Player Club Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Player Club. Here they are! All 100 of them:

It was a Friday night, she was at a club, and a good-looking man was currently giving her the I-want-to-take-you-home-and-I-hope-I-last-longer-than-five-minutes look… and she was thinking about pie, a young adult book, and feeding her cat. She was so turning into the cat lady at twenty-seven. Sweet.
J. Lynn (Tempting the Player (Gamble Brothers, #2))
You made me very proud today. And you are more than enough. You are perfect.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
I think we’re all tired of being shamed and shoved into these quiet, perfect little innocent versions of ourselves while men can be as deviant as they want.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
Love isn't shit. It's not worth a damn thing. But time, attention, priority... those things are real, and until a man gives you those, don't give him the time of day, beautiful.
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
Because you are mine, Charlotte. And I don’t appreciate when anyone talks badly about something that is mine. Do you think I have bad taste?
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
When love becomes toxic, it’s not love anymore.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
DON’T CRY FOR MEN WHO DON’T CRY FOR YOU
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
You said what people think in their heads is a them problem. Don’t make it yours.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
I learned a long time ago that basing your decisions off of the standard of what normal people would do leads to a very boring life.
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
Just because you can carry it all doesn’t mean it’s not heavy.
Sara Cate (Madame (Salacious Players' Club, #6))
I’m addicted to you,” he groans while fucking me. “You were made for me, Charlotte. You’re mine, and I never want to let you go. Do you understand me? I’d fuck you forever if I could.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
Zebras are piano horses. I think about that when I’m swinging a golf club, and it brings a musical cowboy element to my game that another player might not be able to buy in a vending machine.
Jarod Kintz (To be good at golf you must go full koala bear)
Dear God, please let this be the only man I fuck for the rest of my life because there’s not a chance in Hell anyone else could ever top that.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
At least you tried. Sometimes trying is the hardest part. You don’t want to get to an age and realize that you missed out on something because you never gave it a shot.
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
You are such a good girl,” he says, and I nearly melt into the floor.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
But this change in me isn’t scary, not to me. It’s exciting. Because I feel like I’m on the brink of something huge, and I can’t wait to see what it is.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
We’ve always been best friends, but maybe that’s what best friends are—soul mates in disguise.
Sara Cate (Give Me More (Salacious Players Club, #3))
And don’t get me started on your manwhoring,” Tucker grumbles. “You’ve always been a player, but dude, you’ve hooked up with five chicks this week.” “So?” “So it’s Thursday. Five girls in four days. Do the fucking math, John.” Oh shit. He first-named me. Tucker only calls me John when I’ve really pissed him off. Except now he’s pissed me off, so I first-name him right back. “What’s wrong with that, John?” Yup, we’re both John. I guess we should take a blood oath and form a club or something.
Elle Kennedy (The Mistake (Off-Campus, #2))
RULE #6: AVOID MALLS FOR THE RISK OF RUNNING INTO YOUR EX WHILE HOLDING BAGS OF LINGERIE YOU FANTASIZE WEARING FOR HIS DAD.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
I mean that the connection I see between you two keeps you grounded like I’ve never seen before. Like the storm inside you has subsided. And that’s what I wanted for you all along.
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
we judge what we don’t understand.
Sara Cate (Mercy (Salacious Players Club, #4))
They’ll say it wasn't an accident, but it was. Because I don’t want to die. I just don’t want to live like this anymore.
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
Re-creations of the Addams Family house, the abandoned shack in the Evil Dead trilogy, Tyler Durden’s flophouse in Fight Club, and the Lars Homestead on Tattooine.
Ernest Cline (Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1))
Charlotte, listen to me. You are a smart, beautiful, confident woman. You don’t need me to tell you what you want. I want to hear it from you. You deserve pleasure just as much as I do, and trust me, I want nothing more than to hear you utter the dirtiest words, and then I want to do whatever it is you say. So say it.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
RULE #3: ALWAYS DO AS YOU’RE TOLD—ESPECIALLY WHEN IT INVOLVES GETTING ON YOUR KNEES FOR A HOT MILLIONAIRE DADDY.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
RULE #18: WEAR A REMOTE-CONTROLLED VIBRATOR AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
She's too perfect to ignore and too forbidden to be mine.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
I’d rather be someone people deem as depraved or sinful than being narrow-minded and hateful.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
I want to express my feelings for her with our bodies.
