Wallet Love Quotes

You two are too cute,” the counter girl said, setting two cups piled with whipped cream on the counter. She had a sort of lopsided, open smile that made me think she laughed a lot. “Seriously. How long have you been going out?” Sam let go of my hands to get his wallet and took out some bills. “Six years.” I wrinkled my nose to cover a laugh. Of course he would count the time that we’d been two entirely different species. Whoa.” Counter girl nodded appreciatively. “That’s pretty amazing for a couple your age." Sam handed me my hot chocolate and didn’t answer. But his yellow eyes gazed at me possessively—I wondered if he realized that the way he looked at me was far more intimate than copping a feel could ever be. I crouched to look at the almond bark on the bottom shelf in the counter. I wasn’t quite bold enough to look at either of them when I admitted, “Well, it was love at first sight.” The girl sighed. “That is just so romantic. Do me a favor, and don’t you two ever change. The world needs more love at first sight.

I never understood how men could remember all those details about sports but, yet, were incapable of remembering where they set their car keys or wallet.

She was still hugging the cat. "Poor slob," she said, tickling his head, "poor slob without a name. It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven't any right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I. I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like." She smiled, and let the cat drop to the floor. "It's like Tiffany's," she said. [...] It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name.

So money doesn’t matter once you get down to it. It doesn’t matter how thin or thick anyone’s wallet is. We all hurt. We all love. We’re the same.

I kept a picture of me kissing my dad’s corpse on the forehead in my wallet for years. I’d break it out any time someone showed me a baby picture, just so they would know how it ends.

I’ve tried that. I’ve tried aspirin, too. Rusty thinks I should smoke marijuana, and I did for a while, but it only makes me giggle. What I’ve found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany’s. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany’s, then I’d buy some furniture and give the cat a name.

You cannot kill me here. Bring your soldiers, your death, your disease, your collapsed economy because it doesn’t matter, I have nothing left to lose and you cannot kill me here. Bring the tears of orphans and the wails of a mother’s loss, bring your God damn air force and Jesus on a cross, bring your hate and bitterness and long working hours, bring your empty wallets and love long since gone but you cannot kill me here. Bring your sneers, your snide remarks and friendships never felt, your letters never sent, your kisses never kissed, cigarettes smoked to the bone and cancer killing fears but you cannot kill me here. For I may fall and I may fail but I will stand again each time and you will find no satisfaction. Because you cannot kill me here.

Abusive relationships exist because they provide enough rations of warmth, laughter, and affection to clutch onto like a security blanket in the heap of degradation. The good times are the initial euphoria that keeps addicts draining their wallets for toxic substances to inject into their veins. Scraps of love are food for an abusive relationship.

We had everything we needed. None of it was big. Most of it was simple. But what I knew in that moment was that the size of your home, your car, your wallet, doesn't have one single thing to do with the size of your life. And my life . . . my life felt big, filled with love and with meaning.

When a woman wants your attention, she uses her smile. When she wants your wallet, she uses her charm. When she wants your heart, she uses her touch. When she wants your soul, she uses her kiss.

You lose a wallet or keys or something and you notice in a second, but your life can go missing and you don't even know it.

You know those days when you've got the means reds?’ ‘Same as the blues?’ ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘No, the blues are because you’re getting fat or maybe it’s been raining too long. You’re sad that’s all. But the mean reds are horrible. You’re afraid, and you sweat like hell, but you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Except something bad is going to happen, only you don’t know what it is. You’ve had that feeling?’ ‘Quite often. Some people call it angst.’ ‘All right. Angst. But what do you do about it?’ ‘Well, a drink helps.’ ‘I’ve tried that. I’ve tried aspirin, too. Rusty thinks I should smoke marijuana, and I did for a while, but it only makes me giggle. What I’ve found does the most good is to just get into a taxi and go to Tiffany’s. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany’s, then I’d buy some furniture and give the cat a name.

They can award me with the greatest accolades and reward me with the finest diamonds. They can name days and streets after me, canonise and celebrate me. They can make me the queen of their kingdom, the president of their nation. They can carry my picture in their wallets and whisper my name in their prayers but, tell me, what is all this worth if your voice isn’t the one calling me home?

You see parents as kind or unkind or happy or miserable or drunk or sober or great or near-great or failed the way you see a table square or a Montclair lip-read. Kids today... you kids today somehow don't know how to feel, much less love, to say nothing of respect. We're just bodies to you. We're just bodies and shoulders and scarred knees and big bellies and empty wallets and flasks to you. I'm not saying something cliché like you take us for granted so much as I'm saying you cannot... imagine our absence. We're so present it's ceased to mean. We're environmental. Furniture of the world.

I love her handbag. Inside are papers and her wallet and cigarettes and at the bottom, where she never looks, there is loose change, loose mints, specs of tobacco from her cigarettes. Sometimes I bring the bag to my face, open it and inhale as deeply as I can.

Wait, wait, wait. Are you telling me they stick you out here where there are no Daimons and you don’t have a weak spot? What kind of shit is that? I live in Daimon Central with one hell of an Achilles’ heel that no one ever bothered to mention, and you live where there’s no danger to you and yet you don’t have one? What’s not fair with this picture? And then Ash asks me to come up here to save your ass and here we are dropping like flies while you’re Teflon. No, I have a problem with this. I love you, man, but dayam. This just ain’t right. I’m up here freezing my balls off, and you, you don’t need protection. Meanwhile I have a bull’s-eye on my arm that says, ‘Hey, Daimon on steroids, kill me right here.’ Do you realize, I put my keys in my mouth to pull out my wallet to pay for gas and they froze there? The last thing I want to do is die up here in this godforsaken place at the hands of some freaked-out something no one has ever heard of before except for Guido the Killer Squire from Jersey? I swear I want someone’s ass for this. (Jess)

She shook her head, then started fanning herself with her wallet. “Only in Italy.

[My husband] can beat most anyone in Trivial Pursuit, but only because the game does not include questions like "Where is your wallet?

He tries again, swallowing hard to ease away the painful lump in his throat. "It's just important. I love you. I'm yours. I need people to know." "Alright," Lindsay says suddenly. He leans down to grab at Pip's bag, throwing stuff out onto the carpet, his iPod and phone and wallet and gloves and Attitude magazine until he finds what he's looking for, a green marker pen, and holds it between his teeth while he starts tugging at the hem of Pip's t-shirt. Pip's too surprised to do anything but submit, he lets Lindsay peel off his t-shirt and throw that on top of all the things from his bag then just watches as Lindsay pulls the pen out of the cap in his mouth and signs his name in big green letters on the side of Pip's stomach. He holds his breath, trying not to suck in the belly fat everybody else keeps telling him is imaginary. "There, you're mine, are you fucking happy now?" Lindsay snaps, and throws the recapped pen across the room to get lost in the bookcase somewhere.

Pinot Noir country. My grape. The one varietal that truly enchants me, both stills and steals my heart with its elusive loveliness and false promises of transcendence. I loved her, and I would continue to follow her siren call until my wallet--or liver, whichever came first--gave out.

Modern life assaults us with an infinite range of things we could do, we would love to do, or some people tell us we should do. But we are not God and we are neither infinite nor eternal. We are quite simply finite. We have only so many years, so much energy, so many gray cells, and so many bank notes in our wallets. 'Life is too short to...' eventually shortens to 'life is too short.

