Noises Off Quotes

But you can't get away from yourself. You can't decide not to see yourself anymore. You can't decide to turn off the noise in your head.

I don't recommend shadow travel if you're scared of: a) The dark b) Cold shivers up your spine c) Strange noises d) Going so fast you feel like your face is peeling off In other words, I thought it was awesome.

If you hear a song that makes you cry and you don't want to cry anymore, you don't listen to that song anymore. But you can't get away from yourself. You can't decide not to see yourself anymore. You can't decide to turn off the noise in your head.

I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.

The universe contains any amount of horrible ways to be woken up, such as the noise of the mob breaking down the front door, the scream of fire engines, or the realization that today is the Monday which on Friday night was a comfortably long way off. A dog's wet nose is not strictly speaking the worst of the bunch, but it has its own peculiar dreadfulness which connoisseurs of the ghastly and dog owners everywhere have come to know and dread. It's like having a small piece of defrosting liver pressed lovingly against you.

I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong. I will love you as a battlefield loves young men and as peppermints love your allergies, and I will love you as the banana peel loves the shoe of a man who was just struck by a shingle falling off a house. I will love you as a volunteer fire department loves rushing into burning buildings and as burning buildings love to chase them back out, and as a parachute loves to leave a blimp and as a blimp operator loves to chase after it. I will love you as a dagger loves a certain person’s back, and as a certain person loves to wear dagger proof tunics, and as a dagger proof tunic loves to go to a certain dry cleaning facility, and how a certain employee of a dry cleaning facility loves to stay up late with a pair of binoculars, watching a dagger factory for hours in the hopes of catching a burglar, and as a burglar loves sneaking up behind people with binoculars, suddenly realizing that she has left her dagger at home. I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled. I will love you until every fire is extinguised and until every home is rebuilt from the handsomest and most susceptible of woods, and until every criminal is handcuffed by the laziest of policemen. I will love until M. hates snakes and J. hates grammar, and I will love you until C. realizes S. is not worthy of his love and N. realizes he is not worthy of the V. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple, and until the apple hates a tree and the tree hates a nest, and until a bird hates a tree and an apple hates a nest, although honestly I cannot imagine that last occurrence no matter how hard I try. I will love you as we grow older, which has just happened, and has happened again, and happened several days ago, continuously, and then several years before that, and will continue to happen as the spinning hands of every clock and the flipping pages of every calendar mark the passage of time, except for the clocks that people have forgotten to wind and the calendars that people have forgotten to place in a highly visible area. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where we once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively. I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from slim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and now matter how I am discovered after what happens to me as I am discovering this.

When you drop a glass or a plate to the ground it makes a loud crashing sound. When a window shatters a table leg breaks or when a picture falls off the wall it makes a noise. But as for your heart when that breaks it s completely silent. You would think as it s so important it would make the loudest noise in the whole world or even have some ... Read Moresort of ceremonious sound like the gong of a cymbal or the ringing of a bell. But it s silent and you almost wish there was a noise to distract you from the pain. If there is a noise it s internal. It screams and no one can hear it but you. It screams so loud your ears ring and your head aches. It trashes around in your chest like a great white shark caught in the sea it roars like a mother bear whose cub has been taken. That s what it looks like and that s what it sounds like a trashing panicking trapped great big beast roaring like a prisoner to its own emotions. But that s the thing about love no one is untouchable.

Silence fell between us. This was a common occurrence whenever we’re alone. When you’re comfortable with someone, you don’t need to always fill the void with noise. I liked it when we would just be.

Fuck, I want to kiss her again. I want to feel her lips on mine. I want to hear that throaty noise she made the first time I sucked on her tongue.

That's a sweet piece," said Jean, briefly forgetting to be aggravated. "You didn't snatch that off a street." "No," said Locke, before taking another deep draught of the warm water in the decanter. "I got it from the neck of the governor's mistress." "You can't be serious." "In the governor's manor." "Of all the -" "In the governor's bed." "Damned lunatic!" "With the governor sleeping next to her." The night quiet was broken by the high, distant trill of a whistle, the traditional swarming noise of city watches everywhere. Several other whistles joined in a few moments later. "It is possible," said Locke with a sheepish grin, "that I have been slightly too bold.

Glass shattered, vampires roared, humans screamed. The noise battered at me, just as the tidal wave of scores of brains at high gear washed over me. When it began to taper off, I looked up into Eric's eyes. Incredibly, he was excited. He smiled at me. "I knew I'd get on top of you somehow," he said. Are you trying to make me mad so I'll forget how scared I am?" No, I'm just opportunistic." I wiggled, trying to get out from under him, and he said, "Oh, do that again. It felt great.

I took a step forward, rage swirling inside me. “You broke into Mount Weather?” Hunter choked out a laugh. “Are you insane?” “Shut up,” I said, keeping my eyes on Luc. Hunter made a deep noise. “Our little mutual white flag of friendship is going to come to a halt if you tell me to shut up again.” I spared him a brief glance. “Shut. Up.” Dark shadows drifted over the Arum’s shoulder, and I faced him fully. “What?” I said, throwing my hands up in a universal come get some. “I have a lot of pent-up violence I’d love to take out on someone.” “Guys.” Luc sighed, sliding off the bar. “Seriously? Can’t you two bro-mance it out?

A loud booming noise interrupted us, and we saw a flash of light off to my right. People near the other garages screamed. "There, you see?" asked Abe, quite pleased with himself. "A new gate. Perfect timing.

Let us find the dam snack bar," Zoe said. "We should eat while we can." Grover cracked a smile. "The dam snack bar?" Zoe blinked. "Yes. What is funny?" "Nothing," Grover said, trying to keep a straight face. "I could use some dam french fries." Even Thalia smiled at that. "And I need to use the dam restroom." Maybe it was the fact that we were so tired and strung out emotionally, but I started cracking up, and Thalia and Grover joined in, while Zoe just looked at us. "I do not understand." "I want to use the dam water fountain," Grover said. "And…" Thalia tried to catch her breath. "I want to buy a dam T-shirt." I busted up, and I probably would've kept laughing all day, but then I heard a noise: "Moooo." The smile melted off my face. I wondered if the noise was just in my head, but Grover had stopped laughing too. He was looking around, confused. "Did I just hear a cow?" "A dam cow?" Thalia laughed.

And I put my hand on her arm to stop her rowing. Aaron’s Noise roars up in red and black. The current takes us on. “I’m sorry!” I cry as the river takes us away, my words ragged things torn from me, my chest pulled so tight I can’t barely breathe. “I’m sorry, Manchee!” “Todd?” he barks, confused and scared and watching me leave him behind. “Todd?” “Manchee!” I scream. Aaron brings his free hand towards my dog. “MANCHEE!” “Todd?” And Aaron wrenches his arms and there’s a CRACK and a scream and a cut-off yelp that tears my heart in two forever and forever. And the pain is too much it’s too much it’s too much and my hands are on my head and I’m rearing back and my mouth is open in a never-ending wordless wail of all the blackness that’s inside of me.

The smoke alarm went off in the hallway upstairs, either to let us know the battery had just died or because the house was on fire.

Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours.

I thought you were disgusted by the people that come to my club.” “They’re still people.” He presses the button again. “If you go outside, you will be killed. If you make noise, you will be sent outside. Don’t piss me off.” Just like that, Chester’s goes completely silent.

Are you all right?” he asked Olivia. His heart was still racing with terror that she’d been hurt. “I heard a woman scream.” “Ah, that would have been me,” Sebastian said. Harry looked down on his cousin, face frozen in disbelief. “You made that noise?” “It hurt,” Sebastian bit off. Harry fought not to laugh. “You scream like a leettle girl.

Jobs insisted that Apple focus on just two or three priorities at a time. “There is no one better at turning off the noise that is going on around him,” Cook said. “That allows him to focus on a few things and say no to many things. Few people are really good at that.

The fight unfolded like background noise. White noise. In the foreground, even with his ghastly pale face looking dead in my hands, my fingers clenching his ragged hair, all I could see was random images of Fang, not dead. Fang telling me stupid fart jokes from the dog crate next to mine at the school, trying to make me laugh. Fang asleep at Jeb's old house, and me jumping wildly on his bed to wake him up. Him pretending to be asleep. Me laughing when I "accidentally" kicked him where it counts. Him dumping me off the bed. Fang gagging on my first attempt at cooking dinner after Jeb disappeared. Him spitting out the mac and cheese. Me dumping the rest of the bowl on him in response. Fang on the beach, that first time he was badly injured. Me realizing how I felt about him. Fang kissing me. So close I couldn't even see his dark eyes anymore. The first time. The second time. The third. I could always remember each and every one of them. Would always remember them. Fang. Not. Dead.

