“
When life gives you lemons, squirt someone in the eye.
”
”
Cathy Guisewite
“
Did you ever want to set someone's head on fire, just to see what it looked like? Did you ever stand in the street and think to yourself, I could make that nun go blind just by giving her a kiss? Did you ever lay out plans for stitching babies and stray cats into a Perfect New Human? Did you ever stand naked surrounded by people who want your gleaming sperm, squirting frankincense, soma and testosterone from every pore? If so, then you're the bastard who stole my drugs Friday night. And I'll find you. Oh, yes.
”
”
Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan, Vol. 5: Lonely City)
“
I bear my burden proudly for all to see, to conquer prejudice and ignorance and hate with knowledge and sincerity and love. Whenever you are threatened by a hostile presence, you emit a thick cloud of love like an octopus squirts out ink...
”
”
William S. Burroughs
“
I think if you don't really like a girl, you shouldn't horse around with her at all, and if you do like her, then you're supposed to like her face, and if you like her face, you ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff to it, like squirting water all over it. It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes.
”
”
J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye)
“
We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing on fire hydrants...I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. she walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. She knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either.
People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism?
The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.
”
”
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
“
Are you armed?" Oliver asked her.
She glanced down at her backpack and instantly, instinctively held back. "No."
"Lie to me again and I'll put you out on the street and do this myself."
Claire swallowed. "Uh, yeah."
"With what?"
"Silver-coated stakes, wooden stakes, a crossbow, about ten bolts . . . oh, and a squirt gun with some silver-nitrate solution."
He smiled grimly at the dark windshield. "What, no grenade launchers?"
"Would they work?"
"I choose not to comment.
”
”
Rachel Caine (Ghost Town (The Morganville Vampires, #9))
“
Where did this come from? Do you know what this is? Luca is going to sneak out of bed in the middle of the night and squirt it on his tongue. It's like drugs for ten-year-olds. Today it's Ice Magic. Tomorrow, heroin.
”
”
Melina Marchetta (Saving Francesca)
“
The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore, so it eats it! It's rather like getting tenure.
”
”
Daniel C. Dennett
“
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
”
”
John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath)
“
She was knitting a sweater and enjoying the calm atmosphere of her living room when her chubby, beer-drinking, sports-watching husband woke from a nap on the couch screaming, “Touchdown!” At the moment her serenity had been broken, she unconsciously reacted by swinging around and plunging a knitting needle into her husband’s throat. While blood squirted from his throat and his shocked face produced gurgling sounds, she lifted from her chair and drove the other knitting needle into his beer-ballooned stomach over and over again. Blood and beer gushed out of his belly like a punctured fish tank. As her husband gurgled and deflated, she stared down at him with a beaming smile. She had found her new hobby—annihilating assholes. She had cut up her husband into nice little pieces and used him as fertilizer for her backyard garden. Never again did her cozy house get raped by blaring sounds of sports emanating from a television set. The TV went into the garbage and the living room was converted into a tea room.
”
”
Jasun Ether (The Beasts of Success)
“
We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempts to survive our deaths...The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.
”
”
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
“
Van Houten,
I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good team. I don’t want to ask you any favors, but if you have time – and from what I saw, you have plenty – I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I’ve got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently.
Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease.
I want to leave a mark.
But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion.
(Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.)
We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless – epically useless in my current state – but I am an animal like any other.
Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either.
People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm.
The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn’t actually invented anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn’t get smallpox.
After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark blue and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar.
A nurse guy came in and told me I had to leave, that visitors weren’t allowed, and I asked if she was doing okay, and the guy said, “She’s still taking on water.” A desert blessing, an ocean curse.
What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.
”
”
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
“
I relaxed. “I would imagine in your world, girls are much different than here in the real world. I’m sure if you spent some time with the everyday girl, you would find I am not unique.”
He grinned at me. “The everyday girl is who writes me fan mail and buys out my concerts. They are the girls who yell my name and run after me like crazed animals. You’ve not even tried to sneak into my room and squirt your perfume on my pillow.
”
”
Abbi Glines (Breathe (Sea Breeze, #1))
“
Instantly, her eyes widen into caramel marbles, and her face pales about five shades lighter. I’m ready to squirt some spray tan lotion on her if it means she doesn’t make it so damn obvious that she’s not happy to see me.
”
”
H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
“
All her life she had wanted to squeeze the toothpaste really squeeze it,not just one little squirt...The paste coiled and swirled and mounded in the washbasin. Ramona decorated the mound with toothpaste roses as if it was a toothpaste birthday cake
”
”
Beverly Cleary (Ramona and Her Mother (Ramona Quimby, #5))
“
Her pores were like those of an orange, its skin filled with juice, which, if you applied the slightest pressure, would squirt up into your eyes. She was that fresh.
”
”
Saadat Hasan Manto (Bombay Stories)
“
I have a flamthrower. (Zarek)
You have a what? (Astrid)
It pays to be prepared. (Zarek)
Well. Those are nice for toasting marshmallows, but they’ll only make Thanatos mad. Regular fire won’t hurt him. I have this really neat gelatinous goo that comes out with my fire and it squirts my victims so that it don’t come off. Wanna see it? (Simi)
No! (Zarek/Astrid)
No? I don’t like that word. (Simi)
We love you, Simi. We’re just scared of your goo. (Astrid)
Oh, that I understand. Okay, you can live. (Simi)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Dance with the Devil (Dark-Hunter, #3))
“
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I was going to squirt tears. How unprofessional.
”
”
Jeaniene Frost (One Foot in the Grave (Night Huntress, #2))
“
What's bred in the bones, when you have bones, comes through. And they looked at her, watched her, wanted to squirt her full of baby juice.
”
”
Katherine Dunn (Geek Love)
“
He was already intuiting that attachment - if only to a squirt gun - made him vulnerable.
”
”
Lionel Shriver (We Need to Talk About Kevin)
“
Once the quietness arrived, it stayed and spread in Estha. It reached out of his head and enfolded him in its swampy arms. It rocked him to the rhythm of an ancient, fetal heartbeat. It sent its stealthy, suckered tentacles inching along the insides of his skull, hoovering the knolls and dells of his memory; dislodging old sentences, whisking them off the tip of his tongue. It stripped his thoughts of the words that described them and left them pared and naked. Unspeakable. Numb. And to an observer therefore, perhaps barely there. Slowly, over the years, Estha withdrew from the world. He grew accustomed to the uneasy octopus that lived inside him and squirted its inky tranquilizer on his past. Gradually the reason for his silence was hidden away, entombed somewhere deep in the soothing folds of the fact of it.
”
”
Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things)
“
Xav tugged Yves off me and handed me the call button. “You’ll be needing this, Phee, when my irritating little squirt of a brother bothers you again. Just press and the nurses will come running. One of them looks like a pro-wrestler, so she’ll make short work of him.
”
”
Joss Stirling (Stealing Phoenix (Benedicts, #2))
“
Some legends say that Hera's breast milk sprayed across the sky and created the Milky Way. I don't know. That seems like a whole lot of solar systems from just one squirt
”
”
Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes)
“
Here's the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That's what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease.
I want to leave a mark.
But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, "They'll remember me now," but (a) they don't remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion.
...
We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it's silly and useless--epically useless in my current state--but I am an animal like any other.
Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either.
People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad, Van Houten. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm.
The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn't actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn't get smallpox.
...
But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar.
...
What else? She is so beautiful. You don't get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.
”
”
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
“
Officer Dan..." I start.
"Squirt..." He grins while trying to swallow.
"I'm trying to be nice," I say, eyes narrowed. "Do you know how hard that is right now?
”
”
Apryl Baker (The Ghost Files (The Ghost Files, #1))
“
More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That's how much I love you.
I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.
As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,
Or a juggler hates a shove,
As a hostess detests unexpected guests,
That's how much you I love.
I love you more than a wasp can sting,
And more than the subway jerks,
I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,
And more than a hangnail irks.
I swear to you by the stars above,
And below, if such there be,
As the High Court loathes perjurious oathes,
That's how you're loved by me.
”
”
Ogden Nash
“
When my trust was suspended from the fragile thread of justice
and in the whole city
they were chopping up my heart's lanterns
when they would blindfold me
with the dark handkerchief of Law
and from my anxious temples of desire
fountains of blood would squirt out
when my life had become nothing
nothing
but the tic-tac of a clock,
I discovered
I must
must
must love,
insanely.
”
”
Forough Farrokhzad
“
I could hop into an ER carrying my severed leg and squirting blood from the stump and the doctor would congratulate me on having dropped all that leg weight and tell me to keep up the good work.
”
”
T. Kingfisher (A House with Good Bones)
“
We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths.
”
”
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
“
You have to be kidding,' Turner exclaimed. 'He's a loaded weapon.'
'He's barely a squirt gun.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Hell Bent (Alex Stern, #2))
“
Jocko likes salty, Jocko likes sweet, but never bring Jocko any hot sauce, like with jalapenos, because it makes Jocko squirt funny-smelling stuff out his ears.
”
”
Dean Koontz (Dead and Alive (Dean Koontz's Frankenstein, #3))
“
I curse the night I let your idiot father squirt you into me.
”
”
Dean Koontz (Odd Thomas (Odd Thomas, #1))
“
When we think we can do it all ourselves--fix, save, buy, or date a nice solution--it's hopeless. We're going to screw things up. We're going to get our tentacles wrapped around things and squirt our squiddy ink all over, so that there is even less visibility, and then we're going to squeeze the very life out of everything.
”
”
Anne Lamott (Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers)
“
The store was filled with hollow-eyed people standing in line: at the sandwich counter, at the soda fountain, at the register. All of them waiting, waiting, their hands full of candy, chips, cups of coffee, money. It was like purgatory, with snacks. Not just the customers; the employees, too. They worked the registers, squirted ketchup on hot dogs, piled limp lettuce onto flaccid lunch meat and waited for it to be over, waited until they could go home.
”
”
Kelly Braffet (Save Yourself)
“
If you bake a cupcake, the world has one more cupcake. If you become a circus clown, the world has one more squirt of seltzer down someone's pants. But if you win an Olympic gold medal, the world will not have one more Olympic gold medalist. It will just have you instead of someone else.
”
”
Steven E. Landsburg (The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics)
“
I thought you just told me they used radio.”
They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.
”
”
Terry Bisson
“
God, his voice. It was bottomless and rich.
His voice was hot chocolate with a triple squirt of fresh cream.
It’s a voice that would go directly to a woman's hips.
”
”
V. Theia (Manhattan Sugar (From Manhattan #1))
“
Paper Matches
My aunts washed dishes while the uncles
squirted each other on the lawn with
garden hoses. Why are we in here,
I said, and they are out there?
That’s the way it is,
said Aunt Hetty, the shriveled-up one.
I have the rages that small animals have,
being small, being animal.
Written on me was a message,
“At Your Service,”
like a book of paper matches.
One by one we were taken out
and struck.
We come bearing supper,
our heads on fire.
”
”
Paulette Jiles
“
I very carefully levered up an eyelid and shut it again fast. A merciless sunbeam had squirted straight in, making my brain bleed.
”
”
Kyril Bonfiglioli
“
One loose rivet or cracked weld line would have been enough to allow a few atmospheres to squirt out, and the ship would have been crushed like a soda can in the hand of a giant who was immensely strong and didn’t like soda cans.
”
”
Eoin Colfer (The Atlantis Complex (Artemis Fowl #7))
“
Standing in the beam of refrigerator light, Malcolm squirted ketchup into his mouth.
"He's . . . visiting," I said.
Vincent narrowed his eyes and his voice took on a fatherly tone. "Why's he here at midnight?"
Malcolm licked the inside of a mustard lid, then said, "I'm here at midnight because I'm fulfilling Katrina's desire.
”
”
Suzanne Selfors (Coffeehouse Angel)
“
No. Look, the mutual tug paid extra.” Dante mimed jerking and squirting without looking embarrassed, which only made Griff more embarrassed. “And the
stuff you did at the end bumped our fee even—”
“I know, man. Sorry about—”
“—more. Bullshit, sorry! Blowing your jazz on me got us a three hundred dollar bonus. Didja know that?” Dante rolled his eyes and waved away the worry.
“Dude, if I could get a fee every time you squirted on me, I’d camp under your bed and have you doing it three times a day.”
Help me, Jesus.
Griff’s eyes honest-to-God bugged at that.
”
”
Damon Suede (Hot Head (Head, #1))
“
The Greek religion explained that diffuse band of light in the night sky as the milk of Hera, squirted from her breast across the heavens, a legend that is the origin of the phrase Westerners still use—the Milky Way.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Cosmos)
“
Blood squirted as his transected femoral artery haemorrhaged to the rhythm of his horrible heart.
