Roommates Small Quotes

He was like one of those pictures full of small errors, the kind you could only pick out by searching the image from every angle, and even then, a few always slipped by. On the surface, Eli seemed perfectly normal, but now and then Victor would catch a crack, a sideways glance, a moment when his roommate's face and his words, his look and his meaning, would not line up. Those fleeting slices fascinated Victor. It was like watching two people, one hiding in the other's skin. And their skin was always too dry, on the verge of cracking and showing the color of the thing beneath.

He couldn't believe Jude's mute, macabre roommate had saved his life. He wondered if he'd have to get her a small taxidermied spider or something for her efforts.

Memory in these incomparable streets, in mosaics of pain and sweetness, was clear to me now, a unity at last. I remembered small and unimportant things from the past: the whispers of roommates during thunderstorms, the smell of brass polish on my fingertips, the first swim at Folly Beach in April, lightning over the Atlantic, shelling oysters at Bowen's Island during a rare Carolina snowstorm, pigeons strutting across the graveyard at St. Philip's, lawyers moving out of their offices to lunch on Broad Street, the darkness of reveille on cold winter mornings, regattas, the flash of bagpipers' tartans passing in review, blue herons on the marshes, the pressure of the chinstrap on my shako, brotherhood, shad roe at Henry's, camellias floating above water in a porcelain bowl, the scowl of Mark Santoro, and brotherhood again.

One small step for vampire, one giant leap for vampire kind.

It would probably take someone as desperate, and broke, as I am to respond positively to a two-line roommate ad in the Sunday paper, consisting of the very eloquent ‘Small room, 1 window, no A/C. Quiet roommate wanted, not looking for a friend. $400/month.’ Alrighty, then. Thanks for being so welcoming, random dude.

Well, there are people who have flagrant good luck, like they win the lottery or write Harry Potter ..... there are also those like me who just get to enjoy small precious moments like this.

It was the my-father-got-rid-of-my-piano story; something she’d share one day with her college roommates, her husband, her children, and her psychiatrist. It would earn a few crucial frames in her final reel of memories and travel with her into the next life. When it comes to the bad stuff, there’s nothing too small that’s not worth dwelling on forever. I say, anyway.

Did you know that the average life span of the hairy-nosed wombat is ten to twelve years?” Apparently, Sloane had decided that when I said I was fine, I was lying. The more coffee my roommate ingested, the lower her threshold for keeping random statistics to herself—especially if she thought someone needed a distraction. “The longest-living wombat in captivity lived thirty-four years,” Sloane continued, propping herself up on her elbows to look at me. Given that we shared a bedroom, I probably should have objected more strenuously to cup of coffee number two. Tonight, though, I found Sloane’s high-speed statistical babbling to be strangely soothing. Profiling Sterling hadn’t kept me from thinking about Locke. Maybe this would. “Tell me more about wombats,” I said. With the look of a small child awaking to a miracle on Christmas morning, Sloane beamed at me and complied.

Reading Chip's college orientation materials, Alfred had been struck by the sentence New England winters can be very cold. The curtains he'd bought at Sears were of a plasticized brown-and-pink fabric with a backing of foam rubber. They were heavy and bulky and stiff. "You'll appreciate these on a cold night," he told Chip. "You'll be surprised how much they cut down drafts." But Chip's freshman roommate was a prep-school product named Roan McCorkle who would soon be leaving thumbprints, in what appeared to be Vaseline, on the fifth-grade photo of Denise. Roan laughed at the curtains and Chip laughed, too. He put them back in the box and stowed the box in the basement of the dorm and let it gather mold there for the next four years. He had nothing against the curtains personally. They were simply curtains and they wanted no more than what any curtains wanted - to hang well, to exclude light to the best of their ability, to be neither too small nor too large for the window that it was their task in life to cover; to be pulled this way in the evening and that way in the morning; to stir in the breezes that came before rain on a summer night; to be much used and little noticed. There were numberless hospitals and retirement homes and budget motels, not just in the Midwest but in the East as well, where these particularly brown rubber-backed curtains could have had a long and useful life. It wasn't their fault that they didn't belong in a dorm room. They'd betrayed no urge to rise above their station; their material and patterning contained not a hint of unseemly social ambition. They were what they were. If anything, when he finally dug them out of the eve of graduation, their virginal pinkish folds turned out to be rather less plasticized and homely and Sears-like than he remembered. They were nowhere near as shameful as he'd thought.

