Monogram Quotes

Seriously, who has monogrammed pajamas?

Becky Renee Apple - can you believe her mom named her that and then had all of her sweaters monogramed with 'BRA'?

Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we're still alive. We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants. We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas, our silver-plated cups; we monogram our linen, we carve our names on trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls. It's all the same impulse. What do we hope from it? Applause, envy, respect? Or simply attention, of any kind we can get? At the very least we want a witness. We can't stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.

I'd like to add her initial to my monogram...

One cannot do such harm to another and not wound one’s own soul in the process.

If I decided to be a serial killer and went on a murderous rampage with a kitchen knife, she’d find some way to be supportive. She’d probably buy me a set of monogrammed cleavers.

Often they descended to their grave with an ironic smile – for what was there left of them to bury! Only the dross, refuse, vanity, animality that had always weighed them down and that was now consigned to oblivion after having for long been the object of their contempt. But one thing will live, the monogram of their most essential being, a work, an act, a piece of rare enlightenment, a creation: it will live because posterity cannot do without it. In this transfigured form, fame is something more than the tastiest morsel of our egoism, as Schopenhauer called it: it is the belief in the solidarity and continuity of the greatness of all ages and a protest against the passing away of generations and the transitoriness of things.

Tell them I've two spare rooms here. It might not be as grand as the Bloxham, but everybody's still alive when they wake up in the morning.

The little logo that sits at the top of the screen of any ‘Bluetooth-enabled’ hardware () is actually a monogram created from the two runes that represent Harald’s initials

...when we done went and ripped all the gold "HIS" monograms off the anniversary towels and writ SHITHEAD on them with magic markers.

If I walked too far and wondered loud enough the fields would change. I could look down and see horse corn and I could hear it then- singing- a kind of low humming and moaning warning me back from the edge. My head would throb and the sky would darken and it would be that night again, that perpetual yesterday lived again. My soul solidifying, growing heavy. I came up to the lip of my grave this way many times but had yet to stare in. I did begin to wonder what the word heaven meant. I thought, if this were heaven, truly heaven, it would be where my grandparents lived. Where my father's father, my favorite of them all, would lift me up and dance with me. I would feel only joy and have no memory, no cornfield and no grave. You can have that,' Franny said to me. 'Plenty of people do.' How do you make the switch?' I asked. It's not as easy as you might think,' she said. 'You have to stop desiring certain answers.' I don't get it.' If you stop asking why you were killed instead of someone else, stop investigating the vaccum left by your loss, stop wondering what everyone left on Earth is feeling,' she said, 'you can be free. Simply put, you have to give up on Earth.' This seemed impossible to me. ... She used the bathroom, running the tap noisily and disturbing the towels. She knew immediately that her mother had bought these towels- cream, a ridiculous color for towels- and monogrammed- also ridiculous, my mother thought. But then, just as quickly, she laughed at herself. She was beginning to wonder how useful her scorched-earth policy had been to her all these years. Her mother was loving if she was drunk, solid if she was vain. When was it all right to let go not only of the dead but of the living- to learn to accept? I was not in the bathroom, in the tub, or in the spigot; I did not hold court in the mirror above her head or stand in miniature at the tip of every bristle on Lindsey's or Buckley's toothbrush. In some way I could not account for- had they reached a state of bliss? were my parents back together forever? had Buckley begun to tell someone his troubles? would my father's heart truly heal?- I was done yearning for them, needing them to yearn for me. Though I still would. Though they still would. Always.

we cannot help how we feel, but we can choose whether or not to act upon those feelings.

the thought of being lonely didn't even cross Linus Baker's mind. After all, there were people with far less than what he had. There was a roof over his head and rabbit food in his belly, and his pajamas were monogrammed.

All computers expect to be yelled at. There's not a single computer in the whole world that hasn't been sworn at. Even the discreet little VDU with the crossed keys monogram on the keyboard that sits on the Pope's desk in his office in the Vatican has in its time heard language that'd make a Marine blush.

When you are ten, shame stitches itself into you like a monogram, broadcasting to the world what holds you, what rules your soul. In school Roya could smell the dank must even though she’d soaped it away and changed into fresh clothes. The scent wasn’t so much on her as it was of her, compositional. It clung inside her nose like a kind of rot. She was certain everyone else could smell it.

I noticed her red dressing gown was monogramed with the initials WF. I wondered what life a person must lead in order for them to need to identify their dressing gown from others with such regularity that monograming would seem a wise choice.

When the corpses of [Sir John] Franklin's officers and crew were later discovered, miles from their ships, the men were found to have left behind their guns but to have lugged such essentials as monogrammed silver cutlery, a backgammon board, a cigar case, a clothes brush, a tin of button polish, and a copy of "The Vicar of Wakefield." These men may have been incompetent bunglers, but, by God, they were gentlemen.

It is the job of art to replace unhappy true stories with happier inventions.

That night I wasn't reading your palm...I was monogramming my fingerprints on the sidewalks of your lifeline.

Interesting how our vocabulary responds, providing us with words we have never needed before, words stacked away for us, neatly folded into our brain and there for our use: like a bride's lifetime supply of linen, or a ducal trove of monogrammed china. Death will overtake us before a fraction of those words are used.

She used the bathroom, running the tap noisily and disturbing the towels. She knew immediately that her mother had bought these towels — cream, a ridiculous color for towels — and monogrammed — also ridiculous, my mother thought. But then, just as quickly, she laughed at herself. She was beginning to wonder how useful her scorched-earth policy had been to her all these years. Her mother was loving if she was drunk, solid if she was vain. When was it all right to let go not only of the dead but of the living—to learn to accept?

I thought to myself that a conversation was a strange thing that could take you almost anywhere. Often you were left stranded miles from where you had started, with no idea about how to get back.

