Loud House Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Loud House. Here they are! All 100 of them:

Hate is loud, but I think you'll learn it's because it's only a few people shouting, desperate to be heard. You might not ever be able to change their minds, but so long as your remember you're not alone, you will overcome.
T.J. Klune (The House in the Cerulean Sea (The House in the Cerulean Sea, #1))
She wished there was some place where she could go to hum it out loud. Some kind of music was too private to sing in a house cram fall of people. It was funny, too, how lonesome a person could be in a crowded house.
Carson McCullers (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter)
It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living. Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing. That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into its innermost chamber and is no longer even there, - is already in our bloodstream. And we don't know what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing happened, and yet we have changed, as a house that a guest has entered changes. We can't say who has come, perhaps we will never know, but many signs indicate that the future enters us in this way in order to be transformed in us, long before it happens. And that is why it is so important to be solitary and attentive when one is sad: because the seemingly uneventful and motionless moment when our future steps into us is so much closer to life than that other loud and accidental point of time when it happens to us as if from outside. The quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our sadnesses, the more deeply and serenely the new presence can enter us, and the more we can make it our own, the more it becomes our fate.
Rainer Maria Rilke
That man is such a damn turd monkey." "Grandma!" I said. "Oh, Zoeybird, did I call your mother's husband a damn turd monkey out loud?" "Yes, Grandma, you did." She looked at me, her dark eyes sparkling. "Good.
Kristin Cast (Chosen (House of Night, #3))
The way you keep your house, the way you organize your time, the care you take in your personal appearance, the things you spend your money on, all speak loudly about what you believe. The beauty of thy peace shines forth in an ordered life. A disordered life speaks loudly of disorder in the soul.
Elisabeth Elliot (Let Me Be a Woman)
We could argue in front of our lockers all dramatically," I said. "That's something I saw a lot at human high schools." He squeezed me in a quick hug. "Yes! Now that sounds like a good time. And then I could come to your house in the middle of the night and play music really loudly under your window until you took me back." I chuckled. "You watch too many movies. Ooh, we could be lab partners!" "Isn't that kind of what we were in Defense?" "Yeah, but in normal high school, there would be more science, less kicking each other in the face." "Nice.
Rachel Hawkins (Demonglass (Hex Hall, #2))
Their goal was in sight. They had a Titan with a very loud kitten on their side. That had to count for something.
Rick Riordan
Let husband and wife never speak to one another in loud tones,unless the house is on fire.
David O. McKay
I want to tell her that God is not a cement building of stones and sand. That God is not for all that putting inside a house and locking Him there. I want her to know that the only way to know if a person find God and keep Him in their heart is to check how the person is treating other people, if he treats people like Jesus says--with love, patience, kindness, and forgiveness.
Abi Daré (The Girl with the Louding Voice)
But sleep didn't come. She could hear Jace's soft piano playing through the walls, but that wasn't what was keeping her awake. She was thinking of Simon, leaving for a house that no longer felt like home to him, of the despair in Jace's voice as he said 'I want to hate you', and of Magnus, not telling Jace the truth: that Alec did not want Jace to know about his relationship because he was still in love with him. She thought of the satisfaction it would have brought Magnus to say the words out loud, to acknowledge what the truth was, and the fact that he hadn't said them - had let Alec go on lying and pretending - because that was what Alec wanted, and Magnus cared about Alec enough to give him that. Maybe it was true what the Seelie Queen had said, after all: Love made you a liar.
Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments, #2))
When I did show up next door, at 6:34, it sounded like World War III had erupted in the house. I’d let myself in since no one answered the damn door. “I can’t believe you ate all the ice cream, Daemon!” I cringed and stopped inside the dining room. There was no way I was going into that kitchen. “I didn’t eat all of it.” “Oh, so it ate itself?” Dee shrieked so loudly I thought I heard the rafters in the ceiling shake. “Did the spoon eat it? Oh wait, I know. The carton ate it.” “Actually, I think the freezer ate it,” Daemon responded dryly. I grinned when I heard what sounded like the empty container hitting what suspiciously sounded like flesh.
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Obsidian (Lux, #1))
Rain is passion. It’s a scream. It’s my hair sticking to my face as I wrap my arms around him. It’s spontaneous, and it’s loud. Snowfall is like a secret. It’s whispers and firelight and searching for his warmth between the sheets at two a.m. when the rest of the house is asleep.
Penelope Douglas (Credence)
Cincinatti was where I learned that running away from your problems has a three-month statute of limitations, a lesson I have found repeatedly to be true. Three months is still a first impression -- of a city, of other people, of yourself in that place. But there comes a point when you can no longer hide who you are, and the reactions of others become all too familiar...
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
...my father, [was] a mid-level phonecompany manager who treated my mother at best like an incompetent employee. At worst? He never beat her, but his pure, inarticulate fury would fill the house for days, weeks, at a time, making the air humid, hard to breathe, my father stalking around with his lower jaw jutting out, giving him the look of a wounded, vengeful boxer, grinding his teeth so loud you could hear it across the room ... I'm sure he told himself: 'I never hit her'. I'm sure because of this technicality he never saw himself as an abuser. But he turned our family life into an endless road trip with bad directions and a rage-clenched driver, a vacation that never got a chance to be fun.
Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl)
A depressed person is selfish because her self, the very core of who she is, will not leave her alone, and she can no more stop thinking about this self and how to escape it than a prisoner held captive by a sadistic serial killer can forget about the person who comes in to torture her everyday. Her body is brutalized by her mind.
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
I began to feel again something that I had been only dimly aware of before. It was a small, surprising sense of disappointment even as he was kissing me, but the violins were so loud at the time I could hear nothing else. Now the disappointment was returning and with it the realization that the magic had come only from the moment, not from him. It was different with you. In the eyes and ears of my heart, you and the magic are one and the same. The setting never mattered. On the sidewalk in front of my house, at the enchanted place in the desert, walking the halls at school- where I was with you, I heard violins.
Jerry Spinelli (Love, Stargirl (Stargirl, #2))
I turn to head outside when the boys make their way back into the house. Kel stops in the doorway and puts his hands on his hips, then looks up at me. “Are you my sister’s boyfriend?” I’m thrown off by his directness. I pull my jacket on and shake my head. “Um, no. Just her friend.” “She told my mom you were taking her on a date. I thought only boyfriends took girls on dates.” “Well,” I pause. “Sometimes boys take girls on dates to see if they want them to be their girlfriend.” I notice Caulder standing beside me, taking in the conversation as if he’s just as curious. I wasn’t prepared to have to explain the rules of dating right now. “So it’s like a test?” Caulder asks. “To see if you want Layken to be your girlfriend?” I shrug and nod. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.” Kel laughs. “You aren’t gonna like her. She burps a lot. And she’s bossy. And she never lets me drink coffee, so she probably won’t let you have any, either. And she has really bad taste in music and sings way too loud and leaves her bras all over the house. It’s gross.” I laugh. “Thanks for the warning. You think it’s too late to back out now?” Kel shakes his head, missing my sarcasm completely. “No, she’s already dressed so you have to take her now.” I sigh, pretending to be annoyed. “Well, it’s just a few hours. Hopefully she won’t burp a lot and boss me around and steal my coffee and sing to her really bad music and leave her bra in my car.” Or hopefully she will.
Colleen Hoover (This Girl (Slammed, #3))
To anyone who thinks eating disorders are something rich, bored white girls do to get attention, I bid you bite me. I have frequent, intense, inappropriate outbursts of anger over the lies little girls are told about what is beautiful.
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
You can have a silence full of words. A lute retains, in its bowl, the notes it has played. The viol, in its strings, holds a concord. A shriveled petal can hold its scent, a prayer can rattle with curses; an empty house, when the owners have gone out, can still be loud with ghosts.
Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1))
Are you afraid?" Volker questioned while sitting at the table and getting comfortable. "No. But I have incredible luck with dice and I am ruthless. You will lose, gentlemen. I will destroy your lands, take your women, ravish your men, and make your children my slave labor. I will own every castle, house, and farm that is within my reach. I won't be satisfied until I own all of it and you. I will destroy you all, gentlemen, and, to be quite blunt, I don't think you can handle it." Van covered his mouth to keep from laughing out loud and he didn't dare look at his sister. Verner stepped back, motioning to the table. "Now I must insist." "As you wish." Irene sighed and stood. She glanced at Van and gave him a quick wink before turning back to his uncle. "I do hope you're a 'sobber,' Mr. Van Holtz. Nothing I love more than the lamenting of the men I annihilate." "I can't believe you made him cry." "I did not. He just teared up a little." "Yeah. I think it was when you told him, 'I now control your ports and own your manhood.'" "His wife laughed.
Shelly Laurenston (When He Was Bad (Magnus Pack, #3.5; Pride, #0.75; Smith's Shifter World, #3.5))
Make me a willow cabin at your gate And call upon my soul within the house; Write loyal cantons of contemned love And sing them loud even in the dead of night; Hallo your name to the reverberate hills And make the babbling gossip of the air Cry out "Olivia!" O, you should not rest Between the elements of air and earth But you should pity me
William Shakespeare
Survival often depends on a specific focus: A relationship, a belief, or a hope balanced on the edge of possibility. Or something more ephemeral: the way the sun passes through the hard seemingly impenetrable glass of a window and warms the blanket, or how the wind, invisible but for its wake, is so loud one can hear it through the insulated walls of a house.
Elisabeth Tova Bailey (The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating)
Merit. Have you finally decided to ditch the zero and get with the hero?” Ethan cleared his throat—loudly—while I bit back a smile. I didn’t see anything wrong with reminding Ethan that I had other options. Even if they were slightly goofy options I’d never actually take advantage of.
