Pitcher Perfect Quotes

In fact she was quite bad and according to Jas she was naughty at school, but no one seems to remember that now she is all dead and perfect.

I eye Chuy like a pitcher in baseball does when a guy leads too far off base.

Private Parts The first love of my life never saw me naked - there was always a parent coming home in half an hour - always a little brother in the next room. Always too much body and not enough time for me to show it. Instead, I gave him my shoulder, my elbow, the bend of my knee - I lent him my corners, my edges, the parts of me I could afford to offer - the parts I had long since given up trying to hide. He never asked for more. He gave me back his eyelashes, the back of his neck, his palms - we held each piece we were given like it was a nectarine that could bruise if we weren’t careful. We collected them like we were trying to build an orchid. And the spaces that he never saw, the ones my parents half labeled “private parts” when I was still small enough to fit all of myself and my worries inside a bathtub - I made up for that by handing over all the private parts of me. There was no secret I didn’t tell him, there was no moment I didn’t share - and we didn’t grow up, we grew in, like ivy wrapping, moulding each other into perfect yings and yangs. We kissed with mouths open, breathing his exhale into my inhale - we could have survived underwater or outer space. Breathing only of the breathe we traded, we spelled love, g-i-v-e, I never wanted to hide my body from him - if I could have I would have given it all away with the rest of me - I did not know it was possible. To save some thing for myself. Some nights I wake up knowing he is anxious, he is across the world in another woman’s arms - the years have spread us like dandelion seeds - sanding down the edges of our jigsaw parts that used to only fit each other. He drinks from the pitcher on the night stand, checks the digital clock, it is 5am - he tosses in sheets and tries to settle, I wait for him to sleep. Before tucking myself into elbows and knees reach for things I have long since given up.

We didn't speak, just drove out of the city into the countryside on our way to absolutely nowhere, and when we found that perfect spot among the trees, we stopped and looked at each other. Swallows swooped through the red sky, back from their adventure, and we held each other underneath the ketchup clouds, willing time to stop and the world to forget us for a while.

I ordered a pitcher of beer,” Morelli said. “Hope that’s okay.” “It’s perfect. I need it now.” Morelli whistled through his teeth, and everyone jumped in the restaurant. He raised his hand and mouthed “Beer” to the waitress. “Gee, that’s smooth,” I said to Morelli. “I’m a Jersey Italian, and my girl needs a drink.

The woman is perfected. Her dead Body wears the smile of accomplishment, The illusion of a Greek necessity Flows in the scrolls of her toga, Her bare Feet seem to be saying: We have come so far, it is over. Each dead child coiled, a white serpent, One at each little Pitcher of milk, now empty. She has folded Them back into her body as petals Of a rose close when the garden Stiffens and odors bleed From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower. The moon has nothing to be sad about, Staring from her hood of bone. She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag.

The best pitchers have a short-term memory and a bulletproof confidence

Being on that pitcher’s mound, it’s the one thing I’m really good at. The one thing I haven’t fucked up. And when I’m on the field, everything else fades away. You know?” He turned to look at me, his eyes craving understanding. I smiled and he continued. “It’s like my mind is clear when I’m out there. It’s not about my mom or my dad or the stupid shit I’ve done. It’s about me, the ball, and the batter. It’s the one place in the world where I feel like I’m in control. Like I have a say in what happens around me.” I stopped my head from nodding in agreement once I realized that I was doing it. “I feel that way when I’m taking pictures. Anything that I’m not seeing through my lens fades away in the background. And I get to frame my picture any way I choose. I get to dictate how it looks. What’s in it. What isn’t. Behind that lens I have complete control in how things are seen.” He smiled, his dimples indenting his cheeks. “You get it.

The space behind me in the frame was not so much a space in the conventional sense as a perfectly composed harmony, a wider, more real-seeming reality with a deep silence around it, beyond sound and speech; where all was stillness and clarity, and at the same time, as in a backward-run movie, you could also imagine spilled milk leaping back into the pitcher, a jumping cat flying backward to land silently upon a table, a waystation where time didn’t exist or, more accurately, existed all at once in every direction, all histories and movements occurring simultaneously.

On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire of thorns, that crackled 'like the laughter of the fool.' Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing gowns of various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls shy and not shy filled the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake the hedge-carpenter, Elijah New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a neighboring dairyman, the shepherd's father-in-law, lolled in the settle; a young man and maid, who were blushing over tentative pourparlers on a life companionship, sat beneath the corner-cupboard; and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward moved restlessly about from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where she was. Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more prevailed in being unhampered by conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each other's good opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression or trait denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever - which nowadays so generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except the two extremes of the social scale. ("The Three Strangers")

Grandpa Nick took me to fly kites. All three of them caught the air at different times, even though he let them go all at once. That’s always stuck with me, you know? We all catch the air at different times.

