Full Tilt Quotes

We might not have months or years, but we have moments. Thousands upon thousands of them. Let’s take each moment, seize it and wring it dry.

We do not remember days, we remember moments. –Cesare Pavese

The world is rated R, and no one is checking IDs. Do not try to make it G by imagining the shadows away. Do not try to hide your children from the world forever, but do not try to pretend there is no danger. Train them. Give them sharp eyes and bellies full of laughter. Make them dangerous. Make them yeast, and when they’ve grown, they will pollute the shadows.

I would love you forever, Kacey, if I only had the chance.

Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasure.

You are a universe, Kacey. I kept waiting to find the end of your love and beauty, the end of your generous heart. I never did. I never will.

Whenever the urge to kiss him came over me, I would kiss him. No more living life halfway. We had to go full tilt, just like the card players did. I would hit instead of stay. Always. We

Look at that, Vera.” I tilt my head back and see a sky full of stars. “Can you tell which one is me?” he asks. I point to the brightest one.

Every one of us is called upon, perhaps many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job...And onward full-tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another--that is surely the basic instinct...Crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is.

I felt him in every pore, every breath and beat of our hearts. I’d never experienced anything like this in my life. He was a universe. My love for him was just as boundless.

That you can find beauty everywhere, even in the things that scare you the most.

I moaned then, tilting my head back to give him better access. His hands clamped on my waist, then moved—one going to cup my rear, the other sliding between us. This—this moment, when it was him and me and nothing between our bodies … His tongue scraped the roof of my mouth as he dragged a finger down the center of me, and I gasped, my back arching. “Feyre,” he said against my lips, my name like a prayer more devout than any Ianthe had offered up to the Cauldron on that dark solstice morning. His tongue swept my mouth again, in time to the finger that he slipped inside of me. My hips undulated, demanding more, craving the fullness of him, and his growl reverberated in my chest as he added another finger. I moved on him. Lightning lashed through my veins, and my focus narrowed to his fingers, his mouth, his body on mine. His palm pushed against the bundle of nerves at the apex of my thighs, and I groaned his name as I shattered

They were the screams of riders torn apart by the twisted reflections of their own inner selves.

You are a universe.

You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” I looked at Kacey sitting beside me. She is not merely an ocean. She is an entire universe.

There are mountainous, arduous days, up which one takes an infinite time to climb, and downward-sloping days which one can descend at full tilt, singing as one goes.

He told me to love again, and I do. So much." "He told me to love you. But I already did. So much.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They are in each other all along,” she recited.

No. You will. Love him. Love him with everything. Like you loved me. Love him more.” His eyes closed. “I’m so happy, Kace. Never like this in my life. It’s…a gift. You know?” I

The boat struck the bank full tilt. The dreamer, the joyous oarsman, lay on his back at the bottom of the boat, his heels in the air.

We had to go full tilt, just like the card players did. I would hit instead of stay. Always.

I didn’t know it then—I couldn’t have—but in that moment, the rest of my life, or what was left of it, began.

You can prepare all you want for someday. Nothing prepares you for the day of.

You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same.— Elisabeth Kübler-Ross    

Who am I? The sum of your dreams, the thrill you refuse to grasp, the unknown you fear.

Reyes. Alexander. Farrow," I said. Seconds after I spoke his name, Reyes walked into his bedroom, and I looked across the open space directly from my room into his. He waited for me to continue. "I feel like there's something missing from my bedroom." A dimple appeared at the corner of his mouth. "You don't say." "Any idea what that might be?" He glanced around my room as well, then shrugged. "I can't imagine." "Oh, wait," I said, stepping from my room into his, "wasn't there something here? Like, I don't know, a wall or something?" He looked up. "You could be right. I do seem to remember a barrier of some kind here." "Yep," I said, stepping closer, "I definitely remember a partition separating our apartments." When his only response was a mischievous tilt of his full mouth, I asked, "Where did you put my wall?" He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against his doorframe. "What makes you think I took it?" "It was there this morning." "And that means I took it? Maybe you just misplaced it. Where exactly did you see it last?" I pressed my lips together. "You tore down my wall." The smile he wore could've charmed the panties off a nun. Completely unrepentant, he admitted, "I tore down your wall.

Love had no end. She was infinite. She was a universe, my universe, and I was hers. Love had no boundaries, no rules, no favorites. And no limits.

A semicolon is where a writer can choose to end the sentence,” she said, tucking a lock of brown hair behind her ear. “But they don’t. The story goes on. It’s a symbol of hope. To keep going.” She smiled tremulously. “Sometimes I need that reminder.

That’s my legacy: I loved you and was loved by you. I’m

My world had been fading to gray until she burst in like a bombshell of color and light...

I’ll love her enough. I’ll love her enough she’ll never want for it. I’ll spend my entire life loving her and making her happy. And she will be happy.

Despite our losses, we would keep going. Never give in or give up. Because love always wins. Always…

Make someone else…feel like I do right now. Okay? Promise.” I

I love you,” I said. “God, I never thought this would happen to me.” “But it did,” she whispered. “It happened and all we can do now is take care of each other. Live in the little moments, right? Just like we promised. The little moments. We have so many. Thousands upon thousands.

