Yvette Quotes

Call me once you’ve taken care of that hard-on in your pants, so you’ll last longer than ten seconds when we fuck.

Yvette informs me janitors cannot fly. Vampires, however, can. "Vampires are gross," I determine. "Have you even read Twilight?" "I've read so many things that are not that.

Memories can kill, Yvette. The past can reach right up and grab you and drag you to a place you shouldn’t be. Like a burning building.

Death and taxes in life are certain, knowing how to pay only your fair share is third.

You are a particle in this great big universe that because of your divinity, are able to manifest greatness! You are so alive that what you think becomes reality, and what you create, well, it becomes your environment.

They say that men should look at the mother of the girl they intend to marry," Yvette said. "Girls who did what I did should consider the wife a man has discarded or worn out, and know thye are not going to do much better.

When we find out Who He (Jesus) is, then we find out who we are and it forever settles what we believe.

There’s my brilliant boy,” Yvette would call out whenever he walked into the house.

This is going to sound slightly stalkerish, but I can't help but notice you’ve decapitated Jack Skellington and put him on your ears." "What can I say?" Yvette shrugs. "I like bones." "So do I, actually, because our skeletons support a massive interconnected muscular structure and without them we would be blobs of flesh. Also we wouldn't have middle fingers to flip people off with. Are you in Room 14B?" Yvette's eyes widen. "Yeah, so you're -" "MY ROOMMATE!" I screech. A passing guy winces and flips me off. I loudly inform him he has his skeleton to thank for that.

Sleeping is forgetting and forgetting is peace.

I wondered that clothes, even the apparently revealing tropical clothes I had seen on Yvette, should have concealed so much, should have broken the body up, as it were, into separate parts and not really hinted at the splendour of the whole.

My wish for an adventure with Yvette was a wish to be taken up to the skies, to be removed from the life I had – the dullness, the pointless tension, ‘the situation of the country’. It wasn’t a wish to be involved with people as trapped as myself.

I had talked of Raymond's pain when I was thinking of my own, and Yvette had talked of Raymond's needs when was thinking of her won. We had begun to talk, if not in opposites, at least indirectly, lying and not lying, making those signals at the truth which people in certain situations find it necessary to make.

The black officer checks Daddy while his partner glances around at all of the onlookers. There's quite a few of us now. Ms. Yvette and a couple of her clients stand in her doorway, towels around the clients' shoulders. A car has stopped in the street. "Everyone, go about your own business," the white one says. "No, sir," says Tim. "This is our business.

You don't know anything,' she said. 'If you knew one thing about this life you would not think it was so funny.' Yvette put her hands on her hips. She shook her head slowly. 'Darlin,' she said. 'Life did take its gift back from yu and me in de diffren order, dat's all. Truth to tell, funny is all me got lef wid. An yu, darlin, all yu got lef is paperwork.

I realized that I could never really function fully on this earth until I understood this: Until you know WHOSE you are, you will never know WHO you are.

Truth has a certain sound to it. Your spirit will hear it clearly and leap inside of you and you will feel hope; even if your mind is still wrestling with all the pieces.

Don't let your intellect trump your faith!

When you embrace worthiness, you stop worrying about what “they” think because you’ve made peace with what YOU think.

I have grown to listen to the waves of my heart Not to the ripples others push through open waters The tide is high the spring inside is plentiful

Why?" "Because," Yvette replied, "if you don't keep going through the bad times, things will never get better.

There’s my brilliant boy,” Yvette would call out whenever he walked into the house. It had never had to occur to him that she was anything but completely correct.

Tell Daddy to turn off the broccoli! It’s probably burned!” Casey shouts something back, maybe that the kitchen cabinets are on fire, but Yvette backs out onto the road and drives off.

Insomnie. Singulier état où l'acuité des sens s'accroît, où les souvenirs s'accumulent jusqu'à devenir parfois intolérables, où le temps qui s'écoule pourtant au ralenti permet à la pensée de galoper follement.

That is how it is with lies. If you can have enough people believe your lies, before you know it, even the one you have lied against will be confused. The lie will make itself at home and the truth will be knocking outside its own door.

