“
You can die of a broken heart -- it's scientific fact -- and my heart has been breaking since that very first day we met. I can feel it now, aching deep behind my rib cage the way it does every time we're together, beating a desperate rhythm: Love me. Love me. Love me.
”
”
Abby McDonald (Getting Over Garrett Delaney)
“
You’re not in love with me, not really, you just love the way I always made you feel. Like you were the center of my world. Because you were. I would have done anything for you.
”
”
Abby McDonald (Getting Over Garrett Delaney)
“
No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want. Here’s a short list of people who accomplished great things at different ages
1) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didn’t stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
2) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5.
3) Shirley Temple was 6 when she became a movie star on “Bright Eyes.”
4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank.
5) Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13.
6) Nadia Comăneci was a gymnast from Romania that scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals at the Olympics at age 14.
7) Tenzin Gyatso was formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in November 1950, at the age of 15.
8) Pele, a soccer superstar, was 17 years old when he won the world cup in 1958 with Brazil.
9) Elvis was a superstar by age 19.
10) John Lennon was 20 years and Paul Mcartney was 18 when the Beatles had their first concert in 1961.
11) Jesse Owens was 22 when he won 4 gold medals in Berlin 1936.
12) Beethoven was a piano virtuoso by age 23
13) Issac Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica at age 24
14) Roger Bannister was 25 when he broke the 4 minute mile record
15) Albert Einstein was 26 when he wrote the theory of relativity
16) Lance E. Armstrong was 27 when he won the tour de France
17) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures “David” and “Pieta” by age 28
18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world
19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter
20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean
21) Oprah was 32 when she started her talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind
22) Edmund Hillary was 33 when he became the first man to reach Mount Everest
23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech “I Have a Dream."
24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she got nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics
25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight
26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions.
27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon.
28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and 49 years old when he wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas
30) Rosa Parks was 42 when she refused to obey the bus driver’s order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger
31) John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became President of the United States
32) Henry Ford Was 45 when the Ford T came out.
33) Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games"
34) Charles Darwin was 50 years old when his book On the Origin of Species came out.
35) Leonardo Da Vinci was 51 years old when he painted the Mona Lisa.
36) Abraham Lincoln was 52 when he became president.
37) Ray Kroc Was 53 when he bought the McDonalds Franchise and took it to unprecedented levels.
38) Dr. Seuss was 54 when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat".
40) Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was 57 years old when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. All of the 155 passengers aboard the aircraft survived
41) Colonel Harland Sanders was 61 when he started the KFC Franchise
42) J.R.R Tolkien was 62 when the Lord of the Ring books came out
43) Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became President of the US
44) Jack Lalane at age 70 handcuffed, shackled, towed 70 rowboats
45) Nelson Mandela was 76 when he became President
”
”
Pablo
“
I love jell-o. I love the way it comes in rainbow colours, wiggles and jiggles and looks like brains.
”
”
Megan McDonald (The Sisters Club)
“
I can't keep doing this to myself, getting my hopes up so high, only to have them come crashing down. I can't keep waiting for him to come to his senses, having my whole emotional state rest on what he decides. What if he never wakes up to how perfect we'd be together? What if I spend another year pining for him - or longer even? In a terrible flash, I see my future stretching out before me: waiting for his calls, rearranging my life around college visits, and decoding texts and instant messages like they could be something real, something true.
This isn't love; this is pure torment.
”
”
Abby McDonald (Getting Over Garrett Delaney)
“
I want to know because you never told me, but what do you have against Mary McDonald?” he asked. “I want to know why we hate her.”
Why we hate her. Ivan. Fucking Ivan.
”
”
Mariana Zapata (From Lukov with Love)
“
I love getting older," I muse as I carefully begin to peel the layers away. "You're closer to death, but there are presents.
”
”
Abby McDonald (Getting Over Garrett Delaney)
“
How could I have been so stupid? All this time, I've been certain he feels the same way about me. I was so sure that my feelings were requited that I'd convinced myself he was just getting up the courage to confess. But I was wrong. Garrett's feelings for me are nothing but friendship - plain, simple, and overwhelmingly platonic. I built his love out of thin air, I realize in horror - crafted it from e-mails and late-night conversations as if my sheer will would make it so.
It was all in my head. Again!
”
”
Abby McDonald
“
I've never had a love letter before. Not from anyone. It is a most wonderful thing to receive. I realise that it makes a present to me of your life, not just your love.
”
”
Anthony McDonald (Getting Orlando)
“
And that's how it was with Garrett. Because he understood me, the me I wanted so desperately to be. Think about your best friend - how you tell them everything, how they're the person who knows you best, all your deepest fears and insecurities. They're the one you call when something amazing happens or when everything falls apart and you need someone to come over and watch movies and tell you that everything's going to be OK. It's not like family, who are obligated to love you and even then sometimes fail to be everything they're supposed to be. Your true friend has chosen you, and you them, and that's a different kind of bond.
That's Garrett to me. I'm used to talking to him all the time, about the most meaningless stuff. To have him gone feels like a loss, an absence haunting me every day. Without him, there's just the empty space that used to be filled with laughter and friendship and comfort.
Can you really blame me for finding it so hard to let go?
”
”
Abby McDonald (Getting Over Garrett Delaney)
“
I just wanna be fit and have good blood pressure and feel good with my clothes off and I do. I love my body but I think that there’s always a part of me that wishes I looked more like Antoni or like an underwear model. But then again, I still really love to binge eat at McDonald’s at night, so...you know.
”
”
Jonathan Van Ness (Queer Eye: Love Yourself. Love Your Life.)
“
Garrett has been the best friend a girl could want, so how could I be so stupid as to think about shutting him out for good? I've been so busy thinking about my unrequited love, I haven't even stopped to consider the other, more important part of our relationship.
Friendship.
