If The Shoe Fits Quotes

Religion is like a pair of shoes.....Find one that fits for you, but don't make me wear your shoes.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?

Percy and Hedge lay on the deck, looking exhausted. Hedge was missing his shoes. He grinned at the sky, muttering, “Awesome. Awesome.” Percy was covered in nicks and scratches, like he’d jumped through a window. He didn’t say anything but he grasped Annabeth’s hand weakly as if to say, Be right with you as soon as the world stops spinning. Leo, Piper, and Jason, who’d been eating in the mess hall, came rushing up the stairs. “What? What?” Leo cried, holding a half-eaten grilled cheese sandwich. “Can’t a guy even take a lunch break? What’s wrong?” “Followed!” Frank yelled again. “Followed by what? Jason asked. “I don’t know!” Frank panted. “Whales? Sea monsters? Maybe Kate and Porky!” Annabeth wanted to strangle the guy, but she wasn’t sure her hands would fit around his thick neck. “That makes absolutely no sense.

Get out of here. Yoda so does not have an English accent!' 'Other than that you're saying I'm a dead ringer?' 'If the shoe fits.' 'Sheesh, I hate tall girls.

If the shoe fits, buy another one just like it.

Ill-fitting grammar are like ill-fitting shoes. You can get used to it for a bit, but then one day your toes fall off and you can't walk to the bathroom.

Men are like shoes. Some fit better than others. And sometimes you go out shopping and there's nothing you like. And then, as luck would have it, the next week you find two that are perfect, but you don't have the money to buy both."-

The Bible is not a book for the faint of heart -- it is a book full of all the greed and glory and violence and tenderness and sex and betrayal that benefits mankind. It is not the collection of pretty little anecdotes mouthed by pious little church mice -- it does not so much nibble at our shoe leather as it cuts to the heart and splits the marrow from the bone. It does not give us answers fitted to our small-minded questions, but truth that goes beyond what we even know to ask.

As you go through life's rich tapestry, you realize that most people you meet aren't fit to shine your shoes. It's a sad fact, but it's true. A good friend is someone who'd hide you if you were on the run for murder. How many of them do you know?

The only cure to all this madness; is too dream, far and wide, if possibility doesn't knock, create a damn door. If the shoe doesn't fit, don't make it. If the journey your travelling seems to far fetched and wild beyond your imagination; continue on it, great things come to the risk takers. And last but not least, live today; here, right now, you'll thank your future self for it later.

Goody Two-shoes Evie Greene got herself pickled, for true. If I'd known you were such a juvenile delinquent, I might've asked for a new history podna." "Juvenile delinquent? Hmm. Aren't your initials J.D.? If the shoe fits...

I remembered her once saying that life was like your shoes. You couldn't simply expect or imagine that your shoes would fit perfectly. Shoes that pinched your feet were a fact of life.

You don’t need fashion designers when you are young. Have faith in your own bad taste. Buy the cheapest thing in your local thrift shop - the clothes that are freshly out of style with even the hippest people a few years older than you. Get on the fashion nerves of your peers, not your parents - that is the key to fashion leadership. Ill-fitting is always stylish. But be more creative - wear your clothes inside out, backward, upside down. Throw bleach in a load of colored laundry. Follow the exact opposite of the dry cleaning instructions inside the clothes that cost the most in your thrift shop. Don’t wear jewelry - stick Band-Aids on your wrists or make a necklace out of them. Wear Scotch tape on the side of your face like a bad face-lift attempt. Mismatch your shoes. Best yet, do as Mink Stole used to do: go to the thrift store the day after Halloween, when the children’s trick-or-treat costumes are on sale, buy one, and wear it as your uniform of defiance.

. . . Now you see . . . they' re not fit for humans . . ." "Put them on me.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. Each of us carries his own life-form—an indeterminable form which cannot be superseded by any other.

A shoe that fits one person pinches another.

You were tossed away like a pair of beautiful, brand new shoes that did not quite fit.

My name is all but lost to antiquity while his legend is told and retold around the world. Yet I am a god and he is nothing but a bastard seed not even fit to inhabit Olympus. (Priapus) Get your hands off her, you worthless footnote. You’re not fit to wipe her shoes. (Julian)

I mean, I'm just tired of being wrong all the time just because I'm a guy. I mean how many times can everybody tell you that you're the oppressive, prejudiced enemy before you give up and become the enemy. I mean a male, chauvinist pig isn't born, hes made, and more and more of them are being made by women. After long enough you just roll over and accept the fact that you're a sexist, bigoted, insensitive, crude, cretinist cretin. Women are right. You're wrong. You get used to the idea. You live down to expectations. Even if the shoe doesn't fit, you'll shrink to fill it. I mean, in a world without god aren't mothers the new god? The last sacred unassailable position. Isn't motherhood the last perfect magical miracle? But a miracle that isn't possible for men, and maybe men say they're glad not to give birth, all the pain and blood, but really that's just so much sour grapes. For sure, men can't do anything near as incredible. Upper body strength, abstract thought, phalluses - any advantage men appear to have are pretty token. You can't even hammer a nail with a phallus. Women are already born so far ahead ability - wise. The day a men can give birth, that's when we can start talking about equal rights.

The longer a person has been dead the greater is the tradition ... If Buddha is alive you can barely tolerate him. ... You cannot believe this man has known the ultimate because he looks just like you ... Hungry he needs food, sleepy he wants a bed, ill, he has to rest – just like you ... That is why Jesus is worshiped now and yet he was crucified when he was alive. Alive, you crucify him; dead, you worship him.

I told him what my dad had said. That got him laughing and as we pulled into the school parking lot, even the sight of Rafe waiting for me only made him roll his eyes. We got out. I glanced at Daniel. He sighed. "Go on." "You sound like you're giving a five-year-old permission to play with an unsuitable friend." "If the shoe fits..." I flipped him off. "Watch it or I won't marry you," he said. "Truck of no truck." I laughed and jogged over to Rafe. "Did he just say...?" Rafe began.

Archie's marriage felt like buying a pair of shoes, taking them home, and finding they don't fit.

Today I wondered why my eyelashes aren't thick enough and why my feet aren't small enough. Then it hit me. Why do we take these insignificant things like millimeters on lashes and shoeboxes and then try to fit ourselves into those stupid molds? Why do I take the beauty that is me, and measure it up to a shoe size? A length of hair on my eyes? Am I not the more wonderful creation, far more great than those stupid things? Why do we take ourselves and desecrate ourselves daily? Pushing ourselves into cubicles because we think we are supposed to fit into them? Are we ice cubes? And suddenly I just don't understand the inadequacies anymore! Because they're not even inadequacies, at all! I will laugh and be beautiful.

But if the shoe fits, lace that bitch up and wear it.

Above all, believe in true love and know that men are like shoes. A couple is like a left and a right foot, and out there is your perfect fit. Sometimes you need to change styles and shop around to find it. Sometimes you have to break styles in, sometimes you feel like something that is unstylish but comfortable, and sometimes a style - as much as you like - just doesn't suit you and will never fit.

