Puffin Quotes

There are unexpected opportunities in the lives of all of us, that can occur only when we are free from cultural barriers, mental superstructures, and stereotypes.

Nora had always had a problem accepting herself. From as far back as she could remember, she'd had the sense that she wasn't enough. Her parents who both had their own insecurities, had encouraged that idea. She imagined, now, what it would be like to accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she hadn't reached or pain she had felt. Every lust or longing she had suppressed. She imagined accepting it all. The way she accepted nature. The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale. She imagined seeing herself as just another brilliant freak of nature. Just another sentient animal, trying her best. And in doing so, she imagined what it was like to be free.

Perhaps one day, all these conflicts will end, and it won't be because of great statesmen or churches or organisations like this one. It'll be because people have changed. They'll be like you, Puffin. More a mixture. So why not become a mongrel? It's healthy.

She imagined, now, what it would be like to accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she hadn’t reached or pain she had felt. Every lust or longing she had suppressed. She imagined accepting it all. The way she accepted nature. The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale. She imagined seeing herself as just another brilliant freak of nature. Just another sentient animal, trying their best. And in doing so, she imagined what it was like to be free.

You can't trust just any old person who comes along with a hundred puffins and a pretty face!

Puffin the cat follows us for a while, with Finn shooing at her, which only makes her longing to join us more intense.

All money is imaginary," answered the Calcatrix simply. "Money is magic everyone agrees to pretend is not magic. Observe! You treat it like magic, wield it like magic, fear it like magic! Why should a body with more small circles of copper or silver or gold than anyone else have an easy life full of treats every day and sleeping in and other people bowing down? The little circles can't get up and fight a battle or make a supper so splendid you get full just by looking at it or build a house of a thousand gables. They can do those things because everyone agrees to give them power. If everyone agreed to stop giving power to pretty metals and started giving it to thumbnails or mushroom caps or roof shingles or first kisses or tears or hours or puffin feathers, those little circles would just lay there tarnishing in the rain and not making anyone bow their noses down to the ground or stick them up in the air.

Puffin is over seventy years old.

To Squanto, as to all Native Americans, the land did not belong to the people, people belonged to the land.

What are you doing in there, Camicazi? I told you to escape! And how did you know this was my sand yacht?" "You wrote 'The Hopeful Puffin 2' on the back of it," explained the basket, adding hastily, "and I don't know what you're talking about. I've never heard of this Cami-whatsit.

While overseeing tonight’s dinner party, I finally found myself in the presence of Mr. Edwards’s famed wit when he asked me whether I had visited the zoo to see the puffins. Somehow Miss Wyndham was the one forced to leave the house.

So, you never can tell what will happen when you learn to play the harmonica.

Well. I don't know how helpful that was." Adam said, "We found out German Beauty Homers look like bloody puffins.

The climate warmed. Wild grasses, flowers and trees took root in the land behind the huge rock. In time, their growing and dying made deep rich loam on which a magnificent forest grew. Into the forest came bear, deer, brightly colored birds, and the Pawtuxets, a tribe of the Wampanoag, The People of the Dawn.

Children can be so cruel,’ the Doctor said. ‘Children’s writers can be even worse.

I saw a Puffin In the Bay of Baffin Sittin on Nuffin And it was Laffin.

When the birds were trilling and the leaves were swelling, an Indian came striding into Plymouth. Tall, almost naked, and very handsome, he raised his hand in friendship. “Welcome, Englishmen,” said Samoset, Massasoit’s ambassador. The Pilgrims murmured in astonishment. The “savage” spoke English. He was friendly and dignified. They greeted him warmly, but cautiously. Samoset departed and returned a week later with Massasoit and Squanto. For the next few days, in a house still under construction, Squanto interpreted while Governor Carver and Massasoit worded a peace treaty that would last more than fifty years. After the agreement, Massasoit went back to his home in Rhode Island, but Squanto stayed on at Plymouth. The wandering Pawtuxet had at last come home.

Ah, yes,’ said the Doctor, ‘because 2007 has none of those things.