Yvette had never talked about her marriage - she was a smart girl, and she knew you had no right to complain about someone you got all the way to the altar with. You made that choice, even if you were a child when you did it, and the marriage vow was sacred.

But you I want to look at until your face fades from my fear, like a bird stepping away from the sharp edges of night. — Alejandra Pizarnik, trans. by Yvette Siegert, from “Paths of the Mirror,” Extracting the Stone of Madness (New Directions; Bilingual edition, May 17, 2016)

And the gipsy man himself! Yvette quivered suddenly, as if she had seen his big, bold eyes upon her, with the naked insinuation of desire in them. The absolutely naked insinuation of desire made her life prone and powerless in the bed, as if a drug had cast her in a new molten mould.

David listened to the swishing sound his yellow slippers made as he walked up the last flight of steps to the door that led from the terrace into the drawing room. Yvette had not yet opened the curtains, which saved him the trouble of closing them again. He liked the drawing room to look dim and valuable.

If you can't change it, make it work!

I have the ghost of you pressing against my ribs like deep water. It is only now, in this cardigan of a house that I begin to miss you, and to grieve.

A confident woman does not chase love, she "attracts" it.

The sea cleanses the city's rat race from my pores Washes away the anxiety of wanting more Reminds me I am not here to stay And being in love with the pulse is all

I do not want to be like a small animal bitten by a snake, going stiff with that poison. I want to bite back.

C’était si triste, si triste d’être toute seule dans la vie, toute seule chez soi, nuit et jour, de n’avoir plus personne à qui donner de l’affection, de la confiance, de l’intimité.

If Dom has taught me anything, it’s that given the choice between a marriage of convenience and no marriage at all, I would choose the latter.” “But what you’re really angling for is a marriage for love.” When she cast him a sad smile, Edwin rolled his eyes. “You and Yvette are both cloyingly romantic.” “Which is probably why neither of us has managed to gain a husband.

Let it go. You have your own life. Not Uncle Saul’s, not your parents’.’ His face had grown very serious then, his eyes searching. ‘You can’t live in the past and you certainly can’t undo it. What happened to Uncle Saul has nothing to do with you. Memories can kill, Yvette. The past can reach right up and grab you and drag you to a place you shouldn’t be. Like a burning building.

Yvette is a woman who looks like a church bell. Her copper body curves with purpose, angles on a chair as if from a tower overlooking a village by the sea. Her bones are strong everywhere, in her cheeks, her shoulders, her hands. They are made from something more durable like iron or brass. When she smiles, it is as if a bell has been struck, as if music has entered the world the way God intended: at noon by the sea.

When comedian Kate Smurthwaite appeared on the Today program to back up Yvette Cooper's campaign, she urged that the police set up a special squad to monitor Twitter and punish sexist trolls accordingly. But when feminists demand that the police arrest and even imprison trolls to create an online safe space for women, it is they who become the authoritarian silencers of others. They are legitimizing, in effect, 'thought crime'.

How do you accept that tragic irony is a cruelty reserved not merely for Shakespearean plot twists? How do you admit to your son that monsters exist outside of fairy tales? How do you explain to a child something you can't understand yourself?

Major depression. As will be detailed in chapter 14, major depression is utterly intertwined with prolonged stress, and this connection includes elevated glucocorticoid levels in about half the people with major depression. Yvette Sheline of Washington University and others have shown that prolonged major depression is, once again, associated with a smaller hippocampus. The more prolonged the history of depression, the more volume loss. Furthermore, it is in patients with the subtype of depression that is most associated with elevated glucocorticoid levels where you see the smaller hippocampus.

Revisionist history can be a tricky thing. Time passes, memories fade, oral history muddies, and transgressions, while sometimes subconsciously, are conveniently rewritten. It would be so very easy to now say that I was an eager and attentive audience, the dutiful granddaughter lapping up every last detail of her grandmother's life and stories. It would be so very simple to say that I sat with her and talked for hours, asking if she was lonely when Papou left for America, afraid when the Nazis ransacked her home or hesitated before opening the door to welcome her Jewish friends inside. But that isn't the case. Not even close.

