Simpsons Love Quotes

Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.

I knew I would hate my best memory because it would prove that people could fake love or that love could end or worst of all, love was not powerful enough to change a life.

If you're thinking bout me, text 143 that means I Love You

A sonnet might look dinky, but it was somehow big enough to accommodate love, war, death, and O.J. Simpson. You could fit the whole world in there if you shoved hard enough.

We do not measure the value of a person by their outward appearance, rank, or creed, rather by the sum of the agápe in their heart. Your value in the cosmos is greater than precious metals or jewels, humans have to potential to take us all into a period of great enlightenment, or to our ruin. The choice is yours.

The first five years of a child's life create their future. Teach them about love, about God, and about how special and loved they are. Create a successful and happy future for them. OM

He sank to his knees, absolutely full of despair and sadness. For a long time, droplets of blood continued to fall into his lap.

Do not write. I am sad, and want my light put out. Summers in your absence are as dark as a room. I have closed my arms again. They must do without. To knock at my heart is like knocking at a tomb. Do not write! Do not write. Let us learn to die, as best we may. Did I love you? Ask God. Ask yourself. Do you know? To hear that you love me, when you are far away, Is like hearing from heaven and never to go. Do not write! Do not write. I fear you. I fear to remember, For memory holds the voice I have often heard. To the one who cannot drink, do not show water, The beloved one's picture in the handwritten word. Do not write! Do not write those gentle words that I dare not see, It seems that your voice is spreading them on my heart, Across your smile, on fire, they appear to me, It seems that a kiss is printing them on my heart. Do not write!

Divine love loves that it may bless and do good. You ought to love not because it pleases you, but because it blesses them.

The skillset you need to survive is not the same skillset you need to love and be loved

Pour your scotch on the rocks and drink your misery down. Go home and make love to her and picture me, picture me. Yeah, picture me!

there are a couple of problems with being twenty-two but you don't know about them yet, because you can only find out about the problems sometime after you are no longer twenty-two. anyway, one of the problems with being twenty-two is you start to get afraid that maybe you're horrible at everything, mostly because you're not really good at anything yet, so you decide to stay the course with biology until a sign appears, even though being stoned drunk all the time doesn't register as a sign.

God’s jewels are often sent us in rough packages and by dark liveried servants, but within we find the very treasures of the King’s palace and the Bridegroom’s Love.

Do what you love, especially if your sharing the word

I want the love that cannot help but love; Loving, like God, for very sake of love.

I was like a lot of women who get their wish: I loved being a mom, I just didn't love being me.

No task will seem trying, and no sinner unattractive, to one whose heart has been thus possessed with the Savior’s heart of love.

she never asked for recognition, because she wasn't doing it to be recognized. she did it because it filled her up. she just carefully planted those seeds. she just kept picking up those pieces. she just kept visiting those old ones. she just kept speaking her language and sitting with her mother. she just kept on lighting that seventh fire every time it went out. she just kept making things a little bit better, until they were.

The ideal way to live would be always to treat each day, each encounter with loved ones, as one's last. Only thus could one avoid the endless self-reproach, self-recrimination, with which so many flagellate themselves after a sudden loss.

The top landing of any Bedford Park building’s stairwell felt so much safer. Lying there, flat on a bed of marble, using my backpack for a pillow, whole lives played out beneath me: the smell of food cooking; lovers’ arguments; dishes clanking; TVs blasting at top volume; my old shows, The Simpsons and Jeopardy!; rap music—all carrying me back to University Avenue. Mostly, though, I heard families: children calling out for mothers, husbands speaking their wives’ names, sending me reminders of the way love stretched between a handful of people fills a space, transforms it into a home.

Having a soul means having the capacity to love something more than yourself.

These stories depressed me. Love ruined people's lives, the way our parents said drugs could.

They believe if employees are treated right and well compensated, they will be loyal to the company. A loyal employee is worth his or her weight in gold.

There was no way she could be around this much hotness and not have a reaction. Darn worthless underwear. When would they make some to absorb when needed.

copy: “I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.

I wanted to see who I was, without using another person’s love for me as a measurement of my value.

This is a love story too. And, like a lot of love stories, it doesn't have a happy ending.

You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance. -Wallace Simpson

Who was I if I had no one to blame for my life but myself?

Still, I've heard it said that all stories are basically love stories, and my story is no exception. This is a love story, too. And, like a lot of love stories, it doesn't have a happy ending.

A circle has no end, no beginning, and can hold within itself all the love and devotion shared between mates. Let the rings you exchange now guide you in your life together and show you the way to everlasting love.

He found he was popular, known for a loose style and an appealing willingness to digress. “We spend most of our time talking about Twin Peaks and The Simpsons so they think I am an okay caballero,” he told Markson.

And so love and sacrifice is the law of Christ. “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” The law of Christ is the bearing of others’ burdens, the sharing of others’ griefs, sacrificing yourself for another.

Someone has beautifully analyzed the fruit of the Spirit in Gal. 5: 22, and shown that all the graces there mentioned are but various forms of love itself. The apostle is not speaking of different fruits, but of one fruit, the fruit of the Spirit, and the various words that follow are but phrases and descriptions of the one fruit, which is love itself. Joy, which is first mentioned, is love on wings; peace, which follows, is love folding its wings, and nestling under the wings of God; longsuffering is love enduring; gentleness is love in society; goodness is love in activity, faith is love confiding; meekness is love stooping; temperance is true self-love, and the proper regard for our own real interests, which is as much the duty of love, as regard for the interests of others.

One year before the Rapture "...that proves how marvellous God's love is, even for the most miserable human beings, being that demons can never take a human figure in a perfect form, and so the most stupid people are able to discover them." Nicholas Remy, Daemonolatreiae libri tres, 1595.

I know not where we go from here. I do not think this is the end, but a new beginning, a new chapter in our tale. Told by minstrels who reveal not their sources. I know not if we have achieved victory this day. But I will forever know that I was honored to call each and everyone of you my brother.

And so we find Fussell living alone in a flat unfurnished except for an exercise machine and 'A cardboard cut-out of Arnold with loin cloth and sword as Conan the Barbarian'. Thus the heterosexual bodybuilder's relationship to homosexuality is revealed as a sad kind of insubstantial shadow of it, a kind of mourning, a ghostly kind of love.

The typical metrosexual is a young man with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a metropolis — because that’s where all the best shops, clubs, gyms and hairdressers are. He might be officially gay, straight or bisexual, but this is utterly immaterial because he has clearly taken himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual preference.