Tell me what you are looking at right now.” Malory smacked his lips — he was really the absolute worst human to speak to on the telephone — and considered. “I’m looking at, what does this seem to be? West of England Tumbler, I should think. Yes. Lovely example. You should see his muffs. Right next to him is a dreadful little Thuringen Field Pigeon. I’ve never had them but I’m quite certain they aren’t meant to have that hideous stallion neck. I have no idea what this one is. Let’s read the card. Anatolian Ringbeater. Of course. Oh, and here’s a German Beauty Homer.” “Oh, those are my favorite,” Gansey said. “I am a fan of a good German Beauty Homer.” “Gansey, don’t make light,” Malory said sternly. “Those things look like bloody puffins.” Adam’s body shook in silent convulsions of laughter. Gansey took a moment to catch his breath before asking, “And what’s that sound in the background?” “Let me take a gander,” Malory replied. There was a crackling sound, and then his voice, rather louder than before, said, “They’re auctioning off some birds.” “What sort? Please tell me German Beauty Homers.

A cute puppy, everybody loved him, everybody fed him, and then it grew up. What is it now? Well! just a dog!! ;) P.S True story!!! It lost its hair and nobody even recognizes it. Whiskey!! whiskey !!.... and he used to come running, huffin and puffin!! And now all the love is gone!!

People are eating our oceans to death. No fish is safe. What most people don't realize, however, is that meat-eating also greatly diminishes the oceans, because 40% of the fish taken from the sea is fed to pigs, chickens, cowls, domestic cats, and farm-raised fish. In fact, pigs are eating more fish than sharks, chickens are eating more fish than puffins, and cats are eating more fish than seals. So really, when you eat bacon, you're eating the sea.

No; never repeat that foolish gossip, and forget it as soon as you can.

Puffin made a noise that sounded rather like "Fudge!

Lockley would've hugged him if it weren't physically impossible for a puffin and a walrus to embrace.

When I was a kid, I just read and read. We were lucky enough to have gone to England and had a whole bunch of Penguin Puffins books, like The Land of Green Ginger by Noel Langley, which is hilarious. I would love to be able to write a book like that, but I don't know that I have a humorous bone in my body when it comes to writing. Once on a Time by A.A. Milne. I read a lot of old, old fantasy stuff. The Carbonelbooks by Barbara Sleigh. Then when I got a little older I loved Zilpha Keatley Snyder. I was a big fan of romance and when I got a little bit older I would read a Harlequin romance or a Georgette Heyer novel and then David Copperfield, and then another genre book and then Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy. I was that kind of reader. One book that I loved was I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. I loved voice and that book had it in spades. And then of course I grew into loving Jane Eyre.

Neither the Pilgrims nor the Indians new what they had begun. The Pilgrims called the celebration a Harvest Feast. The Indians thought of it as a Green Corn Dance. It was both and more than both. It was the first Thanksgiving. In the years that followed, President George Washington issued the first national Thanksgiving proclamation, and President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November a holiday of “thanksgiving and praise.” Today it is still a harvest festival and Green Corn Dance. Families feast with friends, give thanks and play games. Plymouth Rock did not fare as well. It has been cut in half, moved twice, dropped, split and trimmed to fit its present-day portico. It is a mere memento of its once magnificent self. Yet to Americans, Plymouth Rock is a symbol. It is larger than the mountains, wider than the prairies and stronger than all our rivers. It is the rock on which our nation began.

Seals, porpoises, dolphins, barnacle geese, puffins, and beavers are all classed as fish as their lives begin in the sea or in a river. Hence they are eaten gleefully, even on nonmeat days.

Potser algun dia tots aquests conflictes s'acabaran, i no serà pas gràcies a cap gran estadista o a cap església o a cap institució com aquesta. Serà perquè la gent haurà canviat. Seran com tu, Puffin: una barreja. ¿Per què no ho hem de voler ser, mestissos? És una cosa saludable.

I'm not lying, I was a killer Helen Burns. I stepped out on to that stage like I was the Great Esquimaux Curlew. When Jane Eyre came to look at my book-- which happened to be Our Town -- I handed it to her just right. When Miss Scatchard told me I never cleaned my nails, I was about as quiet and innocent as a Large-Billed Puffin. When she hit me a dozen times with a bunch of twigs, I was the Brown Pelican: I didn't bat an eye -- and you try getting hit a dozen times with a bunch of twigs. And when I had to die, people were crying. Really. And you know why? Because I was the Black-Backed Gull, and so people cried like Helen Burns was their best friend.

I was surprised because, like I said, he tends to ask the more skate-under-the-radar questions. The ones other people miss.

That’s what I like about you,” Michael remarked. “Your finely honed sense of deviousness.

Meg slipped the note into her pocket, as a sort of talisman against envy, vanity, and false pride; for the few loving words had done her good, and the flowers cheered her up by their beauty.

