Idiot Meaning In Love Quotes

Can I say something?' 'Go on' 'I'm a little drunk' 'Me too. That's okay.' 'Just....I missed you, you know.' 'I missed you too.' 'But so, so much, Dexter. There were so many things I wanted to talk to you about, and you weren't there-' 'same here.' 'I tell you what it is. It's.....When I didn't see you, I thought about you every day, I mean EVERY DAY in some way or another-' 'same here.' '-Even if it was just "I wish Dexter could see this" or "Where's Dexter now?" or "Christ that Dexter, what an idiot", you know what I mean, and seeing you today, well, I thought I'd got you back - my BEST friend. And now all this, the wedding, the baby- I'm so happy for you, Dex, but it feels like I've lost you again.'- -'You know what happens you have a family, your responsibilities change, you lose touch with people' 'It won't be like that, I promise.' 'Do you?' 'Absolutely' 'You swear? No more disappearing?' 'I won't if you won't.' Their lips touched now, mouths pursed tight, their eyes open, both of them stock still. The moment held, a kind of glorious confusion.

My father said that love at first sight should send you running, if you know what's good for you. It's your dark pieces having instant recognition with their dark pieces, he says. You're an idiot if you think it means you've met your soul mate. So I was an idiot.

Above all, I didn't want to fall into the trap that Buddhists call idiot compassion - an apt phrase, given John's worldview. In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people's feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty. People do this with teenagers, spouses, addicts, even themselves. Its opposite is wise compassion, which means caring about the person but also giving him or her a loving truth bomb when needed.

I know that I’ve become one of those spouting, love-sick idiots, but what it all boils down to is three words that don’t mean enough…I love you.

I feel like men are more romantic than women. When we get married we marry, like, one girl, 'cause we're resistant the whole way until we meet one girl and we think I'd be an idiot if I didn't marry this girl she's so great. But it seems like girls get to a place where they just kinda pick the best option... 'Oh he's got a good job.' I mean they spend their whole life looking for Prince Charming and then they marry the guy who's got a good job and is gonna stick around.

My day isn’t complete until I’m deep inside you. Your body wrapped around mine is the only way I feel whole. But don’t think it’s just sex and a physical response to you that I’m feeling. It’s not…it’s so much more. You’ve opened me in a way that leaves me bleeding, vulnerable. Being with you, making love to you, it only solidifies what I feel for you. I know that I’ve become one of those spouting, love-sick idiots, but what it all boils down to is three words that don’t mean nearly enough…I love you.

We love men because they can never fake orgasms, even if they wanted to. Because they write poems, songs, and books in our honor. Because they never understand us, but they never give up. Because they can see beauty in women when women have long ceased to see any beauty in themselves. Because they come from little boys. Because they can churn out long, intricate, Machiavellian, or incredibly complex mathematics and physics equations, but they can be comparably clueless when it comes to women. Because they are incredible lovers and never rest until we’re happy. Because they elevate sports to religion. Because they’re never afraid of the dark. Because they don’t care how they look or if they age. Because they persevere in making and repairing things beyond their abilities, with the naïve self-assurance of the teenage boy who knew everything. Because they never wear or dream of wearing high heels. Because they’re always ready for sex. Because they’re like pomegranates: lots of inedible parts, but the juicy seeds are incredibly tasty and succulent and usually exceed your expectations. Because they’re afraid to go bald. Because you always know what they think and they always mean what they say. Because they love machines, tools, and implements with the same ferocity women love jewelry. Because they go to great lengths to hide, unsuccessfully, that they are frail and human. Because they either speak too much or not at all to that end. Because they always finish the food on their plate. Because they are brave in front of insects and mice. Because a well-spoken four-year old girl can reduce them to silence, and a beautiful 25-year old can reduce them to slobbering idiots. Because they want to be either omnivorous or ascetic, warriors or lovers, artists or generals, but nothing in-between. Because for them there’s no such thing as too much adrenaline. Because when all is said and done, they can’t live without us, no matter how hard they try. Because they’re truly as simple as they claim to be. Because they love extremes and when they go to extremes, we’re there to catch them. Because they are tender they when they cry, and how seldom they do it. Because what they lack in talk, they tend to make up for in action. Because they make excellent companions when driving through rough neighborhoods or walking past dark alleys. Because they really love their moms, and they remind us of our dads. Because they never care what their horoscope, their mother-in-law, nor the neighbors say. Because they don’t lie about their age, their weight, or their clothing size. Because they have an uncanny ability to look deeply into our eyes and connect with our heart, even when we don’t want them to. Because when we say “I love you” they ask for an explanation.

What the hell does it all mean anyhow? Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nothing comes to anything. And yet, there's no shortage of idiots to babble. Not me. I have a vision. I'm discussing you. Your friends. Your coworkers. Your newspapers. The TV. Everybody's happy to talk. Full of misinformation. Morality, science, religion, politics, sports, love, your portfolio, your children, health. Christ, if I have to eat nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day to live, I don't wanna live. I hate goddamn fruits and vegetables. And your omega 3's, and the treadmill, and the cardiogram, and the mammogram, and the pelvic sonogram, and oh my god the-the-the colonoscopy, and with it all the day still comes where they put you in a box, and its on to the next generation of idiots, who'll also tell you all about life and define for you what's appropriate. My father committed suicide because the morning newspapers depressed him. And could you blame him? With the horror, and corruption, and ignorance, and poverty, and genocide, and AIDS, and global warming, and terrorism, and-and the family value morons, and the gun morons. "The horror," Kurtz said at the end of Heart of Darkness, "the horror." Lucky Kurtz didn't have the Times delivered in the jungle. Ugh... then he'd see some horror. But what do you do? You read about some massacre in Darfur or some school bus gets blown up, and you go "Oh my God, the horror," and then you turn the page and finish your eggs from the free range chickens. Because what can you do. It's overwhelming!

Just because I see the good in people doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. I think optimism is a good trait, and I feel sorry for people who go through life believing the worst of others.

He looks at me like I’ve just said something absolutely idiotic, which of course I have. “Love and truth being tied together, I mean. They make each other possible, you know?

What’s your favorite word?” Startled, I looked up at him, unsure I’d heard him right. “My favorite word?” He nodded, slipping his glasses up his nose with a quick, practiced scrunch of his face that made him look angry and then surprised within a single second. “You have seven boxes of books up here. A wild guess tells me you like words.” I suppose I had never thought about having a favorite word, but now that he asked, I kind of liked the idea. I let my eyes lose focus as I thought. “Ranunculus,” I said after a moment. “What?” “Ranunculus. It’s a kind of flower. It’s such a weird word but the flowers are so pretty, I like how unexpected that is.” They were my Mom’s favorite, I didn’t say. “That’s a pretty girly answer.” “Well, I am a girl.” He kept his eyes on his feet but I knew I wasn’t imagining the gleam of interest I’d seen when I said ranunculus. I bet he had expected me to say unicorn or daisy or vampire. “What about you? What’s your favorite word? I bet it’s tungsten. Or, like, amphibian.” He quirked a smile, answering, “Regurgitate.” Scrunching my nose, I stared at him. “That is a gross word.” This made him smile even wider. “I like the hard consonant sounds in it. It kinda sounds like exactly what it means.” “An onomatopoeia?” I half expected trumpets to blast revelatory music from an invisible speaker in the wall from the way Elliot stared at me, lips parted and glasses slowly sliding down his nose. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m not a complete idiot, you know. You don’t have to look so surprised that I know some big words.” “I never thought you were an idiot,” he said quietly, looking toward the box and pulling out another book to hand to me. For a long time after we returned to our slow, inefficient method of unpacking the books, I could feel him looking up and watching me, tiny flashes of stolen glances. I pretended I didn’t notice.

I am serenading you sweetheart,” Kip says, “The way I figure it, you like those idiots who play guitars, so I figure I will learn how to play so I can seduce you. Jagger will understand. I mean he can’t play drums for shit, so you will have no choice but to fall madly in love with my guitar and drum playing skills.” He grins like a Cheshire cat.

Well-meaning friends ' often the worst kind ' handed me the usual clich+!s, and so I feel in a pretty good position to warn you: Just offer your deepest condolences. Don't tell me I'm young. Don't tell me it'll get better. Don't tell me she's in a better place. Don't tell me it's part of some divine plan. Don't tell me that I was lucky to have known such a love. Every one of those platitudes pissed me off. They made me ' and this is going to sound uncharitable ' stare at the idiot and wonder why he or she still breathed while my Elizabeth rotted.

I know we have only been together for a little over a year,” I explained, quickly. “Maybe it’s too soon? I understand if it’s too soon. It’s just that how you feel about the way we kiss? I feel that way about everything we do together. I love it. I love to be inside you, I love working with you, I love watching you work, I love fighting with you, and I love just sitting on the couch and laughing with you. I’m lost when I’m not with you, Chloe. I can’t think of anything, or anyone, who is more important to me, every second. And so for me, that means we’re already sort of married in my head. I guess I wanted to make it official somehow. Maybe I sound like an idiot?” I looked over at her, feeling my heart try to jackhammer its way up my throat. “I never expected to feel this way about someone.

This is the list you carry in your pocket, of the things you plan to say to Kay, when you find him, if you find him: 1. I’m sorry that I forgot to water your ferns while you were away that time. 2. When you said that I reminded you of your mother, was that a good thing? 3. I never really liked your friends all that much. 4. None of my friends ever really liked you. 5. Do you remember when the cat ran away, and I cried and cried and made you put up posters, and she never came back? I wasn’t crying because she didn’t come back. I was crying because I’d taken her to the woods, and I was scared she’d come back and tell you what I’d done, but I guess a wolf got her, or something. She never liked me anyway. 6. I never liked your mother. 7. After you left, I didn’t water your plants on purpose. They’re all dead. 8. Goodbye. 9. Were you ever really in love with me? 10. Was I good in bed, or just average? 11. What exactly did you mean, when you said that it was fine that I had put on a little weight, that you thought I was even more beautiful, that I should go ahead and eat as much as I wanted, but when I weighed myself on the bathroom scale, I was exactly the same weight as before, I hadn’t gained a single pound? 12. So all those times, I’m being honest here, every single time, and anyway I don’t care if you don’t believe me, I faked every orgasm you ever thought I had. Women can do that, you know. You never made me come, not even once. 13. So maybe I’m an idiot, but I used to be in love with you. 14. I slept with some guy, I didn’t mean to, it just kind of happened. Is that how it was with you? Not that I’m making any apologies, or that I’d accept yours, I just want to know. 15. My feet hurt, and it’s all your fault. 16. I mean it this time, goodbye.

I stood as she straightened and snaked my arms around her, pulling her close to me, savoring the feel of every delicate curve. For three weeks, I spent my time convincing myself that our breakup was the right choice. But being this close to her, hearing her laugh, listening to her voice, I knew I had been telling myself lies. Her eyes widened when I lowered my head to hers. “It doesn’t have to be this way. We can find a way to make us work.” She tilted her head and licked her lips, whispering through shallow breaths, “You’re not playing fair.” “No, I’m not.” Echo thought too much. I threaded my fingers into her hair and kissed her, leaving her no opportunity to think about what we were doing. I wanted her to feel what I felt. To revel in the pull, the attraction. Dammit, I wanted her to undeniably love me. Her pack hit the floor with a resounding thud and her magical fingers explored my back, neck and head. Echo’s tongue danced manically with mine, hungry and excited. Her muscles stiffened when her mind caught up. I held her tighter to me, refusing to let her leave so easily again. Echo pulled her lips away, but was unable to step back from my body. “We can’t, Noah.” “Why not?” I shook her without meaning to, but if it snapped something into place, I’d shake her again. “Because everything has changed. Because nothing has changed. You have a family to save. I …” She looked away, shaking her head. “I can’t live here anymore. When I leave town, I can sleep. Do you understand what I’m saying?” I did. I understood all too well, as much as I hated it. This was why we ignored each other. When she walked away the first time, my damn heart ruptured and I swore I’d never let it happen again. Like an idiot, here I was setting off explosives. Both of my hands wove into her hair again and clutched at the soft curls. No matter how I tightened my grip, the strands kept falling from my fingers, a shower of water from the sky. I rested my forehead against hers. “I want you to be happy.” “You, too,” she whispered. I let go of her and left the main office. When I first connected with Echo, I’d promised her I would help her find her answers. I was a man of my word and Echo would soon know that.

According to the biographical notes, Monsieur Julian Carax was twenty-seven, born with the century in Barcelona, and currently living in Paris; he wrote in French and worked at night as a professional pianist in a hostess bar. The blurb, written in the pompous, moldy style of the age, proclaimed that this was a first work of dazzling courage, the mark of a protean and trailblazing talent, and a sign of hope for the future of all of European letters. In spite of such solemn claims, the synopsis that followed suggested that the story contained some vaguely sinister elements slowly marinated in saucy melodrama, which, to the eyes of Monsieur Roquefort, was always a plus: after the classics what he most enjoyed were tales of crime, boudoir intrigue, and questionable conduct. One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. By the time the mind is able to comprehend what has happened, the wounds of the heart are already too deep. She laughed nervously. She had around her a burning aura of loneliness. "You remind me a bit of Julian," she said suddenly. "The way you look and your gestures. He used to do what you are doing now. He would stare at you without saying a word, and you wouldn't know what he was thinking, and so, like an idiot, you'd tell him things it would have been better to keep to yourself." "Someone once said that the moment you stop to think about whether you love someone, you've already stopped loving that person forever." I gulped down the last of my coffee and looked at her for a few moments without saying anything. I thought about how much I wanted to lose myself in those evasive eyes. I thought about the loneliness that would take hold of me that night when I said good-bye to her, once I had run out of tricks or stories to make her stay with me any longer. I thought about how little I had to offer her and how much I wanted from her. "You women listen more to your heart and less to all the nonsense," the hatter concluded sadly. "That's why you live longer." But the years went by in peace. Time goes faster the more hollow it is. Lives with no meaning go straight past you, like trains that don't stop at your station.