The first two letters of the name Pluto are the initials of Percival Lowell. Its symbol is , a planetary monogram. But Lowell’s lifelong love was the planet Mars. He was electrified by the announcement in 1877 by an Italian astronomer, Giovanni Schiaparelli, of canali on Mars.

The Kraken?” Forge’s entire body shakes as booming laughter tumbles from his lips. But I’m not looking at his lips. I’m still watching his dick as it bobs when he laughs. It’s also getting bigger. “Are you going to look at my face or just stare at my dick?” “I’ve seen your face before,” I tell him, not looking up. I got caught staring; I might as well make the most of it. When a navy towel with a silver monogram suddenly covers the object of my attention, I’m forced to glance up . . . at the most beautiful grin that has ever crossed a man’s face. Why is he so attractive? It’s not right. Money, abs, a big dick, and drop-dead gorgeous? If I needed any more proof that life is definitely unfair, it’s standing right in front of me. Even his laugh is perfect. Stop, Indy. Get down to business. He hacked your phone. “Stop laughing. This isn’t swim time.

In my opinion, a superior mind counts for nothing unless accompanied by a superior heart.

If something is in a person’s head, then it is real,” Poirot said.

I will be angry until my dying day, Mr Catchpool. Greater sinners persecuting lesser sinners in the name of morality—that’s something worth raging about.

It is hate that makes people kill, Mr Catchpool, not love. Never love. Please be rational.

She knew nothing. She was an idiot, an imbecile, a simpleton, and a ninny. Boarding a ship under an assumed name, then whipping a monogramed handkerchief from her cloak?

How am I supposed to believe you when you're obviously carrying a fake monogram Gucci Bag?

When you are ten, shame stitches itself into you like a monogram, broadcasting to the world what holds you, what rules your soul.

After all, there were people with far less than what he had. There was a roof over his head and rabbit food in his belly, and his pajamas were monogrammed.

I looked so preppy you'd guess my tramp stamp was a monogram

—The one about the lady from the First Unitarian Church of Kennebunkport, M.E. who orders monogrammed napkins for a church luncheon and . . . Oh, I’ve spoiled it.

So be a boss bitch and own everything you do, even if you're listening to Bieber while sitting in a monogrammed robe, watching Sex and The City, googling Meghan Markle until you pass out.

The Bible, with all its rules, is simply a book written by a person or people. It ought to carry a disclaimer, prominently displayed: 'The word of God, distorted and misrepresented by man.

How many were the aquarelles she painted for me; what a revelation it was when she showed me the lilac tree that grows out of mixed blue and red! Sometimes, in our St Petersburg house, from a secret compartment in the wall of her dressing room (and my birth room), she would produce a mass of jewelry for my bedtime amusement. I was very small then, and those flashing tiaras and chokers and rings seemed to me hardly inferior in mystery and enchantment to the illumination in the city during imperial fêtes, when, in the padded stillness of a frosty night, giant monograms, crowns, and other armorial designs, made of coloured electric bulbs - sapphire, emerald, ruby - glowed with a kind of charmed constraint above snow-lined cornices on housefronts along residential streets.

What anguish! Cincinnatus, what anguish! What stone anguish, Cincinnatus—the merciless bong of the clock, and the obese spider, and the yellow walls, and the roughness of the black wool blanket. The skim on the chocolate. Pluck it with two fingers at the very center and snatch it whole from the surface, no longer a flat covering, but a wrinkled brown little skirt. The liquid is tepid underneath, sweetish and stagnant. Three slices of toast with tortoise shell burns. A round pat of butter embossed with the monogram of the director. What anguish, Cincinnatus, how many crumbs in the bed!

The Memphis Finley and I landed in was my mother’s Memphis. It was magnolia-lined and manicured, black-tailed and bow-tied. It glittered in illusory gold and tinkled in sing-song voices. It was cloistered, segregated, and well-appointed, the kind of place where everyone monogrammed their initials on everything from hand towels to silver because nothing mattered more than one’s family and to whom they were connected by lineage that traced through the fertile fields of the Mississippi Delta.

Sigils are the means of guiding and uniting the partially free belief[27] with an organic desire, its carriage and retention till its purpose served in the sub-conscious self, and its means of reincarnation in the Ego. All thought can be expressed by form in true relation. Sigils are monograms of thought, for the government of energy (all heraldry, crests, monograms, are Sigils and the Karmas they govern), relating to Karma; a mathematical means of symbolising desire and giving it form that has the virtue of preventing any thought and association on that particular desire (at the magical time), escaping the detection of the Ego, so that it does not restrain or attach such desire to its own transitory images, memories and worries, but allows it free passage to the sub-consciousness.

I love it. Wait, that’s your monogram. Henry, this is your handwriting!” “It is. I had it made for you.” “Is the H for Halle?” I ask carefully. “Or Henry?” “You get to decide,” he says. “What do you want it to be for?” My finger brushes against the felt cushion. “Henry.” “That’s what I hoped you’d say.

I’m not convinced that stories from real life have beginnings and ends, as a matter of fact. Approach them from any vantage point and you’ll see that they stretch endlessly back into the past and spread inexorably forward into the future. One is never quite able to say “That’s that, then,” and draw a line.

-the men were found to have left behind their guns but to have lugged such essentials as monogrammed silver cutlery, a backgammon board, a cigar case, a clothes brush, a tin of buttons polish, and a copy of 'The Vicar of Wakefield.' These men may have been incompetent bunglers, but, by God, they were gentlemen.

My friend opened a small box which Lestrade had produced. Inside lay a beautiful silver cigarette case monogrammed with Holmes's initials, underneath which ran the words, "With the Respects of Scotland Yard, November 1888." Sherlock Holmes sat with his lips parted, but no sound emerged. "Thank you," he managed at length.

The crowd screamed, and in the same instant the band whammed into "Lady" like a desperate man into a ten-dollar prostitute.

