Pushy Quotes

Listen, I'm bossy. I can't help it. It's who I am and what I do. I'm pushy and I like to take over. But I'm going to work really hard not to do so much and your going to try and accept me the way I am. Flaws and all. Because I'm good in bed and I can carry heavy things and reach all the high shelves.

Optimism is the first cousin of love, and it's exactly like love in three ways: it's pushy, it has no real sense of humour, and it turns up where you least expect it.

I don’t remember Romeo being this pushy with Juliet!”.....He arched his eyebrows meaningfully. “And look at how that worked out for them. My way is better—less death, more orgasms.

But it feels good to love a thing and not expect anything back. It feels good to not get an argument or any pushiness or any rumors or any bullshit. It's love without strings. It's ideal.

She managed a smile. "You're kind of pushy, you know." He shrugged. "I have a fetish for damsels in distress." "Don't be sexist." "Not at all. My services are also available to gentlemen in distress. It's an equal opportunity fetish," he said, and with a flourish, offered his arm again.

And she was good to me: strong, fun, and fiercely loyal. And if I didn't have many other friends because of her-most girls were intimidated by her looks, or thought she was too pushy, or just flat-out feared for their boyfriends-it never bothered me. I never missed having a wide, thick circle of girlfriends: Rina was more than enough. We were comfortable with each other's flaws and weaknesses, so we stuck together and kept to ourselves.

My, my, aren’t we pushy . . .

I SWEAR SOMETIMES it feels like God be flashing photos of his children, awkward, amazing, tucked in his wallet for the world to see. But the world don't wanna see no kids, and God ain't no pushy parent so he just folds and snaps us shut.

Rowan wriggled his fingers in silent reminder. Shall we? Aelin scowled and took his hand, letting him haul her to her feet. So pushy. Rowan slid an arm around her shoulders. That’s the most polite thing you’ve ever said about me.

She's getting pushy and borderline bratty. We need to have a talk with her about that." "Huh?" "That's almost topping from the bottom." Seth closed his eyes and quietly swore. "I have no idea what the fuck you just said.

Americans are pushy, obnoxious, neurotic, crass - anything and everything - the full catastrophe as our friend Zorba might say. Canadians are none of that. The way you might fear a cow sitting down in the middle of the street during rush hour, that's how I fear Canadians. To Canadians, everyone is equal. Joni Mitchell is interchangeable with a secretary at open-mic night. Frank Gehry is no greater than a hack pumping out McMansions on AutoCAD. John Candy is no funnier than Uncle Lou when he gets a couple of beers in him. No wonder the only Canadians anyone's ever heard of are the ones who have gotten the hell out. Anyone with talent who stayed would be flattened under an avalanche of equality. The thing Canadians don't understand is that some people are extraordinary and should be treated as such.

Do you think heaven's like that? Could be worse, said Serge. You know all those pushy people who keep telling us we're not going to heaven? It could be full of them instead.

Pushiness is always at war with stubborness.

He was like the not-funny, not-adorable opposite of Clay, constantly hungry but in a pushy way instead of a sweetly embarrassed way.

That's one of the things that "queer" can refer to: the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone's gender, of anyone's sexuality aren't made (or can't be made) to signify monolithically. The experimental linguistic, epistemological, representational, political adventures attaching to the very many of us who may at times be moved to describe ourselves as (among many other possibilities) pushy femmes, radical faeries, fantasists, drags, clones, leatherfolk, ladies in tuxedos, feminist women or feminist men, masturbators, bulldaggers, divas, Snap! queens, butch bottoms, storytellers, transsexuals, aunties, wannabes, lesbian-identified men or lesbians who sleep with men, or ... people able to relish, learn from, or identify with such.

You get what you give," we will tell his sorry, selfish ass." The Betty Lady has spoken. I detect a Bronx accent. "But," I demur, "it will make the other woman say, ´See? She IS a jealous and paranoid and pushy wife.´" The Betty Lady rips open a cell phone statement with a nail file and, without looking up at me, says, "Let me tell you something, honey. In my experience? The only thing they care about is what they see in the mirror each morning and WINNING...or their perception of winning.

By the time you work your way down the hierarchy to a brunette, you got yourself a woman who knows who she is, likes it enough that she ain’t gonna change, and is probably gonna try to change you, if push comes to shove. Pushy, that’s what brunettes are. Even the dainty, fragile-looking ones.

Extraverts, in other words, often stumble over themselves. They can talk too much and listen too little, which dulls their understanding of others’ perspectives. They can fail to strike the proper balance between asserting and holding back, which can be read as pushy and drive people away.*

It’s probably a pretty safe bet to stay away from anyone who brags about their skills in bed. They are typically only well versed in their own pleasure and who wants a dude like that anyway? No mystery, no class, and almost always: all talk. The Talker is a Regular Guy with a marketing plan.

Let go!” I insisted. He ignored me. I staggered along sideways across the wet sidewalk until we reached the Volvo. Then he finally freed me – I stumbled against the passenger door. “You are so pushy!” I grumbled “It’s open,” was all he responded. He got in the driver’s side. “I am perfectly capable of driving myself home!” I stood by the car, fuming. It was raining harder now, and I’d never put my hood up, so my hair was dripping down my back. He lowered the automatic window and leaned toward me across the seat. “Get in, Bella.” I didn’t answer. I was mentally calculating my chances of reaching the truck before he could catch me. I had to admit it, they weren’t good. “I’ll just drag you back,” he threatened, guessing my plan.

The desire to be perfect holds us back in so many ways. We don't speak up for ourselves, as we know deep down we should, because we don't want to be seen as pushy, bitchy, or just straight-up unlikeable. When we do speak up, many of us agonize and overthink how to express ourselves, trying to hit just the right note of assertiveness without seeming too "bossy" or aggressive. We obsessively analyze, consider, discuss, and weigh every angle before making a decision, no matter how small. And if we do, heaven forbid, make a mistake, we feel as though our world is falling apart.

