Surfer Quotes

Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That's what little girls are made of; the heck with sugar and spice.

So he was a sweet-talking, cross-dressing, fortune-telling...surfer?

Life is a lot like surfing… When you get caught in the impact zone, you’ve got to just get back up. Because you never know what may be over the next wave.

You can read minds, and you didn't tell me?” Link stared at me like he just found out I was the Silver Surfer. He rubbed his head nervously. “Hey, man, all that stuff about Lena? I was yankin’ your chain.” He looked away. “Are you doin’ it now? You're doin’ it, aren't you? Dude, get out of my head.” He backed away from me and into the bookshelf. “I can't read your mind, you idiot.

I don't really want people looking to me for inspiration. I just want to be a sign along the way that points toward Heaven.

I've learned life is a lot like surfing. When you get caught in the impact zone, you need to get right back up, because you never know what's over the next wave......and if you have faith, anything is possible, anything at all.

Oh, he was definitely doable. Did Hawaiians have the saying “Save a surfboard, ride a surfer”?

Be a surfer. Watch the ocean. Figure out where the big waves are breaking and adjust accordingly.

The setting sun burned the sky pink and orange in the same bright hues as surfers' bathing suits. It was beautiful deception, Bosch thought, as he drove north on the Hollywood Freeway to home. Sunsets did that here. Made you forget it was the smog that made their colors so brilliant, that behind every pretty picture there could be an ugly story.

I wouldn't change what happened to me because then I wouldn't have this chance, in front of all of you, to embrace more people than I ever could have with two arms.

I'd blurted out the question only to keep him from noticing that I was working my hands free, but the Warden behind me, some young brown-haired surfer dude, yelled a warning. "She's getting loose!" Narc.

If sacred places are spared the ravages of war... then make all places sacred. And if the holy people are to be kept harmless from war... then make all people holy.

Those who are courageous, go headlong. They search all opportunities of danger. Their life philosophy is not that of insurance companies. Their life philosophy is that of a mountain climber, a glider, a surfer. And not only in the outside seas they surf; they surf in their innermost seas. And not only on the outside they climb Alps and Himalayas; they seek inner peaks. But remember one thing: never forget the art of risking— never, never. Always remain capable of risking. Wherever you can find an opportunity to risk, never miss it, and you will never be a loser. Risk is the only guarantee for being truly alive.

Now, see, that's why you want Internet friends. You can find people just exactly like you. Screw your neighbors and your family, too messy...the trouble is, once you filter out everybody that doesn't agree with you, all that's left is maybe this one retired surfer guy living in Idaho.

He's opening a door, but he already knows I won't walk through. The power of Bodee is in the way he reads me, sees through me, and then understands the truth behind the facade. He's the guy who can walk straight through the House of Mirrors on the first try. It's almost annoying. No one should ride tragedy like a pro surfer while I drown.

For your life to be great,your faith must be bigger than your fear.

you make your own adventure in life. And I truly believe that if you open your eyes to your surroundings, there’s lots of neat stuff to be found practically anywhere on earth.

Jiko: "Surfer, wave, same thing." "That's just stupid, " I said. " A surfer's a person. A wave is a wave. How can they be the same?" Jiko looked out across the ocean to where the water met the sky. "A wave is born from deep conditions of the ocean. A person is born from deep conditions of the world. A person pokes up from the world and rolls along like a wave, until it is time to sink down again. Up, down. Person, wave.

It's better to regret something you have done than to regret something you HAVEN'T done.

If you're a surfer, you just want to surf. You don't know if anyone's going to see you, and you don't really care if they see you. You just live for that feeling.

The richest person in the world, I’ve since discovered, isn’t the person who has the most but the one who needs the least.

The other day a young Internet surfer asked me why I preferred using a pencil instead of a computer. The principal reason, I told him, was that I liked chewing on the end of my pencil. A nasty habit, but it helps me concentrate. And I find it extremely difficult to chew on a computer.

I think of those photographs taken inside waves, the ones with surfers in slick suits on boards coasting through the tunnel of water, eyes wide. I think they must feel protected inside that curl of water, inside the sudden silencing of the world, even if only for a few minutes.