Dying, I learned, is a not a team sport. It’s a solitary endeavor. Everyone I loved was standing on dry land, while I was alone on a boat as it slowly pulled away from the shore, and there’s nothing anyone could do about it but watch it happen.

He kissed me as if I were something delicate and precious, something he cherished and held with reverence. "My first kiss. This is my first real kiss.

His hands came up to my head, around my cheek and under my hair. His handsome face was no longer chiseled in stone, but open and naked and raw. “I love you. I’m in love with you and I will be for the rest of my life.

Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.

Horses are of a breed unique to Fantasyland. They are capable of galloping full-tilt all day without a rest. Sometimes they do not require food or water. They never cast shoes, go lame or put their hooves down holes, except when the Management deems it necessary, as when the forces of the Dark Lord are only half an hour behind. They never otherwise stumble. Nor do they ever make life difficult for Tourists by biting or kicking their riders or one another. They never resist being mounted or blow out so that their girths slip, or do any of the other things that make horses so chancy in this world. For instance, they never shy and seldom whinny or demand sugar at inopportune moments. But for some reason you cannot hold a conversation while riding them. If you want to say anything to another Tourist (or vice versa), both of you will have to rein to a stop and stand staring out over a valley while you talk. Apart from this inexplicable quirk, horses can be used just like bicycles, and usually are. Much research into how these exemplary animals come to exist has resulted in the following: no mare ever comes into season on the Tour and no stallion ever shows an interest in a mare; and few horses are described as geldings. It therefore seems probable that they breed by pollination. This theory seems to account for everything, since it is clear that the creatures do behave more like vegetables than mammals. Nomads appears to have a monopoly on horse-breeding. They alone possess the secret of how to pollinate them.

They say you never know who's the real hero and who's the real coward until you're looking death in the face. I've always been afraid of plenty of things, but fear isn't what makes you a coward. It's how depraved your heart becomes when fear gets pumped through it.

So much of my life had been under tight control. So much of Quinn's life had been wild insanity. What we needed now was both: a directed burst of controlled insanity.

Like everything else in his life, he crashed forward, caution the first casualty.

It wasn't just that he didn't see the big picture, sometimes he saw a different picture entirely.

I kissed Jonah Fletcher with all of my heart, and with every piece of my soul that would love him forever.

I’m more afraid of not being with you than I am of being with you.

It’s not that we don’t trust you,” Royce said as Hadrian prepared the bow. “It’s just that we’ve learned over the years that honor among nobles is usually inversely proportionate to their rank. As a result, we prefer to rely on more concrete methods for motivations—such as self-preservation. You already know we don’t want you dead, but if you have ever been riding full tilt and had a horse buckle under you, you understand that death is always a possibility, and broken bones are almost a certainty.” “There’s also the danger of missing the horse completely,” Hadrian added. “I’m a good shot, but even the best archers have bad days. So to answer your question—yes, you can control your own horse.

-You're gloating, Max. It's not flattering. Somebody needs to teach you a little humility.- -A good woman could do that.- -She'd have to be armed and dangerous.-

I love you. It was so simple it almost went straight past me. I love you.

Money is a way of measuring wealth but is not wealth in itself. A chest of gold coins or a fat wallet of bills is of no use whatsoever to a wrecked sailor alone on a raft. He needs real wealth, in the form of a fishing rod, a compass, an outboard motor with gas, and a female companion. But this ingrained and archaic confusion of money with wealth is now the main reason we are not going ahead full tilt with the development of our technological genius for the production of more than adequate food, clothing, housing, and utilities for every person on earth.

I don't want to be empty on the inside.

You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.

Here, it seemed muscle wasn't made of flesh and blood, it was made of will and anger.

I held onto my brother, clutched him tight. He was solid and real, while I was already dissipating into the air, particle by particle. “Don’t let me vanish, Theo. Please. Help me…” Theo’s

I’m going to leave you,” I said, my voice hardly more than a whisper. The words hung between us, the crux of all our pain and tears and hesitation. But Kacey smiled—smiled—with brave tears sliding down her cheeks. “Not yet. Not tonight. We might not have months or years, but we have moments. Thousands upon thousands of them. Let’s take each moment, seize it and wring it dry.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They are in each other all along,

[Jesus] tilted His head back, pulled up one last time to draw breath and cried, "Tetelestai!" It was a Greek expression most everyone present would have understood. It was an accounting term. Archaeologists have found papyrus tax receipts with "Tetelestai" written across them, meaning "paid in full." With Jesus' last breath on the cross, He declared the debt of sin cancelled, completely satisfied. Nothing else required. Not good deeds. Not generous donations. Not penance or confession or baptism or...or...or...nothing. The penalty for sin is death, and we were all born hopelessly in debt. He paid our debt in full by giving His life so that we might live forever.

