Spinning Funny Quotes

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What the hell is wrong with you, man? I thought we were cool.” “We were,” Warner says icily. “Until you touched my hair.” “You asked me to give you a haircut—” “I said nothing of the sort! I asked you to trim the edges!” “And that’s what I did.” “This,” Warner says, spinning around so I might inspect the damage, “is not trimming the edges, you incompetent moron—” I gasp. The back of Warner’s head is a jagged mess of uneven hair; entire chunks have been buzzed off.
Tahereh Mafi (Restore Me (Shatter Me, #4))
No,” he muttered, running a hand through his copper hair. “No. No. There are dozens.” “Kell?” she asked, moving to touch his arm. He shook her off. “Dozens of ships, Lila! And you had to climb aboard his.” “I’m sorry,” she shot back, bristling, “I was under the impression that I was free to do as I pleased.” “To be fair,” added Alucard, “I think she was planning to steal it and slit my throat.” “Then why didn’t you?” snarled Kell, spinning on her. “You’re always so eager to slash and stab, why couldn’t you have stabbed him?
Victoria Schwab (A Gathering of Shadows (Shades of Magic, #2))
Sometimes you fall, spinning through space, grasping for the things that keep you on this earth. Sometimes you catch them. They can be the hands of the people you love. They can be your pets- pups with funny names, cats with ferocious old souls. The thing that keeps you here can be your art. It can be things you have collected and invested with a certain sense of meaning. A flowered, buckled treasure chest of secrets. Shoes that make you taller and, therefore, closer to the heavens. A suit that belonged to your fairy godmother. A dress that makes you feel a little like the Goddess herself. Sometimes you keep falling; you don't catch anything. Sometimes you fall, spinning through space, grasping for the things that keep you here. Sometimes you catch them. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes they catch you.
Francesca Lia Block (Necklace of Kisses (Weetzie Bat, #6))
No shame in saying that I felt a loneliness drifting through me. Funny how it was, everyone perched in their own little world with the deep need to talk, each person with their own tale, beginning in some strange middle point, then trying so hard to tell it all, to have it all make sense, logical and final.
Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin)
He`s quite extraordinary with his moves and spins. I think he was a baton girl in a past life [on his co-star Hayden Christensen].
Ewan McGregor
Finnik?” I say. “Maybe some pants?”
He looks down at his legs as if noticing them for the first time. Then he whips of his hospital gown, leaving him in just is underwear. “Why? Do you find this”-he strikes a ridiculously proactive pose-“distracting?”
I can’t help laughing because it’s funny, and it’s extra funny because Boggs looks so uncomfortable, and I’m happy because Finnik actually sounds like the guy I met at the Quarter Quell.
“I’m only human, Odair.” I get in before the elevator doors close. “Sorry,” I say to Boggs.
“Don’t be. I thought you… handled that well,” He says. “Better than my having to arrest him, anyway.”
 
Fulvia Cardew hustles over an makes a sound of frustration when she sees my clean face. “All that hard work, down the drain. I’m not blaming you, Katniss. It’s just that very few people are born with camera-ready faces. Like him.” She snags Gale, who’s in a conversation with Plutarch, and spins him towards us. “Isn’t he handsome?”
Gale does look stricking in the uniform, I guess. But the question just embarrasses us both Given our history. I’m trying to think of a witty comeback when Boggs says brusquely, “Well don’t expect us to be too impressed. We just saw Finnick Odair in his underwear.
Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
Drug addicts are so funny that way. Just spinning around, lost in their own little world. Doing so much, accomplishing so little. How sad.
James St. James
Every generation spins the wheel,Anya, and where it lands defines 'the good'. Funny thing is they never know that they're spining it, and it hits something different every time.
Gabrielle Zevin (All These Things I've Done (Birthright, #1))
Get this: how many Weavers does it take to screw in a light bulb?' Kate folded her arms, her expression aloof. Acciper pensively scratched his beard, withholding his ignorance. 'One?' ventured Vivian. Lucian's boyish face split into a grin. His body filled up with the imminent rumble of laughter. 'Two Weavers. One holds the light bulb and the other one spins reality around it.
Louise Blackwick (The Book of Chaos (Vivian Amberville, #2))
Mab didn’t know what to make of such letters. How could a man who talked like his vocabulary was as rationed as his meat be so verbose in print? Not just verbose, but funny, wry, moody, tender . . . yet she wasn’t sure she understood him any better. Nothing he wrote ever touched on himself, but an envelope still winged from London nearly every other day. What was she supposed to write back? That the new billet was very nice, that the new landlady was very nice, that the weather was very nice? She couldn’t say anything about her work and didn’t have her husband’s knack for spinning pages about daily trifles. Trying to carry on a conversation with Francis seemed destined to be one-sided—but whereas he was the silent one in person, by letter, she felt like the mute.
Kate Quinn (The Rose Code)
It’s funny how life spins, how we go on for long stretches of time and nothing changes, and then all at once, in a single moment, everything is altered.
Kerry Anne King (Whisper Me This)
You already made your point,” I say with a mouthful of fruit. “Did I?” “Oh, for the love of dick, yes. Now leave me alone.” “Never. If you want, I’ll fuck you now.” The gall. I wouldn’t fuck him now if my clit was on fire and needed to be doused with nub-saving cum. I roll my eyes at him. “No thanks, we have a lifetime of fucking ahead of us,” I say mockingly. He shrugs and starts to walk away as if it makes no difference to him one way or the other. He’s such a jackass sometimes. Before I can stop myself I throw my half-eaten banana at him and it hits him on the back of his neck. He spins around, wipes his neck and looks down at the banana on the floor. “Did you really just fruitally assault me?” He thinks he’s so damned funny with his wordplay.
Ella Dominguez (The Art of Domination (The Art of D/s, #2))
It’s only sixteen ninety-five," I say with a flutter of my lashes. "You’re serious." I prop my hands on my waist and stick out a hip, striking a pose worthy of a supermodel. "Look at me. Don’t I look serious?" She collapses into the chair outside the dressing room in a fit of giggles so cute they make my insides fizz. "No! You must be stopped," she says. "Why?" I strut down an aisle of yellowed lingerie, swiveling my hips, batting bras with flicks of my fingers. "I will be the king of the disco. I will be—" I spin and strike another pose. "An inspiration." She sniffs and swipes at her eyes. "The real Dylan would die before he’d be seen in public in something like that." "The real Dylan is boring." I brace my hands on the arms of her chair and lean down until our faces are a whisper apart. "And he’s not one fourth the kisser I am." "Is that right?" Her lips quirk. "You know it is." Her smile melts, and her breath comes faster. "Yeah. I do.
