Minnie Quotes

May today there be peace within. May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content knowing you are a child of God. Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.

I earned this, fair and square." We'll, maybe it hadn't been fair. And maybe it hadn't been precisely square. Still, she'd earned it legally. Legally and... rectangularly. That would have to do.

You planning top kill me with a Wiffle bat?" [Carson asked] "Yeah." "Why?" he asked. The bat was shaking in my tight grip. "Because I don't have my Minnie Mouse pillow.

Min­nie Four-Eyes.

Minnie, I want to abolish the peerage. I write radical pamphlets in secret. I am not going to shriek, 'Oh, no! A scandal!' and run away.

Miss Celia stares down into the pot like she's looking for her future. "Are you happy, Minny?" "Why you ask me funny questions like that?" "But are you?" "Course I's happy. You happy too. Big house, big yard, husband looking after you." I frown at Miss Celia and I make sure she can see it. Because ain't that white people for you, wondering if they are happy ENOUGH.

P.S. This book was written in a pre-COVID world. The 2020 of Minnie and Quinn’s world now exists only in some parallel universe. Whatever the year ahead might bring for us all, let’s keep reading. Books free us from isolation. Stories unite us. We’ve all had to play in one-player mode for a while—but we’re all still in this game together.

Minny,” I say last Sunday, “why Bertrina ask me to pray for her?” Minny say, “Rumor is you got some kind a power prayer, gets better results than just the regular variety.

If I'd played Mammy, I'd of told Scarlett to stick those green draperies up her white little pooper. Make her own damn man-catching dress. -Minny

(A)t least simulated vulnerability is bearable/for those/who cannot/withstand unreasonable tenderness.

I never once heard her say she gone leave Leroy, and Minny don't say things twice. When she do things, they done the first time.

Minnie, you were like this light coming into my life - you dazzle me. But your light also made me see all these shadows in my own life, shadows I finally realized I had to deal with.

Minny: "Eat my shit." Hilly: "Excuse me?" Minny: "I said eat...my...shit." Hilly: "Have you lost your mind?" Minny: "No ma'am, but you about to, cause you just did." *Minny eyes the pie* Hilly: "Did...What?" *Minny eyes pie again, Missus Walters gasping and laughing, Hilly eyes pie then gags and runs off* Missus Walters: "And you didn't just eat one, you ate TWO slices!" *Minny runs off* Missus Walters: "RUN, MINNY, RUUN!!" *She says this while laughing*

Rule Number One for working for a white lady, Minny: it is nobody’s business. You keep your nose out of your White Lady’s problems, you don’t go crying to her with yours—you can’t pay the light bill? Your feet are too sore? Remember one thing: white people are not your friends. They don’t want to hear about it. And when Miss White Lady catches her man with the lady next door, you keep out of it, you hear me?

I cut the ribbon in Paris, and everyone in Paris speaks French — maybe you knew that. But I'm from Tennessee, and Tennessee girls don't speak French. So suddenly I'm stuck onstage with Minnie and Mickey and everyone is yelling at me in French — I guess they're telling me to get off the stage, but I didn't know what they were saying at the time, so I start dancing with Minnie and Mickey like on the show and finally my aunt comes and gets me off.

His voice was rough when he spoke again. “So beat me to flinders,” he said. “Win. Overmatch me, Minnie. And when we’re alone…” His fingers touched her chin lightly. “When we’re alone,” he whispered, “look up.” He could have tilted her chin, forcing her to do so. But his forefinger remained warm and steady on her face. He waited, and in the end, Minnie couldn’t help herself. She looked up.

May I ask you if you've noticed, May I ask you if you've seen. My minnow Minnie Who was swimmin' In you Ovaltine? For you've gone and drunk it up, dear, And she isn't in the cup, dear. And she's nowhere to be found, dear. Do you think that she has drowned, dear?

Men wouldn't ask any such thing. They'd already know what caught my eye. He whispered in a conspiratorial fashion. "It's your tits." "They're magnificent." He wasn't even looking at them, but Minnie's hand itched to cover herself - not to block out his sight, but to explore her own curves. To see if, perhaps, her bosom was magnificent, if it had been magnificent all these years, and she had simply never noticed.