But if you knew that, why on earth did you marry her?" Rosemary asked. "Why?" Rhett's mouth twisted in a smile. "Because she was so full of fire and so recklessly, stubbornly brave.Because she was such a child beneath all her pretenses.Because she was unlike any woman I had ever known. She fascinated me,infuriated me, drove me mad. I loved her as consumingly as she loved him. From the day I first laid eyes on her. It was a kind of disease." There was a weight of sorrow in his voice. He bowed his head into his two hands and laughed shakily. His voice was muffled and blurred by his fingers. "What a grotesque practical joke life is. Now Ashley Wilkes is a free man and would marry Scarlett on a moment's notice, and I want to be rid of her. Naturally that makes her determined to have me. She wants only what she cannot have." Rhett raised his head. "I'm afraid," he said quietly, "afraid that it will all begin again. I know that she's heartless and completely selfish, that she's like a child who cries for a toy and then breaks it once she has it. But there are moments when she tilts her head at a certain angle, or she smiles that gleeful smile, or she suddenly looks lost-and I come close to forgetting what I know.

His life was a festival of excess that could not be contained. Deafening music, eye-popping bright colors, sugar added to almost everything he ate. Quinn's life was a bullet in a barrel ready to explode.

The rides are different for everyone. I'm convinced of that now. I mean, sure, there are some we ride together. Either we find ourselves drawn to some common experience, or maybe we're pulled in by the people we care about. Our friends, our families can drag us onto coasters and Tilt-A-Whirls that are really meant for them. But in the end, no matter whose rides we find ourselves on, the experience is all our own.

The yin to the yang of caring is that sadness is felt just that much more because that caring is so deep. But (and I'm sure you'll agree) I wouldn't be any other way. To not feel so intensely and vividly would mean being one of the living dead and there are far too many of those shuffling around already. So when we mount our steeds, hoist our lances, and charge at the wrongs of the world, let's do so with wild battle cries, riding full tilt! Every now and then we'll have the joy of seeing one of those wrongs go flying off its horse.

Carl was just saying good-bye," Mom said. "Really," I said. "He must speak in tongues.

Apparently Quinn had woken up a short time ago and immediately asked for ice cream, knowing that kids in hospitals got whatever they wanted.

When I saw Jonah’s face for the first time it was like seeing someone again after a long absence. Not a meeting, but a reunion.

Then his eyes glazed over for a second. 'I go places sometimes,' he told me, his voice as thready as his eyes. 'Don't know why I go places... I just do.

I could see a receding shore beneath a sky full of stars. Millions upon millions of stars. Millions upon millions of moments. All of them with her name.

Love had no boundaries, no rules, no favorites. And no limits.

Nat's face softens, her lips tilt at the corner and she speaks full of awe, "Wow." Still chuckling, I ask, "What?" She shifts from one foot to the other, looks to the ground and says softly, "That's the first time I've heard you laugh." She nervously plays with a ring on her finger. "That's one of the nicest sounds I've ever heard, Ghost. You should do it more often.

To be completely helpless in the face of life―powerless to do a single thing―that's what I'd always feared more than anything. It was like I'd been keeping all the edges of my life neat and clean, pretending the neatness was all that mattered, pretending life could somehow be controlled.

We're not going to die. You're with me kiddo and it just happens I know a few survival skills." "Oh yeah right. Like carrying your Visa Gold in case the restaurant doesn't accept American Express.

Signs and wonders, eh? Pity if there is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in wonders! There's a clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist--hark! By Jove, I have it! Look, you Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round chapter; and now I'll read it off, straight out of the book. Come, Almanack! To begin: there's Aries, or the Ram--lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or the Bull--he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins--that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path--he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or Scales--happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in rear; we are curing the wound, when whang comes the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us; and, to wind up, with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep. There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty.

When you hold tightly to something behind you, you cannot move forward. The answer is to unclench your heart from the past. Close the door. Open a new chapter. Only then can you be free of the pain that haunts you.

Beautiful machines from 1920s and '30s, when automobiles were both monstrous and sexy at the same time.

You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same.— Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Like any sugary treat, it tasted heavenly at first, but if you gorged on it, you’d be sick.

That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquility,

I hope the love we have outweighs the pain when I'm gone.

No one has to know until we adopt in a few years. I’m sure there are loads of damn babies waiting for parents to buy them. We will be fine.” I know she hasn’t accepted my offer of marriage, or even being in a relationship with me, but I hope she doesn’t use this opportunity to remind me of that. She laughs softly. “Damn babies? Please tell me you don’t think there is a store somewhere downtown where you walk in and purchase a baby?” She lifts her hand to her mouth to stop herself from laughing at me. “There isn’t?” I joke. “What’s Babies ‘R’ Us, then?” “Oh my goodness!” She tilts her head back in laughter. I reach across the small space between us and grab hold of her hand. “If that damn store isn’t full of babies, lined up, ready for purchase, than I’m suing for false advertisement.

For one short second, his hand rested on my shoulder. I wanted to take it and hold on all night, but the dark kept me limp and motionless. Still, I knew Theo was there. I wasn’t alone anymore. And that was enough. That was everything.

It hurts, right? It's messy and complicated and it's like a tattoo that never ends. A million needles inking something on your heart that isn't even beautiful." "The feeling you have in that moment right as you wake up, before your brain mucks it all up with thoughts and words? That very first feeling is where the truth lives." "Because love always wins. Always.