Chloe Neill (House Rules (Chicagoland Vampires, #7))
Tomorrow will probably be another day like today. Happiness will never come my way. I know that. But it's probably best to go to sleep believing that it will surely come, tomorrow it will come. I purposely made a loud thump as I fell into bed. Ah, that feels good. The futon was cool, just the right temperature against my back, and it was simply delightful. Sometimes happiness arrives one night too late. The thought occurred to me as I lay there. You wait and wait for happiness, and when finally you can't bear it any longer, you rush out of the house, only to hear later that a marvelous happiness arrived the following day at the home you had abandoned, and now it was too late. Sometimes happiness arrives one night too late. Happiness... I
Osamu Dazai (Schoolgirl)
The first language humans had was gestures. There was nothing primitive about this language that flowed from people’s hands, nothing we say now that could not be said in the endless array of movements possible with the fine bones of the fingers and wrists. The gestures were complex and subtle, involving a delicacy of motion that has since been lost completely. During the Age of Silence, people communicated more, not less. Basic survival demanded that the hands were almost never still, and so it was only during sleep (and sometimes not even then) that people were not saying something or other. No distinction was made between the gestures of language and the gestures of life. The labor of building a house, say, or preparing a meal was no less an expression than making the sign for I love you or I feel serious. When a hand was used to shield one’s face when frightened by a loud noise something was being said, and when fingers were used to pick up what someone else had dropped something was being said; and even when the hands were at rest, that, too, was saying something. Naturally, there were misunderstandings. There were times when a finger might have been lifted to scratch a nose, and if casual eye contact was made with one’s lover just then, the lover might accidentally take it to be the gesture, not at all dissimilar, for Now I realize I was wrong to love you. These mistakes were heartbreaking. And yet, because people knew how easily they could happen, because they didn’t go round with the illusion that they understood perfectly the things other people said, they were used to interrupting each other to ask if they’d understood correctly. Sometimes these misunderstandings were even desirable, since they gave people a reason to say, Forgive me, I was only scratching my nose. Of course I know I’ve always been right to love you. Because of the frequency of these mistakes, over time the gesture for asking forgiveness evolved into the simplest form. Just to open your palm was to say: Forgive me." "If at large gatherings or parties, or around people with whom you feel distant, your hands sometimes hang awkwardly at the ends of your arms – if you find yourself at a loss for what to do with them, overcome with sadness that comes when you recognize the foreignness of your own body – it’s because your hands remember a time when the division between mind and body, brain and heart, what’s inside and what’s outside, was so much less. It’s not that we’ve forgotten the language of gestures entirely. The habit of moving our hands while we speak is left over from it. Clapping, pointing, giving the thumbs-up, for example, is a way to remember how it feels to say nothing together. And at night, when it’s too dark to see, we find it necessary to gesture on each other’s bodies to make ourselves understood.
Nicole Krauss (The History of Love)
Hate is loud, but i think you'll learn it's because it's only a few people shouting, desperate to be heard.
T.J. Klune (The House in the Cerulean Sea (The House in the Cerulean Sea, #1))
I've decided to call him Norbert,' said Hagrid, looking at the dragon with misty eyes. 'He really knows me now, watch. Norbert! Norbert! Where's Mummy?' 'He's lost his marbles,' Ron muttered in Harry's ear. 'Hagrid,' said Harry loudly, 'give it a fortnight and Norbert's going to be as big as your house. Malfoy could go to Dumbledore at any moment. Hagrid bit his lip. 'I- I know I can't jus' dump him, I can't.' Harry suddenly turned to Ron. 'Charlie,' he said. 'You're losing it too,' said Ron. 'I'm Ron, remember?
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1))
If you tell me, I will leave you alone," I said. "And if you don't tell me, I am going to grab the nearest ghostwritten James Patterson romance novel and I am going to follow you through this store reading it out loud until you relent. Would you prefer me to read from Daphne's Three Tender Months with Harold or Cindy and John's House of Everlasting Love? I guarantee, your sanity and your indie street cred won't last a chapter. And they are very, very short chapters." Now I could see the fright beneath the defiance.
David Levithan (Dash & Lily's Book of Dares (Dash & Lily, #1))
Fuck you,” Sally says. She tosses the words off, easy as butter in her mouth, but in fact she doesn't think she's ever cursed out loud in her own house before. “Fuck you twice,” Gillian says. “You need it more.
Alice Hoffman (Practical Magic (Practical Magic, #1))
The most important thing we've learned, So far as children are concerned, Is never, NEVER, NEVER let Them near your television set -- Or better still, just don't install The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we've been, We've watched them gaping at the screen. They loll and slop and lounge about, And stare until their eyes pop out. (Last week in someone's place we saw A dozen eyeballs on the floor.) They sit and stare and stare and sit Until they're hypnotised by it, Until they're absolutely drunk With all that shocking ghastly junk. Oh yes, we know it keeps them still, They don't climb out the window sill, They never fight or kick or punch, They leave you free to cook the lunch And wash the dishes in the sink -- But did you ever stop to think, To wonder just exactly what This does to your beloved tot? IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD! IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD! IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND! IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND! HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE! HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE! HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES! 'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say, 'But if we take the set away, What shall we do to entertain Our darling children? Please explain!' We'll answer this by asking you, 'What used the darling ones to do? 'How used they keep themselves contented Before this monster was invented?' Have you forgotten? Don't you know? We'll say it very loud and slow: THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ, AND READ and READ, and then proceed To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks! One half their lives was reading books! The nursery shelves held books galore! Books cluttered up the nursery floor! And in the bedroom, by the bed, More books were waiting to be read! Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales And treasure isles, and distant shores Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars, And pirates wearing purple pants, And sailing ships and elephants, And cannibals crouching 'round the pot, Stirring away at something hot. (It smells so good, what can it be? Good gracious, it's Penelope.) The younger ones had Beatrix Potter With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter, And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland, And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and- Just How The Camel Got His Hump, And How the Monkey Lost His Rump, And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul, There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole- Oh, books, what books they used to know, Those children living long ago! So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install A lovely bookshelf on the wall. Then fill the shelves with lots of books, Ignoring all the dirty looks, The screams and yells, the bites and kicks, And children hitting you with sticks- Fear not, because we promise you That, in about a week or two Of having nothing else to do, They'll now begin to feel the need Of having something to read. And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy! You watch the slowly growing joy That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen They'll wonder what they'd ever seen In that ridiculous machine, That nauseating, foul, unclean, Repulsive television screen! And later, each and every kid Will love you more for what you did.
Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Charlie Bucket, #1))
I am, and always have been - first, last, and always - a child of America. You raised me. I grew up in the pastures and hills of Texas, but I had been to thirty-four states before I learned how to drive. When I caught the stomach flu in the fifth grade, my mother sent a note to school written on the back of a holiday memo from Vice President Biden. Sorry, sir—we were in a rush, and it was the only paper she had on hand. I spoke to you for the first time when I was eighteen, on the stage of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, when I introduced my mother as the nominee for president. You cheered for me. I was young and full of hope, and you let me embody the American dream: that a boy who grew up speaking two languages, whose family was blended and beautiful and enduring, could make a home for himself in the White House. You pinned the flag to my lapel and said, “We’re rooting for you.” As I stand before you today, my hope is that I have not let you down. Years ago, I met a prince. And though I didn’t realize it at the time, his country had raised him too. The truth is, Henry and I have been together since the beginning of this year. The truth is, as many of you have read, we have both struggled every day with what this means for our families, our countries, and our futures. The truth is, we have both had to make compromises that cost us sleep at night in order to afford us enough time to share our relationship with the world on our own terms. We were not afforded that liberty. But the truth is, also, simply this: love is indomitable. America has always believed this. And so, I am not ashamed to stand here today where presidents have stood and say that I love him, the same as Jack loved Jackie, the same as Lyndon loved Lady Bird. Every person who bears a legacy makes the choice of a partner with whom they will share it, whom the American people will “hold beside them in hearts and memories and history books. America: He is my choice. Like countless other Americans, I was afraid to say this out loud because of what the consequences might be. To you, specifically, I say: I see you. I am one of you. As long as I have a place in this White House, so will you. I am the First Son of the United States, and I’m bisexual. History will remember us. If I can ask only one thing of the American people, it’s this: Please, do not let my actions influence your decision in November. The decision you will make this year is so much bigger than anything I could ever say or do, and it will determine the fate of this country for years to come. My mother, your president, is the warrior and the champion that each and every American deserves for four more years of growth, progress, and prosperity. Please, don’t let my actions send us backward. I ask the media not to focus on me or on Henry, but on the campaign, on policy, on the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans at stake in this election. And finally, I hope America will remember that I am still the son you raised. My blood still runs from Lometa, Texas, and San Diego, California, and Mexico City. I still remember the sound of your voices from that stage in Philadelphia. I wake up every morning thinking of your hometowns, of the families I’ve met at rallies in Idaho and Oregon and South Carolina. I have never hoped to be anything other than what I was to you then, and what I am to you now—the First Son, yours in actions and words. And I hope when Inauguration Day comes again in January, I will continue to be.
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
Nobody would commit suicide if the pain of being inside herself, the agony of the sleepless, tortured hours spent watching the world get smaller and uglier, were bearable or could be relieved by other people telling her how they wanted her to feel. A depressed person is selfish because her self, the very core of who she is, will not leave her alone, and she can no more stop thinking about this self and how to escape it than a prisoner held captive by a sadistic serial killer can forget about the person who comes in to torture her everyday. Her body is brutalized by her mind. It hurts to breathe, eat, walk, think. The gross maneuverings of her limbs are so overwhelming, so wearying, that the fine muscle movements or quickness of wit necessary to write, to actually say something, are completely out of the question.
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
One of the things I’ve read about borderlines is that we alternate between a sense of entitlement and the belief that we’re lower than the dirt under people’s shoes.
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
By now you've probably noticed that except when safely contained by quotes, Zampanò always steers clear of such questionable four-letter language. This instance in particular proves that beneath all that cool psuedo-academic hogwash lurked a very passionate man who knew how important it was to say "fuck" now and then, and say it loud too, relish its syllabic sweetness, its immigrant pride, a great American epic word really, starting at the lower lip, often the very front of the lower lip, before racing all the way to the back of the throat, where it finishes with a great blast, the concussive force of the K catching up then with the hush of the F already on its way, thus loading it with plenty of offense and edge and certainly ambiguity. FUCK. A great by-the-bootstrap prayer or curse if you prefer, depending on how you look at it, or use it, suited perfectly for hurling at the skies or at the world, or sometimes, if said just right, for uttering with enough love and fire, the woman beside you melts inside herself, immersed in all that word-heat.
Mark Z. Danielewski (House of Leaves)
I sat at a table in my shadowy kitchen, staring down a bottle of Boone's Farm Hard Lemonade, when a magic fluctuation hit. My wards shivered and died, leaving my home stripped of its defenses. The TV flared into life, unnaturally loud in the empty house. I raised my eyebrow at the bottle and bet it that another urgent bulletin was on. The bottle lost. "Urgent bulletin!" Margaret Chang announced. "The Attorney General advises all citizens that any attempt at summoning or other activities resulting in the appearance of a supernaturally powerful being can be hazardous to yourself and to other citizens." "No shit," I told the bottle.
