“
Gee, thanks Dad. I promise to be a good boy and play nice with the other kids.(Kyrian)
Smart ass.(Julian)
Better than a dumb ass.(Kyrian)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Night Pleasures (Dark-Hunter #1))
“
Voicemail #1: “Hi, Isabel Culpeper. I am lying in my bed, looking at the ceiling. I am mostly naked. I am thinking of … your mother. Call me.”
Voicemail #2: The first minute and thirty seconds of “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You” by the Bee Gees.
Voicemail #3: “I’m bored. I need to be entertained. Sam is moping. I may kill him with his own guitar. It would give me something to do and also make him say something. Two birds with one stone! I find all these old expressions unnecessarily violent. Like, ring around the rosy. That’s about the plague, did you know? Of course you did. The plague is, like, your older cousin. Hey, does Sam talk to you? He says jack shit to me. God, I’m bored. Call me.”
Voicemail #4: “Hotel California” by the Eagles, in its entirety, with every instance of the word California replaced with Minnesota.
Voicemail #5: “Hi, this is Cole St. Clair. Want to know two true things? One, you’re never picking up this phone. Two, I’m never going to stop leaving long messages. It’s like therapy. Gotta talk to someone. Hey, you know what I figured out today? Victor’s dead. I figured it out yesterday, too. Every day I figure it out again. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I feel like there’s no one I can —”
Voicemail #6: “So, yeah, I’m sorry. That last message went a little pear-shaped. You like that expression? Sam said it the other day. Hey, try this theory on for size: I think he’s a dead British housewife reincarnated into a Beatle’s body. You know, I used to know this band that put on fake British accents for their shows. Boy, did they suck, aside from being assholes. I can’t remember their name now. I’m either getting senile or I’ve done enough to my brain that stuff’s falling out. Not so fair of me to make this one-sided, is it? I’m always talking about myself in these things. So, how are you, Isabel Rosemary Culpeper? Smile lately? Hot Toddies. That was the name of the band. The Hot Toddies.”
Voicemail #20: “I wish you’d answer.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Forever (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #3))
“
Gee-word?"
"Gods. What were you doin' the day they handed out brains, boy, anyway?"
"Someone was telling a story about stealing a tiger's balls, and I had to stop and find out how it ended.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (American Gods (American Gods, #1))
“
To be honest, I don't know what qualities you ever saw in him. I can tell why he chose you, but-"
"Oh yeah?" Cara's spirits lifted as she sensed a compliment coming on. "Why do you think he chose me?"
"It's obvious." He swept a hand to indicate her loose curls. "Your long, shiny hair, healthy skin, and bright eyes show that you're well-nourished."
"Uh, thank you?"
"I'm not finished."
"Go on then."
"You're clearly intelligent." Then he felt the need to add, "For a human."
"Gee. That's so sweet."
"But Eric was probably most attracted to your wait-to-hip ratio." For a split second, Aelyx resembled a human boy as he leaned back and peered at her caboose. "Hips of that width are likely to pass life offspring without complication."
Cara nearly swallowed her own tongue. She didn't have big hips did she?
”
”
Melissa Landers (Alienated (Alienated, #1))
“
How was I to know your pet was a god-killer? What kind of idiot ties herself down to one of his kind? (Dionysus)
Well, gee, what was I supposed to do? Hook up with Mr. All-powerful God-killer or get myself a Mardi Gras float and hang out with him? (She pointed to Camulus, who looked extremely offended by her comment.) You’re such a moron. No wonder you’re the patron god of drunken frat boys. (Artemis)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Night Embrace (Dark-Hunter, #2))
“
I do not like the killers, and the killing bravely and well crap. I do not like the bully boys, the Teddy Roosevelt’s, the Hemingways, the Ruarks. They are merely slightly more sophisticated versions of the New Jersey file clerks who swarm into the Adirondacks in the fall, in red cap, beard stubble and taut hero’s grin, talking out of the side of their mouths, exuding fumes of bourbon, come to slay the ferocious white-tailed deer. It is the search for balls. A man should have one chance to bring something down. He should have his shot at something, a shining running something, and see it come a-tumbling down, all mucus and steaming blood stench and gouted excrement, the eyes going dull during the final muscle spasms. And if he is, in all parts and purposes, a man, he will file that away as a part of his process of growth and life and eventual death. And if he is perpetually, hopelessly a boy, he will lust to go do it again, with a bigger beast.
”
”
John D. MacDonald (A Deadly Shade of Gold (Travis McGee #5))
“
For crissakes, you're the frickin' poster boy for DarkRiver with your 'Gee, shucks, I'm harmless' act."
Dorian was used to being ribbed about his looks. With his blond hair and blue eyes, he looked more like a surfer hanging out for the right wave than blooded DarkRiver sentinel.
"Look who's talking, Miss Bikini Babe 2067.
”
”
Nalini Singh (Hostage to Pleasure (Psy-Changeling, #5))
“
I love you, Tess McGee. I don’t do big funny or heartfelt speeches in front of people at birthday parties, but I’m excellent in private alcoves in beer gardens.” He paused. “Okay, that sounded really bad, what I mean is …”
I kissed him into silence. I pressed my forehead against his with a sigh. “I love you, too, Toby. In fact, that’s what I was going to tell you before we walked into the beer garden. Right before the really bad singing started.”
Toby chuckled. He let out a sigh of relief. “Ready to reminisce?”
