“
Jules: A house with Emma; laughing by a fire together.
All that would make it better would be his brothers and sisters somewhere nearby, where he could see them every day, where he could fence with Livvy and watch movies with Dru and help Tavvy learn the crossbow. Where he could look for animals with Ty, hermit crabs down by the edge of the water, scuttling under their shells. Where he could cook massive dinners with Mark and Helen and Aline and they'd all eat them together, out under the stars in the desert air.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2))
“
I’m kind of hoping it will end like this. You made me happy. Very happy. But…you deserve everything. Wife, kids, a white picket fence.”
“And I’ll have all of it. With you.”
“You know that can’t happen with me.”
“Then it can’t happen with anyone. There won’t be a next Rosie. And there won’t be another story like ours. This is it, Rose LeBlanc. And this is us. If there is no you, then there is no me.”
“You know, I always hated Romeo and Juliet . The play. The movie. The very idea. It was tragic, all right. Tragically stupid. I mean, they were what? Thirteen? Sixteen? What a waste of life, to kill yourself because your family wouldn’t let you get hitched. But Romeo and Juliet were right. I was the next eleven years killing myself slowly while I grieved for you. Then you came back, and I still thought it was just a fascination. But now that I know…”
“Now that I know that it can only ever be you, you’re going to get better for me so Earth won’t explode. Can you do that, Sirius? I promise not to leave this room until you get out. Not even for a shower. Not even to get you your chocolate chip cookies. I’ll get someone to drive all the way to New York and bring them for you.”
“I love you.” Rosie’s tears curtained her vision.
“I love you, Baby LeBlanc,” I said. “So fucking much. You taught me how to love. How well did I do?”
“A-plus,” she whispered. “You aced it. Can you promise me something?”
“Anything.”
“ Live .”
“Not without you.”
“And have kids. Lots of them. They’re fun.” “Rosie…”
“I’m not afraid. I got what I wanted from this life. You .”
“Rosie.”
“I love you, Earth. You were good to me.” “Rose!”
Her eyes closed, the door opened, the sound on her monitor went off, and my heart disintegrated.
Piece.
By piece.
By piece.
”
”
L.J. Shen (Ruckus (Sinners of Saint, #2))
“
He'd known of her, of course; everyone in the neighborhood knew of Katie. She was that beautiful. But few people really knew her. Beauty could do that; it scared you off, made you keep your distance. It wasn't like in the movies where the camera made beauty seem like something that invited you in. In the real world, beauty was like a fence to keep you out, back you off.
”
”
Dennis Lehane (Mystic River)
“
His gaze meandered along my chest. "Hey!" I crossed my arms over my breasts.
"Those are…"
"Patrick's?"
"Well, his name isn't tattooed on them, but yeah, currently they are reserved for him."
I peered at him and noted the similarities between him and his sons. "Ruadan, I presume?"
"Got it in one," he said, silver eyes twinkling.
"You scared the shit out of me." One corner of his mouth lifted into a grin. He picked up the parchment and tapped on it.
"So, you're Patrick's soul mate."
"No."
"But you read the scroll. Only his sonuachar can do that."
"Let me explain." I paused. "No, there is too much. Let me sum up."
" The Princess Bride!" Ruadan exclaimed in happy surprise. "I love that movie. 'Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!'" He leapt off the bed and made fencing motions.
"Ruadan, we're in a bit of crisis around here."
"Hey! My swords." He practically skipped to the dresser where I had left them when I got ready for my bath. He whirled the half-swords like a master swordsman, which, of course, he was. "My mother really knows how to smith a weapon, doesn't she? Real fairy gold." He stabbed an invisible foe's chest with one and his stomach with the other. "Die, evil one! Die!"
He jumped up and down, the swords held above his head, and did a victory dance.
"You're like a big puppy!" I exclaimed. "A big, dumb puppy.
