Valerie Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Valerie. Here they are! All 100 of them:

My mother said I broke her heart...but it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us...but within that inch we are free.
Alan Moore (V for Vendetta)
Poems are never finished - just abandoned
Paul Valéry
Know that everything is in perfect order whether you understand it or not.
Valery Satterwhite
When the poet Paul Valery once asked Albert Einstein if he kept a notebook to record his ideas, Einstein looked at him with mild but genuine surprise. "Oh, that's not necessary," he replied . "It's so seldom I have one.
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
Mind control is built on lies and manipulation of attachment needs. Valerie Sinason, (Forward)
Alison Miller (Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control)
If the innocent are unjust, I'd rather be counted among the guilty." -Valerie
Sarah Blakley-Cartwright (Red Riding Hood)
Love is being stupid together.
Paul Valéry
In the 1960s, Valerie (Hobson) Profumo became the first show-business mother to talk publicly about Down’s syndrome. She was instrumental in founding Three Roses, England’s first charity to support families with Down’s children.
Anne Michaud (Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Nine Political Wives)
Know that everything is in perfect order whether you understand it or not.
Guy Finley
Nothing is more natural than mutual misunderstanding; the contrary is always surprising. I believe that one never agrees on anything except by mistake, and that all harmony among human beings is the happy fruit of an error.
Paul Valéry (The Art of Poetry)
To enter into your own mind you need to be armed to the teeth.
Paul Valéry
Follow the path of your aroused thought, and you will soon meet this infernal inscription: There is nothing so beautiful as that which does not exist.
Paul Valéry
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
Paul Valéry
Miracle Max: Have fun stormin' da castle. Valerie: Think it'll work? Miracle Max: It would take a miracle.
William Goldman (The Princess Bride)
I know there's no way I can convince you this is not one of their tricks, but I don't care, I am me. My name is Valerie, I don't think I'll live much longer and I wanted to tell someone about my life. This is the only autobiography ill ever write, and god, I'm writing it on toilet paper. I was born in Nottingham in 1985, I don't remember much of those early years, but I do remember the rain. My grandmother owned a farm in Tuttlebrook, and she use to tell me that god was in the rain. I passed my 11th lesson into girl's grammar; it was at school that I met my first girlfriend, her name was Sara. It was her wrists. They were beautiful. I thought we would love each other forever. I remember our teacher telling us that is was an adolescent phase people outgrew. Sara did, I didn't. In 2002 I fell in love with a girl named Christina. That year I came out to my parents. I couldn't have done it without Chris holding my hand. My father wouldn't look at me, he told me to go and never come back. My mother said nothing. But I had only told them the truth, was that so selfish? Our integrity sells for so little, but it is all we really have. It is the very last inch of us, but within that inch, we are free. I'd always known what I wanted to do with my life, and in 2015 I starred in my first film, "The Salt Flats". It was the most important role of my life, not because of my career, but because that was how I met Ruth. The first time we kissed, I knew I never wanted to kiss any other lips but hers again. We moved to a small flat in London together. She grew Scarlet Carsons for me in our window box, and our place always smelled of roses. Those were there best years of my life. But America's war grew worse, and worse. And eventually came to London. After that there were no roses anymore. Not for anyone. I remember how the meaning of words began to change. How unfamiliar words like collateral and rendition became frightening. While things like Norse Fire and The Articles of Allegiance became powerful, I remember how different became dangerous. I still don't understand it, why they hate us so much. They took Ruth while she was out buying food. I've never cried so hard in my life. It wasn't long till they came for me.It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years, I had roses, and apologized to no one. I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An Inch, it is small and it is fragile, but it is the only thing the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us. I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you. I love you. With all my heart, I love you. -Valerie
Alan Moore (V for Vendetta)
Stephanie,' Valerie said. 'She's going to have a baby, and she's getting married.' My father was confused. He looked around the room. No Joe. No Ranger. His eyes locked on Diesel. 'Not the psycho,' he said. Diesel blew out a sigh. My father turned to my mother. 'Get me the carving knife. Make sure it's sharp.
Janet Evanovich (Plum Lovin' (Stephanie Plum, #12.5))
A man who is of 'sound mind' is one who keeps his inner madman under lock and key.
Paul Valéry
Do try to remember this: even the world's not so black as it is painted" -Valerie to Stephen (pg. 408)
Radclyffe Hall (The Well of Loneliness)
Passion can transform the mind, body and spirit... Passion can align you with the wisdom of nature and the power of what is in your heart.