A thump thump thump noise that was so unfamiliar, and yet I couldn't quite place it. But I knew it. It was---"Mmm-hmmm," Monica murmured, just as Wes came view into the path. He was running, his pace quick and steady. He was in shorts, his shirt off, staring ahead as he passed. His back was tan and gleaming with sweat. God god!" she said finally, fanning her face with her hand, "I've seen it a million times but it just never gets old. Never.

The family is the cradle of the world’s misinformation. There must be something in family life that generates factual error. Over-closeness, the noise and heat of being. Perhaps even something deeper like the need to survive. Murray says we are fragile creatures surrounded by a world of hostile facts. Facts threaten our happiness and security. The deeper we delve into things, the looser our structure may seem to become. The family process works towards sealing off the world. Small errors grow heads, fictions proliferate. I tell Murray that ignorance and confusion can’t possibly be the driving forces behind family solidarity. What an idea, what a subversion. He asks me why the strongest family units exist in the least developed societies. Not to know is a weapon of survival, he says. Magic and superstition become entrenched as the powerful orthodoxy of the clan. The family is strongest where objective reality is most likely to be misinterpreted. What a heartless theory, I say. But Murray insists it’s true.

Civilized people must, I believe, satisfy the following criteria: 1) They respect human beings as individuals and are therefore always tolerant, gentle, courteous and amenable ... They do not create scenes over a hammer or a mislaid eraser; they do not make you feel they are conferring a great benefit on you when they live with you, and they don't make a scandal when they leave. (...) 2) They have compassion for other people besides beggars and cats. Their hearts suffer the pain of what is hidden to the naked eye. (...) 3) They respect other people's property, and therefore pay their debts. 4) They are not devious, and they fear lies as they fear fire. They don't tell lies even in the most trivial matters. To lie to someone is to insult them, and the liar is diminished in the eyes of the person he lies to. Civilized people don't put on airs; they behave in the street as they would at home, they don't show off to impress their juniors. (...) 5) They don't run themselves down in order to provoke the sympathy of others. They don't play on other people's heartstrings to be sighed over and cosseted ... that sort of thing is just cheap striving for effects, it's vulgar, old hat and false. (...) 6) They are not vain. They don't waste time with the fake jewellery of hobnobbing with celebrities, being permitted to shake the hand of a drunken [judicial orator], the exaggerated bonhomie of the first person they meet at the Salon, being the life and soul of the bar ... They regard prases like 'I am a representative of the Press!!' -- the sort of thing one only hears from [very minor journalists] -- as absurd. If they have done a brass farthing's work they don't pass it off as if it were 100 roubles' by swanking about with their portfolios, and they don't boast of being able to gain admission to places other people aren't allowed in (...) True talent always sits in the shade, mingles with the crowd, avoids the limelight ... As Krylov said, the empty barrel makes more noise than the full one. (...) 7) If they do possess talent, they value it ... They take pride in it ... they know they have a responsibility to exert a civilizing influence on [others] rather than aimlessly hanging out with them. And they are fastidious in their habits. (...) 8) They work at developing their aesthetic sensibility ... Civilized people don't simply obey their baser instincts ... they require mens sana in corpore sano. And so on. That's what civilized people are like ... Reading Pickwick and learning a speech from Faust by heart is not enough if your aim is to become a truly civilized person and not to sink below the level of your surroundings. [From a letter to Nikolay Chekhov, March 1886]

The facts of his existence are plain. I know that he will never silence those unspeakable voices. He heard how people killed, and how they died and their voices infected him, coursed through his body, poisoned him. He didn't know how to turn off the noise, or turn the hate back out onto the world like the rest of us. He turned it on himself. You could see that from the scars on him.

The art of rap is deceptive. It seems so straightforward and personal and real that people read it completely literally, as raw testimony or autobiography. And sometimes the words we use, nigga, bitch, motherfucker, and the violence of the images overwhelms some listeners. It's all white noise to them till they hear a bitch or a nigga and then they run off yelling "See!" and feel vindicated in their narrow conception of what the music is about.

Percy's thoughts: I don't recommend shadow travel if your scared of: A) The dark B) Cold shivers up your spine C) Strange noises D) Going so fast you feel like your is peeling off In other words I thought it was awesome

When you drop a glass or a plate to the ground it makes a long crashing sound. When a window shatters, a table leg breaks, or when a picture falls off the wall it makes a noise. But as for your heart, when that breaks, it's completely silent. You would think as it's so important it would make the loudest noise in the whole world, or even have some sort of ceremonious sound like the gong of a cymbal or the ringing of a bell. But it's silent and you almost wish there was a noise to distract you from the pain.

For me, Savannah's resistance to change was its saving grace. The city looked inward, sealed off from the noises and distractions of the world at large. It grew inward, too, and in such a way that its people flourished like hothouse plants tended by an indulgent gardener. The ordinary became extraordinary. Eccentrics thrived. Every nuance and quirk of personality achieved greater brilliance in that lush enclosure than would have been possible anywhere else in the world.

[The modern age] knows nothing about isolation and nothing about silence. In our quietest and loneliest hour the automatic ice-maker in the refrigerator will cluck and drop an ice cube, the automatic dishwasher will sigh through its changes, a plane will drone over, the nearest freeway will vibrate the air. Red and white lights will pass in the sky, lights will shine along highways and glance off windows. There is always a radio that can be turned to some all-night station, or a television set to turn artificial moonlight into the flickering images of the late show. We can put on a turntable whatever consolation we most respond to, Mozart or Copland or the Grateful Dead.

Above me, wind does its best to blow leaves off the aspen tree a month too soon. No use wind. All you succeed in doing is making music, the noise of failure growing beautiful.

It’s like trying to herd a flock of geese,” said Orik. “They’re always trying to go off on their own, they make an obnoxious noise, and they’ll bite your hand first chance they get.

My sweet little whorish Nora I did as you told me, you dirty little girl, and pulled myself off twice when I read your letter. I am delighted to see that you do like being fucked arseways. Yes, now I can remember that night when I fucked you for so long backwards. It was the dirtiest fucking I ever gave you, darling. My prick was stuck in you for hours, fucking in and out under your upturned rump. I felt your fat sweaty buttocks under my belly and saw your flushed face and mad eyes. At every fuck I gave you your shameless tongue came bursting out through your lips and if a gave you a bigger stronger fuck than usual, fat dirty farts came spluttering out of your backside. You had an arse full of farts that night, darling, and I fucked them out of you, big fat fellows, long windy ones, quick little merry cracks and a lot of tiny little naughty farties ending in a long gush from your hole. It is wonderful to fuck a farting woman when every fuck drives one out of her. I think I would know Nora’s fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have. It is sudden and dry and dirty like what a bold girl would let off in fun in a school dormitory at night. I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face so that I may know their smell also. You say when I go back you will suck me off and you want me to lick your cunt, you little depraved blackguard. I hope you will surprise me some time when I am asleep dressed, steal over to me with a whore’s glow in your slumberous eyes, gently undo button after button in the fly of my trousers and gently take out your lover’s fat mickey, lap it up in your moist mouth and suck away at it till it gets fatter and stiffer and comes off in your mouth. Sometimes too I shall surprise you asleep, lift up your skirts and open your drawers gently, then lie down gently by you and begin to lick lazily round your bush. You will begin to stir uneasily then I will lick the lips of my darling’s cunt. You will begin to groan and grunt and sigh and fart with lust in your sleep. Then I will lick up faster and faster like a ravenous dog until your cunt is a mass of slime and your body wriggling wildly. Goodnight, my little farting Nora, my dirty little fuckbird! There is one lovely word, darling, you have underlined to make me pull myself off better. Write me more about that and yourself, sweetly, dirtier, dirtier.

You could die, I thought, and it was a nice relaxing thought at the time. I imagined death like a switch, switching off all the pain and noise, cancelling everything.

