Picnic Quotes

You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken.

I'm the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in Disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again, I want to assure you, I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible...

Well, while you were in the bathroom, I sat down at this picnic table here in Bumblefug, Kentucky, and noticed that someone had carved that GOD HATES FAG, which, aside from being a grammatical nightmare, is absolutely ridiculous. So I'm changing it to 'God Hates Baguettes.' It's tough to disagree with that. Everybody hates baguettes.

He'd written me up a proposal of why dating him was a sound decision. It had included things like "I'll give up cigarettes unless I really, really need one" and "I'll unleash romantic surprises every week, such as: an impromptu picnic, roses, or a trip to Paris—but not actually any of those things because now they're not surprises.

Look, Simon, Luke thinks you should tell your mom. You can't hide it from her forever." "I can damn well try." "Think about Luke," she said desperately. "You can still live a normal life." "And what about us? Do you want a vampire boyfriend?" He laughed bitterly. "Because I foresee many romantic picnics in our future. You, drinking a virgin pina colada. Me, drinking the blood of a virgin.

I was sentimental about many things: a woman’s shoes under the bed; one hairpin left behind on the dresser; the way they said, 'I’m going to pee.' hair ribbons; walking down the boulevard with them at 1:30 in the afternoon, just two people walking together; the long nights of drinking and smoking; talking; the arguments; thinking of suicide; eating together and feeling good; the jokes; the laughter out of nowhere; feeling miracles in the air; being in a parked car together; comparing past loves at 3am; being told you snore; hearing her snore; mothers, daughters, sons, cats, dogs; sometimes death and sometimes divorce; but always carring on, always seeing it through; reading a newspaper alone in a sandwich joint and feeling nausea because she’s now married to a dentist with an I.Q. of 95; racetracks, parks, park picnics; even jails; her dull friends; your dull friends; your drinking, her dancing; your flirting, her flirting; her pills, your fucking on the side and her doing the same; sleeping together

Jesus Christ… Thank fuck for that,” Picnic said. “Nope, not Jesus, just a man,” Horse whispered. “Although when women see my dick for the first time, they’ve been known to fall down on their knees and worship me.

Clary grinned. "A picnic? It's a little late for Central Park, don't you think? It's full of-" He waved a hand. "Faeries. I know." "I was going to say muggers," said Clary. "Though I pity the mugger who goes after you." "That is a wise attitude, and I commend you for it," said Jace, looking gratified.

Now, now," Bast said. "It's not so bad." "Right," I said. "We're stuck in Washington, D.C. We have two days to make it to Arizona and stop a god we don't know how to stop. And if we can't, we'll never see our dad or Amos again, and the world might end." "That's the spirit!" Bast said brightly. "Now, let's have a picnic.

I’ll affect you slowly as if you were having a picnic in a dream. There will be no ants. It won’t rain.

You and me Haymitch.Very cozy.Picnics, birthdays, long winter nights sitting around the fire retelling old Hunger Games tale. -Peeta Mellark

In hind sight, telling him all strangers wanted to eat him wasn’t my finest hour. Having to explain to a bunch of crying children in line to see Santa why my kid was screaming ‘DON’T GO NEAR HIM! HE’LL EAT YOUR FINGERS!’ was no picnic.

Indeed." Will let his cutlery clatter onto his plate. "The Consul? Breaking up our breakfast time? Whatever next? The Inquisitor over for tea? Picnics with the Silent Brothers?" "Duck pies in the park," said Jem under his breath, and he and Will smiled at each other, just a flash, before the door opened and the Consul swept it.

And what about us? Do you want a vampire boyfriend?" He laughed bitterly. "Because I forsee many romantic picnics in our future. You, drinking a virgin piña colada. Me, drinking the blood of a virgin.

Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors.

He made a noise of disgruntlement. “It’s a bloody picnic. Sit. Eat. Shut up.

Tamani smiled softly and lifted a hand to her face, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and letting his thumb rest on her cheek. 'Trust me, it's no picnic missing you. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.

The four most over-rated things in life are champagne, lobster, anal sex, and picnics.

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.

He went back to his first morning in Oxford: climbing a sunny hill with Ramy, picnic basket in hand. Elderflower cordial. Warm brioche, sharp cheese, a chocolate tart for dessert. The air smelled like a promise, all of Oxford shone like an illumination, and he was falling in love.

The city centre was still crawling with Christmas shoppers looking to add to their already burgeoning piles of gifts. To Scott they were like ants at a picnic, teeming from store to store, trailing oversized carrier bags and infants behind them as they went. Scott felt alien in this environment; pulling up his hood he hurried through the crowds, dodging pushchairs, lit cigarettes and charity collection tins.

What I want you to know: Dying is easy. Comedy is hard. Clinical depression is no fucking picnic.

