Valley Of The Dolls Quotes

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I've got a library copy of Gone with the Wind, a quart of milk and all these cookies. Wow! What an orgy!
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Never judge anyone by another's opinions. We all have different sides that we show to different people.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
People parted, years passed, they met again- and the meeting proved no reunion, offered no warm memories, only the acid knowledge that time had passed and things weren't as bright or attractive as they had been.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Love shouldn't make a beggar of one. I wouldn't want love if I had to beg for it, to barter or qualify it. And I should despise it if anyone ever begged for my love. Love is something that must be given -- it can't be bought with words or pity, or even reason.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Never let anyone shame you into doing anything you don't choose to do. Keep your identity.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Yes, there's one thing I do want. I want to be aware of the minutes and the seconds, and to make each one count.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Everyone has an identity. One of their own, and one for show.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
A man must feel he runs things, but as long as you control yourself, you control him.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
When you're climbing Mount Everest, nothing is easy. You just take one step at a time, never look back and always keep your eyes glued to the top.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
No one should give up a dream without giving it a chance to come true.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Money bought freedom; without it one could never be free.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Alone on the summit of Mount Everest.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
each time it would hurt less, and afterward she would love Lyon less, until one day there would be nothing left — no hurt, and no love. She
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
She was climbing Mount Everest and the air was invigorating and wonderful. Even if every second verged on crisis, this was part of living - not just watching from the sidelines.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Close friendships with girls come early in life. After thirty it becomes harder to make new friends — there are fewer hopes, dreams or anticipations to share.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
L'union libre [Freedom of Love]" My wife with the hair of a wood fire With the thoughts of heat lightning With the waist of an hourglass With the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger My wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of the last magnitude With the teeth of tracks of white mice on the white earth With the tongue of rubbed amber and glass My wife with the tongue of a stabbed host With the tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes With the tongue of an unbelievable stone My wife with the eyelashes of strokes of a child's writing With brows of the edge of a swallow's nest My wife with the brow of slates of a hothouse roof And of steam on the panes My wife with shoulders of champagne And of a fountain with dolphin-heads beneath the ice My wife with wrists of matches My wife with fingers of luck and ace of hearts With fingers of mown hay My wife with armpits of marten and of beechnut And of Midsummer Night Of privet and of an angelfish nest With arms of seafoam and of riverlocks And of a mingling of the wheat and the mill My wife with legs of flares With the movements of clockwork and despair My wife with calves of eldertree pith My wife with feet of initials With feet of rings of keys and Java sparrows drinking My wife with a neck of unpearled barley My wife with a throat of the valley of gold Of a tryst in the very bed of the torrent With breasts of night My wife with breasts of a marine molehill My wife with breasts of the ruby's crucible With breasts of the rose's spectre beneath the dew My wife with the belly of an unfolding of the fan of days With the belly of a gigantic claw My wife with the back of a bird fleeing vertically With a back of quicksilver With a back of light With a nape of rolled stone and wet chalk And of the drop of a glass where one has just been drinking My wife with hips of a skiff With hips of a chandelier and of arrow-feathers And of shafts of white peacock plumes Of an insensible pendulum My wife with buttocks of sandstone and asbestos My wife with buttocks of swans' backs My wife with buttocks of spring With the sex of an iris My wife with the sex of a mining-placer and of a platypus My wife with a sex of seaweed and ancient sweetmeat My wife with a sex of mirror My wife with eyes full of tears With eyes of purple panoply and of a magnetic needle My wife with savanna eyes My wife with eyes of water to he drunk in prison My wife with eyes of wood always under the axe My wife with eyes of water-level of level of air earth and fire
André Breton (Poems of André Breton: A Bilingual Anthology)
Everyone should at least try to do the thing he wants to do. Later in life situations and responsibilities force people to compromise. But to compromise now...it's like quitting before you start.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
The beautiful came to this city [Hollywood] in huge pathetic herds, to suffer, to be humiliated, to see the powerful currency of their beauty devalued like the Russian ruble or Argentine peso;to work as bellhops, as bar hostesses, as garbage collectors, as maids. The city was a cliff and they were its stampeding lemmings. At the foot of the cliff was the valley of the broken dolls.
