“
You have the opposite of poker face. You have like.. miniature golf face.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)
“
First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.
May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.
When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.
Guide her, protect her
When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.
Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels.
What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.
May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.
Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.
O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.
And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.
And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.
“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.
”
”
Tina Fey (Bossypants)
“
The waitress scuttles away, and I make a shooing motion at the old couple who’re still glaring.
“Don’t you have something to better to work on?” I hiss. “Like golfing or eating prunes or dying?”
The old lady looks shocked.
“Okay, sorry, not dying. But seriously, prunes are good for you.
”
”
Sara Wolf (Lovely Vicious (Lovely Vicious, #1))
“
But I have to say this in defense of humankind: In no matter what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got here. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these games going on that could make you act crazy, even if you weren't crazy to begin with. Some of the crazymaking games going on today are love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf, and girls' basketball.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (A Man Without a Country)
“
He didn’t understand religion. It was like heroin or golf: He knew a lot of people did it, but he didn’t understand why.
”
”
Christopher Moore (Island of the Sequined Love Nun)
“
i love music more than food!!!!!!!!!!
”
”
August Wilson (Radio Golf (The August Wilson Century Cycle))
“
I love how golf courses have water hazards. But the ponds feel empty without ducks. I'd like to start a business renting my ducks out to country clubs.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (To be good at golf you must go full koala bear)
“
Before we can successfully undertake a personal search for Jesus, we must first prepare time for him in our lives and room for him in our hearts. In these buys days there are many who have time for golf, time for shopping, time for work, time for play--but no time for Christ. Lovely homes dot the land and provide rooms for eating, rooms for sleeping, playrooms, sewing rooms, television rooms--but no room for Christ.
”
”
Thomas S. Monson (The Search For Jesus: A Christmas Message)
“
Consider the value of doing what you love and being paid for it!
This is truly a golfer’s dream.
”
”
Lorii Myers (Targeting Success, Develop the Right Business Attitude to be Successful in the Workplace (3 Off the Tee, #1))
“
I matched my grey eyes against his brown ones for guile, my young golf-and-tennis heart-beats against his, which must be slowing a little after years of over-work. And I planned and I contrived and I plotted - any woman can tell you - but it never came to anything, as you will see. I still like to think that if he'd been a poor boy and nearer my age I could manage it, but of course the real truth was that I had nothing to offer that he didn't have.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Love of the Last Tycoon)
“
I love cola-flavored soda—especially if it's authentically brown colored and manufactured by the government. It reminds me that Soviet Russia never produced any great golfers, and that is the only mistake made by the game over the centuries.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (To be good at golf you must go full koala bear)
“
I have never learned how to arrange
my face into that blank expression of competent invisibility that is so useful when traveling in dangerous, foreign places. You know—that super-relaxed, totally-in-charge expression
which makes you look like you belong there, anywhere, everywhere, even in the middle of a riot in Jakarta. Oh, no. When I don’t know what I’m doing, I look like I don’t know what I’m doing.
When I’m excited or nervous, I look excited or nervous. And when I am lost, which is frequently,I look lost. My face is a transparent transmitter of my every thought. As David once put it, “You have the opposite of poker face. You have, like . . . miniature golf face.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)
“
Dear reader, if you have ever had to tromp around on a hot golf course for hours, lugging someone else's ungainly golf bag filled with long metal objects, then you too would most likely prefer lying in the shade, half-listening to rich boys complain, instead.
”
”
Kelley Skovron (Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories)
“
Only one man I love enough to do something like golfing for, and it’s not Dad.
”
”
Kaje Harper (And to All a Good Night (Life Lessons, #1.5))
“
Tiger is born into the home of an expert golfer and confessed “golf addict” who loves to teach and is eager to begin teaching his new son as soon as possible.
”
”
Geoff Colvin (Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else)
“
It’s like we have moral muscles that are trained in the same way our biological muscles are trained when we practice a golf swing or piano scales. Now
”
”
James K.A. Smith (You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit)
“
peculiarity of golf, as of love, that it temporarily changes the natures of its victims;
”
”
P.G. Wodehouse (A Damsel in Distress)
“
Felicia was a dutiful child, and she loved her parents. It took a bit of doing, but she did it.
”
”
P.G. Wodehouse (Fore!: The Best of Wodehouse on Golf (P.G. Wodehouse Collection))
“
Tucker Case did not play golf. He’d tried it once, and although he’d enjoyed the drinking and driving the little electric car into the lake, he just didn’t get the appeal. It seemed—and he’d examined the game closely because his father had loved it—an awful lot like a bunch of rich white guys in goofy clothing walking around on an absurdly large lawn hitting absurdly small white balls with crooked sticks.
”
”
Christopher Moore (Island of the Sequined Love Nun)
“
One day in the future, I will show my child her great-grandmother’s jade, the little gold rabbit with the ruby eyes. I will tell her that this will be hers. I will tell her all the stories about how our family survived, about the wars, and the gambling dens, and, yes, eventually even the golf club. I will tell her that when the sky falls, she should use it as a blanket. And then I will give her the shining thing, the thing that none of us got, the thing that only I, in all of my resilient power, can give. The thing that all this pain has given me. I will hold her tight and tell her that I love her more than anything in the world. That she can always come to me for anything at all, and I will fix it if it needs fixing or just listen if she needs to be listened to. And as long as I live, I will never leave.
”
”
Stephanie Foo (What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma)
“
Unrequited love is no more or less than a kidney stone. The size of a grain of sand, a pea, a marble or a golf ball -- a crystallized chemical substance likely to cause a sharp, indeed unbearable, pain. But which always goes in the end.
”
”
Daphne de Vigan
“
Guys playing music. I loved music. I wanted to push up close to whatever it was men felt when they were together onstage—to try to ink in that invisible thing. It wasn't sexual, but it wasn't unsexual either. Distance mattered in male friendships. One on one, men often had little to say to one another. They found some closeness by focusing on a third thing that wasn't them: music, video games, golf, women. Male friendships were triangular in shape, and that allowed two men some version of intimacy. In retrospect, that's why I joined a band, so I could be inside that male dynamic, not staring in through a closed window but looking out.
”
”
Kim Gordon (Girl in a Band)
“
Since the lunchroom does no significant harm to the caverns' ecology, I'd like to believe that this is one of those lucky places where we don't have to choose between doing the right thing and enjoying a goof. I look up at the ceiling of the lunchroom, which is, of course, the ceiling of the cave. It looks so lunar I can't help but think of a certain astronaut. In 1971, Apollo 14's Alan Shepard hit golf balls on the moon. Gearing up to face the profundity of the universe, this man brought sporting goods with him into space. Who can blame him? That's what we Americans do when we find a place that's really special. We go there and act exactly like ourselves. And we are a bunch of fun-loving dopes.
”
”
Sarah Vowell (The Partly Cloudy Patriot)
“
It’s that time of the month again…
As we head into those dog days of July, Mike would like to thank those who helped him get the toys he needs to enjoy his summer.
Thanks to you, he bought a new bass boat, which we don’t need; a condo in Florida, where we don’t spend any time; and a $2,000 set of golf clubs…which he had been using as an alibi to cover the fact that he has been remorselessly banging his secretary, Beebee, for the last six months.
Tragically, I didn’t suspect a thing. Right up until the moment Cherry Glick inadvertently delivered a lovely floral arrangement to our house, apparently intended to celebrate the anniversary of the first time Beebee provided Mike with her special brand of administrative support. Sadly, even after this damning evidence-and seeing Mike ram his tongue down Beebee’s throat-I didn’t quite grasp the depth of his deception. It took reading the contents of his secret e-mail account before I was convinced. I learned that cheap motel rooms have been christened. Office equipment has been sullied. And you should think twice before calling Mike’s work number during his lunch hour, because there’s a good chance that Beebee will be under his desk “assisting” him.
I must confess that I was disappointed by Mike’s over-wrought prose, but I now understand why he insisted that I write this newsletter every month. I would say this is a case of those who can write, do; and those who can’t do Taxes.
And since seeing is believing, I could have included a Hustler-ready pictorial layout of the photos of Mike’s work wife. However, I believe distributing these photos would be a felony. The camera work isn’t half-bad, though. It’s good to see that Mike has some skill in the bedroom, even if it’s just photography.
