Freedom Funny Quotes

If the events of September 11, 2001, have proven anything, it's that the terrorists can attack us, but they can't take away what makes us American -- our freedom, our liberty, our civil rights. No, only Attorney General John Ashcroft can do that.

Life is like butter - when things cool down it can be reshaped

If I were to vote, I would intentionally vote for the goofiest candidate. It is my theory that when the people can outwit the leader, the more respected their voices will be.

With a philosophy education, one can infuriate his peers, intimidate his date, think of obscure, unreliable ways to make money, and never regret a thing.

There was a small wooden gazebo built out over the water; Isabelle was sitting in it, staring out across the lake. She looked like a princess in a fairy tale, waiting at the top of her tower for someone to ride up and rescue her. Not that traditional princess behavior was like Isabelle at all. Isabelle with her whip and boots and knives would chop anyone who tried to pen her up in a tower into pieces, build a bridge out of the remains, and walk carelessly to freedom, her hair looking fabulous the entire time.

[The American President] has to take all sorts of abuse from liars and demagogues.… The people can never understand why the President does not use his supposedly great power to make ’em behave. Well, all the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

Do you know where your breakthrough begins? Your breakthrough begins where your excuses ends.

Democracy was supposed to champion freedom of speech, and yet the simple rules of table decorum could clamp down on the rights their forefathers had fought and died for.

You know its funny how freedom can make us feel contained

Okay, so, flying,” I started, taking a deep breath and focusing on the thing I loved most in the world. “Flying is … great. It feels great when you’re doing it. It’s fun. Pure freedom. There’s nothing better.” Dylan smiled, a slow, easy smile that seemed to light up his whole face. “So the first thing we’re going to do,” I told him, “is push you off the roof.

Not everything happens for a reason; we claim that it does for a reason: to console ourselves.

Ah college years, those were the days. Pure freedom ... leaving home for the first time…the parties…” "What about the tutorials, the lectures, the large building with all the books called the ‘library’?” “Is that what those were?” Gerry blithely replied.

Funny how, whenever men talked about freedom, they never really meant for the women

I want to change my life...except I sort of like it. I mean, I couldn't be more delighted every Monday night after Fletch goes to bed when I come downstairs, pull up the Bachelor on TiVo, drink Riesling, and eat cheddar/port wine Kaukauna cheese without freakign out over fat grams. I'm perpetually in a good mood because I do everything I want. I love having the freedom to skip the gym to watch a Don Knots movie on the Disney Channel without a twinge of guilt. I've figured out how to not be beholden to what other people believe I should be doing, and when the world tells me I ought to be a size eight, I can thumb my nose at them in complete empowerment.

New Rule: If you can force a woman to look at a sonogram—to see what will happen if she has an abortion—you also have to let her see a crying baby, a bratty five-year-old, and a surly teenager to see what will happen if she doesn’t. And you have to tell her it costs $204,000 to raise it until it turns eighteen, in 2028, where it will be a slave to the Chinese, in a radioactive world with no animals, fish, or plants.

Among other possibilities, money was invented to make it possible for a foolish man to control wise men; a weak man, strong men; a child, old men; an ignorant man, knowledgeable men; and for a dwarf to control giants.

I should have known the power-hungry slave drivers at River's Edge would see my five days of freedom only as a challenge to be filled.

They say to think within the box, but it's funny how those in the box never go anywhere, where those outside it, get to see the world.

There's a quote from 'The Breakfast Club' that goes "We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it." I have it on a poster but I took a Sharpie to it and scratched out the word "hiding" because it reminds me that there's a certain pride and freedom that comes from wearing your unique bizarreness like a badge of honor.

If we were not impressed by job titles, suits, and jargon, we would demand that financial advisors show us their personal bank statements before they tell us what we could or should do with our own money.

When I set out from the boy's attic window, my head was so full of competing plans and complex stratagems that I didn't look where I was going and flew straight into a chimney. Something symbolic in that. It's what fake freedom does for you.

Many if not most slaves would have each readily jumped, and many if not most slaves would each readily jump, at the opportunity to be a master, if such an opportunity presents or had presented itself.