”
”
Michele Bardsley (I'm the Vampire, That's Why (Broken Heart, #1))
“
At one edge of the base, pressed between the fenceline and the sea, shimmered the pale archways and columns, the madrone and wind-shaped cypresses of the clifftop campus of College of the Surf. Against the somber military blankness at its back, here was a lively beachhead of drugs, sex, and rock and roll, the strains of subversive music day and night, accompanied by tambourines and harmonicas, reaching like fog through the fence, up the dry gulches and past the sentinel antennas, the white dishes and masts, the steel equipment sheds, finding the ears of sentries attentuated but ominous, like hostile-native sounds in a movie about white men fighting savage tribes.
”
”
Thomas Pynchon (Vineland)
“
The basic principle of structural analysis, I was explaining, is that the terms of a symbolic system do not stand in isolation—they are not to be thought of in terms of what they 'stand for,' but are defined by their relations to each other. One has to first define the field, and then look for elements in that field that are systematic inversions of each other. Take vampires. First you place them: vampires are stock figures in American horror movies. American horror movies constitute a kind of cosmology, a universe unto themselves. Then you ask: what, within this cosmos, is the opposite of a vampire? The answer is obvious. The opposite of a vampire is a werewolf. On one level they are the same: they are both monsters that can bite you and, biting you, turn you, too, into one of their own kind. In most other ways each is an exact inversion of the other. Vampires are rich. They are typically aristocrats. Werewolves are always poor. Vampires are fixed in space: they have castles or crypts that they have to retreat to during the daytime; werewolves are usually homeless derelicts, travelers, or otherwise on the run. Vampires control other creatures (bats, wolves, humans that they hypnotize or render thralls). Werewolves can't control themselves. Yet—and this is really the clincher in this case—each can be destroyed only by its own negation: vampires, by a stake, a simple sharpened stick that peasants use to construct fences; werewolves, by a silver bullet, something literally made from money.
”
”
David Graeber (The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy)
“
Movie premieres and awards ceremonies mixed with the kids and the white picket fence. And a cat. Not a dog. Which I happen to think is adorable. My big old strong, dominant man loves cuddly little kitties. “We’ll
”
”
Kelly Oram (Happily Ever After (Cinder & Ella #2))
“
Every time you jump the fence, it looks like it's going to topple over. Would it kill you to go through the gate?"
"Your dad put a lock on it," I said, "so I can't anymore."
"Oh-five, oh-four, two-one," she said, rolling her eyes. "Just put in the number, use the gate like a civilized human, and maybe don't even talk to me when you retrieve your misdirected sports paraphernalia. Zero contact would be cool."
"But how could I tell you how much I like your new hair if I didn't speak?
”
”
Lynn Painter (Better Than Before (Betting on You, #0.5; Better than the Movies, #0.5))
“
In early autumn the farm recruiters arrived to sign up new workers, and the War Relocation Authority allowed many of the young men and women to go out and help harvest the crops. Some came back wearing the same shoes they'd left in and swore they would never go out there again. They said they'd been shot at. Spat on. Refused entrance to the local diner. The movie theater. The dry goods store. They said the signs in the windows were the same wherever they went: 'No Japs Allowed.' Life was easier, they said, on this side of the fence.
”
”
Julie Otsuka (When the Emperor Was Divine)
“
My bad!" Charlie yelled as he jogged over. "I'll get it."
I held out a hand. "Don't you fucking dare."
"Still with that?" Charlie said, grinning and shaking his head like I was pathetic.
I was pathetic.
"I just enjoy messing with my neighbor, that's all."
"Sure it is."
I ignored him and charged over the fence, easily climbing it and dropping right into the Buxbaums' yard. The tree Liz was parked under was on the other side, bordering the other neighbors' fence, and she was facing
my direction.
The football was in the grass right beside her.
