“
Language is my whore, my mistress, my wife, my pen-friend, my check-out girl. Language is a complimentary moist lemon-scented cleansing square or handy freshen-up wipette. Language is the breath of God, the dew on a fresh apple, it's the soft rain of dust that falls into a shaft of morning sun when you pull from an old bookshelf a forgotten volume of erotic diaries; language is the faint scent of urine on a pair of boxer shorts, it's a half-remembered childhood birthday party, a creak on the stair, a spluttering match held to a frosted pane, the warm wet, trusting touch of a leaking nappy, the hulk of a charred Panzer, the underside of a granite boulder, the first downy growth on the upper lip of a Mediterranean girl, cobwebs long since overrun by an old Wellington boot.
”
”
Stephen Fry
“
I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army.
Visiting Kathy's grave was the less dramatic of the two.
”
”
John Scalzi (Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1))
“
She seemed to be a nice person, too, instead of a homicidal bitch like his former wife. Otherwise, the world should fear. When Mencheres fell for a woman, he fell hard. If Kira asked for her own continent as a birthday present, Mencheres would probably have one conquered for her before she blew out her candles.
”
”
Jeaniene Frost (This Side of the Grave (Night Huntress, #5))
“
Treat your career like a bad boyfriend. Here's the thing. Your career won't take care of you. It won't call you back or introduce you to its parents.Your career will openly flirt with other people while you are around. It will forget you birthday and wreck your car. Your career will blow you off if you call it too much. It's never going to leave its wife.Your career is fucking other people and everyone knows but you. Your career will never marry you. (...) If your career is a bad boyfriend, it is healthy to remember you can always leave and go sleep with somebody else
”
”
Amy Poehler (Yes Please)
“
Why this candle?
Why this cake?
The day of my birth
is not today.
I was born
when you said, 'Hey.
”
”
Kamand Kojouri
“
I need dating advice. Fast...Julian, how did you meet your wife?"
Julian shrugged. "My brother the sex god cursed me into a book for two thousand years. Grace got drunk on her birthday and summoned me out of it."
Vane rolled his eyes. "That's useless. Kyrian? What about you?"
"I woke up handcuffed to Amanda."
Vane could work with that. "So I need to get a set of handcuffs?
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Night Play (Dark-Hunter, #5; Were-Hunter, #1))
“
People weren’t that connected to one another. Terrible things happened constantly and never prevented you from going out for ice cream or celebrating birthdays or going to the movies or paying your taxes or fucking your wife or worrying about the mortgage.
”
”
Rumaan Alam (Leave the World Behind)
“
Thirty- eight years old and he was finished. He sipped at the coffee and remembered where he had gone wrong -- or right. He'd simply gotten tired -- of the insurance game, of the small offices and high glass partitions, the clients; he'd simply gotten tired of cheating on his wife, of squeezing secretaries in the elevator and in the halls;
he'd gotten tired of Christmas parties and New Year's parties and birthdays, and payments on new cars and furniture payments -- light, gas, water -- the whole bleeding complex of necessities.
He'd gotten tired and quit, that's all. The divorce came soon enough and the drinking came soon enough, and suddenly he was out of it. He had nothing, and he found out that having nothing was difficult too. It was another type of burden. If only there were some gentler road in between. It seemed a man only had two choices -- get in on the hustle or be a bum.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (South of No North)
“
You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man, when I express my opinion that such a book as ROBINSON CRUSOE never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years—generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco—and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad—ROBINSON CRUSOE. When I want advice—ROBINSON CRUSOE. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much—ROBINSON CRUSOE. I have worn out six stout ROBINSON CRUSOES with hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and ROBINSON CRUSOE put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain.
”
”
Wilkie Collins (The Moonstone)
“
Today, I celebrate my Mother. Strong, passionate, stubborn and proud. An educator, and wife. She was both fearless and vulnerable, unashamed of either. She demanded the best, especially of me. I dedicate my life to exceeding her highest expectations. This is how I honor my Mother, my friend, my inspiration. In spirit she forever guides me. Thank you momma, for I am never lost.
”
”
Carlos Wallace
“
This would be a perfect day if Ray were here with us, but he's not far away. He's doing well, and I know he'd like to enjoy yourself, Ana. To all of you, thank you for coming to share my beautiful wife's birthday, the first of many to come. Happy birthday, my love." - Christian Grey
”
”
E.L. James (Fifty Shades Freed (Fifty Shades, #3))
“
I was in the fifth grade the first time I thought about turning thirty. My best friend Darcy and I came across a perpetual calendar in the back of the phone book, where you could look up any date in the future, and by using this little grid, determine what the day of the week would be. So we located our birthdays in the following year, mine in May and hers in September. I got Wednesday, a school night. She got a Friday. A small victory, but typical. Darcy was always the lucky one. Her skin tanned more quickly, her hair feathered more easily, and she didn't need braces. Her moonwalk was superior, as were her cart-wheels and her front handsprings (I couldn't handspring at all). She had a better sticker collection. More Michael Jackson pins. Forenze sweaters in turquoise, red, and peach (my mother allowed me none- said they were too trendy and expensive). And a pair of fifty-dollar Guess jeans with zippers at the ankles (ditto). Darcy had double-pierced ears and a sibling- even if it was just a brother, it was better than being an only child as I was.
But at least I was a few months older and she would never quite catch up. That's when I decided to check out my thirtieth birthday- in a year so far away that it sounded like science fiction. It fell on a Sunday, which meant that my dashing husband and I would secure a responsible baby-sitter for our two (possibly three) children on that Saturday evening, dine at a fancy French restaurant with cloth napkins, and stay out past midnight, so technically we would be celebrating on my actual birthday. I would have just won a big case- somehow proven that an innocent man didn't do it. And my husband would toast me: "To Rachel, my beautiful wife, the mother of my chidren and the finest lawyer in Indy." I shared my fantasy with Darcy as we discovered that her thirtieth birthday fell on a Monday. Bummer for her. I watched her purse her lips as she processed this information.
"You know, Rachel, who cares what day of the week we turn thirty?" she said, shrugging a smooth, olive shoulder. "We'll be old by then. Birthdays don't matter when you get that old."
I thought of my parents, who were in their thirties, and their lackluster approach to their own birthdays. My dad had just given my mom a toaster for her birthday because ours broke the week before. The new one toasted four slices at a time instead of just two. It wasn't much of a gift. But my mom had seemed pleased enough with her new appliance; nowhere did I detect the disappointment that I felt when my Christmas stash didn't quite meet expectations. So Darcy was probably right. Fun stuff like birthdays wouldn't matter as much by the time we reached thirty.
The next time I really thought about being thirty was our senior year in high school, when Darcy and I started watching ths show Thirty Something together. It wasn't our favorite- we preferred cheerful sit-coms like Who's the Boss? and Growing Pains- but we watched it anyway. My big problem with Thirty Something was the whiny characters and their depressing issues that they seemed to bring upon themselves. I remember thinking that they should grow up, suck it up. Stop pondering the meaning of life and start making grocery lists. That was back when I thought my teenage years were dragging and my twenties would surealy last forever.
Then I reached my twenties. And the early twenties did seem to last forever. When I heard acquaintances a few years older lament the end of their youth, I felt smug, not yet in the danger zone myself. I had plenty of time..
”
”
Emily Giffin (Something Borrowed (Darcy & Rachel, #1))
“
Thenardier had just passed his fiftieth birthday; Madame Thenardier was approaching her forties, which is equivalent to fifty in a woman; so that there existed a balance of age between husband and wife.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
The easiest way to remember your future wife’s birthday is to marry her on Super Bowl Sunday.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
I was sent forth from the power,
and I have come to those who reflect upon me,
and I have been found among those who seek after me.
Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,
and you hearers, hear me.
You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.
And do not banish me from your sight.
And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.
Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!
Do not be ignorant of me.
For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am and the daughter.
I am the members of my mother.
I am the barren one
and many are her sons.
I am she whose wedding is great,
and I have not taken a husband.
I am the midwife and she who does not bear.
I am the solace of my labor pains.
I am the bride and the bridegroom,
and it is my husband who begot me.
I am the mother of my father
and the sister of my husband
and he is my offspring.
I am the slave of him who prepared me.
I am the ruler of my offspring.
But he is the one who begot me before the time on a birthday.
And he is my offspring in (due) time,
and my power is from him.
I am the staff of his power in his youth,
and he is the rod of my old age.
And whatever he wills happens to me.
I am the silence that is incomprehensible
and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.
I am the voice whose sound is manifold
and the word whose appearance is multiple.
I am the utterance of my name.
-The Thunder, Perfect Mind
”
”
George W. MacRae
“
We were getting closer and closer to that invisible line in the sand. The line that, when crossed, meant I’d no longer be Jamie Maysen’s wife. I’d be some other man’s girlfriend.
A part of me wanted to run away from that line. Another wanted to take a flying leap to the other side. As it was, I was just standing with my toes on its edge. Frozen.
Because I knew the man who’d pull me across was Cole.
… He was the man of the future, patiently waiting on the other side of the line. I could imagine him standing there, holding out his hand.
I wanted to take Cole’s hand.