Ignoring him now would make him think I don't care, that I don't want to be friends. I want to get over him, not lose him for good! How must he feel, with me not replying to his texts and e-mails like this? What kind of friend am I?
”
”
Abby McDonald (Getting Over Garrett Delaney)
“
Oh I don't know,' he said. 'But maybe, maybe love should be a kind of journey
”
”
Anthony McDonald (Adam)
“
I fell in love with McDonald's. McDonald's, to me, tasted like America. McDonald's is America. You see it advertised and it looks amazing. You crave it. You buy it. You take your first bite, and it blows your mind. It's even better than you imagined. Then, halfway through, you realize it's not all it's cracked up to be. A few bites later, you're like, Hmm, there's a lot wrong with this. Then you're done, you miss it like crazy, and you go back for more.
”
”
Trevor Noah (Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood)
“
When I was ten years old I was actually given McDonald’s gift certificates for Christmas by my mom. Yes, my own mother. I guess she couldn’t find gift certificates for a vending machine. I like to think it was her way of saying, “Merry Christmas. Here are some coupons for poison.” McDonald’s introduced the gift certificate prior to the obesity epidemic. I’m not saying that McDonald’s gift certificates caused the obesity epidemic, but in retrospect, the timing is kind of suspicious.
”
”
Jim Gaffigan (Food: A Love Story)
“
You’re not in love with me, not really, you just love the way I always made you feel. Like you were the centre of my world. Because you were. I would have done anything for you.
”
”
Abby McDonald (Getting Over Garrett Delaney)
“
How is it?" I ask as we stroll towards the dressing rooms. "Working at the playground. That must be fun."
"Sure, they're just adorable," she says, "For the first five minutes. And then I want to wring their adorable little necks."
I stop, shocked. "I always figured you loved kids."
"Yeah, no." Kayla shakes her head emphatically. "One kid, I can do, even two-- just stick them in front of a Disney movie, let them play Xbox all night. But a herd of them?" She shudders.
”
”
Abby McDonald (Getting Over Garrett Delaney)
“
Excuse me," he greeted, smiling. "I'm sorry to bother you, but do either of you know how to get to the Nokia Theater?"
"Absolutely," Dylan chimed in. "That street right there is forty-second." He pointed to the right of where we were sitting. "You want to follow that for another four blocks and then turn right when you see Yangsoon's Kitchen. Then you want to go up another two blocks and bang a left at Starbucks. You'll see the theater up on your right after the big McDonald's sigh. You can't miss it."
The man put the newspaper he was holding under his arm and extended his hand out to shake Dylan's. "Thank you sir. I really appreciate it. "He turned and scrambled off at lighting speed.
I peered at Dylan suspiciously. "You don't really know how to get to the theater, do you?"
His face remained blank as he shook his head.
"Not a clue.
”
”
Rachel K. Burke (Sound Bites: A Rock & Roll Love Story)
“
People will look different when I see them with God. People are a huge part of the “with God” life, because we have to live with people. We have to interact with them. How we get along with people says a lot about where our soul rests. When we are living with God, we will see people as God sees them. If I’m aware God is here with me, and God is looking at you at the same moment I’m looking at you, it will change how I respond to you. Instead of seeing you as the annoying server at McDonald’s who messed up my order, I will see you as someone God loved enough to send his Son to die on your behalf. I will see you as a real person who got up dreading going to work, dealing with impatient customers, being on her feet all day. In other words, I will no longer see you as everyone else sees you. This is exactly what Paul is after when he says, “From now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.” From now on, now that my soul is centered with God in Jesus, I won’t look at people the same way.
”
”
John Ortberg (Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You)
“
Of course, in my mind, violence would have been better, but since that wasn’t an option, I decided to play along. “It’s okay, handsome. I’ve only been here a few minutes. I’d like to introduce you to Dick.”
“No, it’s…” Richard tried to correct me only to be interrupted by Drew.
“Nice to meet you, Dick,” Drew retorted.
”
”
Jeanne McDonald (The Truth in Lies (The Truth in Lies Saga, #1))
“
People love to do that, to point to some single phenomenon, assign it all the blame, and wipe the slate clean, like when overeaters sue McDonald’s for making them fat pigs.
”
”
Jonathan Tropper (This is Where I Leave You)
“
I used to know…this bum that sat outside of McDonalds. He sat there, begging for food. He sat there so long, he became frozen to the pavement. He’s loving it.
”
”
John R. Lindensmith (Pete)
“
I would love it if we could limit my red carpet topics to my favorite colors, what sound a duck makes, and my thoughts on McDonald’s All-Day Breakfast—blessing or curse?
”
”
Anna Kendrick (Scrappy Little Nobody)
“
Sometimes the most powerful understanding comes from someone short, brown feathered and beautiful. "Thank you very much and I do like French fries," said Mrs. Duck politely.
”
”
Naomi McDonald (They Sing To Our Souls: The Animals Speak)
“
A ship there is and she sails the sea. She’s loaded deep as deep can be. But not so deep as the love I’m in. I know not if I sink or swim.
”
”
Anthony McDonald (Cam Cox (Gay Romance Book 7))
“
How do I know I’m right? Well I once got a room full of lefties to admit through clenched teeth that Karl Marx would have despised the organic movement, but would have loved McDonald’s.
”
”
Rory Sutherland (Rory Sutherland: The Wiki Man)
“
I can't get past the strange contradiction that seems to lurk behind everything we do. Because no matter what, or who, we end up choosing, all of us feel like we've failed somehow.
Kayla feels guilty for planning a future with Blake; Dominique feels guilty that she won't with Carlos. LuAnn dropped everything to make it work with her guy, and I'm filled with shame every time I think about how I did the same thing, building my life around Garrett without realizing it then working just as hard to take that version of my life apart, piece by piece.