”
”
Lynn Painter (Better Than Before (Betting on You, #0.5; Better than the Movies, #0.5))
“
In that movie, Mr Miyagi has Daniel doing all these mundane tasks like painting the fence and waxing the car, then later Daniel does the same moves and finds out it's kung fu. You have me doing all of these fighting moves... If I find out later that what you're actually doing is teaching me how to paint fences and wax cars, I'm not paying you, you understand? - Scapegrace
”
”
Derek Landy (Last Stand of Dead Men (Skulduggery Pleasant, #8))
“
The American citizen is so lost he doesn't realize he's a factory pig. Drugged and poisoned from the cradle to the grave. Chained to impossible debts. Never ever free. Liberty? Bah! This is a land of invisible fences, we're all prisoners watching Capra on movie night. But nothing lasts forever. Europe's monarchies sent their sons to die in the trenches of the Somme just as surely as we drove Chiang Kei-shek into the sea. You think America will be different? You think this era, one not of consumption but of gluttony, will last forever? It will not...
”
”
Jim Carrey (Memoirs and Misinformation)
“
Regular polysemy is also fenced in by fastidious semantic restrictions. You can use France to refer to the land, the state, or the leadership but not to the people: it's odd to say France eats a lot but stays thin. You can work for a newspaper or a magazine, but not for a book or a movie. Words for edible objects can be used for the gloop that results when they are mashed up-some carrot, some salmon, some apple, some egg-but not if the objects come in aggregates rather than individually. That's why Mexican restaurants serve refried beans, not refried bean, and why the puree serve in Indian restaurants is called lentils, not lentil.
”
”
Steven Pinker (The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature)
“
Harvard pointed. “You know, right there is when the stuntman catches the sword out of frame.”
“I know.”
Aiden did know. Harvard always told him this fact at this precise moment. Aiden had watched this movie without Harvard once—on a date. Seeing the sword fly without the familiar murmur had upset Aiden enough to turn off the movie.
Tonight, Harvard was here with him. They were both lying on their stomachs with their legs kicked up and their hands cupped in their chins, as though they were six years old.
They weren’t.
Aiden tangled their legs together slightly, deliberately. It felt far more dangerous than crossing swords. Aiden couldn’t imagine a match with so much at stake.
“During a date when you stay in,” Aiden said, teaching, “you should try to see if the other person is receptive to you getting closer.”
Harvard gave Aiden a look out of the corner of his eye, and let their legs stay tangled, resting with light pressure against one another. Love was a delusion, nothing but an electrical impulse in the brain, but there were many impulses running electric under Aiden’s skin right now.
The man in black smiled beneath his mask and switched his sword to his right hand. The clash of swords rang over the sound of the sea.
Aiden sneaked another look at Harvard, the shine of his dark eyes and white teeth in the silvery glow from the screen. Harvard caught him looking, but he returned Aiden’s look with a look of his own, warmly affectionate and never suspicious at all. Harvard never suspected a thing.
Because Aiden was his best friend, and Harvard trusted him. And Harvard could trust him. Aiden would never do anything to hurt Harvard, not anything at all.
Aiden moved in still closer, his arm set against Harvard’s, solid muscle under the thin material of his shirtsleeve. He could put his arm around Harvard’s shoulders or slip an arm around his waist or lean in. He was allowed, just for tonight.
”
”
Sarah Rees Brennan (Striking Distance (Fence, #1))
“
MY OWN BUSINESS . . . M. O. B. MOB assumes the right of every individual to possess his inner space, to do what interests him with people he wants to see. In some areas this right was more respected a hundred years ago than it is in the permissive society.
'Which is it this time, Holmes? Cocaine or morphine?' asks a disapproving Watson.
But Holmes won’t have fink hounds sniffing through his Baker Street digs. If he accepts an American assignment 8 narks won’t beat his door in with sledge hammers, rush in waving their guns “WHATZAT YOU’RE SMOKING?” jerk the pipe out of his mouth and strip him naked.
We will make the MOB stand on criminals and criminal communes clear. A criminal is someone who commits crimes against property and crimes against persons. We feel that criminals are not minding their own business. Someone
who steals your typewriter, starts barroom fights, kicks an old bum to death, is not minding his own business at all. The Thuggees of India, the Mafia, the Ku Klux Klan are examples of criminal communes. Strangling someone and stealing his money, throwing acid in his face, lynching beating and burn ing people to death is not minding one’s own business.