”
”
Devney Perry (The Birthday List (Maysen Jar, #1))
“
I think we should kill her…What? She’s ruined my entire day. Made me fight with my wife and now you tell me she’s a spy sent to put us all under the jail. What part of ‘kill your enemies before they kill you’ did you sleep through? Your dad was an assassin, same as my mom. Don’t puss on me now, boy. You know what they’d do if they were here. Hell, your own mother would tear her up, spit her out in pieces, and not blink. (Sway)
He’s right. None of you have any reason to help me. Why should you care? (She clicked the vid wall and a picture of a teenage girl was there.) That’s my baby sister, Tempest Elanari Gerran. Her birthday was day before yesterday. She turned sixteen in jail with my mother. I may be out of line, but I’ll bet when you guys turned sixteen, you had a celebration for it with presents and friends wishing you well. You won’t just be killing me. You’ll be killing them, too. Tempest is a prime sexual age and a virgin. Any idea what’s the first thing her new owner will do to her when she’s sold? I don’t want her to ever know the horror that was my sixteenth birthday. (Alix)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Ice (The League: Nemesis Rising, #3; The League: Nemesis Legacy, #2))
Penelope Douglas (Birthday Girl)
“
Living isn't always red bows and birthday balloons.
”
”
Carew Papritz (The Legacy Letters: his Wife, his Children, his Final Gift)
“
Q: What's the best way to ensure that you'll always remember your wife's birthday? A: Forget it once.
”
”
Various (Best Jokes 2014)
“
I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army.
”
”
John Scalzi (Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1))
“
I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife’s grave. Then I joined the army.
”
”
John Scalzi (Old Man's War: Book 1)
“
In the restaurant kitchen, August meant lobsters, blackberries, silver queen corn, and tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. In honor of the last year of the restaurant, Fiona was creating a different tomato special for each day of the month. The first of August (two hundred and fifty covers on the book, eleven reservation wait list) was a roasted yellow tomato soup. The second of August (two hundred and fifty covers, seven reservation wait list) was tomato pie with a Gruyère crust. On the third of August, Ernie Otemeyer came in with his wife to celebrate his birthday and since Ernie liked food that went with his Bud Light, Fiona made a Sicilian pizza- a thick, doughy crust, a layer of fresh buffalo mozzarella, topped with a voluptuous tomato-basil sauce. One morning when she was working the phone, Adrienne stepped into the kitchen hoping to get a few minutes with Mario, and she found Fiona taking a bite out of red ripe tomato like it was an apple. Fiona held the tomato out.
"I'd put this on the menu," she said. "But few would understand.
”
”
Elin Hilderbrand (The Blue Bistro)
“
Every year my wife would get me a card for my birthday, then as I got more involved with her family I found most of her family would send me a card, hell people I didn't even know would send me a card. Considering I'd had years and years without any of this card, gift business, years of just seeing it as another day and cracking on then this was weird beyond compare and I liked it. It made me feel good, but it also made me notice the things that hadn't happened
”
”
Tracie Daily (Mentality - A book for men)
“
> *where Anne Boleyn had been executed.*
>
> …*The stones beneath the altar were prised up. Jane Boleyn and Catherine Howard were buried quickly next to the mouldering remains of Lady Salisbury, Thomas More, Jane’s husband, and another queen of England…. The few attendees walked out of the little church into the courtyard, where the scaffold still stood. The body of Catherine Howard was left to a vast silence. In all probability, she had not yet reached her twenty-first birthday.
”
”
Gareth Russell (Young and Damned and Fair: The Life of Catherine Howard, Fifth Wife of King Henry VIII)
“
I type in Briar. But the password is rejected.
I try my full name, my birthday, muse. All rejected.
My jaw clenches. I have one more option, and it better not be right. I type Briar de Haas.
I’m in.
My stomach churns. He already thinks of me as his wife. His.
”
”
Harmony West (Her Saint (Saint and Sinner Duet, #1))
“
Stepan Arkadyevitch's eyes twinkled gaily, and he pondered with a smile. "Yes, it was nice, very nice. There was a great deal more that was delightful, only there's no putting it into words, or even expressing it in one's thoughts awake." And noticing a gleam of light peeping in beside one of the serge curtains, he cheerfully dropped his feet over the edge of the sofa, and felt about with them for his slippers, a present on his last birthday, worked for him by his wife on gold-colored morocco. And, as he had done every day for the last nine years, he stretched out his hand, without getting up, towards the place where his dressing-gown always hung in his bedroom. And thereupon he suddenly remembered that he was not sleeping in his wife's room, but in his study, and why: the smile vanished from his face, he knitted his brows.
”
”
Leo Tolstoy (Anna Karenina)
“
Lost friend, lost child, lost parent, sister, brother, husband, wife, we will not so discard you! You shall hold your cherished places in our Christmas hearts, and by our Christmas fires; and in the season of immortal hope, and on the birthday of immortal mercy, we will shut out Nothing!
”
”
Charles Dickens (The Complete Christmas Books and Stories)
“
Maybe Mikey is about to have his perfect life with kids and a wife and a rock band and everything he's ever wanted, while I'm dehydrated and tired and should be drinking water, but I'm not, I'm drinking coffee, spending seven dollars and sixty-eight cents to with myself a happy fucking eighteenth birthday that I'd forgotten all about.
”
”
Kathleen Glasgow (Girl in Pieces)
“
There are two ways to turn devils into angels: First, acknowledge things about them that you genuinely appreciate. Uncle Morty took you to the beach when you were a kid. Your mom still sends you money on your birthday. Your ex-wife is a good mother to your children. There must be something you sincerely appreciate about this person. Shift your attention from the mean and nasty things they have said or done to the kind and helpful things they have said or done—even if there are just a few or even only one. You have defined this person by their iniquities. You can just as easily—actually, more easily—define them by their redeeming qualities. It’s your movie. Change the script. Perhaps you are still arguing that the person who has hurt you has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. She is evil incarnate, Rosemary’s baby conceived with Satan himself, poster child for the dark side of the Force, destined to wreak havoc and horror in the lives of everyone she touches. A nastier bitch never walked the earth. Got it. Let’s say all of this is true—the person who troubles you is a no-good, cheating, lying SOB. Now here’s the second devil-transformer. Consider: How has this person helped you to grow? What spiritual muscles have you developed that you would not have built if this person had been nicer to you? Have you learned to hold your power and self-esteem in the presence of attempted insult? Do you now speak your truth more quickly and directly? Are you now asking for what you want instead of passively deferring? Are you setting healthier boundaries? Have you deepened in patience and compassion? Do you make more self-honoring choices? There are many benefits you might have gained, or still might gain, from someone who challenges you.
”
”
Alan Cohen (A Course in Miracles Made Easy: Mastering the Journey from Fear to Love)
“
A few days earlier, in front of his guests at his own birthday celebration, this man had started smashing his own crockery and tearing his and his wife's clothes, because he was not offered enough vodka; then he went on to break every stick of furniture in his house and smash all the windows, and he did it all for the "beauty" of the gesture, as Mr. Karamazov had just now.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov)
“
When I was an aspiring female poet, in the late 1950s, the notion of required sacrifice was simply accepted. The same was true for any sort of career for a woman, but Art was worse, because the sacrifice required was more complete. You couldn't be a wife and mother and also an artist, because each one of these things required total dedication. As nine-year-olds we'd all been trotted off to see the film The Red Shoes as a birthday-party treat: we remembered Moira Shearer, torn between Art and love, squashing herself under a train. Love and marriage pulled one way, Art another, and Art was a kind of demonic possession. Art would dance you to death. It would move in and take you over, and then destroy you. Or it would destroy you as an ordinary woman.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing)
“
Your career won't take care of you. It won't call you back or introduce you to its parents. Your career will openly flirt with other people while you are around. It will forget your birthday and wreck your far. You career will blow you off if you call it too much. IT's never going to leave its wife. Your career is fucking other people and everyone knows but you. Your career will never marry you.
”
”
Amy Poehler (Yes Please)
“
hospice. If she is going to take it, she must move today. The doctors still don’t understand what is wrong with her, only that her self and her strength are ebbing away, and there seems no stopping it. Wilson’s afternoon will be spent getting his wife, with whom he’s traveled the world, ready for her final journey. He is making plans himself to move from their large, beautiful home, with its huge kitchen with tiles around the stove and many bedrooms for visiting guests and grandchildren and Debbie’s home office. Preparing to move to a smaller place, Wilson is giving away treasures—he has given Christa and Marion and me coral and shells and books, and donated large specimens to the aquarium. And yet, in the face of looming tragedy, Wilson has chosen to be with us this morning, celebrating the birthdays of these two young,
”
”
Sy Montgomery (The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness)
“
For his thirtieth and fortieth birthdays, Jobs had celebrated with the stars of Silicon Valley and other assorted celebrities. But when he turned fifty in 2005, after coming back from his cancer surgery, the surprise party that his wife arranged featured mainly his closest friends and professional colleagues. It was at the comfortable San Francisco home of some friends, and the great chef Alice Waters prepared salmon from Scotland
”
”
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
“
it was a wake-up call one day when I realized I’d been waiting for my life to start—my real life—only to realize that it had already happened when I wasn’t paying attention. That train I was waiting to catch raced by me without stopping. There probably wouldn’t be a wife, and I would never know what it would be like to have my kids grow up seeing me every day. At this point, I’m too used to being on my own that I’m like an only child. And an only-child doesn’t know how to share his things.
”
”
Penelope Douglas (Birthday Girl)
“
Nine years ago you made a wish, and I desperately wanted to know what you’d wished for. I wanted it to be for me—for us. I want to spend every birthday with you, be your every birthday wish, Goldie. Because you’ll always be mine. I want to be your forever. There isn’t a version of my future that doesn’t have you in it.” He taps his chest, hitting against his heart. “You’re my entire heart. My entire world. I love you so much that it feels like I live and breathe you. Marry me, Goldie? Make me the luckiest man in the world and become my wife?