So how are we supposed to win? On the one hand, the world tells us that capital-L Love is epic, and all conquering, and the meaning of everything, but on the other it drills us with this message that we shouldn't make any sacrifice or effort to pursue it, because that would make us weak, unempowered, desperate, silly girls.
”
”
Abby McDonald (Getting Over Garrett Delaney)
“
we’re not helping. So now we’re helping. Me: (Standing in doorway, looking bewildered.) Thanks, I guess. Joey: (Takes away Stevie’s hand.) But that’s not fair! Alex: What’s not fair? Stevie: (Striking Shakespeare pose.) All’s fair in love and sisters. Me: You guys are weird, you know that? Stevie: Go ahead. Take it. Go. (Makes shooing-dog motion with hands.) OK. Bye-bye, then. Joey: (Calling after Alex.) Bye-bye, Birdie! Me: (Leaves room, taking list. Sisters behind me mumbling and grumbling — Joey
”
”
Megan McDonald (The Sisters Club: Rule of Three (The Sisters Club, #2))
“
I lean back into your body - memory is a shade of the color blue.
Painted the walls white, the clocks went back an hour and who knew you'd be the one?
I am okay with chopsticks, you know how to please just about any man. Your cheeks a hot air balloon lifting up into the sky, a kind of yellow vibrant, tastes like the milkshakes in Pulp Fiction.
The McDonald's lobby is now open 24 hours in case you really want a big mac or some french fries and do not have a car. It might make you fat but it might be worth it. The ones who will love you regardless.
”
”
Eric Shaw
“
I just wanna be fit and have good blood pressure and feel good with my clothes off and I do. I love my body but I think that there’s always a part of me that wishes I looked more like Antoni or like an underwear model. But then again, I still really love to binge eat at McDonald’s at night, so...you know.
”
”
Antoni Porowski, Tan France, Jonathan Van Ness, Bobby Berk, Karamo Brown
“
Forget bringing the troops home from Iraq. We need to get the troops home from World War II. Can anybody tell me why, in 2009, we still have more than sixty thousand troops in Germany and thirty thousand in Japan? At some point, these people are going to have to learn to rape themselves. Our soldiers have been in Germany so long they now wear shorts with black socks. You know that crazy soldier hiding in the cave on Iwo Jima who doesn’t know the war is over? That’s us.
Bush and Cheney used to love to keep Americans all sphinctered-up on the notion that terrorists might follow us home. But actually, we’re the people who go to your home and then never leave. Here’s the facts: The Republic of America has more than five hundred thousand military personnel deployed on more than seven hundred bases, with troops in one hundred fifty countries—we’re like McDonald’s with tanks—including thirty-seven European countries—because you never know when Portugal might invade Euro Disney. And this doesn’t even count our secret torture prisons, which are all over the place, but you never really see them until someone brings you there—kinda like IHOP.
Of course, Americans would never stand for this in reverse—we can barely stand letting Mexicans in to do the landscaping. Can you imagine if there were twenty thousand armed Guatemalans on a base in San Ber-nardino right now? Lou Dobbs would become a suicide bomber.
And why? How did this country get stuck with an empire? I’m not saying we’re Rome. Rome had good infrastructure. But we are an empire, and the reason is because once America lands in a country, there is no exit strategy. We’re like cellulite, herpes, and Irish relatives: We are not going anywhere. We love you long time!
”
”
Bill Maher (The New New Rules: A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass)
“
I picked a sushi spot even though I don’t love sushi, because the restaurant is really sunny and cute, and I wanted to make a good impression. Which, in hindsight, is fucking misleading, because I am 100 percent the kind of friend who wants you to pick me up so we can go to the drive thru and gossip over Big Macs in the McDonald’s parking lot. All my real friends are like, “Sushi? Table service? In daylight? I once had to watch you eat a hot dog on the bus!
”
”
Samantha Irby (Wow, No Thank You.)
“
Now, from the outside in, I can understand why you might be critical of McDonald’s. You might say that people shouldn’t eat meat. You might say that the hamburgers could be fatter, or less fatty, or this or that. But what you couldn’t say—what you could never say—is that McDonald’s doesn’t keep its promise. Because it does. Better than just about any business in the world, McDonald’s, the love of Ray Kroc’s life, still keeps its promise, long after Ray Kroc has gone. It delivers exactly what we have come to expect of it every single time.
”
”
Michael E. Gerber (The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It)
“
Leta walked to the door and opened it with a ready smile for Colby Lane. And found herself looking straight into the eye of a man she hadn’t seen face-to-face in thirty-six years.
Matt Holden matched her face against his memories of a young, slight, beautiful woman whose eyes loved him every time they looked at him. His heart spun like a cartwheel in his chest.
“Cecily said it was Colby,” Leta said unsteadily.
“Strange. She phoned me and asked if I was free this evening.” His broad shoulders shrugged and he smiled faintly. “I’m free every evening.”
“That doesn’t sound like the life of a playboy widower,” Leta said caustically.
“My wife was a vampire,” he said. “She sucked me dry of life and hope. Her drinking wore me down. Her death was a relief for both of us. Do I get to come in?” he added, glancing down the hall. “I’m going to collect dust if I stand out here much longer, and I’m hungry. A sack of McDonald’s hamburgers and fries doesn’t do a lot for me.”
“I hear it’s a presidential favorite,” Cecily mused, joining them. “Come in, Senator Holden.”
“It was Matt before,” he pointed out. “Or are you trying to butter me up for a bigger donation to the museum?”
She shrugged. “Pick a reason.”
He looked at Leta, who was uncomfortable. “Well, at least you can’t hang up on me here. You’ll be glad to know that our son isn’t speaking to me. He isn’t speaking to you, either, or so he said,” he added. “I suppose he won’t talk to you?” he added to Cecily.
“He said goodbye very finally, after telling me that I was an idiot to think he’d change his mind and want to marry me just because he turned out to have mixed blood,” she said, not relating the shocking intimacy that had prefaced his remarks.