Make investments with your heart not just your wallet.

I often wonder who will be the last person to see me alive. If I had to bet, it would be on the delivery boy from the Chinese take-out. I order in four nights out of seven. Whenever he comes I make a big production of finding my wallet. He stands in the door holding the greasy bag while I wonder if this is the night I'll finish off my spring roll, climb into bed, and have a heart attack in my sleep.

But what I knew in that moment was that the size of your home, your car, your wallet, doesn't have one single thing to do with the size of your life. And my life . . . my life felt big, filled with love and with meaning.

God is fond of you. If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it. If He had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Face it, friend, He's crazy about you.

Like all canned food, love has an expiration date, a price tag, and a warning label. In order to love, you need to check the price tag to see if you have enough money in your wallet, observe the warnings given in fine print, and finish matters before the expiration date. Only then is it a smooth process for everyone.

What I've found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany's. It calms me down right away, teh quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their suites, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name.

I see things in windows and I say to myself that I want them. I want them because I want to belong. I want to be liked by more people, I want to be held in higher regard than others. I want to feel valued, so I say to myself to watch certain shows. I watch certain shows on the television so I can participate in dialogues and conversations and debates with people who want the same things I want. I want to dress a certain way so certain groups of people are forced to be attracted to me. I want to do my hair a certain way with certain styling products and particular combs and methods so that I can fit in with the In-Crowd. I want to spend hours upon hours at the gym, stuffing my body with what scientists are calling 'superfoods', so that I can be loved and envied by everyone around me. I want to become an icon on someone's mantle. I want to work meaningless jobs so that I can fill my wallet and parentally-advised bank accounts with monetary potential. I want to believe what's on the news so that I can feel normal along with the rest of forever. I want to listen to the Top Ten on Q102, and roll my windows down so others can hear it and see that I am listening to it, and enjoying it. I want to go to church every Sunday, and pray every other day. I want to believe that what I do is for the promise of a peaceful afterlife. I want rewards for my 'good' deeds. I want acknowledgment and praise. And I want people to know that I put out that fire. I want people to know that I support the war effort. I want people to know that I volunteer to save lives. I want to be seen and heard and pointed at with love. I want to read my name in the history books during a future full of clones exactly like me. The mirror, I've noticed, is almost always positioned above the sink. Though the sink offers more depth than a mirror, and mirror is only able to reflect, the sink is held in lower regard. Lower still is the toilet, and thought it offers even more depth than the sink, we piss and shit in it. I want these kind of architectural details to be paralleled in my every day life. I want to care more about my reflection, and less about my cleanliness. I want to be seen as someone who lives externally, and never internally, unless I am able to lock the door behind me. I want these things, because if I didn't, I would be dead in the mirrors of those around me. I would be nothing. I would be an example. Sunken, and easily washed away.

Love is a bastard born of rape,raised in bondage and let loose on a naive society to destroy convention and defy the commandments,to be cited in court as the reason why we have to have rules and sanctions. It has a certain beauty,a tangible desirability tainted with the knowledge, like that of a teenage whore, it will ruin your reputation and steal your wallet and when all is lost,the memory of love is all youre left with

He wondered why love had waited for this distance, waited for the moment when he need not touch, when the limits of contact and human surrender had dwindled to the size of a printed Mass card tucked in his wallet: In Memoriam...

He generously gave me three ten-franc notes, which it pained him to take from his wallet. A wallet I never had access to. Every day, he would count his money to be sure nothing was missing. When he did this, he lost me a little. Not me, but the love I was made of.

It doesn’t matter how thin or thick anyone’s wallet is. We all hurt. We all love. We’re the same. And your past, who you live with, where you came from, it doesn’t have to matter. You’re creating your own future, and I want to see where the road forward takes you.

Perfect love, like perfect partner does not exist. We create our own perfect love. If you care to know, a a good partner is like a construction engineer. To build the kind of house he want, he must pick the material that best suits his needs and maybe his wallet too.

Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done: perseverance, dear my lord, Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; For honour travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; For emulation hath a thousand sons That one by one pursue: if you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by And leave you hindmost; Or like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present, Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours; For time is like a fashionable host That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly, Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was; For beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time.

So money doesn't matter once you get down to it. It doesn't matter how thin or thick anyone's wallet is. We all hurt. We all love. We're the same. And your past, who you live with, where you came from, it doesn't matter. You're creating your own future, and i want to see where the road forward takes you.

So money doesn’t matter once you get down to it. It doesn’t matter how thin or thick anyone’s wallet is. We all hurt. We all love. We’re the same. And your past, who you live with, where you came from, it doesn’t have to matter. You’re creating your own future, and I want to see where the road forward takes you.

There wasn’t anything Lincoln wanted that he couldn’t afford. What did he really want, anyway? To buy new books when they came out in hardback. To not have to think about how much money was in his wallet when he was ordering dinner. Maybe new sneakers …And there wasn’t anything he wanted to do that he couldn’t make time for. What did he have to mope about, really? What more did he want? Love, he could hear Eve saying. Purpose. Love. Purpose. Those are the things that you can’t plan for. Those are the things that just happen. And what if they don’t happen? Do you spend your whole life pining for them? Waiting to be happy?

It is this harsh corrective to our sense of being central, competent, and powerful that makes even trivial losses so difficult to accept. To lose something is a profoundly humbling act. It forces us to confront the limits of our mind: the fact that we left our wallet at the restaurant; the fact that we can’t remember where we left our wallet at all. It forces us to confront the limits of our will: the fact that we are powerless to protect the things we love from time and change and chance. Above all, it forces us to confront the limits of existence: the fact that, sooner or later, it is in the nature of almost everything to vanish or perish. Over and over, loss calls on us to reckon with this universal impermanence—with the baffling, maddening, heartbreaking fact that something that was just here can be, all of a sudden, just gone.

I am most valuable bill in his wallet, But a torn bill…

You know the police love to steal out of peoples wallets!

Time flows like a canoe floats, and my love would fit in your purse if you’d just empty your money into my wallet.

The only time I hold my wife's hand tightly is when my wallet is in her other hand.

In the world, where everyone is overexposed He always keeps their photograph in his wallet.

Poverty is a condition that resides in the heart . . . not in the wallet.

I gave him that watch, back when I spent weekends with Daddy's AMEX in my wallet and eight inches of Vic in my hand.

I keep your soul In my ageing wallet, The unimportant stuff (Money, cards, coins) Stay loose in my pocket, A place as fickle as they.

what i've found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany's. it calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. if I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's...

The other four houses yielded jewelry, wallets, credit cards, laptops, iPads and Kindles, even a couple of expensive looking vases.... "You didn't do anything stupid like writing IOUs and signing your name, did you?" "That's an excellent idea," said Danny. He stepped back through the gate, waited for a count of five, and then returned to Eric. Now Eric was standing, and when he saw Danny he visibly sagged with relief. "What kind of moron are you?" "The fun-loving kind," said Danny. "I'm not an idiot, of course I didn't sign my name to IOUs." "Good." "I signed yours.

