Tex Quotes

Tex (wearing a tux, and not happy about it) boomed from across the room, “Roxanne Giselle Lo… I mean, Nightingale! When are those fuckin’ harpists gonna shut the fuck up and so we can get some rock ‘n’ roll?

Tex shrink-wrapped a dealer’s BMW. Wrapped the whole thing in plastic wrap and then used a portable blow drier on it to tighten the plastic. Word has it, it was several layers deep.

F**k!" he exploded, chocolate and caramel flying out of his mouth. My heart seized. He looked like he was going to have a chocolate-caramel-layer-square-induced heart attack. ... "These are unbe-f**king-lievable. I think I've finally fallen in love, with a f**kin' brownie!

She’s a badass motherf**keress. She’d kick your ass soon as look at you. You’ve clapped your eyes on The Law. Count yourself lucky, sucker. Now, what’ll it f**kin’be?

Tex?” I whispered. “Yeah?” “Enemies or lovers right now?” He sighed and kissed my head. “Both, we’ll always be both.

Some people go, some people stay. I'm staying.

What’s with the B.A. shit?” I asked. “Bad,” Tex pointed at me, “Ass.” Holy crap! I loved that! I was Fortnum’s own Mr. T, except white, female and without the Mohawk.

I ain’t cuffin’ Luke to no bed,” Tex boomed, tearing me away from my intriguing thoughts. “Fuck, I’m not cuffin’ Lee or Vance to a bed, either. Those boys would lose their badass motherfucker minds. I got a girlfriend and fifteen cats. I get tortured and killed, who’s gonna take care of Nancy and my kitties?

Man, I didnt know anything like that was going to happen! Honest, Tex, he was on something. Holy cow! I really kid, I been doing this stuff for a year now and I never saw nobody pull a gun before! God Almighty! What if he hadnt missed!' -- Lem 'He didn't.' -- Tex 'What?' -- Lem 'I said he didn't miss. He shot me and it hurts like hell.' -- Tex

The Law and her sidekick, Tex, the Crackpot Coffee Guy were on the job.

All my life I wanted somebody who knew more than I did to tell me the truth.

Tex's head snapped in my direction. Fuckin' A, woman, you've never had a s'more? he boomed I shook my head. Christ, everyone's gotta have a s'more before they die. Fuck that shit, I'll build a fire in my backyard tonight and I'll stop by Kumar's on the way home to get the stuff. Everyone can come by-

Just a little pointer, Indy, girl to girl, if you want that week with Lee to last into two. He likes it when you go down on him in the morning. He’s a fucking animal in bed but give him a morning BJ, he’ll return the favor and rock your world.” Every muscle in my body froze solid. “What did she just say?” Stevie asked. “She did not just say that in front of me,” Kitty Sue said. “Holy crap,” Dolores said. “Oh… my… gawd,” Tod said. “You fucking bitch,” Ally said. “This is more like it,” Tex said.

Tex glared at the next customer, the unfortunate who'd opened his mouth. "She's a badass motherfuckeress. She'd kick your ass soon as look at you. You've clapped your eyes on The Law. Count yourself lucky, sucker. Now what'll it fuckin' be?

Mace, you never read Smoky the Cowhorse,did you? No. Well,ol' Smoky, he had somebad things happen to him,had the heart knocked clean out of him.But he hung on and came out of it okay.I've been bashed up pretty good,Mason, but I'm going to make it.

In the daytime you aren't afraid of anything.

Well, you're real brave, real stupid, or real lucky.

You seen the movie Steel Magnolias?” Daisy asked Tex. “Fuck no,” Tex stated the obvious.

Tex looked at Duke “She’s got spunk,” he said. “Where I come from, we call it sass,” Duke replied. “Where I come from, we call it attitude,” Smithie put in. “Oh for the love of God, whatever you call it, are you in or are you out?” Jules clipped.

Tex, you look like a serial killer in this picture!” I shouted. “Yeah, so?” Tex answered. I stared. “You think people wouldn’t pay good money to have a serial killer make them coffee?” he boomed.

Excuse me, Tex," the nurse said, hands on hips. 'Would you mind reining in the voice. There are babies being born in this hospital. We wouldn't want the first sound they hear to be your painful howling. There could be lawsuits.

Did you see the picture of Roy Rogers's horse attending a church service in Pasadena? I forgot whether his name was Tex or Trigger but he was dressed fit to kill and looked like he was having a good time. He doubled the usual attendance.

