“
Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell,' Holly advised him. 'That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky."
"She's drunk," Joe Bell informed me.
"Moderately," Holly confessed....Holly lifted her martini. "Let's wish the Doc luck, too," she said, touching her glass against mine. "Good luck: and believe me, dearest Doc -- it's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear.
”
”
Truman Capote (Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories)
“
I don't mean to get all religious here, but I'm pretty sure key lime martinis (with a graham cracker & sugar rim) are proof that Jesus loves us.
”
”
Jen Lancaster
“
But I feel more powerful than ever. And more peaceful too. I am living more truthfully than I’ve ever lived. I may not be the exact portrait of womanhood that my teenage self envisaged (sophisticated and slim; wearing black dresses and drinking martinis and meeting men at book launches and exhibition openings). I may not have all the exact things I thought I’d have at thirty. Or all the things I’ve been told I should have. But I feel content; grateful for every morning that I wake up with another day on this earth and another chance to do good and feel good and make others feel good too.
”
”
Dolly Alderton (Everything I Know About Love)
“
That's the thing about love, though. If you never open yourself up to the risk of being hurt, you'll never give someone the chance to get close enough to love you back.
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Faking Ms. Right (Dirty Martini Running Club, #1))
“
I didn’t want to be somebody’s tonight. Not even his. I wanted to be someone’s tomorrow.
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Marrying Mr. Wrong (Dirty Martini Running Club, #3))
“
I think we need a little more rallying around the dumpee. If you were a woman and I’d told you that the third guy in eighteen months had broken up with me, right now we’d be drinking lemon drop martinis and giving each other female empowerment pep talks about how we don’t need a man in our lives to feel complete. And then we’d watch The Notebook and drool over Ryan Gosling.”
“Sorry, babe. But when they handed out best friends you drew the straw with a penis attached. That means no Ryan Gosling.
”
”
Julie James (Love Irresistibly (FBI/US Attorney, #4))
“
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” ~ Lao Tzu
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Falling for My Enemy (Dirty Martini Running Club, #2))
“
He snapped some icicles off a branch to make me a martini. He came back to the car, long legs lifting high in the snow, and there was snow in his hair and on his eyelashes and I remembered that I love him. It felt like something breaking with a little pain and spilling warm. I hope the parka
”
”
Thomas Harris (Red Dragon (Hannibal Lecter, #1))
“
I was sent to a school with bosses for teachers- no Twain, only cane; check your dick you harry, no Dickens either, No Tom Sawyers no David Copperfields only Webster, master it for grammar, the Wren with a dash of Martini-Drink deep.
”
”
Aporva Kala (Life... Love... Kumbh...)
“
A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” ~ Elbert Hubbard
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Falling for My Enemy (Dirty Martini Running Club, #2))
“
And yet it was true: the responsibility was huge, but there is nothing about being a father that I don’t love. I even found the toddler tantrums weirdly charming. You think you’re being difficult, my little sausage? Have I ever told you about the time I drank eight vodka martinis, took all my clothes off in front of a film crew and then broke my manager’s nose?
”
”
Elton John (Me)
“
When I’m a single woman in London I will be extremely elegant and slim and wear black dresses and drink martinis and will only meet men at book launches and at exhibition openings.
”
”
Dolly Alderton (Everything I Know About Love)
“
Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” ~ Rumi
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Falling for My Enemy (Dirty Martini Running Club, #2))
“
That’s the thing about love, though. If you never open yourself up to the risk of being hurt, you’ll never give someone the chance to get close enough to love you back.
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Faking Ms. Right (Dirty Martini Running Club, #1))
“
Soul, love, joy and natural beauty shines first from within. Make time for quiet reflective moments. Be still and know there is more than just Botox and pink martinis for women over 40.
”
”
Machel Shull
“
When she says margarita she means daiquiri.
When she says quixotic she means mercurial.
And when she says, "I'll never speak to you again,"
she means, "Put your arms around me from behind
as I stand disconsolate at the window."
He's supposed to know that.
When a man loves a woman he is in New York and she is in Virginia
or he is in Boston, writing, and she is in New York, reading,
or she is wearing a sweater and sunglasses in Balboa Park and he
is raking leaves in Ithaca
or he is driving to East Hampton and she is standing disconsolate
at the window overlooking the bay
where a regatta of many-colored sails is going on
while he is stuck in traffic on the Long Island Expressway.
When a woman loves a man it is one ten in the morning
she is asleep he is watching the ball scores and eating pretzels
drinking lemonade
and two hours later he wakes up and staggers into bed
where she remains asleep and very warm.
When she says tomorrow she means in three or four weeks.
When she says, "We're talking about me now,"
he stops talking. Her best friend comes over and says,
"Did somebody die?"
When a woman loves a man, they have gone
to swim naked in the stream
on a glorious July day
with the sound of the waterfall like a chuckle
of water rushing over smooth rocks,
and there is nothing alien in the universe.
Ripe apples fall about them.
What else can they do but eat?
When he says, "Ours is a transitional era,"
"that's very original of you," she replies,
dry as the martini he is sipping.
They fight all the time
It's fun
What do I owe you?
Let's start with an apology
Ok, I'm sorry, you dickhead.
A sign is held up saying "Laughter."
It's a silent picture.
"I've been fucked without a kiss," she says,
"and you can quote me on that,"
which sounds great in an English accent.
One year they broke up seven times and threatened to do it
another nine times.
When a woman loves a man, she wants him to meet her at the
airport in a foreign country with a jeep.
When a man loves a woman he's there. He doesn't complain that
she's two hours late
and there's nothing in the refrigerator.
When a woman loves a man, she wants to stay awake.
She's like a child crying
at nightfall because she didn't want the day to end.
When a man loves a woman, he watches her sleep, thinking:
as midnight to the moon is sleep to the beloved.
A thousand fireflies wink at him.
The frogs sound like the string section
of the orchestra warming up.
The stars dangle down like earrings the shape of grapes.
”
”
David Lehman (When a Woman Loves a Man: Poems)
“
Dear Jim."
The writing grew suddenly blurred and misty. And she had lost him again--had lost him again! At the sight of the familiar childish nickname all the hopelessness of her bereavement came over her afresh, and she put out her hands in blind desperation, as though the weight of the earth-clods that lay above him were pressing on her heart.
Presently she took up the paper again and went on reading:
"I am to be shot at sunrise to-morrow. So if I am to keep at all my promise to tell you everything, I must keep it now. But, after all, there is not much need of explanations between you and me. We always understood each other without many words, even when we were little things.
"And so, you see, my dear, you had no need to break your heart over that old story of the blow. It was a hard hit, of course; but I have had plenty of others as hard, and yet I have managed to get over them,--even to pay back a few of them,--and here I am still, like the mackerel in our nursery-book (I forget its name), 'Alive and kicking, oh!' This is my last kick, though; and then, tomorrow morning, and--'Finita la Commedia!' You and I will translate that: 'The variety show is over'; and will give thanks to the gods that they have had, at least, so much mercy on us. It is not much, but it is something; and for this and all other blessings may we be truly thankful!
"About that same tomorrow morning, I want both you and Martini to understand clearly that I am quite happy and satisfied, and could ask no better thing of Fate. Tell that to Martini as a message from me; he is a good fellow and a good comrade, and he will understand. You see, dear, I know that the stick-in-the-mud people are doing us a good turn and themselves a bad one by going back to secret trials and executions so soon, and I know that if you who are left stand together steadily and hit hard, you will see great things. As for me, I shall go out into the courtyard with as light a heart as any child starting home for the holidays. I have done my share of the work, and this death-sentence is the proof that I have done it thoroughly. They kill me because they are afraid of me; and what more can any man's heart desire?