What the hell am I doing in Nashville? What – you want me to shoot Minnie Pearl? (Steele)

Why? Why are you hitting me?” He leaned down and looked me right in the face. “If I didn’t hit you Minny, who knows what you become.

I called her Minnie all the time. She loved our house as much as I hated it.

Maybe it was because I was raised in Appalachia, raised in faith and poverty and little else, but I believed in things like fate and destiny. I believed in angels, and I believed in God’s ability to direct our paths, to guide us and move us in unseen ways, and I believed in miracles. Suddenly, Finn Clyde felt like a miracle, and I felt sure that Minnie had sent him to me.

I will tell you what is poetry... It is a remote electronic claw picking up a stuffed bunny rabbit...

Poetry should be like 'Uh-huh. Baby has to have it.

He felt as if he'd woken up, weak and confused, only to be told that he'd spent the last three weeks in bed with a fever--and that during his illness, Queen Victoria had abdicated the throne and run off with a lion-tamer from Birmingham. The world seemed an entirely different place.

He thought that they were walking there like Mickey and Minnie Mouse and that they probably appeared ridiculous to the passers-by.

Human Rights directs my path" ~ ~ Minnie Estelle Miller 2011

We have a saying in France, ‘À chaque oiseau son nid est beau’—the bird loves his own nest. You don’t know any other nest, Minnie. You must spread your wings and learn to fly.

What should we do about it?” asks Miss Celia. We. God forgive me, but I wish there wasn’t a “we” mixed up in this. (Minny)

… и аз й викам, госпожо Уолтърс, хората искат да гледат голия ви бял дирник, колкото и моя черен задник. А сега влизайте в къщата и си сложете гащи и дрехи.

Spoiled?" Mum cuts her off with a laugh. "Nonsense! There's nothing wrong with Minnie, is there, my precious? She knows her own mind!" She strokes Minnie's hair fondly, then looks up again. "Becky, love, you were exactly the same at her age. Exactly the same.

Clear clutter. Make space for you.

My sister's voice is Minnie Mouse and a dash of fingernails down a chalkboard, but only when she wants to bend me to her will.

Cats don't forget. Cats know when they are needed and loved. These two would be better medicine for Minnie than anything that came out of a pill bottle.

Minny: "Isn't Mister Johnny gonna wonder how the foods so good?" Celia: "You're right..." *silence* Celia: "Maybe we should burn the chicken a little...?" Minny: "...Minny don't burn chicken.

Led Zeppelin created their music from a diet of Bert Jansch, Memphis Minnie, John Fahey, Billy Fury, Phil Spector, Richard 'Rabbit' Brown, Moby Grape, Manitas De Plata and Om Kalsoum. Those who came afterwards were content with a diet of Led Zeppelin, which is not the same thing at all.

Правило номер седем: това е последното правило, Мини. Слушаш ли ме? Никакво мърморене. — Мамо, знам… — О, да не мислиш, че не те чувам как си мърмориш, че трябва да изчистиш кюнеца, както и за последните парченца пилешко, които са останали за горкичката Мини. Ако си отвориш устата пред бяла жена сутринта, още следобед ще си на улицата.

Don't you believe in nonviolence?' I asked. "'Yes,' said Miss Minnie, 'when the other parties are nonviolent, too. But when I have just come out of a funeral parlor from looking at a little small black boy shot three times by a full-grown cop, I think it is about time I raised my pocketbook and strike at least one blow for freedom.

My dear, simple little sister! Every mood so fleeting, yet so obvious; there was no mystery to Minnie, none at all. She loved whom she knew, distrusted everyone else, and shared her emotions, her thoughts, as freely as they occurred to her.

I get so mad at myself for being so weak! How can I love a man who beats me raw? Why do I love a fool drinker? One time I asked him, “Why? Why are you hitting me?” He leaned down and looked me right in the face. “If I didn’t hit you, Minny, who knows what you become.” I was trapped in the corner of the bedroom like a dog. He was beating me with his belt. It was the first time I’d ever really thought about it. Who knows what I could become, if Leroy would stop goddamn hitting me.

Hal swore in German behind him. He must have reached the part about the rifles; German oaths were reserved for the most stringent occasions, French being used for minor things like a burnt dinner, and Latin for formal insults committed to paper. Minnie wouldn’t let either Hal or John swear in English in the house, not wanting the boys to acquire low habits. John could have told her it was too late for such caution but didn’t.

