It's Not How Old You Are Quotes & Sayings

Catch a customer with emotion and you will have a customer for a day; but, capture a customer with value and you will keep a customer for a lifetime. I truly believe in good, old-fashioned values when it comes to business. That is what timelessness is made of! At the end of the day, the question is, "Do you want to build a good hut for a day or do you want to build a good fortress for a lifetime?" Quality, value, understanding the needs of your clientele - that's how you build a legacy. Connect with people, because you can never underestimate just how many people out there are yearning for any form of good interpersonal connection that they can find and when you can provide that as a brand name, you can allow the person behind your business to shine through. That's how timelessness is created. It's not created by luring people into a myth; it's created by making connections, by remembering people's names, by being genuinely interested in everybody. — C. JoyBell C.

Sometimes people ask me how I can be both a Catholic and a scientist, particularly a scientist who, at least for some research, studies evolution. I tell them that they are confusing us with Evangelicals. Catholics don't have anything against evolution. A literal interpretation of the Bible, the kind that says that the earth is six thousand years old, has never been a part of our religion, at least not since the Saint Augustine warned against preaching idiocy to Pagans in 415 AD. He said that if you tell people that they have to believe in things that they know are not true and that do not matter then they will never believe you when you tell them things that are true and that do matter, things about Christ and the resurrection. The Church's friendliness towards science is not to protect science. It is to protect Christianity. — Gina DeMarco

I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is alone. How commonplace and stupid it would be if I had a friend now, sitting beside me, someone I had known at school, who would say: "By-the-way, I saw old Hilda the other day. You remember her, the one who was so good at tennis. She's married, with two children." And the bluebells beside us unnoticed, and the pigeons overhead unheard. I did not want anyone with me. Not even Maxim. If Maxim had been there I should not be lying as I was now, chewing a piece of grass, my eyes shut. I should have been watching him, watching his eyes, his expression. Wondering if he liked it, if he was bored. Wondering what he was thinking. Now I could relax, none of these things mattered. Maxim was in London. How lovely it was to be alone again. — Daphne Du Maurier

Not all babies are cute when they're born no matter how many new parents try to convince you otherwise. This is yet another lie the half-baked "theys" lead you to believe. Some babies are born looking like old men with wrinkled faces, age spots, and a receding hairline. When I was born, my father George took my hospital picture over to his friend Tim's house while my mom was still recuperating in the hospital. Tim took one look at my picture and said, "Oh sweet Jesus, George. You better hope she's smart." It was no different with my son, Gavin. He was funny looking. I was his mother, so I could say that. He had a huge head, no hair, and his ears stuck out so far I often wondered if they worked like the Whisper 2000, and he was able to pick up conversations from a block away. — Tara Sivec

They're old enough to know how the world really works, so why are they so stupid? It's easy to talk big, but the important thing is whether or not you can clean up the shit. — Haruki Murakami

In the morning, as we're enjoying a shower together, Cash asks Mikey how long he's been working here.
"Since I was fourteen."
"How OLD are you now?"
"Eighteen."
"Nice. Are there any other hot guys working here besides you?"
"I'm not a prostitute. I'm a ranch hand."
"Sorry- I didn't mean-"
"It's okay."
As they kiss and make up, I inform Cash that I was Mikey's first.
"Really?" Cash laughed. "You were?"
"Yeah-" Mikey answered. "He was."
"I was his birthday present last month..."
Cash laughed, "How much did that set you back-? — Giorge Leedy

Ask me anything, Bailey challenged.
What are you scared of? The question got out of Tibby's mouth before she meant to ask it.
Bailey thought. I'm afriad of time, she answered. She was brave, unflinching in the big Cyclops eye of the camera. There was nothing prissy or self-conscious about Bailey. I mean, I'm afraid of not having enough time, she clarified. Not enough time to understand people, how they really are, or to be understood myself. I'm afraid of the quick judgments and mistakes that eerybody makes. You can't fix them without time. I'm afraid of seeing snapshots instead of movies.
Tibby looked at her in disbelief. She was struck by this new side of Bailey, this philosophical-beyond-her-years Bailey. Did cancer make you wise? Did those chemicals and X rays supercharge her twelve-year-old brain? — Ann Brashares

There was a sudden awkwardness between them, so thick it permeated the air around them. "Ahhh," Nick said as he understood why they weren't explaining it. As the old saying went, opposites attract. "You two are special friends."
Kyrian frowned. "How do you mean?"
Acheron passed a peeved look to Kyrian. "He thinks we're a couple."
Kyrian took a step away from Acheron. "No. No. No. Definitely not. Not that Acheron is not an attractive man, not that I've ever really noticed whether or not he's attractive, but male is not my type. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Our lips met and parted, and his tongue
slid deep to taste me. The sounds from the peanut gallery - choking and retching - and the tug on my robe instantly drained the heat from the encounter.
"That's disgusting," Kola assured me with a glare that a six-year-old shouldn't have had.
"Why?" I asked snidely.
"Your mouth has germs," he informed me haughtily. "That's why you told Hannah not to lick Chilly."
"No, I told her not to lick Chilly because the cat doesn't like to be
licked by her."
"He licks his body."
"He does," Hannah, our four-year-old, agreed with a nod. "Kola's right."
"But he doesn't want you to do it," I assured my daughter.
"How do you know?" Kola questioned.
I had to think.
Kola waited, squinting at me.
"Do not lick the cat! Nobody licks the cat!" Sam ordered when the silence stretched for too long. — Mary Calmes