During the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth, France enjoyed an upsurge of artistic flourishing that became known as La Belle Epoque. It was a time of change that heralded both art nouveau and post impressionism, when painters as diverse as Monet, Cezanne and Toulouse Lautrec worked. It was an age of extremes, when Proust and Anatole France were fashionable along with the notorious Monsieur Willy, Colette's husband. On the decorative arts, Mucha, Gallé and Lalique were enjoying success; and the theatre Lugné-Poe was introducing the grave works of Ibsen at the same time as Parisians were enjoying the spectacle of the can-can of Hortense Schneider. Paris was the crossroads of a new and many-faceted culture, a culture that was predominately feminine in form, for, above all, la belle Epoque was the age of women. Women dominated the cultural scene. On the one hand, there was Comtesse Greffulhe, the patron of Proust and Maeterlinck, who introduced greyhound racing into France; Winaretta Singer, Princesse de Polignac, for whom Stravinsky wrote Renard; Misia Sert, the discoverer of Chanel and Diaghilev's closest friend. On the other were the great dancers of the Moulin Rouge, immortalised by Toulouse lautrec — Jane Avril, Yvette Guilbert, la Goulue; as well as such celebrated dramatic actresses as the great Sarah Bernhardt. It would not be possible to speak of La belle Epoque without the great courtesans who, in many ways, perfectly symbolized the era, chief of which were Liane de Pougy, Émilienne d'Alençon, Cléo de Mérode and La Belle Otero.

At least tell me the truth about Blakeborough,” he said hoarsely. “Do you love him?” “Why does it matter?” His eyes ate her up. “If you do, I’ll keep my distance. I’ll stay out of your life from now on.” “You’ve been doing that easily enough for the past twelve years,” she snapped. “I don’t see why my feelings for Edwin should change anything.” “Easily? It was never easy, I assure you.” His expression was stony. “And you’re avoiding the question. Are you in love with Blakeborough?” How she wished she could lie about it. Dom would take himself off, and she wouldn’t be tempted by him anymore. Unfortunately, he could always tell when she was lying. “And if I say I’m not?” “Then I won’t rest until you’re mine again.” The determination in his voice shocked her. Unsettled her. Thrilled her. No! “I don’t want that.” His fingers dug into her arm. “Because you love Blakeborough?” “Because love is a lie designed to make a woman desire what is only a figure of smoke in the wind. Love is too dangerous.” He released a heavy breath. “So you don’t love him.” His persistence sparked her temper, and she pushed free of him. “Oh, for pity’s sake, if you must know, I don’t.” She faced him down. “Not that it matters one whit. I don’t need love to have a good marriage, an amiable marriage. I don’t even want love.” It hurt too much when her heart was trampled upon. Dom had done that once before. How could she be sure he wouldn’t do it again? Eyes gleaming in the firelight, he said in a low voice, “You used to want love.” “I was practically a child. I didn’t know any better. But I do now.” “Do you? I wonder.” He circled her like a wolf assessing its prey’s weaknesses. “Very well, let’s forget about love for the moment. What about passion?” “What about it?” she asked unsteadily as he slipped behind her. Nervous, she edged nearer the impressively massive pianoforte that sat in the center of the room. “What part does passion play in your plan for a safe and loveless marriage?” She pivoted to face him, startled to find that he’d stepped to within a breath of her. “None at all.” He chuckled. “Does Blakeborough know that?” “Not that it’s any of your concern, but Edwin and I have an arrangement. He’ll give me children; I’ll help him make sure Yvette finds a good husband. We both agree that passion is…unimportant to our plans.” “Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “It certainly aids in the production of those children you’re hoping for. To quote a certain lady, ‘You can set a plan in motion, but as soon as it involves people, it will rarely commence exactly as you wish.’ You may not want passion to be important, sweeting, but it always is.” “Not to us,” she said, though with him standing so close her legs felt like rubber and her blood raced wildly through her veins. “Not to me.” With his gaze darkening, he lifted his hand to run his thumb over the pounding pulse at her throat. “Yes, I can tell how unimportant it is to you.” “That doesn’t mean…anything.” “Doesn’t it?” He backed her against the pianoforte. “So the way you trembled in my arms this morning means nothing.” It meant far too much. It meant her body was susceptible to him, even when her mind had the good sense to resist. And curse him to the devil, he knew it. He slipped his hand about her waist to pull her against him. “It means nothing that every time we’re together, we ignite.” “People do not…ignite,” she said shakily, though her entire body was on fire. “What an absurd idea.” She held her breath and waited for his attempt to kiss her, determined to refuse it this time. But he didn’t kiss her. Instead he fondled her breast through her gown, catching her so by surprise that she gasped, then moaned as the feel of his hand caressing her made liquid heat swirl in her belly. Devil take the man.