The trigger gave; I felt the smooth underside of the butt; and there, in that noise, sharp and deafening at the same time, is where it all started. I shook off the sweat and the sun. I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I'd been happy. Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.

There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off.

I hear Nine make an oohing noise off to the side and make a mental note to destroy him the next chance I get.

when the story of earth is told, all that will be remembered is the truth we exchanged. The vulnerable moments. The terrifying risk of love and the care we took to cultivate it. And all the rest, the distracting noises of insecurity and the flattery and the flashbulbs will flicker out like a turned-off television.

You should try making more noise as you walk, too.” Curran suggested. “Maybe the ghouls will mistake you for a small underground elephant and run off.” “When we get out of here, I’ll kick you.” “You’ll try.

When a Girl's on a pedestal, there's nothing some people would like better than to shove her off it, just to know what kind of noise she'd make when she shattered.

In every big-budget science fiction movie there's the moment when a spaceship as large as New York suddenly goes to light speed. A twanging noise like a wooden ruler being plucked over the edge of a desk, a dazzling refraction of light, and suddenly the stars have all been stretched out thin and it's gone. This was exactly like that, except that instead of a gleaming twelve-mile-long spaceship, it was an off-white twenty-year-old motor scooter. And you didn't have the special rainbow effects. And it probably wasn't going at more than two hundred miles an hour. And instead of a pulsing whine sliding up the octaves, it just went putputputputput ... VROOOOSH. But it was exactly like that anyway.

I wanted to scream as I stood there, my toes hanging over the edge of the dock. I wanted to let a gut-wrenching howl rip from my disfigured throat toward those clouded skies. I wanted to say every swear word my mother had ever taught me not to say. I would have settled for a cut-off whimper, just as long as some kind of sound came from my lips.

I suppose hobbits need some description nowadays, since they have become rare and shy of the Big People, as they call us. They are (or were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded Dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off. They are inclined to be fat in the stomach; they dress in bright colours (chiefly green and yellow); wear no...

Now, remember: they're not for eating, but for listening, because you'll often be hungry for sounds as well as food. Here are street noises at night, train whistles from a long way off, dry leaves burning, busy department stores, crunching toast, creaking bed springs, and of course, all kinds of laughter. There's a little of each, and in far off, lonely places, I think you will be glad to have them.

Hey, prez!” I get out of the desk and hug him. He makes a strangled-cat noise and adjusts his glasses so hard they fly off his face. I pick them off the floor. “You okay?” “I-I’m fine. Um. You look – you look, uh, you look - ” “Nice?” I offer. “Really…really nice,” Wren exhales.

I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck... I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

Once upon a time . . .” “In the beginning was . . .” That’s the way it always starts off. Every story, gospel, history, chronicle, myth, legend, folktale, or old wives’ tale blues riff begins with “Woke up this mornin’. . . .

I suppose the fundamental distinction between Shakespeare and myself is one of treatment. We get our effects differently. Take the familiar farcical situation of someone who suddenly discovers that something unpleasant is standing behind them. Here is how Shakespeare handles it in "The Winter's Tale," Act 3, Scene 3: ANTIGONUS: Farewell! A lullaby too rough. I never saw the heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour! Well may I get aboard! This is the chase: I am gone for ever. And then comes literature's most famous stage direction, "Exit pursued by a bear." All well and good, but here's the way I would handle it: BERTIE: Touch of indigestion, Jeeves? JEEVES: No, Sir. BERTIE: Then why is your tummy rumbling? JEEVES: Pardon me, Sir, the noise to which you allude does not emanate from my interior but from that of that animal that has just joined us. BERTIE: Animal? What animal? JEEVES: A bear, Sir. If you will turn your head, you will observe that a bear is standing in your immediate rear inspecting you in a somewhat menacing manner. BERTIE (as narrator): I pivoted the loaf. The honest fellow was perfectly correct. It was a bear. And not a small bear, either. One of the large economy size. Its eye was bleak and it gnashed a tooth or two, and I could see at a g. that it was going to be difficult for me to find a formula. "Advise me, Jeeves," I yipped. "What do I do for the best?" JEEVES: I fancy it might be judicious if you were to make an exit, Sir. BERTIE (narrator): No sooner s. than d. I streaked for the horizon, closely followed across country by the dumb chum. And that, boys and girls, is how your grandfather clipped six seconds off Roger Bannister's mile. Who can say which method is superior?" (As reproduced in Plum, Shakespeare and the Cat Chap )

Give me a minute to get dressed." "You're not dressed?" I smiled in spite of myself at the lighthearted quility of his jest. Until my broken door began to move. "Jace!" I shouted, trying to keep from laughing as I vaulted off the bed and scrambled to stop him. He wasn't seriously trying to sneak a peek; if he had been, he wouldn't have made any noise. But if I let him get away with a joke today, he'd try it for real tomorrow. Jace yelped as I ripped the door from his grasp and leaned it against the frame. Then he sulked, his eyes roaming just far enough south to see my tank top and shorts. "Liar!" he accused, the smile in his eyes ruining his pout. "You're not naked." "I meant I wanted to change." He grinned. "So, go ahead." "Nice try.

She [Anita] turns back to Raffe, her face melting into a radiant smile. She puts her hand on his arm as he’s about to take off his pants. And that’s all the excuse I need. I grab the sudsy shirt out of the gray water and throw it at her. It makes a plop noise when it lands on her face, wrapping around her hair. Her perfect hair clumps into a stringy mass, and her mascara smears as the cloth slides wetly down her blouse. She emits a high-pitched squeal that turns every head within earshot. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I say in a sugary voice. “Did you not like that? I thought that’s what you wanted. I mean, why else would you be putting your paws on my man?

I erupt from the dark, crushing tunnel into a flash of light and noise. A new kind of air surrounds me, dry and cold, as they wipe the last smears of home off my skin. I feel a sharp pain as they snip something, and suddenly I am less. I am no one but myself, tiny and feeble and utterly alone. I am lifted and swungthrough great heights across yawning distances, and given to Her. She wraps around me, so much bigger and softer than I ever imagined from inside,and I strain my eyes open. I see Her. She is immense, cosmic. She is the world. The world smiles down on me, and when She speaks it’s the voice of God, vast and resonant with meaning, but words unknowable, ringing gibberish in my blank white mind.

She was, he knew- and had known very early, he supposed- one of those rare and always lovely humans whose moral nature was so delicate that it must be nourished and cared for that it might be fulfilled. Alien to the world, it had to live where it could not be at home; avid for tenderness and quiet, it had to feed upon indifference and callousness and noise. It was a nature that, even in the strange and inimical place where it had to live, had not the savagery to fight off the brutal forces that opposed it and could only withdraw to a quietness where it was forlorn and small and gently still.

You, sir," I said, "have all the dignity of a badger with the clap. Shark shit has more fiber than you. I'm going to tie your nuts-first to a monkey's cage and make a mix tape of the resulting noise. Then I'm going to take a bag of marshmallows and a pair of granny panties and-"... ... He didn't want to know what I was going to do with those granny panties. Surprisingly, Granuaile did. "Sensei, what were you going to do with those marshmallows and panties?" she whispered as we walked together. "I mean, I'm sure it had to be dire, but it just didn't sound as threatening as the potential havoc a monkey could wreak on his sack." "There was more to that recipe," I admitted. "He cut me off before I could get to the Icy Hot and the gopher snake.

At nearly three in the morning sleepiness weighted my body as we lay there together so still. I heard his breathing even out as we both hovered in that place between wake and sleep. And then his hand wandered lazily down my back and over my hip until he was cupping the full curve of my behind, part of me that he’d actively avoided touching all night. Scratch that sleepy thing. His firm hands clutched me closer and I breathed a heady gust of air at his throat. I’d been careful all night not to be too vocal about how good his touches felt. I knew each noise would act as fuel, making it even harder for him. He rolled to his back, pulling me on top of him with both hands fully on my backside now. “Kaidan,” I whispered. Looking half-asleep, he shushed me with a hot kiss, pulling my hips to crush us together. I whimpered into his mouth. “God, those little sounds,” he said against my lips. “I want to hear how you sound when I make you—” “Kai!” I practically leaped off him, and he sat up, eyes blazing, licking his lips. I was breathing hard. He had to be as tired as me after our long day, and it was starting to weaken us big-time. Oh, how I’d love to indulge that weakness. I scooted farther away. “Maybe we should try to get some sleep,” I suggested, though I was feeling wide-awake now. He stared at me with roaring passion. “I think a third shower might be necessary,” he said. A silly laugh wanted to escape me, but there was no humor in his eyes. Only want.