And what does Beebee have to say for herself? Not Much. In fact, attempts to interview her for this issue were met with spaced-out indifference. I’ve had a hard time not blaming the conniving, store-bought-cleavage-baring Oompa Loompa-skinned adulteress for her part in the destruction of my marriage. But considering what she’s getting, Beebee has my sympathies.
I blame Mike. I blame Mike for not honoring the vows he made to me. I blame Mike for not being strong enough to pass up the temptation of readily available extramarital sex. And I blame Mike for not being enough of a man to tell me he was having an affair, instead letting me find out via a misdirected floral delivery.
I hope you have enjoyed this new digital version of the Terwilliger and Associates Newsletter. Next month’s newsletter will not be written by me as I will be divorcing Mike’s cheating ass. As soon as I press send on this e-mail, I’m hiring Sammy “the Shark” Shackleton. I don’t know why they call him “the Shark” but I did hear about a case where Sammy got a woman her soon-to-be ex-husband’s house, his car, his boat and his manhood in a mayonnaise jar.
And one last thing, believe me when I say I will not be letting Mike off with “irreconcilable differences” in divorce court. Mike Terwilliger will own up to being the faithless, loveless, spineless, useless, dickless wonder he is.
”
”
Molly Harper (And One Last Thing ...)
“
His weekly golf game no longer keeps his love handles in check, he's recently resorted to a slight comb-over to cover that growing bald spot, he squints to avoid wearing the bifocals he hides in his desk drawer, and he spends his days in an office filled with decades-old sports trophies.
”
”
Kelley Armstrong (Dime Store Magic (Women of the Otherworld, #3))
“
The Irish essayist has us close our eyes and listen to the words she says without trying to control our thoughts. I keep mine open a crack, to scan the packed room. He’s not here. ‘A rainy day,’ she says. My mother and me running from the Mustang to the house. ‘The sound of a musical instrument.’ Caleb playing the guitar. ‘An act of love.’ My father cleaning my golf clubs in the kitchen sink. She has us write about one of these moments that come up unbidden, unforced.
”
”
Lily King (Writers & Lovers)
“
Women like men who play hockey, football, basketball and golf (okay, scratch golf). Women love men who know how to fight.
”
”
L.J. Shen (Tyed)
“
Of all the sports, golf is certainly one of them. Well, almost certainly, and I think that’s what I love most about it.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (The Lewis and Clark of The Ozarks)
“
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her, If you can bounce high, bounce for her too, Till she cry 'Lover, golf-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you!' --
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
“
He had the idea to start his goatscaping business after hearing a piece on NPR about using goats to clear brush on golf courses.
”
”
T. Elizabeth Bell (Goats in the Time of Love, a Martha's Vineyard love story with goats, a dog and some recipes)
“
It was better to die, like Eugénie and Digby, in the prime of life with all one's faculties about one. But he wasn't like that, she thought, glancing at the press cuttings. 'A man of singularly handsome presence... shot, fished, and played golf.' No, not like that in the least. He had been a curious man; weak; sensitive; liking titles; liking pictures; and often depressed, she guessed , by his wife's exuberance. She pushed the cuttings away and took up her book. It was odd how different the same person seemed to two different people, she thought. There was Martin, liking Eugénie; and she, liking Digby. She began to read.
She had always wanted to know about Christianity - how it began; what it meant, originally. God is love, The kingdom of Heaven is within us, sayings like that she thought, turning over the pages, what did they mean? The actual words were very beautiful. But who said them - when? Then the spout of the tea-kettle puffed steam at her and she moved it away. The wind was rattling the windows in the back room; it was bending the little bushes; they still had no leaves on them. It was what a man said under a fig tree, on a hill, she thought. And then another man wrote it down. But suppose that what that man says is just as false as what this man - she touched the press cuttings with her spoon - says about Digby? And here I am, she thought, looking at the china in the Dutch cabinet, in this drawing-room, getting a little spark from what someone said all those years ago - here it comes (the china was changing from blue to livid) skipping over all those mountains, all those seas. She found her place and began to read.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (The Years)
“
They don’t even visit the dying
anymore. Their argument being that if someone is dying, there’s no
point interrupting a good game of golf, and they’d best just get on with
dying. However, they do give you a helpline number for an
organisation called ‘Dying To Help You Out.’ A volunteer talks you
through the process of dying alone without medical attention: “feeling
a bit chilled are you, love, don’t fret, it’s just your lifeblood
congealing in your veins, you’ll be gone any second now, hang on pet,
I’ve got a corpse on line nine, if I don’t get back before you peg it,
have a nice afterlife,” and then they bugger of leaving you with
Robbie Williams singing Angels.
”
”
Gillibran Brown (Fun With Dick and Shane (Memoirs of a Houseboy, #1))
“
No matter what we’re doing, he won’t miss a phone call. He’ll never let the answering machine take a call. Even if we’re making love! He’ll conduct conversations with, say, his mother or his golf buddies, right in the middle.”
—Kerrie, New Orleans, LA
”
”
Merry Bloch Jones (I Love Him, But . . .)
“
It goes like this: go to school, get brainwashed, go to college, get more brainwashed, drink beer, get a degree, get a job, get married, have kids, get promoted, get a mortgage, take a yearly vacation, buy stuff on the holidays, retire, take up golf, be a grandparent, get cancer and die. The matrix exists to make sure you follow this formula, so that you can do your part to support the very system that’s enslaving you. Except you think you’re free because you went to Maui for a week last June. That’s not freedom, my love. That’s a bone.
”
”
Shaman Durek (Spirit Hacking: Shamanic Keys to Reclaim Your Personal Power, Transform Yourself, and Light Up the World)
“
That was the old Ellen Gulden, the girl who would walk over her mother in golf shoes, who scared students away from writing seminars, who started work on Monday after graduating from Harvard with honors on a Thursday, who loved the moments in the office when she would look out at the impenetrable black of the East River, starred with the reflected lights of Queens, with only the cleaning crew for company, and think of her various superiors out at dinner parties and restaurants and her various similars out at downtown clubs or cheap but authentic places in Chinatown and say to herself, 'I'm getting ahead.' That Ellen Gulden, the one her boss suspected of using the dying-mother ploy to get more money or a better job title, would have covered every inch of [this datebook] with the frantic scribble of unexamined ambition.
”
”
Anna Quindlen (One True Thing)
“
I carried with me into the West End Bar, the White Horse Tavern, a long list of things I would never do: I would never have my hair set in a beauty parlor. I would never move to a suburb and bake cakes or make casseroles. I would never go to a country club dance, although I did like the paper lanterns casting rainbow colors on the terrace. I would never invest in the stock market. I would never play canasta. I would never wear pearls. I would love like a nursling but I would never go near a man who had a portfolio or a set of golf clubs or a business or even a business suit. I would only love a wild thing. I didn't care if wild things tended to break hearts. I didn't care if they substituted scotch for breakfast cereal. I understood that wild things wrote suicide notes to the gods and were apt to show up three hours later than promised. I understood that art was long and life was short.
”
”
Anne Roiphe (Art and Madness: A Memoir of Lust Without Reason)
“
There is only one reason to do a charity golf tournament. To make money! But while golf tournaments can be exhausting, time-consuming and fraught with risk, they can be downright satisfying and profitable if done right. Ultimately a golf tournament may be the hardest work you'll ever love. - Tom King
”
”
Tom King (Going for the Green!: An Insider's Guide to Raising Money With Charity Golf)
“
I love Fourth of July. It's my favorite, isn't it, Mim? This was going to be the year I won the golf cart parade and the pie-eating contest up at the lake. William Faulkner, too"
"William Faulkner was going to win a pie-eating contest?" I asked.
Still channeling Lillian, John David gave me a look. "Don't be ridiculous, Sawyer. There is no canine pie-eating contest. William Faulkner is going to win the costume contest, which is part of the parade."
"I mean, sure," I said, nodding. "Who doesn't celebrate American independence with some kind of dog costume contest?"
"And parade." John David could not have emphasized those words more.