Ilona Andrews (Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, #1))
When did they stop putting toys in cereal boxes? When I was little, I remember wandering the cereal aisle (which surely is as American a phenomenon as fireworks on the Fourth of July) and picking my breakfast food based on what the reward was: a Frisbee with the Trix rabbit's face emblazoned on the front. Holographic stickers with the Lucky Charms leprechaun. A mystery decoder wheel. I could suffer through raisin bran for a month if it meant I got a magic ring at the end. I cannot admit this out loud. In the first place, we are expected to be supermoms these days, instead of admitting that we have flaws. It is tempting to believe that all mothers wake up feeling fresh every morning, never raise their voices, only cook with organic food, and are equally at ease with the CEO and the PTA. Here's a secret: those mothers don't exist. Most of us-even if we'd never confess-are suffering through the raisin bran in the hopes of a glimpse of that magic ring. I look very good on paper. I have a family, and I write a newspaper column. In real life, I have to pick superglue out of the carpet, rarely remember to defrost for dinner, and plan to have BECAUSE I SAID SO engraved on my tombstone. Real mothers wonder why experts who write for Parents and Good Housekeeping-and, dare I say it, the Burlington Free Press-seem to have their acts together all the time when they themselves can barely keep their heads above the stormy seas of parenthood. Real mothers don't just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady's car, and say, "Great. Maybe YOU can do a better job." Real mothers know that it's okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast. Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed. If parenting is the box of raisin bran, then real mothers know the ratio of flakes to fun is severely imbalanced. For every moment that your child confides in you, or tells you he loves you, or does something unprompted to protect his brother that you happen to witness, there are many more moments of chaos, error, and self-doubt. Real mothers may not speak the heresy, but they sometimes secretly wish they'd chosen something for breakfast other than this endless cereal. Real mothers worry that other mothers will find that magic ring, whereas they'll be looking and looking for ages. Rest easy, real mothers. The very fact that you worry about being a good mom means that you already are one.
Jodi Picoult (House Rules)
It’s not fair,” Linus said, staring off into nothing. “The way some people can be. But as long as you remember to be just and kind like I know you are, what those people think won’t matter in the long run. Hate is loud, but I think you’ll learn it’s because it’s only a few people shouting, desperate to be heard. You might not ever be able to change their minds, but so long as you remember you’re not alone, you will overcome.
T.J. Klune (The House in the Cerulean Sea (The House in the Cerulean Sea, #1))
Having a chronic illness, Molly thought, was like being invaded. Her grandmother back in Michigan used to tell about the day one of their cows got loose and wandered into the parlor, and the awful time they had getting her out. That was exactly what Molly's arthritis was like: as if some big old cow had got into her house and wouldn't go away. It just sat there, taking up space in her life and making everything more difficult, mooing loudly from time to time and making cow pies, and all she could do really was edge around it and put up with it. When other people first became aware of the cow, they expressed concern and anxiety. They suggested strategies for getting the animal out of Molly's parlor: remedies and doctors and procedures, some mainstream and some New Age. They related anecdotes of friends who had removed their own cows in one way or another. But after a while they had exhausted their suggestions. Then they usually began to pretend that the cow wasn't there, and they preferred for Molly to go along with the pretense.
Alison Lurie (The Last Resort: A Novel)
Michael: 'Hey, remember when I almost didn't let you into the house that first day you came?' Claire: 'Yep' Michael: 'Well, I was dead wrong. Maybe I never said that out loud before, but I mean it, Claire. All that's happened since... we wouldn't have made it. Not me, not Shane, not Eve. Not without you.' Claire: 'It's not me. It's not! It's us, that's all. We're just better together. We... take care of each other.' Shane: 'Stop vamping up my girl, man. She needs coffee.' Michael: 'Don't we all. Vamping up your girl? Dude. That's low.' Shane: 'Digging for China. Come on.
Rachel Caine
Life is a ferocious motherfucker, that’s what I always say. And it’s not death that you need to worry about. He always comes, and he’s usually quiet about it. But life, boy. She is loud and fast and—vicious.
Joseph Cassara (The House of Impossible Beauties)
I cannot admit this out loud. In the first place, we are expected to be supermoms these days, instead of admitting that we have flaws. It is tempting to believe that all mothers wake up feeling fresh every morning, never raise their voices, only cook with organic food, and are equally at ease with the CEO and the PTA.
Jodi Picoult (House Rules)
My uncle Alex Vonnegut, a Harvard-educated life insurance salesman who lived at 5033 North Pennsylvania Street, taught me something very important. He said that when things were really going well we should be sure to NOTICE it. He was talking about simple occasions, not great victories: maybe drinking lemonade on a hot afternoon in the shade, or smelling the aroma of a nearby bakery; or fishing, and not caring if we catch anything or not, or hearing somebody all alone playing a piano really well in the house next door. Uncle Alex urged me to say this out loud during such epiphanies: "If this isn't nice, what is?
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Do you know about the spoons? Because you should. The Spoon Theory was created by a friend of mine, Christine Miserandino, to explain the limits you have when you live with chronic illness. Most healthy people have a seemingly infinite number of spoons at their disposal, each one representing the energy needed to do a task. You get up in the morning. That’s a spoon. You take a shower. That’s a spoon. You work, and play, and clean, and love, and hate, and that’s lots of damn spoons … but if you are young and healthy you still have spoons left over as you fall asleep and wait for the new supply of spoons to be delivered in the morning. But if you are sick or in pain, your exhaustion changes you and the number of spoons you have. Autoimmune disease or chronic pain like I have with my arthritis cuts down on your spoons. Depression or anxiety takes away even more. Maybe you only have six spoons to use that day. Sometimes you have even fewer. And you look at the things you need to do and realize that you don’t have enough spoons to do them all. If you clean the house you won’t have any spoons left to exercise. You can visit a friend but you won’t have enough spoons to drive yourself back home. You can accomplish everything a normal person does for hours but then you hit a wall and fall into bed thinking, “I wish I could stop breathing for an hour because it’s exhausting, all this inhaling and exhaling.” And then your husband sees you lying on the bed and raises his eyebrow seductively and you say, “No. I can’t have sex with you today because there aren’t enough spoons,” and he looks at you strangely because that sounds kinky, and not in a good way. And you know you should explain the Spoon Theory so he won’t get mad but you don’t have the energy to explain properly because you used your last spoon of the morning picking up his dry cleaning so instead you just defensively yell: “I SPENT ALL MY SPOONS ON YOUR LAUNDRY,” and he says, “What the … You can’t pay for dry cleaning with spoons. What is wrong with you?” Now you’re mad because this is his fault too but you’re too tired to fight out loud and so you have the argument in your mind, but it doesn’t go well because you’re too tired to defend yourself even in your head, and the critical internal voices take over and you’re too tired not to believe them. Then you get more depressed and the next day you wake up with even fewer spoons and so you try to make spoons out of caffeine and willpower but that never really works. The only thing that does work is realizing that your lack of spoons is not your fault, and to remind yourself of that fact over and over as you compare your fucked-up life to everyone else’s just-as-fucked-up-but-not-as-noticeably-to-outsiders lives. Really, the only people you should be comparing yourself to would be people who make you feel better by comparison. For instance, people who are in comas, because those people have no spoons at all and you don’t see anyone judging them. Personally, I always compare myself to Galileo because everyone knows he’s fantastic, but he has no spoons at all because he’s dead. So technically I’m better than Galileo because all I’ve done is take a shower and already I’ve accomplished more than him today. If we were having a competition I’d have beaten him in daily accomplishments every damn day of my life. But I’m not gloating because Galileo can’t control his current spoon supply any more than I can, and if Galileo couldn’t figure out how to keep his dwindling spoon supply I think it’s pretty unfair of me to judge myself for mine. I’ve learned to use my spoons wisely. To say no. To push myself, but not too hard. To try to enjoy the amazingness of life while teetering at the edge of terror and fatigue.
Jenny Lawson (Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things)
Nature forgot to shade him off, I think... A little too boisterous--like the sea. A little too vehement--like a bull who has made up his mind to consider every colour scarlet. But I grant a sledge-hammering sort of merit in him!
Charles Dickens (Bleak House)
DAD!” I screamed as I barreled into the house, Toby at my heels. A second later, I realized how that sounded. “Everything is fine!” I yelled a moment later. There was no need to give my father a heart attack. “No, it’s not!” Toby yelled, though a little less loudly than me. “We need help!” “What’s going on?
Morgan Matson (The Unexpected Everything)
WHEN I GO ALONE AT NIGHT WHEN I go alone at night to my love-tryst, birds do not sing, the wind does not stir, the houses on both sides of the street stand silent. It is my own anklets that grow loud at every step and I am ashamed. When I sit on my balcony and listen for his footsteps, leaves do not rustle on the trees, and the water is still in the river like the sword on the knees of a sentry fallen asleep. It is my own heart that beats wildly -- I do not know how to quiet it. When my love comes and sits by my side, when my body trembles and my eyelids droop, the night darkens, the wind blows out the lamp, and the clouds draw veils over the stars. It is the jewel at my own breast that shines and gives light. I do not know how to hide it.
Rabindranath Tagore
Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses. Flood waters await us in our avenues. Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche Over unprotected villages. The sky slips low and grey and threatening. We question ourselves. What have we done to so affront nature? We worry God. Are you there? Are you there really? Does the covenant you made with us still hold? Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters, Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air. The world is encouraged to come away from rancor, Come the way of friendship. It is the Glad Season. Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner. Flood waters recede into memory. Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us As we make our way to higher ground. Hope is born again in the faces of children It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets. Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things, Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors. In our joy, we think we hear a whisper. At first it is too soft. Then only half heard. We listen carefully as it gathers strength. We hear a sweetness. The word is Peace. It is loud now. It is louder. Louder than the explosion of bombs. We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence. It is what we have hungered for. Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace. A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies. Security for our beloveds and their beloveds. We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas. We beckon this good season to wait a while with us. We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come. Peace. Come and fill us and our world with your majesty. We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian, Implore you, to stay a while with us. So we may learn by your shimmering light How to look beyond complexion and see community. It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time. On this platform of peace, we can create a language To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other. At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ Into the great religions of the world. We jubilate the precious advent of trust. We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope. All the earth's tribes loosen their voices To celebrate the promise of Peace. We, Angels and Mortal's, Believers and Non-Believers, Look heavenward and speak the word aloud. Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud. Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation. Peace, My Brother. Peace, My Sister. Peace, My Soul.
Maya Angelou (Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem)
Countless times, I watched my father turn my mother into a nervous wreck by simply transforming himself into a dark cloud of a presence. He wouldn't use any curses or shouts, but he'd set his bowl down a little too loudly, or slam doors a little too harshly. She'd step cautiously around him as if he were a bomb, worrying about her every move for fear of setting him off. Without uttering a single word, he'd teach her to twist herself into knots to prioritize his needs and wants, in some strangling hope of quelling the pressure in the house and returning things to normal.