Love ought to be a real simple thing. Animals don't complicate it, but with humans it gets so mixed up it's hard to know what you feel, much less how to say it.

I won’t let you fall, Tex,” he said quietly.

I remembered what Jamie had said, that love doesn't solve anything. Maybe. But it helps.

You have a cat and go on vacation, you know who to call. Though, I warn you, I do both dry and wet food. I’m not into doin’ just wet or just dry. They need a treat, but they need to keep their teeth clean. It’s important.” -Tex Rock Chick

I shook my head and kept my mouth shut. I hoped Tex was long gone and calling 911. I feared that Tex was close and planning Armageddon.

Strong character, high courage, hard work - it seemed that none of these were determining factors in the fates of Tex John's children. They shared a doom against which virtue was no defense.

She had shaved above the knee, packed her suitcase with her skimpiest lingerie, and the instructions on the Sexy Weekend Fun Box said, “Just Add Texan.” What she had not expected was Hunter putting her on a Tex-free diet.

I'm sorry I was less than you deserve, Tex, but I'm afraid I can't let you walk away from this. You see, it's too good, too rare to give up. I said in the cafeteria you weren't my girlfriend, and you weren't." I paused, watching her face twist with shock again. "You were my everything. Still are, baby. You wanted me to make you feel beautiful, but there's no one half as pretty as you are in the whole goddamn world. Please ..." My voice broke, and I bent the knee, like I'd always planned to. "Don't break my heart so soon after putting it back together." The air was thick in the auditorium as everyone held their breath. I was pretty sure for every second that ticked without her reaction, I lost an entire year of my life. Silver lining: a full minute of that, and I'd drop dead and wouldn't have to witness my own, very open disgrace. Finally, Grace found her voice. "On your feet, St. Claire," she whispered under her breath. "A king doesn't bow to others." I got up and scooped her up, giving people something to look at and talk about for years in this godforsaken town, pressing a dirty kiss to her lips and almost breaking her jaw in the process. "He does for his queen.

Girl’s Night Out still on for tonight?” Kitty Sue asked me. “Yep,” I said. “I’ll take some of that action,” Tex said. We all looked at him. “It’s Girl’s Night Out, Tex,” I explained. “So? What? Are there rules?” Tex asked. “Yes. The rule is, it’s a night out, for girls,” I answered. “Woman, you think I’m missin’ another bar fight or quick draw, you’re crazy. I’m comin’ out with you tonight.

What are you going to do about him?”. Gin didn’t have to specify for me to know he was talking about Tex. My heart fluttered, and I absentmindedly rubbed at my chest. “I’m going to drag him home.” Giancarlo’s mouth tilted down in a frown. “He’s a cop.” “He’s the man I love.

I am the devil. Here to do the devil's business.

Walker might be cool with whatever was happening between Judge and Tex and me, but he wasn’t about to become the caboose to our train of love.

You have Van Gogh’s ear for tone, Tex.

documented in a security file was of no concern to him. The fact that a man like Joe Tex could have access to it

Mace,' I said struck by a thought, 'did you ever think that all those people in those cars have a whole separate story to them, that it's just as important to them as our stuff is to us, and we don't know anything about it. Maybe sometime we'll run across somebody and two years ago they were driving past us on the highway and we never knew it. Like sometimes we meet people and bump off of them and never see them again and we never know why paths cross.

You can screw Nevada, Mess with Maine, Leave Hawaii in a puddle of pain. You can beat Virginia till she's down on the floor. But if you fuck with Tex, You'll be on your knees for sure!

I was shifted outside of Eddie’s arm and then engulfed in a hug. I felt Tex’s flannel shirt against my cheek and then I felt his beard press against my forehead. “Fuckin’ A, Loopy Loo,” he said, absolutely no boom to his voice.

There is very little that is natural left in people when they stray from the cities. Day hiking in Gore-Tex with a bag of trail mix and a cell phone in a fanny pack and a bottle of iced chai tea clipped to your belt isn’t actually natural, it’s tourism, or worse, voyeurism.

Uh, Miss Carlson," I said, standing at her desk after everybody else had gone on to their next class, "somebody told me you went to that guy's funeral the one the highway patrol shot." "Yes," SHe said. "I did." She didn't look like she was mad at me about it. She had real long eyelashes. I bet she was good-looking when she was young. "Was he a relative or something?" That was what I was afraid of. "No. Not even a friend really." She paused, like she was hunting for the right words. Finally she said, "I read a book once that ended with the words 'the incommunicable past' You can only share the past with someone who's shared it with you. So I can't explain to you what Mark was to me, exactly. I knew him a long time ago.