“I’ll punch him for that,” Matt said darkly.
“Ex-special forces,” Leta spoke up with a faint attempt at humor, nodding toward Matt. “He was in uniform when we went on our first date.”
“You wore a white cotton dress with a tiered skirt,” he recalled, “and let your hair down. Hair…”
He turned back to Cecily and grimaced. “Good God, what did you do that for?”
“Tate likes long hair, that’s what I did it for,” she said, venom in her whole look. “I can’t wait for him to see it, even if I have to settle for sending him a photo!”
“I hope you never get mad at me,” Matt said.
“Fat chance.
”
”
Diana Palmer (Paper Rose (Hutton & Co. #2))
“
ALICE COOPER: Now, if you’re in Norway and you want to have any kind of authority or credibility in metal, you have to eat your lead singer. It’s like rap: if you don’t shoot somebody you can’t really be a rapper. I love these advertisements in metal magazines for all these bands that are trying to be more evil than the other band, or they’re trying to be more Celtic or more occult. It’s just hysterical. These guys are role-playing for a couple years, and then they turn into something else. They go, “We are Gothora, and we are Vikings!” No, you’re not. You’re not Vikings at all. Vikings don’t go to McDonald’s.
”
”
Jon Wiederhorn (Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal)
“
Finally, some people tell me that they avoid science fiction because it’s depressing. This is quite understandable if they happened to hit a streak of post-holocaust cautionary tales or a bunch of trendies trying to outwhine each other, or overdosed on sleaze-metal-punk-virtual-noir Capitalist Realism. But the accusation often, I think, reflects some timidity or gloom in the reader’s own mind: a distrust of change, a distrust of the imagination. A lot of people really do get scared and depressed if they have to think about anything they’re not perfectly familiar with; they’re afraid of losing control. If it isn’t about things they know all about already they won’t read it, if it’s a different color they hate it, if it isn’t McDonald’s they won’t eat at it.
They don’t want to know that the world existed before they were, is bigger than they are, and will go on without them. They do not like history. They do not like science fiction. May they eat at McDonald’s and be happy in Heaven."
Pro: "But what I like in and about science fiction includes these particular virtues: vitality, largeness, and exactness of imagination; playfulness, variety, and strength of metaphor; freedom from conventional literary expectations and mannerism; moral seriousness; wit; pizzazz; and beauty.
Let me ride a moment on that last word. The beauty of a story may be intellectual, like the beauty of a mathematical proof or a crystalline structure; it may be aesthetic, the beauty of a well-made work; it may be human, emotional, moral; it is likely to be all three. Yet science fiction critics and reviewers still often treat the story as if it were a mere exposition of ideas, as if the intellectual “message” were all. This reductionism does a serious disservice to the sophisticated and powerful techniques and experiments of much contemporary science fiction. The writers are using language as postmodernists; the critics are decades behind, not even discussing the language, deaf to the implications of sounds, rhythms, recurrences, patterns—as if text were a mere vehicle for ideas, a kind of gelatin coating for the medicine. This is naive. And it totally misses what I love best in the best science fiction, its beauty."
"I am certainly not going to talk about the beauty of my own stories. How about if I leave that to the critics and reviewers, and I talk about the ideas? Not the messages, though. There are no messages in these stories. They are not fortune cookies. They are stories.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (A Fisherman of the Inland Sea)
“
Marcelina loved that miniscule, precise moment when the needle entered her face. It was silver; it was pure. It was the violence that healed, the violation that brought perfection. There was no pain, never any pain, only a sense of the most delicate of penetrations, like a mosquito exquisitely sipping blood, a precision piece of human technology slipping between the gross tissues and cells of her flesh. She could see the needle out of the corner of her eye; in the foreshortened reality of the ultra-close-up it was like the stem of a steel flower. The latex-gloved hand that held the syringe was as vast as the creating hand of God: Marcelina had watched it swim across her field of vision, seeking its spot, so close, so thrillingly, dangerously close to her naked eyeball. And then the gentle stab. Always she closed her eyes as the fingers applied pressure to the plunger. She wanted to feel the poison entering her flesh, imagine it whipping the bloated, slack, lazy cells into panic, the washes of immune response chemicals as they realized they were under toxic attack; the blessed inflammation, the swelling of the wrinkled, lined skin into smoothness, tightness, beauty, youth.
Marcelina Hoffman was well on her way to becoming a Botox junkie.
Such a simple treat; the beauty salon was on the same block as Canal Quatro. Marcelina had pioneered the lunch-hour face lift to such an extent that Lisandra had appropriated it as the premise for an entire series. Whore. But the joy began in the lobby with Luesa the receptionist in her high-collared white dress saying “Good afternoon, Senhora Hoffman,” and the smell of the beautiful chemicals and the scented candles, the lightness and smell of the beautiful chemicals and the scented candles, the lightness and brightness of the frosted glass panels and the bare wood floor and the cream-on-white cotton wall hangings, the New Age music that she scorned anywhere else (Tropicalismo hippy-shit) but here told her, “you’re wonderful, you’re special, you’re robed in light, the universe loves you, all you have to do is reach out your hand and take anything you desire.”
Eyes closed, lying flat on the reclining chair, she felt her work-weary crow’s-feet smoothed away, the young, energizing tautness of her skin. Two years before she had been to New York on the Real Sex in the City production and had been struck by how the ianqui women styled themselves out of personal empowerment and not, as a carioca would have done, because it was her duty before a scrutinizing, judgmental city. An alien creed: thousand-dollar shoes but no pedicure. But she had brought back one mantra among her shopping bags, an enlightenment she had stolen from a Jennifer Aniston cosmetics ad. She whispered it to herself now, in the warm, jasmine-and vetiver-scented sanctuary as the botulin toxins diffused through her skin.
Because I’m worth it.