It's never over. Not really. Not when you stay down there as long as I did, not when you've lived in the netherworld longer than you've lived in this material one, where things are very bright and large and make such strange noises. You never come back, not all the way. Always, there is an odd distance between you and the people you love and the people you meet, a barrier, thin as the glass of a mirror. You never come all the way out of the mirror; you stand, for the rest of your life, with one foot in this world and one in another, where everything is upside down and backward and sad. It is the distance of marred memory, of a twisted and shape-shifting past. When people talk about their childhood, their adolescence, their college days, I laugh along and try not to think: that was when I was throwing up in my elementary school bathroom, that was when I was sleeping with strangers to show off the sharp tips of my bones, that was when I lost sight of my soul and died. And it is the distance of the present, as well - the distance that lies between people in general because of the different lives we have lived. I don't know who I would be, now, if I had not lived the life I have, and so I cannot alter my need for distance - nor can I lessen the low and omnipresent pain that that distance creates. The entirety of my life is overshadowed by one singular and near-fatal obsession.

I wonder if when birds are new they ever try to land on clouds? And if so is it like when you think you’ve gone down the last stair but there’s still another one and you step off and make that weird “oof” noise and everyone looks at you? That would suck. But at least birds are hidden when they fuck up and fall through clouds.

I heard a noise on the back patio and opened the door. The rabbit was there in a black metal cage. It was big, not some fluffy little ball of fur, but a big, ugly rabbit. It stood on its hind legs and sniffed the air. “Yes, you smell that,” I told the rabbit. “That’s the smell of your enemy. Get a good whiff. We are not friends.” It could probably smell the apple I still held, not me. I bit off a piece and threw it into the cage, sending it a very mixed message considering the speech I’d given. “Just keeping you on your toes.” “Who are you talking to

Grief manifested itself in ways that felt like anything but grief; grief obliterated all feelings but grief; grief made a twin wear the same shirt for days on end to preserve the morning on which the dead were still living; grief made a twin peel stars off the ceiling and lie in bed with glowing points adhered to fingertips; grief was bad-tempered, grief was kind; grief saw nothing but itself, grief saw every speck of pain in the world; grief spread its wings large like an eagle, grief huddled small like a porcupine; grief needed company, grief craved solitude; grief wanted to remember, wanted to forget; grief raged, grief whimpered; grief made time compress and contract; grief tasted like hunger, felt like numbness, sounded like silence; grief tasted like bile, felt like blades, sounded like all the noise of the world. Grief was a shape-shifter, and invisible too; grief could be captured as reflection in a twin’s eye. Grief heard its death sentence the morning you both woke up and one was singing and the other caught the song.

We became acquainted with starry skies the girls had gazed at while camping years before, and the boredom of summers traipsing from back yard to front to back again, and even a certain indefinable smell that arose from toilets on rainy nights, which the girls called "sewery." We knew what it felt like to see a boy with his shirt off, and why it made Lux write the name Kevin in purple Magic Marker all over her three-ring binder and even on her bras and panties, and we understood her rage coming home one day to find that Mrs. Lisbon had soaked her things in Clorox, bleaching all the "Kevins" out. We knew the pain of winter wind rushing up your skirt, and the ache of keeping your knees together in class, and how drab and infuriating it was to jump rope while the boys played baseball. We could never understand why the girls cared so much about being mature, or why they felt compelled to compliment each other, but sometimes, after one of us had read a long portion of the diary out loud, we had to fight back the urge to hug one another or to tell each other how pretty we were. We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors went together. We knew that the girls were our twins, that we all existed in space like animals with identical skins, and that they knew everything about us though we couldn't fathom them at all. We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.

Loving music had pushed all of us off the track- away from the normal pursuit of career, mate, and family, on an endless quest for that vibrating high, the plunge beyond time that comes only when you submerge yourself beneath the waterline of amplified sound. We were addicts, in a way, but also adept, enlightened by a noise most people considered no more than a pleasant distraction. What was left for us but to practice our art of listening?

And with a relentlessness that comes from the world's depths, with a persistence that strikes the keys metaphysically, the scales of a piano student keep playing over and over, up and down the physical backbone of my memory. It's the old streets with other people, the same streets that today are different; it's dead people speaking to me through the transparency of their absence; it's remorse for what I did or didn't do; it's the rippling of streams in the night, noises from below in the quiet building. I feel like screaming inside my head. I want to stop, to break, to smash this impossible phonograph record that keeps playing inside me, where it doesn't belong, an intangible torturer. I want my soul, a vehicle taken over by others, to let me off and go on without me. I'm going crazy from having to hear. And in the end it is I – in my odiously impressionable brain, in my thin skin, in my hypersensitive nerves – who am the keys played in scales, O horrible and personal piano of our memory.

Little girls are the nicest things that can happen to people. They are born with a bit of angel-shine about them, and though it wears thin sometimes, there is always enough left to lasso your heart—even when they are sitting in the mud, or crying temperamental tears, or parading up the street in Mother’s best clothes. A little girl can be sweeter (and badder) oftener than anyone else in the world. She can jitter around, and stomp, and make funny noises that frazzle your nerves, yet just when you open your mouth, she stands there demure with that special look in her eyes. A girl is Innocence playing in the mud, Beauty standing on its head, and Motherhood dragging a doll by the foot. God borrows from many creatures to make a little girl. He uses the song of a bird, the squeal of a pig, the stubbornness of a mule, the antics of a monkey, the spryness of a grasshopper, the curiosity of a cat, the speed of a gazelle, the slyness of a fox, the softness of a kitten, and to top it all off He adds the mysterious mind of a woman. A little girl likes new shoes, party dresses, small animals, first grade, noisemakers, the girl next door, dolls, make-believe, dancing lessons, ice cream, kitchens, coloring books, make-up, cans of water, going visiting, tea parties, and one boy. She doesn’t care so much for visitors, boys in general, large dogs, hand-me-downs, straight chairs, vegetables, snowsuits, or staying in the front yard. She is loudest when you are thinking, the prettiest when she has provoked you, the busiest at bedtime, the quietest when you want to show her off, and the most flirtatious when she absolutely must not get the best of you again. Who else can cause you more grief, joy, irritation, satisfaction, embarrassment, and genuine delight than this combination of Eve, Salome, and Florence Nightingale. She can muss up your home, your hair, and your dignity—spend your money, your time, and your patience—and just when your temper is ready to crack, her sunshine peeks through and you’ve lost again. Yes, she is a nerve-wracking nuisance, just a noisy bundle of mischief. But when your dreams tumble down and the world is a mess—when it seems you are pretty much of a fool after all—she can make you a king when she climbs on your knee and whispers, "I love you best of all!

All of you, get off my damned window now!" "Shit," Locke muttered from a few feet above and to her left, his eloquence temporarily frightened into submission. "Madam, you're complicating our night, so before we come in and complicate yours, kindly cork you bullshit bottle and close the gods-damned window!" She looked up, aghast. "Two of you? All of you, get down, get down, get down!" "Close your window, close your window, close your fucking window!" "I'll kill both you shitsuckers' huffed Fernez 'I'll drop both you off this fucking--" There was a marrow-chillingly loud cracking noise, and the trellis shuddered beneath the hands of three men clinging to it.

The full moon shone brightly between the trees, so I was able to see, a few yards in front of me, the origins of a distressing noise. It was two cabbages having a terrible fight. They were tearing each other's leaves off with such ferocity that soon there was nothing but torn leaves everywhere and no cabbages. "Never mind," I told myself, "It's only a nightmare." But then I remembered suddenly that I'd never gone to bed that night, and so it couldn't possibly be a nightmare. "That's awful.

Not if we kill them—” I began, only to cut off when a sudden rushing noise filled the air. And Ray grabbed my gun and went ballistic on something on the wall over our heads. “Die! Die! Die!” he screamed, emptying the clip and causing spent shells to rain down all around us. And okay, maybe I’d been wrong about the calm thing. Because he was just standing there, trembling and panting and staring— At the air-conditioning vent that he’d just shot the crap out of. “—first.” I took my smoking gun out of his limp fingers and patted him on the back. “See? That’s the spirit.