I didn’t think anyone would see me,” she whispered, breath hitching. “Really, Rocket?” Robbie labored through a few inhales, exhales. A few violent clenches of his heart. “Don’t you know I never stop looking at you?

A hat trick would no longer give Robbie the ultimate high ever again. Nope. This was it now. Skylar looking up at him like he was Superman. Someday maybe their kids would look up at him the same way. Like he could do anything. And suddenly, he could. This was another facet of being in love. It put a man in permanent beast mode.

I'm all dressed in my new clothes," Luis's proud but muffled voice comes through the pillow. "The nenas won't be able to resist this Latino stud." "Good for you," I mumble. "Mama said I should pour this pitcher of water on you if you don't get up." Was privacy too much to ask for? I take my pillow and chuck it across the room. It's a direct hit. The water splashes all over him. " Culero! " he screams at me. "These are the only new clothes I got.

Finally I say a prayer of thanks to God for taking a broken man and making him whole, for being my Redeemer, graciously giving me a second chance as a pitcher, as a husband and father, and as a Christian man. I know my journey is nowhere near complete. The point isn’t to arrive. The point is to seek, to walk humbly with God, to keep walking and keep believing even though you know there will be times when you make mistakes and feel lost. You keep seeking the path, and He will show you the way.

At primary school when people tried to find friends, I tried to find space that my imagination could fill with whatever it wanted, nearly always butterflies because to me they were perfection, like real-life fairies with prettier wings. At break time I turned myself into them, not just one butterfly but hundreds of them, my arms a kaleidoscope of colors as I danced across the wet grass while my class played tag, chasing around each other around the blacktop. I didn't understand it, like wasn't it too crowded I asked them all the time in my head. Don't you worry cherub, the lunch monitor said when she caught me watching the other children in confusion. You're Pluto. Happiest away from the heat of the action. She smiled a wrinkly smile. Nothing wrong with that.

American Baseball It's for real, not for practice, and it's televised, not secret, the way you'd expect a civilized country to handle delicate things, it's in color, it's happening now in Florida, "This Is American Baseball" the announcer announces as the batter enters the box, we are watching, and it could be either of us standing there waiting for the pitch, avoiding the eye of the pitcher as we take a few practice cuts, turning to him and his tiny friends in the outfield, facing the situation, knowing that someone behind our backs is making terrible gestures, standing there to swing and miss the way I miss you, wanting to be out of uniform, out of breath, in your car, in love again, learning all the signals for the first time, they way we learned the rules of night baseball as high-school freshman: first base, you kiss her, second base, her breasts, third, you're in her pants, and home is where the heart wants to be all the time, but seldom can reach past the obstacle course of space, the home in our perfect future we wanted so badly, and want more than ever since we learned we won't live there, which happens to lovers in civilized countries all the time, and happens too in American baseball when you strike out and remember what the game really meant.

Wondering if Westcliff was going to reprimand the boys for allowing her and Daisy to play, Lillian said uneasily, “Arthur and the others—it wasn’t their fault—I made them let us into the game—” “I don’t doubt it,” the earl said over her shoulder. “You probably gave them no chance to refuse.” “You’re not going to punish them?” “For playing rounders on their off-time? Hardly.” Removing his coat, Westcliff tossed it to the ground. He turned to the catcher, who was hovering nearby, and said, “Jim, be a good lad and help field a few balls.” “Yes, milord!” The boy ran in a flash to the empty space on the west side of the green beyond the sanctuary posts. “What are you doing?” Lillian asked as Westcliff stood behind her. “I’m correcting your swing,” came his even reply. “Lift the bat, Miss Bowman.” She turned to look at him skeptically, and he smiled, his eyes gleaming with challenge. “This should be interesting,” Lillian muttered. Taking up a batter’s stance, she glanced across the field at Daisy, whose face was flushed and eyes over-bright in the effort to suppress a burst of laughter. “My swing is perfectly fine,” Lillian grumbled, uncomfortably aware of the earl’s body just behind hers. Her eyes widened as she felt his hands slide to her elbows, pushing them into a more compact position. As his husky murmur brushed her ears, her excited nerves seemed to catch fire, and she felt a flush spreading over her face and neck, as well as other body parts that, as far as she knew, there were no names for. “Spread your feet wider,” Westcliff said, “and distribute your weight evenly. Good. Now bring your hands closer to your body. Since the bat is a few inches too long for you, you’ll have to choke up on it—” “I like holding it at the base.” “It’s too long for you,” he insisted, “which is why you pull your swing just before you hit the ball—” “I like a long bat,” Lillian argued, even as he adjusted her hands on the willow handle. “The longer the better, as a matter of fact.” A distant snicker from one of the stable boys caught her attention, and she glanced at him suspiciously before turning to face Westcliff. His face was expressionless, but there was a glitter of laughter in his eyes. “Why is that amusing?” she asked. “I have no idea,” Westcliff said blandly, and turned her toward the pitcher again.