Who was it who said, 'The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present'?" The Italian looked quickly at the American immortal and then he dipped his head in a bow. "I do believe I said that once...a long, long time ago." "You also wrote that a prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise," Billy said with a grin. "Yes, I did say that.You're full of surprises, Billy." Billy looked from the city to the Italian. "So what do you see-faceless masses or individuals?" "Individuals," Machiavelli whispered. "Reason enough to break your promise to your Elder master and a bird-tailed monster?" Machiavelli nodded. "Reason enough," he said. "I knew you were going to say that." The American immortal reached out and squeezed the Italian's arm. "You're a good man, Niccolo Machiavelli." "I don't think so. Right now, my thoughts make me waerloga-an oath breaker.A warlock." "Warlock." Billy the Kid tilted his head. "I like it. Got a nice ring to it. I'm thinking I might become a warlock too.

That Fan did not see any of this is not so ironic, for all along her journey we’ve observed more of her than she’ll ever know. She moves on, she pushes forward, this her guileless calling, and we have to remind ourselves that it’s perhaps more laudable simply to keep heading out into the world than always tilting to leave one’s mark on it.

Hockey players can also brace pretty hard against the ice. A player skating at full speed can stop in the space of a few meters, which means the force they’re exerting on the ice is pretty substantial. (It also suggests that if you started to slowly rotate a hockey rink, it could tilt up to 50 degrees before the players would all slide to one end. Clearly, experiments are needed to confirm this.)

I guess we all can't help peeking at our own imperfections, just like we can't help scratching a scab that keeps itching. When those imperfections are pasted across your face like that, exaggerated and magnified, it's hard to find all those good thoughts you have about yourself. If you believe those distorted reflections too deeply, you'll never get out of the maze.

I hadn't lived a real life―I'd had just a model of a life. Everything I did, everything I thought, was suspended safely by strings, too high up for anyone to damage. Zero contact, zero risk. Now those strings had been cut and I was going to die, never having had a chance to live without them.

No mirrors in the real world had the ability to reach inside you the way these did. You could tell yourself that the mirrors were simply telling lies, but you'd be wrong. They took tiny truths, swelling them out of proportion―and the fact that there was a kernel of truth in what they reflected made the effect devastating.

Information about time cannot be imparted in a straightforward way. Like furniture, it has to be tipped and tilted to get it through the door. If the past is a solid oak buffet whose legs must be unscrewed and whose drawers must be removed before, in an altered state, it can be upended into the entryway of our minds, then the future is a king-size waterbed that hardly stands a chance, especially if it needs to be brought up in an elevator. Those billions who persist in perceiving time as the pursuit of the future are continually buying waterbeds that will never make it beyond the front porch or the lobby. And if man's mission is to reside in the fullness of the present, then he's got no space for the waterbed, anyhow, not even if he could lower it through a skylight.

I can’t stand it. I have my circle and that’s it. I don’t want to tell people outside the circle. I don’t want them to have to find out. I don’t let anyone in…” “And yet,” I said, gulping air, getting a hold of myself. “Here I am.” “Here you are…” He said, his eyes roaming my face. “Believe me, I didn’t want to let you in. But it was almost as if…” “What?” I whispered. “As if I didn’t have a choice,” He said. “I tried to keep [my] walls up, keep to my routine… But you got in anyway.” He gently swiped a tear from my chin. “You feel it too, right?” I nodded. “Yes.

We didn't finish that dance." "Here?" "Why not?" Echo's high heel tapped against the sidewalk, the telltale sign of nerves. I took a deliberate step forward and caught her waist before she coud back away from me. My siren had sung to me for way too long, capturing my heart, tempting me with her body, driving me slowly insane. Now, I expected her to pay up. "Do you hear that?" I aked. Echo raised an eyebrow when she heard nothing but the sound of water trickling in the fountain. "Hear what?" I slid my right hand down her arm, cradled her hand against my chest and swayed us from side to side. "The music." Her eyes danced. "Maybe if you could tell me what i'm supposed to be hearing." "Slow drum beat." With one finger i tapped the beat into the small of her back. "Acoustic quitar." I leaned down and hummed my favorite song in her ear. Her sweet cinnamon smell intoxicated me. She relaxed, fitting perfectly into my body. In the crisp, cold February air, we swayed together, moving to our own personal beat. For one moment, we escaped hell. No teachers, no therapist, no well-meaning friends, no nightmares-just the two of us, dancing. My song ended, my finger stopped tapping the beat, and we ceased swaying from side to side. She held perfectly still, keeping her hand in mine, her head resting on my shoulder. I nuzzled into the warmth of her silky curls, tightening my hold on her. Echo was becoming essential, like air. I eased my hand to her chin, lifting her face toward me. My thumb caressed her warm, smooth cheek. My heart beat faster. A ghost of that siren smile graced her lips as she tilted her head closer to mine, creating the undeniable pull of the sailor lost to the sea to the beautiful goddess calling him home. I kissed her lips. Soft, full, warm-everything i'd fantasized it would be and more, so much more. Echo hesitantly pressed back, a curious question for which i had a response. I parted my lips and teased her bottom one, begging, praying, for permission. Her smooth hands inched up my neck and pulled at my hair, bringing me closer. She opened her mouth, her tongue seductively touching mine, almost bringing me to my knees. Flames licked through me as our kiss deepened. Her hands massaged my scalp and neck, only stoking the heat of the fire. Forgetting every rule i'd created for this moment, my hands wandered up her back, twining in her hair, bringing her closer to me. I wanted Echo. I needed Echo. Her eyes met mine again. "So what does this mean for us?" I lowered my forehead to hers. "It means you 're mine.

