“
I love all the girls who have my song on their myspaces. I love the people who come to my shows and put the pictures on here. I love the people at those shows who sing along with me. I love reading your stories in emails, some so touching they've given me chills. I love every single person who has wanted my autograph, because for the life of me I never really thought it would mean something to someone for me to write my name down. I love the little girls who stand in line with their mothers like I used to do. That was me. I love the couple who danced to my song at their wedding. Every comment, letter, and message. I love people who listen to the radio. I love every single person who is reading this, because you've let me into your life.
I love you all so much, I just wanted you to know.
”
”
Taylor Swift
“
They were frightening enough, but Tessa could not help but feel that if Will were there, he would have commented that they looked like turnips, and perhaps made up a song about it.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3))
“
„You're Ned Stark's bastard, aren't you?“
Jon felt a coldness pass right through him. He pressed his lips together and said nothing.
„Did I offend you?“ Lannister said. „Sorry. Dwarfs don't have to be tactful. Generations of capering fools in motley have won me the right to dress badly and say any damn thing that comes into my head.“ He grinned. „You are the bastard, though.“
„Lord Eddard Stark is my father,“ Jon admitted stiffly.
Lannister studied his face. „Yes,“ he said. „I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers.“
„Half brothers,“ Jon corrected. He was pleased by the dwarf's comment, but he tried not to let it show.
„Let me give you some counsel, bastard,“ Lannister said. „Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strenght. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.“
Jon was in no mood for anyone's counsel. „What do you know about being a bastard?“
„All dwarfs are bastards in their father's eyes.“
„You are your mother's trueborn son of Lannister.“
„Am I?“ the dwarf replied, sardonic. „Do tell my lord father. My mother died birthing me, and he's never been sure.“
„I don't even know who my mother was,“ Jon said.
„Some woman, no doubt. Most of them are.“ He favored Jon with a rueful grin. „Remember this, boy. All dwarfs may be bastards, yet not all bastards need be dwarfs.“ And with that he turned and sauntered back into the feast, whistling a tune. When he opened the door, the light from within threw his shadow clear across the yard, and for just a moment Tyrion Lannister stood tall as a king.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
“
From Jess:
FANG.
I've commented your blog with my questions for THREE YEARS. You answer other people's STUPID questions but not MINE. YOU REALLY ASKED FOR IT, BUDDY. I'm just gonna comment with this until you answer at least one of my questions.
DO YOU HAVE A JAMAICAN ACCENT? No, Mon
DO YOU MOLT? Gross.
WHAT'S YOUR STAR SIGN? Dont know. "Angel what's my star sign?" She says Scorpio.
HAVE YOU TOLD JEB I LOVE HIM YET? No.
DOES NOT HAVING A POWER MAKE YOU ANGRY? Well, that's not really true...
DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THE SOULJA BOY? Can you see me doing the Soulja Boy?
DOES IGGY KNOW HOW TO DO THE SOULJA BOY? Gazzy does.
DO YOU USE HAIR PRODUCTS? No. Again,no.
DO YOU USE PRODUCTS ON YOUR FEATHERS? I don't know that they make bird kid feather products yet.
WHAT'S YOU FAVORITE MOVIE? There are a bunch
WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SONG? I don't have favorites. They're too polarizing.
WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SMELL? Max, when she showers.
DO THESE QUESTIONS MAKE YOU ANGRY? Not really.
IF I CAME UP TO YOU IN A STREET AND HUGGED YOU, WOULD YOU KILL ME? You might get kicked. But I'm used to people wanting me dead, so.
DO YOU SECRETLY WANT TO BE HUGGED? Doesn't everybody?
ARE YOU GOING EMO 'CAUSE ANGEL IS STEALING EVERYONE'S POWERS (INCLUDING YOURS)? Not the emo thing again.
WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD? Anything hot and delicious and brought to me by Iggy.
WHAT DID YOU HAVE FOR BREAKFAST THIS MORNING? Three eggs, over easy. Bacon. More Bacon. Toast.
DID YOU EVEN HAVE BREAKFAST THIS MORNING? See above.
DID YOU DIE INSIDE WHEN MAX CHOSE ARI OVER YOU? Dudes don't die inside.
DO YOU LIKE MAX? Duh.
DO YOU LIKE ME? I think you're funny.
DOES IGGY LIKE ME? Sure
DO YOU WRITE DEPRESSING POETRY? No.
IS IT ABOUT MAX? Ahh. No.
IS IT ABOUT ARI? Why do you assume I write depressing poetry?
IS IT ABOUT JEB? Ahh.
ARE YOU GOING TO BLOCK THIS COMMENT? Clearly, no.
WHAT ARE YOU WEARING? A Dirty Projectors T-shirt. Jeans.
DO YOU WEAR BOXERS OR BRIEFS? No freaking comment.
DO YOU FIND THIS COMMENT PERSONAL? Could I not find that comment personal?
DO YOU WEAR SUNGLASSES? Yes, cheap ones.
DO YOU WEAR YOUR SUNGLASSES AT NIGHT? That would make it hard to see.
DO YOU SMOKE APPLES, LIKE US? Huh?
DO YOU PREFER BLONDES OR BRUNETTES? Whatever.
DO YOU LIKE VAMPIRES OR WEREWOLVES? Fanged creatures rock.
ARE YOU GAY AND JUST PRETENDING TO BE STRAIGHT BY KISSING LISSA? Uhh...
WERE YOU EXPERIMENING WITH YOUR SEXUALITY? Uhh...
WOULD YOU TELL US IF YOU WERE GAY? Yes.
DO YOU SECRETLY LIKE IT WHEN PEOPLE CALL YOU EMO? No.
ARE YOU EMO? Whatever.
DO YOU LIKE EGGS? Yes. I had them for breakfast.
DO YOU LIKE EATING THINGS? I love eating. I list it as a hobby.
DO YOU SECRETLY THINK YOU'RE THE SEXIEST PERSON IN THE WHOLE WORLD? Do you secretly think I'm the sexiest person in the whole world?
DO YOU EVER HAVE DIRTY THOUGHTS ABOUT MAX? Eeek!
HAS ENGEL EVER READ YOUR MIND WHEN YOU WERE HAVING DIRTY THOUGHT ABOUT MAX AND GONE "OMG" AND YOU WERE LIKE "D:"? hahahahahahahahahahah
DO YOU LIKE SPONGEBOB? He's okay, I guess.
DO YOU EVER HAVE DIRTY THOUGHT ABOUT SPONGEBOB? Definitely
CAN YOU COOK? Iggy cooks.
DO YOU LIKE TO COOK? I like to eat.
ARE YOU, LIKE, A HOUSEWIFE? How on earth could I be like a housewife?
DO YOU SECRETLY HAVE INNER TURMOIL?
Isn't it obvious?
DO YOU WANT TO BE UNDA DA SEA? I'm unda da stars.
DO YOU THINK IT'S NOT TOO LATE, IT'S NEVER TOO LATE? Sure.
WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO PLAY POKER? TV.
DO YOU HAVE A GOOD POKER FACE? Totally.
OF COURSE YOU HAVE A GOOD POKER FACE. DOES IGGY HAVE A GOOD POKER FACE? Yes.
CAN HE EVEN PLAY POKER? Iggy beats me sometimes.
DO YOU LIKE POKING PEOPLE HARD? Not really.
ARE YOU FANGALICIOUS? I could never be as fangalicious as you'd want me to be.
Fly on,
Fang
”
”
James Patterson (Fang (Maximum Ride, #6))
“
Never give anybody permission to disturb your peace.
Always ignore negative comment.
Dwell on positive thoughts and occupied your mind with songs of praise.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita
“
Many years ago a friend of mine, Kevin O'Niel made a very profound comment ...
The difference between the love of God and the love of man is that man loves people or things because they are precious: but God simply loves us - and by loving us makes us precious.
”
”
Kevin King (Transformed by Love: The Story of the Song of Solomon)
“
What she didn’t realise was smug smiles and shitty comments from people like her, was what fueled me to prove them wrong.
”
”
Rosie Weldon (My Autistic Fight Song: My Battle into Adulthood and the Workplace (Dear series))
“
Theon Greyjoy had once commented that Hodor did not know much, but no one could doubt that he knew his name. Old Nan had cackled like a hen when Bran told her that, and confessed that Hodor’s real name was Walder. No one knew where “Hodor” had come from, she said, but when he started saying it, they started calling him by it. It was the only word he had.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
“
The difference between Before and After is that today we need to safeguard our inner weirdo, seal it off and protect it from being buffeted. Learn an old torch song that nobody knows; read a musty, out-of-print detective novel; photograph a honey-perfect sunset and show it to no one. We may need to build new and stronger weirdo cocoons, in which to entertain our private selves. Beyond the sharing, the commenting, the constant thumbs-upping, beyond all that distracting gilt, there are stranger things waiting to be loved.
”
”
Michael Harris (Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World)
“
Many people in this room have an Etsy store where they create unique, unreplicable artifacts or useful items to be sold on a small scale, in a common marketplace where their friends meet and barter. I and many of my friends own more than one spinning wheel. We grow our food again. We make pickles and jams on private, individual scales, when many of our mothers forgot those skills if they ever knew them. We come to conventions, we create small communities of support and distributed skills--when one of us needs help, our village steps in. It’s only that our village is no longer physical, but connected by DSL instead of roads. But look at how we organize our tribes--bloggers preside over large estates, kings and queens whose spouses’ virtues are oft-lauded but whose faces are rarely seen. They have moderators to protect them, to be their knights, a nobility of active commenters and big name fans, a peasantry of regular readers, and vandals starting the occasional flame war just to watch the fields burn. Other villages are more commune-like, sharing out resources on forums or aggregate sites, providing wise women to be consulted, rabbis or priests to explain the world, makers and smiths to fashion magical objects. Groups of performers, acrobats and actors and singers of songs are traveling the roads once more, entertaining for a brief evening in a living room or a wheatfield, known by word of mouth and secret signal. Separate from official government, we create our own hierarchies, laws, and mores, as well as our own folklore and secret history. Even my own guilt about having failed as an academic is quite the crisis of filial piety--you see, my mother is a professor. I have not carried on the family trade.
We dwell within a system so large and widespread, so disorganized and unconcerned for anyone but its most privileged and luxurious members, that our powerlessness, when we can summon up the courage to actually face it, is staggering. So we do not face it. We tell ourselves we are Achilles when we have much more in common with the cathedral-worker, laboring anonymously so that the next generation can see some incremental progress. We lack, of course, a Great Work to point to and say: my grandmother made that window; I worked upon the door. Though, I would submit that perhaps the Internet, as an object, as an aggregate entity, is the cathedral we build word by word and image by image, window by window and portal by portal, to stand taller for our children, if only by a little, than it does for us. For most of us are Lancelots, not Galahads. We may see the Grail of a good Classical life, but never touch it. That is for our sons, or their daughters, or further off.
And if our villages are online, the real world becomes that dark wood on the edge of civilization, a place of danger and experience, of magic and blood, a place to make one’s name or find death by bear. And here, there be monsters.
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente
“
Mes amis, j'écris ce petit mot pour vous dire que je vous aime, que je pars avec la fierté de vous avoir connus, l'orgueil d'avoir été choisi et apprécié par vous, et que notre amitié fut sans doute la plus belle œuvre de ma vie. C'est étrange, l'amitié. Alors qu'en amour, on parle d'amour, entre vrais amis on ne parle pas d'amitié. L'amitié, on la fait sans la nommer ni la commenter. C'est fort et silencieux. C'est pudique. C'est viril. C'est le romantisme des hommes. Elle doit être beaucoup plus profonde et solide que l'amour pour qu'on ne la disperse pas sottement en mots, en déclarations, en poèmes, en lettres. Elle doit être beaucoup plus satisfaisante que le sexe puisqu'elle ne se confond pas avec le plaisir et les démangeaisons de peau. En mourant, c'est à ce grand mystère silencieux que je songe et je lui rends hommage.