Xiran Jay Zhao (Iron Widow (Iron Widow #1))
Living our lives was like living in a long house. We entered as babies at one end, and we exited when our time came. And in between we moved through this one, great, long room. Everyone we ever met, and every thought and action lived in that room with us. Until we made peace with the less agreeable parts of our past they’d continue to heckle us from way down the long house. And sometimes the really loud, obnoxious ones told us what to do, directing our actions even years later.
Louise Penny (Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #1))
God, who am I? I sit in the library tonight, the lights glaring overhead, the fan whirring loudly. Girls, girls everywhere, reading books. Intent faces, flesh pink, white, yellow. And I sit here without identity: faceless. My head aches. There is history to read... centuries to comprehend before I sleep, millions of lives to assimilate before breakfast tomorrow. Yet I know that back at the house there is my room, full of my presence. There is my date this weekend: someone believes I am a human being, not a name merely. And these are the only indications that I am a whole person, not merely a knot of nerves, without identity. I'm lost.
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
While I pressed the tissue to my face, Beck said, “Can I tell you something? There are a lot of empty boxes in your head, Sam.” I looked at him, quizzical. Again, it was a strange enough concept to hold my attention. “There are a lot of empty boxes in there, and you can put things in them.” Beck handed me another tissue for the other side of my face. My trust of Beck at that point was not yet complete; I remember thinking that he was making a very bad joke that I wasn’t getting. My voice sounded wary, even to me. “What kinds of things?” “Sad things,” Beck said. “Do you have a lot of sad things in your head?” “No,” I said. Beck sucked in his lower lip and released it slowly. “Well, I do.” This was shocking. I didn’t ask a question, but I tilted toward him. “And these things would make me cry,” Beck continued. “They used to make me cry all day long.” I remembered thinking this was probably a lie. I could not imagine Beck crying. He was a rock. Even then, his fingers braced against the floor, he looked poised, sure, immutable. “You don’t believe me? Ask Ulrik. He had to deal with it,” Beck said. “And so you know what I did with those sad things? I put them in boxes. I put the sad things in the boxes in my head, and I closed them up and I put tape on them and I stacked them up in the corner and threw a blanket over them.” “Brain tape?” I suggested, with a little smirk. I was eight, after all. Beck smiled, a weird private smile that, at the time, I didn’t understand. Now I knew it was relief at eliciting a joke from me, no matter how pitiful the joke was. “Yes, brain tape. And a brain blanket over the top. Now I don’t have to look at those sad things anymore. I could open those boxes sometime, I guess, if I wanted to, but mostly I just leave them sealed up.” “How did you use the brain tape?” “You have to imagine it. Imagine putting those sad things in the boxes and imagine taping it up with the brain tape. And imagine pushing them into the side of your brain, where you won’t trip over them when you’re thinking normally, and then toss a blanket over the top. Do you have sad things, Sam?” I could see the dusty corner of my brain where the boxes sat. They were all wardrobe boxes, because those were the most interesting sort of boxes — tall enough to make houses with — and there were rolls and rolls of brain tape stacked on top. There were razors lying beside them, waiting to cut the boxes and me back open. “Mom,” I whispered. I wasn’t looking at Beck, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw him swallow. “What else?” he asked, barely loud enough for me to hear. “The water,” I said. I closed my eyes. I could see it, right there, and I had to force out the next word. “My …” My fingers were on my scars. Beck reached out a hand toward my shoulder, hesitant. When I didn’t move away, he put an arm around my back and I leaned against his chest, feeling small and eight and broken. “Me,” I said.
Maggie Stiefvater (Forever (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #3))
In this land I have made myself sick with silence In this land I have wandered, lost In this land I hunkered down to see What will become of me. In this land I held myself tight So as not to scream. -But I did scream, so loud That this land howled back at me As hideously As it builds its houses. In this land I have been sown Only my head sticks Defiant, out of the earth But one day it too will be mown Making me, finally Of this land. -Charlie's poem
Anna Funder (Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall)
Borderline means you’re one of those girls… …who walk around wearing long sleeves in the summer because you’ve carved up your forearms over your boyfriend. You make pathetic suicidal gestures and write bad poetry about them, listen to Ani DiFranco albums on endless repeat, end up in the emergency room for overdoses, scare off boyfriends by insisting they tell you that they love you five hundred times a day and hacking into their email to make sure they’re not lying, have a police record for shoplifting, and your tooth enamel is eroded from purging. You’ve had five addresses and eight jobs in three years, your friends are avoiding your phone calls, you’re questioning your sexuality, and the credit card companies are after you. It took a lot of years to admit that I was exactly that girl, and that the diagnostic criteria for the disorder were essentially an outline of my life.
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
Strange, how such a small realization can affect everyone's life forever. In movies there is always a carefully staged moment - a big crescendo of music, close- ups of the actors' faces, the camera slowly pulling away to let all this sink in for the viewer...but, in real life, most all of the extraordinary things happen with no more loudness than a whisper.
Silas House (Eli the Good)
People spend thousands of dollars on stereos. Sometimes tens of thousands. There is a specialist industry right here in the States which builds stereo gear to a standard you wouldn't believe. Tubed amplifiers which cost more than a house. Speakers taller than me. Cables thicker than a garden hose. Some army guys had that stuff. I'd heard it on bases around the world. Wonderful. But they were wasting their money. Because the best stereo in the world is free. Inside your head. It sounds as good as you want it to. As loud as you want it to be.
Lee Child (Killing Floor (Jack Reacher #1))
One thing that pisses me off royally is hearing drug companies denounced as the devil. I don't like giant corporations (or, in the words of Spalding Gray, "the big indifferent machine") any more than anyone else, but I really don't like wanting to kill myself. A person who denounces psychopharmaceuticals based on a political agenda is a person who has never lain crumpled in a ball in the closet, sobbing uncontrollably, face covered in Sharpie, throat raw from induced vomiting. Accordingly, that person should be thankful and shut the hell up.
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
Dear brother, I feel what Pa and Ma instinctively think about me (I don’t say reasonably). There’s a similar reluctance about taking me into the house as there would be about having a large, shaggy dog in the house. He’ll come into the room with wet paws — and then, he’s so shaggy. He’ll get in everyone’s way. And he barks so loudly. In short — it’s a dirty animal. Very well — but the animal has a human history and, although it’s a dog, a human soul, and one with finer feelings at that, able to feel what people think about him, which an ordinary dog can’t do. And I, admitting that I am a sort of dog, accept them as they are. Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo, Nuenen, 15 December 1883
Vincent van Gogh
I asked my schoolmate Mary to write a letter to me. She was funny and full of life. She liked to run around her empty house without any clothes on, even once she was too old for that. Nothing embarrassed her. I admired that so much, because everything embarrassed me, and that hurt me. She loved to jump on her bed. She jumped on her bed for so many years that one afternoon, while I watched her jump, the seams burst. Feathers filled the small room. Our laughter kept the feathers in the air. I thought about birds. Could they fly if there wasn’t someone, somewhere, laughing?
Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
Now it has been said from ancient times that all women who weep may be divided into three sorts. There are those who lift up their voices and their tears flow and this may be called crying; there are those who utter loud lamentations but whose tears do not flow and this may be called howling; there are those whose tears flow but who utter no sound and this may be called weeping. Of all those women who followed Wang Lung in his coffin, his wives and his sons’ wives and his maid servants and his slaves and his hired mourners, there was only one who wept and it was Pear Blossom.
Pearl S. Buck (The Good Earth (House of Earth, #1))
The brick is neither here nor there,' interrupted the stranger in an imposing fashion, 'it never merely falls on someone's head from out of nowhere. In your case, I can assure you that a brick poses no threat whatsoever. You will die another kind of death." 'And you know just what that will be?' queried Berlioz with perfectly understandable irony, letting himself be drawn into a truly absurd conversation. 'And can you tell me what that is?' 'Gladly,' replied the stranger. He took Berlioz's measure as if intending to make him a suit and muttered something through his teeth that sounded like 'One, two.. Mercury in the Second House... the moon has set... six-misfortune...evening-seven...' Then he announced loudly and joyously, 'Your head will be cut off!
Mikhail Bulgakov (The Master and Margarita)
Speaking of names and all-time favorite romances, Bailey told me you write under a pen name. I've been really curious about that." Fern groaned loudly. She shook her fist toward Bailey's house. "Curse your big mouth, Bailey Sheen" She looked at Ambrose with trepidation. "You are going to think I'm some stalker chick. That I'm totally obsessed. But you have to remember that I came up with this alter ego when I was sixteen and I was a bit obsessed. Okay, I'm still a bit obsessed." "With what?" Ambrose was confused. "With you," Fern's response was muffled as she buried her forehead in his chest, but Ambrose still heard her. He laughed and forced her chin up so he could see her face. "I still don't understand what that has to do with your pen name." Fern sighed. "It's Amber Rose." "Ambrose?" "Amber Rose," Fern corrected. "Amber Rose?" Ambrose sputtered. "Yes," Fern said in a very, very small voice. And Ambrose laughed for a very, very long time.
Amy Harmon (Making Faces)
How did you fall in, Eeyore?" asked Rabbit, as he dried him with Piglet's handkerchief. "I didn't," said Eeyore. "But how--" "I was BOUNCED," said Eeyore. "Oo," said Roo excitedly, "did somebody push you?" "Somebody BOUNCED me. I was just thinking by the side of the river--thinking, if any of you know what that means--when I received a loud BOUNCE." "Oh, Eeyore!" said everybody. "Are you sure you didn't slip?" asked Rabbit wisely. "Of course I slipped. If you're standing on the slippery bank of a river, and somebody BOUNCES you loudly from behind, you slip. What did you think I did?
A.A. Milne (The House at Pooh Corner (Winnie-the-Pooh #2))
The Ballad of Lucy Jordan The morning sun touched lightly on the eyes of Lucy Jordan In a white suburban bedroom in a white suburban town As she lay there 'neath the covers dreaming of a thousand lovers Till the world turned to orange and the room went spinning round. At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair. So she let the phone keep ringing and she sat there softly singing Little nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair. Her husband, he's off to work and the kids are off to school, And there are, oh, so many ways for her to spend the day. She could clean the house for hours or rearrange the flowers Or run naked through the shady street screaming all the way. At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair So she let the phone keep ringing as she sat there softly singing Pretty nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair. The evening sun touched gently on the eyes of Lucy Jordan On the roof top where she climbed when all the laughter grew too loud And she bowed and curtsied to the man who reached and offered her his hand, And he led her down to the long white car that waited past the crowd. At the age of thirty-seven she knew she'd found forever As she rode along through Paris with the warm wind in her hair
Marianne Faithfull
....or drive up to his parents' house, one of you plugging into the car's stereo an outlandish playlist, with which you would both sing along, loudly, being extravagantly silly as adults the way you never were as children. As you got older, you realize that really, there were very few people you truly wanted to be around for more than a few days at a time, and yet here you were with someone you wanted to be around for years, even when he was at his most opaque and confusing.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
My mother was good at reading books, making cinnamon biscuits, and coloring in a coloring book. Also she was a good eater of popcorn and knitter of sweaters with my initials right in them. She could sit really still. She knew how to believe in God and sing really loudly. When she sneezed our whole house rocked. My father was a great smoker and driver of vehicles..He could hold a full coffee cup while driving and never spill a drop, even going over bumps. He lost his temper faster than anyone.