When we got back to Manhattan, Maeve took me to a men’s store and bought me extra underwear, a new shirt, and a pair of pajamas, then she got me a toothbrush at the drugstore next door. That night we went to the Paris Theater and saw Mon Oncle. Maeve said she was in love with Jacques Tati. I was nervous about seeing a movie with subtitles but it turned out that nobody really said anything. After it was finished, we stopped for ice cream then went back to Barnard. Boys of every stripe were expressly forbidden to go past the dorm lobby, but Maeve just explained the situation to the girl at the desk, another friend of hers, and took me upstairs. Leslie, her roommate, had gone home for Easter break and so I slept in her bed. The room was so small we could have easily reached across the empty space and touched fingers.

Her brassiere's snaps are in the front. His own forehead snaps clear. He thinks to kneel. But he knows what she might think if he kneels. What cleared his forehead's lines was a type of revelation. Her breasts have come free. He imagines his wife and son. Her breasts are unconfined now. The bed's comforter has a tulle hem, like a ballerina's little hem. This is the younger sister of his wife's college roommate. Everyone else has gone to the mall, some to shop, some to see a movie at the mall's multiplex. The sister with breasts by the bed has a level gaze and a slight smile, slight and smoky, media-taught. She sees his color heighten and forehead go smooth in a kind of revelation--why she'd begged off the mall, the meaning of certain comments, looks, distended moments over the weekend he'd thought were his vanity, imagination. We see these things a dozen times a day in entertainment but imagine we ourselves, our own imaginations, are mad. A different man might have said what he'd seen was: Her hand moved to her bra and freed her breasts. His legs might slightly tremble when she asks what he thinks. Her expression is from Page 18 of the Victoria's Secret catalogue. She is, he thinks, the sort of woman who'd keep her heels on if he asked her to. Even if she'd never kept heels on before she'd give him a knowing, smoky smile, Page 18. In quick profile as she turns to close the door her breast is a half-globe at the bottom, a ski-jump curve above. Figure skaters have a tulle hem, as well. The languid half-turn and push at the door are tumid with some kind of significance; he realizes suddenly she's replaying a scene from some movie she loves. In his imagination's tableau his wife's hand is on his small son's shoulder in an almost fatherly way.

He was almost at his door when Vik’s earsplitting shriek resounded down the corridor. Tom was glad for the excuse to sprint back toward him. “Vik?” He reached Vik’s doorway as Vik was backing out of it. “Tom,” he breathed, “it’s an abomination.” Confused, Tom stepped past him into the bunk. Then he gawked, too. Instead of a standard trainee bunk of two small beds with drawers underneath them and totally bare walls, Vik’s bunk was virtually covered with images of their friend Wyatt Enslow. There were posters all over the wall with Wyatt’s solemn, oval face on them. She wore her customary scowl, her dark eyes tracking their every move through the bunk. There was a giant marble statue of a sad-looking Vik with a boot on top of its head. The Vik statue clutched two very, very tiny hands together in a gesture of supplication, its eyes trained upward on the unseen stomper, an inscription at its base, WHY, OH WHY, DID I CROSS WYATT ENSLOW? Tom began to laugh. “She didn’t do it to the bunk,” Vik insisted. “She must’ve done something to our processors.” That much was obvious. If Wyatt was good at anything, it was pulling off tricks with the neural processors, which could pretty much be manipulated to show them anything. This was some sort of illusion she was making them see, and Tom heartily approved. He stepped closer to the walls to admire some of the photos pinned there, freeze-frames of some of Vik’s more embarrassing moments at the Spire: that time Vik got a computer virus that convinced him he was a sheep, and he’d crawled around on his hands and knees chewing on plants in the arboretum. Another was Vik gaping in dismay as Wyatt won the war games. “My hands do not look like that.” Vik jabbed a finger at the statue and its abnormally tiny hands. Wyatt had relentlessly mocked Vik for having small, delicate hands ever since Tom had informed her it was the proper way to counter one of Vik’s nicknames for her, “Man Hands.” Vik had mostly abandoned that nickname for “Evil Wench,” and Tom suspected it was due to the delicate-hands gibe. Just then, Vik’s new roommate bustled into the bunk. He was a tall, slim guy with curly black hair and a pointy look to his face. Tom had seen him around, and he called up his profile from memory: NAME: Giuseppe Nichols RANK: USIF, Grade IV Middle, Alexander Division ORIGIN: New York, NY ACHIEVEMENTS: Runner-up, Van Cliburn International Piano Competition IP: 2053:db7:lj71::291:ll3:6e8 SECURITY STATUS: Top Secret LANDLOCK-4 Giuseppe must’ve been able to see the bunk template, too, because he stuttered to a stop, staring up at the statue. “Did you really program a giant statue of yourself into your bunk template? That’s so narcissistic.” Tom smothered his laughter. “Wow. He already has your number, man.” Vik shot him a look of death as Tom backed out of the bunk.

