Real Gee Quotes

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.

But we fell in love, day by day, he’d said. Real love comes from facing life together, with all its messes and surprises and joys.

Real love comes from creating a family together, from facing life together -- with all its messes and surprises and joys.

Real love comes from facing life together, with all its messes and surprises and joys.

When they [visitors to his studio:] learn about the six-week daily-strip deadline and the 12-week Sunday-page deadline, a visitor almost never fails to remark: "Gee, you could work real hard, couldn't you, and get several months ahead and then take the time off?" Being, as I said, a slow learner, it took me until last year to realize what an odd statement that really is. You don't work all of your life to do something so you don't have to do it.

The worst is missing them, you know? And knowing they won’t be back again. Just knowing that. Sometimes you forget and it’s as though they’re on vacation or something and you think, gee, I wish they’d call. You miss them. You forget they’re really gone. You forget the past six months even happened. Isn’t that weird? Isn’t that crazy? Then you catch yourself . . . and it’s real again.

If a person really wants to know God and will give up his sin and turn to Christ, God will make Himself real to him. In our day the problem is that a great many folk do not really mean business with God.

First and foremost, I am me. I'm real. I don't write to impress. I write to express.

She felt, for the first time in years, like herself. Not the public, painted-on Daphne that she showed the world, but the real seventeen-year-old girl she kept carefully hidden beneath.

If Rylin had learned anything by now, it was that in real life, you never quite knew what was coming. You had to take the bad with the good. You had to take a chance, hold your breath, and trust people. After all, the fun of real life stories is that they're still being written.

Maybe happy endings were real, as long as you understood that they weren’t endings, but steps on the road.

I’m not throwing away my first date, Kara.” Addy leaned forward, thinking. “I’m giving it to God.” “I don’t even know what to say to that.” Kara pulled Addy’s ponytail. “I don’t get it. But I admire you. Your faith is real, Addy, no doubt about that. If more Christians were like you, there might be a lot more Christians in the world.

Stories are the only real magic that exists. A story can breach the impossible distance between individuals, take us out of our own life and into someone else’s, if only for a moment. Our hunger for story is what makes us human.

There aren’t any happy endings in real life, because there aren’t any endings in life, only moments of change, she wrote, repeating his words. There’s always another adventure, another challenge, another opportunity to find happiness or chase it away.

At the mention of children, Connor halted his steps. For a moment Beatrice thought he was going to storm off, turn away from her and never look back. Instead he fell to one knee before her. Time went momentarily still. In some dazed part of her mind Beatrice remembered Teddy, kneeling stiffly at her feet as he swore to be her liege man. This felt utterly different. Even kneeling, Connor looked like a warrior, every line of his body radiating a tensed power and strength. "It kills me that I don't have more to offer you," he said roughly. "I have no lands, no fortune, no title. All I can give you is my honor, and my heart. Which already belongs to you." She would have fallen in love with him right then, if she didn't already love him so fiercely that every cell of her body burned with it. "I love you, Bee. I've loved you for so long I've forgotten what it felt like not to love you." "I love you, too." Her eyes stung with tears. "I get that you have to marry someone before your dad dies. But you can't marry Teddy Eaton." She watched as he fumbled in his jacket for something - had he bought a ring? She thought wildly - but what he pulled out instead was a black Sharpie. Still kneeling before her, he slid the diamond engagement ring off Beatrice's finger and tucked it in the pocket of her jacket. Using the Sharpie, he traced a thin loop around the skin of Beatrice's finger, where the ring had been. "I'm sorry it isn't a real ring, but I'm improvising here." There was a nervous catch to Connor's voice that Beatrice hadn't heard before. But when he looked up and spoke his next words, his face glowed with a fierce, fervent hope. "Marry me.

human intelligence and creativity, today more than ever, are tied to connecting—synchronizing—people, tools, texts, digital and social media, virtual spaces, and real spaces in the right ways, in ways that make us Minds and not just minds, but also better people in a better world.