Stained-glass windows glowed faintly in the moonlight streaming through, illuminating the sculpture of Christ on the cross that hung above the altar. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Then the sculpture seemed to move, and Christ’s body twisted on the cross to look directly at him. ...Jesus, the son of God and his saviour, seemed be smiling at him.

I took all this criticism very personally, thinking I was bringing about America’s moral decay. So I decided to write children’s books. This was a stretch for me, because I hate children. But, Dr. Seuss hated children. So did Hans Christian Andersen. Lewis Carroll loved children in a way that’s illegal in forty-eight states. (I mentioned this in a lecture, and someone asked, “What are the two states where it’s okay?” That’s how I met R. Kelly.)

Hancock: I was talking about Olive, my sweetheart. Sid : And a load of old rubbish it was too. Hancock: Oh well of course, I wouldn't expect you to understand. How could a man like you hope to understand the sensitive world of two children who discover the wonders of innocent love for the first time. Sid: 'Innocent love'. If I'd been your old man I'd have given you a thump round the earhole and kicked you up to bed. Hancock: I don't think I've such a crude man in my life.

The Worst Man in Australia Australians love The Simpsons, except, naturally, the episode where the family goes there. That episode was condemned in the Australian parliament, which is a Hooters, by the way. They didn’t object to us saying the Australian penal system involved kicking offenders with a giant boot, or that their prime minister’s office was an inner tube in a pond. Nope. What they didn’t like was our cast’s attempt at doing an Australian accent. Mind you, the true Australian accent is semi-incomprehensible

It won't work. You see, he is a liar and a thief. And he's been one for too long. He can't retire now. In addition to which. He has become, I'm afraid, a hack.' 'He may be all those things but she knows he's not.' 'What gives her that curious idea?' 'She's been with him constantly for the last few days. She's seen him shaking with terror, exhausted, ready to quit. She's watched him pull himself together again and she's also seen him be warm and tender. And funny. Not famous-international-wit funny but really funny.' 'Do you think she's an idiot? Do you think she doesn't know what kind of man he is? Or what he needs?' 'And what he needs is L-O-V-E? Uh-uh it's too late. He is 43 years old. Or will be this October. He's been married twice, both times disastrously and there have been too many years of... too much dough, too much bad writing and too much whiskey. He's got nothing left inside to give. Even if he could, which he can't.' 'But that's not true. You can, you have. I just know it.' 'No, you don't. It's lousy. In any case, the problem is you're not in love with the script. You're in love with me. And why shouldn't you be? When suddenly, waltzing into your life comes this charming and relatively handsome stranger. Me. Smooth as silk, with a highly practised line of chatter, specifically designed to knock relatively unsophisticated chicks like you Miss Simpson, right on their ears. Which I'm terribly afraid I've done. Well if it's the last decent thing I do in this world, and it very well may be, I'm going to fix that. I'm going to send you packing Miss Simpson before I cause you serious and irrevocable harm. You want the truth? Of course you don't. I'll give it to you anyway. I do not give one damn about anything.

The really strange thing about this is that it was one of the Fog Facts. That is, it was not a secret. It was known. But it was not known. That is, if you asked a knowledgeable journalist, or political analyst, or a historian, they knew about it. If you yourself went and checked the record, you could find it out. But if you asked the man in the street if President Scott, who loved to have his picture taken among the troops and driving armored vehicles and aboard naval vessels, if you asked if Scott had found a way to evade service in Vietnam, they wouldn't have a clue, and, unless they were anti-Scott already, they wouldn't believe it. In the information age there is so much information that sorting and focus and giving the appropriate weight to anything have become incredibly difficult. Then some fact, or event, or factoid mysteriously captures the world's attention and there's a media frenzy. Like Clinton and Lewinsky. Like O. J. Simpson. And everybody in the world knows everything about it. On the flip side are the Fog Facts, important things that nobody seems able to focus on any more than the can focus on a single droplet in the mist. They are known, but not known.

To get to this point, to talking to you right here in this moment, I had to really feel. And I hadn’t been doing that. Up until a few years ago, I had been a feelings addict. Love, loss—whichever, whatever, as long as it was epic. I just needed enough noise to distract me from the pain I had been avoiding since childhood. The demons of traumatic abuse that refused to let me sleep at night—Tylenol PM at age twelve, red wine and Ambien as a grown, scared woman. Those same demons who perched on my shoulder, and when they saw a man as dark as them, leaned in to my ear to whisper, “Just give him all your light. See if it saves him. . . .

I once saw a picture of the Constitution of the United States, very skillfully engraved in copper plate, so that when you looked at it closely it was nothing more than a piece of writing, but when you looked at it at a distance, it was the face of George Washington. The face shone out in the shading of the letters at a little distance, and I saw the person, not the words, nor the ideas; and I thought, “‘That is the way to look at the Scriptures and understand the thoughts of God, to see in them the face of love, shining through and through; not ideas, nor doctrines, but Jesus Himself as the Life and Source and sustaining Presence of all our life.

I know he accused Nick of making me dependent on him for everything, which is the pot calling up the kettle to have a long talk about being black. My mom loved Nick, but right or wrong, my parents had spent my life making me think that I couldn’t do anything without them. At twenty-one years old, I was still very much a child. I didn’t know how to write a check, but, somehow, I was paying for everything. I knew that I was making money, but I didn’t think of myself as the family breadwinner. I just thought my money was their money. Honestly, what I knew for sure was that it stopped my family from having as many fights, so I felt lucky that I could be the one to help keep the peace.

She can’t explain or quite understand what it is that is special about dancing with Harry. When he opens his arms to her, he is so sure, the way he holds her, not too hard, not too soft. Like coming home. Where she belongs. The way he moves her. They are a part of the music. Their bodies fit together, move like one person. Perfect. The way a man and a woman must feel, she thinks, when they are in love. He makes her feel beautiful, too, like when he assures her that someday she will be good enough to be a professional dancer. Harry must know, because he is the best dancer, the best teacher, a girl could have, patient and gentle. She is lucky that he believes in her. That is how she feels outside his door.

member of the family recounted a few stories or read a poem. “His mind was never a captive of reality,” Laurene said. “He possessed an epic sense of possibility. He looked at things from the standpoint of perfection.” Mona Simpson, as befitting a novelist, had a finely crafted eulogy. “He was an intensely emotional man,” she recalled. “Even ill, his taste, his discrimination, and his judgment held. He went through sixty-seven nurses before finding kindred spirits.” She spoke of her brother’s love of work and noted that “even in the last year, he embarked upon projects and elicited promises from his friends at Apple to finish them.” She also, more personally, stressed his love of Laurene and all four of his children.