The author describes how impressed she was with the detailed storyboards that outlined her movie – "not just sketches, but real art". She then describes a Hawaiian sunset as, "God painting His storyboard on the sky".

God has a lot more to give and to offer than the world has to give.

Passion begets hunger. Hunger consumes worlds. - Silver Surfer

In another life, I could have been a surfer," said Jace. "You would have spent all your time jumping off the board and punching sharks," said Alec. "That's not really surfing.

Are you calm now?” Trent’s voice caressed the crown of my head. “Physically, yes. But we’re entering danger territory. I’ve never been in waters so deep.” I squeezed my eyes shut, suddenly afraid of being so frank. “Neither have I, but I’m a good swimmer. And, Edie? You’re an excellent surfer.

Success is nothing more than living your life according to your own truth and your own terms.

I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

In a recent interview, he compared himself to surfers: “What are they doing this for? It’s just pure. You’re alone. That wave is so much bigger and stronger than you. You’re always outnumbered. They always can crush you. And yet you’re going to accept that and turn it into a little, brief, meaningless art form.

A person without self-expression is a person without personal freedom.

There's no such thing as a handicap - it's all in your head

For crissakes, you're the frickin' poster boy for DarkRiver with your 'Gee, shucks, I'm harmless' act." Dorian was used to being ribbed about his looks. With his blond hair and blue eyes, he looked more like a surfer hanging out for the right wave than blooded DarkRiver sentinel. "Look who's talking, Miss Bikini Babe 2067.

I'm living in this world. I'm what, a slacker? A "twentysomething"? I'm in the margins. I'm not building a wall but making a brick. Okay, here I am, a tired inheritor of the Me generation, floating from school to street to bookstore to movie theater with a certain uncertainty. I'm in that white space where consumer terror meets irony and pessimism, where Scooby Doo and Dr. Faustus hold equal sway over the mind, where the Butthole Surfers provide the background volume, where we choose what is not obvious over what is easy. It goes on...like TV channel-cruising, no plot, no tragic flaws, no resolution, just mastering the moment, pushing forward, full of sound and fury, full of life signifying everything on any given day...

Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” —Norman Cousins

Life is full of what-ifs. You can’t let it hold you back. If you do, you’re not really living at all . . . just kind of going through the motions with no meaning.

Good. I want you to make me a weapon combining sanguinite, amberite, and dark steel. Do you think you could do it?” Zekours’s eyes narrowed. He smiled gravely. “Of course.

Hey, Noble Dark One! Get down here. Oi! I got some samogorths that need to go home.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” —JEREMIAH 29:11

Somewhere beyond the battening, urged sweep of three-bedroom houses rushing by their thousands across all the dark beige hills, somehow implicit in an arrogance or bite to the smog the more inland somnolence of San Narciso did lack, lurked the sea, the unimaginable Pacific, the one to which all surfers, beach pads, sewage disposal schemes, tourist incursions, sunned homosexuality, chartered fishing are irrelevant, the hole left by the moon’s tearing-free and monument to her exile; you could not hear or even smell this but it was there, something tidal began to reach feelers in past eyes and eardrums, perhaps to arouse fractions of brain current your most gossamer microelectrode is yet too gross for finding.

We tell children what they should do when they grow up so we can impress the people next door.

Life is full of what-ifs. You can't let it hold you back.

When I’m in the ocean, I swim alone, because I’m a shark-eating man. I’m also a man-eating man, though to be fair I thought that one surfer was a seal when I bit into him.

A lone surfer, barely floating above an empty ocean. That's what it feels like in my soul." --Kenna, Flame (Fireborn #1)

At thirteen I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers, and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash.

....I'd skimmed along life like a surfer, mistaking speed for direction. I'd feigned to be pressing forward when I was really running away

Silver surfers ... nah, that's old hat. Retire a gold surfer with Cosmic Ordering.

She didn't look like a Willow Queen. Of course, I'm not sure what exactly I expected - maybe something akin to Glinda the Good Witch. But this woman looked like Surfer Girl Barbie.