Haven Kimmel (A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small In Mooreland, Indiana)
He held out the written pass. "This is what they want us to be," he said. "They want us to be nothing but a bill of sale and a letter explaining where we is and instructions for where we go and what we do. They want us empty. They want us flat as paper. They want to be able to carry our souls in their hands, and read them out loud in court. All the time, they're on the exploration of themselves, going on the inner journey into their own breast. But us, they want there to be nothing inside of. They want us to be writ on. They want us to be a surface. Look at me, I'm mahogany." I protested, "A man is known by his deeds." "Oh, that's sure," said Bono. "Just like a house is known by its deeds. The deeds say who owns it, who sold it, and who'll be buying a new one when it gets knocked down.
M.T. Anderson (The Pox Party (The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, #1))
You're a rule person," he said. "My sister was a cheater. It sort of became necessary." "She cheated at this game?" "She cheated ateverything ," I said. "When we played Monopoly, she always insisted on being banker, then helped herself to multiple loans and 'service fees' for every real estate transaction. I was, like, ten or eleven before I played at someone else's house and they told me you couldn't do that." He laughed, the sound seeming loud in all the quiet. I felt myself smiling, remembering. "During staring contests," I said, "she always blinked.Always . But then she'd swear up and down she hadn't, and make you go again, and again. And when we played Truth, she lied. Blatantly.
Sarah Dessen (The Truth About Forever)
Dear God, May this house be a sacred dwelling for those who live here. May those who visit feel the peace we have received from You. May darkness not enter. May the light of God shield this house from harm. May the angels bring their peace here and use our home as a haven of light. May all grow strong in this place of healing, our sanctuary from the loudness of the world. May it so be used by You forever.
Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
Figure out which affirmations you need to hear the most and repeat them all day long in your head, in the car, while you’re walking down the street pretending to be on the phone, under your breathe in line at the DMV. Write them on Post-it notes and stick them around your house, on your mirrors, in your refrigerator, in your car. Write down your favorite affirmations ten times every morning and ten times every night before you go to bed and say them out loud. Here
Jen Sincero (You Are a Badass®: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life)
Just look at this life: the insolence and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and brutishness of the weak, impossible poverty all around us, overcrowding, degeneracy, drunkenness, hypocrisy, lies...Yet in all the houses and streets it's quiet, peaceful; of the fifty thousand people who live in town there is not one who would cry out or become loudly indignant. We see those who go to the market to buy food, eat during the day, sleep during the night, who talk their nonsense, get married, grow old, complacently drag their dead to the cemetery; but we don't see or hear those who suffer, and the horrors of life go on somewhere behind the scenes. Everything is quiet, peaceful, and only mute statistics protest: so many gone mad, so many buckets drunk, so many children dead of malnutrition... And this order is obviously necessary; obviously the happy man feels good only because the unhappy bear their burden silently, and without that silence happiness would be impossible. It's a general hypnosis. At the door of every happy, contented man somebody should stand with a little hammer, constantly tapping, to remind him that unhappy people exist, that however happy he may be, sooner or later life will show him its claws, some calamity will befall him--illness, poverty, loss--and nobody will hear or see, just as he doesn't hear or see others now. But there is nobody with a little hammer, the happy man lives on, and the petty cares of life stir him only slightly, as wind stirs an aspen--and everything is fine.
Anton Chekhov (Five Great Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions: Short Stories))
By the following morning, Anthony was drunk. By afternoon, he was hungover. His head was pounding, his ears were ringing, and his brothers, who had been surprised to discover him in such a state at their club, were talking far too loudly. Anthony put his hands over his ears and groaned.Everyone was talking far too loudly. “Kate boot you out of the house?” Colin asked, grabbing a walnut from a large pewter dish in the middle their table and splitting it open with a viciously loud crack. Anthony lifted his head just far enough to glare at him. Benedict watched his brother with raised brows and the vaguest hint of a smirk. “She definitely booted him out,” he said to Colin. “Hand me one of those walnuts, will you?” Colin tossed one across the table. “Do you want the crackers as well?” Benedict shook his head and grinned as he held up a fat, leather-bound book. “Much more satisfying to smash them.” “Don’t,” Anthony bit out, his hand shooting out to grab the book, “even think about it.” “Ears a bit sensitive this afternoon, are they?” If Anthony had had a pistol, he would have shot them both, hang the noise. “If I might offer you a piece of advice?” Colin said, munching on his walnut. “You might not,” Anthony replied. He looked up. Colin was chewing with his mouth open. As this had been strictly forbidden while growing up in their household, Anthony could only deduce that Colin was displaying such poor manners only to make more noise. “Close your damned mouth,” he muttered. Colin swallowed, smacked his lips, and took a sip of his tea to wash it all down. “Whatever you did, apologize for it. I know you, and I’m getting to know Kate, and knowing what I know—” “What the hell is he talking about?” Anthony grumbled. “I think,” Benedict said, leaning back in his chair, “that he’s telling you you’re an ass.” “Just so!” Colin exclaimed. Anthony just shook his head wearily. “It’s more complicated than you think.” “It always is,” Benedict said, with sincerity so false it almost managed to sound sincere. “When you two idiots find women gullible enough to actually marry you,” Anthony snapped, “then you may presume to offer me advice. But until then ...shut up.” Colin looked at Benedict. “Think he’s angry?” Benedict quirked a brow. “That or drunk.” Colin shook his head. “No, not drunk. Not anymore, at least. He’s clearly hungover.” “Which would explain,” Benedict said with a philosophical nod, “why he’s so angry.” Anthony spread one hand over his face and pressed hard against his temples with his thumb and middle finger. “God above,” he muttered. ‘‘What would it take to get you two to leave me alone?” “Go home, Anthony,” Benedict said, his voice surprisingly gentle.
Julia Quinn (The Viscount Who Loved Me (Bridgertons, #2))
When I was a little girl and my teachers sent notes home complaining that I was as loud as the boys, that it wasn't lady like for a girl to be this outspoken, this raucous, instead of forcing me to tone it down to the timber of a stage whisper, just a few notes above a whimper you took me by the hand to the hilltop by our house, told me to use my voice by shouting to my heart's content, told me never to forget that I was a girl not a mouse and if I believed I had to change myself to suit anyone else I shouldn't that no matter what they said my voice was so important. You then visited my school, called a meeting with my teachers sat them all down and said that you were raising a rebel girl to be a warrior woman, and if she could not speak, the same way boys are allowed to, if she had to turn her voice into sighs then how will she utter the battle cries that were needed when her warrior sisters called upon her to help them defend the daughters of this world.
Nikita Gill
TESLA’S CAT [Nikola Tesla’s favorite childhood companion] was the family’s black cat, Macak. Macak followed young Nikola everywhere, and they spent many happy hours rolling on the grass. It was Macak the cat who introduced Tesla to electricity on a dry winter evening. “As I stroked Macak’s back,” he recalled, “I saw a miracle that made me speechless with amazement. Macak’s back was a sheet of light and my hand produced a shower of sparks loud enough to be heard all over the house.” Curious, he asked his father what caused the sparks. Puzzled at first, [his father] finally answered, “Well, this is nothing but electricity, the same thing you see through the trees in a storm.” His father’s answer, equating the sparks with lightning, fascinated the young boy. As Tesla continued to stroke Macak, he began to wonder, “Is nature a gigantic cat? If so, who strokes its back? It can only be God,” he concluded.
W. Bernard Carlson (Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age)
Hunter was bipolar, for crying out loud. He had checked into the nut house on more than one occasion and, honestly, I was already starting to feel the anxiety of living together. I would need to get my martial arts skills up to par to deal with this lunatic. I knew that I would also need to pick up a copy of Kill Bill at my next convenience and take notes as I watched, just in case a fight happened to break out in the kitchen. Also, at night, I had decided that I would need to sleep with either a small pistol or a flamboyant hunting knife under my pillow for a quick grab, in case he skipped his meds one night and decided to kill me. I needed to be prepared for the unthinkable.
Chase Brooks
No. The two kinds of fools we have in Russia," karkov grinned and began. "First there is the winter fool. The winter fool comes to the door of your house and he knocks loudly. You go to the door and you see him there and you have never seen him before. He is an impressive sight. He is a very big man and he has on high boots and a fur coat and a fur hat and he is all covered with snow. First he stamps his boots and snow falls from them. Then he takes off his fur coat and shakes it and more snow falls from them, Then he takes off his fur hat and knocks it against the door. More snow falls from his fur hat. Then he stamps his boots again and advances into the room. Then you look at him and you see he is a fool. That is the winter fool." "Now in the summer you see a fool going down the street and he is waving his arms and jerking his head from side to side and everybody from two hundred yards away can tell he is a fool. that is a summer fool. This economist is a winter fool.
Ernest Hemingway (For Whom the Bell Tolls)
I bumped into something and was knocked to the ground. It took me several breaths to gather myself together, at first I thought I’d walked into a tree, but then that tree became a person, who was also recovering on the ground, and then I saw that it was her, and she saw that it was me, ‘Hello,’ I said, brushing myself off, ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘This is so funny.’ ‘Yes.’ How could it be explained? ‘Where are you going?’ I asked. ‘Just for a walk,’ she said, ‘and you?’ ‘Just for a walk.’ We helped each other up, she brushed leaves from my hair, I wanted to touch her hair, ‘That’s not true,’ I said, not knowing what the next words out of my mouth would be, but wanting them to be mine, wanting, more than I’d ever wanted anything, to express the center of me and be understood. ‘I was walking to see you.’ I told her, ‘I’ve come to your house each of the last six days. For some reason I needed to see you again.’ She was silent, I had made a fool of myself, there’s nothing wrong with not understanding yourself and she started laughing, laughing harder than I’d ever felt anyone laugh, the laughter brought on tears, and the tears brought on more tears, and then I started laughing, out of the most deep and complete shame, ‘I was walking to you,’ I said again, as if to push my nose into my own shit, ‘because I wanted to see you again,’ she laughed and laughed, ‘That explains it,’ she said when she was able to speak. ‘It?’ ‘That explains why, each of the last six days, you weren’t at your house.’ We stopped laughing, I took the world into me, rearranged it, and sent it back out as a question: ‘Do you like me?
Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
This instance in particular proves that beneath all that cool pseudo-academic hogwash lurked a very passionate man who knew how important it was to say "fuck" now and then, and say it loud too, relish its syllabic sweetness, its immigrant pride, a great American epic word really, starting at the lower lip , often the very front of the lower lip, before racing all the way to the back of the throat, where it finishes with a great blast, the concussive force of the K catching up then with the hush of the F already on its way, thus loading it with plenty of offense and edge and certainly ambiguity. FUCK. A great by-the-bootstrap prayer or curse of you prefer, depending on how you look at it, or use it, suited perfectly for hurling at the skies or at the world, or sometimes, if said just right, for uttering with enough love and fire, the woman beside you melts inside herself.
Mark Z. Danielewski (House of Leaves)
I was talking about children that have not been properly house-trained. Left to their own impulses and indulged by doting or careless parents almost all children are yahoos. Loud, selfish, cruel, unaffectionate, jealous, perpetually striving for attention, empty-headed, for ever prating or if words fail them simply bawling, their voices grown huge from daily practice: the very worst company in the world. But what I dislike even more than the natural child is the affected child, the hulking oaf of seven or eight that skips heavily about with her hands dangling in front of her -- a little squirrel or bunny-rabbit -- and prattling away in a baby's voice.
Patrick O'Brian (The Truelove (Aubrey & Maturin, #15))
The tattoo artist inflicts pain and I take it. With each breath I count to one again. Each inhale, each exhale, time passes in the smallest of pieces, and pieces still smaller than those. This is how you count a life. This is how you go through it. Each second of hurt is a second that's already passed, one you never have to go through again. I have counted in pieces that small, when walking from the bed to the fridge seemed an insurmountable goal. I have counted my breaths, my steps, my eye-blinks, my hiccups, the tiny pulse in my thumb. And when I started getting tattooed, two of the things I used to need were gone: to write on myself, and to find irrelevant things to count. A second of intense pain is the most profound thing you can live through. And another, and another, and another, and then you know what it is to feel, and to struggle through that feeling one small agonizing increment at a time, and if you know that, you know what it is to live with mental illness.
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
On Rachel's show for November 7, 2012: We're not going to have a supreme court that will overturn Roe versus Wade. There will be no more Antonio Scalias and Samuel Aleatos added to this court. We're not going to repeal health reform. Nobody is going to kill medicare and make old people in this generation or any other generation fight it out on the open market to try to get health insurance. We are not going to do that. We are not going to give a 20% tax cut to millionaires and billionaires and expect programs like food stamps and kid's insurance to cover the cost of that tax cut. We'll not make you clear it with your boss if you want to get birth control under the insurance plan that you're on. We are not going to redefine rape. We are not going to amend the United States constitution to stop gay people from getting married. We are not going to double Guantanamo. We are not eliminating the Department of Energy or the Department of Education or Housing at the federal level. We are not going to spend $2 trillion on the military that the military does not want. We are not scaling back on student loans because the country's new plan is that you should borrow money from your parents. We are not vetoing the Dream Act. We are not self-deporting. We are not letting Detroit go bankrupt. We are not starting a trade war with China on Inauguration Day in January. We are not going to have, as a president, a man who once led a mob of friends to run down a scared, gay kid, to hold him down and forcibly cut his hair off with a pair of scissors while that kid cried and screamed for help and there was no apology, not ever. We are not going to have a Secretary of State John Bolton. We are not bringing Dick Cheney back. We are not going to have a foreign policy shop stocked with architects of the Iraq War. We are not going to do it. We had the chance to do that if we wanted to do that, as a country. and we said no, last night, loudly.
Rachel Maddow
Do you know why I gave my daughter permission to marry your father?” “No,” Bailey says. It is not a topic that has ever been discussed in his presence, though Caroline once told him in secret she heard it was something of a scandal. Even almost twenty years later, his father never sets foot in his grandmother’s house, nor does she ever come out to Concord. “Because she would have run off with him regardless,” she says. “That was what she wished. It would not have been my choice for her, but a child should not have their choices dictated for them...Follow your dreams, Bailey,” she says. “Be they Harvard or something else entirely. No matter what that father of yours says, or how loudly he might say it. He forgets that he was someone’s dream once, himself.
Erin Morgenstern (The Night Circus)
This party is lame!" Braeden said loudly. "WOLVES, party at my dorm!" he yelled. People cheered. "Dude, how the fuck are you gonna fit all these people in your tiny-ass room?" He grinned. "Sure as hell will be fun to try." Out in front of the Omega house, there was hardly anyone around; they were all too busy in the back, checking out the drama. We were silent a moment. Then Braeden said, "You don't need them. You got more than enough talent to bring in the NFL on your own." "Fuck," I muttered. "When did everything get so damn complicated?" "When your life became about more than just football." "You sound like Yoda." I grinned. "It's the beer." - Braeden & Romeo
Cambria Hebert (#Nerd (Hashtag, #1))
mad maddie: I GOT ACCEPTED TO SANTA CRUZ!!!! SnowAngel: omg!!! zoegirl: maddie!!!! yay!!!!! mad maddie: i know! it's incredible! SnowAngel: *squeals and hugs sweet maddie* SnowAngel: tell us every single detail!!! mad maddie: well, i got home from school and saw this big thick envelope on the kitchen counter, with "Santa Cruz Admissions Office" as the return address. i got really fidgety and just started screaming, right there in the house. no one was there but me, so i could be as loud as i wanted. zoegirl: omg!!! mad maddie: i took a deep breath and tried to calm down, but my hands were shaking. i opened the envelope and pulled out a folder that said, "Welcome to Santa Cruz!" inside was a letter that said, "Dear Madigan. You're in!" mad maddie: isn't that cool? i LOVE that, that instead of being all prissy and formal, they're like, "you're in! yahootie!" SnowAngel: oh maddie, i am sooooo happy for u! mad maddie: i ran out to my car all jumping and hopping around and drove to ian's, cuz i knew neither of u would be home yet. i showed him my letter and he hugged me really hard and lifted me into the air. it was AWESOME. zoegirl: i'm so proud of u, maddie! SnowAngel: me 2!
Lauren Myracle (l8r, g8r (Internet Girls, #3))
We caught the tread of dancing feet, We loitered down the moonlit street, And stopped beneath the harlot's house. Inside, above the din and fray, We heard the loud musicians play The 'Treues Liebes Herz' of Strauss. Like strange mechanical grotesques, Making fantastic arabesques, The shadows raced across the blind. We watched the ghostly dancers spin To sound of horn and violin, Like black leaves wheeling in the wind. Like wire-pulled automatons, Slim silhouetted skeletons Went sidling through the slow quadrille, Then took each other by the hand, And danced a stately saraband; Their laughter echoed thin and shrill. Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed A phantom lover to her breast, Sometimes they seemed to try to sing. Sometimes a horrible marionette Came out, and smoked its cigarette Upon the steps like a live thing. Then, turning to my love, I said, 'The dead are dancing with the dead, The dust is whirling with the dust.' But she--she heard the violin, And left my side, and entered in: Love passed into the house of lust. Then suddenly the tune went false, The dancers wearied of the waltz, The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl. And down the long and silent street, The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet, Crept like a frightened girl.
Oscar Wilde
I watched him as he lined up the ships in bottles on his deck, bringing them over from the shelves where they usually sat. He used an old shirt of my mother's that had been ripped into rags and began dusting the shelves. Under his desk there were empty bottles- rows and rows of them we had collected for our future shipbuilding. In the closet were more ships- the ships he had built with his own father, ships he had built alone, and then those we had made together. Some were perfect, but their sails browned; some had sagged or toppled over the years. Then there was the one that had burst into flames in the week before my death. He smashed that one first. My heart seized up. He turned and saw all the others, all the years they marked and the hands that had held them. His dead father's, his dead child's. I watched his as he smashed the rest. He christened the walls and wooden chair with the news of my death, and afterward he stood in the guest room/den surrounded by green glass. The bottle, all of them, lay broken on the floor, the sails and boat bodies strewn among them. He stood in the wreckage. It was then that, without knowing how, I revealed myself. In every piece of glass, in every shard and sliver, I cast my face. My father glanced down and around him, his eyes roving across the room. Wild. It was just for a second, and then I was gone. He was quiet for a moment, and then he laughed- a howl coming up from the bottom of his stomach. He laughed so loud and deep, I shook with it in my heaven. He left the room and went down two doors to my beadroom. The hallway was tiny, my door like all the others, hollow enough to easily punch a fist through. He was about to smash the mirror over my dresser, rip the wallpaper down with his nails, but instead he fell against my bed, sobbing, and balled the lavender sheets up in his hands. 'Daddy?' Buckley said. My brother held the doorknob with his hand. My father turned but was unable to stop his tears. He slid to the floor with his fists, and then he opened up his arms. He had to ask my brother twice, which he had never to do do before, but Buckley came to him. My father wrapped my brother inside the sheets that smelled of me. He remembered the day I'd begged him to paint and paper my room purple. Remembered moving in the old National Geographics to the bottom shelves of my bookcases. (I had wanted to steep myself in wildlife photography.) Remembered when there was just one child in the house for the briefest of time until Lindsey arrived. 'You are so special to me, little man,' my father said, clinging to him. Buckley drew back and stared at my father's creased face, the fine bright spots of tears at the corners of his eyes. He nodded seriously and kissed my father's cheek. Something so divine that no one up in heaven could have made it up; the care a child took with an adult. 'Hold still,' my father would say, while I held the ship in the bottle and he burned away the strings he'd raised the mast with and set the clipper ship free on its blue putty sea. And I would wait for him, recognizing the tension of that moment when the world in the bottle depended, solely, on me.
Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones)
As far as he was aware, none of his school friends knew what it was like to come home to a house that was quiet the way his was, where everything was forbidden to them—loud music or talking back, wearing shirts with band logos printed on them. A father who yelled, a mother who looked out the window or spent the day praying and tending her garden. A family that wanted him to change who he was, to become a respectable man who obeyed his father’s every word, and followed every command given by his father’s God. Or what it was like to live with the knowledge that his father would disown him if he found something as harmless as a packet of cigarettes under his mattress. To not have that kind of love. To not even believe in it. But Abbas knew these things.