Alan:I asked him what cat we should get, and he said it was my choice, so I got this little black one called Minnie. I think the cat place must not have known Minnie’s a mouse’s name. I thought maybe we should change it, but then I thought, if Minnie doesn’t know, either, then it’s probably okay.

His voice dropped to a low murmur, and he leaned down so that he was almost whispering in her ear. “You see, there’s this woman.” She wasn’t going to look at him. She wasn’t. “Normally, one might say that there was a beautiful woman—but I don’t think she qualifies as a classical beauty. Still, I find that when she’s around, I’d rather look at her than anyone else.” He set two fingers against her cheek, and Minnie sucked in a breath. She was not going to look at him. He’d see the longing in her eyes, and then… “There’s something about her that draws my eye. Something that defies words. Maybe it’s her hair, but I tried to tell her that, and she told me I was being ridiculous. I suppose I was. Maybe it’s her lips. Maybe it’s her eyes, although she so rarely looks at me.

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe." — Gustave Flaubert

Never underestimate the stories people tell themselves about how much better someone else’s life is.

When one door of happiness closes another one opens but we often look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.

My mind doesn't just wander...sometimes it leaves the Universe!

She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir. But that—oh, that was thirty years ago.

He hadn’t got Minni mixed up in his troubles; she was trouble enough on her own.

Minny don’t say things twice. When she do things, they done the first time.

swivel around wildly and finally spot Minnie. She’s balanced on a stone bench, tussling with Suze’s son Wilfrid over a red plastic truck. “Pleeease!” she’s yelling crossly. “Pleeease!” Now, to my horror, she starts hitting Wilfrid with the truck, yelling with each blow: “Please! Please! Please!” The trouble is, Minnie hasn’t really absorbed the spirit of the word “please.

A poem is all that's left of my lost loneliness... It is like a window that looks into a swimming pool... Or an a empty gun indentation in velvet... And a baby gazelle given as a gift...

Ruhn had bared his fangs—which had descended all the way, their points like those of knives—and his already big body seemed to have swelled with aggression, becoming something huge and very deadly. As Saxton noted the transformation, his brain bifurcated, half of it remaining engaged with Minnie and the story…and the other part? All he could think of was what it would be like to have sex with that.

Mensen uit één stuk logen zichzelf voor. In werkelijkheid, dacht Minnie, zijn er alleen maar losse stukjes, die steeds weer afsterven en nooit meer terugkomen. Talloze keren verdwijn je uit je eigen leven, zonder zelfs maar afscheid van jezelf te nemen. Ze wist niet of ze dit moest zien als een triest gegeven of als een geruststelling, maar vermoedde dat het eigenlijk met geen van beide iets te maken had.

I admired the cleverness of the clothes, her playfulness, her creativity. I commented on what a fashionable fellow Harry was, very cool. I didn't say that I found her composure excruciating to witness. I didn't ask how she could bear this show-and-tell without breaking down. These clothes represented how much she loved him. Did she feel a physical ache? Knowing this moment was coming, had she cried . . . alone?

Let's see... "Advanced Flanking Theory", by U.R. Skrood. "Fighting on the Grid", by Minnie Churse. "Moving on Diagonals", by Wun and Ahaff. Ah ha! Here it is: "Attacks of Opportunity Explained", by Ben Dover and Taye Kitt.

Only two names?” Minnie said, surprised. “No titles?” “No,” he said. “It’s not the Duke of Pardloe or even the Earl of Melton you’re marrying. Just me. Sorry to disappoint you, if that’s what you thought.” (A Fugitive Green)

THIS is the story," I nodded toward the women. With dignity and true grace, they did their 'women's work,' as women always have in the aftermath of death, trying to bring order to what they cannot make right. And so it was with Lissa and Kate.

head into the children’s bedroom, where our babysitter, Teri, is presiding over a massive game of Twister. Minnie doesn’t understand Twister, but she understands rolling around on the mat, getting in everyone’s way, so that’s what she’s doing.

Who was Tanta? Why Tanta was just Tanta. All of the other aunts could be called Tanta Rivka. Tanta Frieda or Tanta Fannie, but not this Tanta. She had a name - it was Minnie - but the children never thought of using it. She was Tanta - The Tanta...