He sat up, his chest moving, his mouth open as if he'd run the annual San Francisco Bay to Breakers race in record time instead of, as the event intended, having fun.

Though little had actually happened to Susannah the car smelled of lovemaking.

She was sitting on her own long blonde hair, which Susannah had noted came to just under her rear, cupping it in a provocative way.

They only throw clean ones

As someone called Anonymous once said, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.

You feel like butter," he whispered, "and velvet.

Frankly, you're the most homeless person--emotionally--I ever met.

Poirot smoothed his mustache, as if he imagined that laughing might have shaken it out of shape.

Alas, the human mind is a perverse, uncontrollable organ,

Jā, skābeklim vajag daudz laika, lai sasniegtu mazās, pelēkās šūniņas! Bet nebēdējiet, galu galā tas ieradīsies tur, kur visvairāk ir vajadzīgs, un nokļūs jūsu smadzeņu spilventiņā.

Look at this shirt!” exclaimed Schrift, with sudden irrelevant fury. “Specially made for me by Thresher & Glenny in London—it cost more than you probably spent on coal last winter. If I told ’em once, I told ’em a hundred times—I want the monogram in Old English, not roman type! What do they think I am—a letterhead? No wonder the British Empire’s falling apart.

I will say this about the upper echelon in France: they know how to spend money. From what I saw living in America, wealth is dedicated to elevating the individual experience. If you’re a well-off child, you get a car, or a horse. You go to summer camps that cost as much as college. And everything is monogrammed, personalized, and stamped, to make it that much easier for other people to recognize your net worth. …The French bourgeois don’t pine for yachts or garages with multiple cars. They don’t build homes with bowling alleys or spend their weekends trying to meet the quarterly food and beverage limit at their country clubs: they put their savings into a vacation home that all their family can enjoy, and usually it’s in France. They buy nice food, they serve nice wine, and they wear the same cashmere sweaters over and over for years. I think the wealthy French feel comfortable with their money because they do not fear it. It’s the fearful who put money into houses with even bedrooms and fifteen baths. It’s the fearful who drive around in yellow Hummers during high-gas-price months becasue if they’re going to lose their money tomorrow, at least other people will know that they are rich today. The French, as with almost all things, privilege privacy and subtlety and they don’t feel comfortable with excess. This is why one of their favorite admonishments is tu t’es laisse aller. You’ve lost control of yourself. You’ve let yourself go.

The clock ticked away toward seven; news circulated that the tuxedo-clad Marlboro Man had arrived. He’d spent the day with his groomsmen and guests, driving them to the big city and treating them all to black cowboy boots to match their tuxes. Black patent slip-ons--and monogrammed Dopp kits--weren’t exactly his style. Even Mike got his own pair of shit-kickers, which he proudly displayed to guests walking into the church.

Seems to me there’s not much time to read about other people’s lives and live your own while you’re at it. If I have to choose, and I reckon I do, I’ll choose living my own life over reading summat about someone else’s.

Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we’re still alive. We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants. We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas, our silver-plated cups; we monogram our linen, we carve our names on trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls. It’s all the same impulse. What do we hope from it? Applause, envy, respect? Or simply attention, of any kind we can get?

Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we’re still alive. We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants. We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas, our silver-plated cups; we monogram our linen, we carve our names on trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls. It’s all the same impulse. What do we hope from it? Applause, envy, respect? Or simply attention, of any kind we can get? At the very least we want a witness.

There was a note on the table.” “Bring it here,” Van Eck barked. The boy strode down the aisle, and Van Eck snatched the note from his hand. “What does it … what does it say?” asked Bajan. His voice was tremulous. Maybe Inej had been right about Alys and the music teacher. Van Eck backhanded him. “If I find out you knew anything about this—” “I didn’t!” Bajan cried. “I knew nothing. I followed your orders to the letter!” Van Eck crumpled the note in his fist, but not before Inej made out the words in Kaz’s jagged, unmistakable hand: Noon tomorrow. Goedmedbridge. With her knives. “The note was weighted down with this.” The boy reached into his pocket and drew out a tie pin—a fat ruby surrounded by golden laurel leaves. Kaz had stolen it from Van Eck back when they’d first been hired for the Ice Court job. Inej hadn’t had the chance to fence it before they left Ketterdam. Somehow Kaz must have gotten hold of it again. “Brekker,” Van Eck snarled, his voice taut with rage. Inej couldn’t help it. She started to laugh. Van Eck slapped her hard. He grabbed her tunic and shook her so that her bones rattled. “Brekker thinks we’re still playing a game, does he? She is my wife. She carries my heir.” Inej laughed even harder, all the horrors of the past week rising from her chest in giddy peals. She wasn’t sure she could have stopped if she wanted to. “And you were foolish enough to tell Kaz all of that on Vellgeluk.” “Shall I have Franke fetch the mallet and show you just how serious I am?” “Mister Van Eck,” Bajan pleaded. But Inej was done being frightened of this man. Before Van Eck could take another breath, she slammed her forehead upward, shattering his nose. He screamed and released her as blood gushed over his fine mercher suit. Instantly, his guards were on her, pulling her back. “You little wretch,” Van Eck said, holding a monogrammed handkerchief to his face. “You little whore. I’ll take a hammer to both your legs myself—” “Go on, Van Eck, threaten me. Tell me all the little things I am. You lay a finger on me and Kaz Brekker will cut the baby from your pretty wife’s stomach and hang its body from a balcony at the Exchange.” Ugly words, speech that pricked her conscience, but Van Eck deserved the images she’d planted in his mind. Though she didn’t believe Kaz would do such a thing, she felt grateful for each nasty, vicious thing Dirtyhands had done to earn his reputation—a reputation that would haunt Van Eck every second until his wife was returned. “Be silent,” he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. “You think he won’t?” Inej taunted. She could feel the heat in her cheek from where his hand had struck her, could see the mallet still resting in the guard’s hand. Van Eck had given her fear and she was happy to return it to him. “Vile, ruthless, amoral. Isn’t that why you hired Kaz in the first place? Because he does the things that no one else dares? Go on, Van Eck. Break my legs and see what happens. Dare him.” Had she really believed a merch could outthink Kaz Brekker? Kaz would get her free and then they’d show this man exactly what whores and canal rats could do. “Console yourself,” she said as Van Eck clutched the ragged corner of the table for support. “Even better men can be bested.