An old client brought me a bottle of Vinho Verde, so I thought I'd try making a green sangria. Perfect for spring, isn't it?" The pitcher was full of honeydew, green apple, green grapes, lime, basil, and mint. It was light and refreshing, with just the right hint of herbal sweetness. I was in love.

Dad's not perfect. And neither am I. He's trying, and that means everything.

strawberry mint lemonade This nonalcoholic beverage is simple summertime perfection (although technically, given its use of frozen strawberries, it could be enjoyed year-round—and anyway, the world is only getting warmer!). I envision it served at a large family picnic or, if you’re more the introverted type, a party of one spent whiling away a hot afternoon with a good old-fashioned book. TIME: 10 MINUTES SERVES: 8 4 cups frozen strawberries 1 cup fresh lemon juice 1 cup Strawberry Syrup 5 cups water Handful of fresh mint In a blender, combine the strawberries, lemon juice, strawberry syrup, water, and mint. Blend until fully combined. Strain through a fine-mesh strainer into a pitcher. Serve and enjoy.

When I saw once again the slim, tall women who were swaying in indescribable rhythm, striding over the fields and carrying pitchers free on their heads with arms outstretched, I thought to myself: Nothing in the whole world - neither the most perfect automobile nor the proudest bridge nor the most thoughtful book - can replace this grace which has been lost in the West and is already threatened in the East - this grace which is nothing but an expression of the magic consonance between a human being's Self and the world that surrounds him ...

Some coaches think that the best way to deal with pressure is to ignore it, treat every moment of a game the same so as not to heighten the tension even more. La Russa believes that players need to openly acknowledge pressure—literally embrace it as “your friend,” in his words—because the more they embrace it, the less it can intimidate them. He teaches hitters that the best way to deal with pressure is to prepare for it, come into the at-bat with a keen sense of what the pitcher is likely to throw and how you should handle it. Most important, when you’re up there, focus on the process and not the result; don’t project into the future. Forget about the noble but irrational concept of going for broke. Put away the hero complex and simply try to get something started. But don’t hesitate, either: In clutch moments, you’re unlikely to get your perfect pitch, so don’t wait around for it. Be aggressive. Nobody lives these principles better than the great Pujols. Alfonseca serves him a sinker low and inside to start the inning. It’s a good first pitch: difficult to drive, difficult to get into the gap. Pujols stays inside of it with his hands. He doesn’t try to do too much with it; he simply makes contact, and the ball scoots up the middle, past the shipwreck hulk of Alfonseca. It’s a single, an Oscar-

Morris pitches, as baseball may be the only organized profession in the world where theft is perfectly legal. There are virtually no rules about it. Instead, like suspected cattle rustling, it’s taken care of with an impromptu code of justice much like a batter getting hit by a pitch. It is not tolerated if discovered, and there are some who will resort to the threat of death. But everyone is up for grabs—the pitcher, the catcher, the third-base coach, the first-base coach, the manager, the bench coach—because of a tendency to inadvertently spill secrets.