When Bill Archer (R-Tex.) was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, he routinely quoted an informal survey of five hundred international companies located in Europe and Japan. These companies were asked, “What would you do in your long-term planning if the United States eliminated all taxes on capital and labor and taxed only personal consumption?” Eighty percent—that’s four hundred out of five hundred companies—said they would build their next plant in America. The remaining 20 percent—the other hundred companies—said they would relocate their business to America altogether.

I pulled free and turned to face my brother. “Tex is mine.” Gin pushed his fingers through his hair. “You know what they say. If you love something, let it free or some shit like that.” I shook my head. “That is ridiculous. It should be, if you love something, lock it away so that it never escapes.

Bess frowned, bit her lip, and managed to get a noose twirling. Then plop—it dropped over the head of her own horse! Tex gave a piercing whistle. George and Nancy burst into laughter while the “steer” helped blushing Bess to dismount. “Never mind,” said Nancy. “You didn’t want to be a cowboy, anyway!

Giancarlo laughed and it helped dissipate some of the tension that constantly surrounded me as of late. “Right, a mobster and a cop.” More laughter bubbled out of him. “Fuck, you got it bad.” There was no denying that. I loved Tex Caster, and there was a future for us even if I had to clear the way with blood.

Chili is one of those marvelous-simple, elemental, all-important, and fundamental concepts that has been elaborated out of all recognition: rather like justice, or objective reality, or ‘being’ (ens) in Aquinas. Lean closer and I will whisper to you a horrific, soul-shattering secret: there are actually people so lost to any sense of decency that they put beans in chili. (I hope you sent the children of tender years out of the room before we discussed that horror, lest they be warped for life).

Until Perry was five, the team of “Tex & Flo” continued to work the rodeo circuit. As a way of life, it wasn’t “any gallon of ice cream,” Perry once recalled: “Six of us riding in an old truck, sleeping in it, too, sometimes, living off mush and Hershey kisses and condensed milk. Hawks Brand condensed milk it was called, which is what weakened my kidneys—the sugar content—which is why I was always wetting the bed.” Yet it was not an unhappy existence, especially for a little boy proud of his parents, admiring of their showmanship and courage—a happier life, certainly, than what replaced it. For Tex and Flo, both forced by ailments to retire from their occupation, settled near Reno, Nevada.

vote for policies, not parties.

DEATH IS life’s great adversary. No matter how a life is lived, no matter how much love is given or how much pain is caused, no matter how many fights are had or

The strong defend themselves. The mighty defend what’s right.

Did you just put a sex hex on me? With chili powder and paprika?

I covered it up, and John Hersey uncovered it,” [McCrary] stated. “That’s the difference between a P.R. man and a reporter.

Peace, both inside and outside, begins with a smile,

Johnny, there are people who go places and people who stay, and I think we stayers ought to stick together.

On any given day, everybody has the will to win. That’s not what’s important. What matters is the will to do the work to win. It’s the discipline to do the work while nobody’s watching.

Sort of Coping" Why is anyone in the world so terrible. Real catastrophe and catastrophizing. If we only knew when it was going to happen. I saw you put your hands on the floor. Intimacy without disturbances. The scope here of memorization, planets. The history of children sitting still. You are so cute in all your facebook photos. When you moved to Portland I forgot we used to call you Tumbleweed Tex. All those barking dogs, feathered hair. We have something in common I never mention. I wish I’d written it down and folded it into one of your piles saying I want to read every one of these books! Do you think you’ll have read them all before the end of time. Did you go in to see her when she was dead. Maybe you already knew.

In The Dum Dums there were four of us – Ian Wadley, Greg Wadley, Greg Perkins and Greg Gilbert. That’s three Gregs in the band which is ridiculous. We nearly called ourselves Ian and The Gregs.

Think you could at least try to hide the blood stains Chase?" I took a sip of wine and grimaced as the dry liquid damn near choked me to death. Chase looked down at his shirt and shrugged. "Makes mortal men tremble in fear." Nixon smacked Chase on the back of the head and whispered, "See me tremble, oh badass one." Chase rolled his eyes. "Hilarious." Tex snickered. "I thought so.