Salman Rushdie (Shalimar the Clown)
Before I came to New York I lived here, in this mausoleum. I was nothing. I was dead. When I came to New York it was like a veil lifting. For the first time I felt I was alive, breathing.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
...when you’re young you think you’ll always be young. Then one day you suddenly wake up and you’re over fifty. And the names in the obituary columns are no longer anonymous old people. They’re your contemporaries and friends.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Did money give people a blind spot? Rob them of their hearing?
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Helen Lawson: They drummed you out of Hollywood, so you come crawling back to Broadway. But Broadway doesn't go for booze and dope. Now get out of my way, I've got a man waiting for me.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Helen Lawson: The only hit that comes out of a Helen Lawson show is Helen Lawson, and that's ME, baby, remember?
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
giving a party was not as simple as going to one. You could always leave someone else’s party. You were stuck with your own.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Remember, the most important thing in the world is to have a man who loves you.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
There’s one thing I do want. I want to be aware of the minutes and the seconds, and to make each one count . . . You realize that time is the most precious thing. Because time is life. It’s the only thing you can never get back.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
And suddenly you recall all the senseless time-wasting things you’ve done . . . the wasted minutes you’ll never recover. And you realize that time is the most precious thing. Because time is life. It’s the only thing you can never get
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
They drummed you out of Hollywood, so you come crawling back to Broadway. But Broadway doesn't go for booze and dope. Now get out of my way, I've got a man waiting for me.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Many girls enjoyed kissing men they didn’t love. It was supposed to be normal.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Os homens irão deixar-te, a tua beleza irá desaparecer, os teus filhos irão crescer e partir e tudo o que pensaste ser a tua vida irá azedar; a única coisa com que podes contar é contigo mesma e com o teu talento.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Love is something that must be given — it can’t be bought with words or pity, or even reason.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
guess a woman can either love or be loved, but it’s almost impossible to have both.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
So what? You're no worse off than if you hadn't asked. At least this way you give yourself a fifty-fifty chance
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Close friendships with girls come early in life. After thirty it becomes harder to make new friends —there are fewer hopes, dreams or anticipations to share.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Something’s happening to this country. We’re going to go immoral. And television is doing it.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
And so he accepted her frigidity as the normal attribute of a lady, and being a gentleman, he expected nothing more.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Yes, my uterus was removed — peritonitis had set in. But it is wonderful. I am no longer bothered with the monthly period.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
And I eat what I please. Geez, I weigh a hundred and sixty, but who cares? And Anne — I sing. Christ, I sing like a fucking canary.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Later in life situations and responsibilities force people to compromise. But to compromise now . . . it’s like quitting before you start.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
The girl was undeniably beautiful. She was tall, with a spectacular figure. Her white dress, shimmering with crystal beads, was cut low enough to prove the authenticity of her remarkable cleavage. Her long hair was almost white in its blondeness. But it was her face that held Anne’s attention, a face so naturally beautiful that it came as a startling contrast to the theatrical beauty of her hair and figure. It was a perfect face with a fine square jaw, high cheekbones and intelligent brow. The eyes seemed warm and friendly, and the short, straight nose belonged to a beautiful child, as did the even white teeth and little-girl dimples. It was an innocent face, a face that looked at everything with breathless excitement and trusting enthusiasm, seemingly unaware of the commotion the body was causing. A face that glowed with genuine interest in each person who demanded attention, rewarding each with a warm smile. The body and its accouterments continued to pose and undulate for the staring crowd and flashing cameras, but the face ignored the furor and greeted people with the intimacy of meeting a few new friends at a gathering.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Pensa-se de dia – a – dia. Se começamos a pensar no futuro, no nosso futuro pessoal, perdemos a coragem. E, de repente, lembramo-nos de todas as coisas que fizemos e que foram um desperdício de tempo… os minutos que desperdiçámos e que nunca podemos reaver. E apercebemo-nos de que o tempo é a coisa mais preciosa de todas. Porque o tempo é a vida. É a única coisa que nunca podemos recuperar. É possível perder uma rapariga e quem sabe voltar a conquistá-la… ou encontrar outra. Mas um segundo, este segundo, quando se vai, é irreversível.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
One pioneer remembered seeing “an open bleak prairie, the cold wind howling overhead…a new-made grave, a woman and three children sitting near by, a girl of 14 summers walking round and round in a circle, wringing her hands and calling upon her dead parent.” Janette Riker was only a young girl when she headed for Oregon with her father and two brothers in 1849. Late in September they camped in a valley in Montana, and the men went out to hunt. They never returned. While she waited, Janette built a small shelter, moved the wagon stove in with all the provisions and blankets, and hunkered down. She killed the fattest ox from her family’s herd, salted down the meat, and lived alone through the winter, amid howling wolves and mountain lions. She was discovered in April by Indians who were so impressed by her story that they took her to a fort in Washington. She never found out what happened to her family.