"It desires just one thing more, though. A man who is going to die has a right to a personal fancy, and mine is that you should see why I have always been such a sulky brute to you, and so slow to forget old scores. Of course, though, you understand why, and I tell you only for the pleasure of writing the words. I loved you, Gemma, when you were an ugly little girl in a gingham frock, with a scratchy tucker and your hair in a pig-tail down your back; and I love you still. Do you remember that day when I kissed your hand, and when you so piteously begged me 'never to do that again'? It was a scoundrelly trick to play, I know; but you must forgive that; and now I kiss the paper where I have written your name. So I have kissed you twice, and both times without your consent.
"That is all. Good-bye, my dear"
Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live
Or if I die
”
”
Ethel Lilian Voynich
“
ll we want is to succumb to a single kiss
that will contain us like a marathon
with no finish line, and if so, that we land
like newspapers before sunrise, halcyon
mornings arrived like blue martinis. I am
learning the steps to a foreign song: her mind was torpedo, and her body was storm,
a kind of Wow. All we want is a metropolis
of Sundays, an empire of hand-holding
and park benches? She says, "Leave it all up to me.
”
”
Major Jackson (Holding Company: Poems)
“
It began to falter not when the book publishers who loved books gave way to those who preferred profits to reading. It happened when publishers and editors cut back on their drinking. If there is one national flower in book publishing, it is the martini.
”
”
Al Silverman
“
See, the thing is, I don’t do flings. I don’t mess around, I don’t have affairs, I don’t usually go out on a date with a person unless they’re someone I think I could get serious about. I just don’t operate that way, because I’m not very casual about my love life. Or my sex life. Those aren’t separate things for me.
”
”
Elle Parker (Like Coffee and Doughnuts (Dino Martini Mysteries, #1))
“
If someone asked me if I liked him, Yes!
If someone asked me if it was love, Jeez, no!
Being offered sex with him, I’d say ‘hell, yeah!’.
”
”
Kavipriya Moorthy (Dirty Martini)
“
Mathematics may not teach us how to add love or how to minus hate. But it gives every reason to hope that every problem has a solution.” ~ Anonymous
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Falling for My Enemy (Dirty Martini Running Club, #2))
“
My friends all raised their glasses. “To love. Whether between friends, or lovers, or both, may we all experience it in abundance.
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Falling for My Enemy (Dirty Martini Running Club, #2))
“
I am having vodka martinis, sans olives.
”
”
Kirsty Greenwood (The Love of My Afterlife)
“
Math is like love—a simple idea, but it can get complicated.” ~ Anonymous
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Falling for My Enemy (Dirty Martini Running Club, #2))
“
The advantage of having no family ties, no children, no husband or lover, is that it makes you invulnerable. Every person you love is a weakness in your armor.
”
”
Tess Gerritsen (The Spy Coast (The Martini Club, #1))
“
It occurred to me, not exactly for the first time, that psychogeography didn't have much to do with the actual experience of walking. It was a nice idea, a clever idea, an art project, a conceit, but it had very little to do with any real walking, with any real experience of walking. And it confirmed for me what I'd really known all along, that walking isn't much good as a theoretical experience. You can dress it up any way you like, but walking remains resolutely simple, basic, analog. That's why I love it and love doing it. And in that respect--stay with me on this--it's not entirely unlike a martini. Sure you can add things to martinis, like chocolate or an olive stuffed with blue cheese or, God forbid, cotton candy, and similarly you can add things to your walks--constraints, shapes, notions of the mapping of utopian spaces--but you don't need to. And really, why would you? Why spoil a good drink? Why spoil a good walk?
”
”
Geoff Nicholson (The Lost Art of Walking: The History, Science, and Literature of Pedestrianism)
“
Not all at once, but gradually, over the months, another revelation came to me: None of that other stuff, much as I'd loved it, was what made a marriage. Not restaurant dinners or romantic vacations. Not walks on the beach or visits to wine country in the Boxster. Not oysters and martinis or moonlight over the Bay Bridge."
"This was a marriage. As uncomfortable and inconvenient and devastating as it might be to live as we did now, we inhabited this place together.
”
”
Joyce Maynard (The Best of Us)
“
Some car had hit it after all, because it hadn’t had the courage to honor its own correct instinct. And I began to cry because I had this thought about people, that they do this all the time, deny the wise voice inside them telling them the right thing to do because it is different. I remembered once seeing a tea party some little girls had set up outside, mismatched china, decorations of a plucked pansy blossom and a seashell and a shiny penny and a small circle of red berries and a fern, pressed wetly into the wooden table, the damp outline around it a beautiful bonus. They didn’t consult the Martha Stewart guide for entertainment and gulp a martini before their guests arrived. They pulled ideas from their hearts and minds about the things that gave them pleasure, and they laid out an offering with loving intent. It was a small Garden of Eden, the occupants making something out of what they saw was theirs. Out of what they truly saw.
”
”
Elizabeth Berg (The Pull of the Moon)
“
Listen, sometimes the people we love disappoint us,” Cash said, setting down the pizza. Turning, he placed a hand on Dylon’s shoulder. “They make choices we don’t agree with, or do stupid things, but that doesn’t mean you give up on them.
”
”
Gina Drayer (Martinis After Dark)
“
Ups and Down. Breakups and makeups. Knits, purls and a ton of dropped stitches. This was why I loved these women. They'd stuck with me through it all. And when life gave us lemons, we took those darn lemons, made lemon drop martinis, and danced.
”
”
Ginger Li (The Dating Pact (Knitting Club Gals, #1))
“
That's the funny thing about doubt." "What do you mean?" "It makes you feel rotten as hell. But if anyone bothered to think about it, it's a symptom of love. It means it matters to you. It's the brain questioning the wisdom of the heart. It doesn't mean the heart doesn't know better all along, it only means the brain doesn't understand how.
”
”
Suzanne Rindell (Three-Martini Lunch)
“
I have a friend who each year on the anniversary of his wife's death, goes to her grave with some friends where they ritually pour Bombay gin on her grave because she liked martinis. As frivolous as that may seem, there is something in libation, a pouring out that symbolizes a pouring out of the soul, a pouring out of love, of remembrance. There is extravagance in my friend's ritual because gin, especially Bombay gin, is expensive; it's not something that one normally pours into the ground. In the annual ritual of spilling gin on the grave there is also the dimension of community. My friend goes with others who knew his wife, who laughed with her, who celebrated with her, who worshiped with her. They together make the pilgrimage. Therefore there is a further sense of community, of bonding among them as they make the annual pilgrimage, perhaps one member less through death, perhaps one member absent because he or she has moved to another place, or is ill. Still they go together, however many they are, to celebrate this person's life, to tell stories, to pour out gin, to pray.
”
”
Murray Bodo (The Road to Mount Subasio)
“
The spiking temps spiked a fever for cool commons,
so I made a plate of tapenade, bruschetta, and prosciutto,
with orange creamsicle martinis flowing like a
Zen fountain. It was hard for me to believe
that I woke up that morning fighting back tears
for no reason and all kinds of reasons. It is still...
hard for me to believe that you have become no reason,
at all.
”
”
Heather Angelika Dooley (Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream)
“
If I had three lives, I’d marry you in two.
And the other? That life over there
at Starbucks, sitting alone, writing — a memoir,
maybe a novel or this poem. No kids, probably,
a small apartment with a view of the river,
and books — lots of books and time to read.
Friends to laugh with; a man sometimes,
for a weekend, to remember what skin feels like
when it’s alive. I’m thinner in that life, vegan,
practice yoga. I go to art films, farmers markets,
drink martinis in swingy skirts and big jewelry.
