Prom Quotes

Dude, I don’t want to talk about Lacey’s prom shoes. And I’ll tell you why: I have this thing that makes me really uninterested in prom shoes. It’s called a penis.

Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts. Some of you like Pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read.

prom·ise (ˈpräməs) n. pl. - es. 1. The lie you want to keep. [2015, Whittier]

What do you see in a guy like Christian Prescott?" he asked me that night when he dropped me off from prom. And what he was really saying then, what would have come through loud and clear if I hadn't been so blind was, why don't you see me?

The moment we stepped out into the hall, Cam's apartment door flung open. Ollie appeared, a cellphone in one hand and Raphael wiggling in the other. "Smile!" he shouted as he snapped a picture on his phone. "It's like my two kids are going to prom.

It's very easy to get a boy to leave the room. It's much harder to get him to leave your thoughts.

If all the girls attending [the Yale prom] were laid end to end, I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Holy shit, are you positive?" "As a pregnancy test a month after prom.

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle.

Getting you a date to prom is so hard that the hypothetical idea itself is used to cut diamonds.

Getting you a date to prom is so hard that the hypothetical idea itself is actually used to cut diamonds," I added. Radar tapped a locker twice with his fist to show his approval, and then came back with another. "Ben, getting you a date to prom is so hard that the American government believes the problem cannot be solved with diplomacy, but will instead require force.

I once gave a girl a bloody fake ear in a Tiffany jewelry box with a letter that said, “will you Gogh to prom with me?

Lenah?" "Yeah?" I replied. "Will you go to winter prom with me?" "Of course," I whispered, sure I would fall asleep in moments. "Justin?" "Mm-Hmm?" he said, moments from sleep himself. "What's a prom?

Says the girl dressed up in formal Goth mourning," Shane said. "Seriously, who buys a black lace veil? You keep that on hand for special occasions, like prom and kid's birthdays?

White Chocolate. Intense, sweet. But not deep. Okay for prom dates or flings, but not to get serious..Milk chocolates are guys you could date for like a few months, and dark chocolates are for love.

This is terrific! What fun! Maybe tomorrow I can go to the prom with my brother. The day after, perhaps I can wear white pants and unexpectedly get my period.

Real-life may not always be a symphony of buoyant instants or ecstatic exploits. Downbeat emotional externalities can emerge unpredictably throughout our life journey. If we wish to turn life into an undying dance prom, let’s keep one foot in reality for sure. ("Blind date")

Maybe wrist corsages cut off circulation to the brain? I mean, is that why so many girls do stupid things on prom night? I was really going to have to investigate this further, I decided

I could feel my insides sink. My knees too. So I sat on the ground, against the wall, letting it support me. I thought I knew what heartbreak felt like. I thought heartbreak was me, standing alone at the prom. That was nothing. This, this was heartbreak. The pain in your chest, the ache behind your eyes. The knowing that things will never be the same again. It’s all relative, I suppose. You think you know love, you think you know real pain, but you don’t. You don’t know anything.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single girl of high standing at Longbourn Academy must be in want of a prom date.

Veni, vidi, flevi. I came. I saw. I cried.

I don't get why prom is like a mini-wedding these days...No one should spend that kind of money for a high school dance.

You just walk over there and into the office and say, 'Hey, be my prom date,'" he said. "It's that simple.

a) he's late. b) he's acting like an asshole and blowing me off. c)he's gotten into a horrible car crash that's left dead. The most likely answer is A. (We went to prom together, and the limo had to wait in his driveway for half an hour. At the end of the night, we got charged for an extra hour. He- read: his parents- paid for it, but still.)

It's true. somewhere inside us we are all the ages we have ever been. We're the 3 year old who got bit by the dog. We're the 6 year old our mother lost track of at the mall. We're the 10 year old who get tickled till we wet our pants. We're the 13 year old shy kid with zits. We're the 16 year old no one asked to the prom, and so on. We walk around in the bodies of adults until someone presses the right button and summons up one of those kids.

I have this thing that keeps me from being interested in prom dresses, it's called a penis.

Now you're sure we are not going to be murdered?" Call Me Steve says, actually looking a bit nervous. "Prom night. Group of diverse teens. Remote cabin…

What the fuck do you want?" After a pause, he said in a firm voice, "This is Dylan Keeley, the guy who would've killed to trade places with you until five minutes ago." He met my eyes. "She doesn't want to talk to you. Now why don't you go back to screwing your prom queen and let me do the same.

Sometimes friends have to suffer for their friends' happiness.

There, in the center of that silence was not eternity but the death of time and a loneliness so profound the word itself had no meaning. For loneliness assumed the absence of other people, and the solitude she found in that desperate terrain had never admitted the possibility of other people. She wept then. Tears for the deaths of the littlest things: the castaway shoes of children; broken stems of marsh grass battered and drowned by the sea; prom photographs of dead women she never knew; wedding rings in pawnshop windows; the tiny bodies of Cornish hens in a nest of rice.

And from the whole she deduced this useful lesson, that to go previously engaged to a ball, does not necessarily increase either the dignity or enjoyment of a young lady.

You can’t wait 17 hours for me?’ ‘Buxbaum, I’ve waited my whole life for you.

My major vice is sarcasm with a side of caffeine addiction.

He went down like a cheerleader after prom.

So you did get it?” I asked, suddenly babbling. “I wasn’t sure. I mean, sometimes we don’t get very good reception at school. But I guess you know that, living on a farm and all.” Shut up, shut up, shut up . He smiled slowly. “Hunter, are you nervous?” “Shut up.” “Are you going to ask me to prom?” he teased. “Shut up,” I repeated, choking on a horrified laugh. He grinned. “I look pretty good in a tux.” I rolled my eyes, suddenly comfortable again. “And you’re so refreshingly modest.

It was bad enough to see friendship and love in terms of politics. But seeing it in terms of business was even worse.

I’m not sure I want to go to prom. I’m not sure I want to share you with anyone.

Since this was a formal undead gathering, there would be food—all kinds—drinks, dancing, and festivities, while those in power pondered whether or not to slaughter half the people around them. In other words, like a high-school prom.

Remember. Make him cry uncle. Cry uncle, my posterior. I'm going to make him cry like a girl who broke her mom's designer heels at the prom.

I have led her home, my love, my only friend. There is none like her, none, And never yet so warmly ran my blood, And sweetly, on and on Calming itself to the long-wished for end, Full to the banks, close on the prom- ised good.

I don't believe in prom,' I reminded her as she rounded a corner. I expertly angled my raisin bran to accomodate the g-forces. I'd done this before.

Did you know I had an ultrasound the day before my prom?" "That's . . . cool?" "It was cool! It was the big one, too. That's when I found out your gender." "Gender is a social construction.

We’re not the Faster-than-the-Speed-of-Light Generation anymore. We’re not even the Next-New-Thing Generation. We’re the Soon-to-Be-Obsolete Kids, and we’ve crowded in here to hide from the future and the past. We know what’s up – the future looms straight ahead like a black wrought-iron gate and the past is charging after us like a badass Doberman, only this one doesn’t have any letup in him.

I know, but it's just one night and I really think it's silly to spend thousands of dollars on a dress you only wear once.

Elizabeth Bennet, will you do me the great honor of not going to prom with me?

2) Members will attend events together as a group, including, but not limited to, Homecoming, Prom, parties, and other couply events, despite possibly being labeled as freaks and getting jealous looks from guys who wish we were their hot dates, but instead have to settle for some lame wannabe.

Talking to them was like being placed into conversational purgatory, with no hope of being released without significant damage to one's self-esteem.

We were in such good moods, we even decided to hit Todd's house for candy. Sam rang the doorbell, and when it opened, this hideous, rubber monster face roared at us. Sam screamed. Todd started laughing and took off the mask. I yelled, "Put it back on! Put it back on! Your hideousness is terrifying!" Todd did a fake yuk-yuk-yuk at my joke. "What are you guys supposed to be? Is it Prom Night Massacre or something?" Sam sighed at Todd's obvious stupidity. "We're zombie princesses, Todd. Can't you tell?" She stuck her arms straight out in front of her and said, "BRAINS! BRAINS!" I patted Sam on the head and said, "Sorry, Sam. You're wasting your time with this one.

To find Margo Roth Spiegelman, you must become Margo Roth Spiegelman. And I had done many of the things she might have done: I had engineered a most unlikely prom coupling. I had quieted the hounds of caste warfare. I had come to feel comfortable inside the rat-infested haunted house where she did her best thinking. I had seen. I had listened. But I could not yet become the wounded person.

I felt like - like I don't know what. Like this wasn't real. Like I was in some Goth version of a bad sitcom. Instead of being the A/V dweeb about to ask the head cheerleader to the prom, I was the finished-second-place werewolf about to ask the vampire's wife to shack up and procreate. Nice. - Jacob

If you don't have any feelings for Will Darcy, why are you blushing and fixing your hair?

And you are?” “Not important. All you need to know is that you’re lucky you’re so cute, and I decided to help you.” “But not prom queen cute.” “Definitely not.” They both smiled,

Deciding means jumping in all the way, doing whatever it takes, and going after your dreams with the tenacity of a dateless cheerleader a week before prom night.

He'd asked if I felt the pull. I could'nt deny that I did. And that it terrified me. It wasn't like a crush. It wasn't like seeing a guy and thinking I'd like him to take me to the prom. It was soul-deep, as though he was everything, the one, forever. I had to remind myself that I barely knew the guy. But still I couldn't shake the feeling of being meant for each other - as corny as that sounded.