On one side we have MOBS dedicated to minding their own business without interference. On the other side we have the enemies of MOB dedicated to interference. Equipped with new techniques of computerized thought control the enemies of MOB could inflict a permanent defeat. MOB want to know just where everybody stands. Wouldn’t advise you to try sitting on that fence. It’s electric.
Your enemies then are the enemies of MOB. You can do more to destroy these enemies with tape recorders and video cameras than you can with machine guns. Video tape puts any number of machine guns into your hands. However, it is difficult to convince a revolutionary that this weapon is actually more potent than gelignite or guns. What do revolutionaries want? Vengeance, or a real change? Both perhaps. It is difficult for those who have suffered outrageous brutality and oppression to forget about vengeance, which is why I postulated the wholesome catharsis of MA, the Mass Assassination of enemy word and image. And this brings us to a basic question that every revolutionary must ask himself. Can I live without enemies? Can any human being live without enemies? No human being has ever done so yet. If the present revolutionary movement is to amount to more than a change of management, presenting the same old good-guy, bad-guy movie, a basic change of conscious ness must take place.
”
”
William S. Burroughs (The Electronic Revolution)
“
Mike couldn’t believe that Mr. Mackey’s secret tragedy was connected to his store, and no one had ever told him.
“Do you think he’d ever take it back?”
“Why would he? His son was never found, and he still blames your dad for it. I think it’s his way of making himself feel better about the accident. He thinks horror movies are evil or something.”
“That’s stupid. Most kids are more scared of him than they are of horror movies,” Mike said, “He shouldn’t blame my dad.”
“He thinks he’s protecting the kids,” Tim said, rolling his eyes.
“Well, if he is trying to save kids, why is he so mean to us? Everyone’s afraid of him. Even Jack.”
“I don’t know. I guess he’s just a cranky old man. Don’t take it personally. He’s had it rough. He has to stand on that playground everyday knowing that just over that fence, his son’s body is down there somewhere.”
“Then why doesn’t he teach at another school?”
“I don’t know, bud. Sometimes people just like to torture themselves.”
- Saving Hascal's Horrors
”
”
Laura Smith
“
The Buried Woman // Die Begrabene
In life we all pursued our aims.
What held us up was lust and games.
What drove us on was want and strife,
And what we earned: an end to life.
So now I lie stretched out alone,
All covered up with earth and stone.
"I have and want" I cannot say;
"I must and will" became my way.
In lands of light exults decay.
He clothes himself as blue as a day;
In many forms deceives the eye,
And builds the tower of Babel high.
We see his face in movie halls
And nailed to newsstands, fences, walls;
His name is there for all to see;
"Success," he's called, "Technology."
His cruel machines, his brutal crimes
Break every record of our times.
His coffin governs East and West.
But will it soon be laid to rest?
The victory of death seems near.
But no! At last a grave appears,
Awakens, yawns its jaws to bite,
And crushes death in lasting night.
”
”
Gertrud Kolmar
“
Kids Riding Tornados The Wizard of Oz is a famous movie that was made in 1939. Dorothy is the girl who is the main character and in the story, she is picked up by a tornado and carried off to the fictional land of Oz. A few years later, in 1955, a 9-year-old really did go for a ride in a tornado! But first she rode a horse. There’s not a whole lot around Bowdle, South Dakota. It’s a very rural part of the state. Sharon Weron was 9 years old and riding a horse home from a neighbor’s house. Her mom was following in her car and saw everything. Just as Sharon and her horse reached their house, the tornado was on them. They had very little warning. Sharon’s mom saw the tornado pick up her daughter (and horse), spin them around wildly, and carry them away. Sharon was wearing a blue shirt so her mom was looking for that in the tornado and could see her spinning. The tornado carried them around 1,000 feet, over several fences, and dumped Sharon in a ditch. She was wearing a leather jacket and pulled that up around her head during her flight. There was hail and all kinds of debris flying around inside the tornado with her. Sharon’s hands were badly bruised from being hit by the hail and who knows what else. She remembered hitting the ground and grabbing the grass so that she wouldn’t get sucked up again. As she looked around, she found her horse. He was just standing there not far from her. Both were a little beaten up but okay. That’s crazy, right? Their story got picked up by newspapers and spread all over the world. Reporters had no reason to doubt the story. As unbelievable as it seems, it still holds up as credible. Sharon’s ride was also witnessed by neighbors. The Guinness book of world records listed Sharon’s ride as the furthest anyone had ever ridden in a tornado until 2006. It’s remarkable that both Sharon and her horse lived through such a terrifying experience. That has to be the craziest horse story in the history of the world!