He’s coming off the bridge,” said Serge. “The rocks will start soon.” “Rocks?” “It’s local tradition, and another reason I love the Keys.” Serge stood and put on his sneakers. “It’s our version of when those people went out to the overpasses and waved at O. J. Simpson during the slow-motion chase. Except in the Keys, when there’s a high-speed pursuit on TV heading south, the locals line the road and wait for the car to come off the bridge to Key Largo. Last time was around Christmas.” “You’re right.” Coleman pointed at the TV again. “They’re lining the side of the road. They’re throwing rocks.” “And we’re at Mile Marker 105, so that gives us about three minutes.” Serge tightened the Velcro straps on his shoes. “Let’s go throw rocks.

for every adult person you look up to in life there is trailing behind them an invisible chain gang of ghosts, all of which, as a child, you are generously spared from meeting. I know now, however, that these ghosts exist, and that other adults can see them. The lost loves, the hurt friends, the dead: they follow their owner forever. Perhaps this is why we feel so crowded around those people who we know have had hard times. Perhaps this is why we find so little to say. We suffer an odd brand of stage fright, I think, before all those dreadful eyes. And maybe that’s what my uncle had noticed about Mr. Simpson on the lawn that night of the fight. Maybe in my eyes, a child’s eyes, it was just the three of us squatting in the grass. But, to those two men, the lawn appeared to be full of bodies, full of the people they’d made mistakes with in life now tethered to them and ill-rested and serving no purpose but to remind them of the one awful thing: that life is made up, ever increasingly, of what you cannot change.

It’s just time to marry, that’s all,” she said. “I’m so tired of dating! I’m so tired of keeping up a good front! I want to sit on the couch with a regular, normal husband and watch TV for a thousand years. It’s going to be like getting out of a girdle; that’s exactly how I picture it.” “What are you saying?” Maggie asked. She was almost afraid of the answer. “Are you telling me you don’t really love Max?” “Of course I love him,” Serena said. She blended the dots into her skin. “But I’ve loved other people as much. I loved Terry Simpson our sophomore year—remember him? But it wasn’t time to get married then, so Terry is not the one I’m marrying.” Maggie didn’t know what to think. Did everybody feel that way? Had the grownups been spreading fairy tales? “The minute I saw Eleanor,” her oldest brother had told her once, “I said, ‘That girl is going to be my wife someday.’ ” It hadn’t occurred to Maggie that he might simply have been ready for a wife, and therefore had his eye out for the likeliest prospect. So there again, Serena had managed to color Maggie’s view of things. “We’re not in the hands of fate after all,” she seemed to be saying. “Or if we are, we can wrest ourselves free anytime we care to.

There were three great comedians in my formative years—Bill Cosby, Bill Murray, and Richard Pryor—and they wrecked comedy for a generation. How? By never saying anything funny. You can quote a Steve Martin joke, or a Rodney Dangerfield line, but Pryor, Cosby, and Murray? The things they said were funny only when they said them. In Cosby’s case, it didn’t even need to be sentences: “The thing of the thing puts the milk in the toast, and ha, ha, ha!” It was gibberish and America loved it. The problem was that they inspired a generation of comedians who tried coasting on personality—they were all attitude and no jokes. It was also a time when comedy stars didn’t seem to care. Bill Murray made some lousy movies; Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy made even more; and any script that was too lame for these guys, Chevy Chase made. These were smart people—they had to know how bad these films were, but they just grabbed a paycheck and did them. Most of these comic actors started as writers—they could have written their own scripts, but they rarely bothered. Then, at the end of a decade of lazy comedy and half-baked material, The Simpsons came along. We cared about jokes, and we worked endless hours to cram as many into a show as possible. I’m not sure we can take all the credit, but TV and movies started trying harder. Jokes were back. Shows like 30 Rock and Arrested Development demanded that you pay attention. These days, comedy stars like Seth Rogen, Amy Schumer, Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, and Jonah Hill actually write the comedies they star in.

SCULLEY. Pepsi executive recruited by Jobs in 1983 to be Apple’s CEO, clashed with and ousted Jobs in 1985. JOANNE SCHIEBLE JANDALI SIMPSON. Wisconsin-born biological mother of Steve Jobs, whom she put up for adoption, and Mona Simpson, whom she raised. MONA SIMPSON. Biological full sister of Jobs; they discovered their relationship in 1986 and became close. She wrote novels loosely based on her mother Joanne (Anywhere but Here), Jobs and his daughter Lisa (A Regular Guy), and her father Abdulfattah Jandali (The Lost Father). ALVY RAY SMITH. A cofounder of Pixar who clashed with Jobs. BURRELL SMITH. Brilliant, troubled hardware designer on the original Mac team, afflicted with schizophrenia in the 1990s. AVADIS “AVIE” TEVANIAN. Worked with Jobs and Rubinstein at NeXT, became chief software engineer at Apple in 1997. JAMES VINCENT. A music-loving Brit, the younger partner with Lee Clow and Duncan Milner at the ad agency Apple hired. RON WAYNE. Met Jobs at Atari, became first partner with Jobs and Wozniak at fledgling Apple, but unwisely decided to forgo his equity stake. STEPHEN WOZNIAK. The star electronics geek at Homestead High; Jobs figured out how to package and market his amazing circuit boards and became his partner in founding Apple. DEL YOCAM. Early Apple employee who became the General Manager of the Apple II Group and later Apple’s Chief Operating Officer. INTRODUCTION How This Book Came to Be In the early summer of 2004, I got a phone call from Steve Jobs. He had been scattershot friendly to me over the years, with occasional bursts of intensity, especially when he was launching a new product that he wanted on the cover of Time or featured on CNN, places where I’d worked. But now that I was no longer at either of those places, I hadn’t heard from him much. We talked a bit about the Aspen Institute, which I had recently joined, and I invited him to speak at our summer campus in Colorado. He’d be happy to come, he said, but not to be onstage. He wanted instead to take a walk so that we could talk. That seemed a bit odd. I didn’t yet

Lord, make your home in the place you lead me. Take that place and fill it with your love. Make me at home wherever you lead me. May each place reflect a glory all your own.