”
”
Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Deadly Little Scandals (Debutantes, #2))
“
For about five minutes, as I tried to get the Vespa to start, I fell in love with her. The oversized raincoat made her look about eight, as though she should have had matching Wellies with ladybugs on them, and inside the red hood were huge brown eyes and rain-spiked lashes and a face like a kitten’s. I wanted to dry her gently with a big fluffy towel, in front of a roaring fire. But then she said, “Here, let me—you have to know how to twist the thingy,” and I raised an eyebrow and said, “The thingy? Honestly, girls.” I immediately regretted it—I have never been talented at banter, and you never know, she could have been some earnest droning feminist extremist who would lecture me in the rain about Amelia Earhart. But Cassie gave me a deliberate, sideways look, and then clasped her hands with a wet spat and said in a breathy Marilyn voice, “Ohhh, I’ve always dreamed of a knight in shining armor coming along and rescuing little me! Only in my dreams he was good-looking.” What I saw transformed with a click like a shaken kaleidoscope. I stopped falling in love with her and started to like her immensely. I looked at her hoodie jacket and said, “Oh my God, they’re about to kill Kenny.” Then I loaded the Golf Cart into the back of my Land Rover and drove her home.
”
”
Tana French (In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, #1))
“
In South Texas I saw three interesting things. The first was a tiny girl, maybe ten years old, driving in a 1965 Cadillac. She wasn't going very fast, because I passed her, but still she was cruising right along, with her head tilted back and her mouth open and her little hands gripping the wheel.
Then I saw an old man walking up the median strip pulling a wooden cross behind him. It was mounted on something like a golf cart with two spoked wheels. I slowed down to read the hand-lettered sign on his chest.
JACKSONVILLE
FLA OR BUST
I had never been to Jacksonville but I knew it was the home of the Gator Bowl and I had heard it was a boom town, taking in an entire county or some such thing. It seemed an odd destination for a religious pilgrim. Penance maybe for some terrible sin, or some bargain he had worked out with God, or maybe just a crazed hiker. I waved and called out to him, wishing him luck, but he was intent on his marching and had no time for idle greetings. His step was brisk and I was convinced he wouldn't bust.
The third interesting thing was a convoy of stake-bed trucks all piled high with loose watermelons and cantaloupes. I was amazed. I couldn't believe that the bottom ones weren't crushed under all that weight, exploding and spraying hazardous melon juice onto the highway. One of nature's tricks with curved surfaces. Topology! I had never made it that far in mathematics and engineering studies, and I knew now that I never would, just as I knew that I would never be a navy pilot or a Treasury agent. I made a B in Statics but I was failing in Dynamics when I withdrew from the field. The course I liked best was one called Strength of Materials. Everybody else hated it because of all the tables we had to memorize but I loved it, the sheared beam. I had once tried to explain to Dupree how things fell apart from being pulled and compressed and twisted and bent and sheared but he wouldn't listen. Whenever that kind of thing came up, he would always say - boast, the way those people do - that he had no head for figures and couldn't do things with his hands, slyly suggesting the presence of finer qualities.
”
”
Charles Portis (The Dog of the South)
“
A sailor was stranded on a desert island and managed to survive by making friends with the local natives—such good friends, in fact, that one day the chief offered him his daughter for an evening’s entertainment. Late that night, while they made love, the chief’s daughter kept shouting, “Oga, boga! Oga, boga!” The arrogant sailor assumed this must be how the natives express their appreciation when something is fantastic. A few days later the chief invites the sailor for a game of golf. On his first stroke, the chief hit a hole in one. Eager to try out his new vocabulary, the sailor enthusiastically shouted “Oga boga! Oga boga!” The chief turned around with a puzzled look on his face and asked, “What you mean, ‘wrong hole’?
”
”
Osho (Emotional Wellness: Transforming Fear, Anger, and Jealousy into Creative Energy)
“
There was still a line, but a bit of waiting was a good thing; you need time to choose between pink grapefruit and raspberry sorbet or cinnamon and honey nougat ice cream. They serve golf ball-sized scoops, so you have to be a real purist to walk away with just one boule. Courtney and I both got doubles- pear and cacao amer (bitter chocolate) for her, peach and rhubarb for me.
”
”
Elizabeth Bard (Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes)
“
And yet that performance has a method. Trump's artlessness, like Mark Antony's, is only apparent. Listen, for example, as he performs one of his favorite riffs. He begins by saying something critical of Mexicans and Chinese. Then he turns around and says, 'I love the Mexican and Chinese people, especially the rich ones who buy my apartments or stay at my hotels or play on my golf courses.' It's their leaders I criticize, he explains, but then in a millisecond he pulls the sting from the criticism: 'they are smarter and stronger than our leaders; they're beating us.' And then the payoff all this has been leading up to, the making explicit of what has been implied all along. 'If I can sell them condominiums, rent space to them in my building at my price, and outfox them in deals, I could certainly outmaneuver them when it came to trade negotiations and immigration.' (And besides, they love me.)
Here is the real message, the message that makes sense of the disparate pieces of what looks like mere disjointed fumbling: I am Donald Trump; nobody owns me. I don't pander to you. I don't pretend to be nice and polite; I am rich and that's what you would like to be; I'm a winner; I beat people at their own game, and if you vote for me I will beat our adversaries; if you want wonky policy details, go with those losers who offer you ten-point plans; if you want to feel good about yourselves and your country, stick with me.
So despite the lack of a formal center or an orderly presentation, Trump was always on point because the point was always the same. He couldn't get off message because the one message was all he had.
”
”
Stanley Fish
“
The truth was that lately, she had not had quite enough happening in her life. She and her husband had moved this past fall to a golfing community outside of Tucson. (Peter was passionate about golf. Willa didn’t even know how to play.) She had had to leave behind an ESL teaching job that she loved, and she was hoping to find another one, but she hadn’t exactly looked into that yet. She seemed to be sort of paralyzed,
”
”
Anne Tyler (Clock Dance)
“
Between Roseville and Sacramento the land flattens and is crowded and we have reached, or returned to, cluttered America living close enough to each other to hear and recite the neighbors’ quarrels and exclamations of joy and grief, the only spaces those cleared of trees and reserved for sport: softball diamonds and golf courses. I am saddened by what we make: the buildings where they might as well hang a sign: THIS UGLY PLACE IS WHERE YOU WORK, the playing fields and parks, and the house to contain you. While somehow there is a trick at work and you have been removed not only from the land itself, but from its spirit; or, as Sharon says, the heart. After the open country and mountains, the earth looks punished, and it is hard to believe that its people have not been punished as well, for nothing more than the desire to love and to prove oneself worthy of that by going to work. West
”
”
Andre Dubus (Broken Vessels: Essays)
“
I also need to prepare myself for the inevitability of utter boredom: Very often, single people don't do shit. They do nothing, all night long. They sit in a recliner and watch TV. I've probably watched more television than anyone you've ever met, and I don't even own one. Terrible shows, good shows, Golf tournaments in Cancun. C-SPAN. Hours of Oprah. Law and Order. Lonely people love Law and Order, for whatever reason. They prefer the straight narratives. p60
”
”
Chuck Klosterman (The Visible Man)
“
Nature has decreed that there are certain things in life which shall act as hoops of steel, grappling the souls of the elect together. Golf is one of these; a mutual love of horseflesh another; but the greatest of all is bees. Between two beekeepers there can be no strife. Not even a tepid hostility can mar their perfect communion. The petty enmities which life raises to be barriers between man and man and between man and woman vanish once it is revealed to them that they are linked by this great bond. Envy, malice, hatred and all uncharitableness disappear, and they look into each other's eyes and say "My brother!
”
”
P.G. Wodehouse (Uneasy Money)
“
Subject: Some boat
Alex,
I know Fox Mulder. My mom watched The X-Files. She says it was because she liked the creepy store lines. I think she liked David Duchovny. She tried Californication, but I don't think her heart was in it. I think she was just sticking it to my grandmother, who has decided it's the work of the devil. She says that about most current music,too, but God help anyone who gets between her and American Idol.
The fuzzy whale was very nice, it a little hard to identify. The profile of the guy between you and the whale in the third pic was very familiar, if a little fuzzy. I won't ask. No,no. I have to ask.
I won't ask.
My mother loves his wife's suits.
I Googled. There are sharks off the coast of the Vineyard. Great big white ones. I believe you about the turtle. Did I mention that there are sharks there? I go to Surf City for a week every summer with my cousins. I eat too much ice cream. I play miniature golf-badly. I don't complain about sand in my hot dog buns or sheets. I even spend enough time on the beach to get sand in more uncomfortable places. I do not swim. I mean, I could if I wanted to but I figure that if we were meant to share the water with sharks, we would have a few extra rows of teeth, too.
I'll save you some cannoli.
-Ella
Subject: Shh
Fiorella,
Yes,Fiorella. I looked it up. It means Flower. Which, when paired with MArino, means Flower of the Sea. What shark would dare to touch you?