Ruby and Aaron are both crazy patient; they’re good parents.” “I could be a good dad,” Ivan whispered, still feeding Jess. I could have told him he’d be good at anything he wanted to be good at, but nah. “Do you want to have kids?” he asked me out of the blue. I handed Benny another block. “A long time from now, maybe.” “A long time… like how long?” That had me glancing at Ivan over my shoulder. He had his entire attention on Jessie, and I was pretty sure he was smiling down at her. Huh. “My early thirties, maybe? I don’t know. I might be okay with not having any either. I haven’t really thought about it much, except for knowing I don’t want to have them any time soon, you know what I mean?” “Because of figure skating?” “Why else? I barely have enough time now. I couldn’t imagine trying to train and have kids. My baby daddy would have to be a rich, stay-at-home dad for that to work.” Ivan wrinkled his nose at my niece. “There are at least ten skaters I know with kids.” I rolled my eyes and poked Benny in the side when he held out his little hand for another block. That got me a toothy grin. “I’m not saying it’s impossible. I just wouldn’t want to do it any time soon. I don’t want to half-ass or regret it. If they ever exist, I’d want them to be my priority. I wouldn’t want them to think they were second best.” Because I knew what that felt like. And I’d already screwed up enough with making grown adults I loved think they weren’t important. If I was going to do something, I wanted to do my best and give it everything. All he said was, “Hmm.” A thought came into my head and made my stomach churn. “Why? Are you planning on having kids any time soon?” “I wasn’t,” he answered immediately. “I like this baby though, and that one. Maybe I need to think about it.” I frowned, the feeling in my stomach getting more intense. He kept blabbing. “I could start training my kids really young…. I could coach them. Hmm.” It was my turn to wrinkle my nose. “Three hours with two kids and now you want them?” Ivan glanced down at me with a smirk. “With the right person. I’m not going to have them with just anybody and dilute my blood.” I rolled my eyes at this idiot, still ignoring that weird feeling in my belly that I wasn’t going to acknowledge now or ever. “God forbid, you have kids with someone that’s not perfect. Dumbass.” “Right?” He snorted, looking down at the baby before glancing back at me with a smile I wasn’t a fan of. “They might come out short, with mean, squinty, little eyes, a big mouth, heavy bones, and a bad attitude.” I blinked. “I hope you get abducted by aliens.” Ivan laughed, and the sound of it made me smile. “You would miss me.” All I said, while shrugging was, “Meh. I know I’d get to see you again someday—” He smiled. “—in hell.” That wiped the look right off his face. “I’m a good person. People like me.” “Because they don’t know you. If they did, somebody would have kicked your ass already.” “They’d try,” he countered, and I couldn’t help but laugh. There was something wrong with us. And I didn’t hate it. Not even a little bit.

What’s going on there I don’t understand and have never understood: either she loves you beyond all bounds, or… if she loves you, then why does she want to get you married to someone else? She says: “I want to see him happy” – that means she loves you.

My job is not to worry about what everyone else thinks about me but to discover what I think. If I actually want to know what someone else thinks, my job is then to ask that person. More often than not, however, it isn’t important to know. It’s okay if people are mad at me, and it’s okay if people think I’m a complete idiot—as long as I’m doing my best. Just because certain people might have judgments about me, it does not mean they have authority over me. To truly form my own life, I had to ask questions like ‘What are my needs? And ‘What are my thoughts?’ I had to acknowledge both my strengths and my weaknesses. I had to form my own opinions based on my reality instead of someone else’s.

I love her with all my soul. Why, she is a child! She's a child now — a real child. Oh! you know nothing about it at all, I see." "And are you assured, at the same time, that you love Aglaya too?" "Yes — yes — oh; yes!" "How so? Do you want to make out that you love them BOTH?" "Yes — yes — both! I do!" "Excuse me, prince, but think what you are saying! Recollect yourself!" "Without Aglaya — I — I MUST see Aglaya! — I shall die in my sleep very soon — I thought I was dying in my sleep last night. Oh! if Aglaya only knew all — I mean really, REALLY all! Because she must know ALL — that's the first condition towards understanding. Why cannot we ever know all about another, especially when that other has been guilty? But I don't know what I'm talking about — I'm so confused. You pained me so dreadfully. Surely — surely Aglaya has not the same expression now as she had at the moment when she ran away? Oh, yes! I am guilty and I know it — I know it! Probably I am in fault all round — I don't quite know how — but I am in fault, no doubt. There is something else, but I cannot explain it to you, Evgenie Pavlovitch. I have no words; but Aglaya will understand. I have always believed Aglaya will understand — I am assured she will." "No, prince, she will not. Aglaya loved like a woman, like a human being, not like an abstract spirit. Do you know what, my poor prince? The most probable explanation of the matter is that you never loved either the one or the other in reality.

My father, Bobby Oates*, said that love at first sight should send you running, if you know what's good for you. It's your dark pieces having instant recognition with their dark pieces, he says. You're an idiot if you think it means you've met your soul mate. So I was an idiot. He looked so nice. He was so nice.

Realize that people are idiots. The sooner you accept this fact the better. Most people are going to doubt you. Even the people closest to you will doubt you. There's a misconception that if you personally know the writer that means they're not a good writer; If they haven't sold a million copies, that means they're not a good writer. Many of the authors I love most died destitute with little notoriety, Anne Frank and Edgar Alan Poe, just to name a couple. Jane Austin's books received little attention while she was alive. Now you can't turn on a tv without seeing some variation of her work. Sometimes an artist is ahead of their time, but no less an artist.

My day isn’t complete until I’m deep inside you. Your body wrapped around mine is the only way I feel whole. But don’t think it’s just sex and a physical response to you that I’m feeling. It’s not…it’s so much more. You’ve opened me in a way that leaves me bleeding, vulnerable. Being with you, making love to you, it only solidifies what I feel for you. I know that I’ve become one of those spouting, love-sick idiots, but what it all boils down to is three words that don’t mean nearly enough… I love you." Letter from Kellan to Kiera.

Now I am writing this diary in English, which for me is not the language of intimacy or love, but an attempt at distance and sanity, a means of recalling normality.

How long do you think it takes to get over someone dying? Someone you really loved I mean? I'm not sure you ever do. That's cheery. No. Really I thought about it a lot. You learn to live with it, with then. Because they do stay with you, even if they're not living breathing people anymore. It's not the same crashing grief you felt at first, the kind that swamps you and makes you want to cry in the wrong places and get irrationally angry with all the idiots who are still alive when the person you love is dead. It's just something you learn to accommodate. Like adapting around a whole. I don't know. It's like you become. . . . a doughnut instead of a bun.

It was a huge misconception that my father created all the chaos and evil on Earth. Mortals were given free will by my Uncle God, and they created evil all by their lonesome. My dad got to punish the you know what out of those idiots who choose to be heinously bad. And quite honestly some of them deserved my dad’s wrath. He loved his job. Another misconception is that Hell is below and Heaven is above. What does that even mean? Nothing is up or down, that’s just human mythology. Most likely the mistake was made because Hell was occasionally called the Underworld. Hell and Heaven are simply on different planes, accessible through portals. Earth was modeled after a combination of the seasons, climates and terrains of Heaven and Hell. We all shared the same moon and sun and stars.

That's what most people don't realize; that's why one out of every two marriages fail. Because people go into them with hearts in their eyes and forever on their lips and no concept whatsoever of what that truly means. Of course it's going to be hard work. Of course you are going to get angry and upset and wonder why, out of everyone in the world entire world, you decided to fall in love with an idiot who farts in his sleep and eats like a pig and can't ever be assed to pick up his own dirty underwear off the fucking floor.

Practicing self-love means learning how to trust ourselves, to treat ourselves with respect, and to be kind and affectionate toward ourselves. This is a tall order give how hard most of us are on ourselves. I know I can talk to myself in ways that I would never consider talking to another person. How many of us are quick to think, "God, I am so stupid" and "Man, I'm such an Idiot."? Just like calling someone we love stupid or an idiot would be incongruent with practicing love, talking like that to ourselves takes a serious toll on our self-love

It's the way it works," she said in clipped tones. "For one rise, another must fall." "But why? Why can't we just rise, and everybody else can stay where they are? I wouldn't care!" "And you think I would?" Keisha demanded. She glared at me, the visibly pulled herself back. When she exhaled, her nostrils flared. "Say you've taken a math test. Or an English test, since you love books so much. And you get a hundred. You're psyched, right? 'Mom, I got a hundred! I got the highest grade in the class!'" She raised her eyebrows. "But say everybody else gets a hundred, too. Are you still as proud?" "Of course," I said stubbornly. "I'd still have my A." "Bullshit. You like your As because other people get Cs. Because that means you're smarted than they are. Better than they are." "I don't think I'm better than anyone." "Then you're and idiot.

Lucifer’s brows shot up. “What do you mean you just talked? Where is this idiot? I’m going to have a talk with him about defiling my daughter. Maybe he needs pointers.” “Dad!” I squealed. “That is so gross. And he doesn’t need any help. I told you I’m not having sex until I’m in love.

...and I could hear from his voice that he was smiling. He was happy that I hurt like that. And I knew I had felt the same happiness, anytime he mentioned feeling hurt by me. Why was it fun for us to make each other suffer? Did that mean it wasn't love? Surely that wasn't what love was?

I'm starting to think I'll probably never have a girlfriend, which would be okay too. On those few occasions when a girl has actually flirted with me, tipped her head sideways and laughed at some stupid remark, all it did was make me angry. It seemed like she was playing a game with idiotic rules. First you laugh, then you tell a pretty lie, then you stick your tongue in each other's mouths, then you say something really mean and hurtful to each other, then you go off to find somebody else who wants to play the game. This is an activity for intelligent people? I think not.

You’ve opened me in a way that leaves me bleeding, vulnerable. Being with you, making love to you, it only solidifies what I feel for you. I know that I’ve become one of those spouting, love-sick idiots, but what it all boils down to is three words that don’t mean nearly enough . . . I love you. I

Listen! I know it's not right to talk. Better to set an example, better to just start - I have already started - and - and can one really be unhappy? Oh, what do my grief and my misfortune matter if I have the strength to be happy? You know, I don't understand how one can walk by a tree and not be happy at the sight of it! Or to speak with a man and not be happy in loving him? Oh, it's just that I can't express it - and yet there are so many things at every stop so beautiful that even the most desolate of men find them beautiful. Look at a child, look at Go's sunrise, look at the grass, how it grows, look into eyes that look at you and love you -

Eight dragons in one small cave, all thinking at the same time. How was she going to get through this? “Let’s go around and introduce ourselves,” Tsunami said. “I mean, maybe it’s unnecessary, but that’s what Sunny said to do. And then she said I probably wouldn’t listen to her anyway, so I am proving her wrong, so there. I’m Tsunami, if anyone didn’t know. I was going to give myself a title like Commander of Recruitment, but then for some reason everyone voted that I would be terrible at recruiting, whatever that is all about, so they made me Head of School instead. So I’m pretty much the boss. And I’m running your first small group-discussion class, which was Glory’s big idea, so I figure we’ll figure it out together. Any questions?” “Yeah,” said Carnelian. “Are we stuck with this group?” “That’s not quite how I would put it,” said Tsunami. “But yes.” “What if we would prefer to be in a group with other IceWings?” Winter asked. “Such as my sister?” “That’s not how the winglets are set up,” Tsunami said. “But you’ll be in some bigger group classes with her and have plenty of time to make other friends as well.” “I love our winglet,” Kinkajou volunteered. “When do we eat?” Umber asked. “Just kidding. Pretending to be Clay.” He grinned, then shot a look at Qibli. Did he think that was funny? I hope that was funny. Did I sound like an idiot?

I will spend my life orbiting your,” Nico said, and the exhaustion in his voice, she knew it. She understood it. I consider it a privilege. Does that mean less if we never sleep together? IF we never have babies and hold hands, does that have to mean less? You’re in every world I exist in, your fate is my fate, either you follow me or I follow you, it doesn’t matter which and I don’t care. If that’s not love then maybe I don’t understand love, and that’s fine with me- it doesn’t make me angry to know I’m actually an idiot after all. And if it’s not enough for you, then okay, it’s not enough. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m willing to give it. What you’re willing to accept doesn’t change what I’m willing to give.

My head was spinning at the rapid change in direction our conversation had taken. From the cheerful topic of my impending demise, we were suddenly declaring ourselves. He waited, and even though I looked down to study our hands between us, I knew his golden eyes were on me. "You already know how I feel, of course," I finally said. "I'm here… which, roughly translated, means I would rather die than stay away from you." I frowned. "I'm an idiot.

Because you don’t seem to get it. Love is not only about caring for someone. Love is not only about being there for someone. Love is letting someone be there for you. Love is sharing your dreams, fears, desires, your problems. And that means your problem is my fucking problem too, you idiot.” He wound his arms around me and pulled me into his embrace. “I’m not fragile. I won’t go crazy if I decide to protect you at all costs. I need you to trust in me and believe that I could be strong enough for you at all times, no matter what.

Saedii’s eyes flash, and she pushes herself out of my arms with a snarl. I watch her turn back to her reflection, seething, busying herself with her braids with shaking hands. But I can see the truth behind the ice of her eyes, feel it inside her head, flooding through her despite her best attempts to keep it dammed in. The Syldrathi mating instinct. The almost-irresistible attraction they feel to people their souls are fated to be with. Kal feels it for Aurora. He once told me that love was a drop in the ocean of what he felt for her. And looking into Saedii’s eyes now, thinking about all the times she could have killed me, should’ve killed me … Maker, what an idiot I’ve been… . “How long?” I ask. She says nothing. I step up behind her, searching her reflection. “Saedii, how long?” She holds my stare, fury and sorrow and hateful, defiant adoration washing through her thoughts. In her mind’s eye, I see an image of me aboard the Andarael, in the depths of the Unbroken fighting pit with a dead drakkan behind me, staring up at her, bloodied but victorious. “Yeah,” I murmur. “I mean, that would’ve gotten a nun’s motor running, so I can’t really blame you.

And suddenly he became almost lyric. "For three thousand years the Common Man has been fended off from the full and glorious life he might have had, by Make Believe. For three thousand years in one form or another he has been asking for an unrestricted share in the universal welfare. He has been asking for a fair dividend from civilisation. For all that time, and still it goes on, the advantaged people, the satisfied people, the kings and priests, the owners and traders, the gentlefolk and the leaders he trusted, have been cheating him tacitly or deliberately, out of his proper share and contribution in the common life. Sometimes almost consciously, sometimes subconsciously, cheating themselves about it as well. When he called upon God, they said 'We'll take care of your God for you', and they gave him organised religion. When he calls for Justice, they say 'Everything decently and in order', and give him a nice expensive Law Court beyond his means. When he calls for order and safety too loudly they hit him on the head with a policeman's truncheon. When he sought knowledge, they told him what was good for him. And to protect him from the foreigner, so they said, they got him bombed to hell, trained him to disembowel his fellow common men with bayonets and learn what love of King and Country really means. "All with the best intentions in the world, mind you. "Most of these people, I tell you, have acted in perfect good faith. They manage to believe that in sustaining this idiot's muddle they are doing tremendous things -- stupendous things -- for the Common Man. They can live lives of quiet pride and die quite edifyingly in an undernourished, sweated, driven and frustrated world. Useful public servants! Righteous self-applause! Read their bloody biographies!

The two strangers got to the waffle station at exactly the same time. (I swear I’m like an award-winning orchestra conductor sometimes.) Cara poured a ladleful of regular batter onto her machine, while Sammy poured her own ladle and grabbed the container of chocolate chips. Wait for it . . . Wait for it . . . “Shit!” Sammy stared at the mountain of chocolate now piled up on the batter. The cap of the container had come off completely and rolled along the floor right into Cara’s feet. “Oh my god, let me help you!” Cara sprung to action, as I knew she would, grabbing a broom and dustpan that I’d placed nearby and cleaning up the chips on the floor. “Oh, you don’t have to,” Sammy stammered. “I’m sorry—I don’t know how that happened.” Cara swept the chips into the dustpan and surveyed Sammy’s half-cooked waffle, which was now completely coated in messy, gooey chocolate. “I mean, I love chocolate as much as the next girl, but even that’s a little much for me.” Sammy laughed, then fiddled with the container in her hand. “I think some dick unscrewed the top so they’d all fall out.” She rolled her eyes. “College boys.” (Or metaphysical entities. Either one.) “Wow, what an asshole,” Cara said. “People are such idiots.