Stacey Jay (Romeo Redeemed (Juliet Immortal, #2))
Sugar, what the fuck did I say about games? I don’t fuckin’ play them. You ain’t gonna make a scene about somethin’ you don’t know. Get out to my bike, shut your mouth and we’ll talk.” “I hate you when you’re bossy,” I say, before spinning on my heel. “You fuckin’ love me, you moody little shit.
Bella Jewel (Hell's Knights (The MC Sinners, #1))
Yes, I hate blown glass art and I happen to live in the blown glass art capital of the world, Seattle, Washington. Being a part of the Seattle artistic community, I often get invited to galleries that are displaying the latest glass sculptures by some amazing new/old/mid-career glass blower. I never go. Abstract art leaves me feeling stupid and bored. Perhaps it’s because I grew up inside a tribal culture, on a reservation where every song and dance had specific ownership, specific meaning, and specific historical context. Moreover, every work of art had use—art as tool: art to heal; art to honor, art to grieve. I think of the Spanish word carnal, defined as, ‘Of the appetites and passions of the body.’ And I think of Gertrude Stein’s line, ‘Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.’ When asked what that line meant, Stein said, ‘The poet could use the name of the thing and the thing was really there.’ So when I say drum, the drum is really being pounded in this poem; when I say fancydancer, the fancydancer is really spinning inside this poem; when I say Indian singer, that singer is really wailing inside this poem. But when it comes to abstract art—when it comes to studying an organically shaped giant piece of multi-colored glass—I end up thinking, ‘That looks like my kidney. Anybody’s kidney, really. And frankly, there can be no kidney-shaped art more beautiful—more useful and closer to our Creator—than the kidney itself. And beyond that, this glass isn’t funny. There’s no wit here. An organic shape is not inherently artistic. It doesn’t change my mind about the world. It only exists to be admired. And, frankly, if I wanted to only be in admiration of an organic form, I’m going to watch beach volleyball. I’m always going to prefer the curve of a woman’s hip or a man’s shoulder to a piece of glass that has some curves.
Sherman Alexie (Face)
She tried to imagine it spinning, with millions of people glued to it, talking different languages, wearing funny clothes, all stuck to the same ball.
Carl Sagan (Contact)
Drug addicts are so funny that way. Just spinning around, lost in their own little world. Doing so much, accomplishing so little.
James St. James (Disco Bloodbath: A Fabulous but True Tale of Murder in Clubland)
Life is a circle. It spins you around.
Ljupka Cvetanova (The New Land)
Agent Julianne was always looking for ways to spin things. She would have been better off owning a laundromat.
Jonas Eriksson (Hollywood Ass.)
The funny thing about life is it moves along without you. Whether you are there or not the earth spins and makes its trek around the sun. You can join the trip or make an exit.
Amy Kinzer (Girl Over the Edge)
Poor guy's head is spinning!
Jack Feldman (Newsies: Music from the Broadway Musical Piano, Vocal and Guitar Chords)
I thought you had to go to The Hall?" she said. "To learn?" Dar looked genuinely surprised. "No, Kale, Wulder is everywhere, therefore His lessons are everywhere." "I know Wulder made all things, and Pretender tried to copy His work. But I didn't know Wulder is everywhere. How could that be?" "You're thinking of Wulder as having a body and moving from place to place." Dar stood and pivoted in a circle with his arms outstretched. "Wulder is everywhere. You can see His power by recognizing His work. When a flower opens, that's His work. When the stars twinkle at night, that's His work." He paused, facing her. He let his arms fall to his sides. "Look at me, Kale. Right now, I am standing with Wulder all around me. I'm under His protection, within His will, standing on His pledge. And Wulder is, at the very same moment, in me." "Me, too?" asked Kale. "Yes." Dar knelt in front of her, his earnest face only inches away. She looked into his dark brown eyes and saw strength and peace. She wondered at his patience with her. Often her marione masters gruffly explained things they thought she should already understand. Dar winked before he continued, his funny face serious and yet cheerful at imparting what must be old knowledge to him. "So many people don't know who Wulder is or what He's capable of doing. Their ignorance doesn't make Wulder less of a being; it makes them less. Until they know, they can't be whole." He leaned back and sighed, spread his arms out in a gesture of explanation, and continued, "It's so simple, Kale. Everything hinges on His willingness to be involved with our world. When a mountain stands instead of tumbling down. He's holding it there. If He were to leave..." Dar shook his head. "If He were to leave, all that He holds in order would spin out of control. But He will never leave.
Donita K. Paul (DragonSpell (DragonKeeper Chronicles, #1))
Ugh! I can’t look anymore,” I say in frustration, “If I read one more status about being happy and in a relationship I’m going to throw my computer out the window.” I hear a laugh behind me and spin my chair around to see my roommate and best friend, Sarah, standing there eating a bowl of cereal. “What’s so funny?” I demand. “That you’re going to throw your computer out the window just because people are happy and in love.” Sarah rolls her eyes
Jaime Russell (Love Me Like You Do (Love Me #1))
This is all a big ball . . . turning in the middle of the sky . . . once a day. She tried to imagine it spinning, with millions of people glued to it, talking different languages, wearing funny clothes, all stuck to the same ball.
Carl Sagan (Contact)
This man was so outlandishly funny I never knew whether I wanted to hit him or to laugh. He was disarmingly kind, and so thoughtful it made my head spin. And I realised, with a sudden, all-encompassing jolt of awareness - he was mine.
Jenna Levine (My Vampire Plus-One)
I thought leaving home would be a liberation. I thought university would be a dance party. I thought I would live in a room vined with fairy lights; hang arabesque tapestries up on the wall. I thought scattered beneath my bed would be a combination of Kafka, coffee grounds, and a lover’s old boxer shorts. I thought I would spend my evenings drinking cheap red wine and talking about the Middle East. I thought on weekends we might go to Cassavetes marathons at the independent cinema. I thought I would know all the good Korean places in town. I thought I would know a person who was into healing crystals and another person who could teach me how to sew. I thought I might get into yoga. I thought going for frozen yogurt was something you would just do. I thought there would be red cups at parties. And I thought I would be different. I thought it would be like coming home, circling back to my essential and inevitable self. I imagined myself more relaxed—less hung up on things. I thought I would find it easy to speak to strangers. I thought I would be funny, even, make people laugh with my warm, wry, and only slightly self-deprecating sense of humor. I thought I would develop the easy confidence of a head girl, the light patter of an artist. I imagined myself dancing in a smoky nightclub, spinning slackly while my arms floated like laundry loose on the breeze. I imagined others watching me, thinking, Wow, she is so free.