So I'm biding my time, like a surfer waiting for a wave. I'm pretty good at surfing, as it happens, and I know the wave will come. When the moment is right, I'll get Demeter's attention. She'll look at my stuff, everything will click, and I'll start riding my life. Not paddling, paddling, paddling, like I am right now.

Caine erupted in disbelieving laughter. "Yeah, that'll do it. 'I'm just a kid, Your Honor!' Hah. They'll have to find a few scapegoats, and guess who it will be? You and me, surfer boy. You and me.

The Russian drove. New York turned in his seat to make sure I wasn't peeking. He should have been a surfer. His face was full of masculine prettiness and immensely likeable. Which, by horror's law of inverted aesthetics, made me sure we were being taken to our deaths.

I don't need easy, I just need possible.

Life really is nothing more than a journey back home.

People said you get angry too easily. I didn’t want to deal with that.” My face turned red. “Who said that?!? I’m going to kick their –” “I guess I was right.

From morning until sunset — and sometimes by moonlight — the surfer dudes ride waves onto shore worried about nothing more than impressing the gorgeous girls watching them. Sometimes those bikini-clad California sweethearts let a boy get to second base to a romantic Leslie Gore or Connie Francis song. If she's really in-love, and trusts him not to tell his buddies, she'll let him round third and wave him home. When that happens, it usually isn't long before Nautica is all abuzz about an impending beach wedding.

… fretting about forgetting can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, let’s all take a collective deep breath. The next time you struggle with the name of that famous surfer or forget to buy milk at the store, you can remember that these are examples of normal forgetting and, hopefully, you can relax. Forgetting happens. If you stress about it, it will happen even more.

Under the twinkling trees was a table covered with Guatemalan fabric, roses in juice jars, wax rose candles from Tijuana and plates of food — Weetzie's Vegetable Love-Rice, My Secret Agent Lover Man's guacamole, Dirk's homemade pizza, Duck's fig and berry salad and Surfer Surprise Protein Punch, Brandy-Lynn's pink macaroni, Coyote's cornmeal cakes, Ping's mushu plum crepes and Valentine's Jamaican plantain pie. Witch Baby's stomach growled but she didn't leave her hiding place. Instead, she listened to the reggae, surf, soul and salsa, tugged at the snarl balls in her hair and snapped pictures of all the couples.

The ridiculousness of language continues to astound me.

I transmogrified into the ender wraith.

All six destroyer endermen stood at attention and grunted.  (Apparently, it was their way of showing unity and dominance. But, truth be told, they sounded like pigs.)

So maybe someone listening will be inspired to pick up a Bible or go to church and their lives will be better and richer as a result.

He had tried to shed his pain, to rise from the ashes like a drab phoenix with no hope except the cold peace of indifference. Now that events forced him to open himself to the world again, he was swamped by emotion as a novice surfer was overwhelmed by each cresting wave.

Surfing is kind of a good metaphor for the rest of life. The extremely good stuff - chocolate and great sex and weddings and hilarious jokes - fills a minute portion of an adult lifespan. The rest of life is the paddling: work, paying bills, flossing, getting sick, dying.

It’s not about the powers, man; it’s that we aren’t kids anymore. Look what we’ve been through. Look what we’ve done. Look at yourself, surfer dude. We’ve done something none of our parents have even come close to. We didn’t take over their boring world; we took over a world about a thousand times tougher. If we walk out of this alive, we won’t have to bow our heads to anyone.

The body moves naturally, automatically, unconsciously, without any personal intervention or awareness. But if we begin to use our faculty of reasoning, our actions become slow and hesitant.

I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers, and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash. Horror movies, science fiction movies, movies about losers on motorcycles- this was the stuff that turned my dials up to ten.

As on many mornings in Marin, there is this sly strip of fog - water in it's most mystical incarnation - slithering over, around, and through the hills, making everything look ancient and unsolved.

Every year that I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence which will risk nothing, and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well.” —Mary Cholmondeley

In a moment I might be under the wave swallowing seawater and small jellyfish, but right now I am an ancient princess of Hawaii, I am a bikini model, I am a goddess before the crest of a monster billow.