Mona Simpson, rose to honor him at his memorial service, that’s not what she focused on. Yes, she talked about his work and his work ethic. But mostly she raised these as manifestations of his passions. “Steve worked at what he loved,” she said. What really moved him was love. “Love was his supreme virtue,” she said, “his god of gods. “When [his son] Reed was born, he began gushing and

Before the New Kingdom, the bestowal of “divine love” occurred by a “superior” deity upon a human, a subordination that extended down the chain of authority, passed from gods to royals, from royals to non-royal officials, from officials to their wives and relatives, etc.[538] In this regard, Doxey further relates: [Egyptologist] W.K. Simpson has studied the concept of divine love, asserting that prior to the New Kingdom, love was always bestowed by a superior upon a subordinate. Simpson’s view is certainly correct with regard to the love of gods. During the Middle Kingdom, humans always receive divine love; they are never described as “loving” a god.[539] On some occasions, such as when the king was “beloved by the people,” such love or mri could apparently be “reciprocated between superiors and subordinates” as well.[540] The clarification of the Middle and New Kingdoms indicates that this custom changed during the New Kingdom, with the use of the mry epithet becoming increasingly popular even as applied to deities. It is evident that, especially after the Hellenization of the Ptolemaic and Greco-Roman periods, various Egyptian deities became the objects of “divine love” and were themselves invoked as “beloved” or Mery. In reality, this ability to bestow mry upon even the “chief of all gods” is demonstrated as early as the New Kingdom in a hymn from the Papyrus Kairo CG 58038 (Boulaq 17), parts of which may date to the late Middle Kingdom,[541] such as the 18th Dynasty (1550-1292 BCE), and in which we find the combined god Amun-Re praised as “the good god beloved.”[542] Indeed, at P. Boulaq 17, 3.4, we find Amun-Re deemed Mry, as part of the epithet “Beloved of the Upper Egyptian and Lower Egyptian Crowns.”[543] Amun-Re is also called “beloved” in Budge’s rendering of the Book of the Dead created for the Egyptian princess and priestess Nesi-Khonsu (c. 1070-945 BCE).[544]

It’s surprising what you can get used to,” I said, leaning into him the way my mom does. “Like annoying brothers, for example.” He snorted, pushing back. “You love me.” I held up my hand, pinching my thumb and forefinger together so there was only a slight gap. He pouted, making me grin like an idiot. “Okay. You got me. I do.

I love being Generation X. We don't believe in anything apart from The Simpsons.

People want what isn’t given to them. And this is not sin, but hope. What if God didn’t put us here to accept, but to struggle? Isn’t love itself built of that precise impossible hope?

His warm voice was quickly replaced by one as cold as the ashes of lost love, the whites of his eyes suddenly darkened to a coal blackness, and his teeth became long and shark-like in their razor sharpness;

This is getting weird,” Lip said, flipping through some of the others.  “Do you think these are code?” “Could be.  Don’t know.  Not our speed, though.  We’re going to need to call in some favors to get them run.” Lip nodded.  “That shouldn’t be a problem.  We’ll use our go-to boy.” “Lawrence?” “He owes us.” Lawrence Simpson.  He still worked at the NSA.  Man was a lifer.  And he owed them big. “They’ve got the Black Widow now,” Lip said.  “I’d love to work with that baby.” The Black Widow.  The NSA’s colossal Cray supercomputer.  Thing could scan through millions of emails, phone calls, you name it, in seconds.  It could find patterns, search for key words, and do it on a scale that was unfathomable. “Keep dreaming,” Marks said. Lip could get carried away.  Like the NSA was going to let ‘em use that.  Thing was needed for its job.  Like spying on the world. First time on the job Marks was pretty blown away.  Didn’t faze him in the least now, knowing that the NSA captured every bit of correspondence every day and every second from around the world.  Phone calls, cell or land lines.  Domestic and international.  Emails.  Text messages.  Fuckin’ everything. It was all captured, scanned and stored.  And Lip and he had a hand in helping with that.  Still were helping.  Information in motion.  There were always new pipes that needed to be tapped, more splitters to put in place somewhere around the world.  Dubai, Chóngqing, Bangalore…  Marks and Lip, just two of your friendly cable box installers.  No job too small or too far away. Marks eyed the walls again.  In a micro sense this was almost like a snapshot of the soup.  Random and nonsensical.  Just a bunch of non-related groups lumped together. He examined some of the newspaper clippings.  It was weird to see the paper content. 

But it isn’t the fun of DIY invention, urban exploration, physical danger, and civil disorder that the Z-Boys enjoyed in 1976. It is fun within serious limits, and for all of its thrills it is (by contrast) scripted. And rather obedient. The fact that there are public skateparks and high-performance skateboards signals progress: America has embraced this sport, as it did bicycles in the nineteenth century. Towns want to make skating safe and acceptable. The economy has more opportunity to grow. America is better off for all of this. Yet such government and commercial intervention in a sport that was born of radical liberty means that the fun itself has changed; it has become mediated. For the skaters who take pride in their flashy store-bought equipment have already missed the Z-Boys’ joke: Skating is a guerrilla activity. It’s the fun of beating, not supporting, the system. P. T. Barnum said it himself: all of business is humbug. How else could business turn a profit, if it didn’t trick you with advertising? If it didn’t hook you with its product? This particular brand of humbug was perfected in the late 1960s, when merchandise was developed and marketed and sold to make Americans feel like rebels. Now, as then, customers always pay for this privilege, and purveyors keep it safe (and generally clean) to curb their liability. They can’t afford customers taking real risks. Plus it’s bad for business to encourage real rebellion. And yet, marketers know Americans love fun—they have known this for centuries. And they know that Americans, especially kids, crave autonomy and participation, so they simulate the DIY experience at franchises like the Build-A-Bear “workshops,” where kids construct teddy bears from limited options, or “DIY” restaurants, where customers pay to grill their own steaks, fry their own pancakes, make their own Bloody Marys. These pay-to-play stores and restaurants are, in a sense, more active, more “fun,” than their traditional competition: that’s their big selling point. But in both cases (as Barnum knew) the joke is still on you: the personalized bear is a standardized mishmash, the personalized food is often inedible. As Las Vegas knows, the house always wins. In the history of radical American fun, pleasure comes from resistance, risk, and participation—the same virtues celebrated in the “Port Huron Statement” and the Digger Papers, in the flapper’s slang and the Pinkster Ode. In the history of commercial amusement, most pleasures for sale are by necessity passive. They curtail creativity and they limit participation (as they do, say, in a laser-tag arena) to a narrow range of calculated surprises, often amplified by dazzling technology. To this extent, TV and computer screens, from the tiny to the colossal, have become the scourge of American fun. The ubiquity of TV screens in public spaces (even in taxicabs and elevators) shows that such viewing isn’t amusement at all but rather an aggressive, ubiquitous distraction. Although a punky insurgency of heedless satire has stung the airwaves in recent decades—from equal-opportunity offenders like The Simpsons and South Park to Comedy Central’s rabble-rousing pundits, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert—the prevailing “fun” of commercial amusement puts minimal demands on citizens, besides their time and money. TV’s inherent ease seems to be its appeal, but it also sends a sobering, Jumbotron-sized message about the health of the public sphere.