I can’t decide that for you. But it’s something to think about.” So I thought about it. I thought about it so much that night that I only got a couple hours of sleep and I was super tired in all my classes the next day. But here’s the problem: I thought about it. I thought about how I have a problem with thinking too much. Leave it to me to think I can solve a thinking problem by thinking.

. . .He conjures up the lemon groves of slumbrous Málaga, his lament carries hints of sea salt. Like Homer he sang blind. His voice had something of sea without light. . ." (. . .Evoca los limonares de Málaga la dormida, y hay en su llanto dejos de sal marina. Como Homero, cantó ciego. Su voz tenía algo de mar sin luz. . ." -- Federico García Lorca, Selected Poems (Puffin Modern Classics)

Puffin is over seventy years old. Sounds ancient, doesn’t it? But Puffin has never been so lively. We’re always on the lookout for the next big idea, which is how it began all those years ago. Penguin Books was a big idea from the mind of a man called Allen Lane, who in 1935 invented the quality paperback and changed the world. And from great Penguins, great Puffins grew, changing the face of children’s books forever. The first four Puffin Picture Books were hatched in 1940 and the first Puffin story book featured a man with broomstick arms called Worzel Gummidge. In 1967 Kaye Webb, Puffin Editor, started the Puffin Club, promising to ‘make children into readers’. She kept that promise and over 200,000 children became devoted Puffineers through their quarterly instalments of Puffin Post.

Miss Mapp had experienced a cruel disappointment last night, though the triumph of this morning had done something to soothe it, for Major Benjy's window had certainly been lit up to a very late hour, and so it was clear that he had not been able, twice in succession, to tear himself away from his diaries, or whatever else detained him, and go to bed at a proper time. Captain Puffin, however, had not sat up late; indeed he must have gone to bed quite unusually early, for his window was dark by half-past nine. To-night, again the position was reversed, and it seemed that Major Benjy was "good" and Captain Puffin was "bad". On the whole, then, there was cause for thankfulness, and as she added a tin of biscuits and two jars of Bovril to her prudent stores, she found herself a conscious sceptic about those Roman roads. Diaries (perhaps) were a little different, for egoism was a more potent force than archæology, and for her part she now definitely believed that Roman roads spelt some form of drink. She was sorry to believe it, but it was her duty to believe something of the kind, and she really did not know what else to believe. She did not go so far as mentally to accuse him of drunkenness, but considering the way he absorbed red-currant fool, it was clear that he was no foe to alcohol and probably watered the Roman roads with it.

So she went on. “You hear the word, and you know what it means in a purely intellectual sense. But you don’t really know what people mean when they say it. You don’t know how they feel. You watch people have fun and it’s like listening to a conversation in a foreign language.” I realized as she spoke that my mouth was open. Thank goodness there was no meatball sub in there at the moment. “How did you know all that?” I asked. “I was an intellectually gifted child myself.

When the crops were thriving, Squanto took the men to the open forests where the turkey dwelled. He pointed out the nuts, seeds, and insects that the iridescent birds fed upon. He showed them the leaf nests of the squirrels and the hideouts of the skunks and raccoons. Walking silently along bear trails, he took them to the blueberry patches. He told them that deer moved about at sundown and sunrise. He took them inland to valleys where the deer congregated in winter and were easy to harvest. He walked the Pilgrims freely over the land. To Squanto, as to all Native Americans, the land did not belong to the people, people belonged to the land. He took the children into the meadows to pick wild strawberries. He showed them how to dig up the sweet roots of the wild Jerusalem artichoke. In mid-summer he led them to cranberry bogs and gooseberry patches. Together they gathered chestnuts, hickory nuts, walnuts, and hazelnuts in September. He paddled the boys into the harbor in his dugout canoe to set lobster pots made of reeds and sinew. While they waited to lift their pots, he taught them the creatures of the tidal pools.

I felt my way up the cliffs to the south until I found a patch of machair a few yards long and a few wide, where I pitched my tent and settled to sleep. The stars stood sharp above. It felt odd to be on rock again, not sea, to think of the ground on which I lay extending down to the floor of the Minch. Lying there, I could still feel the day at sea, blood and water slopping about in my bag of skin, the tidal churn of my liquid body, a roll and sway in the skull. My mind beat back north against the current, thinking of the puffins' flight, the lines we leave behind us, the spacious weave, our wake, then sleep.