JoLynne Valerie
Get me a gun. If I don't go into labor soon, I'm going to shoot myself. And pass the gravy. Pass it now." Valerie - To the Nines
Janet Evanovich (To the Nines (Stephanie Plum, #9))
It's okay for someone to let you win sometimes, you know,' he said, getting all serious. 'We don't always have to be the losers, Valerie. They may want to make us feel that way, but we're not. Sometimes we get to win, too.
Jennifer Brown (Hate List)
A work of art is never finished. It is merely abandoned.
E.M. Forster
What will liberate women, therefore, from male control is the total elimination of the money-work system, not the attainment of economic equality with men within it.
Valerie Solanas (SCUM Manifesto)
One should be light like a bird, and not like a feather.
Paul Valéry
Don’t write what you know—what you know may bore you, and thus bore your readers. Write about what interests you—and interests you deeply—and your readers will catch fire at your words.
Valerie Sherwood
Valerie stood with the other women, watching the men go. She couldn't help bristling at this division of the sexes. Her fingers itched to hold a weapon, too, to do something, to kill something with her anger.
Sarah Blakley-Cartwright (Red Riding Hood)
He put a dark place in me and I can't forgive him for that. But it's a part of me now and how can I regret what I am - though it often makes me sad.
Valerie Martin
Every man, deep down, knows he's a worthless piece of shit.
Valerie Solanas
Valerie was crying, too. She was laughing and sniffling back sobs. “I’m going to marry my snuggy wuggums,” she said. Morelli paused, his fork halfway to the roast chicken platter. He slid his eyes to me and leaned close. “If you ever call me snuggy wuggums in public I’ll lock you in the cellar and chain you to the furnace.
Janet Evanovich (Ten Big Ones (Stephanie Plum, #10))
The male claim that females find fulfillment through motherhood and sexuality reflects what males think they'd find fulfilling if they were female.
Valerie Solanas (SCUM Manifesto)
So, kiss the girl. Buy the dress. Take a vacation. Join the circus. Order the fried frog legs. Try out for the play. Learn to snowboard. Do something that scares the shit out of you. Or something that makes you happy. Or something that makes you cry. Whatever it is, do something that makes you feel. Because feeling nothing is no way to go through life.
Valerie Thomas (From What I Remember...)
Hortense was a wife; Valerie a mistress. Many men desire to have these two editions of the same work, although it is proof of deep inferiority in a man if he cannot make his wife his mistress. Seeking variety is a sign of impotence.
Honoré de Balzac (Cousin Bette)
Breath, dreams, silence, invincible calm, you triumph.
Paul Valéry
Power without abuse loses its charm.
Paul Valéry
A woman not only takes her identity and individuality for granted, but knows instinctively that the only wrong is to hurt others, and that the meaning of life is love.
Valerie Solanas (SCUM Manifesto)
Hobbies are for wimps who don’t have the guts to follow their passion.
Valerie Thomas (From What I Remember...)
Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.
Paul Valéry
Stepparenting is like working at a late-night convenience store — all of the responsibility and none of the authority.
Valerie J. Lewis Coleman (Blended Families An Anthology)
The male is a biological accident: the Y (male) gene is an incomplete X (female) gene, that is, it has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion, aborted at the gene stage. To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples.
Valerie Solanas (SCUM Manifesto)
The male has a negative Midas Touch -- everything he touches turns to shit.
Valerie Solanas (SCUM Manifesto)
Figuring out what you want comes from failing, and then trying again. It comes from questioning everything, falling in love, fighting the power, living without limits. It doesn't come from getting straight A’s, playing by the rules, and listening obediently.
Valerie Thomas (From What I Remember...)
I love you Alex. I don‘t think I‘ll ever get tired of hearing you say that sweetheart. He lifted himself on his elbow and kissed her. I love you too. Forever. Valerie still could't believe the impossibility of this night. If she woke up in her bed and this all had been a dream she was going to kill someone.
Elizabeth Reyes (Always Been Mine (The Moreno Brothers, #2))
Ron told Pippa that during the six years he had spent on the book, Valerie Chernow had developed a powerful identification with Hamilton’s wife. “She used to say, ‘Eliza is like me: She’s good, she’s true, she’s loyal, she’s not ambitious.’ There was a purity and a goodness about the character, and that was like Valerie,” he says. In 2006, after 27 years of marriage, Valerie passed away. For her gravestone, Ron chose a line from the letter that Hamilton wrote to Eliza on the night before the duel: “Best of wives and best of women.
Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton: The Revolution)
History is the science of what never happens twice.
Paul Valéry
When you're busy blocking out difficult emotions and feelings, you're not going to feel the good stuff, either.
Valerie Bertinelli (Losing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time)
In actual fact, the female function is to explore, discover, invent, solve problems crack jokes, make music -- all with love. In other words, create a magic world.
Valerie Solanas (SCUM Manifesto)
If I loved someone, I could never let him go away from me. I would be too miserable and lonely.
Valerie Tripp
Sosie wasn't sure how to answer. Since she could remember, she'd had crushes on both girls and guys. They were person-specific infatuations - Brian Levithan's wicked sense of humour was every bit as sexy as Valerie Martnez's sweet smile and amazing krunk routines. It seemed odd to Sosie that she had to make some hard-and-fast decision about such an arbitrary, individual thing as attraction, like having to declare an orientation major: I am straight with a minor in gay.
Libba Bray (Beauty Queens)
Sometimes having no script, having no idea what is going to happen next, having no map, might be the way to go. Because life just happens, and when it does, how you handle it will teach you more about who you are than any class or test ever can. The best preparation for the rest of your life is, maybe, no preparation at all. Dive right in. Make mistakes. Break a few rules. Wing it.
Valerie Thomas (From What I Remember...)
Sex can be estranging; it can drive two otherwise compatible people apart.
Valerie Martin (The Confessions of Edward Day)
Real beauty isn't about symmetry or weight or makeup; it's about looking life right in the face and seeing all its magnificence reflected in your own.
Valerie Monroe
Not that you need to be a saint to have visions worth talking about. The most effective prescription, I suspect, is to be a disciplined sinner. Perfection, as Valery noted, is work.
Stanley Kunitz
I didn't invent the rainy day, man. I just own the best umbrella. That’s one of my favorite lines of all time. It’s from a movie called Almost Famous. I think what it means is that life is going to throw all kinds of stuff at you, good and bad. But all you can do is get out there and try to stay dry.
Valerie Thomas (From What I Remember...)
Life is something we have to experience, really feel, not just study for with books in a library. Learning is about so much more than school. If we’re too busy studying, we miss out on the experience.
Valerie Thomas (From What I Remember...)
Trying to make someone love you is like trying to climb uphill during an avalanche.
Valerie J. Lewis Coleman (Blended Families An Anthology)
To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he's a machine, a walking dildo. It's often said that men use women. Use them for what ?Surely not pleasure.
Valerie Solanas
At the end of the mind, the body. But at the end of the body, the mind.
Paul Valéry
Think ere you speak
Valerie Tripp
Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.
Valerie Solanas (SCUM Manifesto)
There's no reason why a society consisting of rational beings capable of empathizing with each other, complete and having no natural reason to compete, should have a government, laws, or leaders.
Valerie Solanas (SCUM Manifesto)
Crazy was a river you just floated along on. - KC Klein
Valerie Bowman
Love is an uphill climb, but once you know yourself and like yourself just as you are, it's all downhill from there.
Valerie Frankel (The Girlfriend Curse)
All fear was, in the end, fear of death. Once you knew you were dying, there was nothing left fear. It gave you the last great gift, infinite courage.
Saul Black (The Killing Lessons (Valerie Hart, #1))
External influences create internal chaos.
Valerie J. Lewis Coleman (Blended Families An Anthology)
Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later that debt is paid
Valery Legasov
To those who are struggling. To talk about a struggle, you're likely to forget about it. To be shown a struggle, you're likely not to forget it. But, to live through a struggle, you'll understand it.
Valerie Owens (America Huh I'm Going Home)
Women get into a relationship hoping a man will change, and he never does; men get into a relationship hoping the woman don't change, but she always does. Men want their partners to be consistent. That they won't make impromptu impossible demands nor baffle him with classically female sudden-onset hysterical behavior.
Valerie Frankel (The Girlfriend Curse)
So now i know. I fear the unknown so deeply that I'de rather repeat the same heart-breaking pattern than face something or someone i can't predict.