A self-confident person isn’t boastful or pushy but is secure with herself in a way that inspires confidence in others. She values herself regardless of her physical attributes or individual talents, understanding that honor and character are what really matter.

But the thing which had made him fall for her, fall properly, was the way she seemed so calm and so quiet and so sad. Surrounded by noisy bankers showing off, and their variously pushy or beady or anxious or competitive wives, she seemed to be from somewhere else; a place where people carried their own burdens; a grander and realer and more honourable place. Roger didn't know that Matya spent a lot of that evening thinking about home, but he could tell that she was thinking about something, and it was that other thing which, for him, did it.

Trust is weird,” my mother said. “People give it too easily, most of the time. Because somebody is attractive, they expect him to be good or honest. Or like pushy salesmen—somebody who carefully makes you feel like you’re emotionally obligated to trust them. Like you’re the rude one if you don’t. Trust is really something that needs to be earned. Hard earned. If somebody every says, ‘Don’t you trust me?’ Just say, “No, as a matter of fact.

We quickly learn that God is more interested in our holiness than in our comfort. He more greatly delights in the integrity and purity of his church than in the material well-being of its members. He shows himself more clearly to men and women who enjoy him and obey him than to men and women whose horizons revolve around good jobs, nice houses, and reasonable health. He is far more committed to building a corporate “temple” in which his Spirit dwells than he is in preserving our reputations. He is more vitally disposed to display his grace than to flatter our intelligence. He is more concerned for justice than for our ease. He is more deeply committed to stretching our faith than our popularity. He prefers that his people live in disciplined gratitude and holy joy rather than in pushy self-reliance and glitzy happiness. He wants us to pursue daily death, not self-fulfillment, for the latter leads to death, while the former leads to life. These essential values of the gospel must shape our praying, as they shape Paul’s. Indeed, they become the ground for our praying (“For this reason . . . I pray”): it is a wonderful comfort, a marvelous boost to faith, to know that you are praying in line with the declared will of almighty God.

I’m worried if I come too close, they’ll say I’m overstepping. They’ll say I’m pushy, or … emotional, you know. But if I back off, they might think I don’t care. I really, honestly believe I missed some rule that everyone else takes for granted; I must have been absent from school that day. There’s this narrow little dividing line I somehow never located.

Evelyn suspected there was never true equality in marriage. Someone always had stronger feelings, or held the purse strings, or was more persuasive, powerful, and pushy.

Proactive people aren’t pushy. They’re smart, they’re value driven, they read reality, and they know what’s needed. Look at Gandhi.

Pushy, that’s what brunettes are. Even the dainty, fragile-looking ones.

You like it when I'm pushy, you like it when I don't ask permission, and you like it when I run to you, because that means you can act on your attraction to me without feeling guilty.

Women are taught to work hard and to play by the rules. WE are taught to never overstep, to stay in our lane, to keep our head down, to go with the flow, to never be too loud or disagreeable. Not to be bossy. Not to be pushy. We are not encouraged to know our worth, let alone to demand it. We arent give the tools to fight for ourselves or taught to challenge authority.

From invisible girlhood, the Asian American woman will blossom into a fetish object. When she is at last visible—at last desired—she realizes much to her chagrin that this desire for her is treated like a perversion. This is most obvious in porn, where our murky desires are coldly isolated into categories in which white is the default and every other race is a sexual aberration. But the Asian woman is reminded every day that her attractiveness is a perversion, in instances ranging from skin-crawling Tinder messages (“I’d like to try my first Asian woman”) to microaggressions from white friends. I recall a white friend pointing out to me that Jewish men only dated Asian women because they wanted to find women who were the opposite of their pushy mothers. Implied in this tone-deaf complaint was her assumption that Asian women are docile and compliant. Well-meaning friends never failed to warn me, if a white guy was attracted to me, that he probably had an Asian fetish. The result: I distrusted my desirousness. My sexuality was a pathology. If anyone non-Asian liked me, there was something wrong with him.

I already said I overdid it. Don’t give me shit. I was nervous, and that party planner was wicked pushy. I told her kids were coming, and before I knew what happened, carnies were setting up.

Henry Kissinger How I'm missing yer You're the Doctor of my dreams With your crinkly hair and your glassy stare And your Machiavellian schemes I know they say that you are very vain And short and fat and pushy But at least you're not insane Henry Kissinger How I'm missing yer And wishing you were here Henry Kissinger How I'm missing yer You're so chubby and so neat With your funny clothes and your squishy nose You're like a German parakeet All right so people say that you don't care But you've got nicer legs than Hitler And bigger tits than Cher Henry Kissinger How I'm missing yer And wishing you were here

• Tell your left brain to zip it for a while. Your left brain can be a pushy character. When he’s telling you he thinks he knows best how to write this story, tell him to stow it for a bit, so his chatter doesn’t distract you from the offerings of your right brain. Your left brain will get his chance later.

She was a force to be reckoned with. She got what she wanted. Almost all the time. She was persuasive and kind of pushy—although, you never really realized you were being pushed. But she was opinionated and knew how to get her way.