For the better part of my adult life I’d been making deadlines and chasing the next deal. It had been so long since I had stopped to reflect, I wasn’t sure what was important any longer. Things were moving so fast that there was no time to look below the surface. Everyone around me seemed to be operating on the same level, and it just fed on itself. We were all caught up in a whirlwind of important meetings and expensive lunches, do-or-die negotiations, lucrative deals conducted in fancy hotels with warmed towel racks and monogrammed robes.

Different people regard rules differently, no matter what those rules happen to be. Mutinous characters like me always resent constraints, even perfectly sensible ones, but there are some who welcome their existence and enforcement because it makes them feel safer. Protected.

Linus Baker was not a fool. He prided himself in that regard. He was well aware of his limitations as a human being. When it was dark, he preferred to be locked safely inside his house, wearing his monogrammed pajamas, a record playing on the Victrola, holding a warm drink in his hands. That being said, Calliope was essentially his only friend in the entire world. So when he climbed out of the car, rocks crunching under his feet in the driveway, it was because he understood that sometimes, one had to do unsavory things for those one cared about.

Neruda fell asleep right away, and woke ten minutes later, as children do, when we least expected it. He appeared in the living room refreshed, and with the monogram of the pillowcase imprinted on his cheek.     "I dreamed about the woman who dreams," he said.     "Matilde wanted him to tell her his dream.     "I dreamed she was dreaming about me," he said.     "That's right out of Borges," I said.     He looked at me in disappointment.     "Has he written it already?"     "If he hasn't, he'll write it sometime," I said. "It will be one of his labyrinths.

Antonapoulos was not changed at all. When Singer came into his room he ambled placidly to meet his friend. He was even fatter than before, but the dreamy smile on his face was just the same. Singer had some packages in his arms and the big Greek gave them his first attention. His presents were a scarlet dressing-gown, soft bedroom slippers, and two monogrammed nightshirts. Antonapoulos looked beneath all the tissue papers in the boxes very carefully. When he saw that nothing good to eat had been concealed there, he dumped the gifts disdainfully on his bed and did not bother with them any more.

Entering the casino one is beset at every side by invitation—invitations such that it would take a man of stone, heartless, mindless, and curiously devoid of avarice, to decline them. Listen: a machine gun rattle of silver coins as they tumble and spurt down into a slot machine tray and overflow onto monogrammed carpets is replaced by the siren clangor of the slots, the jangling, blippeting chorus swallowed by the huge room, muted to a comforting background chatter by the time one reaches the card tables, the distant sounds only loud enough to keep the adrenaline flowing through the gamblers’ veins.

Frankie had used one (reverently) to wipe his eyes.This specimen was old and soft,monogrammed with a J in the corner. "Makes it interesting," he told me once, after finding a box monogrammed with M for fifty cents at a sidewalk sale. "Was it Max or Michael? Maybe Marco..." "Here," he said now. "You have lipstick halfway down to your chin." Humiliated, I scrubbed at my face. Frankie held out his hand, palm up. "Okay,let's have it." I pulled the tube out of my pocket. "Not really my thing, madam, but since I've seen what happens when you don't use a mirror..." I'm sure it helped that he was holding my face, but he read it like a pro. "You had a mirror." "I did.I'm hopeless." "Maybe.Open." He squinted as he filled in my upper lip. "I don't like this." "The color? I knew it was too pink-" "Quiet.You'll smear it.The color is fine. Better for Sienna, I'm sure..." He surveyed his handiwork. "I don't like that you're doing this for him." "Don't start. I told you how nice he was." "In excruciating detail." Given, the post-Bainbridge family dinner e-mail to Frankie and Sadie had been long. But excrutiating stung, especially from the boy who'd used every possible synonym for hot in describing his Friday-night bookstore acquisition. No name, just detailed hotness and the play-by-play of their flirtation over the fantasy section.

Do you know that the United States is the only country in history that has ever used its own monogram as a symbol of depravity? Ask yourself why. Ask yourself how long a country that did that could hope to exist, and whose moral standards have destroyed it. It was the only country in history where wealth was not acquired by looting, but by production, not by force, but by trade, the only country whose money was the symbol of man’s right to his own mind, to his work, to his life, to his happiness, to himself. If this is evil, by the present standards of the world, if this is the reason for damning us, then we—we, the dollar chasers and makers—accept it and choose to be damned by that world. We choose to wear the sign of the dollar on our foreheads, proudly, as our badge of nobility—the badge we are willing to live for and, if need be, to die.

Like her father, Sumaiya believed that everyone has the right to make individual choices. But like him, she was conscious that people needed limits, and she was skeptical about the culture of indivualism that dominates Western life. It starts so early, she marveled: "Even in nursery, in Show and Tell, there's a sense of 'Look what I've got.' There's all this emphasis on the fact that it's your thing and you're showing it off." I'd never thought of Show and Tell as baby's first building block of individualism, but seen through Sumaiya's eyes, it suddenly seemed like an early foray into the culture of the self. The monogrammed towels, vanity license plates, and sloganeering tote bags would follow - a lifelong parade displaying one's own distinctiveness. If Western culture has the laudable goals of speaking up and standing out, these values also bring collateral damage: the cult of personalization.