But somewhere in America, between the freeways and the Food-4-Less, between the filling stations and the 5-o-'clock news, behind the blue blinking light coming off the TV, there is a space, an empty space, between us, around us, inside us, that inevitable, desperate, begs to be filled up. And nothing, not shame, not God, not a new microwave, not a wide-screen TV or that new diet with grapefruits, can ever, ever fill it. Underneath all that white noise there's a lack.

Music is a complete evocation – like a smell. It can bring an entire memory and feeling back to you in a rush. Much more complete than even a photograph. You allow yourself a certain visual distance with photos – not music. It envelopes you – there’s no way to escape it. It’s a great test of sensitivity – the degree of reaction to music. I use it all the time. I call it my ‘Music Test.’ People today don’t want to hear the truth. They’re really afraid of tranquility and silence – they’re afraid they might begin to understand their own motivations too well. They keep a steady stream of noise going to protect themselves, to build a wall against the truth. Like African natives, beating on their drums, rattling their gourds, shaking the bells to scare off evil spirits. As long as there’s enough noise, there’s nothing to fear – or hear. But they will listen. Times are changing.

When you drop a glass or a plate to the ground it makes a loud crashing sound. When a window shatters a table leg breaks or when a picture falls off the wall it makes a noise. But as for your heart when that breaks it s completely silent. You would think as it s so important it would make the loudest noise in the whole world or even have some[...] But it s silent and you almost wish there was a noise to distract you from the pain.

Look,” Six snaps, “we can’t just stand around gabbing. They could be co—” Six is cut off by the sudden roar of a noise overhead. It’s a sound made by no earthly machinery. We all look up just as the silver Mogadorian ship throws on its floodlights, momentarily blinding us. Five, shielding his eyes, turns to look at me. “Is that your ship?” he asks. “Mogadorians!” I shout at him. Already, dark shapes are descending from the ship, the first wave of Mogadorian warriors on their way to attack. “Oh,” says Five, blinking confusedly at the ship. “So that’s what they look like.

Immediately after the race, even as he sat gasping for air in the Husky Clipper while it drifted down the Langer See beyond the finish line, an expansive sense of calm had enveloped him. In the last desperate few hundred meters of the race, in the searing pain and bewildering noise of that final furious sprint, there had come a singular moment when Joe realized with startling clarity that there was nothing more he could do to win the race, beyond what he was already doing. Except for one thing. He could finally abandon all doubt, trust absolutely without reservation that he and the boy in front of him and the boys behind him would all do precisely what they needed to do at precisely the instant they needed to do it. He had known in that instant that there could be no hesitation, no shred of indecision. He had had no choice but to throw himself into each stroke as if he were throwing himself off of a cliff into a void, with unquestioned faith that the others would be there to save him

Katar," said Britta, "I thought you would want to stay with your friends from home while they were here, so I had your things moved from your room in the delegates' wing." "You can have my things brought in too," said Peder, throwing himself onto the nearest bed. He sighed as he sank into the soft mattress and rolled onto his side. "Um... I don't think boys are-" Britta began. "Don't you mind me!" Peder pulled a blanket over his head. Miri didn't know how he could even pretend to fall asleep. She could barely keep from pacing. "Don't worry, Britta," said Esa. "We'll kick him out before night. Off to your fancy apprenticeship, big brother." She nudged Peder's shape under the blanket. Peder made an exaggerated snoring noise.

Don’t take yourself too seriously. Take yourself as seriously as death itself. Don’t worry. Worry your ass off. Have iron-clad confidence, but doubt. It keeps you alive and alert! Believe you are the baddest ass in town – and [that] you suck! It keeps you honest. Be able to keep two completely contradictory ideas alive and well inside of your heart and head at all times. If it doesn’t drive you crazy, it will make you strong. And when you walk on stage tonight to bring the noise, treat it like it’s all we have – and then remember it’s only rock’ n’ roll.

Advent is the time of promise; it is not yet the time of fulfillment. We are still in the midst of everything and in the logical inexorability and relentlessness of destiny.…Space is still filled with the noise of destruction and annihilation, the shouts of self-assurance and arrogance, the weeping of despair and helplessness. But round about the horizon the eternal realities stand silent in their age-old longing. There shines on them already the first mild light of the radiant fulfillment to come. From afar sound the first notes as of pipes and voices, not yet discernable as a song or melody. It is all far off still, and only just announced and foretold. But it is happening, today.

Dreamt I stood in a china shop so crowded from floor to far-off ceiling with shelves of porcelain antiques, etc. that moving a muscle would cause several to fall and smash to bits. Exactly what happened but instead of a crashing noise, an august chord rang out, half cello, half celeste, D major (?), held for four beats. My wrist knocked a Ming vase affair off its pedestal-E flat. Whole string section, glorious, transcendant, angels wept. Deliberately now, smashed a figurine of an ox for the next note, then a milkmaid, then Saturday's Child-orgy of shrapnel filled the air, divine harmonies my head.

A deep love resides inside each of us. This love is independent of the desires, thoughts, and opinions, good or bad, which are readily offered to us. It is a love that is gentle and kind, accepting and nonjudgmental, playful and spontaneous, courageous and curious. It is always encouraging and always evolving. This love can be discovered only through turning off the noise around us, coming to ourselves in silence, meditation, and prayer. If we listen carefully we will hear the murmurs of our inner voice tell yearnings of our truest selves. What is available to us is a profound understanding, appreciation, and full acceptance of self, all of the good and all of the bad. Only when we truly know that we are able to tap into this part of ourselves can we begin to love others fully. Love for others is the manifestation of love for self. We cannot love another more than we love ourselves. Life is a mirror. If you want to know what love for yourself looks like, look at your love for others. If you want to know what your love for others look like, look at your love for self. When you love yourself this way, you love God this way. This relationship is the divine love triangle; self, God, and others in any order.

And what other kind of man would you want leading you into battle?” he says, reading my Noise. “What other kind of man is suitable for war?” A monster, I think, remembering what Ben told me once. War makes monsters of men. “Wrong,” says the Mayor. “It’s war that makes us men in the first place. Until there’s war, we are only children.” Another blast of the horn comes roaring down at us, so loud it nearly takes our heads off and it puts the army off its stride for a second or two. We look up the road to the bottom of the hill. We see Spackle torches gathering there to meet us. “Ready to grow up, Todd?” the Mayor asks.

TO HIS HEART, BIIDING IT HAVE NO FEAR Be you still, be you still, trembling heart; Remember the wisdom out of the old days: Him who trembles before the flame and the flood, And the winds that blow through the starry ways, Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood Cover over and hide, for he has no part With the lonely, majestical multitude. THE CAP AND THE BELLS The jester walked in the garden: The garden had fallen still; He bade his soul rise upward And stand on her window-sill. It rose in a straight blue garment, When owls began to call: It had grown wise-tongued by thinking Of a quiet and light footfall; But the young queen would not listen; She rose in her pale night-gown; She drew in the heavy casement And pushed the latches down. He bade his heart go to her, When the owls called out no more; In a red and quivering garment It sang to her through the door. It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming Of a flutter of flower-like hair; But she took up her fan from the table And waved it off on the air. 'I have cap and bells,' he pondered, 'I will send them to her and die'; And when the morning whitened He left them where she went by. She laid them upon her bosom, Under a cloud of her hair, And her red lips sang them a love-song Till stars grew out of the air. She opened her door and her window, And the heart and the soul came through, To her right hand came the red one, To her left hand came the blue. They set up a noise like crickets, A chattering wise and sweet, And her hair was a folded flower And the quiet of love in her feet.

She begins walking toward the door. "Violette?" I call, craning my head so I can see her. "Yes, Kate?" she asks, looking curious. "I hope I'm not the Champion," I say, my voice dead calm now, "because I would hate to give you any additional satisfaction. But if I am, I hope you have to chop off an entire hand this time and eat a raw cat in order to absorb me. And I hope you choke on it." Her creepily calm demeanor finally shatters. Making a noise between a growl and a scream, she stomps over to the bed and slaps my face as hard as she can. Then, spinning on her heels, she races out of the room, slamming the door behind her. I lay my head back down and taste blood in my mouth. And smile.