”
”
Ian McDonald (Brasyl)
“
It’s supposed to be raining Thank Yous on Thursday, after an ingratitude draught. Also, you’d better enjoy my love while it’s fresh, before it goes rotten and I have to sell it to McDonald’s as chicken filler.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
“
After six long hours of driving and three rest stops, Tiger pulls up to a snow-topped, metal speaker box just outside the State Penitentiary's first gate in Walla Walla. As he rolls down his window and snow flies in his face, Joshua starts begging for a Happy Meal.
I turn around, snapping at him. "This ISN'T MCDONALDS and YOU AREN'T HUNGRY. NOW SHUT UP BRAT."
A loud scratchy masculine voice blasts out of the speaker. "CAN I HELP YOU?"
Tiger leans out the window, as he answers- We're here to visit Raven Chandler.
"HAVE YOU BEEN HERE BEFORE?"
"Yes sir. I've been here A LOT."
"WHERE'S HIS MOTHER?"
"I don't know.. I haven't seen her in months."
"NOT THE PRISONER'S MOTHER. THE BRAT IN THE BACK SEAT OF YOUR JEEP."
"Oh- HIM-" As he turns, smiling and sticking his tongue out at Joshua, I lean towards his window to answer the guard's question.
"SHE'S IN VEGAS, SIR. I'M BABYSITTING. HE'S MY GODSON." When the speaker remains disturbingly silent for far too long, I continue. "HE'S A GOOD BOY SIR. HE WON'T BE ANY TROUBLE- I SWEAR."
"THAT'S RIGHT," Tiger said. "HE SWEARS ON THE LITTLE BRAT'S MOTHER'S GRAVE.
”
”
Giorge Leedy (Uninhibited From Lust To Love)
“
Since I first laid eyes on her that night in the bar, I knew she was meant for me. She tells me all the time, I saved her, because her dream came true. The truth is, she saved me that night, and has been saving me every night since then.
”
”
Chelsea McDonald (Save Me (A Vibrations Novella, #1))
“
F. Scott Fitzgerald was a great writer. He said that a person never experiences the same kind of love twice. That means what we have with each other is not like anything either of us has had with anyone else. I like that idea.
”
”
Donna McDonald (Dating a Silver Fox (Never Too Late, #5))
“
Shaney is a prince?” Sara squeaked the question. “Why does no one tell me these things? This is my kingdom, but I don’t know what’s going on.
”
”
Donna McDonald (Commissioned in White (Art of Love, #4))
“
Meaning?” Shane asked. “That I think it would be fun to put Brooke and Drake in a box and shake them up together to see what kind of noise they make,” Michael suggested, giving in to his laughter.
”
”
Donna McDonald (Captured in Ink (Art of Love, #3))
“
But what Afghanistan needs is a big dose of Jesus. Western culture will leave Afghans feeling as empty as they were before. Maybe their lifestyle will improve, but without Christ they will still die in their sin and go straight to hell. Jesus' message of real freedom is what is needed—in a hurry. The pure gospel that sets us free from our personal sin is the only thing that will revolutionize Afghanistan. McDonald's won't. Don't get me wrong. I love a Big Mac, but the church is the one with all the answers. Western culture without Jesus Christ in the middle of it will not deliver what it promises. Americans can testify to this.
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Tom Doyle (Two Nations Under God)
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In this experiment you’re going to prove that your thoughts and feelings also create energy waves. Here’s what you do: Get two wire coat hangers, easy to obtain in most any closet. Untwist the neck of each hanger until you’ve got just two straight wires. These are your “Einstein wands.” Or rather they will be when you shape them into an L, about 12 inches long for the main part and 5 inches for the handle. Cut a plastic straw in half (you can score one free of charge at any McDonald’s), slide the handle that you just bent inside the straws (it’ll make your wands swing easily), and bend the bottom of the hanger to hold the straw in place. Now, pretend you’re a double-fisted, gun-slinging Matt Dillon from Gunsmoke with the wands held chest high and about ten inches from your body. They’ll flap all over the place at first (like I said, you’re an ongoing river of energy), so give them a few moments to settle down. Once they’ve stopped flapping, you’re ready to begin the experiment. With your eyes straight ahead, vividly recall some very unpleasant event from your past. Depending on the intensity of your emotion, the wands will either stay straight ahead (weak intensity) or will point inward, tip to tip. The wands are following the electromagnetic bands around your body, which have contracted as a result of the negative frequency generated by your unpleasant thought and emotions. Now make your frequencies turn positive by thinking about something loving or joyous. The wands will now expand outward as your energy field expands to your positive energy flow. Okay, now keep your eyes straight ahead, but focus your attention on an object to your far right or far left and watch your wands follow your thoughts. The more you play with this, the more adept you’ll become at feeling the vibrational shift as you change from one frequency to another.
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Pam Grout (E-Squared: Nine Do-It-Yourself Energy Experiments That Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality)
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She looked at her note cards and took a breath. "Why I Love America, by Hayley McDonald's. America is the greatest group of countries in the world because we have freedom. In countries like France, where the Government isn't privatized, they still have to pay tax and do whatever the Government says, which would really suck. In USA countries, we respect individual rights and let people do whatever they want.
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Max Barry
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The closest thing I have to a spiritual experience anymore is a Mocha Frappe from McDonald's.
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Laura A. Lord (Wake Up a Woman)
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Um, people.”
It wasn’t hard to get their attention. They gathered around. Even the littlest ones toned down their giggling, at least a bit.
“First of all, thanks to Albert and his helpers for this meal. Let’s give it up for the true Mac Daddy.”
A round of hearty applause and some laughter, and Albert waved sheepishly. He frowned a little too, obviously conflicted about the use of the “Mac” prefix in a way that was not approved in the McDonald’s manual.
“And we have to mention Lana and Dahra, because without them, there would be a lot fewer of us here.”