- From Potter's Field
”
”
Patricia Cornwell (From Potter's Field (Kay Scarpetta, #6))
“
Turning on the shower, he thought of the wildly fancy bathroom at Charlotte's house. It was funny to think of, but the bathrooms he liked weren't fancy; this one, and the one at Seymour's, and the one at Harry's. They weren't fancy, but they were home. He got in the shower. The one squirt that always went haywire hit him right in the eye. He laughed up into the warm water running over his ears.
”
”
Louise Fitzhugh
“
But then, as I looked in the mirror, I became fixated on some hairs near my carotid artery that were still there. I pushed the blade deep against my neck to shave them off, and then blood squirted out.
”
”
Zack Love (Anissa's Redemption (The Syrian Virgin, #2))
“
Oil kindles extraordinary emotions and hopes, since oil is above all a great temptation. It is the temptation of ease, wealth, strength, fortune, power. It is a filthy, foul-smelling liquid that squirts obligingly up into the air and falls back to earth as a rustling shower of money.
”
”
Ryszard Kapuściński (Shah of Shahs)
“
So... are you gonna show me how you squirt or what?
”
”
Noah Centineo
“
I squirt toothpaste with a vengeance and attack my teeth, but that hurts, so I dial back on the fury
”
”
Brigid Kemmerer (Letters to the Lost (Letters to the Lost, #1))
“
Hey, have you heard that one about the difference between me, Wit, and my loutish cousin, Hilarity? No? Okay, so I walk into a bar, you see, very unassuming, and order a martini. Then the bartender, Hilarity, hauls off and squirts me in the face with a seltzer bottle, ruining my n ice new camel hair suit, dousing my monocle and my watch fob, soaking my cravat. So, do I let him have what for, and blow my top? I do not. I simply say:
Sorry, I believe I said 'very dry'.
”
”
Chip Kidd (The Learners)
“
World-class cereal-eating is a dance of fine compromises. The giant heaping bowl of sodden cereal, awash in milk, is the mark of the novice. Ideally one wants the bone-dry cereal nuggets and the cryogenic milk to enter the mouth with minimal contact and for the entire reaction between them to take place in the mouth. Randy has worked out a set of mental blueprints for a special cereal-eating spoon that will have a tube running down the handle and a little pump for the milk, so that you can spoon dry cereal up out of a bowl, hit a button with your thumb, and squirt milk into the bowl of the spoon even as you are introducing it into your mouth. The next best thing is to work in small increments, putting only a small amount of Cap’n Crunch in your bowl at a time and eating it all up before it becomes a pit of loathsome slime, which, in the case of Cap’n Crunch, takes about thirty seconds.
”
”
Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon)
“
Some men believe a girl squirting under their touch is a sign of their own sex appeal and machismo. It seems a shame to pee on their parade, but the truth is, the methodical throb of a vibrator in the right place and in the right hands – even your own hand – achieves more consistent results.
”
”
Chloe Thurlow (A Girl's Adventures)
“
Lizzie said that if you imagined you were standing on the moon, looking down on the earth, you wouldn't be able to see the itty-bitty people racing around worrying you wouldn't see the barn falling in or the cow stuck in the pond; you wouldn't see the mean Granger kids squirting mustard on your white dress. You would see the most beautiful blue oceans and green lands, and the whole earth would look like a giant blue-and-green marble floating in the sky. Your worries would seem so small, maybe invisible.
”
”
Sharon Creech (The Great Unexpected)
“
Your species," M-Bot said in my ear, "has a diet roughly similar to a human one - though with more nuts and less meat. Also, no milk"
"Seriously?" I whispered, moving with Morriumur toward the vegetable line. I waved at my chest. "Alanik has breasts. What are they for? Decoration?"
"No milk from other creatures, I should say," M-Bot said. Your species finds it extremely gross. As do I by the way. Do you even stop to think how many strange liquids you organics squirt from your orifices?"
"No stranger than the ideas that squirt from your orifice sometimes, M-Bot".
”
”
Brandon Sanderson (Starsight (Skyward, #2))
“
Squirting isn’t easy, it has to be said. Then, neither is riding a unicycle. Just as some people sweat more than others, or eat more than others, some girls erupt in surging geysers of vaginal fluids with greater facility and in more generous quantities than others.
”
”
Chloe Thurlow (A Girl's Adventures)
“
New Rule: Someone has to make a mustard container that doesn't squirt out yellow water before it gets to the actual mustard. I get all excited for lunch, and then Grey Poupon pees on my sandwich. I suppose I could shake the bottle first, but fuck you, I'm an American consumer. Not only should your mustard be pre-blended to my specifications, it should also whiten my teeth.
”
”
Bill Maher (The New New Rules: A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass)
“
In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was programmed in classic binary. And the Word said, “Let there be life!” And so, somewhere in the TechnoCore vaults of my mother’s estate, frozen sperm from my long-dead daddy was defrosted, set in suspension, shaken like the vanilla malts of yore, loaded into something part squirt gun and part dildo, and—at the magic touch of a trigger—ejaculated into Mother at a time when the moon was full and the egg was ripe.
”
”
Dan Simmons (Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1))
“
Well, suppose intelligent people don't believe, but that's from intelligence, and you, I say, squirt that you are, what do you understand about God? You were taught by some student, and if he'd taught you to light icon lamps, you'd do it.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Demons)
“
I’m not a big goof. I’m a badass, even with a squirt gun. I totally kicked both their asses.
”
”
Kristen Ashley (Creed (Unfinished Hero, #2))
“
once the cow’s been milked there’s no squirting the cream back up her udder.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3))
“
Is squirting myth or magic? French scientists say myth, squirting girls say magic. And I say: those who can, do, and they do so because squirting is fun.
”
”
Chloe Thurlow (Girl Trade)
“
Pain skewered his guts again, and fresh blood squirted out into his hand. It felt like warm jelly. He put his head back
”
”
Stephen King (It)
“
False modesty is one of those things that's hard to go easy on, like squirting whipped cream from a can.
”
”
Miranda July (All Fours)
“
With Britt Wendt to pine for, watching videos of strangers having sex felt sacrilegious, like squirting a mayonnaise packet into your mouth while riding the elevator up to Per Se. “Hi
”
”
Ottessa Moshfegh (Homesick for Another World)
“
Monarchy is a bad system because, no matter how smart you are, you can still squirt a moron out of your plumbing. Maybe you get lucky and your son or daughter is at least half as smart as you--what about your grandchild? Probably a knob, and when they inherit the throne, everything you built falls to shyte.
”
”
Christopher Buehlman (The Blacktongue Thief (Blacktongue, #1))
“
Then why does every sentence beginning ‘We need to talk’ end in disaster? Our whole evolutionary history has been about trying to stop information from getting communicated—camouflage, protective coloration, that ink that squids squirt, encrypted passwords, corporate secrets, lying. Especially lying. If people really wanted to communicate, they’d tell the truth, but they don’t.
”
”
Connie Willis (Crosstalk)
“
Fuck you!"
Randy pulled a squirt bottle from his desk and sprayed us both. "Hush," he said.
Jin winced "Now, that's just unprofessional!"
"Quit bitching," I said, shaking the water off my face.
"You may be used to taking shots in the face, but I'm not," he said.
Okay, that was a good one. "Go fuck yourself," I said.
”
”
Andy Weir (Artemis)
“
We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. - Augustus Waters
”
”
John Green
“
No," he said, "look, it's very, very simple ... all I want ... is a cup of tea. You are going to make one for me. Keep quiet and listen." And he sat. He told the Nutri-Matic about India, he told it about China, he told it about Ceylon. He told it about broad leaves drying in the sun. He told it about silver teapots. He told it about summer afternoons on the lawn. He told it about putting in the milk before the tea so it wouldn't get scalded. He even told it (briefly) about the history of the East India Company.
"So that's it, is it?" said the Nutri-Matic when he had finished.
"Yes," said Arthur, "that is what I want."
"You want the taste of dried leaves in boiled water?"
"Er, yes. With milk."
"Squirted out of a cow?"
"Well, in a manner of speaking I suppose ...
”
”
Douglas Adams
“
I watched from the shadows as he grunted and trembled and squirted his seed into the wind. Then I fell asleep to the soothing cadence of those cock-stroking fingers in my hair. Sinful. Resplendent. Undeniably wrong. I could spend an eternity with him like that.
”
”
Pam Godwin (Sea of Ruin (Sea of Ruin, #1))
“
The thing is, though, I don't like the idea. It stinks, if you analyze it. I think if you don't really like a girl, you shouldn't horse around with her at all, and if you do like her, then you're supposed to like her face, and if you like her face, you ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff to it, like squirting water all over it.
”
”
J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye)
“
We played like children. Had squirt gun fights in her living room, played the floor is lava. When it was negative five outside, we boiled water and threw it off the balcony to make fog. We blew bubbles to watch them freeze, made snow angels on the roof, had snowball fights
”
”
Abby Jimenez (Life's Too Short (The Friend Zone, #3))
“
She pinched her nose against the stench as I squirted oil of vitriol around the door. Vaporous tendrils curled from the seams. "What is that stuff?"
"Back in medieval times," I said, "we used oil of vitriol for its healing properties. No doubt that's why Commodus had some in his infirmary. Today we call it sulphuric acid."
Meg flinched. "Isn't that dangerous?"
"Very."
"And you healed with it?"
"It was the Middle Ages. We were crazy back then."
I held up the second syringe, this one filled with water. "Meg, what I'm about to do - never, ever try this on your own." I felt a bit silly giving this advice to a girl who regularly fought monsters with golden swords, but I had promised Bill Nye the Science Guy I would always promote safe laboratory practices.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Dark Prophecy (The Trials of Apollo, #2))
“
When I started writing I wanted the best tools. I skipped right over chisels on rocks, stylus on wet clay plates, quills and fountain pens, even mechanical pencils, and went straight to one of the first popular spin-offs of the aerospace program: the ballpoint pen. They were developed for comber navigators in the war because fountain pens would squirt all over your leather bomber jacket at altitude. (I have a cherished example of the next generation ballpoint, a pressurized Space Pen cleverly designed to work in weightlessness, given to me by Spider Robinson. At least, I cherish it when I can find it. It is also cleverly designed to seek out the lowest point of your desk, roll off, then find the lowest point on the floor, under a heavy piece of furniture. That's because it is cylindrical and lacks a pocket clip to keep it from rolling. In space, I presume it would float out of your pocket and find a forgotten corner of your spacecraft to hide in. NASA spent $3 million developing it. Good job, guys. I'm sure it's around here somewhere.)
”
”
John Varley (The John Varley Reader)
“
Whether they are part of a home or home is a part of them is not a question children are prepared to answer. Having taken away the dog, take away the kitchen–the smell of something good in the oven for dinner. Also the smell of washing day, of wool drying in the wooden rack. Of ashes. Of soup simmering on the stove. Take away the patient old horse waiting by the pasture fence. Take away the chores that kept him busy from the time he got home from school until they sat down to supper. Take away the early-morning mist, the sound of crows quarreling in the treetops.
His work clothes are still hanging on a nail beside the door of his room, but nobody puts them on or takes them off. Nobody sleeps in his bed. Or reads the broken-back copy of Tom Swift and His Flying Machine. Take that away too, while you are at it.
Take away the pitcher and bowl, both of them dry and dusty. Take away the cow barn where the cats, sitting all in a row, wait with their mouths wide open for somebody to squirt milk down their throats. Take away the horse barn too–the smell of hay and dust and horse piss and old sweat-stained leather, and the rain beating down on the plowed field beyond the door. Take all this away and what have you done to him? In the face of a deprivation so great, what is the use of asking him to go on being the boy he was. He might as well start life over again as some other boy instead.
”
”
William Maxwell (So Long, See You Tomorrow)
“
We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it's silly and useless-epically useless in my current state-but I am an animal like any other.
”
”
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
“
Are you gonna kill me?" the kid asked.
Kid definitely didn't know who he was. There would be fawning.
Wait. He looked that scary?
Grinning, Evie said, "Nah. You've got nothing to worry about, squirt. Mr. Brothario is a lover, not a fighter."
Blue glared at her.
Drew flipped him off before rushing inside his house, probably to hide.
"Aw, how sweet," Evie said, settling in her seat. "I think he was trying to warn you against unleashing your dreadful wrath on sweet, innocent me."
"If the poor kid thinks you're sweet, I have to fear his home life.
”
”
Gena Showalter (Black and Blue (Otherworld Assassin, #2))
“
While Hannah was busy positioning the laptop and shimmying out of her shorts and a thong, I pushed off my boxers and squirted lube into my palm. I glanced at my cock. It stood stiffly from me, nine thick, smooth inches for which I didn't thank God often enough.