Julie Seagle stared straight ahead and promised herself one thing: She would never again rent an apartment via Craigslist. The strap of her overstuffed suitcase dug into her shoulder, and she let it drop onto the two suitcases that sat on the sidewalk. It wasn’t as if she had anywhere to carry them now. Julie squinted in disbelief at the flashing neon sign that touted the best burritos in Boston. Rereading the printout of the email again did nothing to change things. Yup, this was the correct address. While she did love a good burrito, and the small restaurant had a certain charm about it, it seemed pretty clear that the one-story building did not include a three-bedroom apartment that could house college students. She sighed and pulled her cell phone from her purse. “Hi, Mom.” “Honey! I gather you made it to Boston? Ohio is missing you already. I can’t believe you’re already off at college. How is the apartment? Have you met your roommates yet?” Julie cleared her throat and looked at the flat roof of the restaurant. “The apartment is…‌airy. It has a very

Saying goodbye to everyone, I picked up my bag and began walking away as a deep husky voice called my name. I didn’t stop walking, but looked over my shoulder in time to see Brandon walking around the table toward me, and Chase holding the brunette’s head away from his as he watched us, she just continued onto his neck. Falling into step with me, he held out a hand, “We haven’t met yet, I’m Brandon Taylor.” Dear Lord that voice could warm me on the coldest day of the year. “Harper Jackson, nice to meet you.” He smiled as he held the door open for me, “You too. You seem to know the rest of the guys pretty well though we’re just meeting, they said you’re Bree’s roommate?” “Uh, yeah. I am, but I don’t really know them well. I’ve only talked to them for a total of about ten minutes before today.” “Really?” The corners of his mouth twitched up, “You seem to make quite an impression in a short amount of time then.” “Oh I definitely made an impression with them.” I muttered. He looked at me quizzically but I shook my head so he wouldn’t push it. We stopped walking when we got to the path that would take me to the dorms and him to his next class. I turned towards him and shamelessly took in his worn jeans resting low on his narrow hips and fitted black shirt before going back to his face. I hadn’t realized how tall he was when we were walking out, but he had to be at least a foot taller than me. His height and muscled body made me want to curl up in his arms, it looked like I’d fit perfectly there. I nervously bit my bottom lip while I watched his cloudy eyes slowly take in my small frame. It didn’t feel like the guys at the party, looking at me like I was something to eat. His eyes made me feel beautiful, and it thrilled me that they were on me. Thrilled me that they were on me? Get a grip Harper you just met him two seconds ago. “Come on PG, let’s go.” Chase grabbed my arm and started dragging me away. “Chase! Stop!” I yanked my arm out and shot him a dirty look. “What is your problem?” “I’m taking you and Bree to the house, and you need to pack for the weekend so let’s go.” He grabbed for me again but I dodged his hand. “The weekend, what?” “You’re staying with me, go pack.” I narrowed my eyes and started to turn towards Brandon, “Fine, hold on.” “Harper.” “Go away Chase, I’ll meet you in the room in a minute. Go find Bree.” He moved to stand closer behind me so I just sighed and gave Brandon a lame smile. “Sorry, apparently I have to go. I’ll see you tonight?” I don’t know why I asked, he actually lived there. A sexy smile lit up his face as his hand reached out to quickly brush against my arm, “See you then.” With a hard nod directed towards Chase, he turned and walked away.