Lara Williams (Supper Club)
Kenji goes suddenly still. At the creak of the door Kenji’s eyebrows shoot up; a soft click and his eyes widen; a muted rustle of movement and suddenly the barrel of a gun is pressed against the back of his head. Kenji stares at me, his lips making no sound as he mouths the word psychopath over and over again. The psychopath in question winks at me from where he’s standing, smiling like he couldn’t possibly be holding a gun to the head of our mutual friend. I manage to suppress a laugh. “Go on,” Warner says, still smiling. “Please tell me exactly how she’s failed you as a leader.” “Hey—“ Kenji’s arms fly up in mock surrender. “I never said she failed at anything, okay? And you are clearly over-react—“ Warner knocks Kenji on the side of the head with the weapon. “Idiot.” Kenji spins around. Yanks the gun out of Warner’s hand. “What the hell is wrong with you, man? I thought we were cool.” “We were,” Warner says icily. “Until you touched my hair.” “You asked me to give you a haircut—“ “I said nothing of the sort! I asked you to trim the edges!” “And that’s what I did.” “This,” Warner says, spinning around so I might inspect the damage, “is not trimming the edges, you incompetent moron—“ I gasp. The back of Warner’s head is a jagged mess of uneven hair; entire chunks have been buzzed off. Kenji cringes as he looks over his handiwork. Clears his throat. “Well,” he says, shoving his hand in his pockets. “I mean—whatever, man, beauty is subjective—“ Warner aims another gun at him. “Hey!” Kenji shouts. “I am not here for this abusive relationship, okay?” He points to Warner. “I did not sign up for this shit!” Warner glares at him and Kenji retreats, backing out of the room before Warner has another chance to react; and then, just as I let out a sign of relief, Kenji pops his head back into the doorway and says “I think the cut looks cute, actually” and Warner slams the door in his face.
Tahereh Mafi (Restore Me (Shatter Me, #4))
I look through the old record collection my dad gave me. Stress relief. I shuffle through the albums feverishly and find what I'm looking for-the Proclaimers. I chuck it on and watch it spin. The ridiculous first notes of "Five Hundred Miles" come on, and I feel like going berserk. Even the Proclaimers are giving me the shits tonight. Their singing's an abomination.
Markus Zusak (I Am the Messenger)
Sirens blasted, breaking the silence and spinning me around. The shrill sound was all too familiar, and I snapped into action. Vicious excitement replaced the restlessness, and I knew just how screwed up that was, but right then? Oh yeah, I could use a fight. Yesterday in the quad had been child’s play. Grabbing the Glock loaded with titanium bullets, I hooked it into the holster and fit it around my thigh. I snatched the daggers off the dresser and headed out the door, not even bothering with grabbing a shirt. I came to a complete stop as Josie’s door swung open. What in the holy fuck were Alex and Josie doing together? For just a few seconds, the three of us were literally frozen, staring at each other as the sirens blared overhead. And then Alex broke the silence. “Really?” she said dryly, eyeing me with a smirk. “You’re going to fight with the awesomeness of your six-pack as a weapon?” I arched a brow. “Yeah, you know, I was going to test out the whole abs of steel theory thing. The gun attached to my thigh and the daggers in my hands are just props. Mainly for show. Don’t want to take away from the gloriousness that is my body, though.” Her smirk flipped into a grin. “Whatever.” She started forward. Up ahead, a tall figure stepped out in the hall, and light glinted off the titanium daggers in his hands. Aiden. Of course their room had to be close to mine. Of. Course.
Jennifer L. Armentrout (The Power (Titan, #2))
Shirogane: "This is a brand-new show called 'Naze? Naze? Neeze!' " I'm Shirogane, the teacher of course.♥" " We're covering Arithmethic!" "Here we have Akira-kun and Kengo-kun, who will tackle the questions with us!" Kengo: "Hello there!" ^_^ Akira: "I'm a high school student, by the way!" "Why do I have to do arithmethic?!" Shirogane: "And here's my assistant, kokuchi!" Kokuchi: "HISS!" Akira: "HEY! I don't get why a kokuchi is here...Besides, does it even remotely understand our language." Shirogane:"Here's the first question" "Akira-kun, what's three times four?" Akira: "Twelve..." Shirogane: "CORRECT!!!" "Wonderful Akira-kun! Fantastic Job!" "You're so smart. Can I call you genius from now on?" Akira: "Only if you want a pencil shoved in your eye!" "Stop making fun of me right now!" Shirogane: "Let's move on to the next question.♥ (Shirogane spinning) Akira: "Why are you so hyper today?" "You're acting like a different person!" Shirogane: "Kengo-kun what is 23 minus 15?" Kengo: "Twe--" Shirogane: "WRONG." " If you can't solve a simple problem like this, you don't even deserve to be considered human. You'd be better off dead. SO JUST DIE." Kengo: "I made a small mistake! No need to walk all over me like that!!" Shirogane: "Let me explain this problem so that stupid Kengo-kun can understand." Kengo: "I...I am not stupid!" Shirogane: "First, you have 23 kokuchi..." "...You take 15 from the 23..." "...AND KILL THEM" (Shirogane killing the Kokuchi) Kengo: "OMG, Akira! Can you stop him?!" Akira: "Well...Why should I? I don't really care...I'm tired." Kengo: "AKIRA!!" (Shirogane covered in Kokuchi blood) Shirogane: Now then! How many kokuchi do we have left now, Kengo-kun." (Kokuchi shivers) Kengo: "SO GROSS! EI--EIGHT! THE ANSWER IS EIGHT!" Shirogane: "Yes you are correct! Well, the dumb boy finally understood the problem, and it's time for us to say goodbye!" "Take care and see you next week!" (Akira sleeping) Kengo: Not likely..." Shirogane: "GOODBYE!
Kairi Sorano (Monochrome Factor Volume 2)
The sides of my head throb. My knees feel weak. “You need therapy.” Mom laughs the most over-the-top, hysterical laugh I’ve ever heard. “It’s not funny. There is something wrong with you. Who treats their kids this way? There’s a reason none of us want to be around you. There’s a reason Shoji wants to live with Dad, and why Taro spent the rest of the summer with his friend, and why I want to go to art school thousands of miles away from you.” My face burns with frustration. “You are so obsessed with yourself that there isn’t any room for anyone else’s feelings. You don’t care about anything unless it somehow relates back to you.” I start to walk away, intent on leaving her alone in her chair. But something stops me. Spinning back to face her, my breathing erratic and my voice hoarse, I growl, “And I’m not imagining what happened to me. Your sick brother sexually abused me. I don’t care what you think it’s called, because that’s what it is. Sexual abuse. I was sexually abused. Do you get that? And if you were any kind of mother, that would have mattered to you. You wouldn’t have tried to justify it or rationalize it away by saying it wasn’t rape and therefore isn’t as bad—it was bad. That’s it.