”
”
M. Pierce (Night Owl (Night Owl, #1))
“
I had a duty to live and to bear my burden proudly for all to see, to conquer prejudice and ignorance and hate with knowledge and sincerity and love. Whenever you are threatened by a hostile presence, you emit a thick cloud of love like an octopus squirts out ink.
”
”
William S. Burroughs (Queer)
“
I value my life more than yours. Sue me. We wouldn’t be in this mess if you hadn’t been so blatantly obvious with your sabotage!” “Fuck you!” Rudy pulled a squirt bottle from his desk and sprayed us both. “Hush,” he said. Jin winced “Now, that’s just unprofessional!
”
”
Andy Weir (Artemis)
“
All these critics of Fauci have chosen to attack the citadel of science at its strongest point. With squirt guns. While naked and blowing kazoos.
”
”
Michael Gerson
“
One of the perks of having no friends was that no one was there to see you squirt condiments all over yourself.
”
”
Michelle Falkoff (Playlist for the Dead)
“
If you can pick the baby up without him squirting our of your hands like a bar of soap in the shower, he's not oiled up enough.
”
”
James Lileks (Mommy Knows Worst: Highlights from the Golden Age of Bad Parenting Advice)
“
What they meant was that we, the young squirts, will shit in our pants the first time we get fired upon. Nonsense!
”
”
Gunther K. Koschorrek (Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front)
“
Laughing with someone when the dishwasher leaks. When he accidentally sits on a squirt bottle of French dressing. When we knock heads in the middle of an orgasm.
”
”
Pippa Grant (Flirting with the Frenemy (Copper Valley Bro Code, #1))
“
Grandma, everyone out here is bleaching their anuses. What do I do?"
Her advice? "Baby, go outside in the sun and squirt a little lemon juice on it.
”
”
Mollie Gross (Confessions of a Military Wife)
“
And your own heart generates enough pressure as it pumps blood throughout your body that it could squirt blood up to 30 feet. (I’ve never tried this, and I don’t recommend it.)
”
”
Francis Chan (Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God)
“
And there were other times I felt only your mind, and your mind is slippery, it gets between my thoughts and I have to squirt sand or the wheels will slip. . .
”
”
Anaïs Nin (A Literate Passion: Letters of Anais Nin & Henry Miller, 1932-1953)
“
So neurons talk to each other by squirting electrically charged molecules from the axon of one to a dendrite on another.
”
”
Sean Carroll (The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself)
“
I started with one squirt but didn’t think that was enough, so I ended up accidentally spraying on six more. I went back to the beach to wait, smelling like a department-store tragedy.
”
”
T.J. Klune (Bear, Otter, and the Kid (Bear, Otter, and the Kid, #1))
“
I love how pancake syrup comes in a sports bottle. That makes it easy to squirt in your mouth while running a marathon. But if you are really thirsty, try drinking scrambled duck eggs.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Music is fluid, and my saxophone overflows when my ducks slosh in the sounds I make in elevators.)
“
Let’s be real, kids. The world sucks. Family sucks. And being expected to be eternally indebted to the people who bumped uglies and squirted you out? That sucks. You’re not beholden to anyone.
”
”
Megan Erickson (Mature Content (Cyberlove, #4))
“
Scarlett lived by the (thankfully) ancient medical creed: If it tastes awful and smells worse, it’s probably good for you.
Julia wasn’t so sure about that. She lived by the edict: If it tastes awful and smells worse, leave it the hell alone. On the other hand, if it tasted good and smelled better, you either ate it, squirted it on your neck or fucked it.
It hadn’t led her wrong so far.
”
”
Amy Andrews (Numbered)
“
I like cooking pasta. Maybe it's that I always wanted to be Italian American in some dark part of my soul; maybe I get off on that final squirt of emulsifying extra virgin, just after the basil goes in, I don't know.
”
”
Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly)
“
Man comes into the world a blind, groping mite. He knows hunger and the fear of noise and of falling. His life is spent in flight - flight from hunger and from the thunderbolt of destiny. From his moment of birth he begins to fall through the whistling air of Time: down, down into a chasm of darkness . . . we come like a breath of wind over the fields of morning. We go like a lamp flame caught by a blast from a darkened window. In between we journey from table to table, from battle to bottle, from bed to bed. We suck, we chew, we swallow, we lick, we try to mash life into us like an am-am-amoeba God damn it! Somebody lets us loose like a toad out of a matchbox and we jump and jump and jump and the guy always behind us, and when he gets tired he stomps us to death and our guts squirt out on each side of the boot of All Merciful Providence. The son-of-a-bitch!
”
”
William Lindsay Gresham (Nightmare Alley)
“
The sea squirt—a very simple marine creature—swims about during its juvenile phase looking for a place to settle, and once it settles and starts filter feeding, it digests its own brain, because it no longer has any need for perceptual or motor competence. This is often used as an unkind analogy for getting tenure in academia.
”
”
Sam Harris (Making Sense: Conversations on Consciousness, Morality, and the Future of Humanity)
“
He doesn’t know how, does he? Doesn’t know how to fuck your little asshole raw... Doesn’t know how to stretch you all the way open... until you’re riding his fist like a wanton fucking whore and grunting for more... Ever had a tongue deep in your ass, Lydia Marsh? Ever had someone force their fist all the way inside you? Ever pissed down someone’s throat while they tongue your greedy little slit? Have you ever been hurt, Lydia? Really hurt? Anyone ever fucked you up? Slapped your tight little cunt until you cry? Ever gagged on cock until you puke, Lydia Marsh? Ever seen your titties swell purple? Ever choked for breath until the world turns black? I’ll make it feel good for you, Lydia, it’ll feel so fucking good. I’ll make you squirt all over my filthy fucking fingers.
”
”
Jade West (Dirty Bad Wrong (Dirty Bad, #1))
“
Alan began pressing his erect cock into her tight asshole. “Ahhh-ahh, ow.” Moaned Claire into her friend’s pussy.
”
”
Colette Cuckquean (My Best Friend the Squirting Cuckcake Part Two: The cuckquean FFM challenge romance (My Best Friend the Cuckcake Book 2))
“
I had been wrong about him Tuesday when I figured that he had always been fifty years old and always would be. He had already put on at least five years, and he had shrunk. Instead of tagging him a neat little squirt I would now call him a magnified beetle.
”
”
Rex Stout (Prisoner's Base (Nero Wolfe, #21))
“
The room contains a few dozen living human bodies, each one a big sack of guts and fluids so highly compressed that it will squirt for a few yards when pierced. Each one is built around an armature of 206 bones connected to each other by notoriously fault-prone joints that are given to obnoxious creaking, grinding, and popping noises when they are in other than pristine condition. This structure is draped with throbbing steak, inflated with clenching air sacks, and pierced by a Gordian sewer filled with burbling acid and compressed gas and asquirt with vile enzymes and solvents produced by the many dark, gamy nuggets of genetically programmed meat strung along its length. Slugs of dissolving food are forced down this sloppy labyrinth by serialized convulsions, decaying into gas, liquid, and solid matter which must all be regularly vented to the outside world lest the owner go toxic and drop dead. Spherical, gel-packed cameras swivel in mucus-greased ball joints. Infinite phalanxes of cilia beat back invading particles, encapsulate them in goo for later disposal. In each body a centrally located muscle flails away at an eternal, circulating torrent of pressurized gravy. And yet, despite all of this, not one of these bodies makes a single sound at any time during the sultan’s speech.
”
”
Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon)
“
One hobby I did not pick up was crocheting, an obsession among prisoners throughout the system. Some of the handiwork was impressive. The inmate who ran the laundry was a surly rural white woman named Nancy whose dislike for anyone but “northerners” was hardly a secret. Her personality left a lot to be desired, but she was a remarkable crochet artist. One day in C Dorm I happened upon Nancy standing with my neighbor Allie B. and mopey Sally, all howling with laughter. “What?” I asked, innocently. “Show her, Nancy!” giggled Allie. Nancy opened her hand. Perched there in her palm was an astonishingly lifelike crochet penis. Average in size, it was erect, fashioned of pink cotton yarn, with balls and a smattering of brown cotton pubic hair, and a squirt of white yarn ejaculate at the tip.
”
”
Piper Kerman (Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison)
“
She took him to places inside a shaded room that he’d only dimly imagined might exist, and while there in sweaty reality he reclined like a pasha of lust, a man lost to squirts, sighs, fresh angles of entry and the enveloping stink, and to find this carnal enchantment for the first time at his age was to welcome a streaking of madness into his life—madness he prayed had no end now that it had begun.
”
”
Daniel Woodrell (The Maid's Version)
“
You see, Squirt, there's heaven, and then there's hell. Hell is where they send all the bad people, like criminals and con artists and parking inspectors. And heaven is where they send all the good people, like you and me and that nice blonde from MasterChef.
What happens when you get there?
In heaven, you hang out with God and Jimi Hendrix, and you get to eat doughnuts whenever you want. In hell, you have to, uh . . . do the Macarena. Forever. To that "Grease Megamix."
Where do you go if you're good and bad?
What? I don't know. IKEA?
”
”
Brooke Davis (Lost & Found)
“
For instance, we were always making mistakes with the unfamiliar products around us, and one time my mother squirted my perfume into her mouth, thinking it was breath spray. When she stopped gagging and cursing me, she burst out laughing. Neither of us could stop until tears ran down our faces.
”
”
Yeonmi Park (In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom)
“
She managed a bored sigh. “I suppose we could do one picture, but a group shot won’t work. Nyx, how about one of you with your favorite child? Which one is that?” The brood rustled. Dozens of horrible glowing eyes turned toward Nyx. The goddess shifted uncomfortably, as if her chariot were heating up under her feet. Her shadow horses huffed and pawed at the void. “My favorite child?” she asked. “All my children are terrifying!” Percy snorted. “Seriously? I’ve met the Fates. I’ve met Thanatos. They weren’t so scary. You’ve got to have somebody in this crowd who’s worse than that.” “The darkest,” Annabeth said. “The most like you.” “I am the darkest,” hissed Eris. “Wars and strife! I have caused all manner of death!” “I am darker still!” snarled Geras. “I dim the eyes and addle the brain. Every mortal fears old age!” “Yeah, yeah,” Annabeth said, trying to ignore her chattering teeth. “I’m not seeing enough dark. I mean, you’re the children of Night! Show me dark!” The horde of arai wailed, flapping their leathery wings and stirring up clouds of blackness. Geras spread his withered hands and dimmed the entire abyss. Eris breathed a shadowy spray of buckshot across the void. “I am the darkest!” hissed one of the demons. “No, I!” “No! Behold my darkness!” If a thousand giant octopuses had squirted ink at the same time, at the bottom of the deepest, most sunless ocean trench, it could not have been blacker. Annabeth might as well have been blind. She gripped Percy’s hand and steeled her nerves. “Wait!” Nyx called, suddenly panicked. “I can’t see anything.” “Yes!” shouted one of her children proudly. “I did that!” “No, I did!” “Fool, it was me!” Dozens of voices argued in the darkness. The horses whinnied in alarm. “Stop it!” Nyx yelled. “Whose foot is that?” “Eris is hitting me!” cried someone. “Mother, tell her to stop hitting me!” “I did not!” yelled Eris. “Ouch!” The sounds of scuffling got louder. If possible, the darkness became even deeper. Annabeth’s eyes dilated so much, they felt like they were being pulled out of their sockets. She squeezed Percy’s hand. “Ready?” “For what?” After a pause, he grunted unhappily. “Poseidon’s underpants, you can’t be serious.” “Somebody give me light!” Nyx screamed. “Gah! I can’t believe I just said that!” “It’s a trick!” Eris yelled. “The demigods are escaping!” “I’ve got them,” screamed an arai. “No, that’s my neck!” Geras gagged. “Jump!” Annabeth told Percy. They leaped into the darkness, aiming for the doorway far, far below.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus, #4))
“
He looked at them and saw their faces did not fit. The skin on the skulls crawled and twitched like half-solid paste. All the heads in his angle of vision seemed irregular lumps, like potatoes but without a potato’s repose: potatoes with crawling surfaces punctured by holes which opened and shut, holes blocked with coloured jelly or fringed with bone stumps, elastic holes through which air was sucked or squirted, holes secreting salt, wax, spittle and snot. He grasped a pencil in his trouser pocket, wishing it were a knife he could thrust through his cheek and use to carve his face down to the clean bone. But that was foolish. Nothing clean lay under the face. He thought of sectioned brains, palettes, eyeballs and ears seen in medical diagrams and butcher’s shops. He thought of elastic muscle, pulsing tubes, gland sacks full of lukewarm fluid, the layers of cellular and fibrous and granular tissues inside a head. What was felt as tastes, caresses, dreams and thoughts could be seen as a cleverly articulated mass of garbage.