I whispered my final word before he closed the distance.
“Always.
”
”
C.J. Duggan (The Boys of Summer (Summer, #1))
“
I look ridiculous, don't I? You're used to Big Boobs McGee shaking her Double Ds in your face. And here I am...the rack of a twelve year old. I'm practically a husky boy with moobs.
”
”
S.L. Jennings (Taint (Sexual Education, #1))
“
The Friend of Your Youth is the only friend you will ever have, for he does not really see you. He sees in his mind a face that does not exist anymore, speaks a name – Spike, Bud, Snip, Red, Rusty, Jack, Dave – which belongs to that now nonexistent face but which by some inane doddering confusion of the universe is for the moment attached to a not happily met and boring stranger. But he humors the drooling doddering confusion of the universe and continues to address politely that dull stranger by the name which properly belongs to the boy face and to the time when the boy voice called thinly across the late afternoon water or murmured by a campfire at night or in the middle of a crowded street said, “Gee, listen to this–’On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble; His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves–’” The Friend of Your Youth is your friend because he does not see you anymore.
And perhaps he never saw you. What he saw was simply part of the furniture of the wonderful opening world. Friendship was something he suddenly discovered and had to give away as a recognition of and payment for the breathlessly opening world which momently divulged itself like a moonflower. It didn’t matter a damn to whom he gave it, for the fact of giving was what mattered, and if you happened to be handy you were automatically endowed with all the appropriate attributes of a friend and forever after your reality is irrelevant. The Friend of Your Youth is the only friend you will ever have, for he hasn’t the slightest concern with calculating his interest or your virtue. He doesn’t give a damn, for the moment, about Getting Ahead or Needs Must Admiring the Best, the two official criteria in adult friendships, and when the boring stranger appears, he puts out his hand and smiles (not really seeing your face) and speaks your name (which doesn’t really belong to your face), saying, “Well, Jack, damned glad you came, come on in, boy!
”
”
Robert Penn Warren (All the King's Men)
“
Open Letter to Neil Armstrong"
Dear Neil Armstrong,
I write this to you as she sleeps down the hall. I need answers I think only you might have. When you were a boy, and space was simple science fiction, when flying was merely a daydream between periods of History and Physics, when gifts of moon dust to the one you loved could only be wrapped in your imagination.. Before the world knew your name; before it was a destination in the sky.. What was the moon like from your back yard?
Your arm, strong warm and wrapped under her hair both of you gazing up from your back porch summers before your distant journey. But upon landing on the moon, as the earth rose over the sea of tranquility, did you look for her? What was it like to see our planet, and know that everything, all you could be, all you could ever love and long for.. was just floating before you. Did you write her name in the dirt when the cameras weren't looking? Surrounding both your initials with a heart for alien life to study millions of years from now? What was it like to love something so distant? What words did you use to bring the moon back to her? And what did you promise in the moons ear, about that girl back home? Can you, teach me, how to fall from the sky?
I ask you this, not because I doubt your feat, I just want to know what it's like to go somewhere no man had ever been, just to find that she wasn't there. To realize your moon walk could never compare to the steps that led to her. I now know that the flight home means more. Every July I think of you. I imagine the summer of 1969, how lonely she must have felt while you were gone.. You never went back to the moon. And I believe that's because it dosen't take rockets to get you where you belong. I see that in this woman down the hall, sometimes she seems so much further. But I'm ready for whatever steps I must take to get to her.I have seem SO MANY skies.. but the moon, well, it always looks the same. So I gotta say, Neil, that rock you landed on, has got NOTHING on the rock she's landed on. You walked around, took samples and left.. She's built a fire cleaned up the place and I hope she decides to stay.. because on this rock.. we can breath.
Mr. Armstrong, I don't have much, many times have I been upside down with trauma, but with these empty hands, comes a heart that is often more full than the moon. She's becoming my world, pulling me into orbit, and I now know that I may never find life outside of hers. I want to give her EVERYTHING I don't have yet.. So YES, for her, I would go to the moon and back.... But not without her. We'd claim the moon for each other, with flags made from sheets down the hall. And I'd risk it ALL to kiss her under the light of the earth, the brightness of home... but I can do all of that and more right here, where she is..And when we gaze up, her arms around ME, I will NOT promise her gifts of moon dust, or flights of fancy. Instead I will gladly give her all the earth she wants, in return for all the earth she is. The sound of her heart beat and laughter, and all the time it takes to return to fall from the sky,down the hall, and right into love.
God, I'd do it every day, if I could just land next to her.
One small step for man, but she's one giant leap for my kind.
”
”
Mike McGee
“
Billy Bob, as though he were in pain, doubled up on the bed like a jackknife; but his face was suddenly clear, his grubby boy-eyes twitching like candles. She’s so cute, he whispered, she’s the cutest dickens I ever saw, gee, to hell with it, I don’t care, I’d pick all the roses in China.
Preacher would have picked all the roses in China, too. He was as crazy about her as Billy Bob. But Miss Bobbit did not notice them.