We got out. I glanced at Daniel. He sighed. "Go on." "You sound like you're giving a five-year old permission to play with an unsuitable friend." "If the shoe fits..." I flipped off. "Watch it or I won't marry you," he said. "Truck or no truck." I laughed and jogged over to Rafe. "Did he just say..." Rafe began. "Yes. And don't ask

All of them had been give a makeover. Leo was wearing pinstriped pants, black leather shoes, a white collarless shirt with suspenders, and his tool belt, Ray-Ban sunglasses, and a porkpie hat. “God, Leo.” Piper tried not to laugh. “I think my dad wore that to his last premiere, minus the tool belt.” “Hey, shut up!” “I think he looks good,” said Coach Hedge. “’Course, I look better.” The satyr was a pastel nightmare. Aphrodite had given him a baggy canary yellow zoot suit with two-tone shoes that fit over his hooves. He had a matching yellow broad-brimmed hat, a rose-colored shirt, a baby blue tie, and a blue carnation in his lapel, which Hedge sniffed and then ate. “Well,” Jason said, “at least your mom overlooked me.” Piper knew that wasn’t exactly true. Looking at him, her heart did a little tap dance. Jason was dressed simply in jeans and a clean purple T-shirt, like he’d worn at the Grand Canyon. He had new track shoes on, and his hair was newly trimmed. His eyes were the same color as the sky. Aphrodite’s message was clear: This one needs no improvement. And Piper agreed.

I like books that fit in pockets, which can lead to love, give, turn a corner, give, buy back preferred to read the passages. For me it is an important event to exchange a book you want, and give your shoes.

I'll show up at every classroom open house and teacher conference,' she said, now in a voice that was almost frightening in its intensity. 'I'll bake brownies. My child will have new clothes. Her shoes will fit. She'll get her shots, and she'll get her braces. We'll start a college fund next week. I'll tell her I love her every damn day.' If that wasn't a great plan for being a good mother, I couldn't imagine what a better one could be.

Follow along at home to tie a bow just like the fox. Go find a scarf or ribbon that will fit around your waist or try these moves with your shoe laces.

Don't you see how belittling this is! I'm not brave for wearing a dress. I'm just living!

Actually," Stacy says, "Stanley Tucci is everyone's type.

Our children are extraordinary. As parents and guardians, we have to be bold and tell them if they attempt to walk in anyone else shoes, they are going to be highly disappointed because the shoes they are trying to walk in won’t fit.

Love is different. It’s not a one-size-fits-all. And it’s definitely not universal or transferable. There are no shoes to fill. Whatever you and Quarry have is unique to the two of you.

Choose what makes you happy. Things, places, people. Only choose the ones that bring that delight to you. Don’t be a hostage to duty or obligation. I didn’t carry you and birth you and raise you to waste your precious life on anything except unbridled joy. Choose joy.

You go through life thinking there's so much you need. Your favorite jeans and sweater. The jacket with the faux-fur lining to keep you warm. Your phone and your music and your favorite books. Mascara. Irish breakfast tea and cappuccinos from Trouble Coffee. You need your yearbooks, every stiffly posed school-dance photo, the notes your friends slipped into your locker. You need the camera you got for your sixteenth birthday and the flowers you dried. You need your notebooks full of the things you learned and don't want to forget. You need your bedspread, white with black diamonds. You need your pillow - it fits the way you sleep. You need magazines promising self-improvement. You need your running shoes and your sandals and your boots. Your grade report from the semester you got straight As. Your prom dress, your shiny earrings, your pendants on delicate chains. You need your underwear, your light-colored bras and your black ones. The dream catcher hanging above your bed. The dozens and dozens of shells in glass jars... You think you need all of it. Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.

Buckley followed the three of them into the kitchen and asked, as he had at least once a day, “Where’s Susie?” They were silent. Samuel looked at Lindsey. “Buckley,” my father called from the adjoining room, “come play Monopoly with me.” My brother had never been invited to play Monopoly. Everyone said he was too young, but this was the magic of Christmas. He rushed into the family room, and my father picked him up and sat him on his lap. “See this shoe?” my father said. Buckley nodded his head. “I want you to listen to everything I say about it, okay?” “Susie?” my brother asked, somehow connecting the two. “Yes, I’m going to tell you where Susie is.” I began to cry up in heaven. What else was there for me to do? “This shoe was the piece Susie played Monopoly with,” he said. “I play with the car or sometimes the wheelbarrow. Lindsey plays with the iron, and when you mother plays, she likes the cannon.” “Is that a dog?” “Yes, that’s a Scottie.” “Mine!” “Okay,” my father said. He was patient. He had found a way to explain it. He held his son in his lap, and as he spoke, he felt Buckley’s small body on his knee-the very human, very warm, very alive weight of it. It comforted him. “The Scottie will be your piece from now on. Which piece is Susie’s again?” “The shoe?” Buckley asked. “Right, and I’m the car, your sister’s the iron, and your mother is the cannon.” My brother concentrated very hard. “Now let’s put all the pieces on the board, okay? You go ahead and do it for me.” Buckley grabbed a fist of pieces and then another, until all the pieces lay between the Chance and Community Chest cards. “Let’s say the other pieces are our friends?” “Like Nate?” “Right, we’ll make your friend Nate the hat. And the board is the world. Now if I were to tell you that when I rolled the dice, one of the pieces would be taken away, what would that mean?” “They can’t play anymore?” “Right.” “Why?” Buckley asked. He looked up at my father; my father flinched. “Why?” my brother asked again. My father did not want to say “because life is unfair” or “because that’s how it is”. He wanted something neat, something that could explain death to a four-year-old He placed his hand on the small of Buckley’s back. “Susie is dead,” he said now, unable to make it fit in the rules of any game. “Do you know what that means?” Buckley reached over with his hand and covered the shoe. He looked up to see if his answer was right. My father nodded. "You won’t see Susie anymore, honey. None of us will.” My father cried. Buckley looked up into the eyes of our father and did not really understand. Buckley kept the shoe on his dresser, until one day it wasn't there anymore and no amount of looking for it could turn up.

If you haven't walked in someone else's shoes, it's difficult to know the fit, so be kind and compassionate.

Aditya warned, 'Be careful Nandini. Don't fall in love with the wrong man or you'll die of a broken heart.

Even if the shoe fits, that doesn't mean I'm going to wear it; I don't want to wear somebody else's smelly old shoe. I'd rather go barefoot.

I believe in love but the kind which doesn't exist," replied Nandini, only to become extremely self-conscious.

Action done totally brings relaxation; relaxation done totally brings more action.

A single day in my own shoe that is comfortable for me is better than 365 days in someone else's shoes that does not fit me at all.

I'm not sure about whether I shall go. I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather -- that is, when the fit is on me, for I can be spry enough at times. ~ Sherlock Holmes

You’re living in the past…in memories that are in but a single moment. You’re walking backwards in shoes that don’t fit.

There are some people, if you can only get to learn the length of their feet, you can always fit them with shoes afterwards.

He has to fight but with no anger. This seems difficult, because you even love with anger, yet he has to fight without anger.

I do not understand why a person has to choose to either be happy or walk in the shoes that someone has prepared and sized up for them, so it would fit perfectly in their eyes.

In every relationship, you can always see the ego of the other, but you cannot see your own – and the other one goes on seeing your ego.