Life insurance pays off triple if you die on a business trip. I prayed for wind shear effect. I prayed for pelicans sucked into the turbines and loose bolts and ice on the wings. On takeoff, as the plane pushed down the runway and the flaps tilted up, with our seats in their full upright position and our tray tables stowed and all personal carry-on baggage in the overhead compartment, as the end of the runway ran up to meet us with our smoking materials extinguished, I prayed for a crash.

You make out with a boy because he’s cute, but he has no substance, no words to offer you. His mouth tastes like stale beer and false promises. When he touches your chin, you offer your mouth up like a flower to to be plucked, all covered in red lipstick to attract his eye. When he reaches his hand down your shirt, he stops, hand on boob, and squeezes, like you’re a fruit he’s trying to juice. He doesn’t touch anything but skin, does not feel what’s within. In the morning, he texts you only to say, “I think I left the rest of my beer at your place, but it’s cool, you can drink it. Last night was fun.” You kiss a girl because she’s new. Because she’s different and you’re twenty two, trying something else out because it’s all failed before. After spending six weekends together, you call her, only to be answered by a harsh beep informing you that her number has been disconnected. You learn that success doesn’t come through experimenting with your sexuality, and you’re left with a mouth full of ruin and more evidence that you are out of tune. You fall for a boy who is so nice, you don’t think he can do any harm. When he mentions marriage and murder in the same sentence, you say, “Okay, okay, okay.” When you make a joke he does not laugh, but tilts his head and asks you how many drinks you’ve had in such a loving tone that you sober up immediately. He leaves bullet in your blood and disappears, saying, “Who wants a girl that’s filled with holes?” You find out that a med student does. He spots you reading in a bar and compliments you on the dust spilling from your mouth. When you see his black doctor’s bag posed loyally at his side, you ask him if he’s got the tools to fix a mangled nervous system. He smiles at you, all teeth, and tells you to come with him. In the back of his car, he covers you in teethmarks and says, “There, now don’t you feel whole again.” But all the incisions do is let more cold air into your bones. You wonder how many times you will collapse into ruins before you give up on rebuilding. You wonder if maybe you’d have more luck living amongst your rubble instead of looking for someone to repair it. The next time someone promises to flood you with light to erase your dark, you insist them you’re fine the way you are. They tell you there’s hope, that they had holes in their chest too, that they know how to patch them up. When they offer you a bottle in exchange for your mouth, you tell them you’re not looking for a way out. No, thank you, you tell them. Even though you are filled with ruins and rubble, you are as much your light as you are your dark.

This world is beautiful but badly broken. St. Paul said that it groans, but I love it even in its groaning. I love this round stage where we act out the tragedies and the comedies of history. I love it with all of its villains and petty liars and self-righteous pompers. I love the ants and the laughter of wide-eyed children encountering their first butterfly. I love it as it is, because it is a story, and it isn’t stuck in one place. It is full of conflict and darkness like every good story. And like every good story, there will be an ending. I love the world as it is, because I love what it will be. I love it because it spins and tilts, because it’s dizzying, because of the night sky and the swirling lights. But I have run too far ahead. We should be more . . . philosophical.

Do people call you Ollie?” Lola asked. Oliver looked at her, completely dumbfounded by the possibility of this nickname. She may as well have asked him if people call him Garth, or Andrew, or Timothy. “No,” he said flatly, and the only thing charming about him was the way his accent seemed to run through every vowel with one syllable. Lola’s eyebrow twitched in her single tell—mildly annoyed—and she lifted her flashing LED drink cup to her lips. Lola wears mostly black, including her glossy dark hair, and has a tiny diamond pierced into her lip, but, even still, she’s never been able to pull off the full physical manifestation of the angry Riot Grrrl. With her perfect porcelain skin and the longest eyelashes in the world, she’s simply too delicate. But once she decides you’re an asshole, it no longer matters to her what you think. She gives good glare. “The flower suits you,” she said, tilting her head to study him. “And you have pretty hands, kind of soft. Maybe we should call you Olive.” He grunted out a dry laugh. “And a really beautiful mouth,” I added. “Gentle. Like a woman’s.” “Aw fuck off.” He was laughing outright by then.