However, what America does possess in abundance is a legacy of colorful names. A mere sampling: Chocolate Bayou, Dime Box, Ding Dong, and Lick Skillet, Texas; Sweet Gum Head, Louisiana; Whynot, Mississippi; Zzyzx Springs, California; Coldass Creek, Stiffknee Knob, and Rabbit Shuffle, North Carolina; Scratch Ankle, Alabama; Fertile, Minnesota; Climax, Michigan; Intercourse, Pennsylvania; Breakabeen, New York; What Cheer, Iowa; Bear Wallow, Mud Lick, Minnie Mousie, Eighty-Eight, and Bug, Kentucky; Dull, Only, Peeled Chestnut, Defeated, and Nameless, Tennessee; Cozy Corners, Wisconsin; Humptulips, Washington; Hog Heaven, Idaho; Ninety-Six, South Carolina; Potato Neck, Maryland; Why, Arizona; Dead Bastard Peak, Crazy Woman Creek, and the unsurpassable Maggie’s Nipples, Wyoming.

I buy an ice-cream sandwich at the Stop-N-Go on my way home. The taste takes me back to childhood. Back when life was dreaming about things to come and believing that if you really wanted something bad enough, it could and would be yours. I remember praying for a bike for Christmas, and there it was. We prayed for Minnie's gerbil to live and it did. Later, in high school, I asked God for guidance about where to go to college, and that very day, like a kite floating straight from heaven, the acceptance letter came from UNC-Charlotte.

Сега няма грим по лицето, косата й не е напръскана с лак за коса, нощницата й прилича на стара рокля от прерията. Поема си дълбоко въздух през носа и аз я виждам. Виждам селското момиче, което е била преди десет години. Била е силна. Не е оставяла никой да се задява с нея.

I’m afraid he’ll leave me if I do. I know it makes no sense and I get so mad at myself for being so weak! How can I love a man who beats me raw? Why do I love a fool drinker? One time I asked him, “Why? Why are you hitting me?” He leaned down and looked me right in the face. “If I didn’t hit you, Minny, who knows what you become.” I was trapped in the corner of the bedroom like a dog. He was beating me with his belt. It was the first time I’d ever really thought about it. Who knows what I could become, if Leroy would stop goddamn hitting me.

Ég er ógift móðir þriggja barna og hreint einstök í minni röð. Er mér sagt. Og svona einstök er ég: Ég er dugleg, ég er hugrökk og kjörkuð, ég er sterk, atorkusöm og þolinmóð, fórnfús, iðjusöm, indæl, og alltaf í góðu skapi, þrátt fyrir allt. Ég er eins og óritskoðuð minningargrein.

A mother in J Brand skinny jeans with an impeccably dressed daughter walks past, giving me the Mummy Once-over, and I flinch. Since I had Minnie, I’ve learned that the Mummy Once-over is even more savage than the Manhattan Once-over. In the Mummy Once-over, they don’t just assess and price your clothes to the nearest penny in one sweeping glance. Oh no. They also take in your child’s clothes, pram brand, nappy bag, snack choice and whether your child is ­ smiling, snotty or screaming. Which I know is a lot to take in, in a one-second glance, but believe me, mothers are multi-taskers.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Mickey Mouse is filing for divorce and the judge looks down and he says: I understand that it is your contention that your wife Minnie Mouse is mentally deranged. Is that correct? And Mickey says: No, Your Honor, that’s not what I said. What I said was she’s fucking nuts. The

At 5:17 P.M., from Carol: HARRY once took a $25 stuffed sheep from Duane Reade . . . I paid for it of course. He shook it wildly all the way home. RESTRICTED! I sat at my desk in the office staring out my window into the dark laughing and then thought, Oh Carol, how can you hurt so much and bear to be funny.

I am as my Creator made me and since He is satisfied, so am I.

Правило номер четири: използваш една и съща чаша, вилица и чиния всеки ден. Дръж ги в отделен шкаф и кажи на бялата жена, че това са приборите, които ще използваш.

Правило номер шест: няма да удряш децата й. Белите хора обичат те да си ги бият.

Правило номер пет: ще ядеш в кухнята.