”
”
Kat Singleton (Rewrite Our Story (Sutten Mountain, #1))
“
with making the Sorcerer’s Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. There have been many reports of the Sorcerer’s Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight).
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter, #1))
“
But I can’t stop listening, not even as I feel like I’m being ripped apart: a woman’s fiancé died in a limo accident on the way to their wedding; a child drowned in a bathtub after her big brother got locked out of the home while taking out the trash; a girl’s best friend got knifed to death on her birthday, forever staining that day; an older man’s wife and child died during a complicated pregnancy, and while Death-Cast can’t predict the fate of fetuses, the man still could have braced himself for this tremendous hole in his heart; and then there was a girl who got orphaned like me when she lost her parents in a tornado.
”
”
Adam Silvera (The First to Die at the End)
“
She pushed the book toward them, and Harry and Ron read: The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Sorcerer’s Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. There have been many reports of the Sorcerer’s Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight).
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter #1))
“
On this bald hill the new year hones its edge.
Faceless and pale as china
The round sky goes on minding its business.
Your absence is inconspicuous;
Nobody can tell what I lack.
Gulls have threaded the river’s mud bed back
To this crest of grass. Inland, they argue,
Settling and stirring like blown paper
Or the hands of an invalid. The wan
Sun manages to strike such tin glints
From the linked ponds that my eyes wince
And brim; the city melts like sugar.
A crocodile of small girls
Knotting and stopping, ill-assorted, in blue uniforms,
Opens to swallow me. I’m a stone, a stick,
One child drops a carrette of pink plastic;
None of them seem to notice.
Their shrill, gravelly gossip’s funneled off.
Now silence after silence offers itself.
The wind stops my breath like a bandage.
Southward, over Kentish Town, an ashen smudge
Swaddles roof and tree.
It could be a snowfield or a cloudbank.
I suppose it’s pointless to think of you at all.
Already your doll grip lets go.
The tumulus, even at noon, guargs its black shadow:
You know me less constant,
Ghost of a leaf, ghost of a bird.
I circle the writhen trees. I am too happy.
These faithful dark-boughed cypresses
Brood, rooted in their heaped losses.
Your cry fades like the cry of a gnat.
I lose sight of you on your blind journey,
While the heath grass glitters and the spindling rivulets
Unpool and spend themselves. My mind runs with them,
Pooling in heel-prints, fumbling pebble and stem.
The day empties its images
Like a cup of a room. The moon’s crook whitens,
Thin as the skin seaming a scar.
Now, on the nursery wall,
The blue night plants, the little pale blue hill
In your sister’s birthday picture start to glow.
The orange pompons, the Egyptian papyrus
Light up. Each rabbit-eared
Blue shrub behind the glass
Exhales an indigo nimbus,
A sort of cellophane balloon.
The old dregs, the old difficulties take me to wife.
Gulls stiffen to their chill vigil in the drafty half-light;
I enter the lit house.
”
”
Sylvia Plath
“
I remember my wife's birthday, but forget how old she is; I forget our anniversary date, but never forget we're married. I remember the days when women I didn't know would smile at me because they thought I was nice looking, then smile to myself because the memory of that time is enough. I especially give thanks that the phrase, "I know better" is on the tip of my tongue, Finally, I found out Christ has a sense of humor, He has some pretty cool jokes, and boy oh boy, can He tell some stories, especially stories that involve me. Growing old is not the bad thing I thought it would be, especially since growing older is still on the table. But some of those stories He tells.....damn....I didn't realize I made Him laugh so much. But I did. And that's not an entirely bad thing
”
”
Lee Goff
“
The present simple tense is usually introduced as a way of talking about habits: I get up at six o’clock. I have tea and toast for breakfast. I leave for work at seven o’clock. In a further unit, the present continuous is likely to be introduced as describing an activity going on at the time of speaking: He’s working in the study I’m writing a letter. They’re playing outside. And in a later unit we are likely to return to the present simple tense while introducing adverbs of frequency to describe how often we do something: I always brush my teeth. He never forgets his wife’s birthday. We often go to the cinema. If we take the message as the input to learning, we are not restricted in this way, allowing us for example to talk about our habits using more complex and varied structures at the early stages of learning. The
”
”
George Woolard (Messaging: Beyond a Lexical Approach)
“
I pictured my life before me, constantly forgetting items on a shopping list I wouldn’t have ever wanted to write. I pictured my life constantly forgetting my friend’s birthdays, but always being the best gift giver whenever I did remember. I pictured my life where the bread was always eaten the day it was bought, where the cheese was locally made. I pictured my life and saw my wife dancing in the kitchen in a yellow dress that bounced off the back of her ankles as she turned laughing and singing. I pictured tiny footsteps trailing mud over the floorboards and saw tiny hand marks on the walls, I pictured paint everywhere and flowers never dying. I pictured my life and saw myself always dressed perfectly for whatever the temperature outside was. I was crying myself to sleep, forgetting the bills piled in the draw beneath the sink, I pictured my life as my future and not my dream.
”
”
Miller McKenzie (Autonomous Sun On The Platypus River: Thoughts For Walks (Thoughts for walks/Thoughts for dreams))
“
COOKBOOK FOR
THE MODERN HOUSEWIFE
The cover was red with a subtle crosshatch pattern and distressed, the book's title stamped in black ink- all of it faded with age. Bordering the cookbook's cover were hints of what could be found inside. Alice tilted her head as she read across, down, across, and up the cover's edges. Rolls. Pies. Luncheon. Drinks. Jams. Jellies. Poultry. Soup. Pickles. 725 Tested Recipes.
Resting the spine on her bent knees, the cookbook dense yet fragile in her hands, Alice opened it carefully. There was an inscription on the inside cover. Elsie Swann, 1940. Going through the first few, age-yellowed pages, Alice glanced at charts for what constituted a balanced diet in those days: milk products, citrus fruits, green and yellow vegetables, breads and cereals, meat and eggs, the addition of a fish liver oil, particularly for children. Across from it, a page of tips for housewives to avoid being overwhelmed and advice for hosting successful dinner parties. Opening to a page near the back, Alice found another chart, this one titled Standard Retail Beef Cutting Chart, a picture of a cow divided by type of meat, mini drawings of everything from a porterhouse-steak cut to the disgusting-sounding "rolled neck."
Through the middle were recipes for Pork Pie, Jellied Tongue, Meat Loaf with Oatmeal, and something called Porcupines- ground beef and rice balls, simmered for an hour in tomato soup and definitely something Alice never wanted to try- and plenty of notes written in faded cursive beside some of the recipes. Comments like Eleanor's 13th birthday-delicious! and Good for digestion and Add extra butter. Whoever this Elsie Swann was, she had clearly used the cookbook regularly. The pages were polka-dotted in brown splatters and drips, evidence it had not sat forgotten on a shelf the way cookbooks would in Alice's kitchen.
”
”
Karma Brown (Recipe for a Perfect Wife)
“
Marvin thought of his bowel movements as BMs, a phrase he'd heard an army doctor mutter once. His BMs were turning against him, turning violent in a way. He and Eleanor went through the Dolomites and across Austria and nipped into the northwest corner of Hungary and the stuff came crashing out of him, noisy and remarkably dark. But mainly it was the smell that disturbed him. He was afraid Eleanor would notice. He realized this was probably a normal part of every early marriage, smelling the other's smell, getting it over and done with so you can move ahead with your lives, have children, buy a little house, remember everybody's birthday, take a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway, get sick and die. But in this case the husband had to take extreme precautions because the odor was shameful, it was intense and deeply personal and seemed to say something awful about the bearer.
His smell was a secret he had to keep from his wife.
”
”
Don DeLillo
“
• Can I give a smile at almost everyone I see even if I have a bad day! .. Yes I can
• Can I tell a new co-worker a shortcut way to come to work instead of the long one he told us to save him/her sometime every day! .. Yes, I can.
• Can I buy a flower or a bouquet and visit a sick person that I do not know at the hospital maybe once a week or once a month! .. Yes, I can.
• Can I say Happy Birthday to someone you don’t know but you heard like today years ago he/she was born! .. Yes, I can.
• Can I congratulate my neighbor for their newborn child by sending a greeting card or even verbally! .. Yes, I can.
• Can I buy a hot meal or give away a coat to a homeless person when it is too cold or the same meal and an ice-cream when it is too hot! .. Yes I can
• Can ask someone about another one who is important to the first to inquire about his health, condition, how he/she is doing so far! .. Yes I can
• Can I give a little bit of time to my child (or children) every day as a personal time where we could talk, play, discuss, solve, think, enjoy, argue, hang out, play sports, watch, listen, eat, and/or entertain together! .. Yes I can.
• Can I allow some time to listen to my wife without judgment but encouragement almost every day! … Yes I can.
• Can I respectfully talk to my husband at least once a day to show respect and appreciation to the head of our house and family! .. Yes, I can.
• Can I buy a flower and give it to someone I care about and say "I love you" and when the person asks you "what this for" you reply "because I love you". Yes, I can.
• Can I listen to anyone who I feel needs someone else to listen to him/her! .. Yes, I can.
• Can I give away the things that I do not use anyone to others who might need them! .. Yes, I can.
• Can I buy myself something that I do adore and then enjoy it! .. Yes, I can.
• Can I (fill in the blanks)! .. Yes I can.