I won't touch the uncomfortable sand mention, hard as it is to resist. I also will not think of you in a bikini (Note to self: Do not think of Ella in a bikini under any circumstanes. Note from self: Are you f-ing kidding me?).
Okay.
Two pieces of info for you. One: Our host has an excellent wine cellar and my mother is European. Meaning she doesn't begrudge me the occasional glass. Or four.
Two: Our hostess says to thank yur mother very much. Most people say nasty things about her suits.
Three: We have a house kinda near Surf City. Maybe I'll be there when your there.
You'd better burn this after reading.
-Alexai
Subect: Happy Thanksgiving
Alexei,
Consider it burned. Don't worry. I'm not showing your e-mails to anybody. Matter of national security, of course.
Well,I got to sit at the adult table. In between my great-great-aunt Jo, who is ninety-three and deaf, and her daughter, JoJo, who had to repeat everyone's conversations across me. Loudly. The food was great,even my uncle Ricky's cranberry lasagna. In fact, it would have been a perfectly good TG if the Eagles han't been playing the Jets.My cousin Joey (other side of the family) lives in Hoboken. His sister married a Philly guy. It started out as a lively across-the-table debate: Jets v. Iggles. It ended up with Joey flinging himself across the table at his brother-in-law and my grandmother saying loud prayers to Saint Bridget. At least I think it was Saint Bridget. Hard to tell. She was speaking Italian.
She caught me trying to freeze a half-dozen cannoli. She yelled at me. Apparently, the shells get really soggy when they defrost. I guess you'll have to come have a fresh one when you get back.
-F/E
”
”
Melissa Jensen (The Fine Art of Truth or Dare)
“
And I felt weird. Really weird, because as I was walking around all the stores, I didn't know what present my dad would like to receive from me. I knew what to buy or give to Sam and Patrick, but I didn't know what I could buy or give or make for my own dad. My brother likes posters of girls and beer cans. My sister likes a haircut gift certificate. My mom likes old movies and plants. My dad only likes golf, and that is not a winter sport except in Florida, and we don't live there. And he doesn't play baseball anymore. He doesn't like to be reminded unless he tells the stories. I just wanted to know what to buy my dad because I love him. And I don't know him. And he doesn't like to talk about things like that.
”
”
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
“
The big color television set was on, glowing eerily over the bottles of rye and bourbon, and that was how I happened to witness the event. I saw the two padded figures take their first steps in that airless world, bouncing like toys over the landscape, driving a golf cart through the dust, planting a flag in the eye of what had once been the goddess of love and lunacy. Radiant Diana, I thought, image of what is dark within us. Then the president spoke. In a solemn, deadpan voice he declared this to be the greatest event since the creation of man. The old-timers at the bar laughed when they heard this, and I believe I managed to crack a smile or two myself. But for all the absurdity of that remark, there was one thing no one could challenge: since the day he was expelled from Paradise, Adam had never been this far from home.
”
”
Paul Auster (Moon Palace)
“
This preternatural love of rules almost for their own sake punctuates German finance as it does German life. As it happens, a story had just broken that a German reinsurance company called Munich Re, back in June 2007, or just before the crash, had sponsored a party for its best producers that offered not just chicken dinners and nearest-to-the-pin golf competitions but a blowout with prostitutes in a public bath. In finance, high or low, this sort of thing is of course not unusual. What was striking was how organized the German event was. The company tied white and yellow and red ribbons to the prostitutes to indicate which ones were available to which men. After each sexual encounter the prostitute received a stamp on her arm to indicate how often she had been used. The Germans didn’t just want hookers: they wanted hookers with rules.
”
”
Michael Lewis (Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World)
“
and yet nobody of course was more dependent upon others (he buttoned his waistcoat); it had been his undoing. He could not keep out of smoking-rooms, liked colonels, liked golf, liked bridge, and above all women’s society, and the fineness of their companionship, and their faithfulness and audacity and greatness in loving which though it had its drawbacks seemed to him (and the dark, adorably pretty face was on top of the envelopes) so wholly admirable, so splendid a flower to grow on the crest of human life, and yet he could not come up to the scratch, being always apt to see round things (Clarissa had sapped something in him permanently), and to tire very easily of mute devotion and to want variety in love, though it would make him furious if Daisy loved anybody else, furious! for he was jealous, uncontrollably jealous by temperament. He suffered tortures!
”
”
Virginia Woolf (Complete Works of Virginia Woolf)
“
After Twiss went out the barn, Milly went up to their bedroom with the brown paper bag. She looked out the window before she turned it upside down and the bars of lavender soap shaped like seashells and the card shaped like a rectangle came tumbling out. Asa's name graced the front of the card. A note graced the back.
'I know why you did it, Milly. Bella swings a golf club just like him.'
Milly sat a long time on her old twin mattress, staring at the fleur-de-lis carved into the headboard, at the life that didn't belong to her and the life that did, before she placed the soaps beneath the velvet tray in her jewelry box and closed it. She never washed her hands with a single one of the seashell-shaped soaps, although from time to time, when Twiss had gone for a walk or to the barn, she'd open her jewelry box and examine her only secret.
'La joie de vivre.' The scent of lavender. Forgiveness. Age-old love.
”
”
Rebecca Rasmussen (The Bird Sisters)
“
Are you chuckling yet? Because then along came you. A big, broad meat eater with brash blond hair and ruddy skin that burns at the beach. A bundle of appetites. A full, boisterous guffaw; a man who tells knock know jokes. Hot dogs - not even East 86th Street bratwurst but mealy, greasy big guts that terrifying pink. Baseball. Gimme caps. Puns and blockbuster movies, raw tap water and six-packs. A fearless, trusting consumer who only reads labels to make sure there are plenty of additives. A fan of the open road with a passion for his pickup who thinks bicycles are for nerds. Fucks hard and talks dirty; a private though unapologetic taste for porn. Mysteries, thrillers, and science fiction; a subscription to National Geographic. Barbecues on the Fourth of July and intentions, in the fullness of time, to take up golf. Delights in crappy snack foods of ever description: Burgles. Curlies. Cheesies. Squigglies - you're laughing - but I don't eat them - anything that looks less like food than packing material and at least six degrees of separation from the farm. Bruce Springsteen, the early albums, cranked up high with the truck window down and your hair flying. Sings along, off-key - how is it possible that I should be endeared by such a tin ear?Beach Boys. Elvis - never lose your roots, did you, loved plain old rock and roll. Bombast. Though not impossibly stodgy; I remember, you took a shine to Pearl Jam, which was exactly when Kevin went off them...(sorry). It just had to be noisy; you hadn't any time for my Elgar, my Leo Kottke, though you made an exception for Aaron Copeland. You wiped your eyes brusquely at Tanglewood, as if to clear gnats, hoping I didn't notice that "Quiet City" made you cry. And ordinary, obvious pleasure: the Bronx Zoo and the botanical gardens, the Coney Island roller coaster, the Staten Island ferry, the Empire State Building. You were the only New Yorker I'd ever met who'd actually taken the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. You dragged me along once, and we were the only tourists on the boat who spoke English. Representational art - Edward Hopper. And my lord, Franklin, a Republican. A belief in a strong defense but otherwise small government and low taxes. Physically, too, you were such a surprise - yourself a strong defense. There were times you were worried that I thought you too heavy, I made so much of your size, though you weighed in a t a pretty standard 165, 170, always battling those five pounds' worth of cheddar widgets that would settle over your belt. But to me you were enormous. So sturdy and solid, so wide, so thick, none of that delicate wristy business of my imaginings. Built like an oak tree, against which I could pitch my pillow and read; mornings, I could curl into the crook of your branches. How luck we are, when we've spared what we think we want! How weary I might have grown of all those silly pots and fussy diets, and how I detest the whine of sitar music!
”
”
Lionel Shriver (We Need to Talk About Kevin)
“
Our relationship quickly grew. I was living in Long Beach at the time; Chris was in San Diego. Conservatively speaking, that’s a two-hour drive. But Chris drove it often. He’d get off work, hop in his pickup, and be at my condo before dark. And not just on the weekends: he often rose before the sun to get to work in Coronado Beach. We’d go out to eat, maybe take in a movie, play miniature golf, bowl, see friends--the usual date stuff. But our most fun was just hanging out together.
I pinned a picture of Chris up near my desk. (It’s the profile picture on his Facebook page, if you’re interested.) Under it, I taped a quote that went along the lines of: Life is not about the number of breaths you take; it’s the moments that take your breath away.