...the solitude was intoxicating. On my first night there I lay on my back on the sticky carpet for hours, in the murky orange pool of city glow coming through the window, smelling heady curry spices spiraling across the corridor and listening to two guys outside yelling at each other in Russian and someone practicing stormy flamboyant violin somewhere, and slowly realizing that there was not a single person in the world who could see me or ask me what I was doing or tell me to do anything else, and I felt as if at any moment the bedsit might detach itself from the buildings like a luminous soap bubble and drift off into the night, bobbing gently above the rooftops and the river and the stars.

He was now suddenly hot, as hot as if he’d been in a kitchen baking cinnamon rolls in August. I already knew vampires could sweat, under certain conditions, like being chained to a wall of a house with sunlight coming in through the windows. He was sweating again now. Some of his sweat fell on me. I’ve always rather liked sweat. On other occasions when I’ve had a naked, sweating male body up against mine, I’ve tended to feel that it meant he was getting into what was going on. This usually produces a similar enthusiasm in me. Not that there was anything going on…exactly. Yet. Remember how fast and suddenly this was all happening. And if he was in shock so was I. Maybe my brain hadn’t fully come with me in that zap through the void, like my clothes manifestly hadn’t. With a truly masterful erection now pressed against me I turned my head again and licked his sweating shoulder. What happened next probably lasted about ten seconds. Maybe less. I don’t think I heard the sound he made; I think I only felt it. He moved his hands again, to tip my face toward him, and kissed me. I can’t say I noticed any fangs. I had the lingering vestige of sense not to try anything clever with my teeth, which with a human lover I would have. But I was nonetheless busy with tongue and hands. I wriggled a little under him. I kissed him back as he tangled his fingers in my hair. I arched up off the floor a trifle to press myself more thoroughly against him. I was undoubtedly making some noises of my own…

Then like a bird, he gingerly landed on a protruding rock inside the monstrous cavern. I looked up at the wet walls teaming with sea life and reeled back feeling like I was going to lose my balance when I felt him reach around and carefully lift me off. He placed me so I could stand on the rock in front of him. His strong arms wrapped tightly around me so I wouldn’t fall. We stood in astonishment deafened by the noise of the waves hitting the reef all around us. The warmth of his chest radiated against me. I molded my body up against his, my heart erupting in a flutter that caused my legs to weaken. “What do you think?” he whispered into my ear. I felt his hot breath against the side of my neck, which caused me to be light-headed as my heart raced even harder. “Awesome,” I whispered, which was all I could get out as I slinked into his chest a little bit more.

You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall waken it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with closed eyes and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base. But I tell you--and you may mark my words--you will come some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer current- -as I am now.

The overwhelming noise we live with has made a fundamental pleasure like sex somehow less exciting, less satisfying, than it was for our libidinous forefathers and mothers. It seems to me that for sex and other pleasures to be enjoyed to the fullest, a certain contemplative quality to life must be present. If you doubt this imagine yourself for a moment having sex. Now imagine you wished to increase the pleasure you were feeling, feel it more intensely. What might you do? Well one of the things you'd probably do is close your eyes. What this does of course is shut out other stimuli. The visual quiet increases your sensual enjoyment and you concentrate more fully on the pleasure. The same is true for the removal of auditory noise as well. Well my feeling is that the average person has a much harder time doing this today than they would have decades ago. Today you close your eyes and shut off Television but the noise persists. It's part of our fabric now, our biology, and all other pleasures including sex are diminished as a result. We don't notice this derogation by the way and sex still feels great, don't get me wrong, but I think the difference is there nonetheless. Like the difference between seeing breasts when you're thirty as opposed to when you were thirteen.

Ember, he’s not going to—” I pushed off the car. “Please. Hayden, please don’t tell him. I’m all Olivia really has. Please.” My voice cracked, and I looked away, embarrassed. “She’s all I have.” Hayden made a soft noise deep in his throat. Then he clasped my elbows and pulled me right up against him. His arms carefully snaked around my waist, trapping me in a hug. It could have been the bunny. Hell, it could’ve been the last two years that suddenly made me want to stay in Hayden’s embrace. Surely— surely not the way his heat thawed the ice encasing my entire body. Or how hard his chest felt under the sweater… or how perfectly I fit against him. And he was a chivalrous type of guy. Right? He wanted to help me control my gift, as ridiculous as that sounded. Comfort— he offered comfort, and I needed to remember that. His arms around my waist made it hard, really hard to keep that in mind, though. “Okay.” Hayden’s breath stirred the hair around my ear. “Even though I think I should tell him, I won’t. But I will figure out who did this.

I ended up in the nurse’s office after falling asleep in second period. She only agreed to not call my parents if I stayed under her supervision and rested. She wasn’t taking any chances with Dr. Lahey’s daughter and the heroine who’d saved the Ishida’s only girl, who, by the way, Ayden mentioned wasn’t back at school. She probably got to recover in her native habitat. Some far off exotic locale, lounging on a tropical beach drinking fruity umbrella drinks brought to her by hunky, scantily clad beach boys who rubbed her back with suntan oil and hung on her every word while I ran for my life in the Waiting World, woke from a coma, and, bam, back at school with ten million pounds of schoolwork to make up, and no beach boys. Except for Ayden. He’d make a good beach boy. But don’t get too excited. He’s just a pretend boyfriend. “You alright?” the nurse asked. “Fine.” “You’re sighing and making odd noises.” “Sorry.

My definition of gawking would be when you look at her, your heart starts slamming uncontrollably in your chest. So much that it scares you. And every other noise that surrounds you slowly fades away into absolute silence. You only hear the sounds she makes. And when she looks back at you, when her eyes meet yours, it's as if she is looking deep inside your soul. And she can see all of the hatred you're consumed in. Her eyes quench the thirst of your soul, gently soothing your damaged heart in the most alluring way... a way you could only dream of. Then those magical eyes start to look away. The time-freeze you were caught in starts to wear off. And fear takes over. You want to pull those eyes to yours again so that you could once again feel the fascinating sensations of happiness. Then, when she's out of your sight, you feel empty inside. Your heart is back to normal. Only this time, it's left with an aching worse than before. But you can never tell her. You can never be with her. You are alone in your pitiful existence.

We line up and make a lot of noise about big environmental problems like incinerators, waste dumps, acid rain, global warming and pollution. But we don't understand that when we add up all the tiny environmental problems each of us creates, we end up with those big environmental dilemmas. Humans are content to blame someone else, like government or corporations, for the messes we create, and yet we each continue doing the same things, day in and day out, that have created the problems. Sure, corporations create pollution. If they do, don't buy their products. If you have to buy their products (gasoline for example), keep it to a minimum. Sure, municipal waste incinerators pollute the air. Stop throwing trash away. Minimize your production of waste. Recycle. Buy food in bulk and avoid packaging waste. Simplify. Turn off your TV. Grow your own food. Make compost. Plant a garden. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem. If you don't, who will?

Dear Daniel, How do you break up with your boyfriend in a way that tells him, "I don't want to sleep with you on a regular basis anymore, but please be available for late night booty calls if I run out of other options"? Lily Charlotte, NC Dear Lily, The story's so old you can't tell it anymore without everyone groaning, even your oldest friends with the last of their drinks shivering around the ice in their dirty glasses. The music playing is the same album everyone has. Those shoes, everybody has the same shoes on. It looked a little like rain so on person brought an umbrella, useless now in the starstruck clouded sky, forgotten on the way home, which is how the umbrella ended up in her place anyway. Everyone gets older on nights like this. And still it's a fresh slap in the face of everything you had going, that precarious shelf in the shallow closet that will certainly, certainly fall someday. Photographs slipping into a crack to be found by the next tenant, that one squinter third from the left laughing at something your roommate said, the coaster from that place in the city you used to live in, gone now. A letter that seemed important for reasons you can't remember, throw it out, the entry in the address book you won't erase but won't keep when you get a new phone, let it pass and don't worry about it. You don't think about them; "I haven't thought about them in forever," you would say if anybody brought it up, and nobody does." You think about them all the time. Close the book but forget to turn off the light, just sit staring in bed until you blink and you're out of it, some noise on the other side of the wall reminding you you're still here. That's it, that's everything. There's no statue in the town square with an inscription with words to live by. The actor got slapped this morning by someone she loved, slapped right across the face, but there's no trace of it on any channel no matter how late you watch. How many people--really, count them up--know where you are? How many will look after you when you don't show up? The churches and train stations are creaky and the street signs, the menus, the writing on the wall, it all feels like the wrong language. Nobody, nobody knows what you're thinking of when you lean your head against the wall. Put a sweater on when you get cold. Remind yourself, this is the night, because it is. You're free to sing what you want as you walk there, the trees rustling spookily and certainly and quietly and inimitably. Whatever shoes you want, fuck it, you're comfortable. Don't trust anyone's directions. Write what you might forget on the back of your hand, and slam down the cheap stuff and never mind the bad music from the window three floors up or what the boys shouted from the car nine years ago that keeps rattling around in your head, because you're here, you are, for the warmth of someone's wrists where the sleeve stops and the glove doesn't quite begin, and the slant of the voice on the punch line of the joke and the reflection of the moon in the water on the street as you stand still for a moment and gather your courage and take a breath before stealing away through the door. Look at it there. Take a good look. It looks like rain. Love, Daniel Handler