Some people shy away from boldly claiming what they most wish for. Maybe they fear it'll make them look pushy. Or greedy. Or ungrateful for what they have. But when you keep your dreams hidden away, when you hide them under a sofa cushion, they never get the light they need to grow

I know.” He leaned in and brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “And you can try and pretend it’s okay. That you’re strong and tough and you don’t need anyone. That you didn’t need her. But that’s all bullshit. I know it, and you know it.” Savannah stared at Cole. “You’re so pushy. I told you my story. Why can’t you leave it alone?” “Have you ever dealt with it?” She’d spent so many years holding it all inside. “I’m here right now, aren’t I? I obviously dealt with my past.” “I’m not talking about surviving it. Yeah, you survived it. But you haven’t let go of it.” He rubbed her arm. “What she did to you mattered. It wasn’t fair.” He was wrong. She was fine. It didn’t matter. She had always shown everyone how strong she was. “Show me how you feel, Peaches.” Her bottom lip trembled. She got up, walked to the window to look outside, staring at the darkness, not really seeing anything but the years falling away, stripping away the cool, confident woman she was now, revealing the scared little girl she once was. She’d vowed to never go back to that place, to never revisit those feelings again, yet here she stood. Cole wrapped his arms around her. She stiffened. “It’s okay to be vulnerable, Savannah, to let someone see you scared.” “I’m not scared. Not anymore.

He’s had to put up with a lot from his folks over the years and it has hit him real hard. You need to give him time and forgive him if he gets too pushy. I see how he is around you, and I can tell that, to him, you’re different. I think if you both keep going with this relationship, you’re exactly the person who could break him altogether if things go wrong. Be patient with him, care for him, treasure him… He deserves it.

I know I am jealous. I know I am pushy. I know I take up all your time. I know I talk too much. I know I embarrass you just because your friends know I like you. I know you don't like me. I know I am "clingy". I know I sound desperate. I just want you to know that its only because I have a better chance of losing you than you have of losing me.

The parts of you that overpower me,” she says, “are the same parts that are so soft and affectionate and tender. That’s the attraction. The appeal. I love that I can let my guard down and relinquish control to a man who fires up my ass and takes care of me at the same time. You might be pushy as all hell, but I know if I tell you to stop, you will.

I need those little pushy things on the side!...BUTTONS!" -Julia

Anyone who feels himself predestined to observe and not to believe finds all those who believe too noisy and pushy: he fends them off.

toward the pushy kid who had talked his way in by calling the CEO. “I

Khai frowns, but he nods, accepting what I’ve said. He’s never pushy or nosy. He’s the best listener.

Being “too pushy” is paradoxically not a display of too much strength, but of weakness. What’s more impressive than ambition is the power to control it.

Mia isn’t always the easiest girl to please. He calls her ambitious and opinionated, but I’d describe her as pushy and always wanting something she doesn’t have.

Pushy bottom--that's a bit of a stereotype." "A Dom who isn't pushing--that's a bit of an oxymoron," Stunt challenged him.

Diversity training doesn’t solve the problem of women being perceived as “pushy” and unlikable if they dare to seek power; our legal system isn’t equipped to deal with the fact that Americans still prefer male bosses (and politicians). Sexual harassment is still rampant in our modern workplaces, and often HR departments are all but powerless to do anything to stop it.

They seem like a different race to me and I make sure never to get into disagreements with them, because any puny thing I say gets dashed on the rocks of their robust, shouty certainty.

Your sense of paralysis will be intensified if your family and friends are in the habit of pushing and cajoling you. Their nagging should statements reinforce the insulting thoughts already echoing through your head. Why is their pushy approach doomed to failure? It's a basic law of physics that for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. Any time you feel shoved, whether by someone's hand actually on your chest or by someone trying to boss you around, you will naturally tighten up and resist so as to maintain your equilibrium and balance. You will attempt to exert your self-control and preserve your dignity by refusing to do the thing that you are being pushed to do. The paradox is that you often end up hurting yourself.

Let’s face it, no one wants to be seen as a stereotypical salesperson who is pushy and untrustworthy. However, if you think about yourself as a doctor who diagnoses and then prescribes solutions to people’s problems, then I’m sure you’ll be much more comfortable selling under those circumstances—as a trusted, educated, knowledgeable, qualified, confident, capable advisor.

Watching Paris is Burning, I began to think that the many yuppie-looking, straight -acting, pushy, predominantly white folks in the audience were there because the film in no way interrogates “whiteness.” These folks left the film saying it was “amazing,” “marvellous,” incredibly funny,” worthy of statements like, “Didn’t you just love it?” And no, I didn’t love it. For in many ways the film was a graphic documentary portrait of the way in which colonized black people (in this case black gay brothers, some of whom were drag queens) worship at the throne of whiteness, even when such worship demands that we live in perpetual self-hate, steal, go hungry, and even die in its pursuit. The "we" evoked here is all of us, black people/people of color, who are daily bombarded by a powerful colonizing whiteness that seduces us away from ourselves, that negates that there is beauty to be found in any form of blackness that is not imitation whiteness.

Want to know who I am? Your responses indicate that you have a normal desire to share yourself with others. However, this need is not being adequately fulfilled at present. As a result, you unconsciously attempt to treat this emptiness with momentary interests and temporary passions. If left unaddressed, this imbalance leads to impulsive behavior and unnecessary risks. Past betrayals have left you generally suspicious of others’ behavior, particularly regarding romantic relationships. You fear you may be exploited if you open yourself too fully. Consequently, you often seek some proof of a new friend’s or lover’s sincerity before you decide to trust them. Further complicating your relationships is the anxiety you have about your unfulfilled personal and professional goals. You fear that you’ve made decisions that weren’t in your own best interest, or failed to take advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves. The desire to overcome these challenges sometimes lead you to seem pushy or even arrogant. Because this competitive urge is not always apparent to others, they are often surprised by it. However, the passion that underlies your desire for success is unique. This makes you unlike others. You cannot simply accept what life has to offer; you aspire for more. Between each inhale and exhale we die and are reborn.