Weak and trembling from passion, Major Flint found that after a few tottering steps in the direction of Tilling he would be totally unable to get there unless fortified by some strong stimulant, and turned back to the club-house to obtain it. He always went dead-lame when beaten at golf, while Captain Puffin was lame in any circumstances, and the two, no longer on speaking terms, hobbled into the club-house, one after the other, each unconscious of the other's presence. Summoning his last remaining strength Major Flint roared for whisky, and was told that, according to regulation, he could not be served until six. There was lemonade and stone ginger-beer. You might as well have offered a man-eating tiger bread and milk. Even the threat that he would instantly resign his membership unless provided with drink produced no effect on a polite steward, and he sat down to recover as best he might with an old volume of Punch. This seemed to do him little good. His forced abstemiousness was rendered the more intolerable by the fact that Captain Puffin, hobbling in immediately afterwards, fetched from his locker a large flask of the required elixir, and proceeded to mix himself a long, strong tumblerful. After the Major's rudeness in the matter of the half-crown, it was impossible for any sailor of spirit to take the first step towards reconciliation. Thirst is a great leveller. By the time the refreshed Puffin had penetrated half-way down his glass, the Major found it impossible to be proud and proper any longer. He hated saying he was sorry (no man more) and he wouldn't have been sorry if he had been able to get a drink. He twirled his moustache a great many times and cleared his throat--it wanted more than that to clear it--and capitulated. "Upon my word, Puffin, I'm ashamed of myself for--ha!--for not taking my defeat better," he said. "A man's no business to let a game ruffle him." Puffin gave his alto cackling laugh. "Oh, that's all right, Major," he said. "I know it's awfully hard to lose like a gentleman." He let this sink in, then added: "Have a drink, old chap?" Major Flint flew to his feet. "Well, thank ye, thank ye," he said. "Now where's that soda water you offered me just now?" he shouted to the steward. The speed and completeness of the reconciliation was in no way remarkable, for when two men quarrel whenever they meet, it follows that they make it up again with corresponding frequency, else there could be no fresh quarrels at all. This one had been a shade more acute than most, and the drop into amity again was a shade more precipitous.

At the time I’m sure I would have sworn I was handling all this beautifully, but for a beautiful handler there sure were a lot of things I couldn’t bring myself to say. “I knew what you meant,” Gabriel said. That might have been the beginning of a pattern I had with him. I would say something, then clarify the something, only to learn that he’d understood perfectly all along. Probably because I was so used to saying things that hit other people like a complex alien language.

Then I started thinking about what would happen if the mama bird never came back. What if something happened to her? What would the babies do? Were they even old enough to survive on their own? After a minute I realized I was crying, which was utterly weird, because I never did. Maybe when I was a baby-baby, but even when I was a toddler, I just never cried. But that day I did, and over some baby birds I couldn’t even see. Except it wasn’t really about the birds. Any idiot could figure that out.

I think it would be no bad thing if boys like you all grew up with a bit of everything. We might all treat each other a good deal better then. Be less of these wars for one thing. Oh yes. Perhaps one day, all these conflicts will end, and it won’t be because of great statesmen or churches or organisations like this one. It’ll be because people have changed. They’ll be like you, Puffin. More a mixture. So why not become a mongrel? It’s healthy.” “But if I did, everything might . . .” I stopped. “Everything might what, Puffin?” “Like that blind there”—I pointed—“if the twine broke. Everything might scatter.” Uncle Philip stared at the blind I had indicated. Then he rose, went to the window and touched it gently. “Everything might scatter. You might be right. I suppose it’s something we can’t easily get away from. People need to feel they belong. To a nation, to a race. Otherwise, who knows what might happen? This civilisation of ours, perhaps it’ll just collapse. And everything scatter, as you put it.” He sighed, as though I had just defeated him in an argument.

when the writing fit came on, she gave herself up to it with entire abandon, and led a blissful life, unconscious of want, care, or bad weather, while she sat safe and happy in an imaginary world, full of friends almost as real and dear to her as any in the flesh. Sleep forsook her eyes, meals stood untasted, day and night were all too short to enjoy the happiness which blessed her only at such times, and made these hours worth living, even if they bore no other fruit. The divine afflatus usually lasted a week or two, and then she emerged from her "vortex", hungry, sleepy, cross, or despondent.