”
”
Truman Capote (Children On Their Birthdays)
“
The Friend of Your Youth is the only friend you will ever have, for he does not really see you. He sees in his mind a face which does not exist anymore, speaks a name—Spike, Bud, Snip, Red, Rusty, Jack, Dave—which belongs to that now nonexistent face but which by some inane and doddering confusion of the universe is for the moment attached to a not too happily met and boring stranger. But he humors the drooling doddering confusion of the universe and continues to address politely that dull stranger by the name which properly belongs to the boy face and to the time when the boy voice called thinly across the late afternoon water or murmured by a campfire at night or in the middle of a crowded street said, “Gee, listen to this—‘On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble; His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves—’” The Friend of Your Youth is your friend because he does not
”
”
Robert Penn Warren (All The King's Men)
“
Jacob intended to carry the luggage, and Edom announced that he would carry Barty. The boy, however, insisted on making his own way to the house. “But, Barty,” Edom fretted, “it’s dark.” “It sure is,” Barty said. When only a mortified silence followed his remark, he added: “Gee, I thought that was kinda funny.
”
”
Dean Koontz (From the Corner of His Eye)
“
When did you know you were a girl? When did I know I was a boy?" he said. "I knew my whole life. I can't tell you exactly when, but it wasn't like I was ten and realized, 'Oh gee, I must be a boy!' What people fail to realize is they made that decision way earlier than that. It just happened that their gender identity and their anatomy matched.
”
”
Jaime A. Seba (Feeling Wrong in Your Own Body: Understanding What It Means to Be Transgender (The Gallup's Guide to Modern Gay, Lesbian, & Transgender Lifestyle))
“
One time I sat down in a bath where there was a beautiful girl sitting with a guy who didn’t seem to know her. Right away I began thinking, “Gee! How am I gonna get started talking to this beautiful nude babe?” I’m trying to figure out what to say, when the guy says to her, “I’m, uh, studying massage. Could I practice on you?” “Sure,” she says. They get out of the bath and she lies down on a massage table nearby. I think to myself, “What a nifty line! I can never think of anything like that!” He starts to rub her big toe. “I think I feel it,” he says. “I feel a kind of dent—is that the pituitary?” I blurt out, “You’re a helluva long way from the pituitary, man!” They looked at me, horrified—I had blown my cover—and said, “It’s reflexology!” I quickly closed my eyes and appeared to be meditating. That’s just an example of the kind of things that overwhelm me. I also looked into extrasensory perception and PSI phenomena, and the latest craze there was Uri Geller, a man who is supposed to be able to bend keys by rubbing them with his finger. So I went to his hotel room, on his invitation, to see a demonstration of both mindreading and bending keys. He didn’t do any mindreading that succeeded; nobody can read my mind, I guess. And my boy held a key and Geller rubbed it, and nothing happened. Then he told us it works better under water, and so you can picture all of us standing in the bathroom with the water turned on and the key under it, and him rubbing the key with his finger. Nothing happened. So I was unable to investigate that phenomenon.
”
”
Richard P. Feynman (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Adventures of a Curious Character)
“
You should come.”
I look up at him. “Come where?”
“To pick up the chairs with me.”
“You just complained about how annoying it’s going to be.”
“Yeah, alone. If you go, it might be slightly less annoying.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
I roll my eyes. Peter says “you’re welcome” to everything! It’s like, No, Peter, that was not a genuine thank-you, so you do not need to say you’re welcome.
“So are you coming or what?”
“Or what.
”
”
Jenny Han (To All the Boys I've Loved Before (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #1))
“
There are too many of them in the world lately, the hopeful ladies who married grown-up boy children and soon lost all hope....They are not ardent libbers, yet at the same time they are not looking for some man to "take care." God knows they are experts at taking care of themselves. They just want a grown-up man to share their life with, each of them taking care. But there are one hell of a lot more grown-up ladies than grown-up men.
”
”
John D. MacDonald (The Dreadful Lemon Sky (Travis McGee #16))
“
You? Really now, Mr. McGee. You are spectacularly huge, and a tan that deep is almost vulgar, and you have a kind of leathery fading boyish charm, but this is not and never was a game for dilettantes, for jolly boys, for the favor-for-an-old-buddy routine. No gray-eyed wonder with a big white grin can solve anything or retrieve anything by blundering around in my life. Thanks for the gesture. But this isn’t television. I don’t need a big brother. So why don’t you just go on back to your fun and games?
”
”
John D. MacDonald (The Deep Blue Good-By)
“
While he turned and twisted the strips, the thin outer bark fell off in flakes, leaving the soft, white, inside bark. The whip would have been white, except that Almanzo’s hands left a few smudges. He could not finish it before chore-time, and the next day he had to go to school. But he braided his whip every evening by the heater, till the lash was five feet long. Then Father lent him his jack-knife, and Almanzo whittled a wooden handle, and bound the lash to it with strips of moosewood bark. The whip was done. It would be a perfectly good whip until it dried brittle in the hot summer. Almanzo could crack it almost as loudly as Father cracked a blacksnake whip. And he did not finish it a minute too soon, for already he needed it to give the calves their next lesson. Now he had to teach them to turn to the left when he shouted, “Haw!” and to turn to the right when he shouted “Gee!” As soon as the whip was ready, he began. Every Saturday morning he spent in the barnyard, teaching Star and Bright. He never whipped them; he only cracked the whip.
”
”
Laura Ingalls Wilder (Farmer Boy: Little House on the Prairie #2)
“
Mama, please let me get it bobbed," begged Francie.
"It took you fourteen years to grow that hair," said mama, "and I'll not let you have it cut off."
"Gee, Mama, you're 'way behind the time."
"Why do you want short hair like a boy?"
"It would be easier to care for."
"Taking care of her hair should be a woman's pleasure."