Akemi Dawn Bowman (Starfish)
We’re walking to our cars when Gabe says, “Hey, Lara Jean, did you know that if you say your name really fast, it sounds like Large? Try it! LaraJean.” Dutifully I repeat, “LaraJean. Larjean. Largy. Actually I think it sounds more like Largy, not Large.” Gabe nods to himself and announces, “I’m going to start calling you Large. You’re so little it’s funny. Right? Like those big guys who go by the name Tiny?” I shrug. “Sure.” Gabe turns to Darrell. “She’s so little she could be our mascot.” “Hey, I’m not that small,” I protest. “How tall are you?” Darrell asks me. “Five two,” I fib. It’s more like five one and a quarter. Tossing his spoon in the trash, Gabe says, “You’re so little you could fit in my pocket!” All the guys laugh. Peter’s smiling in a bemused way. Then Gabe suddenly grabs me and throws me over his shoulder like I’m a kid and he’s my dad. “Gabe! Put me down!” I shriek, kicking my legs and pounding on his chest. He starts spinning around in a circle, and all the guys are cracking up. “I’m going to adopt you, Large! You’re going to be my pet. I’ll put you in my old hamster cage!” I’m giggling so hard I can’t catch my breath and I’m starting to feel dizzy. “Put me down!” “Put her down, man,” Peter says, but he’s laughing too. Gabe runs toward somebody’s pickup truck and sets me down in the back. “Get me out of here!” I yell. Gabe’s already running away. All the guys start getting into their cars. “Bye, Large!” they call out. Peter jogs over to me and extends his hand so I can hop down. “Your friends are crazy,” I say, jumping onto the pavement. “They like you,” he says. “Really?” “Sure. They used to hate when I would bring Gen places. They don’t mind if you hang out with us.” Peter slings his arm around me. “Come on, Large. I’ll take you home.” As we walk to his car, I let my hair fall in my face so he doesn’t see me smiling. It sure is nice being part of a group, feeling like I belong.
Jenny Han (To All the Boys I've Loved Before (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #1))
Sometimes you fall, spinning through space, grasping for the things that keep you on this earth. Sometimes you catch them. They can be the hands of the people you love. They can be your pets—pups with funny names, cats with ferocious old souls. The thing that keeps you here can be your art. It can be things you have collected and invested with a certain sense of meaning. A flowered, buckled treasure chest of secrets. Shoes that make you taller and, therefore, closer to the heavens. A suit that belonged to your fairy godmother. A dress that makes you feel a little like the Goddess herself. Sometimes you keep falling; you don’t catch anything.
Francesca Lia Block (Necklace of Kisses (Weetzie Bat, #6))
Bree nodded eagerly, anxious to see her friend again. “Oooh. I like that idea. Yeah. Let’s stay, Alessandro and then in the morning, we can have wine with our toast! Oh hey, that’s funny, huh. Wine, toast, get it?” Bree giggled. Oh wow. Her head was feeling really, really fuzzy. “Okay, let’s go to bed,” Alessandro said rising from the couch after he and Kevin finished discussing the plans for the vineyard in the coming year as well as the progress it had made thus far. Bree gasped. “Alessandro! We can’t have sex in someone else’s house!” Alessandro blushed and placed a hand on her back, leading her towards the stairs after wishing Hadley a good night. “It’s my house, darling,” he reminded her. “Oh well, that’s okay then, but you can’t be loud though cause that would still be rude,” Bree said, reaching down and squeezing Alessandro’s ass. Gosh, her hubby had a really nice tight ass. “Here we are,” he said, leading her into one of the mansion’s many bedrooms. “Alessandro, I hass…have…a little confestion to make,” Bree said leaning her head on his shoulder. “You do?” he asked placing her on the bed and bending down to remove her shoes. Bree lay back and stared up at the spinning ceiling. “Mmhm. I think…I’m ina...Little drunk bit.” “Really?” Alessandro asked with feigned surprise.
E. Jamie (The Betrayal (Blood Vows, #2))
It was at night,” I say. “What was?” “What happened. The car wreck. We were driving along the Storm King Highway.” “Where’s that?” “Oh, it’s one of the most scenic drives in the whole state,” I say, somewhat sarcastically. “Route 218. The road that connects West Point and Cornwall up in the Highlands on the west side of the Hudson River. It’s narrow and curvy and hangs off the cliffs on the side of Storm King Mountain. An extremely twisty two-lane road. With a lookout point and a picturesque stone wall to stop you from tumbling off into the river. Motorcycle guys love Route 218.” We stop moving forward and pause under a streetlamp. “But if you ask me, they shouldn’t let trucks use that road.” Cool Girl looks at me. “Go on, Jamie,” she says gently. And so I do. “Like I said, it was night. And it was raining. We’d gone to West Point to take the tour, have a picnic. It was a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky until the tour was over, and then it started pouring. Guess we stayed too late. Me, my mom, my dad.” Now I bite back the tears. “My little sister. Jenny. You would’ve liked Jenny. She was always happy. Always laughing. “We were on a curve. All of a sudden, this truck comes around the side of the cliff. It’s halfway in our lane and fishtailing on account of the slick road. My dad slams on the brakes. Swerves right. We smash into a stone fence and bounce off it like we’re playing wall ball. The hood of our car slides under the truck, right in front of its rear tires—tires that are smoking and screaming and trying to stop spinning.” I see it all again. In slow motion. The detail never goes away. “They all died,” I finally say. “My mother, my father, my little sister. I was the lucky one. I was the only one who survived.
James Patterson (I Funny: A Middle School Story)
Trump’s shortcomings stood out particularly during emergencies. I remember briefing the president in the Oval Office on the projected storm track of an Atlantic hurricane. At first, he seemed to grasp the devastating magnitude of the Category 4 superstorm, until he opened his mouth. “Is that the direction they always spin?” the president asked me. “I’m sorry sir,” I responded, “I don’t understand.” “Hurricanes. Do they always spin like that?” He made a swirl in the air with his finger. “Counterclockwise?” I asked. He nodded. “Yes, Mr. President. It’s called the Coriolis effect. It’s the same reason toilet water spins the other direction in the Southern Hemisphere.” “Incredible,” Trump replied, squinting his eyes to look at the foam board presentation. We needed him to urge residents to evacuate from the Carolinas, where it looked like the storm would make landfall, but the president mused about another potential response. “You know, I was watching TV, and they interviewed a guy in a parking lot,” Trump leaned back and recounted. “He was wearing a red hat, a MAGA hat, and he said he was going to ‘ride it out.’ Isn’t that something? That’s what Trump supporters do. They’re tough. They ride it out. I think that’s what I’ll tell them to do.” Sometimes his irreverence could be funny, even charming. That day it wasn’t. Worried looks filled the room. A clever communications aide piped up. “Mr. President, I wouldn’t take that chance. This is going to be a pretty bad storm, and you don’t want to lose supporters in the Carolinas before the 2020 election.” The president thought about it for a moment. “That’s such a good point. We should urge the evacuations.” You couldn’t write such a stupid scene in a movie, but it always got a little worse.