Picture this, Olive. Early two thousands. Preppy, ridiculously expensive all-male DC school. Two gay students in grade twelve. Well, two of us that were out, anyway. Richie Muller and I date for the entirety of senior year - and then he dumps me three days before prom for some guy he’d been having a thing with for months.” “He was a prick,” Adam muttered. “I have three choices. Not go to the dance and mope at home. Go alone and mope at school. Or, have my best friend - who was planning on staying home and moping over gamma-aminobutyric acids - come as my date. Guess which?” Olive gasped. “How did you convince him?” “That’s the thing, I didn’t. When I told him about what Richie did, he offered!

She wore a cantilevered, augmented-breast-skimming satin dress the colour of egg-yolk. Somewhere in deepest Nebraska, a prom queen two sizes smaller than Selena was wondering where the fuck her outfit had disappeared to.

Grandma frowned and yelled something in Russian. She could have been saying, 'Open up, your best friend is here.' On the other hand, it could have been, 'America is a great country because of canned ravioli.

Oh, Darcy!' Fitz grabbed Darcy by the collar. 'You have such a way with the ladies.

It's adrenaline, not prom sex.

Are you ready?” she asked, whispering. “Ready as a drunk virgin on prom night.

I knew I had to break up with Ann Rosenberg after she chose a teal dress for the prom. I had never heard of teal. Also, I was gay.

I don’t know. Word around the girls’ locker room is that all of you are so hard up, you were cruising the senior center, trying to find a prom date.” – Nick

Maybe we'll have vampire prom." He shot me an appalled look. "What is this, Twilight?

Guess what?" Maggie said as soon as I walked into Celmentine's. "What?" She clapped her hands. "I have a date to the prom!" "Guess what?" I replied. "What?" "I don't." Her mouth dropped open. "Oh, and," I added, "I bought a bike." .... "Okay, let's just slow down." She held up her hands, palms facing me. "First things first. What do you mean, you don't have a date?" "Just that," I said, sitting down at the desk. "Jason bailed on me." "Again?" I nodded. "When?" "About twenty minutes ago." "Oh, my God." She put her hand over her mouth: her expression was so horrified, like someone had died. "That's the worst thing ever." "No," I said, swallowing. "It's actually not." "No?" I shook my head. "The worst thing is that right afterward, I marched right into the bike shop and asked Eli to go with me, and he said no." She threw up her other hand, clapping it over the one already covering her mouth. "Holy crap," she said, her voice muffled. "Where does the bike come in?" "I don't know," I said, waving my hand. "That part's kind of a blur.

Nobody wants to give up a weekend-long excuse to dress up and attempt to outshine one another.

If you end up going to prom, save me a dance, okay?

Then she (Queen Christina) stood with the Prince and grinned like a monkey and waved like a fucked-up prom queen while about a thousand flashbulb went off in her face.

... that was what should truly matter in this world. What you have to offer people, not what you can buy.

My wife gave birth 4 times and still fits in her prom dress from high school. I gave birth 0 times and I don't fit in my pants from March.

prom*ise n. pl. -es. 1. The lie you want to keep. {2015, Whittier}

No Miss America, but she was a prom queen back in high school. And nobody dumped a bucket of blood on her, either.

Can you dance?" she asked before she could stop herself. "I can," he said, affronted. "I'm really good with the slow songs.

Life is made of moments. and choices. Not all of them matter, or have any lasting impact. Skipping class in favor of a taste of freedom, picking a prom dress because of the way it transforms you into a princess in the mirror. Even the nights you steal away from an open window, tiptoe silent to the end of the driveway, where darkened headlights and the pull of something unknown beckon. These are all small choices, really. Insignificant as soon as they’re made. Innocent. But then. Then there’s a different kind of moment. One when things are irrevocably changed by a choice we make. A moment we will play endlessly in our minds on lonely nights and empty days. One we’ll search repeatedly for some indication that what we chose was right, some small sign that tells us the truth isn’t nearly as awful as it feels. Or as awful as anyone would think if they knew. So we explain it to ourselves, justify it enough to sleep. And then we bury it deep, so deep we can almost pretend it never happened. But as much as we wish it were different, the truth is, our worlds are sometimes balanced on choices we make and the secrets we keep.

What a clear, poweful emotion - thankfulness. It hadn't occurred to me in a long time that I could be someone that another person would be thankful for. Not for anything I'd done or said, but simply for who I was, and who I had the potential to be.

It was flawless. It was, in fact, so flawless that it didn't call attention to its own flawlessness. It was perfect.

The rest of the world disappeared as I looked at her.

I’d like to make it clear from the start that I am gay, gay, gay. Like, when I come out of the closet, I’m usually wearing my sister’s prom dress kind of gay.

Thinking, not for the first time, that life should come with a trapdoor. Just a little exit hatch you could disappear through when you´d utterly and completely mortified yourself. Or when you had spontaneous zit eruptions. “Good book?” he asked, taking it from her and reading the subtitle, “A Guide for Good Girls Who (Sometimes) Want to Be Bad,” out loud. But life did not come with a trapdoor.

In one universe, they are gorgeous, straight-teethed, long-legged, wrapped in designer fashions, and given sports cars on their sixteenth birthdays. Teacher smile at them and grade them on the curve. They know the first names of the staff. They are the Pride of the Trojans. Oops – I mean Pride of the Blue Devils. In Universe #2, they throw parties wild enough to attract college students. They worship the stink of Eau de Jocque. They rent beach houses in Cancún during Spring Break and get group-rate abortions before prom.

Liz Buxbaum had always been my secret. She was the incredible thing I’d known about but everyone else seemed to miss. The treasure hidden in plain sight, the fortune of a lifetime that was somehow only visible to me.

Once upon a time there was an eighteen-year-old girl who dragged her butt out of bed and hauled it all the way to school on a sunny day in May.

Wes was the good guy in the movie. Yes, he was funny and the life of the party, but he was also dependable and understanding and loyal. Even though i realized after prom that i didnt need him to be, he was a Mark Darcy

You go through life thinking there's so much you need. Your favorite jeans and sweater. The jacket with the faux-fur lining to keep you warm. Your phone and your music and your favorite books. Mascara. Irish breakfast tea and cappuccinos from Trouble Coffee. You need your yearbooks, every stiffly posed school-dance photo, the notes your friends slipped into your locker. You need the camera you got for your sixteenth birthday and the flowers you dried. You need your notebooks full of the things you learned and don't want to forget. You need your bedspread, white with black diamonds. You need your pillow - it fits the way you sleep. You need magazines promising self-improvement. You need your running shoes and your sandals and your boots. Your grade report from the semester you got straight As. Your prom dress, your shiny earrings, your pendants on delicate chains. You need your underwear, your light-colored bras and your black ones. The dream catcher hanging above your bed. The dozens and dozens of shells in glass jars... You think you need all of it. Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.

Prom was more about acting out some weird facsimile of adulthood: dress up like a tacky wedding party, hold hands and behave like a couple even if you've never dated, and observe the etiquette of Gilded Age debutantes thrust into modern celebrity: limos, red carpets and a constant stream of paparazzi, played by parents, teachers, and hired photo hacks.

Me: Need to shop for a dress. Stenn asked me to prom. The Momster: WTF! Me: Mom? What do you think WTF means? The Momster: Well That's Fantastic.

a pink taffeta evening gown. It looked like it had run away from a junior high prom... The dress looked like a petunia on steroids to me.

So Elizabeth, dare we take the dance floor again in hopes of repeating that splendid performance given by Lydia?

I wondered what she'd think if she knew the quote from Jerry McGuire-You complete me- flashed through my very soul as I watched her laugh.

It makes me cringe to admit this, but I want the whole prom thing. The dress, the limo, all of it. It actually hurts, imagining prom happening without me. Me, alone in my pajamas, spending the whole night trolling Instagram and Snapchat. Watching everything unfold virtually. Seeing once and for all how little I'm missed.

I had absolutely no idea that all this time he'd been flirting with me.

Foxy girls know that silence may be golden-but only for four seconds. Anything longer and you're heading for Awkward Avenue.

Bougainvillea bloomed on their porch like a discarded prom dress.

According to Sarah, who had gone two years ago, prom was famous for being an overpriced disappointment where most people had no fun.

People who are committing and taking risks become the king and queen of my prom.

That’s what the prom is—St. Patrick’s Day for the young.

Death is a lot like prom - loud, overdone, and although the guy you came with was cool, you never know who'll end up taking you home.

I squared my shoulders, trying to ignore the fact that I was standing in the apartment of the sea witch, wearing a fairy-tale prom gown, waiting for the attack of the mermaids.

Your "best"! Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.

Dažreiz es priecājos, kad Henrijs ir prom, bet, kad viņš atgriežas, es priecājos vienmēr.

Instead of being the A/V dweeb about to ask the head cheerleader to the prom, I was the finished-second-place werewolf about to ask the vampire's wife to shack up and procreate. Nice.

He opened the door wearing an oversized wife-beater and dirty trunks to match. Funny, but he recognized me withouta struggle. Immediately, I assumed he was sober, which was a good thing. Yet, seeing me wasn’t expected or desired. For sure, I was the last person on his list of surprises. Jerry adjusted his head and sharpened his bloodshot eyes. It wasthen his booze-bated breath greeted me well before he did. Ok, he was in a stupor or maybe on the rebound. Next, soiled diapers stole the little oxygen I had left—and I was still OUTDOORS. Yet somehow, I mustered enough wind to greet my brother. I tried to beat him to the punch and said, “What’s up bruh?” What happened next stomped my soul me for years to come! He never bothered to truly acknowledge me. Yet, heresponded without hesitation, “You know I can’t have any company!” Then he violently slammed the door shut! Jerry was gone! I couldn’t differentiate from being stupid or dumbstruck. I just stood silent on his porch all alone for about five minutes. I’d dealt with Jerry’s nastiness many times before. But he would initially warm up before dropping his hammer. Without a doubt, l was lost, confused, and bewildered like a teen-age boy losing a prom date. Foolishly, I used logic to dissect my embarrassment. First, the guy scolded me as if I should’ve known better! To be fair, Jerry was the breadwinner. His wife left him years ago. That part I understood. Only a fool would have hung around his crazy ass. It was amazing they got together, let alone stayed that way long enough to create those children. Yet, all his kids were pushing the ages of twenty andabove. What the hell did he mean, “I can’t receive any company!” Of course, I heard those crying babies which madehim a granddaddy. That was strangely obvious to his existence. Yes, the cycle continues! Second, I really didn’t care to go inside. I didn’t want to be in his business. I just wanted his input on Aunt Kathy’s memorial.