"But Katie," protested Sissy, "all the girls are bobbing their hair nowadays."
"They're fools, then. A woman's hair is her mystery. Daytimes, it's pinned up. But at night, alone with her man, the pins come out and it hangs loose like a shining cape. It makes her a special secret woman for the man.
”
”
Betty Smith (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn)
“
That’s good,” young Tom said. “I told the headmaster neither papa nor Mr. Joyce had dirty minds and now I can tell him about Mr. Davis if he asks me. He was pretty set on it that I had a dirty mind. But I wasn’t worried. There’s a boy at school that really has one and you can tell the difference all right. What was Mr. Pascin’s first name?” “Jules.” “How do you spell it?” David asked. Thomas Hudson told him. “What ever became of Mr. Pascin?” young Tom asked. “He hanged himself,” Thomas Hudson said. “Oh gee,” Andrew said. “Poor Mr. Pascin,” young Tom said in benediction. “I’ll pray for him tonight.” “I’m going to pray for Mr. Davis,” Andrew said. “And do it often,” Roger said.
”
”
Ernest Hemingway (Islands in the Stream)
“
From Nowhere On The Map, Lana's plaything.
Maggie chuckled, it had not occurred to her before now. True, she had drawn an assumption about Lana when the woman initially never called or visited. This impression certainly did not improved when she finally met her. Then there was the girl’s pole dancing moves last night that did nothing to endear her. However, Jon brought the picture into focus for her. She could not believe he had not guessed at the woman’s motives before now.
“Jon, really you have no idea why?” Maggie decided to clue him in; “Jon, she keeps coming back because you're her sure thing.”
She allowed the words to sink in. She heard Jon repeat 'sure thing' as he wrangled with this and it’s association with him. Like a bell, she could almost hear the thought hit his brainpan.
“Oh hell, you really think so?”
Maggie laughed, poor City Cat, he was nothing but a big handsome sex toy to Lana. Maggie wanted to feel empathy for him but really, guys do this to girls all the time. She was impressed with Lana for having turned the tables on the boys.
“Well now that we have this settled, drink plenty of water and again don't toss your cookies on my stuff. I hope you feel better…about everything.”
Maggie had to add the last barb, she could not resist it was in her nature. Jon chuckled she was unsure but she swore he muttered something like ‘gee thanks’ adding he would talk to her later.
”
”
Caroline Walken
“
Despite how progressive America claimed to be, there was still a sexist double standard quietly underpinning everything. She and Jeff were proof of it, like in those scientific studies where they treated twin babies the same except for one key variable, then tracked how it affected them.
The variable here was that Jeff was a boy and Sam was a girl, and even when they did the exact same thing, people reacted to them differently.
If the paparazzi caught Jeff on an expensive shopping spree, he was splurging for a special occasion, while Samantha was spoiled.
If pictures surfaced of Jeff visibly drunk and stumbling out of a bar, he was blowing off some much-needed steam. Samantha was a wild party girl.
If Jeff talked back to the paparazzi, he was simply being firm, protecting his privacy. Samantha was a ruthless bitch.
”
”
Katharine McGee (American Royals (American Royals, #1))
“
I’m going to have to start booking you guys a month in advance.”
“Or you could invite Ms. Rothschild over,” Kitty suggests. “Her weekends are pretty lonely too.”
He gives her a funny look. “I’m sure she has plenty she’d rather do than watch The Sound of Music with her neighbor.”
Brightly I say, “Don’t forget the tacos al pastor! Those are a draw, too. And you, of course. You’re a draw.”
“You’re definitely a draw,” Kitty pipes up.
“Guys,” Daddy begins.
“Wait,” I say. “Let me just say one thing. You should be going on some dates, Daddy.”
“I go on dates!”
“You’ve gone on, like, two dates ever,” I say, and he falls silent. “Why not ask Ms. Rothschild out? She’s cute, she has a good job, Kitty loves her. And she lives really close by.”
“See, that’s exactly why I shouldn’t ask her out,” Daddy says. “You should never date a neighbor or a coworker, because then you’ll have to keep seeing them if things don’t work out.”
Kitty asks, “You mean like that quote ‘Don’t shit where you eat’?” When Daddy frowns, Kitty quickly corrects herself. “I mean ‘Don’t poop where you eat.’ That’s what you mean, right, Daddy?”
“Yes, I suppose that’s what I mean, but Kitty, I don’t like you using cuss words.”
Contritely she says, “I’m sorry. But I still think you should give Ms. Rothschild a chance. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out.”
“Well, I’d hate to see you get your hopes up,” Daddy says.
“That’s life,” Kitty says. “Things don’t always work out. Look at Lara Jean and Peter.”
I give her a dirty look. “Gee, thanks a lot.”
“I’m just trying to make a point,” she says. Kitty goes over to Daddy and puts her arms around his waist. This kid is really pulling out all the stops. “Just think about it, Daddy. Tacos. Nuns. Nazis. And Ms. Rothschild.