Fatima Farheen Mirza (A Place for Us)
Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer were a very notorious couple of cats. As knockabout clowns, quick-change comedians, Tight-rope walkers and acrobats They had an extensive reputation. [...] When the family assembled for Sunday dinner, With their minds made up that they wouldn’t get thinner On Argentine joint, potatoes and greens, And the cook would appear from behind the scenes And say in a voice that was broken with sorrow "I'm afraid you must wait and have dinner tomorrow! For the joint has gone from the oven like that!" Then the family would say: "It's that horrible cat! It was Mungojerrie – or Rumpleteazer!" - And most of the time they left it at that. Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer had a wonderful way of working together. And some of the time you would say it was luck And some of the time you would say it was weather. They would go through the house like a hurricane, And no sober person could take his oath Was it Mungojerrie – or Rumpleteazer? Or could you have sworn that it mightn't be both? And when you heard a dining room smash Or up from the pantry there came a loud crash Or down from the library came a loud ping From a vase which was commonly said to be Ming Then the family would say: "Now which was which cat? It was Mungojerrie! And Rumpleteazer!" And there's nothing at all to be done about that!
T.S. Eliot (Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats)
Tired of his lack of understanding, she asked him for an unusual birthday gift: that for one day he would take care of the domestic chores. He accepted in amusement, and indeed took charge of the house at dawn. He served a splendid breakfast, but he forgot that fried eggs did not agree with her and that she did not drink café con leche. Then he ordered a birthday luncheon for eight guests and gave instructions for tidying the house, and he tried so hard to manage better than she did that before noon he had to capitulate without a trace of embarrassment. From the first moment he realized he did not have the slightest idea where anything was, above all in the kitchen, and the servants let him upset everything to find each item, for they were playing the game too. At ten o’clock no decisions had been made regarding lunch because the housecleaning was not finished yet, the bedroom was not straightened, the bathroom was not scrubbed; he forgot to replace the toilet paper, change the sheets, and send the coachmen for the children, and he confused the servants’ duties: he told the cook to make the beds and set the chambermaids to cooking. At eleven o’clock, when the guests were about to arrive, the chaos in the house was such that Fermina Daza resumed command, laughing out loud, not with the triumphant attitude she would have liked but shaken instead with compassion for the domestic helplessness of her husband. He was bitter and offered the argument he always used: “Things did not go as badly for me as they would for you if you tried to cure the sick.” But it was a useful lesson, and not for him alone. Over the years they both reached the same wise conclusion by different paths: it was not possible to live together in any way, or love in any other way, and nothing in this world was more difficult than love.
Gabriel García Márquez (Love in the Time of Cholera)
Once I am sure there's nothing going on I step inside, letting the door thud shut. Another church: matting, seats, and stone, And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff Up at the holy end; the small neat organ; And a tense, musty, unignorable silence, Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off My cycle-clips in awkward reverence. Move forward, run my hand around the font. From where I stand, the roof looks almost new - Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don't. Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce 'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant. The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence, Reflect the place was not worth stopping for. Yet stop I did: in fact I often do, And always end much at a loss like this, Wondering what to look for; wondering, too, When churches will fall completely out of use What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep A few cathedrals chronically on show, Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases, And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep. Shall we avoid them as unlucky places? Or, after dark, will dubious women come To make their children touch a particular stone; Pick simples for a cancer; or on some Advised night see walking a dead one? Power of some sort will go on In games, in riddles, seemingly at random; But superstition, like belief, must die, And what remains when disbelief has gone? Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky, A shape less recognisable each week, A purpose more obscure. I wonder who Will be the last, the very last, to seek This place for what it was; one of the crew That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were? Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique, Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh? Or will he be my representative, Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt So long and equably what since is found Only in separation - marriage, and birth, And death, and thoughts of these - for which was built This special shell? For, though I've no idea What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth, It pleases me to stand in silence here; A serious house on serious earth it is, In whose blent air all our compulsions meet, Are recognized, and robed as destinies. And that much never can be obsolete, Since someone will forever be surprising A hunger in himself to be more serious, And gravitating with it to this ground, Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in, If only that so many dead lie round.
Philip Larkin
The woman was a menace. He would hate it if she were his. Only a man very strong and able to do without any malefriends could have a siren like her. She was more than a handful; she was a disaster waiting to happen. Are you reading the human's thoughts, ma petite femme? Gregori's satisfied voice whispered in her mind. Even one such as he knows you are wild like the winds. With great reluctance he loosened his hold on her. Go inside the house. Her eyes widened in mock surprise. You mean he might think we were making love? We would have been if he hadn't wandered out and interrupted us. Push me further, cherie, and I may do something you will not like. She laughed out loud, totally unafraid as she sashayed through the courtyard. As she passed Gary, she leaned over and blew warm air into his ear. Savannah! Gregori roared her name, a distanct threat. I'm going, I'm going, she said, completely unrepentant.
Christine Feehan (Dark Magic (Dark, #4))
We are working! She was fine. You could see her. What the fuck is wrong with you? This is our job, asshole. You can't go doing shit like that when we have a packed house!" Krit shoved him again. "Don't tell me what the fuck to do." I had to stop them. This was about me. I wasn't sure why Krit had come offstage, but I knew it was about me. I had to fix this. I didn't want Krit fighting his best friend. "Stop fucking shoving me, you pansy-ass motherfucker!" Green roared, and lunged for Krit. I moved fast, putting up two hands and jumping in front of Krit to stop him. The force of impact when Green didn't stop hit me directly in the chest. It was as if someone had put a vacuum in my lungs and sucked all of the oxygen from the room. Nothing was getting in, and panic gripped me when I realized I couldn't breathe. "Fuck!" Krit yelled, and his arms were around me. He was doing something to my chest as he begged me to breathe. I was trying to breathe. It wouldn't work. "Baby, please breathe," he was pleading, and I wanted nothing more than to do that, but I couldn't. It hurt, and the terror that I was about to die settled over me. "She got the air knocked out of her. She's gonna be okay," Matty said in a calmer voice. And then the vacuum left, and the air I had been fighting for filled my chest as I gasped loudly and bent over. Krit was holding me against him as me muttered sweet things over and over while he rocked me back and forth. "Take him out of here," Matty said. I couldn't look up to see who he was talking to, but I grabbed Krit's arms to hold onto him in case they were talking about him. "Not me, baby. I'm not leaving you," he said as his hand began running down my hair as if he were petting me. "Not going anywhere." "When Krit is sure she's okay, he is going to beat the motherfucking hell out of you. Go with Legend and let him calm down first.
Abbi Glines (Bad for You (Sea Breeze, #7))
You’re sure you want to do this,” Galen says, eyeing me like I’ve grown a tiara of snakes on my head. “Absolutely.” I unstrap the four-hundred-dollar silver heels and spike them into the sand. When he starts unraveling his tie, I throw out my hand. “No! Leave it. Leave everything on.” Galen frowns. “Rachel would kill us both. In our sleep. She would torture us first.” “This is our prom night. Rachel would want us to enjoy ourselves.” I pull the thousand-or-so bobby pins from my hair and toss them in the sand. Really, both of us are right. She would want us to be happy. But she would also want us to stay in our designer clothes. Leaning over, I shake my head like a wet dog, dispelling the magic of hairspray. Tossing my hair back, I look at Galen. His crooked smile almost melts me where I stand. I’m just glad to see a smile on his face at all. The last six months have been rough. “Your mother will want pictures,” he tells me. “And what will she do with pictures? There aren’t exactly picture frames in the Royal Caverns.” Mom’s decision to mate with Grom and live as his queen didn’t surprise me. After all, I am eighteen years old, an adult, and can take care of myself. Besides, she’s just a swim away. “She keeps picture frames at her house though. She could still enjoy them while she and Grom come to shore to-“ “Okay, ew. Don’t say it. That’s where I draw the line.” Galen laughs and takes off his shoes. I forget all about Mom and Grom. Galen, barefoot in the sand, wearing an Armani tux. What more could a girl ask for? “Don’t look at me like that, angelfish,” he says, his voice husky. “Disappointing your grandfather is the last thing I want to do.” My stomach cartwheels. Swallowing doesn’t help. “I can’t admire you, even from afar?” I can’t quite squeeze enough innocence in there to make it believable, to make it sound like I wasn’t thinking the same thing he was. Clearing his throat, he nods. “Let’s get on with this.” He closes the distance between us, making foot-size potholes with his stride. Grabbing my hand, he pulls me to the water. At the edge of the wet sand, just out of reach of the most ambitious wave, we stop. “You’re sure?” he says again. “More than sure,” I tell him, giddiness swimming through my veins like a sneaking eel. Images of the conference center downtown spring up in my mind. Red and white balloons, streamers, a loud, cheesy DJ yelling over the starting chorus of the next song. Kids grinding against one another on the dance floor to lure the chaperones’ attention away from a punch bowl just waiting to be spiked. Dresses spilling over with skin, matching corsages, awkward gaits due to six-inch heels. The prom Chloe and I dreamed of. But the memories I wanted to make at that prom died with Chloe. There could never be any joy in that prom without her. I couldn’t walk through those doors and not feel that something was missing. A big something. No, this is where I belong now. No balloons, no loud music, no loaded punch bowl. Just the quiet and the beach and Galen. This is my new prom. And for some reason, I think Chloe would approve.