Eventually it’s time for bed, so Mack and I walk back to the farmhouse. We don’t say much, but he reaches over to squeeze my hand at one point. I’m not sure why, but I don’t let his go, so we’re holding hands for the rest of the walk back. By the time we reach our pretty guestroom, I’m feeling closer to him than I’ve ever felt to anyone in my entire life. And I’m also holding back tears because it feels so much like I’m about to lose him. He’ll leave in the morning, and I’ll risk my life in this attack. There’s a chance we’ll never see each other again, and even if we do, it won’t be like it’s been in these past two months. Tonight might be our last. Maybe Mack is experiencing something similar. He’s subdued when he finally releases my hand as we stand in our bedroom. They don’t have showers here. They have to pump water manually to fill tubs, and most of the time they use a basin and pitcher of water in rooms to wash up the way they do at New Haven. We get as clean as we can and get ready for bed. I change into a simple knit nightgown while Mack takes off all his clothes. We switch off the lantern on the bedside table and climb into bed. Mack still hasn’t said anything as he pulls me closer and rolls on top. He stares down at me in the dark for a minute before he finally lowers his head so he can kiss me. I kiss him back, wrapping my arms around him and softening my lips. He slides his tongue into my mouth. As our kiss deepens, I move my hands over his body, stroking his smooth scalp, caressing my way down his back, running my fingers over his large frame, his developed muscles, his tight skin. Every part of him is big and strong and solid and warm. Every part of him is perfect for me, exactly what I want to feel under my hands. We kiss for a really long time. His body slowly tenses up, and eventually his erection is poking into me. But he doesn’t rush to the main event. He seems to need this—this intimate, needy kiss—as much as anything else. I need it too. I’m hotly aroused and filled with so much more in my heart when he finally breaks his mouth away, gasping and ducking his head to suck on the pulse in my throat. “Mack!” His name on my lips is a whispered gasp. He makes a guttural sound as he pushes up my nightgown so he can get his mouth on my breasts. He teases and sucks until I’m squirming. I hold on to his head until I can’t take any more. “Mack!” I’m still keeping my voice soft so no one can hear us through the walls. We aren’t in our little cabin right now where it doesn’t matter how loud we get.

That’s what led George to Yogi’s museum in New Jersey in 1999 to apologize in person. It’s the same feeling that led Yogi, a man who had vowed never to return to Yankee Stadium so long as George owned the team, to accept George’s apology. Together they made plans for a grand return, a Yogi Berra Day that July. Before the game, Don Larsen, the Yankees pitcher who threw the first perfect game in Yankees history, during the 1956 World Series with Yogi behind the plate, tossed the ceremonial first pitch to Yogi. A few hours later David Cone finished another perfect game, the third in the team’s history. As if we needed another sign that all was right in the world.

Baseball, however, is the most individual of team sports: In perfectly discernible packets the game reduces to one batter versus one pitcher, with each assuming responsibility for the other, every matchup a still photograph that flipped together form the moving picture we call nine innings.

Nine hundred species of native plants. I have a feeling you’re someone who will appreciate that we grow the real beauties here,” Eudora said. “Not the gaudy sun perennials that want to flash everything they’ve got like cheap hookers. You have to look hard to find the pockets of beauty in my garden.” “Your garden?” But Eudora was no longer listening. She strode ahead, slowing down when they entered an intimate fairy-tale forest. The path narrowed and switched to pale stone. Crazy paving, Tom would have called it—stone slabs haphazardly slotted together in a way that defied time, feet, and the extremes of weather. The formal, structured sweep of the Historic Gardens was replaced by a hint of controlled but wild beauty. Above the towering hemlocks, the clouds broke apart to reveal slashes of blue sky. Eudora was right—so many pockets of beauty if you looked hard enough: trailing catkins and clusters of reddish pitcher plants that looked like rhubarb stalks with curling ends. (Such fascination he’d had for carnivorous plants after Tom had shown him a picture of a Venus flytrap in Encyclopædia Britannica.) A dead stick jutted up through the leaves; the sign next to it read “Northern Catalpa.” He would research that on the Web when he got to the office. See if he could find a picture of it in full leaf. “Here, smell this.” Eudora had stopped by a small, unimpressive tree, but as Felix moved close, he spotted tiny pom-poms of reddish blooms. He had never seen anything quite so weird or wonderful. Ella should definitely plant one of those. “Hmm.” “Witch hazel.

I never dreamed I’d find a woman as perfectly suited for me as she is. Alexa loves the color green, but not just any green. It’s a mint green—a sea foam green. The shade suits her well because she has always reminded me of the sea. She is calm like the ocean waves. She is a constant source of light, like a lighthouse. She is hard-working, like a ship in the middle of a storm. She is a safe harbor. She is a bright horizon. And I want to sail into the sunset with her.

When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance, it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over the ball. That is to me what you have more than anything else and more than anyone else. . . . The character that lasts is an ordinary guy with some extraordi-nary qualities. Perry Mason is the perfect detective because he has the intellectual approach of the juridical mind and at the same time the restless quality of the adventurer who won’t stay put. I think he is just about perfect. So let’s not have any more of that phooey about “as literature my stuff still stinks.” Who says so—William Dean Howells? Raymond Chandler to Erle Stanley Gardner, 1946

His eyes weren’t red anymore. His skin no longer had that washed-out look. He had already been happily guzzling ice-cold water from the pink plastic hospital pitcher to his heart’s content. “They told me to drink,” he said, grinning. I grinned back. I was so happy for him. Gone were the days of having to limit how much liquid he took in between dialysis treatments. Now he had a kidney that could pee out any fluid his body didn’t need. He focused on learning about all the new antirejection medications that would keep his new kidney healthy. He was eager to get on with making up for the six years he lost to dialysis. The six years he had to curb his ambition and planning for the future because he didn’t know what the next hours, days, weeks, months, years would bring.

