Somebody Hate Me Quotes

...the opposite of love is not hate -- it's apathy. It's not giving a damn. If somebody hates me, they must "feel" something ... or they couldn't possibly hate. Therefore, there's some way in which I can get to them.

Where is my chance to be somebody's Peter Van Houten?' He hit the steering wheel weakly, the car honking as he cried. He leaned his head back, looking up. 'I hate myself I hate myself I hate this I hate this I disgust myself I hate it I hate it I hate it just let me fucking die.

Inside, my soul became so cold I hated everything. I even despised the sun, for I knew I would never be able to play in its warm presence. I cringed with hate whenever I heard other children laughing, as they played outside. My stomach coiled whenever I smelled food that was about to be served to somebody else, knowing it wasn't for me.

The rich are the most discriminated-against minority in the world. Openly or covertly, everybody hates the rich because, openly or covertly, everybody envies the rich. Me, I love the rich. Somebody has to love them. Sure, a lot o’ rich people are assholes, but believe me, a lot o’ poor people are assholes, too, and an asshole with money can at least pay for his own drinks.

She said, “Why do you, like, hate yourself?” “If I knew me as somebody else, I would hate me just as much. Why have a double standard?

He and I always think the same things are funny, and that is such a lot; it's dreadful when two people's senses of humor are antagonistic. I don't believe there's any bridging that gulf! And he is--Oh, well! He is just himself, and I miss him, and miss him, and miss him. The whole world seems empty and aching. I hate the moonlight because it's beautiful and he isn't here to see it with me. But maybe you've loved somebody, too, and you know? If you have, I don't need to explain; if you haven't, I can't explain.

When I was twelve, my parents had two talks with me. One was the usual birds and bees. Well, I didn't really get the usual version. My mom, Lisa, is a registered nurse, and she told me what went where, and what didn't need to go here, there, or any damn where till I'm grown. Back then, I doubted anything was going anywhere anyway. While all the other girls sprouted breasts between sixth and seventh grade, my chest was as flat as my back. The other talk was about what to do if a cop stopped me. Momma fussed and told Daddy I was too young for that. He argued that I wasn't too young to get arrested or shot. "Starr-Starr, you do whatever they tell you to do," he said. "Keep your hands visible. Don't make any sudden moves. Only speak when they speak to you." I knew it must've been serious. Daddy has the biggest mouth of anybody I know, and if he said to be quiet, I needed to be quiet. I hope somebody had the talk with Khalil.

It's part of the shape of the Universe. I only have to talk to somebody and they begin to hate me.

To the most inconsiderate asshole of a friend, I’m writing you this letter because I know that if I say what I have to say to your face I will probably punch you. I don’t know you anymore. I don’t see you anymore. All I get is a quick text or a rushed e-mail from you every few days. I know you are busy and I know you have Bethany, but hello? I’m supposed to be your best friend. You have no idea what this summer has been like. Ever since we were kids we pushed away every single person that could possibly have been our friend. We blocked people until there was only me and you. You probably haven’t noticed, because you have never been in the position I am in now. You have always had someone. You always had me. I always had you. Now you have Bethany and I have no one. Now I feel like those other people that used to try to become our friend, that tried to push their way into our circle but were met by turned backs. I know you’re probably not doing it deliberately just as we never did it deliberately. It’s not that we didn’t want anyone else, it’s just that we didn’t need them. Sadly now it looks like you don’t need me anymore. Anyway I’m not moaning on about how much I hate her, I’m just trying to tell you that I miss you. And that well . . . I’m lonely. Whenever you cancel nights out I end up staying home with Mum and Dad watching TV. It’s so depressing. This was supposed to be our summer of fun. What happened? Can’t you be friends with two people at once? I know you have found someone who is extra special, and I know you both have a special “bond,” or whatever, that you and I will never have. But we have another bond, we’re best friends. Or does the best friend bond disappear as soon as you meet somebody else? Maybe it does, maybe I just don’t understand that because I haven’t met that “somebody special.” I’m not in any hurry to, either. I liked things the way they were. So maybe Bethany is now your best friend and I have been relegated to just being your “friend.” At least be that to me, Alex. In a few years time if my name ever comes up you will probably say, “Rosie, now there’s a name I haven’t heard in years. We used to be best friends. I wonder what she’s doingnow; I haven’t seen or thought of her in years!” You will sound like my mum and dad when they have dinner parties with friends and talk about old times. They always mention people I’ve never even heard of when they’re talking about some of the most important days of their lives. Yet where are those people now? How could someone who was your bridesmaid 20 years ago not even be someone who you are on talking terms with now? Or in Dad’s case, how could he not know where his own best friend from college lives? He studied with the man for five years! Anyway, my point is (I know, I know, there is one), I don’t want to be one of those easily forgotten people, so important at the time, so special, so influential, and so treasured, yet years later just a vague face and a distant memory. I want us to be best friends forever, Alex. I’m happy you’re happy, really I am, but I feel like I’ve been left behind. Maybe our time has come and gone. Maybe your time is now meant to be spent with Bethany. And if that’s the case I won’t bother sending you this letter. And if I’m not sending this letter then what am I doing still writing it? OK I’m going now and I’m ripping these muddled thoughts up. Your friend, Rosie

If I could fly, life would be amazing. But paraplegic people say the same thing about walking, and I freaking hate walking. Somebody might ask me, “Hey, do you want to go for a walk?” and I’ll reply, “Nope. But I do want to have a seat on a chair with wheels and roll along with you.” So maybe flight isn’t so cool after all. Possibly birds get pissed off they have to fly everywhere. 


I do like him. I'm sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.... .... Listen, don't hate me because I can't remember some person immediately. Especially when they look like everybody else, and talk and dress and act like everybody else." Franny made her voice stop. It sounded to her caviling and bitchy, and she felt a wave of self-hatred that, quite literally, made her forehead begin to perspire again. But her voice picked up again, in spite of herself. "I don't mean there's anything horrible about him or anything like that. It's just that for four solid years I've kept seeing Wally Campbells wherever I go. I know when they're going to be charming, I know when they're going to start telling you some really nasty gossip about some girl that lives in your dorm, I know when they're going to ask me what I did over the summer, I know when they're going to pull up a chair and straddle it backward and start bragging in a terribly, terribly quiet voice--or name-dropping in a terribly quiet, casual voice. There's an unwritten law that people in a certain social or financial bracket can name-drop as much as they like just as long as they say something terribly disparaging about the person as soon as they've dropped his name—that he's a bastard or a nymphomaniac or takes dope all the time, or something horrible." She broke off again. She was quiet for a moment, turning the ashtray in her fingers. Franny quickly tipped her cigarette ash, then brought the ashtray an inch closer to her side of the table. "I'm sorry. I'm awful," she said. "I've just felt so destructive all week. It's awful, I'm horrible.

But you just choose because that's where you want to be. Not because you were trying to do somebody else's job. You hear me?

If I knew me as somebody else, I would hate me just as much. Why have a double standard?

Thing that got me was not her list of things she hated, since she was obviously crazy as a Cyborg, but fact that always somebody agreed with her prohibitions. Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws — always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: "Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop." Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them "for their own good" — not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it.

Comedy and tragedy are so mixed up in life, Gilbert. The only thing that haunts me is that tale of the two who lived together fifty years and hated each other all that time. I can't believe they really did. Somebody has said that 'hate is only love that has missed its way.' I feel sure that under the hatred they really loved each other . . . just as I really loved you all those years I thought I hated you . . . and I think death would show it to them. I'm glad I found out in life.

But you can’t make war personal,” I say, “or you’ll never make the right decisions.” “And if you didn’t make personal decisions, you wouldn’t be a person. All war is personal somehow, isn’t it? For somebody? Except it’s usually hate.” “Lee—” “I’m just saying how lucky he is to have someone love him so much they’d take on the whole world.” His Noise is uncomfortable, wondering what I’m looking like, how I’m responding. “That’s all I’m saying.” “He’d do it for me,” I say quietly. I’d do it for you too, Lee’s Noise says. And I know he would. But those people who die because we do it, don’t they have people who’d kill for them? So who’s right?

You get your freedom by not being confined. You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom. You'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it...So dont you run around here trying to make friends with somebody who's depriving you of your rights. They're not your friends. No, they're your enemies. Treat them like that and fight them, and you'll get your freedom. And after you get your freedom, your enemey will respect you. He will respect you. I say that with no hate. I have no hate in me. I don't have any hate, but I've got some sense...I'm not going to let somebody who hates me to tell me to love him. I'm not that way out.

I've always been the protagonist of my own story, but it's interesting to think I could be a villain in somebody else's. Somebody out there has tried to attain or achieve something, and I have stood in their way. To an extent, we're each an encapsulation of both protagonist and antagonist, hero and villain.

And even if it felt like Mam hated me, she had to love me, didn’t she? She had to love me, because she was my mam, and Susan was just somebody who got stuck taking care of Jamie and me because of the war.

Show me a movement that doesn't hate somebody, and I will join it at once.

Don’t pretend you want to talk to me, I know you hate me.” “No, I don’t.” “Yes, you do, everybody does. It’s part of the shape of the Universe. I only have to talk to somebody and they begin to hate me. Even robots hate me. If you just ignore me I expect I shall probably go away.

I hate to go mincing through life, afraid to take a single long step for fear somebody is watching. I want to "wave my wild tail and walk by my wild lone." There wasn't a bit of real harm in my opening that window and talking to Perry. There wasn't even any harm in his trying to kiss me. He just did it to tease me. Oh, I hate conventions. As you say, hang consequences.' 'But we can't hang 'em, Pussy - that's just the trouble. They're more likely to hang us.

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby with no regrets and I don't mind saying it's a sad, sad story when a mother will teach her daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger. And how in the world can the words that I said send somebody so over the edge that they'd write me a letter saying that I better shut up and sing or my life will be over?

The stuff that you hate in others is often the stuff you hate in yourself. But perhaps you can learn something about yourself when this happens. When you are angry at somebody, what does that say about who YOU are?

Somebody one time gave me the one where the boy is hateful and sent to bed with no supper, and in his head he’s a monster and goes to this island where it’s all wild monsters like him, seriously ticked off, making their wild rumpus.

I'm glad this happened," he said softly. I hoped it was for real,and I didn't want to talk about it too much and ruin the lovely illusion that we were a couple. So I said noncommittally, "Me too." "Because I've been trying to get you back since the seventh grade." I must have given him a very skeptical look. He laughed at my expression. "Yeah, I have a funny way of showing it. I know. But you're always on my mind. You're in the front of my mind,on the tip of my tongue. So if someone breaks a beaker in chemistry class, I raise my hand and tell Ms. Abernathy you did it. If somebody brings a copy of Playboy to class, I stuff it in your locker." "Oh!" I thought back to the January issue. "I wondered where that came from." "And if Everett Walsh tells the lunch table what a wicked kisser you are and how far he would have gotten with you if his mother hadn't come in-" I stamped my foot on the floorboard of the SUV."That is so not true! He'd already gotten as far as he was going. He's not that cute, and I had to go home and study for algebra. "-It drives me insane to the point that I tell him to shut up or I'll make him shut up right there in front of everybody. Because I am supposed to be your boyfriend, and my mother is supposed to hate you,and you're supposed to be making out with me." Twisted as this declaration was,it was the sweetest thing a boy had ever said to me.I dwelled on the soft lips that had formed the statement,and on the meaning of his words. "Okay." I scooted across the seat and nibbled the very edge of his superhero chin. "Ah," he gasped, moving both hands from the steering wheel to the seat to brace himself. "I didn't mean now.I meant in general.Your dad will come out of the house and kill me.