Playboy stretched his arm, patting Carlos on the back. "Well, you know what they say: If you love someone, let'em go. If they don't come back, hunt'em down and kill'em!

There is such freedom in being able to celebrate and appreciate the unique moments that recharge you and give you peace and joy.

An idea hit me so fast I didn't pause to analyse it. I just acted. My body might be constrained, but my head and neck had just enough freedom to shift up-and kiss him. My lips met his, and I learned a few things. One was that it was possible to catch him totally by surprise. His body froze and locked up, shocked at the sudden turn of events. I also realized that he was just as good a kisser as I recalled. The last time we'd kissed had been when he was a Strigoi. There had been an eerie sexiness to that, but it didn't compare to the heat and energy of being alive. His lips were just like a remembered from out time at St. Vladimir's, both soft and hungry at the same time. Electricity spread through the rest of my body as he kissed me back. It was both comforting and exhilarating. And that was was the third thing I discovered. He was kissing me back. Maybe, just maybe, Dimitri wasn't as resolved as he claimed to be. Maybe under all that guilt and certainty that he couldn't love again, he still wanted me. I would have liked to have found out. But I didn't have the time. Instead, I punched him.

There is a miracle in your mess, don't let the mess make you miss the miracle.

At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted.

Shame internalized can lead to agony. Whereas shame let out can lead to freedom, or at least a funny story, which is a sort of freedom too.

The more thou search, the more thou shall marvel.

I curse when I get really upset. Letting off steam that way makes me feel a little bit better. I've been through a lot, but I have never had the urge to go postal. I thank fuck for that.

Isn't it funny that in a society that values freedom above all things, things that are free are not valued?

Be careful because God's gifts alone are not able to give you joy; God's gift can only bring you joy when they are joined with your gratitude.

All the failures in my life freed me from all my fears so that I can succeed.

We have glorified wealth and freedom so much that it is impossible for most of us to truly believe that a man can truly be happy in a shack or within the confines of a prison cell.

Because she was offered so much freedom, she hardly ever felt the need to take it. Funny how that worked.

Seek and you shall fun!

I remember when I left Hungary," Zoltan said, "understanding so completely that literature could save me as much as it could get me killed. Of course it's not like that here. But isn't it funny, that in some ways the price one pays for freedom of speech is ... a kind of indifference.

There's a funny thing about light and darkness--like hope, you can never blot out either one completely. They always exist, side by side, bright light making shadows darker, darkness making the light more beautiful, a tempting siren call. I can't hate the dark parts of myself. They are the things that showed me how special and rare the bright flames of trust, loyalty, friendship, and love were. My darkness showed me how to love Rob. But now I choose light and fire and love. No I choose freedom.

Sometimes what not to do is more important than what to do. Sometimes when you are in crisis, when frustration are high or when you are under pressure, what you don't do is more important than what you do. Don't be afraid. ....

The funny thing about money is that you can't take it with you, so don’t try to.

On the other side of fear is freedom. And usually fewer fingers than you started with.

If you ask me I think the greatest breakthrough each and everyone of us need is not on finance, marriage, work, relationship, own house, car but self. The first breakthrough should start from being selfish.

What drives all these essays is a long-standing interest in how a person can be free, and especially in how to find a freedom that is shareable, and not dependent upon the oppression or exclusion of other people.

Gratitude without practicing maybe like practicing a faith without good work. A grateful heart is not enough without a grateful habit; because your joy is not produced by what you put in your heart but by habit you put in your life.

Is that why my ancestors built observatories and looked at the night sky? Did you want them to look at the place you came from?" "What funny thoughts you have," he said. What would I care about the heavens when I reside in the Underworld?" "I would care. All I could do sometimes was stare at the sky," she admitted. "Whatever for?" "Because it made me think one day I'd be free," she told him.