I vacation on the Maine coast and wear a flannel shirt
weekend guy left behind, loving the smell of sweat
and aftershave more than I do him. I walk the beach
at sunrise, find perfect shell spirals and study pockmarks
water makes in sand. And I wonder sometimes
if I’ll ever find you.
”
”
Sarah Russell
“
She was the first close friend who I felt like I’d really chosen. We weren’t in each other’s lives because of any obligation to the past or convenience of the present. We had no shared history and we had no reason to spend all our time to gether. But we did. Our friendship intensified as all our friends had children – she, like me, was unconvinced about having kids. And she, like me, found herself in a relationship in her early thirties where they weren’t specifically working towards starting a family.
By the time I was thirty-four, Sarah was my only good friend who hadn’t had a baby. Every time there was another pregnancy announcement from a friend, I’d just text the words ‘And another one!’ and she’d know what I meant.
She became the person I spent most of my free time with other than Andy, because she was the only friend who had any free time. She could meet me for a drink without planning it a month in advance. Our friendship made me feel liberated as well as safe. I looked at her life choices with no sympathy or concern for her. If I could admire her decision to remain child-free, I felt encouraged to admire my own. She made me feel normal. As long as I had our friendship, I wasn’t alone and I had reason to believe I was on the right track.
We arranged to meet for dinner in Soho after work on a Friday. The waiter took our drinks order and I asked for our usual – two Dirty Vodka Martinis.
‘Er, not for me,’ she said. ‘A sparkling water, thank you.’ I was ready to make a joke about her uncharacteristic abstinence, which she sensed, so as soon as the waiter left she said: ‘I’m pregnant.’
I didn’t know what to say. I can’t imagine the expression on my face was particularly enthusiastic, but I couldn’t help it – I was shocked and felt an unwarranted but intense sense of betrayal. In a delayed reaction, I stood up and went to her side of the table to hug her, unable to find words of congratulations. I asked what had made her change her mind and she spoke in vagaries about it ‘just being the right time’ and wouldn’t elaborate any further and give me an answer. And I needed an answer. I needed an answer more than anything that night. I needed to know whether she’d had a realization that I hadn’t and, if so, I wanted to know how to get it.
When I woke up the next day, I realized the feeling I was experiencing was not anger or jealousy or bitterness – it was grief. I had no one left. They’d all gone. Of course, they hadn’t really gone, they were still my friends and I still loved them. But huge parts of them had disappeared and there was nothing they could do to change that. Unless I joined them in their spaces, on their schedules, with their families, I would barely see them.
And I started dreaming of another life, one completely removed from all of it. No more children’s birthday parties, no more christenings, no more barbecues in the suburbs. A life I hadn’t ever seriously contemplated before. I started dreaming of what it would be like to start all over again. Because as long as I was here in the only London I knew – middle-class London, corporate London, mid-thirties London, married London – I was in their world. And I knew there was a whole other world out there.
”
”
Dolly Alderton (Good Material)
“
She had always understood that love could have an intense physical effect; could fill a space somewhere in the chest, could turn knees weak, could raise the pulse; could intoxicate, just as could a strong martini or a glass of champagne. Could, she thought, and would…but only if you allowed it, only if you opened whatever portals of the heart needed to be opened. And some people, of course, found it difficult to do that.
”
”
Alexander McCall Smith (At the Reunion Buffet (Isabel Dalhousie, #10.5))
“
immediately, how any task other than keeping Toby safe, keeping Toby healthy, seemed like a diversion, or an interruption. She understood with some remorse that if one of her childless friends insisted on coming over during bedtime for martinis and conversation, it wouldn’t feel exactly unwelcome, but it would feel a little irrelevant. Like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain but then stopping for tea. She realized that her old friends had not abandoned her, or at least had not done so in any volitional way; it was just that their attention had been seized, their love redirected, the purpose of each day reoriented, unavoidably and involuntarily. She finally comprehended parenthood’s strange paradox: that it was deeply annihilating while at the same time also somehow deeply comforting. It was both soul-devouring and soul-filling.
”
”
Nathan Hill (Wellness)
“
This concept upends the way most people think about their subjective experience of life. We tend to place a lot of emphasis on our circumstances, assuming that what happens to us (or fails to happen) determines how we feel. From this perspective, the small-scale details of how you spend your day aren’t that important, because what matters are the large-scale outcomes, such as whether or not you get a promotion or move to that nicer apartment. According to Gallagher, decades of research contradict this understanding. Our brains instead construct our worldview based on what we pay attention to. If you focus on a cancer diagnosis, you and your life become unhappy and dark, but if you focus instead on an evening martini, you and your life become more pleasant—even though the circumstances in both scenarios are the same. As Gallagher summarizes: “Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on.
”
”
Cal Newport (Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World)
“
Stormy, tell me about where you were when John F. Kennedy died.”
“It was a Friday. I was baking a pineapple upside-down cake for my bridge club. I put it in the oven and then I saw the news and forgot all about the cake and nearly burned the house down. We had to have the kitchen repainted because of all the soot.” She fusses with her hair. “He was a saint, that man. A prince. If I’d met him in my heyday, we really could’ve had some fun. You know, I flirted with a Kennedy once at an airport. He sidled up to me at the bar and bought me a very dry gin martini. Airports used to be so very much more glamorous. People got dressed up to travel. Young people on airplanes these days, they wear those horrible sheepskin boots and pajama pants and it’s an eyesore. I wouldn’t go out for the mail dressed like that.”
“Which Kennedy?” I ask.
“Hmm? Oh, I don’t know. He had the Kennedy chin, anyway.”
I bite my lip to keep from smiling. Stormy and her escapades.
”
”
Jenny Han (P.S. I Still Love You (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #2))
“
In short: all the woo is keeping us from dealing with our poo.
Instead of medicating with Marlboros and martinis, we might be doing it with metaphysics and macrobiotics. And unlike boozing it up to drown our pain, the side effects of neurotic psychoanalyzing or forced flexibility are difficult to spot. We don't end up in rehab from too much meditation or therapy -- we just end up in more workshops. Think of that friend you have who has a not-so-loving relationship with her body, but because she eats "health foods" and talks a good "body positive" talk about just wanting to be strong, we cheer her on. But really, she's got self-destructive motivations and a mild eating disorder disguised as a holistic wellness routine. On the surface, positivity and wellness goalkeeping present so nicely that it can be hard to see when healthy actions are hooked to unhealthy ambitions.
Like too much of anything, spiritual bypassing can numb us out from our Truth -- which is where the healing answers wait to be found.
”
”
Danielle LaPorte
“
Bruce and Hemingway were with the advance fighting units that headed into the center of the city and together they climbed to the top of the Arc de Triomphe to look across all of Paris. How magnificent it must have felt to be there at that moment. Hemingway suggested that they go straight to the Ritz Hotel. Paris was the city my grandfather loved more than any other in the world. He was proud to assist the OSS in the city’s liberation and the liberation of the Ritz Hotel became one of his most memorable moveable feasts. When he arrived at the Ritz with Colonel Bruce and their band of irregulars, the hotel manager greeted them joyously and asked Hemingway if there was anything he could get for them, to which Hemingway replied, “How about seventy-three dry martinis?
”
”
Ernest Hemingway (For Whom the Bell Tolls)
“
Jack coughed slightly and offered his hand. “Hi, uh. I’m Jack.”
Kim took it. “Jack what?”
“Huh?”
“Your last name, silly.”
“Jackson.”
She blinked at him. “Your name is Jack Jackson?”
