you dare,” she said with mock severity. “You’re mine—I don’t want anyone else drinking from you. Ever.” The possessiveness in her voice sent a thrill through me and made my cock even harder. God, I loved to hear her talk like that—like we belonged to each other. Like we would be together forever. “I’m all yours,” I promised her, squeezing her hand again. “As long as you remember you’re mine too.
”
”
Evangeline Anderson (Scarlet Heat (Born to Darkness, #2; Scarlet Heat, #0))
“
Best Tips for Govt Interview Jobs In Pakistan for 2020
Doing Practice Interviews to Succeed in Government Jobs in Pakistan is first on our list: You really have a lot of opportunities to do these things. When I was a college student, in my four years, every year when I entered the career fair town, there were real recruiters coming to CareerCentrendrand, giving their time for interview jobs with any student who signed up. One. Now, these interviews are not real interviews, but are they real conversations with people who hire managers or HR people at companies that are going to be at a career fair? So in addition to good practice for real interviews in the future, they are a good networking experience with people who make decisions in the future. But the main advantage of these types of interviews is that they are great learning for the real thing, because the interview is inherently a nerve-wracking experience. Tip number two to everyone you interact with any institution or company cesukovaliippudu friendly and engaged, or they talk to people who do not seem dirty secretary instityutlaloki trip and they are saying to the people, but a lot of students go to an institution or firm, and p If a little more time to wait before the interview for jobs kistanlo. They sit in the waiting room and stare at their phones. As I can tell you from experience, people who are not hiring managers notice the behavior of potential candidates, and then they talk to those hiring managers. In most companies, hiring decisions don't just come to the public you interview. They are going to ask anyone who has spoken to a potential candidate if they have any objections. So if you come into any institute or company, take some time to talk to the person at the front desk, a few minutes before the interview. Or if they are busy, at least be polite, greet them, ask them how their day is going, and then sit down and do your waiting. Do not.
Continues. In addition, come to the interview with your own questions and tell the interviewer that you are engaged, that you are 'interested in this position and you have made some preparations for an interview for government jobs in Pakistan. You may think that you are all too familiar with any questions, and that's a good thing, in fact it does what it does if the interviewer is apathetic towards you and is doing it for the money. One question you definitely need to keep in your back pocket is whether I am going to make progress or additional opportunities in this company. The great thing about this type of question is that it tells your interviewer that you are comfortable and comfortable and ready to learn new things, and this is a great quality to have if you are a business owner and someone you are working with. My third tip is about asking questions during the interview. Tip number is to research the company before you walk into that interview room: once again, it shows preparation and dedication that most other candidates don't
”
”
hamzahyousaf
“
Oh, wait. I’m thinking this is how the conversation went... Phone rings, you answer with a grunt. He grunts back. You grunt, then he grunts, grunts, grunts. Then you both hang-up. That the gist of it?
”
”
Jeanne St. James (Down & Dirty: Slade (Dirty Angels MC, #6))
“
What I hate about these liberal, pseudo-left, beautiful soul academics is that they are doing what they are doing fully aware that somebody else will do the job for them. For example, this goes to the absurd with many of my American friends who pretend to be left-wingers, anti-capitalist and so on, but who also play the stock market - and so they secretly count on things functioning, on stocks and share doing well, and so on. I admire people who are ready to take over and do the dirty job, and maybe this is part of my fascination with Lenin. He never adopted the position of 'oh, we are not responsible, things move differently, what can we do?' No, we are in a way absolutely responsible. This has nothing to do with conformism: quite the contrary. If you are in power, really in power, it mean something very radical. It means you have no excuse. You cannot say, 'sorry, it's not my fault.' I have considerable respect for people who don't lose their nerve; for people who know there is no way out for them.
”
”
Slavoj Žižek (Conversations with Žižek)
“
Of course no one knows anything, let's not get involved, let's not have a real conversation with dates and facts and names and places because we might be held accountable and that, that, would be a catastrophe for some of us, we would have to remove our sunglasses, or lipstick, whatever the apparatus, and we would have a proper trial, with judges and evidences and verdicts, and some of us would be clean and some of us would be dirty
”
”
Stephanie Danler (Sweetbitter)
“
I know you’re in there, Mercedes,” Faye says. “I can see your dirty Converse shoes. You really should get a new pair.”
“Did you see it?” I croak. “If you saw it, you probably saw a lot more of me. You probably shouldn’t be seen talking to me. And I should probably switch schools.”
“That’s the thing,” Faye says, stopping right outside the stall door and rapping on the metal with her fist.
“What’s the thing?” I say, pushing my shoe against the toilet paper dispenser, making no move to let her in.
“I never was any good at doing what people tell me.”
And like that, her head appears under the stall door, followed by her body. She pulls herself in and wipes her hands on her jeans.
I raise my eyebrows. “You know how disgusting that floor is?” I say. “Janitorial service at this school leaves a lot to be desired.”
She cocks her head and puts her hands on her hips. She looks like what I imagine a stern parent would look like, not that I know from experience. I wonder if she got that posture from Lydia.
“First of all, you didn’t let me in, so I had no choice.
”
”
Laurie Elizabeth Flynn (Firsts)
“
Ashley doesn’t return fire. In future messages she will remain loving and patient toward the brother she idolizes. Hunter’s ambivalent attitude toward his father also emerges in conversations with his therapist Keith Ablow, who also variously acts as friend, landlord, and potential collaborator in a book or podcast. The pair joke about Joe Biden’s “dementia” in text messages in 2019.
”
”
Miranda Devine (Laptop from Hell: Hunter Biden, Big Tech, and the Dirty Secrets the President Tried to Hide)