The world of intelligent people know the interests of billionaires in term of love and innovation. That's the story of how and why WikiBili is created." -- Jean Wallet, the founder of AYCH inc. --

Michael comes to the door with Frederick. ‘Lucky I was here playing Scrabble,’ Frederick says, as they take Henry off my hands. I follow with the wallet and keys that have fallen from his pocket. ‘My father,’ Henry says as they tumble through the door. ‘My son,’ his dad replies, helping him towards the fiction couch. ‘Amy’s going out with Greg Smith,’ I say to explain why Henry’s drunk. ‘I found him in the girls’ toilets.’ ‘In my defence, I was too drunk to know it was the girls’ toilets,’ Henry says. ‘Go to sleep,’ his dad tells him. ‘It’ll seem better in the morning.’ ‘No offence, Dad,’ Henry says, ‘but unrequited love is just as shit in the morning as it is at night. Possibly worse, because you have a whole day ahead of you.’ ‘No offence taken,’ Michael says. ‘You’ve got a point there.’ ‘They should just kill the victims of unrequited love,’ Henry says. ‘They should just take us out the second it happens.’ ‘That would certainly thin the population,’ Michael says, as he tucks a blanket around him.

When I've found does the most good is just to get into taxi and go to Tiffany's. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a reallife place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name.

Life is a Curious Thing. Winter turns to spring and Parvaneh passes her driving test. Of teaches Adrian how to change tires. The kid may have bought a Toyota, but that doesn't mean he's entirely beyond help, Ove explains to Sonja when he visits her one Sunday in April. The he shows her some photographs of Parvaneh's little boy. Four months old and as fat as a seal pup. Patrick has tried to force one of those cell phone camera things on Ove, but he doesn't trust them. So he walks around with a thick wad of paper copies inside his wallet instead, held together by a rubber band. Shows everyone he meets. Even the people who work at the florist's,

I do not love. Love is only for women who are complete. I cannot love while my heart lacks safety and in my wallet there is enough money to pay for a loaf of bread. I cannot kiss you while I am thinking of the house rent and the electricity bills. I cannot behave as a mature woman who can exchange with you phrases of love while my childhood is not yet complete. This is an unfair compromise for safety and for existence.   We only call it love to preserve our dignity.

The answer to that question is…I won’t. You belong with me. Which leads me to the discussion I wanted to have with you.” “Where I belong is for me to decide, and though I may listen to what you have to say, that doesn’t mean I will agree with you.” “Fair enough.” Ren pushed his empty plate to the side. “We have some unfinished business to take care of.” “If you mean the other tasks we have to do, I’m already aware of that.” “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about us.” “What about us?” I put my hands under the table and wiped my clammy palms on my napkin. “I think there are a few things we’ve left unsaid, and I think it’s time we said them.” “I’m not withholding anything from you, if that’s what you mean.” “You are.” “No. I’m not.” “Are you refusing to acknowledge what has happened between us?” “I’m not refusing anything. Don’t try to put words in my mouth.” “I’m not. I’m simply trying to convince a stubborn woman to admit that she has feelings for me.” “If I did have feelings for you, you’d be the first one to know.” “Are you saying that you don’t feel anything for me?” “That’s not what I’m saying.” “Then what are you saying?” “I’m saying…nothing!” I spluttered. Ren smiled and narrowed his eyes at me. If he kept up this line of questioning, he was bound to catch me in a lie. I’m not a very good liar. He sat back in his chair. “Fine. I’ll let you off the hook for now, but we will talk about this later. Tigers are relentless once they set their minds to something. You don’t be able to evade me forever.” Casually, I replied, “Don’t get your hopes up, Mr. Wonderful. Every hero has his Kryptonite, and you don’t intimidate me.” I twisted my napkin in my lap while he tracked my every move with his probing eyes. I felt stripped down, as if he could see into the very heart of me. When the waitress came back, Ren smiled at her as she offered a smaller menu, probably featuring desserts. She leaned over him while I tapped my strappy shoe in frustration. He listened attentively to her. Then, the two of them laughed again. He spoke quietly, gesturing to me, and she looked my way, giggled, and then cleared all the plates quickly. He pulled out a wallet and handed her a credit card. She put her hand on his arm to ask him another question, and I couldn’t help myself. I kicked him under the table. He didn’t even blink or look at me. He just reached his arm across the table, took my hand in his, and rubbed the back of it absentmindedly with his thumb as he answered her question. It was like my kick was a love tap to him. It only made him happier. When she left, I narrowed my eyes at him and asked, “How did you get that card, and what were you saying to her about me?” “Mr. Kadam gave me the card, and I told her that we would be having our dessert…later.” I laughed facetiously. “You mean you will be having dessert later by yourself this evening because I am done eating with you.” He leaned across the candlelit table and said, “Who said anything about eating, Kelsey?” He must be joking! But he looked completely serious. Great! There go the nervous butterflies again. “Stop looking at me like that.” “Like what?” “Like you’re hunting me. I’m not an antelope.” He laughed. “Ah, but the chase would be exquisite, and you would be a most succulent catch.” “Stop it.” “Am I making you nervous?” “You could say that.” I stood up abruptly as he was signing the receipt and made my way toward the door. He was next to me in an instant. He leaned over. “I’m not letting you escape, remember? Now, behave like a good date and let me walk you home. It’s the least you could do since you wouldn’t talk with me.

I love you, Jackson James. I love you. I love-" His arms tightened again and his deep growl rumbling out of his chest silenced me. Our gazes locked. "I need to be in you. Now." My eyes widened. "No time to go home." Then he took one of my hands and started walking back toward the hotel entrance. "Jax?" He looked down at me, his eyes full of hunger. "No time." ... We ended up back in the hotel, standing in front of a wide-eyes hotel clerk. "I need a room." Jax said, smacking down his wallet. "Now.

But more important than any of these was the vast, accretive weight of small things, from planes which hadn’t crashed to men and women who had come to the correct place at the perfect time and thus founded generations. He saw kisses exchanged in doorways and wallets returned and men who had come to a splitting of the way and chosen the right fork. He saw a thousand random meetings that weren’t random, ten thousand right decisions, a hundred thousand right answers, a million acts of unacknowledged kindness.

But she…I…” The emptiness of his thefted recollections was real as any love loss. The rifled wallet seemed trivial. Tears banked his eyes. “But she was—” Confusion snarled the sentence’s end. “What was she, friend?” Calli asked. “She…was.” That was the sad entirety.

Dear Hilde, I assume you're still celebrating your 15th birthday. Or is it the morning after? Anyways, it makes no difference to your present. In a sense, that will last a life time. But I'd like to wish you happy birthday one more time. Perhaps you understand now why I send the cards to Sophie. I am sure she will pass them on to you. P.S. Mom said you lost your wallet. I hereby promise to reimburse you the 150 crowns. You will probably be able to get another school I.D. before they close for the summer vacation. Love from Dad.

The first is simple: I only accept and pay attention to feedback from people who are also in the arena. If you're occasionally getting your butt kicked as you respond, and if you're also figuring out how to stay open to feedback without getting pummeled by insults, I'm more likely to pay attention to your thoughts about my work. If, on the other hand, you're not helping, contributing, or wrestling with your own gremlins, I'm not at all interested in your commentary. The second strategy is also simple. I carry a small sheet of paper in my wallet that has written on it the names of people whose opinions of me matter. To be on that list, you have to love me for my strengths and struggles... To be on my list, you have to be what I call a "stretch-mark friend" - our connection has been stretched and pulled so much that it's become part of who we are, a second skin, and there are a few scars to prove it.