I landed on my side, my hip taking the brunt of the fall. It burned and stung from the hit, but I ignored it and struggled to sit up quickly. There really was no point in hurrying so no one would see. Everyone already saw A pair of jean-clad legs appeared before me, and my suitcase and all my other stuff was dropped nearby. "Whatcha doing down there?" Romeo drawled, his hands on his hips as he stared down at me with dancing blue eyes. "Making a snow angel," I quipped. I glanced down at my hands, which were covered with wet snow and bits of salt (to keep the pavement from getting icy). Clearly, ice wasn't required for me to fall. A small group of girls just "happened by", and by that I mean they'd been staring at Romeo with puppy dog eyes and giving me the stink eye. When I fell, they took it as an opportunity to descend like buzzards stalking the dead. Their leader was the girl who approached me the very first day I'd worn Romeo's hoodie around campus and told me he'd get bored. As they stalked closer, looking like clones from the movie Mean Girls, I caught the calculating look in her eyes. This wasn't going to be good. I pushed up off the ground so I wouldn't feel so vulnerable, but the new snow was slick and my hand slid right out from under me and I fell back again. Romeo was there immediately, the teasing light in his eyes gone as he slid his hand around my back and started to pull me up. "Careful, babe." he said gently. The girls were behind him so I knew he hadn't seen them approach. They stopped as one unit, and I braced myself for whatever their leader was about to say. She was wearing painted-on skinny jeans (I mean, really, how did she sit down and still breathe?) and some designer coat with a monogrammed scarf draped fashionably around her neck. Her boots were high-heeled, made of suede and laced up the back with contrasting ribbon. "Wow," she said, opening her perfectly painted pink lips. "I saw that from way over there. That sure looked like it hurt." She said it fairly amicably, but anyone who could see the twist to her mouth as she said it would know better. Romeo paused in lifting me to my feet. I felt his eyes on me. Then his lips thinned as he turned and looked over his shoulder. "Ladies," he said like he was greeting a group of welcomed friends. Annoyance prickled my stomach like tiny needles stabbing me. It's not that I wanted him to be rude, but did he have to sound so welcoming? "Romeo," Cruella DeBarbie (I don't know her real name, but this one fit) purred. "Haven't you grown bored of this clumsy mule yet?" Unable to stop myself, I gasped and jumped up to my feet. If she wanted to call me a mule, I'd show her just how much of an ass I could be. Romeo brought his arm out and stopped me from marching past. I collided into him, and if his fingers hadn't knowingly grabbed hold to steady me, I'd have fallen again. "Actually," Romeo said, his voice calm, "I am pretty bored." Three smirks were sent my way. What a bunch of idiots. "The view from where I'm standing sure leaves a lot to be desired." One by one, their eyes rounded when they realized the view he referenced was them. Without another word, he pivoted around and looked down at me, his gaze going soft. "No need to make snow angels, baby," he said loud enough for the slack-jawed buzzards to hear. "You already look like one standing here with all that snow in your hair." Before I could say a word, he picked me up and fastened his mouth to mine. My legs wound around his waist without thought, and I kissed him back as gentle snow fell against our faces.

Inside the Galleria it was dark and dank, with fountains and foliage unchanged from the 1980s. I instantly knew it—an old friend—despite having never stepped foot inside, and the loneliness that had been haunting me all day lifted in an instant. Even though I was two thousand miles from it, I was home. I had just moved from Philly, and I didn’t know a soul. My new life was feeling so empty, I needed cheap stuff to fill it up, and there was something particularly alluring that drew me to the Galleria that day—a store I had heard about that was becoming ubiquitous in Los Angeles, popping up faster than a rash of Starbucks in the cityscape. It was a fast-fashion empire to rule them all—pitch-perfect knockoffs of designer styles on an endlessly rotating trend carousel that changed out daily. If you couldn’t afford a Murakami Louis Vuitton monogram bag or the Miu Miu pleated micro mini, you could pacify yourself with their bogus cousins for a fraction of the price, and not feel bad tossing them when the trends shifted in a month or two. I spotted the store’s golden logo overhead. Forever 21. The name alone was pure poetry written in the California sand. Forever 21—like the spirit of a roller-skating bikini girl riding into the Venice Beach dusk. Forever 21—like Madonna, like Angelyne—faces and bodies sculpted into youthful approximations of their aging corporal forms. Forever 21—the true spirit of Los Angeles. I felt it enter me, I was possessed.

One of the most effective ways to quicken your story’s pace is to move from a static description of an object, place or person to an active scene. The classic method for accomplishing this is to have your character interact with the subject that’s been described. For instance, let’s say you’ve just written three paragraphs describing a wedding dress in a shop window. You’ve detailed the Belgian lace veil, the beaded bodice, the twelve-foot train, even the row of satin buttons down the sleeves. Instinctively you feel it’s time to move into an action scene, but how do you do it without making your transition obvious? A simple, almost seamless way is to initiate an action between your character (let’s call her Miranda) and the dress you’ve just described. Perhaps Miranda could be passing by on the sidewalk when the dress in the window catches her attention. Or she could walk into the shop and ask the shopkeeper how much the dress costs. This method works well to link almost any static description with a scene of action. Describe an elegant table, for instance, complete with crystal goblets, damask tablecloth, monogrammed napkins and sterling silver tableware; then let the maid pull a cloth from her apron and begin to polish one of the forks. Or describe a Superman kite lying beside a tree, then watch as a little girl grabs the string and begins to run. You will still be describing, but the nature of your description will have changed from static to active, thus quickening the story’s pace. Throughout