He blushed. “No, uh, my first name’s Rhett, but I hate it, so…”
He gestured to the chair and she sat. Her dress rode up several inches, exposing pleasing long lines of creamy skin. “Well, Jack, what’s your field of study?”
“Biological Engineering, Genetics, and Microbiology. Post-doc. I’m working on a research project at the institute.”
“Really? Oh, uh, my apple martini’s getting a little low.”
“I’ve got that, one second.” He scurried to the bar and bought her a fresh one. She sipped and managed to make it look not only seductive but graceful as well.
“What do you want to do after you’re done with the project?” Kim continued.
“Depends on what I find.”
She sent him a simmering smile. “What are you looking for?”
Immediately, Jack’s eyes lit up and his posture straightened. “I started the project with the intention of learning how to increase the reproduction of certain endangered species. I had interest in the idea of cloning, but it proved too difficult based on the research I compiled, so I went into animal genetics and cellular biology. It turns out the animals with the best potential to combine genes were reptiles because their ability to lay eggs was a smoother transition into combining the cells to create a new species, or one with a similar ancestry that could hopefully lead to rebuilding extinct animals via surrogate birth or in-vitro fertilization. We’re on the edge of breaking that code, and if we do, it would mean that we could engineer all kinds of life and reverse what damage we’ve done to the planet’s ecosystem.”
Kim stared. “Right. Would you excuse me for a second?”
She wiggled off back to her pack of friends by the bar. Judging by the sniggering and the disgusted glances he was getting, she wasn’t coming back.
Jack sighed and finished off his beer, massaging his forehead. “Yes, brilliant move. You blinded her with science. Genius, Jack.”
He ordered a second one and finished it before he felt smallish hands on his shoulders and a pair of soft lips on his cheek. He turned to find Kamala had returned, her smile unnaturally bright in the black lights glowing over the room. “So…how did it go with Kim?”
He shot her a flat look. “You notice the chair is empty.”
Kamala groaned. “You talked about the research project, didn’t you?”
“No!” She glared at him.
“…maybe…”
“You’re so useless, Jack.” She paused and then tousled his hair a bit. “Cheer up. The night’s still young. I’m not giving up on you.”
He smiled in spite of himself. “Yet.”
Her brown eyes flashed. “Never.
”
”
Kyoko M. (Of Cinder and Bone (Of Cinder and Bone, #1))
“
Before dinner each night the two leaders, Hopkins, and various other members of the president’s official family gathered for cocktails in the Red Room. Roosevelt sat by a tray of bottles and mixed the cocktails himself. This was a cherished part of the president’s daily routine, his “children’s hour,” as he sometimes called it, when he let the day’s tensions and stresses slip away. “He loved the ceremony of making the drinks,” said Churchill’s daughter Mary Soames; “it was rather like, ‘Look, I can do it.’ It was formidable. And you knew you were supposed to just hand him your glass, and not reach for anything else. It was a lovely performance.” Roosevelt did not take drink orders, but improvised new and eccentric concoctions, variations on the whiskey sour, Tom Collins, or old-fashioned. The drinks he identified as “martinis” were mixed with too much vermouth, and sometimes contaminated with foreign ingredients such as fruit juice or rum. Churchill, who preferred straight whiskey or brandy, accepted Roosevelt’s mysterious potions gracefully and usually drank them without complaint, though Alistair Cooke reported that the prime minister sometimes took them into the bathroom and poured them down the sink.
”
”
Ian W. Toll (Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942)
“
I hope at 50 I'll be dancing like Gianluca Vacchi
Party, whiskey, Bellini, Martini, Bloody Maries
Bad & Boujee, Tutti Fruity booty, type that really moves me
Kundalini rising, energy fill me completely
I hope at 50 I'll be writing books like JK Rowling
Pen and paper take me places, countries far and foreign
Find a cafe up in Edinburgh, write in Scotland
Let the stories in my head come out, bloom and blossom
I hope at 50
I'll be wealthy like Carlos Slim
Buying yachts and mansions and my mother shiny things
Encrusted diamond dial on a new Patek Philippe
Chill in Maldives but do charity in Ardabil
I hope at 50
I'll be funny like Stephen Colbert
Cracking witty jokes, making everyone laugh in tears
Laughter it goes round and round like a carousel
Chronic comic sonic sounds of haha everywhere
I hope at 50
I'll be stoic like Robert De Niro
Zeno school of thought put an end to my evil ego
I hope at 50
I'll be fit as The Rock, Dwayne Johnson
Hard rock abs to be paired with an even harder mindset
I hope at 50,
I'll be wise like Denzel Washington
Wisdom, knowledge and the faith of God under my skin
I hope at 50,
I'll find real love like George Clooney
Amal Alamuddin clone is the type that really moves me
”
”
Soroosh Shahrivar (Letter 19)
“
MET therapists build up motivation by encouraging their patients to talk about their healthy desires. There’s an old saying: “We don’t believe what we hear, we believe what we say.” For example, if you give someone a lecture on the importance of honesty, then have them play a game in which cheating is rewarded, you’ll probably find that the lecture had little effect. On the other hand, if you ask someone to give you a lecture on the importance of honesty, they will be less likely to cheat when they sit down to play the game. MET is a little manipulative. When the patient makes a statement the therapist likes, referred to as a pro-change statement, such as, “Sometimes I have trouble getting to work on time after a night of heavy drinking,” the therapist responds with positive reinforcement, or a request to “tell me more about that.” On the other hand, if the patient makes an anti-change statement, such as, “I work hard all day, and I deserve to relax in the evening with a few martinis,” the therapist doesn’t argue, because that would provoke more anti-change statements as the debate goes back and forth. Instead, she simply changes the subject. Patients usually don’t notice what’s going on, so the technique slips past their conscious defenses,
”
”
Daniel Z. Lieberman (The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity―and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race)
“
The story we are told of women is not this one.
The story of women is the story of love, of foundering into another. A slight deviation: longing to founder and being unable to. Being left alone in the foundering, and taking things into one's own hands: rat poison, the wheels of a Russian train. Even the smoother and gentler story is still just a modified version of the above. In the demotic, in the key of bougie, it's the promise of love in old age for all the good girls of the world. Hilarious ancient bodies at bath time, husband's palsied hands soaping wife's withered dugs, erection popping out of the bubbles like a pink periscope. I see you! There would be long, hobbledy walks under the plane trees, stories told by a single sideways glance, one word sufficing. Anthill, he'd say; Martini! she'd say; and the thick swim of the old joke would return to them. The laughter, the beautiful reverberations. Then the bleary toddling on to an early-bird dinner, snoozing through a movie hand in hand. Their bodies like knobby sticks wrapped in vellum. One laying the other on the deathbed, feeding the overdose, dying the day after, all heart gone out of the world with the beloved breath. Oh, companionship. Oh, romance. Oh, completion. Forgive her if she believed this would be the way it would go. She had been led to this conclusion by forces greater than she.
Conquers all! All you need is! Is a many-splendored thing! Surrender to!
Like corn rammed down goose necks, this shit they'd swallowed since they were barely old enough to dress themselves in tulle.
The way the old story goes, woman needs an other to complete her circuits, to flick her to fullest blazing.