At its most intense, the admissions process didn’t force kids to be Lisa Simpson; it turned them into Eddie Haskell. (“You look lovely in that new dress, Ms. Admissions Counselor.”) It guaranteed that teenagers would pursue life with a single ulterior motive, while pretending they weren’t. It coated their every undertaking in a thin lacquer of insincerity. Befriending people in hopes of a good rec letter; serving the community to advertise your big heart; studying hard just to puff up the GPA and climb the greasy poll of class rank—nothing was done for its own sake. Do good; do well; but make sure you can prove it on a college app. So

on the inside, a diamond is one of the toughest objects found in nature—just like you. You’re beautiful on the outside, but inside you’re an amazing combination of strength and love. And somehow I was lucky enough to earn your love. Allegra Simpson, will you marry me?” Allegra

if you feel sick just be sick. if you love someone just tell them.

You need to be careful to stay out of Charlie’s line of sight,” Steve said to me. “I want Charlie focusing only on me. If he changes focus and starts attacking you, it’s going to be too difficult for me to control the situation.” Right. Steve got no argument from me. Getting anywhere near those bone-crushing jaws was the furthest thing from my mind. I wasn’t keen on being down on the water with a huge saltwater crocodile trying to get me. I would have to totally rely on Steve to keep me safe. We stepped into the dinghy, which was moored in Charlie’s enclosure, secured front and back with ropes. Charlie came over immediately to investigate. It didn’t take much to encourage him to have a go at Steve. Steve grabbed a top-jaw rope. He worked on roping Charlie while the cameras rolled. Time and time again, Charlie hurled himself straight at Steve, a half ton of reptile flesh exploding up out of the water a few feet away from me. I tried to hang on precariously and keep the boat counterbalanced. I didn’t want Steve to lose his footing and topple in. Charlie was one angry crocodile. He would have loved nothing more than to get his teeth into Steve. As Charlie used his powerful tail to propel himself out of the water, he arched his neck and opened his jaws wide, whipping his head back and forth, snapping and gnashing. Steve carefully threw the top-jaw rope, but he didn’t actually want to snag Charlie. Then he would have had to get the rope off without stressing the croc, and that would have been tricky. The cameras rolled. Charlie lunged. I cowered. Steve continued to deftly toss the rope. Then, all of a sudden, Charlie swung at the rope instead of Steve, and the rope went right over Charlie’s top jaw. A perfect toss, provided that had been what Steve was trying to do. But it wasn’t. We had a roped croc on our hands that we really didn’t want. Steve immediately let the rope go slack. Charlie had it snagged in his teeth. Because of Steve’s quick thinking and prompt maneuvering, the rope came clear. We breathed a collective sigh of relief. Steve looked up at the cameras. “I think you’ve got it.” John agreed. “I think we do, mate.” The crew cheered. The shoot lasted several minutes, but in the boat, I wasn’t sure if it had been seconds or hours. Watching Steve work Charlie up close had been amazing--a huge, unpredictable animal with a complicated thought process, able to outwit its prey, an animal that had been on the planet for millions of years, yet Steve knew how to manipulate him and got some fantastic footage. To the applause of the crew, Steve got us both out of the boat. He gave me a big hug. He was happy. This was what he loved best, being able to interact and work with wildlife. Never before had anything like it been filmed in any format, much less on thirty-five-millimeter film for a movie theater. We accomplished the shot with the insurance underwriters none the wiser. Steve wanted to portray crocs as the powerful apex predators that they were, keeping everyone safe while he did it. Never once did he want it to appear as though he were dominating the crocodile, or showing off by being in close proximity to it. He wished for the crocodile to be the star of the show, not himself. I was proud of him that day. The shoot represented Steve Irwin at his best, his true colors, and his desire to make people understand how amazing these animals are, to be witnessed by audiences in movie theaters all over the world. We filmed many more sequences with crocs, and each time Steve performed professionally and perfected the shots. He was definitely in his element. With the live-croc footage behind us, the insurance people came on board, and we were finally able to sign a contract with MGM. We were to start filming in earnest. First stop: the Simpson Desert, with perentie lizards and fierce snakes.

Hale a borrowed

morning.” “I’ll.

When you kiss me, I forget where I’m.

He sat down at the piano and flexed his fingers before he began to play. It was a slow piece that Amber loved to listen to on the radio; it spoke of the possibility of love after waiting a lifetime.

Wouldn’t it calm your spirits to be reading a book instead?’ Sarah suggested. Mina’s expression indicated that this was a notion so self-evident as to be stupid, and was about to explain why. ‘Of course I would rather be reading. I would spend all my days reading if I could. But for reasons passing understanding, embroidery is considered a desirable accomplishment in a prospective wife, and therefore it is incumbent upon me to master it, such is my lot. So for pity’s sake, bring tea or I shall run mad.

When Sarah prayed for people, she wrote their name down and what she asked God to give them.” He handed a journal to me, and I opened it to see the bubbles of her handwriting. Again and again, leafing through it, I saw my name. “Sarah prayed for you every day,” he said. “Every single day, she put your name down.” Even now, I burst into tears. I had grown up so lonely. Not always alone, but always lonely. And that whole time, Sarah had thought of me with love every day, possibly at the very moments when I felt the most lost. That realization—that I was never truly alone all that time—changed how I thought about heaven, it wasn’t some place in the sky. It was with Sarah, and Sarah was with me. What had seemed like blind faith when we lost Sarah, the naive thought that we were protected, was real. I was never alone, and everything was going to be okay. I stayed up late to read through the journals, seeing for myself how Sarah was always thinking of ways to help people and be of service. As I read, I began to feel an overwhelming sense of purpose, and I realized that I had inherited Sarah’s. I would keep her work alive through my life. Those are pretty big shoes to fill, I remember thinking. Just as quickly, I pushed away my fears: Well, they’re the only ones you’ve got.