Mes amis, je vous ai vus mal rasés, crottés, de mauvaise humeur, en train de vous gratter, de péter, de roter, et pourtant je n'ai jamais cessé de vous aimer. J'en aurais sans doute voulu à une femme de m'imposer toutes ses misères, je l'aurais quittée, insultée, répudiée. Vous pas. Au contraire. Chaque fois que je vous voyais plus vulnérables, je vous aimais davantage. C'est injuste n'est-ce pas? L'homme et la femme ne s'aimeront jamais aussi authentiquement que deux amis parce que leur relation est pourrie par la séduction. Ils jouent un rôle. Pire, ils cherchent chacun le beau rôle. Théâtre. Comédie. Mensonge. Il n'y a pas de sécurité en l'amour car chacun pense qu'il doit dissimuler, qu'il ne peut être aimé tel qu'il est. Apparence. Fausse façade. Un grand amour, c'est un mensonge réussi et constamment renouvelé. Une amitié, c'est une vérité qui s'impose. L'amitié est nue, l'amour fardé.
Mes amis, je vous aime donc tels que vous êtes.
”
”
Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt (La Part de l'autre)
“
This is nice,” Dylanna commented.
“Almost like old times,” Kamarie said.
“Almost,” Oraeyn chuckled, “except we’re not outside in that rain. We’re not hungry, wet, cold, or lost, and there are no enemies chasing us. Except for that, it’s exactly like old times!”
Kamarie chuckled. “You left out being terrified out of our minds.
”
”
Jenelle Leanne Schmidt (Minstrel's Call (The Minstrel's Song, #4))
“
Third, hear our loss of focus on the gospel in our songs. This is no comment on musical styles and tastes, but simply an observation about the lyrical content of much that is being sung in churches today. In many cases, congregations unwittingly have begun to sing about themselves and how they are feeling rather than about God and His glory.
”
”
Sinclair B. Ferguson (In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life)
“
When we hear the bird sing, it hears only how to love. (Quand on entend l'oiseau chanter, - Lui n'entend que comment aimer.)
”
”
Charles de Leusse
“
Comment avions-nous pu nous croire adultes?
”
”
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
“
Project Princess
Teeny feet rock
layered double socks
Popping side piping of
many colored loose lace ups
Racing toe keeps up with fancy free gear
slick slide and just pressed recently weaved hair
Jeans oversized belie her hips, back, thighs
that have made guys sigh
for milleni year
Topped by an attractive jacket
her suit’s not for flacking, flunkies, junkies
or punk homies on the stroll.
Her hands mobile thrones of today’s urban goddess
Clinking rings link dragon fingers
no need to be modest.
One or two gap teeth coolin’
sport gold initials
Doubt you get to her name
just check from the side
please chill.
Multidimensional shrimp earrings
frame her cinnamon face
Crimson with a compliment if a
comment hits the right place
Don’t step to the plate
with datelines from ‘88
Spare your simple, fragile feelings
with the same sense that you came
Color woman variation reworks the french twist
with crinkle cut platinum frosted bangs
from a spray can’s mist
Never dissed, she insists:
“No you can’t touch this.”
And, if pissed, bedecked fists
stop boys who must persist.
She’s the one. Give her some. Under fire. Smoking
gun. Of which songs
are sung, raps are spun, bells are rung, rocked, pistols
cocked, unwanted
advances blocked, well stacked she’s jock. It’s all
about you girl. You go
on. Don’t you dare stop.
”
”
Tracie Morris (Intermission)
“
When I commented that you seemed a poor sort of monster, your sister said, ‘He killed my mother,’ and twisted your little cock so hard I thought she was like to pull it off. You shrieked, but it was only when your brother Jaime said, ‘Leave him be, you’re hurting him,’ that Cersei let go of you. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she told us. ‘Everyone says he’s like to die soon. He shouldn’t even have lived this long.’
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3))
“
Cicadas," Poppy said. "This is the only place you'll see them in England. They're usually found only in the tropics. Only a male cicada makes that noise- it's said to be a mating song."
"How do you know he's not commenting on the weather?"
Sending him a provocative sideways glance, Poppy murmured, "Well, mating is rather a male preoccupation, isn't it?"
Harry smiled. "If there's a more interesting subject," he said, "I have yet to discover it.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Tempt Me at Twilight (The Hathaways, #3))
“
At the casting sessions it was all boys and though I wasn’t exactly bored I didn’t need to be there, and songs constantly floating in the car keep commenting on everything neutral encased within the windshield’s frame ( … one time you were blowing young ruffians … sung over the digital billboard on Sunset advertising the new Pixar movie) and the fear builds into a muted fury and then has no choice but to melt away into a simple and addictive sadness.
”
”
Bret Easton Ellis (Imperial Bedrooms)
“
Is it really ten ladies dancing?" Lillian asked him, and Swift grinned.
"My lady, I've never been able to remember any part of that song."
"You know," Annabelle said contemplatively, "I've always understood why the swans are swimming and the geese are a-laying. But why in heaven's name are the lords a-leaping?"
"They're chasing after the ladies," Swift said reasonably.
"Actually I believe the song was referring to Morris dancers, who used to entertain between courses at long medieval feasts," Daisy informed them.
"And it was a leaping sort of dance?" Lillian asked, intrigued.
"Yes, with longswords, after the manner of primitive fertility rites."
"A well-read woman is a dangerous creature," Swift commented with a grin, leaning down to press his lips against Daisy's dark hair.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (A Wallflower Christmas (Wallflowers, #4.5))
“
The sign in the parking lot next to a mini cliff said, "Danger Falling Rocks," so I commented, "Who's this band, Danger Falling? If they rock, how come I've never heard of them or heard them?" They can't be better than Bette Midler, or my ducks would sing them during karaoke.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Music is fluid, and my saxophone overflows when my ducks slosh in the sounds I make in elevators.)
“
You better keep your mouths shut if you know what's good for you."
Rider strolled up to her, a punch glass in each hand. "What's going on here? You look ready to take on Geronimo."
The girls giggled and moved off across the room. Rider frowned and glanced back at Willow. "Were they making fun of you?"
"Yes." Embarrased, she refrained from commenting on the topic of their taunts. "I'd like to slap their silly smiles off their silly faces," she hissed.
She took a step forward and, for a moment, Rider thought she meant to carry out her threat. He caught her arm. "Whoa, there.
”
”
Charlotte McPherren (Song of the Willow)
“
For a man who doesn’t woo women very often, you’re certainly doing a great job at it.”
“You like my woo?”
“It’s decent wood,” I say coyly.
“Is that a challenge? All right. But I have to warn you, you might not be prepared for the full Tucker Simms experience.”
“You make it seem like a ride at a theme park.”
“I’m not gonna touch that comment with a ten-foot pole.
”
”
Lauren Runow (Perfect Song (Mason Creek, #2))
“
I cannot explain to you how utterly crazy these comments by my
"punk family" made me feel. I had just seen the most important band in the world. All I wanted to do was to get their information so I could invite them to play at Reko Muse, All I wanted was to be near them. They were everything. I'd seen God and she was three women playing songs in a shack in the middle of nowhere.
”
”
Kathleen Hanna (Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk)
“
We went about our usual routines – combat practice, volleyball practice, archery practice, strawberry-picking practice (don’t ask), lava-wall-climbing practice … You’ll find we practise a lot here. We would have spent the evening in the usual way, too, with a campfire sing-along, if not for an offhand comment Nico di Angelo dropped at dinner. We were talking about what changes each of us would make if we ran the camp, and Nico said: ‘First thing I’d do is make sure the poor newbie demigods don’t have to suffer through the orientation film.’ All conversation stopped. ‘What orientation film?’ Will Solace asked. Nico looked puzzled. ‘You know …’ He glanced side to side, clearly uncomfortable with everybody watching him. Finally he cleared his throat and sang in a warbly voice to the tune of ‘The Hokey Cokey’: ‘It lets the demigods in! It shuts the monsters out! It keeps the half-bloods safe, but turns mortals all about! It’s Misty, and it’s magic, and it makes me want to shout: the border is all about!’ He punctuated the last line of the song with some half-hearted claps. We stared at him in stunned silence. ‘Nico.’ Will patted his boyfriend’s arm. ‘You’re scaring the other campers.’ ‘More than usual,’ Julia Feingold muttered
”
”
Rick Riordan (Camp Half-Blood Confidential (The Trials of Apollo))
“
LA ROSE ET LE RESADA
Celui qui croyait au ciel
Celui qui n'y croyait pas
Tous deux adoraient la belle
Prisonnière des soldats
Lequel montait à l'échelle
Et lequel guettait en bas
Celui qui croyait au ciel
Celui qui n'y croyait pas
Qu'importe comment s'appelle
Cette clarté sur leur pas
Que l'un fut de la chapelle
Et l'autre s'y dérobât
Celui qui croyait au ciel
Celui qui n'y croyait pas
Tous les deux étaient fidèles
Des lèvres du coeur des bras
Et tous les deux disaient qu'elle
Vive et qui vivra verra
Celui qui croyait au ciel
Celui qui n'y croyait pas
Quand les blés sont sous la grêle
Fou qui fait le délicat
Fou qui songe à ses querelles
Au coeur du commun combat
Celui qui croyait au ciel
Celui qui n'y croyait pas
Du haut de la citadelle
La sentinelle tira
Par deux fois et l'un chancelle
L'autre tombe qui mourra
Celui qui croyait au ciel
Celui qui n'y croyait pas
Ils sont en prison Lequel
A le plus triste grabat
Lequel plus que l'autre gèle
Lequel préfère les rats
Celui qui croyait au ciel
Celui qui n'y croyait pas
Un rebelle est un rebelle
Deux sanglots font un seul glas
Et quand vient l'aube cruelle
Passent de vie à trépas
Celui qui croyait au ciel
Celui qui n'y croyait pas
Répétant le nom de celle
Qu'aucun des deux ne trompa
Et leur sang rouge ruisselle
Même couleur même éclat
Celui qui croyait au ciel
Celui qui n'y croyait pas
Il coule il coule il se mêle
À la terre qu'il aima
Pour qu'à la saison nouvelle
Mûrisse un raisin muscat
Celui qui croyait au ciel
Celui qui n'y croyait pas
L'un court et l'autre a des ailes
De Bretagne ou du Jura
Et framboise ou mirabelle
Le grillon rechantera
Dites flûte ou violoncelle
Le double amour qui brûla
L'alouette et l'hirondelle
La rose et le réséda
”
”
Louis Aragon
“
When she finally opened them and took in the sight of the two men, a burble of silvery laughter spilled from her dusty lips. "You-you look like bandito snowmen from hell," she choked mirthfully. "And very old ones at that!"
Rider yanked his bandanna from his face, and she laughed even harder at his two-toned complexion.
Winking at Juan, Rider commented, "This is the thanks we get for coming to her rescue."
Juan chuckled. "Si, I think she deserves to have to gaze at herself in the mirror. She looks the bruja pequena, hey, compadre?"
"Little witch!" Willow blustered.
"Well,none of you are sitting on the furniture until you've cleaned up," Miriam interjected sternly.