The more different someone seems from us, the more unreal they may feel to us. We can too easily ignore or dismiss people when they are of a different race or religion, when they come from a different socioeconomic “class.” Assessing them as either superior or inferior, better or worse, important or unimportant, we distance ourselves. Fixating on appearances—their looks, behavior, ways of speaking—we peg them as certain types. They are HIV positive or an alcoholic, a leftist or fundamentalist, a criminal or power monger, a feminist or do-gooder. Sometimes our typecasting has more to do with temperament—the person is boring or narcissistic, needy or pushy, anxious or depressed. Whether extreme or subtle, typing others makes the real human invisible to our eyes and closes our heart.

If you have a particularly rude or pushy person in your life, you can use my favorite boundary phrase, which is “thank you for your concern, but I am not taking any feedback on this issue right now.

Are you always so…” She rolled her hand, giving him the opportunity to fill in the blank. Raising an eyebrow, he said, “Pushy?” “Yes. That’s a good word for it.” “I can be when the situation warrants it.

Hi, this is Keith Ferrazzi. I’m just calling back because I haven’t heard from Michael.” Here again, without being too pushy, you begin to create the presumption that his return call is imminent and expected.

I only see you.” He takes my hand, rubbing his thumb over the inside of my wrist. “Just as you are. I don’t imagine you as some impossible ideal. To me you’re…real.” His lips quirk in a half-smile. “Stubborn, opinionated, pushy, funny, intelligent, kind, too hard on herself, snarky, sarcastic, jaded, yet somehow a closeted optimist. I fell in love with you for you, T. Nothing you could say or do would embarrass me. Ever.

Pushy people assume that because I am an introvert that I can be pushed around. When they push, and I eventually enforce my personal boundaries, they actually become angry with me for doing so. Very irritating and a waste of my time.

There are some people who interpret “proactive” to mean pushy, aggressive, or insensitive; but that isn’t the case at all. Proactive people aren’t pushy. They’re smart, they’re value driven, they read reality, and they know what’s needed.

Strong women—especially if they elect to lead lives outside of the domestic sphere—are often depicted without appropriate context, are made to seem one-note (as if any of us could be defined by a single act in our personal history or a single aspect of personality), and are described with sexist labels. An intelligent, ambitious, outspoken woman is called “pushy,” “domineering,” “abrasive,” “hysterical,” “shrill,” etc., most often by men but sometimes by other women as well.

Hey I'm sorry about the other day. Didn't mean to give you a hard time, I ---" He held up his hands. "It's no problem. And I didn't mean to be pushy. But i've seen a lot of people let the bad around them make them hard or stubborn. In the end, they miss the chance to make their world bette because they only see the worst in it." There was still something about the tone of his voice and his features that made me feel like I knew him. "I know what you mean." I shook my head. "I don't want to be like that. But I get so angry. Sometimes I feel like I know too much, or that I've done things I can't make right, and it just hovers over me. And when I see things happen that shouldn't..." "You don't know what to do with yourself." "Exactly." He nodded. "Well, I'd start by thinking about what's good. Then I'd ask myself how I could make that good even better." I laughed. "That doesn't make sense." He stood. "You just think about it a little.

When at last a cab arrived and pulled up directly in front of me, I was astonished to discover that seventeen grown men and women believed they had a perfect right to try to get in ahead of me. A middle-aged man in a cashmere coat who was obviously wealthy and well-educated actually laid hands on me. I maintained possession by making a series of aggrieved Gallic honking noises—“Mais, non! Mais, non!”—and using my bulk to block the door. I leaped in, resisting the chance to catch the pushy man’s tie in the door and let him trot along with us to the Gare du Nord, and told the driver to get me the hell out of there. He looked at me as if I were a large, imperfectly formed turd, and with a disgusted sigh engaged first gear.

For the next two hours Denise mainly paid attention to her hand, which she'd laid on the sofa cushion within easy reach of Robin's. The hand wasn't comfortable there, it wanted to be retracted, but she didn't want to give up hard-won territory. When the movie ended they watched TV, and then they were silent for an impossibly long time, five minutes or a year, and still Robin didn't take the warm, five-fingered bait. Denise would have welcomed some pushy male sexuality right around now.

Language gives us an insight into the way women are viewed in a male-dominated society . . . A man is commanding—a woman is demanding. A man is forceful—a woman is pushy. A man is uncompromising—a woman is a ball-breaker. A man is a perfectionist—a woman’s a pain in the ass. He’s assertive—she’s aggressive. He strategizes—she manipulates. He shows leadership—she’s controlling. He’s committed—she’s obsessed. He’s persevering—she’s relentless. He sticks to his guns—she’s stubborn. If a man wants to get it right, he’s looked up to and respected. If a woman wants to get it right, she’s difficult and impossible. If he acts, produces, and directs, he’s called multitalented. If she does the same thing, she’s called vain and egotistical.

place in the expedition pecking order. “I was definitely considered the third guide,” he acknowledged after the expedition, “so I tried not to be too pushy. As a consequence, I didn’t always speak up when maybe I should have, and now I kick myself for it.

No, Steppenwolf's look penetrated our whole age. It saw through all its hustle and bustle, all its pushy ambition, all its conceitedness, the whole superficial comedy of its shallow, self-important intellectualism. And sad to say, his look penetrated deeper still, well beyond the mere deficiencies and hopeless inadequacies of our age, our intellectualism and our culture. It went right to the heart of all things human. In a single second it eloquently expressed all the skepticism of a thinker—and perhaps of one in the know — as to the dignity and meaning of human life as such. He look seemed to say: ' Don't you see what apes we are? That's what human beings are like, just take a look!' and all celebrity, all cleverness, all intellectual achievements, all humanity's attempts to create something sublime, great and enduring were reduced to a fairground farce.

Being too American, or American at all, is pretty much the worst thing a Brit can be. “American” is synonymous with pushiness, tactlessness, and puppy-dog earnestness. Americans buy self-help books as if their lives depend on them. Brits, as a rule, do not. Such pap is seen as a sign of weakness.