I figure, we used to be part of our mother’s body. I mean, we did. I don’t just figure we did. That part is a given, but this next part is what I figure. She breathed for us, and pumped blood through us. And there’s only one person in the entire world we can say that about. So we’re less separate from our mothers than anybody else on the planet. We’re not literally one body with them anymore, but I think we carry this really instinctive subconscious memory of the time when we were. Until we could breathe on our own there was no surviving without her. And even when we came out into the world we would have died without her care. Actually somebody else could have cared for us at that point, but we didn’t know it. We just knew she did. So when we lose our mother, it’s different. It’s just different from any other loss. And it isn’t all about what a great relationship it was. It isn’t necessarily a loss of all these wonderful things you shared. It’s not only with the best mother-child bonds. It’s all of them. If it was great, you miss that. If it was troublesome, you suddenly realize the door has been slammed on it ever being any better way. So no matter what it was, it’s really hard to lose. Anyway, that’s my observation from watching both my parents lose their mothers.

Still, the alien biologist might be excused for lumping together the whole biosphere - all the retroviruses, mantas, foraminifera, mongongo trees, tetanus bacilli, hydras, diatoms, stromatolite-builders, sea slugs, flatworms, gazelles lichens, corals, spirochetes, banyans, cave ticks, least bitters, caracaras, tufted puffins, ragweed pollen, wold spiders, horseshoe crabs, black mambas, monarch butterflies, whiptail lizards, trypanosomes, birds of paradise, electric eels, wild parsnips, arctic terns, fireflies, titis, chrysanthemums, hammerhead sharks, rotifers, wallabies, malarial plasmodia, tapirs, aphids, water moccasins, morning glories, whooping cranes, komodo dragons, periwinkles millipede larvae, angler fish, jellyfish lungfish, yeast, giant redwoods, tardigrades, archaebacteria, sea lilies, lilies of the valley, humans bonobos, squid and humpback whales - as, simply, Earthlife. The arcane distinctions among these swarming variations on a common theme may be left to specialists or graduate students. The pretensions and conceits of this or that species can readily be ignored. There are, after-all, so many worlds about which an extraterrestrial biologist must know. It will be enough if a few salient and generic characteristics of life on yet another obscure planet are noted for the cavernous recesses of the galactic archives.

Why do you wear eye makeup?” I asked. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked, but I was just curious. I hoped I hadn’t sounded like I was judging. I was just curious. “It’s just me. It’s who I am. It makes me feel more like myself. You know? Why? Does it bother you?” “No, not at all. Why would it bother me? I was just curious because you weren’t wearing any before. You know. At lunch.” “My mom told me I couldn’t.” “Oh. She thought I would care?” “I think she thought your mother might mind. And we really need to rent out that room. We need the money.” “Oh. That must be weird to have somebody tell you not to do a thing that makes you feel like yourself.” “It is,” he said. “It’s also the story of my life.

you can't believe how hard it is to make a puffin not look like a chump

The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale. She imagined seeing herself as just another brilliant freak of nature. Just another sentient animal, trying their best. And in doing so, she imagined what it was like to be free.

It’s going to be a lot,” I warn. “I’m not exaggerating or puffin’ out my chest. I’m vowin’ that I’m about to beat this ass up, baby boy. You’re gonna feel so fuckin’ good, I won’t be able to stop pumpin’ until you’re milking the cum straight out of my balls.

She imagined accepting it all. The way she accepted nature. The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale. She imagined seeing herself as just another brilliant freak of nature. Just another sentient animal, trying their best. And in doing so, she imagined what it was like to be free.

I want that puffin,” and behold the puffin-hunting Norwegian lundehund, double and triple jointed, able to touch its nose to the base of its tail so as to climb

Now the ivory towers will be 'visitor centres' visited mostly during the long winters by sea-birds — cormorant, puffin, kittiwake — and their quartz lenses' own impersonal stroke while automatically their hard gem-like flames circulating at night unseen in empty rooms preside over global warming and polar melt-down, over Bill Long's Marie-Celeste effect and 'sonar-singing dark'.

They always say you can’t change the people around you. I think they must mean you can’t change really deep things about their nature, and you can’t make them change in just the ways you want them to change. But it seems to me you can’t help but change the people you come in contact with. It might be small changes, but their lives can’t possibly be just exactly what they were if you had never been there at all.

And I think the reason we got so brave and adventurous is because within every living soul is the instinct to live—really live—before you die.

Don't ever apologize for being who you are.

Party Manners IT WAS the Easter holiday. Barney and Lou were doing some painting in the dining-room

Manners IT WAS the Easter holiday. Barney and Lou were doing some painting in the dining-room

back

During lent, the only meat that the Catholic Church allows its followers to eat is salted fish. However, because people got very bored of fish at every supper for forty days, the church actually changed the definition of ‘fish’ to include puffins, beavers and turtles as they can all swim.