”
”
Jenny Han (P.S. I Still Love You (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #2))
“
by 1934, Walter Brennan was in a state of near collapse. “What my grandma said,” Walter’s granddaughter Claudia Gonzales remembered, “[was that] he was eating his dinner, and he put down his fork. He looked at her, and he said, ‘I don’t know what to eat next.’” He had made it through World War I in reasonably good shape. Indeed, he had scoffed at the idea of shell shock. But then, as he told Goldwyn biographer Carol Easton, “Boy, I cracked up.” There were nights when he just wanted to sink into his bed. Then he would wake up at 2 am with a “nameless numbing fear.” As he also told Easton, “If it hadn’t been for my wife, I’d have jumped off the Pasadena Bridge. I fell away to nothin’. I weighed about 140 pounds. Gee, when I got a job in Barbary Coast, I was carryin’ my ground-up vegetables in a mason jar. They had to build muscles into my clothes.” Brennan’s son Walter Jr. (“Andy”) recalled that as a young boy he had not understood what his father was going through, but he knew that his father was in trouble.
”
”
Carl Rollyson (A Real American Character: The Life of Walter Brennan (Hollywood Legends))
“
Pa, you don't have to give up your room," Willow protested.
"I know, I know, but there ain't nuff space in your room for the two of you together. 'Sides, my bed is bigger and . . . Well, you know."
Willow silently nodded her head, and Rider shook his father-in-law's hand. "Thanks, Mr. Vaughn. It won't be for long. We hope to be in our place before winter sets in."
"Gee, Pa, what we gonna do without Willie here to do for us?" Andy asked.
"Don't rightly know, son, but I reckon we'll get along somehow."
A mischievous glow came to Willow's eyes. "One of you could always get married," she suggested innocently. A collective round of groans and protests circled the table.
Rider draped his arm around her shoulders, a prideful, male grin on his face. "Being married isn't so bad, boys," he said. "It's kind of convenient having your woman handy, whenever you get ra--"
Willow slugged his arm.
The brothers broke into wild laughter. Owen guffawed at his son-in-law. "You just might fit into this here family after all, son!
”
”
Charlotte McPherren (Song of the Willow)
“
I touched my hairline. Maybe she was right. Maybe it had receded somewhat. Or was it my imagination? Something new to worry about. “What do you mean?” I asked. “How can I be careful?” “You can’t, I guess. There’s nothing you can do. There’s no way to prevent baldness. Guys who are going to go bald go bald. When their time comes, that’s it: they just go bald. There’s nothing you can do to stop it. They tell you you can keep from going bald with proper hair care, but that’s bullshit. Look at the bums who sleep in Shinjuku Station. They’ve all got great heads of hair. You think they’re washing it every day with Clinique or Vidal Sassoon or rubbing Lotion X into it? That’s what the cosmetics makers will tell you, to get your money.” “I’m sure you’re right,” I said, impressed. “But how do you know so much about baldness?” “I’ve been working part time for a wig company. Quite a while now. You know I don’t go to school, and I’ve got all this time to kill. I’ve been doing surveys and questionnaires, that kind of stuff. So I know all about men losing their hair. I’m just loaded with information.” “Gee,” I said. “But you know,” she said, dropping her cigarette butt on the ground and stepping on it, “in the company I work for, they won’t let you say anybody’s ‘bald.’ You have to say ‘men with a thinning problem.’ ‘Bald’ is discriminatory language. I was joking around once and suggested ‘gentlemen who are follically challenged,’ and boy, did they get mad! ‘This is no laughing matter, young lady,’ they said. They’re so damned seeerious. Did you know that? Everybody in the whole damned world is so damned serious.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle)
“
Would he come pick me up at Barrons for our date? Gee, what if my enigmatic and cold-blooded host chose that night to turn off the outside lights again? Bye-bye cute boy, hello pile of clothes.
”
”
Karen Marie Moning (The Fever Series (Fever #1-7))
“
Songs that felt like Wyatt: “Iris” by Goo Goo Dolls “A Murder of One” by Counting Crows “Take It Easy on Me” by Little River Band “Hold You in My Arms” by Ray LaMontagne “Wild Horses” by The Rolling Stones “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran “Yellow” by Coldplay Songs that took me to the beach: “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles “Sunshine on My Shoulders” by John Denver “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by The Beach Boys Songs to make Sam cry: “Who Knew” by Pink “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back” by Olivia Rodrigo “So Far Away” by Carole King “Romeo and Juliet” by Dire Straits “Stay” by Rihanna “Sam, I Am” by Missy McGee
”
”
Annabel Monaghan (Same Time Next Summer)
“
Gee Whillakers!” whistled Benjamin. “Think of owning a trick pup and never knowing it!” He scratched Whiskers behind his upstanding black ear, and then behind her floppy white ear. He smoothed her whiskery face. “Think of it,” he repeated softly, “Whiskers a trick pup! Me with a trick pup!
”
”
Marguerite Henry (A Boy and a Dog)
“
She’d stayed home instead with Chrissa, and the two of them had eaten frozen lasagna and watched a few episodes of some old holo about a girl in love with a boy, except that their families were enemies. Chrissa had sighed over their relationship, but something about it—maybe the forbidden, impossible love thing—had irritated Rylin.
”
”
Katharine McGee (The Dazzling Heights (The Thousandth Floor #2))
“
You want to know how I’m feeling? Leda thought furiously. For starters, she’d been betrayed by her best friend and the only boy she’d ever really cared about, the boy she’d lost her virginity to. Now the two of them were together even though they were adopted siblings. On top of that, she’d caught her dad cheating on her mom with one of her classmates—Leda couldn’t bring herself to call Eris a friend. Oh, and then Eris had died, because Leda had accidentally pushed her from the roof of the Tower. “I’m fine,” she said briskly.