The thing about Dostoevsky's characters is that they are alive. By which I don't just mean that they're successfully realized or developed or "rounded". The best of them live inside us, forever, once we've met them. Recall the proud and pathetic Raskolnikov, the naive Devushkin, the beautiful and damned Nastasya of The Idiot, the fawning Lebyedev and spiderish Ippolit of the same novel; C&P's ingenious maverick detective Porfiry Petrovich (without whom there would probably be no commercial crime fiction w/ eccentrically brilliant cops); Marmeladov, the hideous and pitiful sot; or the vain and noble roulette addict Aleksey Ivanovich of The Gambler; the gold-hearted prostitutes Sonya and Liza; the cynically innocent Aglaia; or the unbelievably repellent Smerdyakov, that living engine of slimy resentment in whom I personally see parts of myself I can barely stand to look at; or the idealized and all too-human Myshkin and Alyosha, the doomed human Christ and triumphant child-pilgrim, respectively. These and so many other FMD creatures are alive-retain what Frank calls their "immense vitality"-not because they're just skillfully drawn types or facets of human beings but because, acting withing plausible and morally compelling plots, they dramatize the profoundest parts of all humans, the parts most conflicted, most serious-the ones with the most at stake. Plus, without ever ceasing to be 3-D individuals, Dostoevsky's characters manage to embody whole ideologies and philosophies of life: Raskolnikov the rational egoism of the 1860's intelligentsia, Myshkin mystical Christian love, the Underground Man the influence of European positivism on the Russian character, Ippolit the individual will raging against death's inevitability, Aleksey the perversion of Slavophilic pride in the face of European decadence, and so on and so forth....

Again and again I saw the phenomenon repeated. The meanest girls, the ones who started secret clubs to ostracize the poorly dressed, delighted to see Cinderella triumph over her stepsisters. They rejoiced when the prince kissed her. Evidently, they not only saw themselves as noble and good, but also wanted to love and be loved. Maybe not by anyone and everyone, the way I wanted to be loved. But, for the right person, they were prepared to form a relation based on mutual kindness. This mean that the Disney portrayal of bullies wasn't accurate, because the Disney bullies realized they were evil, prided themselves on it, and loved nobody.

The Pretender" I'm going to rent myself a house In the shade of the freeway I'm going to pack my lunch in the morning And go to work each day And when the evening rolls around I'll go on home and lay my body down And when the morning light comes streaming in I'll get up and do it again Amen Say it again Amen I want to know what became of the changes We waited for love to bring Were they only the fitful dreams Of some greater awakening I've been aware of the time going by They say in the end it's the wink of an eye And when the morning light comes streaming in You'll get up and do it again Amen Caught between the longing for love And the struggle for the legal tender Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring And the junk man pounds his fender Where the veterans dream of the fight Fast asleep at the traffic light And the children solemnly wait For the ice cream vendor Out into the cool of the evening Strolls the Pretender He knows that all his hopes and dreams Begin and end there Ah the laughter of the lovers As they run through the night Leaving nothing for the others But to choose off and fight And tear at the world with all their might While the ships bearing their dreams Sail out of sight I'm going to find myself a girl Who can show me what laughter means And we'll fill in the missing colors In each other's paint-by-number dreams And then we'll put our dark glasses on And we'll make love until our strength is gone And when the morning light comes streaming in We'll get up and do it again Get it up again I'm going to be a happy idiot And struggle for the legal tender Where the ads take aim and lay their claim To the heart and the soul of the spender And believe in whatever may lie In those things that money can buy Though true love could have been a contender Are you there? Say a prayer for the Pretender Who started out so young and strong Only to surrender Jackson Browne, The Pretender (1976)

You're fixing everything I set down." He nods at my hands, which are readjusting the elephant. "It wasn't polite of me to come in and start touching your things." "Oh,it's okay," I say quickly, letting go of the figurine. "You can touch anything of mine you want." He freezes. A funny look runs across his face before I realize what I've said. I didn't mean it like that. Not that that/i> would be so bad. But I like Toph,and St. Clair has a girlfriend. And even if the situation were different, Mer still has dibs. I'd never do that to her after how nice she was my first day.And my second. And every other day this week. Besides,he's just an attractive boy. Nothing to get worked up over. I mean, the streets of Europe are filled with beautiful guys, right? Guys with grooming regimens and proper haircuts and stylish coats.Not that I've seen anyone even remotely as good-looking as Monsieur Etienne St.Clair.But still. He turns his face away from mine. Is it my imagination or does he look embarrassed? But why would he be embarrassed? I'm the one with the idiotic mouth. "Is that your boyfriend?" He points to my laptop's wallpaper, a photo of my coworkers and me goofing around. It was taken before the midnight release of the lastest fantasy-novel-to-film adaptation. Most of us were dressed like elves or wizards. "The one with his eyes closed?" "WHAT?" He thinks I'd date a guy like Hercules Hercules is an assistant manager. He's ten years older than me and,yes, that's his real name. And even though he's sweet and knows more about Japanese horror films than anyone,he also has a ponytail. A ponytail. "Anna,I'm kidding.This one. Sideburns." He points to Toph,the reason I love the picture so much.Our heads are turned into each other, and we're wearing secret smiles,as if sharing a private joke. "Oh.Uh...no.Not really.I mean, Toph was my almost-boyfriend.I moved away before..." I trail off, uncomfortable. "Before much could happen.

So why didn’t you call me after you went to the village? Why didn’t you call me for more than two weeks?” I didn’t say anything. “You can’t not answer.” “Because sometimes after I see you, I feel really bad,” I said. “It’s almost physically painful.” I touched my sternum. He averted his face. “Now, this sounds like something I’m not used to hearing from you,” he said, and I could hear from his voice that he was smiling. He was happy that I hurt like that. And I knew I had felt the same happiness, anytime he mentioned feeling hurt by me. Why was it fun for us to make each other suffer? Did that mean it wasn’t love? Surely that wasn’t what love was?

You allege some considerations in favor of a Deity from the universality of a belief in his existence. The superstitions of the savage, and the religion of civilized Europe appear to you to conspire to prove a first cause. I maintain that it is from the evidence of revelation alone that this belief derives the slightest countenance. That credulity should be gross in proportion to the ignorance of the mind that it enslaves, is in strict consistency with the principles of human nature. The idiot, the child and the savage, agree in attributing their own passions and propensities to the inanimate substances by which they are either benefited or injured. The former become Gods and the latter Demons; hence prayers and sacrifices, by the means of which the rude Theologian imagines that he may confirm the benevolence of the one, or mitigate the malignity of the other. He has averted the wrath of a powerful enemy by supplications and submission; he has secured the assistance of his neighbour by offerings; he has felt his own anger subside before the entreaties of a vanquished foe, and has cherished gratitude for the kindness of another. Therefore does he believe that the elements will listen to his vows. He is capable of love and hatred towards his fellow beings, and is variously impelled by those principles to benefit or injure them. The source of his error is sufficiently obvious. When the winds, the waves and the atmosphere act in such a manner as to thwart or forward his designs, he attributes to them the same propensities of whose existence within himself he is conscious when he is instigated by benefits to kindness, or by injuries to revenge. The bigot of the woods can form no conception of beings possessed of properties differing from his own: it requires, indeed, a mind considerably tinctured with science, and enlarged by cultivation to contemplate itself, not as the centre and model of the Universe, but as one of the infinitely various multitude of beings of which it is actually composed.

When Love becomes a command, Hatred can become a pleasure. *  *  * if you don’t gamble, you’ll never win *  *  * Beautiful thoughts, and beautiful women never last *  *  * you can cage a tiger but you’re never sure he’s broken. Men are easier *  *  * if you want to know where God is, ask a drunk. *  *  * there aren’t any angels in the foxholes *  *  * no pain means the end of feeling; each of our joys is a bargain with the devil. *  *  * the difference between Art and Life is that Art is more bearable *  *  * I’d rather hear about a live American bum than a dead Greek God. *  *  * there is nothing as boring as the truth *  *  * The well balanced individual is insane *  *  * Almost everybody is born a genius and buried an idiot *  *  * a brave man lacks imagination. Cowardice is usually caused by lack of proper diet. *  *  * sexual intercourse is kicking death in the ass while singing *  *  * when men rule governments, men won’t need governments; until then we are screwed *  *  * an intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way. *  *  * everytime I go to a funeral I feel as if I had eaten puffed wheat germ *  *  * dripping faucets, farts of passion, flat tires — are all sadder than death. *  *  * if you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence

Can I come look?” He sat back on his heels and gestured to his artwork. “By all means. I’m done.” I got up, happily noting that my ankle was now pain free. I carefully tiptoed around the two square feet of floor over which his drawing sprawled, and settled in next to him. “It’s beautiful,” I told him. “I’m flattered. I’ve never had anyone draw a picture of me before.” Sage cocked his head and studied what he’d etched. “You think it looks like you?” Again a hot crawl of embarrassment raced up my neck and flooded my face. I looked more closely at the etching. The image did look like me, but only if you really wanted to see the resemblance. The woman in it had the same hair, and slept in the same position I had, but on closer inspection her features were quite different. Her eyes were farther apart, her nose more pointed, her cheekbones less defined…differences that seemed insignificant when I’d assumed the picture was of me, but knowing it wasn’t… I was an egocentric idiot. My dreams about this man may have been vivid, but they were dreams. They had nothing to do with reality; not mine, and clearly not his. I stammered, groping for some kind of explanation. I had nothing. “She does look like you, a little,” Sage admitted. His eyes lingered on the contours of the drawing’s face. I was eager to change the subject, but I felt like I had to ask. “Who is she?” “Someone I loved a long time ago,” he murmured.

Grateful! Good God! Am I never to get away from the bleat of that filmy adjective? I don’t want gratitude. I don’t want kindness. I don’t want sentimentality. I don’t even want love—I could make you give me that—of a sort. I want common honesty.’ ‘Do you? But that’s what I’ve always wanted—I don’t think it’s to be got.’ ‘Listen, Harriet. I do understand. I know you don’t want either to give or to take. You’ve tried being the giver, and you’ve found that the giver is always fooled. And you won’t be the taker, because that’s very difficult, and because you know that the taker always ends by hating the giver. You don’t want ever again to have to depend for happiness on another person.’ ‘That’s true. That’s the truest thing you ever said.’ ‘All right. I can respect that. Only you’ve got to play the game. Don’t force an emotional situation and then blame me for it.’ ‘But I don’t want any situation. I want to be left in peace.’ ‘Oh! but you are not a peaceful person. You’ll always make trouble. Why not fight it out on equal terms and enjoy it? Like Alan Breck, I’m a bonny fighter.’ ‘And you think you’re sure to win.’ ‘Not with my hands tied.’ ‘Oh!—well, all right. But it all sounds so dreary and exhausting,’ said Harriet, and burst idiotically into tears. ‘Good Heavens!’ said Wimsey, aghast. ‘Harriet! darling! angel! beast! vixen! don’t say that.’ He flung himself on his knees in a frenzy of remorse and agitation. ‘Call me anything you like, but not dreary! Not one of those things you find in clubs! Have this one, darling, it’s much larger and quite clean. Say you didn’t mean it! Great Scott! Have I been boring you interminably for eighteen months on end? A thing any right-minded woman would shudder at I know you once said that if anybody ever married me it would be for the sake of hearing me piffle on, but I expect that kind of thing palls after a bit. I’m babbling—I know I’m babbling. What on earth am I to do about it?’ ‘Ass! Oh, it’s not fair. You always make me laugh. I can’t fight—I’m so tired. You don’t seem to know what being tired is. Stop. Let go. I won’t be bullied. Thank God! there’s the telephone.

She sorted through the clothes. “Do you mind wearing Emilio’s underwear?” She turned back to him with the two different styles that she’d found. “You’re about the same size. And they’re clean. They were wrapped in a paper package, like from a laundry service.” Max gave her a look, because along with the very nice, very expensive pair of black silk boxers she’d pilfered from Emilio, she’d also borrowed one of his thongs. “What?” Gina said. It was definitely a man-thong. It had all that extra room for various non-female body parts. “Don’t be ridiculous.” “I’m not,” she said, trying to play it as serious. “One, it’s been a while, maybe your tastes have changed. And two, these might actually be more comfortable, considering the placement of your bandage and—” He took the boxers from her. “Apparently I was wrong.” She turned away and started sorting through the pairs of pants and Bermuda shorts she’d grabbed, trying not to be too obvious about the fact that she was watching him out of the corner of her eye. To make sure he didn’t fall over. Right. After he got the boxers on, he took off the bathrobe and . . . Okay, he definitely wasn’t as skinny as he’d been after his lengthy stint in the hospital. Emilio’s pants probably weren’t going to fit him, after all. Although, there was one pair that looked like they’d be nice and loose . . . There they were. The Kelly green Bermuda shorts. Max gave her another one of those you’ve-got-to-be-kidding glances as he put the bathrobe over the back of another chair. “Do I really look as if I’ve ever worn shorts that color in my entire life?” She tried not to smile. “I honestly don’t think you have much choice.” She let herself look at him. “You know, you could just go with the boxers. At least until your pants dry. You know what would really work with that, though? A bowtie.” She turned, as if to go back to the closet. “I’m sure Emilio has a tux. Judging from his other clothes, it’s probably polyester and chartreuse, but maybe the bowtie is—” “Gina.” Max stopped her before she reached the door. He motioned for her to come back. She held out the green shorts, but instead of taking them, he took her arm, pulled her close. “I love you,” Max said, as if he were dispatching some terrible, dire news that somehow still managed to amuse him at least a little. Gina had been hoping that he’d say it, praying even, but the fact that he’d managed to smile, even just a bit while he did, was a miracle. And then, before her heart even had a chance to start beating again, he kissed her. And oh, she was also beyond ready for that particular marvel, for the sweet softness of his mouth, for the solidness of his arms around her. There was more of him to hold her since he’d regained his fighting weight—and that was amazing, too. She skimmed her hands across the muscular smoothness of his back, his shoulders, as his kiss changed from tender to heated. And, God. That was a miracle, too. Except she couldn’t help but wonder about those words, wrenched from him, as if it cost him his soul to speak them aloud. Why tell her this right now? Yes, she’d been waiting for years for him to say that he loved her, but . . . Max laughed his surprise. “No. Why do you . . .?” He figured it out himself. “No, no, Gina, just . . . I should’ve said it before. I should have said it years ago, but I really should have said it, you know, instead of hi.” He laughed again, clearly disgusted with himself. “God, I’m an idiot. I mean, hi? I should have walked in and said, ‘Gina, I need you. I love you, don’t ever leave me again.’” She stared at him. It was probably a good thing that he hadn’t said that at the time, because she might’ve fainted. It was obvious that he wanted her to say something, but she was completely speechless.