”
”
Alasdair Gray (Lanark)
“
It was the satisfying crunch of a sharp knife cutting through ripe watermelon. It was green citronella spirals burning down and sunscreen squirting hot out of the tube. It was banana pancakes on repeat and the tang of river silt clinging to tanned skin. It was summer. And freedom. And youth. And heartbreak so hot it cauterized.
”
”
Breanne Randall (The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic)
“
Just then, just when I thought I would be free from the repeated blows to my tender head of the Stupidity Hammer, the Stupidity Hammer rose up from the shining screen, drew back, whirled hugely, and with great force and might and main slammed me right between the eyes so my brain squirted out my ears a yard past my shoulders in both directions.
Bilbo does not seal the barrels.
I will wait for you to recover in case you just got the sensation of a Stupidity Hammer clonking you from the page. Then I will repeat myself, because it is so dumb you might not believe me:
Bilbo does not seal the barrels. He leaves the tops open.
-- The Desolation of Tolkien
”
”
John C. Wright (Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth)
“
Each electrical pulse—and resulting squirt of neurotransmitter—is not an order commanding the next neuron’s actions; it is more like a vote on what the next neuron should do. The whole pattern of activity is like a presidential election. Everyone votes on who the president should be, and depending on those votes, the country veers off in one direction or another. If you can change the number of votes in a few key swing states by only a few percentage points, you can dramatically change the course of the country. The same is true of the brain. By changing the firing rate of neurons in a few key regions, you can influence the pattern of activity in the entire brain.
”
”
Alex Korb (The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time)
“
Thomas didn't want to go into the church because he wasn't optimistic that the Almighty and his institutions would smile on him. Like me, he favored maintaining a low profile with regards to matters temporal. [...]
I knew how he felt.
I hadn't been in a church since I'd smacked my hand down on Lasciel's ancient silver coin. Hell, I had a freaking fallen angel in my head-or at least a facsimile of one. If that wasn't a squirt of lemon juice in God's eye, I didn't know what was.
But I had a job to do.
”
”
Jim Butcher (Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, #8))
“
Raven mumbled something. “Eh? What was that? Speak up! Don’t mumble like a caterpillar.” “I said, I don’t want to scare them.” Baba Yaga picked up a blue spray bottle and squirted Raven in the face with water, making Raven blink. “This is how I train my cats not to jump up on my spell table. They learn after a while. Maybe you will, too.
”
”
Shannon Hale (The Storybook of Legends (Ever After High, #1))
“
I think the shooter is Kevin Burns. I know him pretty well. Maybe I can talk him down."
"Are you nuts? He’s crazy. Everyone knows he’s a lunatic. No one can talk him down. Get out of there!"
"I can’t sit around and do nothing. I have to do something. Remember what Mom and Dad told us after Father Gerry? If you have a chance to save or protect innocent people, you have to make that sacrifice. I won’t let another predator get the best of me."
"That’s not what they meant, you idiot! Get the hell out of there and let the police handle it. I’m sure they’re on their way!"
"If anything happens to me, I want you to know you’re the best little brother a guy could hope for, squirt. Take care. I love you."
"I love you too. Please don’t do anything stupid."
"We’re going to get out of this together. Understand? We’re best brothers, forever."
"Forever, bro . . .
”
”
Mark M. Bello (Betrayal High (Zachary Blake Legal Thriller, #5))
“
One snake wasn’t enough. Time for Perl’s suggestion. I handed everyone two capsules and a pin. “Get as close to the guards as you can. Poke a small hole in the capsule and squirt the liquid near them. Don’t get it on you,” I instructed.
“Why not?” Leif asked.
“You’ll have a necklace snake trying to mate with you.”
“Gee, Yelena. I’m so glad you’re home,” Leif grumbled. “It’s good to know Mother is doing something useful with her time.”
“I thought your mother madeperfumes,” Moon Man said.
“It all depends on how you look at it
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Fire Study (Study, #3))
“
He huffed out a laugh. “You and me both. I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight than you speared on that handle. Look.” He jerked his head down, and I followed his gaze straight to the wet spot on his crotch. I frowned. “Did you…?” “Come in my pants when your ass clenched around my finger, and you came so hard that you squirted on me? Abso-fucking-lutely.
”
”
Navessa Allen (Lights Out (Into Darkness, #1))
“
It's Hard to order just a black coffee these days. That's the kind of miserable world we live in.
”
”
Andrew Barger (The Divine Dantes: Squirt Guns in Hades (Infernal Trilogy #1))
“
The squirt and I were both victorious, as life should be. Our mom would say, sisters at war is the saddest adventure of all.
”
”
Krista Ritchie
“
I love when I shake a mustard bottle really well and go to squirt a line on my hotdog and out spurts a yellow watery substance. They should sell that as an energy drink.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (A Memoir of Memories and Memes)
“
Families share. Yeah? Well, parents take care of their children, how about that one? How about not squirting out three more kids when you could barely afford the first one?
”
”
Gillian Flynn (Dark Places)
“
He just squirted on the end table!
”
”
Wendelin Van Draanen (Flipped)
“
I long to be musical in body and mind. I want style, consort. Not the little mental squirts as if through the ticker-tape of the mind.
”
”
Lawrence Durrell (Justine (The Alexandria Quartet, #1))
“
He couldn't think of his robbed left eye without hate squirting into his veins from some deep poison gland he hadn't known he possessed.
”
”
Joseph D'Lacey (Black Feathers (Black Dawn, #1))
“
When life gives you lemons, squirt them in the eyes of your enemies.
”
”
Me, Myself and I
“
Every fatline receiver in the Web, Outback, galaxy, and universe would monitor the squirt, but only the Consul’s ship could decode it. Or so she hoped. The
”
”
Dan Simmons (The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #2))
“
chia fresca—“chilly chia.” It’s brewed up by dissolving chia seeds in water with a little sugar and a squirt of lime. In
”
”
Christopher McDougall (Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen)
“
You squirted, baby,” he says. “Just for me. All over my fucking face.
”
”
Molly Doyle (Dark Desires (Desires Duet, #2))
“
it already. Grabbing it quickly, I squirt toothpaste on it and brush my
”
”
E.L. James (Fifty Shades Trilogy Bundle (Fifty Shades, #1-3))
“
He-Man wins the day and thrusts his sword into the air, shouting, 'I HAVE THE POWER!!' as white lightning squirts out of its tip.
”
”
Mark Simpson (Male Impersonators: Men Performing Masculinity)
“
wish I were a sea squirt, If life became a strain, I’d veg out on the nearest rock And reabsorb my brain.
”
”
Henry Marsh (Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon (Life as a Surgeon))
“
Now—Ten thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand (for matter and motion are infinite) are the ways by which a hat may be dropped upon the ground, without any effect.—Had he flung it, or thrown it, or cast it, or skimmed it, or squirted, or let it slip or fall in any possible direction under heaven,—or in the best direction that could be given to it,—had he dropped it like a goose—like a puppy—like an ass—or in doing it, or even after he had done, had he looked like a fool,—like a ninny—like a nicompoop—it had fail'd, and the effect upon the heart had been lost.
”
”
Laurence Sterne (The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman)
“
Ignore death up to the last moment; then, when it can't be ignored any longer, have yourself squirted full of morphia and shuffle off in a coma. Thoroughly sensible, humane and scientific, eh?
”
”
Aldous Huxley
“
When the suffering begins, our brain pleads with us to not think too far into the future. I can’t endure 60 minutes of this, but I can do 10 minutes. I can’t get through 8 weeks of solid exercise, but I can get through today. The neurological beauty of segmentation is that once the segment is completed, you get a mini-squirt of dopamine (pleasure juice) that resets the coping clock.
”
”
Simon Marshall (The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion)
“
Oooh, so much cum, yes. Oh, fill me up,” Alessio purred as my cock squirted the last of my seed against his anal walls. He climbed off me, and both he and Elyon moved to the other side of the bed.
”
”
Nicholas Bella (House of Theoden: Season Two Complete Boxset (The New Haven Series))
“
One of these days in your travels, a guy is going to show you a brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken. Then this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of this brand-new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not accept this bet, because as sure as you stand there, you're going to wind up with an ear full of cider.
”
”
Sky Masterson
“
My dad smelled sort of like mustard, which is probably due to the fact that in the bed I also discovered a thing of Hellmann’s. I wanted to grab it and squirt it in his eyes, but I couldn’t reach it.
”
”
Adam Rapp (Under the Wolf, Under the Dog)
“
But he’d squirted such filth on her when she was helpless. She’d witnessed such scenes of marriage, and so of course, when she was older, she betrayed him. What made correction possible also doomed it.
”
”
Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections)
“
But I don’t give a squirt of piss for honor. What I care about is family, and if I think you are a true threat to my grandson, don’t think for a heartbeat that I won’t arrange for an accident to occur.
”
”
Danielle L. Jensen (The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom #1))
“
If we were building a consciousness detector, Searle would want it to ascertain that it was squirting biological neurotransmitters. American philosopher Daniel Dennett (born in 1942) would be more flexible on substrate, but might want to determine whether or not the system contained a model of itself and of its own performance. That view comes closer to my own, but at its core is still a philosophical assumption.
”
”
Ray Kurzweil (How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed)
“
out. I had to sit down when the baby’s heartbeat dropped and they brought in this vacuum thing and literally sucked the squirt out. The nurses made me put my head between my knees and brought me orange juice.
”
”
Kelly Oram (A Is for Abstinence (V Is for Virgin, #2))
“
Flavor factories churn out chemical desire. We spray, squirt, and inject hundreds of millions of pounds of those chemicals on food every year, and then we find ourselves surprised and alarmed that people keep eating. We have become so talented at soaking our food in fakeness that the leading cause of preventable death - smoking - bears a troubling resemblance to the second leading cause of preventable death - obesity.
”
”
Mark Schatzker (The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor)
“
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were instinctively, to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.
”
”
George Orwell (Essays)
“
Please allow me to offer you three pieces of advice:
One: Be bold. Never miss an opportunity to let your brilliance shine and dazzle. Take that chance. Accept the challenge, or if the challenge doesn’t arise, make your own challenges.
Two: Don’t settle for mediocrity. Find a dream and pursue it. Allow every decision you make to bring you closer in achieving that dream.
And three: Have fun. Take time to play, because if you’re not having a good tear-squirting belly laugh, chances are you’re doing it wrong.
I will not wish you good luck. I don’t believe luck to be a necessary ingredient for success. Instead, I wish you the wisdom to make good decisions. I’m sure you will be fabulous.
Grace
”
”
Alyssa Brugman
“
Debbie Downer" was one of the few sketches where I broke, and I remember watching Heratio Sanz laugh so hard that tears squirted out of his eyes. I still believe that sketch may be a cure for low-level depression if watched regularly.
”
”
Amy Poehler
“
The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion. (Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.) We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless – epically useless in my current state – but I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm.
”
”
John Green
“
Pattern recognition is so basic that the brain's pattern detection modules and its reward circuitry became inextricably linked. Whenever we successfully detect a pattern-or think we detect a pattern-the neurotransmitters responsible for sensations of pleasure squirt through our brains. If a pattern has repeated often enough and successfully enough in the past, the neurotransmitter release occurs in response to the mere presence of suggestive cues, long before the expected outcome of that pattern actually occurs. Like the study participants who reported seeing regular sequences in random stimuli, we will use alomst any pretext to get our pattern recognition kicks.
Pattern recognition is the most primitive form of analogical reasoning, part of the neural circuitry for metaphor. Monkeys, rodents, and birds recognize patterns, too. What distinguishes humans from other species, though, is that we have elevated pattern recognition to an art. "To understand," the philosopher Isaiah Berlin observed, "is to perceive patterns."
Metaphor, however, is not the mere detection of patterns; it is the creation of patterns, too. When Robert Frost wrote,
"A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain"
his brain created a pattern connecting umbrellas to banks, a pattern retraced every time someone else reads this sentence. Frost believed passionately that an understanding of metaphor was essential not just to survival in university literature courses but also to survival in daily life.
”
”
James Geary (I is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How it Shapes the Way We See the World)
“
It's hard to get animals to reproduce in a zoo, but people, even condemned to death, even hunted by Leclerc's army, with the woods full of Fifis and the whole R.A.F on top of them thundering day and night, don't lose their desire to squirt! not in the least...
”
”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
“
can think of at least one hundred things that could go wrong tonight. But all of them happen to Ryan. 1) I slip a laxative into his drink. 2) I squirt super glue onto his seat before he sits down. 3) I set his car on fire. (Don’t worry, I’ll wait until he’s out of it…maybe.)