She yelled 'Good luck!' at me the same way old Spencer did when I left Pencey. God, how I hate when somebody yells 'Good luck!' at me when I'm leaving somewhere. It's depressing.

God, how I hate it when somebody yells "Good luck!" at me when I'm leaving somewhere. It's depressing.

I walk into the most heartfelt hug I’ve ever gotten from somebody who’s not related to me. There’s not any sympathy in it either. Just love and strength.

Hate is contagious. A few seconds after Donald Trump has told me something hateful, somebody else repeats it. He has legitimized what people only dare say in their kitchens and bedrooms.

What you mean he’s staying with us?” “Just what I said. He got in a little trouble in Garden Heights and needs to stay here.” She scoffs, and I know where Momma gets it from. “A li’l trouble, huh? Tell the truth, boy.” She lowers her voice and asks with suspicious, squinted eyes, “Did you kill somebody?” “Momma!” my momma says. “What? I better ask before y’all have me sleeping in the house with a murderer, waking up dead!” What in the . . . “You can’t wake up dead,” I say. “Li’l girl, you know what I mean!” She moves from the doorway. “I’ll be waking up in Jesus’s face, trying to figure out what happened!” “Like you going to heaven,” Daddy mumbles.

Don't tell me I'm sentimental, you sons of bitches. You are contemptible, your dishonesty is contemptible, your careful plodding with words, to keep them safely captured inside your silly little theories are contemptible, but I don't hate you, because each of you is a sad little pompous son of a bitch, with a chair at a university, and you are fighting bravely to seem to be somebody.

It makes me angry that you hate yourself for something that somebody else made you do. Don't let them take any more. Don't you do that Andres." "None of this does any good, Grace. All these visits, all this talking, all this strolling down fucking memory lane. It doesn't help. And you know why it doesn't help? Because everything that's happened - it lives so deep inside me that the only way I can ever get rid of it is to die." "That's not true, Andres." "It is true. Happiness isn't in the cards for everyone, Grace.

I loved her even as she was swimming away from me, even as I was hating her. That’s the way it is, when you’ve loved somebody your whole life. It’s like a direction you go in, even when you don’t want to go anymore.

So what's your doll's name?" Boo asked me. "Barbie," I said. "All their names are Barbie." "I see," she said. "Well, I'd think that would get boring, everyone having the same name." I thought about this, then said, "Okay, then her name is Sabrina." "Well, that's a very nice name," Boo said. I remember she was baking bread, kneading the dough between her thick fingers. "What does she do?" "Do?" I said. "Yes." She flipped the dough over and started in on it from the other side. "What does she do?" "She goes out with Ken," I said. "And what else?" "She goes to parties," I said slowly. "And shopping." "Oh," Boo said, nodding. "She can't work?" "She doesn't have to work," I said. "Why not?" "Because she's Barbie." "I hate to tell you, Caitlin, but somebody has to make payments on that town house and the Corvette," Boo said cheerfully. "Unless Barbie has a lot of family money." I considered this while I put on Ken's pants. Boo started pushing the dough into a pan, smoothing it with her hand over the top. "You know what I think, Caitlin?" Her voice was soft and nice, the way she always spoke to me. "What?" "I think your Barbie can go shopping, and go out with Ken, and also have a productive and satisfying career of her own." She opened the oven and slid in the bread pan, adjusting its position on the rack. "But what can she do?" My mother didn't work and spent her time cleaning the house and going to PTA. I couldn't imagine Barbie, whose most casual outfit had sequins and go-go boots, doing s.uch things. Boo came over and plopped right down beside me. I always remember her being on my level; she'd sit on the edge of the sandbox, or lie across her bed with me and Cass as we listened to the radio. "Well," she said thoughtfully, picking up Ken and examining his perfect physique. "What do you want to do when you grow up?" I remember this moment so well; I can still see Boo sitting there on the floor, cross- legged, holding my Ken and watching my face as she tried to make me see that between my mother's PTA and Boo's strange ways there was a middle ground that began here with my Barbie, Sab-rina, and led right to me. "Well," I said abruptly, "I want to be in advertising." I have no idea where this came from. "Advertising," Boo repeated, nodding. "Okay. Advertising it is. So Sabrina has to go to work every day, coming up with ideas for commercials and things like that." "She works in an office," I went on. "Sometimes she has to work late." "Sure she does," Boo said. "It's hard to get ahead. Even if you're Barbie." "Because she wants to get promoted," I added. "So she can pay off the town house. And the Corvette." "Very responsible of her," Boo said. "Can she be divorced?" I asked. "And famous for her commercials and ideas?" "She can be anything," Boo told me, and this is what I remember most, her freckled face so solemn, as if she knew she was the first to tell me. "And so can you.

Ruby and Aaron are both crazy patient; they’re good parents.” “I could be a good dad,” Ivan whispered, still feeding Jess. I could have told him he’d be good at anything he wanted to be good at, but nah. “Do you want to have kids?” he asked me out of the blue. I handed Benny another block. “A long time from now, maybe.” “A long time… like how long?” That had me glancing at Ivan over my shoulder. He had his entire attention on Jessie, and I was pretty sure he was smiling down at her. Huh. “My early thirties, maybe? I don’t know. I might be okay with not having any either. I haven’t really thought about it much, except for knowing I don’t want to have them any time soon, you know what I mean?” “Because of figure skating?” “Why else? I barely have enough time now. I couldn’t imagine trying to train and have kids. My baby daddy would have to be a rich, stay-at-home dad for that to work.” Ivan wrinkled his nose at my niece. “There are at least ten skaters I know with kids.” I rolled my eyes and poked Benny in the side when he held out his little hand for another block. That got me a toothy grin. “I’m not saying it’s impossible. I just wouldn’t want to do it any time soon. I don’t want to half-ass or regret it. If they ever exist, I’d want them to be my priority. I wouldn’t want them to think they were second best.” Because I knew what that felt like. And I’d already screwed up enough with making grown adults I loved think they weren’t important. If I was going to do something, I wanted to do my best and give it everything. All he said was, “Hmm.” A thought came into my head and made my stomach churn. “Why? Are you planning on having kids any time soon?” “I wasn’t,” he answered immediately. “I like this baby though, and that one. Maybe I need to think about it.” I frowned, the feeling in my stomach getting more intense. He kept blabbing. “I could start training my kids really young…. I could coach them. Hmm.” It was my turn to wrinkle my nose. “Three hours with two kids and now you want them?” Ivan glanced down at me with a smirk. “With the right person. I’m not going to have them with just anybody and dilute my blood.” I rolled my eyes at this idiot, still ignoring that weird feeling in my belly that I wasn’t going to acknowledge now or ever. “God forbid, you have kids with someone that’s not perfect. Dumbass.” “Right?” He snorted, looking down at the baby before glancing back at me with a smile I wasn’t a fan of. “They might come out short, with mean, squinty, little eyes, a big mouth, heavy bones, and a bad attitude.” I blinked. “I hope you get abducted by aliens.” Ivan laughed, and the sound of it made me smile. “You would miss me.” All I said, while shrugging was, “Meh. I know I’d get to see you again someday—” He smiled. “—in hell.” That wiped the look right off his face. “I’m a good person. People like me.” “Because they don’t know you. If they did, somebody would have kicked your ass already.” “They’d try,” he countered, and I couldn’t help but laugh. There was something wrong with us. And I didn’t hate it. Not even a little bit.

My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The '80s were about acquiring — acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul....I was wrong to follow the meanness of Conservatism. I should have been trying to help people instead of taking advantage of them. I don't hate anyone anymore. For the first time in my life I don't hate somebody. I have nothing but good feelings toward people. I've found Jesus Christ – It's that simple. He's made a difference. (Reagan's campaign manager "death-bed confession" in Feb. 1991 article for Life Magazine )

I'm sorry I was short with him--but I don't like a man to approach me telling me it for my sake. "Maybe it was," said Wylie "It's poor technique." "I'd all for it," said Wylie. "I'm vain as a woman. If anybody pretends to be interested in me, I'll ask for more. I like advice." Stahr shook his head distastefully. Wylie kept on ribbing him--he was one of those to whom this privilege was permitted. "You fall for some kinds of flattery," he said. "this 'little Napoleon stuff.'" "It makes me sick," said Stahr, "but it's not as bad as some man trying to help you." "If you don't like advice, why do you pay me?" "That's a question of merchandise," said Stahr. "I'm a merchant. I want to buy what's in your mind." "You're no merchant," said Wylie. "I knew a lot of them when I was a publicity man, and I agree with Charles Francis Adams." "What did he say?" "He knew them all--Gould, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Astor--and he said there wasn't one he'd care to meet again in the hereafter. Well--they haven't improved since then, and that's why I say you're no merchant." "Adams was probably a sourbelly," said Stahr. "He wanted to be head man himself, but he didn't have the judgement or else the character." "He had brains," said Wylie rather tartly. "It takes more than brains. You writers and artists poop out and get all mixed up, and somebody has to come in and straighten you out." He shrugged his shoulders. "You seem to take things so personally, hating people and worshipping them--always thinking people are so important-especially yourselves. You just ask to be kicked around. I like people and I like them to like me, but I wear my heart where God put it--on the inside.

My parents have this thing where they never want me or my brothers to talk to somebody without looking them in their eyes. They claim that a person’s eyes say more than their mouth, and that it goes both ways – if we look someone in their eyes and mean what we say, they should have little reason to doubt us.

Sometimes quiet is violent I find it hard to hide it My pride is no longer inside It's on my sleeve My skin will scream reminding me of Who I killed inside my dream I hate this car that I'm driving There's no hiding for me I'm forced to deal with what I feel There is no distraction to mask what is real I could pull the steering wheel I have these thoughts, so often I ought To replace that slot with what I once bought 'Cause somebody stole my car radio And now I just sit in silence I ponder of something terrifying 'Cause this time there's no sound to hide behind I find over the course of our human existence One thing consists of consistence And it's that we're all battling fear Oh dear, I don't know if we know why we're here Oh my, too deep, please stop thinking I liked it better when my car had sound There are things we can do But from the things that work there are only two And from the two that we choose to do Peace will win and fear will lose It is faith and there's sleep We need to pick one please because Faith is to be awake And to be awake is for us to think And for us to think is to be alive And I will try with every rhyme To come across like I am dying To let you know you need to try to think I have these thoughts, so often I ought To replace that slot with what I once bought 'Cause somebody stole my car radio And now I just sit in silence

Annabeth is not somebody you want as an enemy. Right before the game, she strolled up to me. “Hey, Seaweed Brain.” “Will you stop calling me that?” She knows I hate that name, mostly because I never have a good comeback. She’s the daughter of Athena, which doesn’t give me a lot of ammunition. I mean, “Owl-head” and “Wise Girl” are kind of lame insults.

It’s a dirty business, balancing the ledgers of the universe, but somebody’s got to do it.

For her first summer vacation, my sister went to California with a couple of friends on a package tour put together by her agency. One of the members of the tour group was a computer engineer a year her senior, and she started dating him when they came back to Japan. This kind of thing happens all the time, but it's not for me. First of all, I hate package tours, and the thought of getting serious about somebody you meet in a group like that makes me sick.

I fail to see how somebody can hate me for 'what I do' and what I am without actually hating me as a person. That makes about as much sense as throwing the baby out with the bathwater - or gay man out the church door with his homosexuality.

Thanks for bringing me here,' I say. With my awful mood, I owe her that. 'Anytime, baby. We haven't hung out in a while. Somebody decided I wasn't cool anymore. I thought I was still cool, so whatever.' She sips from her steaming mug of coffee.