It still shocks me that this comes as a surprise to most men, adorable idiots that ye are, but doona ye ken a woman who is not after you for yer title and yer fortune needs to be wooed?” “Wooed?” The word tasted as foreign in his mouth as the idea was to his thoughts. “Ye mean, gifts and jewelry—” “Nay, dammit.” She pressed a beleaguered and dramatic hand to her forehead. “The most precious thing you can give a woman, a worthy woman, is intimacy, time, truth, safety, and friendship.” “Friendship?” He lifted his own hand to his temple, pressing at the place where his head was starting to pound. “Talk to her. Know her and let her know ye, as well. Intimacy is not only in the bedroom, ye know. To love each other, ye must first like each other. Do ye like her?

You’re an idiot,” Preston says. “Excuse me?” “You’re an idiot, sir?” he tries again. “Just tell me how much she likes Dave, Preston. I don’t have time for this girly bullshit.” Jesus fuck, am I going to have to resort to getting girl advice from my gay assistant? What the hell has my life come to? Sandra has turned everything upside down. “She doesn’t like Dave. She likes you. She’s had a crush on you forever and I’m totally breaking girl code telling you any of this.” “Then why the hell is she spending the weekend with Dave?” I ask, ignoring his girl code. “But you know Sandy’s a nice girl. She doesn’t know what to make of a guy who fucks her in his office but never asks her to dinner,” Preston continues. Apparently girl code is over. “Women are complex creatures, Gabe. They think it means something when a man takes his sweet-ass time asking her on a date. They think it means you’re just interested in the sex.” He narrows his eyes at me. “Obviously that’s not the case here, as based on the way you look at that girl it’s clear you’re already half in love with her.” I really am getting girl advice from my gay assistant “Since you know everything, care to tell me where she went with Dave?” “Marissa’s wedding.” “Who the hell is Marissa?” “Hello? She works here? In sales?” I shrug. Still no idea who he’s talking about. “You know, if you’d taken me up on my suggestion about briefing you on company gossip during Whisper Wednesdays you wouldn’t be so behind right now.” I’m going to kill him before this conversation is over

Okay, listen to me one more time. I find you very beautiful, and I'm not going to be some guy who leaves you hanging like that idiot did yesterday evening. I am willing to show you what a real woman can do to please you in every way." Jana stood they're just looking at Angel dumbstruck, unsure what to say. She just thought of what to say next, but nothing came to words. Jana sat on the couch without a word. Angel sat next to her. "I am sorry for being so honest with you. But since I met you yesterday evening, I just can't and won't let my feelings go without knowing." She sighed. She just wished Jana could feel the same about her as she did about Jana. Jana looked at Angel. Her eyes were full of questions. "Why me? Out of all the women in this world, you choose me. I'm nothing compared to anyone else and my best friend Destiny has the life I want and crave for." Angel smiled and hugged Jana. She didn’t try to leave her embrace. Angel counted that as a small win. "That is where you are blind on. Women that are friends or couples can have all that as well. Please, just give me a chance to show you and will go from there." Jana took a deep breath looking down at her hands. She was still deciding if she should accept Angel’s suggestion. "Are you sure about this? I mean we just met, and I am not sure what to think of all this? I wouldn't even know what to tell anyone that knows me?" Angel placed a finger over Jana's lips responding, "We can keep it hidden, do you agree? I just want what is best for you and me, for us. I have never been attracted to a straight woman before, but you took my breath away.

I want to be married,” I blurted. “I want you to marry me.” Fuuuuuuuck. And so my entire carefully constructed speech was thrown out the window. My grandmother’s antique ring was in a box in the dresser—nowhere near me—and my plan to kneel and do everything right just evaporated. In the circle of my arms, Chloe grew very still. “What did you just say?” I had completely botched the plan, but it was too late to turn back now. “I know we have only been together for a little over a year,” I explained, quickly. “Maybe it’s too soon? I understand if it’s too soon. It’s just that how you feel about the way we kiss? I feel that way about everything we do together. I love it. I love to be inside you, I love working with you, I love watching you work, I love fighting with you, and I love just sitting on the couch and laughing with you. I’m lost when I’m not with you, Chloe. I can’t think of anything, or anyone, who is more important to me, every second. And so for me, that means we’re already sort of married in my head. I guess I wanted to make it official somehow. Maybe I sound like an idiot?” I looked over at her, feeling my heart try to jackhammer its way up my throat. “I never expected to feel this way about someone.” She stared at me, eyes wide and lips parted as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. I stood and ran over to the dresser, pulling the box from the drawer and carrying it over to her. When I opened the box and let her see my grandmother’s antique diamond and sapphire ring, she clapped a hand over her mouth. “I want to be married,” I said again. Her silence was unnerving, and fuck, I’d completely botched this with my rambling nonsense. “Married to you, I mean.” Her eyes filled with tears and she held them, unblinking. “You. Are such. An ass.” Well, that was unexpected. I knew it might be too soon, but an ass? Really? I narrowed my eyes. “A simple ‘It’s too soon’ would have sufficed, Chloe. Jesus. I lay my heart out on the—” She pushed off the bed and ran over to one of her bags, rummaging through it and pulling out a small blue fabric bag. She carried it back to me with the ribbon hooked over her long index finger, and dangled the bag in my face. I ask her to marry me and she brings me a souvenir from New York? What the fuck is that? “What the fuck is that?” I asked. “You tell me, genius.” “Don’t get smart with me, Mills. It’s a bag. For all I know you have a granola bar, or your tampons, in there.” “It’s a ring, dummy. For you.” My heart was pounding so hard and fast I half wondered if this was what a heart attack felt like. “A ring for me?” She pulled a small box out of the bag and showed it to me. It was smooth platinum, with a line of coarse titanium running through the middle. “You were going to propose to me?” I asked, still completely confused. “Do women even do that?” She punched me, hard, in the arm. “Yes, you chauvinist. And you totally stole my thunder.” “So, is that a yes?” I asked, my bewilderment deepening. “You’ll marry me?” “You tell me!” she yelled, but she was smiling. “Technically you haven’t asked yet.” “Goddamnit, Bennett! You haven’t, either!” “Will you marry me?” I asked, laughing. “Will you marry me?” With a growl, I took the box and dropped it on the floor, flipping her onto her back.

In terms of the Trinity, I believe in the Father and the Holy Ghost but not really Jesus that much. Yes, Jesus was pretty badass because he stood up for what he believed in and was definitely an alpha and a man of his convictions, and all that respectable shit, and he took a hell of a beating in the end, but his message was wrong. All that turn the other cheek and love thy neighbor nonsense; be a lamb and so on. It’s silly and doesn’t work. The God of the Old Testament, the Father, that guy makes a lot more sense to me. He had it in him to be mean and spiteful. I get that I was made in the image of a guy who’d fuck over a nobody like Job basically for fun and to prove a point to a rival. I get that I was made in the image of a guy who’d kick two shitheads out of the Garden of Eden for disobeying Him. I get the idea of Him laying waste to entire cities with fireballs or whatever because He didn’t very much like the type of people that lived there (though Sodom and Gomorrah seem like just the sort of places I’d like to hang out). If God is love, it ain’t Jesus’. The Father’s love, tough love, is what works. Sometimes there’s difficulty distinguishing it from hate, and that’s why it applies to the way I live my life. Jesus’ message just makes people nice, makes them pussies, and while I’m thankful for it because it’s given me the upper hand throughout my life in very Christian America, believing in it, really, would be idiotic for anyone like me, a winner. And I believe in the Holy Ghost too mostly because I’ve felt Him working through me while doing really cool shit, like playing football and writing good songs or whatever. He’s what people mean when they say God-given talent, which I have a lot of.

She doesn’t mean to make me feel like a freak, not on purpose. It’s when she says I’m drawn to you, because you’re a strong man, like Caleb. When she says I kissed you because sex is the way I’ve been conditioned to get my way, that it’s all psychological, and it’s all because Caleb fucked with my head. I can’t stand it. I can’t have everything I feel, reduced to a textbook description that fits me, and millions of other broken idiots. More than that, I can’t stand thinking that maybe…she’s right. Maybe I don’t really love Caleb, maybe my brain made it up so I wouldn’t kill myself or feel so scared and alone. Maybe I’ll accept that one day and I won’t be able to stop having nightmares. Maybe I’ll never trust another emotion I ever have again. Who’s going to love a girl like that, Reed? Who’s ever going to love a freak like me?” She collapsed onto her bed and rolled into a ball, crying and rocking.

The thing about Dostoevsky's characters is that they are alive. By which I don't just mean that they're successfully realized or developed or "rounded". The best of them live inside us, forever, once we've met them. Recall the proud and pathetic Raskolnikov, the naive Devushkin, the beautiful and damned Nastasya of The Idiot, the fawning Lebyedev and spiderish Ippolit of the same novel; C&P's ingenious maverick detective Porfiry Petrovich (without whom there would probably be no commercial crime fiction w/ eccentrically brilliant cops); Marmeladov, the hideous and pitiful sot; or the vain and noble roulette addict Aleksey Ivanovich of The Gambler; the gold-hearted prostitutes Sonya and Liza; the cynically innocent Aglaia; or the unbelievably repellent Smerdyakov, that living engine of slimy resentment in whom I personally see parts of myself I can barely stand to look at; or the idealized and all too-human Myshkin and Alyosha, the doomed human Christ and triumphant child-pilgrim, respectively. These and so many other FMD creatures are alive-retain what Frank calls their "immense vitality"-not because they're just skillfully drawn types or facets of human beings but because, acting within plausible and morally compelling plots, they dramatize the profoundest parts of all humans, the parts most conflicted, most serious-the ones with the most at stake. Plus, without ever ceasing to be 3-D individuals, Dostoevsky's characters manage to embody whole ideologies and philosophies of life: Raskolnikov the rational egoism of the 1860's intelligentsia, Myshkin mystical Christian love, the Underground Man the influence of European positivism on the Russian character, Ippolit the individual will raging against death's inevitability, Aleksey the perversion of Slavophilic pride in the face of European decadence, and so on and so forth....

What do you see when you look at me?” “I see you,” he answered as if it was obvious. “It’s not like I see a place, or a time, or a name: just you. Your essence. Your soul. That’s how I find you every time you come back. I know it’s hard to understand, but your soul calls me…and I’m drawn to it. I couldn’t keep away if I tried.” Sage raised his hand to my cheek, cupping it gently. I closed my eyes, resting against the warmth of his palm. When I opened them he had moved closer. I closed the distance between us and kissed him. I felt dizzy and hot and floaty, like every cliché…but it was true. I couldn’t feel my feet. I finally felt like I was where my soul belonged. There was only one problem. The gearshift was digging into my side. “Ow!” I winced. “You okay?” “Yeah…it’s just…” I gestured down, feeling like an idiot for ruining the moment. Sage didn’t seem to mind. He reached down and moved his seat back to its maximum leg room, then held out his hand. I grabbed it and clambered over the center console, clumsily ducking and folding myself until I finally settled onto his lap, straddling his legs. It was the least coordinated act of seduction ever. “Better?” he asked. “Better.” He kissed me, sliding his hands up the back of my shirt. It felt incredible. Without breaking away from his lips, I reached underneath his tee and felt his bare, sleek chest. My breath came faster, caught up in the frenzy of finally letting go and doing what I’d been dying to do from the second I’d seen Sage on the beach. “Wait,” he said. He reached down and pulled a lever. I let out a little scream as his seat back dropped all the way and I fell on top of him. I loved the feel of his body under mine. I didn’t want a single part of us not touching. “Better now?” Sage murmured into my ear. It wasn’t fair of him to ask me a question when he was doing that. I could barely function, never mind put together an answer. “Much better,” I said. “It’s practically a bed.” “Is it?” Sage agreed, and in his eyes I saw exactly what that could mean. “Oh,” I said, suddenly nervous. “But…we can’t. I mean, we don’t have…” “I do,” he said, leaning down to kiss the hollow where my neck met my shoulder. “You do?” I tensed up. Why did he have one? For who? The corner of Sage’s mouth turned up. “For us, Clea. The drugstore in Rio? I kind of had a feeling…” He moved his lips back to my neck. He nibbled on my earlobe, and I whimpered. “Oh,” I managed. “Well…then…” “I love you, Clea.” Everything tunneled in, and I heard the words echo in my head. Sage loved me. Me. I didn’t even realize I’d stopped breathing until he said my name, concerned. “Clea?” I looked at him and immediately relaxed. “I love you, too.” We kissed, and I actually felt myself melting into him as my last coherent thoughts gave way to pure sensation.

You have something to say to me, Cassidy, say it. Or shut the fuck up.” “All right,” Jules said. “I will.” He took a deep breath. Exhaled. “Okay, see, I, well, I love you. Very, very much, and . . .” Where to go from here . . .? Except, his plain-spoken words earned him not just a glance but Max’s sudden full and complete attention. Which was a little alarming. But it was the genuine concern in Max’s eyes that truly caught Jules off-guard. Max actually thought . . . Jules laughed his surprise. “Oh! No, not like that. I meant it, you know, in a totally platonic, non-gay way.” Jules saw comprehension and relief on Max’s face. The man was tired if he was letting such basic emotions show. “Sorry.” Max even smiled. “I just . . .” He let out a burst of air. “I mean, talk about making things even more complicated . . .” It was amazing. Max hadn’t recoiled in horror at the idea. His concern had been for Jules, about potentially hurting his tender feelings. And even now, he wasn’t trying to turn it all into a bad joke. And he claimed they weren’t friends. Jules felt his throat tighten. “You can’t know,” he told his friend quietly, “how much I appreciate your acceptance and respect.” “My father was born in India,” Max told him, “in 1930. His mother was white—American. His father was not just Indian, but lower caste. The intolerance he experienced both there and later, even in America, made him a . . . very bitter, very hard, very, very unhappy man.” He glanced at Jules again. “I know personality plays into it, and maybe you’re just stronger than he was, but . . . People get knocked down all the time. They can either stay there, wallow in it, or . . . Do what you’ve done—what you do. So yeah. I respect you more than you know.” Holy shit. Weeping was probably a bad idea, so Jules grabbed onto the alternative. He made a joke. “I wasn’t aware that you even had a father. I mean, rumors going around the office have you arriving via flying saucer—” “I would prefer not to listen to aimless chatter all night long,” Max interrupted him. “So if you’ve made your point . . .?” Ouch. “Okay,” Jules said. “I’m so not going to wallow in that. Because I do have a point. See, I said what I said because I thought I’d take the talk-to-an-eight-year-old approach with you. You know, tell you how much I love you and how great you are in part one of the speech—” “Speech.” Max echoed. “Because part two is heavily loaded with the silent-but-implied ‘you are such a freaking idiot.’” “Ah, Christ,” Max muttered. “So, I love you,” Jules said again, “in a totally buddy-movie way, and I just want to say that I also really love working for you, and I hope to God you’ll come back so I can work for you again. See, I love the fact that you’re my leader not because you were appointed by some suit, but because you earned very square inch of that gorgeous corner office. I love you because you’re not just smart, you’re open-minded—you’re willing to talk to people who have a different point of view, and when they speak, you’re willing to listen. Like right now, for instance. You’re listening, right?” “No.” “Liar.” Jules kept going. “You know, the fact that so many people would sell their grandmother to become a part of your team is not an accident. Sir, you’re beyond special—and your little speech to me before just clinched it. You scare us to death because we’re afraid we won’t be able to live up to your high standards. But your back is strong, you always somehow manage to carry us with you even when we falter. “Some people don’t see that; they don’t really get you—all they know is they would charge into hell without hesitation if you gave the order to go. But see, what I know is that you’d be right there, out in front—they’d have to run to keep up with you. You never flinch. You never hesitate. You never rest.