I do not need a ring. I tried marriage before, as many know. Let me state here that Tom Dennis was a good, decent man who treated me gently and, when I asked, he let me go. I do believe he loved me. But my fiancé was no easy roommate, leaving glasses on wood tables (wood tables, dear reader!) and dropping socks and candy wrappers whenever they ceased being of immediate use; he became like those beachgoers who assume their litter will go out with the tide. I should have known from this that my relationship was in some trouble. But I knew all couples had these fights, and I assumed they were not a detour from love but its bumpy path. So imagine my surprise when (Tom Dennis far in the rearview mirror) I moved into the Shack with Less and this new roommate began to exhibit the same tendencies—socks on the floor, underwear behind the bathroom door, unwashed plates—and, reader, I didn’t care at all! I remember making the bed and finding underneath his pillow a mushroom-like profusion of tissues (for his morning nose-blow) and being filled with…not rage, but tenderness! With Tom Dennis, it was a chore I was willing to bear. With Less—I did not care at all. I stared at those tissues, stupefied. I did not care at all. The difference, you see, dear reader, is that I love him. How do I put it? He is not the best, God knows. He is not the best. But he is the best I ever had. Because to love someone ridiculous is to understand something deep and true about the world. That up close it makes no sense. Those of you who choose sensible people may feel secure, but I think you water your wine; the wonder of life is in its small absurdities, so easily overlooked. And if you have not shared somebody’s tilted view of the horizon (which is the actual world), tell me: what have you really seen?

As I tried various restaurants, certain preconceptions came crashing down. I realized not all Japanese food consisted of carefully carved vegetables, sliced fish, and clear soups served on black lacquerware in a highly restrained manner. Tasting okonomiyaki (literally, "cook what you like"), for example, revealed one way the Japanese let their chopsticks fly. Often called "Japanese pizza," okonomiyaki more resembles a pancake filled with chopped vegetables and your choice of meat, chicken, or seafood. The dish evolved in Osaka after World War II, as a thrifty way to cobble together a meal from table scraps. A college classmate living in Kyoto took me to my first okonomiyaki restaurant where, in a casual room swirling with conversation and aromatic smoke, we ordered chicken-shrimp okonomiyaki. A waitress oiled the small griddle in the center of our table, then set down a pitcher filled with a mixture of flour, egg, and grated Japanese mountain yam made all lumpy with chopped cabbage, carrots, scallions, bean sprouts, shrimp, and bits of chicken. When a drip of green tea skated across the surface of the hot meal, we poured out a huge gob of batter. It sputtered and heaved. With a metal spatula and chopsticks, we pushed and nagged the massive pancake until it became firm and golden on both sides. Our Japanese neighbors were doing the same. After cutting the doughy disc into wedges, we buried our portions under a mass of mayonnaise, juicy strands of red pickled ginger, green seaweed powder, smoky fish flakes, and a sweet Worcestershire-flavored sauce. The pancake was crispy on the outside, soft and savory inside- the epitome of Japanese comfort food. Another day, one of Bob's roommates, Theresa, took me to a donburi restaurant, as ubiquitous in Japan as McDonald's are in America. Named after the bowl in which the dish is served, donburi consists of sticky white rice smothered with your choice of meat, vegetables, and other goodies. Theresa recommended the oyako, or "parent and child," donburi, a medley of soft nuggets of chicken and feathery cooked egg heaped over rice, along with chopped scallions and a rich sweet bouillon. Scrumptious, healthy, and prepared in a flash, it redefined the meaning of fast food.

Separate vacations have become more popular among married couples. We don’t think this is a good idea. Over time, doing your own thing will cause you to lead separate lives. We are not talking about a three-day trip to Florida with your sister or best friend—if you want to take small trips like this, feel free to. But if you want to take a major vacation—say, to spend two weeks in Europe—your husband should be your travel companion. But suppose your idea of a fun vacation is going to Europe or lying on the beach in the Caribbean, while your husband loves tours of historic sites and museums. Our advice is to figure out a way to do a little of both. One year, you can go to the beach, the next year you can do a tourist package together, or go on a trip with a beach near some sites of cultural interest. Once you start planning separate vacations, you become like roommates, not lovers.