Chris was all about those breathtaking moments--riding broncs in the rodeo, jumping out of planes. He worked hard and played hard--but was just as likely to relax completely, sitting comfortably on the couch with a beer or whatever as he took it easy. It was a paradox; I loved both sides.
”
”
Taya Kyle (American Wife: Love, War, Faith, and Renewal)
“
tennis phenoms Venus and Serena Williams have experienced losing to a male with not nearly as much notoriety as they have… in a blowout. In 1998, in a matchup against Karsten Braasch, the 203rd ranked male tennis player from Germany, Serena lost 6–1 and Venus lost 6–2. Keep in mind Serena is a 23-time Grand Champion and her sister a 7-time Grand Champion. Serena herself said, “I hit shots that would have been winners on the women’s Tour, and he got to them easily.”
Is it a good time to mention at the time Braasch was smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, and smoked during changeovers the day of the match? He also admitted to playing a round of golf and drinking a few cocktails before facing the Williams sisters as well as performing like “a guy ranked 600th.” Thirteen years later, in an interview with David Letterman, Serena noted she would lose to Andy Murray 6–0 in just a matter of minutes. She went as far to say men and women’s tennis is a totally different sport. Serena told Letterman, “I love to play women’s tennis. I only want to play girls because I don’t want to be embarrassed.
”
”
Riley Gaines (Swimming Against the Current: Fighting for Common Sense in a World That’s Lost its Mind)
“
Dear Lucas,
I never met a boy with manners as good as yours. You ought to have a British accent. At homecoming, you wore a cravat and it suited you so well I think you could wear one all the time and get away with it.
Oh, Lucas! I wish I knew what kind of girls you liked. As far as I can tell, you haven’t dated anyone…unless you have a girlfriend at another school. You’re just so mysterious. I hardly know a thing about you. The things I know are so unsubstanial, so unsatisfying, like that you eat a chicken sandwich every day at lunch, and you’re on the golf team. I guess the one remotely real thing I know about you is you’re a good writer, which must mean you have deep reserves of emotion. Like that short story you wrote in creative writing about the poisoned well, and it was from a six-year-old boy’s perspective. It was so sensitive, so keen!
That story made me feel like I knew you at least a little bit. But I don’t know you, and I wish I did.
I think you’re very special. I think you are probably one of the most special people at our school, and I wish more people knew that about you. Or maybe I don’t, because sometimes it’s nice to be the only one who knows something.
Love, Lara Jean
”
”
Jenny Han (To All the Boys I've Loved Before (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #1))
“
I walked slowly back home, breathing deeply and taking in all the sights and sounds of a private country club golf course: the beeping of a distant golf cart driving in reverse, the barking of the bird dogs Dr. Burris took hunting with him every fall and winter, millions of tiny birds in triumphant song. It was the closest thing to the country that I’d known until now.
And my thoughts turned to Marlboro Man.
I was thinking of him when I walked back into the house, imagining his gorgeous voice in my ear when I heard the phone ringing in my room. I ran up the stairs, skipping three steps at a time, and answered the phone, breathless.
“Hello?” I gasped.
“Hey there,” Marlboro Man said. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, I just went for a run on the golf course,” I answered. As if I did it every day.
“Well, I just want you to know I’m coming to get you at five,” he said. “I’m having Ree withdrawals.”
“You mean since midnight, when we last saw each other?” I joked. Actually, I knew exactly what he meant.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s way, way too long, and I’m not gonna put up with it anymore.” I loved it when he took charge.
“Okay, then--fine,” I said, surrendering. “I don’t want to argue. I’ll see you at five.
”
”
Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)
“
His months of teaching experience were now a lost age of youth and innocence. He could no longer sit in his office at Fort McNair, look out over the elm trees and the golf course, and encompass the world within "neat, geometric patterns" that fit within equally precise lectures. Policy planning was a very different responsibility, but explaining just how was "like trying to describe the mysteries of love to a person who has never experienced it."
There was, however, an analogy that might help. "I have a largish farm in Pennsylvania."...it had 235 acres, on each of which things were happening. Weekends, in theory, were days of rest. But farms defied theory:
Here a bridge is collapsing. No sooner do you start to repair it than a neighbor comes to complain about a hedge row which you haven't kept up half a mile away on the other side of the farm. At that very moment your daughter arrives to tell you that someone left the gate to the hog pasture open and the hogs are out. On the way to the hog pasture, you discover that the beagle hound is happily liquidating one of the children's pet kittens. In burying the kitten you look up and notice a whole section of the barn roof has been blown off and needs instant repair. Somebody shouts from the bathroom window that the pump has stopped working, and there's no water in the house. At that moment, a truck arrives with five tons of stone for the lane. And as you stand there hopelessly, wondering which of these crises to attend to first, you notice the farmer's little boy standing silently before you with that maddening smile, which is halfway a leer, on his face, and when you ask him what's up, he says triumphantly 'The bull's busted out and he's eating the strawberry bed'.
Policy planning was like that. You might anticipate a problem three or four months into the future, but by the time you'd got your ideas down on paper, the months had shrunk to three to four weeks. Getting the paper approved took still more time, which left perhaps three or four days. And by the time others had translated those ideas into action, "the thing you were planning for took place the day before yesterday, and everyone wants to know why in the hell you didn't foresee it a long time ago." Meanwhile, 234 other problems were following similar trajectories, causing throngs of people to stand around trying to get your attention: "Say, do you know that the bull is out there in the strawberry patch again?
”
”
John Lewis Gaddis (George F. Kennan: An American Life)
“
The Mother’s Prayer for Its Daughter First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither the Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty. When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer. Guide her, protect her When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age. Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit. May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers. Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For Childhood is short—a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day— And Adulthood is long and Dry-Humping in Cars will wait. O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed. And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it. And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, That I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes. Amen
”
”
Tina Fey (Bossypants)
“
For most of our history, walking wasn’t a choice. It was a given. Walking was our primary means of locomotion. But, today, you have to choose to walk. We ride to work. Office buildings and apartments have elevators. Department stores offer escalators. Airports use moving sidewalks. An afternoon of golf is spent riding in a cart. Even a ramble around your neighborhood can be done on a Segway. Why not just put one foot in front of the other? You don’t have to live in the country. It’s great to take a walk in the woods, but I love to roam city streets, too, especially in places like New York, London, or Rome, where you can’t go half a block without making some new discovery. A long stroll slows you down, puts things in perspective, brings you back to the present moment. In Wanderlust: A History of Walking (Viking, 2000), author Rebecca Solnit writes that, “Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord.” Yet in our hectic, goal-oriented culture, taking a leisurely walk isn’t always easy. You have to plan for it. And perhaps you should. Walking is good exercise, but it is also a recreation, an aesthetic experience, an exploration, an investigation, a ritual, a meditation. It fosters health and joie de vivre. Cardiologist Paul Dudley White once said, “A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world.” A good walk is anything but pedestrian. It lengthens your life. It clears, refreshes, provokes, and repairs the mind. So lace up those shoes and get outside. The most ancient exercise is still the best.
”
”
Alexander Green (Beyond Wealth: The Road Map to a Rich Life)
“
There's a million dark little corners in Baytowne for you two to snuggle-"
"Ohmysweetgoodness, Chloe, stop!" I giggle and shiver at the same time and accidentally imagine walking around The Village in Baytowne Wharf with Galen. The Village is exactly that-a sleepy little village of tourist shops in the middle of a golf-course resort. During the daytime anyway. At night though...that's when the dance club wakes up and opens its doors to all the sunburned partiers roaming the cobblestoned walkways with their daiquiris. Galen would look great under the twinling lights, even with a shirt on...
Chloe smirks. "Uh-huh. Already thought of that, huh?"
"No!"
"Uh-huh. Then why are your cheeks as red as hot sauce?"
"Nuh-uh!" I laugh. She does, too.
"You want me to go ask him to meet us, then?"
I nod. "How old do you think he is?"
She shrugs. "Not creepy-old. Old enough for me to be jailboat, though. Lucky for him, you just turned eighteen...What the...did you just kick me?" She peers into the water, wswipes her hand over the surface as if clearing away something to see better. "Something just bumped me.”