Drinking’s funny. When I look back on it, all of our important decisions have been figured out when we were drinking. Even when we talked about having to cut back on drinking, we’d be sitting at the kitchen table or out at the picnic table with a six-pack or whiskey.

Picnics are very dear to those who are in the first stage of the tender passion.

Like the end of a picnic, all the weenies will be roasted.

You bring your own weather to the picnic.

Things could change, Gabe," Jonas went on. "Things could be different. I don't know how, but there must be some way for things to be different. There could be colors. And grandparents," he added, staring through the dimness toward the ceiling of his sleepingroom. "And everybody would have the memories." "You know the memories," he whispered, turning toward the crib. Garbriel's breathing was even and deep. Jonas liked having him there, though he felt guilty about the secret. Each night he gave memories to Gabriel: memories of boat rides and picnics in the sun; memories of soft rainfall against windowpanes; memories of dancing barefoot on a damp lawn. "Gabe?" The newchild stirred slightly in his sleep. Jonas looked over at him. "There could be love," Jonas whispered.

I foresee many romantic picnics in our future. You drinking a virgin pina colada. Me drinking the blood of a virgin." (Simon)

Мы будем делать Добро из Зла, потому что его больше не из чего делать.

There was a lot of things about love that you could only learn after you’d faced the real kind. The best kind wasn’t this soft, sweet thing of hearts and picnics. It wasn’t flowery and divine. Real love was gritty. The real kind of love never quit. Someone who loved you would do what’s best for you; they’d stand up for you and sacrifice. Someone who loved you would face any inconvenience willingly. You didn’t know what love was until someone was willing to give up what they loved the most for you. But it was also never letting them make that choice, either.

I really do believe that all of you are at the beginning of a wonderful journey. As you start traveling down that road of life, remember this: There are never enough comfort stops. The places you're going to are never on the map. And once you get that map out, you won't be able to re-fold it no matter how smart you are. So forget the map, roll down the windows, and whenever you can pull over and have picnic with a pig. And if you can help it never fly as cargo.

The hypothesis of God, for instance, gives an incomparably absolute opportunity to understand everything and know absolutely nothing. Give man an extremely simplified system of the world and explain every phenomenon away on the basis of that system. An approach like that doesn't require any knowledge. Just a few memorized formulas plus so-called intuition and so-called common sense.

HAPPINESS FOR EVERYBODY, FREE, AND NO ONE WILL GO AWAY UNSATISFIED!

Everything begins and ends at exactly the right time and place.

Who brings a picnic to a break-in?

intelligence is the ability of a living creature to perform pointless or unnatural acts.

Yep, my daddy was an undependable drunk. But he'd never missed any of my organized games, concerts, plays, or picnics. He may not have loved me perfectly, but he loved me as well as he could. (189)

Pies mean Thanksgiving and Christmas and picnics.

Be there a picnic for the devil, an orgy for the satyr, and a wedding for the bride.

A disturbing thought hits me,"but then our only neighbor would be Haymich!" "Ah, that'll be nice,"says Peeta, tightening his arms around me."You and me and Haymich. Very cozy. Picnics, birthdays. long winters around the campfire retelling old Hunger Games tales." "I told you he hates me!" I say, but I can't help laughing at the image of Haymich becoming my new pal. "Only sometimes. When he's sober, I've never heard him say one negative thing about you," says Peeta. He's never sober!" I protest. That's right. Who am I thinking of? Oh, I know. It's Cinna who likes you. But that's mainly because you didn't try to run when he set you in fire," says Peeta. "On the other hand, Haymich ... well, if I were you, I'd avoid Haymich completely. He Hates you." " I thought that you said I was his favorite," I say. "He hates me more," says Peeta, "I don't think people in general are his sort of thing.

Don't focus on the one guy who hates you. You don't go to the park and set your picnic down next to the only pile of dog shit.

She was faster than a secret spreading through a church picnic.

It was lemon verbena day, so the house was filled with a sweet-tart scent that conjured images of picnic blankets and white clouds shaped like true-love hearts.

picnic table.

Some men you know are Southern before they ever say a word," Julia said as she and Emily watched Sawyer's progress, helpless, almost as if they couldn't look away. "They remind you of something good--picnics or carrying sparklers around at night. Southern men will hold doors open for you, they'll hold you after you yell at them, and they'll hold on to their pride no matter what. Be careful what they tell you, though. They have a way of making you believe anything, because they say it that way.

There was something horribly depressing, she felt, about watching the weather report. That life could be planned like the perfect summer picnic drained it of spontaneity.

Although this scouting gig sounded like a financial hit, it made Nonie extremely nervous. She feared someone slip--that someone being Buggy--and others would find out Nonie's secret. And if the wrong person caught wind that she could see and speak to the dead, word would spread through Clay Point like ants at a picnic.

Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away. That is, running away in the heat of anger with a knapsack on her pack. She didn't like discomfort; even picnics were untidy and inconvenient: all those insects and the sun melting the icing on the cupcakes. Therefore, she decided that her leaving home would not be just running from somewhere but would be running to somewhere.

A picnic? It's a little late for Central Park, don't you think? It's full of-' He waved a hand. 'Faeries. I know.' 'I was going to say muggers,' said Clary. 'Though I pity the mugger who goes after you.

This picnic will soon depart Real life, I'm sad to see you go I'll miss you with all my heart But I'd rather be alone 'Cause I couldn't live without Sunsets that dazzle in the dusk So I'll drag the anchor up And rest assured, 'cause dreams don't turn to dust.

Piper went a little crazy. She cried out with relief and dove straight into the water. What was she thinking? She didn't take a rope or a life vest or anything. But at the moment, she was just so happy that she paddled over to Leo and kissed him on the cheek, which kind of surprised him. "Miss me?" Leo laughed. Piper was suddenly furious. "Where were you? How are you guys alive?" "Long story," he said. A picnic basket bobbed to the surface next to him. "Want a brownie?

A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. Cars drive off the country road into the meadow, a group of young people get out carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor radios, and cameras. They light fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they leave. The animals, birds, and insects that watched in horror through the long night creep out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Old spark plugs and old filters strewn around... Rags, burnt-out bulbs, and a monkey wrench left behind... And of course, the usual mess—apple cores, candy wrappers, charred remains of the campfire, cans, bottles, somebody’s handkerchief, somebody’s penknife, torn newspapers, coins, faded flowers picked in another meadow.

Captain Phelan and I dislike each other,” Beatrix told her. “In fact, we’re sworn enemies.” Christopher glanced at her quickly. “When did we become sworn enemies?” Ignoring him, Beatrix said to her sister, "Regardless, he’s staying for tea.” “Wonderful,” Amelia said equably. “Why are you enemies, dear?” “I met him yesterday while I was out walking,” Beatrix explained. “And he called Medusa a ‘garden pest,’ and faulted me for bringing her to a picnic.” Amelia smiled at Christopher. “Medusa has been called many worse things around here, including ‘diseased pincushion,’ and ‘perambulating cactus.

It is time to float on the waters of the night. Time to wrap my arms around this book and press it to my chest, life preserver in a sea of unremarkable men and women, anonymous faces on the street, a hundred thousand unalphabetized things, a million forgotten hours.

For the briefest moment, they came face to face. Their eyes locked. Then he broke the stare, swiveled, sank into a sitting position, chains clanking, with his knees up. She watched him speechlessly as he set a cooler bag between his boots, like he was settling down to a picnic or something. An image of the contents as hospital blood bags, complete with juice straws, flashed through her mind. Unfolding her legs, she made herself as comfortable as she could on the cold outer edge of the sill. An intangible and unnameable charge electrified the space between them, and at first, neither of them said anything. [...] Finally she heard him unzip the bag and watched him pull out a small cylinder. "I thought you might like some crappy ice cream," he said.

And I never started to plow in my life That some one did not stop in the road And take me away to a dance or picnic. I ended up with forty acres; I ended up with a broken fiddle— And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories, And not a single regret.

Oh, you need Alan to betray Nick and then you'll steal Nick's powers and kill them both," said Mae. "Great idea. Hey, can i come? I'll bring a picnic lunch if you promise not to let blood get on the sandwiches.

I want to take long romantic walks up your arm with my lips. I wanna picnic on the arc of your neck and sneak a bottle of wine in a thermos with you and get stoned somewhere on the mossy side of your ribs.

Everyone needed to have the opportunity to catch a long langorous glimpse of my disgrace. "This looks so much like you," she said to Noah pressing her body against his. "My girl is talented," Noah said. My heart stopped beating. Anna's heart stopped beating. Everyone's heart stopped beating. The buzzing of a solitary gnat would have sounded obscene in the stillness. "Bullshit," Anna whispered finally, but it was loud enough for everyone to hear. She hadn't moved an inch. Noah shrugged. "Im a vein bastard, and Mara indulges me." After a pause, he added, "Im just glad you didnt get your greedy little claws on the other sketchbook. That would have been embarrasing." His lips curved into a sly smile as he slid from the picnic table he'd been sitting on. "Now, get the fuck off me," he said calmly to a dumbfounded speechless Anna as he pushed past her, plucking the sketchbook roughly from her hands. And walked over to me. "Lets go," Noah ordered gently, once he was at my side. His body brushed the line of my shoulder and arm protectively. And then he held out his hand. I wanted to take it and i wanted to spit in Anna's face and i wanted to kiss him and i wanted to knee Aiden Davis in the groin. Civilization won out, and i willed each individual nerve to respond to the signal i sent with my brain and placed my fingers in his. A current traveled from my fingertips through to the hollow where my stomach used to be. And just like that i was completely, utterly and entirely, his.