But there was something humbling about the trip to the orphanage, knowing all the kids who surrounded us had no one but each other and Mama Lupita, the woman who ran the organization. There were about eighty kids of all ages milling around in worn hand-me-down T-shirts with slogans and outdated video game characters. The orphanage had no running water or electricity, and since it was not state-owned, it relied solely on donations and the work of church groups like ours cycling through. Mama Lupita—Guadalupe Carmona was her real name—started the orphanage in 1986 when she took in four kids whose father couldn’t care for them after their mother died. My dad told me Mama Lupita also visited prisons to pray with people, and the women there often asked her to take in their kids, too. It just grew from there. We spent our week doing odd jobs to fix up the place, cooking meals to serve to the kids, and doing lots of babysitting. We all got so attached to the children that we kept walking into town to buy them stuff because we had it to give. There was a new baby who had been found in a dumpster and brought to the orphanage the morning we arrived. I pretty much decided it was my job to hold her. I distinctly remember worrying that I was going to confuse her by speaking English, so I called over to one of the smarter kids in youth group. “How do you say ‘I love you’ in Spanish?” I asked. “Te amo, Jessica,” he said with googly eyes, and laughed. I smiled back and turned my face to the baby. “Te amo,” I said, over and over again, meaning it. I wanted her to know she was loved. I wanted it to be a familiar feeling, so that when unconditional love came into her life, she would recognize it.

The next time we saw each other was at a Teen People party for a cosmetics convention in Boca Raton. This was not what I’d pictured from reading Romeo and Juliet, but it would have to do. He brought his mom, and part of the fairy tale was that he said to her, “Mom, your mission for tonight is to get me in good with this girl.” He was wearing red overalls with the left strap off, and a cream turtleneck. He kept trying to catch my eye all night, and eventually just came over to me. We talked schedules—“It’s been crazy” was always the answer—and I wasn’t really listening because not only did I think he was so attractive, I loved his voice and the way he said “Jessica.” He got my number, and I swear I said to my mom, who was also at the party, “That’s the man I’m going to marry.” I immediately felt safe.

Beth, my old dance teacher, confronted Nick about it. “Oh my gosh, why are you drinking a beer?” she said it just like that: “A beer,” because surely this was an isolated sin, and who would dare have more than one? She let him have it, going on about how I was around, and didn’t he know he was supposed to be a role model for young people? Poor Nick went to my parents’ hotel room with this hangdog face. “I apologize if I disrespected you or the family,” he said. “For me, drinking a beer isn’t wrong, but I really love Jessica, and, again, I’m sorry if I disrespected the family.” My mother told me the story and I cringed. We must have seemed so country. Still, I had to ask, “He told you he loved me?

There was so much pressure, and much of the focus was on how I looked. The label was constantly telling me, “Let’s show more skin, Jessica. Let’s get comfortable with this.” It was so strange for me, because I was still shy about my body, so used to being covered up at church. The orders that I show my stomach while singing a ballad at showcases just seemed off to me, especially since the proper technique my vocal coach had taught me meant that I actually stuck out my stomach during the big notes. And “I Wanna Love You Forever” was full of them.

I was nineteen and still sheltered, so it was kind of bizarre to me that people felt free to ask, “How have you not had sex yet?” The interviewer would always start with me and then turn to Nick, who was twenty-six and a man. This situation did not compute for them. “And you’re okay with this, Nick?” they’d ask. He always handled it well, since we both knew the question amounted to “You’re cool with dating a girl who doesn’t put out?” “I really respect everything that she cares about and everything that’s important to her,” he said on The View. “And she talked about this from the very beginning, and so I knew going in that that was an issue with her and that was cool with me.” It gave America a story line to follow. The sexy virgin and the long-suffering, but still understanding, hot prince. Barbie and Ken didn’t have sex either, right? Nick loved the fact that I was so strong in my faith and that I had this wide-eyed innocent approach to life. He didn’t share it, though. I would get so frustrated, asking God to take the blindfold from his eyes and help him find a spiritual center. And then I would hear Sarah telling me to relax and to just accept him for who he was.

Bella told me bread makes you fat.” You are six, I thought. “Maxwell, bread does not make you fat,” I said. “And I don’t understand why you would think about that.” “Well, Bella’s mom does not eat bread.” “Well, you’re gonna eat bread.” “Oh good,” she said, and paused. “Because I really love bread.” “You listen to what your mommy says,” I said. “Don’t listen to someone else’s mommy.” I even put extra butter on that bread. As I did so, I thought How does she even know what “fat” is? It was a wake-up call. She already has this world to grow up in, and I want her to feel safe enough to love herself and the body that God gave her. Not waste the time I did being cruel to myself. Standing in front of the mirror at seventeen, pinching a tiny vice grip of stomach fat until I bruised, because the first thing I heard from the record company after I signed was, “You’ve got to lose fifteen pounds.

The final day came, and I wore an outfit my mom and I put together from the $5 rack at a discount store. I had a Blossom-style derby hat, denim jacket, and a tie with pigs on it. (Remember, my cousin Sarah loved pigs, so I loved pigs.) It all made sense in 1993.

A girl walked by, hissing at me, not them. “Ugh,” she said. “They just want to see your boobs bounce.” “No, they—” They laughed, and I knew it was true. But I laughed along with them. “You know that,” she said, sneering at me as the boys ran to class. I tried to talk to her, but she kept moving. Honestly, I’d come to trust the intentions of boys over girls after the way some girls had treated me. I had a core group of girlfriends who I loved, but they were all from youth group at church. They went to other schools, and it was like when I saw them, I was Dorothy when life turned technicolor. If boys were nicer to me because of my breasts, well, at least they were nice to me.

Finally, my mother confronted me, and bought me a sports bra. She tried so hard to make me feel okay about it. “It’s how God made you and God loves you,” she told me again and again. Not everyone was so nice. In seventh grade the pastor at our church nearly grabbed my mother after I performed at the service. “Jessica can’t sing in front of the church because—” he paused. “You could see her breasts.” “Her breasts?” “Her nipples!” he said, trying not to yell for all to hear. “Well, why the hell are you looking?” my mother asked. She was always that tiger mom. She had her own resentment about putting so much into the church and not getting credit. Any slight to her family gave her the release valve of anger. “She will make men lust!” “She’s thirteen!” Mom had to explain the nipple controversy and I thought I’d done something wrong. “I’m just catching the spirit of the Lord,” I said. The compromise was big vests for summer and roomy blazers for winter. Anytime I sang, I had to cover myself. I got my revenge in little ways. I would intentionally laugh loud during church. Any odd thing that happened, I would let it rip, and the pastor would shush me in front of five hundred people. My dad hated it, but my mom would laugh, too.

