Pickup Line Quotes

I felt a warm hand on the skin of my lower back.” I twisted my neck, looked up and there he was. I held my breath and he asked, “You comin’ or what?” That was it. That was his pickup line. “You comin’ or what?” I went.

Hey girl," he said, wiggling his eyebrows. "You must be the riptide, 'cause you sweep me off my feet." He'd be practicing that pickup line for years. He was glad he finally got yo use it.

I don’t mind hot and spicy. Actually find that appealing in a girl. And chicken wings.

My cervix looks great. Is that a gynecologist pickup line? I laugh internally.

Want to come back to the morgue with me after lunch? (Tate) I shudder at the thought of the pickup line you must have used the night you met LaShonda. Come with me, baby, and see my collection of stiffs. (Simone)

Pickup line... pickup line... she racked her brain until she found an explanation and brightened. "Mine would be—roses are red, violets are blue, if you don't do what I say I will kill you.

His hand circled the back of my neck. "I need you tonight." Has there ever been a more effective line in the history of pickup lines than "I need you?

Careful,” he said. “If you keep blushing like that I may do more than just draw you.

You just told me you didn't intend to love me. You didn't want to love me. You got yourself arrested to keep yourself away from me. That's not love. That's a compulsion. And, by the way, kudos on coming up with the worst pickup line of all time.

Great. He was a hottie, a good kisser, and a literature buff. God really must have had a sense of humor, because if I had to name my biggest turn-on, it was literature. And he had just recommended a book that I didn’t know, that wasn’t taught in school. If I were single, there would be no better pick-up line. Suddenly, I found myself thinking back to Atonement—you know, the scene in the book where the two main characters have sex in the library? Even though Chloe said doing it against bookshelves would be really uncomfortable (and she’d probably know), it was still a fantasy of mine. Like, what’s more romantic than a quiet place full of books? But I shouldn’t have been thinking about my library fantasies. Especially while I was staring at Cash. In the middle of a library.

Can you repeat that pickup line for me?” I heard one of the vamps ask. “I want to write it down. Something about the usual?

Quick swab and you're done. Your cervix looks great." My cervix looks great. Is that a gynecologist pickup line? I laugh internally.

As he soars, he thinks, suddenly, of Dr. Kashen. Or not of Dr. Kashen, necessarily, but the question he had asked him when he was applying to be his advisee: What's your favorite axiom? (The nerd pickup line, CM had once called it.) "The axiom of equality," he'd said, and Kashen had nodded, approvingly. "That's a good one," he'd said. The axiom of equality states that x always equals x: it assumes that if you have a conceptual thing named x, that it must always be equivalent to itself, that it has a uniqueness about it, that it is in possession of something so irreducible that we must assume it is absolutely, unchangeably equivalent to itself for all time, that its very elementalness can never be altered. But it is impossible to prove. Always, absolutes, nevers: these are the words, as much as numbers, that make up the world of mathematics. Not everyone liked the axiom of equality––Dr. Li had once called it coy and twee, a fan dance of an axiom––but he had always appreciated how elusive it was, how the beauty of the equation itself would always be frustrated by the attempts to prove it. I was the kind of axiom that could drive you mad, that could consume you, that could easily become an entire life. But now he knows for certain how true the axiom is, because he himself––his very life––has proven it. The person I was will always be the person I am, he realizes. The context may have changed: he may be in this apartment, and he may have a job that he enjoys and that pays him well, and he may have parents and friends he loves. He may be respected; in court, he may even be feared. But fundamentally, he is the same person, a person who inspires disgust, a person meant to be hated. And in that microsecond that he finds himself suspended in the air, between ecstasy of being aloft and the anticipation of his landing, which he knows will be terrible, he knows that x will always equal x, no matter what he does, or how many years he moves away from the monastery, from Brother Luke, no matter how much he earns or how hard he tries to forget. It is the last thing he thinks as his shoulder cracks down upon the concrete, and the world, for an instant, jerks blessedly away from beneath him: x = x, he thinks. x = x, x = x.

Find somebody else to entertain you," I said. "There is no one else." I turned a page in my notebook and started writing again. "There's always someone else.You've been Feeding off Forfeits for hundreds of years. Get a new one." "You don't give my job enough credit. It's really hard to convince a girl to follow me. The average pickup lines don't work so well. 'Hey,wanna get coffee? And then spend an eternity getting the life force sucked out of you?' They don't go for it.

I sighed and closed my eyes, thumping my head against the bookcase. You take biology? Oh yeah, Franny. What a great fucking pick-up line.

Cheesiest pickup line?” “Oh that’s easy…” He trailed off and then faked a sneeze. “Sorry, I sneezed because God blessed me with you.

hey, maybe you can teach me a couple good pickup lines. kevin refuses to help.” “i’m pretty sure i never learned the things you want to say.” “what a waste.” - nicky & neil

We weren’t flirting,” I protest, wondering if one of us has a fundamental misconception of the term. “I don’t— We didn’t even say anything.” “Yeah, but we can see it in your eyes,” he says. “And that shit’s even more obvious than direct pickup lines.

God really must have had a sense of humor, because if I had to name my biggest turn-on, it was literature. And he had just recommended a book that I didn’t know, that wasn’t taught in school. If I were single, there would be no better pick-up line.

Fackelmann claimed to have started a Log just to keep track of Kite's attempted pickup lines -- surefire lines like e.g. 'You're the second most beautiful woman I've ever seen, the first most beautiful woman I've ever seem being former Bristish Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,' and 'If you came home with me I'm unusually confident that I could achieve an erection,' and said that if Kite wasn't still cherry at twenty-three and a half it was proof of some kind of divine-type grace.