Looking silly can be very powerful. People who are committing and taking risks become the king and queen of my prom. People are their most beautiful when they are laughing, crying, dancing, playing, telling the truth and being chased in a fun way.

Georgie took out her phone. 'I want to take a picture of you two.' She held up her phone and motioned for us to get together. Darcy and I lined up against the railing. 'No, I need you closer together to get you both in the photo,' she instructed. I had taken countless pictures on the waterfront and I knew that if you were getting the skyline in the background, you didn't need to be that close. Darcy put his arm around my shoulder and we leaned in. I slipped my arm around his waist and I noticed how easily I fit into the little nook on his side. 'Oh, hold on, I'm having problems.' Georgie played with her phone for a few moments while we just stood there in our posed embrace. 'Georgie...' She looked up at her brother and blushed. 'Um, I think it works now.

Fae can’t lie, you know. But they can, and do, manipulate the truth.” “What’s the difference?” Mina asked. “Like, if you asked me if you were ugly, I couldn’t say yes, but I might tell you that you’ll probably never be prom queen.” “Pfft. Like I’d want to be.” “Only if Brody Carmichael were king.” Mina threw a stick at him, feeling the heat rush into her face.

All two thousand students would return safely on Monday morning, after the prom. But the following afternoon, Tuesday, April 20, 1999, twenty-four of Mr. D’s kids and faculty members would be loaded into ambulances and rushed to hospitals. Thirteen bodies would remain in the building and two more on the grounds.

Prom was more about acting out some weird facsimile of adulthood: dress up like a tacky wedding party, hold hands and behave like a couple even if you’ve never dated, and observe the etiquette of Gilded Age debutantes thrust into modern celebrity: limos, red carpets, and a constant stream of paparazzi, played by parents, teachers, and hired photo hacks.

I’m looking for Fat Hoochie Prom Queen,” I declared. He did not respond. “It’s a book,” I said. “Not a person.” Nope. Nothing. “At the very least, can you tell me the author?” He looked at his computer, as if it had some way to speak to me without any typing on his part. “Are you wearing headphones that I can’t see?” I asked. He scratched at the inside of his elbow. “Do you know me?” I persisted. “Did I grind you to a pulp in kindergarten, and are you now getting sadistic pleasure from this petty revenge? Stephen Little, is that you? Is it? I was much younger then, and foolish to have nearly drowned you in that water fountain. In my defense, your prior destruction of my book report was a completely unwarranted act of aggression.” Finally, a response. The information desk clerk shook his shaggy head. “No?” I said. “I am not allowed to disclose the location of Fat Hoochie Prom Queen,” he explained. “Not to you. Not to anyone. And while I am not Stephen Little, you should be ashamed of what you did to him. Ashamed.

Liz Buxbaum was killing me softly and there was nothing I could do to ease the pain.

I've never considered breaking that oath before. Ever. But I did, for you. To keep you safe. Everything--from letting you go at the prom, to tonight at the ball--it's all been for you. As much as I tried to tell myself it was for the Saxons, it wasn't true. As much as I said I was going to Istanbul just for Fitz, it wasn't true. Every second I wasn't with you, I was thinking about you. Worrying about you. It wasn't for them. It was all for you.

Jesse, who had not stirred the whole time from the spot he'd been standing, confident I could handle Cheryl myself, was grinning. "It's every girl's dream to guy to go to prom with the guy she loves?" he echoed, not just one, but both inky black eyebrows raised. "Don't start with me," I said. I tried to hide my suddenly flaming cheeks by scraping away what was left of the cannolis, and replacing them with the contents of an upended bag of chocolate chip cookies. "I have things to do.

Prom night can be a special night, if you let it be. I know you think it's for losers and something that popular kids do because they are boring people with porcelain hearts who don't know what it means to be lonely. But you're wrong. Prom is a chance for everyone to try oral sex. Go for it.

But why didn't you just ask me?" I set down my fork and glare at her. "Because you were sleeping," She says, taking a sip if Chardonnay. "I was taking a nap, Mom. It wasn't intended to be some kind of Disney fairy-tale hundred-year snooze.

I'll remind her of how fat her arms looked in that slutty dress she wore at senior prom. That always makes her cry. Like goddamned Niagara falls.

The angel of death can hardly have friends. And the prom, what about Danny? He can hardly have a Valkyrie for his date.

It was easy for me to not feel beautiful in a world of prom queens, yet my mother was always reminding me of how worthy I was. I was a lucky daughter

The one broken window that permanently wouldn't roll up had destroyed her perfectly curled blond prom-hair, and by the time we got to the gym she looked like Marie Antoinette with bedhead.

What?” she says. “I want to be prepared for my first-ever royal wedding.” “You went to prom, didn’t you?” Alex says. “Just picture that, only in hell, and you have to be really nice about it.

Beauty is about perception, not about make-up. I think the beginning of all beauty is knowing and liking oneself. You can't put on make-up, or dress yourself, or do you hair with any sort of fun or joy if you're doing it from a position of correction.” ― Kevyn Aucoin

It was Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the television series, 1997-2003, not the lackluster movie that preceded it) that blazed the trail for Twilight and the slew of other paranormal romance novels that followed, while also shaping the broader urban fantasy field from the late 1990s onward. Many of you reading this book will be too young to remember when Buffy debuted, so you'll have to trust us when we say that nothing quite like it had existed before. It was thrillingly new to see a young, gutsy, kick-ass female hero, for starters, and one who was no Amazonian Wonder Woman but recognizably ordinary, fussing about her nails, her shoes, and whether she'd make it to her high school prom. Buffy's story contained a heady mix of many genres (fantasy, horror, science-fiction, romance, detective fiction, high school drama), all of it leavened with tongue-in-cheek humor yet underpinned by the serious care with which the Buffy universe had been crafted. Back then, Whedon's dizzying genre hopping was a radical departure from the norm-whereas today, post-Buffy, no one blinks an eye as writers of urban fantasy leap across genre boundaries with abandon, penning tender romances featuring werewolves and demons, hard-boiled detective novels with fairies, and vampires-in-modern-life sagas that can crop up darn near anywhere: on the horror shelves, the SF shelves, the mystery shelves, the romance shelves.

She hadn’t even known they were volcanic, but now they were lobbing big seminal gobbets of lava all over their lower slopes, like a drunk prom queen puking on her dress. Shit was getting geological, yo.

El dinero puede comprar muchas cosas, pero no el talento

They mean hot like 'I'm too good for you I got my own money don't be frontin' me.' You're more like 'Be my boyfriend I'll make you cookies come meet my dad ' know what I mean

Anything you want, Buxbaum. As long as I'm with you, it will the perfect day.

Because there were no ties with Wes, no connections to anything painful. Prom dress shopping, on the other hand, was layered in melancholic bindings that made me feel a world of things I didn't want to feel.

If your last words are somehow meant to encapsulate your entire existence, Liz finds um strangely appropriate. Um means nothing. Um is what you say while you're thinking of what you'll really say. Um suggests someone interrupted before they'd begun. Um is a fifteen-year-old girl who gets hit by a taxicab in front of a mall on the way to help pick out a prom dress for a prom she isn't even going to, for God's sake.

You talk more when you're nervous," he said, still standing close to her. "No i don't. That's absurd. I'm just trying to explain to you-" "Do i make you nervous?" "No. I'm not nervous." "You're trembling." "I'm cold. I'm wearing practically zero clothes." His glance went to her lips, then back to her eyes. "I noticed.

Guys don't understand great art. They don't care that sometimes the camera has power beyond the photographer to record emotion that only the heart can see. They're threatened when the camera jumps ahead of me. Todd Kovich was pissed when I brought my Nikon to the prom, but I'd missed too many transcendent shots over the years to ever take a chance of missing one again. A prom, I told him, had a boundless supply of photogenic bozos who could be counted on to do something base.

I'm fairly certain that, at this very minute, the [Mars Polar Lander] is floating somewhere around the Neptune feeling tired and cranky and looking for a Holiday Inn. Of course, you'd have to have a heart of titanium not to feel a twinge of sadness while watching those dejected NASA scientiest waiting by the phone like the class wallflower on prom week. On the other hand, it was kind of fun to watch a bunch of men waiting by the phone and seeing how they feel when someone promises they'll call and then YOU NEVER HEAR FROM HIM AGAIN.

There will come a time--perhaps even by the time you read this--that people will no longer be on Facebook. There will come a time when the stars of your favorite teen TV show will be sixty. There will come a time when you will have the same unalienable rights as your straightest friend. (Probably before any of the stars of your favorite teen TV show turn sixty.) There will come a time when the gay prom won't have to be separate. There will come a time when you look at someone younger than your and feel that he or she will know more than you ever did. There will come a time when you will worry about being forgotten. There will come a time when the gospel will be rewritten. If you play your cards right, the next generation will have so much more than you did.