Willow hurried to the sitting-room window, gasping at the sight of swirling, brownish-gray dirt and debris. "We might as well break out a deck of cards and take a seat on the floor because I think it's going to be awhile before we can get to the water pump and wash ourselves."
As if to confirm her words, a loud boom of thunder reverberated above the house. Seconds later, rain pelted the windowpane, and a jagged spear of lightning knifed through the riotus gloom. Willow automatically jumped back from the window, surprised when she stumbled over Rider's toes. He steadied her and she gave an embarrassed smile. "Sorry. I know darn well that lightning can't get to me in here, but it never fails to make me blink and jump."
Rider grinned down at her. "It's a natural reaction.If I'd been paying attention to the sky instead of you, I'd have jumped,too."
Willow flushed and glanced at Miriam, hoping her friend hadn't heard his candid remark. To her dismay, Miriam winked and smiled knowingly.
”
”
Charlotte McPherren (Song of the Willow)
“
Oh, Daisy, it’s revolting, the way I want to fawn all over him. I’m afraid that I’m going to do something dreadfully silly today. Burst into song or something. For God’s sake, don’t let me.”
“I won’t,” Daisy promised, smiling back at her. “Are you in love, then?”
“That word is not to be mentioned,” Lillian said swiftly. “Even if I were— and I am not admitting anything— I would never be the first to say it. It’s a matter of pride. And there’s every chance that he won’t say it back, but just respond with a polite ‘thank you,’ in which case I would have to murder him. Or myself.”
“I hope the earl is not equally as stubborn as you,” Daisy commented.
“He isn’t,” Lillian assured her. “Although he thinks he is.” Some private memory caused her to chortle, clasping a hand to her forehead. “Oh, Daisy,” she said with devilish glee, “I’m going to be such an abominable countess.”
“Let’s not put it that way,” Daisy said diplomatically. “Rather, we’ll say ‘unconventional countess.’ ”
“I can be any kind of countess I want,” Lillian said, half in delight, half in wonder. “Westcliff said so. And what’s more… I actually think he means it.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (It Happened One Autumn (Wallflowers, #2))
“
There's not a season set aside for pondering and reveries. It will not les us hesitate or rest; it does not wish us to stand back and comment on its comeliness or devise a song for it. It has no time to listen to our song. It only asks us not to tire in our hard work. It wants to see us leathery, our necks and fore-arms burnt as black as chimney oak; it wants to leave us thinned and sinewy from work. It taxes us from dawn to dusk, and torments us at night; that is the taxing that the thrush complains about. Our great task each and every year is to defend ourselves against hunger and defeat with implements and tools.
”
”
Jim Crace (Harvest)
“
LE FEU DES DIEUX
Ô vous-autres voyez comment les années tombent
toutes avec fracas et forment un nuage,
et l'oiseau sur sa branche se moque des rêves
de l'homme, tandis que tout expire comme des écailles.
Ce feu, que le propre Prométhée ne rédime pas,
douleur mise sur le front pour qu'elle soit éternelle,
ô voyez-le croître sur les ruines,
les cendres qui restent de son brasier muet.
Nous parcourons les heures sans regarder leur visage,
ces lèvres qui parfois nous appellent de si loin.
Ô si nous pouvions penser à l'autre songe
et si la flamme s'élevait enfin vers le repos
oscillant pour toujours au milieu de la Beauté !
”
”
Juan Rodolfo Wilcock
“
One night, having spent a few days in peaceful solitude with my thoughts, I walked under the stars and along the cobbled streets and an idea crept all over me like arresting, vibrant blooms of wisteria. I don’t need a dazzlingly charismatic musician to write a line about me in a song. I don’t need a guru to tell me things about myself I think I don’t know. I don’t need to cut all my hair off because a boy told me it would suit me. I don’t need to change my shape to make myself worthy of
someone’s love. I don’t need any words or looks or comments from a man to believe I’m visible; to believe I’m here. I don’t need to run away from discomfort and into a male eyeline. That’s not where I come alive.
Because I am enough. My heart is enough. The stories and the sentences twisting around my mind are enough. I am fizzing and frothing and buzzing and exploding. I’m bubbling over and burning up. My early-morning walks and my late-night baths are enough. My loud laugh at the pub is enough. My piercing whistle, my singing in the shower, my double-jointed toes are enough. I am a just-pulled pint with a good, frothy head on it. I am my own universe; a galaxy; a solar system. I am the warm-up act, the main event and the backing singers.
And if this is it, if this is all there is – just me and the trees and the sky and the seas – I know now that that’s enough.
I am enough. I am enough.
”
”
Dolly Alderton (Everything I Know About Love)
“
He needs to be talked to."
"This is funny, but I know how to talk, too."
Brian swore under his breath. "He prefers singing."
"Excuse me?"
"I said,he prefers singing."
"Oh." Keeley tucked her tongue in her cheek. "Any particular tune? Wait, let me guess. Finnegan's Wake?" Brian''s steely-eyed stare had her laughing until she had to lean weakly against the gelding.The horse responded by twisting his head and trying to sniff her pockets for apples.
"It's a quick tune," Brian said coolly, "and he likes hearing his name."
"I know the chorus." Gamely Keeley struggled to swallow another giggle. "But I'm not sure I know all the words.There are several verses as I recall."
"Do the best you can," he muttered and strode off.His lips twitched as he heard her launch into the song about the Dubliner who had a tippling way.
When he reached Betty's box, he shook his head. "I should've known. If there's not a Grant one place, there's a Grant in another until you're tripping over them."
Travis gave Betty a last pat on the shoulder. "Is that Keeley I hear singing?"
"She's being sarcastic, but as long as the job's done. She's dug in her heels about grooming Finnegan."
"She comes by it naturally.The hard head as well as the skill."
"Never had so many owners breathing down my neck.We don't need them, do we, darling?" Brian laid his hands on Beetty's cheek, and she shook her head, then nibbled his hair.
"Damn horse has a crush on you."
"She may be your lady, sir, but she's my own true love.Aren't you beautiful, my heart?" He stroked, sliding into the Gaelic that had Betty's ears pricked and her body shifting restlessly.
"She likes being excited before a race," Brian murmured. "What do you call it-pumped up like your American football players.Which is a sport that eludes me altogether as they're gathered into circles discussing things most of the time instead of getting on with it."
"I heard you won the pool on last Monday nights game," Travis commented.
"Betting's the only thing about your football I do understand." Brian gathered her reins. "I'll walk her around a bit before we take her down. She likes to parade.You and your missus will want to stay close to the winner's circle."
Travis grinned at him. "We'll be watching from the rail."
"Let's go show off." Brian led Betty out.
”
”
Nora Roberts (Irish Rebel (Irish Hearts, #3))
“
But at least the voices are sexy, not twangy.” “So it’s not what someone says, it’s how they say it?” “Exactly.” My head bobbed in an exaggerated nod. “So I could call you a whore, and tell you to bend over while I snort a line off your sweet ass with a hundred dollar bill before I fuck you, and if I said it in the right voice it would sound sexy to you?” “Pfft … no.” I rolled my eyes. Then, of course, I wondered if the “sweet ass” comment was literal or just a lyrical example. Okay, it might have sounded sexy to me. I wasn’t going to ask him to actually say that in his sexiest voice, but it sure left me thinking about the songs I liked. Then I focused on the actual lyrics … yeah, he could have said that to me and made me want to let him do it. The religious sector was right: music was corrupting young minds, and I was one of them. A unique and catchy beat could make people dance and celebrate some really terrible shit.
”
”
Jewel E. Ann (One)
“
September 19 “The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17 WHAT a word is this! Jehovah God in the centre of his people in all the majesty of his power! This presence alone suffices to inspire us with peace and hope. Treasures of boundless might are stored in our Jehovah, and he dwells in his church, therefore may his people shout for joy. We not only have his presence, but he is engaged upon his choice work of salvation. “He will save.” He is always saving: he takes his name of Jesus from it. Let us not fear any danger, for he is mighty to save. Nor is this all. He abides evermore the same; he loves, he finds rest in loving, he will not cease to love. His love gives him joy. He even finds a theme for song in his beloved. This is exceedingly wonderful. When God wrought creation he did not sing, but simply said, “It is very good;” but when he came to redemption, then the sacred Trinity felt a joy to be expressed in song. Think of it, and be astonished! Jehovah Jesus sings a marriage song over his chosen bride. She is to him his love, his joy, his rest, his song. O Lord Jesus, by thine immeasurable love to us teach us to love thee, to rejoice in thee, and to sing unto thee our life-psalm.
”
”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (The Chequebook of the Bank of Faith: Precious Promises Arranged for Daily Use with Brief Comments)
“
During the 2016 US presidential campaign, the hatred shown toward Hillary Clinton far outstripped even the most virulent criticisms that could legitimately be pinned on her. She was linked with “evil” and widely compared to a witch, which is to say that she was attacked as a woman, not as a political leader. After her defeat, some of those critics dug out the song “Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead,” sung in The Wizard of Oz to celebrate the Witch of the East’s death—a jingle already revived in the UK at the time of Margaret Thatcher’s death in 2013. This reference was brandished not only by Donald Trump’s electors, but also by supporters of Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s main rival in the primaries. On Sanders’ official site, a fundraising initiative was announced under the punning title “Bern the Witch”—an announcement that the Vermont senator’s campaign team took down as soon as it was brought to his attention. Continuing this series of limp quips, the conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh quipped, “She’s a witch with a capital B”—he can’t have known that, at the Salem witch trials in the seventeenth century, a key figure had already exploited this consonance by calling his servant, Sarah Churchill, who was one of his accusers, “bitch witch.” In reaction, female Democrat voters started sporting badges calling themselves “Witches for Hillary” or “Hags for Hillary.”48
”
”
Mona Chollet (In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial)
“
Mais les signes de ce qui m'attendait réellement, je les ai tous négligés. Je travaille mon diplôme sur le surréalisme à la bibliothèque de Rouen, je sors, je traverse le square Verdrel, il fait doux, les cygnes du bassin ont reparu, et d'un seul coup j'ai conscience que je suis en train de vivre peut-être mes dernières semaines de fille seule, libre d'aller où je veux, de ne pas manger ce midi, de travailler dans ma chambre sans être dérangée. Je vais perdre définitivement la solitude. Peut-on s'isoler facilement dans un petit meublé, à deux. Et il voudra manger ses deux repas par jour. Toutes sortes d'images me traversent. Une vie pas drôle finalement. Mais je refoule, j'ai honte, ce sont des idées de fille unique, égocentrique, soucieuse de sa petite personne, mal élevée au fond. Un jour, il a du travail, il est fatigué, si on mangeait dans la chambre au lieu d'aller au restau. Six heures du soir cours Victor-Hugo, des femmes se précipitent aux Docks, en face du Montaigne, prennent ci et ça sans hésitation, comme si elles avaient dans la tête toute la programmation du repas de ce soir, de demain peut-être, pour quatre personnes ou plus aux goûts différents. Comment font-elles ? [...] Je n'y arriverai jamais. Je n'en veux pas de cette vie rythmée par les achats, la cuisine. Pourquoi n'est-il pas venu avec moi au supermarché. J'ai fini par acheter des quiches lorraines, du fromage, des poires. Il était en train d'écouter de la musique. Il a tout déballé avec un plaisir de gamin. Les poires étaient blettes au coeur, "tu t'es fait entuber". Je le hais. Je ne me marierai pas. Le lendemain, nous sommes retournés au restau universitaire, j'ai oublié. Toutes les craintes, les pressentiments, je les ai étouffés. Sublimés. D'accord, quand on vivra ensemble, je n'aurai plus autant de liberté, de loisirs, il y aura des courses, de la cuisine, du ménage, un peu. Et alors, tu renâcles petit cheval tu n'es pas courageuse, des tas de filles réussissent à tout "concilier", sourire aux lèvres, n'en font pas un drame comme toi. Au contraire, elles existent vraiment. Je me persuade qu'en me mariant je serai libérée de ce moi qui tourne en rond, se pose des questions, un moi inutile. Que j'atteindrai l'équilibre. L'homme, l'épaule solide, anti-métaphysique, dissipateur d'idées tourmentantes, qu'elle se marie donc ça la calmera, tes boutons même disparaîtront, je ris forcément, obscurément j'y crois. Mariage, "accomplissement", je marche. Quelquefois je songe qu'il est égoïste et qu'il ne s'intéresse guère à ce que je fais, moi je lis ses livres de sociologie, jamais il n'ouvre les miens, Breton ou Aragon. Alors la sagesse des femmes vient à mon secours : "Tous les hommes sont égoïstes." Mais aussi les principes moraux : "Accepter l'autre dans son altérité", tous les langages peuvent se rejoindre quand on veut.