Life is a mystery, not a riddle. It has to be lived, not solved.

Yes, Cinderella won a real prize - a man who couldn’t see her true worth until she fitted in the shoe properly.

Admittedly, as a librarian I find concierge back channels deeply sexy.

I promise I only have the normally allotted amount of mommy issues.

When Addison saw me, she actually laughed and said, "You're just so quirky. Like a cute little librarian." She meant it as a diss, but news flash, Addison: Librarians are hot.

I think fairy tales might be more like cautionary tales than anything else. And fate is just an excuse for people to be inactive participants in their own lives.

I didn't just wake up one morning and think, "I'm a boy!" It sort of crept up on me and tapped me on the shoulder a few times before I started to pay attention I began to think that the word "girl" didn't quite fit me. It was like a shoe that was too small -- it pinched me.

Haven’t you ever harbored the secret thought that somewhere Huck and Jim are—at this instant—poling their raft down some river just beyond our reach, so much more real are they than the shoe clerk who fitted us just a forgotten day ago?

It’s fascinating, really, when you think about it. How a person can slip into a new life as one would a new pair of shoes. At first there’s a keen awareness of the fit: a stiffness at the heel, the binding of the width, the curve pressed to the arch. But with time and enough steps, the feel becomes so natural you almost forget you’re wearing them at all.

Your life is enough, don’t be concerned with others. And I tell you that if you can live unconcerned your life will flower, and then others can share in it. You would like to share, and you can give much to others, but first you must stop thinking about others and what they are thinking about you.

Walking in shoes bigger than your feet, will inspire gravity to pull you down." Let's be grateful for what fits us...for what we have.

Note: One terrible aspect of preschool and day care is that it will put you in direct contact with parents who are doing better than you are. During drop-off and pickup, you will notice that there are parents who drive very expensive vehicles and are physically attractive, fit, and well-dressed. We call these people punk bitches (applies to males and females) and avoid them. If it helps, imagine that their personal life is in shambles. Look for the parents who look like they were just released from prison: unshaven, hunched over, afraid of sunlight, confused, shoes on the wrong feet, etc. These are your people.

Meaning comes from the unknown, from the stranger, from the unpredictable that suddenly knocks at your door — a flower that suddenly blooms and you never expected it; a friend that suddenly happens to be on the street you were not waiting for; a love that blooms suddenly and you were not even aware that this was going to happen, you had not even imagined, not even dreamed. Then life has meaning. Then life has a dance. Then every step is happy because it is not a step filled with duty, it is a step moving into the unknown. The river is going towards the sea.

People are eager to walk in other people's pair of shoes that does not fit them. The result is that, their dreams begin to imitate a "tortoise" walk and that I guess is already uncomfortable!

Suddenly he smiled, and the sadness was vanquished by whisky heat. “Aye, Jessica, I like you. And I’m not just stuck with you. You fit me here, woman.” He thumped his chest with his fist. Then he shook her hand from his forearm and pushed off with the cart again. Jessi watched him move down the aisle, all sleek animal muscle and dark grace. Wow. He wasn’t a man of many words, but when he used them, he certainly used the right ones. You fit me here. You are the exception to everything. Crimeny. It was how she’d always thought a relationship should be. People should fit each other: some days like sexy, strappy high-heeled shoes, other days like comfortable loafers—but always a good fit. And if you cared about someone, they should be the exception to everything; the number-one priority, the one who came before all others. He was halfway down the aisle from her now, plucking a can from the shelf—her primal hunter/gatherer procuring food by modern means, she thought, with a soft snort of amusement.

What happened is, we grew lonely 
living among the things,
 so we gave the clock a face,
 the chair a back,
 the table four stout legs
 which will never suffer fatigue. We fitted our shoes with tongues
 as smooth as our own
 and hung tongues inside bells
 so we could listen 
to their emotional language, and because we loved graceful profiles
 the pitcher received a lip,
 the bottle a long, slender neck. Even what was beyond us
 was recast in our image;
 we gave the country a heart,
 the storm an eye,
 the cave a mouth
 so we could pass into safety.

Theologians have by this time stretched their minds so as to embrace the darwinian facts, and yet to interpret them as still showing divine purpose. It used to be a question of purpose AGAINST mechanism, of one OR the other. It was as if one should say "My shoes are evidently designed to fit my feet, hence it is impossible that they should have been produced by machinery.

Only by remembering to say 'no' will the women of 21st century regain their voice and remember their power. 'No' is the most important word in a woman's dialectic arsenal, and it is the one word that our employers, our leaders, and quite often, the men in our lives would do anything to prevent us from saying. No, we will not serve. No, we will not settle for the dirty work, the low-paid work, the unpaid work. No, we will not stay late at the office, look after the kids, sort out the shopping. We refuse to fit the enormity of our passion, our creativity, and our potential into the rigid physical prison laid down for us since we were small children. No. We refuse. We will not buy your clothes and shoes and surgical solutions. No, we will not be beautiful; we will not be good. Most of all, we refuse to be beautiful and good.

Being brave is one of my biggest pet peeves. When someone calls me brave for going out or wearing a fitted dress or for some other normal thing that every other girl does, what is it really means is: I would be mortified to look like you, but good for you for merely existing even if all I can think about is how fat you are & how I'm terrified I'll one day look like you. SO BRAVE.

And how is the expectant mother? You mustn't tax yourself, you know.I don't want my nephew born early enough to raise eyebrows." Gideon laid his hand in the small of her back in a protective gesture she knew all too well. "Are you implying that I'm the kind of man who'd allow his wife to tax herself?" "If the shoe fits-" "Behave, both of you," she admonished as Gideon bristled and Jordan glared. "I swear, when you two get near each other, you act like school boys fighting over a half-pence." "Oh, you're much more valuable than a half-pence," Jordan retorted. Before Gideon could say anything to that, he added, "And in any case, I didn't come over here to anger you, moppet. I merey wanted to let you know I'm leaving." "Good," Gideon mumbled under his breath.

There is a pile of clothing on the side of the train tracks. Light-blue cloth—a shirt, perhaps—jumbled up with something dirty white. It’s probably rubbish, part of a load dumped into the scrubby little wood up the bank. It could have been left behind by the engineers who work this part of the track, they’re here often enough. Or it could be something else. My mother used to tell me that I had an overactive imagination; Tom said that, too. I can’t help it, I catch sight of these discarded scraps, a dirty T-shirt or a lonesome shoe, and all I can think of is the other shoe and the feet that fitted into them.

Mr. Blue's way of death was fitting. He had been utterly corrupted by America, and I find it proper that his carotid artery should have been severed by flak from a jumbo-sized can of mentholated shave cream. Like James Joyce, who tried to bend and subjugate the ironmongery of the cosmos with words (wasn't it The Word Joyce was after?), Mr. Blue tried to undo the empyrean mysteries with Seedy and his red carpet, with his elevated alligator shoes, with the ardent push-ups he seemed so sure would make him outlast time's ravages, with his touching search for some golden pussy that would yield to his lips the elixir of eternal life. And like Joyce's Leopold Bloom, like Quixote, Mr. Blue had become the perennial mock-epic hero of his country, the salesman, the boomer who believed that at the end of his American sojourn of demeaning doorbell-ringing, of faking and fawning, he would come to the Ultimate Sale, conquer, and soar.