Now the applause was almost reverential.
“Our first Thanksgiving in the FAYZ,” Sam said when the applause died down.
“Hope it’s our last,” someone shouted.
“Yeah. You got that right,” Sam agreed. “But we’re here. We’re here in this place we never wanted to be. And we’re scared. And I’m not going to lie and tell you that from here on, it will all be easy. It won’t be. It will be hard. And we’ll be scared some more, I guess. And sad. And lonely. Some terrible things have happened. Some terrible things…” For a moment, he lost his way. But then he stood up straighter again. “But, still, we are grateful, and we give thanks to God, if you believe in Him, or to fate, or to just ourselves, all of us here.”
“To you, Sam,” someone shouted.
“No, no, no.” He waved that off. “No. We give thanks to the nineteen kids who are buried right there.” He pointed at the six rows of three, plus the one who started a seventh row. Neat hand-painted wooden tombstones bore the names of Bette and too many others.
“And we give thanks to the heroes who are standing around here right now eating turkey. Too many names to mention, and they’d all just be embarrassed, anyway, but we all know them.”
There was a wave of loud, sustained applause, and many faces turned toward Edilio and Dekka, Taylor and Brianna, and some toward Quinn.
“We all hope this will end. We all hope we’ll soon be back in the world with people we love. But right now, we’re here. We’re in the FAYZ. And what we’re going to do is work together, and look out for each other, and help each other.” People nodded, some high-fived.
“Most of us are from Perdido Beach. Some are from Coates. Some of us are…well, a little strange.” A few titters. “And some of us are not. But we’re all here now, we’re all in it together. We’re going to survive. If this is our world now…I mean, it is our world now. It is our world. So, let’s make it a good one.”
He stepped down in silence.
Then someone started clapping rhythmically and saying, “Sam, Sam, Sam.” Others joined in, and soon every person in the plaza, even some of the prees, was chanting his name.
”
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Michael Grant
“
I was doing my solo routine for requests one night, and an old geezer who’d won a bundle at the racetrack that day came in with a doll who could have been his granddaughter but obviously was not. They danced over to the piano in a spastic flutter, cheek-to-cheek, and the old boy waved a dollar bill at me and asked if I could play “I Love You Truly.” I just stared at him and shook my head negatively. He was startled and the young girl slapped his hand with the dollar, knocking it into the top hat, and she shouted, “How dare you insult him with a dollar, you cheapskate!” Then she grabbed a twenty-dollar bill out of the bundle that protruded from his breast pocket and dropped it in my lap. “Hey, wait a minute,” I called. “Did you say ‘I Love You Truly’?” and I played the first few bars haltingly, as though striving to recall them. He nodded vigorously, and I went ahead with the tune
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Ray Kroc (Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's)
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The only thing I really enjoyed about school was debating. Here was an activity I could get my teeth into—figuratively, of course—but I would not have hesitated to bite a debate opponent if it would have advanced my argument. I loved being the center of attention, persuading the audience that my side was right. One debate that I remember in particular was on the question “Should Smoking Be Abolished?” As happened more often than not, I was on the side of the underdogs, trying to defend smoking. It was a very spirited exchange, but my opponents made the mistake of painting the demon tobacco too black, too vile, too evil to be countenanced by a sane society.
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Ray Kroc (Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's)
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It's their way of touching one another without having to touch one another. It's their way of saying I had a nightmare and are you there and I am here. And it's their way.
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Margaret McDonald
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I’m no beauty queen, but her face is stronger than a McDonalds Sprite.
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Authoress Masterpiece (Love Me Naked)
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BERNARDINE QUINN: We’re calling marriage equality ‘equality’ as if the day that there’s a bill stamped saying lesbian and gay people can get married that we’ll have full equality. Yet in Meath, there isn’t one single support service for a young lesbian or gay person to attend; there isn’t one qualified full-time youth worker to work with young LGBT people; there is absolutely zero trans services, where the trans services in Dublin are mediocre at best. There’s something about ‘marriage equality’ – that we’ll all be equal when marriage comes in, when a kid in west Kerry doesn’t even have a telephone number of a helpline that he can ring for support. This was raised by our young people to Mairead McGuinness and to Mary Lou McDonald when they were here, just to say, thinking that your work around marriage equality – that that’s not all. The allocation of finances to LGBT work in this country is tiny compared to what is given to most other services. There’s something about calling it ‘equality’. It’s another step on the ladder and it’s a hugely important step … But it isn’t all. There’s another battle after that, and that is to get services to west Donegal, to Mayo, into the Midlands, to get real, solid support in these areas so that a young LGBT person has something in every county, trained qualified people to talk to. In some areas where those services aren’t available, where there isn’t training for schools, where there’s nobody that a kid can talk to, to say that they think they’re transgender – I don’t want to sound negative – I think marriage equality is going to be fantastic for a lot of lesbian and gay people. I think if you were 14 and coming out today, your story is going to be so much more different than when I was 14. The prospects of you considering yourself what every other young person considers themselves of 14 when you think about your future and what you’re going to do: you’re going to meet the person that you love, you’re going to get married, going to have kids, going to have the house and the picket fence. That will be an option for a kid. When I came out, those dreams were put very firmly away. I was never going to get married, I was never going to have children, I was never going to make my family proud, my dad was never going to walk me up the aisle. All of those kinds of things were not even an option when I came out. As a matter of fact, there was a better chance that I was going to have to go to London, I was going to bring huge shame on my family, I probably would end up not speaking to half my siblings and my parents, having to go away and fend for myself. That was my option. I think that option has dramatically changed. People can live in their home towns easier now … Anything that makes a young person’s life easier, and gives them more opportunities, is fantastic. I think that a young person, 14, 15, only starting to discover themselves, they’ve got a whole other suite of options. They can talk about, ‘I’ll eventually marry my partner.’ I think I’m only after saying that for the first time in my life, that there will be an option to marry my partner.