”
”
Lauren Groff (Fates and Furies)
“
Mostly Gaylord deals with insurance scamming. He takes a car off a lot and the insurance company pays.” “That’s still stealing.” “I guess, but it’s an insurance company, and everyone hates those people.” “I don’t hate them.” “Well, you’re weird,” Lula said. “Do you like the car?” “I love the car.” “There you go. And by the way, you might want to put a dab of concealer on your nose.” Kranski’s Bar was on the corner of Mayberry Street and Ash. This was a neighborhood very similar to the Burg, but the houses were a little larger, the cars were newer, the kitchen appliances were probably stainless. I parked in the small lot beside the tavern, and Lula and I sashayed into the dim interior. Bertie was working behind the bar that stretched across the back of the room. A bunch of high-top tables were scattered around the front of the room. Two women sat at one of the tables, eating nachos and drinking martinis. At one end of the bar four men were drinking beer and watching the overhead television. I spotted Kenny Morris at the other end. He was alone, nursing what looked like whiskey. Bertie caught my eye, tilted his head toward Kenny, and I nodded back. “I guess that’s the guy you’re looking for,” Lula said. “You want to tag-team him?” “No. I just want to talk to him. I’ll go it alone.” Lula hoisted herself onto a barstool by the four men, and I approached Kenny. “Anyone sitting here?” I asked him. “No,” he said. “No one ever sits there.” “Why not?” “The television is at the other end.” “But you’re here.” “Yeah, I’m not into the team television thing.” He looked a lot like his yearbook photograph. His hair was a little longer. He was slim. Medium height. Pleasant looking. Wearing jeans and a blue dress shirt with the top button open and the sleeves rolled. He was staring at my nose with an intensity usually displayed by dermatologists during a skin cancer exam. I couldn’t blame him. I’d smeared some makeup on it, but even in the dark bar it was emitting a red glow. “It’s a condition,” I said. “It comes and goes. It’s not contagious or anything. Do you come in here often?” “Couple times a week.
”
”
Janet Evanovich (Turbo Twenty-Three (Stephanie Plum, #23))
“
I’d never played bridge, but mom and dad had when I was back in high school. I vaguely remembered coming home from the roller rink or football games and finding a dozen people in our living room, all seated at those fold-up card tables. I’d never been sure if my parents had truly loved the card game, or had just used it as an excuse to get together with friends, drink martinis, and eat those little hot dogs rolled up in Crescent rolls that Mom used to bake for parties.
”
”
Libby Howard (The Handyman Homicide (Reckless Camper Cozy Mysteries, #1))
“
Jesus, who suffered the agony of Gethsemane, comes to our aid, and the power of his consolation is such that life is reborn. It is born again in him who died and rose. Death is the decisive event by means of which the Love that saves reveals itself during the hour of the cross as the ‘womb’ of the sorrows of the world. The resurrection marks the victory of Christ over death which generates the exultation due to the splendour of his glory but, at the same time, calls us to a living encounter and courageous witness of him who is the Risen One.
”
”
Carlo Maria Martini (I Believe in Eternal Life (Spiritual Pearls))
“
In a restaurant, I can’t sit with my back to the door. Not sure if I’m OCD, but I excel at organizational skills. Slightly claustrophobic, not crazy about heights. Love martinis but one is enough. Tend to be opinionated at times but good at reigning it in. Love long-legged women, clueless about cars, love trucks. I read several dozen books a year, cook every night, and am uncomfortable if music isn’t playing. Don’t like scat singing or modulation, jazz is my preferred music, and my favorite colors are black and dark blue. Have no problem eating on my own in a restaurant, have to have a dog, and hate clowns and circuses. I’d never heard a Pink Floyd album until 2015, Penderecki’s “Polish Requiem” can make me cry, love trains, and am a confirmed sushi snob. I’ve never wanted to be anyone else, but if I had to choose I’d be Michael Caine.
”
”
Bernie Taupin (Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton, and Me)
“
Winter's coming in the air tonight
Feel it blowing off the park
But that don't mean that we can't take a ride
60 miles to Seaside Heights
I do the same old thing again, because it don't feel old
There's no need to reinvent, you’re sensational
Poetry in motion, swinging with your saxophone in the rain
What's this devotion? I've never felt love, not from pain
Bodies or oceans, you fill mine up with your right rain
Because you're like, poetry in motion
Sippin' on your martini in the band
What’s this devotion? You really seem like a good man
Bodies or oceans, I cling to you like your mainland
Winter's coming in the air tonight
Feel it blowin' off the park
But that don't mean that we can't take a ride
60 miles to Seaside Heights
I want the same old thing again, 'cause it don't feel old
That there's no need to reinvent you, you're sensational
You're poetry in motion, swinging with your saxophone in the rain
What's this devotion? I never felt love, not from pain
Bodies or oceans, you lift mine up with your right rain
Because you're like poetry in motion
Sippin' on your martini in the band
What’s this devotion? You really feel like a good man
Bodies or oceans, mhm
On the cover of life is a picture of a man
Just like she's alive again, and everyone
Doesn't matter if you're a
One, two, three
Because you're like poetry in motion
Swinging with your saxophone in the bar
What's this devotion? Built with metal and with guitar
Bodies or oceans, wash over all my scars,
Because you're like poetry in motion
Swingin' with your martini in the band
What's this emotion? You really seem like a good man
Bodies or oceans, I cling to you like your mainland
”
”
Lana Del Rey
“
That's all I've ever wanted. Good humor and good friends. Wisdom and humility. Confidence. Bravery. An unlabored sense of self. So why was I freaking out now that I'd finally started making some of it real? Somewhere in my young adult life, patriarchal snipers must have hacked into the most sacred and high-security part of my system without my knowledge and tried to rewire me. To make me believe that life would only be meaningful–that I would only be more powerful–as a twenty-something.
But I feel more powerful than ever. And more peaceful too. I am living more truthfully than I've ever lived. I may not be the exact portrait of womanhood that my teenage self envisaged (sophisticated and slim; wearing black dresses and drinking martinis and meeting men at book launches and exhibition openings). I may not have all the exact things I thought I'd have at thirty. Or all the things I've been told I should have. But I feel content; grateful for every morning that I wake up with another day on this earth and another chance to do good and feel good and make others feel good too.
”
”
Dolly Alderton (Everything I Know About Love)
“
Eventually he agreed, and when Toby was born, Elizabeth came to finally understand exactly where all her friends had gone. She was astounded by how her priorities shifted, all at once, immediately, how any task other than keeping Toby safe, keeping Toby healthy, seemed like a diversion, or an interruption. She understood with some remorse that if one of her childless friends insisted on coming over during bedtime for martinis and conversation, it wouldn’t feel exactly unwelcome, but it would feel a little irrelevant. Like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain but then stopping for tea. She realized that her old friends had not abandoned her, or at least had not done so in any volitional way; it was just that their attention had been seized, their love redirected, the purpose of each day reoriented, unavoidably and involuntarily. She finally comprehended parenthood’s strange paradox: that it was deeply annihilating while at the same time also somehow deeply comforting. It was both soul-devouring and soul-filling.
”
”
Nathan Hill (Wellness)
“
I’d like to drown my thoughts in martinis right now, but no one offers me one.
”
”
Eva Simmons (Lies Like Love (Twisted Roses #1))
“
Did this man just come to my rescue with a caramel snickerdoodle martini? I love him. We’re getting married. I’m having his monster babies.
”
”
Kimberly Lemming (What's A Girl Gotta Do To Get On The Naughty List?)
“
You didn't know that Stormy chick either, but you fucked her ass by the martini glasses?! Pop, you a cold muthafucka for what you did though.
”
”
K. Renee (A Love So Good: The Chamber Brothers)
“
Plus, my mother likes to push marriage on me as if it’s a financial investment, not a lifetime commitment that really ought to have something to do with love. You should have seen the fit she threw when she found out my best friend Everly was marrying a wealthy man. Apparently that should have been me and she couldn’t fathom how I could have let that opportunity pass me by.