All men are ‘real men’, whether they wear KingGees or a pink tutu.

The problem is going to be, "Let's see, I spent all day staring at a computer screen and then at night my most meaningful relationships are with the two-dimensional characters who aren't in fact two-dimensional characters . . . Gee, I wonder why I'm lonely and doing a lot of drugs? Could there be any connection between the fact that I've got nothing to do with other people, that I don't really have a fucking clue what it is to have a real life, and the fact that most of my existence is mediated by entertainment that I passively choose to receive?

I want to see your photos. In real life. Can I buy one?" she asked, voicing her thoughts aloud. He smiled. "You'd be my first real customer." "But they're so good!" Raden's eyes were very warm and very serious. "No one wants to hang art like that anymore. All they want are little square-shaped selfies they can post online.

None of it will make you happy, since none of it will be real.

It’s easier to believe in things, to believe in people, when you read about them in books. They’re so much safer when they’re fictional. The real-life ones...I’m still not sure how to handle them.

maybe it’s a Midwestern thing, but where I’m from, you’re not supposed to brag about yourself. That’s what my mom says. She says you should wait for people to recognize your good qualities. And then you should say, like, ‘Oh, no. I’m not really that great at whatever-it-is. I’m just okay.’ And then they’ll say, ‘No, really. You’re great.’ And you say, ‘I’m really not, but thanks anyway for saying so.’ And they’ll say, ‘Yes, you are. You so are!’ And you say, ‘Gee, do you really think so?’ And they’ll say, ‘Totally!’ And then people think you’re good at whatever it is you’re good at, but they don’t think you’re braggy about it ’cause that makes you seem like a real tool.

There are some pains that ride around in your coat pocket—you’re aware they’re there. They’re heavy and beat against you as you walk, but you’ll eventually take off the coat and forget you ever carried around something so sharp and misshapen. Other pains, though, brand your soul, changing everything about who you are, how you identify yourself, how you think, how you breathe, how you live. Sometimes, the only reason you go on living is because you feel compelled to bear witness to the loss, to say to the world: “This person lived. He was real, and I loved him.

Her mother cleaved him, cracking open like a peach pit split the tender centre mewling, a monster turned a baby. They snatched up the infant, innocent, beastly, from Half World they fled, they fled to the Realm of Flesh. Gee could not stop the words in the terrible book from popping up in his mind. The images that formed filled him with fear and fascination. Confusion. A creeping sense of recognition. The déjà vu of dreams…. Half World. The words whispered, echoed inside him. Like something almost familiar. Something he’d forgotten— How could Popo do this to him? Gee pounded the heels of his fists on the thick table. He pounded and pounded until he could feel the physical pain. Maybe Popo had written this book herself…. Maybe it was an elaborate psychological experiment? Maybe she was a psychotic, abusive person. Those irregularities in his adoption…. There were no papers. He had no birth certificate. His grandmother had found someone to forge documents. It had cost a lot of money. Popo had kidnapped him from somewhere and his real parents were still looking for him, far far away. That made more sense than the gibberish book. He wasn’t a murderous monster from a different Realm! Ridiculous! Mad. Popo! he raged. You did this to me! It’s all your fault! That’s why he didn’t have a real name. Baby G. Like a foundling in a basket. Baby X. John Doe. Why hadn’t she given him a proper name? The school had written his name as “Gee” when they saw Ms. Wei, saw that his papers identified him only as “G.” They must have thought she was illiterate. Did the teachers think it would make him more Asian? Because it hadn’t! When he’d finally asked his popo about his real name, she had been silent for a long time. You must seek your own name, she finally said. When the time comes.

Science is getting knocked on all sides these days, not only from religious fundamentalists, but from all kinds of people who perceive science as arrogant, one-sided, and the source of the troubles that come with the technology it produces. It's true that individuL scientists can be so arrogant and narrowly focused, they're blind to any but their own truths, and that new discoveries bring new problems with them. Still, I don't know many people who would refuse a biopsy for a newly discovered lump because they think science needs to be taken down a peg or two. Religion gets knocked for the same kinds of reasons as science: for its arrogance, narowmindedness, and tendency to create more trouble than it's worth. Religion is also accused of concealing reality under a comforting blanket of measureless faith -- the flip side, perhaps of the scientist for whom nothing can be real until she has measured it. My own sojourn into religion convinced me that good religion reveals rather than conceals. Religion is the soul in search of itself and its relationship to the cosmos. This journey requires looking at all of it: the joy, the sorrow, the beauty and the horror of life. We hope for the best. We want meaning and love to exist not only in ourselves, but in the very soul of the universe. At times this great hope might tempt us to pick and choose only the data that supports our desires. But in religion as in boat-building, the design must be tested in all conditions. When I say that I'm trying to pay attention, and that paying attention means being willing to look at all of it, I think I'm trying for the same moment of clarity that Graham experienced when the wind blew all over his theory. Looking at all of it is what good science is about. I believe that it's also what good religion is about.

by 1934, Walter Brennan was in a state of near collapse. “What my grandma said,” Walter’s granddaughter Claudia Gonzales remembered, “[was that] he was eating his dinner, and he put down his fork. He looked at her, and he said, ‘I don’t know what to eat next.’” He had made it through World War I in reasonably good shape. Indeed, he had scoffed at the idea of shell shock. But then, as he told Goldwyn biographer Carol Easton, “Boy, I cracked up.” There were nights when he just wanted to sink into his bed. Then he would wake up at 2 am with a “nameless numbing fear.” As he also told Easton, “If it hadn’t been for my wife, I’d have jumped off the Pasadena Bridge. I fell away to nothin’. I weighed about 140 pounds. Gee, when I got a job in Barbary Coast, I was carryin’ my ground-up vegetables in a mason jar. They had to build muscles into my clothes.” Brennan’s son Walter Jr. (“Andy”) recalled that as a young boy he had not understood what his father was going through, but he knew that his father was in trouble.

Monitoring Sean’s progress with the towel, Hal gave a grunt of disgust. “Come on. I have an extra towel you can use in the office. No way you can drive home like that—you’ll ruin the car’s interior. ’Sides, we need to talk,” Hal added heavily. Turning on his heel, he headed back toward his office. Sean swallowed with a decided lack of enthusiasm. They entered Hal’s cramped cubicle of an office and Hal shut the door behind him. It closed with an ominous bang. He took a towel hanging from the hook on the door and tossed it at Sean, who grabbed it one-handed. “Thanks,” he said, as he bent to pat his khakis dry. “I hope you know what the hell you’re doing.” The warning tone in Hal’s voice had Sean pausing to glance up at his friend. He straightened, towel forgotten. “Hey, I didn’t plan what you saw back there, Hal. It just happened.” “What’d she do? Pull you into the pool?” Whatever he saw in Sean’s expression had Hal’s face shifting into a lopsided grin. “Thought so. Serves you right, McDermott. You were being a total SOB. You knew it, so did she. Christ, you would never pull that kind of stunt with Dave.” He gave a snort of disgust. “I was watching the two of you the entire workout. Don’t think I didn’t see when you finally took pity on her. Any slower, and you’d have been doing a dog paddle. Real shitty of you, McDermott.” I know, Sean admitted silently. “Right. If she ever agrees to swim with me again, I’ll let her swim her arms off. She got her revenge anyway.” “Good for her.” Sean’s gaze narrowed. Sometimes Hal was a pain in the ass. “Gee, thanks, Coach.” Unfazed by Sean’s sarcasm, Hal continued, “You know, I always suspected something would happen between you and Lily. Intense rivalry can’t come without intense passion. I figured the attraction was there, just waiting for the right moment.” He paused to glare at Sean, then said, “But I would have hoped you’d have a hell of a lot more smarts than to try to seduce a beautiful woman in my pool! Anybody could have walked in on you!” His voice was at a near shout.

here is turning me into a real feminist.

When Hawks saw the teenage model Betty Joan Perske on a magazine cover, he wanted to do a screen test with her and Brennan, who explained what happened: I said, “Why don’t you get one of these guys to take it?” He says, “Well, you’d make her feel at ease.” I said, “Gee, Howard, I don’t know whether Goldwyn will let me do this.” And Bob McIntyre [Goldwyn’s casting director] called me up, and he had this deep voice, he said, “You can’t do that. We got to pay you.” I said, “Well, I’m going to do it for nothing. I’ll do it for Howard Hawks.” And so I did it. She really shook. If you ever get to talk to her, she’ll tell you how she shook.

Brennan was also impressed with Lee Marvin during a scene in which Doc Velle offers his hearse to Macreedy as a getaway vehicle. Suddenly, Marvin appears and then nonchalantly walks over to the vehicle and rips out some of the engine’s wiring. The casual violence is shocking. It was the first time Brennan had met Marvin, who had a powerful effect on Brennan: “When he came out and tore the ignition out of that thing, I could have killed him. You know, I just hated him that much. I mean, just working with him. I thought, gee, this guy’s a great actor to make me hate him like that.

The real guilt is in being a human being. That is the horrible reality which bugs us all. Wolves, as a class, are cleaner, more industrious, far less savage, and kinder to each other and their young.

In particular, we long for stories that make us happy. Stories make sense in a way the real world fails to.

Sometimes Daphne felt that only at moments like this, when she was somewhere public, did she truly exist. That she wasn’t real unless someone else’s eyes were on her, unless she was being seen.

I’m taking a shower,” he announces, not sparing me a glance as he moves past me and into the bathroom. This is way above my pay grade. I don’t possess the necessary training to make sense of this behavior. Twenty minutes later, I’m tucked into the cozy bed, reading glasses on, Delia’s latest manuscript on Dane’s iPad when he steps out of the bathroom. Aaaand I instantly turn into Joan of Arc, burned at the stake. Except the heat doesn’t start at my feet. Noooo. It starts between my legs and spreads forth. By the time it reaches my face, there’s a veil of sweat above my lips. Not attractive. A wall of finely sculpted flesh walks further into the room with only a scrap of towel to hide the extra good parts. There’s so much razzle dazzle to take in my mind locks onto one area. His abdominal muscles. Mother of gee oh dee, what kind of torture must one endure to get those? So cut they don’t even look real. Mentally, I’m poking them with my index finger to see if they poke back. Until something intrudes in the periphery of my vision. South of these spectacular ab muscles, the towel wrapped around his waist starts to rise. That’s when I hear a snapping of fingers. A large hand immediately comes into view and more snapping of fingers. “Eyes up, Shorty. Or you’ll get more of a show than you bargained for.” My gaze makes a swift trip back up to his face. His mouth is twisted in a grimace and his eyebrow arched. He’s not happy I was looking…whatever. “Don’t look so scared. I pinky promise not to molest you.” His eyes widen while his lips thin. “You know what, it’s still early. I’m gonna get a workout in. I’ll be back later.” A workout? At 9 p.m.? He doesn’t even wait for me to respond. He grabs his clothes in a hurry, and a moment later he’s gone. I know I don’t have a ton of experience with men but this can’t be normal behavior. This has got to be far from normal behavior.

He howls when the Bee Gees play on the radio, like he always has, though she’ll never know if this is a complete coincidence or if Gibb falsetto is the only frequency her deaf dog can discern. But that’s Auggie’s only real mystery, other than where he came from. Minnie knows her best friend. She knows his excited bark from his anxious bark, his I’m-hungry whine from his I-have-to-go-out whine. When he rolls on his back, he wants to be rubbed not on his belly but on the top of his head, and she shares his belief that the pizza delivery guy simply must be given a hero’s frenzied welcome every time. She’s given him food and shelter, walks and tossed Frisbees; he’s given her courage and strength by first giving her unconditional love. She never had to ask for it. It came into her life. All she had to do was trust it. Which is so much harder than it sounds.

Pavel Menansi is dead,” Myron said. “Someone murdered him last night.” “The guy who molested Valerie Simpson?” “Yep.” “Gee, I’m so brokenhearted. I hope I don’t lose too much sleep.” Esperanza finally flicked a glance away from the screen. “Did you know he was on that party list you gave me?” “Yeah. You find any other interesting names?” She almost smiled. “One.” “Who?” “Think puppy dog,” Esperanza said. Myron shook his head. “Think Nike,” she continued. “Think Duane’s contact with Nike.” Myron froze. “Ned Tunwell?” “Correct answer.” Everyone in Myron’s life was a game show host. “Listed as E. Tunwell on the list. His real name is Edward. So I did a little digging. Guess who first signed Valerie Simpson to a Nike deal.” “Ned Tunwell.

I glanced down several of the walkways that branched off the main one. “Is it a real labyrinth?” “Yes. But I haven’t checked it out.” “Looks kind of fun, don’t you think?” I looked up at him. “I’ve never been in a labyrinth before.” A real smile replaced the smug one. “Maybe if you’re good—and I mean, really good—we can come play in the labyrinth.” I rolled my eyes. “Gee, really?” He nodded. “You have to eat your dinner, too.” I didn’t even bother responding to that.

I first heard about blockbusting when I decided I wanted to buy and sell property in Dorchester. So I went to local real estate agents. I got friendly with one fellow who worked in a particular office. We went out to lunch a couple of times, and he said, “I like you. You ought to come to work here. You can make a ton of money...” He explained to me that the banks had decided to take a certain area and designate it with a red pen... Mattapan and parts of Dorchester. We’re going to finance minorities in this particular area, so they can get a house with no money down. That’s how it all began. Of course, I personally wasn’t out to help any minorities. I was out to make a buck for myself, and, seeing all those clients lining up out the door, I thought a fortune was certainly there. For a lot of people already in the business, it was a boon to them. And a lot of people who weren’t in the business said, gee, this looks really good...

Again Beatrice had the sense that there was something archaic and fine about Teddy, something that belonged in another century. Surrounded by all the other people at court - who made promises they never intended to keep, who operated out of pure self-interest - he shone like real gold in a sea of cheap imitation metal.

Halfway through the day, Megan started dicking around on the internet. She made her browser window as small as she could, paused for a second, and then looked up “Carrie Wilkins.” She found Carrie’s website, and on it, this bio: Hi, my name’s Carrie. I’m 26. I make things. I paint and I write, but mostly I design. I like to make things beautiful, or creative. I make my own food and I’m trying to grow my own beets. A lot of people around me seem unhappy and I don’t understand why. I freelance because I know I’d go insane if I couldn’t make my own schedule—I believe variety is the zest of life. I know I want a dog someday soon, and sometimes I make lunch at 3 a.m. I believe in the power of collaboration, and I’d love to work with you! What a total asshole. What does she have, some kind of a pact with Satan? The picture next to Carrie’s bio had some kind of heavy filter on it that made it look vintage, and she had a friendly but aloof look on her face. She was flanked on both sides by plants and was wearing an oxford shirt with fancy shorts and had a cool necklace. It was an outfit, for sure, like all of Carrie’s clothes were outfits, which Megan always thought of as outdated or something only children did. The website linked to a blog, which was mostly photos of Carrie doing different things. It didn’t take too long to find the picture of her with the llama with a caption about how she and her boss got it from a homeless guy. And then just products. Pictures and pictures of products, and then little captions about how the products inspired her. Motherfucker, thought Megan. She doesn’t get it at all. It was like looking at an ad for deodorant or laundry soap that made you feel smelly and like you’d been doing something wrong that the person in the ad had already figured out, but since it was an ad, there was no real way to smell the person and judge for yourself whether or not the person stank, and that was what she hated, hated, hated most of all. I make things, gee-wow. You think you’re an artist? Do you really thing this blog is a representation of art, that great universalizer? That great transmigrator? This isolating schlock that makes me feel like I have to buy into you and your formula for happiness? Work as a freelance designer, grow beets, travel, have lots of people who like you, and above all have funsies! “Everything okay?” asked Jillian. “Yeah, what?” “Breathing kind of heavy over there, just making sure you were okay and everything.” “Oh, uh-huh, I’m fine,” said Megan. “It’s not . . . something I’m doing, is it?” “What? No. No, I’m fine,” said Megan. How could someone not understand that other people could be unhappy? What kind of callous, horrible bullshit was that to say to a bunch of twenty-yearolds, particularly, when this was the time in life when things were even more acutely painful than they were in high school, that nightmare fuck, because now there were actual stakes and everyone was coming to grips with the fact that they’re going to die and that life might be empty and unrewarding. Why even bring it up? Why even make it part of your mini-bio?

Isn’t it amazing that we turn to others who have a perspective as limited and darkened as our own to discover our worth! Rather than relying on God’s steady, uplifting reassurance of who we are, we depend on others who base our worth on our ability to meet their standards. Because our performance and ability to please others so dominate our search for significance, we have difficulty recognizing the distinction between our real identity and the way we behave, a realization crucial to understanding our true worth. Our true value is based not on our behavior or the approval of others but on what God’s Word says is true of us.

George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. "You been crying" he said to Hazel. "Yup," she said. "What about?" he said. "I forget," she said. "Something real sad on television." "What was it?" he said. "It's all kind of mixed up in my mind," said Hazel. "Forget sad things," said George. "I always do," said Hazel. "That's my girl," said George. He winced. There was the sound of a rivetting gun in his head. "Gee - I could tell that one was a doozy," said Hazel. "You can say that again," said George. "Gee-" said Hazel, "I could tell that one was a doozy.

Date: August 26, 1935 Title: Win House in Wistful Vista Cast: Jim Jordan (Fibber), Marian Jordan (Molly), Harlow Wilcox, Charlie Wilson (Hagglemeyer) Summary: Fibber and Molly win their dream house when the ticket they hold in a real estate raffle (number 131313) is selected.

All those old-timers were taught all kinds of rules to handle all kinds of situations. But no situation in the real world is ever going to match what the rules were made up to handle. He gets to adapt, without a bunch of rules in the way, that wouldn’t solve the problem anyway.” I looked at her. “You’re trying to say that walking around lost and confused is an unfair advantage?” “Gee, Dad, I thought I got it done. No trying involved.

You gonna wake up?” She lazily opened her eyes and jolted awake, scooting up on her elbows. “What? What?” “Easy. It’s okay. Sort of.” She blinked a few times and then her eyes were wide. “Where am I?” “I brought you inside. I had to. You were on your way to freezing to death. You must not have a brain in your head.” She squinted at him, pursing her lips. “Oh—I have a brain. I’m just not real experienced in mountain life.” She struggled to sit up. “Gee, if I’d known you got your eyebrow back and grew your beard in red, I might’ve found you sooner. I’ll get out of your hair, which I notice, you have plenty of.” “You’re not going anywhere,” he said, putting a big hand against her sternum, holding her down. “You’re stuck—and so am I.” “No problem,” she said. “I sleep in the car every night. I have a good sleeping bag…” “Did you hear me? You were passed out on your way back from the john, covered with snow and damn near frozen to death. You wanted to see me, you’re going to get your wish.” Her eyes widened suddenly. “I’m…ah…naked under here?” “You’re not naked. You have underwear. I had to get your wet clothes off you. That or just let you die. It wasn’t an easy decision,” he lied. “You undressed me and wrapped me in this quilt?” she asked. “Pretty much,” he said. And felt your small, soft body against mine for an hour, the first female body that’s been against mine in five years. Until tonight, he hadn’t thought he missed that feeling. “What happened out there? How’d you end up in the doorway of the john like that?” “I don’t have the first idea. I was so glad there was an outhouse for once and I wouldn’t have to squat behind a bush. I was going to make it quick, but I was so tired I could hardly move, and that’s the last thing I remember till I woke up.” She coughed. “I didn’t think I was so tired I’d fall asleep on the way.” “You didn’t fall asleep,” he said. “You lost consciousness. Hypothermia. Like I said—half frozen.” “Hmm.