Gail Collins (America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines)
The translucent, golden punch tastes velvety, voluptuous and not off-puttingly milky. Under its influence, I stage a party for my heroines in my imagination, and in my flat. It's less like the glowering encounter I imagined between Cathy Earnshaw and Flora Poste, and more like the riotous bash in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Not everyone is going to like milk punch. So there are also dirty martinis, and bagels and baklava, and my mother's masafan, Iraqi marzipan. The Little Mermaid is in the bath, with her tail still on, singing because she never did give up her soaring voice. Anne Shirley and Jo March are having a furious argument about plot versus character, gesticulating with ink-stained hands. Scarlett is in the living room, her skirts taking up half the space, trying to show Lizzy how to bat her eyelashes. Lizzy is laughing her head off ut Scarlett has acquired a sense of humour, and doesn't mind a bit. Melanie is talking book with Esther Greenwood, who has brought her baby and also the proofs of her first poetry collection. Franny and Zooey have rolled back the rug and are doing a soft shoe shuffle in rhinestone hats. Lucy Honeychurch is hammering out some Beethoven (in this scenario I have a piano. A ground piano. Well, why not?) Marjorie Morningstar is gossiping about directors with Pauline and Posy Fossil. They've come straight from the shows they're in, till in stage make-up and full of stories. Petrova, in a leather aviator jacket, goggles pushed back, a chic scarf knotted around her neck, is telling the thrilling story of her latest flight and how she fixed an engine fault in mid-air. Mira, in her paint-stained jeans and poncho, is listening, fascinated, asking a thousand questions. Mildred has been persuaded to drink a tiny glass of sherry, then another tiny glass, then another and now she and Lolly are doing a wild, strange dance in the hallway, stamping their feet, their hair flying wild and electric. Lolly's cakes, in the shape of patriarchs she hates, are going down a treat. The Dolls from the Valley are telling Flora some truly scandalous and unrepeatable stories, and she is firmly advising them to get rid of their men and find worthier paramours. Celie is modelling trousers of her own design and taking orders from the Lace women; Judy is giving her a ten-point plan on how to expand her business to an international market. She is quite drunk but nevertheless the plan seems quite coherent, even if it is punctuated by her bellowing 'More leopard print, more leopard print!' Cathy looks tumultuous and on the edge of violent weeping and just as I think she's going to storm out or trash my flat, Jane arrives, late, with an unexpected guest. Cathy turns in anticipation: is it Heathcliff? Once I would have joined her but now I'm glad it isn't him. It's a better surprise. It's Emily's hawk. Hero or Nero. Jane's found him at last, and has him on her arm, perched on her glove; small for a bird of prey, he is dashing and patrician looking, brown and white, observing the room with dark, flinty eyes. When Cathy sees him, she looks at Jane and smiles. And in the kitchen is a heroine I probably should have had when I was four and sitting on my parents' carpet, wishing it would fly. In the kitchen is Scheherazade.