Valerie Frankel (The Girlfriend Curse)
Maybe it was different for you and Valerie, since you didn't like each other much. But many, perhaps most siblings share a private universe tropical with benevolence, betrayal, vendetta, reconciliation, and the use and abuse of power of which their parents know practically nothing.
Lionel Shriver (We Need to Talk About Kevin)
You can have all the confidence in the world and still be reluctant to self-promote out of a steadfast belief that a person’s work should speak for itself. It doesn’t.
Valerie Young (The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: And Men: Why Capable People Suffer from Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive In Spite of It)
When faced with the choice, choose happy
Valerie Bertinelli (Losing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time)
Change your life experiences through the thoughts you think. Practice thinking good thoughts and your life will reflect what you are thinking. We have the blessing of choice.
Valerie Kerr
No reason to dwell on why. We all know bullies are bullies because they have their own problems they can't deal with so they take them out on others. So let's focus on how to get your hat back.
Valerie Ormond (Believing In Horses, Too)
SCUM will become members of the unwork force, the fuck-up force; they will get jobs of various kinds and unwork... SCUM office and factory workers, in addition to fucking up their work, will secretly destroy equipment. SCUM will unwork at a job until fired, then get a new job to unwork at.
Valerie Solanas
Can I see your fangs again? Valerie asked Er.... Justin said, then spotted Anders and smiled with relief. Anders, buddy. Show your woman your fangs. Shy, Bricker? You? Anders asked dryly, moving forward again as Valerie glanced around to smile at him. Nah. I just don't want to show you up by letting her see how much bigger my fangs are than yours, Justin responded. Actually, I saw Ander's fangs at his house this afternoon and they're bigger than yours, Valerie said at once and then as Anders reached her side , she glanced at him and asked, Why? Is it like big fangs, big feet, big -?
Lynsay Sands (Immortal Ever After (Argeneau, #18))
When you look in the mirror, it's usually to fix your hair or put on makeup. To examine your body searching for problem areas. We look at ourselves to see the flaw, not beauty. And we look at predictable times, in the morning, after using the bathroom, before bed. We hardly ever see ourselves when we aren't prepared for inspection. But only when you're unprepared can you see your true self, your true beauty.
Valerie Frankel (The Girlfriend Curse)
Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths.          —Lois Wyse, author and columnist
Valerie Young (The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: And Men: Why Capable People Suffer from Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive In Spite of It)
The lady had a rapier for a tongue. She jabbed with nouns, riposted with verbs.
Valerie Bowman (The Unexpected Duchess (Playful Brides, #1))
If SCUM ever marches, it will be over the President's stupid, sickening face; if SCUM ever strikes, it will be in the dark with a six-inch blade.
Valerie Solanas (SCUM Manifesto)
It made leaving bearable, knowing I'd had that kind of love in my life. Knowing I'd had the best thing.
Saul Black (The Killing Lessons (Valerie Hart, #1))
It is difficult to describe the peace that comes with giving yourself permission to know what you know. To have hard, complicated realities staring at you and be able to raise your head and look back at them with a steady gaze, scared maybe, grieved perhaps, but straight on and unwavering
Valerie Tarico
Will you ever forgive me? " I shot back, leveling my gaze directly into his eyes. He stared into them for a few moments and then got up silently and headed for the door. He didn't turn around when he reached it. Just grabbed the doorknob and held it. "No," he said, without facing me. "Maybe it makes me a bad parent, but I don't know if I can. No matter what the police found, you were involved in that shooting, Valerie. You wrote those names on that list. You wrote my name on that list. You had a good life here. You may not have pulled the trigger, but you helped cause the tragedy." Hate List
Jennifer Brown
Eaten up with guilt, shame, fears and insecurities and obtaining, if he's lucky, a barely perceptible physical feeling, the male is, nonetheless, obsessed with screwing; he'll swim a river of snot, wade nostril-deep through a mile of vomit, if he thinks there'll be a friendly pussy awaiting him. He'll screw a woman he despises, any snaggle-toothed hag, and, further, pay for the opportunity. Why? Relieving physical tension isn't the answer, as masturbation suffices for that. It's not ego satisfaction; that doesn't explain screwing corpses and babies.