Let me stay over,” he said. “No. I have things to get ready for tomorrow. I teach a couple of classes on Monday and Thursday mornings and keep office hours for students in the afternoons. Then I work my twenty-four-hour shifts in Redding on Tuesday and Friday mornings. Tomorrow starts a real busy week and I—” “Okay,” he said. “I’ll watch TV while you get your stuff together.” “No. You’ll seduce me and I have a child in the house.” “Gee, how do you suppose all the families with more than one child managed to do that?” “Those first children were used to their mothers and fathers sleeping in the same bed, but Rosie’s not. Sometimes she crawls in with me in the night.” “I have sweatpants in my duffel. I’ll sleep in those,” he tried. “No.” “Can I have the couch?” “No. Because I know you and you’ll seduce me. I think the only thing more important to you than sex is air. Now be on your good behavior. She isn’t even asleep yet.” “We

Beck, listen to me. Benji is an asshole. Okay?" I want to scream YES but I sit. Still. Benji. "Listen, Beck," Chana rails on. "Some guys are assholes and you have to accept that. You can buy him all the books in the world and he's still gonna be Benji. He'll never be Benjamin or, God forbid, Ben because he doesn't have to, because he's a permanent man-baby, okay? He and his club soda can fuck off and so can his stupid ass name. I mean seriously, Benji? Is he kidding? And the way he says it. Like it's Asian or French. Ben Geeee. Dude, just fuck off." Lynn sigh. "I never thought about it that much. Benji. Ben Gee. Gee, Ben." There's a little laughter now and I am learning things about Benji. I don't like it but I have to accept it. Benji is real and I get another vodka soda. Benji.

For an impossibly brief instant, Avery was in the dark while Atlas seemed illuminated from behind—light streaming around him, gilding the edges of his form, making him into something almost otherworldly. It seemed suddenly impossible that he was real, and here, and hers. And in truth, it was impossible. Everything about their relationship kept proving impossible at every turn, yet somehow they had willed it into being.

am full beyond words. And as is usual with me, I wept just a little. It’s silly weak, kiddish and all that, but, gee, to have done something real … One can if one will. Now I know it. We measure by material accomplishments, that is, in the eyes of society.… I think I am registering a comeback, to employ the vernacular. Now to burst into print and to begin—not to shine—but to show phosphorescent tendencies that may assemble into a little glow. Big fires from little sparks grow. You’re with me, dad’s with me; and there are many I rather feel will jump on top when my bus gets going. I have youth; I am acquiring faith, i.e. courage, confidence, right’s might: I am learning every day and developing every hour.… Fool that I am, I’d like to cry for a week, just from sheer happiness.… This year I am sure is the most glorious in my college so far after all.—If only I could find a girl, now. That is a big problem for me to thrash out—and it must be for myself, by myself, and with no other source or guide, less perchance it be Experience. I have so long avoided and put off telling this to you: but you must see it. After Emma, I have lost faith in your sex. That affair you never knew in detail. I can tell you of it some day, but not here and now.… Why I write this, I cannot say. I don’t know. But as I see engagements about me by the score—not that I think it even tolerable in one so young—but because I realize that I of equal age (in years) do not feel the slightest attraction or inclination to … (page missing)