She cups her hands over her eyes and squints, leaving down so close that one good wave could slap her chin. The concentration on her face almost convinces me. Almost. But I grew up with Chloe-we’ve been next-door neighbors since the third grade. I’ve grown used to fake rubber snakes on my front porch, salt in the sugar dish, and Saran wrap spread across the toilet seat-well, actually, Mom fell prey to that one. The point is Chloe loves pranks almost as much as she loves running. And this is definitely a prank.
“Yep, I kicked you,” I tell her, rolling my eyes.
“But…but you can’t reach me, Emma. My legs are longer than yours, and I can’t reach you…There it is again! You didn’t feel that?”
I didn’t feel it, but I did see her leg twitch. I wonder how long she’s been planning this. Since we got here? Since we boarded the plane in Jersey? Sine we turned twelve?
”
”
Anna Banks (Of Poseidon (The Syrena Legacy, #1))
“
Stick around, though. I’m going to need all the help I can get to figure all this out.”
“That’s me! Mister Helpful. Captain Dependable.”
“That sounds like a brand of adult diapers.”
“This nickname needs some work. Lord Wonderful? The Incredible Hunk?”
“Please, for the love, go inside.”
He laughed, then clomped up the steps and into the house.
“Reth,” I shouted. “Reeeeeeeeth! Reth! Reth, Reth, Reth! If you don’t come in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to do find David’s golf clubs!”
“That tone and level of voice does nothing attractive you for, my love.”
I jumped, startled, but of course Reth would be behind me, leaning heavily on the porch railing.
“You,” I said, glaring. “Fix it. Now.”
A look of disdain on his face, he leaned over and trailed his fingers across Lend’s forehead. A single whispered word, and then . . .
Nothing.
“You liar!” I shouted, standing so abruptly that Lend rolled off my lap and down a step. As he hit the first one, color bloomed through him into his usual glamour and his eyes flew open in panic.
“He was asleep, Evelyn.” Reth’s lips were pursed, but I knew he was smiling gleefully on the inside.
“Lend!” I lunged forward, knocking into him, and we both rolled down the next two steps, landing in a heap on the gravel at the bottom. “You’re awake!”
“Evie! I’m . . . wow, why am I so bruised?”
“Shut up,” I said, grabbing his head and pulling him in for a kiss. It was freezing and we were on the ground but I didn’t care, couldn’t care, not when I could touch my Lend and he was awake to touch me, too. I knew I’d missed it, but it wasn’t until now that it hit me just how empty and desperate it felt to be separated from him like that.
“Maybe,” he said, between tracing my neck with kisses, “we could go inside?”
“Maybe,” I agreed, not getting up.
“Or maybe,” Reth said, his voice dripping with disgust, “Evelyn could come with me to determine how best to fulfill her end of the deal.”
Lend lifted a hand off me and held it in the air. I couldn’t see what he was doing with it, but I had a good idea, and I heartily approved.
“See what I meant about the ability to focus?” Reth snapped. “You two are ridiculous.
”
”
Kiersten White (Endlessly (Paranormalcy, #3))
“
The only thing I knew about pickups was this: growing up, I always inwardly mocked the couples I saw who drove around in them. The girl would be sitting in the middle seat right next to the boy, and the boy’s right arm would be around her shoulders, and his left arm would be on the wheel. I’m not sure why, but there was something about my golf course upbringing that had always caused me to recoil at this sight. Why is she sitting in the middle seat? I’d wonder. Why is it important that they press against each other as they drive down the road? Can’t they wait until they get home? I looked at it as a sign of weakness--something pitiable. They need to get a life may have even crossed my mind once or twice, as if their specific brand of public affection was somehow directly harming me. But that’s what happens to people who, by virtue of the geography of their childhood, are deprived of the opportunity to ride in pickup trucks. They become really, really judgmental about otherwise benign things.
Still, every now and then, as Marlboro Man showed me the beauty of the country in his white Ford F250, I couldn’t help but wonder…had he been one of those boys in high school? I knew he’d had a serious girlfriend back in his teenage years. Julie. A beautiful girl and the love of his adolescent life, in the same way Kev had been mine. And I wondered: had Julie scooched over to the middle seat when Marlboro Man picked her up every Friday night? Had he hooked his right arm around her neck, and had she then reached her left hand up and clasped his right hand with hers? Had they then dragged Main in this position? Our hometowns had been only forty miles apart; maybe he’d brought her to my city to see a movie. Was it remotely possible I’d actually seen Marlboro Man and Julie riding around in his pickup, sitting side by side? Was it possible this man, this beautiful, miraculous, perfect man who’d dropped so magically into my life, had actually been one of the innocent recipients of my intolerant, shallow pickup-related condemnation?
And if he had done it, was it something he’d merely grown out of? How come I wasn’t riding around in his middle seat? Was I supposed to initiate this? Was this expected of me? Because I probably should know early on. But wouldn’t he have gestured in that direction if he’d wanted me to move over and sit next to him? Maybe, just maybe, he’d liked those girls better than he liked me. Maybe they’d had a closeness that warranted their riding side by side in a pickup, a closeness that he and I just don’t share? Please don’t let that be the reason. I don’t like that reason. I had to ask him. I had to know.
”
”
Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)
“
His experience on the bench was crucial in forming Taft's political vision. He disliked the rough and tumble of partisanship; he much preferred the quiet of the study. The image of the dispassionate jurist weighing the competing arguments of the litigants embodied how he saw the governing process. Elections, campaigning, and pressing the flesh were to him necessary evils in a democratic society, but Taft thought that he was a gregarious creature who loved humanity. However, such traits were for the golf course or the salon or the friendly conversation. When it came time to make policy, the ethos of the jurist dominated.
”
”
Lewis L. Gould (The William Howard Taft Presidency)
“
Jimmy likely wrote all three editorials, and one, titled “Who Is for Law and Order?” carried his byline. He argued that the spectacle, seen in other recent conflicts and then repeated most dramatically in the Little Rock crisis, of white people defying police as well as state and federal troops raised the question, “If white people defy the Constitution, who then are the law-abiding citizens of the U.S. and who is for democracy?” Inherent in his answer was a reshaping of the relations between blacks and whites. On one hand this meant the loss of white people’s claim to civic and moral authority. “The Little Rock crisis has put an end to the era of the white man’s burden to preserve democracy,” he asserted. “The white man’s burden now is to prove that he believes in democracy and that he can follow the example of the colored people in upholding law and order.” As for black Americans, their newfound racial assertion struck a blow to the edifice upon which their subordination had long rested. “For years untold colored people have been forced to maneuver in all directions trying to avoid a head-on collision,” Jimmy wrote. “They have allowed white people to name them ‘Negroes’ by which the whites mean a thing and not a person. They have stayed out of the public parks, restaurants, hotels and golf courses, walked on the cinder path when meeting whites on the sidewalk, gone to separate schools, worked on the worst jobs under the worst conditions, smiled and acted unhurt when abused in public places.” But the recent tide of black protest revealed that African Americans were making “an about face.” Black people, he wrote, were not only pressing for their rights but were also beginning to “denounce” the people and practices that had denied them those rights. 80 Jimmy’s analysis of Little Rock differed from other commentaries, which tended to emphasize it as an advance in the struggle for integration, highlight the moral questions it raised, or discuss it as a crisis of authority played out through conflict among the local, state, and national governments. Instead, Jimmy said Little Rock represented a rather sudden transformation now taking place among black people. The importance of Little Rock for him was in revealing how black people were seeing themselves differently and thus making this “about face,” no longer accepting the southern way of life and even rejecting the standards by which white people had organized society and elevated themselves. This analysis, and all of the editorials on Little Rock more generally, continued the focus and tone of Jimmy’s previous writings in the paper, but they also reflected the greater attention that Correspondence was soon to give to the escalating civil rights movement.
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Stephen M. Ward (In Love and Struggle: The Revolutionary Lives of James and Grace Lee Boggs (Justice, Power, and Politics))
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About page warm and casual on her blog, The Pioneer Woman: Howdy. I’m Ree Drummond, also known as The Pioneer Woman. I’m a moderately agoraphobic ranch wife and mother of four. Welcome to my frontier! I’m a middle child who grew up on the seventh fairway of a golf course in a corporate town. I was a teen angel. Not. After high school, I thought my horizons needed broadening. I attended college in California, then got a job and wore black pumps to work every day. I ate sushi and treated myself to pedicures on a semi-regular basis. I even kissed James Garner in an elevator once. I loved him deeply, despite the fact that our relationship only lasted 47 seconds. Unexpectedly, during a brief stay in my hometown, I met and fell in love with a rugged cowboy. Now I live in the middle of nowhere on a working cattle ranch. My days are spent wrangling children, chipping dried manure from boots, washing jeans, and making gravy. I have no idea how I got here . . . but you know what? I love it. Don’t tell anyone! I hope you enjoy my website, ThePioneerWoman.com. Here, I write daily about my long transition from spoiled city girl to domestic country wife.2
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Michael Hyatt (Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World)
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You can break love down into smaller and smaller parts, talk about hormones and mating rituals and biological responses. You can poke fun at all the stupid things people do for love. Little piece by little piece, it all looks ridiculous. Like golf is just hitting a white ball around a field. That is, until you allow yourself to stand back and enjoy the game for what it is.