The next morning re-supply choppers brought mail, supplies, and Christmas stockings that had been packed by young school kids. Each stocking contained lots of candy and a letter. We took turns passing the letters around. Tex’s parents had sent him a small, artificial Christmas tree. We set it up on the top of our foxhole and decorated it with white shaving cream from our sundry supplies. The shaving cream looked like snow.

I'm trapped next to this young techno-optimist guy. He explains that current technology will not longer seem strange when the generation who didn't grow up with it finally ages out of the conversation. Dies, I think he means. His point is that eventually all those who are unnerved by what is falling away will be gone, and after that, there won't be any more talk of what has been lost, only of what has been gained. But wait, that sounds bad to me. Doesn't that mean if we end up somewhere we don't want to be, we can't retrace our steps? ... Later, Sylvia tells me her end of the table was even worse. The guy in the Gore-Tex jacket was going on and on about transhumanism and how we would soon shed these burdensome bodies and become part of the singularity. "These people long for immortality but can't wait ten minutes for a cup of coffee," she says.

He hated the games politicians played, the backroom deals, and how the powerful played with the lives of the innocent like they were worthless. He hated how the corrupt hid behind veils of media spin, how the rich influenced decisions with the promise of campaign donations, and how the players made a mockery of moral decision-making. He did his best to avoid it, he did his best to steer clear, however, in his world, the world of law and justice, politics was an inevitable dilemma.

Life’s a rollercoaster. It’s the ups and downs that make it exciting, and a rollercoaster without ups and downs is only a train.” “But some people adore train rides. Some of the most beautiful tours in the world are on trains. Not every trip has to be a rollercoaster.

Tex would introduce himself to every goo-green kid who joined the squad, every piece of farm-fresh. He’d put his arm around their shoulder, tell them his life story, his real name, ask them all about their hometowns, so that even those nearby had to learn shit we’d rather not. We’d get hit by these frag grenades of nicety. He took people in, Tex. Got close to them. Cried like a baby when the smoke cleared and the tags were tallied. And I thought he was fucking crazy, going about war like that. Not learning what the rest of us learned.

We take Tod and Stevie to the mall with us, we’d be in and out in thirty minutes. Those boys don’t fuck around at the mall. They got, like, a different kind of gay-dar,” Daisy told Tex. “It’s the kind that they can hone in on the best outfit, pair of shoes, or whatever you need, find your size without even askin’ and feed you the shit in your dressing room without you havin’ to leave it. They don’t spare your feelin’s either. If it don’t look good, they just snatch it from you and find you somethin’ else. They could do it in the Olympics, they’re so good.

Sheepwalking I define “sheepwalking” as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a brain-dead job and enough fear to keep them in line. You’ve probably encountered someone who is sheepwalking. The TSA “screener” who forces a mom to drink from a bottle of breast milk because any other action is not in the manual. A “customer service” rep who will happily reread a company policy six or seven times but never stop to actually consider what the policy means. A marketing executive who buys millions of dollars’ worth of TV time even though she knows it’s not working—she does it because her boss told her to. It’s ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change, and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. That’s because we can no longer rely on machines to do the brain-dead stuff. We’ve mechanized what we could mechanize. What’s left is to cost-reduce the manual labor that must be done by a human. So we write manuals and race to the bottom in our search for the cheapest possible labor. And it’s not surprising that when we go to hire that labor, we search for people who have already been trained to be sheepish. Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep? And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition, and the job market), students fall back on what they’ve been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless. And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (“I might get fired!”) The fault doesn’t lie with the employee, at least not at first. And of course, the pain is often shouldered by both the employee and the customer. Is it less efficient to pursue the alternative? What happens when you build an organization like W. L. Gore and Associates (makers of Gore-Tex) or the Acumen Fund? At first, it seems crazy. There’s too much overhead, there are too many cats to herd, there is too little predictability, and there is way too much noise. Then, over and over, we see something happen. When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff. And the sheepwalkers and their bosses just watch and shake their heads, certain that this is just an exception, and that it is way too risky for their industry or their customer base. I was at a Google conference last month, and I spent some time in a room filled with (pretty newly minted) Google sales reps. I talked to a few of them for a while about the state of the industry. And it broke my heart to discover that they were sheepwalking. Just like the receptionist at a company I visited a week later. She acknowledged that the front office is very slow, and that she just sits there, reading romance novels and waiting. And she’s been doing it for two years. Just like the MBA student I met yesterday who is taking a job at a major packaged-goods company…because they offered her a great salary and promised her a well-known brand. She’s going to stay “for just ten years, then have a baby and leave and start my own gig.…” She’ll get really good at running coupons in the Sunday paper, but not particularly good at solving new problems. What a waste. Step one is to give the problem a name. Done. Step two is for anyone who sees themselves in this mirror to realize that you can always stop. You can always claim the career you deserve merely by refusing to walk down the same path as everyone else just because everyone else is already doing it.