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Una Mullally (In the Name of Love: The Movement for Marriage Equality in Ireland. An Oral History)
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Durstan Reginald McDonald, whom everybody called Dusty. Dusty became one of my most important mentors. Aside from being chaplain, he taught philosophy and had a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Probably in his late forties at the time, Dusty was a married father with a crew cut—in other words, a grown-up. Contrary to the iconic proclamation of the ’60s to “never trust anyone over thirty,” Dusty was trusted by every kid on campus, from conscientious objectors to conservative fraternity guys. Dusty helped me arrive at answers in the way a good chaplain does: He listened, asked questions, and maybe made a few suggestions. He never made a conclusion for you, instead helping light the way as you eked out your own path. We had one particularly influential conversation on an airplane, on our way to a student conference. I was still considering law school but starting to think more and more about ordination. I told Dusty about my father’s financial struggles. “I’ve seen what that’s like. I don’t need to be rich, but maybe I could go to law school and make some money and do good at the same time,” I said. “It’s true, you don’t get rich by being ordained,” he said. “But you’ll never starve, either. Your family will have enough to get by.” Thinking about my own family again, I realized that even under extreme circumstances, it was true. In the worst crises, we never starved, or even wanted. “You have to ask yourself what you want out of life. If it isn’t money, then maybe having enough is enough.” This conversation helped me get much clearer on myself. It wasn’t my dream to be rich. I knew I wanted to work for a better world. But should it be through law or public administration, or in the church? I meditated and prayed on that question, and I always felt myself coming back to my grandma.
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Michael B. Curry (Love is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times)
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Oh,” Terry McDonald said. “I know where we’re going. Don’t worry, my Love.
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Charlie Donlea (The Girl Who Was Taken)
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Did I eat McDonald’s last night? Or do I naturally smell like a Big Mac?” He brushes my tangled hair from my face and looks at me so lovingly that, for a second, I forget that I am an actual dumpster gremlin right now. “You ate twenty chicken nuggets in about four minutes. It was like you were in an eating competition, but you were the only contestant. I’ve never been more in love with you.
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Hannah Grace (Icebreaker)
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Life was good, and none of it would have happened without Andrew. Without him, I would never have mastered the world of music piracy and lived a life of endless McDonald's. What he did, on a small scale, showed me how important it is to empower the dispossessed and the disenfranchised in the wake of oppression. Andrew was white. His family had access to education, resources, computers. For generations, while his people were preparing to go to university, my people were crowded into thatched huts singing, "Two times to is four. Three times two is six. La la la la la." My family had been denied the things his family had taken for granted. I had a natural talent for selling to people, but without knowledge and resources, where was that going to get me? People always lecture the poor: "Take responsibility for yourself! Make something of yourself!" But with what raw materials are the poor to make something of themselves?
People love to say, "Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime." What they don't say is, "And it would be nice if you give him a fishing rod." That's the part of the analogy that's missing. Working with Andrew was the first time in my life I realized you need someone from the privileged world to come to you and say, "Okay, here's what you need, and here's how it works." Talent alone would have gotten me nowhere without Andrew giving me the CD writer. People say, "Oh, that's a handout." No. I still have to work to profit by it. But I don't stand a chance without it.
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Trevor Noah
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Some relationships in life just seem to be inevitable and happen when they happen. I have never understood people who choose to spend their entire life being in denial about someone they love. I’d rather go through the divorce again than to not have you or Shane.
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Donna McDonald (Carved In Stone (Art of Love, #1))
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Once, for example, on a train going across Canada, I began talking to a man everyone was avoiding because he was weaving and slurring his speech as if drunk. It turned out that he was recovering from a stroke. He had been an engineer on the same line we were riding, and long into the night he revealed to me the history beneath every mile of track: Pile O’Bones Creek, named for the thousands of buffalo skeletons left there by Indian hunters; the legend of Big Jack, a Swedish track-layer who could lift 500-pound steel rails; a conductor named McDonald who kept a rabbit as his traveling companion. As the morning sun began to tint the horizon, he grabbed my hand and looked into my eyes. “Thanks for listening. Most people wouldn’t bother.” He didn’t have to thank me. The pleasure had been all mine.
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Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul: Stories of Life, Love and Learning)
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propping my eyes open with a cup of muscle-bound coffee from the McDonald’s at Third and Pine. The restaurant mirrors the flavor of the street, and Third Avenue in downtown Seattle is an absolute cross section of life in this country. I love it and hate it.
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J.A. Jance (Until Proven Guilty (J.P. Beaumont, #1))
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Hey, Dad. Mary Ann and I were just about to perform our pieces from the show. Would you and Mom like to watch?” Dad smiles. “We would love it. “Give us five minutes, and we’ll meet you in the living room,” I tell Dad.
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Laurie B. Friedman (Play It Again, Mallory (Mallory McDonald, #20))
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I’m tired of people acting like they are better than McDonald’s. You may’ve never set foot in a McDonald’s, but you have your own McDonald’s. Maybe instead of buying a Big Mac, you read US Weekly. That’s just a different type of McDonald’s. It’s just served up a little differently. Maybe your McDonald’s is telling yourself your Starbucks Frappuccino is not a milkshake, or maybe you watch those Real-Housewives-of-some-large-city shows. It’s all McDonald’s. It’s McDonald’s of the soul: momentary pleasure followed by incredible guilt, eventually leading to cancer. We all have our own McDonald’s. It may take me a decade to digest my Quarter Pounder with Cheese, but that tramp stamp is forever. In a way, it’s all McDonald’s out there in our society.