Ozymandias controls not only the dead, but the living. He works the dark magics, and it is said he knows the paths between the worlds and walks them without fear. He wields the-" "Stop! In English, okay?"" "In English?" she asked, throwing the empty wineglass into the picnic basket. Riley nodded. "You're in serious shit.

Every teenager in the world feels like that, feels broken or out of place, different somehow, royalty mistakenly born into a family of peasants. The difference in your case is that it’s true. You are different. Maybe not better—but different. And it’s no picnic being different.

The witch reached into the picnic basket and pulled out a light brown chamois bag about the size of a playing card. “Maybe this will help you. It’ll boost your self-esteem.” Now we’re getting somewhere. Riley took the bag and opened it. She looked to the bottom to find … nothing. “Ah, it’s empty.” “Of course,” Ayden replied. “It’s up to you to fill it. Find things that mean something to you, that represent times where you’ve overcome an obstacle, learned something important. Put those items in the bag and they’ll help you find your strength.

I nodded, chewing my own syrup-soaked bite. "But surely that's not all there is to it. I mean, really? A big picnic? That's Avari's master plan? That makes him sound about as dangerous as Yogi Bear." Tod shrugged. "Yeah. If Yogi were a soul-sucking, body-stealing, boyfriend-snatching, damned-soul-torturing evil demon from another world. Besides, what else could he be planning?

Marginalia Sometimes the notes are ferocious, skirmishes against the author raging along the borders of every page in tiny black script. If I could just get my hands on you, Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien, they seem to say, I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head. Other comments are more offhand, dismissive - Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" - that kind of thing. I remember once looking up from my reading, my thumb as a bookmark, trying to imagine what the person must look like who wrote "Don't be a ninny" alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson. Students are more modest needing to leave only their splayed footprints along the shore of the page. One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's. Another notes the presence of "Irony" fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal. Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers, Hands cupped around their mouths. Absolutely," they shout to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin. Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!" Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points rain down along the sidelines. And if you have managed to graduate from college without ever having written "Man vs. Nature" in a margin, perhaps now is the time to take one step forward. We have all seized the white perimeter as our own and reached for a pen if only to show we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages; we pressed a thought into the wayside, planted an impression along the verge. Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria jotted along the borders of the Gospels brief asides about the pains of copying, a bird singing near their window, or the sunlight that illuminated their page- anonymous men catching a ride into the future on a vessel more lasting than themselves. And you have not read Joshua Reynolds, they say, until you have read him enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling. Yet the one I think of most often, the one that dangles from me like a locket, was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye I borrowed from the local library one slow, hot summer. I was just beginning high school then, reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room, and I cannot tell you how vastly my loneliness was deepened, how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed, when I found on one page A few greasy looking smears and next to them, written in soft pencil- by a beautiful girl, I could tell, whom I would never meet- Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love.

СЧАСТЬЕ ДЛЯ ВСЕХ, ДАРОМ, И ПУСТЬ НИКТО НЕ УЙДЕТ ОБИЖЕННЫЙ!

I could see the road ahead of me. I was poor and I was going to stay poor. But I didn't particularly want money. I didn't know what I wanted. Yes, I did. I wanted someplace to hide out, someplace where one didn't have to do anything. The thought of being something didn't only appall me, it sickened me. The thought of being a lawyer or a councilman or an engineer, anything like that, seemed impossible to me. To get married, to have children, to get trapped in the family structure. To go someplace to work every day and to return. It was impossible. To do things, simple things, to be part of family picnics, Christmas, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Mother's Day . . . was a man born just to endure those things and then die? I would rather be a dishwasher, return alone to a tiny room and drink myself to sleep.

Annabeth and I were relaxing on the Great Lawn in Central Park when she ambushed me with a question. “You forgot, didn’t you?” I went into red-alert mode. It’s easy to panic when you’re a new boyfriend. Sure, I’d fought monsters with Annabeth for years. Together we’d faced the wrath of the gods. We’d battled Titans and calmly faced death a dozen times. But now that we were dating, one frown from her and I freaked. What had I done wrong? I mentally reviewed the picnic list: Comfy blanket? Check. Annabeth’s favorite pizza with extra olives? Check. Chocolate toffee from La Maison du Chocolat? Check. Chilled sparkling water with twist of lemon? Check. Weapons in case of sudden Greek mythological apocalypse? Check. So what had I forgotten? I was tempted (briefly) to bluff my way through. Two things stopped me. First, I didn’t want to lie to Annabeth. Second, she was too smart. She’d see right through me. So I did what I do best. I stared at her blankly and acted dumb.