Samantha Ellis
Estes Park was set in a valley surrounded by the Rocky Mountain National Park.... When I visited a few years ago, there were actually elk grazing on the golf course." "Are you serious?" "Hey, every year in October they have an Elk Festival. That's why I came here. I wanted to see it 'cause it was on my bucket list." "An Elk Festival?" Amelia laughed. "You have the most awesome things on your bucket list. Mine seem boring compared to yours." Amelia raised her brow curiously. "What was the festival like?" "It was awesome. They had an elk bugling contest, elk seminars, Native American music, dancing and storytelling. They even had bus tours that took you to see the elk grazing in the fields. It was great. I loved it." "Wait a minute," said Amelia as she tilted her head to one side. "What's an elk bugling contest?" Rick grinned. "It's the call of the elk. Anyone can compete. Whoever sounds the most like an elk wins. You can use a horn or just your own voice. When I was there, the man who won used his voice. It was really something." Amelia's eyes widened with curiosity. "How did he do it? What does it sounds like?" Rick chuckled. "Well... the call starts out with deep rich tones. Then it quickly rises to a high-pitched squealing sound and immediately drops down to a bunch of grunts.
Linda Weaver Clarke (The Mysterious Doll (Amelia Moore Detective Series #4))
there’s one thing I do want. I want to be aware of the minutes and the seconds, and to make each one count.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Never judge anyone by another’s opinions. We all have different sides that we show to different people.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Yes, there’s one thing I do want. I want to be aware of the minutes and the seconds, and to make each one count.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
she couldn’t offer sympathy to a girl who regarded the incident as a stroke of marvelous luck. “Well,
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
-Gardez-la, garce. J'ai les moyens d'en acheter d'autres. Mais vous, vous en aurez besoin. Mettez la au clou, ou, mieux, portez la. Qu'elle vous entre dans la chair à chaque fois qu'un type vous baisera comme vous m'avez baisé. J'ai l'intuition que Lyon Burke sera le premier d'une longue série.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Listen, all I ask in the next life is to come back as a beautiful broad,
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
It sneaks up on you, Anne-the habit. And after all emotion is gone and logic takes over, the habit is still there. For the rest of your life,
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Anne felt sad. People parted, years passed, they met again — and the meeting proved no reunion, offered no warm memories, only the acid knowledge that time had passed and things weren’t as bright or attractive as they had been.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Baby doll, if a man’s not opening your door, he’s not worth your time.
Ames Mills (The Heart of Psychos: Part One (Abbs Valley #6))
She fastened her attention on the taxi window as they drove crosstown. It was one of those last wonderful days in October, when the air is balmy and the faded sun tries to pretend it's spring.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
I've got a library copy of Gone with the Wind, a quart of milk and all these cookies. Wow! What an orgy!
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
He nodded against my neck and his hands came around to cup my breasts, grinding into me again from behind. I ground back. He moaned, slipping a hand down the front of my panties. “Tell me what you like,” he whispered against my ear, moving against me. Oh my fucking God… What didn’t I like? It had been so long and I was so deprived I was afraid he was going to finish me right there. My body began to tremble at the build. I couldn’t take it anymore. He seemed to sense it because he pulled his fingers back right before I disintegrated in his hand, and he laid me down on the bed, sliding over me. He hovered on his forearms and ran a thick, muscular thigh up between my legs until it hit my core and I sucked in air against his lips. Oh my God, he was so good at this… And he fucking knew it. He smiled and kissed me, his tongue darting in my mouth, his rough hands canvassing my skin like he wanted to feel every inch of me. I did the same. It felt so good to touch him. My eyes had spent so much time learning his body, and my hands wanted to map him. I ran fingers along his chest, over the curve of his broad freckled shoulders, down the muscles of his back, along the valley of his spine. I breathed in his scent as I grabbed his firm ass and pulled him into me and he groaned, rubbing hard against my leg. I couldn’t believe this was real, that I got to touch him, that he was kissing me, that there was nothing between us but my thin G-string. His bare skin pressing into mine was the most exquisite feeling of my life, a million nerve endings connecting with his, little electrical shocks that merged into one huge surge. He sat up and kneeled between my legs, picking up my foot and putting it on his shoulder. The view was fucking spectacular. The definition of his chest continued down with a line of hair into a V muscle that pointed at his divine penis like an arrow. I reached out and took him in my hand and his breathing went ragged. My gaze came back up to his hooded eyes. He kissed my ankle and I watched him do it, biting my lip, stroking him, my need unraveling into something so starved I wanted to beg him to have mercy on me and just fuck me already. I thought of the way he’d touched me in the car, his strong hands massaging my calf, and I couldn’t help but feel like he was continuing something he started earlier. He ran his palms from my ankle, behind my knee, up my thigh, and he hooked my panties in his thumbs and pulled them down and off. Then he balled them in his hand, shut his eyes, and put them to his nose, breathing in. When his eyes opened again, they’d gone primal. He came at me like a wild animal. He lowered onto me, his jaw clenched tight, every muscle of his body tense, and I lifted my hips. He held my gaze as he eased himself in, slow and deliberate, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, feral with need, frantically urging him deeper. One… Two… I wasn’t going to last a minute and it was all overload, his naked body pressed to mine, the feel of him inside me, rhythmically thrusting against my core, deeper and deeper, his quivering breath over my collarbone, his hips grinding between my legs, his scent, his sounds, the heat of his skin, the rocking of the bed, the moaning in my throat—my back arched and I fell apart at the same time he did, clutching at everything, pulling him into me, pulsing with his release. He collapsed on top of me and I was decimated. I lay there like a rag doll, twitching with aftershocks. He gasped for breath, his face by my ear. “Holy…fucking…shit,” he panted. I just nodded. I couldn’t even speak. I’d never had sex that good. Never in my life—and I’d had my share of good sex. It was like we’d been foreplaying for weeks and I’d been sexually malnourished, starving, waiting for him to feed me.