”
”
Katharine McGee (The Dazzling Heights (The Thousandth Floor #2))
“
What You Pray Toward
“The orgasm has replaced the cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfillment.”
—Malcolm Muggeridge, 1966
I.
Hubbie 1 used to get wholly pissed when I made
myself come. I’m right here!, he’d sputter, blood
popping to the surface of his fuzzed cheeks,
goddamn it, I’m right here! By that time, I was
in no mood to discuss the myriad merits of my
pointer, or to jam the brakes on the express train
slicing through my blood, It was easier to suffer
the practiced professorial huff, the hissed invectives
and the cold old shoulder, liver-dotted, quaking
with rage. Shall we pause to bless professors and
codgers and their bellowed, unquestioned ownership
of things? I was sneaking time with my own body.
I know I signed something over, but it wasn’t that.
II.
No matter how I angle this history, it’s weird,
so let’s just say Bringing Up Baby was on the telly
and suddenly my lips pressing against
the couch cushions felt spectacular and I thought
wow this is strange, what the hell, I’m 30 years old,
am I dying down there is this the feel, does the cunt
go to heaven first, ooh, snapped river, ooh shimmy
I had never had it never knew, oh i clamored and
lurched beneath my little succession of boys I cried
writhed hissed, ooh wee, suffered their flat lapping
and machine-gun diddling their insistent c’mon girl
c’mon until I memorized the blueprint for drawing
blood from their shoulders, until there was nothing
left but the self-satisfied liquidy snore of he who has
rocked she, he who has made she weep with script.
But this, oh Cary, gee Katherine, hallelujah Baby,
the fur do fly, all gush and kaboom on the wind.
III.
Don’t hate me because I am multiple, hurtling.
As long as there is still skin on the pad of my finger,
as long as I’m awake, as long as my (new) husband’s
mouth holds out, I am the spinner, the unbridled,
the bellowing freak. When I have emptied him,
he leans back, coos, edges me along, keeps wondering
count. He falls to his knees in front of it, marvels
at my yelps and carousing spine, stares unflinching
as I bleed spittle unto the pillows.
He has married a witness.
My body bucks, slave to its selfish engine,
and love is the dim miracle of these little deaths,
fracturing, speeding for the surface.
IV.
We know the record. As it taunts us, we have giggled,
considered stopwatches, little laboratories. Somewhere
beneath the suffering clean, swathed in eyes and silver,
she came 134 times in one hour. I imagine wires holding
her tight, her throat a rattling window. Searching scrubbed
places for her name, I find only reams of numbers. I ask
the quietest of them:
V.
Are we God?
”
”
Patricia Smith (Teahouse of the Almighty)
“
Mid June 2012 …Continuing Bernard’s story, the adolescent did not adjust well to his first foster home. I spend time with him whenever I could. The poor boy was bullied relentlessly in school and I feared that the bullies, like KiWi and his gang of 3 would eventually drive the boy to suicidal attempts. One day when we met he was crying uncontrollably. After inviting him to have high tea with me at my hostel, he finally confided his secret. Besides suffering the wrath of his father’s drunken beatings; his older brother Jack was as much a tyrant like the old man. Jack had raped the adolescent when he refused his brother’s advances. Bernard was afraid to tell the Reverend in case the minister confronts the brother and he was petrified that his older sibling would come for revenge. By now Bernard was shaking uncontrollably. I had to embrace the boy to calm his distress. It was my duty to report this violent act to Pastor Rick which I did. The Reverend like me was astonished that there was so much abuse in the dysfunctional McGee household. Besides being afraid of his brother and father, Bernard was also bullied by an older boy in his foster home. Nick was taking advantage of the meek and genteel Bernard, ordering him around when his parents were not in the house. My heart reached out to my friend. I offered to assist him anyway I could. He ended up staying with me at the hostel for two months before I departed for London. By then, the Pastor had found the boy a stable family where he was well taken care of.
”
”
Young (Unbridled (A Harem Boy's Saga, #2))
“
Do you mind if I kiss you?" Morag asks, her Calvinist pallor giving way to high color, getting higher.
"Why?" I ask.
"I thought it might be fun," she says. "There's nobody about; our boys are away."
Has she made a presumption of unbridled sensuality as some do when they contemplate my tropical aspect? One
American boy, holding me too close, his body a monument to sweat, actually said, "Gee, I guess that means you can get into all those neat positions." Spoken with the logic of Cuvier contemplating the Venus Hottentot.
”
”
Michelle Cliff (Into the Interior)
“
Rural Free Delivery (RFD)
Home, upon that word drops the sunshine of beauty and the shadow of tender sorrows, the reflection of ten thousand voices and fond memories.
This is a mighty fine old world after all
if you make yourself think so. Look happy even if things are going against you— that will make others happy. Pretty soon all will be smiling and then there is no telling what can’t be done.
Coca-Cola Girl
Mother baked a fortune cake
pale yellow icing, lemon drops round rim, hidden within treasures,
a ring—you’ll be married,
a button—stay a bachelor,
a thimble—always a spinster,
and a penny—you’re rich.
Gee, but I am hungry. Wait a second, dear, until I pull my belt up another notch. There that’s better.
So, you see, Hon, I am straighter than a string around a bundle.
You ought to see my eye, it’s a peach. I am proud of it, looks like I’ve been kicked by a mule. You know, dear, that they can kick hard enough to knock all the soda out of a biscuit without breaking the crust
Hogging Catfish
This gives you a fighting chance. Noodle your right hand into their gills, hold on tight while you grunt him out of the water. This can be a real dogfight. Old river cat wants to go down deep,
make you bottom feed.