I had a dream about you. Flowers were overflowing in the cemetery, so we decided to have a picnic there. You brought apple pie, and I brought my Aunt Mildred, who’d been dead for some time and I just hadn’t gotten around to disposing of her body. I thought you’d think me both efficient and romantic, but it turns out you didn’t. You only saw the romantic side of my action.

Amaranthe decided not to explain that it hadn't been a guess, that Sicarius reserved his ultra icy glare for those who threatened him, those who spoke disrespectfully about his son, and those who dared invite Amaranthe to picnic dinners in the park.

Xenology is an unnatural mixture of science fiction and formal logic. At its core is a flawed assumption—that an alien race would be psychologically human.

Afterwards, go to a pub for lunch. I've got $260 in my savings account and I really want you to use it for that. Really, I mean it--lunch is on me. Make sure you have pudding--sticky toffee, chocolate fudge cake, ice-cream sundae, something really bad for you. Get drunk too if you like (but don't scare Cal). Spend all the money. And after that, when days have gone by, keep an eye out for me. I might write on the steam in the mirror when you're having a bath, or play with the leaves on the apple tree when you're out in the garden. I might slip into a dream. Visit my grave when you can, but don't kick yourself if you can't, or if you move house and it's suddenly too far away. It looks pretty there in the summer (check out the website). You could bring a picnic and sit with me. I'd like that.

Heavily and hypnotically,with her soul flattening itself back like the ears of a hissing cat,Kizzy leaned in and drank of Jack Husk's full,moist mouth,and his red,red lips were hungry against hers,drinking her in return.Their eyes closed.Fingers clutched at collars and hair,at the picnic blanket,at the grass.And as they sank down,pinning their shadows beneath them,the horizon tipped on its side,and slowly,thickly,hour by hour,the day spilled out and ebbed away. It was Kizzy's first kiss, and maybe it was her last, and it was delicious.

My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three, and, save for a pocket of warmth in the darkest past, nothing of her subsists within the hollows and dells of memory, over which, if you can still stand my style (I am writing under observation), the sun of my infancy had set: surely, you all know those redolent remnants of day suspended, with the midges, about some hedge in bloom or suddenly entered and traversed by the rambler, at the bottom of a hill, in the summer dusk; a furry warmth, golden midges.

Some argued that the youth of today were poorly educated and insufficiently industrious, but one of them had sought to validate his generation by spending considerable time and effort chiseling an obscene word in the concrete picnic table, and he had spelled it correctly.

Soon they were all sitting on the rocky ledge, which was still warm, watching the sun go down into the lake. It was the most beautiful evening, with the lake as blue as a cornflower and the sky flecked with rosy clouds. They held their hard-boiled eggs in one hand and a piece of bread and butter in the other, munching happily. There was a dish of salt for everyone to dip their eggs into. ‘I don’t know why, but the meals we have on picnics always taste so much nicer than the ones we have indoors,’ said George.

On Monday they went out for a private picnic. On Tuesday they went for a carriage drive. On Wednesday they went to pick bluebells. On Thursday they fished at the lake, returning with damp clothes and sun-glazed complexions, laughing together at a joke they didn't share with anyone else. On Friday they danced together at an impromptu musical evening, looking so well matched one of the guests remarked it was a pleasure to watch them. On Saturday Matthew woke up wanting to murder someone.

I slipped in and out of consciousness as time stretched and flowed around me. Dreams and reality blurred, but I liked the dreams better. Noah was in them. I dreamed of us, walking hand in hand down a crowded street in the middle of the day. We were in New York. I was in no rush—I could walk with him forever—but Noah was. He pulled me alongside him, strong and determined and not smiling. Not today. We wove among the people, somehow not touching a single one. The trees were green and blossoming. It was spring, almost summer. A strong wind shook a few steadfast flowers off of the branches and into our path. We ignored them. Noah led me into Central Park. It was teeming with human life. Bright colored picnic blankets burst across the lawn, the pale, outstretched forms of people wriggling over them like worms in fruit. We passed the reservoir, the sun reflecting off its surface, and then the crowd began to thicken. They funneled into a throbbing mass as we strode up a hill, over and through. Until we could see them all below us, angry and electric. Noah reached into his bag. He pulled out the little cloth doll, my grandmother’s. The one we burned.

If you could invite any fictional character to a picnic who would it be?” I instantly smile. Noah’s random questions are definatley great ice-breakers. “Augustus Waters from The Fault In Our Stars.” I say, “So i could bring him back to life.” “Great Answer”, Noah says “I’d bring that sappy guy from Twilight- So i could kill him.

The problem is we don’t notice the years pass, he thought. Screw the years—we don’t notice things change. We know that things change, we’ve been told since childhood that things change, we’ve witnessed things change ourselves many a time, and yet we’re still utterly incapable of noticing the moment that change comes—or we search for change in all the wrong places.

You need money so you don’t have to think about money.