”
”
Annie Ernaux (A Frozen Woman)
“
Mom,” Vaughn said. “I’m sure Sidney doesn’t want to be interrogated about her personal life.”
Deep down, Sidney knew that Vaughn—who’d obviously deduced that she’d been burned in the past—was only trying to be polite. But that was the problem, she didn’t want him to be polite, as if she needed to be shielded from such questions. That wasn’t any better than the damn “Poor Sidney” head-tilt.
“It’s okay, I don’t mind answering.” She turned to Kathleen. “I was seeing someone in New York, but that relationship ended shortly before I moved to Chicago.”
“So now that you’re single again, what kind of man are you looking for? Vaughn?” Kathleen pointed. “Could you pass the creamer?”
He did so, then turned to look once again at Sidney. His lips curved at the corners, the barest hint of a smile. He was daring her, she knew, waiting for her to back away from his mother’s questions.
She never had been very good at resisting his dares.
“Actually, I have a list of things I’m looking for.” Sidney took a sip of her coffee.
Vaughn raised an eyebrow. “You have a list?”
“Yep.”
“Of course you do.”
Isabelle looked over, surprised. “You never told me about this.”
“What kind of list?” Kathleen asked interestedly.
“It’s a test, really,” Sidney said. “A list of characteristics that indicate whether a man is ready for a serious relationship. It helps weed out the commitment-phobic guys, the womanizers, and any other bad apples, so a woman can focus on the candidates with more long-term potential.”
Vaughn rolled his eyes. “And now I’ve heard it all.”
“Where did you find this list?” Simon asked. “Is this something all women know about?”
“Why? Worried you won’t pass muster?” Isabelle winked at him.
“I did some research,” Sidney said. “Pulled it together after reading several articles online.”
“Lists, tests, research, online dating, speed dating—I can’t keep up with all these things you kids are doing,” Adam said, from the head of the table. “Whatever happened to the days when you’d see a girl at a restaurant or a coffee shop and just walk over and say hello?”
Vaughn turned to Sidney, his smile devilish. “Yes, whatever happened to those days, Sidney?”
She threw him a look. Don’t be cute. “You know what they say—it’s a jungle out there. Nowadays a woman has to make quick decisions about whether a man is up to par.” She shook her head mock reluctantly. “Sadly, some guys just won’t make the cut.”
“But all it takes is one,” Isabelle said, with a loving smile at her fiancé.
Simon slid his hand across the table, covering hers affectionately. “The right one.”
Until he nails his personal trainer. Sidney took another sip of her coffee, holding back the cynical comment. She didn’t want to spoil Isabelle and Simon’s idyllic all-you-need-is-love glow.
Vaughn cocked his head, looking at the happy couple. “Aw, aren’t you two just so . . . cheesy.”
Kathleen shushed him. “Don’t tease your brother.”
“What? Any moment, I’m expecting birds and little woodland animals to come in here and start singing songs about true love, they’re so adorable.”
Sidney laughed out loud. Quickly, she bit her lip to cover.
”
”
Julie James (It Happened One Wedding (FBI/US Attorney, #5))
“
Based on a 1934 play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, Merrily We Roll Along tells the story of three friends—Franklin Shepard, a composer; Charley Kringas, a playwright and lyricist; and Mary Flynn, a novelist—who meet in the enthusiasm of youth, when everything seems possible. The play traces what happens to their dreams and goals as time passes and they are faced with life’s surprises, travails, successes, and disappointments. The trick here is that the play moves chronologically backward. It begins on an evening in 1976 at a party for the opening of a movie Frank has produced. The movie is apparently a hit, but Frank’s personal life is a mess. His second wife, Gussie, formerly a Broadway star, was supposed to have starred in the movie but was deemed too old; she resents being in the shadows and suspects, correctly, that Frank is having an affair with the young actress who took over her part. Frank is estranged from his son from his first marriage. He is also estranged from Charley, his former writing partner—so estranged, in fact, that the very mention of his name brings the party to an uncomfortable standstill. Mary, unable to re-create the success of her one and only novel and suffering from a longtime unreciprocated love for Frank, has become a critic and a drunk; the disturbance she causes at the party results in a permanent break with Frank. The opening scene reaches its climax when Gussie throws iodine in the eyes of Frank’s mistress. The ensemble, commenting on the action much like the Greek chorus in Allegro, reprises the title song, asking, “How did you get to be here? / What was the moment?” (F 387). The play then moves backward in time as it looks for the turning points, the places where multiple possibilities morphed into narrative necessity.
”
”
Robert L. McLaughlin (Stephen Sondheim and the Reinvention of the American Musical)
“
Are you sorry it happened?” Her fingers clenched as she waited tensely for his answer.
“Good Lord, no.” He brought her small fist to his mouth and kissed it open, and flattened her palm against the side of his face. “It’s what I’ve wanted most in my entire life. And the one thing I knew I could never have. I’m surprised. Shocked, even. But never sorry.”
Daisy turned and snuggled against him, sandwiching one of his thighs between her own.
The rain beat out a brisk song against the side of the house, some of it coming through the window. Considering the idea of getting out of bed, Daisy shivered a little, and felt Matthew draw the covers higher over her bare shoulder.
“Daisy,” he asked without heat, “where is the damn key?”
“I put it in your coat pocket,” she said helpfully. “Didn’t you see? No?…well, I suppose you were distracted at the time.” She trailed her hand over his chest, letting her palm graze the point of his nipple. “You’re probably angry with me for locking us in the bedroom.”
“Enraged,” he agreed. “I insist you do it every night after we’re married.”
“Are we going to get married?” Daisy whispered, raising her head.
His eyes were warm, but there was no hint of pleasure in his voice. “Yes, we’re going to marry. Although you’ll probably hate me for it someday.”
“Why in the world would I…oh.” Daisy remembered what he had told her about the likelihood of his past catching up to him someday. “I could never hate you,” she said. “And I’m not afraid of your secrets, Matthew. Whatever comes, I’ll face it with you. Although you should know I find it exasperating when you throw out comments like that and refuse to explain.”
There was a sudden catch of laughter in his chest. “That’s only one of many reasons you find me exasperating.”
“True.” She crawled on top of him and nuzzled his chest like an inquisitive kitten. “But I like exasperating men much more than the nice ones.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Scandal in Spring (Wallflowers, #4))
“
Willow chuckled as all up and down Allen Street lights began to glow through every window. Someone in a room down the hall lifted their window threw a chamber pot at the crooners, and followed it with a foul epithet. Undaunted, the men broke into a chorus of Aura Lea.
“They sure have lousy timing,” Rider commented wryly. “Just how long does this little serenade last?”
Seeing a tall figure in a long frock coat coming up the street, Willow replied, “I think it’s about to end very soon now.”
Virgil Earp’s face shone in the gaslight in front of the Grand. “All right, boys,” the couple heard him say, “the party’s over.” He looked up at Rider and Willow with a wide, winsome grin and waved. With that, he ushered the drunken serenaders down the street and into the saloon.
Rider turned from the window, shaking his head. “Now where were we? Ah, yes!” He swooped Willow off her feet and tossed her onto the huge bed.
“That’s not where we were.” She laughed.
“It’s where we were headed, lady, and that’s good enough for me.”
Pulling her up, he pulled the rumbled robe off her shoulders to reveal a floaty silk nightdress of aqua. Though it was entirely modest in design, the soft material hugged her curves enticingly. “Lord, woman, there ought to be a law against sheer nothings like this.”
Willow smiled seductively. “Do you like it?”
“So much that I’m going to strip it off you right now!”
Willow giggled and tried to escape, scrambling across the bed. She was quickly foiled by yards of silk tangling about her legs.
Rider wasn’t one to waste opportunities and dived onto the bed on top of her. “Ah-hah. I have you in my power now, my pretty!” he said, catching her hands above her head. Chuckling, Willow wiggled and squirmed beneath him in a halfhearted effort to free herself.
She watched fascinated as his eyes flamed with desire. Her voice was breathy and provocative. “Who’s got who, villain? I think I’ve got you.
”
”
Charlotte McPherren (Song of the Willow)
“
I don’t believe in love that never ends,” said Aiden, his whisper clear and distinct. “I don’t believe in being true until death or finding the other half of your soul.”
Harvard raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. Privately, he considered that it might be good that Aiden hadn’t delivered this speech to this guy he apparently liked so much—whom Aiden had never even mentioned to his best friend before now. This speech was not romantic.
Once again, Harvard had to wonder if what he’d been assuming was Aiden’s romantic prowess had actually been many guys letting Aiden get away with murder because he was awfully cute.
But Aiden sounded upset, and that spoke to an instinct in Harvard natural as breath. He put his arm around Aiden, and drew his best friend close against him, warm skin and soft hair and barely there shirt and all, and tried to make a sound that was more soothing than fraught.
“I don’t believe in songs or promises. I don’t believe in hearts or flowers or lightning strikes.” Aiden snatched a breath as though it was his last before drowning. “I never believed in anything but you.”
“Aiden,” said Harvard, bewildered and on the verge of distress. He felt as if there was something he wasn’t getting here.
Even more urgently, he felt he should cut off Aiden. It had been a mistake to ask. This wasn’t meant for Harvard, but for someone else, and worse than anything, there was pain in Aiden’s voice. That must be stopped now.
Aiden kissed him, startling and fierce, and said against Harvard’s mouth, “Shut up. Let me… let me.”
Harvard nodded involuntarily, because of the way Aiden had asked, unable to deny Aiden even things Harvard should refuse to give. Aiden’s warm breath was running down into the small shivery space between the fabric of Harvard’s shirt and his skin. It was panic-inducing, feeling all the impulses of Harvard’s body and his heart like wires that were not only crossed but also impossibly tangled. Disentangling them felt potentially deadly. Everything inside him was in electric knots.
“I’ll let you do anything you want,” Harvard told him, “but don’t—don’t—”
Hurt yourself. Seeing Aiden sad was unbearable. Harvard didn’t know what to do to fix it.
The kiss had turned the air between them into dry grass or kindling, a space where there might be smoke or fire at any moment. Aiden was focused on toying with the collar of Harvard’s shirt, Aiden’s brows drawn together in concentration. Aiden’s fingertips glancing against his skin burned.
“You’re so warm,” Aiden said. “Nothing else ever was. I only knew goodness existed because you were the best. You’re the best of everything to me.”