Valerie Solanas (SCUM Manifesto)
Anyone could buy a green Jaguar, find beauty in a Japanese screen two thousand years old. I would rather be a connoisseur of neglected rivers and flowering mustard and the flush of iridescent pink on an intersection pigeon's charcoal neck. I thought of the vet, warming dinner over a can, and the old woman feeding her pigeons in the intersection behind the Kentucky Fried Chicken. And what about the ladybug man, the blue of his eyes over gray threaded black? There were me and Yvonne, Niki and Paul Trout, maybe even Sergei or Susan D. Valeris, why not? What were any of us but a handful of weeds. Who was to say what our value was? What was the value of four Vietnam vets playing poker every afternoon in front of the Spanish market on Glendale Boulevard, making their moves with a greasy deck missing a queen and a five? Maybe the world depended on them, maybe they were the Fates, or the Graces. Cezanne would have drawn them in charcoal. Van Gogh would have painted himself among them.
Janet Fitch (White Oleander)
Angel clicked on a few more pictures on the screen, and Alex made small talk about the place. Then he finally walked away. He stopped just before walking out. “Did Valerie say anything else to Sarah?” Angel glanced back at him. “About what?” “You know about that guy she’s seeing.” Angel turned his attention back to the computer. “No, not really.” Alex frowned. He wasn’t one of those guys, so he wasn’t about to keep asking. If Angel knew anything, he’d tell him. He’d just have to wait until the rehearsal dinner. He started back out when Angel spoke up. “I’m not sure, because she didn’t actually tell me, but I overheard Sarah on the phone last night. It sounded like Valerie was telling her about him.” “Yeah, what did you hear?” Angel looked up trying to remember. Something seemed to come to him but he hesitated. “I don’t think you wanna hear it, Alex. I know I wouldn’t.” Alex squeezed the doorway with his hand. What the hell could he have heard? “Tell me.” Angel shook his head and looked back at the monitor. “Only reason I caught my attentions was because I overheard Sarah ask her something about wearing lingerie.” Alex felt the hair on the back of his neck rise and his gut tightened. He banged his fist against the doorway. He didn’t need to hear any more. Angel had been right that’s the last thing he needed right now. He charged back out of the office, infuriated with himself. Why the fuck had he asked?
Elizabeth Reyes (Always Been Mine (The Moreno Brothers, #2))
People with BPD tend to judge themselves and others in extreme ways. They will often use excessively positive terms, idealizing or glorifying, or excessively negative terms, demonizing or devaluing themselves or others. They look at themselves with harsh and critical negative self-judgments that increase their sense of shame.
Valerie Porr (Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder: A Family Guide for Healing and Change)
If there exist fortunate people, if from time to time the wild sun of joy soars towards foreign lands in a sweet whirling of ecstasy — then where are the words which might tell of this? And if in the world there exists a beauty for enchantment, then how might one describe it? ("The Poison Garden")
Valery Bryusov (Silver Age of Russian Culture (An Anthology))
Those of us who work in the field of trauma and abuse, whether psychologists, psychoanalysts, social workers, doctors, counselors, or psychotherapists, have been provided with beautiful tools for understanding the impact of trauma. We become adept at understanding the dynamic of why the messenger is always shot and broadcast the Bionic insight of why the visionary is not bearable to the group. However, when it comes to military mind control, abuse within religious belief groups or cults, and deliberately created dissociative identity disorder, we enter the least resourced field of all.
Valerie Sinason (Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control)
I’m at architecture school at UCLA.” “Ooooh, I love architects. They have such big buildings.” Oh Lord, let the floor open up and suck me into the ground. Better yet, take Will. “Uh, not all of them are big. Some are quite small. It all depends on the client,” Juan says. “I’m sure yours are very, very big.” “Yeah, well, I’m still in school, so I’m not really building much other than models at the moment.” Poor Juan looks hideously uncomfortable. “I bet you’re really good with your hands, all that drawing and building.
Valerie Thomas (From What I Remember...)
Years from now no one will remember all the extra projects you took on or your meticulously organized garage. What they—and you—will recall is the time you said no to a work assignment to take your kids to the science museum or when you ignored household chores to enjoy the sunset.
Valerie Young (The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: And Men: Why Capable People Suffer from Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive In Spite of It)
How do we find words for describing levels of betrayal and emotional, physical, sexual and spiritual torture that fragment and destroy a child or cast and case traumatic shadows over the whole of adult life? We might, as a society, slowly find it possible to accept that one in four citizens are likely to have experience some form of emotional, psychical, sexual or spiritual abuse (McQueen, Itzin, Kennedy, Sinason, & Maxted, 2008), in itself a figure unimaginable and hidden twenty years ago. However, accepting the way a hurt and hurting parent or stranger re-enacts their disturbance with a vulnerable child or children remains far easier to digest than to consider the intellectually planned, scientific, methodical, procedures of organized child-abusing perpetrators-in other words, torture.