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Flirting With Forever (Dirty Martini Running Club, #4))
“
This concept upends the way most people think about their subjective experience
of life. We tend to place a lot of emphasis on our circumstances, assuming that what
happens to us (or fails to happen) determines how we feel. From this perspective, the
small-scale details of how you spend your day aren’t that important, because what
matters are the large-scale outcomes, such as whether or not you get a promotion or
move to that nicer apartment. According to Gallagher, decades of research contradict
this understanding. Our brains instead construct our worldview based on what we pay
attention to. If you focus on a cancer diagnosis, you and your life become unhappy and
dark, but if you focus instead on an evening martini, you and your life become more
pleasant—even though the circumstances in both scenarios are the same. As Gallagher
summarizes: “Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of
what you focus on.
”
”
Cal Newport (Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World)
“
Cocktail là toàn cầu cực kỳ đa dạng mẫu mã, sinh động cùng rất rất một số loại thức uống đầy Màu sắc, từ cách pha chế cho đến tên gọi phần nhiều dẫn đến sự yêu thích đối cùng rất tất cả. Nhắc mang đến cocktail bên cạnh các cái tên “nổi đình nổi đám” cũng như Sexy Girl, Pina Colada, Margarita, Martini, blue Hawaii, I Love U, Kamikaze,… thì giới sành cocktail cạnh tranh Rất có thể bỏ lỡ loại cocktail “bom tấn” B52.
chúng ta nghe B52 xuất hiện quen không? Đây chính là tên của một một số loại máy bay ném bom tầm xa của Mỹ, thể hiện khí công của loại cocktail này “không nên dạn vừa” đâu. B52 hay Bifi phần nhiều là tên gọi chỉ một số loại cocktail phân tầng đẹp mắt bao gồm một phần rượu hương cà phê, 1 phần rượu Baileys Irish Cream với một phần rượu hương cam Grand Marnier. B52 là nhiều loại cocktail lời yêu cầu công nghệ cùng tay nghề của Bartender yêu cầu cứng để Rất có thể tạo ra 1 cốc cocktail đẹp mắt, cùng rất hương vì chưng bùng nổ.
cơ mà chúng ta sẽ Rất có thể làm cho tại nơi bạn ở nhà bạn cùng với các chia sẻ trong bài xích sau đây. Chỉ cần chuyên chú một ít, chúng ta có thể pha chế ra 1 cốc cocktail B52 với thừa nhận ấn cá nhân rõ rệt. Hãy cùng tham khảo và chơi ngay nhé, đảm bảo ban đang vô cũng thích thú với ly cocktail thành phẩm đấy.
Nguyên liệu:
10ml rượu hương cafe (Tia Maria hoặc Kahlúa. Cơ mà chuyên sử dụng rượu Kahlúa).
10ml rượu Baileys Irish Cream.
10ml rượu hương cam Le Grand Marnier.
cốc Shooter hoặc cốc Sherry.
Thìa (đã được có tác dụng lạnh).
công thức B52:
Bước 1: ban đầu chúng ta rót phần rượu hương cà phê Kahlúa vào dưới đáy ly, thành lập tầng bước đầu.
Bước 2: Tiếp cho là rót thật lờ đờ rượu Baileys Irish Cream vào ẩn dưới 1 chiếc thìa nhỏ dại và được làm cho lạnh, chuyển thìa này lại gần ly, tránh làm lẫn lộn với loại rượu rót trước.
Cách 3: phương pháp rót Grand Marnier cũng tương tự. Khi rót bạn nên nghiêng cốc một góc chặng 45o.
Nếu cũng như thành phẩm là một ly cocktail B52 phân làm 3 tầng nâu, trắng, kim cương thì xem cũng như chúng ta đã thành tích. Về phần chiêm ngưỡng một số loại cocktail này Rất có thể chia thành 2 “trường phái”, nếu như phương Tây chỉ là uống khan đã từng lớp, khuấy lên rồi uống cùng với đá, thì người Á Lục biết cách thưởng thức lâu công hơn, chúng ta đốt lửa trên bề mặt của cocktail mang đến nóng, dừng ống hút để uống hết trong 1 hơi.
nhưng lại, để đối B52 bạn phải cụ Grand Marnier bởi các loại rượu có độ rượu cồn cao hơn. Bài toán đốt rượu này cũng tiềm ẩn các bất trắc cho nên lời khuyên là nếu cũng như các bạn còn thiếu gan hay new làm lần đầu không nên thử để tránh cháy và nổ bên cạnh mong nhé.
cũng tương tự như nhiều loại cocktail khác, sau thời gian đều chung sự biến dạng để thêm sinh rượu cồn, phong phú. Bạn có thể đột phá hương vì bằng phương pháp cộng thêm nhiều loại rượu nhưng người thân đắm đuối như Vodka – B53, thêm Amaretto – B54, bổ sung Absinthe có ngay B55.
”
”
hocphachecomvn
“
It took five minutes for the barkeep to come around. He was an old salt—tall and thin. So grizzled he looked like he’d been here back when Ponce de León first showed up. Letty ordered a vodka martini. While he shook it, she eavesdropped on a conversation between an older couple seated beside her. They sounded midwestern. The man was talking about someone named John, and how much he wished John had been with them today. They had gone snorkeling in the Dry Tortugas. The woman chastised her husband for getting roasted in the sun, but he expertly steered the conversation away from himself. They talked about other places they’d been together. Their top three bottles of wine. Their top three sunsets. How much they were looking forward to a return trip to Italy. How much they were looking forward to Christmas next week with their children and grandchildren. These people had seen the world. They had loved and laughed and lived.
”
”
Blake Crouch (Good Behavior)
“
Well, then here we are,” Beth said. “We’ve got a couple of kids with a couple of kids on the way, and they clearly love each other. What are we going to do?” Susan took a sip of her martini. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to rest until I see them married.” Beth threw back her head and laughed loudly, earning a glance from Jack. “I love an ambitious woman. So, I have a favor to ask.” “Sure.” “I know you’ll be zipping down here the second the babies come and I know the mother’s mother gets special privileges. Let me come soon, please. I promise not to crowd the cabin and I’ll do all the shit work without getting in the way.” Susan looked up at the ceiling, thinking. Then she glanced back at Beth. “Give us three days. And I’ll split the snuggling and shit work with you.” Beth put a hand on her arm. “You are a good woman. I made my son-in-law’s mother wait a week.” They both laughed loudly. “Do you think we stand a chance of getting them married before the babies come?” Beth asked. “I don’t know. They seem to have made up their minds about certain things, not that they’re sharing. And Abby’s very stubborn when she’s made up her mind.” “She seems to be perfect for him. Everyone’s entitled to a mistake here and there. Not to mention they have babies coming. Any second…” “Maybe if we put our heads together….” The door to the bar opened and in came Ed Michaels, Chuck McCall, Abby and Cameron. They stood just inside the door and stared at Susan and Beth who had a couple of empty martini glasses apiece sitting at the bar. “Just what are you two up to?” Cameron asked. The women grinned largely and Beth said, “Just getting to know each other, Cameron.” Abby tugged on Cameron’s sleeve to bring his ear down to her lips. “I never once thought it might be worse if they liked each other,” she whispered. “They’re going to be a pot of trouble.” He grinned and slipped a kiss on her lips. “Nothing we can’t handle, baby. Stick with me.” *
”
”
Robyn Carr (Paradise Valley)
“
Mike had a girlfriend named Jenny. Soap liked Jenny because she teased him, but Jenny really isn’t important to this story. She wasn’t ever going to fall in love with Soap, and Soap knew it. What matters is that Jenny worked in a museum, and so Soap and Mike started going to museum events, because you got Brie on crackers and wine and martinis. Free food. All you had to do was wear a suit and listen to people talk about art and mortgages and their children. There would be a lot of older women who reminded Soap of his mother, and it was clear that Soap reminded these women of their sons. What was never clear was whether these women were flirting with him, or whether they wanted his advice about something that even they couldn’t put their finger on.