Harvard made a wretched sound, leaning in to press his forehead against Aiden’s.
He’d known Aiden was lonely, that the long line of guys wasn’t just to have fun but tied up in the cold, huge manor where Aiden had spent his whole childhood, in Aiden’s father with his flat shark eyes and sharp shark smile, and in the long line of stepmothers who Aiden’s father chose because he had no use for people with hearts. Harvard had always known Aiden’s father wanted to crush the heart out of Aiden. He’d always worried Aiden’s father would succeed.
Aiden said, his voice distant even though he was so close, “I always knew all of you was too much to ask for.”
Harvard didn’t know what to say, so he obeyed a wild foolish impulse, turned his face the crucial fraction toward Aiden’s, and kissed him. Aiden sank into the kiss with a faint sweet noise, as though he’d finally heard Harvard’s wordless cry of distress and was answering it with belated reassurance: No, I’ll be all right. We’re not lost.
The idea of anyone not loving Aiden back was unimaginable, but it had clearly happened. Harvard couldn’t think of how to say it, so he tried to make the kiss say it. I’m so sorry you were in pain. I never guessed. I’m sorry I can’t fix this, but I would if I could. He didn’t love you, but I do.
”
”
Sarah Rees Brennan (Striking Distance (Fence, #1))
“
Bang! Clang! Bang! Clangity bang, rat-a-tat! "Reuben, I have been thinking, what a good world this might be, if the men were all transported far beyond the Northern Sea."
"Oh,no!" Willow rose off Rider's lap so fast her forhead bumped his chin.
"What is that racket?" he asked, standing and following her to the window overlooking the street.
One corner of her mouth quirked in mock disgust. "Take a look for yourself."
Clangity bang! Rat-a-tat! The men below beat their pots and pans with wooden spoons and, in a couple cases, gun butts.
"Rachel, I have long been thinking, what a fine world this might be, if we had some more young ladies on the side of the Northern Sea. Too ral loo ral. Too ral lee."
"Looks like your brothers and the whole Niners team!" Rider laughed. "What are they doing?"
"Haven't you ever heard of being shivareed, husband?"
Outside the boisterous, drunken voices broke into another chorus of Reuben and Rachel. "Rachel, I will not trasport you,but will take you for a wife. We will live on milk and honey, better or worse we're in for life."
Willow chuckled as all up and down Allen Street lights began to glow through every window. Someone in a room down the hall lifted their window, threw a chamber pot at the crooners, and followed it with a foul epithet. Undaunted, the man broke into a chorus of Aura Lea.
"They sure have lousy timing," Rider commented wryly. "Just how long does this little serenade last?"
Seeing a tall figure in a long frock coat coming up the street, Willow replied, "I think it's about to end very soon now."
Virgil Earp's face shone in the gaslight in front of the Grand. "All right, boys," the couple heard him say, "the party's over." He looked up at Rider and Willow with a wide, winsome grin and waved. With that, he ushered the drunken serenaders down the street and into a saloon.
Rider turned from the window, shaking his head. "Now where were we? Ah,yes!" he swooped Willow off her feet and tossed her onto the huge bed.
"That's not where we were." She laughed.
"It's where we were headed, lady, and that's good enough for me.
”
”
Charlotte McPherren (Song of the Willow)
“
Le dément
- N'avez-vous pas entendu parler de ce dément qui, dans la clarté de midi alluma une lanterne, se précipita au marché et cria sans discontinuer : « Je cherche Dieu ! Je cherche Dieu ! »
–Étant donné qu'il y avait justement là beaucoup de ceux qui ne croient pas en Dieu, il déchaîna un énorme éclat de rire. S'est-il donc perdu ? disait l'un. S'est-il égaré comme un enfant ? disait l'autre. Ou bien s'est-il caché ? A-t-il peur de nous ? S'est-il embarqué ? A-t-il émigré ?–ainsi criaient-ils en riant dans une grande pagaille. Le dément se précipita au milieu d'eux et les transperça du regard.
« Où est passé Dieu ? lança-t-il, je vais vous le dire ! Nous l'avons tué,–vous et moi ! Nous sommes tous ses assassins ! Mais comment avons-nous fait cela ? Comment pûmes-nous boire la mer jusqu'à la dernière goutte ? Qui nous donna l'éponge pour faire disparaître tout l'horizon ? Que fîmes-nous en détachant cette terre de son soleil ? Où l'emporte sa course désormais ? Où nous emporte notre course ? Loin de tous les soleils ? Ne nous abîmons-nous pas dans une chute permanente ? Et ce en arrière, de côté, en avant, de tous les côtés ? Est-il encore un haut et un bas ? N'errons-nous pas comme à travers un néant infini ? L'espace vide ne répand-il pas son souffle sur nous ? Ne s'est-il pas mis à faire plus froid ? La nuit ne tombe-t-elle pas continuellement, et toujours plus de nuit ? Ne faut-il pas allumer des lanternes à midi ? N'entendons-nous rien encore du bruit des fossoyeurs qui ensevelissent Dieu ? Ne sentons-nous rien encore de la décomposition divine ?–les dieux aussi se décomposent ! Dieu est mort ! Dieu demeure mort ! Et nous l'avons tué ! Comment nous consolerons-nous, nous, assassins entre les assassins ? Ce que le monde possédait jusqu'alors de plus saint et de plus puissant, nos couteaux l'ont vidé de son sang,–qui nous lavera de ce sang ? Avec quelle eau pourrions-nous nous purifier ? Quelles cérémonies expiatoires, quels jeux sacrés nous faudra-t-il inventer ? La grandeur de cet acte n'est-elle pas trop grande pour nous ? Ne nous faut-il pas devenir nous-mêmes des dieux pour apparaître seulement dignes de lui ? Jamais il n'y eut acte plus grand,–et quiconque naît après nous appartient du fait de cet acte à une histoire supérieure à ce que fut jusqu'alors toute histoire ! »
Le dément se tut alors et considéra de nouveau ses auditeurs : eux aussi se taisaient et le regardaient déconcertés. Il jeta enfin sa lanterne à terre : elle se brisa et s'éteignit.
« Je viens trop tôt, dit-il alors, ce n'est pas encore mon heure. Cet événement formidable est encore en route et voyage,–il n'est pas encore arrivé jusqu'aux oreilles des hommes. La foudre et le tonnerre ont besoin de temps, la lumière des astres a besoin de temps, les actes ont besoin de temps, même après qu'ils ont été accomplis, pour être vus et entendus. Cet acte est encore plus éloigné d'eux que les plus éloignés des astres,–et pourtant ce sont eux qui l'ont accompli. »
On raconte encore que ce même jour, le dément aurait fait irruption dans différentes églises et y aurait entonné son Requiem aeternam deo. Expulsé et interrogé, il se serait contenté de rétorquer constamment ceci :
« Que sont donc encore ces églises si ce ne sont pas les caveaux et les tombeaux de Dieu ? »
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
“
People laugh about my poems my poems are elegant enough they don’t need Cheng Hsuan’s comments much less Mao Heng’s explanations I don’t mind few understand me those who know one’s voice are rare if we had no fa or sol my disease would surely spread one day I’ll meet someone with eyes then my poems will plague the world
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Cold Mountain (Han Shan) (The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain)
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Activities to Develop the Auditory System Simplify your language. Speak slowly, shorten your comments, abbreviate instructions, and repeat what you have said. Reinforce verbal messages with gestural communication: facial expressions, hand movements, and body language. Talk to your child while she dresses, eats, or bathes, to teach her words and concepts, such as nouns (sunglasses, casserole), body parts (thumb, buttocks), prepositions (around, through), adjectives (juicy, soapy), time (yesterday, later), categories (vegetables/fruits), actions (zip, scrub), and emotions (pleased, sorry). Share your own thoughts. Model good speech and communication skills. Even if the child has trouble responding verbally, she may understand what you say. Take the time to let your child respond to your words and express his thoughts. Don’t interrupt, rush, or pressure him to talk. Be an active listener. Pay attention. Look your child in the eye when she speaks. Show her that her thoughts interest you. Help your child communicate more clearly. If you catch one word, say, “Tell me more about the truck.” If you can’t catch his meaning, have him show you by gesturing. Reward her comments with smiles, hugs, and verbal praise, such as, “That’s a great idea!” Your positive feedback will encourage her to strive to communicate. (Don’t say, “Good talking,” which means little to the child and implies that all you care about is words, rather than the message the child is trying to get across.) Use rhythm and beat to improve the child’s memory. Give directions or teach facts with a “piggyback song,” substituting your words to a familiar tune. Example: To the tune of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” sing, “Now it’s time to wash your face, Brush your teeth, comb your hair, Now it’s time to put on clothes, So start with underwear!” Encourage your child to pantomime while listening to stories and poems, or to music without words. Read to your child every day!
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Carol Stock Kranowitz (The Out-of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Processing Disorder)
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Cicadas,” Poppy said. “This is the only place you’ll see them in England. They’re usually found only in the tropics. Only a male cicada makes that noise—it’s said to be a mating song.” “How do you know he’s not commenting on the weather?” Sending him a provocative sideways glance, Poppy murmured, “Well, mating is rather a male preoccupation, isn’t it?” Harry smiled. “If there’s a more interesting subject,” he said, “I have yet to discover it.
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Lisa Kleypas (Tempt Me at Twilight (The Hathaways, #3))
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That night, though, Mom was getting things ready for a party at the restaurant, so I had to bum a ride with Jack and Julie. Jack said they didn’t need a chaperon, but it was just talk. He always helped me when it mattered.
While we were waiting for Julie, I asked him about the one detail that was bothering me. “I’m supposed to meet her there,” I said. “Do I meet her inside the gym or outside?”
“Do you have a date or not?”
“More or less.”
Jack grinned and shook his head.
“Well, it’s not that simple,” I told him. “She can’t go out on dates, so she’s coming with her parents, and I’m supposed to meet her.”
Jack broke out laughing. “You’re singing the freshman blues again, Eddie. Everything ends up half-baked.”
“So where do I meet her on a half-baked date?”
“Inside,” he said. “That way you won’t have to pay for her ticket.”
“I don’t want to look like a cheapskate.”
“Why hide the truth? Besides, her parents are bringing her, right? You don’t want to meet her father, do you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Look, he’ll just shake your hand and give you a dirty look. That’s what freshman girls’ fathers always do.”
“Really?”
“So save the hassle and the money. Wait inside.”
I ended up waiting right inside the door. When Wendy and her father came in, she was careful to keep things looking casual. She pretended not to notice me at first, then said, “Oh, hi, Eddie,” and introduced me to her father as a boy in her algebra class. He shook my hand and gave me a dirty look.
For a minute I thought the three of us would end up sitting together, but her father decided not to join us in the student rooting section. Wendy and I found an empty bench in the bleachers and were alone for twenty or thirty seconds before two of her friends came along, then three of mine. Then some friends of theirs. And finally Wayne Parks squeezed into a spot on the bench behind us. All through the game he kept leaning forward and making comments like “Where’s the ref keep his Seeing Eye dog during the game?”
Even if Wendy and I hadn’t had an audience, we couldn’t have done much talking. During every time-out the Los Cedros Spirit Band, sitting three rows behind us, blasted us off the benches with fight songs.
To top things off, Wendy’s father sat across the aisle and stared at us all night. And the Los Cedros Panthers blew a six-point lead in the final minute and lost the game at the buzzer.
Before Wendy and I had our coats on, her father showed up beside us, mumbled, “Nice to meet you, Willy,” and led her away.