Okay. Well. Here’s a real question. How long do you think it takes to get over someone dying? Someone you really loved, I mean.” I’m not entirely sure why I asked him. It was almost cruelly direct, given his circumstances. Perhaps I was afraid that the compulsive shagger was about to come out to play. Sam’s eyes widened just a little. “Whoa. Well”—he looked down at his mug, and then out at the shadowy fields—“I’m not sure you ever do.” “That’s cheery.” “No. Really. I’ve thought about it a lot. You learn to live with it, with them. Because they do stay with you, even if they’re not living, breathing people anymore. It’s not the same crushing grief you felt at first, the kind that swamps you and makes you want to cry in the wrong places and get irrationally angry with all the idiots who are still alive when the person you love is dead. It’s just something you learn to accommodate. Like adapting around a hole. I don’t know. It’s like you become . . . a doughnut instead of a bun.

Look.I'm...uh...When you told me you'd looked at my stuff.I didn't...I shouldn't have..." What is it about those two words-I'm sorry-that makes otherwise articulate guys into babbling idiots? I mean, I love you, I get. That's a tough one, putting yourself so completely, nakedly out there. I haven't ever said that to a guy. A guy other than Frankie or my dad, anyway. But I'm sorry? I say it twenty times a day.To Nonna, when I just can't face a three-course breakfast at seven in the morning, to the half-dozen people I bump into on my frantic rush up those eight blocks to school. To Sadie, for having to copy her algebra homework for,like,the thousandth time, because I didn't get to mine. I'm still waiting for Leo to apologize for totalling my bike three years ago. I forgave him eventually. Riding a bike in the middle of the city is a little like playing RUssian roulette with a bus. Still, it would have been nice t have gotten an I'm sorry instead of a litany of excuses. I figure I'll be waiting forever.

I didn’t want you to apply just because I’m going to be in New York. Or hell, even worse, not apply because I’m going to be there. I was going to tell you in person. And then the scout shows up at the game tonight, and what was I supposed to do? My mom is freaking out; you’re freaking out.” He throws his hands in the air in frustration. “I’ve totally fucked this up.” It hits me then, the truth of the situation. He made his decision about Columbia on his own, and he wanted me to be able to do the same. Of course. Hell, if it hadn’t been for the storm bringing us together like it did, I probably would have turned down NYU rather than risk going off to New York with him, and that’s the truth. I drop my gaze to the ground and take a deep breath, cursing myself for being such an idiot. “No, you haven’t,” I say at last, raising my eyes to meet his confused ones. “Haven’t what?” “Fucked it up.” I take a tentative step toward him. “I get it now. God, Ryder. Why do you have to be so perfect?” “Perfect? I’ve been in love with you for so long now, and I’ve never managed to get it right, not once.” I have to bite my lip to keep from grinning. “News flash--I think you’ve finally got it this time.” His smile makes my heart leap. “Do you have any idea what was going through my head when you first told me about NYU? I couldn’t believe it. It was like…like a gift fell right into my lap. Like winning the lottery. All this time I thought going off to New York would mean leaving you behind. And now--” “Now we both better get in,” I finish for him, though it probably wasn’t what he was going to say. I mean, he’s a shoo-in for Columbia. Perfect grades, high SATs, and a superstar quarterback the likes of which the Ivy League rarely sees. He’s every college admissions director’s dream. But me? If I get into NYU, it’ll be by the skin of my teeth. Because they want geographic diversity or something lame like that. I’m nothing special. “Where will you go if you don’t get into NYU?” he asks. “Where else?” I say. “Ole Miss, with Lucy and Morgan.” “Then Ole Miss is my backup too. Here’s the thing, Jem. I’m going wherever you’re going--whether it’s New York or Oxford. I’m not missing my chance this time.

I was thinking about changing into a different sort of person than the one I am. I do think about that. I read a book called The Art of Loving. A lot of things seemed clear while I was reading it but afterwards I went back to being more or less the same. What has Cam ever done that actually hurt me, anyway, as Haro once said. And how am I better than he is after the way i felt the night Mother lived instead of died? I made a promise to myself i would try.I went over there one day taking them a bakery cake - which Cam eats now as happily as anyone else - and I heard their voices out in the yard - now it’s summer, they love to sit in the sun - Mother saying to some visitor, “Oh, yes I was, I was all set to take off into the wild blue yonder, and Cam here, this idiot, came and danced outside my door with a bunch of his hippie friends - ‘ ‘My God, woman,’ roared Cam, but you could tell he didn’t care now, ‘members of an ancient holy discipline.” I had a strange feeling, like I was walking n coals and trying a spell so I wouldn’t get burnt. Forgiveness in families is a mystery to me, how it comes or how it lasts

You may, for instance, inquire of a popular preacher, or any one else, who denounces his countrymen as "pagan" (as speakers, and even Bishops, at religious gatherings have been known to do) what, exactly, he means by this word, and you will find that he means irreligious, and is apparently oblivious of the fact that pagans were and are, in their village simplicity, the most religious persons who have ever flourished, having more gods to the square mile then the Christian or any other Church has ever possessed or desired, and paying these gods more devout and more earnest devotion than you will meet even among Anglo-Catholics in congress. To be pagan may not be very intelligent; it is rustic and superstitious, but it is at least religious. Yet you will hear the word "pagan" flung loosely about for "irreligious", or sometimes as meaning joyous, material and comfort-loving, whereas the simple pagans walked the earth full of what is called holy awe and that mystic faith in unseen powers which is the antithesis of materialism, and gloomy with apprehension of the visitations of their horrid and vindictive gods; and, though no doubt, like all men, they loved comfort, they only obtained, just as we do, as much of that as they could afford.

Come below for a moment. Please.” “Zephyr, I don’t have time t—” “Bradshaw, do me the courtesy of at least looking at me when I’m talking to you, or I shall punch you in the nose.” His lean jaw twitched, but he folded his arms across his chest and faced her. “What is it, then?” She took a deep breath. This would have been so much easier in a more intimate setting and if he wasn’t glaring at her. “Shaw, I just wanted to say—that is, I mean—I . . . I love you.” Something crossed his expression so swiftly that she couldn’t decipher it. But then he very obviously scowled. At her. “You’re only saying that now because I bullied you into it.” Oh, that was enough of that. “Idiot. You have no idea how much considering I’ve been doing. And you have never bullied me into anything. I said I love you because I love you.” He hesitated again. “Very well. Thank you. Now you won’t have to worry that you drove me to my death if I don’t return.” Zephyr narrowed her eyes. “All you did was say you loved me and then run away. I’m standing here saying it back to you, and all you can do is try to make me into a liar. It’s your fault, for surprising me. I don’t keep a response to that sort of thing in my pocket, ready for use.” “I know that. And I said thank you.

Life was well enough, she thought; well enough, and a gay enough business for those who had the means to make it so, and the temperament to find it so. Life was no great matter, and nor, certainly, was death; but it was well enough. We come and we go; we are born, we live, and we die; this poor ball, thought Rome, serves us for all that; and on the whole, we make too much complaint of it, expect, one way and another, too much of it. It is, after all, but a turning ball, which has burst, for some reason unknown to science, into a curious, interesting and rather unwholesome form of animal and vegetable life. (…) Funny, hustling, strutting, vain, eager little creatures that we are, so clever and so excited about the business of living, so absorbed and intent about it all, so proud of our achievements, so tragically deploring our disasters, so prone to talk about the wreckage of civilization, as if it mattered much, as if civilizations had not been wrecked and wrecked all down human history, and it all came to the same thing in the end. Nevertheless, thought Rome, we are really rather wonderful little spurts of life. The brief pageant, the tiny, squalid story of human life upon this earth, has been lit, among the squalor and the greed, by amazing flashes of intelligence, of valor, of beauty, of sacrifice, of love.

You are very quiet,” Archer remarked as they walked together to the refreshment table. They’d just finished a game of whist and when Rose begged off from a second round, Grey’s brother did the same. “My apologies,” she replied. “I do not mean to be rude.” “My brother doesn’t deserve to take up so much room in that lovely head of yours.” She might have been insulted by his disparaging Grey, or his familiarity with her, had she not been so surprised by the remark itself. “You are impertinent, sir.” He grinned-a grin so much more roguish than Grey’s. “One of my more charming traits. I did not mean offense, dear lady. Only that thinking about him will do you no good. The man is bent on punishing himself for the rest of his life.” Rose accepted the plate he offered her. “Thank you. Why would he wish to punish himself?” “Because he’s an ar…idiot. Sandwich?” He held up a cucumber sandwich caught in silver tongs. “Please. I’m not certain I wish to discuss your brother with you, Lord Archer.” “Not even if I can help you win him?” Rose’s heart froze-no, it simply stopped. Her entire body went numb. She would have dropped her plate had Archer not swept it from her hand into his own. “What makes you think I wish to win him?” He flashed her a coy glance. “Please, lady Rose. I’ve not made a career out of studying your sex to fall for your false innocence now.” Oh dear God. Had Grey told him? “I’ve seen the way you look at him, and I’ve had to put with hearing about you for the last four years-no offense.” Rose arched a brow as he piled food upon her plate. “None taken. I wasn’t aware that I looked at your brother in a manner different from how I might look upon anyone else.” “Mm.” He popped a small cake into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “That’s just it. You try too hard to treat him like everyone else. It’s obvious you care for him, and not just as the man who saved your life.” “Saved my life? How very dramatic.” He gave her a very serious look as he handed her the laden plate. “Where do you suppose you’d be right now if Grey hadn’t taken you in? Certainly not here, with such good food and charming company.” Point taken. And now she felt simply awful for the way she had spoken to Grey earlier. She was such a cow. “You shame me, sir.” And worse, he’d made tears come to her eyes. Staring at her food-such a wonderful array he’d picked for her-she blinked them away. He steered her toward a window seat where they sat in plain view of the room, but at least with a modicum of privacy. “My apologies, my lady. I did not mean to offend you with my plain and thoughtless words.” “Plain, perhaps. Thoughtless, I highly doubt it.” She managed a small smile. “I don’t think you do anything without thinking first.” Archer laughed, looking so much like Grey it hurt to look at him. “Were that but true.

When other birds are still, the screech owls take up the strain, like mourning women their ancient u-lu-lu. Their dismal scream is truly Ben Jonsonian.( Wise midnight hags! It is no honest and blunt tu-whit tu-who of the poets, but, without jesting, a most solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual consolations of suicide lovers remembering the pangs and the delights of supernal love in the infernal groves. Yet I love to hear their wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the woodside; reminding me sometimes of music and singing birds; as if it were the dark and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would fain be sung. They are the spirits, the low spirits and melancholy forebodings, of fallen souls that once in human shape night-walked the earth and did the deeds of darkness, now expiating their sins with their wailing hymns or threnodies in the scenery of their transgressions. They give me a new sense of the variety and capacity of that nature which is our common dwelling. Oh-o-o-o-o that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! sighs one on this side of the pond, and circles with the restlessness of despair to some new perch on the gray oaks. Then — that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! echoes another on the farther side with tremulous sincerity, and — bor-r-r-r-n! comes faintly from far in the Lincoln woods. I was also serenaded by a hooting owl. Near at hand you could fancy it the most melancholy sound in Nature, as if she meant by this to stereotype and make permanent in her choir the dying moans of a human being — some poor weak relic of mortality who has left hope behind, and howls like an animal, yet with human sobs, on entering the dark valley, made more awful by a certain gurgling melodiousness — I find myself beginning with the letters gl when I try to imitate it — expressive of a mind which has reached the gelatinous, mildewy stage in the mortification of all healthy and courageous thought. It reminded me of ghouls and idiots and insane howlings. But now one answers from far woods in a strain made really melodious by distance — Hoo hoo hoo, hoorer hoo; and indeed for the most part it suggested only pleasing associations, whether heard by day or night, summer or winter. I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic and maniacal hooting for men. It is a sound admirably suited to swamps and twilight woods which no day illustrates, suggesting a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized. They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have. All day the sun has shone on the surface of some savage swamp, where the double spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath; but now a more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures awakes to express the meaning of Nature there.

Because I love you, you idiot!’ The sentence hangs in the air. It’s taken us both by surprise. We blink at each other, take a breath. I feel the flush climb my neck, check that I mean it. I do. Not just for who he’s been for the past two weeks, but for our friendship before that. Before we screwed everything up. ‘No you don’t,’ Rafa says. But the guilt and frustration are gone, replaced by something more fragile. ‘Don’t tell me what I do and don’t feel, Rafa.’ He watches me, unreadable. The seconds stretch out. ‘Then say it again.’ I look him the eye. They’re difficult words because they strip me bare. ‘I love you. You idiot.’ Rafa doesn’t speak and I can’t tell what he’s thinking. This quiet intensity is something new. I close the distance until I’m standing between his legs. I don’t touch him. ‘That’s not easy for me to say.’ ‘Because it’s me?’ ‘Because I’ve never said it before, and because I mean it. Rafa, the way I felt about you a few hours ago . . . that hasn’t changed. If I’d told you then, would you have believed it?’ His eyes soften at the memory. ‘Then believe it now.’ I press my hand to his chest, feel his heart thump against my palm through his t-shirt. ‘Do you want to add anything, or am I out on this limb alone?’ He guides me closer, his fingers light on my hips. ‘How I feel about you scares the hell out of me. I’ve got no counter-moves. No defence. And now you remember everything, I’ve lost the upper hand.’ ‘You had the upper hand?’ A short laugh. ‘Apparently not.

The door opened. We all froze. “Mom, this isn’t what it looks like.” Mom put her hand on her hip. “It looks like a group of boys wrestling on the floor of your bedroom while you watch. Wearing a towel.” “Okay,” I admitted, “it is what it looks like, but it’s not—” “Sexual?” She raised her eyebrows. “Mom!” Luna stuck her head under Mom’s arm and sucked in a breath. “She’s gone from a love triangle to a kinky sex pentagon.” Blake lifted his head. “Vote for Team Blake!” Mom rolled her eyes. “Boys, vacate. Now. Aurora get dressed. And everybody head downstairs. Breakfast is on. I made quiche. There’s plenty for all.” “First edible breakfast in weeks,” Luna said. Blake smacked his lips. “Yum!” Mom checked behind the door. “Ayden’s not here, is he?” I shook my head. “Then there’s no lust factor. Although, your father may not be as easy going as I am. So, gentlemen, get out.”  As she left, Mom dragged Luna away with her. Blake shook off the other boys and stood. “That’s offensive. I’m a very lustful guy.” “And a big blabbermouth.” Logan whacked the back of Blake’s head. “But remember you can’t tell—” “Ayden!” Blake shouted. “Right,” Tristan said, “or —” “No, it’s…” Wide-eyed, Blake jerked his chin toward my door. Our heads swiveled. Ayden filled the doorway, leaning against the frame, arms folded. “What can’t you tell me?” He arched one eyebrow awaiting a reply. The silence seemed ready to explode. Ayden zeroed in on Blake. “Come on, Weak Link, give it up.” Blake blurted out, “Jayden was in the shower with Aurora!”  I choked. “What!” “You idiot!” Logan thumped Blake repeatedly. “Technically, that’s true.” Jayden said. “But only once.” Ayden’s arms dropped. Along with his jaw. Tristan jumped up and shoved Jayden’s shoulder. “Shut up!” I tugged the towel tighter. “Ayden, that didn’t happen. Exactly. Guys, he already knows the Divinicus thing.” “Oh, good.” Blake was relieved. “Secrets? Not my thing.” “No kidding,” I said. “You told Blake before me?” Ayden said. “Unbelievable.” Blake raised his brows. “What’s that supposed to mean?" I held up my hand. “I didn’t tell anyone.” “Oh, my God! Why are you in a towel?” A & E Kirk (2014-05-26). Drop Dead Demons: The Divinicus Nex Chronicles: Book 2 (Divinicus Nex Chronicles series) (pp. 466-467). A&E Kirk. Kindle Edition.