”
”
Kelly Link (Magic for Beginners: Stories)
“
Hey, watch what I can do with a cherry stem.” She finished the revolution, fished a maraschino cherry from her cherry martini, and popped it into her mouth. Her jaw worked for a quick minute, and then she proudly stuck out her tongue to show him the woody cherry stem tied into a neat knot. “Ta-da.
”
”
Lori Wilde (Somebody to Love (Cupid, Texas #3))
“
Our brains instead construct our worldview based on what we pay attention to. If you focus on a cancer diagnosis, you and your life become unhappy and dark, but if you focus instead on an evening martini, you and your life become more pleasant—even though the circumstances in both scenarios are the same. As Gallagher summarizes: “Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on.” In
”
”
Cal Newport (Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World)
“
Being with you was like savouring the 5 minute nap after the alarm is snoozed. Something that I had always wanted, something I love, and most importantly, that’s when am in the most composed form having no thoughts about anything, whatsoever! I am in the twilight period where my senses seem awakened but my thoughts were distracted. I was hyper aware of myself, but everything in my surroundings kind of faded off into insignificance. I knew I should come out of it but it felt so comfortable, so necessary.
”
”
Kavipriya Moorthy (Dirty Martini)
“
By D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
"Historical fiction readers are in for a treat with When I Was Better, a love story set in Hungary and Canada which follows the journey of István and Teréza, who flee the Nazi and Soviet invasions and the Hungarian Revolution to finally make their home in Winnipeg in the 1960s.
Maps and a cast of characters portend an attention to details that history buffs will appreciate, but the lively chapter headings that begin with "This is What Dying Feels Like" are the real draw, promising inviting scenarios that compel readers to learn more about the characters' lives and influences.
Few other books about immigrant experience hold the descriptive power of When I Was Better:
"Her world had transformed into a place of gestures and facial expressions, making her feel more vigilant now than she had ever been under Communism. No one understood her but Zolti. Already she ached for her language and the family she left behind."
Rita Bozi's ability to capture not just the history and milieu of the times, but the life and passions of those who live it is a sterling example of what sets an extraordinary read apart from a mundane narration of circumstance and history.
Her ability to depict the everyday experiences and insights of her protagonist bonds reader to the subject in an intimate manner that brings not just the era, but the psychology of its participants to life through inner reflection, influence and experience, and even dialogue:
“Four lengths of sausage, please?” Teréza watched as the man pulled two small lengths from the hook and wrapped them in course paper. “I beg your pardon, sir, but would you kindly add in two more lengths?”
“We got an aristocrat here? If you take four lengths, what d’you imagine the workers are gonna eat at the end of the day?”
The account of a seven-year separation, Budapest and Winnipeg cultures and contrasts, and refugee experiences brings history to life through the eyes of its beholders.
That which doesn't kill us, makes us stronger. This saying applies especially strongly to When I Was Better 's powerful story, highly recommended for historical fiction readers and library collections interested in powerfully compelling writing packed with insights:
“Why is it so agonizing to be truthful?” István asked, not expecting an answer.
“It depends on what truth you’re about to reveal. And how you expect it to be received. If you’re expecting an execution, you have two choices. Die for what you believe in or lie to save your life.”
“So in the end, it all comes down to values.” István reached for the martini, took another sip.
Bela smiled. “Without truth, there’s no real connection. The truth hurts, but love eventually heals what hurts.”"
"With sharp insight and the gifts of a natural, Bozi's novel brilliantly chronicles the plight of an entire generation of Hungarians through the intimate portrait of two lovers tested by the political and personal betrayals that ripped through the heart of the twentieth century.
”
”
Rita Bozi
“
I went into the bar and sank into a leather bar seat packed with down. Glasses tinkled gently, lights glowed softly, there were quiet voices whispering of love, or ten per cent, or whatever they whisper about in a place like that.
A tall fine-looking man in a gray suit cut by an angel suddenly stood up from a small table by the wall and walked over to the bar and started to curse one of the barmen. He cursed him in a loud clear voice for a long minute, calling him about nine names that are not usually mentioned by tall fine-looking men in well cut gray suits. Everybody stopped talking and looked at him quietly. His voice cut through the muted rhumba music like a shovel through snow.
The barman stood perfectly still, looking at the man. The barman had curly hair and a clear warm skin and wide-set careful eyes. He didn’t move or speak. The tall man stopped talking and stalked out of the bar. Everybody watched him out except the barman.
The barman moved slowly along the bar to the end where I sat and stood looking away from me, with nothing in his face but pallor. Then he turned to me and said:
“Yes, sir?”
“I want to talk to a fellow named Eddie Prue.”
“So?”
“He works here,” I said.
“Works here doing what?” His voice was perfectly level and as dry as dry sand.
“I understand he’s the guy that walks behind the boss. If you know what I mean.”
“Oh. Eddie Prue.” He moved one lip slowly over the other and made small tight circles on the bar with his bar cloth. “Your name?”
“Marlowe.”
“Marlowe. Drink while waiting?”
“A dry martini will do.”
“A martini. Dry. Veddy, veddy dry.”
“Okay.”
“Will you eat it with a spoon or a knife and fork?”
“Cut it in strips,” I said. “I’ll just nibble it.”
“On your way to school,” he said. “Should I put the olive in a bag for you?”
“Sock me on the nose with it,” I said. “If it will make you feel any better.”
“Thank you, sir,” he said. “A dry martini.”
He took three steps away from me and then came back and leaned across the bar and said: “I made a mistake in a drink. The gentleman was telling me about it.”
“I heard him.”
“He was telling me about it as gentlemen tell you about things like that. As big shot directors like to point out to you your little errors. And you heard him.”
“Yeah,” I said, wondering how long this was going to go on.
“He made himself heard—the gentleman did. So I come over here and practically insult you.”
“I got the idea,” I said.
He held up one of his fingers and looked at it thoughtfully.
“Just like that,” he said. “A perfect stranger.”
“It’s my big brown eyes,” I said. “They have that gentle look.”
“Thanks, chum,” he said, and quietly went away.
I saw him talking into a phone at the end of the bar. Then I saw him working with a shaker. When he came back with the drink he was all right again.
”
”
Raymond Chandler (The High Window (Philip Marlowe #3))
“
COSMOPOLITANS AT THE PARADISE
Cosmopolitans at the Paradise.
Heavenly Kelly's cosmopolitans make the sun rise.
They make the sun rise in my blood.
Under the stars in my brow.
Tonight a perfect cosmopolitan sets sail for paradise.
Johnny's cosmopolitans start the countdown on the launch pad.
My Paradise is a diner. Nothing could be finer.
There was a lovely man in this town named Harry Diner.
Lighter than zero
Gravity, a rinse of lift, the cosmopolitan cocktail
They mix here at the Paradise is the best
In the United States - pink as a flamingo and life-announcing
As a leaping salmon. The space suit I will squeeze into arrives
In a martini glass.
Poured from a chilled silver shaker beaded with frost sweat.
Finally I go
Back to where the only place to go is far.
Ahab on the launch pad - I'm the roar
Wearing a wild blazer, black stripes and red,
And a yarmulke with a propeller on my missile head.
There she blows! Row harder, my hearties! -
My United Nations of liftoff!
I targeted the great white whale black hole.