Although we are necessarily concerned, in a chronicle of events, with physical action by the light of day, history suggests that the human spirit wanders farthest in the silent hours between midnight and dawn. Those dark fruitful hours, seldom recorded, whose secret flowerings breed peace and war, loves and hates, the crowning or uncrowning of heads.

Look into my soul, I know - everything you need is in there. It has to be. Because I've never sold my soul to anyone! It's mine, it's human! Figure out yourself what I want - because I know it can't be bad! The hell with it all, I just can't think of a thing other than those words of his - HAPPINESS, FREE, FOR EVERYONE, AND LET NO ONE BE FORGOTTEN!

People distrust you if you don’t play the same games they do, Sonny. It’s the same after you grow up.

Would you rather you were able to experience the reunion with a long-lost set of parents who had been suffering for years missing and loving you or would you rather they weren't hurting while you were raised by human parents who adore you?" Laurel swallowed. "I hadn't thought of it that way." Tamani smiled softly and lifted a hand to her face, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and letting his thumb rest on her cheek. "Trust me, it's no picnic missing you. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

With this ring, I promise you a strong shoulder to cry on. I promise to hold and care for you whenever you need me. I promise to bring you comfort when you’re sad and to defend you to the last. I give you faith, trust and commitment unfailing. I promise to love you with every breath in my lungs and beat of my heart until the end of time. I promise that the only heart I own will always belong to you and it will never beat for another as long I live. I promise picnics in the summer and cozy nights by the fire in winter. I promise to always cherish and appreciate you and everything you do and to show you every day just how much you mean to me. I will always be yours and you will always be mine. This I promise you

I said, "Jesse, don't flatter yourself that I did this for you. I mean, it has been nothing but one giant pain in the neck, having you for a roommate. Do you think I like having to come home from school or from work or whatever and having to explain stuff like the Bay of Pigs to you? Believe me, life with you is no picnic." He didn't say anything. He just kept pulling me along. "Or what about Tad?" I said, bringing up what I knew was a sore subject. "I mean, you think I like having you tag along on my dates? Having you out of my life is going to make things a lot simpler, so don't think, you know, I did this for you. I only did it because that stupid cat of yours has been crying its head off. And also because anything I can do to make your stupid girlfriend mad, I will." "Nombre de Dios, Susannah," Jesse muttered. "Maria's not my girlfriend." "Well, she certainly used to be," I said. "And what about that, anyway? That girl is a full-on skank, Jesse. I can't believe you ever agreed to marry her. I mean, what were you thinking, anyway? Couldn't you see what she was like underneath all that lace?

I think you just complimented me," said Jane. "You should take better care next time." The music had started, the couples had begun a promenade, but Mr. Nobley paused to hold Jane's arm and whisper, "Jane Erstwhile, if I never had to speak with another human being but you, I would die a happy man. I would that these people, the music, the food and foolishness all disappeared and left us alone. I would never tire of looking at you or listening to you." He took a breath. "There. That compliment was on purpose. I swear I will never idly compliment you again." Jane's mouth was dry. All she could think to say was, "But... but surely you wouldn't banish all the food." He considered, then nodded once. "Right. We will keep the food. We will have a picnic." And he spun her into the middle of the dance.

All these years I thought a piece of my life was missing. But it was there all along. It was there when I sat beside you in your car and you began to drive. It was there when I sang backwards and you laughed or I made a picnic and you ate every crumb. It was there when you told me you liked my brown suit, when you opened the door for me, when you asked once if I would like to take the long road home. It came later in my garden. When I looked at the sun and saw it glow on my hands. When a rosebud appeared where there had not been one before. It was in the people who stopped and talked of this and that over the garden wall. And just when I thought my life was done, it came time and time again at the hospice. It has been everywhere, my happiness – when my mother sang for me to dance, when my father took my hand to keep me safe – but it was such a small, plain thing that I mistook it for something ordinary and failed to see. We expect our happiness to come with a sign and bells, but it doesn’t.

God, the three of you. When I wake up on Saturday mornings--late you always let me sleep in--I come looking for you, and you're in the backyard with dirt on your knees and two little girls spinning around you in perfect orbit. And you put their hair in pigtails, and you let them wear whatever madness they want, and Alice planted a fruit cocktail tree, and Noomi ate a butterfly, and they look like me because they're round and golden, but the glow for you. And you built us a picnic table. And you learned to bake bread. And you've painted a mural on ever west-facing wall. And it isn't all bad, I promise. I swear to you. You might not be actively, thoughtfully happy 70 to 80 percent of the time, but maybe you wouldn't be anyway. And even when you're sad, Neal--even when you're falling asleep at the other side of the bed--I think you're happy, too. About some things. About a few things.