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
when I said sit on my face, I meant sit on my fucking face.
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
Gotta love anxiety, when one paranoid thought spirals into a hundred. Like
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
For all the good girls.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
My point is that as long as you’re happy, who cares if you follow convention. What other people think doesn’t matter.
Sara Cate (Mercy (Salacious Players Club, #4))
I never understood the idea of your person until now. That one other person who can make you feel comfortable, at peace, loved, and appreciated all at the same time.
Sara Cate (Mercy (Salacious Players Club, #4))
Few of us have chosen our clubs, they have simply been presented to us; and so as they slip from Second Division to the Third, or sell their best players, or buy players who you know can't play, or bash the ball the seven hundreth time towards a nine foot centre-forward, we simply curse, go home, worry for a fortnight and then come back to suffer all over again.
Nick Hornby (Fever Pitch)
Saint took a seat at the main faro table at the Society club. “What the devil is a ladies' political tea?” Tristan Carroway, Viscount Dare, finished placing his wager, then sat back, reaching for his glass of port. “Do I look like a dictionary?” “You're domesticated.” Saint motioned for a glass of his own, despite unfriendly looks from the tables' other players. “What is it?” “I'm not domesticated; I'm in love. You should try it. Does wonders for your outlook on life.” “I'll take your word for it, thank you.
Suzanne Enoch (London's Perfect Scoundrel (Lessons in Love, #2))
But I take my punishment in stride. There’s something strangely gratifying that comes with getting what you deserve. Because, once I’ve paid the price, I don’t have to live with the guilt anymore.
Sara Cate (Mercy (Salacious Players Club, #4))
Call me cynical, but falling in love has to be the most delusional thing a person can do.
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
Now, come on. You can give me one more.
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
Oh well, I don’t need to breathe. I just need him.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
Wow. He’s . . . hot. I met Bennett earlier, too. You guys are like the Hot Men’s Club of Manhattan.
Christina Lauren (Beautiful Player (Beautiful Bastard, #3))
There always has been and only ever will be Garrett for me.
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
it’s about so much more than sex. It’s about us, like she said. Our bodies connecting because our souls are aching for it.
Sara Cate (Give Me More (Salacious Players Club, #3))
I’m yours and you’re mine.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
For the A-Player, the top of one mountain is the bottom of the next.
Robin S. Sharma (The 5AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life.)
There must be some unwritten rule that people who know of and partake in the kinky stuff can be kinky and flirtatious around each other. But to the rest of us, they have to modify their behavior. Like we’re the muggles and they’re the wizards.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
I’ll fill out that form for you if you want, but I don’t need to. You want me to tell you that I want to taste you, Charlotte? Because I do. I want to touch you, tease you, fuck you, bend you over my knee and turn that pretty little backside red. There’s not a thing on that list I don’t want to do with you, so you can put the paper and pen away, little girl. Every single thing would get a five from me.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
Dear Mr. Kulti, You are my favorite player. I play soccer 2 butt I'm not good like you are. Not yet. I practice all the time so 1 day I can be just like you or beter. I watch all of ur games so don't mess up. Ur #1 fan, Sal <3<3<3 P.S. Do u have a girl friend? P.P.S. Why don't u cut ur hair? "I was nineteen when that showed up to the club's offices. It was my third fan letter ever and the other two were topless pictures. That letter stayed in every locker I used for the nest ten years. It was the first thing I looked at before my games, and the first thing I saw after I played. I framed it and put it in my house in Meissen once it started to wear out. It's still there on the wall of my bedroom.
Mariana Zapata (Kulti)
You have no idea how hard this is for me, Charlotte. To have you as mine, but not in the way I want.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
A better man might apologize first, but I can’t bring myself to apologize for loving Charlotte. I’m not sorry about it.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
What…are you doing?” he asks. I expected this question, so I’m prepared. “Being a good girl,” I reply, “Sir.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
Was I a good girl?” she whispers with her mouth inches from mine. A smile creeps across my face as I gather her into my arms. “You’re always a good girl.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
DON’T APOLOGIZE FOR SHIT YOU’RE NOT SORRY FOR.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
Happiness is just a trick to make us make stupid decisions.
Sara Cate (Madame (Salacious Players' Club, #6))
she winds her fingers in my hair and smiles. “Good boy.” And just like that, those two words become my undoing.
Sara Cate (Madame (Salacious Players' Club, #6))
I want his most vulnerable, private expressions. I want to see into his soul.
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
Don’t get me wrong—you still drive me insane. You’re bratty as fuck, and I don’t know if I want to strangle you or shut you up with my cock in your mouth,
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
We opened a door and it’s not going to close as easily as we thought.
Sara Cate (Give Me More (Salacious Players Club, #3))
Without the mess, those beautiful moments would feel flat and meaningless. So I’ve learned to embrace it all.
Sara Cate (Highest Bidder (Salacious Players Club, #5))
She’s too perfect to ignore and too forbidden to be mine.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
Distance makes the heart grow fonder—and hornier.
Sara Cate (Give Me More (Salacious Players Club, #3))
A bad mood. Fuck, I wish I knew what a bad mood felt like. I wish my bad moods weren’t like tornado-sized spirals. I wish I could brush off a bad mood with some sleep and a warm meal.
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
That’s it, Charlotte. Good girl.” His words spur me on, sending bolts of lightning through my body. My own fingers rub my clit in fast circles, and it feels so good; it’s a relief. Emerson’s hand rests over mine, but he isn’t touching me. Instead, he grips my hip with one hand and grinds his erection against my backside.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
A drizzling rain taps against the glass of my bedroom window as I lie awake, staring at the ceiling. I’m in my head again. And sometimes, my head is like a prison, and I’m locked behind the bars of memory and regret.
Sara Cate (Madame (Salacious Players' Club, #6))
Girls like Caroline and Lily are constantly performing, as much for the Good Girl they think they should be as for the adults and peers who look on. They have spent their lives growing internally dependent on external rewards: pats on the back A's, club presidencies, Most Valuable Player trophies. They become more concerned with how they appear and should be than who they are What other think and feel replaces what is true for them.
Rachel Simmons (The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence)
If you can assemble a team of 11 talented players who concentrate intently during training sessions, take care of their diet and bodies, get enough sleep and show up on time, then you are almost halfway to winning a trophy. It is always astonishing how many clubs are incapable of doing this.
Alex Ferguson (Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United)
AFC Leopards were as thrilling a side as ever took the pitch and they dominated East African football in the eighties. That Kenyan players were an excitable bunch was attested to in one memorable Leopards match, with the opposing goalkeeper being handcuffed and dragged away to jail by police.
David Bennun (Tick Bite Fever)
Nothing is perfect, Cupcake. Not love or relationships. And there is no guarantee that it will last forever, but not every good relationship needs to last forever. You can be happy with a person for however long it lasts. The best you can do is give love a chance.
Sara Cate (Madame (Salacious Players' Club, #6))
If she could get into the one here at The Texas Player’s Club, she’d drag Trace Corbin out by his ass, stick her arm up it, and do his entire set ventriloquist style if she had do.
Caisey Quinn (Girl with Guitar (Kylie Ryans, #1))
IF SHE GIVES YOU THE COLD SHOULDER, REMEMBER—EVEN ICE MELTS.
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
You have a bite mark on your ass cheek, Charlotte.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
I don’t know anything about other clubs and the national team, and I don’t care about them either.... I love the guy, not the soccer player.
Mirella Muffarotto (Soccer Sweetheart)
I no longer see a man out of my reach. I see a man who makes me feel worthy in a way I didn't know I needed - didn't know I deserved.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
what you want and who you are matters, Jade. No amount of love for someone else can change that.
Sara Cate (Madame (Salacious Players' Club, #6))
She has a fortress of well-constructed boundaries that are meant to keep others out of her private life, but I seem to be bulldozing my way right over all of them.
Sara Cate (Madame (Salacious Players' Club, #6))
Everyone thought I was so knowledgeable and astute because of my countless trips to the library and second-hand bookstores, but only the librarian knew the truth. Oh, I was knowledgeable all right. Knowledgeable in the many eclectic terms used to describe an erect penis.
Sara Cate (Give Me More (Salacious Players Club, #3))
I don’t believe in karma. Because if karma existed, then there’s no way I’d be lying here with these two incredible people who both seem to set my life, my body, and my soul on fire.
Sara Cate (Madame (Salacious Players' Club, #6))
Eden is more than a sexy body and beautiful face. She’s a force. She’s like the sun, and we are all orbiting around her, basking in her glow. We are just grateful to be in her presence.
Sara Cate (Madame (Salacious Players' Club, #6))
This is why I’m not worried, because I know it’s true. No matter what happens, we have each other. Falling back on my bed, I stare at the ceiling as I reply, “No matter what, I love you too.
Sara Cate (Madame (Salacious Players' Club, #6))
A recluse. A pale-skinned pop culture–obsessed geek. An agoraphobic shut-in, with no real friends, family, or genuine human contact. I was just another sad, lost, lonely soul, wasting his life on a glorified videogame. But not in the OASIS. In there, I was the great Parzival. World-famous gunter and international celebrity. People asked for my autograph. I had a fan club. Several, actually. I was recognized everywhere I went (but only when I wanted to be). I was paid to endorse products. People admired and looked up to me. I got invited to the most exclusive parties. I went to all the hippest clubs and never had to wait in line. I was a pop-culture icon, a VR rock star. And, in gunter circles, I was a legend. Nay, a god.
Ernest Cline (Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1))
Not just any love, Emerson. It means you’ll have true, all-consuming, intoxicating, life-changing, earth-shattering love. Love you would die for. That you couldn’t possibly live without. Love that makes it hard to breathe. Like you can feel it not just in your heart but in your veins and your bones and your muscles. Everywhere.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
You’re such a good girl, Charlotte.” My shoulders relax, seeming to melt down at my sides as I gaze up at him, those beautiful words washing over me like warm water. Suddenly, I’m all gooey and compliant, like that one little phrase put me in a trance. He could literally do anything to me in this state. And I sort of want him to.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
I shall give you hunger, and pain, and sleepless nights. Also beauty and satisfactions known to few and glimpses of the heavenly life. None of these you shall have continually and of their coming and going you shall not be foretold.
The God of All the Arts to Edwin Booth
There's no way out," he announced with satisfaction, "and no amount of wishful dreaming will produce one. The demon won't go back in its bottle, the face-off is for ever, the embrace gets tighter and the toys cleverer with every generation, and there's no such thing for either side as enough security. Not for the main players, not for the nasty little newcomers who each year run themselves up a suitcase bomb and join the club. We get tired of believing that, because we're human. We may even con ourselves into believing the threat has gone away. It never will. Never, never, never." "So, who'll save us then, Walt?" Barley asked. "You and Nedsky?" "Vanity, if anything will, which I doubt," Walter retorted. "No leader wants to go down in history as the ass who destroyed his country in an afternoon. And funk, I suppose. Most of our gallant politicians do have a narcissistic objection to suicide, thank God.
John Le Carré (The Russia House)
I want to fill you up,” I mumble against her mouth. “I want you so full of my cum, it drips out of you forever.” “Garrett,” she whimpers as I kiss her again. “I want to fuck you whenever I want and I want you to take that fucking IUD out so I can really pump you full, Mia.
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
That was the intent. Do you think men ever feel bad for the stuff they like? Do they get called sluts or depraved or nasty? No. I think we’re all tired of being shamed and shoved into these quiet, perfect little innocent versions of ourselves while men can be as deviant as they want.
Sara Cate (Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1))
Leading for true belonging is about creating a culture that celebrates uniqueness. What serves leaders best is understanding your players’ best efforts. My job as a leader is to identify their unique gift or contribution. A strong leader pulls players toward a deep belief in themselves.
Brené Brown (Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone)
An official statement from Liverpool raised the spectre of a future where ‘a club’s rival can bring about a significant ban for a top player without anything beyond an accusation’. But on hearing this, many Manchester United fans would have been asking for a definition of the word ‘rival’.
Nick Hornby (Pray: Notes on the 2011/2012 Football Season)
It was a small world—by one estimate, there were fewer than fifty active fans—that magnified certain personality traits. The most devoted members were usually young, obsessive, and confrontational. Disputes between clubs were driven by personal grudges, and a lone player like Wollheim could exert a disproportionate influence. The dynamics were much like those of modern online communities, except considerably slower, and a pattern was established in which a club would be founded, persist for a while, and then implode, either because of internal tensions or because Wollheim came in and dissolved it.
Alec Nevala-Lee (Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction)
Ted has a friend that owns a club. They’re looking for a piano player on Thursday nights. I was thinking about it…” Blake trailed off. “I think that sounds wonderful,” Livia said immediately. “You’ll be terrific, and I’ll be front and center, every Thursday night.” She smiled again, wondering if he could feel it.
Debra Anastasia (Poughkeepsie (Poughkeepsie Brotherhood, #1))
Dialogue in the works of autobiography is quite naturally viewed with some suspicion. How on earth can the writer remember verbatim conversations that happened fifteen, twenty, fifty years ago? But 'Are you playing, Bob?' is one of only four sentences I have ever uttered to any Arsenal player (for the record the others are 'How's the leg, Bob?' to Bob Wilson, recovering from injury the following season; 'Can I have your autograph, please?' to Charlie George, Pat Rice, Alan Ball and Bertie Mee; and, well, 'How's the leg, Brian?' to Brian Marwood outside the Arsenal club shop when I was old enough to know better) and I can therefore vouch for its absolute authenticity.
Nick Hornby (Fever Pitch)
Baseball is known for superstitious players and cursed teams—and at the root of every curse there’s a story. Boston’s curse was to trade Babe Ruth to the Yankees. Cubs fans claim a billy goat is responsible for their futility. And Cleveland’s curse? The club struggled after its Pennant-winning 1954 season, but it was rich with optimism just two years later as an onslaught of new talent promised to lift the club once more to the ranks of baseball’s elite—and by 1959 the club was contending for the Pennant again. And then GM Frank Lane traded Rocky Colavito to the Detroit Tigers and cursed everything.
Tucker Elliot
You can’t call it relaxing because you’ve never been fully satisfied in bed. Letting go of every thought in your head and only focusing on the sensations in your body and not what you’re thinking. Working up a sweat and being so in tune with someone that you can experience their pleasure as if it’s your own. And then coming hard enough to see stars, now that’s what I call relaxing. If you find someone who can do that, then you’ll know what I mean.
Sara Cate (Eyes on Me (Salacious Players Club, #2))
You’re not kind enough to yourself, pet. I notice the way you don’t like to receive rewards. You think you don’t deserve it or that you’re not good enough. I can tell. But you’re mine, aren’t you?” I have to force myself to swallow. Her words ring with truth, but it’s the kind of truth we keep hidden and don’t talk about. The ugly, embarrassing truth. “Yes, Madame,” I say, forcing my voice not to crack. “That’s not how I want you to treat what’s mine. You should pleasure what’s mine. You should value what’s mine. Never think or talk bad about what’s mine. Understand?
Sara Cate (Madame (Salacious Players' Club, #6))
There are a number of subjective and objective criteria that I use as a way to rank players. The subjective ones include their ability with both feet; their sense of balance; the disciplined fashion in which they take care of their fitness; their attitude towards training; the consistency between games and over multiple seasons; their demonstrated mastery in several different positions; and the way they add flair to any team for which they play. The objective ones that are impossible to dispute are: the number of goals they have scored; the games they have played for several of the best club teams in the world; the number of League championship and cup medals they have won, and their appearances in World Cups. When you employ this sort of measurement approach, it becomes far easier to define the very highest levels of performance. The people who are least confused about this are other players.
Alex Ferguson (Leading: Lessons in leadership from the legendary Manchester United manager)
The old woman sat in her leather recliner, the footrest extended, a dinner tray on her lap. By candlelight, she turned the cards over, halfway through a game of Solitaire. Next door, her neighbors were being killed. She hummed quietly to herself. There was a jack of spades. She placed it under the queen of hearts in the middle column. Next a six of diamonds. It went under the seven of spades. Something crashed into her front door. She kept turning the cards over. Putting them in their right places. Two more blows. The door burst open. She looked up. The monster crawled inside, and when it saw her sitting in the chair, it growled. “I knew you were coming,” she said. “Didn’t think it’d take you quite so long.” Ten of clubs. Hmm. No home for this one yet. Back to the pile. The monster moved toward her. She stared into its small, black eyes. “Don’t you know it’s not polite to just walk into someone’s house without an invitation?” she asked. Her voice stopped it in its tracks. It tilted its head. Blood—from one of her neighbor’s no doubt—dripped off its chest onto the floor. Belinda put down the next card. “I’m afraid this is a one-player game,” she said, “and I don’t have any tea to offer you.” The monster opened its mouth and screeched a noise out of its throat like the squawk of a terrible bird. “That is not your inside voice,” Belinda snapped. The abby shrunk back a few steps. Belinda laid down the last card. “Ha!” She clapped. “I just won the game.” She gathered up the cards into a single deck, split it, then shuffled. “I could play Solitaire all day every day,” she said. “I’ve found in my life that sometimes the best company is your own.” A growl idled again in the monster’s throat. “You cut that right out!” she yelled. “I will not be spoken to that way in my own home.” The growl changed into something almost like a purr. “That’s better,” Belinda said as she dealt a new game. “I apologize for yelling. My temper sometimes gets the best of me.
Blake Crouch (The Last Town (Wayward Pines, #3))
5-4-10 Tuesday 8:00 A.M. Made a large batch of chili and spaghetti to freeze yesterday. And some walnut fudge! Relieved the electricity is still on. It’s another beautiful sunny day with fluffy white clouds drifting by. The last cloud bank looked like a dog with nursing pups. I open the window and let in some fresh air filled with the scent of apple and plum blossoms and flowering lilacs. Feels like it’s close to 70 degrees. There’s a boy on a skate board being pulled along by his St. Bernard, who keeps turning around to see if his young friend is still on board. I’m thinking of a scene still vividly displayed in my memory. I was nine years old. I cut through the country club on my way home from school and followed a narrow stream, sucking on a jawbreaker from Ben Franklins, and I had some cherry and strawberry pixie straws, and banana and vanilla taffy inside my coat pocket. The temperature was in the fifties so it almost felt like spring. There were still large patches of snow on the fairways in the shadows and the ground was soggy from the melt off. Enthralled with the multi-layers of ice, thin sheets and tiny ice sickles gleaming under the afternoon sun, dripping, streaming into the pristine water below, running over the ribbons of green grass, forming miniature rapids and gently flowing rippling waves and all the reflections of a crystal cathedral, merging with the hidden world of a child. Seemingly endless natural sculptures. Then the hollow percussion sounds of the ice thudding, crackling under my feet, breaking off little ice flows carried away into a snow-covered cavern and out the other side of the tunnel. And I followed it all the way to bridge under Maple Road as if I didn't have a care in the world.
Andrew Neff (The Mind Game Company: The Players)
When Benjamin Bloom studied his 120 world-class concert pianists, sculptors, swimmers, tennis players, mathematicians, and research neurologists, he found something fascinating. For most of them, their first teachers were incredibly warm and accepting. Not that they set low standards. Not at all, but they created an atmosphere of trust, not judgment. It was, “I’m going to teach you,” not “I’m going to judge your talent.” As you look at what Collins and Esquith demanded of their students—all their students—it’s almost shocking. When Collins expanded her school to include young children, she required that every four-year-old who started in September be reading by Christmas. And they all were. The three- and four-year-olds used a vocabulary book titled Vocabulary for the High School Student. The seven-year-olds were reading The Wall Street Journal. For older children, a discussion of Plato’s Republic led to discussions of de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, Orwell’s Animal Farm, Machiavelli, and the Chicago city council. Her reading list for the late-grade-school children included The Complete Plays of Anton Chekhov, Physics Through Experiment, and The Canterbury Tales. Oh, and always Shakespeare. Even the boys who picked their teeth with switchblades, she says, loved Shakespeare and always begged for more. Yet Collins maintained an extremely nurturing atmosphere. A very strict and disciplined one, but a loving one. Realizing that her students were coming from teachers who made a career of telling them what was wrong with them, she quickly made known her complete commitment to them as her students and as people. Esquith bemoans the lowering of standards. Recently, he tells us, his school celebrated reading scores that were twenty points below the national average. Why? Because they were a point or two higher than the year before. “Maybe it’s important to look for the good and be optimistic,” he says, “but delusion is not the answer. Those who celebrate failure will not be around to help today’s students celebrate their jobs flipping burgers.… Someone has to tell children if they are behind, and lay out a plan of attack to help them catch up.” All of his fifth graders master a reading list that includes Of Mice and Men, Native Son, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, The Joy Luck Club, The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, and A Separate Peace. Every one of his sixth graders passes an algebra final that would reduce most eighth and ninth graders to tears. But again, all is achieved in an atmosphere of affection and deep personal commitment to every student. “Challenge and nurture” describes DeLay’s approach, too. One of her former students expresses it this way: “That is part of Miss DeLay’s genius—to put people in the frame of mind where they can do their best.… Very few teachers can actually get you to your ultimate potential. Miss DeLay has that gift. She challenges you at the same time that you feel you are being nurtured.
Carol S. Dweck (Mindset: The New Psychology of Success)
What I like to see is when actors use their celebrity in an interesting way. Some of them have charitable foundations, they do things like try to bring attention to the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan, or they're trying to save the White African Rhino, or they discover a passion for adult literacy, or what have you. All worthy causes, of course, and I knowtheir fame helps to get the word put. But let's be honest here.None of them went into the entertainment industry because they wanted to do good in the world. Speaking for myself, I didn't even think about until I was already successful. Before they were famous, my actor friends were just going to auditions and struggling to be noticed, taking any work they could find, acting for free in friends movies, working in restaurants or as caterers, just trying to get by. They acted because they loved acting, but also, let's be honest here, to be noticed. All they wantedf was to be seen. I've been thinking lately about immortality. What it means to be remembered, what I want to be remembered for, certainquestions concerning memory and fame. I love watching old movies. I watch the faces of long-dead actors on the screen, and I think about how they'll never truly die. I know that's a cliche but it happens to be true. Not just the famous ones who everyone knows, but the bit players, the maid carrying the tray, the butler, the cowboys in the bar, the third girl from the left in the night-club. They're all immortal to me. First we only want to be seen, but once we're seen, that's not enough anymore. Afterthat, we want to be remembered.
Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven)
In Dream Street there are many theatrical hotels, and rooming houses, and restaurants, and speaks, including Good Time Charley's Gingham Shoppe, and in the summer time the characters I mention sit on the stoops or lean against the railings along Dream Street, and the gab you hear sometimes sounds very dreamy indeed. In fact, it sometimes sounds very pipe-dreamy. Many actors, male and female, and especially vaudeville actors, live in the hotels and rooming houses, and vaudeville actors, both male and female, are great hands for sitting around dreaming out loud about how they will practically assassinate the public in the Palace if ever they get a chance. Furthermore, in Dream Street are always many hand-bookies and horse players, who sit on the church steps on the cool side of Dream Street in the summer and dream about big killings on the races, and there are also nearly always many fight managers, and sometimes fighters, hanging out in front of the restaurants, picking their teeth and dreaming about winning championships of the world, although up to this time no champion of the world has yet come out of Dream Street. In this street you see burlesque dolls, and hoofers, and guys who write songs, and saxophone players, and newsboys, and newspaper scribes, and taxi drivers, and blind guys, and midgets, and blondes with Pomeranian pooches, or maybe French poodles, and guys with whiskers, and night-club entertainers, and I do not know what all else. And all of these characters are interesting to look at, and some of them are very interesting to talk to, although if you listen to several I know long enough, you may get the idea that they are somewhat daffy, especially the horse players.
Damon Runyon (The Short Stories of Damon Runyon - Volume I - The Bloodhounds of Broadway)