Waiting for my life to really begin, I underlined a passage in chapter 29 of my paperback copy: “I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.” That quote has stayed with me. Sometimes through the years, it was about a man who I wished could love me as much as I loved him. But more often it was about my determination to make good on the expectations placed on me. By God, by my parents, by me. No matter what.

In July, we started work on my next album, and Tommy wanted to go all in on making me a combo of Britney and Mariah. He said he would be even more involved this time and said I needed to be doing more dance pop over the ballads I loved. I also had to get even skinnier. I started the Atkins diet hardcore, envying and resenting anybody who could just eat. Off the diet, I obsessed over how I looked 24/7; on the diet, I was also hyperfocused on food. It made me nervous. My anxiety had something to hold on to, and instead of examining my emotions, I could just block them out by focusing on carb counts and waist sizes. If I focused on controlling my outward appearance, I could avoid thinking about my emotions and fears. My mother sometimes, with the best of intentions, fed into it. Her aerobics-teacher past would kick in, seeing a problem to fix and giving a solution she thought would help. When she urged me to exercise or told me she was going for a long walk and maybe I should come along, I knew what she meant. We ended up doing the Atkins diet together.

In October, Dad’s mother, my Nanny, got very sick. She had been fighting breast cancer, and now it had gone into her lymph nodes. She had been a nurse, and she knew her hour was near. She wanted to go on her terms, and a wonderful hospice team came to her home. Nick came with me to see her one last time, and he was my rock. My father couldn’t bear to go into her room, but Nick came in with me. She was beautiful, so sick but still radiating the grace she brought to the demands of being a pastor’s wife. I realized that everything that was good in my life, I had because of her. Nanny had paid to press my first album. She was the reason I had a career at all and the reason I met Nick. I smoothed her hair back as I told her I was there. She squeezed my hand. “Nick is here, too, Nanny,” I whispered. “I want you to know we’re back together. I’m gonna marry him, Nanny. Just like you wanted.” She squeezed my hand again. “We’re going to have a beautiful wedding,” I said, “and you’ll always be with me. You’ll be right there.” She had asked to have my version of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” the last song off my second album, on repeat as she passed. As she took her last breath, surrounded by love and her family, my voice filled the room, saying, “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.” It’s a celebration of faith and gratitude that no matter how insignificant we may feel, God is looking out for us. At her funeral at First Baptist Church of Leander, Nick was a pallbearer and helped to carry her home. I will always be grateful to him for that. She was reunited in heaven with my late grandfather, to whom she had been married for forty-one years. I wanted that forever love for Nick and me, too.

Soon we were at Camp Eagle, a U.S. military base near Tuzla in Bosnia. The Tuzla airstrip was in constant use, sending planes to bomb the Taliban. As I talked to the service members there, I learned that before Camp Eagle had mostly been a peacekeeping mission to keep the Bosnian War from being reignited. They talked about having to be careful of landmines left behind. “I’m staying put with you guys then,” I said. I was mortified that before I came there, I had never even heard of Bosnia, and certainly didn’t know that American troops were there. When I’d reached out to the USO to volunteer to perform for service members, I’d had a vision of these sorts of big brothers and sisters in the military coming in to save the day. I was gonna put on this big show for them, high-octane with lots of red, white, and blue peekaboo clothes that I felt I had to wear for them. I even had a bikini top made from parachute material to go with army pants. But when I met actual service members, I wasn’t prepared for them to be so young. They were all my age or even younger. I did “God Bless America” as my last song at each stop, a capella, and Bosnia is where things changed. It was right at that first “stand beside her and guide her.” These men and women started to sing along with me, and I noticed they were just bawling their eyes out, so of course I did, too, and I knew that this was more than a song. It was a prayer. They just wanted to be with the people they loved, in the prairies, the mountains, and, yes, the rivers. I was so privileged to share in that moment. I have done a lot of singing at bases and aircraft carriers since, and every time I do “God Bless America,” I ask everyone to sing along. “I don’t care if you think you can’t sing,” I say. “I want to hear you.

Hi, I’m Gale Norton,” she said. “Welcome to the White House.” “I’m Jessica,” I said, shaking her hand. I made a stab at small talk. “And what do you do?” “I’m the secretary of the interior,” she said. “Oh my gosh,” I said, waving my arm high to take in the room. “I love what you’ve done with the place. Everything is beautiful.” My dad pinched my arm, and she just walked away. I was trying to be nice and give a compliment, but that’s her Jessica Simpson story. Now I know the secretary of the interior manages federal land and national parks. Believe me, I beat myself up so much over that one that I could ace a test on it. At least I’d made it to the White House again. I couldn’t believe my good fortune.

Cold" Even in the distance, I can feel you pull away as the warmth is fading from my arms. And yet I am embraced by the tender despair that I love you still. Powerfully. Passionately. Painfully. The things you say, The things you do. The way you move. And yet it is only in my heart that time stands still. Where I ponder how long it will be Until you miss me. Outlandos D'Amour (2006)

[Aidan’s] teaching won the hearts of everyone because he taught what he and his followers lived out. He neither sought nor cared for the possessions of this world, and he loved to give away to the poor the gifts he received from the rich.

Mrs. Simpson was politically and socially unacceptable as a queen consort. She was perceived as shallow, vain and hedonistic; a social climber, compelled by a desire for wealth and prestige rather than by genuine love for Edward.

That's what you do. You find the best angle. You crop. You edit. That's not cheating. That's love.

Then what were feelings worth? Like currency, their value depended on a sound treasury, so love from a liar was pretty worthless.

Name … Cookie Haque – well, kind of.1 Parents … Abed and Rozie. Sisters … Nahid and Roubi. Age … Nine, although I feel I am more mature than this. Pets … Really want one. Star Sign … Don’t believe in all that. I mean, how could somebody’s whole personality be determined by random stars or what month they’re born in? Makes no sense. E.g. I’m supposed to be a Scorpio but their traits include being jealous, negative, secretive and resentful. I am NONE of those! Best friend … Keziah, Keziah, always and forever Keziah. BFF. Hobbies … I love drawing and doodling. My current favourite doodle is a hedgehog. I like drawing it with different hairstyles. I love long words and chatting too, if you count that as a hobby! I used to collect sachets of stuff, anything really … salt, pepper, shampoo, all sorts – but I’ve given up on that now. I’ve collected so many different types of things: coins, stamps, acorns. No idea why I collected acorns. Random! Favourite Teacher … Ms Krantz Favourite Subject … Science. How can anybody not love science? I like it because it explains EVERYTHING. It’s thanks to science that human beings can build buildings that don’t fall down, design cars and planes that don’t crash and make medicines to help us get better. Without progress in science we’d all still be cavemen running around in rabbit skins with sticks! No houses, no TVs, no iPads! We owe science A LOT. Favourite Food … I love all food except for pork. We don’t eat pork in my family cos we’re Muslim. My favourite sandwich is coronation chicken and my favourite food at the moment is a roast dinner but it changes all the time. I just love food! Favourite Colour … Favourite colour for what? Just because I like wearing green clothes doesn’t mean I want to paint my house green! What a dumb question! More Stuff About Me … I do a good Bart Simpson impression. CHAPTER 1 Animal Lover

Her fears must have shown on her face, for he reached out a hand and cupped her cheek. “Don’t worry, dear Sarah,” he said, in that flat downeast accent she was coming to love. “We doctors learn to doze in chairs, eyes closed, but with our ears attuned to any change. I’ll manage. Now go sleep—doctor’s orders.” She managed a weak smile at his words and left, sure she would never sleep a wink for worrying.