Tell me, Blaise, are we very far from Montmartre?' Worries Forget your worries All the stations full of cracks tilted along the way The telegraph wires they hang from The grimacing poles that gesticulate and strangle them The world stretches lengthens and folds in like an accordion tormented by a sadistic hand In the cracks of the sky the locomotives in anger Flee And in the holes, The whirling wheels the mouths the voices And the dogs of misfortune that bark at our heels The demons are unleashed Iron rails Everything is off-key The broun-roun-roun of the wheels Shocks Bounces We are a storm under a deaf man's skull... 'Tell me, Blaise, are we very far from Montmartre?' Hell yes, you're getting on my nerves you know very well we're far away Overheated madness bellows in the locomotive Plague, cholera rise up like burning embers on our way We disappear in the war sucked into a tunnel Hunger, the whore, clings to the stampeding clouds And drops battle dung in piles of stinking corpses Do like her, do your job 'Tell me, Blaise, are we very far from Montmartre?

He stalks toward me, close enough that I can feel his breath stirring my hair. ¨Are you commanding me?¨ ¨No¨ I say, startled and unable to meet his gaze. ¨Of course not.¨ His fingers come to my chin, tilting my head so I am looking up into his black eyes, the rage in them as hot as coals. ¨You just think I ought to. That I can. That i be good at it. Very well, Jude. Tell me how its done. Do you think she´d like it if i came to her like this, if i looked deeply into her eyes?¨ My whole body is alert, alive with sick desire, embarassing in its intensity. He knows. I know he knows. ¨Probably,¨ I say, my voice coming out a little shakily. ¨Whatever it is you usually do.¨ ¨Oh, come now,¨ he says, his voice full of barely controlled fury. ¨If you want me to play the bawd, at least give me the benefit on your advice.¨ His beringed fingers trace over my cheek, trace the line of my lip and down my throat. I feel dizzy and overwhelmed. ¨Should I touch her like this?¨ he asks, lashes lowered. The shadows limn his face, casting his cheekbones into stark relief. ¨I dont know,¨ I say, but my voice betrays me. It´s all wrong, high and breathless. He presses his mouth to my ear, kissing me there. His hands skim over my shoulders, making me shiver. ¨And then like this? Is this how I ought to seduce her? I can feel his mouth shape the light words against my skin. ¨Do you think it would work?¨ I dig my fingernails into the meat of my palm to keep from moving against him. My whole body is trembling with tension. ¨Yes.¨ Then his mouth is against mine, and my lips part. I close my eyes against what im about to do. My fingers reach up to tangle in the black curls of his hair. He doesnt kiss me as though hes angry; his kiss is soft, yearning. Everything slows, goes liquid and hot. I can barely think. Ive wanted this and feared it, and now its happening, I dont know how i will ever want anything else. We stumble back to the low couch. He leans me against the cushions, and I pull him down over me. His expression mirrors my own, suprise and a little horror. Page 143-144

She went to bed mentally exhausted but woke after only a few hours of disrupted sleep…because she could smell Judd’s scent in her quarters. Getting out of bed still half-asleep, she saw it was four a.m. She walked out wearing the satin slip she used as her nightgown, her feet bare. “Judd?” For a second, she couldn’t locate him. Then her night vision kicked in and she found him seated in an armchair close to the coffee table. He was watching her, his entire body motionless. It didn’t strike her that she should be afraid or even wary. Yawning, she walked over and sat on his lap, curling her body into the armchair. His arms came around her without hesitation, one hand curving around her shoulders, the other sliding to close over the bare skin of her upper thigh. The sensual contact brought her to full wakefulness. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she nuzzled at his throat. “Are you okay?” His hand shifted to slide between her thighs, surprising a shocked feminine sound out of her. “Judd? Baby?” Something was wrong. With a changeling male, she would’ve let her body soothe him, used touch to connect. But Judd was Psy…and hers. At that moment, she knew the answer to the question that had tormented her all day—she would hold him, accept him, no matter what. That was what mates did. She didn’t care if there was no bond—no one was going to tell her she wasn’t meant to be with this man. “What do you want?” she asked, but he remained silent. Deciding to let instinct guide her, she softened for him. His other hand tangled in her hair, tilting her head back in a sharp move. She went rather than resist. A woman who loved a dominant male had to know when to bend…and when to bite.

Dude, what're you waiting for?" Carlos calls. "Plant one on her." I lift my eyes and am shocked to see Brandon is staring at my mouth. He swallows audibly and flicks his gaze to mine. the emotions darkening the soft green color are too confusing to name. Does he want to back out? An exhale of breath leaves Brandon's lips, almost like a laugh, and he scoots closer to me on the blanket. I twist my legs under myself, sitting tall as I face him. He cups my chin and tilts it toward him, drowning me in the now dark-green depths of his eyes, the cologne I gave him for his birthday filling my head. It's woodsy and yummy and I always loved how it smelled on the store testers, but on Brandon, it's even sexier. My eyes flutter closed, and I inhale again, this time slowly. Goose bumps prickle my arms, and my head gets fuzzy. Brandon slides his hand down the column of my neck and brings the other up, threading his fingers through the hair at my nape. His breath fans across my cheek, and everything south of my bellybutton squeezes tight. When his mouth first meets mine, it's hesitant, questioning. But as I move my lips with his, he quickly grows bolder, coaxing them apart. Desire, pure and raw, electrifies my veins as his tongue sweeps my mouth. A whimpering sound springs from my chest, and instinctively, I wrap my arms around his neck, tugging him closer. Needing more. My teeth graze his full bottom lip, and I pull it, sucking on it gently. He moans and knots his fingers in my hair, and a thrill dances down my back. Brandon is an amazing kisser, just as I knew he would be. I have no control over my body's reactions. I lose myself in his lips, his tongue, and his strong arms, forgetting time and space and even my surroundings...