”
”
Sarah Adams (The Enemy (It Happened in Charleston, #2))
“
Look, Hirianthial,” she said, trying to find the words that would make him go away. He just watched her struggles with that courtly calm like someone out of her monthly romance squirt—ah! “Look, Hirianthial, I appreciate your concern but we’ve only just met and it would hardly be... uh, appropriate for you to see me in my bedchambers.” “Your bedchambers?” Hirianthial asked, lifting that infuriating white brow again. “Yes, you know. The lady bit? Me in a nightgown? You’re supposed to be a gentleman about this and not chase me into my room.” He laughed, the cad.
”
”
M.C.A. Hogarth (Earthrise (Her Instruments, #1))
“
Slowly, over the years, Estha withdrew from the world. He grew
accustomed to the uneasy octopus that lived inside him and squirted its inky tranquilizer
on his past. Gradually the reason for his silence was hidden away, entombed
somewhere deep in the soothing folds of the fact of it.
”
”
Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things)
“
Anastasia...' The name seemed strange to me now, and her hair's rich smell. What was it I held, and called Anastasia? A slender bagful of meaty pipes and pouches, grown upon with hairs, soaked through with juices, strung up on jointed sticks, the whole thing pushing, squirting, bubbling, flexing, combusting, and respiring in my arms; doomed soon enough to decompose into its elements, yet afflicted in the brief meanwhile with mad imaginings, so that, not content to jelly through the night and meld, ingest, divide, it troubled its sleep with dreams of passedness, of love.
”
”
John Barth
“
The wound, as I called it, was three inches across, eighteen inches long, and as deep as my backbone. I was gutted like a Halloween pig. It couldn't be stitched up because of infection danger and I had to heal from the inside out. When the nurse first saw it, she said, "Oh my God!" Which scared me to death. Just what I needed. And it had to be washed out with saline at least three times a day and disinfected. Slosh it in with a squirting machine, suck it out with a vacuum machine. The first time I looked down at what they were doing, I said it, too: "Oh my God!" I didn't look down there again for weeks.
”
”
William S. Burroughs Jr. (Cursed from Birth)
“
I’ll wash. Looks like brute strength is required.”
Matilda wasn’t about to argue. Might as well put those ridiculous muscles to good use. “I doubt I could write them into submission somehow.”
“No,” Tanner agreed, heading to the sink and flicking on the taps, intent on filling the industrial size sink and agitating the water as he squirted in some detergent. “You could, however, write about how I heroically and uncomplainingly scrubbed pots for hours while being witty and charming all at the service of some of the city’s less fortunate.”
“You want me to add in how woodland animals came in from the alley to befriend you?
”
”
Amy Andrews (Playing by Her Rules (Sydney Smoke Rugby, #1))
“
The icky part was knowing I was in the presence of a woman so crazy that she thought her highest calling was to incubate encapsulated alien teratomas until they came squirting out of her body and walked around on their own legs. I have heard of some bizarre vocations in my life, but seldom anything quite so disgusting.
”
”
Charles Stross (Neptune's Brood (Freyaverse, #2))
“
Society as we know it is fucked,’ Hannah said, noisily squirting the plastic ketchup bottle on to her chips. ‘Everyone pretends their life is great online. It’s lies by omission. It’s just one big lie by omission. It makes people feel constantly inadequate and anxious and envious. All our lives are a managed mess but look online and you get advertising.
”
”
Mhairi McFarlane (Who's That Girl?)
“
Bea broke up the band.
”
”
Andrew Barger (The Divine Dantes: Squirt Guns in Hades (Infernal Trilogy #1))
“
Blondes make nice pets.
”
”
Andrew Barger (The Divine Dantes: Squirt Guns in Hades (Infernal Trilogy #1))
“
Claire did as she was told, she looked into her friend’s eyes. She was filled with a combination of feelings, fear, lust, and jealousy.
”
”
Colette Cuckquean (My Best Friend the Squirting Cuckcake Part Two: The cuckquean FFM challenge romance (My Best Friend the Cuckcake Book 2))
“
I came up with the best pastime in the history of man. What you do is find an aerosol tin of spray adhesive, such as you would use to stick posters to a wall. You then lie in wait and when a wasp flies by, you leap out and give it a squirt. Bingo. One minute it’s flying; the next it’s tumbling silently out of the sky with a confused look on its stupid little face.
”
”
Jeremy Clarkson (Is It Really Too Much To Ask? (World According to Clarkson, #5))
“
Picture a summer stolen whole from some coming-of-age film set in the small-town 1950s. This is none of Ireland's subtle seasons mixed for a connoisseur's palate, watercolor nuances within a pinch-sized range of cloud and soft rain; this is summer full-throated and extravagant in a hot pure silkscreen blue. This summer explodes on your tongue tasting of chewed blades of long grass, your own clean sweat, Marie biscuits with butter squirting through the holes and shaken bottles of red lemonade picnicked in tree houses. It tingles on your skin with BMX wind in your face, ladybug feet up your arm; it packs every breath full of mown grass and billowing wash lines; it chimes and fountains with birdcalls, bees, leaves and football-bounces and skipping-chants, One! two! three! This summer will never end. It starts every day with a shower of Mr. Whippy notes and your best friend's knock at the door, finishes it with long slow twilight and mothers silhouetted in doorways calling you to come in, through the bats shrilling among the black lace trees. This is Everysummer decked in all its best glory.
”
”
Tana French (In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, #1))
“
Sometimes Carlie hands me the squirt bottle of "Bam" (an acronym for something that begins, ominously, with "butyric" - the rest of it has been worn off the label) and lets me do the bathrooms. No service ethic challenges me here to new heights of performance. I just concentrate on removing the pubic hairs from the bathtubs, or at least the dark ones that I can see.
”
”
Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America)
“
I longed for artificial bacon bits, melted cheese in a shade of yellow unknown to nature, and creamy chocolate fillings, sometimes all in the same product. I wanted food that squirts when you bite into it or plops onto your shirt front in such gross quantities that you have to rise very, very carefully from the table and sort of limbo over to the sink to clean yourself up.
”
”
Bill Bryson (I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away)
“
Comparing the bioavailability of all other oral vitamin C delivery with your oral liposomal delivery is like comparing a squirt gun to a fire hose. Not only am I convinced that the efficacy of Lypo-Spheric(tm) Vitamin C far surpasses any traditional oral vitamin C supplement, but my recent personal experience with it suggests that it may sometimes be better than IV injection.
”
”
Thomas E. Levy (Primal Panacea)
“
They intend to make people's very appetites the next weapon of uncountable destruction. They intend that your people will lust themselves into oblivion in front of little boxes of changing light. Addictive light. A light that makes you feel like you live a life, when all you really do is eat what the light tells you to eat and squirt pee and pump poo. And watch the changing light!
”
”
Robert Stikmanz (Prelude to a Change of Mind)
“
But as much as Greyson's overly warm body had to be worked around and compensated for in summer, at that moment she was eternally and ridiculously grateful for it. She almost thought she heard her own skin sizzle when it came into contact with his: some of the cramping in her muscles relaxed.
Only to tense up again when she saw, through her half-closed eyes, Greyson's second gaurd and Malleus's brother, Maleficarum, advancing on her with a hypodermic needle. Something clear squirted ominously from it's sharp silver tip.
"Oh, no," she managed, "You are not giving me a shot."
"'Sonly under the skin, m'lady. You'll barely even feel it, honest." Maleficarum's features did no do "innocent" well: he looked like a serial killer trying to hide a severed head behind his back.
”
”
Stacia Kane (Demon Possessed (Megan Chase, #3))
“
If you’ve got a squirt gun in your pocket, you may have to take it out. If you’ve got a bazooka, and people know you’ve got it, you may not have to take it out,” he said. Sometimes market fears can be self-fulfilling, and a strong demonstration can avoid the worst outcomes. I was reminded of the military doctrine of “overwhelming force” as the way to prompt quick surrender and minimize casualties.
”
”
Ben S. Bernanke (The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath)
“
iskiate is otherwise known as chia fresca—“chilly chia.” It’s brewed up by dissolving chia seeds in water with a little sugar and a squirt of lime. In terms of nutritional content, a tablespoon of chia is like a smoothie made from salmon, spinach, and human growth hormone. As tiny as those seeds are, they’re superpacked with omega-3S, omega-6S, protein, calcium, iron, zinc, fiber, and antioxidants.
”
”
Christopher McDougall (Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen)
“
Last thing: one Sunday evening about a year before all this we were on the telephone, my mother and I; it was just after we sold the house and she’d moved to the facility, where she was allowed a small sensible room and a few possessions. As we talked I was watching snow drift down the dusk outside, counting it, one hundred and five, one hundred and six, one hundred and seven, when out of a pause she said, ‘It’s funny to have no home’ — funny being a funny word for what she meant. I say this now to remind myself how words can squirt sideways, mute and mad; you think they are tools, or toys, or tame, and all at once they burn all your clothes off and you’re standing there singed and ridiculous in the glare of the lightning. I hung up the phone. I stared at the snow for some time. I expect she did too.
”
”
Anne Carson (Wrong Norma)
“
The thing is, though, I don't like the idea. It stinks, if you analyze it. I think if you don't really like a girl, you shouldn't horse around with her at all, and if you do like her, then you're suppose to like her face, and if you like her face, you ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff to it, like squirting water all over it. It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes.
”
”
J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye)
“
He nods and comes to sit back down, his face serious again. “Are you going to do this a lot?” “Define ‘this.’ I do a lot of stupid stuff.” “Leave me voicemails breaking up with me.” “Officer Dan, we can’t break up ’cause we were never together.” “Mattie,” he growls. “Maybe.” “Well, get over it because I love you, Mattie Hathaway. I’m not sure what that means right now, but I do. You’re stuck with me, Squirt. I’m not going anywhere.
”
”
Apryl Baker (The Ghost Files (The Ghost Files, #1))
“
and St. Bernard, the monastery’s patron, bearing both a crosier and a sword, his role as an apologist for the failed second crusade unforgotten even among his fans. (I confess I had rather hoped to see a portrayal of the Lactation of St. Bernard, the oft-depicted scene from a legend in which the saint kneeled before a nursing Madonna and was hit with a squirt of milk from her breasts, curing him of an eye infection. The image always makes me smile.) It
”
”
Rachel Held Evans (Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church)
“
So, Hailey give you those?” Finn asked, lifting his chin and looking at her legs. He squirted some paint from a tube onto his palette and pressed his brush into it, mixing it around.
“How did you know?” Megan asked.
“I know Hailey,” Finn replied, blowing away a blond curl that fell in front of his eye. “At the Fourth of July party at the town pool in second grade, she stole my Popsicle and shoved me into the deep end. I’ve been afraid if her ever since.”
“Seriously?” Megan said with a smirk.
“I never joke about Popsicles,” Finn replied with a half smile.
”
”
Kate Brian (Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys)
“
Essentially, the phrase “increasing serotonin activity” can mean a number of different things. It can mean that your brain makes more serotonin or increases receptors for it, or that those receptors just become stickier to serotonin. It can also mean that the serotonin that’s made isn’t broken down as quickly or that the serotonin squirted into the synapse just hangs out for a while—giving it a longer opportunity to bind to the next neuron—instead of being quickly sucked back into the neuron. Changing any one of these factors can increase serotonin activity.
”
”
Alex Korb (The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time)
“
Little Blaine: You're making him angry. Oh, you're making him SO angry.
Eddie: (kindly) Get lost, squirt. (to Blaine) Answer this one, Blaine: the big moron and the little moron were fighting on the bridge over the River Send. The big moron fell off. How come the little moron didn't fall off, too?
Blaine: THAT IS UNWORTHY OF OUR CONTEST. I WILL NOT ANSWER.
Roland: (with blazing eyes) What do you say, Blaine? I would not understand you well. Are you saying that you cry off?
Blaine: NO! OF COURSE NOT! BUT--
Roland: Then answer, if you can. Answer the riddle.
Blaine: (gratingly) IT'S NOT A RIDDLE! IT'S A JOKE, SOMETHING FOR STUPID CHILDREN TO CACKLE OVER IN THE PLAY YARD!
Roland: (confidently) Answer now or I declare the contest over and our winner. You must answer, for it is stupidity you complain of, not transgression of the rules, which we agreed upon mutually.
Blaine: (clicking his tongue loudly and gratingly, causing Eddie to wince and Oy to flatten his ears against his skull; a pause of three seconds, then, sulkily) THE LITTLE MORON DID NOT FALL OFF BECAUSE HE WAS A LITTLE MORE ON. MORE PHONETIC COINCIDENCE. TO EVEN ANSWER SUCH AN UNWORTHY RIDDLE MAKES ME FEEL SOILED.