I want to spend the rest of my life with you, because everything that came before you was a fucking waste. You don’t complete me, Grace Shaw. You create a better me.” He draws a quick breath, shaking his head. “Fucking hell, that’s my cliché quota for the century. If it makes it any better, I thought about every single one of those things that I said. I didn’t check Pinterest once for inspiration like East suggested.” “Eat shit, St. Claire. Pinterest’s got some rad ideas!” I hear Easton yell from the corner of the street, behind a red-bricked building. I’m giggling and hiccupping from excitement now. They’re all huddled around the corner, waiting for my answer. “What do you say, Tex? Wanna walk through fire together?

Oh, so you think it’s easier being Black than being gay? I tell you what, you go somewhere don’t nobody have to know you gay unless you tell them. I’m Black everywhere. I can’t hide that shit,” Ike said. Tex pulled his towel out and twisted it with both hands. “Yeah, you can’t hide that you’re Black. But the fact that you think I should hide who I am proves my point. Like Dr. King said: an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” Tex said. Ike sucked his teeth and sat back onto his stool. “You guys let me know if you want anything else,” Tex said. He turned and walked to the other end of the bar. “Damn, he dropped the Martin Luther King card on your ass. I think he won that round, Grasshopper,” Buddy Lee said.

I wrote the bulk of this story while in Chicago, working out of various co-working offices; my favorite space was Ampersand in Logan Square. And a few of the ideas in this story were born after a night at The Burke’s Web Pub in Bucktown—what a fabulous place full of fabulous people. Thanks to those places for the creative spaces they provide; and a special thank you to Parliament Co-working.

Too often she had listened to her father discourse on the necessity for peace and consideration of others. She believed in that policy wholeheartedly. The fact that occasionally violence was necessary did not alter her convictions one whit. No system of philosophy or ethics, no growth of goverenment, no improvement in living came without trial and struggle. Struggle, she had often heard her father say, was the law of growth. Without giving too much thought to it, she understood that such men as Rafe Caradec, Trigger Boyne, Tex Brisco and others of their ilk were needed. For all their violence, their occasional heedlessness and their desire to go their own way, they were building a new world in a rough and violent land where everything tended to extremes. Mountains were high, the praires wide, the streams roaring, the buffalo by the thousand, and tens of thousand. It was a land where nothing was small, nothing was simple. Everything, the lives of men and the stories they told, ran to extremes.

About a mile beyond Tumbleweed he parked in a grove of willow trees beside a narrow stream. The grounds were set with many long wooden tables and benches, and overhead were strings of small electric lights. “Come on, gals,” said Tex. “We’re goin’ to put on a big feed!” He led them toward a long serving table. Four men passed by, each carrying a shovel bearing a big burlap-wrapped package. These were dumped onto the table. “There goes the meat,” said Bud. “It’s been buried in the barbecue pit since last night.” “Cookin’ nice an’ slow over hot stones,” Tex added. “When the burlap fell away, the fragrance of the steaming meat was irresistible. All the girls enjoyed generous servings, with a spicy relish and potato salad. By the time they had finished their desserts of ice cream and Nancy’s chocolate cake, the colored lights overhead came on. A stout middle-aged man mounted the dance platform in the center of the grove and announced that he was master of ceremonies. Seeing Bud’s guitar, he called on him for some cowboy songs. Bud played “I’m a Lonesome Cowboy,” and everyone joined in enthusiastically. He followed with a number of other old favorites. Finally he strummed some Gold Rush songs, including “Sweet Betsy from Pike.