The clown is a creature of chaos. His appearance is an affront to our sense of dignity, his actions a mockery of our sense of order. The clown (freedom) is always being chased by the policeman (authority). Clowns are funny precisely because their shy hopes lead invariably to brief flings of (exhilarating?) disorder followed by crushing retaliation from the status quo. It delights us to watch a careless clown break taboos; it thrills us vicariously to watch him run wild and free; it reassures us to see him slapped down and order restored. After all, we can condone liberty only up to a point. Consider Jesus as a ragged, nonconforming clown--laughed at, persecuted and despised--playing out the dumb show at his crucifixion against the responsible pretensions of authority.

I'm out of the room in the next instant, like a man wanting breath, after suffocating through the horror of a burrito eating obese man's fart." - Emily Dolt

Funny, I don't particularly care for either "laws" or "order". Liberty is messy. Freedom yields imperfect results.

Thy heart had gone too far in this world, and think thou to comprehend the way of the most High?

Even so have I given the womb of the earth to those that be sown in it in their times.

As for you, you're unwise: how may you then speak of these things whereof thou ask you?

They that be born in the strength of youth are of one fashion, and they that are born in the time of age, when the womb fail, are otherwise.

Iniquity shall be increased above that which now thou see, or that thou hast heard long ago.

The land, that thou see now to have root, shall thou see wasted suddenly.

Go thy way, and tell my people, the people of thy Lord God what manner of things, and how great wonders of the Lord thy God, thou hast seen.

From the beginning, look, what thou desires to see, it shall be shew thee.

An extreme fearfulness moves through all your body, and your mind is troubled more.

If you can't see the assets in you, it will be hard for you to export it to the world. Recognise who you are and the world will recognise you.

You will always end up in frustration whenever you try to produce outside your purpose.

All my pains has always increased my sense of purpose.

Whenever you are in transition it is always important to choose the words that you use. You call it crises in your life and I call it transition.

Be careful the mistake of yesterday always lives with tomorrow.

God is not interested in helping you finding out why you are in a mess, He is interested in fixing it.

My heart broke and my mind opened, tragedy works in a funny way like that ~ what once tore me apart was actually what was setting my truth free.

What you see and what you listen to will determine how high you will go.

The forgiveness of God flows through me and because I am forgiven, I can forgive.

Freedom comes from focus, focus brings freedom. Focus on fear you will always be in prison, focus on faith and is nothing the world can keep you knocked down.

Weigh thou therefore their wickedness now in the balance, and theirs also that dwell the world; and so shall thy name no where be found anymore.

Hear me, and I will instruct thee; hearken to the thing that I say, and I shall tell thee more.

If negative emotions have gain access into your heart, it is because you have given it attention. If memories of pain and hurt dominates your heart, it is because you gave them attention. How can a memory hurt you when it has only happened? It can only hurt you when you give it attention.

I've come to read and hear many unlikely things about the times when people lived in freedom, i.e., the unorganized savage state. But the most unlikely thing, it seems to me, is this: how could the olden day governmental power - primitive though it was - have allowed people to live without anything like our Table, without the scheduled walks, without the precise regulation of mealtimes, getting up and going to bed whenever it occurred to them? Various historians even say that, apparently, in those times, light burned in the streets all night long, and all night long, people rode and walked the streets. This I just cannot comprehend in any way. Their faculties of reason may not have been developed, but they must have understood more broadly that living like that amounted to mass murder - literally - only it was committed slowly, day after day. The State (humaneness) forbade killing to death any one person but didn't forbid the half-killing of millions. To kill a man, that is, to decrease the sum of a human life span by fifty years - this was criminal. But decreasing the sum of many humans' lives by fifty million years - this was not criminal. Isn't that funny?

In terms of her painting, never mind the innovations she brought to bear on her private life, she forged a passage to a world of openness and freedom, as frightening as it was exhilarating. 'I've always been absolutely terrified every single moment of my life,' she said, 'and I've never let it stop me from doing a single thing I wanted to do,

In the grave the chambers of souls are like the womb of a woman: For like as a woman that travails make haste to escape the necessity of the travail: even so do these places haste to deliver those things that are committed unto them.

The greatest futility! says the congregator, "The greatest futility! Everything is futile!" What does a person gain from all his hard work- At which he toils under the sun? A generation goes and another cometh forth, but the earth remains the same.