His fingers come to my chin, tilting my head so I am looking up into his black eyes, the rage in them as hot as coals. 'You just think I ought to. That I can. That's I'd be good at it. Very well, Jude. Tell me how it's done. Do you think she'd like it if I came to her like this, if I looked deeply in to her eyes?' My whole body is alert, alive with sick desire, embarrassing in its intensity. He knows, I know he knows. 'Probably,' I say, my voice coming out a little shakily. 'Whatever it is you usually do.' 'Oh, come now,' he says, his voice full of barely controlled fury. 'If you want me to play the bawd, at least give me the benefit of your advice.' His beringed fingers trace over my cheek, trace the line of my lip and down my throat. I feel dizzy and overwhelmed. 'Should I took her like this?' he asks, lashes lowered. The shadows limn his face, casting his cheekbones in to stark relief. 'I don't know,' I say, but my voice betrays me. It's all wrong, high and breathless. He presses his mouth to my ear, kissing me there. His hands skim over my shoulders, making me shiver. 'And then like this? Is this how I ought to seduce her?' I can feel his mouth shape the light words against my skin. 'Do you think it would work?' I dig my fingernails in to the meat of my palm to keep from moving against him. My whole body is trembling with tension. 'Yes.' Then his mouth is against mine, and my lips part. I close my eyes against what I'm about to do. My fingers reach up to tangle in the black curls of his hair. He doesn't kiss me as though he's angry; his kiss is soft, yearning. Everything slows, goes liquid and hot. I can barely think. I've wanted this and feared it, and now that it's happening, I don't know how I will ever want anything else.

Do you get it now,Becks?" Jack wrapped a finger around a long strand of my hair, and we were quiet as it slipped through his grip. "You haven't moved on?" He chuckled. "I have a lifetime of memories made up of chestnut wars and poker games and midnight excursions and Christmas Dances...It's all you. It's only ever been you.I love you." The last part seemed to escape his lips unintentionally, and afterward he closed his eyes and put his head in his hands,as if he had a sudden headache. "I've gotta not say that out loud." The sight of how messed up he was made me want to wrap my arms around him and fold him into me and cushion him from everything that lay ahead. Instead,I reached for his hand. Brought it to my lips. Kissed it. He raised his head and winced. "You shouldn't do that," he said, even though he didn't pull his hand away. "Why?" "Because...it'll make everything worse...If you don't feel-" His voice cut off as I kissed his hand again, pausing with his fingers at my lips. He let out a shaky sigh and his hair flopped forward. Then he looked at my lips for a long moment. "What if...?" I bit my lower lip. "What?" "What if we could be like this again?" He leaned in closer with a smile, and as he did,he said, "Are you going to steal my soul?" "Um...it's not technically your soul that..." I couldn't finish my sentence. His lips brushed mine, and I felt the whoosh of transferring emotions,but it wasn't as strong as the last time. The space inside me was practically full again. The Shades were right. Six months was just long enough to recover. He kept his lips touching mine when he asked, "Is it okay?" Okay in that I wasn't going to suck him dry anymore. Not okay in that my own emotions were in hyperdrive. Only our lips touched.Thankfully there was space between us everywhere else. He took my silence to mean it was safe. We held our lips together, tentative and still. But he didn't let it stay that casual for long.He pressed his lips closer, parting his mouth against mine. I shivered,and he put his arms around me and pulled me closer so that our bodies were touching in so many places. He pulled back a little.His breath was on my lips. "What is it?" I asked. "I dreamed of you every night." He briefly touched his lips to mine again. "It felt so real.And when I'd wake up the next morning,it was like your disappearance was fresh. Like you'd left me all over again." I lowered my chin and tucked my head into his chest. "I'm sorry." He sighed and tightened his grip around me. "It never got easier.But the dreams themselves." I felt him shake his head. "It's like I had a physical connection to you. They were so real. Every night,you were in my room with me. It was so real." I tilted my head back so I could face him again, realizing for the first time how difficult it must've been for Jack. I kissed his chin, his cheek, and then his lips. "I'm sorry," I said again. He shook his head. "It's not your fault I dreamed of you, Becks.I just want to know if it was as real as it felt." "I don't know," I said. But I told him about the book I'd read on Orpheus and Eurydice, and my theory that it was her connection to Orpheus that saved her.

