Favorite Literary Quotes or Passages

[caitlin1214]

From Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding:

7.15 a.m. Hurrah! The wilderness years are over. For four weeks and five days now have been in functional relationship with adult male thereby proving am not love pariah as previously feared. Feel marvelous, rather like Jemima Goldsmith or similar radiant newlywed opening cancer hospital in veil while everyone imagines her in bed with Imran Khan. Ooh. Mark Darcy just moved. Maybe he will wake up and talk to me about my opinions.





7.30 a.m. Mark Darcy has not woken up. I know, will get up and make him fantastic fried breakfast with sausages, scrambled eggs and mushrooms or maybe Eggs Benedict or Florentine.

7.31 a.m. Depending what Eggs Benedict or Florentine actually are.

7.32 a.m. Except do not have any mushrooms or sausages.

7.33 a.m. Or eggs.

7.34 a.m. Or - come to think of it - milk.





7.35 a.m. Still has not woken up. Mmmm. He is lovely. Love looking at Him asleep. V. sexy broad shoulders and hairy chest. Not that sex object or anything. Interested in brain. Mmmm.

7.37 a.m. Still has not woken up. Must not make noise, realize, but maybe could wake Him subtly by thought vibes.

7.40 a.m. Maybe will put . . . GAAAAAH!

7.50 a.m. Was Mark Darcy sitting bolt upright yelling, "Bridget, will you stop. Bloody. Staring at me when I am asleep. Go find something to do."





8.50 a.m. Mmm. Wonder what Mark Darcy would be like as father (father to own offspring, mean. Not self. That would indeed be sick in manner of Oedipus)?

8.55 a.m. Anyway, must not obsess or fantasize.





Mum went into her slow, kindly "Let's try to make best friends with the waiting staff and be the most special person in the café for no fathomable reason" voice.

"Now. Let. Me. See. D'you know? I think I'll have a coffee. I've had so many cups of tea this morning up in Grafton Underwood with my husband Colin that I'm sick to death of tea. But could you warm me up some milk? I can't drink cold milk in coffee. It gives me indigestion. And then my daughter Bridget will have . . ."





Grrr. Why do parents do this. Why? Is it desperate mature person's plea for attention and importance, or is it that our urban generation are too busy and suspicious of each other to be open and friendly? I remember when I first came to London I used to smile at everyone until a man on the tube escalator masturbated into the back of my coat.





Sometimes there seems no limit to the absurdity of what Richard Finch will ask me to do. One day, I will find myself persuading Harriet Harman and Tessa Jowell to stand in a supermarket while I ask passing shoppers if they can tell which one is which, or trying to persuade a Master of the Hunt to be chased naked through the countryside by a pack of vicious foxes. Must find more worthwhile fulfilling job of some kind. Nurse, perhaps?





11.35 a.m. Humph. Conversation went like this:
Mark: Yes? Darcy here.
Me: It's Bridget.
Mark: (pause) Right. Er. Everything OK?
Me: Yes. It was nice last night, wasn't it? I mean - you know, when we . . .
Mark: I do know, yes. Exquisite. (Pause) I'm actually with the Indonesian Ambassador, the Head of Amnesty International and the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry just at the moment.
Me: Oh. Sorry. I'm just going to Leicestershire. I thought I'd let you know in case anything happens to me.
Mark: In case anything . . . ? What?
Me: I mean in case I'm . . . late. (I finished lamely.)
Mark: Right. Well, why not ring with an ETA when you're through? Jolly good. Bye now.
Hmmm. Don't think I should have done that. It says specifically in Loving Your Separated Man Without Losing Your Mind that the one thing they really do not like is being called up for no real reason when they are busy.

 

[caitlin1214]

From White Oleander by Janet Fitch:

The Santa Anas blew in hot from the desert, shriveling the last of the spring grass into whiskers of pale straw. Only the oleanders thrived, their delicate poisonous blooms, their dagger green leaves. We could not sleep in the hot dry nights, my mother and I. I woke up at midnight to find her bed empty. I climbed to the roof and easily spotted her blond hair like a white flame in the light of the three-quarter moon.





Barry. When he appeared, he was so small. Smaller than a comma, insignificant as a cough. Someone she met at a poetry reading. It was at a wine garden in Venice. As always when she read, my mother wore white, and her hair was the color of new snow against her lightly tanned skin. She stood in the shade of a massive fig tree, its leaves like hands. I sat at the table behind stacks of books I was supposed to sell after the reading, slim books published by the Blue Shoe Press of Austin, Texas. I drew the hands of the tree and the way bees swarmed over the fallen figs, eating the sun-fermented fruit and getting drunk, trying to fly and falling back down. Her voice made me drunk — deep and sun-warmed, a hint of a foreign accent, Swedish singsong a generation removed. If you'd ever heard her, you knew the power of that hypnotic voice.





"Always learn poems by heart," she said. "They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay."





"Your mother." Michael smiled. "Actually, you might really like him. There's a lovely melancholy in Chekhov." We both turned to the TV to catch the best line in Queen Christina, saying along with Garbo, "The snow is like a white sea, one could go out and be lost in it . . . and forget the world."