Miles Taylor (Blowback A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump)
Marry me.” A statement. Not a question. It came again. “Marry. Me.” His eyes burned into mine. I breathed in, my ears ringing. My pulse sped up, my heart raced, I was trying to remember exactly what breathing meant. I was wet, and I was gasping. “I want you. I want that, what they had today. I want it all, and I want it with you. I want you, want you to be my wife. I’ve got a ring, I’ll give it to you right now if you’ll say yes.” With every word, his hands tightened on my hips, desperate, crazy, longing. “I had this all planned out, so much smoother and romantic and everything you deserve. But my head’s been spinning since yesterday, when I saw my best friend steal a van to go meet his new family. And all I want, all I’ve ever wanted, is exactly that. Exactly you. And when I walked up those stairs, and heard the shower go on, and knew you were in here all naked and wet and waiting for me, I knew I couldn’t wait another day, another hour, another minute, without asking you to be my wife. So. Marry. Me.” He knelt. Christ on a crutch, he knelt on the shower floor, where he had knelt countless times before . . . ahem . . . took my hand, and repeated those words again. Finally, with a question mark at the end. “Marry me?” And in that moment, I realized all the worrying, all the hand wringing and wonder ponder, all the thoughts about who says what’s right for a couple, and when is it too soon, and when is it the right time, and if it ain’t broke don’t blah blah blah. Fuck all that noise. It wasn’t about what was right for other couples, it was about what was right for us. Simon and me. Because when Wallbanger kneels down and asks you to be his wife, it’s not really something you need to think too long on. Funny thing about getting proposed to in a shower. You can’t tell which is water and which is tears.
Alice Clayton
public.” “Sure, why not. Rumor has it you do exactly that in bed,” I tease. Truthfully I have no knowledge of what Kennedy and her boy toy do in or out of the bedroom. Kennedy and Keith have been together forever, or at least as long as she’s been my stepsister for the last four years. “You’re not funny.” She spins her mug, eyeing me like a snake. “You missed my eighties party.” “I’m sorry. Did you dance in the purple rain?” “No we walked like an Egyptian.
Addison Moore (Beautiful Oblivion (Beautiful Oblivion, #1))
Jack arrives at work one Monday morning with two black eyes. His colleagues are understandably curious. “Hey, Jack, what happened to you?” one of them asks. “It’s the damndest thing! I was at church yesterday and this fat lady stood up in front of me. You know how a dress can get stuck in the crack of the butt of a fat lady? It looked funny. I figured she wouldn’t like that, so I just reached over and pulled it out with a little tug. Next thing I know, she spins around and socks me one!” “Jeez, you got TWO black eyes in one blow?” “Nah, after she turned back around, I figured she was angry that I pulled the dress out of her crack, so I tried to poke it back in.
Barry Dougherty (Friars Club Private Joke File: More Than 2,000 Very Naughty Jokes from the Grand Masters of Comedy)
Jay bent over the table, and the muscles in his arm stood proud as he drew the cue back. In one swift motion, he sent it cracking into the white, the other balls soon spinning across the green felt. “Your turn,” he handed her the cue, eyes glinting wickedly. “Need me to look after your end? Of the pool cue, I mean.” “I'm quite capable of looking after my own end, thanks,” Kayla replied archly, and quickly ran the chalk over her cue. “I know the importance of taking care of the tip.
Libby Cole (Hawaiian Heartbreak (Hawaiian Heartbreak, #1))
Things that try too hard to be funny often aren’t. There had been a moth-eaten lion with practically no teeth, a tight-rope walker who was never more than a few feet above the ground, and a knife-thrower who threw a lot of knives at an elderly woman in pink tights on a big spinning wooden disc and completely failed to hit her every time. The only real amusement was afterwards, when a cart ran over the clown.
Terry Pratchett (A Hat Full of Sky (Discworld, #32))
Finally, the fourth reminder is the futility of continuing to spin around on this treadmill that is traditionally called samsara. Someone once said that she felt as if she were on a record that just kept going round and round; she had got stuck in this groove, and every time she went around, the groove got deeper and deeper. I've also heard people say that sometimes, when they hear them selves speak, they feel as if they're a tape recorder playing the same tape over and over and over. They get sick of it, but somehow they just keep playing it anyway because there is a funny little identity there that gives them some kind of security, painful though it may be. That's samsara.
Pema Chödrön (The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World)
But her words may have physically reached Todd’s ears, but psychologically they could not stick the landing and fairly soon the local police tore after the suspected criminal in a pointed arrow manner, the latter of whom performed all sorts of leaps and spins to escape arrest, but it was no use, being bowled over and struck down by the pursuers, and he wound up in a gutter and his clumsy gymnastics came to a halt in a 0-10 split.
J.S. Mason (Whisky Hernandez)
His answer was not what we expected, and we burst into even more laughter. Lucy reached across the table to give Sai a playful slap, but it was all in fun. The game continued in the same vein. Each of the Truths and Dares was funny and harmless, so much so that no one felt the need to Skip. When it was Damon’s turn to spin the bottle, it pointed at Liam. “Truth or Dare, Liam?” Damon asked
Katrina Kahler (GIRL GANG: Book 6: Consequences)
In the realm of supercars, the moment of turning the ignition ignites a passion in even the most frigid petrol head. Words like ‘purr’ or ‘roar’ are often placed upon the sound of the engine spinning into life. With the Lethe, words like ‘splutter’ or ‘cough’ over did it – it was more like Bessy’s final breath before she was loaded into the abattoir van.
Marcel M. du Plessis (The Bright Report (Bright Report, #1))
I turned to Lucien, my light radiating so brightly that it bounced off his metal eye. A friend beseeching another for help. I reached a hand toward him. Beyond us, I could feel Ianthe scrambling to regain control, to find some way to spin it. Perhaps Lucien could, too. For he took my hand, and then knelt upon one knee in the grass, pressing my fingers to his brow. Like stalks of wheat in a wind, the others fell to their knees as well. For in all of her preening ceremonies and rituals, never had Ianthe revealed any sign of power or blessing. But Feyre Cursebreaker, who had let Prythian from tyranny and darkness... Blessed. Holy. Undimming before evil. I let my glow spread, until it, too, rippled from Lucien's bowed form. A knight before his queen. When I looked to Ianthe and smiled again, I let a little bit of the wolf show.
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3))
Lottie spins, she has her blinkers on. She has joined me on this stupid weight loss journey, apparently, it’s not so funny when she can’t get her jeans to fit. I told her to buy a size up, she told me to shut my face, it’s all about compromise.
Shauna Richmond (Screw you too!)