Abby Jimenez
It's the effect of the uncanny Valley " Brandon replied. "You know, the unsettling place inhabited by dolls and robots. It's been proven that humans react positively to humanoid figures until said figures become too human. At that point, the little differences - like the inability to make appropriate eye contact of unusual speech patterns - create feelings of discomfort and disgust, sometimes even leading to terror.
Jean Kwok (The Leftover Woman)
It's the effect of the uncanny valley " Brandon replied. "You know, the unsettling place inhabited by dolls and robots. It's been proven that humans react positively to humanoid figures until said figures become too human. At that point, the little differences - like the inability to make appropriate eye contact of unusual speech patterns - create feelings of discomfort and disgust, sometimes even leading to terror.
Jean Kwok (The Leftover Woman)
I want to be aware of the minutes and the seconds, and to make each one count.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
But it's different with a man. You don't expect him to be a virgin.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
It will get better --- I promise you." Would it? Would she ever shudder and tremble and stiffen with the ecstasy she had felt? It didn't matter. All that mattered was Lyon, to hold him in her arms, to please him --- to know that she could feel love, that this remarkable man wanted her body against his...
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
The findings that were deemed believable enough to be published, however, revolutionized ethologists’ thinking. Ethologists began to speak less often of a chasm between man and ape; they began to speak instead of a dividing “line.” And it was a line that, in the words of Harvard primatologist Irven De Vore, was “a good deal less clear than one would ever have expected.” What makes up this line between us and our fellow primates? No longer can it be claimed to be tool use. Is it the ability to reason? Wolfgang Kohler once tested captive chimps’ reasoning ability by placing several boxes and a stick in an enclosure and hanging a banana from the high ceiling by a string. The animals quickly figured out that they could get to the banana by stacking the boxes one atop the other and then reaching to swat at the banana with a stick. (Once Geza Teleki found himself in exactly this position at Gombe. He had followed the chimpanzees down into a valley and around noon discovered he had forgotten to bring his lunch. The chimps were feeding on fruit in the trees at the time, and he decided to try to knock some fruit from nearby vines with a stick. For about ten minutes he leaped and swatted with his stick but didn’t manage to knock down any fruit. Finally an adolescent male named Sniff collected a handful of fruit, came down the tree, and dropped the fruit into Geza’s hands.) Some say language is the line that separates man from ape. But this, too, is being questioned. Captive chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans have been taught not only to comprehend, but also to produce language. They have been taught American Sign Language (ASL), the language of the deaf, as well as languages that use plastic chips in place of words and computer languages. One signing chimp, Washoe, often combined known signs in novel and creative ways: she had not been taught the word for swan, but upon seeing one, she signed “water-bird.” Another signing chimp, Lucy, seeing and tasting a watermelon for the first time, called it a “candy-drink”; the acidic radish she named “hurt-cry-food.” Lucy would play with toys and sign to them, much as human children talk to their dolls. Koko, the gorilla protegee of Penny Patterson, used sign language to make jokes, escape blame, describe her surroundings, tell stories, even tell lies. One of Biruté’s ex-captives, a female orangutan named Princess, was taught a number of ASL signs by Gary Shapiro. Princess used only the signs she knew would bring her food; because she was not a captive, she could not be coerced into using sign language to any ends other than those she found personally useful. Today dolphins, sea lions, harbor seals, and even pigeons are being taught artificial languages, complete with a primitive grammar or syntax. An African grey parrot named Alex mastered the correct use of more than one hundred spoken English words, using them in proper order to answer questions, make requests, do math, and offer friends and visitors spontaneous, meaningful comments until