”
”
Isaac Nash (The Herok)
“
Such is their mutual antipathy that friends have observed that Diana finds her husband’s very presence upsetting and disturbing. He in turn views his wife with indifference tinged with dislike. When a Sunday newspaper reported how the Prince had pointedly ignored her at a concert at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Queen Mother’s 90th birthday, she remarked to friends that she found their surprise rather odd. “He ignores me everywhere and has done for a long time. He just dismisses me.” She would, for example, never contemplate making any input into any of his special interests such as architecture, the environment or agriculture. Painful experience tells her that any suggestions would be treated with ill-disguised contempt. “He makes her feel intellectually insecure and inferior and constantly reinforces that message,” notes a close friend. When Charles took his wife to see A Woman of No Importance when he celebrated his 43rd birthday, the irony was not lost on her friends.
”
”
Andrew Morton (Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words)
“
One of the things I loved about Chris was his sense of humor, which seemed perfectly matched with mine, even at its most offbeat. April Fools’ Day was always a major highlight. A month before our daughter was due, I woke him up in the middle of the night.
“Don’t panic,” I told him, “but I think I’m going into labor.”
“Do we have a bag?” he asked, jumping up immediately.
“No, no, don’t worry.” I slipped out of bed and went to take a shower.
Chris immediately got dressed and, calmly but very quickly, gathered my clothes and packed a suitcase.
“I’m ready!” he announced, barging into the bathroom.
“Babe, do you know what day it is?” I asked sweetly. It was two A.M., April 1.
“Are you kidding me?” he said, disbelieving.
I laughed and plunged back into the shower.
He quickly got revenge by flushing the toilet, sending a burst of cold water across my body.
In retrospect, maybe I’d been a little cruel, but we did love teasing each other. At our wedding, we’d smooshed cake into each other’s faces. That began a tradition that continued at each birthday--whether it was ours or not. The routine never seemed to get old. We’d giggle and laugh, chasing each other as if we were crazy people. Our friends and neighbors got used to it--and learned to stay out of the line of fire.
”
”
Taya Kyle (American Wife: Love, War, Faith, and Renewal)
“
The most poignant lesson, which proved to be the last, was held a few days before the wedding. Diana’s thoughts were on the profound changes ahead. Miss Snipp noted: “Lady Diana rather tired--too many late nights. I delivered silver salt-cellars--present from West Heath school--very beautiful and much admired. Lady Diana counting how many days of freedom are left to her. Rather sad. Masses of people outside of Palace. We hope to resume lessons in October. Lady Diana said: “In 12 days time I shall no longer be me.’”
Even as she spoke those words Diana must have known that she had left behind her bachelor persona as soon as she had entered the Palace portals. In the weeks following the engagement she had grown in confidence and self-assurance, her sense of humour frequently bubbling to the surface. Lucinda Craig Harvey saw her former cleaning lady on several occasions during her engagement, once at the 30th birthday party of her brother-in-law, Neil McCorquodale. “She had a distance to her and everyone was in awe of her,” she recalls. It was a quality also noticed by James Gilbey. “She has always been seen as a typical Sloane Ranger. That’s not true. She was always removed, always had a determination about her and was very matter-of-fact, almost dogmatic. That quality has now developed into a tremendous presence.”
While she was in awe of Prince Charles, deferring to his every decision, she didn’t appear to be overcome by her surroundings. Inwardly she may have been nervous, outwardly she appeared calm, relaxed and ready to have fun. At Prince Andrew’s 21st birthday party which was held at Windsor Castle she was at her ease among friends. When her future brother-in-law asked where he could find the Duchess of Westminster, the wife of Britain’s richest aristocrat, she joked: “Oh Andrew, do stop name dropping.” Her ready repartee, cutting but not vicious, was reminiscent of her eldest sister Sarah when she was the queen bee of the Society circuit.
“Don’t look so serious it’s not working,” joked Diana as she introduced Adam Russell to the Queen, Prince Charles and other members of the royal family in the receiving line at the ball held at Buckingham Palace two days before her wedding. Once again she seemed good humoured and relaxed in her grand surroundings. There wasn’t the slightest sign that a few hours earlier she had collapsed in paroxysms of tears and seriously considered calling the whole thing off.
”
”
Andrew Morton (Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words)
“
Sylphid was beginning to play professionally, and she was subbing as second harpist in the orchestra at Radio City Music Hall. She was called pretty regularly, once or twice a week, and she’d also got a job playing at a fancy restaurant in the East Sixties on Friday night. Ira would drive her from the Village up to the restaurant with her harp and then go and pick her and the harp up when she finished. He had the station wagon, and he’d pull up in front of the house and go inside and have to carry it down the stairs. The harp is in its felt cover, and Ira puts one hand on the column and one hand in the sound hole at the back and he lifts it up, lays the harp on a mattress they keep in the station wagon, and drives Sylphid and the harp uptown to the restaurant. At the restaurant he takes the harp out of the car and, big radio star that he is, he carries it inside. At ten-thirty, when the restaurant is finished serving dinner and Sylphid’s ready to come back to the Village, he goes around to pick her up and the whole operation is repeated. Every Friday. He hated the physical imposition that it was—those things weigh about eighty pounds—but he did it. I remember that in the hospital, when he had cracked up, he said to me, ‘She married me to carry her daughter’s harp! That’s why the woman married me! To haul that fucking harp!’ “On those Friday night trips, Ira found he could talk to Sylphid in ways he couldn’t when Eve was around. He’d ask her about being a movie star’s child. He’d say to her, ‘When you were a little girl, when did it dawn on you that something was up, that this wasn’t the way everyone grew up?’ She told him it was when the tour buses went up and down their street in Beverly Hills. She said she never saw her parents’ movies until she was a teenager. Her parents were trying to keep her normal and so they downplayed those movies around the house. Even the rich kid’s life in Beverly Hills with the other movie stars’ kids seemed normal enough until the tour buses stopped in front of her house and she could hear the tour guide saying, ‘This is Carlton Pennington’s house, where he lives with his wife, Eve Frame.’ “She told him about the production that birthday parties were for the movie stars’ kids—clowns, magicians, ponies, puppet shows, and every child attended by a nanny in a white nurse’s uniform. At the dining table, behind every child would be a nanny. The Penningtons had their own screening room and they ran movies. Kids would come over. Fifteen, twenty kids.
”
”
Philip Roth (I Married a Communist (The American Trilogy, #2))
“
There’s a tap on my shoulder. I turn around and get lost in a sea of blue. A Jersey-accented voice says, “It’s about time, kid,” and Frank Sinatra rattles the ice in his glass of Jack Daniel’s. Looking at the swirling deep-brown liquid, he whispers, “Ain’t it beautiful?” This is my introduction to the Chairman of the Board. We spend the next half hour talking Jersey, Hoboken, swimming in the Hudson River and the Shore. We then sit down for dinner at a table with Robert De Niro, Angie Dickinson and Frank and his wife, Barbara. This is all occurring at the Hollywood “Guinea Party” Patti and I have been invited to, courtesy of Tita Cahn. Patti had met Tita a few weeks previous at the nail parlor. She’s the wife of Sammy Cahn, famous for such songs as “All The Way,” “Teach Me Tonight” and “Only the Lonely.” She called one afternoon and told us she was hosting a private event. She said it would be very quiet and couldn’t tell us who would be there, but assured us we’d be very comfortable. So off into the LA night we went. During the evening, we befriend the Sinatras and are quietly invited into the circle of the last of the old Hollywood stars. Over the next several years we attend a few very private events where Frank and the remaining clan hold forth. The only other musician in the room is often Quincy Jones, and besides Patti and I there is rarely a rocker in sight. The Sinatras are gracious hosts and our acquaintance culminates in our being invited to Frank’s eightieth birthday party dinner. It’s a sedate event at the Sinatras’ Los Angeles home. Sometime after dinner, we find ourselves around the living room piano with Steve and Eydie Gorme and Bob Dylan. Steve is playing the piano and up close he and Eydie can really sing the great standards. Patti has been thoroughly schooled in jazz by Jerry Coker, one of the great jazz educators at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. She was there at the same time as Bruce Hornsby, Jaco Pastorius and Pat Metheny, and she learned her stuff. At Frank’s, as the music drifts on, she slips gently in on “My One and Only Love.” Patti is a secret weapon. She can sing torch like a cross between Peggy Lee and Julie London (I’m not kidding). Eydie Gorme hears Patti, stops the music and says, “Frank, come over here. We’ve got a singer!” Frank moves to the piano and I then get to watch my wife beautifully serenade Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan, to be met by a torrent of applause when she’s finished. The next day we play Frank’s eightieth birthday celebration for ABC TV and I get to escort him to the stage along with Tony Bennett. It’s a beautiful evening and a fitting celebration for the greatest pop singer of all time. Two years later Frank passed away and we were generously invited to his funeral. A
”
”
Bruce Springsteen (Born to Run)
“
Weston, having been born in Chicago, was raised with typical, well-grounded, mid-western values. On his 16th birthday, his father gave him a Kodak camera with which he started what would become his lifetime vocation. During the summer of 1908, Weston met Flora May Chandler, a schoolteacher who was seven years older than he was. The following year the couple married and in time they had four sons.