Pull in Friendships and Fresh Adventures: Five men are walking across the Golden Gate Bridge on an outing organized by their wives who are college friends. The women move ahead in animated conversation. One man describes the engineering involved in the bridge's long suspension. Another points to the changing tide lines below. A third asked if they've heard of the new phone apps for walking tours. The fourth observes how refreshing it is to talk with people who aren't lawyers like him. Yes, we tend to notice the details that most relate to our work or our life experience. It is also no surprise that we instinctively look for those who share our interests. This is especially true in times of increasing pressure and uncertainty. We have an understandable tendency in such times to seek out the familiar and comfortable as a buffer against the disruptive changes surrounding us. In so doing we can inadvertently put ourselves in a cage of similarity that narrows our peripheral vision of the world and our options. The result? We can be blindsided by events and trends coming at us from directions we did not see. The more we see reinforcing evidence that we are right in our beliefs the more rigid we become in defending them. Hint: If you are part of a large association, synagogue, civic group or special interest club, encourage the organization to support the creation of self-organized, special interest groups of no more than seven people, providing a few suggestions of they could operate. Such loosely affiliated small groups within a larger organization deepen a sense of belonging, help more people learn from diverse others and stay open to growing through that shared learning and collaboration. That's one way that members of Rick Warren's large Saddleback Church have maintained a close-knit feeling yet continue to grow in fresh ways. imilarly the innovative outdoor gear company Gore-Tex has nimbly grown by using their version of self-organized groups of 150 or less within the larger corporation. In fact, they give grants to those who further their learning about that philosophy when adapted to outdoor adventure, traveling in compact groups of "close friends who had mutual respect and trust for one another.

Robert Askins Brings ‘Hand to God’ to Broadway Chad Batka for The New York Times Robert Askins at the Booth Theater, where his play “Hand to God” opens on Tuesday. By MICHAEL PAULSON The conceit is zany: In a church basement, a group of adolescents gathers (mostly at the insistence of their parents) to make puppets that will spread the Christian message, but one of the puppets turns out to be more demonic than divine. The result — a dark comedy with the can-puppets-really-do-that raunchiness of “Avenue Q” and can-people-really-say-that outrageousness of “The Book of Mormon” — is “Hand to God,” a new play that is among the more improbable entrants in the packed competition for Broadway audiences over the next few weeks. Given the irreverence of some of the material — at one point stuffed animals are mutilated in ways that replicate the torments of Catholic martyrs — it is perhaps not a surprise to discover that the play’s author, Robert Askins, was nicknamed “Dirty Rob” as an undergraduate at Baylor, a Baptist-affiliated university where the sexual explicitness and violence of his early scripts raised eyebrows. But Mr. Askins had also been a lone male soloist in the children’s choir at St. John Lutheran of Cypress, Tex. — a child who discovered early that singing was a way to make the stern church ladies smile. His earliest performances were in a deeply religious world, and his writings since then have been a complex reaction to that upbringing. “It’s kind of frustrating in life to be like, ‘I’m a playwright,’ and watch people’s face fall, because they associate plays with phenomenally dull, didactic, poetic grad-schoolery, where everything takes too long and tediously explores the beauty in ourselves,” he said in a recent interview. “It’s not church, even though it feels like church a lot when we go these days.” The journey to Broadway, where “Hand to God” opens on Tuesday at the Booth Theater, still seems unlikely to Mr. Askins, 34, who works as a bartender in Brooklyn and says he can’t afford to see Broadway shows, despite his newfound prominence. He seems simultaneously enthralled by and contemptuous of contemporary theater, the world in which he has chosen to make his life; during a walk from the Cobble Hill coffee shop where he sometimes writes to the Park Slope restaurant where he tends bar, he quoted Nietzsche and Derrida, described himself as “deeply weird,” and swore like, well, a satanic sock-puppet. “If there were no laughs in the show, I’d think there was something wrong with him,” said the actor Steven Boyer, who won raves in earlier “Hand to God” productions as Jason, a grief-stricken adolescent with a meek demeanor and an angry-puppet pal. “But anybody who is able to write about such serious stuff and be as hilarious as it is, I’m not worried about their mental health.” Mr. Askins’s interest in the performing arts began when he was a boy attending rural Texas churches affiliated with the conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod denomination; he recalls the worshipers as “deeply conservative, old farm folks, stone-faced, pride and suffering, and the only time anybody ever really livened up was when the children’s choir would perform.” “My grandmother had a cross-stitch that said, ‘God respects me when I work, but he loves me when I sing,’ and so I got into that,” he said. “For somebody who enjoys performance, that was the way in.” The church also had a puppet ministry — an effort to teach children about the Bible by use of puppets — and when Mr. Askins’s mother, a nurse, began running the program, he enlisted to help. He would perform shows for other children at preschools and vacation Bible camps. “The shows are wacky, but it was fun,” he said. “They’re badly written attempts to bring children to Jesus.” Not all of his formative encounters with puppets were positive. Particularly scarring: D