So money doesn't matter once you get down it. It doesn't matter how thin or thick anyone's wallet is. We all hurt. We all love. We're the same. And your past, who you live with, where you came from, it doesn't have to matter. You're creating your own future, and I want to see where the road forward takes you.

He loved his job. What was advertising, anyway, but a knowledge of people and of which buttons to push to nudge them into opening their wallets? It was, he often though, an accepted, creative, even expected twist on picking those wallets. For a man who had spent the first half of his life as a thief, it was the perfect career.

He loved his job. What was advertising, anyway, but a knowledge of people and of which buttons to push to nudge them into opening their wallets? It was, he often thought, an accepted, creative, even expected twist on picking those wallets. For a man who had spent the first half of his life as a thief, it was the perfect career.

2. I live in an apartment. I could never live anywhere but in an apartment. I love apartments because I lose everything. Apartments are horizontal, so it's much easier to find the things I lose-- such as my glasses, gloves, wallet, lipstick, book, magazine, cell phone, and credit card. The other day I actually lost a piece of cheese in my apartment.

I am slowly learning to disregard the insatiable desire to be special. I think it began, the soft piano ballad of epiphanic freedom that danced in my head, when you mentioned that "Van Gogh was her thing" while I stood there in my overall dress, admiring his sunflowers at the art museum. And then again on South Street, while we thumbed through old records and I picked up Morrissey and you mentioned her name like it was stuck in your teeth. Each time, I felt a paintbrush on my cheeks, covering my skin in grey and fading me into a quiet, concealed background that hummed everything you've ever loved has been loved before, and everything you are has already been on an endless loop. It echoed in your wrists that I stared at, walking (home) in the middle of the street, and I felt like a ghost moving forward in an eternal line, waiting to haunt anyone who thought I was worth it. But no one keeps my name folded in their wallet. Only girls who are able to carve their names into paintings and vinyl live in pockets and dust bunnies and bathroom mirrors. And so be it, that I am grey and humming in the background. I am forgotten Sundays and chipped fingernail polish and borrowed sheets. I'm the song you'll get stuck in your head, but it will remind you of someone else. I am 2 in the afternoon, I am the last day of winter, I am a face on the sidewalk that won't show up in your dreams. And I am everywhere, and I am nothing at all.

His eyes are so heavy-lidded I can only see a slit of silver gleaming down at me. Then he licks his lips, and a thrill shoots up my spine. I know that look. I love that look. Wes shoves his trousers down. His thick erection slaps my abs. “I want to touch you,” I beg. “No.” His tone is commanding. It only intensifies the thrill. “Gotta hold you down so you don’t go running off again.” He gives me another lingering kiss just to drive the point home. And when he finally releases my wrists, he’s off the bed before I can reach for him. “Don’t move,” he whispers, and I go still, watching in near fascination as he charges across the room to where he dropped his wallet. He opens it, extracts one of his handy packets of travel lube, and returns to the bed. “Arms over your head.

Dell pulled out his cell phone, speed-dialed a number, and put the phone on speaker. A woman answered with a professionally irritated tone: “What do you need now?” “Jade,” Dell said. “Nope, it’s the Easter Bunny. And your keys are on your desk.” Dell shook his head. “Now darlin’, I don’t always call you just because I’ve lost my keys.” “I’m sorry, you’re right. You wallet’s on your desk, too. As for your little black book, you’re on your own with that one, Dr. Flirt. I’m at lunch.” Dell sighed. “What did we say about you and the whole power-play thing?” “That it’s good for your ego to have at least one woman in your life that you can’t flash a smile at and have them drop their panties?” Dell grinned. “I really like it when you say ‘panties.’ And for the record, I knew where my keys and wallet were.” “No you didn’t.” “Okay, I didn’t, but that’s not why I’m calling. Can you bring burgers and fries for me and Brady? Oh, and Adam, too, or he’ll bitch like a little girl.” “You mean ‘Jade, will you pretty please bring us burgers and fries?’” “Yes,” Dell said, nodding. “That. And Cokes.” He looked at Brady, who nodded. “And don’t forget the ketchup.” “You forgot the nice words.” “Oh, I’m sorry,” Dell said. “You look fantastic today, I especially love the attitude and sarcasm you’re wearing.” Jade’s voice went saccharine sweet. “So some low-fat chicken salads, no dressing, and ice water to go, then?” “Fine,” Dell said, and sighed. “Can we please have burgers and fries?" “You forgot the ‘Thank you, Goddess Jade,’ but we’ll work on that. Later, boss.

But it was. Different. Our kids, my generation’s kids, they… now you, this post-Brando crowd, you new kids can’t like us or dislike us or respect us or not as human beings, Jim. Your parents. No, wait, you don’t have to pretend you disagree, don’t, you don’t have to say it, Jim. Because I know it. I could have predicted it, watching Brando and Dean and the rest, and I know it, so don’t splutter. I blame no one your age, boyo. You see parents as kind or unkind or happy or miserable or drunk or sober or great or near-great or failed the way you see a table square or a Montclair lip-red. Kids today… you kids today somehow don’t know how to feel, much less love, to say nothing of respect. We’re just bodies to you. We’re just bodies and shoulders and scarred knees and big bellies and empty wallets and flasks to you.

What I've found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany's. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name.

I want to say that yes, it was worth it; that I could suffer through pain and torture for her and go through a lot more than what Puck and his friends are capable of, and I can do it for all of eternity; suffer, until she realizes how much I love her. But she’s gone before I can say any of it. I wait till she’s left. And then I reach for my wallet. Hidden inside one of the flaps is a piece of paper that barely conceals a razorblade. Its frayed edges still have my blood on them. The blood is from the previous cuts I’ve made and I carry it around like a trophy, like Dexter carries around his victims’ blood on slides. I use that blade to give myself a cut and it starts bleeding. Right away, it feels as though the pressure that has been building inside me ever since that confrontation with Puck is lifted. I feel free again.

Architecture without pain, art looked at in undiluted pleasure, enjoyment without anxiety, compunction, heartache: there is no beggar woman in the church door, no ragged child or sore animal in the square. The water is safe and the wallet is inside the pocket. There will be no missed plane connection. We are in a country where the curable ills are taken care of. We are in a country where the mechanics of living from transport to domestic heating (alack, poor Britain!) function imaginatively and well; where it goes without saying that the sick are looked after and secure and the young well educated and well trained; where ingenuity is used to heal delinquents and to mitigate at least the physical dependence of old age; where there is work for all and some individual seizure, and men and women have not been entirely alienated yet from their natural environment; where there is care for freedom and where the country as a whole has rounded the drive to power and prestige beyond its borders and where the will to peace is not eroded by doctrine, national self-love, and unmanageable fears; where people are kindly, honest, helpful, sane, reliable, resourceful, and cool-headed; where stranger–shyly–smiles to stranger. "Portrait Sketch of a Country: Denmark 1962

The picture shows a man in mid to late middle age. He has jowls and thinning hair painstakingly combed across his otherwise bald dome. He looks like anyone you would pass on the street without noticing, but Billy can see the family resemblance even in the grainy photo, and Alice Reagan Maxwell loved him enough to carry his wallet, with his obituary inside it. Billy has to like her for that. If she’s going to school here, and

If we did that, we wouldn’t get confused about who was really making things happen. Not surprisingly, we’d get a lot more done too, because we wouldn’t care who’s looking or taking credit. All that energy would be funneled into awesomeness. Even then, though, don’t take the bait that if we do incredible things Jesus will dig us more. He can’t. He already digs us more. And more than that, our pictures are already in His wallet.