Какво да ги правиш белите! Имам предвид, че съм чистила всичко — от хладилници до задници, но защо тази жена си мисли, че мога да изчистя проклетата мечка гризли?

А всеки път, когато госпожа Силия загаря боба, се опитвам да призова самообладанието, от което, кълнеше се майка ми, не притежавам и грам.

Седмица след като Клайд те напусна, чух, че Коко се събудила, а онази й работа смърдяла като изгнила стрида. Оправила се чак след три месеца.

Чаршафите са нещо твърде лично, та в тях да се ровят хора, които не са от семейството. Пълни са с косми и кожички, сополи и следи от цуни-гуни.

That was the day my whole world went black. Air look black, sun look black. I laid up in bed and stared at the black walls a my house. Minny came ever day to make sure I was still breathing, feed me food to keep me living. Took three months fore I even look out the window, see if the world still there. I was surprise to see the world didn't stop just cause my boy did.

Я ме чуйте, госпожице Скийтър. Аз ще се грижа за Ейбълийн и тя ще се грижи за мен. Но на вас нищо не ви остана тук, освен врагове в женската организация и майка, заради която ще се пропиете. Вече нямате работа тук. А и в този град никога няма да си намерите друго гадже, това е ясно на всички. Затова не просто си замъкнете белия задник в Ню Йорк, а направо тичайте натам.

I was mesmerized by Minnie’s story of the Italian cashiers, their intimate but fierce rebellion. The quietest, most docile worker could, behind her apron or her uniform, be sharpening a blade. I began to imagine all the soft, subtle weapons a worker might employ. Avoiding all eye contact, perhaps, even while saying yes to an order; completing one’s duties very slowly, as if moving underwater.

The aquamarine becomes invisible when you place it into the sea. It seems like birds should have aquamarine beaks that they can dip into the sea and therefore surprise the fish. They could also sing aquamarine songs. If you borrowed someone’s aquamarine, swallowed it, and jumped into the sea, then you would not become invisible. But your soul would become visible and all the fish would try to bite you. If you put an aquamarine onto any surface other than the sea, then it should be visible. If you put on an aquamarine choker and look in the mirror and don’t see anything, then you must be the sea.

Your expectation that anything is ever untinged by something else is an extremely dodgy narrative to cling to. Let it be messy and painful, let it be joyful and rare. What’s the point of life being a multifaceted experience if you keep saying your happiness is contingent on it only ever being one thing – that happiness can only ever have happiness in it. That’s just balls – it’s impossible, and would be very boring, it would really be just utter, utter balls.” She put her hand on my cheek and smoothed away some leaking tears. “For goodness’ sake,” she said loudly but not unkindly, “happy, sad – let it be both.

M. I’ve never really thought of M objectively before, as another person. She’s always been my mother I’ve hated or been ashamed of. Yet of all the lame ducks I’ve met or heard of, she’s the lamest. I’ve never given her enough sympathy. I haven’t given her this last year (since I left home) one half of the consideration I’ve given the beastly creature upstairs just this last week. I feel that I could overwhelm her with love now. Because I haven’t felt so sorry for her for years. I’ve always excused myself—I’ve said, I’m kind and tolerant with everyone else, she’s the one person I can’t be like that with, and there has to be an exception to the general rule. So it doesn’t matter. But of course that’s wrong. She’s the last person that should be an exception to the general rule. Minny and I have so often despised D for putting up with her. We ought to go down on our knees to him.

Видях тази рокля преди четири дни и още тогава ми се стори като за пачаври — тя, разбира се, избра роклята с дълбокото деколте — но нямах представа какво ще стане, когато тя се напъха в дрехата. Набъбнала е като втасало тесто.

Знам, че има много други „чернокожи“ работи, които мога да направя, освен да разказвам разни случки или да ходя на срещите на Шърли Бун — митингите в града, протестите в Бърмингам, сбирките за право на глас. Но истината е, че не ме интересува много дали ще гласувам. Не ме е грижа дали ще ям на една маса с белите. Интересува ме дали след десет години някоя бяла жена ще нарича момичетата ми мръсни и ще ги обвинява, че са откраднали сребърните прибори.