Their Graces bought me, you know. They’d acquired my brother Devlin the year before, and my mother, inspired by this development, threatened to publish all manner of lurid memoirs regarding His Grace.” Acquired her brother? As if he were a promising yearling colt or an attractive patch of ground? “You are going to burden me with the details of your family past, I take it?” “You are the man who glories in details.” Without the least rude inflection, she made it sound like a failing. “My point is that my mother sold me. She could just as easily have sold me to a brothel. It’s done all the time. Unlike your sisters, Mr. Hazlit, I do not take for granted the propriety with which I was raised. You may ignore it if you please; I will not.” She had such a lovely voice. Light, soft, lilting with a hint of something Gaelic or Celtic… exotic. The sound of her voice was so pretty, it almost disguised the ugliness of her words. “How old were you?” “Five, possibly six. It depends on whether I am truly Moreland’s by-blow or just a result of my mother’s schemes in his direction.” Six years old and sold to a brothel? The food he’d eaten threatened to rebel. “I’m… sorry.” For calling her a dollymop, for making her repeat this miserable tale, for what he was about to suggest. She turned her head to regard him, the slight sheen in her eyes making him sorrier still. Sorrier than he could recall being about anything in a long, long time. Not just guilty and ashamed, but full of regret—for her. The way he’d been full of regret for his sisters and powerless to do anything but support them in their solitary struggles. He shoved that thought aside, along with the odd notion that he should take Magdalene Windham’s hand in some laughable gesture of comfort. He passed her his handkerchief instead. “This makes the stated purpose of my call somewhat awkward.” “It makes just about everything somewhat awkward,” she said quietly. “Try a few years at finishing school when you’re the daughter of not just a courtesan—there are some of those, after all—but a courtesan who sells her offspring. I realized fairly early that my mother’s great failing was not a lack of virtue, but rather that she was greedy in her fall from grace.” “She exploited a child,” Hazlit said. “That is an order of magnitude different from parlaying with an adult male in a transaction of mutual benefit.” “Do you think so?” She laid his handkerchief out in her lap, her fingers running over his monogrammed initials. “Some might say she was protecting me, providing for me and holding the duke accountable for his youthful indiscretions.” Despite her mild tone, Hazlit didn’t think Miss Windham would reach those conclusions. She might long to, but she wouldn’t. By the age of six a child usually had the measure of her caretakers. And to think of Maggie Windham at six… big innocent green eyes, masses of red hair, perfect skin… in a brothel. “I

You do have money, don’t you? You never paid your fare yesterday. It’s six pounds, eight. If you haven’t the coin, I’ll have no choice but to hold you for ransom once we reach Tortola.” Her fare. Sophia sipped her tea with relief. If Mr. Grayson was this concerned over six pounds, he surely had no idea he was harboring a runaway heiress with nearly one hundred times that amount strapped beneath her stays. She suppressed a nervous laugh. “Yes, of course I can pay my passage. You’ll have your money today, Mr. Grayson.” “Gray.” “Mr. Grayson,” she said, her voice and nerves growing thin, “I scarcely think that my moment of…of indisposition gives you leave to make such an intimate request, that I address you by your Christian name. I certainly shall not.” He clucked softly, wrapping the handkerchief around his fingers. With hypnotic tenderness, he reached out, drawing the fabric across her temple. “Now, sweetheart-surely my parents can be credited with greater imagination than you imply. Christening me ‘Gray Grayson’?” He chuckled low in his throat. “Everyone aboard this ship calls me Gray. Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s no particular privilege. There’s but one woman on earth permitted to address me by my Christian name.” “Your mother?” He grinned again. “No.” She blinked. “Oh, now don’t look so disappointed,” he said. “It’s my sister.” Sophia slanted her gaze to her lip, cursing herself for playing into his charm. If the sight of him drove the wits from her skull, the solution was plain. She mustn’t look. But then he pressed the handkerchief into her hand, covering her fingers with his own, and Sophia could not retrieve the small, defeated sigh that fell from her lips. His touch devastated her resolve completely. His hand was like the rest of him. Brute strength, neatly groomed. She heartily wished she’d thought to put on gloves. He leaned closer, his scent intruding through the pervasive smell of seawater-wholly masculine and faintly spicy, like pomade and rum. “And sweetheart, if I did make an intimate request of you”-his thumb swept boldly over the delicate skin of her wrist-“you’d know it.” Sophia sucked in her breath. “So call me Gray.” He released her hand abruptly. Disappointment-unbidden, imprudent, unthinkable emotion-cinched in Sophia’s chest. Distance from this man was precisely what she wished. Well, if not precisely what she wished, it was exactly what she needed. He looked at her as though he’d laid all her secrets bare, and her body as well. She pushed the tankard back at him, leaving him no choice but to take it from her hands. “I shall continue to address you as propriety demands, Mr. Grayson.” She cast him a sharp look. “And you certainly are not at liberty to call me ‘sweetheart.’” He donned an expression of wide-eyed innocence. “That isn’t what it stands for, then?” Teasing the handkerchief from her clenched fist, he ran his thumb over the embroidered monogram. S.H. “You see?” He traced each letter with the pad of his finger. “Sweet. Heart. I thought surely that must be it. Because I know your name is Jane Turner.” His lips curved in that insolent grin. “Unless…don’t tell me. It was a gift?

Each family member uses a monogrammed ring to identify and reuse his napkin between washes.

The food at Pleasant’s was almost as good as the coffee. Indeed, when he considered the two together, Poirot found it hard to believe what he knew to be the case: that everybody who worked in the kitchen here was English. Incroyable.

He coughs wetly and wipes his mouth with a monogrammed hankie. When he’s done I say, “What kind of event?” “Stupendous,” says Sandoval. “Cataclysmic.

two days of pay on the first-year anniversary grew to four weeks of pay by the tenth-year anniversary. Additionally, five-year employment anniversaries were celebrated with a cake, ten years with a monogrammed silver platter with the name Pepperidge Farm and the date inscribed on the bottom, and fifteen years with a monogrammed

I have an unorthodox sense of humor. Charles used to complain about it. I never told him this, but I don’t believe in heaven and hell. Oh, I believe in God, but not the God we hear so much about.

Catherine blew her nose into a monogrammed handkerchief. “That’s a Sisyphean task and you know it. We don’t even know that SPYDER is behind this.