I’m sorry, Jesse. I loved you, and I prayed every night during the war for your return, but now—” He straightened. “Loved me? You don’t love me any more? There’s someone else, isn’t there?” he demanded, his narrowed eyes twin smoldering fires. She looked away from his glare. She didn’t want to tell him about Nolan, didn’t want to hear his reaction to the news that his former fiancée was in love with one of the very Yankees he hated so much, especially since she and Nolan hadn’t even had the chance to explore their new feelings for one another yet. But she wouldn’t lie, not about the relationship that had come to mean so much to her. She just wouldn’t say any more than she had to. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m sorry, there is. I wish you well, Jesse. And now I’d best be getting home.

I’m here to make it up to you, Sarah. Run away with me, and we’ll get married, and I’ll introduce you to th’ boys. We’ll have a fine life—you’ll see. A couple of ’em are married, too, or they have lady friends here ’n’ there that ride along with us from time to time.” She couldn’t believe her ears. “You think I’d even consider leaving with you to live an outlaw’s life, always on the run?” “Aw, Sarah, we have a grand time, livin’ high off the hog. We’re free to do whatever we want, whenever we want. We eat the best food, drink the best wine—our ladies are drippin’ in jewelry and fancy clothes. But I’m willin’ to leave it all if you insist.” “‘Leave it all’?” “Sure. That’s how much I love you, sweetheart. If you don’t want to live free as a bird, I’ll come back and have that ranch with you. We’ll let Milly stay there, too, of course, but it ain’t fittin’ for no lady to be runnin’ a ranch anyway.” “I told you, Milly’s married now,” she managed to say, in the midst of the temper that was threatening to boil over into angry words. “I think her husband might take exception to that idea.” “We’ll buy him out, then,” he said grandly. “They can go find some other ranch. I know you always set great store by that old place.” She was conscious of the handful of other diners in the restaurant, and remembered again that her mother said ladies did not make a scene in public. She folded her hands in her lap and looked away. “I’m sorry, Jesse. I loved you, and I prayed every night during the war for your return, but now—” He straightened. “Loved me? You don’t love me any more? There’s someone else, isn’t there?” he demanded, his narrowed eyes twin smoldering fires. She looked away from his glare. She didn’t want to tell him about Nolan, didn’t want to hear his reaction to the news that his former fiancée was in love with one of the very Yankees he hated so much, especially since she and Nolan hadn’t even had the chance to explore their new feelings for one another yet. But she wouldn’t lie, not about the relationship that had come to mean so much to her. She just wouldn’t say any more than she had to. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m sorry, there is. I wish you well, Jesse. And now I’d best be getting home.

Is this man bothering you, sweetheart?” Nolan said, coming forward and placing a proprietary hand on her shoulder. Sarah half turned and jumped, clearly startled. “Nolan! I’m glad you’re here. Please, just take me home.” Her face was flushed dully red with misery as she reached for his arm and took hold of it. He looked down into her eyes, hoping she read the love in them. “Of course.” Then he looked back at Holt, making sure the man wasn’t going for a gun. He wasn’t, but if looks could kill, Nolan knew he would have been sprawled on the floor. Clearly conscious of his enthralled audience, Holt’s face screwed itself into a mask of scorn as he looked him up and down. “This is the fellow you left me for? This Yankee swell in a frock coat? How could you, Sarah? Your ma an’ pa must be rollin’ in their graves, knowin’ their daughter’s cozy with a Yankee.” “That’s enough,” Nolan snapped. “The lady’s leaving, and you’re not to bother her further.” Holt cocked his head and drawled, “I declare, he talks funny.” A few of the onlookers chuckled. Nolan clenched his fists, but Sarah’s hand tightened on his wrist. “Please, let’s just go.” They turned and started for the door, but Holt wasn’t done. “You’ll be sorry, Sarah! This whole town’s gonna be sorry you threw me over!

Oh, Nolan, he’s nothing like the sweet young man I loved before he went to war!” “Ssssh, sweetheart,” he soothed, still holding her and resting his face against her hair. “War has a way of changing men, and frequently not for the better. But it’s over now. You’re safe.” “But you heard him! He didn’t just threaten me, he threatened the whole town!” she wailed. “What are we going to do?” “We won’t have to do anything,” Nolan assured her. “Those were empty threats. Some men don’t take rejection very well, that’s all.

See, you do care about him! Sarah, what Nolan Walker needs is a good wife to encourage him, to see that he eats properly, make sure he gets his rest.” The picture Prissy had painted of Sarah as devoted wife, caring for Nolan, was a very appealing one. But she couldn’t dwell on it, because Prissy wasn’t done. “When are you going to get off your lofty perch and let yourself love him?” she went on. “That excuse that he’s a Yankee’s wearing a little thin by now, don’t you think?” Sarah stared at her as they had reached their little cottage and went in. She hung up her coat with a sigh, then took Prissy’s coat and hung it up, too. “Dr. Walker and I have become friends. But how can he and I be anything more if he’s not a believer? The Bible warns about being unequally yoked, you know.” Prissy groaned exasperatedly. “Sarah Matthews, if you gave that man the slightest bit of encouragement, he’d be sitting in the front pew every Sunday morning, and you know it.

So what are you going to wear?” Prissy asked. Sarah shrugged. “I don’t know…I suppose you have a suggestion, now that you’ve seen the entire contents of my wardrobe?” Prissy giggled. “I think you should wear that lovely red grenadine dress with the green piping. Very festive. And men like red dresses.” “I don’t give a fig what color Dr. Walker likes!” “Ah, but I said ‘men.’ You applied my generalization to Dr. Walker.