”
”
Jesse Sullivan (Spectacular Stories for Curious Kids Survival Edition: Epic Tales to Inspire & Amaze Young Readers)
“
I sat there on the fence about it. On a rock actually. One of those buzzy tiny hummer birds bombed in close. Not to be ignored, this guy. The air from his wings blew the weeds all around under him, like the choppers in the war movies, tiny version.
”
”
Barbara Kingsolver (Demon Copperhead)
“
It was a slice of life Eva thought only existed in movies, this idea that everything could be so perfect—the grass, the sun, the players in their crisp white uniforms, hitting home runs over the fence and into San Francisco Bay, where a cluster of people with baseball gloves in kayaks waited to catch one of them.
”
”
Julie Clark (The Last Flight)
“
Salon writer Scot Sea, who said that his experience with his own autistic daughter helped him understand why a California man named Delfin Bartolome had shot his son and then himself. “The odor has finally made its way down the hall. When you see the balled-up pants and diaper on the floor, you know you are too late,” Sea began ominously. “A bright red smear across the door, the molding, the wall. Turn the corner and the bedroom is a crime scene. An ax murder? In fact, it is only your daughter at her worst.” He described a scene worthy of a slasher movie: “Splashes of blood glistening like paint, black clots, yellow-brown feces, and a 3-foot-in-diameter pond of vomit that your daughter stands in the middle of . . . hands dripping, face marked like a cannibal.” Parents in previous eras were spared these horrors, he explained, because “idiot” children were promptly “tossed down the well or thumped against the fence post.” For “educated” families in more recent times, he added, at least there was a way out—institutionalization. But now, desperate parents had to find their own ways out, as Bartolome had been forced to do with a handgun when he ran out of options. This was the harsh reality of raising a child with autism, according to Sea. (He neglected to mention that weeks before the shooting, Bartolome—described by his relatives as a loving and devoted father—had been laid off just before retirement, shunting him into a series of temporary jobs and putting his son’s future care at risk.) Shannon felt herself becoming physically ill while reading Sea’s article. Was this her family’s future? IV
”
”
Steve Silberman (NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity)
“
Finally, out of breath, they tried to slip behind some trash cans at the end of a narrow alley. But Floyd ducked a moment too late, and Alice’s rabbit ears gave them away.
Leona squealed with delight.
Yo Ho Ho!
I see something funny.
It’s Pirate Floyd
And his baby bunny!
The witches roared with laughter and slapped each other on the back.
Floyd winced, but as he drew his saber, his face lit up with a pirate’s grin. First, he kept the witches at bay so his friends could carry little Alice to safety. Then, growling like a movie pirate, he swung out of reach on an overhanging tree limb, turned a quick flip, and somersaulted backward over the fence.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” Mona said.
Floyd looked surprised. “Neither did I.”
“Come on,” shouted Wendell. “They’re right behind us!”
They ran until they found themselves in an even stranger part of town.
“It’s pretty creepy around here,” muttered Floyd.
Wendell suggested they hide in the graveyard, but Mona scoffed. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No, it’s perfect. They’ll never follow us into a place like this.”