Weston and his family moved to Southern California and opened a portrait studio on Brand Boulevard, in the artsy section of Glendale, California, called Tropico. His artistic skills soon became apparent and he became well known for his portraits of famous people, such as Carl Sandburg and Max Eastman. In the autumn of 1913, hearing of his work, Margrethe Mather, a photographer from Los Angeles, came to his studio, where Weston asked her to be his studio assistant. It didn’t take long before the two developed a passionate, intimate relationship. Both Weston and Mather became active in the growing bohemian cultural scene in Los Angeles. She was extremely outgoing and artistic in a most flamboyant way. Her bohemian sexual values were new to Weston’s conventional thinking, but Mather excited him and presented him with a new outlook that he found enticing. Mather was beautiful, and being bisexual and having been a high-class prostitute, was delightfully worldly. Mather's uninhibited lifestyle became irresistible to Weston and her photography took him into a new and exciting art form. As Mather worked and overtly played with him, she presented a lifestyle that was in stark contrast to Weston’s conventional home life, and he soon came to see his wife Flora as a person with whom he had little in common.
Weston expanded his horizons but tried to keep his affairs with other women a secret. As he immersed himself further into nude photography, it became more difficult to hide his new lifestyle from his wife. Flora became suspicious about this secret life, but apparently suffered in silence. One of the first of many women who agreed to model nude for Weston was Tina Modotti. Although Mather remained with Weston, Tina soon became his primary model and remained so for the next several years. There was an instant attraction between Tina Modotti, Mather and Edward Weston, and although he remained married, Tina became his student, model and lover. Richey soon became aware of the affair, but it didn’t seem to bother him, as they all continued to remain good friends. The relationship Tina had with Weston could definitely be considered “cheating,” since knowledge of the affair was withheld as much as possible from his wife Flora May.
Perhaps his wife knew and condoned this new promiscuous relationship, since she had also endured the intense liaison with Margrethe Mather. Tina, Mather and Weston continued working together until Tina and Weston suddenly left for Mexico in 1923.
As a group, they were all a part of the cozy, artsy, bohemian society of Los Angeles, which was where they were introduced to the then-fashionable, communistic philosophy.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
A few years ago, a couple of young men from my church came to our home for dinner. During the course of the dinner, the conversation turned from religion to various world mythologies and we began to play the game of ‘Name That Character.” To play this game, you pick a category such as famous actors, superheroes or historical characters. In turn, each person describes events in a famous character’s life while everyone else tries to guess who the character is. Strategically you try to describe the deeds of a character in such a way that it might fit any number of characters in that category. After three guesses, if no one knows who your character is, then you win.
Choosing the category of Bible Characters, we played a couple of fairly easy rounds with the typical figures, then it was my turn. Now, knowing these well meaning young men had very little religious experience or understanding outside of their own religion, I posed a trick question. I said, “Now my character may seem obvious, but please wait until the end of my description to answer.” I took a long breath for dramatic effect, and began, “My character was the son of the King of Heaven and a mortal woman.” Immediately both young men smiled knowingly, but I raised a finger asking them to wait to give their responses.
I continued, “While he was just a baby, a jealous rival attempted to kill him and he was forced into hiding for several years. As he grew older, he developed amazing powers. Among these were the ability to turn water into wine and to control the mental health of other people. He became a great leader and inspired an entire religious movement. Eventually he ascended into heaven and sat with his father as a ruler in heaven.”
Certain they knew who I was describing, my two guests were eager to give the winning answer. However, I held them off and continued, “Now I know adding these last parts will seem like overkill, but I simply cannot describe this character without mentioning them. This person’s birthday is celebrated on December 25th and he is worshipped in a spring festival. He defied death, journeyed to the underworld to raise his loved ones from the dead and was resurrected. He was granted immortality by his Father, the king of the gods, and was worshipped as a savior god by entire cultures.”
The two young men were practically climbing out of their seats, their faces beaming with the kind of smile only supreme confidence can produce. Deciding to end the charade I said, “I think we all know the answer, but to make it fair, on the count of three just yell out the answer. One. Two. Three.”
“Jesus Christ” they both exclaimed in unison – was that your answer as well?
Both young men sat back completely satisfied with their answer, confident it was the right one…, but I remained silent. Five seconds ticked away without a response, then ten. The confidence of my two young friends clearly began to drain away. It was about this time that my wife began to shake her head and smile to herself. Finally, one of them asked, “It is Jesus Christ, right? It has to be!”
Shaking my head, I said, “Actually, I was describing the Greek god Dionysus.
”
”
Jedediah McClure (Myths of Christianity: A Five Thousand Year Journey to Find the Son of God)
“
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”
”
Call Girls in Delhi Dwarka Mor
“
Word Power
I could have tried to have another son,
Mother said, but then I'd have to divide
my love in two, so I sacrificed,
& just had you. But sometimes I think
you could have used the competition
that a baby brother would have brought.
All the relatives would put him in their arms,
& hold him high over their heads. And that just might
stir you to action. Because right now
you're even too lazy to look up a word
in the dictionary, & your vocabulary is limited.
And one day your wife is going to ask you
if you really love her. And you should
tell her yes, & that you also idolize her.
But since you don't know what that word means,
you won't be able to use it. And even if
she buys you Webster's Unabridged Dictionary
for a birthday present, you still might not get the hint.
”
”
Hal Sirowitz
“
They both laughed, and then Maude surprised herself by saying, "You've been a good friend, Brien, for longer than I can remember. You helped me get through the worst time of my life, and I never thanked you . . . not until now."
She did not need to elaborate; he understood. Their memories were suddenly functioning as one, taking them back more than thirteen years. She had been twenty-five, and no longer able to resist her father's will, agreeing at last to wed Geoffrey of Anjou. On her betrothal journey from England to Normandy, the old king had entrusted her to the custody of his eldest son, Robert, and his foster son, Brien. They had carried out the king's charge, escorted Maude to Rouen for the plight troth, and the following year she and Geoffrey had been wed at Le Mans.
"Why should you thank me? I did as the king bade, turned you over to Geoffrey of Anjou, when I ought to have hidden you away where he never could have found you."
Maude was started. "You did what you could, Brien, you made me feel--without a word being said-- that you understood, that you were on my side. That may not sound like much, but it was."
"If I had it to do over again . . ." His smile held no humor, just a disarming flash of self-mockery. "I suppose I'd do the same, however much I'd like to think I would not. But my regrets would be so much greater, knowing as I do now how miserable he'd make you. I never forgave your father for that, for forcing you to wed a man so unworthy of you--" He stopped abruptly, and a tense, strained silence followed, which neither of them seemed able to break.
Maude was staring at Brien, a man she'd known all her life, and seeing a stranger. Had she lost her wits altogether? How could she have confided him him like this ? She'd long ago learned to keep her fears private, her pain secret, all others at a safe distance, yet here in a barren winter garden, she'd lowered her defenses, allowing Brien to get a glimpse into her very soul. Even worse, she'd seen into his soul, too, discovered what she ought never to have known. She felt suddenly as flustered as a raw, green girl, she who was a widow, wife, and a mother, a woman just a month shy of her thirty-ninth birthday, a woman who could be queen.
”
”
Sharon Kay Penman (When Christ and His Saints Slept (Plantagenets #1; Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, #1))
“
A woman's world has always revolved around children and other women. At least as long as I've been around, and I'm almost 60." she smoothed the sheet draped across Ellie as she talked, tucking it in around the sides of her body like a cocoon.
"Don't get me wrong," she continued. "We love our men, and the idea of a husband is a good thing. What woman wouldn't want that?"
Ellie thought of her brave, independent Aunt Nessa, teaching until she was seventy and dying in ehr sleep on a train bound for New Mexico. She'd never wanted to marry, and she was the happiest woman Ellie had ever known.
Mrs Drake put the tissue from the box on Ellie's nightstand and blew her nose. "Men need us more than we need them," she said, and then lowered her voice. "Including the doctors around here. They walk around acting like God, but you should see the panic when one of them has to buy a birthday present for his wife. They have no idea what women want."
She washed her hands in the small sink in the corner. "That's why we need our women friends. We're with each other from the beginning to the very end, and everything in between. We understand each other. It's instinctual.
”
”
Connie Schultz (The Daughters of Erietown)
“
This is the way I spent my sumer vacation. I got a new girls too wheeler for my birthday in july and all sumer I rode my too wheeler its a speshul delux too wheeler with a siren a seled beem hedlite a basket and wife side walled tires. The color is read with wife strips. I like my too wheeler its the best one on the street and wen I ride by the other kids are jelus. I rode by than all sumer.
“D.
”
”
Robert F. Young (The 40th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK®: Robert F. Young (vol. 1))
“
even though my boyfriend has confronted them about it. What can I do to get them to accept me? Acceptance is overrated! So are birthday dinners, good health, and, frankly, having parents. I killed mine while I was still a teen, because I knew that if I didn’t, my adult life would be ceaselessly tormented by the insurmountable demands of my overbearing mom and dad, people who couldn’t be bothered to teach me how to balance a checkbook but would nevertheless feel entitled to weigh in on my choice of career and life mate and Internet service provider. Neither of them lived long enough to suffer through the indignity of an introductory meal with someone I was sleeping with, and thank goodness for that. My parents have been dead for twenty-two years and even now my insides churn at the very thought of my father scowling at my wife over his leather-tough tri tip at the Sizzler like, “You’re a what now?
”
”
Samantha Irby (Wow, No Thank You.)
“
Your husband is doing this for your own good, they both concur.
‘Your own good’ was the mantra of my mother when I was growing up – it justified
being force-fed laxatives once every three months, not celebrating my birthdays at
school, curfews against travelling alone, refusal of permission to go to picnics. ‘Your
own good’ was the reason my English teacher offered when she pulled me by the ear and led me out of the classroom, shouting rowdy girl rowdy girl rowdy girl this is for your own good and struck me with a wooden ruler. ‘Your own good’ was what justified my teenage neighbour putting his fingers inside my eight-year-old vagina to check for forest insects and bed bugs and evil imps. When I hear ‘your own good’ I am reduced to being a child again. I do not argue any more. I go silent.