Last night I went and saw Good Will Hunting, which takes place not exactly where I used to live, in Boston, but pretty darn close, so I've been all flush with nostalgia for it. I was in Boston from summer of '89 until spring of '92... ...I think it's the ultimate nerd fantasy movie. It's a bit of a fairy tale, but I enjoyed it a lot. Minnie Driver is really to fall sideways for. And there's all sorts of cool stuff. It's actually a movie that's got calculus in it. It takes place in Boston.

Боже, вие… вие го повалихте… — казвам аз, но едно гласче в главата ми ме пита съвсем спокойно, все едно си пием чая, „Това наистина ли се случва?“ Нима бяла жена пребива бял мъж, за да спаси мен? Или онзи така ми е отвинтил главата, че сега лежа мъртва на земята…

Правило номер две: бялата дама никога не трябва да те хваща как седиш на тоалетната й. Не ме интересува дали ти се ходи толкова много, че да напира и в плитките ти. Ако няма външна тоалетна за прислугата, ще дебнеш да я няма и ще ходиш в тоалетна, която тя не използва.

А какво ще кажеш за онази госпожа Робърта? Как те накара да седнеш на кухненската маса и изпробва върху теб новата си боя за коса? — Ейбълийн си избърсва очите. — Боже, преди, а и след това, не бях виждала черна жена със синя коса. Лирой рече, че приличаш на маце от космоса.

became intent on publicly disgracing his wife by exposing her infidelity and revealing her relationship with a black man. For his part, Walter had always stayed clear of the courts and far away from the law. Years earlier, he had been drawn into a bar fight that resulted in a misdemeanor conviction and a night in jail. It was the first and only time he had ever been in trouble. From that point on, he had no exposure to the criminal justice system. When Walter received a subpoena from Karen Kelly’s husband to testify at a hearing where the Kellys would be fighting over their children’s custody, he knew it was going to cause him serious problems. Unable to consult with his wife, Minnie, who had a better head for these kinds of crises, he nervously went to the courthouse. The lawyer for Kelly’s husband called Walter to the stand. Walter had decided to acknowledge being a “friend” of Karen. Her lawyer objected to the crude questions posed to Walter by the husband’s attorney about the nature of his friendship, sparing him from providing any details, but when he left the courtroom the anger and animosity toward him were palpable. Walter wanted to forget about the whole ordeal, but word

A Party for New Year (for Lily and Maisie, the ladies what lunch.) Dear Lily, I have bought something frilly, to wear on New Year’s Eve. You may think it sounds rather silly, and, what I tell you, you will never believe. I met a woman in Primark, I know, not my normal shop. Just heard so much about it inside I had to pop. Well, the top I purchased, sparkles. The frills upon it abound. This woman I met in the changing room. On me, she said it looked sound. It's very, very silver you know. A little bit like Lametta. Oh Lily, I feel quite aglow. On no one could it look any better. Dear Maisie, Things are looking a bit hazy. A silver top, for New Year. Are you really, really that crazy? My word, you batty old dear. I'm wearing my old faithful. The black dress, with the gold trim. It's not like we’re doing anything special. In fact proceedings sound quite grim. Sitting on your old sofa With a Baileys, if I'm lucky. Watching the same old things on the box. I'm not excited Ducky. I want to be in the city and feel the atmosphere. It really is a pity that you want to stay right here. Dear Lily. Now you are being silly. What about your knees? Standing about, feeling chilly, and moaning you're going to freeze. Much better to stay indoors and watch a music show. We'll get the bongs at midnight. This you very well know. I don't have any Baileys. You drank it Christmas Day. But I found some cooking sherry. I want that out of the way. I even have some nibbles, so come on, what do you say? We'll have us a little party. Bring your nightie and then you can stay. Dear Maisie, Do you remember Daisy? Her with the wart on her ear. She thinks she'd like to join us to celebrate New Year. Do we really want her with us? She's quite a moaning Minnie. She always makes such a fuss. I'd hoped she'd celebrate with Winnie. I think I will come over Lil'. I'll even bring the wine. We really should start taking turns. Next year, you can come to mine. We'll have a great time, you and me. Go out in the cold? No fear. We'll be fine indoors, just you see. Friends together, celebrating New Year.