Valerie Sinason
See, I thought gay sex would be all different and weird, but it was just like having sex with a woman, except way hotter. I guess you can't believe stuff you see on the Internet, because you know, the hot gay sex I had last night was totally awesome, and nobody like, put their entire hand in my butt." Doug stood and walked over to Stephen, who was shoving a bagel into a Ziploc bag. "Anyway, hold on, here he is," Doug said into the phone, and then held it out towards him. "It's your mom.
Valerie Z. Lewis (The Epic Love Story of Doug and Stephen)
Gwen, a woman with BPD, talks about her inability to decipher the world around her. “On the day I was born, all the newborn babies got on a line to meet God and to get their How to Act in All Situations Throughout Life book. When it was my turn, God had run out of the book. Ever since that day, I have been looking over other people’s shoulders so that I could read their book and know how to act.
Valerie Porr (Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder: A Family Guide for Healing and Change)
We humans are prone to err, and to err systematically, outrageously, and with utter confidence. We are also prone to hold our mistaken notions dear, protecting and nourishing them like our own children. We defend them at great cost. We surround ourselves with safe people, people who will appreciate our cherished views. We avoid those who suggest that our exalted ideas, our little emperors, have no clothes.
Valerie Tarico (Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light)
On the contrary, the male has a vested interest in ignorance; it gives the few knowledgeable men a decided edge on the unknowledgeable ones, and besides, the male knows that an enlightened, aware female population will mean the end of him. The healthy, conceited female wants the company of equals whom she can respect and groove on; the male and the sick, insecure, unself-confident male female crave the company of worms.
Valerie Solanas
Because the truth was, and we both knew it, he'd gone long, long ago. I'd just made him stick around when he really wanted to be somewhere else. In his own weird way, he was another victim of the shooting, One of the ones who couldn't get away. "Are you mad?" he asked, which I thought was a really strange question. "Yes," I said. And I was. It's just that I wasn't so sure I was mad at him. But I don't think he needed to hear that part. I don't think he wanted to hear that part. I think it was important to him to hear that I cared enough to be angry. "Will you ever forgive me?" he asked. "Will you ever forgive me?" I shot back, leveling my gaze directly into his eyes. He stared into them for a few moments then got up silently and headed for the door. He didn't turn around when he reached it. Just grabbed the doorknob and held it. "No," he said without facing me. "Maybe that makes me a bad parent, but I don't know if I can. No matter what the police found, you were involved in that shooting, Valerie. You wrote those names on that list. You wrote my name on that list. You had a good life here. You might not have pulled the trigger, but you helped cause the tragedy." He opened the door."I'm sorry. I really am." He stepped out into the hallway. "I'll leave my new address and phone number with your mother," he said before walking slowly out of my sight.
Jennifer Brown (Hate List)
I believed, rather more accurately, that a work resolutely thought out and sought for in the hazards of the mind, systematically, and through a determined analysis of definite and previously prescribed conditions, whatever its value might be once it had been produced, did not leave the mind of its creator without having modified him, and forced him to recognize and in some way reorganize himself. I said to myself that it was not the accomplished work, and its appearance and effect in the world, that can fulfill and edify us; but only the way in which we have done it.
Paul Valéry (Selected Writings)
I am now going to make an admission. I confess, I agree, that all these good people who protested, who laughed, who did not perceive what we perceived, were in a quite legitimate position. Their opinion was quite in order. One must not be afraid to say that the kingdom of letters is only a province of the vast empire of entertainment. One picks up a book, one puts it aside; and even when one cannot put it down one very well understands that this interest is related to the facility of pleasure. That is to say that every effort of a creator of beauty or of fantasy should be bent, by the very essence of his work, on contriving for the public pleasure which demands no effort, or almost none. It is through the public that he should deduce what touches, moves, soothes, animates or enchants the public. There are however several publics; amongst whom it is not impossible to find some people who do not conceive of pleasure without pain, who do not like to enjoy themselves without paying, and who are not happy if their happiness is not in some part their own contrivance through which they wish to realize what it costs them.