I thought of my mother as Queen Christina, cool and sad, eyes trained on some distant horizon. That was where she belonged, in furs and palaces of rare treasures, fireplaces large enough to roast a reindeer, ships of Swedish maple. My deepest fear was that someday she would find her way back there and never return. It was why I always waited up when she went out on nights like this, no matter how late she came home, I had to hear her key in the lock, smell her violet perfume again.

And I tried not to make it worse by asking for things, pulling her down with my thoughts. I had seen girls clamor for new clothes and complain about what their mothers made for dinner. I was always mortified. Didn't they know they were tying their mothers to the ground? Weren't chains ashamed of their prisoners?

 

[caitlin1214]

From Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding:

"Junction nineteen! Una, she came off at Junction nineteen! You've added an hour to your journey before you even started. Come on, let's get you a drink. How's your love life, anyway?"

Oh God. Why can't married people understand that this is no longer a polite question to ask? We wouldn't rush up to them and roar, "How's your marriage going? Still having sex?" Everyone knows that dating in your thirties is not the happy-go-lucky free-for-all it was when you were twenty-two and that the honest answer is more likely to be, "Actually, last night my married lover appeared wearing suspenders and a darling little Angora crop-top, told me he was gay/a sex addict/a narcotic addict/a commitment phobic and beat me up with a dildo," than, "Super, thanks."





Not being a natural liar, I ended up mumbling shamefacedly to Geoffrey, "Fine," at which point he boomed, "So you still haven't got a feller!"

"Bridget! What are we going to do with you!" said Una. "You career girls! I don't know! Can't put it off forever, you know. Tick-tock-tick-tock."

"Yes. How does a woman manage to get to your age without being married?" roared Brian Enderby (married to Mavis, used to be president of the Rotary in Kettering), waving his sherry in the air. Fortunately my dad rescued me.

"I'm very pleased to see you, Bridget," he said, taking my arm. "Your mother has the entire Northamptonshire constabulary poised to comb the county with toothbrushes for your dismembered remains. Come and demonstrate your presence so I can start enjoying myself. How's the be-wheeled suitcase?"





I don't know why she didn't just come out with it and say, "Darling, do shag Mark Darcy over the turkey curry, won't you? He's very rich."





10 p.m. Ugh. Perpetua, slightly senior and therefore thinking she is in charge of me, was at her most obnoxious and bossy, going on and on to the point of utter boredom about latest half-million-pound property she is planning to buy with her rich-but-overbred boyfriend, Hugo: "Yars, yars, well it is north-facing but they've done something frightfully clever with the light."

I looked at her wistfully, her vast, bulbous bottom swathed in a tight red skirt with a bizarre three-quarter-length striped waistcoat strapped across it. What a blessing to be born with such Sloaney arrogance. Perpetua could be the size of a Renault Espace and not give it a thought. How many hours, months, years, have I spent worrying about weight while Perpetua has been happily looking for lamps with porcelain cats as bases around the Fulham Road? She is missing out on a source of happiness, anyway. It is proved by surveys that happiness does not come from love, wealth or power but the pursuit of attainable goals: and what is a diet if not that?





Now, though, I feel ashamed and repulsive. I can actually feel the fat splurging out from my body. Never mind. Sometimes you have to sink to a nadir of toxic fat envelopment in order to emerge, phoenix-like, from the chemical wasteland as a purged and beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer figure. Tomorrow new Spartan health and beauty regime will begin.





At this point Alex Walker, who works in Sharon's company, strolled in with a stunning blonde who was about eight times as attractive as him. He ambled over to us to say hi.

"Is this your new girlfriend?" asked Sharon.

"Well. Huh. You know, she thinks she is, but we're not going out, we're just sleeping together. I ought to stop it really, but, well ...," he said, smugly.

"Oh, that is just such crap, you cowardly, dysfunctional little schmuck. Right. I'm going to talk to that woman," said Sharon, getting up. Jude and I forcibly restrained her while Alex, looking panic-stricken, rushed back, to continue his ****wittage unrumbled.





Message Jones
You appear to have forgotten your skirt. As I think is made perfectly clear in your contract of employment, staff are expected to be fully dressed at all times.
Cleave





Message Cleave
Sir, am appalled by message. Whilst skirt could reasonably be described as a little on the skimpy side (thrift being ever our watchword in editorial), consider it gross misrepresentation to describe said skirt as absent, and considering contacting union.
Jones





Message Jones
If skirt is indeed sick, please look into how many days sick leave skirt has taken in previous twelvemonth. Spasmodic nature of recent skirt attendance suggests malingering.
Cleave





Message Cleave
Skirt is demonstrably neither sick nor abscent. Appalled by management's blatently sizist attitude to skirt. Obsessive interest in skirt suggests management sick rather than skirt.
Jones





Message Cleave
Skirt is demonstrably neither sick nor abscent. Appalled by management's blatently sizist attitude to skirt. Considering appeal to industrial tribunal, tabloids, etc.
Jones





Message Jones
Absent, Jones, not abscent. Blatantly, not blatently. Please attempt to acquire at least perfunctory grasp of spelling. Though by no means trying to suggest language fixed rather than constantly adapting, fluctuating tool of communication (cf Hoenigswald) computer spell check might help.
Cleave





Message Jones
Wish to send bouquet to ailing skirt over weekend. Please supply home contact no asap as cannot, for obvious reasons, rely on given spelling of "Jones" to search in file.
Cleave





2 p.m. Oh God, why am I so unattractive? Cannot believe I convinced myself I was keeping the entire weekend free to work when in fact I was on permanent date-with-Daniel standby. Hideous, wasted two days glaring psychopathically at the phone, and eating things. Why hasn't he rung? Why? What's wrong with me? Why ask for my phone number if he wasn't going to ring, and if he was going to ring surely he would do it over the weekend? Must center myself more. Will ask Jude about appropriate self-help book, possible Eastern-religion-based.