Правило номер три — мама пак ми завъртя брадичката, за да я погледна, защото очите ми отново се бяха приковали в тортата. — Правило номер три: когато готвиш храна за други хора, я пробваш с отделна лъжица. Ако си пъхнеш лъжицата в устата, докато си мислиш, че никой не те вижда, и после пак я върнеш в тенджерата, направо можеш да изхвърлиш цялата манджа.

According to that book, only one Marx contributed an unforgotten pun to the Round Tablers’ vaunted word games. It wasn’t Groucho, who must have been furious. Nor was it Harpo, who for all we know sat at the table naked. Nor was it Chico, who had more dangerous games elsewhere. It was Gummo. Evidently Gummo had a seat at that table at least once, and he made it count. Everybody knows that Dorothy Parker, challenged to make a sentence with the word horticulture, quipped as follows: “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.” But who knew that Gummo, taking on euphoria, came up with this: LEFT TO RIGHT: Harpo, Zeppo, Chico, Groucho, and Gummo, 1957. “Go outside and play,” Minnie told the brothers. “Which ones?” they asked. And she said: “Euphoria.”*

It made me think of Collioure last summer. The day we went, all four of us with the French students, up through the ilexes to the tower. The ilexes. An absolutely new colour, amazing chestnut, rufous, burning, bleeding, where they had cut away the cork. The cicadas. The wild azure sea through the stems and the heat and the smell of everything burnt in it. Piers and I and everyone except Minny got a bit tipsy. Sleeping in the shade, waking up staring through the leaves at the cobalt blue sky, thinking how impossible things were to paint, how can some blue pigment ever mean the living blue light of the sky. I suddenly felt I didn’t want to paint, painting was just showing off, the thing was to experience and experience for ever more. The beautiful clean sun on the blood-red stems.

Правило номер едно, когато работиш при бяла жена, Мини: не й се бъркаш в работите. Не си вреш носа в нейните проблеми и не ходиш да ревеш при нея със своите. Не можеш да си платиш сметката за тока? Краката много те болят? Запомни едно: белите хора не са ти приятели. Не искат и да чуват за твоите проблеми. А когато госпожа бялата дама хване мъжа си със съседката, ти не се бъркаш, разбра ли ме?

I was afraid of anyone in a costume. A trip to see Santa might as well have been a trip to sit on Hitler's lap for all the trauma it would cause me. Once, when I was four, my mother and I were in a Sears and someone wearing an enormous Easter Bunny costume headed my way to present me with a chocolate Easter egg. I was petrified by this nightmarish six-foot-tall bipedal pink fake-fur monster with human-sized arms and legs and a soulless, impassive face heading toward me. It waved halfheartedly as it held a piece of candy out in an evil attempt to lure me into its clutches. Fearing for my life, I pulled open the bottom drawer of a display case and stuck my head inside, the same way an ostrich buries its head in the sand. This caused much hilarity among the surrounding adults, and the chorus of grown-up laughter I heard echoing from within that drawer only added to the horror of the moment. Over the next several years, I would run away in terror from a guy in a gorilla suit whose job it was to wave customers into a car wash, a giant Uncle Sam on stilts, a midget dressed like a leprechaun, an astronaut, the Detroit Tigers mascot, Ronald McDonald, Big Bird, Bozo the Clown, and every Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto, Chip and Dale, Uncle Scrooge, and Goofy who walked the streets at Disneyland. Add to this an irrational fear of small dogs that saw me on more than one occasion fleeing in terror from our neighbor's four-inch-high miniature dachschund as if I were being chased by the Hound of the Baskervilles and a chronic case of germ phobia, and it's pretty apparent that I was--what some of the less politically correct among us might call--a first-class pussy.

Three couples approached the Pearly Gates and asked permission from Saint Peter to enter. To the first husband he responded, “You may not enter heaven. All your life you’ve been obsessed with money. Why, you even married a woman named Penny!” He then turned to the second husband and responded, “You may not enter heaven. All your life you’ve been obsessed with food. Why, you even married a woman named Candy.” Taking his wife gently by the hand and looking very sad, the third husband said, “Come on, Fanny, we might as well get out of here!