In this world, the thing people fear the most, and what pains people the most— is giving more than they receive. God forbid I cut off more of my fingernail for you than you cut from your fingernail, for me! Heaven forbid I hold my breath in longer while thinking about you, than the amount of time your breath is held in for me! Not a second longer! It is sad fact of the human nature that there you stand as an Infinite Soul and yet your greatest fear is not receiving from another person in proportion to what you give. Your viewpoint is low, your vision is clouded. You have become, in your eyes, a funny little drawing on the paper pad of the universe. Indeed, this race is yet to evolve. And yet, I am surrounded by such fear, to such a great extent that I begin to fear the same!

Religion is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life, before you're born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you're dead. A celestial North Korea. Who wants this to be true? Who but a slave desires such a ghastly fate? I've been to North Korea. It has a dead man as its president, Kim Jong-Il is only head of the party and head of the army. He's not head of the state. That office belongs to his deceased father, Kim Il-Sung. It's a necrocracy, a thanatocracy. It's one short of a trinity I might add. The son is the reincarnation of the father. It is the most revolting and utter and absolute and heartless tyranny the human species has ever evolved. But at least you can fucking die and leave North Korea!

One Sufi mystic who had remained happy his whole life—no one had ever seen him unhappy—he was always laughing. He was laughter, his whole being was a perfume of celebration. In his old age, when he was dying—he was on his deathbed, and still enjoying death, laughing hilariously—a disciple asked, “You puzzle us. Now you are dying. Why are you laughing? What is there funny about it? We are feeling so sad. We wanted to ask you many times in your life why you are never sad. But now, confronting death, at least one should be sad. You are still laughing! How are you managing it?” And the old man said, “It is a simple clue. I had asked my master. I had gone to my master as a young man; I was only seventeen, and already miserable. And my master was old, seventy, and he was sitting under a tree, laughing for no reason at all. There was nobody else, nothing had happened, nobody had cracked a joke or anything. And he was simply laughing, holding his belly. And I asked him, ‘What is the matter with you? Are you mad or something?’ “He said, ‘One day I was also as sad as you are. Then it dawned on me that it is my choice, it is my life. Since that day, every morning when I get up, the first thing I decide is, before I open my eyes, I say to myself, “Abdullah”—that was his name—‘what do you want? Misery? Blissfulness? What are you going to choose today? And it happens that I always choose blissfulness.’” It is a choice. Try it. The first moment in the morning when you become aware that sleep has left, ask yourself, “Abdullah, another day! What is your idea? Do you choose misery or blissfulness?” And who would choose misery? And why? It is so unnatural—unless one feels blissful in misery, but then too you are choosing bliss, not misery.

The open door is never behind you; the open door is always before you. Quit looking at your past life and mistakes. Look unto Jesus who is the Author and Perfector of our faith. Your open door is not in the opportunity you missed ten years ago, it is not in some stuffs behind you that you can't get back. You can't gain your access by giving attention to your past life. Your past days are behind you and what God has for you is in front of you. Just pay attention.

Why are the super-rich for socialism? Don't they have the most to lose? I take a look at my bank account and compare it with Nelson Rockefeller's and it seems funny that I'm against socialism and he's out promoting it." Or is it funny? In reality, there is a vast difference between what the promoters define as socialism and what it is in actual practice. The idea that socialism is a share-the-wealth program is strictly a confidence game to get the people to surrender their freedom to an all-powerful collectivist government. While the Insiders tell us we are building a paradise on earth, we are actually constructing a jail for ourselves.

You can't love me if you don't love you, you can't think of nothing to do with me if you can't think of nothing to do with yourself, stop feeling sorry for yourself and tidy up, clean up the apartment until you get a house, do that job until you build your own company. Look at what you have and think on how to make it better.

There's a quote from 'The Breakfast Club' that goes "We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it." I have it on a poster but I took a Sharpie to it and scratched out the word "hiding" because it reminds me that there's a certain pride and freedom that comes from wearing your unique bizarreness like a badge of honor.