She clicks on the last slide, and that’s when it happens. “Me So Horny” blasts out of the speakers and my video, mine and Peter’s, flashes on the projector screen. Someone has taken the video from Anonybitch’s Instagram and put their own soundtrack to it. They’ve edited it too, so I bop up and down on Peter’s lap at triple speed to the beat. Oh no no no no. Please, no. Everything happens at once. People are shrieking and laughing and pointing and going “Oooh!” Mr. Vasquez is jumping up to unplug the projector, and then Peter’s running onstage, grabbing the microphone out of a stunned Reena’s hand. “Whoever did that is a piece of garbage. And not that it’s anybody’s fucking business, but Lara Jean and I did not have sex in the hot tub.” My ears are ringing, and people are twisting around in their seats to look at me and then shifting back around to look at Peter. “All we did was kiss, so fuck off!” Mr. Vasquez, the junior class advisor, is trying to grab the mic back from Peter, but Peter manages to maintain control of it. He holds the mic up high and yells out, “I’m gonna find whoever did this and kick their ass!” In the scuffle, he drops the mic. People are cheering and laughing. Peter’s being frog-marched off the stage, and he frantically looks out into the audience. He’s looking for me. The assembly breaks up then, and everyone starts filing out the doors, but I stay low in my seat. Chris comes and finds me, face alight. She grabs me by the shoulders. “Ummm, that was crazy! He freaking dropped the F bomb twice!” I am still in a state of shock, maybe. A video of me and Peter hot and heavy was just on the projector screen, and everyone saw Mr. Vasquez, seventy-year-old Mr. Glebe who doesn’t even know what Instagram is. The only passionate kiss of my life and everybody saw. Chris shakes my shoulders. “Lara Jean! Are you okay?” I nod mutely, and she releases me. “He’s kicking whoever did it’s ass? I’d love to see that!” She snorts and throws her head back like a wild pony. “I mean, the boy’s an idiot if he thinks for one second it wasn’t Gen who posted that video. Like, wow, those are some serious blinders, y’know?” Chris stops short and examines my face. “Are you sure you’re okay?” “Everybody saw us.” “Yeah…that sucked. I’m sure that was Gen’s handiwork. She must’ve gotten one of her little minions to sneak it onto Reena’s PowerPoint.” Chris shakes her head in disgust. “She’s such a bitch. I’m glad Peter set the record straight, though. Like, I hate to give him credit, but that was an act of chivalry. No guy has ever set the record straight for me.

His voice was cool and steady. “You’ve proved my point, Lillian. If a man you don’t even like can bring you to this state, then how much easier would it be for St. Vincent?” She started as if he had slapped her, and her eyes widened. The transition from warm desire to a feeling of utter foolishness was not a pleasant one. The devastating intimacy between them had been nothing but a lesson to demonstrate her inexperience. He had used it as an opportunity to put her in her place. Apparently she wasn’t good enough to wed or to bed. Lillian wanted to die. Humiliated, she scrambled upward, clutching at her unfastened garments, and shot him a glare of hatred. “That remains to be seen,” she choked out. “I’ll just have to compare the two of you. And then if you ask nicely, perhaps I’ll tell you if he—” Westcliff pounced on her with startling swiftness, shoving her back to the lawn and bracketing her tossing head between his muscular forearms. “Stay away from him,” he snapped. “He can’t have you.” “Why not?” she demanded, struggling as he settled more heavily between her flailing legs. “Am I not good enough for him either? Inferior breed that I am—” “You’re too good for him. And he would be the first to admit it.” “I like him all the better for not suiting your high standards!” “Lillian— hold still, damn it— Lillian, look at me!” Westcliff waited until she had stilled beneath him. “I don’t want to see you hurt.” “Has it ever occurred to you, you arrogant idiot, that the person most likely to hurt me might be you?” Now it was his turn to recoil as if struck. He stared at her blankly, though she could practically hear the whirring of his agile brain as he sorted through the potential implications of her rash statement. “Get off me,” Lillian said sullenly. He moved upward, straddling her slender hips, his fingers grasping the inner edges of her corset. “Let me fasten you. You can’t run back to the manor half dressed.” “By all means,” she replied with helpless scorn, “let’s observe the proprieties.” Closing her eyes, she felt him tugging her clothes into place, tying her chemise and re-hooking her corset efficiently. When he finally released her, she sprang from the ground like a startled doe and rushed to the entrance of the hidden garden. To her eternal humiliation, she couldn’t find the door, which was concealed by the lavish spills of ivy coming over the wall. Blindly she thrust her hands into the trailing greenery, breaking two nails as she scrabbled for the doorjamb. Coming up behind her, Westcliff settled his hands at her waist, easily dodging her attempts to throw him off. He pulled her hips back firmly against his and spoke against her ear. “Are you angry because I started making love to you, or because I didn’t finish?” Lillian licked her dry lips. “I’m angry, you bloody big hypocrite, because you can’t make up your mind about what to do with me.” She punctuated the comment with the hard jab of one elbow back against his ribs.

Outside the room they found his family standing in the Great Hall, discussing something in heated whispers as Freddy nervously paced the other end. Oliver cleared his throat, and they all jumped. “My fiancée has made it clear that she doesn’t appreciate my attempt at a joke.” “Oliver enjoys shocking people,” Maria said calmly. When he looked at her, surprised that she had noticed, she arched one eyebrow at him. “I’m sure you know that about him by now. I find it a great flaw in his character.” She seemed to consider many things as flaws in his character. Not that he could blame her. Gran glanced from Maria to him. “So the two of you didn’t meet in a brothel?” “We did,” he said, “but only because poor Freddy got lost and wandered into one by mistake. I was trying to determine what he was looking for when Maria rushed in, mad with worry over where he might have gone off to. With two such Americans lost in the wicked city, hopelessly innocent of its dangers, I felt compelled to help them. I’ve been squiring them about town the last week. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?” She cast him a sugary and thoroughly false smile. “Oh, yes, dearest. And you were a very informative guide, too.” Jarret arched one eyebrow. “Astonishing that after finding you in a brothel, Oliver, Miss Butterfield wasn’t put off of marrying you.” “I ought to have been,” Maria said. “But he swore those days were behind him when he pledged his undying love to me on bended knee.” When Gabriel and Jarret barely managed to stifle their laughter, Oliver gritted his teeth. Bended knee, indeed. She was determined to prick his pride at every opportunity. She probably felt he deserved it. He could only pray that Gran backed down from the right before he had to bring the chit around any of his friends, or Maria would have them taunting him unmercifully for the next decade. “I’m afraid, my dear,” he said tersely, “that my brothers have trouble envisioning me bending a knee to anyone.” She affected a look of wide-eyed shock. “Have they no idea what a romantic you are? I’ll have to show them the sonnets you wrote praising my beauty. I believe I left them in my redingote pocket.” The teasing wench actually looked back toward the entrance. “I could go fetch them if you like.” “Not now,” he said, torn between a powerful urge to laugh and an equally powerful urge to strangle her. “It’s time for dinner, and I’m starved.” “So am I,” Freddy put in. At a frown from Maria, he mumbled, “Not that it matters, mind you.” “Of course it matters,” Gran said graciously. “We don’t like our guests to be uncomfortable. Come along then, Mr. Dunse. You may take me in to dinner, since my grandson is otherwise occupied.” As they trooped toward the dining room, Oliver bent his head to whisper, “I see you’re enjoying making me out to be a besotted idiot.” A minxish smile tipped up her fetching lips. “Oh, yes. It’s great fun.” “Then my explanation of how you ended up in a brothel met with your approval?” “It’ll do for now.” She cast him a glance from beneath her long lashes. “You’re by no means out of the woods yet, sir.” But I will be by the time the night is over. No matter what it took, he would get her to stay and do this, so help him God.

Of course, I think Colonel Lowe will be happy to become a permanent fixture in Chicago if it means he can stay around Mollie. I’ve never seen a man so awestruck.” His head shot up. “Has he been pestering Mollie?” Zack demanded. Dr. Buchanan had just shoveled a huge bite of makowiec loaf into his mouth, and Zack’s blood began pounding through his system. Why had he been so blind to overlook what would happen when eighteen able-bodied men showed up on Mollie’s doorstep? He’d been letting Mollie lick her wounds in private, but what kind of idiot abandoned her when there were plenty of strapping young men there to take her mind off things? Dr. Buchanan finished eating and wiped his mouth. “I don’t think pester is the right word, although not an hour goes by that he isn’t paying her compliments. Yesterday, Colonel Lowe brought her a basket of oranges, although where he got oranges at this time of year is anyone’s guess.” Zack narrowed his eyes. “Why would Mollie be interested in some old man?” “Colonel Lowe isn’t an old man. I’d guess he’s about your age. Thirty-four, maybe thirty-six. And he’s a handsome fellow, no doubt about that. Miss Mollie seems quite taken by him.” The memory of a blond man sitting beside Mollie in her workshop with drafting paper before them smacked Zack in the face. He shot to his feet. “I’m going over there.” His mother tried to talk sense into him. “Zachariasz, it is cold outside. Sleet! You will catch your death.” He had lived through worse, and he wasn’t about to sit home eating makowiec loaf while the woman he loved was falling prey to some predator out to seduce her. As if diamond powder would impress her when Colonel Lowe was building her a whole new factory! He yanked his coat from the rack in the hall, still wet from his trip home. He’d put up with a lot from Mollie in the past few weeks, but this was the limit. While he was selling his soul to cut a deal for diamond powder this afternoon, she had been eating oranges with Colonel Lowe.

I will not expose you to these men.” “Give it a rest, Jacques. I mean it. We’re in this thing together. I hate to brag and put you at an obvious disadvantage, but I can take more of the sun than you.” His hand caressed the nape of her neck. “That doesn’t mean I will allow you to be exposed to danger.” Shea burst out laughing. “Just being with you is dangerous, you idiot. You’re dangerous.” She shook back her hair, her chin lifting a bit defiantly. “In any case, I can feel the vampire and you cannot. Neither, it seems, could Byron. Maybe the others won’t be able to either. You need me.” Reluctantly Jacques was allowing her to pull him toward the cave entrance. “Why do I never win an argument with you? I cannot allow you to be in danger, yet we are walking into the dawn and facing brutal killers when we are at our lowest strength. In the afternoon, Shea, we will be completely vulnerable, at their mercy, at the mercy of the sun. Both of us will be.” “Then we’ll just have to be in a safe place by then. Contact the others, Jacques, tell them what’s going on.” “I think you just want to get out of this cave. You would rather face a vampire and human killers than a few little bats.” He tugged at her wild mane of hair. She flashed him a grin over her shoulder. “You’ve got that right. And don’t you ever turn into a bat.” She shuddered. “Or a rat.” “We could get kinky and see how bats and rats make love,” he suggested in a whisper, warm breath against her neck. “You are a sick man, Jacques. Very, very sick.” The passage was narrowing again, taking her breath. At least Jacques was complying, even if he was grousing a bit.

Wait just a moment, please.” He looked around as if making sure they weren’t observed, then led her rather forcefully to the side of the house where the moon and lamplight did not touch them. “Let go!” He did. “Miss Erstwhile, I believe it is in your best interest to tell me what you are doing out here.” “Walking.” She glared. She did not particularly enjoy being dragged by her arm. His eyes darted to the servants’ quarters. To Martin’s exact window. It made her swallow. “You are not doing something foolish, are you?” In fact, she was, but that didn’t mean she had to stop glaring. “I don’t know if you realize,” he said in his unbearably condescending tone, “but it is not proper for a lady to be out alone after dark and worse to cavort with servants…” “Cavort?” “When doing so might lead to trouble of the worst nature…” “Cavort?” “Look,” he said, slipping into slightly more colloquial tones, “just stay away from there.” “Aren’t you all righteous concern, Mr. Nobley? Five minutes ago, I’d planned on changing careers and becoming a dairymaid, but you’ve saved me from that fate. I’ll kindly release you back to the night and return to my well-bred ways.” “Don’t be a fool, Miss Erstwhile.” He returned the way he’d come, from the back of the house. “Insufferable,” she said under her breath. No, she wasn’t going to go to Martin’s, curse him, but she wasn’t going to run back to her room either, if just to spite Mr. Nobley. The man deserved to be spited. Or spitted. Or both. Though boring and cold and hateful, Mr. Nobley was the most Darcy-esque of them all, so she despised him with vigorous enthusiasm. Perhaps, she hoped, the exercise would count toward therapy and her ultimate Austenland recovery. “Grab my arm, will he?” she said, getting a speck of satisfaction by muttering like an old crazy woman. “Call me a fool…” She walked around the park in angry circles. Her fingers were cold, and her thoughts wandered to memories of spending so much time in the bath as a kid that her fingertips crinkled like raisin skin. Wrinkly skin reminded her of Great-Aunt Carolyn, with her extravagantly soft fingers and conspiratorial eyes. She bought me this gift, Jane thought. Use it well, you floppy-brained, hopeless idiot, and stop trying to fall in love with gardeners. With anyone.