os livros, através das histórias e da ficção, podem ser uma forma de recuperarmos algum espaço. Quando eu tinha 11 anos, sem amigos e com dificuldades de integração na escola, li Os Marginais, Tempos de Juventude e Tex, todos de S. E. Hinton, e subitamente voltei a ter amigos. Os livros que a autora escrevera eram meus amigos. As personagens que ela criara eram minhas amigas. E eram amigos a sério, pois ajudaram-me, tal como, noutras alturas, fui ajudado pelos meus amigos Ursinho Pooh, Scout Finch, Pip ou pela Cécile, de Bonjour Tristesse. As histórias em que eles habitavam eram lugares onde eu me podia esconder e sentir--me em segurança. Os mundos da ficção são essenciais neste planeta que pode tornar-se excessivo, neste planeta em que estamos a ficar sem espaço mental. Esses mundos podem funcionar como um escape à realidade, sim, mas não como escapatória à verdade. É precisamente o contrário. Eu costumava ter dificuldades em integrar-me no mundo “real”. Os códigos que tínhamos de seguir. As mentiras que tínhamos de dizer. Os risos que tínhamos de fingir. Mas eu não sentia que a ficção fosse uma fuga a essas verdades; era uma espécie de porta de entrada nessa realidade. Mesmo que a verdade do livro estivesse repleta de monstros ou ursos falantes, o certo é que havia ali sempre algum tipo de verdade. Uma verdade capaz de manter a nossa sanidade ou, pelo menos, de nos manter na nossa pele. No meu caso, ler nunca foi uma atividade antissocial. Bem pelo contrário, era profundamente social. Ficar intimamente ligado à imaginação de outro ser humano era o tipo de socialização mais profunda que podia existir. Ler era uma forma de me ligar a algo, sem necessidade de passar pelos inúmeros filtros que, geralmente, a sociedade impõe. Muitas vezes, dá-se importância à leitura devido ao valor social. A leitura está associada à educação, à economia, e por aí fora. Mas isso é passar ao lado do verdadeiro sentido da leitura. Ler não é importante por nos ajudar a arranjar um emprego. É importante por nos dar um espaço em que podemos existir para lá da nossa vida real. É a forma de os seres humanos se juntarem. De as mentes se ligarem umas às outras. É a forma dos sonhos, da empatia, da compreensão, do escape. A leitura é amor em ação.

The beauty of the system—and this applies to all kinds of systems, is that it turned the whole team into a learning organization. One thing I liked about [Tex’s] system, from a leadership perspective, was that it depersonalized criticism. It gave me the ability to critique the players’ performance without making them think I was attacking them personally.

questions. You’ll probably go out to the prison tomorrow.” “Are you with Interpol or something?” “Or something,” Tex replied. He didn’t offer his name. “Can I call the American consul? Can

This son of a bitch is ripping the heart out of my organization, Alex.” “No, he’s not. You’re the heart, Tex.” “That’s what I meant.

Harry reached the vehicle and stopped. Violet climbed off his back like a lank-limbed gibbon and slid onto the front seat. Tex pushed himself back against the frame of the vehicle and his feet backpedaled even though there was nowhere else to go. “Relax, sweetie,” she purred in her gravelly voice that sounded as if her larynx had been marinated in an ash tray. “Y-you’re what they were keeping hidden here, aren’t you?” “Got that right. But I don’t bite.” Violet set a hand on Tex’ leg and exhaled a cloud of smoke from the corner of her mouth. She raised a slender black eyebrow and pinioned him to his seat with her eyes. “I breathe fire.

I like that TexMex border music. I guess because it comes out of two completely different places. One thing it don't come out of is the fear Mexicans and Texans feel towards each other. I've been an immigrant. I know about that.

Así que, si de verdad quieres hacerme daño, habla mal de mi idioma. La identidad étnica es como una segunda piel de la identidad lingüística -yo soy mi lengua-. Hasta que pueda enorgullecerme de mi idioma, no puedo enorgullecerme de mí misma. Hasta que pueda aceptar como legítimos el español chicano de Texas, el tex-mex y todas las otras lenguas que hablo, no puedo aceptar mi propia legitimidad. (...) Nunca más me van a hacer sentir vergüenza por existir. Tendré mi propia voz: india, española, blanca. Tendré mi lengua de serpiente -mi voz de mujer, mi voz sexual, mi voz de poeta-. Venceré la tradición del silencio.