The night could have been worse, I guess. I didn’t break an ankle or choke on my popcorn or rip my pants. But I had a hard time being thankful for those small favors.
”
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P.J. Petersen (The Freshman Detective Blues)
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All those songs I used to pretend to understand, all the angsty, heartbroken songs I had heard all my life, they suddenly made so much more sense.
"Well, then she probably needs a giant coffee, a huge box of your creations, and some time to nurse her feelings in private, don't you think?"
Brantley Dane, local hero, saves girl from sure death brought on by sheer mortification.
That'd be his headline.
"Come on, sweetheart," he said, moving behind me, casually touching my hip in the process, and going behind counter. "What's your poison? Judging by the situation, I am thinking something cold, mocha or caramel filled and absolutely towering with full fat whipped cream."
That was exactly what I wanted.
But, broken heart aside, I knew I couldn't let myself drown in sweets. Gaining twenty pounds wasn't going to help anything.
There was absolutely no enthusiasm in my voice when I said, "Ah, actually, can I have a large black coffee with one sugar please?"
"Not that I'm not turned on as all fuck by a woman who appreciates black coffee," he started, making me jerk back suddenly at the bluntness of that comment and the dose of profanity I wasn't accustomed to hearing in my sleepy hometown. "But if you're only one day into a break-up, you're allowed to have some full fat chocolate concoction to indulge a bit. I promise from here on out I won't make you anything even half as food-gasm-ing as this." He leaned across the counter, getting close enough that I could see golden flecks in his warm brown eyes. "Honey, not even if you beg," he added and, if I wasn't mistaken, there was absolutely some kind of sexually-charged edge to his words.
"Say yes," he added, lips tipping up at one corner.
"Alright, yes," I agreed, knowing I would love every last drop of whatever he made me and likely punish myself with an extra long run for it too.
"Good girl," he said as he turned away.
And there was not, was absolutely not some weird fluttering feeling in my belly at that. Nope. That would be completely insane.
"Okay, I got you one of everything!" my mother said, coming up beside me and pressing the box into my hands. She even tied it with her signature (and expensive, something I had tried to talk her out of many times over the years when she was struggling financially) satin bow.
I smiled at her, knowing that sometimes, there was nothing liked baked goods from your mother after a hard day. I was just lucky enough to have a mother who was a pastry chef.
"Thanks, Mom," I said, the words heavy. I wasn't just thanking her for the sweets, but for letting me come home, for not asking questions, for not making it seem like even the slightest inconvenience.
She gave me a smile that said she knew exactly what I meant. "You have nothing to thank me for."
She meant that too. Coming from a family that, when they found out she was knocked up as a teen, had kicked her out and disowned her, she made it clear all my life that she was always there, no matter what I did with my life, no matter how high I soared, or how low I crashed. Her arms, her heart, and her door were always open for me.
"Alright. A large mocha frappe with full fat milk, full fat whipped cream, and both a mocha and caramel drizzle. It's practically dessert masked as coffee," Brantley said, making my attention snap to where he was pushing what was an obnoxiously large frappe with whipped cream that was towering out of the dome that the pink and sage straw stuck out of. "Don't even think about it, sweetheart," he said, shaking his head as I reached for my wallet.
"Thank you," I smiled, and found that it was a genuine one as I reached for it and, in a move that was maybe not brilliant on my part, took a sip. And proceeded to let out an almost porn-star worthy groan of pure, delicious pleasure.
Judging by the way Brant's smile went a little wicked, his thoughts ran along the same lines as well.
”
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Jessica Gadziala (Peace, Love, & Macarons)
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How much do I really love Him? Enough to overlook the mistakes other people make? Enough to disregard the hurtful comments they speak? Enough to esteem others better than myself as God commands me to do in Philippians 2:3?
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Denise K. Loock (Open Your Hymnal, Again: More Christian Hymns and Spiritual Devotions That Harmonize Scripture With Song)
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Social Media is a place where you share your favourite poetry, quotes, songs, news, social activities, and reports. You can like something, you can comment, and you can make humour in a civilised way. It is social media, but it is not a place to love or to be loved. Any lover does not exist here, nor anyone is serious in this regard. Just enjoy and do not try to fool any person if you do that; it means you are making yourself a fool. It is the wasting of time and your defeat too.
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Ehsan Sehgal
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In Singin’ in the Rain, Lina Lamont provides both an effective “beard” for Don and Cosmo and a foil, representing both the reason for Don’s “unattached” state and the basis for their mutual contempt for women. Yet the signs are all there to be read for those interested in reading them: Cosmo and Don performing as a burlesque team, in which they sit on each other’s laps and play each other’s violins; Cosmo’s comment to Lina after the premiere of The Royal Rascal, “Yeah, Lina, you looked pretty good for a girl”;30 and their bullying, in “Moses Supposes,” of the fogyish diction coach, figuratively drawn out of his closet only to be ridiculed as an asexual “pansy” who can’t sing and dance (thus both confirming and denying homosexuality at the same time).31 On a broader scale, Kelly’s career as a dancer, offering a more masculinized style of athletic dance (in opposition especially to the stylized grace of Fred Astaire), represented a similar balancing act between, in this case, the feminized occupation of balletic dance and a strong claim of heterosexual masculinity. Significantly, the process of exclusion they use with the diction coach is precisely what Cosmo proposes they apply to Lina in converting The Dueling Cavalier into a musical: “It’s easy to work the numbers. All you have to do is dance around Lina and teach her how to take a bow.” But they also apply the strategy to Kathy, who is only just learning to “dance” in this sense (conveniently so, since Debbie Reynolds had had but little dance training, as noted).32 Early on, we see her dance competently in “All I Do Is Dream of You,” but she then seems extremely tentative in “You Were Meant for Me,” immobile for much of the number, not joining in the singing, and dancing only as Don draws her in (which is, of course, consistent with her character’s development at this point). With “Good Mornin’,” though, she seems to “arrive” as part of the Don-Cosmo team, even though for part of the number she serves as a kind of mannequin—much like the voice teacher in “Moses Supposes,” except that she sings the song proper while Don and Cosmo “improvise” tongue-twisting elaborations between the lines. As the number evolves, their emerging positions within the group become clear. Thus, during their solo clownish dance bits, using their raincoats as props, Kathy and Don present themselves as fetishized love objects, Kathy as an “Island girl” and Don as a matador, while Cosmo dances with a “dummy,” recalling his earlier solo turn in “Make ’em Laugh.
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Raymond Knapp (The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity)
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Social media is a place where you share your favourite poetry, quotes, songs, news, social activities, and reports. You can like something, you can comment, and you can use humour in a civilised way. It is social media, but it is not a place to love or be loved. Any lover does not exist here, and no one is serious in this regard. Just enjoy yourself and do not try to fool anyone if you do that, it means you are making yourself a fool; it is a waste of time, and it is your defeat too.
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Ehsan Sehgal
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Vienna's reputation as a city of luxury, merrymaking and indulgence actually lies much further in the past, in the time of the Babenbergs at whose courts the Minnesinger were prestigious guests, similar to publicity-seeking pop stars of today. the half-censorious, half-envious comments of foreigners often reflect the ambivalence that so many have felt about a city that was both seductive and dangerous. Such was indeed how Grillparzer described the city he loved and hated in his "Farewell to Vienna"(1843) though he had more in mind than simply the temptations of the flesh. But if Vienna was insidiously threatening under its hedonistic surface for a Grillparzer, others have simply regarded it as cheerfully, even shamelessly, immoral. 'lhe humanist scholar Enea Silvio Piccolomini, private secretary to Friedrich III and subsequently elected Pope Pius II, expressed his astonishment at the sexual freedom of the Viennese in a letter to a fellow humanist in Basel written in 1450: "'lhe number of whores is very great, and wives seem disinclined to confine their affections to a single man; knights frequently visit the wives of burghers. 'lhe men put out some wine for them and leave the house. Many girls marry without the permission of their fathers and widows don't observe the year of mourning."
'the local equivalent of the Roman cicisbeo is an enduring feature of Viennese society, and the present author remembers a respectable middle-class intellectual (now dead) who habitually went on holiday with both wife and mistress in tow. Irregular liaisons are celebrated in a Viennese joke about two men who meet for the first time at a party. By way of conversation one says to the other: "You see those two attractive ladies chatting to each other over there? Well, the brunette is my wife and the blonde is my mistress." "that's funny," says his new friend; "I was just about to say the same thing, only the other way round." In Biedermeier Vienna (1815-48), menages d trois seem not to have been uncommon, since the gallant who became a friend of the family was officially known as the Hausfreund. 'the ambiguous status of such a Hausfreund features in a Wienerlied written in 1856 by the usually non-risque Johann Baptist Moser. It con-terns
a certain Herr von Hecht, who is evidently a very good friend of the family of the narrator. 'lhe first six lines of the song innocently praise the latter's wife, who is so delightful and companionable that "his sky is always blue"; but the next six relate how she imported a "friend", Herr von Hecht, and did so "immediately after the wedding". This friend loves the children so much "they could be his own." And indeed, the younger one looks remarkably like Herr von Hecht, who has promised that the boy will inherit from him, "which can't be bad, eh?" the faux-naivete with which this apparently commonplace situation is described seems to have delighted Moser's public-the song was immensely popular then and is still sung today.
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Nicholas T. Parsons (Vienna: A Cultural History (Cityscapes))
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Samaritan's Path by Stewart Stafford
On a solo trek on a dusty road,
A volunteer picked up my load,
Heavy things of weight and idea,
Hoisted aloft, a relaxing panacea.
We ran the clock down without ennui,
With songs, jokes, and inflated history,
Scenery and animals to comment upon,
Stones kicked as the sun still shone.
In dusk's bowing light, a reticent parting,
A trip over, happy memories restarting,
With a last handshake, wave, and smile,
We headed for home on the closing mile.
© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.
”
”
Stewart Stafford
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I happened to be talking to George at a meeting—we were sorting out some of the Apple business,” Paul later recalled. “Someone said something, and George just said, ‘Well, we’re all prisoners, kind of inside ourselves,’ or, you know, ‘inside every fat man, there’s a thin man trying to get out.’ I just took up that theme of, we’re all prisoners in a way, so I kind of wrote a prison song. And as I say, you can take it symbolically or straight, it works on both levels.”35 Getting from George’s comments to a prison song took some doing, however, and as Paul turned over the remark in his mind, his first thoughts reflected his own sense of still being trapped in the Beatles partnership agreement—and at an Apple legal meeting. The first verse he wrote,36 “If we ever get out of here / Thought of giving it all away / To a registered charity” is the kind of internal bargaining one does when stuck in circumstances—a business meeting, say—and hoping for liberation. Another verse moves closer to the prison metaphor—“Stuck inside these four walls / Sent inside forever / Never seeing no-one nice again.
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Allan Kozinn (The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969 – 73)
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Ça ne fait rien”4 (or “It does not matter,” more loosely translated as “Don’t worry, we’ll sort it”). Paul and Linda heard Richards’s comment as “San Ferry Anne,” a phrase they adopted to mean “don’t worry,” and true to form, McCartney began toying with the phrase as the title for a new song.
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Allan Kozinn (The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969 – 73)
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Social media is a place where you share your favourite poetry, quotes, songs, news, social activities, and reports. You can like something, you can comment, and you can use humour in a civilised way. It is social media, but it is not a place to love or be loved. Any lover does not exist here, and no one is serious in this regard. Just enjoy yourself and do not try to fool anyone. If you do that, it means you are making yourself a fool; it is a waste of time, and it is your defeat too.