I wanted to be a spy,” Olga said, shrugging. “I applied to the CIA. I was turned down. I did not meet the psychological profile. Oppositional Defiance Disorder. Basically, I have a hard time taking orders from idiots.” “Don’t think of me as an idiot and I won’t give you an idiotic order,” Sophia said. “But if I give you one, you’d better do it. Because it’s probably going to mean surviving or dying.” “You I don’t mind,” Olga said. “Or I wouldn’t have joined your crew. Don’t ask me about Nazar. So I was in Spain with the troupe. When the Plague hit, they shut down travel. And all my guns were in America. In a zombie apocalypse. I was quite upset.” “You should have seen Faith when they told her she had to be disarmed in New York,” Sophia said. “Then they gave her a taser and that was mistake. What kind of guns?” “I like that your family prefers the AK series,” Olga said. “I really do think it’s superior to the M16 series in many ways. Much more reliable. They say it is less accurate but that is at longer ranges. The round is not designed for long range.” “I can hit at a thousand meters with my accurized AK,” Sophia said. “It’s a matter of knowing the ballistics. It’s not real powerful at that range, but try doing the same thing with an M4. I’ll wait.” “Oh, jeeze, you two,” Paula said. “Get a room.” “So continue with how you got on the yacht,” Sophia said. “We don’t want our cook getting all woozy with gun geeking.” “We were called by the agency and asked if anyone wanted to ‘catch a ride’ on a yacht,” Olga said. “When they said who owned the boat… I nearly said no. We all knew Nazar. Or at least of him. Not a nice man, as you might have noticed. We knew what we were getting into. But then we were told he had vaccine… ” she shrugged again. “Accepting Nazar’s offer was perhaps not the worst decision I have made in my life. I survived. Not how I would have preferred to survive, but I was vaccinated and I survived. But I did not even hint that I knew more about his men’s weapons than they did. They were pigs. Tough guys. But none of them were military and none of them really knew what they were doing with them. When they brought out the RPG, I nearly peed myself. Irinei had no idea what he was doing with it. I don’t think he even knew the safety was off.” “You know how to use an RPG?” Sophia said. “My family liked the United States very much,” Olga said, sadly. “We all like guns and anything that goes boom. And in the US, you could find people who had licenses for anything. I’ve fired an RPG, yes.” “Well, if we find an RPG you can have it,” Sophia said. “Oh, thank you, captain!” Olga said, clapping her hands girlishly. “But we’ll be keeping the rounds and the launcher separate,” Sophia said. “Oh, my, yes,” Olga said. “And both will have to be in a well sealed container. This salt air would cause corrosion quickly.” “I guess you miss your guns?” Paula said. “That’s not a request for an inventory and loving description of each, by the way. Got that enough from Faith.” “I do,” Olga said. “But I miss my books more.” “Books,” Paula said. “Now you’re talking my language.” “I have more books than shelves,” Olga said. “And I had many shelves. I collect old manuscripts when I can afford them.” “If we do any land clearance, look in the libraries and big houses,” Sophia said. “I bet around here you can probably pick up some great stuff.” “This is okay?” Olga said. “We can, salvage?” “If there’s time and if we clear the town,” Sophia said. “Sure.” “Oh, thank you, captain!” Olga said, kissing her on the cheek. “Okay, now you definitely need to get a room.

„Why can`t I just tell her I love her, and I`m sorry? I mean, why do you women insist on complicating things.” I really shouldn`t have said that. My usually cute, Tinkerbell-like little sister transforms into the female equivalent of the Hulk in front of my very eyes, only instead of green, she turns an interesting shade of red. „Excuse me? You act like a complete jerk, an idiot, a Buffon, you make her cry and feel like crap, and then you have the audacity, the unmitigated cheek, the motherfucking nerve to complain about the fact that you have to work at getting her to forgive you? Men!

Yes, you do. You and Josh both. You always say you want to ‘protect’ me like I’m not a grown woman who’s perfectly capable of handling herself. Just because I see the good in people doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. I think optimism is a good trait, and I feel sorry for people who go through life believing the worst of others.

Rochford reached out and his cold fingers traced the line of her jaw. “I could be nothing but gentle with you, love. You need never fear me. I’ve never raised a hand to a woman in anger, and I do not mean to start now. I would be kind to you, too, and though I am not so blind to my own failings that I can promise I won’t ever rant or give into a temper tantrum, you are at liberty to rant right back. Tell me I’m an obnoxious arse when you need to. I’ll not punish you for it, God, I want to hear you scold me. I’d give anything to hear you telling me what a pompous idiot I am. Tell me every day. Please. I’ll be the better for it, I swear.

They’re friendlier when you’re not driving like an arsehole with a death wish. You do realize this ain’t a road, right?” Tucker stopped. “What do you mean? The GPS lady told me to turn here.” Did he not notice that people on both sides were looking down at them from the platform like they were idiots? “Nope, she told you to turn on the road. This is where the train runs. In case you’ve forgotten what a train is, it’s a bit like a high-speed bullet that kills everything stupid enough to get in its path.” Tucker’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit. Holy shit. We’re going to get hit by a train. What should I do?” Brody yawned again. It had already been a long damn day. Why had he thought bringing the brain-damaged puppy along for the ride would be a good idea?

Love at first sight should send you running, if you know what’s good for you. It’s your dark pieces having instant recognition with their dark pieces. You’re an idiot if you think it means you’ve met your soul mate.

Hmm,” said Tammy, “and once more your naive optimism regarding the human species reveals its hopeless disconnect with reality. While it was well-established that prior to the Great EM Pulse following the Benefactors’ arrival in Earth orbit, virtually every human being on the planet had already become a drooling automaton with bloodshot eyes glued to a pixelated screen, even as the world melted around them in a toxic stew of air pollution, water pollution, vehicles pouring out carcinogenic waste gases, and leaking gas pipelines springing up everywhere along with earthquake-inducing fracking and oil spills in the oceans and landslides due to deforestation and heat waves due to global warming and ice caps melting and islands and coastlines drowning and forests dying and idiots building giant walls and—” “All right, whatever!” Hadrian snapped. “But don’t you see? This is the future!” “Yeah, that statement makes sense.” “The future from then, I mean. Now is their future, even if it’s our now, or will be, I mean—oh fuck it. The point is, Tammy, we’re supposed to have matured as a species, as a civilization. We’re supposed to have united globally in a warm gush of integrity, ethical comportment, and peace and love as our next stage of universal consciousness bursts forth like a blinding light to engulf us all in a golden age of enlightenment and postscarcity well-being.” “Hahahaha,” Tammy laughed and then coughed and choked. “Stop! You’re killing me!” Beta spoke. “I am attempting to compute said golden age, Captain. Alas, my Eternally Needful Consumer Index is redlining and descending into a cursive loop of existential panic. All efforts to reset parameters yield the Bluescreen of Incomprehension. Life without mindless purchase? Without pointless want? Without ephemeral endorphin spurts? Without gaming-induced frontal lobe permanent degradation resulting in short-tempered antisocial short-attention-span psychological generational profiles? Impossible.” “The EMP should have given us the breathing space to pause and reevaluate our value system,” said Hadrian. “Instead, it was universal panic. Riots in Discount Super Stores, millions trampled—they barely noticed the lights going out, for crying out loud.

She tries to dribble past him, but—" Todd leaped onto the blanket and dived for Elizabeth, tackling her to the ground. "He bumps her to the floor! It's a foul for Wilkins! Free shot for the beautiful forward." Todd smothered her face in tiny kisses. "Your shot, Liz," Todd whispered. Elizabeth fended him off, but she couldn't help laughing. "Todd, sometimes you can be so idiotic." "That's just because I'm so happy," Todd said, picking up his plate and taking a bite of salad. "Last week I was a wrecked man. My girlfriend was leaving me, and I was out for the season. Now I've got the two most important things in the world back again: basketball and my girlfriend." Elizabeth feigned hurt. "You mean I'm only as important as basketball?" Todd paused, pretending to be deep in thought. "Hmm, which is more important?" "Todd, that's not funny," Elizabeth said, picking up her champagne flute and taking a sip of apple cider. Todd nodded solemnly. "You're right, basketball is obviously more important." Elizabeth whacked him in the arm, sending his fork flying out of his hand. Todd put his plate down and his expression turned serious. "Liz, you know you're the most important thing in the world to me." He turned and looked at her, his coffee-colored eyes warm with love. Elizabeth's stomach fluttered at the intensity of his gaze. "Liz, it's so nice to have you back again," Todd said in a husky voice, taking the glass out of her hand and setting it down. "For good." He took her in his arms and kissed her deeply. Elizabeth closed her eyes and returned the embrace with ardor, wrapping her arms around his neck.

Do you like this series?” “Eh…yeah. I love it…” “Do you? So what are your feelings on the holy knight’s valet?” “You mean Edgar? Eh…well, I totally love him?!? ‘To put others before oneself.’ He’s a fine man who’s not afraid of getting hurt while protecting others! Gosh, I mean I completely understand why the readers would love him, he’s my favo—” “Tch…!” “Tch…!?” “…Ohh, I see. Hate to tell you…but I…utterly despise that piece of shit known as Edgar…!! He talks so self righteously, it pisses me off.” “Eh…” “Self-sacrifice makes me wanna puke.” “No way…!” “Why the hell’s a guy like him so popular? I mean, it’s obnoxious that even in the story, the other characters love him so blindly!” “Hey…how could you!? After I told you I liked him..!” “This is how I feel, so I can’t help it. Most of all, I can’t stomach his final moments. He laid down his life to protect his master…and went and died alone while praying for the happiness of those dear to him…just what part of a guy like that’s so great-!!?” “EH!? Edgar…dies…” “? He did…right? Around the middle of volume sixteen, I think it was…” “Uwaaaaaaah!! That is such a spoiler—!!” “Huuh!? Not my problem!! Any real fan would have read it already! Hey don’t get all up in my face!!” “Shut you’re trap! I got ten years o’catching up ta do, darnit! Ahhhh, all the motivation I had to read it is gone! Gonnne just like that—! Anyway the point is…protecting his master to the death is just wonderful. It’s just like Edgar!” “Hah!? All that amounts to is satisfying his own ego, you idiot!!” “This guy..” “This jerk…” “Really pisses me off…!!” “Ahh, you two there. Would you mind keeping it down a little?” “Leo!” “Josephine is in trouble right now. Nnn…I never would have thought Jackie would be the culprit. What a surprise. Besides, I’d say Elliot was at fault just now.” “Huuuh!? What did I do—” “You asked someone for his own opinion…but tried to force your opinions on him when you didn’t like what you heard.

Ehsan Sehgal Quotes about Media — — — * Words matter and mirror if your head is a dictionary of insight and your feelings are alive. * Sure, fake news catches and succeeds attention, but for a while; however, it embraces disregard and unreliability forever. * Media rule the incompetent minds and pointless believers. * A real journalist only states, neither collaborates nor participates. * The majority of journalists and anchors have the information only but not the sense of knowledge. * When the media encourages and highlights the wrong ones, anti-democratic figures, criminals in uniform, and dictators in a supreme authority and brilliant context, sure, such a state never survives the breakdown of prosperity and civil rights, as well as human rights. Thus, the media is accountable and responsible for this as one of the democratic pillars. *Media cannot be a football ground or a tool for anyone. It penetrates the elementary pillar of a state, it forms and represents the language of entire humanity within its perception of love, peace, respect, justice, harmony, and human rights, far from enmity and distinctions. Accordingly, it demonstrates its credibility and neutrality. * When the non-Western wrongly criticizes and abuses its culture, religion, and values, the Western media highlights that often, appreciating in all dimensions. However, if the same one even points out only such subjects, as a question about Western distinctive attitude and role, the West flies and falls at its lowest level, contradicting its principles of neutrality and freedom of press and speech, which pictures, not only double standards but also double dishonesty with itself and readers. Despite that, Western media bother not to realize and feel ignominy and moral and professional stigma. * Social Media has become the global dustbin of idiocy and acuity. It stinks now. Anyone is there to separate and recycle that. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean to constitute insulting, abusing, and harming deliberately in a distinctive and discriminative feature and context, whereas supporting such notions and attempts is a universal crime. * Social media is a place where you share your favourite poetry, quotes, songs, news, social activities, and reports. You can like something, you can comment, and you can use humour in a civilised way. It is social media, but it is not a place to love or be loved. Any lover does not exist here, and no one is serious in this regard. Just enjoy yourself and do not try to fool anyone. If you do that, it means you are making yourself a fool; it is a waste of time, and it is your defeat too. * I use social media only to devote and denote my thoughts voluntarily for the motivation of knowledge, not to earn money as greedy-minded. * One should not take seriously the Social-Media fools and idiots. * Today, on social media, how many are on duty? * Journalists voluntarily fight for human rights and freedom of speech, whereas they stay silent for their rights and journalistic freedom on the will and restrictions of the boss of the media. Indeed, it verifies that The nearer the church, the farther from god. * The abuse, insult, humiliation, and discrimination against whatever subject is not freedom of expression and writing; it is a violation and denial of global harmony and peace. * Press freedom is one significant pillar of true democracy pillars, but such democracy stays deaf, dumb, and blind, which restricts or represses the media. * Press and speech that deliberately trigger hatred and violation fall not under the freedom of press and speech since restrictions for morale and peace apply to everyone without exemption. * Real press freedom is just a dream, which nowhere in the world becomes a reality; however, journalists stay dreaming that.

You idiot.” He blinked at her. “Are you only now realizing that forces greater than ourselves might tear us apart?” she asked, still smiling. “Well . . .” he began. “Well . . . well no, not exactly . . .” He trailed off weakly. “But that was always true, Aleran,” she said, “long before the vord threatened our peoples. If they had never done so, it would still be true.” “What do you mean?” She shrugged a shoulder. Then she took up his knife and fork and cut another slice of roast as she spoke. “Many things can end lives. Even the lives of Aleran Citizens. Disease. Fires. Accidents. And, in the end, age itself.” She fed him the piece of roast and watched him begin to chew before nodding approval and beginning to cut another. “Death is certain, Aleran—for all of us. That being true, we know that all of those we love will either be torn away from us, or we will be torn away from them. It follows as naturally as the night after sundown.

Of course I’ll be your girlfriend.” Gage lights up like the city of Las Vegas at night, a gigantic, gum-showing smile pushing back his cheeks, dotting dimples, and forming complementary eye crinkles. He pumps his fist into the air. “You said yes! Oh my God. I can’t believe…” He stops himself after he notices the absolute bewilderment on my face, and then he clears his throat and lowers his arm. “I mean, I knew you were going to say yes.” “You’re an idiot,” I laugh, but the excitement in his voice is like a soothing balm on the scars of my heart. He’s the one shining halo of sunlight breaking through an everlasting tempest, allowing me a circle of dryness amongst an unrelenting downpour. “Yeah, but I’m your idiot now,” he emphasizes. “Hear that, everyone? Gage Arlington is officially off the market! And he’s in love with Calista Cadwell!

In a democracy, you cannot blame only a leading leader but also the entire leadership, including the voters’ choice, if the party fails to fulfill its promises. Prose, whether in the form of a quotation or something else, expresses various colours of character and life in its context and accurately mirrors society; therefore, read not only the content of the writing but also understand and share what you think will enlighten others’ lives. What are the attributes of a leader? When the nation understands and realizes that, it blocks the route for the leadership, with the foresight, upon dishonest, rude, and immoral ones. Otherwise, the rope of idiocy remains in the hands of idiots. The day you vote is an opportunity to vote not for a leader but for a party manifesto and constructive thoughts and plans. Indeed, you will have good fortune, a bright and joyful social status, and prosperity will always be a part of your society and life. You are the real leader of the universe if you also lead the hearts and not just the minds. The mind keeps the knowledge while the heart showers the fragrance of love towards the soul; it is the base and circle of the knowledge. A leader doesn’t mean to have governmental power; it means to lead its people on the right, secure, equal, fair, and visionary way of life. Be a leader, not a lawyer and judge, not an official; express party program(me) honestly for the nation and face all the challenges before accusing, abusing, and blaming others. Indeed, it shows dignity and venerable leadership. The opposition leaders and those in power can keep reputable the four pillars of democracy in the context of constitutional duties, transparent justice, truth, and honesty; they can also discredit those by their wrong character and fallacious decisions and deeds. Real and true leader neither has a special status nor contradict others. If he keeps the distance in any way or shape If he says things that don’t exist If he brings you in a destructive direction If he what promises, but do not keep his words If he put you naked in the open sky and himself in a comfortable tent If he gives you false hopes rather than the practical helping He is just an opportunist, a cheater, and a liar but not a leader. Promises of the leader before the election build expectations in the minds of voters, and after winning the election, those cause humiliation in the eyes of voters if the leader fails to fulfill them. Therefore, fly not so high that you cannot land easily; be honest with yourself. Political leadership is a significant spirit and defense of the armed forces of any state, whereas the armed forces are a protective shield for them. Both are compulsory for each other, as the political leadership has one point, and the armed forces have zero points, which becomes ten points. Otherwise, it stays one or zero, establishing nothing. A selfish and empty of vision and solution leadership prefers its own political and personal benefits and interests instead of its people; indeed, it collapses in the face of ruffians and traitors of the constitution. As a reality, such a state and all institutions face conspiracies in global affairs; consequently, diplomatic isolation and trade failure become destiny; it leads towards destruction with self-adopted strategy and character.