Loren held out her hand. "It's been fun listening to your stories, Mr...." The old cook smiled. "Cussler, Clive Cussler. Mighty nice to have met you, ma'am." When they were on the road again, the Pierce Arrow and its trailer smoothly rolling toward the border crossing, Pitt turned to Loren. "For a moment there, I thought the old geezer might have given me a clue to the treasure site." "You mean Yaeger's far-out translation about a river running under an island?" "It still doesn't seem geologically possible." Loren turned the rearview mirror to reapply her lipstick. "If the river flowed deep enough it might conceivably pass under the Gulf." "Maybe, but there's no way in hell to know for certain without drilling through several kilometers of hard rock." "You'll be lucky just to find your way to the treasure cavern without a major excavation." Pitt smiled as he stared at the road ahead. "He could really spin the yarns, couldn't he?" "The old cook? He certainly had an active imagination." "I'm sorry I didn't get his name." Loren settled back in the seat and gazed out her window as the dunes gave way to a tapestry of mesquite and cactus. "He told me what it was." "And?" "It was an odd name." She paused, trying to remember. Then she shrugged in defeat. "Funny thing...I've already forgotten it.
Clive Cussler (Inca Gold (Dirk Pitt, #12))
After all my childhood years of watching him silently and revering him unquestionably, I took my twenties to spin out against him__not to refute him, but to scream out I was equal to him, a person who was just as funny, just as smart, and just as worthy of talking to.
Caitlin Connors (Irishman Dies from Stubbornness: Unbelievable Truths Behind the Life That Launched the Viral Obituary of Christopher Clifford Connors)
I haven't spun any tales.' He paused. 'Yet.' Casteel's eyes narrowed as he stood beside me. 'How about you keep spinning tales to a minimum?' 'But I've interested in spun tales,' I remarked.
Jennifer L. Armentrout (A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire (Blood and Ash, #2))
No one tells you how birth and death are so closely aligned. Here, lying in the dark, I see it: pain, a journey that goes toward only one thing and the deep need to have someone with you to hold on to. Humans fret about and question what happens beyond the “end”—never about what came before our beginning. Closed loops. Infinite human experience of beginning and ending, so deeply connected, only one instilling fear. I am not frightened anymore. We are on an adventure, and this is not some eleventh-hour reach to spin death into a more palatable destination. We are together, this person who was my portal into life. This rare, funny, independent creature who would do the same for me: walk with me as far as she could and then wave me off with love, safe in the knowledge that life had equipped me with everything I needed to meet death as the newest of my many experiences.
Minnie Driver (Managing Expectations: A Memoir in Essays)
I was standing by the car when two police officers showed up in the alley, very interested in me and the BMW in an alley where car traffic was not allowed at all, sitting there with a Belgian plate tag in the middle of the coffeeshop district, with me, the Hungarian guy, leaning to it smoking a cigarette, obviously waiting for something to happen. They began to examine my IDs and started searching the car. They were looking for drugs, apparently. I had been dealing with them for a few minutes when Adam showed up at the end of the alley. I was the only one looking that way, seeing Adam walking to turn into the alley; the two officers were too busy to notice what I had witnessed. The moment Adam looked up and noticed the officers around me, the moment he was about to turn right towards us into the alley, he made a 180-degree turn, the way a bad kid would do when playing hide and seek. Catching his steps the way Mr. Bean or Benny Hill would do—I could almost hear the music too—was both very funny and very concerning. He was too stupid to be a criminal; he was such a lame criminal that he didn't even think of walking past the alley's entrance like nothing happened instead of turning around and acting so suspiciously and obviously being in the wrong. I began to wonder how the coffeeshop business would work out with this guy if he was suddenly on cocaine all the time before we even opened the club? How would not he get me in trouble when there would be kilograms of marijuana and tons of cash flying around? How could I ever quit this job even if we could manage to run the place and get rich over the next 2-3 years? How would I ever get rid of this embarrassing, childish, dangerously silly criminal guy? By some miracle, in the car—which was used by these junkies and was usually full of smoking accessories—the cops didn't find a cigarette paper either, although they were very, very thorough. Belgian BMW wagon with a Hungarian guy, in an alley in the area full of marijuana clubs. They were sure they had me now, that they would be rewarded for such a catch. But there was nothing in the car. I was able to show them Rachel's Belgian registration and everything, explaining that she was my girlfriend who was in Belgium at that time and we were both working for a company selling smoking accessories; I gave them my business card. I apologized for parking there and even driving into that alley with the car. They fined me regardless. Before we started dealing with the marijuana behalf my name, we were collecting fines attributed to Adam on my name. Talk about being cheap. Apparently, he had started growing a lot of marijuana without my knowledge in a place he did not want me to find out about. As I was driving back to Urgell, we were both very silent. I was calm but he was anxious and I could almost hear the gears spinning in his mind. Perhaps at the same moment, we both realized that if I got arrested for any reason and ended up in jail, Adam could keep the 33% profit of the coffeeshop which I had signed up for and which belonged to me. ‘Thinking quickly. Acting quicker.’ Never quick enough. The sneaker. Adam was usually very slow, whether he was high or low.
Tomas Adam Nyapi (BARCELONA MARIJUANA MAFIA)
I’m driving home to change,” Win said. “Then I’m dining at Merion.” Mainliners never ate; they dined. “Care to join me?” “Sounds good,” Myron said. “Wait a second.” “What?” “Are you properly attired?” “I don’t clash,” Myron said. “Will they still let me in?” “My, my, that was very funny, Myron. I must write that one down. As soon as I stop laughing, I plan on locating a pen. However, I am so filled with mirth that I may wrap my precious Jag around an upcoming telephone pole. Alas, at least I will die with jocularity in my heart.” Win. “We have a case,” Myron said. Silence. Win made this so easy. “I’ll tell you about it at dinner.” “Until then,” Win said, “it’ll be all I can do to douse my mounting excitement and anticipation with a snifter of cognac.” Click. Gotta love that Win. Myron hadn’t driven a mile when the cellular phone rang. Myron switched it on. It was Bucky. “The kidnapper called again.
Harlan Coben (Back Spin (Myron Bolitar, #4))
Why do we have to do this in the middle of the night?” Taylor asked. “Because we don’t want the whole town knowing why we’re going and where we’re going.” “How can I tell anyone if I don’t even know myself?” Taylor stuck out her lower lip. “Water. We’re going to look for water,” Sam said. He could almost hear the wheels in Taylor’s head spinning. Then, “OMG, we’re out of water?” She bit her lip, took a couple of dramatic breaths, and wailed, “Do you mean we’re all going to die?” “That would be a pretty good example of why we’re keeping this secret,” Sam said dryly. “I just need to go—” “Uh-uh!” Sam said. “No you don’t, Taylor. You don’t bounce anywhere or talk to anyone without me agreeing. Are we clear?” “You know, Sam, you’re nice. And so very, very hot,” Taylor said. “But you’re not really much fun.” “Let’s get out of here while we can,” Dekka said. “I brought a gun, by the way.” “Are we going to be in danger?” Taylor cried. “The gun’s in case you get on my nerves, Taylor,” Dekka warned. “Oh, so funny,” Taylor said.