Ben, there are more important things going on,” I answered. “DESIGNATED DRIVER!” “What?” “You’re my designated driver! Yes! You are so designated! I love that you answered! That’s so awesome! I have to be home by six! And I designate you to get me there! YESSSSSSS!” “Can’t you just spend the night there?” I asked. “NOOOO! Booooo. Booo on Quentin. Hey, everybody! Boooo Quentin!” And then I was booed. “Everybody’s drunk. Ben drunk. Lacey drunk. Radar drunk. Nobody drive. Home by six. Promised Mom. Boo, Sleepy Quentin! Yay, Designated Driver! YESSSS!

Grimm: The Thing with Feathers (#1.16)" (2012) Monroe: Molly, my girlfriend from high school, left me for a klaustreich, so I might be a wee bit riled up about them. He told her he loved her. He got her pregnant. She ended up delivering his litter at prom. Her parents were not thrilled.

Beck behaved himself, though it was really difficult, especially during the slow dances when they were so tantalizingly close. He savoured the feel of her against his body, the light scent of her perfume, the in her eyes that told him he was the center of her universe. It was a new and totally overwhelming experience.

I end up watching this movie about some girl who's supposed to be so smart and edgy and unpopular. She wears glasses, that's how you know she's so smart. And she's the only one that has dark hair in the school- a place that looks like Planet Blond. Anyway, she somehow ends up going to the prom- hello, gag- and she doesn't wear her glasses, so suddenly she's all beautiful. And she's bashful and shy because she doesn't feel comfortable wearing a dress. But then the guy says something like, "Wow, I never knew you were so pretty," and she feels on top of the world. So, basically, the whole point is she's pretty. Oh, and smart, too. But what's really important here is that she's pretty. For a second I think about Katie. About her thin little Clarissa Le Fey. It must be a pain being fat. There are NO fat people on Planet Blond. I don't get it. I mean, even movies where the actress is smart- like they seem like they'd be smart in real life, they're all gorgeous. And they usually get a boyfriend somewhere in the story. Even if they say they don't want one. They always, always end up falling in love, and you're supposed to be like, "Oh, good." I once said this to my mom, and she laughed. "Honey, Hollywood... reality- two different universes. Don't make yourself crazy." Which made me feel pretty pathetic. Like I didn't know the difference between a movie and the real world. But then when everyone gets on you about your hair and your clothes and your this and your that, and "Are you fat?" and "Are you sexy?" you start thinking, Hey, maybe I'm not the only one who can't tell the difference between movies and reality. Maybe everyone really does think you can look like that. And that you should look like that. Because, you know, otherwise you might not get to go to the prom and fall in love.

My life was awful. When I was a kid, I was fat, pretty ugly and had awful hair. I used to get teased every fucking day, slammed up against lockers, punched in the face - you name it. Hell, I had to go to prom with one of my female friends because I couldn’t even get a proper date. I can’t even look back at those photos because I look so bad. I transferred schools, but the teasing just got worse. After an, let’s say, ‘incident’ I had with the school play the bullying just got worse. But I made it through high school, only to find out that real life was pretty much the same. I just stayed in my dark room all day and didn’t talk to anyone. I didn’t go outside. I just stayed inside and drew. I’d draw vampires, mummies, heroes, villains. Anything to help me escape all the bad in the world. I went to art school and didn’t really belong. All I could draw was comic book characters. I tried to put my only good talent to use by drawing a cartoon and pitching it - only to have it turned down. Life to me was just pointless. I started drinking, doing drugs and just generally wasting my life drawing.
Then one day, I saw bodies falling from the sky. I witnessed people dying. And that’s when I decided to turn my life around. I called up anyone I knew who had an instrument and we formed a band. Being on tour for the first few years was bad. All we’d do is get drunk and do drugs, but I loved it. Because I was doing something I loved with people I loved. And a few years ago I met the most perfect woman ever. It’s like we share a wave-link or something. She just knows me without even knowing me, if you understand. And now, 2011, I have a beautiful baby girl, a caring wife and I get to perform for my adoring fans everyday. I am living proof that no matter how bad it gets, it gets better. I am Gerard Way, and I survived.

I feel like our whole friendship was a lie. She's probably the only person I've ever really opened up to, and the whole time she was hiding stuff from me. I just don't feel like I can trust somebody like that.

Life had taught her that consequences were ugly and painful, and seldom worth the pleasure they had been bartered for.

And the only way to live, the only way to be happy, was to make sure the things I didn't miss meant more to me than the things I missed.

...Go live ITM." ITM?" In the Mo," Beth elaborated.

Anything you can do to make the world a more beautiful place is worth trying.

They managed to describe fifteen different weapons you’re an expert in, but they couldn’t even mention that I’m running for prom queen?” Brooke moaned.

She told me she would barter her body for a prom date and I think that is the saddest thing I have ever heard

I'm a pretty forgetful guy, but everything she says, I remember. I remember what colour her hair ribbon was when we met on the first day of fifth grade. I remember that she loves orchids because they look delicate but aren't, really. From a single postcard she sent me when traveling with her family two summers ago. I remember what my name looks like in her handwriting.

Guys like you don't usually talk to girls like me. Girls like me don't get invited to prom. Guys don't make fools of themselves for girls like me. Girls like me are ignored. Invisible. But I'm not a girl anymore. I'm a woman. Thanks for reminding me.

Who is that?” I asked Andreas. “Some chick named Emma from his school.” “Emma? Prom Emma?” My insides froze. “Does he like her?” Andreas looked at my face and laughed. “Oh, this is so good.

Wanting can be done sitting on the couch with a bong in your hand and a travel magazine in your lap.     Deciding means jumping in all the way, doing whatever it takes, and going after your dreams with the tenacity of a dateless cheerleader a week before prom night. You

Lainey is hot in a prom queen kind of way and we used to be friends back in grade school, but that was two lifetimes ago. Now she’s a varsity soccer player and card-carrying popular girl who hangs out with the kind of mean girls and douchebags who get killed first in horror movies.

Dad?” he growls under his breath. “You’re Garrett Graham’s kid?” I can’t help laughing at his indignation. “Not only that, but I’m helping with your shooting drills today.” His eyes narrow. “You play hockey?” I reach over to pat his arm. “Don’t worry, prom king, I’ll go easy on you.

And put myself in the hands of total strangers?" She snapped the lid shut, "What do you take me for? Of course I checked out their stories. I am a researcher, you know. They are who they say they are, and their stories are verifiable. You have nothing to fear. I wouldn't put my daughter in any danger." "Any danger!" I cried. "what do you call hunting unicorns? Big, sharp horns; fangs..." And those were just the goat-sized ones. "I call it your birthright." Lilith stood tall. "Honey, I know you've been down ever since that stupid boy broke up with you but this is about more than a prom date. Don't you realize that? You have a destiny. Most people would kill for something like that." If Lilith and this Cornelius guy had their way with me at this boot camp, I was going to kill.

I don’t believe in any actual thinking God that marks the fall of every bird in Australia or every bug in India, a God that records all our sins in a big golden book and judges us when we die—I don’t want to believe in a God who would deliberately create bad people and then deliberately send them to roast in a hell He created—but I believe there has to be something. Yeah, something. Some kind of insensate force for the good … I think there’s a force that keeps drunken teenagers—most drunken teenagers—from crashing their cars when they’re coming home from the senior prom or their first big rock concert.That keeps most planes from crashing even when something goes wrong. Not all, just most. Hey, the fact that no one’s used a nuclear weapon on actual living people since 1945 suggests that there has to be something on our side. Sooner or later someone will, of course, but over a half a century … that’s a long time. There’s something that keeps most of us from dying in our sleep. No perfect loving all-seeing God, I don’t think the evidence supports that, but a force.

Nonsense. Fools refuse to try something new.

My Liz was fired-up, and it was perfection.

I’ve been out with enough girls to know what I want. I know. You and me together? We’re not the same plain vanilla let’s-date-while-we’re-in-high-school, let’s-go-to-prom, let’s-promise-we’ll-talk-in-college relationship. We’re more like those fireworks on the Fourth of July that keep exploding with new bursts every time they’re done. Before we know it, we’ll be in rocking chairs side by side on the porch, holding hands and watching a houseful of great grandchildren chasing blue ghost fireflies on the lawn.

You look incredible, Kavanagh,” Quinn whispered close to my ear. “Are you trying to kill me?” “Ssshhh,” I hissed. “They’re going to hear you.” “I can’t tell my date she’s beautiful?” I turned my head. “No. No, you can’t.

—Y... —Jane me incitó. —¿Y? —le respondí—. Y, Will Darcy no es la encarnación del mal. Yo, sin embargo, al parecer soy un pésimo juez de carácter. Destruyo a casi todo el mundo cerca de mí.

She was luminous. Her red hair had been braided a dozen ways, all swirled together in a high shaggy twist. Her eyelids were shimmering green, her lips crimson and matte. She wore black vintage ankle-high motorcycle boots. She was lethal.

Although previous studies had suggested that friendship--male and female--could be a powerful antidote to stress, more recent research indicates that broken promises, dashed expectations, and other side effects of friendship gone wrong can actually raise the level of stress in our lives, often to disastrous effect.

Is Lisa going to the prom?" I shelved my worries for the moment. "I don't know, Mom. We don't talk about the You-Know-What. We made a pact." "You could go together, if you didn't want to mess with dates and things." "I don't want to mess with the prom at all, Mom." She ignored me, placidly eating popcorn, piece by piece. "Some girls in my high school class did that and had a wonderful time. They weren't lesbians or anything. Not that it would matter if they were." "That's nice, Mom. I'm glad you're so open-minded." I grabbed my Coke and the popcorn bowl and headed for the stairs, because I could go my whole life without ever hearing my mother talk about lesbians again. "Maybe you could take Justin to the prom," she called after me, laughter in her voice. "He is such a hottie." Shoot me now.

Did you know you have the chance to be the first black queen in Campbell history?” I swallow. I did know that. Of course I know that. But I don’t like it being held against me. I don’t like the implication in her tone. You could make history if you just follow our rules. You could be a real credit to your people if you just straighten up and fly right. You could actually be worth something if you would shut up and take what we give you.

That’s one of my problems. I never get angry quick enough. I never speak up when I am really mad. And then I feel silly bringing it up later.

If she did bitch-slap me, I'd bitch-slap her right back, but I resented the word bitch and all its familiar forms, as it was degrading to women and dogs everywhere.

Except I do care about being pretty. Der. I don't think there's a single person in the world who doesn't care about being pretty. Any female, at any rate.

I’m trying this thing where if I believe hard enough, everything I don’t want to do will just fade away into nothingness. So far it isn’t working.

It was a sweet kind of torture to have the love of your life so incredibly close but know she could never be yours.

Fae can’t lie, you know. But they can, and do, manipulate the truth.” “What’s the difference?” Mina asked. “Like, if you asked me if you were ugly, I couldn’t say yes, but I might tell you that you’ll probably never be prom queen.” “Pfft. Like I’d want to be.” “Only if Brody Carmichael were king.” Mina threw a stick at him, feeling the heat rush into her face.

Eric Harris wanted a prom date. Eric was a senior, about to leave Columbine High School forever. He was not about to be left out of the prime social event of his life. He really wanted a date. Dates were not generally a problem. Eric was a brain, but an uncommon subcategory: cool brain. He smoked, he drank, he dated. He got invited to parties. He got high. He worked his look hard: military chic hair— short and spiked with plenty of product—plus black T-shirts and baggy cargo pants. He blasted hard-core German industrial rock from his Honda. He enjoyed firing off bottle rockets and road-tripping to Wyoming to replenish the stash. He broke the rules, tagged himself with the nickname Reb, but did his homework and earned himself a slew of A’s. He shot cool videos and got them airplay on the closed-circuit system at school. And he got chicks. Lots and lots of chicks. On the ultimate high school scorecard, Eric outscored much of the football team. He was a little charmer. He walked right up to hotties at the mall. He won them over with quick wit, dazzling dimples, and a disarming smile.

we all face choices in life. Some are small,insignificant choices like what to wear to the prom or what to say to your crush when you see him walking down the hall. Those choices may or may not have long-term effects on our lives. You never know. Then there are choices that are so huge, so important,you know you are altering the path of your life as you make them.

I never blindly roamed with a team just for the sake of social labeling or fitting in. I was never part of a particular group, scene or tribe. I was friends with everybody. My best friend in high school was prom queen, yet I was voted the biggest nonconformist of my senior class.

In one universe, they are gorgeous, straight-teethed, long-legged, wrapped in designer fashions, and given sport cars on their sixteenth birthdays, Teachers smile at them and grade them on the curve. They know the first names of the staff. They are the pride of the school. In Universe #2, they throw parties wild enough to attract college students. They worship stink of Eau de Jocque. They rent beach houses in Cancun during Spring Break and get group-rate abortions before the prom. But they are so cute. And they cheer on our boys, inciting them to violence and, we hope, victory. They’re are our role models- the Girls Who Have It All. I bet none of them ever stutter or screw up or feel like their brains are dissolving into marshmallow fluff.

When your mom noticed me watching a Buffy rerun on the little TV on the doorman desk one slow night on the job, she admitted that watching Buffy was her shared solace with you after your dad left. She told me how you cry and cry for Buffy. You cry when Angel shows up to be Buffy's prom date even though they'd already recognized the futility of their true love and broken up. You cry when Buffy's mom is taken away by natural instead of supernatural causes. You cry when seasons six and seven really don't reflect the quality of seasons one through five except for the musical episode.

With your lips on mine, your song still in my ears, I forget that I never said yes, that all of it - the dance, us - was a foregone conclusion. You told me to be your girlfriend. You didn't wait for me to answer about prom. I gave you my heart on a silver fucking platter and you ate it, piece by bloody piece.

She and I went to school with Shay Mitchell and Hayden Panettiere, Megan Fox was prom queen, Chris Hemsworth was prom king." I make a clicking noise with my tongue. "And there was Natalie's worst enemy, a cheerleader who tried to steal Damon away from her in tenth grade; Natalie said she was the slutty version of Nina Dobrev - none of these people really looked like them, not really anyway. Natalie is just...odd

The path to accepting your sexuality has to start somewhere. For those identify as heterosexual, the childhood bliss of an early crush is typically encouraged and praised. Milestones such as your first date and the prom are celebrated by parents and friends. But when you’re anything other than straight, it’s more complicated; your growth gets shrouded and stunted. That’s why a lot of queer people, when they fall in love and get into a relationship for the first time, revert to a kind of prepubescent puppy love: spontaneous, impulsive, obsessive, and ecstatic. I’ve heard many people express annoyance at friends who “just came out and it’s totally cool and whatever, but do they have to talk about it all the time?” My answer to that is “Yes. Yes, they do. Don’t you remember puppy love? Well, imagine if you had to hide it for twenty years. So yeah, if they wanna gush about it, let them gush. There’s a first time for everything.

Now, it is our understanding that his Majesty Grom is requesting an unsealing from his mating with the Common Paca?” “That is correct,” Antonis says, rolling his eyes. “Poseidon’s beard, but this is repetitive.” Tandel ignores the elder king’s bluster. “It is also our understanding that Prince Galen requests, in exchange for his help, and the help of Emma the Half-Breed, that he is permitted to mate with Emma as if she were full-blooded Syrena.” “You have that correct,” Galen answers gruffly. Tandel pauses. “And do the Royals have any more requests at this time?” “Yes,” Emma says, to Galen’s surprise. She’s never held back from speaking what’s on her mind. But she never acknowledged herself as a Royal until now. “Because of my Half-breed status, and the fact that I’ve lived on land all my life, I would like for the Royals to be able to visit me here whenever they like. I know that under the current laws, that’s not allowed, but I want that changed.” “You might as well agree to that, Tandel,” Antonis says. “Or else you’ll be holding another tribunal for the Royals, because all of us intend to be visiting land more often I think.” “Actually I won’t be visiting land,” Galen says. He turns to Emma. “I’ll be living here.” Tears pool in her eyes. He catches one sliding down her cheek and kisses it away. Her reaction just confirms what he’d suspected all along. That she’s been worried about it. How it would work out between them, where would they live. Emma had said before that she wanted the best of both worlds. Prom, graduation, college. Swimming with dolphins, visiting the Titanic, searching for Amelia Earhart’s plane. He intends to make sure she has it all.

But as soon as we touched, I felt magic crackle over and through me, so strong that I tried to jerk my hand back. But he held tight until, finally, the crackling sensation stopped. My hand slid out of his, and I leaped up from the fountain."What the hell was-" Then I looked down and realized I was completely dry. Not only that, but my demure black dress had been replaced with...well, another black dress, but this one was a lot shorter, sparklier, and also rocking a very low neckline. Even my hair was different, transformed from a soggy braid to silky brown waves. Nick winked at me. "That's better. Now you look more like the Demon Who Would be Queen." He heaved himself out of the water and grabbed Jenna's hand. Within seconds, she went from drowned rat to hottie, her soaked clothes replaced with-what else?-a pink sundress. Of course it showed a lot more skin than anything Jenna would have picked out for herself. "Oh,lovely,Nick," Daisy said, rolling her eyes as he wrapped an arm around her waist. "What?" he asked once he laid a smacking kiss on her cheek. "They look better like that." Without thinking,I reached out and grabbed Nick's free arm. His wet white T-shirt and jeans rippled, and suddenly he was wearing a Day-Glo yellow tank top and acid-washed jeans. "And you look better like this." I wasn't sure if it was the ridiculous sight of Nick in those clothes, or the fact that I'd done a spell so easily-with absolutely no explosions-but I could feel my lips curving upward in a smile. As Daisy hooted with laughter, Nick narrowed his eyes at me. "Okay, now you're in for it." He waved his hand, and suddenly I was sweltering. When I glanced down, I saw that it was because I was now dressed like the Easter Bunny.But with the flick of one fuzzy paw,I'd transformed Nick's jeans and tank top into a snowsuit. Then I was in a bikini. So Nick was wearing a particularly poofy purple prom dress. By the time he'd turned my clothes into a showgirl's costume, complete with a feathery headdress, and I'd put him in a scuba suit, we were both completely magic drunk and giggling.

My little brother is in rehab. My little brother is in rehab. I feel like these words are written on my arms whenever I push up my sleeves, written on my cheeks whenever they relax out of my fake smile. They want to come out of my mouth, all the time. When I am called upon in class, or when someone says, "Hey, what's up?" - that's what I want to answer. "My little brother's in rehab." But I never do.

(Dominic after winning King & Queen contest at Prom along with Tess) “You like me, you really like me!” he said in a mock high-pitched voice, channeling his inner Sally Fields. “First of all, I have to thank my first grade teacher, what was her name? Mrs. Johnson? Nichols? Jameson? Prescott? Yeah, that was it. Man, I had such a crush on her. Even at five, I had awesome taste in women—just look at Tess. Isn’t she banging? Anyway, I need to thank Mrs. Pentecostal, because she told me I’d never win anything, and that hurt, man. But I guess I showed her. So take that, Mrs. Presley!

BEHOLD THE FIELD IN WHICH I GROW MY F*CKS, LAY THINE EYES UPON IT AND SEE THAT IT IS BARREN.