I don't want to call Jess, because we have bigger fish to fry than to chit-chat about my issues. I'm so upset with her right now that fried fish doesn't even sound good to me. Although once in Calabria, William and I had the most perfect fried sardines, silvery melt-in-your-mouth crisp and not at all fishy. God, what I would do to have a platter of them, along with a helping of 'nduja, the region's famously spicy pepperoncini salami spread, smeared across a fresh loaf of crusty bread. And an earthen pitcher of vino rosso, made by the contadini locali.

Yellow wallpaper covered every wall, and the daffodils on the china pitcher and bowl matched the color perfectly. An embroidered quilt covered the bed, varying squares of yellow made up the design. “It looks like a daffodil threw up in here,” Emma said. Sophie giggled. “I know what you mean. It’s a little over the top, but I still love it.

We ate three tiny, geometrically engineered appetizers, including a perfect cube of kabocha squash-flavored fish cake and an octopus "salad" consisting of one tiny piece of octopus brushed with a plum dressing. Then the waitress uncovered and lit the burner in the center of the table and set a shallow cast-iron pan on top. She poured a thin layer of sauce from a pitcher. Sukiyaki is all about the sauce, a mixture of soy sauce, mirin, sake, and sugar. It's frankly sweet. Usually I'm a tiresome person who complains about overly sweet food, but where soy sauce is involved, I make an exception, because soy sauce and sugar were born to hang. The waitress set down a platter of thin-sliced Wagyu beef, so marbled that it was nearly white. She asked if we wanted egg. This time I was prepared: only for me, thanks. Then she cooked us each a slice of beef. It was tender enough to cut with your tongue against the roof of your mouth. While we sighed over the meat, she began adding other ingredients to the pan: napa cabbage, tofu, wheat gluten (fu), fresh shiitake mushrooms, shirataki noodles, chrysanthemum leaves (shungiku), and, of course, negi. Suggested tourist slogan: Tokyo: We put negi in it. Then we were left to cook the rest of the meat and vegetables ourselves. I think we nailed it. (Actually, it's impossible to do it wrong.) Like chanko nabe and all Japanese hot pots, sukiyaki gets better as the meal goes on, because the sauce becomes more concentrated and soaks up more flavor from the ingredients cooking in it.

But even in his replete—and frankly, love-drunk—state, the irony wasn’t lost on him. He’d set out to teach her how to attract and keep a man, but she’d ended up teaching him about himself, instead. What he valued most. Who he wanted to be. Where he wanted to be and with whom. The answer to that had been obvious this morning, but now? Now he had hope. A potential chance. He wasn’t going to squander it.

She threw her glove down and ran to him. And it was a singular kind of euphoria knowing that even though things weren’t perfect or back on track by any means, he’d still catch her. He’d still show up. Halfway to his open arms, she knew she could trust this man with her heart. Trust him, period. It was right there in the unwavering dedication in his eyes, in the way he didn’t budge an inch when she landed against him, his arms catching and holding her there. Squeezing her tight and rocking her, neither one of them seeming to breathe.

Time moved in slow motion as she jumped into his arms, her warm laugh bubbling in his ear. And eventually sighing into his neck when he banded both arms around her and held, locking her curves tight to his frame, his eyes rolling blissfully into the back of his head over the way she fit him, absorbing the perfect feeling of the girl who was going to get away.

Skylar had worried about being a good date? Making small talk? What she had to offer was so much better than that. She was passionate and honest and insightful. She listened, offered valuable opinions. Sitting in that booth, surrounded by hundreds of diners, he’d sworn they were on their own deserted island. A place where they could say anything and not be judged, only understood.

If there was a chance he could call this woman his, he’d beat the game of life. Nothing compared to her. Nothing and no one could ever come close.

She couldn’t help but hold on to some trepidation that they could make this work once they returned to real life, but she was there to try, dammit. She was there to give it her everything, because she couldn’t envision a world where they went back to Boston and didn’t see each other. Being near Robbie, talking to him, feeling his skin on her skin had fast become a given. He was well worth fighting the doubt. *They* were worth it.

Have me, Skylar. I plan on having *you* for the rest of my life.

Skylar breathed a laugh that left a smile on her face and it hit Robbie, right in that moment, that there was definitely no one more beautiful than her in the fucking world.

We all catch the air at different times.

I’ll give you as many as you can fucking stand, Skylar. Swear to God, just set me loose.