These magazines could tell me which clothes and shoes to wear, how to have my hair styled in order to fit in. They could show me the right kind of makeup to buy and how to apply it. This way, I would disappear into everywoman acceptability. I would not be stared at. The goal, ultimately, was successful camouflage as a human woman.

Use it,” he says. “Whatever it is that had you hung up. An ex, a death, or just plain old depression. The best part about crossing any bridge is the chance to look back and be able to fully understand where you came from. You’re not a machine. You’re not a computer. You’re an artist, and any good artist knows life feeds into art and art feeds into life.

I was born, slipping on a symphony of broken melancholy; created of pencils and crayons; i was not supposed to be this way. i guess i am a "disappointment". i paint and draw. i like to write poetry. The things I excel at could fit inside my shoe." Excerpt from the poem,"Pain"written in 1995, by E.H. Cato(my maiden name) featured in Volume 2 of the Rantings & Ravings Series, 2013.

Hey,” Fitz said, leaning closer. “You trust me, don’t you?” Sophie’s traitorous heart still fluttered, despite her current annoyance. She did trust Fitz. Probably more than anyone. But having him keep secrets from her was seriously annoying. She was tempted to use her telepathy to steal the information straight from his head. But she’d broken that rule enough times to know the consequences definitely weren’t worth it. “What is with these clothes?” Biana interrupted, appearing out of thin air next to Keefe. Biana was a Vanisher, like her mother, though she was still getting used to the ability. Only one of her legs reappeared, and she had to hop up and down to get the other to show up. She wore a sweatshirt three sizes too big and faded, baggy jeans. “At least I get to wear my shoes,” she said, hitching up her pants to reveal purple flats with diamond-studded toes. “But why do we only have boy stuff?” “Because I’m a boy,” Fitz reminded her. “Besides, this isn’t a fashion contest.” “And if it was, I’d totally win. Right, Foster?” Keefe asked. Sophie actually would’ve given the prize to Fitz—his blue scarf worked perfectly with his dark hair and teal eyes. And his fitted gray coat made him look taller, with broader shoulders and— “Oh please.” Keefe shoved his way between them. “Fitz’s human clothes are a huge snoozefest. Check out what Dex and I found in Alvar’s closet!” They both unzipped their hoodies, revealing T-shirts with logos underneath. “I have no idea what this means, but it’s crazy awesome, right?” Keefe asked, pointing to the black and yellow oval on his shirt. “It’s from Batman,” Sophie said—then regretted the words. Of course Keefe demanded she explain the awesomeness of the Dark Knight. “I’m wearing this shirt forever, guys,” he decided. “Also, I want a Batmobile! Dex, can you make that happen?” Sophie wouldn’t have been surprised if Dex actually could build one. As a Technopath, he worked miracles with technology. He’d made all kinds of cool gadgets for Sophie, including the lopsided ring she wore—a special panic switch that had saved her life during her fight with one of her kidnappers. “What’s my shirt from?” Dex asked, pointing to the logo with interlocking yellow W’s. Sophie didn’t have the heart to tell him it was the symbol for Wonder Woman.

How do you know when the Sarows is coming?" hummed Lila as she made her way down the ship's narrow hall, fingertips skimming either wall for balance. Right about the, Alucard's warning about Jasta was coming back in full force. "Never challenge that one to a drinking contest. Or a sword fight. Or anything else you might lose. Because you will." The boat rocked beneath her fee. Or maybe she was the one rocking. Hell. Lila was slight, but not short of practice, and even so, she'd never had so much trouble holding her liquor. When she got to her room, she found Kell hunched over the Inheritor, examining the markings on its side. "Hello, handsome," she said, bracing herself in the doorway. Kell looked up, a smile halfway to his lips before it fell away. "You're drunk," he said, giver her a long, appraising look. "And you're not wearing any shoes." "Your powers of observation are astonishing." Lila looked down at her bare feet. "I lost them." "How do you lose shoes?" Lila crinkled her brow. "I bet them. I lost." Kell rose. "To who?" A tiny hiccup. "Jasta." Kell sighed. "Stay here." He slipped past her into the hall, a hand alighting on her waist and then, too soon, the touch was gone. Lila make her way to the bed and collapsed onto it, scooping up the discarded Inheritor and holding it up to the light. The spindle at the cylinder's base was sharp enough to cut, and she turned the device carefully between her fingers, squinting to make out the words wrapped around it. Rosin, read one side. Cason, read the other. Lila frowned, mouthing the words as Kell reappeared in the doorway. "Give-- and Take," he translated, tossing her the boots. She sat up too fast, winced. "How did you manage that?" "I simply explained that she couldn't have them-- they wouldn't have fit-- and then I gave her mine." Lila looked down at Kell's bare feet, and burst into laughter.

The great anxious focus on the minutiae of appetite—on calories and portion size and what's going into the body versus what's being expended, on shoes and hair and abs of steel—keeps the larger, more fearsome questions of desire blurred and out of focus. American women spend approximately $1 million every hour on cosmetics. This may or may not say something about female vanity, but it certainly says something about female energy, where it is and is not focused. Easier to worry about the body than the soul, easier to fit the self into the narrow slots of identity our culture offers to women than to create one...that allows for the expression of all passions, the satisfaction of all appetites. The great preoccupation with things like food and shopping and appearance, in turn, is less of a genuine focus on hunger—indulging it, understanding it, making decisions about it—than it is a monumental distraction from hunger.

A little while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon—a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity—and gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world. I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide. I saw him at Toulon—I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris—I saw him at the head of the army of Italy—I saw him crossing the bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand—I saw him in Egypt in the shadows of the pyramids—I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo—at Ulm and Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster—driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris—clutched like a wild beast—banished to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where Chance and Fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea. I thought of the orphans and widows he had made—of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun. I would rather have been that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky—with my children upon my knees and their arms about me—I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder, known as 'Napoleon the Great.

Dislinear plotting and noncontiguous prose have their adherents, not the least of which am I, but in the end, my friends, it is character which wins or loses immortality upon the vellum. Haven’t you ever harbored the secret thought that somewhere Huck and Jim are—at this instant—poling their raft down some river just beyond our reach, so much more real are they than the shoe clerk who fitted us just a forgotten day ago?

Nathan smoothly touched the bottom with a palm. His shirt and shoes were off. When his head and chest rose out of the water, I was in awe of the muscles that were defined in his body. Unlike Silas whose bulk of muscle was smooth, Nathan was a precision machine. The ripples of muscles along his abdomen fit together like a living puzzle. A smile broke on his lips as those penetrating blue eyes fixed on my face. “Did you find out?

Well,then,let's make sure all his flying is directed at you first, shall we?" Anthony retorted, and opening the door to Jason's study,began to immediately place blame where it was due. "Jason,old man, I tried to calm this great hulking bull down last night, indeed I did,but he was having none of it.Blames me-" "Great hulking bull?" James interrupted, one golden brow raised sharply. "-because Greoge ain't talking to him," Anthony continued without pause. "And now he's got me in the same bloody boat, because Roslynn ain't said a word to me since." "Great hulking bull?" James repeated. Anthony glanced at him and smirked, "The shoe fits, believe me.