Like I said, boys, when you
tell a whopper, say it like you believe it.
Saturday Ritual
My Granddad was a cobbler.
We each owned two pairs of shoes, Sunday shoes and everyday shoes. When our Sunday shoes got worn they became our everyday shoes.
Main Street Saturday Night
We each were given a dime on Saturday
opening a universe of possibilities.
All the stores stayed open and people
flocked into town. Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds
set up a popcorn stand on Reinheimer’s
corner and soon after lighting a little stove, sounding like small firecrackers, popping began.
Dad, laughing
shooting the breeze with a group of farmers,
drinking Coca Cola, finding out if any sheds
needed to be built or barns repaired, discussing the price of next year’s seed, finding out
who’s really working, who’s just looking busy.
There is no object I wouldn’t give to relive my childhood growing up in Delavan— where everyone knew everyone—
and joy came with but a dime.
Market Day
Jim Pittsford’s grocery
smelled of bananas ripening
and the coffee he ground by hand,
wonderful smoked ham and bacon fresh sliced. He’d reward the child
who came to pick up the purchase,
with a large dill pickle
Biking home, skillfully balancing Jim Pittsford’s bacon, J B’s tomatoes and peaches, while sniffing a tantalizing spice rising from fresh warm rolls,
I nibbled my pickle reward.
”
”
James Lowell Hall
“
- Hi is Mrs Eigen here?
- All out of them.
- Oh, then would, would you like to buy some greeting cards then?
- Tom got a boy here selling greeting cards, what grade are you in.
- Six M, Mrs Manzinel ...
- Tom boy out here working his way through six N selling greeting cards. What's the greetings.
- Well see these are all occasion cards, like for all different occasions they're all ...
- All occasion cards Tom, got them for all different occasions.
- Like birthdays, anniversary, you know all these different occasions like ..
- Got a friend jumped out a window, got a card for that?
- Well gee I, maybe get well...
- Can't get well, went home and hung himself got a card for that?
- Well gee I, I don't think so but maybe you could ...
- Got a woman on alimony sleeping with a book salesman hell of an occasion, got a card for that?
- Well gee I, like here's sympathy maybe you could ..
- Jack God damn it what are you, hello Chris what is it.
- Oh hi Mister Eigen I, I was just selling these greeting cards ...
- Says they're for all occasions Tom but every God damned occasion I can think of is ...
- Jack shut up will you?
”
”
William Gaddis (J R)
“
And after they’ve been talking for a while and John shares all this information, Greg comes back with “Well, gee, John. It seems to me that if you kill yourself today, your boys are going to lose their best friend.
”
”
Jonah Berger (The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone's Mind)
“
Many females have a problem not only with stereotypes, but with other people’s opinions of them in general. They trust them too much... This vulnerability afflicts many of the most able, high-achieving females. Why should this be? When they’re little, these girls are often so perfect, and they delight in everyone’s telling them so. They’re so well behaved, they’re so cute, they’re so helpful, and they’re so precocious. Girls learn to trust people’s estimates of them. “Gee, everyone’s so nice to me; if they criticize me, it must be true.” Even females at the top universities in the country say that other people’s opinions are a good way to know their abilities.
Boys are constantly being scolded and punished. When we observed in grade school classrooms, we saw that boys got eight times more criticism than girls for their conduct. Boys are also constantly calling each other slobs and morons. The evaluations lose a lot of their power.
Even when women reach the pinnacle of success, other people’s attitudes can get them... The fixed mindset, plus stereotyping, plus women’s trust in people’s assessments: I think we can begin to understand why there’s a gender gap in math and science.
That gap is painfully evident in the world of high tech. Julie Lynch, a budding techie, was already writing computer code when she was in junior high school. Her father and two brothers worked in technology, and she loved it, too. Then her computer programming teacher criticized her. She had written a computer program and the program ran just fine, but he didn’t like a shortcut she had taken. Her interest evaporated. Instead, she went on to study recreation and public relations.
Math and science need to be made more hospitable places for women. And women need all the growth mindset they can get to take their rightful places in these fields.
”
”
Carol S. Dweck (Mindset: The New Psychology of Success)
“
RELFECTIONS (Time Machine III)
A young man stares at his reflection,
And sees an old man looking back.
“Where did the time go?” he wonders.
And, “How did we ever lose track?”
“Is this the same person,
that amounts to wondrous things?
How long did we spend dreaming?
Is this reflection really as it seems?
Who are you old man?
I’ve seen you in times before.
Is this, the face that greets me,
the mask I always wore?”
The young man drops his stare,
And moves towards the door.
The boy he thought he was,
He can recognize no more.
”
”
C. Sean McGee ({self-titled})
“
At Seabury House, headquarters of the Episcopal church, David was asked the touchiest question of all--the one that in the past had led to more ill-will toward the Pentecostals than any other. He'd been talking to a group of clergymen for thirty minutes or so about the Pentecostal experience when one of the priests stood up suddenly and said with some asperity, "Mr. du Plessis, are you telling us that you Pentecostals have the truth, and we other churches do not?"
David admits he prayed fast. "No," he said. "That is not what I mean." He cast about for a way to express the difference Pentecostals feel exists between their church and others--a feeling so often misunderstood--and suddenly he found himself thinking about an appliance he and his wife had bought when they moved to their Dallas home.