In closing”—he clears his throat—“I’m relieved that I’m no longer the only person on the receiving end of all your most annoying text messages. In fact, their occurrence has decreased dramatically since Cade came into your life. Or you blasted into his, and—let’s be honest—knowing you, that’s the more likely scenario. Which leads me to believe you’ve made him the target of all your unhinged harassment, and I couldn’t be happier for myself about that.” Chuckles ripple through the crowd. “Most of all, I’m happy my little sister found someone who loves getting those obnoxious messages as much as I do. And if seeing her this unbearably happy means a few less chances to mock her mercilessly via text, then that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.” Willa’s eyes roll, but I see tears well in the wake of that motion. “Because I’m selfless like that.” Ford tosses her a wink and a killer grin. She mouths you’re an idiot back to him.

Go away. I feel like dying.” “No fair maiden should die alone,” he said, putting a hand on hers. “Shall I read to you in your final moments? What story would you like?” She snatched her hand back. “How about the story of the idiotic prince who won’t leave the assassin alone?” “Oh! I love that story! It has such a happy ending, too—why, the assassin was really feigning her illness in order to get the prince’s attention! Who would have guessed it? Such a clever girl. And the bedroom scene is so lovely—it’s worth reading through all of their ceaseless banter!” “Out! Out! Out! Leave me be and go womanize someone else!” She grabbed a book and chucked it at him. He caught it before it broke his nose, and her eyes widened. “I didn’t mean—that wasn’t an attack! It was a joke—I didn’t mean to actually hurt you, Your Highness,” she said in a jumble. “I’d hope that Adarlan’s Assassin would choose to attack me in a more dignified manner. At least with a sword or a knife, though preferably not in the back.

You’re ours now, little Kat, Deep sent her through the new and very permanent bond that had been formed in their joining. Mine and Lock’s forever. You mean…we’re bonded? Completely bonded this time? She looked up at him, uncertainty filling her lovely blue eyes. I hope you don’t mind, my lady, Lock sent anxiously. But it’s true—feel the depth of the bond between us. This connection is to the soul bond we shared previously as a rope is to a thread. It binds us tightly and permanently together. Lock’s right, Deep told her. I’m afraid there’s no going back. No going back? You idiots! Kat was laughing and crying at the same time as she pulled them both close again. I don’t want to go back! I just want to spend the rest of my life with the two most wonderful guys in this or any other galaxy. Oh? Deep raised an eyebrow at her. And who are they? Have we met them? You…Kat shook her head, still laughing through her tears. I swear one of these days I’m going to kill you, Deep. I’ve already died. He made his mental voice serious as he looked into her eyes. But I came back for you, little Kat. You and Lock. And to keep a promise. “A

You always know what to do,” she said. “Not always,” he said, holding her close. “Right now, for example. I’m not sure what to do.” “Why?” she asked, her eyes still closed, her face buried in his chest. “When are you going to tell me?” She lifted her head. “Tell you?” “About the baby.” “But Jack, you know the baby and mother are—” “The baby inside of you,” he said, placing a large hand over her flat tummy. A startled look crossed her features. She pushed him away a little bit. “Did someone say something to you?” she asked. “No one had to say anything. Please tell me I’m not the last to know.” “I just saw John yesterday—and how in the world would you know?” “Mel,” he said, running the back of one knuckle along her cheek, “your body’s changing. You haven’t had a period. For a while, I thought maybe you’d had a hysterectomy or something because I haven’t noticed a period since the first time we made love, but there’s a blue box under the bathroom sink. You don’t drink your beer, and you get nauseous from time to time. Not to mention being more tired than usual.” “Lord,” she said. “You never think a man will notice. Not things like that.” “Well?” She sighed. “I went to see John yesterday to confirm what I already suspected. I’m pregnant. Three months.” “You’re a midwife. How could you not know at three weeks?” “Because I assumed I was sterile. Infertile. Mark and I did everything to try to get a baby—even in vitro fertilization. To no avail. This was the last thing I ever expected.” “Ah,” he said, finally clear on why she might keep it from him. “So, here we are,” he said. “I’m sorry, Jack. You must think I’m an idiot.” He kissed her. “Of course not. Mel, I’m in love with you.” She was frozen for a second. “Oh, God,” she finally said, plummeted into tears. “Oh, God, Jack!” She buried her face in his chest and wept. “Hey, no reason to cry, baby. You a little surprised? No more than me,” he laughed. “I never thought this could happen to me. It hit me so hard, I damn near fell down. But I love you.” She continued to softly cry. “It’s okay, honey. It’ll be okay.” He stroked her hair. “You want to have a baby, obviously.” She lifted her head. “I wanted a baby so badly, I ached. But do you?” she asked. “I mean, you’re forty.” “I want everything with you. Everything. Besides, I like babies. And I’m wild about pregnant women.” “When did you decide you knew for sure?” she asked him. “At least a month ago.” He put a hand over her breast. “Sore? Haven’t you noticed the changes? Your nipples have darkened.” “I was in denial,” she said, wiping at her tears.

Alex, I really love you,” she said. She had said it every day since the incident, at first through tears and embarrassment. Now it was as easy as saying hello. Of course it helped that he was in a coma. “I think if you loved me, we could have something really great together. But you don’t, so I’m an idiot for thinking it. If you wake up…” Her voice broke and she paused. “I mean when you wake up, I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. I mean, not that I think there’s an us, it’s just that I think maybe…” she broke off and dropped her head to the bed with a groan. “I can’t even be suave when you’re unconscious.

The menu: legendary deep-fried Turkeyzilla, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and green beans. The theme: dysfunction. “So,” Elysia said to Lex’s parents with her ever-friendly grin, “how are you?” “How do you think they are?” Ferbus whispered. She kicked him under the table. “I mean—um—what do you do? For a living?” Lex’s mother, who hadn’t said much, continued to stare down the table at the sea of black hoodies while picking at her potatoes. Lex’s father cleared his throat. “I’m a contractor,” he said. “And she’s a teacher.” “Omigod! I wanted to be a teacher!” Elysia turned to Mrs. Bartleby. “Do you love it?” “Hmm?” She snapped back to attention and smiled vacantly at Elysia. “Oh, yes. I do. The kids are a nice distraction.” “From what?” Pip asked. Bang smacked her forehead. Lex squeezed Driggs’s hand even tighter, causing him to choke on his stuffing. He coughed and hacked until the offending morsel flew out of his mouth, landing in Sofi’s glass of water. “Ewww!” she squealed. “Drink around it,” Pandora scolded. “So! I hear New York City is lovely this time of year.” Well, it looks nice, I guess,” Mr. Bartleby said. “But shoveling out the driveway is a pain in the neck. The girls used to help, but now . . .” Sensing the impending awkwardness, Corpp jumped in. “Well, Lex has been a wonderful addition to our community. She’s smart, friendly, a joy to be around—” “And don’t you worry about the boyfriend,” Ferbus said, pointing to Driggs. “I keep him in line.” Mrs. Bartleby’s eyes widened, looking at Lex and then Driggs. “You have a—” she sputtered. “He’s your—” Ferbus went white. “They didn’t know?” “Oops!” said Uncle Mort in a theatrical voice, getting up from the table. “Almost forgot the biscuits!” “Let me help you with those,” Lex said through clenched teeth, following him to the counter. A series of pained hugs and greetings had ensued when her parents arrived—but the rest of the guests showed up so soon thereafter that Lex hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to them, much to her relief. Still, she hadn’t stopped seething. “What were you thinking?” Uncle Mort gave her a reproachful look. “I was thinking that your parents were probably going to feel more lonely and depressed this Thanksgiving than they’ve ever felt in their lives, and that maybe we could help alleviate some of that by hosting a dinner featuring the one and only daughter they have left.” “A dinner of horrors? You know my track record with family gatherings!” He ignored her. “Here we are!” he said, turning back to the table with a giant platter. “Biscuits aplenty!” Lex grunted and took her seat. “I’m not sure how much longer I can do this,” she whispered to Driggs. “Me neither,” he replied. “I think my hand is broken in three places.” “Sorry.” “And your dad seems to be shooting me some sort of a death stare.” Lex glanced at her father. “That’s bad.” “Think he brought the shotgun?” “It’s entirely possible.” “All I’m saying,” Ferbus went on, trying to redeem himself and failing, “is that we all look out for one another here.” Mr. Bartleby looked at him. Ferbus began to sweat. “Because, you know. We all need somebody. Uh, to lean on.” “Stop talking,” Bang signed. Elysia gave Lex’s parents a sympathetic grin. “I think what my idiot partner is trying to say—through the magic of corny song lyrics, for some reason—is that you don’t need to worry about Lex. She’s like a sister to me.” She realized her poor choice of words as a pained look came to Mrs. Bartleby’s face. “Or an especially close cousin.” She shut her mouth and stared at her potatoes. “Frig.” Lex was now crushing Driggs’s hand into a fine paste. Other than the folding chairs creaking and Pip obliviously scraping the last bits of food off his plate, the table was silent. “Good beans!” Pip threw in.

But enough of this nonsense. What is a girl like you doing in London?” “A girl like me?” “Well, yes. I mean, Susie, I just never expected to see you here. You’re not exactly…” The glass ball began to crack. “I’m not exactly what?” “Well…” He gave her a look. “This party… this dress… you’re supposed to be riding your horse over the hills in the country, not dancing with idiots like Parkhurst.” He laughed then. “It’s a little bit ridiculous, come to think of it.” She felt her brow come down. Her body go cold. The cracked glass ball shattered, and the rest of reality slipped back in. “You’re angry,” she realized. Some part of her broke a little. After all this time, he’d been gone and she’d been so happy to see him and… He was angry. “No, I’m not,” he blustered. “Yes, you are. You are angry because I am somehow ridiculous for having changed. But what’s ridiculous about it?” she asked, unable to keep her voice calm and cool, as she knew her aunt would insist. “I dance quite well, as you see. I look lovely in this dress. And I enjoy Mr. Parkhurst’s company.” “No one could enjoy –” “What I find ridiculous is that you come back after three years away and expect me to be unchanged. To be the skinny, awkward girl who tried to kiss you once and ended up kissing a log instead.” He blinked twice at that, but she kept going. “Instead you are angry – yes, angry! I can tell! – at my having had the audacity to grow up. And you mock me for having done so.” “Susie, I never meant –” “It’s Susannah, Sebastian. Or Miss Westforth. And the only ridiculous thing here right now is you.” With

Really no one have ever thought about what i want to express? Why i cannot find someone suffering from the samething At first i was certain there is someone out there Familiar with the pain But as the days went on I started to feel lonelyness And now there i am Enjoying the harmony trying to disrupt What a fool of me How great it is How can i put life in my sentences? Some may say it's soon For i have not learnd yet But wait Is this supposed to be teached? How awesome it is to be idiot The more i try to stay in the line as you do while trying to express something The more i get far from it It is it's nature The thing i tried to know in my lovely foolish way Once more i lost the false way Once more i am at the right path Once more i'm typing quickly And once more the music continued by it's end End is diffrent from the meaning When i talk about this beautiful fuck In this shithole Nothing is better than itself Nonsense vanishes what you think of as regulated and appropriate You cannot control anything even the others You just feel You most feel the pattern You must see it You have these You will be having yourself as yourself will be having yourself A great everything tried to show itself through My nonsenses. Having this greateness, still weak to be felt. At last take this from someone Do not assume reason and logic apart from feeling You have got your wisdom through your feelings. And now I wipe out what i said Becouse i cannot understand it. Goodbye lovely fuck. By the way I saw the greatness of life in shit. How alive it is...

Oh, dear,” she gasped, pulling back. “I just thought of something horrible.” Nigel blinked a few times in confusion. “I don’t mean to criticize, Amelia, but that is hardly the reaction a man looks for when he first kisses the girl he loves.” She clutched at his cravat again, completely demolishing it this time. “You love me?” “Of course I love you,” he said simply. “How could I not? Now, tell me what’s wrong.” “My parents,” she said, feeling rather dazed by everything. “They’ll be furious if I reject Lord Broadmore. Especially for a man…” She trailed off, hating to insult Nigel. And, strictly speaking, he hadn’t yet asked her to marry him. “A man like me,” he finished. “Is it because I don’t have a title?” “Yes, and because you’re not rich. I know how awful that sounds, but you mustn’t think less of them because of it. Mamma and Papa just want the best for me.” He studied her. He didn’t seem offended, but he did look wary. “Are those things important to you, as well?” She winced, hating that she might have made him doubt himself. “No. Well, of course I don’t want to be poor, but I don’t need to be rich, either. And a title means little to me.” She huffed out a sigh. “I’ll just have to reconcile myself to the notion that Mamma and Papa will be angry with me for not marrying Lord Broadmore. Or anyone else, simply because they’re rich.” The tension seemed to bleed from Nigel’s shoulders as his hands drifted down to her waist. “And would you consider marrying a mere gentleman?” “Of course I would, but…” “But what?” She glanced anxiously at Gwen to make sure she was still asleep. Nigel waited patiently for her to respond. “What if my father cuts me off?” When Nigel frowned, Amelia’s heart sank. “Are you sure he would do that?” he asked. She sighed. “It’s certainly possible. I do hope that wouldn’t...” He leaned down to press a swift kiss on her lips. “My dear girl, while I might not be a nobleman, I am as rich as Croesus. Your parents might lament the lack of a title, but I’m sure the marriage settlements will make up for it nicely.” She stared at him. “I thought your fortune was quite modest, by all accounts.” He grinned. “I rarely talk about money, but for you I’ll make an exception.” After he named a staggering sum, Amelia could only gape at him like an idiot. With a little snort of laughter, he tapped her mouth shut. “I do hope your esteemed father will approve,” he said. Amelia pressed a hand over her heart, right where a bubble of joy was expanding outward. “Oh, I think he’ll be able to reconcile himself to the notion. Not that I give a fig how much you’re worth, Mr. Dash.” Nigel made a great show of wiping his brow. “Well, that’s a relief,” he said in a voice warm with laughter. “I’d hate to disappoint either of you.” Amelia went up on her toes to press a kiss on his lips. “That, my dear, wonderful sir, would be quite impossible. After all, you are the nicest, most dependable man in the world.