I didn’t quite understand about last night,” he said. “What was that? Can we talk about it?” His voice was meek but pushy, Willa thought, and she didn’t feel like answering him, but she knew he would keep on pressing her until she did. So she shrugged again and said, “I was just overtired, I guess.

Painting a conventional portrait for a pushy patron did not interest him. Nor did money motivate him. He painted portraits if the subject struck his fancy, such as the Musician, or if a powerful ruler demanded it, as in the case of Ludovico with his mistresses. But he didn’t dance to the music of patrons.

Painting a conventional portrait for a pushy patron did not interest him. Nor did money motivate him. He painted portraits if the subject struck his fancy, such as the Musician, or if a powerful ruler demanded it, as in the case of Ludovico with his mistresses. But he didn't dance to the music of patrons.

You’re all I see.” “Really?” “I’ve been a little afraid of being as pushy with you as I want to be. I have this insane desire to show you exactly how strong my feelings are for you but I have to hold myself back. I want to take this slow, make sure that I’m not a rebound and that our feelings are grounded.

She was opinionated without being pushy. When choosing a book to read aloud, she would try to interest him in those spunky English heroines she liked so much. He proposed Thucydides, but he understood how she, being a Quaker, did not want to read about the Peloponnesian War. They came together on Henry James.

She managed a smile. “You’re kind of pushy, you know.” He shrugged. “I have a fetish for damsels in distress.” “Don’t be sexist.” “Not at all. My services are also available to gentlemen in distress. It’s an equal opportunity fetish,” he said, and, with a flourish, offered his arm again. This time, she took it. Alec

It was impossible to imagine a time when [Fielding's] dry wit wouldn't be around to make me laugh, or to imagine someone else being the one to see the joy on his face when he learned something new. I thought about all of that, and then I thought about never holding him again, never kissing him again, never again experiencing Fielding pushy and demanding and needing me so bad he trembled with it. And man, it fucking hurt. "Okay," I said out loud, swallowing hard. "Okay, I give. Uncle." It was time to admit defeat, to lay down my cards, and concede the game. For the first time in my life, I was in love. I was in love with a guy. I was in love with Fielding Monroe.

True masculine power happens when courage, integrity, vulnerability, compassion, awareness, and the capacity to take strong action are all functioning together. Such power is potent but not aggressive, challenging but not shaming, grounded but not rigid, forceful but not pushy. Again, it requires head, heart, and guts in full-blooded alignment.

I’m worry if I come to close, they’ll say I’m overstepping. They’ll say I’m pushy or… emotional, you know. But if I back off, they might think that I don’t care. I really honestly believe I missed some rule that everyone else takes for granted; I must have been absent from school that day.There’s this narrow little dividing line I somehow never located.

Look, I know this won’t be easy, Imani. I won’t be easy. I can be pushy, selfish, insensitive, aggressive, and I like my own way. I’ll fuck up, but I will never purposely hurt you. I want to be the one who makes you smile, who makes you laugh, who makes you feel safe, and who makes you come every night. I’ll do my damn best to make sure all of that happens.

Sunniva Dee, my author bestie, you truly are an amazing friend. Thank you for all your insight for my first adventure into the world of erotic romance, and also for demanding I drop every other book I was working on to focus on this one first. I’m not sure Jensen would have ever gotten the chance to tell his story if you weren’t so pushy! And I love you for it!

It should be illegal for a woman to look as good as you do.” “Really?” She peered down at herself again, but saw nothing all that spectacular. “I’m glad you like it.” “I love it. I love you.” He dug in his pocket. “When I left today, it was for this.” Speechless, Priss watched as he opened a now-wet jeweler’s box. Inside, securely nestled in velvet, was a beautiful diamond engagement ring. Her heart nearly stopped. “I wanted it to be a surprise.” There were no words. Her eyes suddenly burned and her throat went tight. Trace took her hand and slipped the ring on her finger. The fit was perfect, but then, anything Trace did, he did right. “Priss?” Using the edge of his fist, he lifted her chin. “We’ve been to movies and plays, to small diners and fancy restaurants. I’ve taken you dancing and hiking, to the amusement park and the zoo.” Sounding like a choked frog, Priss said, “All the things I never got to do growing up.” “But there’s so much more, honey.” He moved wet tendrils of hair away from her face and over her shoulder. “I was trying to give you time to enjoy it all.” “No!” Priss did not want him second-guessing his intent. “I don’t need any more time. Really I don’t.” Both still very attentive, Matt and Chris snickered. Trace just smiled at her. Closing her hand into a fist, she held the ring tight. “All I need, all I want, is you.” “Glad to hear it, because I’m not an overly patient guy. Hell, I think I knew you were the one the day you showed up in Murray’s office.” He kissed the tip of her nose, her lips, her chin. “You were so damned outrageous, and so pushy, that you scared me half to death.” “You felt me up,” Priss reminded him. “But that was a first for me, too.” “I remember it well.” He treated her to a deeper kiss, and ended it with a groan. “Every day since then, I’ve wanted you more. Even when you worried me, or lied to me, or made me insane, I admired you for it.

All our wonderful sexual freedom is dependent on two very important conditions: freedom from sexism and freedom from rape. These changes must take place at both the individual and community levels. Prosecuting rape and child molestation is quite difficult, so our communities need to work for our own safety. We can seldom send offenders to jail, but we can uninvite them from our parties, and remove them from the other environments that we control, both online and in the physical world. (...) Much of this conflict is the consequence of our absurd cultural insistence that in sex, men should be the initiators and women the withholders. Thus, some people learn that they are supposed to be pushy and others that saying anything but no is, well, slutty. This pattern leads to “no” being heard as an invitation to push harder, with predictably disastrous results.

Therein lay the root of the problem. Sharing was not in his nature, but nature would have to adapt. Ali needed this kid. Finn was a modern day gunslinger. Deep down he fucking hated it, but his girl needed this one nice and close. Preferably wrapped around her finger and deeply concerned about her health and happiness.Every goddamn minute of every goddamn day would be best. Daniel did not want to share her. Not with the kid, not with anyone, not even a little. He knew it would work, this insane idea of going halves, he just didn’t want it to. He had only recently found her and she was his. But he couldn’t keep her safe on his own, a fact that bit deep and hard and hung on as a pit bul would. How the hell to convince her? What Ali wanted and what would keep her safe and alive would likely be at odds in this case. She’d accused him of being pushy a time or two. His girl had no real idea how far he’d go to protect her.

The tool we developed is something I call the calibrated, or open-ended, question. What it does is remove aggression from conversations by acknowledging the other side openly, without resistance. In doing so, it lets you introduce ideas and requests without sounding pushy. It allows you to nudge. I’ll explain it in depth later on, but for now let me say that it’s really as simple as removing the hostility from the statement “You can’t leave” and turning it into a question. “What do you hope to achieve by going?

ON THE A TRAIN There were no seats to be had on the A train last night, but I had a good grip on the pole at the end of one of the seats and I was reading the beauty column of the Journal-American, which the man next to me was holding up in front of him. All of a sudden I felt a tap on my arm, and I looked down and there was a man beginning to stand up from the seat where he was sitting. "Would you like to sit down?" he said. Well, I said the first thing that came into my head, I was so surprised and pleased to be offered a seat in the subway. "Oh, thank you very much," I said, "but I am getting out at the next station." He sat back and that was that, but I felt all set up and I thought what a nice man he must be and I wondered what his wife was like and I thought how lucky she was to have such a polite husband, and then all of a sudden I realized that I wasn't getting out at the next station at all but the one after that, and I felt perfectly terrible. I decided to get out at the next station anyway, but then I thought, If I get out at the next station and wait around for the next train I'll miss my bus and they only go every hour and that will be silly. So I decided to brazen it out as best I could, and when the train was slowing up at the next station I stared at the man until I caught his eye and then I said, "I just remembered this isn't my station after all." Then I thought he would think I was asking him to stand up and give me his seat, so I said, "But I still don't want to sit down, because I'm getting off at the next station." I showed him by my expression that I thought it was all rather funny, and he smiled, more or less, and nodded, and lifted his hat and put it back on his head again and looked away. He was one of those small, rather glum or sad men who always look off into the distance after they have finished what they are saying, when they speak. I felt quite proud of my strong-mindedness at not getting off the train and missing my bus simply because of the fear of a little embarrassment, but just as the train was shutting its doors I peered out and there it was, 168th Street. "Oh dear!" I said. "That was my station and now I have missed the bus!" I was fit to be fled, and I had spoken quite loudly, and I felt extremely foolish, and I looked down, and the man who had offered me his seat was partly looking at me, and I said, "Now, isn't that silly? That was my station. A Hundred and Sixty-eighth Street is where I'm supposed to get off." I couldn't help laughing, it was all so awful, and he looked away, and the train fidgeted along to the next station, and I got off as quickly as I possibly could and tore over to the downtown platform and got a local to 168th, but of course I had missed my bus by a minute, or maybe two minutes. I felt very much at a loose end wandering around 168th Street, and I finally went into a rudely appointed but friendly bar and had a martini, warm but very soothing, which cost me only fifty cents. While I was sipping it, trying to make it last to exactly the moment that would get me a good place in the bus queue without having to stand too long in the cold, I wondered what I should have done about that man in the subway. After all, if I had taken his seat I probably would have got out at 168th Street, which would have meant that I would hardly have been sitting down before I would have been getting up again, and that would have seemed odd. And rather grasping of me. And he wouldn't have got his seat back, because some other grasping person would have slipped into it ahead of him when I got up. He seemed a retiring sort of man, not pushy at all. I hesitate to think of how he must have regretted offering me his seat. Sometimes it is very hard to know the right thing to do.

And it is true that we are warmed by being called by our names. We all know people who hardly ever do it, who only do it when they absolutely must. They manage to steer conversations along, ask questions, respond, without ever using a first name. And they chill others with their apparent detachment, those others who can never understand that it is diffidence which keeps them from committing themselves to the use of names. They might get the names wrong, or use them too often, be claiming an intimacy to which they have no right, be forward, pushy, presumptuous.

What is happening on the inside, is reflected on the outside. If you lack the confidence, you very well may feel pushy in selling your product or service. If you lack a clear plan on exactly how to grow your business, you’re going to play it safe rather than do what it takes. If you feel desperate, your prospect no doubt will feel your push. If you’re unclear about your exact target market, then implementing focused marketing will be nearly impossible because you don’t know where your target market hangs out, their preferences, and even what and where they buy. The more you nurture your inner entrepreneur, the more it affects the outcomes of your business.

But it was while discussing SpaceX’s grandest missions that Shotwell really came into her own and seemed to inspire the interns. Some of them clearly dreamed of becoming astronauts, and Shotwell said that working at SpaceX was almost certainly their best chance to get to space now that NASA’s astronaut corps had dwindled. Musk had made designing cool-looking, “non–Stay Puft” spacesuits a personal priority. “They can’t be clunky and nasty,” Shotwell said. “You have to do better than that.” As for where the astronauts would go: well, there were the space habitats, the moon, and, of course, Mars as options. SpaceX has already started testing a giant rocket, called the Falcon Heavy, that will take it much farther into space than the Falcon 9, and it has another, even larger spaceship on the way. “Our Falcon Heavy rocket will not take a busload of people to Mars,” she said. “So, there’s something after Heavy. We’re working on it.” To make something like that vehicle happen, she said, the SpaceX employees needed to be effective and pushy. “Make sure your output is high,” Shotwell said. “If we’re throwing a bunch of shit in your way, you need to be mouthy about it. That’s not a quality that’s widely accepted elsewhere, but it is at SpaceX.” And, if that sounded harsh, so be it. As Shotwell saw it, the commercial space race was coming down to SpaceX and China and that’s it. And in the bigger picture, the race was on to ensure man’s survival. “If you hate people and think human extinction is okay, then fuck it,” Shotwell said. “Don’t go to space. If you think it is worth humans doing some risk management and finding a second place to go live, then you should be focused on this issue and willing to spend some money. I am pretty sure we will be selected by NASA to drop landers and rovers off on Mars. Then the first SpaceX mission will be to drop off a bunch of supplies, so that once people get there, there will be places to live and food to eat and stuff for them to do.

Even if they all have the same desire to succeed, create beautiful marketing materials and do similar things, it’s the ones with the proper mindsets who will succeed. The ones who kick ass are the ones who can see themselves kicking ass, who truly believe in themselves and what they’re selling, who remind themselves how much they want to better people’s lives with their coaching, who are excited to get compensated for selling it and have no limiting, subconscious beliefs holding them back. The ones who feel weird or who worry that they’re being pushy and annoying or who subconsciously believe that they don’t deserve to or can’t succeed—they’re not gonna do so good.

I can't remember when I've spent a more...enjoyable Saturday." She sighed, then teased his tongue with hers. "Since I don't intend to move for at least twenty-four hours,we'll see how you like Sunday as well." "I think I'm going to love it." She slid a hand over his shoulder. "I don't like to be pushy, Senator, but when are you going to marry me?" "I thought September in Hyannis Port." "The MacGregor fortess." He saw by her eyes the idea appealed to hre. "But September's two and a half months away." "We'll make it August," he said as he nibbled at her ear. "In the meantime, you and your roommates can move in here, or we can start looking for another place. Would you like to honeymoon in Scotland?" Shelby nestled into his throat. "Yes." She tilted her head back. "In the meantime," she said slowly as her hands wandered down to his waist. "I've been wanting to tell you that there's one of your domestic policies I'm fully in favor or,Senator." "Really?" His mouth lowered to hover just above hers. "You have-" she nipped at his bottom lip "-my full support.I wonder if you could just...run through the prodecure for me one more time." Alan slid a hand down her side. "It's my civic duty to make myself avaiable to all my constituents." Shelby's fingers ran up his chest to stop his jaw just before he captured her lips. "As long as it's only me, Senator." She hooked her arm around his neck. "This is the one-man one-vote system.

Cade released her slowly, running his hand over her hip, and patting her on the butt. Her cheeks heated. She owed him an apology. She cleared her throat, and with difficulty managed, "I can be pushy---" "You think?" He cut her no slack. "I came on too strong. I'm sorry." "I'm not." "You're not?" "We kissed." "A good enough kiss for you to wear a costume?" "You could kiss my entire body, and I'd still pass." His entire body. She'd never considered naked a costume, but it might work for him. She looked him up and down. Licked her lips. Her blush deepened at the thought. She heard Cade swallow. His gaze was hot and dark; his voice deep and husky. "I've never taken a woman in a storeroom before, but there's always a first time.

I was debating what I might have in my deep glassy lake to use—Barrons had slurped down my crimson runes like truffles—when Ryodan called down, “Let her up.” I tipped my head back. The urbane owner of the largest den of sex, drugs, and exotic thrills in the city stood behind the chrome balustrade, big hands closed on the chrome railing, thick wrists cuffed by silver, features darkened by a convenient shadow. He looked like a scarred Gucci model. Whatever kind of life these men had lived before they’d become whatever they were, it had been violent and hard. Like them. “Why?” Lor demanded. “I said so.” “Not time for the meeting yet.” “She wants to see her parents. She’s going to insist.” “So?” “She thinks she has something to prove. She’s feeling pushy.” “Gee, this is nice. I don’t even have to talk,” I purred.

Jane, I don’t care what capacity you let me have in your life. I just want to be there. And if that means I have to keep my distance, I’ll do that.” I sighed. If ever there was a time for me to lay all my cards on the table, this was it. Naked, wounded, and vulnerable. “So, here’s my basic problem with us, the reason I can’t seem to relax into a relationship with you, the reason I find problems where none exist and I push you away. I—I can’t figure out why you’re with me!” I exclaimed, clapping my hand over my mouth. I hadn’t meant for that part to come out. I had meant to say, “You lie and hide things from me.” Gabriel pried my fingers away from my lips. My hands trembled as stuff I’d been feeling for months tumbled from my tongue. “I know that makes me neurotic and sad, but I can’t figure out why you want to be with me. Every other woman in your life is exotic and beautiful and has all this history. And I’m just some drunk girl you followed home from a bar, some pathetic human you felt your usual need to protect, and you got stuck with a lifetime tie to her because she was dumb enough to get shot. I can’t stand the idea that you feel obligated to me. I know I’m insecure and pushy and spastic, desperately inappropriate at times and just plain odd at others. And I can’t help but wonder why you would want that when there are obviously so many other options. I can’t help but feel that I’m keeping you from someone better.” I let out a loud, long breath. It felt as if some tremendous weight on my chest had wiggled loose and then dropped away. No more running. No more floating along and waiting. My cards were on the table. If Gabriel and I couldn’t have a future after this, it wasn’t because I held back from him. Now I could only hope it didn’t blow up in my face in some horrible way. I wasn’t sure my face could handle much more. Gabriel sighed and cupped my chin, forcing me to look him in the eye. “I didn’t follow you that night because I wanted to protect you. I followed you that night because you were one of the most interesting people I’d met in decades. You had this light about you, this sweetness, this biting humor. After I’d only known you for an hour, you made me laugh harder than I had since before I was turned. You made me feel normal, at peace, for the first time in years. And I didn’t want to lose that yet. Even if it was just watching over you from a mile away, I didn’t want to leave your presence. I followed you because I didn’t want to let you go. Even then, I saw you were one of the most extraordinary, fascinating, maddening people I would ever know. Even then, I think I knew that I would love you. If you don’t love me, that’s one thing. But if you do, just stop arguing with me about it. It’s annoying. ” “Fair enough,” I conceded. “Why the hell couldn’t you have told me this a year ago?” “I’ve wanted to. You weren’t ready to hear it.

A circle of trust is a group of people who know how to sit quietly "in the woods" with each other and wait for the shy soul to show up. The relationships in such a group are not pushy but patient; they are not confrontational but compassionate; they are filled not with expectations and demands but with abiding faith in the reality of the inner teacher and in each person's capacity to learn from it. The poet Rumi captures the essence of this way of being together: "A circle of lovely, quiet people / becomes the ring on my finger."6 Few of us have experienced large-scale communities that possess these qualities, but we may have had one-on-one relationships that do. By reflecting on the dynamics of these small-scale circles of trust, we can sharpen our sense of what a larger community of solitudes might look like-and remind ourselves that two people who create safe space for the soul can support each other's inner journey. Think, for example, about someone who helped you grow toward true self. When I think about such a person, it is my father who first comes to mind. Though he was himself a hardworking and successful businessman, he did not press me toward goals that were his rather than mine. Instead, he made space for me to grow into my own selfhood. Throughout high school, I got mediocre grades-every one of which I earned-although I always did quite well on standardized intelligence tests. I look back with amazement on the fact that not once did my father demand that I "live up to my potential." He trusted that if I had a gift for academic life, it would flower in its own time, as it did when I went to college. The people who help us grow toward true self offer unconditional love, neither judging us to be deficient nor trying to force us to change but accepting us exactly as we are. And yet this unconditional love does not lead us to rest on our laurels. Instead, it surrounds us with a charged force field that makes us want to grow from the inside out -a force field that is safe enough to take the risks and endure the failures that growth requires.

From: Bernadette Fox To: Manjula Kapoor Oh! Could you make dinner reservations for us on Thanksgiving? You can call up the Washington Athletic Club and get us something for 7 PM for three. You are able to place calls, aren’t you? Of course, what am I thinking? That’s all you people do now. I recognize it’s slightly odd to ask you to call from India to make a reservation for a place I can see out my window, but here’s the thing: there’s always this one guy who answers the phone, “Washington Athletic Club, how may I direct your call?” And he always says it in this friendly, flat… Canadian way. One of the main reasons I don’t like leaving the house is because I might find myself face-to-face with a Canadian. Seattle is crawling with them. You probably think, U.S./Canada, they’re interchangeable because they’re both filled with English-speaking, morbidly obese white people. Well, Manjula, you couldn’t be more mistaken. Americans are pushy, obnoxious, neurotic, crass—anything and everything—the full catastrophe as our friend Zorba might say. Canadians are none of that. The way you might fear a cow sitting down in the middle of the street during rush hour, that’s how I fear Canadians. To Canadians, everyone is equal. Joni Mitchell is interchangeable with a secretary at open-mic night. Frank Gehry is no greater than a hack pumping out McMansions on AutoCAD. John Candy is no funnier than Uncle Lou when he gets a couple of beers in him. No wonder the only Canadians anyone’s ever heard of are the ones who have gotten the hell out. Anyone with talent who stayed would be flattened under an avalanche of equality. The thing Canadians don’t understand is that some people are extraordinary and should be treated as such. Yes, I’m done. If the WAC can’t take us, which may be the case, because Thanksgiving is only two days away, you can find someplace else on the magical Internet. * I was wondering how we ended up at Daniel’s Broiler for Thanksgiving dinner. That morning, I slept late and came downstairs in my pajamas. I knew it was going to rain because on my way to the kitchen I passed a patchwork of plastic bags and towels. It was a system Mom had invented for when the house leaks.

I mean, there aren't many inventions that actually succeed in meeting some human need. Ninety-nine percent of them are just some ugly combo of pushy marketing and spineless consumers.

It’s a pushy bastard. It goes by Peregrine now.

Realizing I wasn’t in trouble with Joe, I exhaled as my budget instantly went from $1,000 to nearly $10,000. Was Joe pushy? Was Joe doing high-pressure sales? Was Joe selling snake oil? Of course not. Joe was the consummate sales professional. He identified a problem that I had overlooked and offered a solution. Do you think Joe would have given a damn if I said no to widening the driveway? Do you think his confidence and self-esteem would have been damaged if I said no to widening the driveway?

This was how we talked about bullies. When I was a kid, it was easy to grasp: Bullies were scared people hiding inside scary people. I’d see it in DeeDee, the tough girl on my neighborhood block, and even in Dandy, my own grandfather, who could be rude and pushy even with his own wife. They lashed out because they felt overwhelmed. You avoided them if you could and stood up to them if you had to. According to my mother, who would probably want some sort of live-and-let-live slogan carved on her headstone, the key was never to let a bully’s insults or aggression get to you personally. If you did—well, then, you could really get hurt.

Take off the T-shirt," he murmured against her ear. "Pushy." But she gave him what he wanted, surprising him once again. Mercy, he thought, was an intrinsically generous woman. He'd known that, but today, he saw another facet to that part of her nature. She was angry with him for fighting with Joaquin, but even so, she was giving him what he needed. She could've made him beg - he was so starved for her, he might just have done it. Instead, she'd allowed him into her bed, allowed him the most intimate of skin privileges. That truth made something in his heart unsnap, unlock, and he wasn't quite sure what it was.