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Ehsan Sehgal
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Ehsan Sehgal Quotes about Media
— — —
* Words matter and mirror if your head is a dictionary of insight and your feelings are alive.
* Sure, fake news catches and succeeds attention, but for a while; however, it embraces disregard and unreliability forever.
* Media rule the incompetent minds and pointless believers.
* A real journalist only states, neither collaborates nor participates.
* The majority of journalists and anchors have the information only but not the sense of knowledge.
* When the media encourages and highlights the wrong ones, anti-democratic figures, criminals in uniform, and dictators in a supreme authority and brilliant context, sure, such a state never survives the breakdown of prosperity and civil rights, as well as human rights. Thus, the media is accountable and responsible for this as one of the democratic pillars.
*Media cannot be a football ground or a tool for anyone. It penetrates the elementary pillar of a state, it forms and represents the language of entire humanity within its perception of love, peace, respect, justice, harmony, and human rights, far from enmity and distinctions. Accordingly, it demonstrates its credibility and neutrality.
* When the non-Western wrongly criticizes and abuses its culture, religion, and values, the Western media highlights that often, appreciating in all dimensions. However, if the same one even points out only such subjects, as a question about Western distinctive attitude and role, the West flies and falls at its lowest level, contradicting its principles of neutrality and freedom of press and speech, which pictures, not only double standards but also double dishonesty with itself and readers. Despite that, Western media bother not to realize and feel ignominy and moral and professional stigma.
* Social Media has become the global dustbin of idiocy and acuity. It stinks now. Anyone is there to separate and recycle that.
Freedom of speech doesn’t mean to constitute insulting, abusing, and harming deliberately in a distinctive and discriminative feature and context, whereas supporting such notions and attempts is a universal crime.
* Social media is a place where you share your favourite poetry, quotes, songs, news, social activities, and reports. You can like something, you can comment, and you can use humour in a civilised way. It is social media, but it is not a place to love or be loved. Any lover does not exist here, and no one is serious in this regard. Just enjoy yourself and do not try to fool anyone. If you do that, it means you are making yourself a fool; it is a waste of time, and it is your defeat too.
* I use social media only to devote and denote my thoughts voluntarily for the motivation of knowledge, not to earn money as greedy-minded.
* One should not take seriously the Social-Media fools and idiots.
* Today, on social media, how many are on duty?
* Journalists voluntarily fight for human rights and freedom of speech, whereas they stay silent for their rights and journalistic freedom on the will and restrictions of the boss of the media. Indeed, it verifies that The nearer the church, the farther from god.
* The abuse, insult, humiliation, and discrimination against whatever subject is not freedom of expression and writing; it is a violation and denial of global harmony and peace.
* Press freedom is one significant pillar of true democracy pillars, but such democracy stays deaf, dumb, and blind, which restricts or represses the media.
* Press and speech that deliberately trigger hatred and violation fall not under the freedom of press and speech since restrictions for morale and peace apply to everyone without exemption.
* Real press freedom is just a dream, which nowhere in the world becomes a reality; however, journalists stay dreaming that.
”
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Ehsan Sehgal
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January 6 “Yea, I will help thee.” Isaiah 41:10 YESTERDAY’S promise secured us strength for what we have to do, but this guarantees us aid in cases where we cannot act alone. The Lord says, “I will help thee.” Strength within is supplemented by help without. God can raise us up allies in our warfare if so it seems good in his sight; and even if he does not send us human assistance, he himself will be at our side, and this is better still. “Our August Ally” is better than legions of mortal helpers. His help is timely: he is a very present help in time of trouble. His help is very wise: he knows how to give each man help meet and fit for him. His help is most effectual, though vain is the help of man. His help is more than help, for he bears all the burden, and supplies all the need. “The Lord is my helper, I will not fear what man can do unto me.” Because he has already been our help, we feel confidence in him for the present and the future. Our prayer is, “Lord, be thou my helper;” our experience is, “The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities;” our expectation is, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help;” and our song soon will be, “Thou, Lord, hast holpen me.
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon (The Chequebook of the Bank of Faith: Precious Promises Arranged for Daily Use with Brief Comments)
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to measure success or failure. One criticism has been that PSA increases are not always consecutive. A man’s rise in PSA with one test might be followed by a transient decrease in the next, followed by another increase. Although there may be recurrent cancer, under the ASTRO definition, this man’s treatment would still be considered a success—even though it’s just a technicality. “Fortunately, any astute radiation oncologist will not blindly follow the consensus definition in making treatment decisions,” comments Danny Song. A quirk of the ASTRO definition is that, over a short period of time after treatment, it really can’t tell us much. This is due to the gradual nature of radiation’s effects; cancer
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Patrick C. Walsh (Dr. Patrick Walsh's Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer)
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The counterargument posits that, by presenting all the raping and whoring so casually, Martin is commenting on women and powerlessness, perhaps even making an ironic point: women are the ultimate outsiders. Their complete and vicious degradation is so commonplace that almost no one in Westeros notices. For the majority of characters—including Tyrion, who usually has a keen eye for fellow outcasts, and even many of the other women in the cast—the nonstop violence against women is mostly invisible, barely even worth a mention.
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James Lowder (Beyond the Wall: Exploring George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire)
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Asch took from his bankruptcy an important lesson: he decided that he never wanted to record another hit record. In early 1949, he commented to an unnamed writer from People’s Songs (the newsletter of left-wing folk music) that he had “focused too much time and money on popular jazz” and from this point forward he would focus on “good records,” which would be “sold to a small circle of people who will buy them.
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Richard Carlin (Worlds of Sound: The Story of Smithsonian Folkways)
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Because of EU rules,’ Fox agreed. ‘Which are about to end.’ ‘Bloody Brexit,’ Morelli commented. ‘Have you noticed any changes during your time in Scotland?’ Fox went on. ‘Changes?’ ‘A hardening of attitudes.’ ‘Racism, you mean? Not especially – it’s a bigger issue in England, I think.
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Ian Rankin (A Song for the Dark Times (Inspector Rebus #23))
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I don't need to study. I did last night," he whined, resting his head on my shoulder. "Plus. I can just sniff the paper and —"
"If Yuriel were here, I'm sure he'd throw a water bottle at you for attempting to say you can smell the answers to the test," I interrupted, knowing where his comment was leading.
"I can. It's easy," Dimitri reassured me.
"That's cheating."
"It is if you're caught.
”
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Avery Song (SSS: Year Two (Supernatural Spy Academy, #2))
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The poor saint singeth many a song which the rich sinner cannot understand. Wherefore, let us, when we have short commons below, think of the royal table above.
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon (The Chequebook of the Bank of Faith: Precious Promises Arranged for Daily Use with Brief Comments)
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Living in London, it’s easy to forget that people can talk to each other. I walk my dogs around Wapping past hundreds of people on pavements and in parks and it is very rare a smile is exchanged or the silence broken. I occasionally get ‘Are you Graham Norton?’ ‘Love the show’ or a simple ‘Faggot!’ but for most people making their way through the capital, you soon learn that people generally only speak to you when they are (a) crazy, (b) want money, or (c) both. We quickly learn the rules and for the most part they work. In Ireland it is impossible to imagine not saying hello or commenting on the weather. When I first started going back home again, it would always take me a day or two to stop thinking everyone I met was trying to sell me something or explaining why they needed £2 to get the train. I know this is true of rural communities the world over, but talking seems to be something we in Ireland are especially gifted at. There are nights in the pub when my friends look on in slack-jawed incomprehension as someone opens their mouth and a torrent of words tumble free. Usually they don’t have anything to say. Their gate fell down. Who put it there. The man who fixed it. The general state of gates in the area. I will then remember an ‘interesting’ fact about my own gate. They will know the man who owned the forge where they made it. Are they a relation of the man who delivers the stuff? And so it goes. A seamless gush of phrases and banter as traditional as a sing-song or drink-driving. It is talking for the pure pleasure of it and not to communicate a single thing. It is the human equivalent of barking or birdsong.
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Graham Norton (The Life and Loves of a He Devil)
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Never give anybody permission to disturb your peace. Always ignore negative comments. Dwell on positive thoughts and occupy your mind with songs of praise.
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Lailah Gifty Akita
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This passing comment illuminates a particular quality of Javanese gamelan and helps to explain, perhaps, why the music of such a small Southeast Asian archipelago has so strongly influenced music in the twentieth century. In 1937, Leonhard Huizinga expressed the nature of this quality more poetically. “This music does not create a song for our ears”, he wrote. “It is a ‘state’, such as moonlight poured over the fields.
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David Toop (Ocean of Sound: Ambient Sound and Radical Listening in the Age of Communication)
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They perceive artistic elegance in the form of the land and living things, much the same as in our Western tradition. This sensitivity toward natural design is quite outside the pragmatism that might dominate the lives of people subsisting directly from wild resources. Koyukon people often comment that a day or a scene is particularly beautiful, and they are attentive to fleeting moments mountains outlined against the sky, reflections on still water, a bird's song in the quietness. In their language, words like nizoonh ("pretty") or hutaadla'o ("beautiful) communicate these feelings. This is not a new way of seeing, as the ancient riddles and the statements of elders indicate.
A man spent several minutes describing a particular midwinter sunset, its color glowing on the frozen river and the snow-covered mountainside, snow on the trees reflecting amber, and long shadows cast by timber on the slopes. He said his wife had called him out so he could see it, and he stood a long time watching. Both he and his wife are old, and he says that the oldest people during his childhood had this same admiration for beauty.
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Richard K. Nelson (Make Prayers to the Raven: A Koyukon View of the Northern Forest)
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Kenny had perfected the art of remaining impartial, though some would call it acute obliviousness. In history class, he ignored the nervous glances during the slavery unit. When a Black kid was murdered for wearing a hoodie, he stopped wearing one. When BLBP protests broke out all over the country, he pretended the news coverage didn’t exist, convincing Jason to have a party at his place instead. He ignored every ignorant comment and causal drop of the N-word. After all, it was in all the songs they loved. He almost managed to make his friends completely forget he was Black. Now, there had never been a bigger elephant in the room. And
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Tiffany D. Jackson (The Weight of Blood)
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According to Lasch, the prescription for parents was that “the child should have every wish and need met, should not have the experience of being refused.”343 No surprise, then, that many thousands of these children later fled their folks’ hearth and home for “sex, drugs and rock and roll.” Still, in the late 1950s, Lasch recalls a colleague’s weary comment, that fathers and mothers need to be able to “say ‘No’ without going through an elaborate song and dance.”344
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Judith Reisman (Sexual Sabotage: How One Mad Scientist Unleashed a Plague of Corruption and Contagion on America)
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Moderns think of the earth as a globe, as something one can easily get round, the spirit of a schoolmistress. This is shown in the odd mistake perpetually made about Cecil Rhodes. His enemies say that he may have had large ideas, but he was a bad man. His friends say that he may have been a bad man, but he certainly had large ideas. The truth is that he was not a man essentially bad, he was a man of much geniality and many good intentions, but a man with singularly small views. There is nothing large about painting the map red; it is an innocent game for children. It is just as easy to think in continents as to think in cobble-stones. The difficulty comes in when we seek to know the substance of either of them. Rhodes' prophecies about the Boer resistance are an admirable comment on how the "large ideas" prosper when it is not a question of thinking in continents but of understanding a few two-legged men. And under all this vast illusion of the cosmopolitan planet, with its empires and its Reuter's agency, the real life of man goes on concerned with this tree or that temple, with this harvest or that drinking-song, totally uncomprehended, totally untouched. And it watches from its splendid parochialism, possibly with a smile of amusement, motor-car civilization going its triumphant way, outstripping time, consuming space, seeing all and seeing nothing, roaring on at last to the capture of the solar system, only to find the sun cockney and the stars suburban.