Anna Banks (Of Triton (The Syrena Legacy, #2))
Home? What is home? Home is where a house is that you come back to when the rainy season is about to begin, to wait until the next dry season comes around. Home is where your woman is, that you come back to in the intervals between a greater love - the only real love - the lust for riches buried in the earth, that are your own if you can find them. Perhaps you do not call it home, even to yourself. Perhaps you call them 'my house,' 'my woman,' What if there was another 'my house,' 'my woman,' before this one? It makes no difference. This woman is enough for now. Perhaps the guns sounded too loud at Anzio or at Omaha Beach, at Guadalcanal or at Okinawa. Perhaps when they stilled again some kind of strength had been blasted from you that other men still have. And then again perhaps it was some kind of weakness that other men still have. What is strength, what is weakness, what is loyalty, what is perfidy? The guns taught only one thing, but they taught it well: of what consequence is life? Of what consequence is a man? And, therefore, of what consequence if he tramples love in one place and goes to find it in the next? The little moment that he has, let him be at peace, far from the guns and all that remind him of them. So the man who once was Bill Taylor has come back to his house, in the dusk, in the mountains, in Anahuac. ("The Moon Of Montezuma")
Cornell Woolrich (The Fantastic Stories of Cornell Woolrich (Alternatives SF Series))
At that sound the bent shape of the king sprang suddenly erect. Tall and proud he seemed again; and rising in his stirrups he cried in a loud voice, more clear than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before: Arise, arise, Riders of Theoden! Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter! spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor! With that he seized a great horn from Guthlaf his banner-bearer, and he blew such a blast upon it that it burst asunder. And straightway all the horns in the host were lifted up in music, and the blowing of the horns of Rohan in that hour was like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains. Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor! Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away. Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it. After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them. Eomer rode there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first eored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Theoden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Orome the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. his golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3))
With a sudden flash of anger, she blurted, "Lash wasn't impotent, all right? He wasn't ... impotent-" The temperature in the room plummeted so fast and so far, her breath came out in clouds. And what she saw in the mirror made her swing around and take a step back from John: His blue eyes glowed with an unholy light and his upper lip curled up to reveal fangs that were sharp and so long they looked like daggers. Objects all around the room began to vibrate: the lamps on the bed stands, the clothes on their hangers, the mirror on the wall. The collective rattling crescendoed to a dull roar and she had to steady herself on the bureau or run the risk of being knocked on her ass. The air was alive. Supercharged. Electric. Dangerous. And John was the center of the raging energy, his hands cranking into fists so tight his forearms trembled, his thighs grabbing onto his bones as he sank down into fighting stance. John's mouth stretched wide as his head shot forward on his spine... and he let out a war cry- Sound exploded all around her, so loud she had to cover her ears, so powerful she felt the blast against her face. For a moment, she thought he'd found his voice- except it wasn't vocal cords making that bellowing noise. The glass in the sliders blew out behind him, the sheets shattering into thousands of shards that blasted free of the house, the fragments bouncing on the slate and catching the light like raindrops... Or like tears.
J.R. Ward (Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #8))
I watched the light flicker on the limestone walls until Archer said, "I wish we could go to the movies." I stared at him. "We're in a creepy dungeon. There's a chance I might die in the next few hours. You are going to die in the next few hours. And if you had one wish, it would be to catch a movie?" He shook his head. "That's not what I meant. I wish we weren't like this. You know, demon, demon-hunter. I wish I'd met you in a normal high school, and taken you on normal dates, and like, carried your books or something." Glancing over at me, he squinted and asked, "Is that a thing humans actually do?" "Not outside of 1950s TV shows," I told him, reaching up to touch his hair. He wrapped an arm around me and leaned against the wall, pulling me to his chest. I drew my legs up under me and rested my cheek on his collarbone. "So instead of stomping around forests hunting ghouls, you want to go to the movies and school dances." "Well,maybe we could go on the occasional ghoul hunt," he allowed before pressing a kiss to my temple. "Keep things interesting." I closed my eyes. "What else would we do if we were regular teenagers?" "Hmm...let's see.Well,first of all, I'd need to get some kind of job so I could afford to take you on these completely normal dates. Maybe I could stock groceries somewhere." The image of Archer in a blue apron, putting boxes of Nilla Wafers on a shelf at Walmart was too bizarre to even contemplate, but I went along with it. "We could argue in front of our lockers all dramatically," I said. "That's something I saw a lot at human high schools." He squeezed me in a quick hug. "Yes! Now that sounds like a good time. And then I could come to your house in the middle of the night and play music really loudly under your window until you took me back." I chuckled. "You watch too many movies. Ooh, we could be lab partners!" "Isn't that kind of what we were in Defense?" "Yeah,but in a normal high school, there would be more science, less kicking each other in the face." "Nice." We spent the next few minutes spinning out scenarios like this, including all the sports in which Archer's L'Occhio di Dio skills would come in handy, and starring in school plays.By the time we were done, I was laughing, and I realized that, for just a little while, I'd managed to forget what a huge freaking mess we were in. Which had probably been the point. Once our laughter died away, the dread started seeping back in. Still, I tried to joke when I said, "You know, if I do live through this, I'm gonna be covered in funky tattoos like the Vandy. You sure you want to date the Illustrated Woman, even if it's just for a little while?" He caught my chin and raised my eyes to his. "Trust me," he said softly, "you could have a giant tiger tattooed on your face, and I'd still want to be with you." "Okay,seriously,enough with the swoony talk," I told him, leaning in closer. "I like snarky, mean Archer." He grinned. "In that case, shut up, Mercer.
Rachel Hawkins (Demonglass (Hex Hall, #2))
You'll stay," he said firmly. "But-" He crossed his arms. "Do I look like a man in the mood to be argued with?" She stared at him mutinously. "If you run," he warned, "I will catch you." Sophie eyed the distance between them, then tried to judge the distance back to My Cottage.If he stopped to pull on his clothing she might have a chance of escaping, but if he didn't... "Sophie," he said, "I can practically see the steam coming out of your ears. Stop taxing your brain with useless mathematical computations and do as I asked." One of her feet twitched. Whether it was itching to run home or merely turn around, she'd never know. "Now," he ordered. With a loud sigh and grumble, Sophie crossed her arms and turned around to stare at a knothole in the tree trunk in front of her as if her very life depended on it The inferal man wasn't being particularly quiet as he went about his business, and she couldn't seem to keep herself from listening to and trying to identify every sound that rustled and splashed behind her.Now he was emerging from the water, now he was reaching for his breeches, now he was... It was no use.She had a dreadfully wicked imagination, and there was no getting around it. He should have just let her return to the house. Instead she was forced to wait, utterly mortified, while he dressed. Her skin felt like it was on fire, and she was certain her cheeks must be eight different shades of red. A gentleman would have let her weasle out of her embarrassment and hole up in her room back at the house for at least three days in hopes that he'd just forget about the entire affair.
Julia Quinn (An Offer From a Gentleman (Bridgertons, #3))
Until… Chase stood. The restaurant, which had been a loud rumble, suddenly quieted. Everything after that happened in slow motion. All of our family and friends faded away as the man I love got down on one knee. I heard and saw nothing but him. “I had this whole thing to say planned out in my head, but the minute I saw your face, I completely forgot every word. So I’m just going to wing it here. Reese Elizabeth Annesley, since the first time I laid eyes on you on that bus in middle school, I’ve been crazy about you.” I smiled and shook my head. “You got the crazy part right.” Chase took my hand, and it was then I noticed his was shaking. My cocky, always-confident bossman was nervous. If it was possible, I fell a little more in love with him in that moment. I squeezed his hand, offering reassurance, and he steadied. That’s what we did for each other. I was the balance to his unsteadiness. He was the courage to my fear. He continued. “Maybe it wasn’t a school bus or middle school, but I fell hard for you in the hall, that much I’m sure of. From the moment I saw your beautiful face light up that dark hallway a year ago, I was done. I didn’t even care that we were both on dates with other people, I just needed to be closer to you any way I could. Since then, you’ve distracted me every day whether you’re near me or not. You brought me back to life, and there’s nothing I want to do more than build that life with you. I want to be the man to look under your bed every night and wake up next to you in it every morning. You’ve changed me. When I’m with you, I’m myself, only a better version, because you make me want to be a better man. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I want it to start yesterday. So, please tell me you’ll be my wife because I’ve already been waiting for you my entire life, and I don’t want to wait any more.” I pressed my forehead to his as tears streamed down my face. “You know I’m going to be even crazier once we live together, and probably even worse when we have our own family. Three locks might turn to seven, and doing my check in that big house of yours is going to take a long time. It might get old and tiring. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to change any of that.” Chase reached behind me and bunched my hair into his hand, cupping it along with the nape of my neck. “I don’t want you to change. Not any of it. I love everything about you. There’s not a single thing I’d change if I could. Well, except your last name.
Vi Keeland (Bossman)
At childhood’s end, the houses petered out into playing fields, the factory, allotments kept, like mistresses, by kneeling married men, the silent railway line, the hermit’s caravan, till you came at last to the edge of the woods. It was there that I first clapped eyes on the wolf. He stood in a clearing, reading his verse out loud in his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw, red wine staining his bearded jaw. What big ears he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth! In the interval, I made quite sure he spotted me, sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif, and bought me a drink, my first. You might ask why. Here’s why. Poetry. The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods, away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place lit by the eyes of owls. I crawled in his wake, my stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer snagged on twig and branch, murder clues. I lost both shoes but got there, wolf’s lair, better beware. Lesson one that night, breath of the wolf in my ear, was the love poem. I clung till dawn to his thrashing fur, for what little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf? Then I slid from between his heavy matted paws and went in search of a living bird – white dove – which flew, straight, from my hands to his hope mouth. One bite, dead. How nice, breakfast in bed, he said, licking his chops. As soon as he slept, I crept to the back of the lair, where a whole wall was crimson, gold, aglow with books. Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head, warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood. But then I was young – and it took ten years in the woods to tell that a mushroom stoppers the mouth of a buried corpse, that birds are the uttered thought of trees, that a greying wolf howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out, season after season, same rhyme, same reason. I took an axe to a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon to see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf as he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat, and saw the glistening, virgin white of my grandmother’s bones. I filled his old belly with stones. I stitched him up. Out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing, all alone. Little Red-Cap
Carol Ann Duffy (The World's Wife)
SELF-HELP FOR FELLOW REFUGEES If your name suggests a country where bells might have been used for entertainment, or to announce the entrances and exits of the seasons and the birthdays of gods and demons, it's probably best to dress in plain clothes when you arrive in the United States. And try not to talk too loud. If you happen to have watched armed men beat and drag your father out the front door of your house and into the back of an idling truck, before your mother jerked you from the threshold and buried your face in her skirt folds, try not to judge your mother too harshly. Don't ask her what she thought she was doing, turning a child's eyes away from history and toward that place all human aching starts. And if you meet someone in your adopted country and think you see in the other's face an open sky, some promise of a new beginning, it probably means you're standing too far. Or if you think you read in the other, as in a book whose first and last pages are missing, the story of your own birthplace, a country twice erased, once by fire, once by forgetfulness, it probably means you're standing too close. In any case, try not to let another carry the burden of your own nostalgia or hope. And if you're one of those whose left side of the face doesn't match the right, it might be a clue looking the other way was a habit your predecessors found useful for survival. Don't lament not being beautiful. Get used to seeing while not seeing. Get busy remembering while forgetting. Dying to live while not wanting to go on. Very likely, your ancestors decorated their bells of every shape and size with elaborate calendars and diagrams of distant star systems, but with no maps for scattered descendants. And I bet you can't say what language your father spoke when he shouted to your mother from the back of the truck, "Let the boy see!" Maybe it wasn't the language you used at home. Maybe it was a forbidden language. Or maybe there was too much screaming and weeping and the noise of guns in the streets. It doesn't matter. What matters is this: The kingdom of heaven is good. But heaven on earth is better. Thinking is good. But living is better. Alone in your favorite chair with a book you enjoy is fine. But spooning is even better.
Li-Young Lee (Behind My Eyes: Poems)