There were monsters in the night but there were monsters in the day too, and monsters inside people who smiled and showed you all their teeth like they were nice. There were monsters inside Alice, but they only had power if she gave it to them, and other things had power too, like the laughter of children enjoying a picnic together and like the love she had for this terrible, wonderful, imperfect man, this man who hid inside the body of a wolf because he thought that was where he belonged.

I didn’t particularly want money. I didn’t know what I wanted. Yes, I did. I wanted someplace to hide out, someplace where one didn’t have to do anything. The thought of being something didn’t only appall me, it sickened me. The thought of being a lawyer or a councilman or an engineer, anything like that, seemed impossible to me. To get married, to have children, to get trapped in the family structure. To go someplace to work every day and to return. It was impossible. To do things, simple things, to be part of family picnics, Christmas, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Mother’s Day … was a man born just to endure those things and then die? I would rather be a dishwasher, return alone to a tiny room and drink myself to sleep.

Anna turned the pages slowly for effect, and like some demonic schoolmarm, held the book at an angle to provide maximum exposure to the assembled crowd. Everyone needed to have the opportunity to catch a long, languorous glimpse of my disgrace. "This looks so much like you," she said to Noah, pressing her body against his. "My girl is talented," Noah said. My heart stopped beating. Anna's heart stopped beating. Everyone's heart stopped beating. The buzzing of a solitary gnat would have sounded obscene in the stillness. "Bullshit," Anna whispered finally, but it was loud enough for everyone to hear. She hadn't moved an inch. Noah shrugged. "I'm a vain bastard, and Mara indulges me." After a pause, he added, "I'm just glad you didn't get your greedy little claws on the other sketchbook. That would have been embarrassing." His lips curved into a sly smile as he slid from the picnic table he'd been sitting on. "Now, get the fuck off me," he said calmly to a dumbfounded, speechless Anna as he pushed past her plucking the sketchbook roughly from her hands. And walked over to me. "Let's go," Noah ordered gently, once he was at my side. His body brushed the line of my shoulder and arm protectively. And then he held out his hand. I wanted to take it and I wanted to spit in Anna's face and I wanted to kiss him and I wanted to knee Aiden Davis in the groin. Civilization won out, and I willed each individual nerve to respond to the signal I sent with my brain and placed my fingers in his. A current traveled from my fingertips through to the hollow where my stomach used to be. And just like that, I was completely, utterly and entirely, His.

There he got out the luncheon-basket and packed a simple meal, in which, remembering the stranger's origin and preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes.

Or how about this hypothetical definition. Reason is a complex type of instinct that has not yet formed completely. This implies that instinctual behavior is always purposeful and natural. A million years from now our instinct will have matured and we will stop making the mistakes that are probably integral to reason. An then, if something should change in the universe, we will all become extinct - precisely because we will have forgotten how to make mistakes, that is, to try various approaches not stipulated by an inflexible program of permitted alternatives.

For once I didn't look away immediately. I forced myself to meet her contemptuous gaze. I allowed myself be swept away by it, to drown in it - the way I'd done so many times before. The way I would willingly do again. Because at least she was here to hate me. At least I had that. I watched my daughter conjure up the filthiest look in her vast arsenal before she turned away with complete disdain. I didn't mind that so much. It meant I could watch her, drink her in without her protest. Look at our daughter, Callum. Isn't she beautiful, so very beautiful? She laughs like me, but when she smiles... Oh Callum, when she smiles, it's picnics in Celebration Park and sunsets on our beach and our very first kiss all over again. When Callie Rose smiles at me, she lights up my life. When Callie Rose smiles at me.

The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don't mind happiness not always being so very much fun if you don't mind a touch of hell now and then just when everything is fine because even in heaven they don't sing all the time The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don't mind some people dying all the time or maybe only starving some of the time which isn't half bad if it isn't you Oh the world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don't much mind a few dead minds in the higher places or a bomb or two now and then in your upturned faces or such other improprieties as our Name Brand society is prey to with its men of distinction and its men of extinction and its priests and other patrolmen and its various segregations and congressional investigations and other constipations that our fool flesh is heir to Yes the world is the best place of all for a lot of such things as making the fun scene and making the love scene and making the sad scene and singing low songs and having inspirations and walking around looking at everything and smelling flowers and goosing statues and even thinking and kissing people and making babies and wearing pants and waving hats and dancing and going swimming in rivers on picnics in the middle of the summer and just generally 'living it up' Yes but then right in the middle of it comes the smiling mortician

Japan Today I pass the time reading a favorite haiku, saying the few words over and over. It feels like eating the same small, perfect grape again and again. I walk through the house reciting it and leave its letters falling through the air of every room. I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it. I say it in front of a painting of the sea. I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf. I listen to myself saying it, then I say it without listening, then I hear it without saying it. And when the dog looks up at me, I kneel down on the floor and whisper it into each of his long white ears. It’s the one about the one-ton temple bell with the moth sleeping on its surface, and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating pressure of the moth on the surface of the iron bell. When I say it at the window, the bell is the world and I am the moth resting there. When I say it into the mirror, I am the heavy bell and the moth is life with its papery wings. And later, when I say it to you in the dark, you are the bell, and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you, and the moth has flown from its line and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.