At the end of it, I was so completely, ridiculously, pathetically in love with her, I couldn’t even see straight. And I screwed it up. Big time.” This was the hard part. The own-up-to-it part. The part I loathed. I turned to look at her. Her face was searching, her stance lax. “I’m sorry I was less than you deserve, Tex, but I’m afraid I can’t let you walk away from this. You see, it’s too good, too rare to give up. I said in the cafeteria you weren’t my girlfriend, and you weren’t.” I paused, watching her face twist with shock again. “You were my everything. Still are, baby. You wanted me to make you feel beautiful, but there’s no one half as pretty as you are in this whole goddamn world. Please …” My voice broke, and I bent the knee, like I’d always planned to. “Don’t break my heart so soon after putting it back together.

You’re hot as shit, Tex, but that smart mouth.” He cupped my face, giving me a little peck. “One day it’s going to get you into trouble. Better wrap it around my dick as penance.

Sisi Tex World says there are two types of textile fibers – natural and synthetic. The natural fibers come from nature, like cotton and flax or from animals, like silk and wool. Synthetic fibers are, well, made from synthetic fibers. There’s also something that is often referred to as semi-synthetic which are made from natural materials like cellulose from trees but the fibers are made artificially. The most common synthetic fibers are made from fossil fuels, and the most common material is known as polyester.

Nomophobia’.

He read once that the intense fear of not being able to access a smartphone even had a term, ‘Nomophobia’.

Henry Kissinger once said that ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

I’ve given up many things lately, including asking rhetorical questions. I mean, what’s the point?

The time that it takes in a hot corner to bring the revolver from thigh to shoulder is the time in which wives become widows.

Remember this—aspiration equals admiration and admiration equals votes.

gazing out

Someone who chooses to be likable, instead of what’s ethically correct, is actually being selfish and thinking about themselves. They’re choosing particular choices because of the way they will feel about it.” “Being nice isn’t all bad.” “Of course not. The world needs nice people, but it also needs ethically rude people. They’re the people that get stuff done. It’s like that saying by James Freeman Clarke— ‘A politician looks to the next election, while a statesman looks to the next generation.

I'm not sure why, but my instinct today is to go with the taste of home. Some chicken thighs, some poblano peppers, a bag of rice, Mexican crema (I'm surprised to find the real stuff, not that whipped-cream-looking shit they serve in Tex-Mex restaurants). Tortillas and Oaxaca cheese. I lose myself in the aisles, fingers trailing over heirloom tomatoes, herbs and produce and packets of exotic spices I can never find at home.

If all the facts could be known, idiots could make the decisions. —Tex Thornton, cofounder of Litton Industries, quoted in the Los Angeles Times in the mid-1960s. This is my favorite of all managerial quotes.

break.

Action means something. Rude people can make a bigger difference in the world than nice people.” “I really don’t want to meet any more of your friends.” “Always the joker.” Patrick shook his head again. “Ethically rude people change the world.” “Here we go. Patrick the Philosopher.” Hunter shook his head. “Ethically rude people?” “The ones that are willing to be disliked to get what’s best. The people that are willing to risk everything for something they think is right, and they don’t care if you like them or not. Take your current client—voted against his ethics so he didn’t lose his backers. He’s not ethically rude; he’s being nice, agreeable and likable. But his party room colleague, Cindy Mendel, went against all the odds, everyone, including her own council, to do what she thought was ethically right.” “I didn’t realize being likable was so bad.” “Someone who chooses to be likable, instead of what’s ethically correct, is actually being selfish and thinking about themselves. They’re choosing particular choices because of the way they will feel about it.” “Being nice isn’t all bad.” “Of course not. The world needs nice people, but it also needs ethically rude people. They’re the people that get stuff done. It’s like that saying by James Freeman Clarke— ‘A politician looks to the next election, while a statesman looks to the next

love. That one single word means the most in the world.

live your life by the principles of compassion, integrity, honor, and justice.

A man came into the hospital with burns on eighty percent of his legs, and the nurse helped the EMT transfer him to a hospital bed. The doctor said, ‘Give him two Viagra.’ The nurse asked, ‘Will that help his burns?’ ‘No, but it’ll keep the sheets off his legs!

Everyone has the right to be stupid, but you’re abusing the privilege.

Bravery is the choice to stand up when everyone else has sat down.

I think the acid was the key, not just to the women but to all of us; it combined with Charlie's diabolically forceful personality and his joint-nurtured insight to turn rebellious American kids into pliant slaves.