The air of a deposed prince. falsehood as restorative-if they wouldnt do that if they wouldnt do all that they do. the body as traitor the body as foe. she's thinking about mythology,about reluctant daphne/ relentless apollo. if she could, as daphne did, cry out to mother earth for protection. and have every suitors find a laurel tree in his arms. people would still look up to her. misjudge her. misunderstand her. worship her evn[damn druids]. or carve someone elses name into her. 'oh sweetie dont take things so seriously: the world is your oister' just as she thot, the world is something slimy in a shell. he's so proud of his knavery. okay, she's been vainglorious about her sins too but shes tired of that. 'if you love someone you accept him as he is, but if you accept him as he is than you dont really love him because if you did youd want whats best for him and that usually means he should be better than he is. a meadowy susuration that she used to pretend to like. but not anymore. shes sick of 'huh?' too, that interjection of ignorance. 'love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.'-Feodor Dostoyevsky. she wants to kiss him. but just in some neutral way. some agape-not-eros way. like disciples kiss. or brave french freedom fighters. 'for i the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visisting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children'-Exodus 20:5 'its just stuff that i thot was interesting. its not, you know, a rorshach. its not like somebody could read this and figure me out.' 'transylvania has beautiful nights. ill just open the window and slip out of this cumbersome crucfix.' 'like the Torah said, dont just hate somebody in your heart; rebuke him.'" -Margaux with an X

But the Esquire passage I found most poignant and revealing was this one: Mister Rogers' visit to a teenage boy severely afflicted with cerebral palsy and terrible anger. One of the boys' few consolations in life, Junod wrote, was watching Mister Rogers Neighborhood. 'At first, the boy was made very nervous by the thought that Mister Rogers was visiting him. He was so nervous, in fact, that when Mister Rogers did visit, he got mad at himself and began hating himself and hitting himself, and his mother had to take him to another room and talk to him. Mister Rogers didn't leave, though. He wanted something from the boy, and Mister Rogers never leaves when he wants something from somebody. He just waited patiently, and when the boy came back, Mister Rogers talked to him, and then he made his request. He said, 'I would like you to do something for me. Would you do something for me?' On his computer, the boy answered yes, of course, he would do anything for Mister Rogers, so then Mister Rogers said: I would like you to pray for me. Will you pray for me?' And now the boy didn't know how to respond. He was thunderstruck... because nobody had ever asked him for something like that, ever. The boy had always been prayed for. The boy had always been the object of prayer, and now he was being asked to pray for Mister Rogers, and although at first he didn't know how to do it, he said he would, he said he'd try, and ever since then he keeps Mister Rogers in his prayers and doesn't talk about wanting to die anymore, because he figures if Mister Rogers likes him, that must mean that God likes him, too. As for Mister Rogers himself... he doesn't look at the story the same way the boy did or I did. In fact, when Mister Rogers first told me the story, I complimented him on being smart - for knowing that asking the boy for his prayers would make the boy feel better about himself - and Mister Rogers responded by looking at me first with puzzlement and then with surprise. 'Oh heavens no, Tom! I didn't ask him for his prayers for him; I asked for me. I asked him because I think that anyone who has gone through challenges like that must be very close to God. I asked him because I wanted his intercession.

One of the biggest reasons I left Elkton Hills was because I was surrounded by phonies. That's all. They were coming in the goddam window. For instance, they had this headmaster, Mr. Haas, that was the phoniest bastard I ever met in my life. Ten times worse than old Thurmer. On Sundays, for instance, old Haas went around shaking hands with everybody's parents when they drove up to school. He'd be charming as hell and all. Except if some boy had little old funny-looking parents. You should've seen the way he did with my roommate's parents. I mean if a boy's mother was sort of fat or corny-looking or something, and if somebody's father was one of those guys that wear those suits with very big shoulders and corny black-and-white shoes, then old Haas would just shake hands with them and give them a phony smile and then he'd go talk, for maybe a half an hour, with somebody else's parents. I can't stand that stuff. It drives me crazy. It makes me so depressed I go crazy. I hated that goddam Elkton Hills

It made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply—I was casually sorry, and then I forgot. It was on that same house party that we had a curious conversation about driving a car. It started because she passed so close to some workmen that our fender flicked a button on one man’s coat. “You’re a rotten driver,” I protested. “Either you ought to be more careful, or you oughtn’t to drive at all.” “I am careful.” “No, you’re not.” “Well, other people are,” she said lightly. “What’s that got to do with it?” “They’ll keep out of my way,” she insisted. “It takes two to make an accident.” “Suppose you met somebody just as careless as yourself.” “I hope I never will,” she answered. “I hate careless people. That’s why I like you.” Her gray, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew that first I had to get myself definitely out of that tangle back home. I’d been writing letters once a week and signing them: “Love, Nick,” and all I could think of was how, when that certain girl played tennis, a faint mustache of perspiration appeared on her upper lip. Nevertheless there was a vague understanding that had to be tactfully broken off before I was free. Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.

Starr, what you wanna do?" Anything. Everything. Scream. Cry. Puke. Hit somebody. Burn something. Throw something. They gave me the hate, and now I wanna fuck everybody, even if I’m not sure how. "I wanna do something," I say. "Protest, riot, I don't care--

The only way you can be mean to yourself is if you deep down expect somebody else is going to gallop up and save you, which is a child's fantasy. Reality meant nobody else was for sure going to be nice to me or treat me with any respect—that was the point of his thing about growing up, realizing that—and nobody else was for sure going to see me or treat me the way I wanted to be seen, so it was my job to make sure to see myself and treat myself like I was really worthwhile. It's called being responsible instead of childish. The real responsibilities are to myself.

Smith, I met you right here, under the bleachers, and I kissed you. On the drive home, you looked out through the rain at a red light and told me it was the first time in a long time that it felt right. It's so stupid how my dad makes students work for free at the concession stand as a form of detention, isn't it, Rory? You looked miserable, and that was before you even saw me kiss Smith right in front of you. I know you saw, because I knew you were there, watching the same way you watch from your bedroom window, turning away every time somebody looks. Jealousy is a funny thing. We spend so much of high school consumed by it, hating that another person has something we don't, wishing we could taste what it's like to be them. To take that feeling out of your hands for a second and pass it to someone else in relief. So, I guess that's why it felt like I meant it.

The dark girl's gaze lights on me again, and something passes over her face, something I've seen before. Her face is speaking: you can't kid me. I know what you're like, I know who you are. I know her too. She and the blonde are the same kind. They belong to the same tribe. The better and smarter tribe. They're the ones who push aside the duds, the dupes, the dopes like me. They're the ones who know what to do, how to do it. They know what they want. How do they get that way? Are they born with that knowledge? Do they learn it somewhere? I've always felt like a stranger everywhere, unsure what to do, how to act, waiting for someone to tell me the rules. What are they? Would somebody please tell me? The dark girl knows. The blonde knows. What are they, six, maybe seven years old? -- and already they know things I don't know. And they hate me and scorn me for it.

Joe was the only constant thing in my life. And I loved him like a brother. But that phrase has a very precise meaning. A lot of those stock sayings do. Like when people say they slept like a baby. Do they mean they slept well? Or do they mean they woke up every ten minutes, screaming? I loved Joe like a brother, which meant a lot of things in our family. The truth was I never knew for sure if I loved him or not. And he never knew for sure if he loved me or not, either. We were only two years apart, but he was born in the fifties and I was born in the sixties. That seemed to make a lot more than two years’ worth of a difference to us. And like any pair of brothers two years apart, we irritated the hell out of each other. We fought and bickered and sullenly waited to grow up and get out from under. Most of those sixteen years, we didn’t know if we loved each other or hated each other. But we had the thing that army families have. Your family was your unit. The men on the bases were taught total loyalty to their units. It was the most fundamental thing in their lives. The boys copied them. They translated that same intense loyalty onto their families. So time to time you might hate your brother, but you didn’t let anybody mess with him. That was what we had, Joe and I. We had that unconditional loyalty. We stood back to back in every new schoolyard and punched our way out of trouble together. I watched out for him, and he watched out for me, like brothers did. For sixteen years. Not much of a normal childhood, but it was the only childhood I was ever going to get. And Joe was just about the beginning and end of it. And now somebody had killed him. I sat there in the back of the police Chevrolet listening to a tiny voice in my head asking me what the hell I was going to do about that.

I’ve always been the protagonist of my own story, but it’s interesting to think I could be a villain in somebody else’s. Somebody out there has tried to attain or achieve something, and I have stood in their way. To an extent, we’re each an encapsulation of both protagonist and antagonist, hero and villain.

They only like light Negroes out there. You’d fit right in.” She’d said it so offhandedly that Kennedy almost didn’t realize it. “I’m not a Negro,” she said. Jude laughed again, this time uneasily. “Well, your mother is,” she said. “So?” “So that makes you one too.” “It doesn’t make me anything,” she said. “My father’s white, you know. And you don’t get to show up and tell me what I am.” It wasn’t a race thing. She just hated the idea of anyone telling her who she had to be. She was like her mother in that way. If she’d been born black, she would have been perfectly happy about it. But she wasn’t and who was Jude to tell her that she was somebody that she was not? Nothing had changed, really. She’d learned one thing about her mother, but what did that amount to when you looked at the totality of her life? A single detail had been moved and replaced. Swapping out one brick wouldn’t change a house into a fire station. She was still herself. Nothing had changed. Nothing had changed at all.

I hate it when you call me Eds." "I know," Richie said, hugging him tightly, "but somebody has to toughen you up, Eds. When you stop leading the sheltered igs-zis-tence of a child and grow up, you gonna, Ah, say, Ah say you gonna find out life ain't always this easy, boy!" Eddie began to shriek with laughter. "That's the shittiest Voice I ever heard, Richie.

And as she had no tact, hated family life (that dissolvent of the little nucleus), after telling me that she remembered, long ago, seeing my great-grandfather, and after speaking of him as of somebody who was almost an idiot, who would have been incapable of understanding the little group, and who, to use her expression, “was not one of us,” she said to me: “Families are such a bore, the only thing is to get right away from them

Can't remember what true happiness was.......or is. Do people really see you as you see yourself? If people really do see you as you see yourself I'm really suprised I'm still alive. Wishfull thinking I guess, that somebody else would kill me since I don't have the guts to do it myself. Nothing like getting up and heaping more self hate on myself. Makes me wonder what the rest of the day holds....... Sick and tired of being sick and tired

I BELIEVE THAT we know much more about God than we admit that we know, than perhaps we altogether know that we know. God speaks to us, I would say, much more often than we realize or than we choose to realize. Before the sun sets every evening, he speaks to each of us in an intensely personal and unmistakable way. His message is not written out in starlight, which in the long run would make no difference; rather it is written out for each of us in the humdrum, helter-skelter events of each day; it is a message that in the long run might just make all the difference. Who knows what he will say to me today or to you today or into the midst of what kind of unlikely moment he will choose to say it. Not knowing is what makes today a holy mystery as every day is a holy mystery. But I believe that there are some things that by and large God is always saying to each of us. Each of us, for instance, carries around inside himself, I believe, a certain emptiness—a sense that something is missing, a restlessness, the deep feeling that somehow all is not right inside his skin. Psychologists sometimes call it anxiety, theologians sometimes call it estrangement, but whatever you call it, I doubt that there are many who do not recognize the experience itself, especially no one of our age, which has been variously termed the age of anxiety, the lost generation, the beat generation, the lonely crowd. Part of the inner world of everyone is this sense of emptiness, unease, incompleteness, and I believe that this in itself is a word from God, that this is the sound that God’s voice makes in a world that has explained him away. In such a world, I suspect that maybe God speaks to us most clearly through his silence, his absence, so that we know him best through our missing him. But he also speaks to us about ourselves, about what he wants us to do and what he wants us to become; and this is the area where I believe that we know so much more about him than we admit even to ourselves, where people hear God speak even if they do not believe in him. A face comes toward us down the street. Do we raise our eyes or do we keep them lowered, passing by in silence? Somebody says something about somebody else, and what he says happens to be not only cruel but also funny, and everybody laughs. Do we laugh too, or do we speak the truth? When a friend has hurt us, do we take pleasure in hating him, because hate has its pleasures as well as love, or do we try to build back some flimsy little bridge? Sometimes when we are alone, thoughts come swarming into our heads like bees—some of them destructive, ugly, self-defeating thoughts, some of them creative and glad. Which thoughts do we choose to think then, as much as we have the choice? Will we be brave today or a coward today? Not in some big way probably but in some little foolish way, yet brave still. Will we be honest today or a liar? Just some little pint-sized honesty, but honest still. Will we be a friend or cold as ice today? All the absurd little meetings, decisions, inner skirmishes that go to make up our days. It all adds up to very little, and yet it all adds up to very much. Our days are full of nonsense, and yet not, because it is precisely into the nonsense of our days that God speaks to us words of great significance—not words that are written in the stars but words that are written into the raw stuff and nonsense of our days, which are not nonsense just because God speaks into the midst of them. And the words that he says, to each of us differently, are be brave…be merciful…feed my lambs…press on toward the goal.