That transactions at the market, at the rice seller, in the narrow archways of the gold bazaar were belaboured exchanges of tuts and hisses, whispered offers with lowered eyes, counter-offers protested while patting empty wallets in pockets. That upon agreeing a suitable price, buyer and seller would shake hands three times, reach into stashes of tightly rolled banknotes tucked into nylon socks and secret compartments hand-sewn into underpants.

We were standing outside on the great steps of the hall high above the blue waters of San Francisco Bay, and they were there, the white ships on the tide, and all my love rose to sing my newfound seaman's life. -- The Sea! Real ships! My sweet ship had come in, no dream but true with tangled rigging and actual shipmates and the job slip secure in my wallet and only the night before I'd been kicking cockroaches in my tiny dark room in 3rd Street slums.

The crappy mass media narratives about men will continue. They will go on telling our sons, brothers and fathers that the way to be a man is through your wallet or your fists. Our responsibility is to add other stories and other ideas to the cultural mix. Yes, men can be tough focused warriors. But they can also be gentle and loving and playful and funny and sweet and yes, feminine. They can be healers and caregivers and poets and artists and everything else under the sun.

But were things different: had I not a friend left in the world; were there not a single house open to me in pity; had I to accept the wallet and ragged cloak of sheer penury: as long as I am free from all resentment, hardness and scorn, I would be able to face the life with much more calm and confidence than I would were my body in purple and fine linen, and the soul within me sick with hate. And I really shall have no difficulty. When you really want love you will find it waiting for you.

Kids today… you kids today somehow don’t know how to feel, much less love, to say nothing of respect. We’re just bodies to you. We’re just bodies and shoulders and scarred knees and big bellies and empty wallets and flasks to you. I’m not saying something cliché like you take us for granted so much as I’m saying you cannot… imagine our absence. We’re so present it’s ceased to mean. We’re environmental. Furniture of the world. Jim, I could imagine that man’s absence. Jim, I’m telling you you cannot imagine my absence.

The victim of infidelity lives a lie of assumed safety with the person they love. The lie goes on for months or years, maybe even decades. But unlike the mugging victim, the infidelity victim gives freely. They’re not held up at gunpoint. No, they generously give their wallet, their sex life, their career, their children, their time—every resource they have at their disposal goes to the cheater. It’s a much more insidious theft. And the theft is possible only because we’ve been duped into believing this person loves us and is on our team.

He sat down among the evidence at a barren communal desk in the basement of the station. He looked through the stack of extra fliers that my father had made up. He had memorized my face, but still he looked at them. He had come to believe that the best hope in my case might be the recent rise in development in the area. With all the land churning and changing, perhaps other clues whould be found that would provide the answer he needed. In the bottom of the box was the bag with my jingle-bell hat. When he'd handled it to my mother, she had collasped on the rug. He still couldn't pinpoint the moment he'd fallen in love with her. I knew it was the day he'd sat in our family room while my mother drew stick figures on butcher paper and Buckley and Nate slept toe to toe on the couch. I felt sorry for him. He had tried to solve my murder and he failed. He had tried to love my mother and he had failed. Len looked at the drawing of the cornfield that Lindsey had stolen and forced himself to acknowledge this: in his cautiousness, he had allowed a murderer to get away. He could not shake his guilt. He knew, if no one else did, that by being with my mother in the mall that day he was the one to blame for George Harvey's freedom. He took his wallet out of his back pocket and laid down the photos of all the unsolved cases he had ever worked on. Among them were his wife's. He turned them all face-down. 'Gone,' he wrote on each one of them. He would no longer wait for a date to mark an understanding of who or why or how. He would never understand all the reasons why his wife had killed herself. He would never understand how so many children went missing. He placed these photos in the box with my evidence and turned the lights off in the cold room.

The ubiquity of great food in Tokyo is beyond imagination. It's not just that I'm interested in food and pay close attention to restaurants and takeout shops, although that's true. In Tokyo, great food really is in your face, all the time: sushi, yakitori, Korean barbecue, eel, tempura, tonkatsu, bento shops, delis, burgers (Western and Japanese-style), the Japanese take on Western food called yōshoku, and, most of all, noodles. I found this cheap everyday food- lovingly called B-kyū("B-grade") by its fans- so satisfying and so easy on the wallet that I rarely ventured into anything you might call a nice restaurant.

there is no space in a relationship -that may die easily by suffocation . partner has to understand being together does not mean keeping each other wallet or bank locker keys. mostly women leave such things on men ,but men hold the keys with them most in cases .though other side do the same .this is big reason we misunderstand our space freedom . relationship dies when one of partner cross this space and interfere the free air of individuality . now question is __ then it is relationship. we love each other . we must share our secrets ." the fact is you must respect your relationship . it is not to own .it is for living .worth to grow in individuality .

Antique Foundation Here I built the ruin in My voice on either side of me In the temple the ocean could Not be a crowd I mined The shore with fog the sun dries These bricks I built the vision in The cinder block that is the city Wall this grave Tone I speak with a picture Of myself in my wallet • Don’t be fooled by grass and these words Grass whispers Because they are real they are Ruinous Here, the gossip is in the dust Not the sea cloud enters the open Child’s window dimming the silver Flute’s sheen Where is he Who hears inside the brick those notes? There is a rumor in the city we’ll exist If he plays his song no one knows • Follow that shadow don’t tell me it’s mine Here there is no being alone Here are my hands which tore the leaves so Quietly in the temple the god Emerging from marble points at the chisel At the base of his stone Did I tell you Where I’m going? To the old man Who sings the margin Where on wave-tip swords turn edge over edge Wound us and the shore with foam • My face on either side of my face I tore My picture in half to show the gate You must climb inside your breath to leave As fog the wind will bear you— If you’re lovely—away In the spare clouds The children’s chorus Do you hear?— Where were you, and where are you going? Here I built the ruin in the stone-crushed Sage leaves my hands scented as long ago When I liked to press the desert against my head to think

The pan dulce was perfect, and it gave Anna an idea. Talking to Lila about her favorite memories of her mother had shaken loose parts of the past she had either forgotten or overlooked. Like the songs her mother would sing as she cooked the one and only thing she ever cooked; like that time they visited the family coffee estate and Mum shot a rampaging wild boar and then they cooked and ate it later that night; like the smell of rain in the forest; like the fat, sour gooseberries they would pick off the trees; like fresh peppercorns straight off the vine; like countless other jumbled memories and smells and tastes and sounds that had been tucked away in some corner of her mind gathering dust for so long. Mum's favorite dish, the one and only thing she ever cooked. I'm going to make it. Anna had never learned how to make it, because she had always arrogantly assumed her mother would be around forever, but she had eaten it so many times that she was sure she could recreate it by memory and taste alone. This is it. Her favorite food. She would have to thank Lila for the inspiration later. This was the connection she had been afraid she would never find. It was a way to hold on to everything she had lost. "Can I borrow your wallet, Dad?" Excited for the first time in what felt like months, Anna rushed out to the neighborhood grocery store and picked out the ingredients she hoped would work. Curry leaves, bay leaves, whole black peppercorns, turmeric, ginger, garlic, green chilies, red chilies, limes, honey, and, finally, a fresh shoulder of pork.