 

[caitlin1214]

From Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells:

Sidda could see her mother's face, red with anger. She could see how her veins showed lavender underneath her light skin. "Mama, please. I cannot control The New York Times. Did you read the whole thing? I said, 'My mother, Vivi Abbott Walker, is one of the most charming people in the world.'" "'Charming wounded.' You said: 'My mother is one of the most charming wounded people in the world. And she is also the most dangerous.' I have it here in black-and-white, Siddalee."





"What I said was not exactly a lie, Mother. Or have you forgotten the feel of the belt in your hand?" Sidda could hear Vivi's sharp intake of breath. When Vivi spoke, her voice had dropped into a lower register. "My love was a privilege that you abused. I have withdrawn that privilege. You are out of my heart. You are banished to the outer reaches. I wish you nothing but unending guilt."

 

[ShimmaPuff]

I've always liked the first line of Gone with the Wind...

I love that line too! OK,

You really don't want me to even start, but here are a few of my favorites:

While like a ghastly rapid river, through the pale door, the hideous throng rush out forever, and laugh, but smile no more
Edgar Allan Poe, The Haunted Palace

He did not know he worked a fan, he thought he pulled a rope
E.M. Forster, referring to the punkah-wallah in A Passage to India

There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.
Maya Angelou

Philosophy is the stray camel of the faithful, take hold of it wherever ye come across it.
The Prophet Mohammed

Never express yourself more clearly than you think.
Niels Bohr

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the cat. He has no real style. He just keeps on trying other things.
Pablo Picasso

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell

The ink of a scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.
The Prophet Mohammed

I never let school interfere with my education.
-Mark Twain

Better than a thousand meaningless verses
is one word of verse if hearing it one becomes peaceful.
Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)

Language is something I don't think about.
Arundhati Roy

Stupidity is also a gift of God, but one mustn't misuse it
Pope John Paul II

If you describe things as better than they are, you are considered to be a romantic; if you describe things as worse than they are, you will be called a realist; and if you describe things exactly as they are, you will be thought of as a satirist.
Quentin Crisp

Unconsciously, you write to be read. If you want to write for yourself then you keep a journal.
Bapsi Sidhwa

The job of the writer is to make revolution irresistible.
Toni Cade Bambara

It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
Frederick Douglass

I only wish I could write with both hands, so as not to forget one thing while I am saying another.
St. Teresa of Avila

My language is the sound of the stream
in the river of storms
and the mirrors of the sun and wheat
in the arena of war
Maybe I erred in my expressions sometimes
But I was - I am not ashamed
to say--splendid when I
substituted my heart for
the dictionary!
Mahmoud Darwish

OK I will stop now. But I might be back...

 

[caitlin1214]

From Catch Me If You Can by Frank W. Abagnale:

A MAN'S ALTER EGO is nothing more than his favorite image of himself. The mirror in my room in the Windsor Hotel in Paris reflected my favorite image of me--a darkly handsome young airline pilot, smooth-skinned, bull-shouldered and immaculately groomed. Modesty is not one of my virtues. At the time, virtue was not one of my virtues.





I wasn't a Pan Am pilot or any other kind of pilot. I was an impostor, one of the most wanted criminals on four continents, and at the moment I was doing my thing, putting a super hype on some nice people.





I WAS A MILLIONAIRE twice over and half again before I was twenty-one. I stole every nickel of it and blew the bulk of the bundle on fine threads, gourmet foods, luxurious lodgings, fantastic foxes, fine wheels and other sensual goodies. I partied in every capital in Europe, basked on all the famous beaches and good-timed it in South America, the South Seas, the Orient and the more palatable portions of Africa.

It wasn't altogether a relaxing life. I didn't exactly keep my finger on the panic button, but I put a lot of mileage on my running shoes. I made a lot of exits through side doors, down fire escapes or over rooftops. I abandoned more wardrobes in the course of five years than most men acquire in a lifetime. I was slipperier than a buttered escargot.





Oddly enough, I never felt like a criminal. I was one, of course, and I was aware of the fact. I've been described by authorities and news reporters as one of this century's cleverest bum-check passers, flimflam artists and crooks, a con man of Academy Award caliber. I was a swindler and poseur of astonishing ability. I sometimes astonished myself with some of my impersonations and shenanigans, but I never at any time deluded myself. I was always aware that I was Frank Abagnale, Jr., that I was a check swindler and a faker, and if and when I were caught I wasn't going to win any Oscars. I was going to jail.





I told him I'd answered every question asked me as truthfully as possible, that I'd completed every test given me as honestly as I could. I didn't convince him. "Nah," he said. "You can fool these feds, but you can't fool me. You conned this couch turkey." He shook his head. "You'd con your own father, Frank."

I already had. My father was the mark for the first score I ever made. Dad possessed the one trait necessary in the perfect pigeon, blind trust, and I plucked him for $3,400. I was only fifteen at the time.





What bothered me most was their lack of style. I learned early that class is universally admired. Almost any fault, sin or crime is considered more leniently if there's a touch of class involved.





Someone once said there's no such thing as an honest man. He was probably a con man. It's the favorite rationale of the pigeon dropper. I think a lot of people do fantasize about being a supercriminal, an international diamond thief or something like that, but they confine their larceny to daydreams. I also think a lot of other people are actually tempted now and then to commit a crime, especially if there's a nice bundle to be had and they think they won't be connected with the caper. Such people usually reject the temptation. They have an innate perception of right and wrong, and common sense prevails.

But there's also a type of person whose competitive instincts override reason. They are challenged by a given situation in much the same manner a climber is challenged by a tall peak: because it's there. Right or wrong are not factors, nor are consequences. These people look on crime as a game, and the goal is not just the loot; it's the success of the venture that counts. Of course, if the booty is bountiful, that's nice, too.





"Mr. Abagnale, you've had a card with us for fifteen years and we prize your account. You've got a top credit rating, you've never been late with a payment and I'm not here to harass you about your bill," said the agent as Dad listened with a puzzled expression. "We are curious, sir, and would like to know one thing. Just how in the hell can you run up a $3,400 bill for gas, oil, batteries and tires for one 1952 Ford in the space of three months? You've put fourteen sets of tires on that car in the past sixty days, bought twenty-two batteries in the past ninety days and you can't be getting over two miles to the gallon on gas. We figure you don't even have an oil pan on the damned thing. . . . Have you given any thought to trading that car in on a new one, Mr. Abagnale?"





The Mobil investigator placed several hundred Mobil charge receipts in front of Dad. Each bore his signature in my handwriting. "How did he do this? And why?" Dad exclaimed.

"I don't know," replied the Mobil agent. "Why don't we ask him?"

They did. I said I didn't know a thing about the swindle. I didn't convince either of them. I had expected Dad to be furious. But he was more confused than angry. "Look, son, if you'll tell us how you did this, and why, we'll forget it. There'll be no punishment and I'll pay the bills," he offered.

My dad was a great guy in my book. He never lied to me in his life. I promptly copped out. "It's the girls, Dad," I sighed. "They do funny things to me. I can't explain it."

Dad and the Mobil investigator nodded understandingly. Dad laid a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry about it, boy. Einstein couldn't explain it, either," he said.





He refused to dwell on his misfortunes or to discuss them at length, but it bugged me, especially when I was with him in his car. It wasn't as good as my Ford, which he'd sold for me and placed the money in an account in my name. His car was a battered old Chevy. "Doesn't it bother you at all to drive this old car, Dad?" I asked him one day.

"I mean, this is really a comedown from a Cadillac. Right?"

Dad laughed. "That's the wrong way to look at it, Frank. It's not what a man has but what a man is that's important. This car is fine for me. It gets me around. I know who I am and what I am, and that's what counts, not what other people might think of me. I'm an honest man, I feel, and that's more important to me than having a big car. . . . As long as a man knows what he is and who he is, he'll do all right."

Trouble was, at the time I didn't know what I was or who I was.

Within three short years I had the answer. "Who are you?" asked a lush brunette when I plopped down on Miami Beach beside her.

"Anyone I want to be," I said. I was, too

 

[caitlin1214]

FromA Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive by Dave Pelzer:

One day, he knelt down to tell me how sorry he was. I looked into his face. The change in Father frightened me. He had dark black circles around his eyes, and his face and neck were beet-red. Father's once rigid shoulders were now slumped over. Gray had begun to take over his jet-black hair. Before he left that day, I threw my arms around his waist. I didn't know when I would see him again.





That Friday, I looked up at the thick blanket of fog covering the sun, and cried inside. The substitute teacher had been so nice to me. She treated me like a real person, not like some piece of filth lying in the gutter. As I sat outside feeling sorry for myself, I wondered where she was and what she was doing. I didn't understand it at the time, but I had a crush on her. I knew that I wasn't going to be fed that night, or the next. Since Father wasn't home, I would have a bad weekend. Sitting in the cool air in the backyard, on the steps, I could hear the sounds of Mother feeding my brothers. I didn't care. Closing my eyes, I could see the smiling face of my new teacher. That night as I sat outside shivering, her beauty and kindness kept me warm.
</SPAN>

 

[caitlin1214]

From All Over But The Shoutin' by Rick Bragg:

It was as if God made them pay for the loveliness of their scenery by demanding everything else. Yet the grimness of it faded for a while, at dinner on the ground at the Protestant churches, where people sat on the springtime grass and ate potato salad and sipped sweet tea from an aluminum tub with a huge block of ice floating in it. The pain eased at family reunions where the men barbecued twenty-four hours straight and the women took turns holding babies and balancing plates on their knees, trying to keep the grease from soaking through on the one good dress they had. The hardness of it softened in the all-night gospel singings that ushered in the dawn with the promise that "I'll have a new body, praise the Lord, I'll have a new life," as babies crawled up into the ample laps of grandmothers to sleep across jiggling knees. If all else failed, you could just wash it away for a while, at the stills deep in the woods or in the highly illegal beer joints and so-called social clubs, where the guitar pickers played with their eyes closed, lost in the booze and the words of lost love and betrayal. They sang about women who walked the hills in long black veils, of whispering pines, and trains.





I watched the races fall into an uneasy and imperfect peace and the grip of the poverty ease. There was reason to rejoice in that, because while I was never ashamed to be a Southerner there was always a feeling, a need, to explain myself. But as change came in good ways, I saw Southernness become a fashion, watched men wear their camouflage deer-hunting clothes to the mall because they thought it looked cool, watched Hank Williams and his elegant western suits give way to pretty boys in ridiculous Rodeo Drive leather chaps. And I thought of my granddaddy Bobby Bragg, gentler than his son in some ways, who sat down to dinner in clean overalls, a spotless white shirt buttoned to the neck and black wingtip shoes.





He had been a fearsome man, the kind of slim and lethal Southern man who would react with murderous fury when insulted, attacking with a knife or a pine knot or his bare hands. When I was six I watched him kick the mortal hell out of a man in a parking lot. I cannot remember why he did it. I just remember how the man covered up his head and tried to crawl under a car to get away, but he was too fat and wedged himself half in and half out, while my daddy kicked his ass and spit on his back and called him a son of a *****. I remember how the man's yellow sport shirt had blood on it, how his pocket change spilled out into the gravel, and how the man's children--I remember a little girl screaming--stood and watched, in terror. I distinctly remember that I was not afraid, because no matter how much red hatred clouded his eyes, how much Jim Beam or beer or homemade whiskey assaulted his brain, he never touched me. In some sick way I admired him. This was, remember, a world of pulpwooders and millworkers and farmers, of men who ripped all the skin off their knuckles working on junk cars and ignored the blood that ran down their arms. In that world, strength and toughness were everything, sometimes the only things. It was common, acceptable, not to be able to read, but a man who wouldn't fight, couldn't fight, was a pathetic thing. To be afraid was shameful. I am not saying I agree with it. It's just the way it was.





But in the end he was very afraid. The years of drinking more whiskey than water had wrecked him, and somewhere along the way, he had picked up TB. People were not supposed to still be dying of it then, in 1974, and he might have lived if he could have quit drinking and cleaned up his life. But it was the drinking that killed him, really, just as sure as if he slipped and fell and cut his throat on the broken bottle.





I know why he wanted to see me. If my daddy had a favorite, I guess I was it. I guess he thought I was smart, because he liked the fact that I would sit quiet with a book about Dick and Jane and read it so many times that I memorized it, then show off in class by reciting my page, not reading it. He liked the fact that if I got into a fight on the playground and someone had a grip on my throat, I would stick my thumb in his eye, just like he taught me when I was still just a very little boy. He was proud of the fact that, if a batter got a hit off me in baseball, I would throw the next pitch at his head. Like he taught me.

I guess he thought I was a lot like him. Even now people say that. They tell me I remind them of him in little ways. As the years slip past, it is easier to hear, but at the time I hated to hear it, think it.





"They ain't never come to see me. How come?"

I remember thinking, fool, why do you think? But I just choked down my words, and in doing so I gave up the only real chance I would ever have to accuse him, to attack him with the facts of his own sorry nature and the price it had cost us all. The opportunity hung perfectly still in the air in front of my face and fists, and I held my temper and let it float on by. I could have no more challenged him, berated him, hurt him than I could have kicked some three-legged dog. Life had kicked his ass pretty good.





He asked me about basketball and baseball, said he had heard I had a good game against Cedar Springs, and I said pretty good, but it was two years ago, anyway. He asked if I had a girlfriend and I said, "One," and he said, "Just one?" For the slimmest of seconds he almost grinned and the young, swaggering man peeked through, but disappeared again in the disease that cloaked him. He talked and talked and never said a word, at least not the words I wanted.

He never said he was sorry.

He never said he wished things had turned out different.

He never acted like he did anything wrong.





Part of it, I know, was culture. Men did not talk about their feelings in his hard world. I did not expect, even for a second, that he would bare his soul. All I wanted was a simple acknowledgment that he was wrong, or least too drunk to notice that he left his pretty wife and sons alone again and again, with no food, no money, no way to get any, short of begging, because when she tried to find work he yelled, screamed, refused. No, I didn't expect much.





After a while he motioned for me to follow him into a back room where he had my present, and I planned to take it and run. He handed me a long, thin box, and inside was a brand-new, well-oiled Remington .22 rifle. He said he had bought it some time back, just kept forgetting to give it to me. It was a fine gun, and for a moment we were just like anybody else in the culture of that place, where a father's gift of a gun to his son is a rite. He said, with absolute seriousness, not to shoot my brothers.





Inside was the only treasure I truly have ever known.

I had grown up in a house in which there were only two books, the King James Bible and the spring seed catalog. But here, in these boxes, were dozens of hardback copies of everything from Mark Twain to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. There was a water-damaged Faulkner, and the nearly complete set of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan. There was poetry and trash, Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage, and a paperback with two naked women on the cover. There was a tiny, old copy of Arabian Nights, threadbare Hardy Boys, and one Hemingway. He had bought most of them at a yard sale, by the box or pound, and some at a flea market. He did not even know what he was giving me, did not recognize most of the writers. "Your momma said you still liked to read," he said.

There was Shakespeare. My father did not know who he was, exactly, but he had heard the name. He wanted them because they were pretty, because they were wrapped in fake leather, because they looked like rich folks' books. I do not love Shakespeare, but I still have those books. I would not trade them for a gold monkey.

"They's maybe some dirty books in there, by mistake, but I know you ain't interested in them, so just throw 'em away," he said. "Or at least, throw 'em away before your momma sees 'em." And then I swear to God he winked.





Finally the bottle was down to a swallow or two and he was huddled back in a corner of the couch, quiet, as satisfyingly, numbingly drunk as a man in his condition could be. The whiskey was like tonic to him, I guess. It warmed instead of burned. I just sat in a chair all the way across the room, waiting. I had experience with drunks, with him as a child, and later with kinfolks who staggered into our house for a place to sleep. I knew it was just a matter of time until he slipped into that deep, deep sleep that no amount of shaking or even a house fire would wake him from. I would take my gun, my books, and leave him forever.

Then, without any explanation of why he changed his mind and without any pretense that by talking about this war he could somehow excuse the way he lived, he told me one last story. He used his aged, ruined voice like an old man's palsied hands to pick the lock on his past, and tugged me inside

 

[caitlin1214]

From How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale by Jenna Jameson:

One of my favorite outfits was a tight red cut-off top, Daisy Duke jeans, and black boots with ridiculous chains wrapped around the bottom. I was trying to look like Bobbie Brown from Warrant's "Cherry Pie" video. When I left the house like that to go to a Little Caesar concert, my dad didn't even raise an eyebrow. I was always secretly jealous of my friends, who had to change in the car because their fathers didn't want their baby girls leaving the house dressed like a slut. Since I was four, my father had been letting me run wild in the streets, but the freedom had come with a price: security.





After the festivities, I came home and told my brother, "I want to get a tattoo."

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Absolutely," I told him.

So the following Saturday, he drove me back to The Rabbit Hole with his girlfriend, Megan &#8212; a mousy, heavyset twenty-year-old brunette who for some reason looked up to me, even though I knew nothing about life or how to move through it. As soon as we walked in, I saw a big sign over the counter: MUST BE 18 OR OVER. I ignored it and pulled my lips taut over my teeth, so that my braces wouldn't show.





I looked up at the wall and saw two little overlapping red hearts. I bent forward over the counter, trying to show my breasts, hoping that if I worked it a little he wouldn't question my age. "I want to get those hearts done," I told him as coquettishly as I could manage with my lips curled over my teeth.

"Where?" he asked.

I needed to put it someplace where my father couldn't see it. I'm not sure whether I was scared that he would react to it or, even worse, that he wouldn't. "On my butt cheek?" I replied nervously.





Making eye contact during rough sex is roughly the equivalent of trying to read Dostoyevsky on a rollercoaster.





You may not be a manipulative person deep inside, but in here you must manipulate. And you will learn that you can get anything you want by maneuvering correctly.

 

[caitlin1214]

From Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne:

Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday, Winnie-the-Pooh lived in a forest all by himself under the name of Sanders.





One day when he was out walking, he came to an open place in the middle of the forest, and in the middle of this place was a large oak-tree, and, from the top of the tree, there came a loud buzzing-noise.

Winnie-the-Pooh sat down at the foot of the tree, put his head between his paws and began to think.

First of all he said to himself: "That buzzing-noise means something. You don't get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something. If there's a buzzing-noise,
somebody's making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you're a bee."

Then he thought another long time, and said: "And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey."

And then he got up, and said: "And the only reason for making honey is so as I can eat it." So he began to climb the tree.





"It's like this," he said. "When you go after honey with a balloon, the great thing is not to let the bees know you're coming. Now, if you have a green balloon, they might think you were only part of the
tree, and not notice you, and if you have a blue balloon, they might think you were only part of the sky, and not notice you, and the question is: Which is most likely?"

"Wouldn't they notice you underneath the balloon?" you asked.

"They might or they might not," said Winnie-the-Pooh. "You never can tell with bees." He thought for a moment and said: "I shall try to look like a small black cloud. That will deceive them."

"Then you had better have the blue balloon," you said; and so it was decided.





"Christopher Robin!" he said in a loud whisper.

"Hallo!"

"I think the bees suspect something!"

"What sort of thing?"

"I don't know. But something tells me that they're suspicious!"

"Perhaps they think that you're after their honey?"

"It may be that. You never can tell with bees."

There was another little silence, and then he called down to you again.

"Christopher Robin!"

"Yes?"

"Have you an umbrella in your house?"

"I think so."

"I wish you would bring it out here, and walk up and down with it, and look up at me every now and then, and say 'Tut-tut, it looks like rain.' I think, if you did that, it would help the deception which we are practising on these bees."





PLAN TO CAPTURE BABY ROO

1. General Remarks. Kanga runs faster than any of Us, even Me.

2. More General Remarks. Kanga never takes her eye off Baby Roo, except
when he's safely buttoned up in her pocket.

3. Therefore. If we are to capture Baby Roo, we must get a Long Start,
because Kanga runs faster than any of Us, even Me. (See I.)

4. A Thought. If Roo had jumped out of Kanga's pocket and Piglet had
jumped in, Kanga wouldn't know the difference, because Piglet is a Very
Small Animal.

5. Like Roo.

6. But Kanga would have to be looking the other way first, so as not to
see Piglet jumping in.

7. See 2.

8. Another Thought. But if Pooh was talking to her very excitedly, she
might look the other way for a moment.

9. And then I could run away with Roo.

10. Quickly.

11. And Kanga wouldn't discover the difference until Afterwards





"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's
the first thing you say to yourself?"

"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"

"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting to-day?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.

"It's the same thing," he said.

 

[caitlin1214]

From Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll:

'It seems very pretty,' she said when she had finished it, `but it's
RATHER hard to understand!' (You see she didn't like to confess, ever to
herself, that she couldn't make it out at all.) 'Somehow it seems to fill
my head with ideas -- only I don't exactly know what they are! However,
SOMEBODY killed SOMETHING: that's clear, at any rate -- '





'O Tiger-lily,' said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving
gracefully about in the wind, `I WISH you could talk!'

'We CAN talk,' said the Tiger-lily: 'when there's anybody worth talking to.'





`The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright --
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done --
"It's very rude of him," she said,
"To come and spoil the fun!"

The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying over head --
There were no birds to fly.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, "it WOULD be grand!"

"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Walrus did beseech.
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each."

The eldest Oyster looked at him.
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head --
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.

But four young oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat --
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more --
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes -- and ships -- and sealing-wax --
Of cabbages -- and kings --
And why the sea is boiling hot --
And whether pigs have wings."

"But wait a bit," the Oysters cried,
"Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!"
"No hurry!" said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.

"A loaf of bread," the Walrus said,
"Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed --
Now if you're ready Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed."

"But not on us!" the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue,
"After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!"
"The night is fine," the Walrus said
"Do you admire the view?

"It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf --
I've had to ask you twice!"

"It seems a shame," the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"The butter's spread too thick!"

"I weep for you," the Walrus said.
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size.
Holding his pocket handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter.
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?"
But answer came there none --
And that was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.'





'I'm very brave generally,' he went on in a low voice: 'only to-day I
happen to have a headache.'

'And I'VE got a toothache!' said Tweedledee, who had overheard the
remark. 'I'm far worse off than you!'

'Then you'd better not fight to-day,' said Alice, thinking it a good
opportunity to make peace.

'We MUST have a bit of a fight, but I don't care about going on long,'
said Tweedledum. 'What's the time now?'

Tweedledee looked at his watch, and said 'Half-past four.'

'Let's fight till six, and then have dinner,' said Tweedledum.
​

 

[caitlin1214]

From The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Sallinger:

Where I want to start telling is the day I left Pencey Prep.
Pencey Prep is this school that's in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. You probably
heard of it. You've probably seen the ads, anyway. They advertise in about
a thousand magazines, always showing some hotshot guy on a horse jumping
over a fence. Like as if all you ever did at Pencey was play polo all the
time. I never even once saw a horse anywhere near the place. And
underneath the guy on the horse's picture, it always says: "Since 1888 we
have been molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men." Strictly
for the birds. They don't do any damn more molding at Pencey than they do
at any other school. And I didn't know anybody there that was splendid and
clear-thinking and all. Maybe two guys. If that many. And they probably
came to Pencey that way.





We always had the same meal on Saturday nights at Pencey. It was
supposed to be a big deal, because they gave you steak. I'll bet a
thousand bucks the reason they did that was because a lot of guys' parents
came up to school on Sunday, and old Thurmer probably figured everybody's
mother would ask their darling boy what he had for dinner last night, and
he'd say, "Steak." What a racket. You should've seen the steaks. They were
these little hard, dry jobs that you could hardly even cut. You always
got these very lumpy mashed potatoes on steak night, and for dessert you
got Brown Betty, which nobody ate, except maybe the little kids in the
lower school that didn't know any better--and guys like Ackley that ate
everything.









I've lived in New York all my life, and I know Central Park like the back of my hand, because I used to roller-skate there all the time and ride my bike when I was a kid, but I had the most terrific trouble finding that lagoon that night. I knew right where it was--it was right near
Central Park South and all--but I still couldn't find it. I must've been
drunker than I thought. I kept walking and walking, and it kept getting
darker and darker and spookier and spookier. I didn't see one person the
whole time I was in the park. I'm just as glad. I probably would've jumped
about a mile if I had. Then, finally, I found it. What it was, it was partly frozen and partly not frozen. But I didn't see any ducks around. I walked all around the whole damn lake--I damn near fell in once, in fact--but I didn't see a single duck. I thought maybe if there were any
around, they might be asleep or something near the edge of the water, near the grass and all. That's how I nearly fell in. But I couldn't find any.

 

[caitlin1214]

From Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert:

Time was when his wife had doted on him. The slavishness of her adoration had but served to complete his estrangement from her. Once cheerful kind-hearted and wholly affectionate, she became, as she grew older (as wine left uncorked will turn into vinegar), morose, shrewish, and irritable.



The ladies, in their best bonnets, wore town-made costumes, gold watch-chains, tippets with ends crossing over at the waist, or little coloured kerchiefs fastened behind with a pin and showing a little bit of neck at the back.



The little boys, dressed like their papas, seemed rather ill at ease in their new clothes (a good few of them were sporting the first pair of boots they had ever had in their lives), and alongside of them, not daring to utter a word, and wearing her white first communion dress lengthened for the occasion, you might see a gawky girl of anything from fourteen to sixteen- a sister or a cousin, no doubt- all red and flustered, her hair plastered down with strong-smelling pomade and terribly afraid of soiling her gloves.


(It's too much to post here, but I love the author's talking about the wedding guests. By describing about what the men were wearing, you can tell the obvious different levels of social status.)




All the gentlemen had had their hair cut, their ears were sticking out from their heads, and they had all shaved especially close for the occasion. Some of them who had got up before it was light, when it was really too dark to shave, had gashes running crosswise under the nose, or pieces as big as shillings taken out of their cheeks. The cold air blowing against them on the journey had inflamed them so that their broad, highly polished countenances were diversified like marble with pink patches.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The bride had implored her father that the customary practical jokes might be dispensed with. However, one of their cousins, a fish tranter (who by the same token had brought a couple of soles as a wedding present), was preparing to squirt water out of his mouth through the keyhole, when Farmer Rouault came up just in time to stop him, and explained that, his son-in-law being a professional man, such buffoonery was out of place. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]However, it was difficult to make the cousin see things in this light. In his own mind he accused Farmer Rouault of being stuck-up, and went and made an alliance with four or five other guests sitting apart in a corner who had happened to get inferior cuts of meat several times running at dinner, and who, consequently, said they had been shabbily treated, muttered unflattering things about their host and secretly wished him no good. [/FONT]



Before she married, she thought she was in love; but the happiness that should have resulted from that love, somehow had not come. It seemed to her that she must have made a mistake, have misunderstood in some way or another. And Emma tried hard to discover what, precisely, it was in life that was denoted by the words 'joy, passion, intoxication', which had always looked so fine to her in books.​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And she lay down at full length on her bed. She felt a bitter taste in her mouth, and it woke her up. She caught sight of Charles, and shut her eyes again. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]She kept her senses alert, wondering whether she had any pain. But no! Nothing yet. She could hear the clock ticking, the fire flickering. Charles was standing by the bed, and she heard the sound of his breathing. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]'Ah, it's nothing very much- dying!' she thought. 'I shall just drop off to sleep, and it will all be over.' [/FONT]



(Yeah, she has just eaten arsenic. It is NOT going to be the peaceful, beautiful death she imagined. It's going to be rough and painful.)​

 

[caitlin1214]

From The Truth About Diamonds by Nicole Richie:

Chloe Parker was practically born in a club. It&#8217;s like she spontaneously generated one night in 1981 during a fourteen-minute remix.



Her hair was naturally blonde, but she liked to wear it red to contrast her famously emerald-green eyes, which only her closest friends knew were actually an unremarkable shade of wishy-washy hazel. Her eye color was far from the only fake part of Simone. Her real first name was Margaret, her long hair was 95 percent extensions, her nose was sixteen years younger than the rest of Simone, and as for her boobs, I have it on good authority that she took a Poloroid of Chloe&#8217;s assets to her plastic surgeon and said, &#8220;Like these.&#8221;




Chloe practically fell asleep during Some guy&#8217;s Power Point presentation about their future appearances while Simone played with her gum and had text message sex with some guy on her pager - at least that&#8217;s what Chloe figured she was doing because she kept typing &#8220;o god o god o god&#8221; over and over again. I just wished the guy could have seen how bored to within an inch of her life she was when she was supposedly in orgasmic heaven.



&#8220;Wow, there&#8217;s so much product here, it&#8217;s retarded,&#8221; said Simone.
Astrid immediately pronounced, &#8220;We would prefer you didn&#8217;t use that word.&#8221;
&#8220;Is that because regular people don&#8217;t know what &#8216;product&#8217; is?&#8221; Simone asked.
No one answered her.



I knew for sure that the Magdalena commercials were going to be a big deal when I saw Chloe on TV while I was working out. I stopped running in place and watched in shock as she and Simone, arm in arm, sat on a lavender sofa in Magdalena HQ being interviewed by Billy Bush. Billy was doing the expected lovestruck banter with the new BFFs as they giggled and flashed leg. Simone, inarticulate to the point of mental incompetence, came off as aloof and mysterious on TV for some unknown reason. The camera loved Chloe, whose coke high read as girlish excitement.




The girls hopped into the limo with matching Chihuahuas (apparently, viewers were supposed to believe these were their cherished personal pets, but they were strictly accessories that might as well have had Burberry patterns on them) and huge grins.



Off-camera, Simone ignored Chloe. She spent all her time inventing ways to attract the crew&#8217;s undivided attention, wisely deducing that anything outrageous would lead to airtime. Looking stupid on TV meant being on TV, so who cared about the stupid part?



As showtime edged ever closer, the girls&#8217; Chihuahuas were making sweet love in the corner &#8211; whoever had thought it would be a great idea to get the girls one of each sex was probably a cat person . . .

 

[titania029]

Nicole Richie writes books??

You had a quote from Bridget Jones earlier, and my favorite line from the second book is "hurrah! am most popular girl in jail!"

Here is another one that I like:

"I never told my own religion, nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another's creed...I have been satisfied yours must be an excellent one, to have produced a life of such exemplary virtue and correctness. For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be read." - letter from Thomas Jefferson to Mrs. Samuel H. Smith