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G.K. Chesterton (Heretics and Orthodoxy)
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Sometimes the adage of the simplest things in life being the best (jokes included) is true as evidenced by Fibber’s pithy comment on the Old Timer’s short career of being shot out of a cannon: “You mean, they fired you and then you quit.” In the tag Jim and Marian acknowledge the contribution of Ken Darby, who eventually will win three Oscars of his own, in helping “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” win the 1947 Academy Award for Best Song.
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Clair Schulz (FIBBER McGEE & MOLLY ON THE AIR, 1935-1959 (REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION))
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Under the name The Waterson Family, they made their recording debut for Topic, one of four upcoming acts on the showcase compilation Folk-Sound of Britain (1965). Dispensing with guitars and banjos, they hollered unadorned close harmonies into a stark, chapel-like hush. The consensus was that they ‘sounded traditional’, but in a way no other folk singers did at the time. It was the result of pure intuition: there was no calculation in their art. When Bert Lloyd once commented joyfully on their mixolydian harmonies, they had to resort to a dictionary. Later in 1965 the quartet gathered around the microphone set up in the Camden Town flat of Topic producer Bill Leader and exhaled the extraordinary sequence of songs known as Frost and Fire. In his capacity as an artistic director of Topic, Lloyd curated the album’s contents. Focusing on the theme of death, ritual sacrifice and resurrection, he subtitled it A Calendar of Ritual and Magical Songs. The fourteen tracks are divided by calendrical seasons, and the four Watersons begin and end the album as midwinter wassailers, a custom popularised in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as groups of singers – ‘waits’ – made the rounds of the towns and villages, proffering a decorated bowl of spiced ale or wine and asking – in the form of a song, or ‘wassail’ – for a charitable donation. Midwinter comes shortly before the time of the first ploughing in preparation for the sowing of that year’s new crop, and the waits’ money, or food and drink, can be considered a form of benign sacrifice against the success of the next growth and harvest. The wassail-bowl’s rounds were often associated with the singing of Christmas carols.
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Rob Young (Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music)
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The Talmud recounts that King David’s harp would play itself at midnight. And the Jerusalem Talmud comments that in the verse, “When the musician would play music, the hand of God would be upon him,” the word for “musician” should be read as “musical instrument” instead: the instrument would play by itself. Why do our sages insist on conflating musician and musical instrument? The answer is that when a person attains the perfect level of prayer, he himself is an instrument playing music spontaneously; he has become the instrument of song, of prophecy, of prayer. The melody is his, and his entire being is none other than an instrument expressing that prayer.
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Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz (The Thirteen Petalled Rose)
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In general, Rebecca found something strange about the way his colleagues spoke at first—their language just seemed somehow flat to her, in a way she found it difficult to pinpoint. But as she got to know them better, she realized that they'd been socialized into a culture that valued precision in language above almost all other things. And so their speech was often stripped of the components of casual conversation that usually greased it: vague generalizations; idle chatter to fill the air; bullshitting and spitballing. A couple of times, Rebecca made some sort of trivial comment like "Hey, I haven't heard this song in years," or "Literally nobody liked that movie," and the response would be a flatly stated "That must be false," or "That is highly unlikely," or "That is untrue," delivered not in a particularly accusatory manner, as if she were thought to be a liar, but in a sorrowful tone, as if her careless talk deserved the kind of brief chastisement merited by a minor failure of character.
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Dexter Palmer (Version Control)
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7Song made a comment which is significant in this regard. He said that Burdock is for “liver acne,” when the pimples are singular, large, and nasty, while Goldenrod is for “kidney acne,” when they arise in little sheets of fine pimples accompanied by a general patch of reddish, dry, irritated skin. The
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Matthew Wood (The Book of Herbal Wisdom: Using Plants as Medicines)
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Her voice had been such an important part of her life before. The merfolk celebrated her for it. Her father excused her occasionally questionable behavior because of it. Eric loved the girl who rescued him, because of her singing...
But...
... she'd never really enjoyed singing for anyone else. In fact, she hated audiences. She sang because she liked to sing. She just... felt... something, and had to sing it. If she were happy, or sad, or angry... she would go off by herself and sing to the coral, sing to the seaweed, sing to an audience of sea snails or tube worms (who listened, but never commented). Most of her mergirlhood had been spent swimming around, exploring, singing to herself. Making up little stories in her head and then putting them into song.
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Liz Braswell (Part of Your World)
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Facebook is a place where you share your favourite poetry, quotes, songs, news, and social activities, and reports. You can like something, you can comment, you can make humour in a civilised way. It is the social media, but it is not a place to love or to be loved. Any lover does not exist here and nor anyone is a serious one in this regard. Just enjoy and do not try to fool any person if you do that, it means you are making yourself a fool. It is the wasting of time, and your defeat too.
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Ehsan Sehgal
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You’re Ned Stark’s bastard, aren’t you?” Jon felt a coldness pass right through him. He pressed his lips together and said nothing. “Did I offend you?” Lannister said. “Sorry. Dwarfs don’t have to be tactful. Generations of capering fools in motley have won me the right to dress badly and say any damn thing that comes into my head.” He grinned. “You are the bastard, though.” “Lord Eddard Stark is my father,” Jon admitted stiffly. Lannister studied his face. “Yes,” he said. “I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers.” “Half brothers,” Jon corrected. He was pleased by the dwarf’s comment, but he tried not to let it show. “Let me give you some counsel, bastard,” Lannister said. “Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.” Jon was in no mood for anyone’s counsel. “What do you know about being a bastard?” “All dwarfs are bastards in their father’s eyes.
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George R.R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire, 5-Book Boxed Set: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons (Song of Ice & Fire 1-5))
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In the original production, after the first factory whistle, almost the entire cast appeared onstage to sing the opening song, the first words of which are, “Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd” (F 333).44 These words immediately establish that what we are to see over the next two and a half hours is not the story of Sweeney Todd but the narration of the story of Sweeney Todd, presumably by the actors assembled on the stage.45 That we are watching a narration, a performance, is reinforced by the periodic reprises of “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” that assist the transitions between scenes and comment on the action. This emphasis of the storytelling aspect of the play, its narrativity, gains importance if we recall some of the connections between narrative and time discussed in the section on Company. Narratives, because of their connection to time’s arrow, move toward death. The desire for completed narrative-epistemological structures implies specifically a desire for death and, more generally, a desire for the transcendent, the ideal, absolutes that exist outside the completed structures and, implicitly, outside of time.
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Robert L. McLaughlin (Stephen Sondheim and the Reinvention of the American Musical)
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The one song has been sung in a different ways. 3 Years on the floor made me a small girl.
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Petra Hermans (Voor een betere wereld)
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In May 2019 the head of the ILD, Song Tao, met with Manfred Grund, a delegate of the German Bundestag and member of its Committee on Foreign Affairs. According to the ILD, Grund offered assurances that his party, the Christian Democratic Union, ‘actively supports the Belt and Road Initiative’ and ‘stands ready to strengthen exchanges and mutual learning with the CPC’.11 When later asked to comment, Grund said that he did not recall saying this, but that he did see common interests for Europe and China in Central Asia.
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Clive Hamilton (Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World)
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When ugly comments are made beautiful in a song, Hate struggles for survival
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Dr Ikoghene S Aashikpelokhai
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Oui, je me rappelai.
Je connaissais le creux de ce corps protecteur. Je connaissais les battements de ce cœur derrière cette poitrine large. Je connaissais cette paume chaude contre ma joue...
Dans un éblouissement terrifiant, je compris, et me laissai tomber lourdement sur le tapis, comme je l'avais fait dans mon rêve, au milieu de la chambre vide, en appelant d'une voix faible :
- Eidan, reviens !
Qu'avais-je fait ? Mais qu'avais-je donc fait ? Les larmes brouillèrent ma vue et coulèrent sur mes joues. Un gémissement incohérent s'échappa de mes lèvres figées.
C'était trop tard, il était déjà parti, je l'avais chassé, et je demeurais seule, envahie par le vide et le froid.
Mon feu intérieur venait de s'éteindre. En moi, il ne subsistait que des cendres froides, les cendre que mon oubli avait provoquées. J'avais oublié que c'était Eidan qui m'aimait. J'avais oublié qu'il était à l'origine de mon feu intérieur, qu'il m'aidait à l'animer. Comment avais-je pu rayer tout cela de ma mémoire ? Mon âme ressemblait à la cheminée que j'avais vue dans mon songe. Un âtre glacial, éteint depuis longtemps, empli de cendres, symbole d'une fin tragique.
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Carina Rozenfeld (Les Cendres de l'oubli (Phænix, #1))
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off a direct address with commas.
Examples Gentlemen, keep your seats.
Car fifty-four, where are you?
Not now, Eleanor, I’m busy.
8. Use commas to set off items in addresses and dates.
Examples The sheriff followed me from Austin, Texas, to question me about my
uncle.
He found me on February 2, 1978, when I stopped in Fairbanks,
Alaska, to buy sunscreen.
9. Use commas to set off a degree or title following a name.
Examples John Dough, M.D., was audited when he reported only $5.68 in taxable income last year.
The Neanderthal Award went to Samuel Lyle, Ph.D.
10. Use commas to set off dialogue from the speaker.
Examples Alexander announced, “I don’t think I want a second helping of
possum.”
“Eat hearty,” said Marie, “because this is the last of the food.”
Note that you do not use a comma before an indirect quotation or before titles in
quotation marks following the verbs “read,” “sang,” or “wrote.”
Incorrect Bruce said, that cockroaches have portions of their brains scattered
throughout their bodies.
Correct Bruce said that cockroaches have portions of their brains scattered
throughout their bodies.
Incorrect One panel member read, “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,” and the other
sang, “Song for My Father.”
Correct One panel member read “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,” and the other sang
“Song for My Father.”
11. Use commas to set off “yes,” “no,” “well,” and other weak exclamations.
Examples Yes, I am in the cat condo business.
No, all the units with decks are sold.
Well, perhaps one with a pool will do.
12. Set off interrupters or parenthetical elements appearing in the middle of a sentence. A parenthetical element is additional information placed as explanation
or comment within an already complete sentence. This element may be a word
(such as “certainly” or “fortunately”), a phrase (“for example” or “in fact”), or a
clause (“I believe” or “you know”). The word, phrase, or clause is parenthetical if
the sentence parts before and after it fit together and make sense.
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Jean Wyrick (Steps to Writing Well)
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-J'y vais. Cers va m'attendre, et tu sais comment sont les Aelings!
-Que oui. Well, see you later, Captain.
-À la prochaine, Chevalier.
Une fois les Fourmis parties, l'homme toqua trois fois sur la cloison qui séparait la pièce où il se trouvait, de celle de droite. Une porte dérobée, invisible grâce à l'ajustement des planches du mur, s'ouvrit en silence. De l'autre côté, il y avait quelqu'un dont il avait besoin.
-Need you tonight, cub. La princesse est arrivée hier.
-Aha. C'est pour ce soir ?
-Yes. Et nous n'avons pas le droit à l'erreur. Looks like summer time is coming...
Il n'y eut pas de réponse, mais le battant se referma et un pas léger fit frémir l'air un instant avant de s'évanouir comme un songe.
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Morgan of Glencoe (Dans l'ombre de Paris (La Dernière Geste, #1))