”
”
Stephen King (Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, #4))
“
I will not mention the name (and what bits of it I happen to give here appear in decorous disguise) of that man, that Franco-Hungarian writer... I would rather not dwell upon him at all, but I cannot help it— he is surging up from under my pen. Today one does not hear much about him; and this is good, for it proves that I was right in resisting his evil spell, right in experiencing a creepy chill down my spine whenever this or that new book of his touched my hand. The fame of his likes circulates briskly but soon grows heavy and stale; and as for history it will limit his life story to the dash between two dates. Lean and arrogant, with some poisonous pun ever ready to fork out and quiver at you, and with a strange look of expectancy in his dull brown veiled eyes, this false wag had, I daresay, an irresistible effect on small rodents. Having mastered the art of verbal invention to perfection, he particularly prided himself on being a weaver of words, a title he valued higher than that of a writer; personally, I never could understand what was the good of thinking up books, of penning things that had not really happened in some way or other; and I remember once saying to him as I braved the mockery of his encouraging nods that, were I a writer, I should allow only my heart to have imagination, and for the rest rely upon memory, that long-drawn sunset shadow of one’s personal truth.
I had known his books before I knew him; a faint disgust was already replacing the aesthetic pleasure which I had suffered his first novel to give me. At the beginning of his career, it had been possible perhaps to distinguish some human landscape, some old garden, some dream- familiar disposition of trees through the stained glass of his prodigious prose... but with every new book the tints grew still more dense, the gules and purpure still more ominous; and today one can no longer see anything at all through that blazoned, ghastly rich glass, and it seems that were one to break it, nothing but a perfectly black void would face one’s shivering soul. But how dangerous he was in his prime, what venom he squirted, with what whips he lashed when provoked! The tornado of his passing satire left a barren waste where felled oaks lay in a row, and the dust still twisted, and the unfortunate author of some adverse review, howling with pain, spun like a top in the dust.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov)
“
All sens of purpose, of responsibility, indeed of any imaginable future, were removed from her by the deaths of her husband and child. It was they who used to make her life a story, they who seemed to be giving it a beginning, a middle and an end. Nowadays, her life is more like a newspaper: aimless, up-to-date, full of meaningless events for Colonel Leek to recite when no one's paying attention. For all the use she is to Society, beyond intercepting the odd squirt of sperm that would otherwise have troubled a respectable wife, she might as well be dead. Yet, she exists, and, against the odds, she is happy.
”
”
Michel Faber (The Crimson Petal and the White)
“
Behind the sullen girl sat Denis Cooverman, sweating: along the cap of his mortarboard, trickling behind his ears and rippling down his forehead; around his nostrils and in that groove below his nose (which Denis would be quick to identify as the philtrum...); from his palms, behind his knees, inside his elbows, between his toes and from many locations not typically associated with perpiratory activity; squirting out his nipples, spewing from his navel, coursing between his buttocks and forming a tiny lake that gently lapped at his genitals; from under his arms, naturally, in two varietals--hot and sticky,a nd cold and terrified.
”
”
Larry Doyle
“
Each season the people of Canterbury re-enact Becket’s death: it is the monkish version, because till now no other kind of history has been available. Crowds line the streets—excited, as if the tale might come out different this year. Hot pasties are sold. There are processions with drummers and pipes, and then the show begins. The knights get tuppence and some beer, but the lad who plays the saint gets a shilling, for the knights make him suffer, smashing him on the flags as the old archbishop was smashed. As Becket calls on Christ, a child crouching behind the altar squirts the scene with pig’s blood. The actor is carried away. Then everybody gets drunk.
”
”
Hilary Mantel (The Mirror & the Light (Thomas Cromwell, #3))
“
The world sucks. Family sucks. And being expected to be eternally indebted to the people who bumped uglies and squirted you out? That sucks. You’re not beholden to anyone. So if you have a family who hates who you are, who ever made you feel like you’re not good enough, or even gives those long speeches on tolerance as if that is a good word to use? Fuck ’em. Don’t make yourself miserable enduring that garbage because TV tells you you’re supposed to see your family. In fact, make them come to you. Make them prove they give a damn about you. Or at the end of the day, if it’s really bad? Be happy with the life you’ve made for yourself and leave all of that shit behind.
”
”
Megan Erickson (Mature Content (Cyberlove, #4))
“
The women’s bladders filled remarkably fast during sexual stimulation. There was urine before orgasm and their bladders were empty after squirting. The squirted fluid was identified in the lab as urine. Why does this happen? It is possible when women report squirting that they are simply having an orgasm strong enough for the pelvic floor muscles to empty their bladder, which is why it is associated with heightened pleasure. It is also possible that a more intense sexual response could result in a faster filling of the bladder. It is also possible that some women have a lot of transudate—meaning they get very wet—during sex. When they orgasm, that fluid could come out all at once.
”
”
Jennifer Gunter (The Vagina Bible: The Vulva and the Vagina: Separating the Myth from the Medicine)
“
Yes, that’s right, you ladies are fine, you’re beautiful, you’re more than just a smooth piece of skin with a beating heart. You’re women, damn it, you have the power to take down any man you want to, and do you know why?” I pointed at them and then gripped my tits and crotch. “Because we hold the ticket to that pestering one-eyed pant snake that is trying to eat up our gentle lady folds any chance it gets. We get to tell it when it can enter and when we can clench around the swiveling little worm and suffocate him until he squirts his man seed.” I clenched my fist and held it in the air as I spoke. “We hold the cards, ladies. Now, let’s stand up, smack our tits together, and show those men who’s in charge.
”
”
Meghan Quinn (Forever a Jett Girl (Bourbon, #3))
“
Little Blaine: Stop! Stop it, you're killing him!
Eddie: (in his mind) What do you think he's trying to do to us, squirt?
He considered shooting Blaine one Jake had told while they'd been sitting around the campfire that night and then didn't. He wanted to stick further inside the bounds of logic than that one allowed...and he could do it. He didn't think he would have to get much more surreal than the level of, say, a third-grader with a fair-to-good collection of Garbage Pail Kids cards in order to fuck Blaine up royally...and permanently. Because no matter how many emotions his fancy dipolar circuits had allowed him to mimic, HE was still an IT--a computer. Even allowing Eddie this far into riddledom's Twilight Zone had caused Blaine's sanity to totter.
Eddie: Why do people go to bed, Blaine?
Blaine: BECAUSE...BECAUSE...GODS DAMN YOU, BECAUSE...BECAUSE THE BED WON'T COME TO THEM, GODS DAMN YOU!
Eddie: Give up, Blaine. Stop before I have to blow your mind completely. If you don't quit, it's going to happen. We both know it.
Blaine: NO!
Eddie: I got a million of these puppies. Been hearing them my whole life. They stick to my mind the way flies stick to flypaper. Hey, with some people it's recipes. So what do you say? Want to give?
Blaine: NO!
Eddie: Okay, Blaine. You asked for it. Here comes the cruncher. Why did the dead baby cross the road? (later) It crossed the road because it was stapled to the chicken, you dopey fuck!
”
”
Stephen King (Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, #4))
“
They agreed to make my banana cock. I sent over the names of the specific colors to use, tried my best to explain the stone placement method I use to achieve maximum sparkle, and worked on how I would install the squirting mechanism once my phallus arrived. When it arrived, two days before the shoot, it looked like a pineapple.
Bananas and pineapples are both fruit. Both have a decent amount of vitamin C, though pineapples have more. However, only one has lots of mildly radioactive potassium. Only one is associated with cream closely enough for the whipped variety to seem even remotely logical bursting out of it. And only one has a history of suggesting fellatio when eaten whole.
Turns out, there’d been a communication error between the glassblowers and I.
”
”
Stoya (Philosophy, Pussycats, and Porn)
“
This is religion. Voodoo and spells. I want to believe in it, the creams, the rejuvenating lotions, the transparent unguents in vials that slick on like roll-top glue. “Don’t you know what that junk is made of?” Ben said once. “Ground-up cocks’ combs.” But this doesn’t deter me, I’d use anything if it worked – slug juice, toad spit, eye of newt, anything at all to mummify myself, stop the drip drip of time, stay more or less the way I am.
But I own enough of this slop already to embalm all of the girls in my high school graduating class, who must need it by now as much as I do. I stop only long enough to allow myself to be sprayed by a girl giving away free squirts of some venomous new perfume. The femme fatale must be back, Veronica Lake slinks again. The stuff smells like grape Kool-Aid. I can’t imagine it seducing anything but a fruit fly.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (Cat’s Eye)
“
my uncle Toby had certainly been overthrown: the sentence and the argument in that case jumping closely in one point, so like the two lines which form the salient angle of a ravelin,—Dr. Slop would never have given them up;—and my uncle Toby would as soon have thought of flying, as taking them by force: but Dr. Slop fumbled so vilely in pulling them out, it took off the whole effect, and what was a ten times worse evil (for they seldom come alone in this life) in pulling out his forceps, his forceps unfortunately drew out the squirt along with it. When a proposition can be taken in two senses—’tis a law in disputation, That the respondent may reply to which of the two he pleases, or finds most convenient for him.—This threw the advantage of the argument quite on my uncle Toby’s side.—‘Good God!’ cried my uncle Toby, ‘are children brought into the world with a squirt?
”
”
Laurence Sterne (Tristram Shandy)
“
It is appalling how complicated it can be to make oatmeal in the jungle. First, I had to make two trips to the river to haul the water, Next, I had to prime my kerosene stove with alcohol to get it burning, a tricky procedure when you are trying to mix powdered milk and fill a coffee pot at the same time. The alcohol prime always burned out before I could turn the kerosene on, and I would have to start all over. Or, I would turn the kerosene on, optimistically hoping that the Coleman element was still hot enough to vaporize the fuel, and start a small fire in my palm-thatched hut as the liquid kerosene squirted all over the table and walls and then ignited. Many amused Yanomamo onlookers quickly learned the English phrase “Oh, shit!” and, once they discovered that the phrase offended and irritated the missionaries, they used it as often as they could in their presence.
”
”
Napoleon A. Chagnon (The Yanomamö)
“
For a long time he’d been periodically preoccupied by the idea that when someone you loved died, you could spend the rest of your life searching the world for that person and yet you would never, ever find him or her, no matter how many obscure places you went to, no matter how many caves you slipped into, or curtains you parted, or houses you entered. The dead person truly no longer existed, and while as a matter of science this fact seemed so simple, it was unaccountably hard to accept it when the person was someone you loved.
But the thing was, after someone you loved died, the people you still could see—a.k.a., the living—might occasionally almost seem to be the person you longed for. There would be a startle of similarity, a flash of familiar head-shape or squirt of laughter, and you would whip around so hard, only to find a person who was not in fact the right person at all.
”
”
Meg Wolitzer (The Female Persuasion)
“
It was dusk when I drove back into downtown Detroit. I was annoyed by how much traffic there was at that hour of the day. Being a guy with two good legs who doesn’t mind ankling, I hadn’t realized the car situation had gotten so bad in the city. I almost had two smack-ups with people who refused to yield to me. Then I bumped someone from behind, intentionally, at the new flashing traffic light on Jefferson. The guy in the car had refused to move—he just sat there waiting because the light was red. After I bumped him (not that hard), the squirt hopped out of his car red in the face, and I must admit the sight of him gave me my first laugh in two days. He said, “Can’t you see it’s a red light?” I told him a red light is just a suggestion. Then I pressed the gas lightly and started pushing his car further out into the intersection whilst he stood there in disbelief. “Better get back in, your car is leaving without you,” I said.
”
”
W.K. Berger (The Purples)
“
Which mirror now, Ms. Lane?” He glanced around the white room, scanning the ten mirrors.
“Fourth from the left. Jericho.” I was sick of him calling me Ms. Lane. I picked myself up off the white floor. Once again the Silver had spit me out with entirely too much enthusiasm, and I didn’t even have the stones on me. I didn’t have anything but the spear in my holster, a protein bar, two flashlights, and a bottle of Unseelie in my pockets.
“You don’t have the right to call me Jericho.”
“Why? Because we haven’t been intimate enough? I’ve had sex with you in every possible position, killed you, fed you my blood in the hopes that it would bring you back to life, crammed Unseelie into your stomach, and tried to rearrange your guts. I’d say that’s pretty personal. How much more intimate do we have to get for you to feel comfortable with me calling you Jericho? Jericho.”
I expected him to pounce on the sex-in-every-possible-position comment, but he only said. “You fed me your—”
I pushed into the mirror, cutting him off. Like the first one, it resisted me, then grabbed me and squirted me out on the other side.
His voice preceded his arrival. “You bloody fool, do you never stop to consider the consequences of your actions?” He barreled out of the mirror behind me.
“Of course I do,” I said coolly. “There’s always plenty of time to consider the consequences. After I’ve screwed up.”
“Funny girl, aren’t you, Ms. Lane?”
“Sure am. Jericho. It’s Mac. I’m Mac. No more fake formality between us. Get with the program or get the hell out of here.”