You say romantic, I say stalker,” Kerry grumbled to Fiona as they pushed their way into the Rusty Puffin. “Please,” Fiona retorted, adding an eye roll for good measure. She was a master of those. “Mr. Dead Sexy From Down Under, a hardworking, successful man you greatly admired, with a family you apparently adored, flies halfway around the world to propose to you? Take a poll. That’s off-the-charts romantic.” “Right,” Kerry said, turning toward her as the heavy door swung closed behind them. “And then I turned him down and he’s still here, hounding me. Stalker.” “I hardly think asking you to lunch--a lunch you said yes to, by the way--then hiring a sailboat to take you out on the bay could be considered hounding, much less stalking. That’s still firmly in the romantic category. I mean, if you really meant no, I’m sure he’d be on the next plane back to Oz.” Kerry stopped completely, fists on her hips now. “What makes you think I didn’t really mean no?” “Well, for one, you’re awfully worked up over the guy. In that she-doth-protest-too-much kind of way.

Kerry shifted her attention from Hardy to the rest of the still-milling crowd and tried to ignore the murmurs that included Cooper’s nickname for her and speculations on there being yet another McCrae family wedding. She needed to put an end to that before it even started. She clapped her hands, drawing everyone’s attention to her, then strode to the bar and hoisted herself right up on it, straight to her feet. She was no weakling herself. “Okay, listen up, everyone.” The noise abruptly wound down again, though not to the complete silence of before. “I’d like you to meet Cooper Jax, from Cameroo Downs cattle station, Northern Territory, Australia.” Heads swiveled and Cooper smiled, nodded several times, shifting his gaze around the room as he did, easily meeting everyone’s avidly curious gazes. But when that gaze went back to Kerry, despite the smile creasing his handsome face, the look in his eyes was anything but casual. Kerry ignored that. Or tried to. She shifted her attention back to the crowd. “I worked the Jax family’s station for close to a year, just before coming home for Logan’s wedding.” Blueberry Cove was small enough that everyone knew who Logan McCrae was. Not only due to his police chief status but, as it happened, the McCraes were also a founding family of the Cove. There wasn’t much the general populace didn’t know about the entire history of her family, past and present. “Long time for you,” came a voice from somewhere in the crowd. Kerry recognized the scratchy voice; Stokey Parker. A Rusty Puffin regular and one of Fergus’s cronies. “Heard tell you don’t stick in one place too long. Guess we know now what the draw was Down Under.” A chuckle went up in the crowd, and Kerry knew this wasn’t going as she’d planned. Not that she’d had much of a plan. “Thanks, Stokey. Australia is a beautiful country. I loved it there.” That much was sincere. All the same, she carefully kept from looking anywhere near Cooper’s direction. “But I’m home in the Cove now.” She expanded her gaze to encompass the full crowd again. “I appreciate that you’re all entertained by this…little surprise.” She swallowed hard and looked at Cooper as she added, “But there’s not going to be another McCrae wedding.

You say romantic, I say stalker,” Kerry grumbled to Fiona as they pushed their way into the Rusty Puffin. “Please,” Fiona retorted, adding an eye roll for good measure. She was a master of those. “Mr. Dead Sexy From Down Under, a hardworking, successful man you greatly admired, with a family you apparently adored, flies halfway around the world to propose to you? Take a poll. That’s off-the-charts romantic.” “Right,” Kerry said, turning toward her as the heavy door swung closed behind them. “And then I turned him down and he’s still here, hounding me. Stalker.” “I hardly think asking you to lunch--a lunch you said yes to, by the way--then hiring a sailboat to take you out on the bay could be considered hounding, much less stalking. That’s still firmly in the romantic category. I mean, if you really meant no, I’m sure he’d be on the next plane back to Oz.” Kerry stopped completely, fists on her hips now. “What makes you think I didn’t really mean no?” “Well, for one, you’re awfully worked up over the guy. In that she-doth-protest-too-much kind of way. And secondly, Logan said Cooper told him you two had agreed on him staying the full month he’d taken off from the cattle station, to give you both time to figure out if there was something worth pursuing together.” “He said that? To Logan?” At Fiona’s smug nod, Kerry’s eyebrows drew together. “What else did Cooper tell him? And how could you even know that? We left the docks together before Cooper came back. We didn’t talk to him again, or Logan.” Fiona turned her phone around so the screen faced Kerry. “It’s called texting. Maybe they don’t have that in Tanzania or on deserted South Pacific atolls, but here in America, we--” “Okay, okay,” Kerry said, waving her hands, still disgruntled. “It doesn’t matter. For the record, I said yes to lunch just to keep him from showing up every time my back is turned.” She sent a pointed look at her sister. “You know, like a stalker. I didn’t agree to an entire afternoon out on the bay with him.” “You didn’t agree to that lollapalooza of a kiss either. But that happens and suddenly he’s not on the next plane home. Just saying, Ms. Protests Too Much.” Kerry opened her mouth, then closed it again, then folded her arms across her chest. “I never should have told you about that.” Fiona grinned. “I know.