his untimely death at age 31 in 2007. One leading researcher, Ronald Schusterman, is convinced that “the components for language are present probably in all vertebrates, certainly in mammals and birds.” Arguing over semantics and syntax, psychologists and ethologists and linguists are still debating the definitions of the line. Louis Leakey remarked about Jane’s discovery of chimps’ use of tools that we must “change the definition of man, the definition of tool, or accept chimps as man.” Now some linguists have actually proposed, in the face of the ape language experiments, changing the definition of language to exclude the apes from a domain we had considered uniquely ours. The line separating man from the apes may well be defined less by human measurement than by the limits of Western imagination. It may be less like a boundary between land and water and more like the lines we draw on maps separating the domains of nations.
Sy Montgomery (Walking with the Great Apes: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Birute Galdikas)
Age settled with more grace on ordinary people, but for celebrities — women stars in particular — age became a hatchet that vandalized a work of art.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
New York you forgot how cold and bleak winter could be. The neon lights, the moving crowds, the taxi-filled streets stampeded the snow into slush and the slush into gray water that quickly disappeared and you forgot about the bare, desolate ground of the outside world. The loneliness of winter. The
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
There was an acceptance at face value in New York, as if everyone had just been born, with no past heritage to acknowledge or hide.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
valley? That should be interesting for you.” “I haven’t decided what I’m doing yet.” “I’d be happy to help,” Mr. Bally said. “I’m an expert on the subject you’re studying.” He picked up one of the microfilm boxes. “Judges in these contests like primary sources.” I knew that. Judges in these contests always liked primary sources. I was already using one. “Tell me about Andover,” I’d said to Cissy Langer, sitting in her back room with a wall full of piggy dolls staring at me. “Oh, my goodness, Mimi, what a question,” she’d said. I took the glass of iced tea, and I took the plate of chocolate chip cookies, and I set my tape recorder between them. I’d borrowed it from the school librarian. “I’ve already got some primary sources,” I said to Winston Bally in the conference room. We all pick and choose the things we talk about, I guess. I’d listened to my mother and Cissy talk about growing up together for maybe hundreds of hours, about sharing a seat and red licorice ropes on the bus, about getting licked for wearing their Sunday dresses into the woods one day, about the years when they both moved back in with their parents while their husbands went to war. And somehow I’d never really noticed that all the stories started when they were ten, that there were no stories about the four-year-old Miriam, the six-year-old Cissy, about the day when they were both seven when Ruth came home from the hospital, a bundle of yellow crochet yarn and dirty diaper. It made sense, I guess, since it turned out Cissy had grown up in a place whose name I’d never even heard because it had been wiped off the map before I’d ever even been born. “My whole family lived in Andover,” Cissy said. “My mother and
Anna Quindlen (Miller's Valley)
into
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
They turned and looked down to the roof of the little house. "This seemed like a long way from home when I was a little girl. I used to bring picnics up here." "Alone?" "Oh, yes! Unless I brought a doll along." She had never, she realized, talked about herself with Don. Don had never thought of her or her problems. Jed liked to hear about her childhood and her growing up. Little by little she had told him almost all there was to tell - about her parents, and her grandmother; her differentness in school; even the great pain of not being able to go to college.
Maud Hart Lovelace (Emily of Deep Valley (Deep Valley, #2))
One learns most clearly what not to do by reading bad prose---one novel like Asteroid Miners (or Valley of the Dolls, Flowers in the Attic, and The Bridges of Madison County, to name just a few) is worth a semester at a good writing school, even with the superstar guest lecturers thrown in.
Stephen King (On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft)