Quoted Movie Quotes

Inconceivable!" "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another!

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to." [MovieMaker Magazine #53 - Winter, January 22, 2004 ]

Good morning starshine the earth says hello....

Mad Matter: "Have I gone mad?" Alice: "I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.

People don't read any more. It's a sad state of affairs. Reading's the only thing that allows you to use your imagination. When you watch films it's someone else's vision, isn't it?" [Interview in The Independent, 15 October 2005]

You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.

The book is a film that takes place in the mind of the reader. That's why we go to movies and say, "Oh, the book is better.

All I want is blackness. Blackness and silence. (The actual Sylvia Plath quote from "The Moon and the Yew Tree" is: "And the message of the yew tree is blackness – blackness and silence.")

You want to take me to a movie?" I asked. "Well, not really," he said. "What I really want is for you to be my girlfriend. But I thought saying that might scare you off.

Love. Not the kind you see in the movies or hear about on the radio. The real kind. The kind that gets beaten down and bloody, yet perseveres. The kind that hopes even when hope seems foolish. The kind that can forgive. The kind that believes in healing. The kind that can sit in silence and feel renewed. The real kind of love. It's rare and we have it...

I'm not going to make movies that tell children, "You should despair and run away".

The staircase that was revealed was lit with a soft red glow. I feel like I'm walking down into a porn movie," V muttered as they took the steps with care. Wouldn't that require more black candles for you," Zsadist cracked. At the bottom of the landing, they looked left and right down a corridor carved out of stone, seeing row after row of...black candles with ruby color flames. I take that back," Z said, eyeing the display. We start hearing chick-a-wow-wow shit," V cut in, "can I start calling you Z-packed?" Not if you want to keep breathing.

If you want me, just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow." (as Marie 'Slim' Browning in To Have and Have Not)

She's a princess and you're a jock," he says. He thrusts his chin toward Bronwyn, then at Nate. "And you're a brain. And you're a criminal. You're all walking teen-movie stereotypes.

I wish we could go to the movies." I stared at him. "We're in a creepy dungeon. There's a chance I might die in the next few hours. You are going to die in the next few hours. And if you had one wish, it would be to catch a movie?

Can you keep secrets? Can you know a thing and never say it again?

Good heavens, I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden." "But you have just said it was perfectly heartless to eat muffins!" "I said it was perfectly heartless of YOU under the circumstances. That is a very different thing." "That may be, but the muffins are the same!

That was horrible. Horrible. That poor little guy." Pex was unrepentant. "Yeah, well, he asked for it. Calling us ... all those things." But---buried alive! That's like in that horror movie. Y'know -- the one with all the horror." I think I saw that one. With all the words going up on the screen at the end?" Yeah, that was it. Tell you the truth, those words kinda ruined it for me.

You ignorant little rodent! This isn't just an old book. This is the book of Everafter." "Sorry, I haven't read it. I'm waiting for the movie," Puck said.

It starts so young, and I'm angry about that. The garbage we're taught. About love, about what's "romantic." Look at so many of the so-called romantic figures in books and movies. Do we ever stop and think how many of them would cause serious and drastic unhappiness after The End? Why are sick and dangerous personality types so often shown a passionate and tragic and something to be longed for when those are the very ones you should run for your life from? Think about it. Heathcliff. Romeo. Don Juan. Jay Gatsby. Rochester. Mr. Darcy. From the rigid control freak in The Sound of Music to all the bad boys some woman goes running to the airport to catch in the last minute of every romantic comedy. She should let him leave. Your time is so valuable, and look at these guys--depressive and moody and violent and immature and self-centered. And what about the big daddy of them all, Prince Charming? What was his secret life? We dont know anything about him, other then he looks good and comes to the rescue.

She sees ghosts,” said Samuel, impatient with my whining. "I see dead people,” I deadpanned back. Oddly, it was Uncle Mike who laughed. I hadn’t thought he’d be a moviegoer.

Tell you what," I said. "After the testing after the Demon Days, when things settle down -" "Things won't settle down." "- I'm going to take you to the mall." She blinked. "The mall? For what reason?" "To hang out," I said. "We'll get some hamburgers. See a movie." Zia hesitated. "Is this what you'd call a 'date'?" My expression must have been priceless, because Zia actually cracked a smile. "You look like a cow hit with a shovel.

This is the part in the movie where that guy says, "Zombies? What zombies?" just before they eat his brains. I don't want to be that guy.

You know what your problem is, it's that you haven't seen enough movies - all of life's riddles are answered in the movies." Steve Martin

I'm here to tell you, though, ladies that the term "gold digger" is one of the traps we men set to keep you off our money trail; we created that term for you so that we can have all our money and still get everything we want from you without you asking for or expecting this very basic, instincual responsibility that men all over the world are obligated to assume and embrace. ... KNOW THIS: It is your right to expect that a man will pay for your dinner, your movie ticket, your club entry fee, or whatever else he has to pay for in exhange for your time.

I am the sea and nobody owns me

The vampires start to close in. "shouldn't we stand back to back or something?" Clary said. "What? Why?" "I don't know. In movies that's what they do in this kind of...situation." Jace laughs, "You, you are the most-" The most what?" Clary demands indignantly. Jace: Nothing. This isn't a situation okay? I save that word for when things get really bad." "Really bad? This isn't really bad? What do you want, a nuclear-" The windows exploded inward in a shower of broken glass. Through the shattered windows came dozens of sleek shapes, four footed and low to the ground, their coats scattering moonlight and broken bits of glass. Wolves. "Now, this," said Jace, "is a situation

No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want. Here’s a short list of people who accomplished great things at different ages 1) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didn’t stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. 2) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5. 3) Shirley Temple was 6 when she became a movie star on “Bright Eyes.” 4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank. 5) Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13. 6) Nadia Comăneci was a gymnast from Romania that scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals at the Olympics at age 14. 7) Tenzin Gyatso was formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in November 1950, at the age of 15. 8) Pele, a soccer superstar, was 17 years old when he won the world cup in 1958 with Brazil. 9) Elvis was a superstar by age 19. 10) John Lennon was 20 years and Paul Mcartney was 18 when the Beatles had their first concert in 1961. 11) Jesse Owens was 22 when he won 4 gold medals in Berlin 1936. 12) Beethoven was a piano virtuoso by age 23 13) Issac Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica at age 24 14) Roger Bannister was 25 when he broke the 4 minute mile record 15) Albert Einstein was 26 when he wrote the theory of relativity 16) Lance E. Armstrong was 27 when he won the tour de France 17) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures “David” and “Pieta” by age 28 18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world 19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter 20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean 21) Oprah was 32 when she started her talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind 22) Edmund Hillary was 33 when he became the first man to reach Mount Everest 23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech “I Have a Dream." 24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she got nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics 25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight 26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions. 27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon. 28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and 49 years old when he wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" 29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas 30) Rosa Parks was 42 when she refused to obey the bus driver’s order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger 31) John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became President of the United States 32) Henry Ford Was 45 when the Ford T came out. 33) Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games" 34) Charles Darwin was 50 years old when his book On the Origin of Species came out. 35) Leonardo Da Vinci was 51 years old when he painted the Mona Lisa. 36) Abraham Lincoln was 52 when he became president. 37) Ray Kroc Was 53 when he bought the McDonalds Franchise and took it to unprecedented levels. 38) Dr. Seuss was 54 when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat". 40) Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was 57 years old when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. All of the 155 passengers aboard the aircraft survived 41) Colonel Harland Sanders was 61 when he started the KFC Franchise 42) J.R.R Tolkien was 62 when the Lord of the Ring books came out 43) Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became President of the US 44) Jack Lalane at age 70 handcuffed, shackled, towed 70 rowboats 45) Nelson Mandela was 76 when he became President

I can see why you like it here," he said,making a sweeping gesture that encompassed Kyle's collection of movie posters and science fiction books. "There's a thin layer of nerd all over everything." said Jace. "Thanks. I appreciate that." Simon gave Jace a hard look.

A fish may love a bird, but where would they live? - Then I shall build you wings.

Never tell anyone to be careful, never ask what that noise was, and for the love of God, never, ever say that you'll be right back." —Evelyn Baker

We had no idea what waited ahead of us, other than the big, fat unknown, and most likely a big, fat kick in the face. The gravity of that was killing me-killing us I squared my shoulders. "Release the Kraken!" Several sets of eyes settled on me. "What?" I gave a lopsided shrug. "I've always wanted to yell that since I saw that movie. Seemed like the perfect moment.

You don’t get to pick your family, but you can pick your teachers and you can pick your friends and you can pick the music you listen to and you can pick the books you read and you can pick the movies you see. You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences. The German writer Goethe said, "We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.

You can’t be serious,” Eve said. “Guys. People get eaten in places like this. At the very least, we get locked in a room and terrible, evil things get done to us and put on the Internet. I’ve seen the movies.” "Eve,” Michael said. “Horror movies are not documentaries.

Odd's fish, m'dear! The man can't even tie his own cravat!

Sink me! Your taylors have betrayed you! T'wood serve you better to send THEM to Madam Guillotine

I believe in happy endings," I tell him, "And it feels like this movie has gone on for the right amount of time.

Politeness is the first thing people lose once they get the power.

Just because my dreams are different than yours, it doesn't mean they're unimportant.

Did you see my ninja move?That was fast, right?" "You are not a ninja, Shane." "I've watched all the movies. I just haven't gotten the certificate from the correspondence course yet.

You need mountains, long staircases don't make good hikers.

Yuki: "What can I learn from a stupid cat like you? You didn’t even know that Jason isn’t really a bear. He’s a character in a horror film." Kyo: "Yeah? So what if I didn’t? Like I’d waste my time watching some movie about a bear!" Yuki: You truly are an idiot.

It comes in pints?

So I was thinking we should skip tomorrow, stay right here and watch shitty movies all day." My first response was to say I couldn't skip a whole day's worth of classes, but as I met Cam's mischievous gaze, I said screw it. "That's a brilliant idea." "I know, right?" He tapped his head. "I'm full of great shit." "Yeah, you're definitely full of it..." "Ha.

When I start to feel emotional about something, I can't tell if I'm actually feeling that way. What if it's just something somebody wrote in a book? Or maybe a line or a performance from some movie... Either way, I get this feeling like I'm quoting somebody else's work.

The past is just a story we tell ourselves.

Mahoney: "Thirty-seven seconds. Great, well done; now we wait." Mr. Magorium: "No, we breathe, we pulse, we regenerate. our hearts beat, our minds create, our souls ingest. Thirty-seven seconds well used is a lifetime.

I can't talk to you when you're like this." "Happy? Excited? Hopeful?" "Delusional.

I’ve read hundreds of novels in my life, most of them claiming that love was the center of the universe. That it could heal any damage inside of us. That it was what we needed to survive. From Darcy to Heathcliff, I thought they were fools. That love was something fictional, only found in worn pages of a book. That it was just made up to keep humans full of hope, that it was a lie. But all that changed since I met my Elizabeth Bennett. I never thought I would find myself completely and utterly consumed by another until her. She took my hand and led me out of the darkness and showed me that, whatever our souls are made of, hers and mine are the same. I’m sorry, please forgive me. You once asked me who I loved most in this world. It’s you. — Hardin ( Movie- "After" - Hardin's letter to Tessa )

Every scene should be able to answer three questions: "Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?

The instructor stared at me with cold, cut-me-no-slack determination, then got into a fighting stance, holding one hand out, beckoning me. "I saw that movie too!"I said."It was like the coolest movie of all-" He launched himself at me. That was when his day really went downhill.

Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.

Where have you been?" I stepped into my apartment and met Uncle Bob's glare with one of my own. "Out trying to pass myself off as a movie producer to get hot guys to sleep with me. Where have you been?

And then I kiss him for real, and he kisses me back, and his hands fist my hair. And we're kissing like it's breathing. My stomach flutters wildly. And somehow we end up horizontal, his hands curved up around my back. "I like this," I say, and my voice comes out breathless. "We should do this. Every day." "Okay." "Let's never do anything else. No school. No meals. No homework." "I was going to ask you to see a movie," he says, smiling. When he smiles, I smile. "No movies. I hate movies." "Oh, really?" "Really, really. Why would I want to watch other people kissing," I say, "when I could be kissing you?

Just because someone stumbles and loses their path, doesn't mean they're lost forever.

I'd rather die tomorrow than live a hundred years without knowing you.

This is ridiculous," I said, trying to laugh it off. "I never cry at movies." "Because you've never been in love," he said.

I do not need to love you to prove that I love myself!!

Fairy tales only happen in movies." -George Melies from The Invention of Hugo Cabret

We were characters out of a movie. We were thoroughly alive. And we were absolutely beautiful.

Maybe I can climb one of those," Simon said, eyeing the fat white pillars that held up the slanted roof of the Hall. Runes were carved on them in overlapping patterns, but otherwise there were no visible handholds. "Work off steam that way." "Oh, come on," Clary said. "You're a vampire, not Spider-Man." Simon's only response was to jog lightly up the steps to the base of a pillar. He eyed it thoughtfully for a moment before putting his hands to it and starting to climb. Clary watched him, open-mouthed, as his fingertips and feet found impossible holds on the ridged stone. "You are Spider-Man!" she exclaimed.

I moved up beside Jamie."I have to go." She frowned at me. "Where?" I pressed a hand to the bottom of my belly. "My bladder.It-" Ah." She gave a small laugh. "We interrupt this life-or-death situation for a pregnancy pee break. Don't see that in the movies, do you?

Am I a romantic? I've seen "Wuthering Heights" ten times. I'm a romantic.

put the car in "d" set the compass to "n" and get the "f"out of there

We could argue in front of our lockers all dramatically," I said. "That's something I saw a lot at human high schools." He squeezed me in a quick hug. "Yes! Now that sounds like a good time. And then I could come to your house in the middle of the night and play music really loudly under your window until you took me back." I chuckled. "You watch too many movies. Ooh, we could be lab partners!" "Isn't that kind of what we were in Defense?" "Yeah, but in normal high school, there would be more science, less kicking each other in the face." "Nice.

It's not a fear.Kacey drank her wine faster."It's a scary movie!" "It's Alice in Wonderland.

But I don't know, maybe it's just as well I never got there. I dreamed about it for so many years. I used to go to English movies just to look at the streets. I remember years ago a guy I knew told me that people going to England find exactly what they go looking for. I said I'd go looking for the England of English Literature, and he nodded and said: "It's there.

Look at this limp cravet. And the sad state of those cuffs. I can hardly bring myself to look upon them.

I’ll be there someday, I can go the distance. I will find my way, if I can be strong. I know every mile, will be worth my while, When I go the distance, I’ll be right where I belong. - Hercules

Elizabeth Bennett needs to chill" . . "Love is just a transaction. We're all hardwired to desire. We present the correct set of desirable traits and boom! We can turn it on or we can turn it off." — Hardin

All worries are less with wine.

I'm a damsel, I'm in distress, I can handle this. Have a nice day!

Have you ever heard of Blue Streak?" I blink at him. "That's the name of a movie?" "Romeo Must Die? Bad Boys? Rush Hour? Rush Hour 2? Rush Hour 3? Actually, Rush Hour 3 wasn't that great. Tangled? "That last one, I believe, is a cartoon about a girl with very long hair, inspired by the German fairy tale Rapunzel." Kenji looks like he might be choking. "A cartoon?" he says, outraged. "Tangled is not a cartoon. Tangled is one of the greatest movies of all time. It's about fighting for freedom and true love.

That's a movie quote, right? You know, if you do that with books, people think you're intelligent." Sophie lowered her chin. "If this is your pathetic attempt to seduce me again, you're falling miserably." "I don't seduce woman." Phin shoved back his chair and stood up. "They fall into my open arms." "Clumsy of them.

Gentlemen you had my curiosity ... but now you have my attention.

I won't do this movie because I don't believe the love story," she told Selznick. "The heroine is an intellectual woman, and an intellectual woman simply can't fall in love so deeply.

At least I'm not a font nerd." "A what?" Matt smiled. "You know. People who love fonts. There are people who go to a movie and get agitated because, while the movie is supposed to be set in 1962, the restaurant awning shown in the background of some scene is printed in Arras Bold, which wasn't invented until 1991, so clearly the producers of the movie are insane and should be beheaded.

Creamy and leggy, with long azure hair and the eyes of a silent-movie star, she moved like a poem and smiled like a sphinx.

Later,” I said to the room at large as I didn’t want to appear rude. For some reason this was met by Shirleen saying, "I’ll put money down that she’s living with him in four days.” My confused gaze swung to Shirleen but she was looking at the movie star glamour girl who was looking at me. “Three days,” Glamour girl said, smiling at me and I thought, in other circumstances, I would have liked to meet her. “A week, she’s got spirit,” The other black lady said. She was smiling at me too, not like I was the butt of some joke, but in a kind way. I opened the outer door. Before it closed behind me, I heard Luke say strangely, “Tonight.” Then everyone laughed.

All things are true. God's an Astronaut. Oz is Over the Rainbow, and Midian is where the monsters live." - Peloquin

Kit: Elemantary? Ty: You know, Holmes never says, "Elementary, my dear Watson", i nthe books. Kit: I swear I've seen it in the movies or maybe on TV. Ty: Who would ever want movies or TV when there are books?

It's far easier to write why something is terrible than why it's good. If you're reviewing a film and you decide "This is a movie I don't like," basically you can take every element of the film and find the obvious flaw, or argue that it seems ridiculous, or like a parody of itself, or that it's not as good as something similar that was done in a previous film. What's hard to do is describe why you like something. Because ultimately, the reason things move people is very amorphous. You can be cerebral about things you hate, but most of the things you like tend to be very emotive.

The job of feets is walking, but their hobby is dancing.

Take care of your costume and your confidence will take care of itself.

And in that one grey hair I saw my whole life and I said "I think I need a hair.

The book is almost always better than the movie. You could have no better case in point than FROM HELL, Alan Moore's best graphic novel to date, brilliantly illustrated by Eddie Campbell. It's hard to describe just how much better the book is. It's like, "If the movie was an episode of Battlestar Galactica with a guest appearance by the Smurfs and everyone spoke Dutch, the graphic novel is Citizen Kane with added sex scenes and music by your favourite ten bands and everyone in the world you ever hated dies at the end." That's how much better it is.

Do you know when they say soul-mates? Everybody uses it in personal ads. "Soul-mate wanted". It doesn't mean too much now. But soul mates- think about it. When your soul-whatever that is anyway-something so alive when you make music or love and so mysteriously hidden most of the rest of the time, so colorful and big but without color or shape-when your soul finds another soul it can recognize even before the rest of you knows about it. The rest of you just feels sweaty and jumpy at first. And your souls get married without even meaning to-even if you can't be together for some reason in real life, your souls just go ahead and make the wedding plans. A soul's wedding must be too beautiful to even look at. It must be blinding. In must be like all the weddings in the world-gondolas with canopies of doves, champagne glasses shattering, wings of veils, drums beating, flutes and trumpets,showers of roses. And after that happens-that's it, this is it. But sometimes you have to let that person go. When you are little, people , movie and fairy tales all tell you that one day you're going to meet this person. So you keep waiting and it's a lot harder than they make it sound. Then you meet and you think, okay, now we can just get on with it but you find out that sometimes your sould brother partner lover has other ideas about that.

The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino." - Joe Fox

Remember, people, study the rule sheet. Snuggle it at night, eat lunch with it, take it to the movies. It's the only way you're passing my class," Mr. Pinner calls over the bustle of students herding out the door.

Great losses are great lessons.

tenet, n. At the end of the French movie, the lover sings, "Love me less, but love me for a long time.

That's what we storytellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again.

So I ring Justine Kalinsky and I say, "It's Francesca Spinelli," and she says, "Francesca, you've got to stop using last names. How are you doing?" and I say "I feel like shit", and I don't know how it happens, but by eight o'clock that night I'm lying next to her on the couch with Siobhan and Tara and we're eating junk food and watching a Keanu movie. And I want to stay on that couch for the rest of my life.

Forth, and fear no darkness! Arise! Arise, Riders of Theoden! Spears shall be shaken,swords shall be splintered! A sword day...a red day...ere the sun rises! Ride now!...Ride now!...Ride! Ride to ruin and the world's ending! Death! "Death!" Death! "Death!" DEATH! "Death!" Forth, Eorlingas!!

Smile boy, it's the sunrise (His last movie line, ever)

Have you ever seen The Last of the Mohicans?" "I love it." "Really?" I'm over the moon. We share a movie. Finally, we're on the same planet. "Don't you love the part where he says, 'Stay alive. I will find you'?" I ask. "I love that massacre scene," he says, like an excited little boy, "where they're walking down that path in the middle of nowhere and they're surrounded by the woods and you know the Indians are going to attack and it's so tense." Things that make you go hmmm.

Bet you can't even name one romantic movie you like," she teased. She felt smug when a few minutes went by and Oliver was still unable to name one romantic movie he could profess to enjoy. The Empire Strikes Back," Oliver finally declared, tapping his horn at a Prius that wandered over the line. The Empire Strikes Back? The Star Wars movie? That's not romantic!" Schuyler huffed, fiddling with the air conditioner controls. Au contraire, my dear, it's very romantic. The last scene, you know, when they're about to put Han in that freezing cryogenic chamber or whatever? Remember?" Schuyler mmm-hmmmed. And Leia leans over the ledge and says, 'I love you.'" That's cheesy, not romatic," Schuyler argued, although she did like that part. Let me explain. What's romantic is what Han says back. Remember what he says to her? After she says 'I love you'?" Schuyler grinned. Maybe Oliver had a point. "Han says, 'I know.'" Exactly," Oliver tapped the wheel. "He doesn't have to say anything so trite as 'I love you." Because that's already understood. And that's romantic.

Oh God, is this like Silence of the Lambs?" Tears flowed down her face. "I don't want to go down the hole! I won't put lotion on the skin! Look at me, you won't be able to wear my skin, I won't cover your huge ass!" She wailed.

I take it, sir, that you do not approve of our new society." "Approval, sir, in my opinion, demands the attainment of perfection. And in that sense, you rather overrate the charms of your society. I'faith, for one thing, it does seem monstrous ill-dressed for any society, even a new one.

Da. This is going very well already." Thomas barked out a laugh. "There are seven of us against the Red King and his thirteen most powerful nobles, and it's going well?" Mouse sneezed. "Eight," Thomas corrected himself. He rolled his eyes and said, "And the psycho death faerie makes it nine." "It is like movie," Sanya said, nodding. "Dibs on Legolas." "Are you kidding?" Thomas said. "I'm obviously Legolas. You're . . ." He squinted thoughtfully at Sanya and then at Martin. "Well. He's Boromir and you're clearly Aragorn." "Martin is so dour, he is more like Gimli." Sanya pointed at Susan. "Her sword is much more like Aragorn's." "Aragorn wishes he looked that good," countered Thomas. "What about Karrin?" Sanya asked. "What--for Gimli?" Thomas mused. "She is fairly--" "Finish that sentence, Raith, and we throw down," said Murphy in a calm, level voice. "Tough," Thomas said, his expression aggrieved. "I was going to say 'tough.' " As the discussion went on--with Molly's sponsorship, Mouse was lobbying to claim Gimli on the basis of being the shortest, the stoutest, and the hairiest-- "Sanya," I said. "Who did I get cast as?" "Sam," Sanya said. I blinked at him. "Not . . . Oh, for crying out loud, it was perfectly obvious who I should have been." Sanya shrugged. "It was no contest. They gave Gandalf to your godmother. You got Sam.

Your life is a movie. You are the main character. You say your scripts and act to your lines. Of course you do your lines in each scene. There is a hidden camera and a director who you can ask for help anytime up above.

Why do you look so sad?" "Because you speak to me in words and I look at you with feelings.

Now, though, I must rent a movie." "You're going to do that?" "Of course. I'm a werewolf, not a cretin. We have Blockbuster cards." It blew my mind. Werewolfs rented DVDs. At my local Blockbuster.

Like a shot from a movie, the morning sun shone brilliantly around him like a god—his dark hair glinted warmly in the light, and his eyes gleamed bluer than the south Pacific Ocean. Taylor's mind went blank. And suddenly, she couldn't remember why the hell she ever had been angry with Jason Andrews. But then he spoke. "Sleeping in this morning, Ms. Donovan?" he drawled. Moment over.

I feel like I'm lost in an anime movie" I said, as Coyote picked the thing up. "One of the tentacle-monster ones." Most of them were X-rated and ended up with a lot of dead people.

Anger gets you into trouble, ego keeps you in trouble.

Be a worthy worker and work will come.

She's not you." "What?" "She. Isn't. You.

I'll go watch a movie with you," I say to Warren. "But it better not be a porn.

Seeing the mud around a lotus is pessimism, seeing a lotus in the mud is optimism.

Miss Rogers waved a hand. "But Mr. Hearst just wants a dramatic story. If the rebels destroy us, he'll get no story at all!" "Aye, but has anyone explained that to the barking rebels?" "These are civilized rebels, young man. They have movie deals!" "That's no guarantee of sanity!

And even if you hate her, can't stand her, even if she's ruining your life, there's something about her, some romance, some power. She's absolutely herself. No matter how hard you try, you'll never get to her. And when she dies, the world will be flat, too simple, reasonable, fair.

Some people say "if we split up,we can cover more ground"-with blood

Have you never seen a movie? Read a comic book? That's always how it starts - just a little temptation, just a little taste of evil, and then BAM, your light saber turns red and you're breathing through a big black mask and slicing off your son's hand just to be mean." They looked at him blankly.

Me too." I agree fervently. "Every film should definitely have a message." Which is true. I mean... take the Lord of the Rings movies- they've got loads of messages. Like "Don't lose your ring.

What are you gonna do with a giant crossword poster? 'Oh, I'm sorry, Anna. I can't go to the movies tonight. I'm working on two thousand across, Norwegian Birdcall.'" "At least I'm not buying a Large Plastic Rock for hiding 'unsightly utility posts.' You realize you have no lawn?" "I could hide other stuff. Like...failed French tests. Or illegal moonshining equipment." He couples over with that wonderful boyish laugher, and I grin. "But what will you do with a motorized swimming-pool snack float?" "Use it in the bathtub.

He sad, "I'm going to use that in something one day." And he wrote it down on a napkin and put it in his back pocket. I thought to myself, "What the hell makes you think I'm not going to use it in something once day?" But, of course, there it was in his next movie. That's how it was back then. I was just supposed to be the inspiration for some man's great idea.

What about animals slaughtered for our consumption? who among us would be able to continue eating pork chops after visiting a factory farm in which pigs are half-blind and cannot even properly walk, but are just fattened to be killed? And what about, say, torture and suffering of millions we know about, but choose to ignore? Imagine the effect of having to watch a snuff movie portraying what goes on thousands of times a day around the world: brutal acts of torture, the picking out of eyes, the crushing of testicles -the list cannot bear recounting. Would the watcher be able to continue going on as usual? Yes, but only if he or she were able somehow to forget -in an act which suspended symbolic efficiency -what had been witnessed. This forgetting entails a gesture of what is called fetishist disavowal: "I know it, but I don't want to know that I know, so I don't know." I know it, but I refuse to fully assume the consequences of this knowledge, so that I can continue acting as if I don't know it.

Father has a strengthening character like the sun and mother has a soothing temper like the moon.

And if anyone asks what became of me, you relate my life in all its wonder, and end it with a simple and modest "He died.

Maybe you should go home and rest," Simon told Meg. Maybe he could go home with her and they could cuddle for a while or play a game. Or she could watch a movie with him and pet him.

Lawyers are alright, I guess — but it doesn't appeal to me", I said. "I mean they're alright if they go around saving innocent guys' lives all the time, and like that, but you don't do that kind of stuff if you're a lawyer. All you do is make a lot of dough and play golf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hot-shot. And besides, even if you did go around saving guys' lives and all, how would you know if you did it because you really wanted to save guys' lives, or because you did it because what you really wanted to do was be a terrific lawyer, with everybody slapping you on the back and congratulating you in court when the goddam trial was over, the reporters and everybody, the way it is in the dirty movies? How would you know you weren't being a phony? The trouble is you wouldn't.

Luc moved to the center of the floor. "I don't have all day, guys. I have things to do. A nap I want to take this afternoon. There's a new movie out on Netflix I want to watch, and a goddamn coupon for a free Whopper Jr. that's calling my name.

Really, Sage? A date?" I sighed. "Yes, Adrian. A date." A real date. Not, like, doing homework together," he added. "I mean like where you go out to a movie or something. And a movie that's not part of a school assignment. Or about something boring." "A real date." I figured I wouldn't give him the specifics on the Shakespheare play. "What's the lucky guy's name?" "Brayden." There was a pause. "Brayden? That his real name?" "Why are you asking if everything's real? You think I'd make any of this up?" "No, no," Adrian assured me. "That what's so ynbelievable about it. Is he cute?" I glanced at the clock. It was time for me to meet my study group. "Gee, maybe I should just send you a picture to review?" "Yes, please. And a full background check and life history." "I have to go. Why do you care so much anyway?" I finally asked in exasperation. His answer took a long time, which was uncharacteristic.

Who-who are you?" Seth asked, hesitantly."Wh-what do you want?" How else was was I supposed to reply? The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.I mean, I'd only seen the movie like seventeen times. "I'm Luke Skywalker," I said. "I'm here to rescue you.

The Notebook? You own The Notebook?" Cam stared at me blankly. "What's wrong with that?" "Oh, nothing is wrong with that. It's just such a...uh, chick flick." "I'm confident enough in my masculinity and sexuality that I can say that Ryan Gosling is just dreamy in this movie." My jaw hit the floor. The blank expression slipped away and he started laughing. "I'm joking. I don't own The Notebook. Never watched it. Didn't bring any romance movies.

Nineteenth-century preacher Henry Ward Beecher's last words were "Now comes the mystery." The poet Dylan Thomas, who liked a good drink at least as much as Alaska, said, "I've had eighteen straight whiskeys. I do believe that's a record," before dying. Alaska's favorite was playwright Eugene O'Neill: "Born in a hotel room, and--God damn it--died in a hotel room." Even car-accident victims sometimes have time for last words. Princess Diana said, "Oh God. What's happened?" Movie star James Dean said, "They've got to see us," just before slamming his Porsche into another car. I know so many last words. But I will never know hers.

Jace was very pale, with hectic spots like fever on his cheekbones. "But it was Valentine. I saw him. In fact, he had the Sword with him when he came down to the cells and taunted me through the bars. It was like a bad movie, except he didn't actually twirl his mustache.

Many have given up. They stay home and watch the TV screen, living on the earnings of their parents, cousins, bothers, or uncles, and only leave the house to go to the movies or to the nearest bar. "How're you making it?" on may ask, running into them along the block, or in the bar. "Oh, I'm TV-ing it"; with the saddest, sweetest, most shamefaced of smiles, and from a great distance. This distance one is compelled to respect; anyone who has traveled so far will not easily be dragged again into the world. There are further retreats, of course, than the TV screen or the bar. There are those who are simply sitting on their stoops, "stoned," animated for a moment only, and hideously, by the approach of someone who may lend them the money for a "fix." Or by the approach of someone from whom they can purchase it, one of the shrewd ones, on the way to prison or just coming out.

If this were a movie, I would bust a secret move so fierce the entire place would be razed to the ground. I'd finish with something snappy like "And don't forget my soda, punk" while I strolled off into the night.

What's with the disco lights?" Michael said, rolling down the window between the driver's compartment and the back. Eve turned around, and her face brightened. "You like it? I thought it looked really cool. I saw it in a movie, you know, in a limo." "It's cool," Michael said, and smiled at her. She smiled back. "Can't wait to lie here and watch it with you." Claire said, "You don't have to wait; it's working now. Look--Oh. Never mind." She blushed, feeling stupid that she hadn't gotten that one in the first second. Eve winked at her.

You're too important, too special to throw everything away for a pure." Seth sighed, dropping his hands to mine. "Now, I brought us a movies to watch, the one that has sparkly vampires in it. I thought you'd be down for that.

Well, I know," she said. "You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs." So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies. So I held up my right hand and I made her a promise: "Mary," I said, "I don't think this book of mine will ever be finished. I must have written five thousand pages by now, and thrown them all away. If I ever do finish it, though, I give you my word of honor: there won't be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne. "I tell you what," I said, "I'll call it 'The Children's Crusade.'" She was my friend after that.

My Heart I'm not going to cry all the time nor shall I laugh all the time, I don't prefer one "strain" to another. I'd have the immediacy of a bad movie, not just a sleeper, but also the big, overproduced first-run kind. I want to be at least as alive as the vulgar. And if some aficionado of my mess says "That's not like Frank!," all to the good! I don't wear brown and grey suits all the time, do I? No. I wear workshirts to the opera, often. I want my feet to be bare, I want my face to be shaven, and my heart--you can't plan on the heart, but the better part of it, my poetry, is open.

Yeah, well, love doesn't always beat out the fear." "Sometimes it does," he replied with a smile, pecking her on the nose. "Christ, Driggs. You're turning into a Lifetime movie." "Your defense mechanisms are captivating, as always.

NOOOO!" On the screen, a woman's eyes bugged almost out of her head, and I tried not to scream. Tried not to scream in exasperation, I mean. The serial killer was right in front of her, wide open! Clearly, instead of weeping like a moron, she could be lunging forward and administering a swift uppercut to the chin. Then this entire pointless ordeal would be over with, and I could go home.

It's that thing when you're with someone, and you love them and they know it, and they love you and you know it... but it's a party... and you're both talking to other people, and you're laughing and shining... and you look across the room and catch each other's eyes... but - but not because you're possessive, or it's precisely sexual... but because... that is your person in this life. And it's funny and sad, but only because this life will end, and it's this secret world that exists right there in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about. It's sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us, but we don't have the ability to perceive them. That's - That's what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess.

So," he said as we turned onto the main road, the muffler rattling, "I've been thinking." "Yeah?" He nodded. "You really need to go out with me." I blinked. "I'm sorry?" "You know. You, me. A restaurant or movie. Together." He glanced over, shifting gears. "Maybe it's a new concept for you? If so, I'll be happy to walk you through it." "You want to take me to a movie?" I asked. "Well, not really," he said. "What I really want is for you to be my girlfriend. But I though saying that might scare you off.

After you kids came along, your mom, she said something to me I never quite understood. She said, "Now, we're just here to be memories for our kids." I think now I understand what she meant. Once you're a parent, you're the ghost of your children's future.

Where do babies come from? Don't bother asking adults. They lie like pigs. However, diligent independent research and hours of playground consultation have yielded fruitful, if tentative, results. There are several theories. Near as we can figure out, it has something to do with acting ridiculous in the dark. We believe it is similar to dogs when they act peculiar and ride each other. This is called "making love". Careful study of popular song lyrics, advertising catch-lines, TV sitcoms, movies, and T-Shirt inscriptions offers us significant clues as to its nature. Apparently it makes grown-ups insipid and insane. Some graffiti was once observed that said "sex is good". All available evidence, however, points to the contrary.

Is it like a Harry Potter thing?" He turned his head then. "A what?" "A Harry Potter thing," she said again. "You know, don't say Voldemort's name because you might attract his attention?" He considered it. "You mean the children's book." "I have got to get you to watch more movies," she said. "You'd enjoy these. Yes, I mean the children's book.

Do you know how many 12:13s I've watched pass without you? Tonight it'll be the seven hundred and twentieth," I said, the words burning my throat. "The last thing in the world I want is to say something that makes that number infinite, but I also can't let you erase our history. I don't want to remember the bad parts, but I refuse to forget the good.

Ever, can't you just relax and enjoy the view? When was the last time you were in Paris anyway?" "Never. I've never been to Paris. And I hate to break it to you, Ava, but this—is not Paris. This is like some cranked up Disney version of Paris. Like, you've taken a pile of travel brochures and French postcards, and scenes from that adorable cartoon movie Ratatouille, mixed them all together and voila, created this.

May I bring you a drink to go with those warm nuts, Mr. Sedaris?" this woman looking after me asked - this as the people in coach were still boarding. The looks they gave me as they passed were the looks I give when the door of a limousine opens. You always expect to see a movie star, or, at the very least, some better dressed than you, but time and time again it's just a sloppy nobody. Thus the look, which translates to, Fuck you, Sloppy Nobody, for making me turn my head.

You read all kinds of books and see all kinds of movies about the man who is obsessed and devoted, whose focus is a single solid beam, same as the lighthouse and that intense, too. It is Heathcliff with Catherine. It is a vampire with a passionate love stronger than death. We crave that kind of focus from someone else. We'd give anything to be that "loved." But that focus is not some soul-deep pinnacle of perfect devotion - it's only darkness and the tormented ghosts of darkness. It's strange, isn't it, to see a person's gaping emotional wounds, their gnawing needs, as our romance? We long for it, I don't know why, but when we have it, it is a knife at our throat on the banks of Greenlake. It is an unwanted power you'd do anything to be rid of. A power that becomes the ultimate powerlessness.

[..]Although personally, I think cyberspace means the end of our species." Yes? Why is that?" Because it means the end of innovation," Malcolm said. "This idea that the whole world is wired together is mass death. Every biologist knows that small groups in isolation evolve fastest. You put a thousand birds on an ocean island and they'll evolve very fast. You put ten thousand on a big continent, and their evolution slows down. Now, for our own species, evolution occurs mostly through our behaviour. We innovate new behaviour to adapt. And everybody on earth knows that innovation only occurs in small groups. Put three people on a committee and they may get something done. Ten people, and it gets harder. Thirty people, and nothing happens. Thirty million, it becomes impossible. That's the effect of mass media - it keeps anything from happening. Mass media swamps diversity. It makes every place the same. Bangkok or Tokyo or London: there's a McDonald's on one corner, a Benetton on another, a Gap across the street. Regional differences vanish. All differences vanish. In a mass-media world, there's less of everything except the top ten books, records, movies, ideas. People worry about losing species diversity in the rain forest. But what about intellectual diversity - our most necessary resource? That's disappearing faster than trees. But we haven't figured that out, so now we're planning to put five billion people together in cyberspace. And it'll freeze the entire species. Everything will stop dead in its tracks. Everyone will think the same thing at the same time. Global uniformity. [..]

You don't know me, dude," he says, not smiling this time. Gonzo examines his cards, prepping for his next move. "People always think that they know other people, but they don't. Not really. I mean, maybe they know things about them, like they won't eat doughnuts or they like action movies or whatever. But they don't know what their friends do in their rooms alone at night or what happened to them when they were kids or if they feel ****ed up for no reason at all.

There’s a whole psychological reason for those cartoons about good against evil. We have "Superman" and all those other hero people, so that we can go out into life and try to be something. I’ve got most of Disney’s animated movies on video-tapes, and when we watch them. Oh, I could just eat it, eat it. […] Jimmy Cricket, Pinocchio, Mickey Mouse – these are world-known characters. Some of the greatest political figures have come to the United States to meet them.

Cabel calls Captain. Komisky." Sir, any chance Janie and I can be seen together now?" Under the circumstances, that would pretty damn much make my day, yes. Besides, the Wilder cocaine case got settled on Monday. He pleaded guilty." You rock, sir." Yes, yes, I know. Go out to a movie or something, will you?" Right away. Thank you." And stop bothering me.

Okay, it's like this. You wake up, you watch TV, and you get in the car and you listen to the radio. You go to your little job or your little school, but you're not going to hear about that on the 6:00 news, since guess what. Nothing is really happening. You read the paper, or if you're into that sort of thing you read a book, which is just the same as watching only even more boring. You watch TV all night, or maybe you go out so you can watch a movie, and maybe you'll get a phone call so you can tell your friends what you've been watching. And you know, it's got so bad that I've started to notice, the people on TV? Inside the TV? Half the time they're watching TV. Or if you've got some romance in a movie? What to they do but go to a movie? All those people, Marlin," he invited the interviewer in with a nod. "What are they watching?" After an awkward silence, Marlin filled in, "You tell us, Kevin." "People like me.

Back then, I told myself not to jump to conclusions to figure out what things mean. I decided not to think too deeply about life. Instead, I spent time eating well, watching movies, doing yoga and making coffee. I started to have an interest in other things besides myself and when I turned back to reflect, I realised that my life wasn't a failure after all

I knew him instantly, even though he'd...changed. I think in a crowd of a million people, I would have recognized him. The connection between us would allow nothing else. And after being deprived of him for so long, I drank in every feature. The dark, chin-length hair, worn loose tonight and curling slightly around his face. The familiar set of lips, quirked now in an amused yet chilling smile. He even wore the duster he always wore, the long leather coat that could have come straight out of a cowboy movie. [...] The eyes. Oh God, the eyes. Even with that sickening red ring around his pupils, his eyes still reminded me of the Dimitri I'd known. The look in his eyes—the soulless, malicious gleam—that was nothing like him. But there was just enough resemblance to stir my heart, to overwhelm my senses and feelings. My stake was ready. All I had to do was keep swinging to make the kill. I had momentum on my side... But I couldn't. I just needed a few more seconds, a few more seconds to drink him in before I killed him. And that's when he spoke. "Roza." His voice had the same wonderful lowness, the same accent...it was just colder. "You forgot my first lesson: Don't hesitate.

From the movie "Everything is Illuminated" based on a book by Jonathan Safran Foer: I have reflected many times upon our rigid search. It has shown me that everything is illuminated in the light of the past. It is always along the side of us, on the inside, looking out. Like you say, inside out. Jonathan, in this way, I will always be along the side of your life. And you will always be along the side of mine.

You know what would be really nice right now? Coffee. I'd really go for some coffee." Just the idea made her salivate. He scowled. "How can you think about coffee right now?" "I don't know. Maybe caffeine is how I cope." She thought for a moment. "Although usually I'm a crier. Are you a crier?" "No." "Not even sad movies or weddings?" "No." "What about commercials with little puppies that need a home?" He blinked. "Please stop talking." "Hmm," she said slowly. "Maybe talking is how I cope." Her hands started falling asleep. "You know what else would be really nice right now?" "An off button?

Keanu Reeves?" she asks in amazement. I nod. "What did he wish for?" "Isn't it obvious?" I say, waving a hand at the screen. "Fame." "That's why he's famous? Because of a wish?" "Have you seen his movies? Surely you didn't think he made it on his acting skills?" I grant wishes; I don't work miracles. Viola looks back at the screen, eyes screwed up in awe. "I guess that makes sense," she says faintly as my former master delivers a line poorly. "Wow.

So let me help you out. My favorite color is-hell, I don't know. I've never cared enough to think about it. My favorite movie is-what else-ZOMBIELAND. But not because the good guys win in the end, though that's a plus, but because Emma Stone is hot." I snorted. He was SUCH a guy. "My favorite band is-" "Let me guess," I interjected. "White Zombie? Slayer?" "Red. And no, not just because I want zombies to bleed.What about you? Who do you like? Because honestly, I'm surprised you know White Z and Slayer." "I like Red,too, but I'm partial to Skillet. Used to listen to them with my sister. But why wouldn't I know the other bands?" "You look so angelic." "And do you think angels are hot?" I asked primly, trying to play it cool so that I wouldn't reveal what a mess I was on the inside. All this time, he'd wanted to get to know me and date me. What craziness! "The hottest.

And you've screwed me up, Lib, because now I'm thinking in lyrics instead of original thoughts. I'm look at you and trying to find the words to convince you to be with me, and do you know what comes into you head? You showed me colors you know I can't see with anyone else. They aren't my words, I don't even know what song of album they're from, for God's sake, but it's exactly how I feel. And you taught me a secret language I can't speak with anyone else-like, I can't remember who wrote that, but I feel it down to the marrow in my bones. Being with you has changed the threads of my existence, I swear to God, so now being without you makes everything quieter, dimmer and duller. So. Much. Smaller.

You looked at them and wondered why the were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question. The mast had said, "You are ugly people." They had looked about themselves and saw nothing to contradict the statement; saw, in fact, support for it leaning at them from every billboard, every movie, every glance. "Yes," they had said. "You are right.

When King Lear dies in Act V, do you know what Shakespeare has written? He's written "He dies." That's all, nothing more. No fanfare, no metaphor, no brilliant final words. The culmination of the most influential work of dramatic literature is "He dies." It takes Shakespeare, a genius, to come up with "He dies." And yet every time I read those two words, I find myself overwhelmed with dysphoria. And I know it's only natural to be sad, but not because of the words "He dies." but because of the life we saw prior to the words.

Q: Do you feel concerned that after all this work, people won't treat [Starship Titanic] with the gravity of, say, a movie or a book? That they won't treat it as an art form? D.A.: I hope that's the case, yes. I get very worried about this idea of art. Having been an English literary graduate, I've been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since. I think the idea of art kills creativity. ... [I]f somebody wants to come along and say, "Oh, it's art," that's as may be. I don't really mind that much. But I think that's for other people to decide after the fact. It isn't what you should be aiming to do. There's nothing worse than sitting down to write a novel and saying, "Well, okay, I'm going to do something of high artistic worth." ... I think you get most of the most interesting work done in fields where people don't think they're doing art, but merely practicing a craft, and working as good craftsmen. ... I tend to get very suspicious of anything that thinks it's art while it's being created.

I remembered what Morrie said during our visit: “The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it.” "Morrie true to these words, had developed his own culture – long before he got sick. Discussion groups, walks with friends, dancing to his music in the Harvard Square church. He started a project called Greenhouse, where poor people could receive mental health services. He read books to find new ideas for his classes, visited with colleagues, kept up with old students, wrote letters to distant friends. He took more time eating and looking at nature and wasted not time in front of TV sitcoms or “Movies of the Week.” He had created a cocoon of human activities– conversations, interaction, affection–and it filled his life like an overflowing soup bowl.

You and your scars. Please! You don't kill youself like this!" I gesture, holding a wrist turned up to the ceiling, then pretending to cut across it with my other hand. "That's just a cry for help. That's just attention. Everbody knows that. Cutting across just gets you to the hospital. That's just from movies and TV shows and stuff like that. You didn't really try to kill yourself. you just wanted attention, but you screwed up. Try harder next time.

Do you like manga?" she asked after a minute. "Anime?" "Anime's cool. I'm not really into it, but 1 like Japanese movies, animated or not." "Well, I'm into it. I watch the shows, read the books, chat on the boards, and all that. But this girl I know, she's completely into it. She spends most of her allowance on the books and DVDs. She can recite dialogue from them." She caught my gaze. "So would you say she belongs here?" "No. Most kids are that way about something, right? With me, it's movies. Like knowing who directed a sci-fi movie made before I was born.

This was it. And it was right. Perfect without the dinner, movies, and flowers, because how could you really plan something like this? You couldn't Daemon sat back- A fist pounded on the door, and Andrew's voice intruded. "Daemon, are you awake?" We stared at each other in disbelief. "If I ignore him," he whispered, "do you think he'll go away?" My hands dropped to my sides. "Maybe" The pounding came again. "Daemon, I really need you downstairs. Dawson is ready to go back to Mount Weather. Nothing Dee or I are saying to him is making a bit of difference. He's like a suicidal Energizer bunny." Daemon squeezed his eyes shut. "Son of a bitch..." "It's okay." I started to sit up. "He needs you." He let out a ragged sigh. "Stay here and get some rest. I'll talk-or beat some sense into him." He kissed me briefly and then gently pushed me back down. "I'll be back." Settling in, I smiled. "Try not to kill him." "No promises." He stood, pulled on his pajama bottoms, and headed for the door. Stopping short, he looked over his shoulder,his intense gaze melting my bones. "Dammit." A few seconds after he stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him, there was a fleshly smack and then Andrew yelling. "Ouch. What in the hell was that for?" "Your timing sucks on an epic level," Daemon shot back.

You're looking at me like I'm nuts, honey, and you're right. I am. I am out of my mind when it comes to you." I said, shrugging because it was a fact. "When I'm near you, the way I feel steals the breath from my body. It's like I breathe for you. like I exists to exist alongside of you. I know those feelings are probably too big and too scary and put way too much pressure on you, and I'm sorry for that. Truly. But it's the way I feel. The way I've always felt.

It's like I'm reading a book, and it's a book I deeply love, but I'm reading it slowly now so the words are really far apart and the spaces between the words are almost infinite. I can still feel you and the words of our story, but it's in this endless space between the words that I'm finding myself now. It’s a place that’s not of the physical world - it's where everything else is that I didn't even know existed. I love you so much, but this is where I am now. This is who I am now. And I need you to let me go. As much as I want to I can't live in your book anymore.

In the land of Gods and Monsters I was an Angel Living in the garden of evil Screwed up, scared, doing anything that I needed Shining like a fiery beacon You got that medicine I need Fame, Liquor, Love give it to me slowly Put your hands on my waist, do it softly Me and God, we don't get along so now I sing No one's gonna take my soul away I'm living like Jim Morrison Headed towards a fucked up holiday Motel sprees sprees and I'm singing 'Fuck yeah give it to me this is heaven, what I truly Want' It's innocence lost Innocence lost In the land of Gods and Monsters I was an Angel Looking to get fucked hard Like a groupie incognito posing as a real singer Life imitates art You got that medicine I need Dope, shoot it up, straight to the heart please I don't really wanna know what's good for me God's dead, I said 'baby that's alright with me' No one's gonna take my soul away I'm living like Jim Morrison Headed towards a fucked up holiday Motel sprees sprees and I'm singing 'Fuck yeah give it to me this is heaven, what I truly Want' It's innocence lost Innocence lost When you talk it's like a movie and you're making me Crazy - Cause life imitates art If I get a little prettier can I be your baby? You tell me, "life isn't that hard" No one's gonna take my soul away I'm living like Jim Morrison Headed towards a fucked up holiday Motel sprees sprees and I'm singing 'Fuck yeah give it to me this is heaven, what I truly Want' It's innocence lost Innocence lost

Your generation - you've not heard the Verve or Jimi Hendrix or Eminem, you've not read The Catcher in the Rye, you've not seen a classic film like Terminator or Blade Runner. All you've done is read dross, listen to crap and watch Disney movies with happy endings. And what kind of generation have we produced? A slow, simple, dull one who never questions anything. A stunted generation. It's devolution because in order for society to progress, you need to be able to debate ideas, to question, to see the dark and the light in things

My mind was quickly consumed with thoughts of my girlfriend and all the good times we had had, like one of those cheesy montages ni eighties movies, when the angsty protagonist envisions himself and his ex holding hands on the beach, feeding a small puppy, getting into some kind of zany wrestling match with whipped cream. I interrupted my cliché memories by saying aloud: "Ugh, I'm feeling pretty low about this whole thing." "You just gotta try to put it out of your head," he said, folding the paper halfway down to look at me. "I know, it's just hard. I mean, I still have stuff at her place. What am I going to do about that? I still have a TV...," I said. "Fuck the TV. Leave the TV. Cut your ties." "It's a fifteen-hundred-dollar TV," I insisted. "Go get that fucking TV.

In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true, or the propaganda might be false. They did not foresee what in fact has happened, above all in our Western capitalist democracies - the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant. In a word, they failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions. In the past most people never got a chance of fully satisfying this appetite. They might long for distractions, but the distractions were not provided. Christmas came but once a year, feasts were "solemn and rare," there were few readers and very little to read, and the nearest approach to a neighborhood movie theater was the parish church, where the performances though frequent, were somewhat monotonous. For conditions even remotely comparable to those now prevailing we must return to imperial Rome, where the populace was kept in good humor by frequent, gratuitous doses of many kinds of entertainment - from poetical dramas to gladiatorial fights, from recitations of Virgil to all-out boxing, from concerts to military reviews and public executions. But even in Rome there was nothing like the non-stop distractions now provided by newspapers and magazines, by radio, television and the cinema. In "Brave New World" non-stop distractions of the most fascinating nature are deliberately used as instruments of policy, for the purpose of preventing people from paying too much attention to the realities of the social and political situation. The other world of religion is different from the other world of entertainment; but they resemble one another in being most decidedly "not of this world." Both are distractions and, if lived in too continuously, both can become, in Marx's phrase "the opium of the people" and so a threat to freedom. Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in their calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those would manipulate and control it.

It's simple. If you go to see 'Saturday Night Fever' expecting it to be good, it's a corker. However, if you go expecting it to be a crock of shit, it's that, too. Thus 'Saturday Night Fever' can exist in two mutually opposing states at the very same time, yet only by the weight of our expectations. From this principle we can deduce that any opposing states can be governed by human expectation - even, as in the case of retro-deficit-engineering, the present use of a future technology." "I think I understand that. Does it work with any John Travolta movie?" "Only the artistically ambiguous ones such as 'Pulp Fiction' or 'Face/Off.' 'Battlefield Earth' doesn't work, because it's a stinker no matter how much you think you're going to like it, and 'Get Shorty' doesn't work either, because you'd be hard-pressed not to enjoy it, irrespective of any preconceived notions.

Every time I see this one particular movie star on a magazine, I can't help but feel terribly sorry for her because nobody respects her at all, and yet they keep interviewing her. And the interviews are all the same thing. They start with what food they are eating in some restaurant. "As _____ gingerly munched her Chinese Chicken Salad, she spoke of love." And all the covers say the same thing: "_____ gets to the bottom of stardom, love, and his/her hit new movie/television show/album." I think it's nice for stars to do interviews to make us think they are just like us, but to tell you the truth, I get the feeling that it's all a big lie. The problem is I don't know who's lying.

American movies, English books - remember how they all end?" Gamini asked that night. "The American or the Englishman gets on a plane and leaves. That's it. The camera leaves with him. He looks out of the window at Mombasa or Vietnam or Jakarta, someplace now he can look at through the clouds. The tired hero. A couple of words to the girl beside him. He's going home. So the war, to all purposes, is over. That's enough reality for the West. It's probably the history of the last two hundred years of Western political writing. Go home. Write a book. Hit the circuit.

Now, here's what we do. You and I will find a back way out of this place. If we come across someone else, we make like a couple of lovesick teenagers. People generally hurry past heavy breathers. I get you to the parking lot, you vanish. Got it?" He nodded. "There's just one thing I've got to do before we go," he said. Before I could inquire, he grabbed me and planted a kiss square on my mouth. It was short but fiery, despite the grape flavoring, and when he let me go I wan panting. Holy crap!" He smiled, not at all apologetically, and said, "I've wanted to do that ever since I saw my first Bond movie.

So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. You're an orphan right? [Will nods] Sean: You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.

After all, we're currently living in a Bizarro society where teenagers are technology-obsessed, where the biggest sellers in every bookstores are fantasy novels about a boy wizard, and the blockbuster hit movies are all full of hobbits and elves or 1960s spandex superheroes. You don't have to go to a Star Trek convention to find geeks anymore. Today, almost everyone is an obsessive, well-informed aficionado of something. Pick your cult: there are food geeks and fashion geeks and Desperate Housewives geeks and David Mamet geeks and fantasy sports geeks. The list is endless. And since everyone today is some kind of trivia geek or other, there's not even a stigma anymore. Trivia is mainstream. "Nerd" is the new "cool.

I do need that time, though, for Naoko's face to appear. And as the years have passed, the time has grown longer. The sad truth is that what I could recall in five seconds all too needed ten, then thirty, then a full minute-like shadows lengthening at dusk. Someday, I suppose, the shadows will be swallowed up in darkness. There is no way around it: my memory is growing ever more distant from the spot where Naoko used to stand-ever more distant from the spot where my old self used to stand. And nothing but scenery, that view of the meadow in October, returns again and again to me like a symbolic scene in a movie. Each time is appears, it delivers a kick to some part of my mind. "Wake up," it says. "I'm still here. Wake up and think about it. Think about why I'm still here." The kicking never hurts me. There's no pain at all. Just a hollow sound that echoes with each kick. And even that is bound to fade one day. At the Hamburg airport, though, the kicks were longer and harder than usual. Which is why I am writing this book. To think. To understand. It just happens to be the way I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.

I'm really not looking to date anyone." I know people often say that when secretly looking for a romantic partner, but I mean it. I definitely felt attracted to some people, and I liked the idea of being with someone, but the actual mechanics of it didn't much suit my talents. Like, parts of typical romantic relationships that made me anxious included 1. Kissing; 2. Having to say the right things to avoid hurt feelings; 3. Saying more wrong things while trying to apologize; 4. Being at a movie theater together and feeling obligated to hold hands even after your hands become sweaty and the sweat starts mixing together; 5. The part where they say, "What are you thinking about?" And they want you to be, like, "I'm thinking about you, darling," but you're actually thinking about how cows literally could not survive if it weren't for the bacteria in their guts, and how that means that cows do not exist as independent life-forms, but that's not really something you can say out loud, so you're ultimately forced to choose between lying and seeming weird.

So Oz finally became home; the imagined world became the actual world, as it does for us all, because the truth is that once we have left our childhood places and started out to make our own lives, armed only with what we have and are, we understand that the real secret of the ruby slippers is not that "there's no place like home," but rather that there is no longer such a place as home: except, of course, for the homes we make, or the homes that are made for us, in Oz, which is anywhere and everywhere, except the place from which we began. In the place from which I began, after all, I watched the film from the child's - Dorothy's point of view. I experienced, with her, the frustration of being brushed aside by Uncle Henry and Auntie Em, busy with their dull grown-up counting. Like all adults, they couldn't focus on what was really important to Dorothy: namely, the threat to Toto. I ran away with Dorothy and then ran back. Even the shock of discovering that the Wizard was a humbug was a shock I felt as a child, a shock to the child's faith in adults. Perhaps, too, I felt something deeper, something I couldn't articulate; perhaps some half-formed suspicion about grown-ups was being confirmed. Now, as I look at the movie again, I have become the fallible adult. Now I am a member of the tribe of imperfect parents who cannot listen to their children's voices. I, who no longer have a father, have become a father instead, and now it is my fate to be unable to satisfy the longings of a child. This is the last and most terrible lesson of the film: that there is one final, unexpected rite of passage. In the end, ceasing to be children, we all become magicians without magic, exposed conjurers, with only our simply humanity to get us through. We are the humbugs now.

From Jess: FANG. I've commented your blog with my questions for THREE YEARS. You answer other people's STUPID questions but not MINE. YOU REALLY ASKED FOR IT, BUDDY. I'm just gonna comment with this until you answer at least one of my questions. DO YOU HAVE A JAMAICAN ACCENT? No, Mon DO YOU MOLT? Gross. WHAT'S YOUR STAR SIGN? Dont know. "Angel what's my star sign?" She says Scorpio. HAVE YOU TOLD JEB I LOVE HIM YET? No. DOES NOT HAVING A POWER MAKE YOU ANGRY? Well, that's not really true... DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THE SOULJA BOY? Can you see me doing the Soulja Boy? DOES IGGY KNOW HOW TO DO THE SOULJA BOY? Gazzy does. DO YOU USE HAIR PRODUCTS? No. Again,no. DO YOU USE PRODUCTS ON YOUR FEATHERS? I don't know that they make bird kid feather products yet. WHAT'S YOU FAVORITE MOVIE? There are a bunch WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SONG? I don't have favorites. They're too polarizing. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SMELL? Max, when she showers. DO THESE QUESTIONS MAKE YOU ANGRY? Not really. IF I CAME UP TO YOU IN A STREET AND HUGGED YOU, WOULD YOU KILL ME? You might get kicked. But I'm used to people wanting me dead, so. DO YOU SECRETLY WANT TO BE HUGGED? Doesn't everybody? ARE YOU GOING EMO 'CAUSE ANGEL IS STEALING EVERYONE'S POWERS (INCLUDING YOURS)? Not the emo thing again. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD? Anything hot and delicious and brought to me by Iggy. WHAT DID YOU HAVE FOR BREAKFAST THIS MORNING? Three eggs, over easy. Bacon. More Bacon. Toast. DID YOU EVEN HAVE BREAKFAST THIS MORNING? See above. DID YOU DIE INSIDE WHEN MAX CHOSE ARI OVER YOU? Dudes don't die inside. DO YOU LIKE MAX? Duh. DO YOU LIKE ME? I think you're funny. DOES IGGY LIKE ME? Sure DO YOU WRITE DEPRESSING POETRY? No. IS IT ABOUT MAX? Ahh. No. IS IT ABOUT ARI? Why do you assume I write depressing poetry? IS IT ABOUT JEB? Ahh. ARE YOU GOING TO BLOCK THIS COMMENT? Clearly, no. WHAT ARE YOU WEARING? A Dirty Projectors T-shirt. Jeans. DO YOU WEAR BOXERS OR BRIEFS? No freaking comment. DO YOU FIND THIS COMMENT PERSONAL? Could I not find that comment personal? DO YOU WEAR SUNGLASSES? Yes, cheap ones. DO YOU WEAR YOUR SUNGLASSES AT NIGHT? That would make it hard to see. DO YOU SMOKE APPLES, LIKE US? Huh? DO YOU PREFER BLONDES OR BRUNETTES? Whatever. DO YOU LIKE VAMPIRES OR WEREWOLVES? Fanged creatures rock. ARE YOU GAY AND JUST PRETENDING TO BE STRAIGHT BY KISSING LISSA? Uhh... WERE YOU EXPERIMENING WITH YOUR SEXUALITY? Uhh... WOULD YOU TELL US IF YOU WERE GAY? Yes. DO YOU SECRETLY LIKE IT WHEN PEOPLE CALL YOU EMO? No. ARE YOU EMO? Whatever. DO YOU LIKE EGGS? Yes. I had them for breakfast. DO YOU LIKE EATING THINGS? I love eating. I list it as a hobby. DO YOU SECRETLY THINK YOU'RE THE SEXIEST PERSON IN THE WHOLE WORLD? Do you secretly think I'm the sexiest person in the whole world? DO YOU EVER HAVE DIRTY THOUGHTS ABOUT MAX? Eeek! HAS ENGEL EVER READ YOUR MIND WHEN YOU WERE HAVING DIRTY THOUGHT ABOUT MAX AND GONE "OMG" AND YOU WERE LIKE "D:"? hahahahahahahahahahah DO YOU LIKE SPONGEBOB? He's okay, I guess. DO YOU EVER HAVE DIRTY THOUGHT ABOUT SPONGEBOB? Definitely CAN YOU COOK? Iggy cooks. DO YOU LIKE TO COOK? I like to eat. ARE YOU, LIKE, A HOUSEWIFE? How on earth could I be like a housewife? DO YOU SECRETLY HAVE INNER TURMOIL? Isn't it obvious? DO YOU WANT TO BE UNDA DA SEA? I'm unda da stars. DO YOU THINK IT'S NOT TOO LATE, IT'S NEVER TOO LATE? Sure. WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO PLAY POKER? TV. DO YOU HAVE A GOOD POKER FACE? Totally. OF COURSE YOU HAVE A GOOD POKER FACE. DOES IGGY HAVE A GOOD POKER FACE? Yes. CAN HE EVEN PLAY POKER? Iggy beats me sometimes. DO YOU LIKE POKING PEOPLE HARD? Not really. ARE YOU FANGALICIOUS? I could never be as fangalicious as you'd want me to be. Fly on, Fang

The truth is, Colonel, that there's no divine spark, bless you. There's many a man alive no more value than a dead dog. Believe me, when you've seen them hang each other...Equality? Christ in Heaven. What I'm fighting for is the right to prove I'm a better man than many. Where have you seen this divine spark in operation, Colonel? Where have you noted this magnificent equality? The Great White Joker in the Sky dooms us all to stupidity or poverty from birth. no two things on earth are equal or have an equal chance, not a leaf nor a tree. There's many a man worse than me, and some better, but I don't think race or country matters a damn. What matters is justice. 'Tis why I'm here. I'll be treated as I deserve, not as my father deserved. I'm Kilrain, and I God damn all gentlemen. I don't know who me father was and I don't give a damn. There's only one aristocracy, and that's right here - " he tapped his white skull with a thick finger - "and YOU, Colonel laddie, are a member of it and don't even know it. You are damned good at everything I've seen you do, a lovely soldier, an honest man, and you got a good heart on you too, which is rare in clever men. Strange thing. I'm not a clever man meself, but I know it when I run across it. The strange and marvelous thing about you, Colonel darlin', is that you believe in mankind, even preachers, whereas when you've got my great experience of the world you will have learned that good men are rare, much rarer than you think.

Understanding knowledge as an essential element of love is vital because we are bombarded daily with messages that tell us love is about mystery, about that which cannot be known. We see movies in which people are represented as being in love who never talk with one another, who fall into bed without ever discussing their bodies, their sexual needs, their likes and dislikes. Indeed, the message is received from the mass media is that knowledge makes love less compelling; that it is ignorance that gives love its erotic and transgressive edge. These messages are brought to us by profiteering producers who have no clue about the art of loving, who substitute their mystified visions because they do not really know how to genuinely portray loving interaction.

I think people expect too much from marriage today" he said. "They expect perfection. Every moment should be a bliss. That´s TV or movies. But that is not the human experience. Like Sarah says, twenty good minutes here, forty good minutes there, it adds up to something beautiful. The trick is when things aren´t so great, you don´t junk the whole thing. It´s okay to have an argument. It´s okay that the other one nudges you a little, bothers you a little. It´s part of being close to someone. But the joy you get from the sam closeness - when you watch your children, whan you wake up and smile at each other - that, as our tradition teaches us, is a blessing. People forget that. Why do they forget it? Because the word "commitment" has lost its meaning. I´m old enough to remember when it used to be positive. A committed person was someone to be admired. He was loyal and steady. Now a commitment is something you avoid. You don´t want to tie yourself down

In a way, what Tarantino has done with the French New Wave and with David Lynch is what Pat Boone did with rhythm and blues: He's found (ingeniously) a way to take what is ragged and distinctive and menacing about their work and homogenize it, churn it until it's smooth and cool and hygienic enough for mass consumption. Reservoir Dogs, for example, with its comically banal lunch chatter, creepily otiose code names, and intrusive soundtrack of campy pop from decades past, is a Lynch movie made commercial, i.e., fast, linear, and with what was idiosyncratically surreal now made fashionably (i.e., "hiply") surreal [...] D. Lynch is an exponentially better filmmaker than Q. Tarantino. For, unlike Tarantino, D. Lynch knows that an act of violence in an American film has, through repetition and desensitization, lost the ability to refer to anything but itself. A better way to put what I just tried to say: Quentin Tarantino is interested in watching somebody's ear getting cut off; David Lynch is interested in the ear.

How To Tell If Somebody Loves You: Somebody loves you if they pick an eyelash off of your face or wet a napkin and apply it to your dirty skin. You didn’t ask for these things, but this person went ahead and did it anyway. They don’t want to see you looking like a fool with eyelashes and crumbs on your face. They notice these things. They really look at you and are the first to notice if something is amiss with your beautiful visage! Somebody loves you if they assume the role of caretaker when you’re sick. Unsure if someone really gives a shit about you? Fake a case of food poisoning and text them being like, “Oh, my God, so sick. Need water.” Depending on their response, you’ll know whether or not they REALLY love you. “That’s terrible. Feel better!” earns you a stay in friendship jail; “Do you need anything? I can come over and bring you get well remedies!” gets you a cozy friendship suite. It’s easy to care about someone when they don’t need you. It’s easy to love them when they’re healthy and don’t ask you for anything beyond change for the parking meter. Being sick is different. Being sick means asking someone to hold your hair back when you vomit. Either love me with vomit in my hair or don’t love me at all. Somebody loves you if they call you out on your bullshit. They’re not passive, they don’t just let you get away with murder. They know you well enough and care about you enough to ask you to chill out, to bust your balls, to tell you to stop. They aren’t passive observers in your life, they are in the trenches. They have an opinion about your decisions and the things you say and do. They want to be a part of it; they want to be a part of you. Somebody loves you if they don’t mind the quiet. They don’t mind running errands with you or cleaning your apartment while blasting some annoying music. There’s no pressure, no need to fill the silences. You know how with some of your friends there needs to be some sort of activity for you to hang out? You don’t feel comfortable just shooting the shit and watching bad reality TV with them. You need something that will keep the both of you busy to ensure there won’t be a void. That’s not love. That’s “Hey, babe! I like you okay. Do you wanna grab lunch? I think we have enough to talk about to fill two hours!" It’s a damn dream when you find someone you can do nothing with. Whether you’re skydiving together or sitting at home and doing different things, it’s always comfortable. That is fucking love. Somebody loves you if they want you to be happy, even if that involves something that doesn’t benefit them. They realize the things you need to do in order to be content and come to terms with the fact that it might not include them. Never underestimate the gift of understanding. When there are so many people who are selfish and equate relationships as something that only must make them happy, having someone around who can take their needs out of any given situation if they need to. Somebody loves you if they can order you food without having to be told what you want. Somebody loves you if they rub your back at any given moment. Somebody loves you if they give you oral sex without expecting anything back. Somebody loves you if they don’t care about your job or how much money you make. It’s a relationship where no one is selling something to the other. No one is the prostitute. Somebody loves you if they’ll watch a movie starring Kate Hudson because you really really want to see it. Somebody loves you if they’re able to create their own separate world with you, away from the internet and your job and family and friends. Just you and them. Somebody will always love you. If you don’t think this is true, then you’re not paying close enough attention.

What's this?" Dan said, pointing to a funny squiggly formation. Uh, an M," said Nellie. "Or if you look at it the other way, a W. Or sideways, kind of S-ish..." Maybe it's palm trees," Dan said. "Like in the movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. You know? No? These guys need to find hidden money, and the only clue they have is it's under a big W? And no one sees what it means-but then, near the end of the movie, there's this grove of four palm trees rising up in the shape of... you-know-what! Classic!" Amy, Alistair, Natalie, Ian and Nellie all looked at him blankly. There is no W in the Korean language," Alistair replied. "Or palm trees in Korea. I might be maple trees..." Mrrp," said Saladin, rubbing his face against Dan's knee. I'll tell you the rest of the plot later," Dan whispered to the Mau.

I would like [my readers] to better understand human beings and human life as a result of having read [my] stories. I'd like them to feel that this was an experience that made things better for them and an experience that gave them hope. I think that the kind of things that we talk about at this conference -- fantasy very much so, science fiction, and even horror -- the message that we're sending is the reverse of the message sent by what is called "realistic fiction." (I happen to think that realistic fiction is not, in fact, realistic, but that's a side issue.) And what we are saying is that it doesn't have to be like this: things can be different. Our society can be changed. Maybe it's worse, maybe it's better. Maybe it's a higher civilization, maybe it's a barbaric civilization. But it doesn't have to be the way it is now. Things can change. And we're also saying things can change for you in your life. Look at the difference between Severian the apprentice and Severian the Autarch [in The Book of the New Sun], for example. The difference beteween Silk as an augur and Silk as calde [in The Book of the Long Sun]. You see? We don't always have to be this. There can be something else. We can stop doing the thing that we're doing. Moms Mabley had a great line in some movie or other -- she said, "You keep on doing what you been doing and you're gonna keep on gettin' what you been gettin'." And we don't have to keep on doing what we've been doing. We can do something else if we don't like what we're gettin'. I think a lot of the purpose of fiction ought to be to tell people that.

I guess its time you officially met the lost boys," I said to Daniel. "Lost boys? You mean like that old Kiefer Sutherland movie? "What? No, I mean like Peter Pan and the lost boys." "Is she calling us fairies?" Asked Slade. "No," Brent said. "She means the lost boys that never wanted to grow up, and got into mischief with Peter Pan." "Still sounds like fairies to me." Slade crossed his tattooed arms in front of his chest. "Still sounds like that Kiefer Sutherland movie to me." Daniel smirked. "We were in the play together, like, seven years ago. You were mad because my mom made you wear tights, but you wanted to be a pirate." Daniel held his hand up. "Partial amnesia here, remember? I must have blocked out any and all recollections associations with said tights." Brent, Zach, and Ryan laughed. Slade almost cracked a smile. ~ Grace, Daniel, and The Lost Boys

I lay there wrapped in Carter’s arms and it was the most comfortable I had ever been. For about five minutes. This just proved that everything they did in the movies was a load of bullshit. His arm was under my neck on the pillow which tilted my head at an awkward angle. I could already feel the beginnings of a kink. I was starting to sweat like a whore in church with his other arm heavily draped over my waist and his legs tangled with mine. With my sweaty ass and his itchy leg hair, it felt like I had a hundred mosquito bites on my legs. It would be wrong to kick him now, right? I shifted my body just the tiniest bit. I didn't want him to think I didn't want to cuddle, but I was going insane trying to lie perfectly still. . . . "Out with it, Claire," Carter mumbled close to my ear. Shit. Now it was going to get awkward. We just now had sex for the first time in years and I was going to tell him to get away from me so I could sleep. I am the most unromantic person in the world. . . . "My neck is killing me and I'm so hot right now my skin could start a blanket fire," I rambled. Carter was quiet. Too quiet. Shit, I hurt his feelings. "Oh, thank fucking God," he said as he pulled both of his arms out from around me. "My arm fell asleep and my legs were getting a cramp.

You will not remember much from school. School is designed to teach you how to respond and listen to authority figures in the event of an emergency. Like if there's a bomb in a mall or a fire in an office. It can, apparently, take you more than a decade to learn this. These are not the best days of your life. They are still ahead of you. You will fall in love and have your heart broken in many different, new and interesting ways in college or university (if you go) and you will actually learn things, as at this point, people will believe you have a good chance of obeying authority and surviving, in the event of an emergency. If, in your chosen career path, there are award shows that give out more than ten awards in one night or you have to pay someone to actually take the award home to put on your mantlepiece, then those awards are more than likely designed to make young people in their 20's work very late, for free, for other people. Those people will do their best to convince you that they have value. They don't. Only the things you do have real, lasting value, not the things you get for the things you do. You will, at some point, realise that no trophy loves you as much as you love it, that it cannot pay your bills (even if it increases your salary slightly) and that it won't hold your hand tightly as you say your last words on your deathbed. Only people who love you can do that. If you make art to feel better, make sure it eventually makes you feel better. If it doesn't, stop making it. You will love someone differently, as time passes. If you always expect to feel the same kind of love you felt when you first met someone, you will always be looking for new people to love. Love doesn't fade. It just changes as it grows. It would be boring if it didn't. There is no truly "right" way of writing, painting, being or thinking, only things which have happened before. People who tell you differently are assholes, petrified of change, who should be violently ignored. No philosophy, mantra or piece of advice will hold true for every conceivable situation. "The early bird catches the worm" does not apply to minefields. Perfection only exists in poetry and movies, everyone fights occasionally and no sane person is ever completely sure of anything. Nothing is wrong with any of this. Wisdom does not come from age, wisdom comes from doing things. Be very, very careful of people who call themselves wise, artists, poets or gurus. If you eat well, exercise often and drink enough water, you have a good chance of living a long and happy life. The only time you can really be happy, is right now. There is no other moment that exists that is more important than this one. Do not sacrifice this moment in the hopes of a better one. It is easy to remember all these things when they are being said, it is much harder to remember them when you are stuck in traffic or lying in bed worrying about the next day. If you want to move people, simply tell them the truth. Today, it is rarer than it's ever been. (People will write things like this on posters (some of the words will be bigger than others) or speak them softly over music as art (pause for effect). The reason this happens is because as a society, we need to self-medicate against apathy and the slow, gradual death that can happen to anyone, should they confuse life with actually living.)

What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua...that's the only name I can think of for it...like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep. The old channels cannot contain it and in its search for new ones there seems to be growing havoc and destruction along its banks. In this Chautauqua I would like not to cut any new channels of consciousness but simply dig deeper into old ones that have become silted in with the debris of thoughts grown stale and platitudes too often repeated. "What's new?" is an interesting and broadening eternal question, but one which, if pursued exclusively, results only in an endless parade of trivia and fashion, the silt of tomorrow. I would like, instead, to be concerned with the question "What is best?," a question which cuts deeply rather than broadly, a question whose answers tend to move the silt downstream. There are eras of human history in which the channels of thought have been too deeply cut and no change was possible, and nothing new ever happened, and "best" was a matter of dogma, but that is not the situation now. Now the stream of our common consciousness seems to be obliterating its own banks, losing its central direction and purpose, flooding the lowlands, disconnecting and isolating the highlands and to no particular purpose other than the wasteful fulfillment of its own internal momentum. Some channel deepening seems called for.

(Golden Globe acceptance speech in the style of Jane Austen's letters): "Four A.M. Having just returned from an evening at the Golden Spheres, which despite the inconveniences of heat, noise and overcrowding, was not without its pleasures. Thankfully, there were no dogs and no children. The gowns were middling. There was a good deal of shouting and behavior verging on the profligate, however, people were very free with their compliments and I made several new acquaintances. Miss Lindsay Doran, of Mirage, wherever that might be, who is largely responsible for my presence here, an enchanting companion about whom too much good cannot be said. Mr. Ang Lee, of foreign extraction, who most unexpectedly apppeared to understand me better than I undersand myself. Mr. James Schamus, a copiously erudite gentleman, and Miss Kate Winslet, beautiful in both countenance and spirit. Mr. Pat Doyle, a composer and a Scot, who displayed the kind of wild behavior one has lernt to expect from that race. Mr. Mark Canton, an energetic person with a ready smile who, as I understand it, owes me a vast deal of money. Miss Lisa Henson -- a lovely girl, and Mr. Gareth Wigan -- a lovely boy. I attempted to converse with Mr. Sydney Pollack, but his charms and wisdom are so generally pleasing that it proved impossible to get within ten feet of him. The room was full of interesting activitiy until eleven P.M. when it emptied rather suddenly. The lateness of the hour is due therefore not to the dance, but to the waiting, in a long line for horseless vehicles of unconscionable size. The modern world has clearly done nothing for transport. P.S. Managed to avoid the hoyden Emily Tomkins who has purloined my creation and added things of her own. Nefarious creature." "With gratitude and apologies to Miss Austen, thank you.

I would love to say that I wrote (Good Will Hunting). Here is the truth. In my obit it will say that I wrote it. People don't want to think those two cute guys wrote it. What happened was, they had the script. It was their script. They gave it to Rob [Reiner] to read, and there was a great deal of stuff in the script dealing with the F.B.I. trying to use Matt Damon for spy work because he was so brilliant in math. Rob said, "Get rid of it." They then sent them in to see me for a day - I met with them in New York - and all I said to them was, "Rob's right. Get rid of the F.B.I. stuff. Go with the family, go with Boston, go with all that wonderful stuff." And they did. I think people refuse to admit it because their careers have been so far from writing, and I think it's too bad. I'll tell you who wrote a marvelous script once, Sylvester Stallone. Rocky's a marvelous script. God, read it, it's wonderful. It's just got marvelous stuff. And then he stopped suddenly because it's easier being a movie star and making all that money than going in your pit and writing a script. But I did not write [Good Will Hunting], alas. I would not have written the "It's not your fault" scene. I'm going to assume that 148 percent of the people in this room have seen a therapist. I certainly have, for a long time. Hollywood always has this idea that it's this shrink with only one patient. I mean, that scene with Robin Williams gushing and Matt Damon and they're hugging, "It's not your fault, it's not your fault." I thought, Oh God, Freud is so agonized over this scene. But Hollywood tends to do that with therapists. (from 2003 WGA seminar)

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

I especially loved the Old Testament. Even as a kid I had a sense of it being slightly illicit. As though someone had slipped an R-rated action movie into a pile of Disney DVDs. For starters Adam and Eve were naked on the first page. I was fascinated by Eve's ability to always stand in the Garden of Eden so that a tree branch or leaf was covering her private areas like some kind of organic bakini. But it was the Bible's murder and mayhem that really got my attention. When I started reading the real Bible I spent most of my time in Genesis Exodus 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings. Talk about violent. Cain killed Abel. The Egyptians fed babies to alligators. Moses killed an Egyptian. God killed thousands of Egyptians in the Red Sea. David killed Goliath and won a girl by bringing a bag of two hundred Philistine foreskins to his future father-in-law. I couldn't believe that Mom was so happy about my spending time each morning reading about gruesome battles prostitutes fratricide murder and adultery. What a way to have a "quiet time." While I grew up with a fairly solid grasp of Bible stories I didn't have a clear idea of how the Bible fit together or what it was all about. I certainly didn't understand how the exciting stories of the Old Testament connected to the rather less-exciting New Testament and the story of Jesus. This concept of the Bible as a bunch of disconnected stories sprinkled with wise advice and capped off with the inspirational life of Jesus seems fairly common among Christians. That is so unfortunate because to see the Bible as one book with one author and all about one main character is to see it in its breathtaking beauty.

Pink Balloons My name is Olivia King I am five years old My mother bought me a balloon. I remember the day she walked through the front door with it. The curly hot pink ribbon trickling down her arm, wrapped around her wrist . She was smiling at me as she untied the ribbon and wrapped it around my hand. "Here Livie, I bought this for you." She called me Livie. I was so happy . I'd never had a balloon before. I mean, I always saw balloon wrapped around other kids wrist in the parking lot of Wal-Mart , but I never dreamed I would have my very own. My very own pink balloon. I was excited! So ecstatic! So thrilled! i couldn't believe my mother bought me something! She'd never bought me anything before! I played with it for hours . It was full of helium and it danced and swayed and floated as I drug it around from room to room with me, thinking of places to take it. Thinking of places the balloon had never been before. I took it in the bathroom , the closet , the laundry room , the kitchen , the living room . I wanted my new best friend to see everything I saw! I took it to my mother's bedroom! My mothers Bedroom? Where I wasn't supposed to be? With my pink balloon... I covered my ears as she screamed at me, wiping the evidence off her nose! She slapped me across the face as she told me how bad I was! How much I misbehaved! How I never listened! She shoved me into the hallways and slammed the door, locking my pink balloon inside with her. I wanted him back! He was my best friend! Not her! The pink ribbon was still tied around my wrist so I pulled and pulled , trying to get my new best friend away from her. And it popped. My name is Eddie. I'm seventeen years old. My birthday is next week. I'll be big One-Eight. My foster dad is buying me these boots I've been wanting. I'm sure my friends will take me out to eat. My boyfriend will buy me a gift, maybe even take me to a movie. I'll even get a nice little card from my foster care worker, wishing me a happy eighteenth birthday, informing me I've aged out of the system. I'll have a good time. I know I will. But there's one thing I know for sure I better not get any shitty ass pink balloons!

If life is a movie most people would consider themselves the star of their own feature. Guys might imagine they're living some action adventure epic. Chicks maybe are in a rose-colored fantasy romance. And homosexuals are living la vida loca in a fabulous musical. Still others may take the indie approach and think of themselves as an anti-hero in a coming of age flick. Or a retro badass in an exploitation B movie. Or the cable man in a very steamy adult picture. Some people's lives are experimental student art films that don't make any sense. Some are screwball comedies. Others resemble a documentary, all serious and educational. A few lives achieve blockbuster status and are hailed as a tribute to the human spirit. Some gain a small following and enjoy cult status. And some never got off the ground due to insufficient funding. I don't know what my life is but I do know that I'm constantly squabbling with the director over creative control, throwing prima donna tantrums and pouting in my personal trailor when things don't go my way. Much of our lives is spent on marketing. Make-up, exercise, dieting, clothes, hair, money, charm, attitude, the strut, the pose, the Blue Steel look. We're like walking billboards advertising ourselves. A sneak peek of upcoming attractions. Meanwhile our actual production is in disarray--we're over budget, doing poorly at private test screenings and focus groups, creatively stagnant, morale low. So we're endlessly tinkering, touching up, editing, rewriting, tailoring ourselves to best suit a mass audience. There's like this studio executive in our heads telling us to cut certain things out, make it "lighter," give it a happy ending, and put some explosions in there too. Kids love explosions. And the uncompromising artist within protests: "But that's not life!" Thus the inner conflict of our movie life: To be a palatable crowd-pleaser catering to the mainstream... or something true to life no matter what they say?

There's a class of things to be afraid of: it's "those things that you should be afraid of". Those are the things that go bump in the night, right? You're always exposed to them when you go to horror movies, especially if they're not the gore type of horror movie. They're always hinting at something that's going on outside of your perceptual sphere, and they frighten you because you don't know what's out there. For that the Blair Witch Project was a really good example, because nothing ever happens in that movie but it's frightenting and not gory. It plays on the fact tht you do have a category of Those Things Of Which You Should Be Afraid. So it's a category, frightening things. And only things capable of abstraction can come up with something like the caregory of frightenting things. And so Kali is like an embodied representation of the category of frightening things. And then you might ask yourself, well once you come up with the concept of the category of frightening things, maybe you can come up with the concept of what to do in the face of frightening things. Which is not the same as "what do you do when you encounter a lion", or "what do you do when you encounter someone angry". It's a meta question, right? But then you could say, at a philosophical level: "You will encounter elements of the category of all those things which can frighten and undermine you during your life. Is there something that you can do *as a category* that would help you deal with that." And the answer is yeah, there is in fact. And that's what a lot of religious stories and symbolic stories are trying to propose to you, is the solution to that. One is, approach it voluntarily. Carefully, but voluntarily. Don't freeze and run away. Explore, instead. You expose yourself to risk but you gain knowledge. And you wouldn't have a cortex which, you know, is ridiculously disproportionate, if as a species we hadn't decided that exploration trumps escape or freezing. We explore. That can make you the master of a situation, so you can be the master of something like fire without being terrified of it. One of the things that the Hindus do in relationship to Kali, is offer sacrifices. So you can say, well why would you offer sacrifices to something you're afraid of. And it's because that is what you do, that's always what you do. You offer up sacrifices to the unknown in the hope that good things will happen to you. One example is that you're worried about your future. Maybe you're worried about your job, or who you're going to marry, or your family, there's a whole category of things to be worried about, so you're worried about your future. SO what're you doing in university? And the answer is you're sacrificing your free time in the present, to the cosmos so to speak, in the hope that if you offer up that sacrifice properly, the future will smile upon you. And that's one of the fundamental discoveries of the human race. And it's a big deal, that discovery: by changing what you cling to in the present, you can alter the future.