What I know intellectually doesn’t change how I feel emotionally.” She

Flint, Michigan. Detroit as seen backwards through a telescope. The callus on the palm of the state shaped like a welder's mitt. A town where 66.5 percent of the working citizenship are in some way, shape or form linked to the shit-encrusted underbelly of a French buggy racer named Chevrolet and a floppy-eared Scotchman named Buick. A town where 23.5 percent of the population pimp everything from Elvis on velvet to horse tranquilizers to Halo Burgers to NRA bumper stickers. A town where the remaining 10 percent sit back and watch it all go by—sellin’ their blood, rollin’ convenience stores, puffin’ no-brand cigarettes while cursin’ their wives and kids and neighbors and the flies sneakin’ through the screens and the piss-warm quarts of Red White & Blue and the Skylark parked out back with the busted tranny.

You say romantic, I say stalker,” Kerry grumbled to Fiona as they pushed their way into the Rusty Puffin. “Please,” Fiona retorted, adding an eye roll for good measure. She was a master of those. “Mr. Dead Sexy From Down Under, a hardworking, successful man you greatly admired, with a family you apparently adored, flies halfway around the world to propose to you? Take a poll. That’s off-the-charts romantic.

all these wonderful things you shared. It’s not only with the best mother-child bonds. It’s all of them. If it was great, you miss that. If it was troublesome, you suddenly realize the door has been slammed on it ever being any better way. So no matter what it was, it’s really hard to lose. Anyway, that’s my observation from watching both my parents lose their mothers.” “It’s a good observation,” I said.

I closed the door, flung the precious scarf around my eyes, and fell facedown on the bed again. My only real commitment to comfort was to turn my head slightly so I could breathe. And that was the way I stayed until morning.

So just let him think what he wants?” “I think so,” I said. “Yeah. I’m a big fan of letting people think what they want. It saves tons of time and aggravation, and it seems to make them happy.

eidetic

panacea for that. I guess I let them oversell it to me. I thought I’d be all tingly with educational stimulation and excitement because I was finally in an environment where the learning was happening at my level.

Had we ever meant to be this adventurous? Was it really the plan to travel someplace so close to uninhabitable that we could die simply by being exposed to it?

That was when I realized that kids were one thing and I was something else. Everyone else started catching on soon after.

I think in truth I was crying because I realized I was no longer a child. I was an adult with a job. I had no mommy to go home to even if I’d wanted to. Even though I had Gabriel, he was busy busing tables and washing dishes. I was alone the way everyone is alone when they die, even if they’re surrounded by family and friends. I was in a place in my life where I had to function as an adult and no one could help me.

It was clean, though. Painfully, obsessively clean. The kind of clean that seems to indicate mental issues on the part of the cleaner.

It’s funny how bleak the world looks on an empty stomach, and how benign that same view can appear after a big meal.

I think when God wants to torment you he gives you extra brain, and when he wants to bless you he gives you extra heart.

Again, not like the silly sort of magic that doesn’t exist, but like the kind of everyday magic the universe is so famous for. I mean, if you’re really paying attention.

homelessness is addictive, because nobody expects anything of you. You have no appointments. No responsibilities. I didn’t understand that at all.

No,” said Polly dubiously. “The vet told me not to give him one.” “You can’t just call him ‘the puffin.’ What about Pete?” “Peter Puffin?” said Polly. “Not sure. Sounds a bit like a newsreader. What about Muffin?” “MUFFIN?” said Tarnie. “I can’t believe you’d inflict that on the poor thing. All the other birds will laugh their heads off at him.” “Or think it’s cool,” said Polly. “Having an actual name, instead of ‘Puffin nine million and seventy-two.’” “Ha, you could call him Stud,” said Tarnie. “Stud Puffin, get it?