It will always be Peter and me, like it was in the beginning, like it will be in the end. Peter, who took everything from me and gave everything too. Peter, who loved me best of everyone except himself. He tells the new boys I am a villain, and they call me Captain Hook. If I am a villain, it’s because Peter made me one, because Peter needs to be the shining sun that all the world turns around. Peter needed to be a hero, so somebody needed to be a villain. The anger that I carried with me all the days of my childhood is for only one person now, and if I ever catch him again he’ll be sorry. I know I can find a way. He’s given me so much time, all the time in the world, and there must be a way. Someday. Someday, he’ll be sorry he crossed me. When I hear him laughing, out there in the sky and in the night, and that laugh burns me deep down in my heart, I know I’ll find a way to make him sorry. I will make him so sorry. I hate Peter Pan.

I was so tired of hating myself. But I was so good at it, it was such a comfortable way to be, goddamn fucking flotsam on the high seas, the low tide, a little wad of nothing shrugging and saying Hey, sorry, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t know it was loaded, I didn’t think things would turn out this way. It’s so easy to be nothing. It requires very little thought or afterthought, you can always find people to drink with you, hang out with you, everybody needs a little nothing in their life, right? Call the specialist when you do. You don’t even have to call, chances are I’ll already be there, you’ve just overlooked me because I’m in a corner, crouched like a dustball, a cobweb, my busy little spaced-out grin and oops it seems I’ve stumbled on some sort of exalted hellhole, Funhole, do excuse me while I let it out, while I let it into my body, while I let it run my life because somebody has to, right? somebody has to take the goddamned brunt even if it’s a void.

...it takes great humility to find oneself unjustly condemned and be silent, and to do this is to imitate the Lord Who set us free from all our sins. ... The truly humble person will have a genuine desire to be thought little of, and persecuted, and condemned unjustly, even in serious matters. ... It is a great help to meditate upon the great gain which in any case this is bound to bring us, and to realize how, properly speaking, we can never be blamed unjustly, since we are always full of faults, and a just man falls seven times a day, so that it would be a falsehood for us to say we have no sin. If, then, we are not to blame for the thing that we are accused of, we are never wholly without blame in the way that our good Jesus was. ... Thou knowest, my Good, that if there is anything good in me it comes from no other hands than Thine own. For what is it to Thee, Lord, to give much instead of little? True, I do not deserve it, but neither have I deserved the favors which Thou hast shown me already. Can it be that I should wish a thing so evil as myself to be thought well of by anyone, when they have said such wicked things of Thee, Who art good above all other good? ... Do Thou give me light and make me truly to desire that all should hate me, since I have so often let Thee, Who hast loved me with such faithfulness. ... What does it matter to us if we are blamed by them all, provided we are without blame in the sight of the Lord? ...meditate upon what is real and upon what is not. ... Do you suppose, ... that, if you do not make excuses for yourself, there will not be someone else who will defend you? Remember how the Lord took the Magdalen's part in the Pharisee's house and also when her sister blamed her. He will not treat you as rigorously as He treated Himself: it was not until He was on the Cross that He had even a thief to defend Him. His Majesty, then, will put it into somebody's mind to defend you; if He does not, it will be because there is no need. ...be glad when you are blamed, and in due time you will see what profit you experience in your souls. For it is in this way that you will begin to gain freedom; soon you will not care if they speak ill or well of you; it will seem like someone else's business. ... So here: it becomes such a habit with us not to reply that it seems as if they are not addressing us at all. This may seem impossible to those of us who are very sensitive and not capable of great mortification. It is indeed difficult at first, but I know that, with the Lord's help, the gradual attainment of this freedom, and of renunciation and self-detachment, is quite possible.

We’re walking to our cars when Gabe says, “Hey, Lara Jean, did you know that if you say your name really fast, it sounds like Large? Try it! LaraJean.” Dutifully I repeat, “LaraJean. Larjean. Largy. Actually I think it sounds more like Largy, not Large.” Gabe nods to himself and announces, “I’m going to start calling you Large. You’re so little it’s funny. Right? Like those big guys who go by the name Tiny?” I shrug. “Sure.” Gabe turns to Darrell. “She’s so little she could be our mascot.” “Hey, I’m not that small,” I protest. “How tall are you?” Darrell asks me. “Five two,” I fib. It’s more like five one and a quarter. Tossing his spoon in the trash, Gabe says, “You’re so little you could fit in my pocket!” All the guys laugh. Peter’s smiling in a bemused way. Then Gabe suddenly grabs me and throws me over his shoulder like I’m a kid and he’s my dad. “Gabe! Put me down!” I shriek, kicking my legs and pounding on his chest. He starts spinning around in a circle, and all the guys are cracking up. “I’m going to adopt you, Large! You’re going to be my pet. I’ll put you in my old hamster cage!” I’m giggling so hard I can’t catch my breath and I’m starting to feel dizzy. “Put me down!” “Put her down, man,” Peter says, but he’s laughing too. Gabe runs toward somebody’s pickup truck and sets me down in the back. “Get me out of here!” I yell. Gabe’s already running away. All the guys start getting into their cars. “Bye, Large!” they call out. Peter jogs over to me and extends his hand so I can hop down. “Your friends are crazy,” I say, jumping onto the pavement. “They like you,” he says. “Really?” “Sure. They used to hate when I would bring Gen places. They don’t mind if you hang out with us.” Peter slings his arm around me. “Come on, Large. I’ll take you home.” As we walk to his car, I let my hair fall in my face so he doesn’t see me smiling. It sure is nice being part of a group, feeling like I belong.

If my mother was in a singing mood, it wasn't so bad. She would sing about hard times, bad times, and somebody-done-gone-and-left-me times. But her voice was so sweet and her singing-eyes so melty I found myself longing for those hard times, yearning to be grown without 'a thin di-i-ime to my name.' I looked forward to the delicious time when 'my man' would leave me, when I would 'hate to see that evening sun go down . . .' 'cause then I would know 'my man has left this town.' Misery colored by the greens and blues in my mother's voice took all the grief out of the words and left me with a conviction that pain was not only endurable, it was sweet.

That's something else that gives me a royal pain. I mean if you're good at writing compositions and somebody starts talking about commas. Stradlater was always doing that. He wanted you to think that the only reason he was lousy at writing compositions was because he stuck all the commas in the wrong place. He was a little bit like Ackley, that way. I once sat next to Ackley at this basketball game. We had a terrific guy on the team, Howie Coyle, that could sink them from the middle of the floor, without even touching the backboard or anything. Ackley kept saying, the whole goddam game, that Coyle had a perfect build for basketball. God, how I hate that stuff.

Look at it, a whole drawerful, men and women, every one of them a real executive, or auditor, or manager of some business, and when I recommend one, I know somebody is getting something for his money. They're all home, sitting by their phones, hoping I'll call. I won't call. I've got nothing to tell them. What I'm trying to get through your head is: You haven't got a chance. Those people, it hurts me, it makes me lie awake nights, that I've got nothing for them. They deserve something, and there's not a thing I can do. But there's not a chance I'd slip you ahead of any one of them. You're not qualified. There's not a thing on earth you can do, and I hate people that can't do anything.

What I wanted to do, if this was a dream, was to walk into that room. I wanted to sit next to my mom. And I wanted to ask, “Why did you hate me?” And I wanted her to say, “You’re looking at it from the wrong angle. I didn’t hate you. I loved you so much. I protected you. I kept you safe from harm.” And I would say, “You did?” She would nod. I’d ask her who my father was, and she’d say that he was the worst man who had ever been born. She’d say that she had given up everything in her life to get away from him. And she had raised me all alone, as best she could. And I would say, “Thank you.” And she would hug me and it wouldn’t be weird. It would be like the way somebody hugs another person. And the entirety of my life, everything that had come before, would disappear. And things would be so much better. I

I tried not to think of what had happened to me. Most of the day, I could succeed in that mission. Then, a shock of ice-cold air on the wrong side of my face. The rattle of plastic meal trays against the hard metal counter during breakfast and lunch. Feeling too sad, or feeling surrounded, and I would be back on the roof of the shed, looking down at myself, pathetic and mumbling nonsense. I hated that place. I hated everything in my view, including the ball of rotten nothing called my body curled into itself on the floor. Why didn’t she get up? Why didn’t she go away? She never should have been there at all. Staring down at myself, I admonished her, blamed her, and only spoke enough to say, “Stop bothering me. Stop bringing me back here. We don’t belong to each other anymore. You made the choice to go in there. Now you can stay there.

Killing somebody is not so strange here. Whether it is with poison, drugs or a gunshot, every person you meet is a potential murderer or an accomplice. I’m no different. I’ve worked for them for years. I had a goal and threw away any morale to get what I wanted. This world is cruel, Drew. I’d like to believe it's just and fair, and the bad guys are the exception, but it's only a petty lie. People won't be good to you just because you're good to them. And if you want something, you have to be ready to give up something else. You have to be determined. Determined enough to live sacrificing ideals, pity, hope. I understand you cannot accept it. Deep down I’m happy you don't. Because the world you're looking at, despite everything you went through, is still clean. You still believe in justice. You're not like me. My world is dirty. I hate to disappoint you, but the truth is that your Shallie died because of people… like me.