So,” Cole says. “Did you decide on a name yet?” Before I can answer, everyone starts speaking at once. “You should name him Jace after your favorite brother.” Cole shoots Jace a dirty look. “You should name him Cole after your good-looking brother.” Dylan gives me a rueful grin. “Dylan is a great boy’s name, too. Just saying.” Sawyer nudges her in the ribs. “So is Sawyer.” Oakley and I exchange a humorous glance. “Okay,” Oakley declares, rubbing his hands together. “The bidding starts at fifty dollars.” After pulling out his wallet, Jace slaps some money on the tray table. “I got a hundred for Jace, right here.” Cole shoves some bills into Oakley’s hands. “I got two hundred for Cole.” Wayne reaches inside his pocket. “Do you take credit?” “Sorry, Pops. Cash only.” Fanning the money in his hand, Oakley looks around the room. “Any more takers?” Dylan pulls some money out of her bra. “Yup. Four hundred for Dylan.” “Well, I didn’t bring my checkbook with me.” Smiling smugly, Sawyer pats her stomach. “But we are having a girl and a boy. Perhaps we can work out an exchange.” Jace glowers. “That’s not fair.” “It’s called bartering, bro.” Reaching over, Cole high-fives his wife. “And that right there is just one reason I love you so much, Bible Thumper. You’re so fucking smart.” Oakley’s shoveling the money into his wallet when a nurse waltzes in. “Hi, Bianca. I’m the lactation nurse. Do you think you’re ready to try breastfeeding yet?” Jace makes a face. “And that’s my cue to leave.” Cole shakes his head. “Not me. I’m not leaving until I know my nephew’s name is Cole.” I’m shifting to get into a more comfortable position when I notice the blue, green, orange, and purple butterflies scattered across the nurse’s scrubs. My chest swells and I look over at Oakley who’s smiling. There’s only one name that feels right. “Liam,” we whisper at the same time.

Are people really gonna buy it if we never touch each other in public?” Peter asks, looking skeptical. “I don’t think relationships are just about physicality. There are ways to show you care about someone, not just using your lips.” Peter’s smiling, and he looks like he’s about to crack a joke, so I swiftly add, “Or any other body part.” He groans. “You’ve gotta give me something here, Lara Jean. I have a reputation to uphold. None of my friends will believe I suddenly turned into a monk to date you. How about at least a hand in your back jean pocket? Trust me, it’ll be strictly professional.” I don’t say what I’m thinking, which is that he cares way too much what people think about him. I just nod and write down, Peter is allowed to put a hand in Lara Jean’s back jean pocket. “But no more kissing,” I say, keeping my head down so he can’t see me blush. “You’re the one who started it,” he reminds me. “And also, I don’t have any STDs, so you can get that out of your head.” “I don’t think you have any STDs.” I look back up at him. “The thing is…I’ve never had a boyfriend before. I’ve never been on a real date before, or held hands walking down the hallway. This is all new for me, so I’m sorry about the forehead thing this morning. I just…wish all of these firsts were happening for real and not with you.” Peter seems to be thinking this over. He says, “Huh. Okay. Let’s just save some stuff, then.” “Yeah?” “Sure. We’ll have some stuff for you to do when it’s the real thing and not for show.” I’m touched. Who knew Peter could be so thoughtful and generous? “Like, I won’t pay for stuff. I’ll save that for a guy who really likes you.” My smile fades. “I wasn’t expecting you to pay for anything!” Peter’s on a roll. “And I won’t walk you to class or buy you flowers.” “I get the picture.” It seems to me like Peter’s less concerned about me and more concerned about his wallet. He sure is cheap.

enough time to truly think and let it all sink in. And here he was asking me to make major decisions based on those emotions? It felt impossible. Fortunately the waiter came then and left the tab at our table. Donovan swiped it before I had a chance to even offer. "I don't expect you to pay for my every meal," I said. A prickly subject perhaps, but much safer than the one we were on before. "I do.” He pulled his gold card from his wallet. "I just told you I wanted a relationship. This is part of a relationship." "Maybe in the 1950s. I'm a modern woman. You should let me take a turn now and then." "Is that part of your terms, then?" He had me there. This subject was more related to the one before than I’d realized. He'd been my benefactor for years, hadn't he? Was that Donovan's idea of a relationship? Taking care of someone? Paying the bills? Coming to the rescue? Had he been taking care of me for too long? Was the ability to pay my own way part of my terms? This was even more complicated to answer than it sounded. And it had already

We’re moving up in the line, and I realize I’m nervous, which is strange, because this is Peter. But he’s also a different Peter, and I’m a different Lara Jean, because this is a date, an actual date. Just to make conversation, I ask, “So, when you go to the movies are you more of a chocolate kind of candy or a gummy kind of candy?” “Neither. All I want is popcorn.” “Then we’re doomed! You’re neither, and I’m either or all of the above.” We get to the cashier and I start fishing around for my wallet. Peter laughs. “You think I’m going to make a girl pay on her first date?” He puffs out his chest and says to the cashier, “Can we have one medium popcorn with butter, and can you later the butter? And a Sour Patch Kids and a box of Milk Duds. And one small Cherry Coke.” “How did you know that was what I wanted?” “I pay a lot better attention than you think, Covey.” Peter slings his arm around my shoulders with a self-satisfied smirk, and he accidentally hits my right boob. “Ow!” He laughs an embarrassed laugh. “Whoops. Sorry. Are you okay?” I give him a hard elbow to the side, and he’s still laughing as we walk into the theater.

Are you driving?” I asked Sam. “Nope. I plan to do some drinking,” Sam said. “You’re not old enough,” I reminded him. “Never stopped me before.” “Sam!” He halted and glared at me. “What? You gonna tattle to Mom and Dad?” Was I? No. But he didn’t know that. Besides, as irritating as my brother was, he was good for one thing: blackmail. And it was payback time for the snowball he’d hit me with yesterday. “Not if you make a contribution to the Kate-have-a-good-time fund.” “Ah, Kate, come on. I’m not hurting anyone. I’m a responsible drinker.” “How can you be responsible if you’re breaking the law?” “I don’t drive when I drink. No one gets hurt except me, if I happen to fall flat on my face.” “You get that drunk?” “I’ve got better things to do than discuss my life with you.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “How much?” “Twenty should do it.” “Five.” “Ten.” He held out the bill that had one of my favorite presidents on it. “You know, Kate, no one likes a snitch.” I snatched it from his fingers, folded it up, and shoved it into the front pocket of my jeans. “Payback’s a bitch, Brother.” “What?” “I wouldn’t have tattled. But I didn’t like getting hit with a snowball yesterday, either. So now we’re even.” He snapped his fingers. “Give it back.” “Nope. Possession is nine-tenths of the law.” “You don’t even know what that means.” “And I suppose you do.