She knew it was time, What for was the mystery but focused; she remained. She turned her back on anything that no longer served her strengths nor taught her vital lessons with her weaknesses. She said no without explanation & assigned validation back just to parking spots. She was fierce but gentle and authentic in her approach to live even if it meant standing alone. She knew the hard days weren't over but stood proud that she had already survived some of the worst. She laughed in the midst of a mindfuck & gathered her worth with all the pieces of herself that have held her together throughout the years. She knew it was time What for was the mystery, but focused; she remained. She learnt that motherhood provided unconditional love doesn't have boundaries, it's pure in all its forms. Family are rare connections. Friendships are like shoes, not all will fit but when some do it's like you have won the lotto. She learnt that every love was different and how important it was to keep her heart open for the possibility of being able to experience it just one more time.

[Thoreau's] famous night in jail took place about halfway through his stay in the cabin on Emerson's woodlot at Walden Pond. His two-year stint in the small cabin he built himself is often portrayed as a monastic retreat from the world of human affairs into the world of nautre, though he went back to town to eat with and talk to friends and family and to pick up money doing odd jobs that didn't fit into Walden's narrative. He went to jail both because the town jailer ran into him while he was getting his shoe mended and because he felt passionately enough about national affairs to refuse to pay his tax. To be in the woods was not to be out of society or politics.

(At a health and fitness fair) Though normally superconfident, I am not prepared for the judgmental stares of the ultrafit. They don't know me and have no idea of my prowess in the boardroom. They're unfamiliar with my shoe collection and unaware that I live in the Dot-Com Palace. And they didn't notice me pulling up in the Caddy. All they can see is how much space I occupy. With each step I take, I feel cellulite blossoming on my arms, my stomach, my calves. Stop it! I think my chin just multiplied and my thighs inflated. No! Deflate! Deflate! And I'm pretty sure I can see my own ass out of the corner of my eye. Gah! Cut it out!! Am I imagining things, or do my footsteps sound like those of the giant who stomped through the city in the beginning of Underdog? And how did I go from aging-but-still-kind-of-hot ex-sorority girl to horrific, stompy cartoon monster in less than an hour? My sleek and sexy python sandals have morphed into cloven hooves by the time I reach the line for the race packet. While I wait, the air is abuzz with tales of other marathons while many sets of eyes cut in my direction. Eventually an asshat in a JUST DO IT T-shirt asks me, "How's your training going?

She was perhaps seventeen when it happened. She was in Central Park, in New York. It was too warm for such an early spring day, and the hammered brown slopes had a dusting of green of precisely the consistency of that morning's hoarfrost on the rocks. But the frost was gone and the grass was brave and tempted some hundreds of pairs of feet from the asphalt and concrete to tread on it. Hers were among them. The sprouting soil was a surprise to her feet, as the air was to her lungs. Her feet ceased to be shoes as she walked, her body was consciously more than clothes. It was the only kind of day which in itself can make a city-bred person raise his eyes. She did. For a moment she felt separated from the life she lived, in which there was no fragrance, no silence, in which nothing ever quite fit nor was quite filled. In that moment the ordered disapproval of the buildings around the pallid park could not reach her; for two, three clean breaths it no longer mattered that the whole wide world really belongs to images projected on a screen; to gently groomed goddesses in these steel-and-glass towers; that it belonged, in short, always, always to someone else.

I have felt a change in me that began the day I met you. And I don't even think I can put into words or map out the changes in me since that day. I make for a terrible cartographer. The way I think and the way I see the world - even the way I talk - have changed. It's as if I was walking in a pair of shoes that fit so tight on me because my feet had grown. And then it finally occurred to me that I needed a new pair of shoes - a pair of shoes that fit my feet. The first time I walked down the street wearing those shoes, I realized how much it had hurt, how much pain I had been in, when I did something as simple as walking. It doesn't hurt anymore to walk. That's what it feels like, Dante, to walk in the changes that have occurred in me since I met you. I may not be the definition of a happy guy. But it doesn't hurt anymore to be me.

Normally, the mortal would be emptied of his soul. His truest essence, which, if the bastard was lucky, would be released to be recycled by the cosmos. The ‘investor’ would then take hold, snuggling in tightly to his host body. At first it's kind of like when you purchase a new pair of shoes. How the hard leather around the opening digs into the flesh it surrounds. Then, after a short period of breaking them in, it begins to only feel uncomfortable when you move a certain way. Soon enough though, you forget that you even have them on. They eventually seem to fit as if you’ve always worn them. The truly unlucky, though, they are left inside. Paralyzed and powerless to do anything but watch their lives be lived by someone… something, else.

We buy items that we only half like because they are on sale or a “good deal.” •We wear clothes that are so uncomfortable we need to take them off as soon as we get home. •We keep items that stopped fitting years ago just in case they fit again someday. •We wear shoes that we can hardly walk in and that leave our feet covered in blisters. •We force ourselves to wear pieces that we feel only so-so about because they were expensive and we don’t want to let that “investment” go to waste. •We wear worn-out, scruffy pieces around the house and hope nobody is going to stop by unannounced. •We wear clothes that ride up and tug in all the wrong places. •We wear outfits that don’t make us feel confident or inspired because we simply don’t have anything better in our wardrobe.

Things I Used to Get Hit For: Talking back. Being smart. Acting stupid. Not listening. Not answering the first time. Not doing what I’m told. Not doing it the second time I’m told. Running, jumping, yelling, laughing, falling down, skipping stairs, lying in the snow, rolling in the grass, playing in the dirt, walking in mud, not wiping my feet, not taking my shoes off. Sliding down the banister, acting like a wild Indian in the hallway. Making a mess and leaving it. Pissing my pants, just a little. Peeing the bed, hardly at all. Sleeping with a butter knife under my pillow. Shitting the bed because I was sick and it just ran out of me, but still my fault because I’m old enough to know better. Saying shit instead of crap or poop or number two. Not knowing better. Knowing something and doing it wrong anyway. Lying. Not confessing the truth even when I don’t know it. Telling white lies, even little ones, because fibbing isn’t fooling and not the least bit funny. Laughing at anything that’s not funny, especially cripples and retards. Covering up my white lies with more lies, black lies. Not coming the exact second I’m called. Getting out of bed too early, sometimes before the birds, and turning on the TV, which is one reason the picture tube died. Wearing out the cheap plastic hole on the channel selector by turning it so fast it sounds like a machine gun. Playing flip-and-catch with the TV’s volume button then losing it down the hole next to the radiator pipe. Vomiting. Gagging like I’m going to vomit. Saying puke instead of vomit. Throwing up anyplace but in the toilet or in a designated throw-up bucket. Using scissors on my hair. Cutting Kelly’s doll’s hair really short. Pinching Kelly. Punching Kelly even though she kicked me first. Tickling her too hard. Taking food without asking. Eating sugar from the sugar bowl. Not sharing. Not remembering to say please and thank you. Mumbling like an idiot. Using the emergency flashlight to read a comic book in bed because batteries don’t grow on trees. Splashing in puddles, even the puddles I don’t see until it’s too late. Giving my mother’s good rhinestone earrings to the teacher for Valentine’s Day. Splashing in the bathtub and getting the floor wet. Using the good towels. Leaving the good towels on the floor, though sometimes they fall all by themselves. Eating crackers in bed. Staining my shirt, tearing the knee in my pants, ruining my good clothes. Not changing into old clothes that don’t fit the minute I get home. Wasting food. Not eating everything on my plate. Hiding lumpy mashed potatoes and butternut squash and rubbery string beans or any food I don’t like under the vinyl seat cushions Mom bought for the wooden kitchen chairs. Leaving the butter dish out in summer and ruining the tablecloth. Making bubbles in my milk. Using a straw like a pee shooter. Throwing tooth picks at my sister. Wasting toothpicks and glue making junky little things that no one wants. School papers. Notes from the teacher. Report cards. Whispering in church. Sleeping in church. Notes from the assistant principal. Being late for anything. Walking out of Woolworth’s eating a candy bar I didn’t pay for. Riding my bike in the street. Leaving my bike out in the rain. Getting my bike stolen while visiting Grandpa Rudy at the hospital because I didn’t put a lock on it. Not washing my feet. Spitting. Getting a nosebleed in church. Embarrassing my mother in any way, anywhere, anytime, especially in public. Being a jerk. Acting shy. Being impolite. Forgetting what good manners are for. Being alive in all the wrong places with all the wrong people at all the wrong times.