My name is CRPS, or so they say But I actually go by; a few different names. I was once called causalgia, nearly 150 years ago And then I had a new name It was RSD, apparently so. I went by that name because the burn lived inside of me. Now I am called CRPS, because I have so much to say I struggle to be free. I don't have one symptom and this is where I change, I attack the home of where I live; with shooting/burning pains. Depression fills the mind of the body I belong, it starts to speak harsh to self, negativity growing strong. Then I start to annoy them; with the issues with sensitivity, You'd think the pain enough; but no, it wants to make you aware of its trembling disability. I silently make my move; but the screams are loud and clear, Because I enter your physical reality and you can't disappear. I confuse your thoughts; I contain apart of your memory, I cover your perspective, the fog makes it sometimes unbearable to see. I play with your temperature levels, I make you nervous all the time - I take away your independance and take away your pride. I stay with you by the day & I remind you by the night, I am an awful journey and you will struggle with this fight. Then there's a side to me; not many understand, I have the ability to heal and you can be my friend. Help yourself find the strength to fight me with all you have, because eventually I'll get tired of making you grow mad. It will take some time; remember I mainly live inside your brain, Curing me is hard work but I promise you, You can beat me if you feed love to my pain. Find the strength to carry on and feed the fears with light; hold on to the seat because, like I said, it's going to be a fight. But I hope to meet you, when your healthy and healed, & you will silenty say to me - I did this, I am cured is this real? That day could possibly come; closer than I want- After all I am a disease and im fighting for my spot. I won't deny from my medical angle, I am close to losing the " incurable " battle.

Sing like you've got no audience, sing like you don't know what a critic is, sing about your hometown, sing about your prom, sing about deer, sing about the seasons, sing about your mother, sing about chainsaws, sing about the thaw, sing about the rivers, sing about forests, sing about the prairies. But whatever you do, start singing early in the morning, if only just to keep warm. And if you happen to live in a warm beautiful place … Move to Wisconsin. Buy a wood stove, and spend a week splitting wood. It worked for me.

Sell them their dreams,' a woman radio announcer urged a convention of display men in 1923. 'Sell them what they longed for and hoped for and almost despaired of having. Sell them hats by splashing sunlight across them. Sell them dreams – dreams of country clubs and proms and visions of what might happen if only. After all, people don’t buy things to have things. They buy things to work for them. They buy hope – hope of what your merchandise will do for them. Sell them this hope and you won’t have to worry about selling them goods.

What am I supposed to do," she says. "Wait?" She wants him to say, Yes, wait. I will be home as soon as I run this one errand. Ben perceives disgust in her tone. Why would anyone wait for him? A boy who didn't know how to be a prom date, a man who knows what he needs, but too late. He releases her arm. His voice is professional with sorrow. "You certainly couldn't do that." He means because she is precious. Sarina hears that she is snotty and unkind. He means because he is not that lucky; she hears: he is bored. No one says "I want you to wait," and no one says "I'll wait.

That kiss you gave me was the hottest kiss i've ever had. I pulled away because i was afraid i wouldn't be able to stop myself from ripping off your clothes. And that didn't seem like the right way to end a first date. I didn't want you to think that was all i was interested in." She stared at him. There was silence again, but this time she didn't worry about how long it went on. "Why didn't you tell me?" She said finally. "I tried to, but every time i saw you afterward you disappeared. I got the feeling you were avoiding me." "i didn't want things to be awkward." "Yeah, there was nothing awkward about you hiding behind a plant when i came into the dining hall at lunch on wednesday." "I wasn't hiding. I was, um, breathing. You know, oxygen. From the plant. Very oxygenated, that air is." "Of course. I should have thought of that." "It's a healthy thing. Not many people know about it.

Hanna, kā ierasts, saullēktā izgāja pagalmā, pieķērās gandrīz neredzamam pavedienam, kas lidoja garām, un kopā ar zirnekļiem aizlaidās pa gaisu. Ja kāds būtu redzējis, kas notiek, viņš pamanītu baltu rēgu, kas slīd debesīs, gandrīz puscaurspīdīgu, prom no šejienes, prom, pavisam prom, bet nez vai šis kāds brīnītos. Hanna bija pazudusi jau tik sen, ka par viņu maz kurš atcerējās. Turklāt cilvēki šajā nomalē mēdza pazust. Nevienam iebildumu nebija. Tā te bija pieņemts.

You’re sure you want to do this,” Galen says, eyeing me like I’ve grown a tiara of snakes on my head. “Absolutely.” I unstrap the four-hundred-dollar silver heels and spike them into the sand. When he starts unraveling his tie, I throw out my hand. “No! Leave it. Leave everything on.” Galen frowns. “Rachel would kill us both. In our sleep. She would torture us first.” “This is our prom night. Rachel would want us to enjoy ourselves.” I pull the thousand-or-so bobby pins from my hair and toss them in the sand. Really, both of us are right. She would want us to be happy. But she would also want us to stay in our designer clothes. Leaning over, I shake my head like a wet dog, dispelling the magic of hairspray. Tossing my hair back, I look at Galen. His crooked smile almost melts me where I stand. I’m just glad to see a smile on his face at all. The last six months have been rough. “Your mother will want pictures,” he tells me. “And what will she do with pictures? There aren’t exactly picture frames in the Royal Caverns.” Mom’s decision to mate with Grom and live as his queen didn’t surprise me. After all, I am eighteen years old, an adult, and can take care of myself. Besides, she’s just a swim away. “She keeps picture frames at her house though. She could still enjoy them while she and Grom come to shore to-“ “Okay, ew. Don’t say it. That’s where I draw the line.” Galen laughs and takes off his shoes. I forget all about Mom and Grom. Galen, barefoot in the sand, wearing an Armani tux. What more could a girl ask for? “Don’t look at me like that, angelfish,” he says, his voice husky. “Disappointing your grandfather is the last thing I want to do.” My stomach cartwheels. Swallowing doesn’t help. “I can’t admire you, even from afar?” I can’t quite squeeze enough innocence in there to make it believable, to make it sound like I wasn’t thinking the same thing he was. Clearing his throat, he nods. “Let’s get on with this.” He closes the distance between us, making foot-size potholes with his stride. Grabbing my hand, he pulls me to the water. At the edge of the wet sand, just out of reach of the most ambitious wave, we stop. “You’re sure?” he says again. “More than sure,” I tell him, giddiness swimming through my veins like a sneaking eel. Images of the conference center downtown spring up in my mind. Red and white balloons, streamers, a loud, cheesy DJ yelling over the starting chorus of the next song. Kids grinding against one another on the dance floor to lure the chaperones’ attention away from a punch bowl just waiting to be spiked. Dresses spilling over with skin, matching corsages, awkward gaits due to six-inch heels. The prom Chloe and I dreamed of. But the memories I wanted to make at that prom died with Chloe. There could never be any joy in that prom without her. I couldn’t walk through those doors and not feel that something was missing. A big something. No, this is where I belong now. No balloons, no loud music, no loaded punch bowl. Just the quiet and the beach and Galen. This is my new prom. And for some reason, I think Chloe would approve.

High school is for losers,” Sam said. “Popularity is a figment of people’s imagination. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter who was prom queen. It doesn’t matter who was the class geek. It just doesn’t matter. Do you want to know why it doesn’t matter?” Not really. I was starting to feel a little silly. “It doesn’t matter because who you are in high school has nothing to do with who you really are,” Sam said. “It has nothing to do with who you grow up to be. You’re awesome. Clove and Thistle are awesome. Thistle is mean, but she’s still awesome. I don’t give a rat’s ass who you were in high school. The only one who cares who you were in high school is you.

It was like looking in a mirror. The same flickering hope in Loo, the same desperate need to be loved, was right here in Marshall's mother. And it was in Principal Gunderson, clutching Lily's waist in that old prom photo. And it was Agnes, pressing her feet into the stirrups, listening for her child's cry. And it was in Hawley, mourning with his scraps of paper in the bathroom. Their hearts were all cycling through the same madness—the discovery, the bliss, the loss, the despair—like planets taking turns in orbit around the sun. Each containing their own unique gravity. Their own force of attraction. Drawing near and holding fast to whatever entered their own atmosphere. Even Loo, penning her thousands of names way out at the edge of the universe, felt better knowing others were traveling this same elliptical course, that they would sometimes cross paths, that they would find love and lose love and recover from love and love again—because, if they were all going in circles, and Loo was Pluto, then every 248 years even she would have the chance to be closer to the sun.

That night ended in a romantic kiss at her door, she asked me in, and we went up to her bedroom. She changed into her nightgown in her bathroom and she left the door open, as she changed, she left her prom gown on the floor, she said- ‘I am not going to wear it anymore or again, the way it looks now, it’s not worth anything.’ Then she asked me- ‘Do you still like what you see when you look at me?’ –Insecurely, as she was pulling her lace-like night top down over her breasts, then to let it slip from her hands, and then fall around her knees. This all happens, as she stands in the doorway of the bathroom. And I said- ‘Yes, you're beautiful, now and always, I love you Nevaeh and the baby!’ She said- ‘Awe, you’re such a sweetie! I love you too!