I think a monogram says to people, “Hello, there. I’m southern.” Or maybe it says, “Don’t steal my stuff.

Nervously I tried to check my reflection in the opaque window of the front door. I had an idea that equerries to Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales were several inches taller than me in their Gucci loafers and carried a reassuring air of Labradors and sports cars. They certainly did not lose their cuff links. Summoning up all my stiffening thoughts, I pressed the bell. I could not hear if it had rung, so after several minutes I pressed it again, just as the door opened to reveal the Prince of Wales’s butler. He was about my height and wore a dark blue jacket with the Prince of Wales’s monogram on the lapels. He looked politely unimpressed. “Oh yes,” he said. “Come in.” Later, I came to know Harold Brown well and grew to admire his professionalism. At home and abroad, he quietly bore the hundreds of little stresses that came with dealing with his royal employers at their less attractive moments. His gift as a mimic had me crying tears of laughter into my whiskey on many foreign tours. That afternoon, however, he was every inch the guardian of his master’s privacy and impassively allowed me to follow him to the Equerries’ Room where I was to await the royal summons. Like so much of the apartment, although undeniably comfortable and well appointed, the Equerries’ Room was dark. Clever effects had been achieved with concealed lighting, pastel colorings, and flowers, but the overriding impression was one of pervasive gloom. Two people were already there—the Princess’s lady-in-waiting, Anne Beckwith-Smith, and her current equerry, Richard Aylard. They were there to examine me as a possible recruit to their exclusive way of life. During the last few days they had been examining five others as well, of course, so they were understandably distant, if polite. I was polite too—this was surely part of the selection process—and determined, like the butler, to look unimpressed. But I did need to go to the loo. Badly. Groping in the semigloom of the cloakroom, I became the latest visitor to fumble for the trick light switch on a fiendish trompe l’oeil before finding the real switch on the wall behind me.

We deden ons best ons steeds flexibeler op te stellen en we merkten ook dat we vergevingsgezinder werden, jegens onszelf én iedereen die we onderweg tegenkwamen. Erg veel keus hadden we eerlijk gezegd ook niet. Met reisplannen die afhankelijk waren van de aanwezigheid van plaatsen waar we gratis ons afvalwater konden lozen (die ons gps-systeem niet altijd aangaf…) en eventueel oponthoud in stadjes onderweg (als gevolg van een optocht, een marathon, wegwerkzaamheden) waren een open mind en een vrije geest haast een vereiste. En dan was er nog de waslijst aan dingen die we onveranderlijk thuis vergaten, waardoor we gedwongen werden een creatieve oplossing te verzinnen voor bepaalde dingen. Om nog maar te zwijgen van onze ontmoetingen met coyotejongen, elanden, beren, vlinders die zich massaal verplaatsten, of de vrouw die op hoge hakken haar varkentje uitliet op de camping, gehuld in een trui met monogram, die perfect paste bij het truitje dat het varken droeg. Hoe door de wol geverfd je ook bent en hoe goed je ook probeert te plannen, reizen leert je nergens meer van op te kijken en overal gewoon in mee te gaan. Natuurlijk

The old man held out a paper scroll, not mere parchment. It was a clear sign of wealth and status. Not every noble family could afford to use paper for invitations. The very fact that Hadjar was being visited by the clan’s attorney, and not by a simple servant, spoke volumes. “Thank-” Hadjar reached out, almost closing his fingers around the scroll, but the old man suddenly loosened his grip. Caught in the wind, the invitation, decorated with monograms and tied with a scarlet ribbon, fell to the dirt at Hadjar’s feet. The old man didn’t apologize. He stood there, with his hand still outstretched, a sneer on his lips, radiating complete confidence in his superiority. A clear example that old age didn’t mean one also gained intelligence or wisdom. He’d lived long enough for his hair to turn gray, but not long enough to acquire a brain. He didn’t even realize how simply and blatantly he was being used. Hadjar, just as the old man had expected, bent down to pick up the invitation, dusted it off, and held it without putting it away in his spatial artifact, as was required by etiquette. “You didn’t have to bow to me, young man,” the old man grunted. This was quite a serious insult. Being the personal disciple of a great hero made Hadjar equal in status to the senior heirs of aristocratic families. He was at the very top of the social structure of Dahanatan. But Hadjar didn’t really care about any of that. The power he possessed was insignificant in his opinion, and ever since he’d eaten those first scraps in Primus’ dungeon, he’d stopped caring about whether he was a Prince or a circus freak. Titles didn’t matter. The important thing was that the old man was a servant, and Hadjar was almost an aristocrat. The lawyer’s words were akin to the old man throwing a glove in Hadjar’s face. Hadjar looked behind his visitor, at the dark carriage emblazoned with the white coat of arms of the Predatory Blades clan. Brustor would have to try a little harder. So far, his provocations weren’t even a match for the insults that Hadjar had received during his meetings with Emperor Morgan. Shocking the old man, Hadjar bowed deeply. “Only a silly young man,” he said, straightening back up, “doesn’t feel respect toward someone whose hair is whiter than his.

Sigils are monograms of thought, for the government of energy.