"We both have the truth," he said. "You know, when my wife and I moved to America, we bought a marvelous device called a Deepfreeze, and there we keep some rather fine Texas beef.
"Now, my wife can take one of those steaks out and lay it, frozen solid, on the table. It's steak all right, no question of that. You and I can sit around and analyze it: we can discuss its lineage, its age, what part of the steer it comes from. We can weigh it and list its nutritive values.
"But if my wife puts that steak on the fire, something different begins to happen. My little boy smells it from way out in the yard and comes shouting: 'Gee, Mom, that smells good! I want some!'
"Gentlemen," said David, "that is the difference between our ways of handling the same truth. You have yours on ice; we have ours on fire.
”
”
John Sherrill (They Speak with Other Tongues: A Skeptic Investigates This Life-Changing Gift)
“
That's the way They do you. That's the way They set you up for it. There ought to be a warning bell on the happy-meter, so that every time it creeps high enough, you get that dang-dang alert. Duck, boy. That glow makes you too visible. One of Them is out there in the boonies, adjusting the windage, getting you lined up in the cross hairs of the scope.
”
”
John D. MacDonald (Pale Gray for Guilt (Travis McGee #9))
“
The writers occasionally give Gamble words of wisdom befitting a man of his education and experience so there is reason to listen to his wish that “every boy when he reaches the age of 18 could see his own obituary and then either correct it or live up to it.
”
”
Clair Schulz (FIBBER McGEE & MOLLY ON THE AIR, 1935-1959 (REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION))
“
Quinn occasionally spoofed the titles of juvenile books and the one Fibber returns to the library in this episode is the raciest of the lot: The Rover Boys at Earl Carroll’s. In the tag Jim strikes a serious note as he observes what is taking place overseas: “We’re lucky to be living to a country where they have guards around the camp to keep people out.
”
”
Clair Schulz (FIBBER McGEE & MOLLY ON THE AIR, 1935-1959 (REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION))
“
Jack had other friends, men with whom he played golf, went sailing, or had long business lunches. Some were farmers he had known since he was a boy, others were friends from boarding school or work connections. They were friends who required something of him, a level of either intellectual or professional engagement. With Cliff he could relax. It wasn't so much that he could be more himself. Rather, with Cliff, he could be nothing.
”
”
Poppy Gee (Vanishing Falls)
“
The variable here was that Jeff was a boy and Sam was a girl, and even when they did the exact same thing, people reacted to them differently. If the paparazzi caught Jeff on an expensive shopping spree, he was splurging for a special occasion, while Samantha was spoiled. If pictures surfaced of Jeff visibly drunk and stumbling out of a bar, he was blowing off some much-needed steam. Samantha was a wild party girl. If Jeff talked back to the paparazzi, he was simply being firm, protecting his privacy. Samantha was a ruthless bitch.
”
”
Katharine McGee (American Royals (American Royals, #1))
“
But I still think you should give Ms. Rothschild a chance. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out.”
“Well, I’d hate to see you get your hopes up,” Daddy says.
“That’s life,” Kitty says. “Things don’t always work out. Look at Lara Jean and Peter.”
I give her a dirty look. “Gee, thanks a lot.”
“I’m just trying to make a point,” she says. Kitty goes over to Daddy and puts her arms around his waist. This kid is really pulling out all the stops. “Just think about it, Daddy. Tacos. Nuns. Nazis. And Ms. Rothschild.
”
”
Jenny Han (P.S. I Still Love You (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #2))
“
Time to get ’em on the road,” said Gene. “Say ‘haw’ to make them go left, and say ‘gee’ for right.”
At first, when the boys “geed” and “hawed,” the oxen stayed right where they were.
“Come on, boys,” said Gene. “Say ‘haw’ in the same way your dad might send you to your room. They respond to a firm tone of voice.”
Finally, the oxen started plodding their way to the woodpile.
“Are they friendly?” asked Alex when it was his turn to drive.
“Sort of,” answered Gene, “but I wouldn’t want a twenty-three-hundred-pound beast to show me too much affection.
”
”
Susan E. Goodman (A Week in the 1800s)
“
She wanted Gee to know this music was for him, that irreverence and rage weren’t just for white boys. He could get a little drunk if he wanted to; he could play in a band; he could say shocking things, wear a dress, pierce his ears, any part of his body that he wanted; he could scream and break things, as long as they belonged to him and it wasn’t in her house. She didn’t want him to act out, but she didn’t want him to worry too much about how the world would see him either.
”
”
Naima Coster (What's Mine and Yours)
“
unoriginal nickname for my last name Barnard. “Ek gaan vir jou n poesklap gee.” I threaten to slap the shit out of him. “Thula man.” “At least you didn’t hit the tree with your pretty face. Think of all the money you’d lose.” I have a pretty face. Sue me. Or better yet, complain to my parents. It’s their genetics to blame. Somehow over the years of playing rugby, I’ve never had my nose broken or earned a scar. I wouldn’t mind a scar for character. Tell people I got it in a knife fight or a shark encounter. Something to toughen up my pretty boy image. “Lee, you okay? You’re looking
”
”
Daisy Prescott (Next to You (Love with Altitude, #1))
“
CONTENTS CHAPTERS I. Excitement on the West Fork
”
”
Frank Gee Patchin (The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers Or, On the Trail of the Border Bandits)