Is Julian really Irish?” Cameron asked Blake as he looked down at his drink. “I have no fucking idea,” Blake answered in frustration. “I’ve never heard him use that one. I’ve heard British, Boston, Spanish, Kurdish, French, Texan, and surfer dude, but never Irish. Might mean it’s the real one, if he never used it,” he said in a distant, rambling tone. Cameron blinked at him. “Surfer... dude?” Blake waved his hand around. “You know, ‘Chillax, bra, we just gotta harvest some dead presidents’ kind of shit.

As educational standards decline and pop culture disseminates the inarticulate ravings and unintelligible patois of surfers, jocks, and valley girls, we are turning into a nation of functioning illiterates [...]. English itself will steadily decay unless we get back to basics and start to respect our language again.

Now, see, that's why everybody wants Internet friends. You can find people just exactly like you. Screw your neighbors and your family, too messy.' Dovey's phone buzzed, and she laughed, ignoring it. 'The trouble is, once you filter out everybody that doesn't agree with you, all that's left is maybe this one retired surfer guy living in Idaho.

They wanted to see the same Bethany they had known before—and frankly, I looked pretty changed. So I quickly set them straight: I was the same person on the inside.

I nodded my head and moaned in pain

Often in the waves of change, we discover our true direction.

We need to sharpen our focus & live to the point just like a pencil.

There is a huge value placed in our world on doing what everyone else is doing and thinking as everyone else is thinking.

I stopped by Emma’s house first thing in the morning to check on her progress. She told me to get lost. Mad scientist.

The password is the following: Herobrine is rad and I wish he were my dad.

Dang!” said John.

What the

But the thing he doesn’t know, the thing that shocks even me, is that I’m not the gentle guardian spirit; I’m the hungry shark. And I fear his arm won’t be enough. I want all of him.

Hey, JediJedf?” “It’s actually JediJeff.” “What? Why didn’t you correct me before?” JediJeff shrugged. “People said you get angry too easily. I didn’t want to deal with that.” My face turned red. “Who said that?!? I’m going to kick their –” “I guess I was right.

I guess even the prettiest things eventually end up stinking. Everything does. We all will die and rot and decay and be reborn as dirt or flowers or worms, or polar bears who will drown because their ice is all melting, or presidents of war-torn countries, or whales swimming around acidifying seas. And then we will rot and decay again. And so it goes.

For those who make Hawaii their home, aloha means much more than a hello and good-bye greeting. It goes way back to the old Hawaiian traditions, and it means a mutual regard and affection of one person for another without any expectation of something in return. Translation: it means you do something from the pureness of your heart.

However, the beach is cluttered with 12-year-old "Howdy-Doody" refugees, making the walk to the beach both annoying and hazardous.

That's how the universe worked at times: little things - the tiniest things - could catapult you toward a good life, but you had to be open and you had to be paying attention. Love wasn't purely destined, it relied on hiccups of fate - Aimee Mann, someone else's trip to Peru, a black dog.

For most surfers, I think—for me, certainly—waves have a spooky duality. When you are absorbed in surfing them, they seem alive. They each have personalities, distinct and intricate, and quickly changing moods, to which you must react in the most intuitive, almost intimate way—too many people have likened riding waves to making love. And yet waves are of course not alive, not sentient, and the lover you reach to embrace may turn murderous without warning. It’s nothing personal. That self-disemboweling death wave on the inside bar is not bloody-minded. Thinking so is just reflex anthropomorphism. Wave love is a one-way street.

In the act of balancing, we come alive. Sensations change moment by moment; sometimes we feel secure, sometimes precarious. In the long run we develop tolerance for instability. As we come to accept this insecurity as the norm, as our home ground, it becomes familiar and less frightening. We can stop trying to flee from the wobble. And sometimes this sense of being off balance is exhilarating and reminds us of the impermanence and fragility of life, nudging us to appreciate each imperfect, teetering moment we are alive. Perhaps, like surfers, we can come to feel the power of the waves, the majesty of the elements, and a sense of our own place in this swirling universe.