Paul Valéry (Selected Writings)
For a while now, I have been conscious of a tension in my relationship with you,” Svetlana said. “And I think that’s the reason. It’s because we both make up narratives about our own lives. I think that’s why we decided not to live together next year. Although obviously it’s also why we’re so attracted to each other.” “Everyone makes up narratives about their own lives.” “But not to the same extent. Think about my roommates. Fern, for example. I don’t mean that she doesn’t have an inner life, or that she doesn’t think about the past or make plans for the future. But she doesn’t compulsively rehash everything that happens to her in the form of a story. She’s in my story – I’m not in hers. That makes her and me unequal, but it also gives our relationship a kind of stability, and safeness. We each have our different roles. It’s like an unspoken contract. With you, there’s more instability and tension, because I know you’re making up a story, too, and in our story, I’m just a character.” “I don’t know,” I said. “I still think everyone experiences their own life as a narrative. If you didn’t have some kind of ongoing story in mind, how would you know who you were when you woke up in the morning?” “That’s a weak definition of narrative. That’s saying that narrative is just memory plus causality. But, for us, the narrative has aesthetics, too.” “But I don’t think that’s because of our personalities,” I said. Isn’t it more about how much money our parents have? You and I can afford to pursue some narrative just because it’s interesting. You could go to Belgrade to come to terms with your life before the war, and I could go to Hungary to learn about Ivan. But Fern has to work over the summer.” “...Fern is just an example. Valerie’s parents are engineers, she doesn’t have to work, but she’s still more like Fern than she is like us” “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess it feels elitist to look at it that way.” “Don’t you think you pretending not to be elitist is disingenuous?” Svetlana said. “If you really think about who you are, and what you value?
Elif Batuman (The Idiot)
If she’d known what a good shot you are,” he whispered past the unfamiliar tightness in his throat, “she’d never have dared.” His hand lifted to her wet cheek, holding it pressed against his chest. “You could always call her out, you know.” The spasmodic shaking in Elizabeth’s slender shoulders began to subside, and Ian added with forced tightness, “Better yet, Robert should stand in for you. He’s not as fine a shot as you are, but he’s a hell of a lot faster…” A teary giggle escaped the girl in his arms, and Ian continued, “On the other hand, if you’re holding the pistol, you’ll have some choices to make, and they’re not easy…” When he didn’t say more, Elizabeth drew a shaky breath. “What choices?” she finally whispered against his chest after a moment. “What to shoot, for one thing,” he joked, stroking her back. “Robert was wearing Hessians, so I had a tassel for a target. I suppose, though, you could always shoot the bow off Valerie’s gown.” Elizabeth’s shoulders gave a lurch, and a choked laugh escaped her. Overwhelmed with relief, Ian kept his left arm around her and gently took her chin between his forefinger and thumb, tipping her face up to his. Her magnificent eyes were still wet with tears, but a smile was trembling on her rosy lips. Teasingly, he continued, “A bow isn’t much of a challenge for an expert marksman like you. I suppose you could insist that she hold up an earring between her fingers so you could shoot that instead.” The image was so absurd that Elizabeth chuckled. Without being conscious of what he was doing, Ian moved his thumb from her chin to her lower lip, rubbing lightly against its inviting fullness. He finally realized what he was doing and stopped. Elizabeth saw his jaw tighten. She drew a shuddering breath, sensing he’d been on the verge of kissing her, and had just decided not to do it. After the last shattering minutes, Elizabeth no longer knew who was friend or foe, she only knew she’d felt safe and secure in his arms, and at that moment his arms were already beginning to loosen, and his expression was turning aloof. Not certain what she was going to say or even what she wanted, she whispered a single, shaky word, filled with confusion and a plea for understanding, her green eyes searching his: “Please-“ Ian realized what she was asking for, but he responded with a questioning lift of his brows. “I-“ she began, uncomfortably aware of the knowing look in his eyes. “Yes?” he prompted. “I don’t know-exactly,” she admitted. All she knew for certain was that, for just a few minutes more, she would have liked to be in his arms. “Elizabeth, if you want to be kissed, all you have to do is put your lips on mine.” “What!” “You heard me.” “Of all the arrogant-“ He shook his head in mild rebuke. “Spare me the maidenly protests. If you’re suddenly as curious as I am to find out if it was as good between us as it now seems in retrospect, then say so.” His own suggestion startled Ian, although having made it, he saw no great harm in exchanging a few kisses if that was what she wanted.
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))