Mara, remember how you kicked sand into that neighbor child’s eyes? I yelled at you and made you apologize in your best dress, and that night I cried by myself in the bathroom because you are Bad’s child as much as you are mine. Remember when you ran into the plate glass window and cut your arms so badly we had to drive you to the nearest hospital in the pickup truck, and when it was over Bad begged me to replace the backseat because of all the blood? Or when Tristan told us that he wanted to invite a boy to prom and you put your arm around him like this? Mara, remember? Your own babies? Your husband with his Captain Ahab beard and calloused hands and the house you bought in Vermont? Mara? How you still love your little brother with the ferocity of a star; an all-consuming love that will only end when one of you collapses? The drawings you handed us as children? Your paintings of dragons, Tristan’s photographs of dolls, your stories about anger, his poems about angels? The science experiments in the yard, blackening the grass to gloss? Your lives sated and[…]

Sarah smelled chocolate on Lucy's breath as she leaned forward to plant a soft kiss on the tip of her cute little nose. A vision came to her as her lips touched Lucy's skin, a sudden vivid awareness of the life they'd lead together from here on out, the hothouse intimacy of a single mother and her only child, the two of them sharing everything, breathing the same air, inflicting their moods on each other, best friends and bitter rivals, competing for attention, relying on each other for companionship and emotional support, forming the intense, convoluted, and probably unhealthy bond that for better and worse would become the center of both of their identities, fodder for years of therapy, if they could ever figure out a way to pay for it. It wasn't going to be an easy future, Sarah understood that, but it felt REAL to her -- so palpable and close at hand, so in keeping with what she knew of her own life -- that it almost seemed inevitable, the place they'd been heading all along. It was enough to make her wonder how she'd ever managed to believe in the alternate version, the one where the Prom King came and made everything better.

So they were going to put me in a jail cell. I wondered if this body was strong enough to bend bars. If they were only going to keep me in there a night, that shouldn’t be a big deal. I could wait a night. Then, whenever they took me away, I’d just run. I wouldn’t have to stop. I’d be halfway across the country before they got out of the state. But in the middle of my scheming, I heard Akinli’s voice. “What if she stayed here with us?” he asked. I couldn’t see it, but the silence let me know they were all staring at him. “Dude, the cop just told you the girl could be nuts. Yeah, why don’t we just let a psycho move in? Great idea.” Ben had the same strange sarcasm as Akinli. “Ben, are you seriously telling me you’re scared of a girl in a prom dress who can barely walk and can’t speak. Ohhhh, she’s sooo dangerous.” Yes, they were definitely related. I smiled to myself. I was dangerous, but I was glad Akinli didn’t see me that way. He paused for a moment. “Besides, I carried her here, and she was trembling. She’s scared. I think something bad happened to her, and I don’t think she should be put in a jail cell after whatever she went through.” Had I really trembled? I didn’t know I could do that.

Every time we cheer the downfall of a powerful woman, we're giving ourselves the message that power is bad and we shouldn't desire it. Every time we revel in a beautiful woman's aging or weight gain, we reinforce the idea that we, too, are less valuable if we are old or overweight. Every time we gloat over a woman's loss of a husband to a younger, prettier rival, we are reminding ourselves that our own relationship is unstable, that someday our man, too, will move on to greener pastures.

Are you wearing space pants?" Miranda asked him. "What?" How did it end? oh, right. "Because your butt is fine." He gazed at her in that way he had like he was measuring her for straitjacket. "I think-" he started, then stopped and seemed to be having trouble talking. Cleared his throat three times before saying, "I think the line is 'because your butt is out of this world." "Oh. That makes a lot more sense. I can see that. See, I read this book about how to get guys to like you and they said it was a line that never failed but i got interrupted in the middle and the line before it was about china-not the country, the kind you eat off of-and that is where the fine part was but i must have gotten them confused. He just kept staring at her.

Taking both of my hands, he pulls me into the tide. Salt water deepens the lavender satin of my gown to almost black. The waves push into it, making it heavier and heavier. “Tell me when,” he says. I nod. When Galen is neck deep and I’m clinging to him to keep my head above water. When my saturated prom dress feels like an anchor grasping at my limbs. When the moon is directly overhead and makes the silver flecks in his eyes shimmer like gems. That’s when I’m ready. “Now,” I breathe. He brushes his lips against mine. Once Twice. So soft it barely feels like anything. But it also feels like everything. He pulls me under. One day, when Galen and I are mated, I’ll be a princess. But I’ll never feel more like a princess than right now, in his arms, dancing on the ocean floor. He pulls my from my trance with his lips against me ear. “Emma.” It’s silly how my own name can send tingles shooting everywhere. “Hmm?” “I’ve been thinking. About us.” He pulls away from me. “I think…I think I need a distraction.” “Um. A distraction? From me?” The words taste vinegary in my mouth. They turn sweet again when Galen throws his head back and laughs. “Emma,” he says, brushing his thumb across my bottom lip. “You are the one thing I’m sure of. Completely. Without thinking twice. But I want to get away from here for a little while. And I want you to come with me. I know you’re set on going to college in the fall. I’m only asking for the summer. Let’s go somewhere. Do something.” I float up until I’m eye level with him. “Let’s. Where will we go?” He shrugs. “I don’t care, as long as it’s away from any ocean.” “So…the desert?” He grimaces. “The mountains?” I laugh. “Deal. We’ll go to the mountains.” “You’re sure?” I pull him by the neck until our noses touch. “Completely. Without thinking twice.

I never got to take you to the prom. You went with Henry Featherstone. And you wore a peach-colored dress.” “How could you possibly know that?” Callie asked. “Because I saw you walk in with him.” “You didn’t know I was alive in high school,” Callie scoffed. “You had algebra first period, across the hall from my trig class. You ate a sack lunch with the same three girls every day, Lou Ann, Becky and Robbie Sue. You spent your free period in the library reading Hemingway and Steinbeck. And you went straight home after school without doing any extracurricular activities, except on Thursdays. For some reason, on Thursdays you showed up at football practice. Why was that, Callie?” Callie was confused. How could Trace possibly know so much about her activities in high school? They hadn’t even met until she showed up at the University of Texas campus. “I don’t understand,” she said. “You haven’t answered my question. Why did you come to football practice on Thursdays?” “Because that was the day I did the grocery shopping, and I didn’t have to be home until later.” “Why were you there, Calllie?” Callie stared into his eyes, afraid to admit the truth. But what difference could it possibly make now? She swallowed hard and said, “I was there to see you.” He gave a sigh of satisfaction. “I hoped that was it. But I never knew for sure.” Callie’s brow furrowed. “You wanted me to notice you?” “I noticed you. Couldn’t you feel my eyes on you? Didn’t you ever sense the force of my boyish lust? I had it bad for you my senior year. I couldn’t walk past you in the hall without needing to hold my books in my lap when I saw down in the next class.” “You’re kidding, right?” Trace chuckled. “I wish I were.” “Then it wasn’t an accident, our meeting like that at UT?” “That’s the miracle of it,” Trace said. “It was entirely by accident. Fate. Kisma. Karma. Whatever you want to call it.

There’s our homecoming picture. Last Halloween, when I dressed up as Mulan and Peter wore a dragon costume. There’s a receipt from Tart and Tangy. One of his notes to me, from before. If you make Josh’s dumb white-chocolate cranberry cookies and not my fruitcake ones, it’s over. Pictures of us from Senior Week. Prom. Dried rose petals from my corsage. The Sixteen Candles picture. There are some things I didn’t include, like the ticket stub from our first real date, the note he wrote me that said, I like you in blue. Those things are tucked away in my hatbox. I’ll never let those go. But the really special thing I’ve included is my letter, the one I wrote to him so long ago, the one that brought us together. I wanted to keep it, but something felt right about Peter having it. One day all of this will be proof, proof that we were here, proof that we loved each other. It’s the guarantee that no matter what happens to us in the future, this time was ours. When he gets to that page, Peter stops. “I thought you wanted to keep this,” he said. “I wanted to, but then I felt like you should have it. Just promise you’ll keep it forever.” He turns the page. It’s a picture from when we took my grandma to karaoke. I sang “You’re So Vain” and dedicated it to Peter. Peter got up and sang “Style” by Taylor Swift. Then he dueted “Unchained Melody” with my grandma, and after, she made us both promise to take a Korean language class at UVA. She and Peter took a ton of selfies together that night. She made one her home screen on her phone. Her friends at her apartment complex said he looked like a movie star. I made the mistake of telling Peter, and he crowed about it for days after. He stays on that page for a while. When he doesn’t say anything, I say, helpfully, “It’s something to remember us by.” He snaps the book shut. “Thanks,” he says, flashing me a quick smile. “This is awesome.

Why are you so mad at me?" Norris shouted back. The neighbors could definitely hear them now. His throat dry, but he didn't care. "I'm sorry if I interrupted one of your dates, or whatever, but I DID NOT DO ANYTHING! Ground me for leaving prom, ground me for drinking, but I didn't drive, I didn't have unprotected sex, I didn't even get high! You know that! You're supposed to be on my side here, Mom!" "NO!" she hurled back. "Not on this, Norris" I can't be!" "Why the hell not?!" "You know damn well! Trayvon Martin," she began. "Tamir Rice, Cameron Tillman, so many others that I can't remember all their names anymore!" Norris knew too well. It was almost a ritual, even back in Canada. They would sit as a family and watch quietly. "Be smart out there," Felix used to say. "You're not a handsome blue-eyed little Ken doll who's going to get a slap on the wrist every time he messes up. That, tonight?" she said, pointing to the door. "Do you know what that was? Do you?!" "I-" "That was a fucking coin flip, Norris. That was the coin landing heads." Her finger dug into his chest, punctuating every other word she was saying, spittle flying at his face. "Heads. A good one. Officer Miller, who has four sons, and luckily, mercifully, thank Jesus saw someone else's kid back-talking him tonight." She exhaled, her breath Thai-food hot against his face. "Tails." Her voice broke. "Tails, and I would be at the morgue right now identifying you! With some man lecturing me about our blood alcohol level and belligerent language and how you had it coming.