On impact I burst into stars.
I am the caliph of paradise,
Hip-deep in a waterbed of wives.
I am the Ducati of desire,
144.1 horsepower at the rear wheel.
Nights and days, black stripes and red,
I orbit Sag Harbor and the big blue ball.
I pursue Moby-Dick to the end of the book.
I raise the pink flamingos to my lips and drink.
”
”
Frederick Seidel (Poems 1959-2009)
“
Relationships are the most transformational space, whether it’s with your children, your parents, or your loved ones, because you can’t control the other person.” ~ Neil Strauss
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Falling for My Enemy (Dirty Martini Running Club, #2))
“
Everly, you have the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever known. And I’m about to ask you to give it to me, forever. All I have to give you in return is mine, which, to be perfectly honest, isn’t enough. But I love you with every bit of it—with every piece of my soul. Will you marry me?
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Faking Ms. Right (Dirty Martini Running Club, #1))
“
If I could design the perfect pregnancy test, its results would read at once primitive and poetic, an image of a rocking horse for yes, a martini for no. Or this. I have it. The window turns a scalding red. Far away, fires burn in California and whole homes come down. But here in the East, I am building my home, and the perfect test would flare and words would swim up. If it's negative the test reads, "Keep your excellent life". If it's positive the test reads, "Risk everything.
”
”
Lauren Slater (Love Works Like This: Moving from One Kind of Life to Another)
“
I loved the way he looked at me. He’d never once made me feel self-conscious about my curves. In fact, I’d never felt sexier.
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Marrying Mr. Wrong (Dirty Martini Running Club, #3))
“
Hope is something worth practising. Hope makes each day go down as easy as a cold martini or a cup of gazpacho or a spicy shrimp salad or a big, hearty roast chicken shared amongst friends. I wish we were having this conversation in this real life, but i am grateful to have had this feast with you all the same. And I will let Maya Angelou give us a benediction from that stage in New York decades ago. Most people don't grow up. It's too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older, that's the truth of it. They honour their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don't grow up. Not really. They get older. But to grow up costs the earth, the earth. It means you take responsibility for the time you take up, for the space you occupy. It's serious business. And you find out what it costs us to love and to lose, to dare and to fail, and maybe even more, to succeed. What it costs, in truth. Not superficial costs. Anybody can have that. I mean, in truth. That's what I write. What it really is like. I'm just telling a very simple story, feast by feast, friend by friend, nightcap by nightcap, hope by hope. Let's grow up together, just telling our simple stories over a good meal, learning from those who've done it before us.
”
”
Alissa Wilkinson (Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women)
“
To nerdy girls and geeky boys. Love what you love, and love it hard, especially if it sets your soul on fire.
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Falling for My Enemy (Dirty Martini Running Club, #2))
“
It is not true that misery loves company. What misery loves is a double martini.
”
”
Jane Lotter (The Bette Davis Club)
“
Like fingers pointing to the moon, other diverse disciplines from anthropology to education, behavioral economics to family counseling, similarly suggest that the skillful management of attention is the sine qua non of the good life and the key to improving virtually every aspect of your experience. This concept upends the way most people think about their subjective experience of life. We tend to place a lot of emphasis on our circumstances, assuming that what happens to us (or fails to happen) determines how we feel. From this perspective, the small-scale details of how you spend your day aren’t that important, because what matters are the large-scale outcomes, such as whether or not you get a promotion or move to that nicer apartment. According to Gallagher, decades of research contradict this understanding. Our brains instead construct our worldview based on what we pay attention to. If you focus on a cancer diagnosis, you and your life become unhappy and dark, but if you focus instead on an evening martini, you and your life become more pleasant—even though the circumstances in both scenarios are the same. As Gallagher summarizes: “Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on.
”
”
Cal Newport (Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World)
“
She placed down her martini glass and extended her hand. “My name’s Kelsey. I own The Water’s Edge up the street. Hope we can take your mind off the raincloud hovering over your head, Eeyore.
”
”
Katherine McIntyre (Color of a Soul)
“
Hester Landon, independent, invincible, indestructible. Who might have died after a terrible fall, if not for a neighbor—and her own indefatigable will. Now she reigned in a suite of rooms in his parents’ home while she recovered from her injuries. There she’d stay until deemed strong enough to come back to Bluff House—or if his parents had their way, there she would stay, period. He wanted to think of her back here, in the house she loved, sitting out on the terrace with her evening martini, looking out at the ocean. Or puttering in her garden, maybe setting up her easel to paint. He wanted to think of her vital and tough, not helpless and broken on the floor while he’d been pouring a second cup
”
”
Nora Roberts (Whiskey Beach)
“
You light the day. You light the way. Even when you’re away. The memory of you sustains. Like a shooting star, there’s a magic trail that’s left behind. Wherever you are, that part of you stays on the mind. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but in a heart already steady, that love is safely kept. In a hope chest. One filled with mementos. That look of yours!
”
”
Todd DeMartinis (There She Is!!: A Place to Feel Better)
“
For anyone feeling sad, just try today. Don’t worry about anything else. Just try today. You have no idea how many others are feeling the same way, but will never say so. Just try today. Whatever that means for you. You’re not alone, even if it feels that way. But, don’t forget: while in your darkness, somebody is thinking of how much they love you. You’re going to laugh again. Long, big laughs that take up hours and fill up rooms. Sunnier days are coming. You deserve them all. You’re sitting on a powerhouse. Driven by your positivity. The keys are right at your fingertips. If not ready, don’t worry; it will be there waiting for you for when you are. Take whatever time you need.
”
”
Todd DeMartinis (There She Is!!: A Place to Feel Better)
“
Angels, please look over her and protect her everywhere she goes. She won’t be hard to find; she possesses a light so similar to yours. Whether on a late-running gotham train, or an unbearably early red-eye plane, please enfold your wings in warm embrace, and so-gently lift and carry her when weary – with grace. If heaven is indeed spread upon the earth, but people do not see, you left a mighty clue of your work with this Angel, this Goddess, this She. No, she’s not mine. She’s too beautiful for me. But she reminds me daily of the beauty that can be.
”
”
Todd DeMartinis (There She Is!!: A Place to Feel Better)
“
I love a martini—but two at the most. Three I’m under the table, four, I’m under the host.
”
”
Ann Dowsett Johnston (Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol)
“
You know, I feel a sense of serenity about my relationship with my mother,” I said.
“I don’t feel angry or bitter. I feel as though, with all the therapy, and with my mother’s many illnesses, I’ve reached a point of forgiveness. It’s a kind of acceptance - peace. I loved her. I remember her hugging me and crying with me when my best friend Judy died. It was a beautiful moment.
”
”
Jacelyn Cane (Mom and Dad's Martinis: A Memoir)
“
he takes me to a martini bar because he remembers I said it was my favorite drink (at this point I am still in the “training myself to like martinis’ phase, so worry he’ll see my first-sip wince, but I manage to hold it together).
”
”
Dolly Alderton (Everything I Know About Love)
“
Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.” ~ Stephen Hawking
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Falling for My Enemy (Dirty Martini Running Club, #2))
“
We need love. We need loving relationships. It doesn’t have to be marriage. But sex is the most healing thing you can do to your body.” ~ John Gray
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Falling for My Enemy (Dirty Martini Running Club, #2))
“
Oh my god, Erwin. Do I love him?
”
”
Claire Kingsley (Falling for My Enemy (Dirty Martini Running Club, #2))
“
PW: I decided I’d get a dog. And name her Bailey.
IH: Why that name?
PW: After my mother’s love of espresso martinis.
”
”
Carter Wilson (Tell Me What You Did)