(was it because the whole world went online – is that why we never wrote another word?).

WE’RE MARCHING BECAUSE THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD SAYS IT’S OK TO SEXUALLY ASSAULT WOMEN . . . AND WE SAY NO WAY.” YVETTE COOPER, LABOUR MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT

Well,” Parker managed to croak. “Better light up your lantern, Miss Ashley. It’s showtime.” Ashley stared. Her eyes went saucer-wide, and she clutched her stomach. “I don’t think I can go out there, y’all. There’s too many people!” As the others stared back at her, Etienne made a strangling motion with his hands. “Shall I do the honors? Or does everybody want a turn?” He and Parker promptly escorted Ashley out the door. Roo fell into step beside Miranda, with Gage bringing up the rear. “Just watch her.” Roo’s tone held mild but sincere admiration. “She’s a pro.” Roo was right. As Ashley swept onto the steps, an audible sigh went through the crowd. Ashley dipped and swayed, both sweet and seductive, her voice flowing honey-warm. “Why, welcome, y’all. Welcome to our Walk of the Spirits.” And so it went. Step by entertaining step along the Brickway, Ashley enticed and enthralled and utterly charmed the tour group. The history and heritage of St. Yvette came magically alive.

I don’t know how much of St. Yvette you’ve seen so far, but I really think you’ll like the Falls. It’s a ways out of town though, so people sort of forget about it.” “I don’t.” Roo frowned. “I go there a lot.” “And that way we sort of forget about you, too.” Parker spoke up. “So it works out great.” Determined, Ashley kept on. “There’s hardly ever anybody out there. That’s why we like it so much.” “Well, that and the poisonous swamp. And the man-eating diamondback water snakes. Don’t forget those.” In the rearview mirror, Parker’s eyes widened dramatically. “And then one day…the new girl in town went off to the Falls with her friends.” His voice deepened, horror-movie style. “And she was never seen again.” “Parker, will you stop? That’s not funny.

Hey, don’t worry so much. We never have tornadoes around here.” “Well, we could have tornadoes around here.” “Ash, when was the last time you heard of a tornado touching down in St. Yvette?” “What if our house blew away? That would be a really horrible thing!” “What if your boyfriend blew away” Roo asked mildly. “That would be a really good thing.

I think he was being tortured.” “By who?” As Ashley gasped in horror, Etienne began pacing the length of the room. “Prisoner of war?” he mumbled. “Makes sense.” “It does,” Miranda agreed. “Maybe he had important information the Yankees wanted. And he wouldn’t talk--he wouldn’t betray the Confederacy.” “The Union army did take St. Yvette,” gage reasoned. “And there’s documented accounts of how bad some prisoners were treated.” For a brief moment, Miranda looked down and clenched her pillow tighter. Yes…yes…I’ve heard how they were treated…I’ve heard their cries, their screams… “Oh, poor Nathan.” Ashley’s voice caught. “I can’t stand to think of people being mean to him.” Parker clutched his head with both hands. “”For Christ’s sake, Ashley. You’re doing it again. You’re talking about that imaginary guy like he’s real.