HAZEL WASN’T PROUD OF CRYING. After the tunnel collapsed, she wept and screamed like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum. She couldn’t move the debris that separated her and Leo from the others. If the earth shifted any more, the entire complex might collapse on their heads. Still, she pounded her fists against the stones and yelled curses that would’ve earned her a mouth-washing with lye soap back at St. Agnes Academy. Leo stared at her, wide-eyed and speechless. She wasn’t being fair to him. The last time the two of them had been together, she’d zapped him into her past and shown him Sammy, his great-grandfather—Hazel’s first boyfriend. She’d burdened him with emotional baggage he didn’t need, and left him so dazed they had almost gotten killed by a giant shrimp monster. Now here they were, alone again, while their friends might be dying at the hands of a monster army, and she was throwing a fit. “Sorry.” She wiped her face. “Hey, you know…” Leo shrugged. “I’ve attacked a few rocks in my day.” She swallowed with difficulty. “Frank is…he’s—” “Listen,” Leo said. “Frank Zhang has moves. He’s probably gonna turn into a kangaroo and do some marsupial jujitsu on their ugly faces.” He helped her to her feet. Despite the panic simmering inside her, she knew Leo was right. Frank and the others weren’t helpless. They would find a way to survive. The best thing she and Leo could do was carry on. She studied Leo. His hair had grown out longer and shaggier, and his face was leaner, so he looked less like an imp and more like one of those willowy elves in the fairy tales. The biggest difference was his eyes. They constantly drifted, as if Leo was trying to spot something over the horizon. “Leo, I’m sorry,” she said. He raised an eyebrow. “Okay. For what?” “For…” She gestured around her helplessly. “Everything. For thinking you were Sammy, for leading you on. I mean, I didn’t mean to, but if I did—” “Hey.” He squeezed her hand, though Hazel sensed nothing romantic in the gesture. “Machines are designed to work.” “Uh, what?” “I figure the universe is basically like a machine. I don’t know who made it, if it was the Fates, or the gods, or capital-G God, or whatever. But it chugs along the way it’s supposed to most of the time. Sure, little pieces break and stuff goes haywire once in a while, but mostly…things happen for a reason. Like you and me meeting.” “Leo Valdez,” Hazel marveled, “you’re a philosopher.” “Nah,” he said. “I’m just a mechanic. But I figure my bisabuelo Sammy knew what was what. He let you go, Hazel. My job is to tell you that it’s okay. You and Frank—you’re good together. We’re all going to get through this. I hope you guys get a chance to be happy. Besides, Zhang couldn’t tie his shoes without your help.” “That’s mean,” Hazel chided, but she felt like something was untangling inside her—a knot of tension she’d been carrying for weeks. Leo really had changed. Hazel was starting to think she’d found a good friend. “What happened to you when you were on your own?” she asked. “Who did you meet?” Leo’s eye twitched. “Long story. I’ll tell you sometime, but I’m still waiting to see how it shakes out.” “The universe is a machine,” Hazel said, “so it’ll be fine.” “Hopefully.” “As long as it’s not one of your machines,” Hazel added. “Because your machines never do what they’re supposed to.” “Yeah, ha-ha.” Leo summoned fire into his hand. “Now, which way, Miss Underground?” Hazel scanned the path in front of them. About thirty feet down, the tunnel split into four smaller arteries, each one identical, but the one on the left radiated cold. “That way,” she decided. “It feels the most dangerous.” “I’m sold,” said Leo. They began their descent.

 It’s weird being alone in the museum. It’s dark and eerily quiet: Only the after-hours lights are on—just enough to illuminate the hallways and stop you from tripping over your own feet—and the background music that normally plays all the time is shut off. I quickly organize the flashlights and check their batteries, and when I don’t hear Porter walking around, I stare at the phone sitting at the information desk. How many chances come along like this? I pick up the receiver, press the little red button next to the word ALL, and speak into the phone in a low voice. “Paging Porter Roth to the information desk,” I say formally, my voice crackling through the entire lobby and echoing down the corridors. Then I press the button again and add, “While you’re at it, check your shoes to make sure they’re a match, you bastard. By the way, I still haven’t quite forgiven you for humiliating me. It’s going to take a lot more than a kiss and a cookie to make me forget both that and the time you provoked me in the Hotbox.” I’m only teasing, which I hope he knows. I feel a little drunk on all my megaphone power, so I page one more thing: “PS—You look totally hot in those tight-fitting security guard pants tonight, and I plan to get very handsy with you at the movies, so we better sit in the back row.” I hang up the phone and cover my mouth, silently laughing at myself. Two seconds later, Porter’s footfalls pound down Jay’s corridor—Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! He sounds like a T. rex running from Godzilla. He races into the lobby and slides in front of the information desk, grabbing onto the edge to stop himself, wild curls flying everywhere. His grin is enormous. “Whadidya say ’bout where you want to be puttin’ your hands on me?” he asks breathlessly. “I think you have me confused with someone else,” I tease. His head sags against the desk. I push his hair away from one of his eyes. He looks up at me and asks, “You really still haven’t forgiven me?” “Maybe if you put your hands onme, I might.” “Don’t go getting my hopes up like that.” “Oh, your hopes should be up. Way up.” “Dear God, woman,” he murmurs. “And here I was, thinking you were a classy dame.” “Pfft. You don’t know me at all.” “I aim to find out. What are we still doing here? Let’s blow this place and get to the theater, fast.

She said, You cannot hide forever, though you may try. I’ve seen you in the kitchen, in the garden. I’ve seen the things you have sewn — curtains of dawn, twilight blankets and dresses for the sisters like a garden of stars. I have heard the stories you tell. You are the one who transforms, who creates. You can go out into the world and show others. They will feel less alone because of you, they will feel understood, unburdened by you, awakened by you, freed of guilt and shame and sorrow. But to share with them you must wear shoes you must go out you must not hide you must dance and it will be harder you must face jealousy and sometimes rage and desire and love which can hurt most of all because of what can then be taken away. So make that astral dress to fit your own body this time. And here are glass shoes made from your words, the stories you have told like a blower -with her torch forming the thinnest, most translucent sheets of light out of what was once sand. But be careful; sand is already broken but glass breaks. The shoes are for dancing, not for running away.