Normally men don't really listen all that well. You can mention that you like apricots, or The Cure, or kittens, and it just goes out of their heads the minute it's out of your mouth. I personally seize on these clues about people. For example, I know that Sasha loves the smell of violets, and that Rose enjoys novels of a bodice-ripping nature and walks for exercise and has a Siamese cat called Dr. Oodles, but if I'd asked Dan what his best friend had studied at college- where they were roommates- he would have no idea. Anyway, Edward was apparently different, because he'd sent me a gorgeous bouquet of roses that filled the room with an intense, sweetly lemony, rosy smell that was mind-blowing. The roses themselves were a rich cream and stuffed with petals that made them look like roses in paintings. Sasha was looking at me. "Well, you must have done something pretty amazing last night. I've been sketching these since I got in. They're the most gorgeous Madame Hardys I've seen in a long time." I could see she had also been getting her shit together; there were open cartons on her desk, and she'd brought her portfolio to the office. "Aren't they roses?" I was bending down, sniffing deeply. I looked for a card. Sasha laughed. "The name of the rose is Madame Hardy. It's a damask rose, and one of the most famous old roses available these days. Someone knows their flowers.

Here is the way I was in those days. My life just filled out into all the freedom it was allowed, like water seeking its level. My private life—my secret life, I might as well say, though really I had no secrets worth keeping—achieved length and breadth and height. After the first year, I asked for and was given a small single room, and in that way got shed of my roommate. I now had money that I had earned myself; I now had a few possessions that I had bought with my own money. These few things that were mine I cherished with a steady small exultation that was also mine. At night, shut in my little room with all my worldly possessions, I felt like a worm in an apple.

Why don’t we consider moving in together? While we head for this event?” She gulped. “What?” she asked weakly. “Let’s clear the debt, get Kid Crawford out of the picture, I’ll take on your upkeep rather than Vanni and Paul shouldering your food and board, and we’ll evolve into…” He cleared his throat. “We don’t have to explain anything. People will just say, ‘Dr. Michaels likes that nice pregnant girl.’ We’ll share a house. I’ll be your roommate. You’ll have your own room. But there will be late nights you’re worried about some belly pain or later, night crying from the babies. You don’t want to do that to Vanni and Paul and—” “I was just going to go home to Seattle. To my mom and dad’s.” “They have room for me?” he asked, lifting his fork and arching that brow. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, slamming down her fork. “You can’t mean to say you plan to just follow me and demand to live with the babies!” “Well, no,” he said. “That would be obsessive. But Jesus, Ab, I don’t want to miss out on anything. Do you know how much babies change from two to six weeks? It just kills me to think you’d take them that far away from me. I mean, they are—” “I know,” she said, frustrated. “Yours.” “Yeah, sweetheart. And they’re also yours. And I swear to God, I will never try to take them away from you. That would be cruel.” He had just aimed an arrow at her sense of justice. The shock of realization must have shown on her face, but he took another bite, had another drink of his beer, smiled. “Live together?” “Here’s how it’ll go if you stay with Vanni and Paul. Toward the end, when you’re sleepless, you’ll be up at night. You’ll be tired during the day, but there will be a toddler around, making noise and crying. And you’ll have all those late pregnancy complaints, worries. Then you’ll have a small guest room stuffed to the ceiling with paraphernalia. Then babies—and grandmothers as additional guests? Newborns, sometimes, cry for hours. They could have Vanni and Paul up all night, walking the floor with you. Nah, that wouldn’t be good. And besides, it’s not Paul’s job to help, it’s mine.” “Where do you suggest we live? Here?” “Here isn’t bad,” he said with a shrug. “But Mel and Jack offered us their cabin. It’s a nice cabin—two bedrooms and a loft, ten minutes from town. Ideally, we should hurry and look around for a place that can accommodate a man, a woman, two newborns, two grandmothers and… We don’t have to make room for the lawyers, do we?” “Very funny,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Abby, we have things to work out every single day. We have to buy cribs, car seats, swings, layette items, lots of stuff—it’s going to take more than one trip to the mall. We have to let the families know there will be babies coming—it’s only fair. We should have dinner together every day, just so we can communicate, catch up. If there’s anything you need or anything you’re worried about, I want to be close so I can help. If you think I’m going to molest you while you’re huge with my babies—” “You know, I’m getting sick of that word, huge.