He pulled out a thick iron ring with dozens of keys. He turned it, staring as the keys slid and rang. Arin shut them up inside his fist. “My house,” he said thickly. He looked at Kestrel. “Keys can be copied.” His eyes pleaded with her. “I have no idea how many sets Irex’s family had. Cheat could have had this one, somehow, even before Firstwinter.” She saw how what he said might be true. She didn’t think anyone could fake the horror on Arin’s face when he first saw Kestrel on the floor. Or the way he looked now: as if what had happened to her was happening to him. “Believe me, Kestrel.” She did…and she didn’t. Arin undid the ring, slipped off two keys, and set them in Kestrel’s hand. “These are for your suite. Keep them.” She gazed at the dull metal on her palm. She recognized one key. The other…“Is this one for the garden door?” “Yes, but”--Arin looked away--“you wouldn’t want to use it.” Kestrel had guessed that Arin lived in the west wing suite, and that it had been his father’s as hers had been his mother’s. But it wasn’t until then that she understood what the two gardens were for: a way for husband and wife to visit each other without the entire household knowing. Kestrel stood, because Arin was standing and she had had enough of crouching on the floor. “Krestrel…” Arin’s question was something he clearly hated to ask. “How badly are you hurt?” “As you see.” Her eye was swelling shut, and the carpet had skinned her cheek raw. “My face. Nothing more.” “I could kill him a thousand times and still want to do it again.” She looked at Cheat’s slumped body as it soaked the carpet with blood. “Somebody had better clean that up. It won’t be me. I’m not your slave.” Quietly, he said, “You’re really not.” “I might believe you if you gave me the whole set of keys.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Ah, but would you have any respect for my intelligence?

Silence, silence. Then he switched his stool, turned his back to me as much as possible and continued working. I got up and walked to the men’s crapper and stuck my head out the window for fresh air. The guy was my father all over again: RESPONSIBILITY, SOCIETY, COUNTRY, DUTY, MATURITY, all the dull-sounding hard words. But why were they in such agony? Why did they hate so much? It seemed simply that they were very much afraid that somebody else was having a damn good time or was not unhappy most of the time. It seemed that they wanted everybody to carry the same damn heavy rock they were carrying. It wasn’t ENOUGH that I was working beside him like an idiot; it wasn’t enough for him that I was wasting the few good hours left in my life—no, he also wanted me to share his own mind-soul, to sniff his dirty stockings, to chew on his angers and hates with him. I was not PAID for that, the fucker. And that’s what killed you on the job—not the actual physical work but being closed in with the dead.

There is no end of things in the heart. Somebody once told me that. She said it came from a poem she believed in. She understood it to mean that if you took something to heart, really brought it inside those red velvet folds, then it would always be there for you. No matter what happened, it would be there waiting. She said this could mean a person, a place, a dream. A mission. Anything sacred. She told me that it is all connected in those secret folds. Always. It is all part of the same and will always be there, carrying the same beat as your heart. I am fifty-two-years old and I believe it. At night when I try to sleep but can’t, that is when I know it. It is when all the pathways seem to connect and I see the people I have loved and hated and helped and hurt. I see the hands that reach for me. I hear the beat and see and understand what I must do. I know my mission and I know there is no turning away or turning back. And it is in those moments that I know there is no end of things in the heart.

I don’t know. I think maybe I’m just partly yellow and partly the type that doesn’t give much of a damn if they lose their gloves. One of my troubles is, I never care too much when I lose something—it used to drive my mother crazy when I was a kid. Some guys spend days looking for something they lost. I never seem to have anything that if I lost it I’d care too much. Maybe that’s why I’m partly yellow. It’s no excuse, though. It really isn’t. What you should be is not yellow at all. If you’re supposed to sock somebody in the jaw, and you sort of feel like doing it, you should do it. I’m just no good at it, though. I’d rather push a guy out the window or chop his head off with an ax than sock him in the jaw. I hate fist fights. I don’t mind getting hit so much—although I’m not crazy about it, naturally—but what scares me most in a fist fight is the guy’s face. I can’t stand looking at the other guy’s face, is my trouble. It wouldn’t be so bad if you could both be blindfolded or something. It’s a funny kind of yellowness, when you come to think of it, but it’s yellowness, all right. I’m not kidding myself.

Meeting the Prince of Wales I’ve known her [the Queen] since I was tiny so it was no big deal. No interest in Andrew and Edward--never thought about Andrew. I kept thinking, ‘Look at the life they have, how awful’ so I remember him coming to Althorp to stay, my husband, and the first impact was ‘God, what a sad man.’ He came with his Labrador. My sister was all over him like a bad rash and I thought, ‘God, he must really hate that.’ I kept out of the way. I remember being a fat, podgy, no make-up, unsmart lady but I made a lot of noise and he liked that and he came up to me after dinner and we had a big dance and he said: ‘Will you show me the gallery?’ and I was just about to show him the gallery and my sister Sarah comes up and tells me to push off and I said ‘At least, let me tell you where the switches are to the gallery because you won’t know where they are,’ and I disappeared. And he was charm himself and when I stood next to him the next day, a 16-year old, for someone like that to show you any attention--I was just so sort of amazed. ‘Why would anyone like him be interested in me?’ and it was interest. That was it for about two years. Saw him off and on with Sarah and Sarah got frightfully excited about the whole thing, then she saw something different happening which I hadn’t twigged on to, i.e. when he had his 30th birthday dance I was asked too. ‘Why is Diana coming as well?’ [my] sister asked. I said: ‘Well, I don’t know but I’d like to come.’ ‘Oh, all right then,’ that sort of thing. Had a very nice time at the dance--fascinating. I wasn’t at all intimidated by the surroundings [Buckingham Palace]. I thought, amazing place. Then I was asked to stay at the de Passes in July 1980 by Philip de Pass who is the son. ‘Would you like to come and stay for a couple of nights down at Petworth because we’ve got the Prince of Wales staying. You’re a young blood, you might amuse him.’ So I said ‘OK.’ So I sat next to him and Charles came in. He was all over me again and it was very strange. I thought ‘Well, this isn’t very cool.’ I thought men were supposed not to be so obvious, I thought this was very odd. The first night we sat down on a bale at the barbecue at this house and he’d just finished with Anna Wallace. I said: ‘You looked so sad when you walked up the aisle at Lord Mountbatten’s funeral.’ I said: ‘It was the most tragic thing I’ve ever seen. My heart bled for you when I watched. I thought, “It’s wrong, you’re lonely--you should be with somebody to look after you.

This is weird for me, too, you know. It’s like, ever since I got that letter…” He hesitates. “Forget it.” “Just say it,” I say. “Ever since I got that letter, things have been messed up between us. It’s not fair. You got to say everything you wanted to say, and I’m the one who has to rearrange the way I think about you; I have to make sense of it in my head. You totally blindsided me, and then you just shut me out. You start dating Kavinsky, you stop being my friend.” He exhales. “Ever since I got your letter…I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.” Whatever I was expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. It definitely wasn’t that. “Josh…” “I know you don’t want to hear it, but just let me say what I need to say, okay?” I nod. “I hate that you’re with Kavinsky. I hate it. He’s not good enough for you. I’m sorry to say it, but he’s just not. In my opinion, no guy will ever be good enough for you. Least of all me.” Josh ducks his head, and then suddenly he looks up at me and says, “There was this one time, I guess it was a couple of summers ago. We were walking home from somebody’s house--I think it was Mike’s.” It was hot, around dusk. I was mad because Mike’s older brother Jimmy had said he’d give us a ride home, and then he went somewhere and didn’t come back, so we had to walk. I was wearing espadrilles and my feet were hurting something terrible. Josh kept telling me to keep up with him. Quietly he says, “It was just me and you. You had on that tan suede shirt you used to wear, with the straps, and it showed your belly button.” “My Pocahontas-meets-seventies-Cher-style shirt.” Oh, how I loved that shirt. “I almost kissed you that day. I thought about it. It was this weird impulse I had. I just wanted to see what it would be like.” My heart stops. “And then?” “And then I don’t know. I guess I forgot about it.” I let out a sigh. “I’m sorry you got that letter. You were never supposed to see that. It wasn’t meant for you to ever read. It was just for me.” “Maybe it was fate. Maybe this was all supposed to happen just like this, because…because it was always gonna be you and me.” I say the first thing that comes to mind. “No, it wasn’t.” And I realize it’s true. This is the moment I realize I don’t love him, that I haven’t for a while. That maybe I never did. Because he’s right there for the taking: I could kiss him again; I could make him mine. But I don’t want him. I want someone else. It feels strange to have spent so much time wishing for something, for someone, and then one day, suddenly, to just stop.

A Conversation with the Author What was your inspiration for The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle? Inspiration is a flash-of-lightning kind of word. What happens to me is more like sediment building. I love time travel, Agatha Christie, and the eighties classic Quantum Leap, and over time a book emerged from that beautiful quagmire. Truthfully, having the idea was the easy part, keeping track of all the moving parts was the difficulty. Which character was the most interesting to write, and in which host do you feel Aiden truly flourishes? Lord Cecil Ravencourt, by miles. He occupies the section of the book where the character has to grapple with the time travel elements, the body swapping elements, and the murder itself. I wanted my most intelligent character for that task, but I thought it would be great to hamper him in some way, as well. Interestingly, I wanted to make him really loathsome—which is why he’s a banker. And yet, for some reason, I ended up quite liking him, and feeding a few laudable qualities into his personality. I think Derby ended up getting a double dose of loathsome instead. Other than that, it’s just really nice seeing the evolution of his relationship with Cunningham. Is there a moral lesson to Aiden’s story or any conclusion you hope the reader walks away with as they turn the final page? Don’t be a dick! Kind, funny, intelligent, and generous people are behind every good thing that’s ever happened to me. Everybody else you just have to put up with. Like dandruff. Or sunburn. Don’t be sunburn, people. In one hundred years, do you believe there will be something similar to Blackheath, and would you support such a system? Yes, and not exactly. Our prison system is barbaric, but some people deserve it. That’s the tricky part of pinning your flag to the left or right of the moral spectrum. I think the current system is unsustainable, and I think personality adjustment and mental prisons are dangerous, achievable technology somebody will abuse. They could also solve a lot of problems. Would you trust your government with it? I suppose that’s the question. The book is so contained, and we don’t get to see the place that Aiden is escaping to! Did you map that out, and is there anything you can share about the society beyond Blackheath’s walls? It’s autocratic, technologically advanced, but they still haven’t overcome our human weaknesses. You can get everywhere in an hour, but television’s still overrun with reality shows, basically. Imagine the society that could create something as hateful as Annabelle Caulker.

Borman drank and set the bottle on his knee and held it by the neck. Hell, Western. You aint even an asshole. I havent progressed that far. No. Just a garden variety turd. I dont know. But not a son of a bitch. No. Or a prick. Borman smiled. No. You aint a prick. What about a fuck of some description? I dont know. Fuck has got to have an adjective in front of it. Like sick fuck. Yeah. Like sick fuck. Poor fuck, dumb fuck. You think I’m a dumb fuck? I dont know what kind of a fuck you are. But some kind. Yeah. Are you a sick fuck? Probably. Yeah. What’s the worst thing you can be? Borman thought about that. A piece of shit. There aint no reprieve from that. Total contempt. Total. No such thing as an apology. Not for that. Are you a son of a bitch? Me? Absolutely. No question. No question. Goldplated with a warranty. Is that why you’re out here? You mean did God send me out here to waste away in the swamps because I was a son of a bitch? Yeah. Probably. Do you believe in God? Hell, Bobby. Who knows. If somebody calls somebody just a plain fuck it just means they left off the adjective? Plain is an adjective. Is Long John a son of a bitch? No. He’s too pathetic. Is he a sick fuck? Let me put it this way. If you look up sick fuck in the dictionary you’ll find his picture. Damn I hate that about Oiler.