I always felt that someone, a long time ago, organized the affairs of the world into areas that made sense-catagories of stuff that is perfectible, things that fit neatly in perfect bundles. The world of business, for example, is this way-line items, spreadsheets, things that add up, that can be perfected. The legal system-not always perfect, but nonetheless a mind-numbing effort to actually write down all kinds of laws and instructions that cover all aspects of being human, a kind of umbrella code of conduct we should all follow. Perfection is crucial in building an aircraft, a bridge, or a high-speed train. The code and mathematics residing just below the surface of the Internet is also this way. Things are either perfectly right or they will not work. So much of the world we work and live in is based upon being correct, being perfect. But after this someone got through organizing everything just perfectly, he (or probably a she) was left with a bunch of stuff that didn't fit anywhere-things in a shoe box that had to go somewhere. So in desperation this person threw up her arms and said, 'OK! Fine. All the rest of this stuff that isn't perfectible, that doesn't seem to fit anywhere else, will just have to be piled into this last, rather large, tattered box that we can sort of push behind the couch. Maybe later we can come back and figure where it all is supposed to fit in. Let's label the box ART.' The problem was thankfully never fixed, and in time the box overflowed as more and more art piled up. I think the dilemma exists because art, among all the other tidy categories, most closely resembles what it is like to be human. To be alive. It is our nature to be imperfect. The have uncategorized feelings and emotions. To make or do things that don't sometimes necessarily make sense. Art is all just perfectly imperfect. Once the word ART enters the description of what you're up to , it is almost getting a hall pass from perfection. It thankfully releases us from any expectation of perfection. In relation to my own work not being perfect, I just always point to the tattered box behind the couch and mention the word ART, and people seem to understand and let you off the hook about being perfect a go back to their business.

1 I don't believe in omens or fear Forebodings. I flee from neither slander Nor from poison. Death does not exist. Everyone's immortal. Everything is too. No point in fearing death at seventeen, Or seventy. There's only here and now, and light; Neither death, nor darkness, exists. We're all already on the seashore; I'm one of those who'll be hauling in the nets When a shoal of immortality swims by. 2 If you live in a house - the house will not fall. I'll summon any of the centuries, Then enter one and build a house in it. That's why your children and your wives Sit with me at one table, - The same for ancestor and grandson: The future is being accomplished now, If I raise my hand a little, All five beams of light will stay with you. Each day I used my collar bones For shoring up the past, as though with timber, I measured time with geodetic chains And marched across it, as though it were the Urals. 3 I tailored the age to fit me. We walked to the south, raising dust above the steppe; The tall weeds fumed; the grasshopper danced, Touching its antenna to the horse-shoes - and it prophesied, Threatening me with destruction, like a monk. I strapped my fate to the saddle; And even now, in these coming times, I stand up in the stirrups like a child. I'm satisfied with deathlessness, For my blood to flow from age to age. Yet for a corner whose warmth I could rely on I'd willingly have given all my life, Whenever her flying needle Tugged me, like a thread, around the globe.

Funnel The family story tells, and it was told true, of my great-grandfather who begat eight genius children and bought twelve almost-new grand pianos. He left a considerable estate when he died. The children honored their separate arts; two became moderately famous, three married and fattened their delicate share of wealth and brilliance. The sixth one was a concert pianist. She had a notable career and wore cropped hair and walked like a man, or so I heard when prying a childhood car into the hushed talk of the straight Maine clan. One died a pinafore child, she stays her five years forever. And here is one that wrote- I sort his odd books and wonder his once alive words and scratch out my short marginal notes and finger my accounts. back from that great-grandfather I have come to tidy a country graveyard for his sake, to chat with the custodian under a yearly sun and touch a ghost sound where it lies awake. I like best to think of that Bunyan man slapping his thighs and trading the yankee sale for one dozen grand pianos. it fit his plan of culture to do it big. On this same scale he built seven arking houses and they still stand. One, five stories up, straight up like a square box, still dominates its coastal edge of land. It is rented cheap in the summer musted air to sneaker-footed families who pad through its rooms and sometimes finger the yellow keys of an old piano that wheezes bells of mildew. Like a shoe factory amid the spruce trees it squats; flat roof and rows of windows spying through the mist. Where those eight children danced their starfished summers, the thirty-six pines sighing, that bearded man walked giant steps and chanced his gifts in numbers. Back from that great-grandfather I have come to puzzle a bending gravestone for his sake, to question this diminishing and feed a minimum of children their careful slice of suburban cake.

Western clothes were intended for healthy, robust men: to anyone in a weakened condition they were quite insupportable. Around the waist, over the shoulders, under the arms, around the neck - every part of the body was pressed and squeezed by clasps and buttons and rubber and leather, layer over layer, as if you were strapped to a cross. And of course you had to put on stockings before the shoes, stretching them carefully up on your legs by garters. Then you put on a shirt, and then trousers, cinching them in with a buckle and the back till they cut your waist and hanging them from your shoulders with suspenders. Your neck was choked in a close-fitting collar, over which you fastened a noose-like necktie, and stuck a pin in it. If a man is well filled out, the tighter you squeeze him, the more vigorous and bursting with vitality he seems; but a man who is only skin and bones can't stand that. [...] It was only because these Western clothes held him together that he was able to keep on walking at all - but to think of stiffening a limp, helpless body, shackling it hand and foot, and driving it ahead with shouts of "Keep going! Don't you dare collapse!" It was enough to make a man want to cry...

My Fellow Non-American Blacks: In America, You Are Black, Baby Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I’m Jamaican or I’m Ghanaian. America doesn’t care. So what if you weren’t “black” in your country? You’re in America now. We all have our moments of initiation into the Society of Former Negroes. Mine was in a class in undergrad when I was asked to give the black perspective, only I had no idea what that was. So I just made something up. And admit it—you say “I’m not black” only because you know black is at the bottom of America’s race ladder. And you want none of that. Don’t deny now. What if being black had all the privileges of being white? Would you still say “Don’t call me black, I’m from Trinidad”? I didn’t think so. So you’re black, baby. And here’s the deal with becoming black: You must show that you are offended when such words as “watermelon” or “tar baby” are used in jokes, even if you don’t know what the hell is being talked about—and since you are a Non-American Black, the chances are that you won’t know. (In undergrad a white classmate asks if I like watermelon, I say yes, and another classmate says, Oh my God that is so racist, and I’m confused. “Wait, how?”) You must nod back when a black person nods at you in a heavily white area. It is called the black nod. It is a way for black people to say “You are not alone, I am here too.” In describing black women you admire, always use the word “STRONG” because that is what black women are supposed to be in America. If you are a woman, please do not speak your mind as you are used to doing in your country. Because in America, strong-minded black women are SCARY. And if you are a man, be hyper-mellow, never get too excited, or somebody will worry that you’re about to pull a gun. When you watch television and hear that a “racist slur” was used, you must immediately become offended. Even though you are thinking “But why won’t they tell me exactly what was said?” Even though you would like to be able to decide for yourself how offended to be, or whether to be offended at all, you must nevertheless be very offended. When a crime is reported, pray that it was not committed by a black person, and if it turns out to have been committed by a black person, stay well away from the crime area for weeks, or you might be stopped for fitting the profile. If a black cashier gives poor service to the non-black person in front of you, compliment that person’s shoes or something, to make up for the bad service, because you’re just as guilty for the cashier’s crimes. If you are in an Ivy League college and a Young Republican tells you that you got in only because of Affirmative Action, do not whip out your perfect grades from high school. Instead, gently point out that the biggest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action are white women. If you go to eat in a restaurant, please tip generously. Otherwise the next black person who comes in will get awful service, because waiters groan when they get a black table. You see, black people have a gene that makes them not tip, so please overpower that gene. If you’re telling a non-black person about something racist that happened to you, make sure you are not bitter. Don’t complain. Be forgiving. If possible, make it funny. Most of all, do not be angry. Black people are not supposed to be angry about racism. Otherwise you get no sympathy. This applies only for white liberals, by the way. Don’t even bother telling a white conservative about anything racist that happened to you. Because the conservative will tell you that YOU are the real racist and your mouth will hang open in confusion.