Do you want to know the first time I ever saw you?" he said with his lips at my ear. I knew the story,but I nodded anyway, frantically. "Your family had just moved in. You were...how old were you,Becks?" I shrugged,and he ran his fingers over my head, calming me.He knew the answer. "You were eleven," he said. "I was twelve.I remember Joey Velasquez talking about the pretty new girl in the neighborhood.Actually his exact words were 'the hot chick.' But I didn't think a thing about it until I saw you at the baseball field. We were having practice at the park and your family showed up for a picnic.You had so much dark hair,and it was hiding your face.Remember?" I nodded. "I know what you're trying to do." He ignored me. "I had to see if Joey was right,about the hot chick part, and I kept trying to get a good look at your face, but you never looked over our way.I hit home run after home run trying to get your attention, but you couldn't be bothered with my record-shattering, supherhuman performance." I smiled,and breathed in slowly. I'd heard this story so many times before.The familiarity of it enveloped me with warmth. "So what did you do?" I asked, fully aware of the answer. "I did the only thing I could think of. I went up to the bat,lined my feet up in the direction of your head,and swung away." "Hitting the foulest foul ball anyone had ever seen," I continued the story. I felt him chuckle next to me. "Yep. I figured in order to return the ball,you'd have to get really close to me, because..." He waited for me to fill in the blank. "Because someone made the mistake of assuming I would throw like a girl," I said softly. He pressed his lips against my head before he went on. "Which,of course, was stupid of me to think. You stood right where you were and chucked the ball farther than I'd ever seen a girl, or even any guy,chuck it." "It was all those years of Bonnet Ball my parents forced on me." "The entire team went nuts. You gave a little tiny shrug, like it was no big deal, and sat back down with your family. Completely ignoring me again. So my plan totally backfired. Not only did you get the attention of every boy on the field-which was not my intention-but I got reamed by the coach, who couldn't understand why I suddenly decided to stand perpendicular to home plate.

Instructions for Dad. I don't want to go into a fridge at an undertaker's. I want you to keep me at home until the funeral. Please can someone sit with me in case I got lonely? I promise not to scare you. I want to be buried in my butterfly dress, my lilac bra and knicker set and my black zip boots (all still in the suitcase that I packed for Sicily). I also want to wear the bracelet Adam gave me. Don't put make-up on me. It looks stupid on dead people. I do NOT want to be cremated. Cremations pollute the atmosphere with dioxins,k hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide. They also have those spooky curtains in crematoriums. I want a biodegradable willow coffin and a woodland burial. The people at the Natural Death Centre helped me pick a site not for from where we live, and they'll help you with all the arrangements. I want a native tree planted on or near my grave. I'd like an oak, but I don't mind a sweet chestnut or even a willow. I want a wooden plaque with my name on. I want wild plants and flowers growing on my grave. I want the service to be simple. Tell Zoey to bring Lauren (if she's born by then). Invite Philippa and her husband Andy (if he wants to come), also James from the hospital (though he might be busy). I don't want anyone who doesn't know my saying anything about me. THe Natural Death Centre people will stay with you, but should also stay out of it. I want the people I love to get up and speak about me, and even if you cry it'll be OK. I want you to say honest things. Say I was a monster if you like, say how I made you all run around after me. If you can think of anything good, say that too! Write it down first, because apparently people often forget what they mean to say at funerals. Don't under any circumstances read that poem by Auden. It's been done to death (ha, ha) and it's too sad. Get someone to read Sonnet 12 by Shakespeare. Music- "Blackbird" by the Beatles. "Plainsong" by The Cure. "Live Like You Were Dying" by Tim McGraw. "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" by Sufian Stevens. There may not be time for all of them, but make sure you play the last one. Zoey helped me choose them and she's got them all on her iPod (it's got speakers if you need to borrow it). Afterwards, go to a pub for lunch. I've got £260 in my savings account and I really want you to use it for that. Really, I mean it-lunch is on me. Make sure you have pudding-sticky toffee, chocolate fudge cake, ice-cream sundae, something really bad for you. Get drunk too if you like (but don't scare Cal). Spend all the money. And after that, when days have gone by, keep an eye out for me. I might write on the steam in the mirror when you're having a bath, or play with the leaves on the apple tree when you're out in the garden. I might slip into a dream. Visit my grave when you can, but don't kick yourself if you can't, or if you move house and it's suddenly too far away. It looks pretty there in the summer (check out the website). You could bring a picnic and sit with me. I'd like that. OK. That's it. I love you. Tessa xxx