When I argue with devout statists, sometimes other voluntaryists tell me that I'm wasting my time, opining that a particular statist is never going to "get it." I often respond by saying that that's rarely my intention. Most of the time, when I argue with statists, the goal is for ME to learn more about the mentality and psychology of authoritarian indoctrination, and to hopefully help any SPECTATORS--whether statist or anarchist--learn something from the exchange. (Both of those goals can be achieved even if the statist continues to be a lunk-headed dupe.) Earlier today, a funny but possibly profound analogy came to mind about this: When I argue with "true believer" devout statists, I'm not being a doctor trying to heal an ailing patient; I'm being a coroner, doing an AUTOPSY on a patient who is already beyond any hope of saving, in the hopes that I, and anyone observing, may learn more about the "disease" of statism, in order to better understand the nature of it, and possibly prevent others from experiencing a similar fate.

New Rule: Not everything in America has to make a profit. If conservatives get to call universal health care "socialized medicine," I get to call private, for-profit health care "soulless vampire bastards making money off human pain." Now, I know what you're thinking: "But, Bill, the profit motive is what sustains capitalism." Yes, and our sex drive is what sustains the human species, but we don't try to fuck everything. It wasn't that long ago when a kid in America broke his leg, his parents took him to the local Catholic hospital, the nun stuck a thermometer in his ass, the doctor slapped some plaster on his ankle, and you were done. The bill was $1.50; plus, you got to keep the thermometer. But like everything else that's good and noble in life, some bean counter decided that hospitals could be big business, so now they're not hospitals anymore; they're Jiffy Lubes with bedpans. The more people who get sick, and stay sick, the higher their profit margins, which is why they're always pushing the Jell-O. Did you know that the United States is ranked fiftieth in the world in life expectancy? And the forty-nine loser countries were they live longer than us? Oh, it's hardly worth it, they may live longer, but they live shackled to the tyranny of nonprofit health care. Here in America, you're not coughing up blood, little Bobby, you're coughing up freedom. The problem with President Obama's health-care plan isn't socialism. It's capitalism. When did the profit motive become the only reason to do anything? When did that become the new patriotism? Ask not what you could do for your country, ask what's in it for Blue Cross Blue Shield. And it's not just medicine--prisons also used to be a nonprofit business, and for good reason--who the hell wants to own a prison? By definition, you're going to have trouble with the tenants. It's not a coincidence that we outsourced running prisons to private corporations and then the number of prisoners in America skyrocketed. There used to be some things we just didn't do for money. Did you know, for example, there was a time when being called a "war profiteer" was a bad thing? FDR said he didn't want World War II to create one millionaire, but I'm guessing Iraq has made more than a few executives at Halliburton into millionaires. Halliburton sold soldiers soda for $7.50 a can. They were honoring 9/11 by charging like 7-Eleven. Which is wrong. We're Americans; we don't fight wars for money. We fight them for oil. And my final example of the profit motive screwing something up that used to be good when it was nonprofit: TV news. I heard all the news anchors this week talk about how much better the news coverage was back in Cronkite's day. And I thought, "Gee, if only you were in a position to do something about it.

Isn't it funny how freedom is only another word for slavery?

And you know what y’all always say—we all look alike. But it’s a funny thing—we all look alike, but you can positively identify us in that time of trouble.

These be they that have put off the mortal clothing, and put on the immortal, and have confessed the name of God: now are they crowned, and receive palms.

We pass away out of the world as grasshoppers, and our life is astonishment and fear, and we are not worthy to obtain mercy.