You can't dissect love, you can't explain it, because once you do you prevent yourself form being able to experience it. You pull yourself out of the enjoyment of it, the excitement of it, the meaning, no...the importance of it.
And that's what it's all about, isn't it?
Love is important." -Seth
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Eric Luper (Seth Baumgartner's Love Manifesto)
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I love caddies because caddies will tell you the truth and use very few words doing it.
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Rick Reilly (Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump)
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With many twists and holes
Life is much like a golf game:
Without bats you cannot Play
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Ana Claudia Antunes (70 Inspirational Quotes in Spiritual Notes: Simple Ideas, Lasting Ideals, Light and Love in Spiritual Languages (Quotes & Notes Book 1))
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Estes Park was set in a valley surrounded by the Rocky Mountain National Park....
When I visited a few years ago, there were actually elk grazing on the golf course."
"Are you serious?"
"Hey, every year in October they have an Elk Festival. That's why I came here. I wanted to see it 'cause it was on my bucket list."
"An Elk Festival?" Amelia laughed.
"You have the most awesome things on your bucket list. Mine seem boring compared to yours." Amelia raised her brow curiously. "What was the festival like?"
"It was awesome. They had an elk bugling contest, elk seminars, Native American music, dancing and storytelling. They even had bus tours that took you to see the elk grazing in the fields. It was great. I loved it."
"Wait a minute," said Amelia as she tilted her head to one side.
"What's an elk bugling contest?"
Rick grinned. "It's the call of the elk. Anyone can compete. Whoever sounds the most like an elk wins. You can use a horn or just your own voice. When I was there, the man who won used his voice. It was really something."
Amelia's eyes widened with curiosity. "How did he do it? What does it sounds like?"
Rick chuckled. "Well... the call starts out with deep rich tones. Then it quickly rises to a high-pitched squealing sound and immediately drops down to a bunch of grunts.
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Linda Weaver Clarke (The Mysterious Doll (Amelia Moore Detective Series #4))
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My golf career was blessedly short. It lasted all of one class. "Hit that tiny ball? Really?" I shook my head as I studied the object on the tee. "And I'm supposed to put it over where?
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Joanna Campbell Slan (Love, Die, Neighbor (Kiki Lowenstein Scrap-n-Craft Mystery #0))
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Light is found on the green.
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J.R. Rim
“
Maybe he got me one of those two-necklace sets, the ones with the halved hearts, I thought, and he’ll wear one half and I’ll wear the other. I couldn’t exactly picture it, but Marlboro Man had never been above surprising me.
Then again, we were walking toward a barn.
Maybe it was a piece of furniture for the house we’d been working on--a love seat, perhaps. Oh, wouldn’t that be the most darling of wedding gifts? A love seat? I’ll bet it’s upholstered in cowhide, I thought, or maybe some old western brocade fabric. I’d always loved those fabrics in the old John Wayne movies. Maybe its legs are made of horns! It just had to be furniture. Maybe it was a new bed. A bed on which all the magic of the world would take place, where our children--whether one or six--would be conceived, where the prairie would ignite in an explosion of passion and lust, where…
Or maybe it’s a puppy.
Oh, yes! That has to be it, I told myself. It’s probably a puppy--a pug, even, in tribute to the first time I broke down and cried in front of him! Oh my gosh--he’s replacing Puggy Sue, I thought. He waited until we were close enough to the wedding, but he doesn’t want the pup to get any bigger before he gives it to me. Oh, Marlboro Man…you may have just zeroed in on what could possibly be the single most romantic thing you ever could have done for me. In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect love gift. A pug would be the perfect bridge between my old world and my new, a permanent and furry reminder of my old life on the golf course. As Marlboro Man slid open the huge barn doors and flipped on the enormous lights mounted to the beams, my heart began beating quickly. I couldn’t wait to smell its puppy breath.
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Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)
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Lake Haven hadn’t become a fashionable summer getaway for the East Coast elite until somewhere around the fifties, about the time Grandma and Grandpa had opened the East Beach Lake Cottages. The houses built on the lake since then had big windows and rooms set at angles designed to capture the best views. But Ross house had its own unique charm. Once you entered through the stone gate, you knew you were entering an area of wealth and refined taste. You’d expect to find the woman of the house in Ralph Lauren, perhaps on her way to a golf game. You would not expect to find Nancy Yates.
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Julia London (Suddenly in Love (Lake Haven, #1))
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Humor often involves incongruity. A story is moving along when suddenly something surprising and incongruous occurs. The left hemisphere doesn’t like surprise or incongruity. (“Golf clubs?” it yelps. “What does that have to do with mowing the lawn? This doesn’t make any sense.”) So, as with metaphors and nonverbal expression, it calls over for help from its companion hemisphere—which in this case resolves the incongruity by making sense of the comment in a new way. (“You see,” explains the right side, “Jones is tricking Smith. Har, har, har.”) But if the joke-loving, incongruity-resolving right hemisphere becomes hobbled, the brain has much greater difficulty understanding humor. Instead of surprise being followed by coherence—the chain reaction of an effective joke—the attempted yuk just lingers, an incongruous, confusing set of events.
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Daniel H. Pink (A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future)
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Somehow my father and golf were able to convey life lessons to me—patience, failure, humility, dedication, sportsmanship, practice, small improvements, missteps, mental error, fate, doing everything right and still not getting the desired result—without words. You may love the game, but as in life, no one—no one—gets out unscathed.
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Harlan Coben (Win (Windsor Horne Lockwood III, #1))
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When we accept who we are and how we developed and who we would realistically like to be, we can rest comfortably in the company of our own Selves. This is the work of our lives, to recognize who we really are, to see that our Selves are worthy of being loved and are competent, and then embrace and maximize that sense of interior wealth.
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Preston Waddington (The Now Golfer: The Psychology of Better Golf)
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Michael Halahan is a student that wants to have a successful career. He loves a close-knit family and wishes to find an active faith community. While he participated in a foreign language club during high school, Michael also played tennis and golf. Today, he enjoys reading National Geographic pieces about history and nature. Michael Halahan also occasionally reads fictional novels by authors such as Ernest Hemingway and Cormac McCarthy.
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Michael Halahan
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Julieta didn't understand the appeal of crunching numbers all day and schmoozing at golf courses. She preferred to be creative. She loved experimenting with classic cooking techniques and swapping in nontraditional ingredients. She had just perfected a recipe of lavender flan that she planned to put on the menu next week.
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Alana Albertson (Ramón and Julieta (Love & Tacos, #1))
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Will had broken his arm playing golf and been forced to wear a cast.
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Liz Brown (Twilight Man: Love and Ruin in the Shadows of Hollywood and the Clark Empire)
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Golf camaraderie,” wrote my friend John Updike in his lovely meditation on the subject in Golf Dreams, “like that of astronauts and Antarctic explorers, is based on a common experience of transcendence; fat or thin, scratch or duffer, we have been somewhere together where nongolfers never go.
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James Dodson (The Range Bucket List: The Golf Adventure of a Lifetime)
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One day in the future, I will show my child her great-grandmother’s jade, the little gold rabbit with the ruby eyes. I will tell her that this will be hers. I will tell her all the stories about how our family survived, about the wars, and the gambling dens, and, yes, eventually even the golf club. I will tell her that when the sky falls, she should use it as a blanket.
And then I will give her the shining thing, the thing that none of us got, the thing that only I, in all of my resilient power, can give. The thing that all this pain has given me. I will told her tight and tell her that I love her more than anything in the world. That she can always come to me for anything at all, and I will fix it if it needs fixing or just listen if she needs to be listened to. And as long as I live, I will never leave.