”
”
Meena Kandasamy (When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife)
“
Your husband is doing this for your own good, they both concur.
‘Your own good’ was the mantra of my mother when I was growing up – it justified being force-fed laxatives once every three months, not celebrating my birthdays at school, curfews against travelling alone, refusal of permission to go to picnics. ‘Your own good’ was the reason my English teacher offered when she pulled me by the ear and led me out of the classroom, shouting rowdy girl rowdy girl rowdy girl this is for your own good and struck me with a wooden ruler. ‘Your own good’ was what justified my teenage neighbour putting his fingers inside my eight-year-old vagina to check for forest insects and bed bugs and evil imps. When I hear ‘your own good’ I am reduced to being a child again. I do not argue any more. I go silent.
”
”
Meena Kandasamy (When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife)
“
They’re not exactly the most physically imposing people in the world (that’s what happens when you live on nothing but soy lattes and veggie burgers), but the sheer force of their numbers is shocking. They have allowed hate to spread at a rate we haven’t seen since the era of civil rights, when Democrats—the party that founded the KKK, in case you’ve forgotten—would organize lynch mobs and counterprotests all across the South, most of which ended in horrific violence. These people are irrational, hysterical, upset, and out looking for enemies. I should know. As of November 16, 2016, I became one of their top targets. Before the election, I was just a guy who appeared on television every once in a while, went to work, and went home at the end of the day and played with my kids. There were probably a few people who thought I was an asshole because I was blessed to have been born into a wealthy family. But no one was mailing suspicious powder to my home or screaming at me in a restaurant where I was celebrating my brother’s birthday. No one was threatening my life. After the election, I became the guy who receives the second highest number of death threats in the country (according to the Secret Service, second only to my father). And that’s a list that includes senators, former presidents, and ambassadors to several war-torn countries. Here’s what the exploding letter filled with powder that sent my then wife and a member of my Secret Service detail to the hospital said: “You are an awful person. This is why people hate you. You are getting what you deserve. So shut the f—k up.
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Donald Trump Jr. (Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us)
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Thus, the marriage counselor tells us, the husband should “understand” his wife and be helpful. He should comment favorably on her new dress, and on a tasty dish. She, in turn, should understand when he comes home tired and disgruntled, she should listen attentively when he talks about his business troubles, should not be angry but understanding when he forgets her birthday. All this kind of relationship amounts to is the well‑oiled relationship between two persons who remain strangers all their lives, who never arrive at a “central relationship,” but who treat each other with courtesy and who attempt to make each other feel better.
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Erich Fromm (The Art of Loving)
“
I’ve got my wife, Judy, in the car,” John said.
“I’ve heard of her,“ a young man shouted from the crowd.
“What you heard about her is not true,” John replied. “They never went to bed.”
Smokey was astonished. John was crazy drunk, making no sense.
“This guy is a killer,” John said, pointing at Smokey and throwing the problem of the stranger his way. Smokey backed away and guided John outside.
“What the hell was that about Judy?” Smokey asked. “It’s between us,” John replied.
In the limousine, the others were drinking champagne. “
I’m tired of you fooling around
,” John said to Judy.
She threw her glass of champagne in his face.
John leapt out of the car and ran toward the club. Smokey followed and grabbed John in a full body embrace, locking his arms at his side.
“Let me celebrate my birthday!” John yelled. He broke loose, turned and clutched Smokey’s jacket. “You piss me off,” he said. “Don’t ever grab me again—never, never!”
Smokey nodded. They walked to the car. Before they had driven the four blocks to Morton Street, John had passed out. Smokey carried him inside, undressed him and put him into bed.
”
”
Bob Woodward (Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi)
“
Back then, birthdays were almost something to be feared rather than celebrated, as if getting older was a hinderance rather than a help. But now I see that there is a beauty that comes with age, as well as a wisdom, and the older I get, the calmer and more confident I seem to feel.
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”
Daniel Hurst (The Doctor's Child (The Doctor's Wife, #4))
“
Hope was a fruitless emotion with no action behind it. Hope was waiting for something good to happen, making a birthday wish; action required so much more.
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Kiersten Modglin (The Liar's Wife)
“
The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Sorcerer’s Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. There have been many reports of the Sorcerer’s Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight).
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”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter, #1))
“
Yeah!” she says. “It’s your birthday present. I’m gonna buy you a wife.” “I thought the best wives were free,” I say. “And forced on you against your will.” “Can’t argue with that,” Callum says, swinging his arm around Aida’s shoulders.
”
”
Sophie Lark (Heavy Crown (Brutal Birthright, #6))
“
Natalie gave him a smile and lifted the mug to her lips. The tea was just right. ‘Who’s the FLO on this?’ Murray asked, referring to the family liaison officer who’d be with the officer breaking the news to Ava’s parents. ‘Tanya Granger. I told her we’d go over later to talk to them. Give them a chance for the news to sink in first.’ Natalie brushed to one side the printed articles they’d retrieved from the Internet, and spoke again. ‘DI Howard Franks led the original investigation. He had to retire from the force soon afterwards on account of his wife’s health. She’s sadly passed away since. He’ll be in any minute to take us through it. Has to drop off his daughters at school first.’ On cue, the ex-detective arrived, dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt and a light-coloured bomber jacket.
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Carol Wyer (The Birthday (Detective Natalie Ward, #1))
“
My wife said that, for her birthday, she would like to go somewhere where she had not been for a long time. "What about the kitchen?" I offered. ♦◊♦◊♦◊♦
”
”
Various (101 Best Jokes)
“
Once upon a time, there lived a man who had a terrible passion for baked beans. He loved them, but they always had an embarrassing and somewhat lively reaction on him. One day he met a girl and fell in love. When it was apparent that they would marry, he thought to himself 'She'll never go for me carrying on like that,' so he made the supreme sacrifice and gave up beans, and shortly after that they got married. A few months later, on the way home from work, his car broke down and since they lived in the country, he called his wife and told her he would be late because he had to walk. On his way home, he passed a small cafe and the wonderful aroma of baked beans overwhelmed him. Since he still had several miles to walk he figured he could walk off any ill affects before he got home. So he went in and ordered, and before leaving had three extra-large helpings of baked beans. All the way home he farted. He 'putted' down one hill and 'putt-putted' up the next. By the time he arrived home he felt reasonably safe. His wife met him at the door and seemed somewhat excited. She exclaimed, 'Darling, I have the most wonderful surprise for you for dinner tonight!' She put a blindfold on him, and led him to his chair at the head of the table and made him promise not to peek. At this point he was beginning to feel another one coming on. Just as she was about to remove the blindfold, the telephone rang. She again made him promise not to peek until she returned, and she went to answer the phone. While she was gone, he seized the opportunity. He shifted his weight to one leg and let go. It was not only loud, but *ripe* as a rotten egg. He had a hard time breathing, so he felt for his napkin and fanned the air about him. He had just started to feel better, when another urge came on. He raised his leg and 'rrriiiipppp!' It sounded like a diesel engine revving, and smelled worse. To keep from gagging, he tried fanning his arms a while, hoping the smell would dissipate. Things had just about returned to normal when he felt another urge coming. He shifted his weight to his other leg and let go. This was a real blue ribbon winner; the windows rattled, the dishes on the table shook and a minute later the flowers on the table were dead. While keeping an ear tuned in on the conversation in the hallway, and keeping his promise of staying blindfolded, he carried on like this for the next ten minutes, farting and fanning them each time with his napkin. When he heard the 'phone farewells' (indicating the end of his loneliness and freedom) he neatly laid his napkin on his lap and folded his hands on top of it. Smiling contentedly, he was the picture of innocence when his wife walked in. Apologizing for taking so long, she asked if he had peeked at the dinner. After assuring her he had not, she removed the blindfold and yelled, 'Surprise!' To his shock and horror, there were twelve dinner guests seated around the table for his surprise birthday party.
”
”
E. King (Best Adult Jokes Ever)
“
Recoiling backwards from the horror, his flight catapulted him headlong over the rail of the balcony. His piercing scream drowned out the uproarious Happy Birthday greeting from his wife, friends, and neighbors flooding into the hallway and the living room to begin the celebration. In midair, when someone turned on the lights in the dining room, Gary saw the monster from the master bedroom pulling off her rubber mask and looking down at him from the railing with sad eyes. It was Janine, his next-door neighbor. In the seconds before Gary lost consciousness after breaking his neck on the ceramic tile floor, he saw the entire room fill with balloons and confetti. Gwen looked ravishing in her favorite cocktail dress blowing a noisemaker and tossing a streamer into the air. A huge banner with the words, “Happy Halloween, Gary on Your 40th Birthday… A Night To Remember” was the last thing he saw before the grim reaper gobbled him up. Gwen had done it again. She had planned a truly memorable party that no one in attendance would ever forget. Gary died on the same day he was born, October 31.
”
”
Billy Wells (Don't Look Behind You)
“
Paige's full name is Mindy Paige Davis, and until Tradung Spaces, that was her showbiz name too. She likes the name Paige and tacked it onto her first name, so her family and friends still call her Mindy Paige. When she got the Trading Spaces job, the producers asked her I'd "Mindy" was short for anything more mature-sounding. Paige decided to drop her first name. That solved one problem, but it caused another when her boyfriend, Patrick, proposed: his last name is Page. So Paige kept her maiden name. Patrick had always called her Mindy, but for her 32nd birthday, he gave his wife a unique gift: He started calling her Paige.