New Rule: America must stop bragging it's the greatest country on earth, and start acting like it. I know this is uncomfortable for the "faith over facts" crowd, but the greatness of a country can, to a large degree, be measured. Here are some numbers. Infant mortality rate: America ranks forty-eighth in the world. Overall health: seventy-second. Freedom of the press: forty-fourth. Literacy: fifty-fifth. Do you realize there are twelve-year old kids in this country who can't spell the name of the teacher they're having sex with? America has done many great things. Making the New World democratic. The Marshall Plan. Curing polio. Beating Hitler. The deep-fried Twinkie. But what have we done for us lately? We're not the freest country. That would be Holland, where you can smoke hash in church and Janet Jackson's nipple is on their flag. And sadly, we're no longer a country that can get things done. Not big things. Like building a tunnel under Boston, or running a war with competence. We had six years to fix the voting machines; couldn't get that done. The FBI is just now getting e-mail. Prop 87 out here in California is about lessening our dependence on oil by using alternative fuels, and Bill Clinton comes on at the end of the ad and says, "If Brazil can do it, America can, too!" Since when did America have to buck itself up by saying we could catch up to Brazil? We invented the airplane and the lightbulb, they invented the bikini wax, and now they're ahead? In most of the industrialized world, nearly everyone has health care and hardly anyone doubts evolution--and yes, having to live amid so many superstitious dimwits is also something that affects quality of life. It's why America isn't gonna be the country that gets the inevitable patents in stem cell cures, because Jesus thinks it's too close to cloning. Oh, and did I mention we owe China a trillion dollars? We owe everybody money. America is a debtor nation to Mexico. We're not a bridge to the twenty-first century, we're on a bus to Atlantic City with a roll of quarters. And this is why it bugs me that so many people talk like it's 1955 and we're still number one in everything. We're not, and I take no glee in saying that, because I love my country, and I wish we were, but when you're number fifty-five in this category, and ninety-two in that one, you look a little silly waving the big foam "number one" finger. As long as we believe being "the greatest country in the world" is a birthright, we'll keep coasting on the achievements of earlier generations, and we'll keep losing the moral high ground. Because we may not be the biggest, or the healthiest, or the best educated, but we always did have one thing no other place did: We knew soccer was bullshit. And also we had the Bill of Rights. A great nation doesn't torture people or make them disappear without a trial. Bush keeps saying the terrorist "hate us for our freedom,"" and he's working damn hard to see that pretty soon that won't be a problem.

Maybe what you need in your life is not the next level of accomplishment or the next level of accumulation but the next level of appreciation for what you have; that will set the stage to make a space for what you will accumulate in the future. ( a bit deep) Simply put thank God for now before setting the goal for tomorrow because if you grow in gifts and didn't grow in gratitude, you have gained nothing.

The grain of evil seed had been sown in the heart of Adam from the beginning, and how much ungodliness had it brought up unto this time? and how much shall it yet bring forth until the time of threshing come?

It's funny that we need laws so people can have the freedom to do what they want when we already have the constitution where the 1st amendment allows us to do what we want already. Gay marriage should not be a political matter they are people just like everyone else and have the right to do what they want like everyone else. If NYS/US would take half the effort into the economy or education we wouldn't be as fucked as we are now.

It is an amazing gift to be able to recognize that the things that make you the happiest are so much easier to grasp than you thought. There is such freedom in being able to celebrate and appreciate the unique moments that recharge you and give you peace and joy. Sure, some people want red carpets and paparazzi. Turns out I just want banana Popsicles dipped in Malibu rum. It doesn't mean I'm a failure at appreciating the good things in life. It means I'm successful in recognizing what the good things in life are for m

What’s so funny?” “You freak out when I disappear and reappear, but you expect me to stop time.” She laughed, too. “But why can’t you? You’re a god.” “Like I said, we have more responsibilities than freedoms. I doubt even Zeus could pull that one off.” From high above, a streak of light flew from the sky and struck a boulder not twenty feet from where they lay, sending sparks and smoke and a loud crack in all directions in the echoing valley. The boulder was split in half and was as black as coal. “Holy crap!” Therese cried, falling against Than. “What was that?” “Oops. My apologies,” he muttered, but it didn’t sound like he was talking to her. “I made someone angry.” “That scared me to death. Does that happen often?” “No. Never to me. But this is an exceptional time in my life.

If I should ask thee how great dwellings are in the midst of the sea, or how many springs are in the beginning of the deep, or how many springs are above the firmament, or which are the outgoings of paradise: Peradventure thou would say unto me, ‘I never went down into the deep, nor as yet into hell, neither did I ever climb up into heaven.