The good news was that he wasn't sixteen anymore and he had this, his art. His food. And if this dinner continued to go the way it was going, if Mrs. Raje stood by her word and gave DJ the contract for her son's fund-raising dinner next month based on tonight's success... well, then they'd be fine. Mrs. Raje had been more impressed thus far. Everything from the steamed momos to the dum biryani had turned out just so. The mayor of San Francisco had even asked to speak to DJ after tasting the California blue crab with bitter coconut cream and tucked DJ's card into his wallet. Only dessert remained, and dessert was DJ's crowning glory, his true love. With sugar he could make love to taste buds, make adult humans sob. The reason Mina Raje had given him, a foreigner and a newbie, a shot at tonight was his Arabica bean gelato with dark caramel. DJ had created the dessert for her after spending a week researching her. Not just her favorite restaurants, but where she shopped, how she wore her clothes, what made her laugh, even the perfume she wore and how much. The taste buds drew from who you were. How you reacted to taste as a sense was a culmination of how you processed the world, the most primal form of how you interacted with your environment. It was DJ's greatest strength and weakness, needing to know what exact note of flavor unfurled a person. His need to find that chord and strum it was bone deep.

Maybe they’d give her everything she wanted. All it would cost was her secrets. Charlie pasted a smile on her face. Glanced at the old “fear less” tattoo looping across the skin of her inner arm. “Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “In that case, I’d like to confess.” “Confess?” Vicereine echoed, puzzled. “Do you remember when Brayan Araya had his secrets written with a laser on grains of rice and kept them in a glass jar under his pillow? I snatched that like I was the tooth fairy. Or remember when Eshe Goodwin got that book with all the detailed illustrations and no one could make head or tail of it? The secrets were written in the artwork, so I cut those pages straight out. I’m not sure she’s opened it up to know they’re missing. I took Owain Cadwallader’s eighteenth-century memoir and discovered a whole pile of notes stitched into the interior binding of another book—I forget the title, but it had these cool metal catches on the side—and took those without letting anyone be the wiser. Oh, and I grabbed Jaden Coffey’s whole collection of seventies shadow magic zines. Want me to go on? I’ve been doing this for years.” She felt giddy, like she was sliding down a hill, no way to stop now. All the exultation of finally admitting to something. “You cut out pages from Eshe’s book?” Vicereine sounded pissed. “I’m a bad person.” Charlie reached into the pocket of her jeans, took something out, and threw it to Malik. Startled, he caught it. When he looked at what was in his hands, his brows drew together. “I also grabbed your wallet when I brushed by you. Sorry.” “You are making some very dangerous enemies,” Vicereine told her. “What’s this all about?” Malik was tight-jawed. “What are you doing?” “Punish me,” Charlie said. “I’m loads worse than Adeline.” “You want it tied to you?” Bellamy asked. The idea of someone inside her head, someone she couldn’t hide her worst thoughts from, someone she loved, made her feel a little queasy. “Yes. Reward or punishment, give him to me. I’ll be the Hierophant.

I’d like to see some identification,” growled the inspector. I fully expected Barrons to toss O’Duffy from the shop on his ear. He had no legal compulsion to comply and Barrons doesn’t suffer fools lightly. In fact, he doesn’t suffer them at all, except me, and that’s only because he needs me to help him find the Sinsar Dubh. Not that I’m a fool. If I’ve been guilty of anything, it’s having the blithely sunny disposition of someone who enjoyed a happy childhood, loving parents, and long summers of lazy-paddling ceiling fans and small-town drama in the Deep South which-while it’s great—doesn’t do a thing to prepare you for live beyond that. Barrons gave the inspector a wolfish smile. “Certainly.” He removed a wallet from the inner pocket of his suit. He held it out but didn’t let go. “And yours, Inspector.” O’Duffy’s jaw tightened but he complied. As the men swapped identifications, I sidled closer to O’Duffy so I could peer into Barrons’ wallet. Would wonders never cease? Just like a real person, he had a driver’s license. Hair: black. Eyes: brown. Height: 6’3”. Weight: 245. His birthday—was he kidding?—Halloween. He was thirty-one years old and his middle initial was Z. I doubted he was an organ donor. “You’ve a box in Galway as your address, Mr. Barrons. Is that where you were born?” I’d once asked Barrons about his lineage, he’d told me Pict and Basque. Galway was in Ireland, a few hours west of Dublin. “No.” “Where?” “Scotland.” “You don’t sound Scottish.” “You don’t sound Irish. Yet here you are, policing Ireland. But then the English have been trying to cram their laws down their neighbors’ throats for centuries, haven’t they, Inspector?” O’Duffy had an eye tic. I hadn’t noticed it before. “How long have you been in Dublin?” “A few years. You?” “I’m the one asking the questions.” “Only because I’m standing here letting you.” “I can take you down to the station. Would you prefer that?” “Try.” The one word dared the Garda to try, by fair means or foul. The accompanying smile guaranteed failure. I wondered what he’d do if the inspector attempted it. My inscrutable host seems to possess a bottomless bag of tricks. O’Duffy held Barrons’ gaze longer than I expected him to. I wanted to tell him there was no shame in looking away. Barrons has something the rest of us don’t have. I don’t know what it is, but I feel it all the time, especially when we’re standing close. Beneath the expensive clothes, unplaceable accent, and cultural veneer, there’s something that never crawled all the way out of the swamp. It didn’t want to. It likes it there.

After wandering the world and living on the Continent I had long tired of well-behaved, fart-free gentlemen who opened the door and paid the bills but never had a story to tell and were either completely asexual or demanded skin-burning action until the morning light. Swiss watch salesmen who only knew of “sechs” as their wake-up hour, or hairy French apes who always required their twelve rounds of screwing after the six-course meal. I suppose I liked German men the best. They were a suitable mixture of belching northerner and cultivated southerner, of orderly westerner and crazy easterner, but in the post-war years they were of course broken men. There was little you could do with them except try to put them right first. And who had the time for that? Londoners are positive and jolly, but their famous irony struck me as mechanical and wearisome in the long run. As if that irony machine had eaten away their real essence. The French machine, on the other hand, is fuelled by seriousness alone, and the Frogs can drive you beyond the limit when they get going with their philosophical noun-dropping. The Italian worships every woman like a queen until he gets her home, when she suddenly turns into a slut. The Yank is one hell of a guy who thinks big: he always wants to take you the moon. At the same time, however, he is as smug and petty as the meanest seamstress, and has a fit if someone eats his peanut butter sandwich aboard the space shuttle. I found Russians interesting. In fact they were the most Icelandic of all: drank every glass to the bottom and threw themselves into any jollity, knew countless stories and never talked seriously unless at the bottom of the bottle, when they began to wail for their mother who lived a thousand miles away but came on foot to bring them their clean laundry once a month. They were completely crazy and were better athletes in bed than my dear countrymen, but in the end I had enough of all their pommel-horse routines. Nordic men are all as tactless as Icelanders. They get drunk over dinner, laugh loudly and fart, eventually start “singing” even in public restaurants where people have paid to escape the tumult of the world. But their wallets always waited cold sober in the cloakroom while the Icelandic purse lay open for all in the middle of the table. Our men were the greater Vikings in this regard. “Reputation is king, the rest is crap!” my Bæring from Bolungarvík used to say. Every evening had to be legendary, anything else was a defeat. But the morning after they turned into weak-willed doughboys. But all the same I did succeed in loving them, those Icelandic clodhoppers, at least down as far as their knees. Below there, things did not go as well. And when the feet of Jón Pre-Jón popped out of me in the maternity ward, it was enough. The resemblances were small and exact: Jón’s feet in bonsai form. I instantly acquired a physical intolerance for the father, and forbade him to come in and see the baby. All I heard was the note of surprise in the bass voice out in the corridor when the midwife told him she had ordered him a taxi. From that day on I made it a rule: I sacked my men by calling a car. ‘The taxi is here,’ became my favourite sentence.