Right around this same time—give or take a few years, I can't remember—Camila got a call from this guy from her high school. Some guy that was on the baseball team and took her to the prom and all that. I think his name was Greg Egan or Gary Egan? Something like that. She said to me, "I'm gonna go get lunch with Gary Egan." And I said, "Okay." And she went and got lunch with him and she was gone for four hours. No one eats lunch for four hours. When she got back, she gave me a kiss and she, you know, started doing laundry or something and I said, "How was your lunch with Greg Egan?" And she said, "Fine." And that's all she said. In that moment, I knew that what happened between her and Gary Egan—whether she still felt anything for him, how he felt about her, anything that might have taken place—all of that wasn't my business. It wasn't anything she wanted to share. That was a singular moment for her and it had nothing to do with me. I'm not saying that I didn't care. I cared a lot. I'm saying that when you really love someone, sometimes the things they need may hurt you, and some people are worth hurting for. I had hurt Camila. God knows I had. But loving somebody isn't perfection and good times and laughing and making love. Love is forgiveness and patience and faith and every once in a while, it's a gut punch. That's why it's a dangerous thing, when you go loving the wrong person. When you love somebody who doesn't deserve it. You have to be with someone that deserves your faith and you have to be deserving of someone else's. It's sacred.

Everyone's here except for St. Clair." Meredith cranes her neck around the cafeteria. "He's usually running late." "Always," Josh corrects. "Always running late." I clear my throat. "I think I met him last night. In the hallway." "Good hair and an English accent?" Meredith asks. "Um.Yeah.I guess." I try to keep my voice casual. Josh smirks. "Everyone's in luuurve with St. Clair." "Oh,shut up," Meredith says. "I'm not." Rashmi looks at me for the first time, calculating whether or not I might fall in love with her own boyfriend. He lets go of her hand and gives an exaggerated sigh. "Well,I am. I'm asking him to prom. This is our year, I just know it." "This school has a prom?" I ask. "God no," Rashmi says. "Yeah,Josh. You and St. Clair would look really cute in matching tuxes." "Tails." The English accent makes Meredith and me jump in our seats. Hallway boy. Beautiful boy. His hair is damp from the rain. "I insist the tuxes have tails, or I'm giving your corsage to Steve Carver instead." "St. Clair!" Josh springs from his seat, and they give each other the classic two-thumps-on-the-back guy hug. "No kiss? I'm crushed,mate." "Thought it might miff the ol' ball and chain. She doesn't know about us yet." "Whatever," Rashi says,but she's smiling now. It's a good look for her. She should utilize the corners of her mouth more often. Beautiful Hallway Boy (Am I supposed to call him Etienne or St. Clair?) drops his bag and slides into the remaining seat between Rashmi and me. "Anna." He's surprised to see me,and I'm startled,too. He remembers me. "Nice umbrella.Could've used that this morning." He shakes a hand through his hair, and a drop lands on my bare arm. Words fail me. Unfortunately, my stomach speaks for itself. His eyes pop at the rumble,and I'm alarmed by how big and brown they are. As if he needed any further weapons against the female race. Josh must be right. Every girl in school must be in love with him. "Sounds terrible.You ought to feed that thing. Unless..." He pretends to examine me, then comes in close with a whisper. "Unless you're one of those girls who never eats. Can't tolerate that, I'm afraid. Have to give you a lifetime table ban." I'm determined to speak rationally in his presence. "I'm not sure how to order." "Easy," Josh says. "Stand in line. Tell them what you want.Accept delicious goodies. And then give them your meal card and two pints of blood." "I heard they raised it to three pints this year," Rashmi says. "Bone marrow," Beautiful Hallway Boy says. "Or your left earlobe." "I meant the menu,thank you very much." I gesture to the chalkboard above one of the chefs. An exquisite cursive hand has written out the morning's menu in pink and yellow and white.In French. "Not exactly my first language." "You don't speak French?" Meredith asks. "I've taken Spanish for three years. It's not like I ever thought I'd be moving to Paris." "It's okay," Meredith says quickly. "A lot of people here don't speak French." "But most of them do," Josh adds. "But most of them not very well." Rashmi looks pointedly at him. "You'll learn the lanaguage of food first. The language of love." Josh rubs his belly like a shiny Buddha. "Oeuf. Egg. Pomme. Apple. Lapin. Rabbit." "Not funny." Rashmi punches him in the arm. "No wonder Isis bites you. Jerk." I glance at the chalkboard again. It's still in French. "And, um, until then?" "Right." Beautiful Hallway Boy pushes back his chair. "Come along, then. I haven't eaten either." I can't help but notice several girls gaping at him as we wind our way through the crowd.

We walk inside, and I stop short. Our booth, the one we always sit in, has pale pink balloons tied around it. There’s a round cake in the center of the table, tons of candles, pink frosting with sprinkles and Happy Birthday, Lara Jean scrawled in white frosting. Suddenly I see people’s heads pop up from under the booths and from behind menus--all of our friends, still in their prom finery: Lucas, Gabe, Gabe’s date Keisha, Darrell, Pammy, Chris. “Surprise!” everyone screams. I spin around. “Oh my God, Peter!” He’s still grinning. He looks at his watch. “It’s midnight. Happy birthday, Lara Jean.” I leap up and hug him. “This is just exactly what I wanted to do on my prom night birthday and I didn’t even know it.” Then I let go of him and run over to the booth. Everyone gets out and hugs me. “I didn’t even know people knew it was my birthday tomorrow! I mean today!” I say. “Of course we knew it was your birthday,” Lucas says. Darrell says, “My boy’s been planning this for weeks.” “It was so endearing,” Pammy says. “We called me to ask what kind of pan he should use for the cake.” Chris says, “He called me, too. I was like, how the hell should I know?” “And you!” I hit Chris on the arm. “I thought you were leaving to go clubbing!” “I still might after I steal some fries. My night’s just getting started, babe.” She pulls me in for a hug and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “Happy birthday, girl.” I turn to Peter and say, “I can’t believe you did this.” “I baked that cake myself,” he brags. “Box, but still.” He takes off his jacket and pulls a lighter out of his jacket pocket and starts lighting the candles. Gabe pulls out a lit candle and helps him. Then Peter hops his butt on the table and sits down, his legs hanging off the edge. “Come on.” I look around. “Um…” That’s when I hear the opening notes of “If You Were Here” by the Thompson Twins. My hands fly to my cheeks. I can’t believe it. Peter’s recreating the end scene from Sixteen Candles, when Molly Ringwald and Jake Ryan sit on a table with a birthday cake in between them. When we watched the movie a few months ago, I said it was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen. And now he’s doing it for me.

So which theory did Lagos believe in? The relativist or the universalist?" "He did not seem to think there was much of a difference. In the end, they are both somewhat mystical. Lagos believed that both schools of thought had essentially arrived at the same place by different lines of reasoning." "But it seems to me there is a key difference," Hiro says. "The universalists think that we are determined by the prepatterned structure of our brains -- the pathways in the cortex. The relativists don't believe that we have any limits." "Lagos modified the strict Chomskyan theory by supposing that learning a language is like blowing code into PROMs -- an analogy that I cannot interpret." "The analogy is clear. PROMs are Programmable Read-Only Memory chips," Hiro says. "When they come from the factory, they have no content. Once and only once, you can place information into those chips and then freeze it -- the information, the software, becomes frozen into the chip -- it transmutes into hardware. After you have blown the code into the PROMs, you can read it out, but you can't write to them anymore. So Lagos was trying to say that the newborn human brain has no structure -- as the relativists would have it -- and that as the child learns a language, the developing brain structures itself accordingly, the language gets 'blown into the hardware and becomes a permanent part of the brain's deep structure -- as the universalists would have it." "Yes. This was his interpretation." "Okay. So when he talked about Enki being a real person with magical powers, what he meant was that Enki somehow understood the connection between language and the brain, knew how to manipulate it. The same way that a hacker, knowing the secrets of a computer system, can write code to control it -- digital namshubs?" "Lagos said that Enki had the ability to ascend into the universe of language and see it before his eyes. Much as humans go into the Metaverse. That gave him power to create nam-shubs. And nam-shubs had the power to alter the functioning of the brain and of the body." "Why isn't anyone doing this kind of thing nowadays? Why aren't there any namshubs in English?" "Not all languages are the same, as Steiner points out. Some languages are better at metaphor than others. Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Chinese lend themselves to word play and have achieved a lasting grip on reality: Palestine had Qiryat Sefer, the 'City of the Letter,' and Syria had Byblos, the 'Town of the Book.' By contrast other civilizations seem 'speechless' or at least, as may have been the case in Egypt, not entirely cognizant of the creative and transformational powers of language. Lagos believed that Sumerian was an extraordinarily powerful language -- at least it was in Sumer five thousand years ago." "A language that lent itself to Enki's neurolinguistic hacking." "Early linguists, as well as the Kabbalists, believed in a fictional language called the tongue of Eden, the language of Adam. It enabled all men to understand each other, to communicate without misunderstanding. It was the language of the Logos, the moment when God created the world by speaking a word. In the tongue of Eden, naming a thing was the same as creating it. To quote Steiner again, 'Our speech interposes itself between apprehension and truth like a dusty pane or warped mirror. The tongue of Eden was like a flawless glass; a light of total understanding streamed through it. Thus Babel was a second Fall.' And Isaac the Blind, an early Kabbalist, said that, to quote Gershom Scholem's translation, 'The speech of men is connected with divine speech and all language whether heavenly or human derives from one source: the Divine Name.' The practical Kabbalists, the sorcerers, bore the title Ba'al Shem, meaning 'master of the divine name.'" "The machine language of the world," Hiro says.