”
”
Brian Kramer (Trading Spaces Behind the Scenes: Includes Decorating Tips and Tricks)
“
After we got McDonald’s going and built a larger staff, they all called her “Mother Martino.” She kept track of everyone’s family fortunes, whose wife was having a baby, who was having marital difficulties, or whose birthday it was. She helped make the office a happy place. It
”
”
Ray Kroc (Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's)
“
It was obvious that Frank Sinatra enjoyed friendly relations with Mafia notables such as Carlo Gambino, “Joe Fish” Fischetti and Sam Giancana. The Federal Bureau of Investigation kept their eye on Sinatra for almost 50 years. Meyer Lansky was said to have been a friend of Sinatra’s parents in Hoboken. During this time Sinatra spoke in awe about Bugsy Siegel and was in an AP syndicated photograph, seen in many newspapers, with Tommy 'Fatso' Marson, Don Carlo Gambino 'The Godfather', and Jimmy 'The Weasel, Fratianno.
A memo in FBI files revealed that Sinatra felt that he could be of use to them. However, it is difficult to believe that Sinatra would have become an FBI informer, better known as a “rat.”
Sinatra was being treated at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where physicians were attempting to stabilize his medical downhill spiral, when he told his wife Barbara, “I’m losing.” Frank Sinatra died on May 14, 1998, at 82 years of age. It is alleged that he was buried with the wedding ring from his ex-wife, Mia Farrow, which she slid unnoticed into his suit pocket during his “viewing.”
Aside from his perceived personal and public image, Frank Sinatra’s music will shape his enduring legacy for decades to come. His 100th birthday was celebrated at the Hollywood Bowl on Wednesday, July 22, 2015, and elsewhere for the remainder of the year.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
If I have learned anything, it is to keep my wife happy by sending her lavish gifts. Other men can learn from my success and send their wives and girlfriends fresh flowers for birthdays, anniversaries, and of course, Valentine's Day.
”
”
--Don Rickles
“
I’d already been an orphan, a wife, and a mother. Now I was a widow. I was only three months past my sixteenth birthday.
”
”
Donna Foley Mabry (Maude)
“
Q: What's the best way to ensure that you'll always remember your wife's birthday?
A: Forget it once.
”
”
Various (Best Jokes 2014)
“
Among other jobs that we did, my brother Bill and I were shoe shine boys in Jersey City and Hoboken during the World War II years. We went from tavern to tavern shining shoes for ten cents and hopefully a generous tip. The Hoboken waterfront bristled with starkly looming, grey hulled Liberty ships. Secured to the piers facing River Street, they brandished their ominous cannons towards what I thought was City Hall. An unappreciated highlight was when I shined Frank Sinatra’s shoes at a restaurant on Washington Street, just west from the Clam Broth House. There was no doubt but that Hoboken was an exciting place during those years. Years later I met Frank at Jilly's saloon, a lounge on West 52d Street in Manhattan, for a few drinks and a little fun around town. Even though I was an adult by then, he still called me “kid!”
It was obvious that Frank Sinatra enjoyed friendly relations with Mafia notables such as Carlo Gambino, “Joe Fish” Fischetti and Sam Giancana. Meyer Lansky was said to have been a friend of Sinatra’s parents in Hoboken. During this time Sinatra spoke in awe about Bugsy Siegel and was in an AP syndicated photograph, seen in many newspapers, with Tommy “Fatso” Marson, Don Carlo Gambino 'The Godfather', and Jimmy 'The Weasel, Fratianno. Little wonder that the Federal Bureau of Investigation kept their eye on Sinatra for almost 50 years.
A memo in FBI files revealed that Sinatra felt that he could be of use to them. However, it is difficult to believe that Sinatra would have become an FBI informer, better known as a “rat.”
It was in May of 1998 when Sinatra, being treated at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles told his wife Barbara, “I’m losing.” Frank Sinatra died on May 14th at 82 years of age. It is alleged that he was buried with the wedding ring from his ex-wife, Mia Farrow, which she slid unnoticed into his suit pocket during his “viewing.”
Aside from his perceived personal and public image, Frank Sinatra’s music will shape his enduring legacy for decades to come. His 100th birthday was celebrated at the Hollywood Bowl on Wednesday, July 22, 2015. Somehow Frank will never age and his music will never fade….
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
The Gestapo hanged the final group of 28 July 20th “traitors” on April 20th, 1945 as a birthday present to the Fuhrer. Many of the victims made no effort to either kill themselves or escape prior to their arrest, preferring to await the Gestapo with “dignity” and thus express their belief they were neither criminals nor traitors but brave German officers doing their duty and accepting the consequences of failure. Peter Yorck von Wartenburg wrote to his wife during the trials, “I, too, am dying for my country, and even if it seems to all appearances a very inglorious and disgraceful death, I shall hold up my head and I only hope that you will not believe this to be from pride or delusion. We wished to light the torch of life and now we stand in a sea of flames.” (Thomsett, 1997, 236).
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Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
“
Treat your career like a bad boyfriend. Here’s the thing. Your career won’t take care of you. It won’t call you back or introduce you to its parents. Your career will openly flirt with other people while you are around. It will forget your birthday and wreck your car. Your career will blow you off if you call it too much. It’s never going to leave its wife. Your career is fucking other people and everyone knows but you.
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”
Amy Poehler (Yes Please)
“
So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself” (Eph. 5:28). A man does not care for his own body sporadically. As Paul puts it, no one ever hated his own flesh. Imagine a man taking his body out to a restaurant only on its birthday, and giving it a present only on its anniversary. No, a man’s relationship with his body is much more . . . ongoing. A man deals with his own body in one way or another every minute of every day. And when a man does what Paul requires here, he loves his wife in this same ongoing, incarnational way.
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”
Douglas Wilson (Federal Husband)
“
the Sorcerer’s Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. There have been many reports of the Sorcerer’s Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight).
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter #1))
“
And being dirty and broken – how could he love, or be loved? Going back AS A GIFT to my father for his eightieth birthday, my wife and I organised a trip to Hungary.
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”
Stephen Grosz (The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves)
“
My wife always knows exactly,” he said. There was a bit of tobacco on his wet lip. “But that’s probably because she only lets me do it twice a year, Valentine’s and my birthday, so it’s not hard to figure.” He stepped out the door and then turned to say, “I got two kids born in
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Alice McDermott (After This)
“
At one point when I was in the middle of the first season, I asked myself why I would want to watch a conservative Democrat destroy teachers’ unions and have joyless sex with a woman who looks like a very young teenager. I still had not answered the question when Claire pushed things to the next level in a scene so intensely creepy that it might count as the most revolting thing I have ever witnessed on television. A longtime member of the couple’s Secret Service security detail is dying of cancer, and Claire goes to visit him alone. On his deathbed, he reveals that he was always secretly in love with her and thought that Frank wasn’t good enough for her. Her response is almost incomprehensible in its cruelty—she mocks and taunts him for thinking he could ever attain a woman like her, and then puts her hand down his pants and begins to give him a handjob, all the while saying, in true perverse style, “This is what you wanted, right?” Surely Claire doesn’t have to emotionally destroy a man who is dying of cancer—and yet perhaps in a way she does, because she uses it as a way of convincing herself that Frank really is the right man for her. Not only could an average, hardworking, sentimental man never satisfy her, but she would destroy him. By contrast, Frank not only can take her abuse, but actively thrives on it, as she does on his. Few images of marriage as a true partnership of equals are as convincing as this constant power struggle between two perverse creeps.
Claire is not the first wife in the “high-quality TV drama” genre to administer a humiliating handjob. In fact, she is not even the first wife to administer a humiliating handjob to a man who is dying of cancer. That distinction belongs to Skyler White of Breaking Bad, who does the honors in the show’s pilot. It is intended as a birthday treat for her husband Walt, who is presumably sexually deprived due to his wife’s advanced pregnancy, and so in contrast to Claire’s, it would count as a generous gesture if not for the fact that Skyler continues to work on her laptop the entire time, barely even acknowledging Walt’s presence in the room. In her own way, Skyler is performing her dominance just as much as Claire was with her cancer patient, but Skyler’s detachment from the act makes it somehow even creepier than Claire’s.
”
”
Adam Kotsko (Creepiness)
“
Francis Huntrodds and his wife Mary died within five hours of one another on their 80th birthday – their joint 80th birthday. They were both born on 19 September 1600, and both died on 19 September 1680. For completeness, they got married on 19 September too.