Hell is empty’?” “‘And all the devils are here,

One nice touch about Christy’s discovery was that it happened in Flagstaff, for it was there in 1930 that Pluto had been found in the first place. That seminal event in astronomy was largely to the credit of the astronomer Perdval Lowell. Lowell, who came from one of the oldest and wealthiest Boston families (the one in the famous ditty about Boston being the home of the bean and the cod, where Lowells spoke only to Cabots, while Cabots spoke only to God), endowed the famous observatory that bears his name, but is most indelibly remembered for his belief that Mars was covered with canals built by industrious Martians for purposes of conveying water from polar regions to the dry but productive lands nearer the equator. Lowell’s other abiding conviction was that there existed, somewhere out beyond Neptune, an undiscovered ninth planet dubbed, Planet X. Lowell based this belief on irregularities he detected in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, and devoted the last years of his life to trying to find the gassy giant he was certain was out there. Unfortunately, he died suddenly in 1916, at least partly exhausted by his quest and the search fell into abeyance while Lowell’s heirs squabbled over his estate. However, in 1929, partly as a way of deflecting attention away from the Mars canal saga (which by now had become a serious embarrassment), the Lowell Observatory directors decided to resume the search and to that end hired a young man from Kansas named Clyde Tombaugh. Tombaugh had no formal training as an astronomer, but he was diligent and he was astute, and after a year’s patient searching he somehow spotted Pluto, a faint point of light in a glittery firmament. It was a miraculous find, and what made it all the more striking was that the observations on which Lowell had predicted the existence of a planet beyond Neptune proved to be comprehensively erroneous. Tombaugh could see at once that the new planet was nothing like the massive gasball Lowell had postulated, but any reservations he or anyone else had about the character of the new planet were soon swept aside in the delirium that attended almost any big news story in that easily excited age. This was the first American-discovered planet and no one was going to be distracted by the thought that it was really just a distant icy dot. It was named Pluto at least partly because the first two letters made a monogram from Lowell’s initials. Lowell was posthumously hailed everywhere as a genius of the first order, and Tombaugh was largely forgotten, except among planetary astronomers, who tend to revere him.

On the wicker coffee table to her right stood a stack of romance novels, a monogrammed YETI tumbler, a bottle of 2004 Pino noir, and an AR-15. It was a whole mood.

STEPS TO A POWER NOTE:     1.  USE UNBRANDED CARDS WITH A SYMBOL OR MONOGRAM THAT REPRESENTS YOU. IT’S A PERSONAL NOTE.     2.  USE BLUE INK. IT LOOKS ORIGINAL AND POSITIVE.     3.  WORDS - USE YOU, BUT AVOID I, ME, MY.     4.  BE SPECIFIC IN YOUR PRAISE. IDENTIFY AND ACKNOWLEDGE A CHARACTERISTIC, A TALENT, A UNIQUE QUALITY.     5.  LEVERAGE THE POWER OF POSITIVE PROJECTION. IDENTIFY A PERSONAL CHARACTERISTIC YOU WANT TO IMPROVE AND EXPRESS RESPECT FOR OTHERS WHO POSSESS THAT QUALITY (HAPPINESS, WEALTH, BALANCE, ETC.)     6.  WRITE RIGHTLY - SLOPE TEXT SLIGHTLY UPWARD FROM LEFT TO RIGHT. READ YOUR HANDWRITING CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE BY VIMALA RODGERS.7     7.  THE POWER OF THE P.S. USE A P.S. AS A CALL-TO-ACTION: ASK THE RECIPIENT TO TAKE ACTION SUCH AS E-MAILING OR CALLING. “Whom do I write these POWER Notes to?” Rick asked. “Everybody you know,” Coach answered. “Pick up a business card, look in your e-mail, look in your database—find a person,

It would not have done Poirot any good whatever to state that his wishes were the precise opposite of hers in this respect. Nothing fascinated him more than the private passions of strangers he would probably never meet again.

It is among the more pointless of my habits: wondering what I ought to do when there is no doubt about what I am going to do.

does not sound ‘quite simple’ to me,” I said. “It sounds inordinately complicated.

... Bagaimana sesuatu yang baik bisa dihasilkan dari pertumpahan darah dan pembunuhan besar-besaran? Bagaimana kemajuan bisa dicapai oleh orang-orang yang hanya ingin merusak dan menghancurkan, yang tidak bisa menceritakan harapan dan impiannya tanpa memberengut benci dan marah?

I must say, I did not and never would understand why he required such a sizeable audience. It was not a theatrical production.

Myron looked at the door as Zorra entered in all his sartorial splendor. He wore his Veronica Lake–on–meth wig, a green monogrammed sweater, and a skirt in a hue Zorra would undoubtedly call “sea foam.” When

From the Kindle Book Reflections in the Mirror of Life: “The Sun Beat Down on the pavement Its scorching rays bleaching the concrete and metal And searing its monogram onto all who dared to venture forth onto the boulevard.

You are no fun,” Dev said, passing Anna a cookie. “We couldn’t hear a thing, and we were sure you were going to tear a strip off the earl. Nobody tears a strip off Westhaven, not Her Grace, not His Grace, not even Pericles.” “Rose could,” Val speculated, handing his drink to Anna. “Come along.” He put an arm around Anna’s shoulders. “We’ll teach you how to cheat at cribbage, and you can tell us what we missed.” “I already know how to cheat at cribbage,” Anna said dumbly, staring at the drink and cookie in her hands. “Teach that in housekeeper school now, do they?” Dev closed the library door behind them. “Well, then we’ll teach you some naughty rugby songs instead. She’s going to cry, Val. Best get your hankie at the ready.” “I am not going to cry,” Anna said, shoulders stiff. But then she took a funny gulpy breath and two monogrammed handkerchiefs were thrust in her direction. She turned her face into Val’s muscular shoulder and bawled while Dev rescued the drink and cookies.

Then, following Aristotle’s dictum of “using expressions that represent things as in a state of activity,” I ask the students to set the person in motion. Again, it’s important to be as specific as possible. “Reading the newspaper” is a start, but it does little more than label a generic activity. In order for readers to enter the fictional dream, the activity must be shown. Often this means breaking the large generic activity into smaller, more particular parts: “scowling at the Dow Jones averages,” perhaps, or “skimming the used car ads” or “wiping his ink-stained fingers on the monogrammed handkerchief he always keeps in his shirt pocket.” These three actions describe three very different fathers. Besides providing a visual image for the reader, specific and representative actions also suggest the personality of the character, the emotional life hidden beneath the physical details. As