In my late thirties the dream of disappointment and exhaustion had been the dream of the exploding head: the dream of a noise in my head so loud and long that I felt with the brain that survived that the brain could not survive; that this was death. Now, in my early fifties, after my illness, after I had left the manor cottage and put an end to that section of my life, I began to be awakened by thoughts of death, the end of things; and sometimes not even by thoughts so specific, not even by fear rational or fantastic, but by a great melancholy. This melancholy penetrated my mind while I slept; and then, when I awakened in response to its prompting, I was so poisoned by it, made so much not a doer (as men must be, every day of their lives), that it took the best part of the day to shake it off. And that wasted or dark day added to the gloom preparing for the night.

He brought her to the moon with a flourish. The near side facing the Earth, not the far side, since he thought they should take the trip in stages. She turned in his arms to look around at where he brought them. "W-what ... " "I told you it would be somewhere special," he said, in the invisible bubble he had created for them. She screamed. He smiled smugly. Yes, this second date destination was worthy of a happy scream. Very few humans had walked on the moon. He knew how rare this opportunity was. Surely it should make up for what had happened on their first date. Grace kept screaming. She turned and clawed at him. "Oh, my God. Oh. My. God. OHMYGOD!" His smile vanished. He tried to get hold of her in a gentle but tight grip. That was more difficult than he expected. She seemed to have acquired a half-dozen arms and legs. He informed her, "You may stop making noise any time now." Somehow she had climbed halfway up his body before he managed to grasp her waist. He plucked her off and set her on her feet. She started to climb up his body again. "Are you having fun?" he asked suspiciously. "We're on the fucking moon!" she shouted. "There's nothing here!" He stared at her. "I don't think you're having fun.

Thanks for putting me in bed last night,” I said, watching the swift line of his throat as he yawned again. He grumbled, “Uh–huh,” as he rolled his shoulders before slipping his arms beneath the covers again. “And for giving me a massage.” I had already tried moving my legs, and sure they were sore, but I knew how much worse they could be. I’d done everything I was supposed to do to help prevent the stiffness, but there was only so much a body that wasn’t 100 percent to begin with could handle. “There wasn’t much to massage.” Uh. “What’s the supposed to mean?” “I have more muscles in my glutes than you have in your thighs.” Anyone who had seen Aiden’s ass would know that was a fact, so I wasn’t going to take it personally. Maybe because I was still so sleepy, I raised my eyebrows at him and said, “Have you seen your butt? That’s not an insult. It has more muscles in it than most people have all over their bodies.” His own thick eyebrows rose about a millimeter, just slightly but enough for me to notice. “I didn’t know you paid that much attention to it.” “Why do you think you have so many female fans?” Aiden let out another low groan, but he didn’t tell me to stop. “You could raise a small fortune if you ever auctioned off the chance for a person to take a—” “Vanessa!” Mr. Proper reached over to throw a hand over my mouth, like he was shocked. That big hand literally covered me from ear to ear, and I burst out laughing though it was muffled. “You make me feel cheap,” he said as he slowly pulled his hand away, but the shine in his eyes said he didn’t really mind it that much. I stretched my own limbs with a yawn. “I’m just telling you what anyone else would.” “No, no one else would ever say that to me.” So he had a point. “Well, I’ll tell you the truth then.” He made this noise that had me rolling to face him again. “You always have

I hadn't realized how supremely shit-housed I was until we stumbled into our room at the Embassy Suites. You ever been so drunk you forgot that you have to shit until the last minute? Well I was at that stage. I nearly had my pants completely off when SlingBlade snaked past me and got into the toilet first. Fine, I go get out of my bar clothes and change into a t-shirt and pink Gap boxers to sleep in. I wait patiently for about three minutes, then I start pounding on the door, screaming at him that I am going to shit on his bed if he doesn't get out of there. A short time later he opens the door laughing his ass off, and says, "That was perhaps the most prodigious shit ever. I just put that toilet into therapy." I take a gander into the bathroom. It looks like Revelations. The toilet is overflowing, brown shit water is spilling out all over the bathroom floor, and the tank is making demonic gurgling noises. THE MOTHERFUCKER CLOGGED UP A HOTEL TOILET! Hotel toilets are industrial size; they are designed to be able to accommodate repeated elephant-sized shits, and their ram-jet engine flushes generate enough force to suck down a human infant, yet skinny ass 170-pound SlingBlade completely killed ours.

It’s the mornings after the spider-and-heights dreams that are the most painful, that it takes sometimes three coffees and two showers and sometimes a run to loosen the grip on his soul’s throat; and these post-dream mornings are even worse if he wakes unalone, if the previous night’s Subject is still there, wanting to twitter, or to cuddle and, like, spoon, asking what exactly is the story with the foggy inverted tumblers on the bathroom floor, commenting on his night-sweats, clattering around in the kitchen, making kippers or bacon or something more hideous and unhoneyed he’s supposed to eat with post-coital male gusto, the ones who have this thing about they call it Feeding My Man, wanting a man who can barely keep down A.M. honey-toast to east with male gusto, elbows out and sovelling, making little noises. Even when alone, unable to uncurl alone and sit slowly up and wing out the sheet and go to the bathroom, these darkest mornings start days that Orin can’t even bring himself for hours to think about how he’ll get through the day. These worst mornings with cold floors and hot windows and merciless light — the soul’s certainty that the day will have to be not traversed but sort of climbed, vertically, and then that going to sleep again at the end of it will be like falling, again, off something tall and sheer.

It was unearthly, and the men were--No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it--this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled, and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity--like yours--the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you--you so remote from the night of first ages--could comprehend. And why not? The mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valor, rage--who can tell?--but truth--truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder--the man knows, and can look on without a wink. But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. He must meet that truth with his own true stuff--with his own inborn strength. Principles? Principles won't do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags--rags that would fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief. An appeal to me in this fiendish row--is there? Very well; I hear; I admit, but I have a voice too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced. Of course, a fool, what with sheer fright and fine sentiments, is always safe. Who's that grunting? You wonder I didn't go ashore for a howl and a dance? Well, no--I didn't. Fine sentiments, you say? Fine sentiments, be hanged! I had no time. I had to mess about with white-lead and strips of woolen blanket helping to put bandages on those leaky steam-pipes--I tell you.

I am not, I regret to say, a discreet and fetching sleeper. Most people when they nod off look as if they could do with a blanket; I look as if I could do with medical attention. I sleep as if injected with a powerful experimental muscle relaxant. My legs fall open in a grotesque come-hither manner; my knuckles brush the floor. Whatever is inside—tongue, uvula, moist bubbles of intestinal air—decides to leak out. From time to time, like one of those nodding-duck toys, my head tips forward to empty a quart or so of viscous drool onto my lap, then falls back to begin loading again with a noise like a toilet cistern filling. And I snore, hugely and helplessly, like a cartoon character, with rubbery flapping lips and prolonged steam-valve exhalations. For long periods I grow unnaturally still, in a way that inclines onlookers to exchange glances and lean forward in concern, then dramatically I stiffen and, after a tantalizing pause, begin to bounce and jostle in a series of whole-body spasms of the sort that bring to mind an electric chair when the switch is thrown. Then I shriek once or twice in a piercing and effeminate manner and wake up to find that all motion within five hundred feet has stopped and all children under eight are clutching their mothers’ hems. It is a terrible burden to bear.