A while back a young woman from another state came to live with some of her relatives in the Salt Lake City area for a few weeks. On her first Sunday she came to church dressed in a simple, nice blouse and knee-length skirt set off with a light, button-up sweater. She wore hose and dress shoes, and her hair was combed simply but with care. Her overall appearance created an impression of youthful grace. Unfortunately, she immediately felt out of place. It seemed like all the other young women her age or near her age were dressed in casual skirts, some rather distant from the knee; tight T-shirt-like tops that barely met the top of their skirts at the waist (some bare instead of barely); no socks or stockings; and clunky sneakers or flip-flops. One would have hoped that seeing the new girl, the other girls would have realized how inappropriate their manner of dress was for a chapel and for the Sabbath day and immediately changed for the better. Sad to say, however, they did not, and it was the visitor who, in order to fit in, adopted the fashion (if you can call it that) of her host ward. It is troubling to see this growing trend that is not limited to young women but extends to older women, to men, and to young men as well. . . . I was shocked to see what the people of this other congregation wore to church. There was not a suit or tie among the men. They appeared to have come from or to be on their way to the golf course. It was hard to spot a woman wearing a dress or anything other than very casual pants or even shorts. Had I not known that they were coming to the school for church meetings, I would have assumed that there was some kind of sporting event taking place. The dress of our ward members compared very favorably to this bad example, but I am beginning to think that we are no longer quite so different as more and more we seem to slide toward that lower standard. We used to use the phrase “Sunday best.” People understood that to mean the nicest clothes they had. The specific clothing would vary according to different cultures and economic circumstances, but it would be their best. It is an affront to God to come into His house, especially on His holy day, not groomed and dressed in the most careful and modest manner that our circumstances permit. Where a poor member from the hills of Peru must ford a river to get to church, the Lord surely will not be offended by the stain of muddy water on his white shirt. But how can God not be pained at the sight of one who, with all the clothes he needs and more and with easy access to the chapel, nevertheless appears in church in rumpled cargo pants and a T-shirt? Ironically, it has been my experience as I travel around the world that members of the Church with the least means somehow find a way to arrive at Sabbath meetings neatly dressed in clean, nice clothes, the best they have, while those who have more than enough are the ones who may appear in casual, even slovenly clothing. Some say dress and hair don’t matter—it’s what’s inside that counts. I believe that truly it is what’s inside a person that counts, but that’s what worries me. Casual dress at holy places and events is a message about what is inside a person. It may be pride or rebellion or something else, but at a minimum it says, “I don’t get it. I don’t understand the difference between the sacred and the profane.” In that condition they are easily drawn away from the Lord. They do not appreciate the value of what they have. I worry about them. Unless they can gain some understanding and capture some feeling for sacred things, they are at risk of eventually losing all that matters most. You are Saints of the great latter-day dispensation—look the part.

I always had trouble with the feet of Jón the First, or Pre-Jón, as I called him later. He would frequently put them in front of me in the evening and tell me to take off his socks and rub his toes, soles, heels and calves. It was quite impossible for me to love these Icelandic men's feet that were shaped like birch stumps, hard and chunky, and screaming white as the wood when the bark is stripped from it. Yes, and as cold and damp, too. The toes had horny nails that resembled dead buds in a frosty spring. Nor can I forget the smell, for malodorous feet were very common in the post-war years when men wore nylon socks and practically slept in their shoes. How was it possible to love these Icelandic men? Who belched at the meal table and farted constantly. After four Icelandic husbands and a whole load of casual lovers I had become a vrai connaisseur of flatulence, could describe its species and varieties in the way that a wine-taster knows his wines. The howling backfire, the load, the gas bomb and the Luftwaffe were names I used most. The coffee belch and the silencer were also well-known quantities, but the worst were the date farts, a speciality of Bæring of Westfjord. Icelandic men don’t know how to behave: they never have and never will, but they are generally good fun. At least, Icelandic women think so. They seem to come with this inner emergency box, filled with humour and irony, which they always carry around with them and can open for useful items if things get too rough, and it must be a hereditary gift of the generations. Anyone who loses their way in the mountains and gets snowed in or spends the whole weekend stuck in a lift can always open this special Icelandic emergency box and get out of the situation with a good story. After wandering the world and living on the Continent I had long tired of well-behaved, fart-free gentlemen who opened the door and paid the bills but never had a story to tell and were either completely asexual or demanded skin-burning action until the morning light. Swiss watch salesmen who only knew of “sechs” as their wake-up hour, or hairy French apes who always required their twelve rounds of screwing after the six-course meal. I suppose I liked German men the best. They were a suitable mixture of belching northerner and cultivated southerner, of orderly westerner and crazy easterner, but in the post-war years they were of course broken men. There was little you could do with them except try to put them right first. And who had the time for that? Londoners are positive and jolly, but their famous irony struck me as mechanical and wearisome in the long run. As if that irony machine had eaten away their real essence. The French machine, on the other hand, is fuelled by seriousness alone, and the Frogs can drive you beyond the limit when they get going with their philosophical noun-dropping. The Italian worships every woman like a queen until he gets her home, when she suddenly turns into a slut. The Yank is one hell of a guy who thinks big: he always wants to take you the moon. At the same time, however, he is as smug and petty as the meanest seamstress, and has a fit if someone eats his peanut butter sandwich aboard the space shuttle. I found Russians interesting. In fact they were the most Icelandic of all: drank every glass to the bottom and threw themselves into any jollity, knew countless stories and never talked seriously unless at the bottom of the bottle, when they began to wail for their mother who lived a thousand miles away but came on foot to bring them their clean laundry once a month. They were completely crazy and were better athletes in bed than my dear countrymen, but in the end I had enough of all their pommel-horse routines. Nordic men are all as tactless as Icelanders. They get drunk over dinner, laugh loudly and fart, eventually start “singing” even in public restaurants where people have paid to escape the tumult of