People who worked and proselytized on behalf of homeless people formed a loose confederation, with one shared interest and many differing opinions. In recent years Jim had heard that some in the alliance claimed that the Program belonged to "the homelessness industry," which misspent resources that should be used for creating permanent supportive housing. Also that the Program was an insidious part of that status quo: It propped up an unjust system by successfully treating homeless people with diseases like AIDS, weakening one of the housing movement's chief arguments— "housing is health." Almost always the criticism came indirectly, from friends of friends. This was convenient for a person who hated confrontations. Jim could reply forcefully but indirectly, to a friend of the critic, or sometimes to me in the privacy of his office or car. Often he'd start by invoking Barbara, "The older I get, the more I realize how wise she was. I remember somebody coming into the clinic, and saying to Barbara, who was working like hell, 'What are we going to do to fix this problem of homelessness?' And she looked up and said, 'Are you kidding me? I'm too busy. Don't ask me a question like that.' That was her way of saying, 'Stop torturing me with what society isn't about to do. Let's just do the best we can right now and take care of these folks.

Ave Maria BY FRANK O'HARA Mothers of America let your kids go to the movies! get them out of the house so they won’t know what you’re up to it’s true that fresh air is good for the body but what about the soul that grows in darkness, embossed by silvery images and when you grow old as grow old you must they won’t hate you they won’t criticize you they won’t know they’ll be in some glamorous country they first saw on a Saturday afternoon or playing hookey they may even be grateful to you for their first sexual experience which only cost you a quarter and didn’t upset the peaceful home they will know where candy bars come from and gratuitous bags of popcorn as gratuitous as leaving the movie before it’s over with a pleasant stranger whose apartment is in the Heaven on Earth Bldg near the Williamsburg Bridge oh mothers you will have made the little tykes so happy because if nobody does pick them up in the movies they won’t know the difference and if somebody does it’ll be sheer gravy and they’ll have been truly entertained either way instead of hanging around the yard or up in their room hating you prematurely since you won’t have done anything horribly mean yet except keeping them from the darker joys it’s unforgivable the latter so don’t blame me if you won’t take this advice and the family breaks up and your children grow old and blind in front of a TV set seeing movies you wouldn’t let them see when they were young

March 12 Dear Stargirl, Hey, you're a big girl now. Stop being such a baby. You think you're the only one who's ever lost a boyfriend? Boyfriends are a dime a dozen. You want to talk loss, look at all the loss around you. How about the man in the red and yellow plaid scarf? He lost Grace. BELOVED WIFE. I'll bet they were married over 50 years. You barely had 50 days with Leo. And you have the gall to be sad in the same world as that man. Betty Lou. She's lost the confidence to leave her house. Look at you. Have you ever stopped to appreciate the simple ability to open your front door and step outside? And Alvina the floor sweeper-she hates herself, and it seems she's got plenty of company. All she's losing is her childhood, her future, a worldful of people who will never be her friends. How would you like to trade places with her? Oh yes, lets not forget the footshuffling guy at the stone piles. Moss-green pom-pom. What did he say to you? "Are you looking for me?" It seems like he hasn't lost much, has he? Only...HIMSELF! Now look at you, sniveling like a baby over some immature kid in Arizona who didn't know what a prize he had, who tried to remake you into somebody else, who turned his back to you and left you to the wolves, who hijacked your heart and didn't even ask you to the Ocotillo Ball. What don't you understand about the message? Hel-loooo? Anybody home in there? You have your whole life ahead of you, and all your doing is looking back. Grow up, girl. There are some things they don't teach you in homeschool. Your Birth Certificate Self, Susan Caraway

He learned that we should keep our eyes on the goal and not on the ground. He learned so much about the Burger King’s operations that later when he was running the Investment Bank and was looking for high-profile American billionaires to sit on his Board of Directors, he met Joe Antonius, Chairman of the 32-billion-dollar conglomerate. The first thing they had in common was that Antonius ran that corporation where Mir once cleaned bathrooms. He went up to him, introduced himself, “Hi Joe! I am Mir Mohammad Ali Khan, founder and Chairman of KMS Investment Bank and my first job in America was washing bathrooms at one of your restaurants.” Joe burst out laughing and all top notch people – Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Peter Lynch – could not believe what the young man was saying. Joe took him aside and said, “Tell me honestly what did you like about cleaning bathrooms.” “Ammonia,” replied Mir. “Why?” Mir said, “I hated my job and it hurt my ego. I hated it so much that I cried throughout the first week and every time somebody saw me crying, I would tell them that it was because of ammonia. Ammonia helped me shelter my ego.” Later Antonius joined the Board of Mir’s bank for NO COMPENSATION and also brought 6 top people from Forbes, Yoblon, Mario, Andretti, and others. In the first meeting of the Board Antonius said, “I joined this board because if this immigrant kid can come from a family background that he has, compromise with his ego, wash bathrooms and smile and tell us in a corporate meeting of leaders that he is proud of it, then it means that he will go far in life. At 29 he owns a bank, imagine what he will do at 49.

God speaks to us, I would say, much more often than we realize or than we choose to realize. Before the sun sets every evening, he speaks to each of us in an intensely personal and unmistakable way. His message is not written out in starlight, which in the long run would make no difference; rather it is written out for each of us in the humdrum, helter-skelter events of each day; it is a message that in the long run might just make all the difference. Who knows what he will say to me today or to you today or into the midst of what kind of unlikely moment he will choose to say it. Not knowing is what makes today a holy mystery as every day is a holy mystery. But I believe that there are some things that by and large God is always saying to each of us. Each of us, for instance, carries around inside himself, I believe, a certain emptiness—a sense that something is missing, a restlessness, the deep feeling that somehow all is not right inside his skin. Psychologists sometimes call it anxiety, theologians sometimes call it estrangement, but whatever you call it, I doubt that there are many who do not recognize the experience itself, especially no one of our age, which has been variously termed the age of anxiety, the lost generation, the beat generation, the lonely crowd. Part of the inner world of everyone is this sense of emptiness, unease, incompleteness, and I believe that this in itself is a word from God, that this is the sound that God’s voice makes in a world that has explained him away. In such a world, I suspect that maybe God speaks to us most clearly through his silence, his absence, so that we know him best through our missing him. But he also speaks to us about ourselves, about what he wants us to do and what he wants us to become; and this is the area where I believe that we know so much more about him than we admit even to ourselves, where people hear God speak even if they do not believe in him. A face comes toward us down the street. Do we raise our eyes or do we keep them lowered, passing by in silence? Somebody says something about somebody else, and what he says happens to be not only cruel but also funny, and everybody laughs. Do we laugh too, or do we speak the truth? When a friend has hurt us, do we take pleasure in hating him, because hate has its pleasures as well as love, or do we try to build back some flimsy little bridge? Sometimes when we are alone, thoughts come swarming into our heads like bees—some of them destructive, ugly, self-defeating thoughts, some of them creative and glad. Which thoughts do we choose to think then, as much as we have the choice? Will we be brave today or a coward today? Not in some big way probably but in some little foolish way, yet brave still. Will we be honest today or a liar? Just some little pint-sized honesty, but honest still. Will we be a friend or cold as ice today? All the absurd little meetings, decisions, inner skirmishes that go to make up our days. It all adds up to very little, and yet it all adds up to very much. Our days are full of nonsense, and yet not, because it is precisely into the nonsense of our days that God speaks to us words of great significance—not words that are written in the stars but words that are written into the raw stuff and nonsense of our days, which are not nonsense just because God speaks into the midst of them. And the words that he says, to each of us differently, are be brave…be merciful…feed my lambs…press on toward the goal.

Because we were raised in a bigoted and hate-filled home, we simply assumed that calling someone a “cheap Jew” or saying someone “Jewed him down” were perfectly acceptable ways to communicate. Or at least we did until the day came when I called one of the cousins, a Neanderthal DeRosa boy, “a little Jew,” and he told me he wasn’t the Jew, that I was the Jew, and he even got Helen and Nana to confirm it for him. It came as a shock to me to find out we were a part of this obviously terrible tribe of skinflint, trouble-making, double-dealing, shrewdly smart desert people. When Denny found out, he was crestfallen because he had assumed that being Jewish meant, according to what his former foster family the Skodiens had taught him, a life behind a desk crunching numbers. “And I hate math,” he said, shaking his head. So here we were, accused Jews living in a hotbed of anti-Semitism. Not a good situation. Walter’s father was the worst. Learning about our few drops of Jewish blood seemed to ignite a special, long-held hatred in him. He became vile over nothing, finding any excuse to deride the Jews in front of us until Helen made him stop. We didn’t know what to make of it, except to write it off as another case of Wozniak-inspired insanity, but as young as we were, we could tell that at some point in his life he had crossed swords with a Jew someplace and came out on the losing end and we were going to pay for it. But because we really didn’t feel ourselves to be Jews, it didn’t sink in that he intended to hurt us with his crazy tirades. As I said, it’s hard to insult somebody when they don’t understand the insult, and it’s equally hard to insult them when they out and out refuse to be insulted. Word got around quickly.

Everything and Nothing* There was no one inside him; behind his face (which even in the bad paintings of the time resembles no other) and his words (which were multitudinous, and of a fantastical and agitated turn) there was no more than a slight chill, a dream someone had failed to dream. At first he thought that everyone was like him, but the surprise and bewilderment of an acquaintance to whom he began to describe that hollowness showed him his error, and also let him know, forever after, that an individual ought not to differ from its species. He thought at one point that books might hold some remedy for his condition, and so he learned the "little Latin and less Greek" that a contemporary would later mention. Then he reflected that what he was looking for might be found in the performance of an elemental ritual of humanity, and so he allowed himself to be initiated by Anne Hathaway one long evening in June. At twenty-something he went off to London. Instinctively, he had already trained himself to the habit of feigning that he was somebody, so that his "nobodiness" might not be discovered. In London he found the calling he had been predestined to; he became an actor, that person who stands upon a stage and plays at being another person, for an audience of people who play at taking him for that person. The work of a thespian held out a remarkable happiness to him—the first, perhaps, he had ever known; but when the last line was delivered and the last dead man applauded off the stage, the hated taste of unreality would assail him. He would cease being Ferrex or Tamerlane and return to being nobody. Haunted, hounded, he began imagining other heroes, other tragic fables. Thus while his body, in whorehouses and taverns around London, lived its life as body, the soul that lived inside it would be Cassar, who ignores the admonition of the sibyl, and Juliet, who hates the lark, and Macbeth, who speaks on the moor with the witches who are also the Fates, the Three Weird Sisters. No one was as many men as that man—that man whose repertoire, like that of the Egyptian Proteus, was all the appearances of being. From time to time he would leave a confession in one corner or another of the work, certain that it would not be deciphered; Richard says that inside himself, he plays the part of many, and Iago says, with curious words, I am not what I am. The fundamental identity of living, dreaming, and performing inspired him to famous passages. For twenty years he inhabited that guided and directed hallucination, but one morning he was overwhelmed with the surfeit and horror of being so many kings that die by the sword and so many unrequited lovers who come together, separate, and melodiously expire. That very day, he decided to sell his theater. Within a week he had returned to his birthplace, where he recovered the trees and the river of his childhood and did not associate them with those others, fabled with mythological allusion and Latin words, that his muse had celebrated. He had to be somebody; he became a retired businessman who'd made a fortune and had an interest in loans, lawsuits, and petty usury. It was in that role that he dictated the arid last will and testament that we know today, from which he deliberately banished every trace of sentiment or literature. Friends from London would visit his re-treat, and he would once again play the role of poet for them. History adds that before or after he died, he discovered himself standing before God, and said to Him: I , who have been so many men in vain, wish to be one, to be myself. God's voice answered him out of a whirlwind: I, too, am not I; I dreamed the world as you, Shakespeare, dreamed your own work, and among the forms of my dream are you, who like me, are many, yet no one.