His dark eyes flared. “Big talk. Ms. Lane. Try to enforce it.” Challenge burned in his gaze.
I sauntered toward him. He watched me coldly and I was reminded of the other night, when I’d pretended to be coming on to him, because I was angry. He thought I was doing it again. I wasn’t. Being in the White Mansion with him was doing something strange to me. Unraveling all my inhibitions, as if these walls had no tolerance for lies, or within them there was no need.
”
”
Karen Marie Moning (Shadowfever (Fever, #5))
“
Kee Li Tong was one of my favorite chocolatiers in New York. Years earlier, I had a fleeting addiction to her otherworldly crème brûlée truffle, a dainty yet dangerous homemade bonbon that you have to pop into your mouth whole, or suffer the consequences of squirting eggy custard all over your blouse. Now, I discovered, she was handcrafting macarons in wild and wonderful flavors like blood orange, sesame, and rose. How did she create her recipes? What inspired her expanded repertoire? And how did hers compare to Paris's best?
Emboldened as I was by my new French history lessons, I asked Kee in her Soho boutique: why macarons?
"Because they're so pretty!" Kee laughed. "They're so dainty. I think it's the colors." And, standing as we were above the glass display case, I had to agree. Her blueberry macarons were as bright as the September sky. The lotus flower was the kind of soft pink that's the perfect shade of blush. Kee's favorite flavor, passion fruit, was a snappy corn husk yellow. These were surrounded by greens (lulo and jasmine green tea) and purples (lavender, which was dotted with purple sugar crystals) and some neutral shades as well (white truffle oil and mint mocha).
”
”
Amy Thomas (Paris, My Sweet: A Year in the City of Light (and Dark Chocolate))
“
Before I knew it, the first animal had entered the chute. Various cowboys were at different positions around the animal and began carrying out their respective duties. Tim looked at me and yelled, “Stick it in!” With utter trepidation, I slid the wand deep into the steer’s rectum. This wasn’t natural. This wasn’t normal. At least it wasn’t for me. This was definitely against God’s plan.
I was supposed to check the monitor and announce if the temperature was above ninety-degrees. The first one was fine. But before I had a chance to remove the probe, Tim set the hot branding iron against the steer’s left hip. The animal let out a guttural Mooooooooooooo!, and as he did, the contents of its large intestine emptied all over my hand and forearm.
Tim said, “Okay, Ree, you can take it out now.” I did. I didn’t know what to do. My arm was covered in runny, stinky cow crap. Was this supposed to happen? Should I say anything? I glanced at my sister, who was looking at me, completely horrified.
The second animal entered the chute. The routine began again. I stuck it in. Tim branded. The steer bellowed. The crap squirted out. I was amazed at how consistent and predictable the whole nasty process was, and how nonchalant everyone--excluding my sister--was acting. But then slowly…surely…I began to notice something.
On about the twentieth animal, I began inserting the thermometer. Tim removed his branding iron from the fire and brought it toward the steer’s hip. At the last second, however, I fumbled with my device and had to stop for a moment. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that when I paused, Tim did, too. It appeared he was actually waiting until I had the thermometer fully inserted before he branded the animal, ensuring that I’d be right in the line of fire when everything came pouring out. He had planned this all along, the dirty dog.
Seventy-eight steers later, we were finished. I was a sight. Layer upon layer of manure covered my arm. I’m sure I was pale and in shock. The cowboys grinned politely. Tim directed me to an outdoor faucet where I could clean my arm. Marlboro Man watched as he gathered up the tools and the gear…and he chuckled.
As my sister and I pulled away in the car later that day, she could only say, “Oh. My. God.” She made me promise never to return to that awful place.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d found out later that this, from Tim’s perspective, was my initiation. It was his sick, twisted way of measuring my worth.
”
”
Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)
“
I Will Not Tease Rebecca Grimes
I have to write one hundred times:
"I will not tease Rebecca Grimes."
Okay, that's one. I'm far from done.
(This isn't gonna be much fun.)
"I will not tease Rebecca Grimes."
That's two. I'm paying for my crimes.
It's all because I pulled her hair
And put spaghetti on her chair.
Because I gave her goofy looks
And squirted mustard on her books,
I have to write one hundred times:
"I will not tease Rebecca Grimes."
That's three. Whoopee. It's going slow.
Just ninety-seven more to go.
"I will not tease" (I'm keeping score.)
"Rebecca Grimes." (Now that makes four.)
I'm soaked with sweat. My shirt is damp.
I think I'm getting writer's cramp.
"I will not, will not, will not tease
Rebecca Grimes!" Can I stop, please?
The teacher frowns, and that means no.
I still have sixty-six to go.
"I will-will-will not-not-not-not
Tease-tease-tease-tease..." It's getting hot.
"I will not tease Rebecca Grimes."
That's ninety-nine. The school bell chimes.
Just one more line and I'll be through.
Rebecca Grimes, this one's for you!
My final line will rhyme with "Grimes":
"I will not tease Rebecca...Slimes!"
Rebecca Slimes! Ha ha! That's great!
I'd better hide it. Oops! Too late!
The teacher sees what I wrote down.
She takes my paper with a frown.
I now must write one thousand times:
"I will not tease Rebecca Grimes.
”
”
Dave Crawley
“
I grabbed my favorite exfoliating facial scrub, the same one I’d used all the way through college. Not quite as abrasive as drugstore-brand apricot scrubs, but grainy enough to get serious and do the trick. It had to be the magic bullet. It had to work. I started by washing my unfortunate face with a mild cleanser, then I squirted a small amount of the scrub on my fingers…and began facilitating the peeling process.
I held my breath. It hurt. My face was in a world of pain.
I scrubbed and scrubbed, wondering why facials even existed in the first place if they involved such torture. I’m a nice person, I thought. I go to church. Why is my skin staging a revolt? The week of a girl’s wedding was supposed to be a happy time. I should have been leaping gleefully around my parents’ house, using a glitter-infused feather duster to sparkle up my wedding gifts, which adorned every flat surface in the house. I should have been eating melon balls and laughing in the kitchen with my mom and sister about how it’s almost here! Don’t you love this Waterford vase? Oooh, the cake is going to be soooooo pretty.
Instead, I was in my bathroom holding my face at gunpoint, forcing it to exfoliate on command.
I rinsed my face and looked in the mirror. The results were encouraging. The pruniness appeared to have subsided; my skin was a little rosy from the robust scrubbing, but at least flakes of dead epidermis weren’t falling from my face like tragic confetti. To ward off any drying, I slathered my face with moisturizing cream. It stung--the effect of the isopropyl alcohol in the cream--but after the agony of the day before, I could take it. When it came to my facial nerve endings, I’d been toughened to a whole new level of pain.
”
”
Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)
“
Obama!” the President said, shaking my hand. “Come here and meet Laura. Laura, you remember Obama. We saw him on TV during election night. Beautiful family. And that wife of yours—that’s one impressive lady.”
“We both got better than we deserve, Mr. President,” I said, shaking the First Lady’s hand and hoping that I’d wiped any crumbs off my face. The President turned to an aide nearby, who squirted a big dollop of hand sanitizer in the President’s hand.
“Want some?” the President asked. “Good stuff. Keeps you from getting colds.”
Not wanting to seem unhygienic, I took a squirt.
“Come over here for a second,” he said, leading me off to one side of the room. “You know,” he said quietly, “I hope you don’t mind me giving you a piece of advice.”
“Not at all, Mr. President.”
“He nodded. “You’ve got a bright future,” he said. “Very bright. But I’ve been in this town awhile and, let me tell you, it can be tough. When you get a lot of attention like you’ve been getting, people start gunnin’ for ya. And it won’t necessarily just be coming from my side, you understand. From yours, too. Everybody’ll be waiting for you to slip, know what I mean? So watch yourself.”
“Thanks for the advice, Mr. President.”
“All right. I gotta get going. You know, me and you got something in common.”
“What’s that?”
“We both had to debate Alan Keyes. That guy’s a piece of work, isn’t he?”
I laughed, and as we walked to the door I told him a few stories from the campaign. It wasn’t until he had left the room that I realized I had briefly put my arm over his shoulder as we talked—an unconscious habit of mine, but one that I suspected might have made many of my friends, not to mention the Secret Service agents in the room, more than a little uneasy.
”
”
Barack Obama (The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream)
“
The school regime refused to make it easy for us on the dress side of things, and it dictated that even if we wanted to walk into the neighboring town of Windsor, then we had to wear a blazer and tie.
This made us prime targets for the many locals who seemed to enjoy an afternoon of beating up the Eton “toffs.”
On one occasion, I was having a pee in the loos of the Windsor McDonald’s, which were tucked away downstairs at the back of the fast-food joint. I was just leaving the Gents when the door swung open, and in walked three aggressive-looking lads.
They looked as if they had struck gold on discovering this weedy, blazer-wearing Eton squirt, and I knew deep down that I was in trouble and alone. (Meanwhile, my friends were waiting for me upstairs. Some use they were being.)
I tried to squeeze past these hoodies, but they threw me back against the wall and laughed. They then proceeded to debate what they were going to do to me.
“Flush his head down the toilet,” was an early suggestion. (Well, I had had that done to me many times already at Eton, I thought to myself.)
I was okay so far.
Then they suggested defecating in the loo first.
Now I was getting worried.
Then came the killer blow: “Let’s shave his pubes!”
Now, there is no greater embarrassment for a young teenager than being discovered to not have any pubes. And I didn’t.
That was it.
I charged at them, threw one of them against the wall, barged the other aside, squeezed through the door, and bolted. They chased after me, but once I reached the main floor of the McDonald’s I knew I was safe.
I waited with my friends inside until we were sure the thugs had all left, then cautiously slunk back across the bridge to school. (I think we actually waited more than two hours, to be safe. Fear teaches great patience.)
”
”
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
“
HARRIS: It’s worth emphasizing the connection between perception and action. It’s one thing to talk about it in the context of catching a cricket ball, but when you talk about the evolutionary logic of having developed perceptual capacities in the first place, the link to action becomes even more explicit. We haven’t evolved to perceive the world as it is for some abstract epistemological reason. We’ve evolved to perceive what’s biologically useful. And what’s biologically useful is always connected—at least when we’re talking about the outside world—to actions. If you can’t move, if you can’t act in any way, there would have been very little reason to evolve a capacity for sight, for instance.
SETH: Absolutely. The sea squirt—a very simple marine creature—swims about during its juvenile phase looking for a place to settle, and once it settles and starts filter feeding, it digests its own brain, because it no longer has any need for perceptual or motor competence. This is often used as an unkind analogy for getting tenure in academia. But you’re absolutely right: perception is not about figuring out what’s really there. We perceive the world as it’s useful for us to do so.
This is particularly important when we think about perception of the internal state of the body, which we mentioned earlier. Brains are not for perceiving the world as it is. They didn’t evolve for doing philosophy or complex language, they evolved to guide action. But even more fundamentally, brains evolved to keep themselves and their bodies alive. The most basic cycle of perception and action doesn’t involve the outside world or the exterior surfaces of the body at all. It’s all about regulating the internal physiology of the body and keeping it within bounds compatible with survival. This gives us a clue about why experiences of mood and emotion, and the basic experiences of selfhood, have a fundamentally nonobject-like character.
”
”
Sam Harris (Making Sense)
“
Lucifer Sansfoi
Varlet Sansfoi
Omer Perdiu
I.B.Perdie
Billy Perdy
I'll unwind your
guts from Durham
to Dover
and bury em
in Clover--
Your psalms I'll 'ave
engraved
in your toothbone--
Your victories
nilled--
You jailed under
under a woman's skirt
of stone--
Stone blind woman
with no guts
and only a scale--
Your thoughts & letters
Shandy'd about
in Beth
(Gaelic for grave)
Your philosophies
run up your nose
again--
Your confidences
and essays bandied
in ballrooms
from switchblade
to switchblade
--Your final
duel with
sledge hammers--
Your essential secret twinned
to buttercups
& dying--
Your guide to 32
European cities
scabbed in Isaiah
--Your red beard
snobbed in
Dolmen ruins
in the editions
of the Bleak--
Your saints and
Consolations bereft
--Your handy volume
rolled into
an urn--
And your father
And mother besmeared
at thought of you
th'unspent begotless
crop of worms
--You lay
there, you
queen for a
day, wait
for the "fun-
sucked frogs"
to carp at you
Your sweety beauty
discovered by No Name
in its hidingplace
till burrs
Part from you
from lack
of issue,
sinew, all
the rest--
Gibbering quiver
graveryard Hoo!
The hospital
that buries
you
be Baal,
the digger
Yorick,
& the shoveler
groom--
My rosy tomatoes
pop squirting
from your awful
rotten grave--
Your profile,
erstwhile
Garboesque,
mistook by earth-
eels for some
fjord to
Sheol--
And your timid
voice box
strangled
by lie-hating
earth
forever.