People follow entertainers because they love the celebrity and what they stand for.

All those songs I used to pretend to understand, all the angsty, heartbroken songs I had heard all my life, they suddenly made so much more sense. "Well, then she probably needs a giant coffee, a huge box of your creations, and some time to nurse her feelings in private, don't you think?" Brantley Dane, local hero, saves girl from sure death brought on by sheer mortification. That'd be his headline. "Come on, sweetheart," he said, moving behind me, casually touching my hip in the process, and going behind counter. "What's your poison? Judging by the situation, I am thinking something cold, mocha or caramel filled and absolutely towering with full fat whipped cream." That was exactly what I wanted. But, broken heart aside, I knew I couldn't let myself drown in sweets. Gaining twenty pounds wasn't going to help anything. There was absolutely no enthusiasm in my voice when I said, "Ah, actually, can I have a large black coffee with one sugar please?" "Not that I'm not turned on as all fuck by a woman who appreciates black coffee," he started, making me jerk back suddenly at the bluntness of that comment and the dose of profanity I wasn't accustomed to hearing in my sleepy hometown. "But if you're only one day into a break-up, you're allowed to have some full fat chocolate concoction to indulge a bit. I promise from here on out I won't make you anything even half as food-gasm-ing as this." He leaned across the counter, getting close enough that I could see golden flecks in his warm brown eyes. "Honey, not even if you beg," he added and, if I wasn't mistaken, there was absolutely some kind of sexually-charged edge to his words. "Say yes," he added, lips tipping up at one corner. "Alright, yes," I agreed, knowing I would love every last drop of whatever he made me and likely punish myself with an extra long run for it too. "Good girl," he said as he turned away. And there was not, was absolutely not some weird fluttering feeling in my belly at that. Nope. That would be completely insane. "Okay, I got you one of everything!" my mother said, coming up beside me and pressing the box into my hands. She even tied it with her signature (and expensive, something I had tried to talk her out of many times over the years when she was struggling financially) satin bow. I smiled at her, knowing that sometimes, there was nothing liked baked goods from your mother after a hard day. I was just lucky enough to have a mother who was a pastry chef. "Thanks, Mom," I said, the words heavy. I wasn't just thanking her for the sweets, but for letting me come home, for not asking questions, for not making it seem like even the slightest inconvenience. She gave me a smile that said she knew exactly what I meant. "You have nothing to thank me for." She meant that too. Coming from a family that, when they found out she was knocked up as a teen, had kicked her out and disowned her, she made it clear all my life that she was always there, no matter what I did with my life, no matter how high I soared, or how low I crashed. Her arms, her heart, and her door were always open for me. "Alright. A large mocha frappe with full fat milk, full fat whipped cream, and both a mocha and caramel drizzle. It's practically dessert masked as coffee," Brantley said, making my attention snap to where he was pushing what was an obnoxiously large frappe with whipped cream that was towering out of the dome that the pink and sage straw stuck out of. "Don't even think about it, sweetheart," he said, shaking his head as I reached for my wallet. "Thank you," I smiled, and found that it was a genuine one as I reached for it and, in a move that was maybe not brilliant on my part, took a sip. And proceeded to let out an almost porn-star worthy groan of pure, delicious pleasure. Judging by the way Brant's smile went a little wicked, his thoughts ran along the same lines as well.

I’m insane, Jorie thought. She saw herself lying in a hospital bed, her wallet and valuables gone. When asked why she got into a car with a woman she didn’t know, her reply would land her in the psych ward. Well, you see, I have this fantasy lover because, frankly, they’re so much easier to deal with. She never makes a mess, loves my demonic cat, always says the right thing at the right time. I saw this woman, and she was my dream come to life, so I just had to get into the car with her because I’m an idiot

With a few more days to hold on to, some of us are walking on a tight rope, ready to fall but we know not on which side we want to drown ourselves. On one side there is freedom and the desire to be this carefree, a little irresponsible, a little selfish, a little too thrifty, with some mismanagement, two broken cellphones, one broken laptop, some lost valuables but a heart unbroken and recently found. On the other side awaits luxury and responsibility amidst some smog, some corruption, some people dear to us, some love, some misunderstandings, some too-many-people suffocation, some fun, some reality you are willing to face, some reality you wish didn't exist. You don't wanna go back but there is nothing much left here to be for. You wanna go back but you know once you're back you're gonna miss this time, this place, this feeling terribly. You're a nobody here yet everything in some memorable times, You're somebody there holding on to not be a nobody. I had been living in the moment but today my wallet hardly made a sound as it dropped on the floor. "Nothing much left here to be for," it said.

Don't date just to escape the "Im Single" status. Don't marry just to tick off a checklist. Life is NOT a grocery list. Find yourself first, then find someone who can accommodate the talents, the vision and the ambitions in your heart, someone who can be the enabler for you to emerge into your greatness. Find someone who believes in you, supports and encourages you even when the world laughs at your guts. But first, find yourself because it is far more important to be the right person than it is to date/marry the right person. Become a person of value. Don't go looking for a good woman until you've become a good man. And ladies, don't go looking for a good man till you've become a good woman. If you want a loving, honest, faithful, supportive and rich partner; first become what you are looking for. You must meet the requirements of your own requirements! Leaders, vision bearers and dream chasers look for character, commitment, vision, grit, faith, etc...but ordinary people look for coca-cola bottle shape kinder girl, a six pack kinder guy and a heavy bank balance...but dear men, it's her character that will raise your children not her beauty. It is character that makes a great wife. Dear ladies, It is character that makes a great Dad/husband not a car or a big wallet. Take note good people, you don't need to die to go to hell...misalignment of core values/purpose In your relationship/marriage is the beginning of your own hell right here on earth. In my humble opinion, misalignment of core values is worst than cheating. Yes, both are evil but cheating is a lesser evil compared to misalignment of core values. Trust me, you don't want to test this theory, you may not come out alive. So, leave the girl/boy down the road to a boy/girl down the road. Leave slay queens to slay kings. Leave party queens to party kings. Leave nyaope boys to nyaope girls, drug addicts to drug addicts, leave weed girls to weed boys, playboys to playgirls..,,AND legacy builders to legacy builders!

When you’re leaving the house, there’s an ever so small statistical probability that you’ll get robbed while you’re out. You should really only bring the necessary wallet, keys, and phone.

There are multiple ways in which you can keep your loved ones connected, even if they are dead. You can keep a journal where you write all your happy memories with that person. You can write letters telling them about everything going on in your life (even if you know you can’t send it). Make an album of all their photos. Carry a small picture of them in your wallet. Keep a small piece of jewelry that they owned with you at all times. You can visit their favorite places, watch their favorite movie, or eat their favorite food. It’s the small things that can make you feel connected even after losing them.

A lemon flower stands for clarity, happiness, and hope," I told him, still feeling confused. "That's what my mom always said." Rory studied the necklace and then me. "Clarity, happiness, and hope, huh?" His gaze was warm on my face. "Can I buy it for you?" He turned to the artist and pulled out his wallet. "You don't have to---" I protested, but he was already handing over the cash. "Please? I want to. Every time you wear it, you can be reminded to never give up hope, to seek happiness, and to remember that life is full of second chances.