Michael Grant (Plague (Gone, #4))
I got you a bunch of stuff today at the store. Why don’t you check it out?” she asks. His brow arches. “You got stuff for me?” He grins and whoops and goes to rummage through the bags. He is a teenage boy, and I do have experience with those beasts. The girls, not so much. When Sky’s not looking, I chuck him on the shoulder and warn, “Even if you don’t like it, pretend you do. Don’t hurt her feelings.” “Are you kidding?” he asks. He holds up a T-shirt. “These are great.” He tries his shoes on, and they fit. She bought Vans, so she couldn’t go wrong there. He loves them. “You shouldn’t have, Aunt Sky,” he says. He gets up and goes to her. She’s grinning from ear to ear. He picks her up and spins her around. “Thank you,” he says. She squeals. “I have to get used to that hugging thing you do,” she says. “Why?” he asks. He looks confused. I have a feeling Sky didn’t get much affection as a child. But these kids were steeped in it. “It’s just…not something I’m used to,” she says. Seth’s face falls. “Do you want me to stop?” he asks. “I hugged my mom all the time.” “If you stop, I’ll have to ground you or make you wear a funny hat to school or something. Hell, I don’t know how to torture you, but I’d come up with something.” She laughs, but I can tell she’s uncomfortable. He wraps his arm around her shoulder again and squeezes her. She squeaks a little, and he laughs. “You’re like a little mouse,” he says. “Do you whisper when you’re angry, too?” She punches his shoulder. “You’ll find out if you keep it up.
Tammy Falkner (Maybe Matt's Miracle (The Reed Brothers, #4))
Want a ride?" ... One look at the car, & I decided that walking didn't sound so bad, after all. ... "Half the people around here shouldn't even be driving." She said this will no irony whatsoever, despite the fact that her car's black cloth top kept rising and lowering like some kind of strange bird trying to achieve flight. The driver, a young ginger haired guy, took a stab at making it stop, & turned the wipers on instead. "I'm good," I assured her. ... Ronnie panicked & veered sharply to the right, missing the race car but clipping a VW Bug that had stalled out in the middle of the air. It's hood was jacked up, and its owner's butt was hanging over the side. Or, at least, it was until the impact caused the Bug to go spinning in one direction & flung the owner in the other. ...."uh-oh" .... Ronnie glanced at me. "Get in if you're getting!" I'd have refused, considering his grasp on the fundamentals of the road -- or in this case, the air. But traffic was piling up around the accident, pushing more people out of the safe zone. And I was beginning to doubt that most of them even knew how to drive on land.
Karen Chance (Death's Mistress (Dorina Basarab, #2))
But sometimes we’d spin the moon, and you had to close your eyes and put your finger down to make the spinning stop, and wherever your finger landed, that was your spot, and you had to make up a story about it. It was a good game, but then Mom landed in the Sea of Crisis three times in a row, and Dad kept landing in these tiny places like the Marsh of Diseases and the Lake of Death. He thought it was funny, but it freaked Mom out, so we stopped playing.
Ruth Ozeki (The Book of Form and Emptiness)
longing to suck that bottle of warm, delicious milk. I hadn’t been weaned off it for very long. I couldn’t resist. I pulled the bottle gently out of my brother’s mouth and hands, popped it hastily into my own mouth, lay back on the sofa and enjoyed the trickle of something warm down my throat - something I still enjoy today. Warm milk is heaven for a toddler, a pleasure beyond measure. That was until my younger brother’s legs began shaking, his fists clenched and his breath started puffing away. This was not a good sign. I turned my head to look at him, the bottle still locked in my mouth, when all of a sudden his face turned red and distorted, like he was about to poop. Instead, he let out a high-pitched scream that didn’t quite shatter the front window – though it must have come close – but shattered my eardrums and froze my whole body. Unfortunately for me, it also ignited my mum and dad, who both dropped whatever they had been doing in the kitchen and came running immediately into the living room. ‘What the hell is going on?’ shouted Dad. ‘Brett’s taken Trevor’s bottle,’ shrieked Mum as she ripped it out of my mouth – with my only tooth still stuck in the teat. She shoved it straight back into my brother’s mouth to disable the alarm. ‘He needs a bloody good hiding.’ ‘Little bastard. Get up and come here now!’ bellowed Dad. He yanked me off the sofa and held me dangling in the air by one arm as if he were holding up the biggest fish he ever caught, but with much less pride. My world was spinning and so was I as Dad whacked my petite bottom. I must have blacked out from the pain as I don’t remember anything after that. What I do remember, however, is resenting my little brother for making me lose both my tooth and my taste for dairy products. I also learnt one of life’s important lessons: be very careful what you put in your mouth.
Brett Preiss (The (un)Lucky Sperm: Tales of My Bizarre Childhood - A Funny Memoir)
Are we almost there?” I asked. “You won’t be sleeping on the beach tonight,” he replied. “Not unless you’re fool enough to insist on it.” “I don’t mind sleeping under the stars.” “Well, isn’t that what a legendary huntress always does?” He winked at me. “Or have you become someone else already?” He kept his teasing to a whisper. “Very funny.” “Put your quills down, little hedgehog, I’m not your enemy,” Argus replied. “I owe you plenty for what you’ve brought to this voyage. Thanks to you, I only felt like throttling Jason every second day. I wish I knew your true name so when I die, I can tell Hades, ‘See that girl? She’s sharp as a shark’s tooth, brave enough to battle the worst storm Poseidon could throw at her, and one of these days she’ll be as beautiful as a sunrise on a summer sea. So you tell the Fates to spin the thread of her life good and long, or you’ll have Argus to answer to!’” He chuckled. I placed my hand over his on the prow. “I hope the Pythia was wrong,” I told him. “Not because I like you, but so Hades doesn’t have to put up with you too soon.
Esther M. Friesner (Nobody's Prize (Nobody's Princess, #2))
What a funny thing time is. It’s mutable. It speeds and it slows. It retreats and it attacks. But Swiss clocks boast the world’s most unflinching precision. Incomparable accuracy. Exactness. Exactness is a form of truth. But nothing is exactly true. Truth, like time, is mutable. Both are relative. Both are told. When it’s 7:45 A.M. in Zürich, it’s 2:45 P.M. in Tokyo. Each city lives in its own hour. Gleich und nicht gleich. The same and yet not. The earth turns on an earth-sized axis. Everything oscillates. No one and nothing’s exempt. The planet spins at an angled pitch. Therefore each day lasts as long as each day lasts. Hours are arbitrary. A minute may endure a thousand years. And an event can occur in an instant.