Actually, the witches didn’t mind the graveyard at all.
“We see you, Wendell!” Leona crowed.
What’s wrong with Wendell?
Let me think.
He must be MAD
‘Cause he’s dressed in pink!
The witches shrieked and hooted, laughing so hard they nearly cried.
For a moment Wendell’s face turned as pink as his smock. But then an idea began to brew. He reached into his mad scientist’s kit and started mixing potions. “Drink this!” he told his friends. “It will make us invisible.”
At the word “invisible” the witches roared even louder. But their laughter turned to puzzled yelps when Wendell, Floyd, Mona, and Alice suddenly disappeared!
”
”
Mark Teague (One Halloween Night)
“
Writing a clean, lean, simple story is one of the hardest things in the world to do. When stories are first born, they’re always big and complicated, but simple stories are more powerful and meaningful. Think of Blaise Pascal’s famous postscript: “I’m sorry for writing such a long letter, but I didn’t have the time to write a shorter one.” Writers are always inclined to make their stories bigger and more complicated than anyone else wants them to be. Luckily, there are gatekeepers to cut us off at the pass. Editors chop novels down to size. Theater directors chop out scenes that don’t work. Producers slice the fat out of screenplays. They take sprawling, complicated messes and find the lean, simple story hiding inside. Ghostbusters was sold to the studio in the form of a forty-page treatment. It was set in the future. New York had been under siege by ghosts for years. There were dozens of teams of competing ghostbusters. Our heroes were tired and bored with their job when the story began. The Marshmallow Man showed up on page 20. The budget would have been bigger than any movie ever made, and far more than anybody was willing to spend. So why did the studio buy it? Because it liked one image: a bunch of guys who live in a firehouse slide down a pole and hop in an old-fashioned ambulance, then go out to catch ghosts. So the studio stripped away all the other stuff, put that image in the middle of the story, spent the first half gradually moving us from a normal world gradually that moment, and spent the second half creating a heroic payoff to that situation. That’s it. That’s all they had time to do. A few years after the success of Ghostbusters, one of the writers/stars of that movie, Harold Ramis, found himself on the other side of the fence. He wanted to direct a script called Groundhog Day, written by first-time screenwriter Danny Rubin. This was a very similar situation: In the first draft of that movie, the weatherman had already repeated the same day 3,650,000 times before the movie began! Everybody loved the script, so Rubin had his pick of directors, but most of them told him up front they wanted him to rewrite the story to begin with the origin of the situation. Ramis won the bidding war by promising Rubin he would stick to the in medias res version. Guess what happened? By the time the movie made it to the screen, Ramis had broken his promise. The final movie spends the first half getting the weatherman into the situation and the second half creating the most heroic payoff.
”
”
Matt Bird (The Secrets of Story: Innovative Tools for Perfecting Your Fiction and Captivating Readers)
“
You will never feel “ready” or “comfortable with” putting your work out there. It is so important to make peace with and internalize this idea. If you’re a musician and you’ve just written a song that you’re on the fence about, the best time to record it is right now. If you’re a filmmaker and you want to make a movie but don’t have the best equipment, the best time to begin making it is right now, with whatever equipment you can get your hands on. If you’re reading this and have a feeling that this might apply to you, set my book aside, get up, and go do whatever creative project you’ve been putting off—you guessed it—right now.
”
”
Scott Bradlee (Outside the Jukebox: How I Turned My Vintage Music Obsession into My Dream Gig)
“
The school was going to suspend him for the rest of the year, but instead Jake took two years off while his mother homeschooled him. He learned Latin and Hebrew and Greek, how to write sestinas, how to make sushi, how to play bridge, and even how to knit. He learned fencing and ballroom dancing. He worked in a soup kitchen and made a Super 8 movie about Civil War reenactors who play extreme croquet in full costume instead of firing off cannons. He started learning how to play guitar. He even wrote a novel. I’ve never read it—he says it was awful.
”
”
Kelly Link (Magic for Beginners: Stories)