Chris- the one who wrote the halfway creepy thing about missing me so much when I didn't post and thinking I was dead- found it mind-boggling that before the Julie/Julia Project began, I had never eaten an egg. She asked, "How can you have gotten through life without eating a single egg? How is that POSSIBLE???!!!!!" Of course, it wasn't exactly true that I hadn't eaten an egg. I had eaten them in cakes. I had even eaten them scrambled once or twice, albeit in the Texas fashion, with jalapeños and a pound of cheese. But the goal of my egg-eating had always been to make sure the egg did not look, smell, or taste anything like one, and as a result my history in this department was, I suppose, unusual. Chris wasn't the only person shocked. People I'd never heard of chimed in with their awe and dismay. I didn't really get it. Surely this is not such a bizarre hang-up as hating, say, croutons, like certain spouses I could name. Luckily, eggs made the Julia Child way often taste like cream sauce. Take Oeufs en Cocotte, for example. These are eggs baked with some butter and cream in ramekins set in a shallow pan of water. They are tremendous. In fact the only thing better than Oeufs en Cocotte is Ouefs en Cocotte with Sauce au Cari on top when you've woken up with a killer hangover, after one of those nights when somebody decided at midnight to buy a pack of cigarettes after all, and the girls wind up smoking and drinking and dancing around the living room to the music the boy is downloading from iTunes onto his new, ludicrously hip and stylish G3 Powerbook until three in the morning. On mornings like this, Oeufs en Cocotte with Sauce au Cari, a cup of coffee, and an enormous glass of water is like a meal fed to you by the veiled daughters of a wandering Bedouin tribe after one of their number comes upon you splayed out in the sands of the endless deserts of Araby, moments from death- it's that good.

Sophie?” He knocked, though not that hard, then decided she wasn’t going hear anything less than a regiment of charging dragoons over Kit’s racket. He pushed the door open to find half of Sophie’s candles lit and the lady pacing the room with Kit in her arms. “He won’t settle,” she said. “He isn’t wet; he isn’t hungry; he isn’t in want of cuddling. I think he’s sickening for something.” Sophie looked to be sickening. Her complexion was pale even by candlelight, her green eyes were underscored by shadows, and her voice held a brittle, anxious quality. “Babies can be colicky.” Vim laid the back of his hand on the child’s forehead. This resulted in a sudden cessation of Kit’s bellowing. “Ah, we have his attention. What ails you, young sir? You’ve woken the watch and disturbed my lady’s sleep.” “Keep talking,” Sophie said softly. “This is the first time he’s quieted in more than an hour.” Vim’s gaze went to the clock on her mantel. It was a quarter past midnight, meaning Sophie had gotten very little rest. “Give him to me, Sophie. Get off your feet, and I’ll have a talk with My Lord Baby.” She looked reluctant but passed the baby over. When the infant started whimpering, Vim began a circuit of the room. “None of your whining, Kit. Father Christmas will hear of it, and you’ll have a bad reputation from your very first Christmas. Do you know Miss Sophie made Christmas bread today? That’s why the house bore such lovely scents—despite your various efforts to put a different fragrance in the air.” He went on like that, speaking softly, rubbing the child’s back and hoping the slight warmth he’d detected was just a matter of the child’s determined upset, not inchoate sickness. Sophie would fret herself into an early grave if the boy stopped thriving. “Listen,” Vim said, speaking very quietly against the baby’s ear. “You are worrying your mama Sophie. You’re too young to start that nonsense, not even old enough to join the navy. Go to sleep, my man. Sooner rather than later.” The child did not go to sleep. He whimpered and whined, and by two in the morning, his nose was running most unattractively. Sophie would not go to sleep either, and Vim would not leave her alone with the baby. “This is my fault,” Sophie said, her gaze following Vim as he made yet another circuit with the child. “I was the one who had to go to the mews, and I should never have taken Kit with me.” “Nonsense. He loved the outing, and you needed the fresh air.” The baby wasn’t even slurping on his fist, which alarmed Vim more than a possible low fever. And that nose… Vim surreptitiously used a hankie to tend to it, but Sophie got to her feet and came toward them. “He’s ill,” she said, frowning at the child. “He misses his mother and I took him out in the middle of a blizzard and now he’s ill.” Vim put his free arm around her, hating the misery in her tone. “He has a runny nose, Sophie. Nobody died of a runny nose.” Her expression went from wan to stricken. “He could die?” She scooted away from Vim. “This is what people mean when they say somebody took a chill, isn’t it? It starts with congestion, then a fever, then he becomes weak and delirious…” “He’s not weak or delirious, Sophie. Calm down.

The thing about Zofia and libraries is that she’s always losing library books. She says that she hasn’t lost them, and in fact that they aren’t even overdue, really. It’s just that even one week inside the faery handbag is a lot longer in library-world time. So what is she supposed to do about it? The librarians all hate Zofia. She’s banned from using any of the branches in our area. When I was eight, she got me to go to the library for her and check out a bunch of biographies and science books and some Georgette Heyer novels. My mother was livid when she found out, but it was too late. Zofia had already misplaced most of them.   It’s really hard to write about somebody as if they’re really dead. I still think Zofia must be sitting in her living room, in her house, watching some old horror movie, dropping popcorn into her handbag. She’s waiting for me to come over and play Scrabble.   Nobody is ever going to return those library books now.

It’s all my fault,” Ashley sobbed. “What if she’s dead?” The four of them were squeezed tightly into Etienne’s truck. With every shift of the clutch and each turn of the wheel, Etienne’s right arm jabbed sharply into Miranda’s side, and Ashley bounced back and forth between Miranda’s lap and Parker’s. The old Chevy truck, way past its prime, rattled and clanked and groaned at every pothole and puddle, but it hugged the roads like glue. “It’s not your fault,” Parker reassured Ashley for the dozenth time. “You didn’t know what she was planning to do. How could it be your fault?” “The water always gets so deep at the Falls. The bayou always floods. If she’s dead--” “She’s not dead.” He paused, then mumbled, “I couldn’t be that lucky.” “Parker Wilmington, I can’t even believe you said--” “I was kidding, Ash. Okay, sorry, bad timing, but I was kidding, okay? Roo’s fine. And none of this is your fault.” Gulping down a hiccup, Ashley glared at him. “You’re right. It’s your fault.” “My fault?” “You know she caught you drinking in the parking lot!” “Just a little! I swear, I only had one sip--” “You’re heartless and insensitive, and you hate my sister.” “Christ, Ashley, I don’t hate your sister--” “You told her I care more about you than I do about her, and that’s not true!” “I know it’s not--and Roo knows it’s not. It was a joke! I wasn’t serious!” “I’m always defending you, and Roo’s always been smarter than me. Roo would never get involved with somebody like you.” Parker shot Etienne another helpless glance. “Is that good or bad?” “I wouldn’t be doing any more talking right now, if I were you,” Etienne advised him. “Roo looks out for me. Roo has better sense than I do,” Ashley went on miserably. “It’s always been that way, ever since we were little. She’s always had the brains. And I’ve always had…not the brains.” Etienne’s eyes and Parker’s eyes met behind Ashley’s back. “Not going there,” Etienne mumbled.

I got nervous around you after our arrangement became official,” Luca said. “I used to watch you sometimes, though.” “That’s kind of creepy, don’t you think?” Cass raised an eyebrow, and couldn’t help but crack a small smile. “You stopped being just a little girl.” A red flush crept across Luca’s high cheekbones. “I wasn’t very good at talking to women. I’m still not.” His shyness surprised her. Luca, the man, was proving to be so different from the boy she remembered. She thought of what Mada had said about growing to love somebody. She looked down at her hands and said haltingly, “My behavior has been inexcusable these last few days, so I won’t try to excuse it. I can only imagine what you must think of me.” Luca finally dared to sit on the bench across from Cass. “It’s all right,” he said, still twirling the rosebud in his big hands. “I guess your aunt sprang it on you, announcing our engagement so suddenly.” He smiled, but Cass could tell it was forced. Hurt still lingered in his eyes. “You know, most girls wouldn’t mind being Signora da Peraga.” “I know,” Cass said. She could think of nothing else to say. Luca said, this time with a warm smile, “But you are different from most girls, aren’t you, Cassandra?” Her hands tightened around her journal. Somehow Luca managed to see something good in her, even where there was nothing good to see. And yet, his words reminded her of Falco’s. “I’d prefer it if the idea of our engagement didn’t make you miserable,” Luca continued. “Does it?” he asked softly. “Make you miserable?” A few days ago, all Cass had wanted was to escape from her obligation to marry, and now she felt Luca loosening the band around her neck, unlocking the door to her cage. But Cass couldn’t tell him the truth. She had already hurt Falco. She wouldn’t hurt Luca and Agnese too. Being with Luca made sense. Being with Falco was madness. “I hate seeing you so sad,” Luca said after a pause. “I hate to think I may be the cause of your unhappiness.

We were in the Crocodile Environmental Park at the zoo when Steve first told me the story of Acco’s capture. I just had to revisit him after hearing his story. There he was, the black ghost himself, magnificently sunning on the bank of his billabong. Standing there next to this impressive animal, I tried to wrap my mind around the idea that people had wanted him dead. His huge, intimidating teeth made him look primeval, and his osteodermal plates gleamed black in the sun--a dinosaur, living here among us. I felt so emotional, contemplating the fear-based cruelty that prompted humans to hate these animals. For his part, Acco still remembered his capture, even though it had happened nearly a decade before. Whenever Steve went into his enclosure, Acco would stalk him and strike, exploding out of the water with the intent to catch Steve unaware. Despite the conflict in Steve’s soul over whether he had done the right thing, I decided that Acco’s capture had to be. In the zoo, Acco had his own territory to patrol and a beautiful female crocodile, Connie, who loved him dearly. Left in the wild, somebody would have eventually shot him. If the choice is between a bullet and living in the Crocodile Environmental Park, I think his new territory was much more preferable. When I met Steve in 1991, he had just emerged from a solid decade in the bush, either with Bob or on his own, with just his dog Chilli, and later Sui. Those years had been like a test of fire. As a boy all Steve wanted to do was to be like his dad. At twenty-nine he’d become like Bob and then some. He had done so much more than catch crocs. In the western deserts, he and Bob helped researchers from the Queensland Museum understand the intricacies of fierce snake behavior. Steve also embarked on a behavioral study of a rare and little-understood type of arboreal lizard, the canopy goanna, scrambling up into trees in the rain forests of Cape York Peninsula in pursuit of herpetological knowledge. As much as Steve had become a natural for television, over the course of the 1980s he had become a serious naturalist as well. His hands-on experience, gleaned from years in the bush, meshed well with the more abstract knowledge of the academics. No one had ever accomplished what he had, tracking and trapping crocodiles for months at a time on his own. He would hand Bindi and Robert his knowledge of nature and the bush, just as Bob and Lyn had handed it down to him. This is what few people understood about Steve--his relationship with his family, and the tradition of passion and commitment and understanding that passed from generation to generation. Later on, that Irwin family tradition would bring Steve untold grief, when outsiders misjudged his effort to educate his children and crucified him for it.

I really can’t say why I did it, exactly. It was a mix of things. I had these feelings that I couldn’t express. I hated who I was, I was pathetic, I was this incomplete person, something wasn’t right with me, everybody else seemed to take things in their stride but it felt harder for me, I wanted to send a message to people, I wanted to send a message to myself, I wanted somebody to help me, I wanted me to help me, but there was no reason for me to get special treatment and I was sorry for everything and I was angry, angry at myself and angry with people and angry with how things were, but it wasn’t normal anger, it was something else, it was a sad anger. I didn’t know what it was.