But now that I was here, standing less than two feet away from the most gorgeous man I had ever seen... Frederick J. Fitzwilliam's appearance was all I could think about. He looked like he was maybe in his mid-thirties, though he had the sort of long, pale, slightly angular face where it was hard to tell. And his voice wasn't the only thing with high production values. No, he also had this ridiculously thick, dark hair that fell rakishly across his forehead like he'd sprung fully formed out of a period drama where people with English accents kissed in the rain. Or like he was the hero from the last historical romance novel I'd read. When he gave me a small, expectant smile, a dimple popped in his right cheek.

When Solo got back to her own hotel room, all her emotions were unleashed. As one player puts it now: “All the sudden, we were seeing furniture fly into the hallway.” Several players who decline to speak on the record say Solo trashed her room and punched a hole in the wall. Nicole Barnhart, the backup goalkeeper who was her roommate at the time, picked up the furniture and put the room back together. Later, Aly Wagner, Cat Whitehill, and Angela Hucles went to Solo’s room to check on her. She was crying. The trio understood why Solo was so upset. The decision to change a goalkeeper in the middle of a World Cup was unprecedented, and everyone knew it. The players tried to support her and give her a pep talk to be ready, just in case. “We get it,” the players told her one by one. “This is an awful thing to go through. We’ve all been there. But you are still part of this team, and we still need you. You never know what’s going to happen in the game.” The press corps in China was small, but once reporters there learned about Ryan’s decision, it was all they could ask about. Would it shake Solo’s confidence? “That’s not our concern,” Ryan said. “We came here trying to win a world championship and put the players on the field that we thought could win each game.” Was Ryan concerned that Scurry would be rusty? “She’ll be ready—wait and see,” he said. Julie Foudy and Tony DiCicco were now both working as broadcast analysts for ESPN. On air, they expressed astonishment at Ryan’s decision and both said, in no uncertain terms, that it was a bad move.

Lin Lin and Tammy created ginger beef with crisp garden vegetables that showcased some distinctive, bright flavors. I adored this dish." Sophia smiled as Lin Lin and Tammy stepped forward. Her roommate looked completely shocked and continued to hide behind a fringe of bangs. "Go, Shaggy!" Chef Johnson, the hipster from Maine, cheered for his colleague. Everyone laughed, and even Lin Lin permitted herself a small grin. The two women discussed their inspiration and preparation techniques. Jenny shook their hands. "I agree with Jonathan. I loved that Asian dish. I also loved the meal that paired perfectly grilled tenderloin with buttery charred lobster. Oh my God! Now that is just the way surf-n-turf should be prepared. Heavenly! And the fresh herb salad with flowers made it such a pretty picture.

I once met an eighty-nine-year-old woman who had, of her own volition, checked herself into a Boston nursing home. Usually, it’s the children who push for a change, but in this case she was the one who did. She had congestive heart failure, disabling arthritis, and after a series of falls she felt she had little choice but to leave her condominium in Delray Beach, Florida. “I fell twice in one week, and I told my daughter I don’t belong at home anymore,” she said. She picked the facility herself. It had excellent ratings and nice staff, and her daughter lived nearby. She had moved in the month before I met her. She told me she was glad to be in a safe place—if there’s anything a decent nursing home is built for, it is safety. But she was wretchedly unhappy. The trouble was that she expected more from life than safety. “I know I can’t do what I used to,” she said, “but this feels like a hospital, not a home.” It is a near-universal reality. Nursing home priorities are matters like avoiding bedsores and maintaining residents’ weight—important medical goals, to be sure, but they are means, not ends. The woman had left an airy apartment she furnished herself for a small beige hospital-like room with a stranger for a roommate. Her belongings were stripped down to what she could fit into the one cupboard and shelf they gave her. Basic matters, like when she went to bed, woke up, dressed, and ate, were subject to the rigid schedule of institutional life. She couldn’t have her own furniture or a cocktail before dinner, because it wasn’t safe.