Sir Bird preens next to me, tucking feathers into place with a low noise in his throat almost like he’s talking to himself. A slow smile spreads across Finn’s face as he rubs his knuckles—black and blue with several bruises from Sir Bird’s beak. “Let’s see,” he says, flipping through his father’s book. “Here! I’ll need some water in a shallow bowl . . . ink . . . yes, I think this is everything.” He gathers the items, then reads over the entry several times, eyebrows knit in concentration. Dipping his pen in the ink, he whispers strange words while writing on the surface of the water. The ink drips down, elongating the form of the symbols that still hover where he wrote them. I recognize one—change. But the rest I haven’t learned yet. Then, without warning, he lifts up the bowl and dumps the whole thing onto Sir Bird. Only instead of getting wet, as the water washes over his body, Sir Bird’s feathers turn . . . blue. Bright, brilliant, shimmering blue. Squawking in outrage, Sir Bird hops and flies around the room, frantically shaking his feathers. He lands on the desk with a scrabble of clawed feet, then begins trying to bite off the color. “Ha!” Finn says, pointing at his knuckles. “Now you’re black and blue, too!” I can’t help but laugh at my poor, panicking bird. Not to mention the ridiculous pettiness of Finn’s magic show. Picking up Sir Bird, I stroke his feathers and speak softly to him. “Hush now. I’ll make him fix you. You’re still very handsome, but blue isn’t your color, is it?” He caws mournfully, still pulling at his own feathers. “Finn.” He puts his hands behind his back, trying to look innocent. “What? He deserved it.” “He’s a bird. You can’t really find this much satisfaction in revenge against a bird, can you?” His voice comes out just a tad petulant. “He started it.

Well. Um. The thing is…” I inhale, then continue with rapid-fire speed. “Imnotahockeyfan.” A wrinkle appears in his forehead. “What?” I repeat myself, slowly this time, with actual pauses between each word. “I’m not a hockey fan.” Then I hold my breath and await his reaction. He blinks. Blinks again. And again. His expression is a mixture of shock and horror. “You don’t like hockey?” I regretfully shake my head. “Not even a little bit?” Now I shrug. “I don’t mind it as background noise—” “Background noise?” “—but I won’t pay attention to it if it’s on.” I bite my lip. I’m already in this deep—might as well deliver the final blow. “I come from a football family.” “Football,” he says dully. “Yeah, my dad and I are huge Pats fans. And my grandfather was an offensive lineman for the Bears back in the day.” “Football.” He grabs his water and takes a deep swig, as if he needs to rehydrate after that bombshell. I smother a laugh. “I think it’s awesome that you’re so good at it, though. And congrats on the Frozen Four win.” Logan stares at me. “You couldn’t have told me this before I asked you out? What are we even doing here, Grace? I can never marry you now—it would be blasphemous.” His twitching lips make it clear that he’s joking, and the laughter I’ve been fighting spills over. “Hey, don’t go canceling the wedding just yet. The success rate for inter-sport marriages is a lot higher than you think. We could be a Pats-Bruins family.” I pause. “But no Celtics. I hate basketball.” “Well, at least we have that in common.” He shuffles closer and presses a kiss to my cheek. “It’s all right. We’ll work through this, gorgeous. Might need couples counseling at some point, but once I teach you to love hockey, it’ll be smooth sailing for us.” “You won’t succeed,” I warn him. “Ramona spent years trying to force me to like it. Didn’t work.” “She gave up too easily then. I, on the other hand, never give up

XXIV. And more than that - a furlong on - why, there! What bad use was that engine for, that wheel, Or brake, not wheel - that harrow fit to reel Men's bodies out like silk? With all the air Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel. XXV. Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood, Next a marsh it would seem, and now mere earth Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth, Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood Changes and off he goes!) within a rood - Bog, clay and rubble, sand, and stark black dearth. XXVI. Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim, Now patches where some leanness of the soil's Broke into moss, or substances like boils; Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils. XXVII. And just as far as ever from the end! Naught in the distance but the evening, naught To point my footstep further! At the thought, A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom friend, Sailed past, not best his wide wing dragon-penned That brushed my cap - perchance the guide I sought. XXVIII. For, looking up, aware I somehow grew, Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place All round to mountains - with such name to grace Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view. How thus they had surprised me - solve it, you! How to get from them was no clearer case. XXIX. Yet half I seemed to recognise some trick Of mischief happened to me, God knows when - In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then Progress this way. When, in the very nick Of giving up, one time more, came a click As when a trap shuts - you're inside the den. XXX. Burningly it came on me all at once, This was the place! those two hills on the right, Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight; While to the left a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce, Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce, After a life spent training for the sight! XXXI. What in the midst lay but the Tower itself? The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart, Built of brown stone, without a counterpart In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf He strikes on, only when the timbers start. XXXII. Not see? because of night perhaps? - why day Came back again for that! before it left The dying sunset kindled through a cleft: The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay, Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay, - Now stab and end the creature - to the heft!' XXXIII. Not hear? When noise was everywhere! it tolled Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears Of all the lost adventurers, my peers - How such a one was strong, and such was bold, And such was fortunate, yet each of old Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years. XXXIV. There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met To view the last of me, a living frame For one more picture! In a sheet of flame I saw them and I knew them all. And yet Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set, And blew. 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.

Are you falling asleep before midnight?" Cassie leaned over the edge of the couch to look at Jack. He was stretched out on the floor, his head resting against a pillow near the center of the couch, his eyes closed. She was now wide awake and headache free. He wasn't in so good a shape. "The new year is eighteen minutes away." "Come kiss me awake in seventeen minutes." She blinked at that lazy suggestion, gave a quick grin, and dropped Benji on his chest. He opened one eye to look up at her as he settled his hand lightly on the kitten. "That's a no?" She smiled. She was looking forward to dating him, but she was smart enough to know he'd value more what he had to work at. He sighed. "That was a no. How much longer am I going to be on the fence with you?" "Is that a rhetorical question or do you want an answer?" If this was the right relationship God had for her future, time taken now would improve it, not hurt it. She was ready to admit she was tired of being alone. He scratched Benji under the chin and the kitten curled up on his chest and batted a paw at his hand. "Rhetorical. I'd hate to get my hopes up." She leaned her chin against her hand, looking down at him. "I like you, Jack." "You just figured that out?" "I'll like you more when you catch my mouse." "The only way we are going to catch T.J. is to turn this place into a cheese factory and help her get so fat and slow that she can no longer run and hide." Or you could move your left hand about three inches to the right right and catch her." Jack opened one eye and glanced toward his left. The white mouse was sitting motionless beside the plate he had set down earlier. "Let her have the cheeseburger. You put mustard on it." "You're horrible." He smiled. "I'm serious." "So am I." Jack leaned over, caught Cassie's foot, and tumbled her to the floor. "Oops." "That wasn't fair. You scared my mouse." Jack set the kitten on the floor. "Benji, go get her mouse." The kitten took off after it. "You're teaching her to be a mouser." "Working on it. Come here. You owe me a kiss for the new year." "Do I?" She reached over to the bowl of chocolates on the table and unwrapped a kiss. She popped the chocolate kiss into his mouth. "I called your bluff." He smiled and rubbed his hand across her forearm braced against his chest. "That will last me until next year." She glanced at the muted television. "That's two minutes away." "Two minutes to put this year behind us." He slid one arm behind his head, adjusting the pillow. She patted his chest with her hand. "That shouldn't take long." She felt him laugh. "It ended up being a very good year," she offered. "Next year will be even better." "Really? Promise?" "Absolutely." He reached behind her ear and a gold coin reappeared. "What do you think? Heads you say yes when I ask you out, tails you say no?" She grinned at the idea. "Are you cheating again?" She took the coin. "This one isn't edible," she realized, disappointed. And then she turned it over. "A real two-headed coin?" "A rare find." He smiled. "Like you." "That sounds like a bit of honey." "I'm good at being mushy." "Oh, really?" He glanced over her shoulder. "Turn up the TV. There's the countdown." She grabbed for the remote and hit the wrong button. The TV came on full volume just as the fireworks went off. Benji went racing past them spooked by the noise to dive under the collar of the jacket Jack had tossed on the floor. The white mouse scurried to run into the jacket sleeve. "Tell me I didn't see what I think I just did." "I won't tell you," Jack agreed, amused. He watched the jacket move and raised an eyebrow. "Am I supposed to rescue the kitten or the mouse?