Daddy and I left the End this morning. He is meeting with some of the leaders in Capitol City and he said I could come with him. But, the meetings were boring, so I thought I’d come see you guys.” “You mean, make fun of me, don’t you?” Jimmy said bitterly, crossing his arms in front of his chest and pouting. Princes Tina giggled. “It’s just so easy to do that.

I slip Anny's letter back into my despatch case: she has done what she could; I cannot reach the woman who took it in her hands, folded and put it in the envelope. Is it possible even to think of someone in the past? As long as we loved each other, we never allowed the meanest of our instants, the smallest grief, to be detached and forgotten, left behind. Sounds, smells, nuances of light, even the thoughts we never told each other; we carried them all away and they remained alive: even now they have the power to give us joy and pain. Not a memory: an implacable, torrid love, without shadow, without escape, without shelter. Three years rolled into one. That is why we parted: we did not have enough strength to bear this burden. And then, when Anny left me, all of a sudden, all at once, the three years crumbled into the past. I didn't even surfer, I felt emptied out. Then time began to flow again and the emptiness grew larger. Then, in Saigon when I decided to go back to France, all that was still left—strange faces, places, quays on the banks of long rivers—all was wiped out. Now my past is nothing more than an enormous vacuum. My present: this waitress in the black blouse dreaming near the counter, this man. It seems as though I have learned all I know of life in books.

The disabled elite, if you will. The surfer with one arm, the mountain climber with no legs, a drummer with one hand. And, deep down, I knew I should be proud of them. They were my community, and they were only working to erase stigma for the rest of us. But I didn’t feel proud. I felt bitter. Jealous too. Angry that they weren’t just great surfer, record-breaking mountain climber, and successful drummer. To me, they were a reminder that the world will always view me differently—put me in a different bracket—even if I landed myself on a pedestal. I didn’t want to achieve despite myself. I didn’t want to defy anything. I just wanted to feel ordinary. To not overcompensate every day. I wanted to be bad at things and have people laugh at me because that’s life. I didn’t want pity.

Waves are like friends. Some are big and bold, some not so much. Others come to greet you, while still there are those you have to chase. There are those which are deceiving, as they look good in the beginning, but will betray and crush you in the end. It’s truly hard to know the perfect wave. Only when you are within its folds do you realize it was either a good or bad decision on your part. By that point, it’s either too late or just right.

You are all the same species, you have the same goals, the same dreams, the same fears...eat the same food, sleep the same sleep...So you have to go out of your way to divide yourselves, to make it easier to kill one another. Boundaries, nations, blocks, creeds, names, fashion. You kill one another for a pair of sneakers. Your leaders oppress and exploit you for their own power, and you allow it happily, if in so doing they can kill those who you have decided are not like you. You are a race of madmen.

Steve Carver-the guy with the faux-surfer hair-and Amanda's best friend, Nicole,are chosen.Rashmi and I groan in a rare moment of camaraderie.Steve pumps a fist in the air.What a meathead. The selecting begins,and Amanda is chosen first. Of course. And then Steve's best friend.Of course. Rashmi elbows me. "bet you five euros I'm picked last." "I'll take that bet.Because it's totally me." Amanda turns in her seat toward me and lowers her voice. "That's a safe bet, Skunk Girl. Who'd want you on their team?" My jaw unhinges stupidly. "St. Clair!" Steve's voice startles me. It figures that St. Clair would be picked early. Everyone looks at him, but he's staring down Amanda. "Me," he says, in answer to her question. "I want Anna on my team,and you'd be lucky to have her." She flushes and quickly turns back around,but not before shooting me another dagger.What have I ever done to her? More names are called. More names that are NOT mine. St. Clair goes to get my attention,but I pretend I don't notice. I can't bear to look at him.I'm too humiliated. Soon the selection is down to me, Rashmi,and a skinny dude who, for whatever reason,is called Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger is always wearing this expresion of surprise, like someone's just called his name, and he can't figure out where the voice is coming from. "Rashmi," Nicole says without hestitation. My heart sinks.Now it's between me and someone named Cheeseburger. I focus my attention down on my desk, at the picture of me that Josh drew earlier today in history. I'm dressed like a medieval peasant (we're studying the Black Plague), and I have a fierce scowl and a dead rat dangling from one hand. Amanda whispers into Steve's ear. I feel her smirking at me,and my face burns. Steve clears his throat. "Cheeseburger.

