Garden Of Friends Good Morning Quotes

(Background: Morgan is a female warrior looking for a fight. Adhémar is your garden variety male.) A man near the door leered at her. Adhémar immediately stepped in front of her, but Morgan pushed him aside. She looked at the man and smiled pleasantly. Ah, something to take her mind off her coming journey. "Did you say something?" she asked. "Aye," he said, "I asked it you were occupied tonight, but I can see you have a collection of lads here to keep you busy—" Adhémar apparently couldn't control his chivalry. He took the man by the front of the shirt and threw him out the door. The man crawled to his feet and started bellowing. Adhémar planted his fist into the man's face. The stranger slumped to the ground, senseless. Morgan glared at Adhémar. "You owe me a brawl," she said. "What?" he asked incredulously. "A brawl," Morgan said. "And it had best be a good one." "With me?" he asked, blinking in surprise. "I'd prefer someone with more skill, that I might not sleep through it, but you'll do." Paien laughed out loud and pulled him away. "Adhémar, my friend, you cannot win this one. Next time, allow Morgan her little pleasures. She cannot help the attention her face attracts, and thus she has opportunities to teach ignorant men manners. In truth, it is a service she offers, bettering our kind wherever she goes.

Motor-scooter riders with big beards and girl friends who bounce on the back of the scooters and wear their hair long in front of their faces as well as behind, drunks who follow the advice of the Hat Council and are always turned out in hats, but not hats the Council would approve. Mr. Lacey, the locksmith,, shups up his shop for a while and goes to exchange time of day with Mr. Slube at the cigar store. Mr. Koochagian, the tailor, waters luxuriant jungle of plants in his window, gives them a critical look from the outside, accepts compliments on them from two passers-by, fingers the leaves on the plane tree in front of our house with a thoughtful gardener's appraisal, and crosses the street for a bite at the Ideal where he can keep an eye on customers and wigwag across the message that he is coming. The baby carriages come out, and clusters of everyone from toddlers with dolls to teenagers with homework gather at the stoops. When I get home from work, the ballet is reaching its cresendo. This is the time roller skates and stilts and tricycles and games in the lee of the stoop with bottletops and plastic cowboys, this is the time of bundles and packages, zigzagging from the drug store to the fruit stand and back over to the butcher's; this is the time when teenagers, all dressed up, are pausing to ask if their slips shows or their collars look right; this is the time when beautiful girls get out of MG's; this is the time when the fire engines go through; this is the time when anybody you know on Hudson street will go by. As the darkness thickens and Mr. Halpert moors the laundry cart to the cellar door again, the ballet goes under lights, eddying back nad forth but intensifying at the bright spotlight pools of Joe's sidewalk pizza, the bars, the delicatessen, the restaurant and the drug store. The night workers stop now at the delicatessen, to pick up salami and a container of milk. Things have settled down for the evening but the street and its ballet have not come to a stop. I know the deep night ballet and its seasons best from waking long after midnight to tend a baby and, sitting in the dark, seeing the shadows and hearing sounds of the sidewalk. Mostly it is a sound like infinitely patterning snatches of party conversation, and, about three in the morning, singing, very good singing. Sometimes their is a sharpness and anger or sad, sad weeping, or a flurry of search for a string of beads broken. One night a young man came roaring along, bellowing terrible language at two girls whom he had apparently picked up and who were disappointing him. Doors opened, a wary semicircle formed around him, not too close, until police came. Out came the heads, too, along the Hudsons street, offering opinion, "Drunk...Crazy...A wild kid from the suburbs" Deep in the night, I am almost unaware of how many people are on the street unless someone calls the together. Like the bagpipe. Who the piper is and why he favored our street I have no idea.

These Claudines, then…they want to know because they believe they already do know, the way one who loves fruit knows, when offered a mango from the moon, what to expect; and they expect the loyal tender teasing affection of the schoolgirl crush to continue: the close and confiding companionship, the pleasure of the undemanding caress, the cuddle which consummates only closeness; yet in addition they want motherly putting right, fatherly forgiveness and almost papal indulgence; they expect that the sights and sounds, the glorious affairs of the world which their husbands will now bring before them gleaming like bolts of silk, will belong to the same happy activities as catching toads, peeling back tree bark, or powdering the cheeks with dandelions and oranging the nose; that music will ravish the ear the way the trill of the blackbird does; that literature will hold the mind in sweet suspense the way fairy tales once did; that paintings will crowd the eye with the delights of a colorful garden, and the city streets will be filled with the same cool dew-moist country morning air they fed on as children. But they shall not receive what they expect; the tongue will be about other business; one will hear in masterpieces only pride and bitter contention; buildings will have grandeur but no flowerpots or chickens; and these Claudines will exchange the flushed cheek for the swollen vein, and instead of companionship, they will get sex and absurd games composed of pinch, leer, and giggle—that’s what will happen to “let’s pretend.” 'The great male will disappear into the jungle like the back of an elusive ape, and Claudine shall see little of his strength again, his intelligence or industry, his heroics on the Bourse like Horatio at the bridge (didn’t Colette see Henri de Jouvenel, editor and diplomat and duelist and hero of the war, away to work each day, and didn’t he often bring his mistress home with him, as Willy had when he was husband number one?); the great affairs of the world will turn into tawdry liaisons, important meetings into assignations, deals into vulgar dealings, and the en famille hero will be weary and whining and weak, reminding her of all those dumb boys she knew as a child, selfish, full of fat and vanity like patrons waiting to be served and humored, admired and not observed. 'Is the occasional orgasm sufficient compensation? Is it the prize of pure surrender, what’s gained from all that giving up? There’ll be silk stockings and velvet sofas maybe, the customary caviar, tasting at first of frog water but later of money and the secretions of sex, then divine champagne, the supreme soda, and rubber-tired rides through the Bois de Boulogne; perhaps there’ll be rich ugly friends, ritzy at homes, a few young men with whom one may flirt, a homosexual confidant with long fingers, soft skin, and a beautiful cravat, perfumes and powders of an unimaginable subtlety with which to dust and wet the body, many deep baths, bonbons filled with sweet liqueurs, a procession of mildly salacious and sentimental books by Paul de Kock and company—good heavens, what’s the problem?—new uses for the limbs, a tantalizing glimpse of the abyss, the latest sins, envy certainly, a little spite, jealousy like a vaginal itch, and perfect boredom. 'And the mirror, like justice, is your aid but never your friend.' -- From "Three Photos of Colette," The World Within the Word, reprinted from NYRB April 1977