Jill Alexander Essbaum (Hausfrau)
Ugh! I can’t look anymore,” I say in frustration, “If I read one more status about being happy and in a relationship I’m going to throw my computer out the window.” I hear a laugh behind me and spin my chair around to see my roommate and best friend, Sarah, standing there eating a bowl of cereal. “What’s so funny?” I demand. “That you’re going to throw your computer out the window just because people
Jaime Russell (Love Me Like You Do (Love Me #1))
I may be an elf,” I said with a smile that never failed to charm people, “but I'm not a stupid elf. I've got a college degree and everything.” “In what?” the little girl asked. “Dumb elfery?” I tried not to snort, but even I admit that was funny. “No, actually the courses in dumb elfery were full so I had to take the ones in cute elfery instead.” I pulled back and did a little spin, making sure the bells on my hat and shoes jingled. “So, did I deserve that degree or what? I graduated with honors and everything.” Emma did a circle with her finger, motioning for me to turn around again. I did and when I turned back, she was tapping her chin. “I think you should probably ask for your money back.
Candi Kay (Kane the Fake Elf & His Sexy Mall Santa)
The Things They Carried has sold over two million copies internationally, won numerous awards, and is an English classroom staple. Isabel Allende was the first writer to hold me inside a sentence, rapt and wondrous. It's no surprise that her most transformative writing springs from personal anguish. Her first book, The House of the Spirits, began as a letter to her dying grandfather whom she could not reach in time. Eva Luna, one of my favorite novels, is about an orphan girl who uses her storytelling gift to survive and thrive amid trauma, and Allende refers to the healing power of writing in many of her interviews. Allende's books have sold over fifty-six million copies, been translated into thirty languages, and been made into successful plays and movies. Such is the power of mining your deep. Jeanette Winterson acknowledges that her novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is her own story of growing up gay in a fundamentalist Christian household in the 1950s. She wrote it to create psychic space from the trauma. In her memoir, she writes of Oranges, “I wrote a story I could live with. The other one was too painful. I could not survive it.” Sherman Alexie, who grew up in poverty on an Indian reservation that as a child he never dreamed he could leave, does something similar in his young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, named one of the “Best Books of 2007” by School Library Journal. He has said that fictionalizing life is so satisfying because he can spin the story better than real life did. Nora Ephron's roman à clef Heartburn is a sharply funny, fictionalized account of Ephron's own marriage to Carl Bernstein. She couldn't control his cheating during her pregnancy or the subsequent dissolution of their marriage, but through the novelization of her experience, she got to revise the ending of that particular story. In Heartburn, Rachel, the character based on Ephron, is asked
Jessica Lourey (Rewrite Your Life: Discover Your Truth Through the Healing Power of Fiction)
Cover the war, what a gig to frame for yourself, going out after one kind of information and getting another, totally other, to lock your eyes open, drop your blood temperature down under the 0, dry your mouth out so a full swig of water disappeared in there before you could swallow, turn your breath fouler than corpse gas. There were times when your fear would take directions so wild that you had to stop and watch the spin. Forget the Cong, the trees would kill you, the elephant grass grew up homicidal, the ground you were walking over possessed malignant intelligence, your whole environment was a bath. Even so, considering where you were and what was happening to so many people, it was a privilege just to be able to feel afraid. So you learned about fear, it was hard to know what you really learned about courage. How many times did somebody have to run in front of a machine gun before it became an act of cowardice? What about those acts that didn’t require courage to perform, but made you a coward if you didn’t? It was hard to know at the moment, easy to make a mistake when it came, like the mistake of thinking that all you needed to perform a witness act were your eyes. A lot of what people called courage was only undifferentiated energy cut loose by the intensity of the moment, mind loss that sent the actor on an incredible run; if he survived it he had the chance later to decide whether he’d really been brave or just overcome with life, even ecstasy. A lot of people found the guts to just call it all off and refuse to ever go out anymore, they turned and submitted to the penalty end of the system or they just split. A lot of reporters, too, I had friends in the press corps who went out once or twice and then never again. Sometimes I thought that they were the sanest, most serious people of all, although to be honest I never said so until my time there was almost over. “We had this gook and we was gonna skin him” (a grunt told me), “I mean he was already dead and everything, and the lieutenant comes over and says, ‘Hey asshole, there’s a reporter in the TOC, you want him to come out and see that? I mean, use your fucking heads, there’s a time and place for everything.…” “Too bad you wasn’t with us last week” (another grunt told me, coming off a no-contact operation), “we killed so many gooks it wasn’t even funny.” Was it possible that they were there and not haunted? No, not possible, not a chance, I know I wasn’t the only one. Where are they now? (Where am I now?) I stood as close to them as I could without actually being one of them, and then I stood as far back as I could without leaving the planet. Disgust doesn’t begin to describe what they made me feel, they threw people out of helicopters, tied people up and put the dogs on them. Brutality was just a word in my mouth before that. But disgust was only one color in the whole mandala, gentleness and pity were other colors, there wasn’t a color left out. I think that those people who used to say that they only wept for the Vietnamese never really wept for anyone at all if they couldn’t squeeze out at least one for these men and boys when they died or had their lives cracked open for them. But of course we were intimate, I’ll tell you how intimate: they were my guns, and I let them do it.
Michael Herr (Dispatches)
We finally lay in the grass, breathing hard as we looked up into the blue of the sky. That always makes me dizzy. It's a funny thing how I don't much notice gravity when I walk around. It is only when I lie flat in the grass that I have any sense of the earth spinning around and around, carrying me with it. It is only when I am flat to the earth that I feel the looseness of the grip in which we are held. Any one of us, at any moment, might be floating free.
Audrey Couloumbis (Getting Near to Baby)
I got up, ready to explode. She lifted her head, still chewing, and watched me. I drew myself up to my full height and managed no more than two steps towards her before she spun around on her heels and sped off along the side of the hill for a short distance before spinning back around to face me, her neck arched, tail held high and nostrils flaring. I stood still and watched her, stunned. I sensed her fleeting feeling of fear, which turned to confusion and then, what was that, amusement? She found this funny? ‘WHY ARE YOU IGNORING ME?’ I yelled at her. ‘DON’T YOU KNOW HOW FAR I HAVE COME, WHAT I’VE BEEN THROUGH, TO FIND YOU? AND THEN YOU JUST CARRY ON GRAZING AS IF I WASN’T HERE?’ She relaxed and lowered her head to graze once more. You are here. I am here. Everything is as it should be, were the words I heard in my head. With them came a surge of love that wrapped itself around me. My anger disappeared
Lynn Mann (The Horses Know (The Horses Know #1))
It was funny, almost, how poorly Shiloh had built her life—especially for someone who had once prided herself on her ability to make decisions. That’s something she’d decided about herself when she was a teenager. She’d thought she was good at making decisions because she liked making them. They felt good, they gave her a zing. If someone was lingering over a decision or seesawing between two options, Shiloh loved cutting in and settling the matter. The world would spin faster and with more clarity if Shiloh were in charge.
Rainbow Rowell (Slow Dance)