Christy dug her hand deeper into her shoulder bag. Scanning the papers she finally located there, she found no phone numbers or addresses listed. All the plans had been made in such haste. All she knew was that someone was supposed to meet her here. She was here, and he or she wasn't. Never in her life had she felt so completely alone. Stranded with nowhere to turn. A prayer came quickly to her lips. "Father God, I'm at Your mercy here. I know You're in control. Please show me what to do." Suddenly she heard a voice calling to her. "Kilikina!" Christy's heart stopped. Only one person in the entire world had ever called her by her Hawaiian name. She spun around. "Kilikina," called out the tall, blond surfer who was running toward her. Christy looked up into the screaming silver-blue eyes that could only belong to one person. "Todd?" she whispered, convinced she was hallucinating. "Kilikina," Todd wrapped his arms around her so tightly that for an instant she couldn't breathe. He held her a long time. Crying. She could feel his warm tears on her neck. She knew this had to be real. But how could it be? "Todd?" she whispered again. "How? I mean, what...? I don't..." Todd pulled away, and for the first time she noticed the big gouquet of white carnations in his hand. They were now a bit squashed. "For you," he said, his eyes clearing and his rich voice sounding calm and steady. Then, seeing her shocked expression, he asked, "You really didn't know I was here, did you?" Christy shook her head, unable to find any words. "Didn't Dr. Benson tell you?" She shook her head again. "You mean you came all this way by yourself, and you didn't even know I was here?" Now it was Todd's turn to look surprised. "No, I thought you were in Papua New Guinea or something. I had no idea you were here!" "They needed me here more," Todd said with a chin-up gesture toward the beach. "It's the perfect place for me." With a wide smile spreading above his square jaw, he said, "Ever since I received the fax yesterday saying they were sending you, I've been out of my mind with joy! Kilikina, you can't imagine how I've been feeling." Christy had never heard him talk like this before. Todd took the bouquet from her and placed it on top of her luggage. Then, grasping both her quivering hands in his and looking into her eyes, he said, "Don't you see? There is no way you or I could ever have planned this. It's from God." The shocked tears finally caught up to Christy's eyes, and she blinked to keep Todd in focus. "It is," she agreed. "God brought us back together, didn't He?" A giggle of joy and delight danced from her lips. "Do you remember what I said when you gave me back your bracelet?" Todd asked. "I said that if God ever brought us back together, I would put that bracelet back on your wrist, and that time, it would stay on forever." Christy nodded. She had replayed the memory of that day a thousand times in her mind. It had seemed impossible that God would bring them back together. Christy's heart pounded as she realized that God, in His weird way, had done the impossible. Todd reached into his pocket and pulled out the "Forever" ID bracelet. He tenderly held Christy's wrist, and circling it with the gold chain, he secured the clasp. Above their heads a fresh ocean wind blew through the palm trees. It almost sounded as if the trees were applauding. Christy looked up from her wrist and met Todd's expectant gaze. Deep inside, Christy knew that with the blessing of the Lord, Todd had just stepped into the garden of her heart. In the holiness of that moment, his silver-blue eyes embraced hers and he whispered, "I promise, Kilikina. Forever." "Forever," Christy whispered back. Then gently, reverently, Todd and Christy sealed their forever promise with a kiss.