May the plighted
Noah-clouds
dissolve in grief of you--
May Red clay
be your center,
& woven into necks,
of hogs, boars,
booters & pilferers
& burned down
with Stalin, Hitler
& the rest--
May you bite
your lip that
you cannot
meet with God--
or
Beat me to a pub
--Amen
The Almoner,
his cup hat
no bottom,
nor I
a brim.
Devil, get thee
back
to the russet caves.
”
”
Jack Kerouac (Scattered Poems)
“
I was thinking, The last thing I want to do is get in a wreck and lose another limb. I completely lost it and blew up at my father.
“Why did you do that? I can’t get injured again! Pull over. I’ll drive!” I screamed.
Dad is not the kind of person who would have ever taken that kind of behavior from me in the past, but I think he understood the paranoia. I’d asked him while I was in the hospital, “Did you ever think one of your kids would ever lose a limb?”
And he said, “No, it never crossed my mind. I was always more afraid I would lost another limb.”
It wasn’t until later that I realized how great it was of him that he kept his cool and understood where I was coming from. He just let me freak out and let me drive. I think in some ways it was the same kind of lesson he taught me as a child without ever saying a word. I watched him just get on with things with one arm. He never made a fuss about it. It was an example that growing up I didn’t know I’d need eventually.
So I got in the driver’s seat and we continued on our way. After a while we stopped at a gas station to stretch our legs and get some snacks. I grabbed a lemon-line Gatorade and Dad grabbed something to drink and we got back in the car. I turned the car on, so the air and the radio were going as I tried and tried to get my Gatorade bottle open, but the top was too big and I couldn’t quite get my fingers to grab it, hold it, and twist it open. My finger strength just wasn’t there yet. So I put it between my legs and tried to hold it still while I twisted the top. I heard the creak of release as I managed to break the seal of the plastic orange cap but my legs were squeezing the bottle so hard that the bright yellow liquid squirted all over me. “Crap!” I yelled. I heard my dad snicker. I turned to look at him and he smirked while holding a can of Coke in his hand.
“And that’s why I drink out of a can,” he declared with a smug grin. Click. Fizzzz. With one hand, Dad popped that can open and took a big slug of his soda.
”
”
Noah Galloway (Living with No Excuses: The Remarkable Rebirth of an American Soldier)
“
Nope- it was not! Ava and her girls that day went, and they cut a class at some point in the day and broke into my baby. Then Ava- ‘Rubbed one out!’ that means that she masturbated, and squirted her lady- juices all over the inside of my car. Yes- and I mean it went all over. It was on my seat on the dash, on the floor, and Ava smeared what creaminess that was on her two fingers on the windows, and driver’s side vent. As her clan, sisters pissed all over the carpet on the floor, and took their dumps on the seat, and left their thongs behind. Alison, she wrote a note on her undies saying- ‘Now you have some pairs to wear!’
It was so nasty! Plus- the outside was covered and wrapped with toilet paper as well as littered with Ava and her sisters used feminine products. What is wrong with these girls? What did I do to deserve this one? Likewise, the other kids thought it was the most humorous thing, which they ever witnessed at the end of the school day. When I discovered it- You know, I was utterly sick to my stomach. I think I screamed so loudly it echoed throughout the land, and started to cry and ran while being pushed around bouncing around off their bodies, I cannot remember- I was so upset, and then the kids were all around me kicking, and pushing me from one place to another.
I was just like a hacky sack for them, until I passed out, and dropped to the hard ground. That gave them time for them to spit on me, and dump things like glue in my hair or whatever that shit was. Then what gets me is that she signed her name- Ava on the dashboard with a black permanent sharpie marker, and It reads, ‘Suck on this- Nevaeh- lick, what I gave you all up!’ and she drew a heart, with a line through it also. She wanted me to know because there was not a thing I could do about it. Depressed- to say that her juicy sprays were more yellowish, and a thick sticky white, then clear on my blue and white cloth seats. Yet, Hope had the car towed and cleaned for me inside and out, she could not believe what kids do these days.
Therefore, that was the first time that I drove my car to school and the last. That whole thing cost me a lot. I guess it is back to the bus. That is what everyone wants is it not. This completely sucked; I have a car that I cannot drive anywhere other than at home or have locked up in the barn- with the other rust bucket car.
”
”
Marcel Ray Duriez (Nevaeh The Lusting Sapphire Blue Eyes)
“
Two fifty-five. It’s go time.” Chris unlocks the doors and gets out and hides behind an oak tree in the yard.
My adrenaline is pumping as I hop out of Chris’s car, grab Kitty’s bike out of her trunk, and push it a few houses. Then I set it on the ground and drape myself over it in a dramatic heap. Then I pull out the bottle of fake blood I bought for this very purpose and squirt some on my jeans--old jeans I’ve been planning on giving to Goodwill. As soon as I see Trevor’s car approaching, I start to pretend sob. From behind the tree Chris whispers, “Tone it down a little!” I immediately stop sobbing and start moaning.
Trevor’s car pulls up beside me. He rolls down the window. “Lara Jean? Are you okay?”
I whimper. “No…I think I might have sprained my ankle. It really hurts. Can you give me a ride home?” I’m willing myself to tear up, but it’s harder to cry on cue than I would have thought. I try to think about sad things--the Titanic, old people with Alzheimer’s, Jamie Fox-Pickle dying--but I can’t focus.
Trevor regards me suspiciously. “Why are you riding your bike in this neighborhood?”
Oh no, I’m losing him! I start talking fast but not too fast. “It’s not my bike; it’s my little sister’s. She’s friends with Sara Healey. You know, Dan Healey’s little sister? They live over there.” I point to their house. “I was bringing it to her--oh my God, Trevor. Do you not believe me? Are you seriously not going to give me a ride?”
Trevor looks around. “Do you swear this isn’t a trick?”
Gotcha! “Yes! I swear I don’t have your name, okay? Please just help me up. It really hurts.”
“First show me your ankle.”
“Trevor! You can’t see a sprained ankle!” I whimper and make a show of trying to stand up, and Trevor finally turns the car off and gets out. He stoops down and pulls me to my feet and I try to make my body heavy. “Be gentle,” I tell him. “See? I told you I didn’t have your name.”
Trevor pulls me up by my armpits, and over his shoulder Chris creeps up behind him like a ninja. She dives forward, both hands out, and claps them on his back hard. “I got you!” she screams.
Trevor shrieks and drops me, and I narrowly escape falling for real. “Damn it!” he yells.
Gleefully Chris says, “You’re done, sucker!” She and I high-five and hug.
“Can you guys not celebrate in front of me?” he mutters.
Chris holds her hand out. “Now gimme gimme gimme.”
Sighing, Trevor shakes his head and says, “I can’t believe I fell for that, Lara Jean.”
I pat him on the back. “Sorry, Trevor.”
“What if I had had your name?” he asks me. “What would you have done then?”
Huh. I never thought of that. I shoot Chris an accusing glare. “Wait a minute! What if he had had my name?”
“That was a chance we were willing to take,” she says smoothly.
”
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Jenny Han (P.S. I Still Love You (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #2))
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Dr. Hobson (with Dr. Robert McCarley) made history by proposing the first serious challenge to Freud’s theory of dreams, called the “activation synthesis theory.” In 1977, they proposed the idea that dreams originate from random neural firings in the brain stem, which travel up to the cortex, which then tries to make sense of these random signals. The key to dreams lies in nodes found in the brain stem, the oldest part of the brain, which squirts out special chemicals, called adrenergics, that keep us alert. As we go to sleep, the brain stem activates another system, the cholinergic, which emits chemicals that put us in a dream state. As we dream, cholinergic neurons in the brain stem begin to fire, setting off erratic pulses of electrical energy called PGO (pontine-geniculate-occipital) waves. These waves travel up the brain stem into the visual cortex, stimulating it to create dreams. Cells in the visual cortex begin to resonate hundreds of times per second in an irregular fashion, which is perhaps responsible for the sometimes incoherent nature of dreams. This system also emits chemicals that decouple parts of the brain involved with reason and logic. The lack of checks coming from the prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices, along with the brain becoming extremely sensitive to stray thoughts, may account for the bizarre, erratic nature of dreams. Studies have shown that it is possible to enter the cholinergic state without sleep. Dr. Edgar Garcia-Rill of the University of Arkansas claims that meditation, worrying, or being placed in an isolation tank can induce this cholinergic state. Pilots and drivers facing the monotony of a blank windshield for many hours may also enter this state. In his research, he has found that schizophrenics have an unusually large number of cholinergic neurons in their brain stem, which may explain some of their hallucinations. To make his studies more efficient, Dr. Allan Hobson had his subjects put on a special nightcap that can automatically record data during a dream. One sensor connected to the nightcap registers the movements of a person’s head (because head movements usually occur when dreams end). Another sensor measures movements of the eyelids (because REM sleep causes eyelids to move). When his subjects wake up, they immediately record what they dreamed about, and the information from the nightcap is fed into a computer. In this way, Dr. Hobson has accumulated a vast amount of information about dreams. So what is the meaning of dreams? I asked him. He dismisses what he calls the “mystique of fortune-cookie dream interpretation.” He does not see any hidden message from the cosmos in dreams. Instead, he believes that after the PGO waves surge from the brain stem into the cortical areas, the cortex is trying to make sense of these erratic signals and winds up creating a narrative out of them: a dream.
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Michio Kaku (The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind)
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Spaghetti alla puttanesca is typically made with tomatoes, olives, anchovies, capers, and garlic. It means, literally, "spaghetti in the style of a prostitute." It is a sloppy dish, the tomatoes and oil making the spaghetti lubricated and slippery. It is the sort of sauce that demands you slurp the noodles Goodfellas style, staining your cheeks with flecks of orange and red. It is very salty and very tangy and altogether very strong; after a small plate, you feel like you've had a visceral and significant experience.
There are varying accounts as to when and how the dish originated- but the most likely explanation is that it became popular in the mid-twentieth century. The first documented mention of it is in Raffaele La Capria's 1961 novel, Ferito a Morte. According to the Italian Pasta Makers Union, spaghetti alla puttanesca was a very popular dish throughout the sixties, but its exact genesis is not quite known. Sandro Petti, a famous Napoli chef and co-owner of Ischian restaurant Rangio Fellone, claims to be its creator. Near closing time one evening, a group of customers sat at one of his tables and demanded to be served a meal. Running low on ingredients, Petti told them he didn't have enough to make anything, but they insisted. They were tired, and they were hungry, and they wanted pasta. "Facci una puttanata qualsiasi!" they cried. "Make any kind of garbage!" The late-night eater is not usually the most discerning. Petti raided the kitchen, finding four tomatoes, two olives, and a jar of capers, the base of the now-famous spaghetti dish; he included it on his menu the next day under the name spaghetti alla puttanesca. Others have their own origin myths. But the most common theory is that it was a quick, satisfying dish that the working girls of Naples could knock up with just a few key ingredients found at the back of the fridge- after a long and unforgiving night.
As with all dishes containing tomatoes, there are lots of variations in technique. Some use a combination of tinned and fresh tomatoes, while others opt for a squirt of puree. Some require specifically cherry or plum tomatoes, while others go for a smooth, premade pasta. Many suggest that a teaspoon of sugar will "open up the flavor," though that has never really worked for me. I prefer fresh, chopped, and very ripe, cooked for a really long time. Tomatoes always take longer to cook than you think they will- I rarely go for anything less than an hour. This will make the sauce stronger, thicker, and less watery. Most recipes include onions, but I prefer to infuse the oil with onions, frying them until brown, then chucking them out. I like a little kick in most things, but especially in pasta, so I usually go for a generous dousing of chili flakes. I crush three or four cloves of garlic into the oil, then add any extras. The classic is olives, anchovies, and capers, though sometimes I add a handful of fresh spinach, which nicely soaks up any excess water- and the strange, metallic taste of cooked spinach adds an interesting extra dimension. The sauce is naturally quite salty, but I like to add a pinch of sea or Himalayan salt, too, which gives it a slightly more buttery taste, as opposed to the sharp, acrid salt of olives and anchovies. I once made this for a vegetarian friend, substituting braised tofu for anchovies. Usually a solid fish replacement, braised tofu is more like tuna than anchovy, so it was a mistake for puttanesca. It gave the dish an unpleasant solidity and heft. You want a fish that slips and melts into the pasta, not one that dominates it.
In terms of garnishing, I go for dried oregano or fresh basil (never fresh oregano or dried basil) and a modest sprinkle of cheese. Oh, and I always use spaghetti. Not fettuccine. Not penne. Not farfalle. Not rigatoni. Not even linguine. Always spaghetti.
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Lara Williams (Supper Club)