I draw myself up next to her and look at her profile, making no effort to disguise my attention, here, where there is only Puck to see me. The evening sun loves her throat and her cheekbones. Her hair the color of cliff grass rises and falls over her face in the breeze. Her expression is less ferocious than usual, less guarded. I say, “Are you afraid?” Her eyes are far away on the horizon line, out to the west where the sun has gone but the glow remains. Somewhere out there are my capaill uisce, George Holly’s America, every gallon of water that every ship rides on. Puck doesn’t look away from the orange glow at the end of the world. “Tell me what it’s like. The race.” What it’s like is a battle. A mess of horses and men and blood. The fastest and strongest of what is left from two weeks of preparation on the sand. It’s the surf in your face, the deadly magic of November on your skin, the Scorpio drums in the place of your heartbeat. It’s speed, if you’re lucky. It’s life and it’s death or it’s both and there’s nothing like it. Once upon a time, this moment — this last light of evening the day before the race — was the best moment of the year for me. The anticipation of the game to come. But that was when all I had to lose was my life. “There’s no one braver than you on that beach.” Her voice is dismissive. “That doesn’t matter.” “It does. I meant what I said at the festival. This island cares nothing for love but it favors the brave.” Now she looks at me. She’s fierce and red, indestructible and changeable, everything that makes Thisby what it is. She asks, “Do you feel brave?” The mare goddess had told me to make another wish. It feels thin as a thread to me now, that gift of a wish. I remember the years when it felt like a promise. “I don’t know what I feel, Puck.” Puck unfolds her arms just enough to keep her balance as she leans to me, and when we kiss, she closes her eyes. She draws back and looks into my face. I have not moved, and she barely has, but the world feels strange beneath me. “Tell me what to wish for,” I say. “Tell me what to ask the sea for.” “To be happy. Happiness.” I close my eyes. My mind is full of Corr, of the ocean, of Puck Connolly’s lips on mine. “I don’t think such a thing is had on Thisby. And if it is, I don’t know how you would keep it.” The breeze blows across my closed eyelids, scented with brine and rain and winter. I can hear the ocean rocking against the island, a constant lullaby. Puck’s voice is in my ear; her breath warms my neck inside my jacket collar. “You whisper to it. What it needs to hear. Isn’t that what you said?” I tilt my head so that her mouth is on my skin. The kiss is cold where the wind blows across my cheek. Her forehead rests against my hair. I open my eyes, and the sun has gone. I feel as if the ocean is inside me, wild and uncertain. “That’s what I said. What do I need to hear?” Puck whispers, “That tomorrow we’ll rule the Scorpio Races as king and queen of Skarmouth and I’ll save the house and you’ll have your stallion. Dove will eat golden oats for the rest of her days and you will terrorize the races each year and people will come from every island in the world to find out how it is you get horses to listen to you. The piebald will carry Mutt Malvern into the sea and Gabriel will decide to stay on the island. I will have a farm and you will bring me bread for dinner.” I say, “That is what I needed to hear.” “Do you know what to wish for now?” I swallow. I have no wishing-shell to throw into the sea when I say it, but I know that the ocean hears me nonetheless. “To get what I need.

I realized I still had my eyes shut. I had shut them when I put my face to the screen, like I was scared to look outside. Now I had to open them. I looked out the window and saw for the first time how the hospital was out in the country. The moon was low in the sky over the pastureland; the face of it was scarred and scuffed where it had just torn up out of the snarl of scrub oak and madrone trees on the horizon. The stars up close to the moon were pale; they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon. It called to mind how I noticed the exact same thing when I was off on a hunt with Papa and the uncles and I lay rolled in blankets Grandma had woven, lying off a piece from where the men hunkered around the fire as they passed a quart jar of cactus liquor in a silent circle. I watched that big Oregon prairie moon above me put all the stars around it to shame. I kept awake watching, to see if the moon ever got dimmer or if the stars got brighter, till the dew commenced to drift onto my cheeks and I had to pull a blanket over my head. Something moved on the grounds down beneath my window — cast a long spider of shadow out across the grass as it ran out of sight behind a hedge. When it ran back to where I could get a better look, I saw it was a dog, a young, gangly mongrel slipped off from home to find out about things went on after dark. He was sniffing digger squirrel holes, not with a notion to go digging after one but just to get an idea what they were up to at this hour. He’d run his muzzle down a hole, butt up in the air and tail going, then dash off to another. The moon glistened around him on the wet grass, and when he ran he left tracks like dabs of dark paint spattered across the blue shine of the lawn. Galloping from one particularly interesting hole to the next, he became so took with what was coming off — the moon up there, the night, the breeze full of smells so wild makes a young dog drunk — that he had to lie down on his back and roll. He twisted and thrashed around like a fish, back bowed and belly up, and when he got to his feet and shook himself a spray came off him in the moon like silver scales. He sniffed all the holes over again one quick one, to get the smells down good, then suddenly froze still with one paw lifted and his head tilted, listening. I listened too, but I couldn’t hear anything except the popping of the window shade. I listened for a long time. Then, from a long way off, I heard a high, laughing gabble, faint and coming closer. Canada honkers going south for the winter. I remembered all the hunting and belly-crawling I’d ever done trying to kill a honker, and that I never got one. I tried to look where the dog was looking to see if I could find the flock, but it was too dark. The honking came closer and closer till it seemed like they must be flying right through the dorm, right over my head. Then they crossed the moon — a black, weaving necklace, drawn into a V by that lead goose. For an instant that lead goose was right in the center of that circle, bigger than the others, a black cross opening and closing, then he pulled his V out of sight into the sky once more. I listened to them fade away till all I could hear was my memory of the sound.