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”
Anonymous
“
his…demands?” And then she had held her breath as if seriously expecting Isabel to answer. And last night as Isabel passed a half-open bedroom door, she had overheard a fellow guest speaking to her maid. “I do so admire Lady Isabel for not feeling the need to bow to the demands of fashion,” the woman had said. “She dresses instead in what is comfortable even if it is not in the first stare. Though I find it no wonder her husband has strayed.” Isabel had gritted her teeth and gone on down to dinner, where she smiled and flirted and silently dared anyone to comment to her face that her dress was at least two years old. If only her early departure wouldn’t cause so much comment, she would call for her carriage and go home right now. But that was impossible. For one thing, she didn’t have a carriage, for she had come up from London with a fellow guest. Too short of funds to afford a post-chaise, she was equally dependent on her friend for transport back to the city when the hunting party broke up. And secondly, of course, there were only two places she could go—Maxton Abbey, or the London house—and her husband might be at either one. Unless, with her safely stashed at the Beckhams’, he had accepted yet another of the many invitations he received. But she couldn’t take the chance. After little more than a year of marriage, the pattern was ingrained—wherever one of the Maxwells went, the other took pains not to go. She could not burst in on her husband; what if he were entertaining his mistress? Better not to know. She might go to the village of Barton Bristow, descending on her sister. But Emily’s tiny cottage was scarcely large enough for her and her companion, with no room for a guest—and Mrs. Dalrymple’s constant chatter and menial deference was enough to set Isabel’s teeth on edge. In fact, the only nice thing Isabel could say about being married was that at least she wasn’t required to drag a spinster companion around the countryside with her to preserve her reputation, as Emily had to do. Isabel turned her borrowed mount over to the stable boys and strode across to the house, where the butler intercepted her in the front hall. “A letter has just been delivered for you, Lady Isabel, by a special messenger. He said a post-chaise will call for you tomorrow.” She took the folded sheet with trepidation. Who could be summoning her? Not her husband, that was certain. Her father, possibly, for yet another lecture on the duties of a young wife? She broke the seal and unfolded the page. My dearest Isabel, You will remember from happier days that I will soon celebrate my seventieth birthday… Uncle Josiah. But her moment of relief soon
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”
Leigh Michaels (The Birthday Scandal)
“
It was so obvious she was still mad about her birthday. She did nothing to disguise her attitude and bitter display of affection. “I’ll
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”
Nako (The Connect's Wife)
“
Here’s the thing. Your career won’t take care of you. It won’t call you back or introduce you to its parents. Your career will openly flirt with other people while you are around. It will forget your birthday and wreck your car. Your career will blow you off if you call it too much. It’s never going to leave its wife. Your career is fucking other people and everyone knows but you. Your career will never marry you.
”
”
Amy Poehler (Yes Please)
“
I hate the word sorry. I hate the way it makes every problem go away and makes no-one responsible. I hate the way you can say words without actually feeling them and that people trade this currency as if its legal tender. I hate the way words like ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I love you’ and ‘it won’t happen again’ are passed around like government bonds or promissory notes, you know. The idea of communication is to say what you feel, not say and leave it up to the other person to spark their own feeling. It’s like giving some kid a bag of balloons on his birthday and telling him or her to blow them up. The word is a vessel. It’s coding, that’s all.
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C. Sean McGee (The Time Traveller's Wife)
“
Treat your career like a bad boyfriend. Here's the thing. Your career won't take care of you. It won't call you back or introduce you to its parents. Your career will openly flirt with other people while you are around. It will forget your birthday and wreck your car. Your career will blow you off if you call it too much. It's never going to leave its wife. Your career is fucking other people and everyone knows but you. Your career will never marry you.
”
”
Amy Poehler (Yes Please)
“
I’m Captain Florida, the state history pimp Gatherin’ more data than a DEA blimp West Palm, Tampa Bay, Miami-Dade Cruisin’ the coasts till Johnny Vegas gets laid Developer ho’s, and the politician bitches Smackin’ ’em down, while I’m takin’ lots of pictures Hurricanes, sinkholes, natural disaster ’Scuse me while I kick back, with my View-Master (S:) I’m Captain Florida, obscure facts are all legit (C:) I’m Coleman, the sidekick, with a big bong hit (S:) I’m Captain Florida, staying literate (C:) Coleman sees a book and says, “Fuck that shit” Ain’t never been caught, slippin’ nooses down the Keys Got more buoyancy than Elián González Knockin’ off the parasites, and takin’ all their moola Recruiting my apostles for the Church of Don Shula I’m an old-school gangster with a psycho ex-wife Molly Packin’ Glocks, a shotgun and my 7-Eleven coffee Trippin’ the theme parks, the malls, the time-shares Bustin’ my rhymes through all the red-tide scares (S:) I’m the surge in the storms, don’t believe the hype (C:) I’m his stoned number two, where’d I put my hash pipe? (S:) Florida, no appointments and a tank of gas (C:) Tequila, no employment and a bag of grass Think you’ve seen it all? I beg to differ Mosquitoes like bats and a peg-leg stripper The scammers, the schemers, the real estate liars Birthday-party clowns in a meth-lab fire But dig us, don’t diss us, pay a visit, don’t be late And statistics always lie, so ignore the murder rate Beaches, palm trees and golfing is our curse Our residents won’t bite, but a few will shoot first Everglades, orange groves, alligators, Buffett Scarface, Hemingway, an Andrew Jackson to suck it Solarcaine, Rogaine, eight balls of cocaine See the hall of fame for the criminally insane Artifacts, folklore, roadside attractions Crackers, Haitians, Cuban-exile factions The early-bird specials, drivin’ like molasses Condo-meeting fistfights in cataract glasses (S:) I’m the native tourist, with the rants that can’t be beat (C:) Serge, I think I put my shoes on the wrong feet (S:) A stack of old postcards in another dingy room (C:) A cold Bud forty and a magic mushroom Can’t stop, turnpike, keep ridin’ like the wind Gotta make a detour for a souvenir pin But if you like to litter, you’re just liable to get hurt Do ya like the MAC-10 under my tropical shirt? I just keep meeting jerks, I’m a human land-filler But it’s totally unfair, this term “serial killer” The police never rest, always breakin’ in my pad But sunshine is my bling, and I’m hangin’ like a chad (S:) Serge has got to roll and drop the mike on this rap . . . (C:) Coleman’s climbin’ in the tub, to take a little nap . . . (S:) . . . Disappearin’ in the swamp—and goin’ tangent, tangent, tangent . . . (C:) He’s goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (Fade-out) (S:) I’m goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (C:) Fuck goin’ platinum, he’s goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (S:) . . . Wikipedia all up and down your ass . . . (C:) Wikity-Wikity-Wikity . . .
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Tim Dorsey (Electric Barracuda (Serge Storms #13))
“
Generally speaking, of course, any pursuit of art in camp was somewhat grotesque. I would say that the real impression made by anything connected with art arose only from the ghostlike contrast between the performance and the background of desolate camp life. I shall never forget how I awoke from the deep sleep of exhaustion on my second night in Auschwitz—roused by music. The senior warden of the hut had some kind of celebration in his room, which was near the entrance of the hut. Tipsy voices bawled some hackneyed tunes. Suddenly there was a silence and into the night a violin sang a desperately sad tango, an unusual tune not spoiled by frequent playing. The violin wept and a part of me wept with it, for on that same day someone had a twenty-fourth birthday. That someone lay in another part of the Auschwitz camp, possibly only a few hundred or a thousand yards away, and yet completely out of reach. That someone was my wife.
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”
Anonymous
“
At the beginning of 1944, the fate of the war seemed to be decided. Romanians started to send furniture back to the Regat. High officials, who had enriched themselves by robbing and stealing all Jewish property, wanted to insure and secure their ill achieved gains. Once we saw them panicking, we knew that another upheaval was ahead of us, namely the abandonment of the territory by the Romanians and Germans and the return of the Soviets. Nobody could foresee whether the Germans would defend the area or abandon it, once the Russians advanced North of us, around Lvov On March 10, 1944, on my 24th birthday, the siguran ta commissar Andreescu and his wife came to congratulate me on my birthday. They brought me a bottle of French chocolate liqueur. It was a matter of weeks before they would run away and the Soviets would return.
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Pearl Fichman (Before Memories Fade)
“
And then there’s Stefonknee Wolschtt. The Canadian transgender was forty-six years old and had been married to a woman for twenty-three years, with whom he had seven children, when he decided he was no longer a man. He was, in fact, a six-year-old little girl. Alarmed, his wife told him to straighten up or hit the road. He grabbed his crazy bags and left so that he could freely dress up as a six-foot-two-inch, porky six-year-old girl, with pink bows in her ringlets of hair. And, sure enough, she was able to find a couple to adopt her so she could live honestly as a six-year-old little girl. No word on whether this new life involves recognizing birthdays or if Stefonknee Wolschtt will remain six years old forever.
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Eric Bolling (Wake Up America: The Nine Virtues That Made Our Nation Great—and Why We Need Them More Than Ever)
“
In 2013 The New York Times, of all places, offered grotesque and embarrassing details of Bill Clinton’s quest to cash in on his public service. He was invited to speak at the ninetieth birthday party of his friend, fellow statesman, and Nobel Prize winner, the former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. It’s the kind of nice gesture one former leader usually makes toward another—except with the Clintons, there was a catch (there’s always a catch): Bill wanted $500,000 to show up and speak. What a mensch! Even the liberal New Yorker magazine recently posed the question: “How much more money does Bill Clinton need?”29 Remember Truman’s vow not to “commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency”? Clearly that means about as much to Bill Clinton as being faithful to his wife.
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Eric Bolling (Wake Up America: The Nine Virtues That Made Our Nation Great—and Why We Need Them More Than Ever)
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It took him ten years to ask Jennifer to be his wife. As a baby, he came out two weeks late. His mother gave him a digital watch on his third birthday which he forgot to wear every time. A
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Gaurav Parab (Rustom and the Last Storyteller of Almora)
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I'm not saying our daughter shouldn't have a birthday party. I'm just saying I could organize one in an hour. I'd order some pizzas, get a cake at the supermarket, organize some fun party games for little girls - 'Run Around Shrieking,' 'Run Around Shrieking Some More,' etc. - and boom, there's your party. I'm not saying it would be the greatest birthday celebration ever. For one thing, it would be roughly a month after my daughter's actual birthday, because I am not good with dates. But it would get the job done. My wife, on the other hand, believes the party should be along the lines of the Super Bowl halftime show, only more elaborate.
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Dave Barry (I'll Mature When I'm Dead: Dave Barry's Amazing Tales of Adulthood)