What’s your favorite axiom? (The nerd pickup line,

Okay. That’s smooth. Ask the librarian for a library card. Best pickup line I’ve heard yet.” “How do you know it’s a pickup line?” “It isn’t?” She arches an eyebrow. “No, it most definitely is but since I foresee coming to the library frequently in the future, I’ll take the card too.” She purses her cherry stained lips to contain a smile and bends her head to read the information on my license as she fills out the card application. “I’m afraid to ask why you’ll be coming to the library frequently.” “Because I’ll want to fuck you here,” I answer matter of factly.

When his writing is going well, Gordon Strangle Mars likes to wake up at 6 a.m. and go out driving. He works out new plot lines about giant spiders and keeps an eye out for abandoned couches, which he wrestles into the back of his pickup truck. Then he writes for the rest of the day.

Masa, sih? Putri bulanku yang dingin ini bisa cemburu juga?

Dan ganas de ir más allá de la cópula y fertilizarle todos y cada uno de los huevos que vaya a poner a lo largo de su vida.

But how do I know if the man I’m dating is the devil?” I hear you ask. Here are some warning signs learned from Seed of Evil: Does he refuse to use contractions when he speaks? Does he deliver pickup lines like, “You live on the edge of darkness”?

Good, because if you said something to my dad, I would tell him how cheesy you are with your pickup lines.” Theo mockingly presses his palms to his cheeks. “We finally reached the beach, my little whale.” I glare at him. “That’s not at all how it went.” Theo points across the kitchen. “Look! It’s sand—we’ve reached land!” “Stop.” “Lily, what the heck, our boat is wrecked!

Inevitable pickup trucks complete with full gun racks, chainsaws, fishing poles, and big, sneering dogs in the back, line the streets and parking lots. Meek murmur of autumn skies, Ford and Chevy outfits to roll through town, as people get ready for a long, gray, foggy winter, big, four-wheel-drive pickups with snow blades attached, the box loaded down, with a high stack of cordwood topped by a huge elk carcass, to go disheartened in the midst of wretched weather, cold, raw, continually snowing.

all the pickup-driving John Boys who drove down to Atlanta every day to make money, then drove back at night and railed against the godless liberals who lined their pockets and subsidized their utilities, their healthcare, their children’s lunches and their schools.

He said I'm the winning lottery ticket, like he's never meant anything more.

we don’t want to seem cheap, which means that almost no one orders the cheapest wine on the menu.

How did you get me back?" She asked. "I stole you from heaven," he said with a faint smile.

Ah, fairest maiden, thine beauty doth maketh mine loins stir, and mine cup runneth over.

Quiet and calculating. He hasn’t changed that much since. Always mild-mannered, the nice guy—until someone steps over the line and challenges him.

That was it. That was his pickup line. You comin’ or what?

Do you have any pickup lines?” I quietly ask Ryan for no one else to hear. He shakes his head. “Nah. I’d rather pin you down than pick you up.

inform the waiter that you have allocated a total of fifty dollars for the tip and wine combined—so the more you spend on wine, the less you will leave as a tip. Now let’s see what they recommend.

But even as a kid you learn pretty quick that church doesn’t start and stop with the hours of service posted on the church sign. No, church dragged on like the last hour of the school day as we waited in the hot car with Dad for Mom to finish socializing in the fellowship hall. Church lingered long into the gold-tinted Sunday afternoons when Amanda and I gamboled around the house, stripped down to our white slips like little brides. Church showed up at the front door with a chicken casserole when the whole family was down with the flu and called after midnight to ask for prayer and to cry. It gossiped in the pickup line at school and babysat us on Friday nights. It teased me and tugged at my pigtails and taught me how to sing. Church threw Dad a big surprise party for his fortieth birthday and let me in on the secret ahead of time. Church came to me far more than I went to it, and I’m glad.

Women, the most beautiful things in the world,” answers the model. As if it’s the only thing worth painting, as if everyone should aspire to it. Normally coming from a guy that answer would sound so incredibly skeezy—a greasy, obvious pick-up line. But something about this guy’s earnest tone tells me he means it." -from Model Position by Kitsy Clare

To ward off these disasters, they spent a whole lot of time trying to keep their gods happy via a number of complex rituals, many involving copious amounts of sex ("the gods wish us to have sex" is the oldest pickup line in the world).

Omelets now or later?" she panted. "Later than what?" he asked huskily. "How hungry are you?" "For what?" She started unbuttoning his shirt at the top, stopping to admire and touch the soft hair on his chest on the way to the bottom. When she reached the last one, she tugged the tail out from behind his belt, slipped her arms around his body, and laid her cheek against his chest. "Let's make love and only use words when necessary," she whispered. "Is that a pickup line" he asked hoarsely.

sometimes I just get so frustrated with games of human attraction.” “How so?” “It’s all masked in posturing and ploys. There’s no honesty. People can’t just come up and express their attraction. It’s got to be cleverly obscured with some stupid pick-up line or not-so-subtle gift, and I don’t really know how to play those games so well. We’re taught that it’s wrong to be honest, like there’s some kind of social stigma with it.

There are basically two ways to help people get sufficient money to fund their entire retirement. The first is to get people to save more money, and to start saving at a younger age. The second approach is to get people to die at a younger age. The easier approach, by far, is getting people to die younger. And how might we achieve this? By allowing citizens to smoke. By subsidizing sugary and fatty foods. By limiting access to preventive health care etc. When we think about retirement savings in these terms, it seems that we’re already doing the most we can on this front.

Once upon a time, the great big world outside Bridgeton had seemed like Xanadu - miles of golden road lined with smiling people, waiting to usher me through hundreds of open doors. There was nothing out there but bright light and possibilities. There were big dreams of other places, other people, even other boys. There had even, for two hours in April, been somebody else. He was a glimpse of the future, where I would live and breath and love far, far away from this place. A future where behind a closed door, on Saturday mornings, a boy I hadn't met yet would wrap an arm around my waist and exhale damp heat into the curve of my neck. Where we would keep our eyes closed, pull the covers closer, burrow down and deeper to escape the nine-o'clock sunshine, and the sound of heavy breath echoing along the rusted steel confines of a pickup truck would be nothing but a memory.

You forgot one more question.” I don’t think as the words leave my mouth. It seems like the perfect chance to have her alone without any interruptions of the blonde-haired, green-eyed variety. Maya stares up at me, confusion lining her face. “Will Noah Slade ask Maya Alatorre on a date?” I flinch at my pathetic pick-up line.

See, we live in a phallus obsessed culture, where we're all brought up to believe that everything having to do with gender and sexuality somehow revolves around the penis. That's why so many clueless straight guys come on to dykes with pickup lines like "Once you've had the real thing, baby, you won't ever go back." Some men actually believe that phallocentric crap! And it's also why most people can't even talk about transsexual women or SRS without centring the discussion on the penis. But my desire to have SRS has virtually nothing to do with my penis. This is about my wanting to have a clitoris and vagina. But we don't even have the language to describe this desire.

Baby, if you were words on a page you’d be what they call “fine print!

With age comes maturity....Maturity brings comfort.... “They know an old man will give ‘em a good honest f*cking. No lies, no unmet promises, no pick-up lines.

Use the semicolon like you would use any powerful weapon (your best pick-up line or your most effective push-up bra): carefully and sparingly.

Verbal communication signs of flirting (that leave no room for guessing) include the famous (and ridiculous) pick-up lines:

Trent Kite told Fackelmann he thought Gately was out of his fucking mind. Fax observed that Kite himself was not exactly a W. T. Sherman with the ladies, even with coke-whores and strung-out nursing students and dipsoid lounge-hags whose painted faces swung loose from their heads. Fackelmann claimed to have started a Log just to keep track of Kite’s attempted pickup lines—surefire lines like e.g. ‘You’re the second most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, the first most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen being former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,’ and ‘If you came home with me I’m unusually confident that I could achieve an erection,’ and said that if Kite wasn’t still cherry at twenty-three and a half it was proof of some kind of divine-type grace.

Somewhere along the line the American love affair with wilderness changed from the thoughtful, sensitive isolationism of Thoreau to the bully, manly, outdoorsman bravado of Teddy Roosevelt. It is not for me, as an outsider, either to bemoan or celebrate this fact, only to observe it. Deep in the male American psyche is a love affair with the backwoods, log-cabin, camping-out life. There is no living creature here that cannot, in its right season, be hunted or trapped. Deer, moose, bear, squirrel, partridge, beaver, otter, possum, raccoon, you name it, there's someone killing one right now. When I say hunted, I mean, of course, shot at with a high-velocity rifle. I have no particular brief for killing animals with dogs or falcons, but when I hear the word 'hunt' I think of something more than a man in a forage cap and tartan shirt armed with a powerful carbine. In America it is different. Hunting means 'man bonding with man, man bonding with son, man bonding with pickup truck, man bonding with wood cabin, man bonding with rifle, man bonding above all with plaid'.

Don’t look at me,” Karsyn growls. Now that I’m alone with Claude and Karsyn, the two seem to be back at it. But this time, all Claude did was smile and Karsyn’s ready to eat him. “Children, settle down,” I say. “He looked at me,” Karsyn says, as though that’s a good excuse. “You’re like the sun, I can’t look away,” Claude says which is the stupidest pickup line I’ve ever heard. “Can I tear his eyes out?” Karsyn asks me like I’m suddenly in control here.

virtually no correlation between the cost of the wine and how good we think it is (experts have a positive correlation even in blind tasting, but there are very few of these real experts, and even for them the correlation is very small).

vacations are not just about the two weeks you are away from work; they’re also about the time you spend anticipating and imagining your trip, as well as the time after the trip when you get to replay special moments from your vacation in your mind.

The fact that brides to this day quote from Song of Solomon as part of their wedding vows seems absurd. They only lump themselves into a collection of women who have all fallen for the same lines spewed out en masse by an incredibly talented pick-up artist.

Unfortunately nothing happened with the girls. They just ran off giggling into the night. No digits, no dates, not even their names, leaving me feeling dumb and sad, a bit like a broken thermos- fine on the outside, but on the inside nothing but busted glass.

Dear Dan, Why is the divorce rate so high? D.A.: It is hard to imagine we can be happy with any decision we make even one year down the road, much less when we look back at our decisions five, ten, twenty, or even fifty years later. Frankly, I am amazed by how low the divorce rate is.

As they stepped in, everyone in the restaurant stared. Six diners. Two standing in line at the counter. One at the pickup area. A cashier. Probably another few employees in the back. Witnesses, that was what they called them, people who would remember a Black girl in a crochet crop top and leather, a dude with a shaved head and a raven now back on his shoulder, and a hawk-nosed man with an expression that suggested he’d never felt fear in his life. This was why they never stopped at restaurants. Hennessy held out her hands grandly. “This is a stickup.” Bryde sighed heavily

It’s all true. I needed to talk to Bernadette about her blackberry bushes, which are growing down her hill, under my fence, and invading my garden. I was forced to hire a specialist, who said Bernadette’s blackberries are going to destroy the foundation of my home. Naturally, I wanted to have a friendly chat with Bernadette. So I walked up to her car while she was in the pickup line. Mea culpa! But how else are you ever going to get a word with that woman? She’s like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. You see her only from the waist up, driving past. I don’t think she has once gotten out of her car to walk Bee into school.

One year, on vacation in Hawaii, I was relaxing at a beach, watching whales in the distance, when a fisherman, obviously a local, drove up in his pick-up truck. He got out with a dozen fishing rods. Not one. A dozen. He baited each hook, cast all the lines into the ocean, and set the rods in the sand. Intrigued, I wandered over and asked him for an explanation. “It’s simple,” he said. “I love fish but I hate fishin’. I like eatin’, not catchn’. So I cast out 12 lines. By sunset, some of them will have caught a fish. Never all of ’em. So if I only cast one or two I might go hungry. But 12 is enough so some always catch. Usually there’s enough for me and extras to sell to local restaurants. This way, I live the life I want.” The simple fellow had unwittingly put his finger on a powerful secret. The flaw in most businesses, that keeps them always in desperate need—which suppresses prices—is: too few lines cast in the ocean.

Could it be that the potential to make something perfect increases our motivation? And could it be that when we are limited to just fixing something, our motivation is weakened? I suspect that this is the case, which means that maybe we should all start picking projects that are smaller, and more self-contained.

Stop the car,” I said suddenly, just before we crossed the county line. Before the pickup even came to a complete stop, I opened my door and hopped out, throwing up my dinner, completely splattering the shoulder of the highway. On the growing list of Undignified Moments of My Life, it assumed a very high position.

they are also strengthening an undesirable social norm (more evidence for the popularity of this behavior), and therefore making it more likely that others will follow. The social norm perspective also means that you should work extra hard to establish a better social norm because once a more desirable social norm is set, the behavior can maintain itself.

few years later, Demeter took a vacation to the beach. She was walking along, enjoying the solitude and the fresh sea air, when Poseidon happened to spot her. Being a sea god, he tended to notice pretty ladies walking along the beach. He appeared out of the waves in his best green robes, with his trident in his hand and a crown of seashells on his head. (He was sure that the crown made him look irresistible.) “Hey, girl,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. “You must be the riptide, ’cause you sweep me off my feet.” He’d been practicing that pickup line for years. He was glad he finally got to use it. Demeter was not impressed. “Go away, Poseidon.” “Sometimes the sea goes away,” Poseidon agreed, “but it always comes back. What do you say you and me have a romantic dinner at my undersea palace?” Demeter made a mental note not to park her chariot so far away. She really could’ve used her two dragons for backup. She decided to change form and get away, but she knew better than to turn into a snake this time. I need something faster, she thought. Then she glanced down the beach and saw a herd of wild horses galloping through the surf. That’s perfect! Demeter thought. A horse! Instantly she became a white mare and raced down the beach. She joined the herd and blended in with the other horses. Her plan had serious flaws. First, Poseidon could also turn into a horse, and he did—a strong white stallion. He raced after her. Second, Poseidon had created horses. He knew all about them and could control them. Why would a sea god create a land animal like the horse? We’ll get to that later. Anyway, Poseidon reached the herd and started pushing his way through, looking for Demeter—or rather sniffing for her sweet, distinctive perfume. She was easy to find. Demeter’s seemingly perfect camouflage in the herd turned out to be a perfect trap. The other horses made way for Poseidon, but they hemmed in Demeter and wouldn’t let her move. She got so panicky, afraid of getting trampled, that she couldn’t even change shape into something else. Poseidon sidled up to her and whinnied something like Hey, beautiful. Galloping my way? Much to Demeter’s horror, Poseidon got a lot cuddlier than she wanted. These days, Poseidon would be arrested for that kind of behavior. I mean…assuming he wasn’t in horse form. I don’t think you can arrest a horse. Anyway, back in those days, the world was a rougher, ruder place. Demeter couldn’t exactly report Poseidon to King Zeus, because Zeus was just as bad. Months later, a very embarrassed and angry Demeter gave birth to twins. The weirdest thing? One of the babies was a goddess; the other one was a stallion. I’m not going to even try to figure that out. The baby girl was named Despoine, but you don’t hear much about her in the myths. When she grew up, her job was looking after Demeter’s temple, like the high priestess of corn magic or something. Her baby brother, the stallion, was named Arion. He grew up to be a super-fast immortal steed who helped out Hercules and some other heroes, too. He was a pretty awesome horse, though I’m not sure that Demeter was real proud of having a son who needed new horseshoes every few months and was constantly nuzzling her for apples. At this point, you’d think Demeter would have sworn off those gross, disgusting men forever and joined Hestia in the Permanently Single Club. Strangely, a couple of months later, she fell in love with a human prince named Iasion (pronounced EYE-son, I think). Just shows you how far humans had come since Prometheus gave them fire. Now they could speak and write. They could brush their teeth and comb their hair. They wore clothes and occasionally took baths. Some of them were even handsome enough to flirt with goddesses.

Dear Dan, Do you have general advice for how to approach diffıcult decisions? D.A.: Luckily the technology you need to solve this problem is already at your disposal. All you need is a coin. Assign each car to a side of the coin, flip it high in the air. At this point, you can wait until the coin lands, and use this random device to make your choice - but my guess is that when the coin is in the air, you will realize which car is the one you really want.

Or when you keep a sex-addiction meeting under surveillance because they’re the best places to pick up chicks.” Serge looked around the room at suspicious eyes. “Okay, maybe that last one’s just me. But you should try it. They keep the men’s and women’s meetings separate for obvious reasons. And there are so many more opportunities today because the whole country’s wallowing in this whiny new sex-rehab craze after some golfer diddled every pancake waitress on the seaboard. That’s not a disease; that’s cheating. He should have been sent to confession or marriage counseling after his wife finished chasing him around Orlando with a pitching wedge. But today, the nation is into humiliation, tearing down a lifetime of achievement by labeling some guy a damaged little dick weasel. The upside is the meetings. So what you do is wait on the sidewalk for the women to get out, pretending like you’re loitering. And because of the nature of the sessions they just left, there’s no need for idle chatter or lame pickup lines. You get right to business: ‘What’s your hang-up?’ And she answers, and you say, ‘What a coincidence. Me, too.’ Then, hang on to your hat! It’s like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get. Most people are aware of the obvious, like foot fetish or leather. But there are more than five hundred lesser-known but clinically documented paraphilia that make no sexual sense. Those are my favorites . . .” Serge began counting off on his fingers. “This one woman had Ursusagalmatophilia, which meant she got off on teddy bears—that was easily my weirdest three-way. And nasophilia, which meant she was completely into my nose, and she phoned a friend with mucophilia, which is mucus. The details on that one are a little disgusting. And formicophilia, which is being crawled on by insects, so the babe bought an ant farm. And symphorophilia—that’s staging car accidents, which means you have to time the air bags perfectly

In 1951, a man bought a pickup truck because he needed to load things up and move them. Things like bricks and bags of feed. Somewhere along the line trendsetters and marketers got involved, and now we buy pickups -- big, horse-powered, overbuilt, wide-assed, comfortable pickups -- so that we may stick our key in the ignition of an icon, fire up an image, and drive off in a cloud of connotations. I have no room to talk. I long to get my International running part so I can drive down roads that no longer exist.

I once heard an air force commander tell his pilots that every second, they are making a decision to change course or to stay their course, and that they should always think about their actions as active choices. The problem is that very few of us think about our decisions this way. We think that moving, getting married, changing jobs, etc., as decisions, but we don’t think about staying in the same place, staying single, keeping the same job etc., as decisions. Or at least we don’t think of them as decisions to the same degree.

Dear Dan, I recently attended one of your lectures, and I was wondering why an Israeli guy telling Jewish jokes is wearing an Indian shirt? D.A.: In general I am not someone who should be asked for fashion advice, but this particular case might be the one exception........My solution? I figured that as long as I am wearing clothes from a different culture, no one is politically correct (and this includes almost everyone in the United States ) could complain that I'm underdressed. After all, any such critic could be offending a whole subcontinent.

Goodreads also found that liberals and conservatives flocked to fundamentally different types of books. Obama supporters outnumbered Romney supporters by three to one in reading books written by Jonathan Franzen, the critically acclaimed fiction author. Romney voters, by contrast, read David McCullough at a rate of two to one compared with Obama voters. McCullough, too, is highly acclaimed, having been awarded two Pulitzers during his decades-long career—but he writes popular historical nonfiction, a genre more in line with a practical-minded, fixed worldview and very different from Franzen’s style.

A fat tractor driver smoked hand-rolled cigarettes and occasionally nipped from a bottle hidden under his seat. At eleven each morning a cook threw scraps to four patiently waiting dogs. No matter what else was going on those dogs gathered by the kitchen door like clockwork. No wonder in that, thought Safiyya, the curs eat better than many of my own people. Horsemen rode fence lines every Monday, checking for breaks and rounding up stray cattle. Saturdays, around one, the workweek came to an end and many people drifted down the hill, in groups or alone, to shop, or perhaps visit friends and relatives in the nearby village. Some rode horses, some walked, a few drove battered cars or pickups.

Our relationship quickly grew. I was living in Long Beach at the time; Chris was in San Diego. Conservatively speaking, that’s a two-hour drive. But Chris drove it often. He’d get off work, hop in his pickup, and be at my condo before dark. And not just on the weekends: he often rose before the sun to get to work in Coronado Beach. We’d go out to eat, maybe take in a movie, play miniature golf, bowl, see friends--the usual date stuff. But our most fun was just hanging out together. I pinned a picture of Chris up near my desk. (It’s the profile picture on his Facebook page, if you’re interested.) Under it, I taped a quote that went along the lines of: Life is not about the number of breaths you take; it’s the moments that take your breath away. Chris was all about those breathtaking moments--riding broncs in the rodeo, jumping out of planes. He worked hard and played hard--but was just as likely to relax completely, sitting comfortably on the couch with a beer or whatever as he took it easy. It was a paradox; I loved both sides.

And I wanted to be different, so I asked for harmonica lessons.” She tilted her head back, found his eyes in the dark. “Word to the wise, don’t ever learn the harmonica while you have braces.” “Hannah. Oh God. No.” His head fell back briefly, a laugh puffing out of him. “What happened?” “Our parents were in the Mediterranean, so we walked to our neighbor’s house and they were in France—” “Ah, yes. Typical neighborhood problems.” She snorted. “So their landscaper offered to drive me and Piper—who had actually peed her pants laughing—in the back of his truck.” She could barely keep her voice even, the need to giggle was so great. “We were driven to the closest hospital in the back of a pickup truck while the harmonica was stuck to my face. Every time I exhaled, the harmonica would play a few notes. People were honking . . .” His whole body was shaking with laughter, and Hannah could tell he’d finally, fully relaxed. The sexual tension didn’t leave completely, but he’d shelved it for now. “What did they say at the hospital?” “They asked if I was taking requests.

Here’s a game I sometimes play in my class: I ask a few students to think about a song, not to tell anyone what song they picked, and tap the beat of that song on a table. Next I ask the students to predict how many of the students in the room will correctly guess the song’s name. They usually think that about half will get it. Then I ask the students who were listening to the beat to name the song that they think was being played, and almost no one gets it right. The point is that when we know something and know it well (for example, the song that we have picked), it is hard for us to appreciate the gaps in other people’s understanding—a bias that is called “the curse of knowledge.” We all suffer from this affliction, but it’s particularly severe for academics. Why? Because academics study the same topic for years in all its details and intricacies, and by the time we become one of the world’s experts on that particular topic, the whole domain seems simpler and more intuitive. And with this curse of knowledge it is easy to assume that everyone else also finds the topic simple and easy to understand.

We danced to John Michael Montgomery’s “I Swear.” We cut the seven-tiered cake, electing not to take the smear-it-on-our-faces route. We visited and laughed and toasted. We held hands and mingled. But after a while, I began to notice that I hadn’t seen any of the tuxedo-clad groomsmen--particularly Marlboro Man’s friends from college--for quite some time. “What happened to all the guys?” I asked. “Oh,” he said. “They’re down in the men’s locker room.” “Oh, really?” I asked. “Are they smoking cigars or something?” “Well…” He hesitated, grinning. “They’re watching a football game.” I laughed. “What game are they watching?” It had to be a good one. “It’s…ASU is playing Nebraska,” he answered. ASU? His alma mater? Playing Nebraska? Defending national champions? How had I missed this? Marlboro Man hadn’t said a word. He was such a rabid college football fan, I couldn’t believe such a monumental game hadn’t been cause to reschedule the wedding date. Aside from ranching, football had always been Marlboro Man’s primary interest in life. He’d played in high school and part of college. He watched every televised ASU game religiously--for the nontelevised games, he relied on live reporting from Tony, his best friend, who attended every game in person. “I didn’t even know they were playing!” I said. I don’t know why I shouldn’t have known. It was September, after all. But it just hadn’t crossed my mind. I’d been a little on the busy side, I guess, getting ready to change my entire life and all. “How come you’re not down there watching it?” I asked. “I didn’t want to leave you,” he said. “You might get hit on.” He chuckled his sweet, sexy chuckle. I laughed. I could just see it--a drunk old guest scooting down the bar, eyeing my poufy white dress and spouting off pickup lines: You live around here? I sure like what you’re wearing… So…you married? Marlboro Man wasn’t in any immediate danger. Of that I was absolutely certain. “Go watch the game!” I insisted, motioning downstairs. “Nah,” he said. “I don’t need to.” He wanted to watch the game so badly I could see it in the air. “No, seriously!” I said. “I need to go hang with the girls anyway. Go. Now.” I turned my back and walked away, refusing even to look back. I wanted to make it easy on him. I wouldn’t see him for over an hour. Poor Marlboro Man. Unsure of the protocol for grooms watching college football during their wedding receptions, he’d darted in and out of the locker room for the entire first half. The agony he must have felt. The deep, sustained agony. I was so glad he’d finally joined the guys.

The perfect girl what can I say; to be so close yet, feel miles away. I want to run to her, but have to walk out the door going the other way. The only words spoken to her are- ‘Have a nice day.’ I think about her and the summer, and what it could have been with her. It reminds me of- sixteen, you are on my mind all the time. I think about you. It is like a vision of the stars shining, ribbon wearing, bracelet making, and holding hands forever. All the sunflowers in the hayfields and kissing in the rain, no more brick walls, no more falling teardrops of pain, and no more jigsaw puzzle pieces would remain. True love should not be such a game; does she feel the same. She is everything that I cannot have, and everything I lack. What if every day could be like this- Diamond rings, football games, and movies on the weekends? It is easy to see she belongs to me; she is everything that reminds me of ‘sixteen’ everything that is in my dreams. Everything she does is amazing, but then again, I am just speculating, and fantasizing about Nevaeh Natalie, who just turned the age of sixteen! Nevaeh- I recall my first boy kiss was not at all, what I thought it was going to be like. I was wearing a light pink dress, and flip-flops that were also pink with white daisy flowers printed on them. I loosened my ponytail and flipped out my hair until my hair dropped down my back, and around my shoulders. That gets A guy going every time, so I have read online. He was wearing ripped-up jeans and a Led Zeppelin t-shirt. He said that- ‘My eyes sparkled in blue amazement, which was breathtaking, that he never saw before.’ Tell me another line… I was thinking, while Phil Collins ‘Take Me Home’ was playing in the background. I smiled at him, he began to slowly lean into me, until our lips locked. So, enjoy, he kissed me, and my heart was all aflutter. When it happened, I felt like I was floating, and my stomach had butterflies. My eyes fastened shut with no intentions of me doing so during the whole thing. When my eyes unfastened my feelings of touch engaged, and I realized that his hands are on my hips. His hands slowly moved up my waist, and my body. I was trembling from the exhilaration. Plus, one thing led to another. It was sort of my first time, kissing and playing with him you know a boy, oh yet not really, I had gotten to do some things with Chiaz before like, in class as he sat next to me. I would rub my hand on it under the desks- yeah, he liked that, and he would be. Oh, how could I forget this… there was this one time in the front seat of his Ford pickup truck, we snuck off… and this was my first true time gulping down on him, for a lack of a better term. As I had my head in his lap and was about to move up for him to go in me down there, I was about to get on top and let him in me. When we both heard her this odd, yet remarkably loud scream of bloody murder! Ava was saying- ‘You too were going to fuck! What the fuck is going on here? Anyways, Ava spotted us before he got to ‘Take me!

He removed his hand from his worn, pleasantly snug jeans…and it held something small. Holy Lord, I said to myself. What in the name of kingdom come is going on here? His face wore a sweet, sweet smile. I stood there completely frozen. “Um…what?” I asked. I could formulate no words but these. He didn’t respond immediately. Instead he took my left hand in his, opened up my fingers, and placed a diamond ring onto my palm, which was, by now, beginning to sweat. “I said,” he closed my hand tightly around the ring. “I want you to marry me.” He paused for a moment. “If you need time to think about it, I’ll understand.” His hands were still wrapped around my knuckles. He touched his forehead to mine, and the ligaments of my knees turned to spaghetti. Marry you? My mind raced a mile a minute. Ten miles a second. I had three million thoughts all at once, and my heart thumped wildly in my chest. Marry you? But then I’d have to cut my hair short. Married women have short hair, and they get it fixed at the beauty shop. Marry you? But then I’d have to make casseroles. Marry you? But then I’d have to wear yellow rubber gloves to do the dishes. Marry you? As in, move out to the country and actually live with you? In your house? In the country? But I…I…I don’t live in the country. I don’t know how. I can’t ride a horse. I’m scared of spiders. I forced myself to speak again. “Um…what?” I repeated, a touch of frantic urgency to my voice. “You heard me,” Marlboro Man said, still smiling. He knew this would catch me by surprise. Just then my brother Mike laid on the horn again. He leaned out of the window and yelled at the top of his lungs, “C’mon! I am gonna b-b-be late for lunch!” Mike didn’t like being late. Marlboro Man laughed. “Be right there, Mike!” I would have laughed, too, at the hilarious scene playing out before my eyes. A ring. A proposal. My developmentally disabled and highly impatient brother Mike, waiting for Marlboro Man to drive him to the mall. The horn of the diesel pickup. Normally, I would have laughed. But this time I was way, way too stunned. “I’d better go,” Marlboro Man said, leaning forward and kissing my cheek. I still grasped the diamond ring in my warm, sweaty hand. “I don’t want Mike to burst a blood vessel.” He laughed out loud, clearly enjoying it all. I tried to speak but couldn’t. I’d been rendered totally mute. Nothing could have prepared me for those ten minutes of my life. The last thing I remember, I’d awakened at eleven. Moments later, I was hiding in my bathroom, trying, in all my early-morning ugliness, to avoid being seen by Marlboro Man, who’d dropped by unexpectedly. Now I was standing on the front porch, a diamond ring in my hand. It was all completely surreal. Marlboro Man turned to leave. “You can give me your answer later,” he said, grinning, his Wranglers waving good-bye to me in the bright noonday sun. But then it all came flashing across my line of sight. The boots in the bar, the icy blue-green eyes, the starched shirt, the Wranglers…the first date, the long talks, my breakdown in his kitchen, the movies, the nights on his porch, the kisses, the long drives, the hugs…the all-encompassing, mind-numbing passion I felt. It played frame by frame in my mind in a steady stream. “Hey,” I said, walking toward him and effortlessly sliding the ring on my finger. I wrapped my arms around his neck as his arms, instinctively, wrapped around my waist and raised me off the ground in our all-too-familiar pose. “Yep,” I said effortlessly. He smiled and hugged me tightly. Mike, once again, laid on the horn, oblivious to what had just happened. Marlboro Man said nothing more. He simply kissed me, smiled, then drove my brother to the mall.

starters to help you break the ice and have you meeting more women, getting more dates, attracting and

There’s this fancy restaurant nearby with a nice view of the water. The Alchemist and Barrister, they call it. I’ve always thought the place looked nice. Since I don’t eat regular food or go on dates, I’v never been there. I’d like to make an exception and take you there on Saturday night. That is, if you’d like.

A dozen deer stood in the pasture right across the fence. The big buck held his head proud and tall, antlers gathering snow as he watched over his harem. "Isn't he majestic?" She turned around so she could keep an eyes on him longer. "Not as majestic as you look in that coat," he said. "It's a work coat, for God's sake, Finn, and that's a horrible pickup line." "Just stating facts.

I hope I have my library card because I’m checking you out!

To ward off these disasters, they spent a whole lot of time trying to keep their gods happy via a number of complex rituals, many involving copious amounts of sex (“the gods wish us to have sex” is the oldest pickup line in the world) and human sacrifice. And whoever happened to be their king was also a god, which simplified the political process quite a lot.

Did you get that body at McDonald's? Because "I'm lovin' it.

Are you a speeding ticket? Because you’ve got fine written all over you.

I forgot that there's 26 letters in the alphabet, not just 21. I forgot U, R, A, Q, T.

Kiss heaven goodbye 'cause it must be a sin to look that good!

1. You might want to perform an audit of the paperwork your sales team is required to fill out to determine whether it is actually needed to produce sales. If it does not directly contribute to sales, get rid of it. If the paperwork is providing the company with necessary information, analyze how you can go about obtaining that information without burdening the sales team. By removing that burden from the sales team, could you see a pickup in selling time that will translate to an increase in sales?   2. Have you had to reduce territories, products, or rep income? What was the effect on your team?   3. Do you allow your team members the right to fail? What constitutes too much failure for an individual, and where do you draw the line? How do you communicate your policy to maintain a consistent message that is seen as fair and reasonable by your sales team?

You wanna go see my old bedroom?” “Is that a pickup line?” “Come on inside and you’ll find out.” How was a girl supposed to resist an offer like that?

Cognitive Dissonance: When I say what I do for a living and get as a reply: "That's a bad pickup line".

13. If you were a booger I'd pick you first.

He has a standard pickup line: "Are you a bottom? Yes? Hi, I'm Dave.

Facebook’s “Like” button is much more than a way for us to react to other people. It is a social-coordination mechanism that tells us how we can, and should respond. It subtly gives us instructions on what is OK (and not OK) to post and it gently tells us how we can and can’t behave on Facebook. Adding buttons such as “Dislike” or “Hate” would change our mindset when we read different posts; it would prompt us to have more negative reactions and I suspect that very quickly it would destroy this social network’s positive atmosphere.

Still, to me, the bottom line wasn’t about the Dark Book at all. It was about uncovering the details of my sister’s secret life. I didn’t want the creepy thing. I just wanted to know who or what had killed Alina, and I wanted him or it dead. Then I wanted to go home to my pleasantly provincial po-dunk little town in steamy southern Georgia and forget about everything that had happened to me while I was in Dublin. The Fae didn’t visit Ashford? Good. I’d marry a local boy with a jacked-up Chevy pickup truck, Toby Keith singing “Who’s Your Daddy?” on the radio, and eight proud generations of honest, hardworking Ashford ancestors decorating his family tree. Short of essential shopping trips to Atlanta, I’d never leave home again. But

I’m surprised you’re here.” Her mouth curved upward. “I warned you I’d be joining you.” He ignored the heat that spread inside him at the sight of her smile. “That’s just it.” Her smile grew wider. “A politician who keeps his word—what a remarkable aberration in the species.” “How could I have forgotten that keen wit of yours?” he marveled. “Yeah, I’m full of surprises. Might want to remember that.” Then, throwing caution to the wind, he let his eyes roam slowly over her, lingering. She’d have to be blind not to see the hunger in them. Which she clearly wasn’t. She retreated a step. He followed, his longer legs closing the distance, until his body almost brushed hers. That cool composer of Lily’s was unraveling, no matter how hard she struggled to pretend otherwise. The signs were there, in the fine trembling of her limbs, in the flush that stole over her porcelain smooth cheeks. Fierce satisfaction filled Sean at her involuntary reaction. He dipped his head until his lips hovered, a soft whisper away. “Lily?” “Yes?” There was a husky catch to her voice. Sean’s fingers reached up and traced the rosy bloom on her cheek. Was it the sweet flush of desire that made her skin so soft? he wondered, his eyes and fingers memorizing every detail, every sensation. God, he’d die for a taste of her. But Sean denied himself the pleasure. He raised his head, putting distance between himself and his greatest temptation, and forced himself to lower his hand. At the loss of contact, Lily’s head jerked, as if coming out of a trance. Sean stepped back before she could flay him alive. “You’re looking a little pink, Lily. I’ve got some zinc oxide in my bag. I’d be happy to put some on you. Especially on those hard to reach places.” He gave her a casual smile and pulled his sunglasses from the breast pocket of his T-shirt, ignoring the violent thudding of his heart against the cotton fabric. His hands shook, too, racked with tremors of need. Somehow, he managed to settle his shades across the slightly crooked bridge of his nose, before shoving them deep into his pocket, out of sight. Damn Sean and his effect on me, Lily swore silently. He had only to bestow the paltriest of caresses and she nearly swooned. Even more galling was the fact that she was equally helpless before Sean’s verbal taunts. The thought of Sean’s hands, slick with lotion, gliding over her body in long, sweeping caresses had her pulse racing. Lily’s voice was filled with contempt—never mind that it was self-directed—as she spoke. “You know, you and John Granger should get to know each other. You could compare notes on really great pickup lines. By the way, Sean, your nose? Does it trouble you still? I hope so.

Through summer, we waited. We waited through June, through July, when the sun ripped a white fissure from tree line to sky, a sky that burned all day and all night, turning away from us for only moments, four hours, five, settled into its own sleep. The days were long then, stretched wide and full of light, but for us, full of only bruises. Full of slaps across sunburned cheeks when flowers weren’t watered, when dishes sat and scummed. Full of cuts from broken bottles held against our throats until we gasped yes, take my money, just take it and go. Full of scratches from the exposed metal of pick-up flatbeds, latticing the backs of thighs, hands held across our mouths to catch and crush the word no. They were long days full of spilling light, so much light it shadowed every hurt.

the wine of choice for cheapskates is the second-cheapest wine on the list.

Knowing this, the restaurant places a wine with a relatively high margin in this attractive location on the wine list.

if dog owners observe a lot of droppings around the condo area, they will find it perfectly acceptable to further contribute to this behavior.

violators are not only leaving an unacceptable mess behind them,