So, what are you doing here?” She couldn’t help it if her tone sounded a little tired. This was becoming farcical. “I came to tell you that I--” he rushed to speak, then composed himself, looked around, and stepped closer to her so he did not need to raise his voice to be heard. The brunette leaned forward just a tad. “I apologize for having to tell you here, in this busy, dirty…this is not the scene I would set, but you must know that I…” He took off his cap and rubbed his hair ragged. “I’ve been working at Pembrook Park for nearly four years. All the women I see, week after week, they’re the same. Nearly from the first, that morning when we were alone in the park, I guessed that you might be different. You were sincere.” He reached for her hand. He seemed to gain confidence, his lips started to smile, and he looked at her as though he never wished to look away. Zing, she thought, out of habit mostly, because she wasn’t buying any of it. Martin groaned at the silliness. Nobley immediately stuck his cap back on and stepped back, and he seemed unsure if he’d been too forward, if he should still play by the rules. “I know you have no reason to believe me, but I wish you would. Last night in the library, I wanted to tell you how I felt. I should have. But I wasn’t sure how you…I let myself speak the same tired sort of proposal I used on everyone. You were right to reject me. It was a proper slap in the face. No one had ever said no before. You made me sit up and think. Well, I didn’t want to think much, at first. But after you left this morning, I asked myself, are you going to let her go just because you met her while acting a part?” Nobley paused as if waiting for the answer. “Oh, come on, Jane,” Martin said. “You’re not going to buy this from him.” “Don’t talk to me like we’re friends,” Jane said. “You…you were paid to kiss me! And it was a game, a joke on me, you disgusting lurch. You’ve got no right to call me Jane. I’m Miss Erstwhile to you.” “Don’t give me that,” Martin said. His patience was fraying. “All of Pembrook Park is one big drama, you’d have to be dense not to see that. You were acting too, just like the rest of us, having a fling on holiday, weren’t you? And it’s not as though kissing you was odious.” “Odious?” “I’m saying it wasn’t.” Martin paused and appeared to be putting back on his romancing-the-woman persona. “I enjoyed it, all of it. Well, except for the root beer. And if you’re going to write that article, you should know that I believe what we had was real.” The brunette sighed. Jane just rolled her eyes. “We had something real,” Nobley said, starting to sound a little desperate. “You must have felt it, seeping through the costumes and pretenses.” The brunette nodded. “Seeping through the pretenses? Listen to him, he’s still acting.” Martin turned to the brunette in search of an ally. “Do I detect any jealousy there, my flagpole-like friend?” Nobley said. “Still upset that you weren’t cast as a gentleman? You do make a very good gardener.” Martin took a swing. Nobley ducked and rammed into his body, pushing them both to the ground. The brunette squealed and bounced on the balls of her feet.

GOLF (Men’s Journal, 1992) The smooth, long, liquid sweep of a three wood smacking into the equator of a dimpled Titleist … It makes a potent but slightly foolish noise like the fart of a small, powerful nature god. The ball sails away in a beautiful hip or breast of a curve. And I am filled with joy. At least that’s what I’m filled with when I manage to connect. Most of my strokes whiz by the tee the way a drunk passes a truck on a curve or dig into the turf in a manner that is more gardening than golf. But now and then I nail one, and each time I do it’s an epiphany. This is how the Australopithecus felt, one or two million years ago, when he first hit something with a stick. Puny hominoid muscles were amplified by the principles of mechanics so that a little monkey swat suddenly became a great manly engine of destruction able to bring enormous force to bear upon enemy predators, hunting prey, and the long fairway shots necessary to get on the green over the early Pleistocene’s tar pit hazards. Hitting things with a stick is the cornerstone of civilization. Consider all the things that can be improved by hitting them with a stick: veal, the TV, Woody Allen. Having a dozen good sticks at hand, all of them well balanced and expertly made, is one reason I took up golf. I also wanted to show my support for the vice president. I now know for certain that Quayle is smarter than his critics. He’s smart enough to prefer golf to spelling. How many times has a friend called you on a Sunday morning and said, “It’s a beautiful day. Let’s go spell potato”? I waited until I was almost forty-five to hit my first golf ball. When I was younger I thought golf was a pointless sport. Of course all sports are pointless unless you’re a professional athlete or a professional athlete’s agent, but complex rules and noisy competition mask the essential inanity of most athletics. Golf is so casual. You just go to the course, miss things, tramp around in the briars, use pungent language, and throw two thousand dollars’ worth of equipment in a pond. Unlike skydiving or rugby, golf gives you leisure to realize it’s pointless. There comes a time in life, however, when all the things that do have a point—career, marriage, exercising to stay fit—start turning, frankly, golflike. And that’s when you’re ready for