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Stephanie Foo (What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma)
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Decker’s longtime FBI partner, Alex Jamison, had been transferred to New York and found what looked to be love with a Wall Street investment banker. His old boss at the FBI, Ross Bogart, had retired and was learning to play golf—badly, he had heard—in Arizona.
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David Baldacci (Long Shadows (Amos Decker, #7))
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Someone’s going to drag me out of someplace feet-first, so it might as well be from my place of business. Besides, if I retire, what do you suggest I do, chase golf balls with the rest of the morons? Maybe I should take courses in Chinese stamp collecting or the history of Peru at Loch in Kop University downtown?
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Joseph Epstein (The Love Song of A. Jerome Minkoff: And Other Stories)
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Ik hou van hem. Ik hou nog steeds van hem, en ik zal dat altijd blijven doen. Hij was een grote golf die een heleboel afdrukken op mijn leven heeft nagelaten, en tot mijn dood zal ik het gewicht van die liefde voelen. Dat heb ik aanvaard
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Colleen Hoover (It Ends with Us (It Ends with Us, #1))
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and parking is often an issue. None of these is my favorite. I have thought long and hard and decided not to name my preferred south shore beach, because what I love about it is it’s not popular and never very crowded except by locals and summer residents. Because I feel guilty for holding back, I will say that if you want a terrific not-crowded beach, drive out to Miacomet Golf Course, but just before you reach the clubhouse, take a right onto the dirt road that leads past the big antenna.
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Elin Hilderbrand (The Hotel Nantucket)
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Dr. Matthew Steiner, an adventurous ER Physician from Brazil, Indiana, blends a passion for emergency medicine with a love for golf, music, and travel. From fleeing Saigon at 9 to excelling in Ohio, he’s a medical missionary who cherishes helping others globally. Aspiring to continue groundbreaking work in emergency care.
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Dr Matthew Steiner Indiana
“
Now Where Do You Find Customers? When novice entrepreneurs search for opportunities, they too often look beyond their Zone of Influence. They think the action is happening somewhere else, in some other location or industry. But seasoned entrepreneurs almost always find and create opportunities within the context of who they are, what they know, and especially who they know. In each of the examples above, the business validation process begins with potential customers in the entrepreneur’s orbit. Actual people with names. Tribes you belong to or are interested in, most of whom are already self-organized online. People you know how to reach, today. Though it’s rarely a part of their official origin stories, the biggest companies in the world—even the viral apps now worth billions—started through personal networks and real human connections. Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in a weekend by emailing friends to use it. Version 1 did well, validating it. And Microsoft started with Bill Gates building software for a guy in Albuquerque. He had a CUSTOMER FIRST. In the beginning, founders should reach out to their friends, their former colleagues, their communities. You may think your business is unique, but trust me, it’s not. Every successful business can start this way. For example, Anahita loves her dogs and wanted healthier snacks for them. She started taking her homemade organic dog treats to her local dog park. She would sell out every time. A year later she now has a store called the Barkery, a dog bakery. Before you even think about picking a business idea, make sure you have easy access to the people you want to help. An easy way to do this is to think about where you have easy access to a targeted group of people whom you really want to help—like, say, new moms in Austin, cyclists, freelance writers, and taco obsessives (like me!). CHALLENGE Top three groups. Let’s write out your top three groups to target. Who do you have easy access to that you’d be EXCITED to help? This can be your neighbors, colleagues, religious friends, golf buddies, cooking friends, etc. The better you understand your target group, the better you can speak to them. The more specifically you can speak to their problems, the better and easier you can sell (or test products). Note how this process prioritizes communication with people, through starting (taking the first iteration of your solution straight to customers) and asking (engaging them in a conversation to determine how your solution can best fix their problem). Business creation should always be a conversation! Nearly every impulse we have is to be tight with our ideas by doing more research, going off alone to build the perfect product—anything and everything to avoid the discomfort of asking for money. This is the validation shortcut. You have to learn to fight through this impulse. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it.
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Noah Kagan (Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours)
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The man, who looked like a farmer in every respect except that his expression was happy, said, “Oh yes, another mile or so, and there you are. Lovely day for golf.
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Reginald Hill (The Roar Of The Butterflies (Joe Sixsmith, #5))
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But every parent will know that it makes perfect sense. After his birth, the logic is different. Instantly it became clear that the life of the child has infinite dignity. Of course it is worth the grief, even if the candle is only lit for such a short time. Once a kid is born you’ve been seized by a commitment, the strength of which you couldn’t even have imagined beforehand. It brings you to the doorstep of disciplined service. When a parent falls in love with a child, the love arouses amazing energy levels; we lose sleep caring for the infant. The love impels us to make vows to the thing we love; parents vow to always be there for their kid. Fulfilling those vows requires us to perform specific self-sacrificial practices; we push the baby in a stroller when maybe we’d rather go out alone for a run. Over time those practices become habits, and those habits engrave a certain disposition; by the time the kid is three, the habit of putting the child’s needs first has become second nature to most parents. Slowly, slowly, by steady dedication, you’ve transformed a central part of yourself into something a little more giving, more in harmony with others and more in harmony with what is good than it was before. Gradually the big loves overshadow the little ones: Why would I spend my weekends playing golf when I could spend my weekends playing ball with my children? In my experience, people repress bad desires only when they are able to turn their attention to a better desire. When you’re deep in a commitment, the distinction between altruism and selfishness begins to fade away. When you serve your child it feels like you are serving a piece of yourself. That disposition to do good is what having good character is all about. In this way, moral formation is not individual; it is relational. Character is not something you build sitting in a room thinking about the difference between right and wrong and about your own willpower. Character emerges from our commitments. If you want to inculcate character in someone else, teach them how to form commitments—temporary ones in childhood, provisional ones in youth, permanent ones in adulthood. Commitments are the school for moral formation.
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David Brooks (The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life)
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Pursue what you love…. Don't let anyone else tell you what your life path should be.” - Jack Nicklaus
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Team Golfwell (The Ways of PGA Tour Players: Golf Tips from PGA Tour Players)
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What’s your secret?” I questioned, tossing my golf bag on my shoulder. “To show up for each other every time. Shit, and say “I love you” even when times are rough,” he answered without hesitation.
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Robbi Renee (Somebody's Forever (A Grown and Sexy Somebody Series Book 2))
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The part I always loved about golf was that you could go out there by yourself and be totally responsible for what happened or didn’t happen.
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Stan Utley (The Art of the Short Game: Tour-Tested Secrets for Getting Up and Down)
“
Two months ago, Lauren Carmichael’s husband and son were murdered in a home invasion. She was conveniently working late that night. Sheldon Kaufman’s sister died two weeks later, casualty of a convenience store robbery. Just a day after that, Meadow Brand’s father was stabbed to death in what’s being reported as a mugging gone wrong.” Why don’t you just kill your wife? Sheldon had asked Tony back at the golf course. Because I don’t love my wife. “Christ,” I breathed. “It’s not just any souls they need. Family members. Blood relations, maybe. Someone they have a personal bond with.” “An intimate sacrifice,” Bentley said.
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Craig Schaefer (The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust, #1))
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I didn’t think of myself as competitive. I thought in terms of having fun playing games and trying to win, but with me it was more hoping to win. I didn’t have that killer instinct they say is required to get to the top. I couldn’t see myself behaving as my dad did with his vociferous love for golf and football. The house resounded with his yells and groans during PGA and NFL tournaments. It seemed to me that yelling in itself required a killer instinct.
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Meredith Marple (What Took So Long?: A Group-Phobic, Uncomfortable Competitor's Journey to Mahjong - A Memoir Essay)
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Stephen Gaskin (2005) describes karma as hitting golf balls in a shower. Often our attempts at payback just get in the way of balls already ricocheting back toward the person who sent them flying in the first place.
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Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
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Texas Wisdom for All Y'Allz
When I was a youngin' I boasted to my pals
how much older I looked than them.
Now that I'm old, I boast to my golf buddies
about how younger I look.
I reckon when I'm dead,
I'll boast to the Devil
about how much I use to love boastin'.
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Beryl Dov
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I never saw you without a golf club tie.
I never saw you with a golf club.
I never saw you without yachting shoes.
I never saw you in a yacht.
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Rachel Joyce (The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy (Harold Fry, #2))
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Read latest Indian Sports News on cricket and other sports, golf, hockey, football, tennis, motorsports, chess, and your most loved games cricket world cup, ranji trophy, kabaddi and so on.
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