Milly took the hand held out to her, which was small, warm and chubby, the fingers armoured with rings...This was one of those well-preserved old things whose age it was impossible to guess; her cheeks pink and powdery and her white hair prettily arranged with a bang of fluffy curls in the front. The smile, Milly noticed, did not extend to the eyes, which were round and innocent, in color baby-blue; there was a twinkle in them, certainly, but they remained nevertheless quite frosty. Standing on tiptoe to reach Milly's ear, she whispered: 'I am the Princess Rapovska!

Разбирате ли, ако Господ е имал намерение белите и черните хора да са по цял ден заедно, щеше да ни направи далтонисти. И докато госпожа Силия ми се хили и повтаря „добро утро“ и колко се радва да ме види, аз се чудя как е успяла да стигне толкова напред в живота, без да знае къде минават някои граници. Имам предвид, някаква фльорца да се скъсва да звъни на дамите от обществото, е едно на ръка. Но тя обядва заедно с мен всеки божи ден, откакто започнах работа при нея. И не говоря за това, че ядем в една стая, а че се храним на една маса. На малката масичка под прозореца. Всички бели жени, при които досега съм работила, се хранят в трапезарията, колкото се може по-далеч от чернокожата прислуга. Което на мен никак не ми пречи.

I haven’t been disingenuous in what I’ve said describing my perception of “truth” and “reality.” Certainly, I understand what is generally meant to be the “truth,” I understand this notion, but it’s not something I trust in, OK? The only answer that feels true (I said feels, not is) is that yes, the character Minnie is me, but she is not me. She is a projection of some tumult which originates within me, but she is not me. I use elements of myself, including my likeness, for the character, perhaps as Cindy Sherman uses herself in her work, but like Sherman’s photographs, the work itself is not any more about the creator than it is about everyone. I won’t deny that Minnie does things I have done, and that things happen to her that have happened to me, but she, unlike me, having been created, is who she is and will remain so, unchanged now. I make no attempt to create “documentary.” There is a process of dissociation that takes place when I make a story, I make creative decisions in a fugue state that I could hardly describe to you, but the end result is, I hope, a story with some meaning or resonance, something created, with a beginning, a middle and an end, an encapsulation of feeling and impression, but in no way a documentary of anything other than an “emotional truth.” If I told most interviewers that my work is “true” and that it is based on real events that occurred in my life, they would more readily accept this than they do the explanation I try to give. Sadly, what they would believe feels to me like a lie and a simplification of a process that is for me as complex and vague as life itself…

Minny came ever day to make sure I was breathing, feed me food to keep me living. All I know is, I ain't saying it. And I know she ain't saying what she want a say either and it's a strange thing happening here cause nobody saying nothing and we still managing to have us a conversation. "Mama, it would really be so terrible if I never met a husband?" Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else. I stare at her, wishing the ceiling fan would fly from its post, crash down on both of us. I feel tears come up in my eyes, cause three years just ain't long enough. A hundred years ain't gone be long enough. Eugenia, just because this is a hospital doesn't mean I'm an invalid" "you kind. you smart. you important." See, I think if God had intended for white people and colored people to be this close together for so much of the day, he would've made us color-blind. Every time a Negro complained about the cost of living didn't mean she was begging for money. But the truth is, I don't care about voting. I don't care about eating at a counter with white people. What I care about is, if, in ten years, a white lady will call my girls dirty and accuse them of stealing the silver. when you little, you only get to ask two questions, what's your name and how old you is, so you better get em right. Mister Jonny knows about me. Miss Celia Knows Mister Jony know about me. But Mister Jonny doesn't know that Miss Celia knows he knows. "Yes ma'am. I tell her." In about a hundred years. How an awful day could turn even worse. It seems like at some point you'd just run out of awful. Lots of folks think if you talk back to your husband, you crossed the line. And that justifies punishment. She can take the most complicated things in life and wrap them up so small and simple, they'll fit right in your pocket. "Don't you let him cheapen you. If Stuart doesn't know how intelligent and kind I raised you to be, he can march straight on back to State Street. Frankly, I don't care much for Stuart. He doesn't know how lucky he was to have you." You tell her we love her, like she's our own family. "You a beautiful person, Minny." Mississippi is like my mother. I am allowed to complain about her all I want, but God help the person who raises an ill word about her around me unless she is their mother too. For the dishonesty upon which a society is founded makes every emotion suspect, makes it impossible to know whether what flowed between two people was honest feeling or pity or pragmatism