But now Max wanted Gina to look out the window. “The cavalry had arrived,” he told her. Someone was standing directly in front of the tank. Whoever he was—a boy, dressed like a surfer, on crutches—was holding one hand out in front of him like a traffic cop signaling halt. The tank, of course, had rolled to a stop. And Gina realized this was no ordinary surfer, this was Jules Cassidy. Jules was alive! And here she’d thought she was all cried out. Max laughed as he peered out through the slit that passed as a windshield for the tank. “He has no idea that we’re in here,” he said. Damn, Jules looked like he’d been hit by a bus. “Jesus, he has some balls.” Jules turned to the interpreter, who still didn’t quite believe that they weren’t going to kill him. “Open the hatch.” “Yes, sir.” He poked his head out. “Do you speak English?” Max could hear Jules through the opening. “Yes, sir.” “Tell your commanding officer to back up. In fact, tell him to leave the area. I’m in charge of this situation now. My name is Jules Cassidy and I’m an American, with the FBI. There are Marine gunships on their way, they’ll be here any minute. They have armor-penetrating artillery—they’ll blow you to hell, so back off.” “Tell him Jones wants to know if the gunships are really coming, or if that’s just something he learned in FBI Bullshitting 101.” The interpreter passed the message along. As Max watched, surprise and relief crossed Jules’s face. “Is Max in there, too?” Jules asked. “Yes, sir,” the interpreter said. “Well, shit.” Jules grinned. “I should’ve stayed in the hospital.” “I hear helicopters!” Gina’s voice came through the walkie-talkie. “I can see them, too! They’re definitely American!” Max took a deep breath, keyed the talk button. And sang. “Love me tender, love me sweet, never let me go . . .

I thought again about throwing language all over a scene, wondered if the emotional mystery of one's response to place doesn't lie in the inchoate play of possible words, of felt meanings and poetries, of the sublime, the romantic, the picturesque, Zen; even, perhaps, something new. And perhaps that twinge of disappointment one always feels at the words chosen - and thus also at the glorious scene-comes from the dream that in that instant of indecision and all-decision before your mind clarified its response to beauty, you just might have held within you language finally saturated with all the earth's meaning." Page 211

Here’s the thing, people: We have some serious problems. The lights are off. And it seems like that’s affecting the water flow in part of town. So, no baths or showers, okay? But the situation is that we think Caine is short of food, which means he’s not going to be able to hold out very long at the power plant.” “How long?” someone yelled. Sam shook his head. “I don’t know.” “Why can’t you get him to leave?” “Because I can’t, that’s why,” Sam snapped, letting some of his anger show. “Because I’m not Superman, all right? Look, he’s inside the plant. The walls are thick. He has guns, he has Jack, he has Drake, and he has his own powers. I can’t get him out of there without getting some of our people killed. Anybody want to volunteer for that?" Silence. “Yeah, I thought so. I can’t get you people to show up and pick melons, let alone throw down with Drake.” “That’s your job,” Zil said. “Oh, I see,” Sam said. The resentment he’d held in now came boiling to the surface. “It’s my job to pick the fruit, and collect the trash, and ration the food, and catch Hunter, and stop Caine, and settle every stupid little fight, and make sure kids get a visit from the Tooth Fairy. What’s your job, Zil? Oh, right: you spray hateful graffiti. Thanks for taking care of that, I don’t know how we’d ever manage without you.” “Sam…,” Astrid said, just loud enough for him to hear. A warning. Too late. He was going to say what needed saying. “And the rest of you. How many of you have done a single, lousy thing in the last two weeks aside from sitting around playing Xbox or watching movies? “Let me explain something to you people. I’m not your parents. I’m a fifteen-year-old kid. I’m a kid, just like all of you. I don’t happen to have any magic ability to make food suddenly appear. I can’t just snap my fingers and make all your problems go away. I’m just a kid.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Sam knew he had crossed the line. He had said the fateful words so many had used as an excuse before him. How many hundreds of times had he heard, “I’m just a kid.” But now he seemed unable to stop the words from tumbling out. “Look, I have an eighth-grade education. Just because I have powers doesn’t mean I’m Dumbledore or George Washington or Martin Luther King. Until all this happened I was just a B student. All I wanted to do was surf. I wanted to grow up to be Dru Adler or Kelly Slater, just, you know, a really good surfer.” The crowd was dead quiet now. Of course they were quiet, some still-functioning part of his mind thought bitterly, it’s entertaining watching someone melt down in public. “I’m doing the best I can,” Sam said. “I lost people today…I…I screwed up. I should have figured out Caine might go after the power plant.” Silence. “I’m doing the best I can.” No one said a word. Sam refused to meet Astrid’s eyes. If he saw pity there, he would fall apart completely. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.