I hate war. Everything is bad about war. Pain, wounds, death, loss, tears and cruel memories for all life. But, once somebody told me, when everything is going negative, try to find out something positive there and this is life. Nowadays, everything is going badly in this world, but maybe after the Ukraine and Russia conflict one thing has been settled down. Maybe now no country will give their soil to illegitimate partners to use for terror against neighbouring countries.

The Feedback Loop from Hell There’s an insidious quirk to your brain that, if you let it, can drive you absolutely batty. Tell me if this sounds familiar to you: You get anxious about confronting somebody in your life. That anxiety cripples you and you start wondering why you’re so anxious. Now you’re becoming anxious about being anxious. Oh no! Doubly anxious! Now you’re anxious about your anxiety, which is causing more anxiety. Quick, where’s the whiskey? Or let’s say you have an anger problem. You get pissed off at the stupidest, most inane stuff, and you have no idea why. And the fact that you get pissed off so easily starts to piss you off even more. And then, in your petty rage, you realize that being angry all the time makes you a shallow and mean person, and you hate this; you hate it so much that you get angry at yourself. Now look at you: you’re angry at yourself getting angry about being angry. Fuck you, wall. Here, have a fist. Or you’re so worried about doing the right thing all the time that you become worried about how much you’re worrying. Or you feel so guilty for every mistake you make that you begin to feel guilty about how guilty you’re feeling. Or you get sad and alone so often that it makes you feel even more sad and alone just thinking about it.

The real question for me becomes: What is a practice, and what is a religion? A practice is a living thing. I feel like religion in some ways--and I hate to say it--is dead. It's dead because it's not evolving. Religion implies an agreed-upon creed, and somebody is in charge. If you're doing something because someone told you that's how it's supposed to be done, but it doesn't feel good to you, then you're still being led by someone else versus being led by your own self-direction and standing in your own power of growth, intelligence, understanding, and compassion. And that's what a spiritual practice is. It's self-directed.

I want to start everything in New, what's the bad point?? I don't want to have problems with people which we can be friends or nothing, but not argue as before. What's the purpose what did you gain??? Points?? Money?? PS3??? Xbox??? Nothing just useless and making troubles with people, if we must discuss something let's to be about the fucking Bulgarian Schools, talk about them, I hate them as much as you hate them, I hate the Bulgarian as much as you hate them, I hate the fucking teachers in the fucking schools with which just have fucking problems. How can somebody joke with your spelling or with your mistakes for months???? ... What more to tell you??? That I'm sorry that I'm a Bulgarian guy, because I'm sorry, I can't live with this fucking people, what do they created??? Nothing just staying home and jerkoff non-stop, very creative! And guest what happened??? Here come the "?" people which are terrorists in france and have killed a lot of people and here will be planed the same....,what more only the thought that somebody has graduated from the best school existed in Bulgaria and to have fails with the writing like making so easy mistakes that nobody will make ever, to make mess on the sheets and many other things and this on very important day. A day in which you choose the president or the pre-minister or some kind like this, which is important. I'm very sorry that I'm Bulgarian guy, I don't want to be the cases are this, I want to be an American or a guy from Great Britain, but whatever to be, but to know this language. All people use it, and we are the only people which or some others as one User said that France and Germany are also with the worst English in case that Germany words are like English, but little fucked like spelled and written different like Sänger - singer songster schreiben WOw, this is really fucked just look how arae spelled how are written little like joking with English, aren't they??? If they aren't okay, that's your opinion _ I don't have something against it! If there was chance to be other race no matter what American guy or whatever ot to change my country ot my native language I will do it. If there is chance to and learn English, I go and learnt it without giving and shit about the fucking Bulgarian, I won't call my parents, friends and everything, just everything will be mainly for learning English the best way as possible. I fill fucked there are people which can't read, english, to don't talk about bulgarian, all day I'm seeing how mass media brain washes. I don't see how can be improved Bulgaria it's a fail I know why Adolf Hitler wanted to destroyed it and why Churchill Wanted also, I'm not sure about Churchill, but for HItler I'm sure that he wanted to kill us because of that, whatever you understand me what level we are as nation. I hate the fucking Bulgarian people what to learn from them to joke with people badly??? Very Creative??? To jerkoff all time and to don't give a damn shit about the things around the world?? Or to be with friends which can't think or people which are so much stupid that I'm sorry about them... Whatever, read it if you want if you don't want don't read it, but first check it before you block me. Thank you I appreciate your reading!

Six million is only a number. But each was somebody's mother, someday's child, somebody's lover, somebody's bride. Potyo was just thirteen; she was my sister. She had the wisdom of a child of war. She was full of fear, yet tiptoed with tenderness, laughter, and love in a world of madmen. She was a weeping willow, a song of sorrow, a poem of infinite beauty. "Why does Hitler hate me? Why does he love hate, Mama?" I am only thirteen; I have songs yet to learn, games yet to play. Give me time to live, give me time to die. Mama, how can I do all the living in just an inch of time?

What has put that look on your face, Sophie?” “What look?” She laid the child in the cradle where Vim had set it near the hearth. “Like you just lost your best friend.” “I was thinking of fostering Kit.” And just like that, she was blinking back tears. She tugged the blankets up around the baby, who immediately set about kicking them away. “Naughty baby,” she whispered. “You’ll catch a chill.” “Sophie?” A large male hand landed on her shoulder. “Sophie, look at me.” She shook her head and tried again to secure Kit’s blankets. “My dear, you are crying.” Another hand settled on the opposite shoulder, and now the kindness was palpable in his voice. Vim turned her gently into his embrace and wrapped both arms around her. It wasn’t a careful, tentative hug. It was a secure embrace. He wasn’t offering her a fleeting little squeeze to buck her up, he was holding her, his chin propped on her crown, the entire solid length of his body available to her for warmth and support. Which had the disastrous effect of turning a trickle of tears into a deluge. “I can’t keep him.” She managed four words around the lump in her throat. “To think of him being passed again into the keeping of strangers… I can’t…” “Hush.” He held a hanky up to her nose, one laden with the bergamot scent she already associated with him. For long minutes, Sophie struggled to regain her equilibrium while Vim stroked his hand slowly over her back. “Babies do this,” Vim said quietly. “They wear you out physically and pluck at your heartstrings and coo and babble and wend their way into your heart, and there’s nothing you can do stop it. Nobody is asking you to give the child up now.” “They won’t have to ask. In my position, I can’t be keeping somebody else’s castoff—” She stopped, hating the hysterical note that had crept into her voice and hating that she might have just prompted the man to whom she was clinging to ask her what exactly her position was. “Kit is not a castoff. He’s yours, and you’re keeping him. Maybe you will foster him elsewhere for a time, but he’ll always be yours too.” She didn’t quite follow the words rumbling out of him. She focused instead on the feel of his arms around her, offering support and security while she parted company temporarily with her dignity. “You are tired, and that baby has knocked you off your pins, Sophie Windham. You’re borrowing trouble if you try to sort out anything more complicated right now than what you’ll serve him for dinner.” She’d grown up with five brothers, and she’d watched her papa in action any number of times. She knew exactly what Vim was up to, but she took the bait anyway. “He loved the apples.” This time when Vim offered her his handkerchief, she took it, stepping back even as a final sigh shuddered through her. “He

Only love can dispel hate From Satsang with Giten on Buddha, November 12, 2015, in Stockholm Buddha says: SPEAK OR ACT WITH AN IMPURE MINDAND TROUBLE WILL FOLLOW YOUAS THE WHEEL FOLLOWS THE OX THAT DRIVES THE CART When Buddha uses the concept "impure mind", he means mind. Mind is impure, and no-mind is pure. SPEAK OR ACT WITH AN IMPURE MIND means to speak or act from the mind. AND TROUBLE WILL FOLLOW YOU means that misery and suffering is the result of the mind, because the mind means unawareness. Mind will bring trouble and suffering as certain AS THE WHEEL FOLLOWS THE OX THAT DRIVES THE CART. WE ARE WHAT WE THINK ALL THAT WE ARE ARISES WITH OUR THOUGHTS SPEAK OR ACT WITH A PURE MIND AND HAPPINESS WILL FOLLOW YOU AS YOUR SHADOW, UNSHAKABLE When Buddha says "pure mind", he means no-mind, awareness. Happiness will follow you if you have a pure mind or no-mind. Suffering is a result of mind, of unawareness, happiness is a result of no-mind, of awareness. Happiness cannot be searched for directly, happiness can only be found if you do not search it directly. On the contrary, you have to search for awareness. When awareness comes, happiness comes of its own accord. "LOOK HOW HE ABUSED ME AND BEAT ME, HOW HE THREW ME DOWN AND ROBBED ME" LIVE WITH SUCH THOUGHTS AND YOU LIVE IN HATE "LOOK HOW HE ABUSED ME AND BEAT ME HOW HE THREW ME DOWN AND ROBBED ME" ABANDON SUCH THOUGHTS AND LIVE IN LOVE Fear and hate exists in the past and the future, love exists in the moment, in the here and now. Love exists in the present moment. Fear and hate has a reference in the past. Somebody has abused you in the past, and you are carrying it like a wound. Fear and hate is a limitation. If you hate somebody, you also create a hate in the heart of that person towards you. The world lives in fear, hate, destructiveness and violence. Hate creates hell on earth, love creates a paradise on earth. True love comes from your inner being. It is spontaneously welling up of joy, which has nothing to do with the past or the future. True love is in the moment. IN THIS WORLDHATE NEVER YET DISPELLED HATE ONLY LOVE DISPELS HATE THIS IS THE LAW ANCIENT AND INEXHAUSTIBLE Hate never dispels hate, darkness cannot dispel darkness. Only love can dispel hate. The eternal law is that only love dispels hate, only light dispels darkness. Bring light into a room and the darkness disappears by itself. How can you bring light into your own being? Through becoming silent, aware, awake and conscious. That is how to bring the light in. The moment you are aware and awake, hate will not be found. It is not possible to hate somebody with awareness. You can only hate somebody in unawareness. When you are conscious, hate disappears, when you are not conscious, then hate is there. Love and hate, light and darkness, cannot exist together, because hate is the absence of love, darkness is the absence of light. YOU TOO SHALL PASS AWAY KNOWING THIS, HOW CAN YOU QUARREL We waste our life in quarreling, in conflict, when life is so short. Use your whole energy for awareness and meditation. Then you can become a light. Meditation will make you awake, because you will discover your inner being. Meditation brings an awakening. For the first time you will feel the truth of your own being.

I hate this whole damn place. I hate the fact that you have live toilet paper and that you eat dog crap and bug guts for dinner and drink woo that looks like blue Kool-aid and tastes like somebody lit a blowtorch in your mouth. I hate the fact that it’s so damned cold outside I can’t get away. So I’m trapped here with your aunt and uncle, who can’t stand me, because the live clothing they gave me to wear made a fool of me in front of their entire community. And now I’m stuck with a pet I don’t want for…how long do they live?” Sylvan cleared his throat. “The average tharp can live as long as its owner.” “For life.” Sophia threw up her hands. “I’m stuck with a horrible, badly behaved pet I don’t want for the rest of my life! I hate it, Sylvan. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. And I just…just want to go home.” The last word ended on a sob and she buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with the force of her tears. “Talana…” Sylvan put a hand on her shoulder but she shrugged it off. “Just go away and leave me alone,” she whispered brokenly. “Go back to Feenah—that’s where you want to be.” “That isn’t true,” Sylvan said in a low voice. “Of