I should spank you; I didn’t enjoy you impulsively ditching me, but I did enjoy your driving.” “Wait, back up. You…” She paused as she replayed what he’d said earlier. “I was watching for you; how the hell?” “I think somewhere between screaming freedom, and crying your pretty little eyes out, you missed me sifting in and I was at a loss for the weirdness of the situation. I was also pretty sure you wanted some alone time

Labels. I stuck them on everything. “Good”. “Bad”. “Right”. “Wrong”. “Square”. “Hip”. “Queer”. “Normal”. “Friend”. “Enemy”. “Success”. “Failure”. They’re easy to use. They save you the bother of thinking. Those labels stay stuck. They proliferate. They become a habit. Soon, they’re covering everything, and everybody, up. You start thinking reality is the labels. Simple labels, written in permanent marker. The trouble is, reality’s the opposite. Reality is nuanced, paradoxical, shifting. It’s difficult. It’s many things at once. That’s why we’re so crummy at it. People harp on about freedom. All the time. It’s everywhere. There are riots and wars about what freedom is and who it’s for. But the Queen of Freedoms is this: to be free of labels. Here endeth today’s lesson. You’re giving me a funny look.

Every night, I sit in the rocking chair in the nursery when I give Willow her bedtime bottle. Tonight, I burped her halfway through her feeding like always. Then I sat her on my knees facing me and made funny faces. She looked right into my eyes. And she smiled. She’s ten weeks old and she just gave me her very first smile. I wish I’d taken a picture. I’m probably supposed to be documenting everything better for her baby book or whatever. She’s going to have a terrible baby book. But at least she’ll have a father who loves her. Because when she smiled at me tonight, I finally felt it. Love. A rush of love. I was so blown away by it I laughed, which made her smile at me even more. Then I hugged her small body and breathed in the smell of her Johnson’s baby shampoo. I could feel her heartbeat. Up until tonight, I was pretty sure Willow didn’t like me, and I understood why she didn’t. I didn’t blame her for resenting the idiot, bumbling guy who started doing for her all the things her gorgeous, familiar mother had done before. But tonight . . . tonight my little girl smiled at me. She gave her very first smile to me because I’m her person now. I’m her daddy and, in her way, I think she might love me, too. When I laid her against the inside of my elbow to feed her the rest of her bottle, her hand made a fist in the fabric of my shirt. She watched me as she drank down her formula. I’m tired and lonely. Parenting is far more difficult than I understood when I was a son and not yet a father. I miss my freedom and my friends and the life I had before Sylvie told me she was pregnant. I miss who I used to be. But tonight my daughter, a tiny girl in pink pajamas, smiled at me. Because I’m her person. Letter

Letty wanted to know every detail of Laura's going. As she asked and listened, her heart beat uncomfortably fast and she felt that, if she did not take care, she would burst into tears. Laura had gone; she had broken away. 'It's not fair! It's not fair!' Letty cried to herself. Laura had got what she wanted; whatever happened to her afterwards she had got, once, what she wanted. She had had the courage to take it. 'Not that I ever wanted to go off with a man,' Letty had thought on the way to Greenbanks with Ambrose. No, she had never seen anyone she wanted to go off with. When she thought of going, it was never with a man. Once she had indulged in wild dreams. For years after she was married she felt that someone would one day come, someone she could love with all her heart, with that high, free elation and that deep satisfaction she could imagine. She would be able to share everything with him; her fears in the night about loneliness, death, the end of things. He would understand, she felt, but he would not explain, for after all there is no explanation. He would laugh, too, at what she laughed at; he would enjoy shop incidents, tram incidents, street incidents - all the queer, funny things that go to make up every day. Letty felt, for years, that someone like this would come before it was too late. 'It's not really me, having the children and living with Ambrose,' she would think in bewilderment. 'This isn't my life really; it will all be different soon. I shall begin to live as I want to - soon.' But the years went on and now she was over forty and looked for nobody to rescue her as if she were a damsel in distress. She no longer expected to be loved by any man. Men wanted youth and beauty; no matter how old and ugly they were themselves, they felt entitled to youth and beauty in women. She had missed the great love she had dreamed of as a girl, but she thought about it no more. Her wishes had changed as she grew older; she now only wanted to get away by herself, to enjoy life in her own way. [...] She knew what she wanted, but could not have; it was freedom.