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Jim Gaffigan (Food: A Love Story)
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As a child I was confused by my father’s love of steak. I remember being eight and my dad ceremoniously announcing to the family, “We’re having steak tonight!” as if Abe Lincoln were coming over for dinner. My siblings and I would politely act excited as we watched TV. “That’s great, Dad!” I remember thinking, Big deal. Why can’t we just have McDonald’s? To me, my father just had this weird thing with steak. I thought, Dads obsess about steak the way kids obsess about candy. Well, my dad did. I’d watch him trudge out behind our house in all types of weather to the propane grill after me or one of my brothers barely averted death by lighting it for him. He would happily take his post out there, chain-smoking his Merit Ultra Light cigarettes and drinking his Johnnie Walker Black Label Scotch alone in the darkness of Northwest Indiana. He’d stare into the flame like it was an ancient oracle relaying a prophecy that solved the mysteries of life.
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Jim Gaffigan (Food: A Love Story)
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Mr. and Mrs. Sprat. The couple in the apartment next to mine. They’re pretty old, and they must be lonely.” I wrinkle my nose at the thought. Mrs. Sprat is so nice. She deserves better. “No one ever visits, at least not since I moved in. So I bring McDonald’s over sometimes.” I shrug.
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Julie Christianson (The Mostly Real McCoy (Apple Valley Love Stories #1))
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In general, it could be said that we talk about many things. I’ll try to list them in no particular order. 1) The Latin American hell that, especially on weekends, is concentrated around some Kentucky Fried Chickens and McDonald’s. 2) The doings of the Buenos Aires photographer Alfredo Garófano, childhood friend of Rodrigo and now a friend of mine and of anyone with the least bit of discernment. 3) Bad translations. 4) Serial killers and mass murderers. 5) Prospective leisure as the antidote to prospective poetry. 6) The vast number of writers who should retire after writing their first book or their second or their third or their fourth or their fifth. 7) The superiority of the work of Basquiat to that of Haring, or vice versa. 8) The works of Borges and the works of Bioy. 9) The advisablity of retiring to a ranch in Mexico near a volcano to finish writing The Turkey Buzzard Trilogy. 10) Wrinkles in the space-time continuum. 11) The kind of majestic women you’ve never met who come up to you in a bar and whisper in your ear that they have AIDS (or that they don’t). 12) Gombrowicz and his conception of immaturity. 13) Philip K. Dick, whom we both unreservedly admire. 14) The likelihood of a war between Chile and Argentina and its possible and impossible consequences. 15) The life of Proust and the life of Stendhal. 16) The activities of some professors in the United States. 17) The sexual practices of titi monkeys and ants and great cetaceans. 18) Colleagues who must be avoided like limpet mines. 19) Ignacio Echevarría, whom both of us love and admire. 20) Some Mexican writers liked by me and not by him, and some Argentine writers liked by me and not by him. 21) Barcelonan manners. 22) David Lynch and the prolixity of David Foster Wallace. 23) Chabon and Palahniuk, whom he likes and I don’t. 24) Wittgenstein and his plumbing and carpentry skills. 25) Some twilit dinners, which actually, to the surprise of the diner, become theater pieces in five acts. 26) Trashy TV game shows. 27) The end of the world. 28) Kubrick’s films, which Fresán loves so much that I’m beginning to hate them. 29) The incredible war between the planet of the novel-creatures and the planet of the story-beings. 30) The possibility that when the novel awakes from its iron dreams, the story will still be there.
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Roberto Bolaño (Between Parentheses: Essays, Articles and Speeches, 1998-2003)
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The real being the good that lies in the human heart,' I heard myself saying. 'The real, and the greatest good among all things,' said George, 'is love.
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Anthony McDonald (Cam Cox (Gay Romance Book 7))
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day something happens in your life that presents you with a choice and it’s up to you what you do with that choice. It’s easy to play safe and stick with what we know. ‘But I’m wild,’ I thought. ‘I refuse to play safe.’ At the end of Valentine’s Day, as if sensing the waves of frustration and claustrophobia coming from the cast, the captain decided to give us the whole of the following day off, which was practically unheard of. To say that we needed to flop on a sun-soaked tropical beach makes us sound like spoilt brats and actually a freezing-cold stroll along the front at Blackpool would have been just as welcome if it had distracted us from our tired bodies and whirring minds. Anything to get away from relentlessly running through new routines to replace routines that had been reworked and replaced several times already. When I’m feeling low, it doesn’t usually take long for me to bounce back. At the end of a day spent lazing with the dancers on the beach I felt refreshed and renewed. ‘I’m definitely going to resign,’ I thought as I showered and dressed for the evening. It was the right decision and I vowed to deliver my letter in the morning. I ran my fingers through my hair and winked at my reflection in the mirror. Then I went up to the bar and my whole life changed in an instant. 10 The Way You Look Tonight The night I met Henrik Brixen I was ready for a bit of romance in my life. I hadn’t had a serious relationship in years, it was time. ‘I’m looking for the man of my dreams,’ I confided in my friends. ‘He’s got to be tall, blond, handsome, strong and ambitious …’ They laughed. ‘Not asking much, then?’ My friend, Günter Boodenstein, was on the lookout for me. Günter oversaw the ship’s engines and I often had a drink with him and his wife, Angelica, when she came aboard; they were lovely people and we became very pally. I bumped into Günter on the gangway as I was leaving the ship to go to the beach with the dancers on my day off. ‘Waiting for someone?’ I asked him. His face lit up. ‘Jane! You’re just the person I wanted to see. I have someone called Henrik Brixen coming onboard to have a look at the boiler.’ ‘Oh, yes? Up my street?’ He smiled. ‘Right up your street.’ A boiler man didn’t sound very promising, but I was prepared to keep an open mind. Günter and I agreed to meet up in the bar later and I went off to the beach. When Henrik arrived, Günter told him, ‘There’s a girl you should meet.’ Was there something in the stars that night? There was definitely some kind of magic, because the air seemed to glitter as Günter introduced me
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Jane McDonald (Riding the Waves: My Story)