Once she and Edwin were alone, she shifted away from his curiously possessive hand. This would be hard. What could she say? How could she break it to him gently? Then Edwin glanced at her with the accusing gray eyes that made her feel like a schoolgirl being taken to task by her papa, and she squirmed guiltily. “I take it that you are not really heading to the duke and duchess’s town house from here,” he said coolly. Sweet Lord, but he was astute. “No.” “And I suppose that means that you and Rathmoor have renewed your…er…friendship.” Blunt, too. Not that she was surprised. Edwin had always been blunt. But he’d never taken that hard tone with her, and it rankled a bit. “Yes.” She tipped up her chin. “I’m afraid we have.” Edwin strolled over to the fireplace and stood with his back to her, rigid as the pokers next to him. “You and I had a deal.” A long sigh escaped her. “I realize that. And I feel bad about reneging on it. I was looking forward to helping Yvette in society. She deserves a good marriage.” She squared her shoulders. “But I think I deserve one, too. With a man who wants me to be more than just a companion to his sister.” He muttered something under his breath. “I did intend our marriage to be a real one, you know.” That was a shock. Edwin had always been cynical about the institution. “Surely you’re not serious.” She wished he would look at her again so she could better guess what he was thinking. “Don’t tell me you’re going to give me some nonsense about how you’ve fallen in love with me.” “No.” As if realizing how sharply he’d answered, he shot her a rueful glance. “I suppose I could eventually come to love you. I’d at least make the attempt.” Poor man. “There’s no attempting with love. You either love someone or you don’t. Trust me on that.” He searched her face. “Are you in love with Rathmoor, then?” “Yes.” The answer came without her even thinking about it. Because she was. She probably always had been. She’d told Dom that he’d killed her love for him, but the truth was, it was unkillable. Though she’d thought to root him out of her heart, he’d merely lain dormant in the wintry ground, waiting until spring when he could grow over her heart like the pernicious honeysuckle in Uncle’s arbor. She should have told Dom last night how she felt, but she’d been too afraid that loving him might mean forgiving him for what he’d done. And she hadn’t been quite ready for that. She wasn’t sure she was now, either. All she knew was she loved him. Whether she could live with him was another matter entirely.

In the small, neat back bedroom Ari Nikolev watched as his daughter packed her suitcase with the dreariest, drabbest clothes in her closet. At his suggestion. ‘I know men,’ he’d said, when she’d protested. ‘But men won’t find me attractive in these.’ She’d jabbed her finger at the pile of clothes. ‘I thought you said you wanted Gamache to like me.’ ‘Not to date. Believe me, he’ll like you in those.’ As she turned to find her toiletry bag he slipped a couple of butterscotch candies into the suitcase, where she’d find them that night. And think of him. And with any luck never realize he had his own little secret. There was no Uncle Saul. No slaughter at the hands of the communists. No noble and valiant flight across the frontier. He’d made all that up years ago to shut up his wife’s relatives camped in their home. It was his lifeboat, made of words, which had kept him afloat on their sea of misery and suffering. Genuine suffering. Even he could admit that. But he’d needed his own stories of heroics and survival. And so, after helping to conceive little Angelina and then Yvette, he’d conceived Uncle Saul. Whose job it was to save the family, and who had failed. Saul’s spectacular fall from grace had cost Ari his entire fictional family. He knew he should tell Yvette. Knew that what had started as his own life raft had become an anchor for his little girl. But she worshipped him, and Ari Nikolev craved that

No matter what Yvette says, he does not share with her what he did with you. I shouldn’t tell you this, but theirs was no great romance, the way she made it sound.

I know your miracles are many, she prayed. Thank you for always finding a way to help and protect our family. Please, Agios Spyridon, she pleaded, please walk beside me and guide me. Hold my hand and help me make the right decisions on my life. Please help me find strength, the same strength you gave Yia-yia. Please guide me as you have guided her, and help me lead Evie toward a happy and fulfilled life.

love you like no other . . . I have no gifts to shower upon you No gold or jewels or riches But still, I give you all I have And that, my sweet child, is all my love I promise you this, You will always have my love Yia

She sat like that for a long time, never taking her eyes off her grandmother, conjuring up cherished memories of their time together, each remembrance more precious than the last. Time seemed to evaporate in the haze of candlelight, reminiscences, and tears. She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there, but she had just gotten out of her chair and reached for another tissue when she thought she heard a noise.

It can be exhausting living a guarded, secluded life. Let’s manage our time wisely and make time to connect with others because we are better together.

But you I want to look at until your face fades from my fear, like a bird stepping away from the sharp edges of night. — Alejandra Pizarnik, trans. by Yvette Siegert, from Extracting the Stone of Madness: “Paths of the Mirror

Their voices soar and meld together; their voices break apart. Their voices are in the fish St. peter holds; their voices are in the light in Mary's palms; they are in the wood of the pews; they're in the pursed lips of Bonnie and Freddy and Yvette Saunders in the front row; they're in the marble of the floors; they're in Sebastian Webster's powdered bones. Maybe the are, Laura thinks, nothing but their voices, or else maybe their voices are coming from outside them entirely; maybe something great and unenumerable has broken them open, like hazelnut shells, and entered into them; maybe Laura is not Laura at all, any longer, but just the sorry, meaty thing through which their something moves.

Your hardest day might not have arrived yet. Your toughest challenge in life could still be coming and will you be able to see it through? I hope so. I also hope the stories and poems in this book become sprouts of hope during any future challenges that come your way.

Your hardest day might not have arrived yet. Your toughest challenge in life could still be coming and will you be able to see it through? I hope so. I also hope the stories and poems in this book become sprouts of hope during any future challenges that come your way.

If being horrible was a mortal condition, then this whole world would be a grave.

He who angered you controlled you.

Ce n'est pas tous les jours fête.

When I drank, I didn’t have to think about my food addiction. Of course, it caused a lot of other problems, and I put myself in some really bad situations.

The other woman was chic and polished in a way Yvette could never be. Wavy, light brown hair, a sheer blouse and high heels only made her more attractive—and left Yvette feeling underdressed, out of place and far too intrusive. She’d come to the bar to give Cannon a message, to release him from any obligations, and instead she’d just...enjoyed him.

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When Vanity caught Stack staring toward them, she smiled. “I really think you guys should let us use the locker room. I’m perspiring. Cherry’s perspiring.” Cherry went still, then looked down at herself and blushed. Sweat dampened the front of her tank top, especially between and beneath her big boobs. Denver scowled, giving Stack a shove. Which in turn knocked him into Armie. None of them spoke. Cannon took up the torch. “It’s only set up for men.” “We don’t need the urinals,” Vanity said. “Just the showers.” Yvette plucked at her top. “I really could—” Cannon put his hand over her mouth. “We don’t have a door on the locker room, and sure, we’d all know not to step in, but there are other people here, other guys, and—” Vanity said, “So put someone there to keep watch for us.” Stack opened his mouth, but at first nothing came out. He cleared his throat. “Sounds carry down there.” He gestured. “There not being a door and all.” Grinning, Armie said, “Meaning whoever keeps guard—” “Watch,” Vanity corrected. “—will hear every little detail. Like clothes dropping. And water running. Even slick, soapy hands—” This time, Stack shoved him without Denver’s help. “I’ll do it,” Cannon offered, and he sounded like he’d just thrown himself on the sacrificial altar. “Fuck that.” Denver took a step forward. “I don’t want you listening to Cherry shower.” Cherry’s face got hotter. “Denver!” Folding his arms, Cannon stared at him. “You think I’d let you listen to Yvette?” “Cannon!” Yvette joined the brigade of embarrassed women. Only Vanity remained unflustered. “Let Armie do it.” Mutually appalled, Stack, Denver and Cannon all stared at her. Going along, Armie nodded and rubbed his hands together. “Yeah, let me do it.” “Hell, no.” “In his dreams.” “Not in this lifetime.” Armie laughed. “You guys know I won’t be thinking anything you wouldn’t be thinking.” “Maybe,” Denver said. “But we wouldn’t go blabbing it everywhere.” Crossing his heart dramatically, Armie swore, “It’ll be between me and my pillow.” Denver took a step toward him, but Vanity put herself in his way. “We’re showering. For the future, you might want to think about creating a space for women.” “Tried,” Cannon argued. “We’re out of room here. I wanted to expand, but the guy who owns the lot next to us doesn’t want to sell.” “Hmm...” Vanity got a thoughtful look on her face. “Well then, I suggest you find a desk to put down there and then, perhaps, we could plan this around when Harper is here doing the scheduling. She could be our lookout.” “I could call her—” Cannon tried to offer. But Stack noticed that Vanity already had both her arms wrapped around one of Armie’s. And damn him, Armie just let her, smiling in a way that just might lose him a few teeth. Leese looked at each of the men and started snickering. “They’re pathetic, right?” Armie said. “They’re something,” Leese agreed. “Not sure what.” “You two losers are just jealous,” Cannon accused. “Yeah,” Armie said, patting at Vanity’s arm. “So jealous.” Denver growled when Cherry cozied up to the other side of Armie, and even Yvette smiled as she followed along, all of them heading to the locker room. The men stared until the group was out of sight. “I’m going to have to punch him,” Denver said. “At least once.” “Get in line,” Cannon told him. Then he pointed at Leese. “Not a word out of you!” Trying to bite back his grin, Leese got started mopping. Damn, Stack wondered, did Vanity enjoy making him nuts? And unlike Cannon and Denver, he couldn’t protest as much as he wanted because, though he’d thrown out some signals, he and Vanity weren’t official. Fuck.

Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will, never, never have enough. Oprah Winfrey

The typewriter is neat and compact and sturdy and blue, just the right machine to pound out a missive of love. When you strike the keys it’s a sound that hasn’t been heard in the qorld world for thirty years (we are so far away from a time when typewriters won world wars). When you strike the keys they make a sound like a pistol shot, a sound so definite and sure you feel like a genius, or an orayor orator, or a beat poet. When you strike the keys you just want to keep on fucking writing. You have to wrestle with the thing, like I am doing now, steer it like an old manual car, keep the words together and right and on the page, but the blood and muscle of a typewriter, it is a beautiful thing.

I trace the map of other people's lives like an English cartographer, but I am not Virginia Woolf; no one in my fiction would buy flowers in that way.

Viv sleeps, curled up on the sofa like Sherlock Holmes. A newspaper is barely in reach of her fingertips, a book is tucked under her feet like a pair of slippers.

Everything that's alive has an etheric counterpart.

vowed to herself that she wouldn't give him a son until after they were legally wed. 

She gave no credence to people who were ruled by fear, gossip or that all-powerful “what will they say” syndrome. She simply put one foot in front of the other and followed a path that only she could see, bringing joy to those who walked with her, every step of the way." ~ Queenisms™

Of all the high-ranking Christian leaders across Nazi-occupied Europe, Bishop Damaskinos of Greece was the only one who publicly stood up to denounce the Nazis' deportation of Jews.

Patrick’s final message to Yvette was this: “My time in the in-between is done. I’m getting ready to transition and I’m happy and I’m okay. I want you to know that there is life beyond this, and you’re not going to see me again, like this, anymore.” What I want to consider with his entire final goodbye—the collective energy, the unfinished business, the clear message that life does exist beyond this one—is how Patrick’s story connects with what I am doing right now. I’m writing and you’re reading his story in his words. Maybe he even knew one day his story would be used in a bigger way so that it would affect more people than his one dear friend.

Cosmic Avocado Then my heart went cosmic It prodded the thorax, expanding with every gulp rhonchi crackles wheeze The ribs hollowed hum broken through Swelling and rounding, an avocado core Pushing out of its skin, shedding its cloak Didn't consider slowing down until cities grew miniature in its curious belly Now of a planetary scale Heartbeats spilling out of the earth in waves Breathing heart that is searching for you Seeking to encompass you and all the people it loves into its beats It forms a ring around the planet to ensure it can love you, it can love itself, it can love all with every thump Without searching any further

Something smells amazing. What are you cooking?” Beau sniffed the welcoming aroma emanating from the kitchen. Something does indeed smell amazing. You, my handsome patient. Yvette smiled at his eager, stubbled face.

The sun descends as I make my way into the forest, sapphire hues painting the night like a jewel. Lanterns flicker in the distance, guiding me forward. The spread Amelia has set up is illuminated by tall magenta candles bathing the table with a rosy glow. In the center, there's a tiered cake with vanilla frosting, decorated with pink pansies, marigolds, and violets. Beside it is a summer salad with juicy peaches, soft cheese, and pitted cherries--- a perfect pairing to the bruschetta topped with diced tomatoes. Different fruits are scattered across the table, sliced open to show off their vibrant innards--- blood oranges, figs, and plums. Everyone is dressed in white with bright flowers crowning their heads. Carmella pours sangria into crystal cups while Yvette helps Amelia string more lights in the trees. Roisin is seated beside Serena, adding tiny braids into her hair and placing daisies between the plaits.

We're not our worst enemies. That's what Damien said too. How lucky am I to be in the presence of such grace? Life is more beautiful when we let go of the hate, the anger, the pain. It frees room for tenderness. And here, tonight, the girls collect it like a ritual bath they dive headfirst into. Finally, it washes us clean. It's Amelia and Yvette, running through the grass as they chase fireflies. It's how Carmella sets the table with a rose on each plate, a special offering for each of us. It's the way Roisin and Serena devour fresh fruit, letting the juice drip down their chins and stain their white dresses as the sun disappears and crickets come alive. It's the butterfly that lands on the table. The slight breeze in the trees. How the world stills and all the girls smile.

She’d often thought about how their lives had intertwined with Yvette’s, the three like vine tendrils that stretch out and anchor themselves one to the other. An odd tangle, but one that had borne fruit in friendship.

When you focus on you, everything else will have no choice but to fall in order.

better . . .” “Daphne mou,” Yia-yia replied, “this is my life. No matter who is with me, who has been taken away from me or gone away in search of a better life, this is my life, the only one I have. This is the life that was written for me in countless coffee cups, decided for me in the heavens before I was born and then whispered about on the breeze as my mother gave birth to me, her screams mixing with the cypress whispers as I emerged from her womb. A person cannot change what has been whispered about, Daphne. A person cannot change her fate. And this is mine—just as you have yours.

have bested Stella through sheer good luck and Lulu’s kindness, but I know that I can’t push my advantage too far without risking Permanent Exile. The only safe thing to do now is say to Lulu and Chris and Colin, Sorry—see you guys, and break off to reclaim my rightful place as Stella’s Number One, at which point we’ll ditch Iona and Yvette and have a sweet time, the magic of Stella being most intense when we’re first reunited and there is a sparkling surprise even to normal things like Shuffleboard or the Bocce Ball Courts or the Tire Swing. Ditching my new group is the only right move in my Stella drama but I can’t bring myself to do it, it is a split-second decision—NO—so I just smile at Stella and we keep walking and it feels dangerous to do this, I know I will pay later on but now it’s done.

The point is to have experiences, Yvette. To learn things. To explore, to need, to love, to hate, to win. To lose,” I add. “It’s just about experiences. That’s it. And some of them are good. And some of them are bad.

I don’t know how he does that. Just pushes his problems away until later. I’ve always been a worrier myself. Always got a future problem running through my brain. He slides off to the side of Yvette and reaches over her to feel for my cock again. This time I don’t push him away. Because maybe that’s the answer? Maybe that’s how you stop worrying about the future? Just be here now.

Love is a miracle.

And I found shocking evidence that the backlash against women who speak out isn’t new. But nor, thankfully, is the bravery of strong women who persist and overcome.

That is the whole history of politics. You have to make more noise than anybody else, you have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else, you have to fill all the papers more than anybody else, in fact you have to be there all the time and see that they do not snow you under.

I have passed through my family's life on the way to my own life, mon coeur.” He kissed my forehead. “And you are my life.

This was a game Jeanne and I played. We spoke what we wished into the air as if we were God writing history. But we both knew we weren’t God, and that our words served as nothing more than desperate prayers.

We lived in a strange dichotomy. We knew that the German soldiers were foul men, but some of them were our men. We knew that most would kill us in our own beds, but there were still boys and men who had been forced into this. We wanted to hate them, but the love for our Henris or Alberts bound us. The terror of what would happen to our children or friends kept us silent.

As I read verse twenty-one, I stopped. Jael, a woman who had been minding her own business, had come across an enemy of God, and she’d killed him. My heart felt as if it would grow wings and burst from my chest.

I didn't choose God God chose me I am hated for it What a luxury.

I was never lost, God always knew where I was: Where HE wanted me to be.

At the end of myself was always love and Holy Spirit to help me be strong in my weakness, to speak when I didn't have words, to love when I was hated, to leave when my heart wanted me to stay, to be brave and resist fear, to stand for righteousness when sin netted the win. At the end of myself, I am beloved.

Some of yall still mad at your supposed to be day ones when you shoulda cut them off a long time ago!

Jireh had been through enough trials and tribulations to last him a lifetime. A child felt like a fresh start and a gateway to some type of happiness.

We love you,” Yvette reminded me. “Even if you think endorphin dumping via running is a good idea.