It’s so funny you should say this, because if you were one of my students, you’d be wearing your pain like a badge of honor. This generation doesn’t hide anything from anyone. My class talks a lot about their traumas. And how their traumas inform their games. They, honest to God, think their traumas are the most interesting thing about them. I sound like I’m making fun, and I am a little, but I don’t mean to be. They’re so different from us, really. Their standards are higher; they call bullshit on so much of the sexism and racism that I, at least, just lived with. But that’s also made them kind of, well, humorless. I hate people who talk about generational differences like it’s an actual thing, and here I am, doing it. It doesn’t make sense. How alike were you to anyone we grew up with, you know?” “If their traumas are the most interesting things about them, how do they get over any of it?” Sam asked. “I don’t think they do. Or maybe they don’t have to, I don’t know.” Sadie paused. “Since I’ve been teaching, I keep thinking about how lucky we were,” she said. “We were lucky to be born when we were.” “How so?” “Well, if we’d been born a little bit earlier, we wouldn’t have been able to make our games so easily. Access to computers would have been harder. We would have been part of the generation who was putting floppy disks in Ziploc bags and driving the games to stores. And if we’d been born a little bit later, there would have been even greater access to the internet and certain tools, but honestly, the games got so much more complicated; the industry got so professional. We couldn’t have done as much as we did on our own. We could never have made a game that we could sell to a company like Opus on the resources we had. We wouldn’t have made Ichigo Japanese, because we would have worried about the fact that we weren’t Japanese. And I think, because of the internet, we would have been overwhelmed by how many people were trying to do the exact same things we were. We had so much freedom—creatively, technically. No one was watching us, and we weren’t even watching ourselves. What we had was our impossibly high standards, and your completely theoretical conviction that we could make a great game.

Here’s a sentence in a book I’m reading: ‘We belong, of course, to a generation that’s seen through things, seen how futile everything is, and had the courage to accept futility, and say to ourselves: There’s nothing for it but to enjoy ourselves as best we can.’ Well, I suppose that’s my generation, the one that’s seen the war and its aftermath; and, of course, it is the attitude of quite a crowd; but when you come to think of it, it might have been said by any rather unthinking person in any generation; certainly might have been said by the last generation after religion had got the knock that Darwin gave it. For what does it come to? Suppose you admit having seen through religion and marriage and treaties, and commercial honesty and freedom and ideals of every kind, seen that there’s nothing absolute about them, that they lead of themselves to no definite reward, either in this world or a next which doesn’t exist perhaps, and that the only thing absolute is pleasure and that you mean to have it — are you any farther towards getting pleasure? No! you’re a long way farther off. If everybody’s creed is consciously and crudely ‘grab a good time at all costs,’ everybody is going to grab it at the expense of everybody else, and the devil will take the hindmost, and that’ll be nearly everybody, especially the sort of slackers who naturally hold that creed, so that they, most certainly, aren’t going to get a good time. All those things they’ve so cleverly seen through are only rules of the road devised by men throughout the ages to keep people within bounds, so that we may all have a reasonable chance of getting a good time, instead of the good time going only to the violent, callous, dangerous and able few. All our institutions, religion, marriage, treaties, the law, and the rest, are simply forms of consideration for others necessary to secure consideration for self. Without them we should be a society of feeble motor-bandits and streetwalkers in slavery to a few super-crooks. You can’t, therefore, disbelieve in consideration for others without making an idiot of yourself and spoiling your own chances of a good time. The funny thing is that no matter how we all talk, we recognise that perfectly. People who prate like the fellow in that book don’t act up to their creed when it comes to the point. Even a motor-bandit doesn’t turn King’s evidence. In fact, this new philosophy of ‘having the courage to accept futility and grab a good time’ is simply a shallow bit of thinking; all the same, it seemed quite plausible when I read it.