Nora had always had a problem accepting herself. From as far back as she could remember, she'd had the sense that she wasn't enough. Her parents, who both had their own insecurities, had encouraged the idea. She imagined, now, what it would be like to accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she hadn't reached or pain she had felt. Every lust or longing she had suppressed. She imagined accepting it all. The way she accepted nature. The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale. She imagined seeing herself as just another brilliant freak of nature. Just another sentient animal, trying their best. And in doing so, she imagined what it was like to be free.

She imagined, now, what it would be like to accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she hadn't reached or pain she had felt. Every lust or longing she had suppressed. She imaged accepting it all. The way she accepted nature. The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale.

She imagined, now, what it would be like to accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she hadn't reached or pain she had felt. Every lust or longing she had suppressed. She imagined accepting it all. The way she accepted nature. The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale. She imagined seeing herself as just another brilliant freak of nature. Just another sentient animal, trying their best. And in doing so, she imagined what it was like to be free.

I eye that lady's shiny car through the window -- there's no way she knows what we need better than we do.

She imagined, now, what it would be like to accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she hadn’t reached or pain she had felt. Every lust or longing she had suppressed. She imagined accepting it all. The way she accepted nature. The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale.

Nora had always had a problem accepting herself. From as far back as she could remember, she’d had the sense that she wasn’t enough. Her parents, who both had their own insecurities, had encouraged that idea. She imagined, now, what it would be like to accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she hadn’t reached or pain she had felt. Every lust or longing she had suppressed. She imagined accepting it all. The way she accepted nature. The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale. She imagined seeing herself as just another brilliant freak of nature. Just another sentient animal, trying their best. And in doing so, she imagined what it was like to be free.

He had a colorful beak and a heart full of wonder.

There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth.

Also in Puffin by Sudha Murty How I Taught My Grandmother to Read and Other Stories The Magic Drum and Other Favourite Stories The Bird with Golden Wings Grandma’s Bag of Stories The Magic of the Lost Temple The Serpent’s Revenge: Unusual Tales from the Mahabharata The Man from the Egg: Unusual Tales about the Trinity The Upside-Down King: Unusual Tales about Rama and Krishna The Daughter from a Wishing Tree: Unusual Tales about Women in Mythology How the Onion Got Its Layers

Also in Puffin by Sudha Murty How I Taught My Grandmother to Read and Other Stories The Magic Drum and Other Favourite Stories The Bird with Golden Wings Grandma’s Bag of Stories The Magic of the Lost Temple The Serpent’s Revenge: Unusual Tales from the Mahabharata The Man from the Egg: Unusual Tales about the Trinity The Upside-Down King: Unusual Tales about Rama and Krishna The Daughter from a Wishing Tree: Unusual Tales about Women in Mythology How the Onion Got Its Layers How the Sea Became Salty How the Earth Got Its Beauty

She imagined, now, what it would be like to accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she hadn’t reached or pain she had felt. Every lust or longing she had suppressed. She imagined accepting it all. The way she accepted nature. The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale. She imagined seeing herself as just another brilliant freak of nature. Just another sentient animal, trying their best. And in doing so, she imagined what it was like to be free.

I was a bit of a loner, not because I wanted to be. I was just like that. Books became friends to me.

I'm not saying nothing, excepting to say it were done because it were needed to be done. There were lives needed saving. And there's an end to it. Lie isn't about medals. Now off you go, and leave me be. I got my lighthouse to look after.' And he just turned and walked away.

But sometimes even the brightest light on a lighthouse cannot save a ship.

She imagined, now, what it would be like to accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she hadn´t reached or pain she had felt. Every lust or longing she had suppresed. She imagined accepting it all. The way she accepted nature. The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale.

Then he began to feel frightened at the immensity of it all and his own littleness and at last he was glad to roll over and come to earth and watch the cosy flame-light playing about the faces of his brother outlaws.

a very English smell, nettles, elder, grass and rubbish.

it is possible, nay probable, that some wandering lovers spied that apparition rushing by, as they lingered in each other’s fond embrace among the honeysuckle.

The trees seemed to pray for rain; the little horse ponds outside the Chase shrank until only flaked and cracked hollows, like empty dishes, rewarded the maddened cows when they came to drink.

It seems to me this idea of going to school and then into business isn’t the natural way for a man to live, at least to my way of thinking. Don’t you see what most people are missing? Something which is fine and grand. Living like we do, I mean out in the open air. They’re getting farther and farther away from the natural life, nature and all that; they’re creating a world which is … Oh, I don’t know … I can’t jaw properly … but you know what I mean.