Do you ever think about him?" Elise asks. "The baby?"
I nod slowly. "I wonder how much would have been different, if he'd-"
"Don't say it." There are tears in her eyes. "Let's do it this way, Charlie, all right? Let's just pick one sentence out of all of the ones we should have said
the best, most important sentence
and let's say just that."
This is my old Elise
whimsical, loopy
the one I couldn't help but fall for. And because I know she is sinking in the quicksand of regret just like me, I nod. "Okay. But I go first." I try to remember what it was like to be loved by someone who did not know limits, and had not yet been ruined by that. "I forgive you," I whisper; a gift.
"Oh, Charlie," Elise says, and she gives me one right back. "She turned out absolutely perfect. — Jodi Picoult

May there not be some subconscious jealousy that motivates our reactions to other people? Why do we eat chocolate sundaes when we know that we should reduce? Are we free from the influence of parental training? The Scriptures say, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Parental training and all education proceed on the assumption that the will is not free, but can be trained, motivated, and directed. Finally, beyond both physiology and psychology there is God. Can we be sure that he is not directing our choices? Do we know that we are free from his grace? The Psalm says, "Blessed is the man whom you choose and cause to approach you." Is it certain that God has not caused us to choose to approach him? Can we set a limit to God's power? Can we tell how far it extends and just where it ends? Are we outside his control? — Gordon H. Clark

I don't quite know... but... something needs to change in my life. The incident earlier today... it's left me in a very odd mood. I'm not sure what needs to occur, or how, or when.. but I can feel it. It's almost... I feel so damned restless. I can't adequately explain it, even to you, because I'm not sure what I'm talking about. But... something's out there, and I need to be ready for it."
Alistair was still, expression strange and unreadable. "And are you?"
"Am I what?"
"Ready for change. And before you reply, let me caution you: fate, or destiny, or God, or whatever you call it, has an uncanny way of supplying what you ask for. But the strangest thing is, often we don't consider the ramifications of our request. There's an old saying that warns some things in life are not for the faint of heart. So, I'll ask again: are you ready for this... this change? Even if it turns your life completely and irrevocably upside down? — D.R. Ranshaw

If you go to a therapist, they say, 'Are you sure? How do you feel about your wrinkles?' And I say, 'I don't know, because I don't really see them.' I see my hands, but I don't see my face, so it's not a torment. I only see it for five minutes in the morning when I brush my teeth! When you read women's magazines you always read about this drama of getting old, about anti-aging cream and plastic surgery and whatever else. But I think if you're independent, like I have grown to be, it's welcome. — Isabella Rossellini

I think we're raising whole generations who regard facts as more or less optional.
We have kids in elementary school who are being urged to take stands on political issues, to write letters to congressmen and presidents about nuclear energy.
They're not a decade old, and they're being thrown these kinds of questions that can absorb the lifetime of a very brilliant and learned man. And they're being taught that it's important to have views, and they're not being taught that it's important to know what you're talking about.
It's important to hear the opposite viewpoint, and more important to learn how to distinguish why viewpoint A and viewpoint B are different, and which one has the most evidence or logic behind it. They disregard that. They hear something, they hear some rhetoric, and they run with it. — Thomas Sowell

Is it a loss?" Rachael repeated. "I don't really know; I have no way to tell. How does it feel to have a child? How does it feel to be born, for that matter? We're not born; we don't grow up; instead of dying from illness or old age, we wear out like ants. Ants again; that's what we are. Not you; I mean me. Chitinous reflex-machines who aren't really alive." She twisted her head to one side, said loudly, "I'm not alive! — Philip K. Dick

Why are you crying?'
'How can I possibly look good to you? I'm pregnant! I'm really, really pregnant!'
'Of course you are. Why are you crying?'
'Because I'm going to Hawai'i!'
'Yes, you're going to Hawai'i. Come on now, pull yourself together.'
I kept crying.
Darren looked frantic. He stepped back and fumbled for his roguish smirk. 'So, is this a hormone thing?'
'No, it's not a hormone thing! I'm old, Darren! I'm old and pregnant, and I'm going to Hawai'i. Can you understand how that makes me feel?'
He could not.
How could I possibly expect my husband to understand all the bizarre things that happen to a woman in spirit and flesh when a friendly alien takes over her body? He still couldn't figure out why Laurie and I wanted to fly all the way to Hawai'i just to spend a week lounging around the pool, comparing underarm flab, when we could stay home and have the same conversation over the phone for a lot less money. — Robin Jones Gunn

There's a long-standing (50 year old) flame war within the field over whether it's "sci-fi" or "SF".SF has traditionally been looked down on by the literary establishment because, to be honest, much early SF was execrably badly written - but these days the significance of the pigeon hole is fading; we have serious mainstream authors writing stuff that is I-can't-believe-it's-not-SF, and SF authors breaking into the mainstream. If you view them as tags that point to shelves in bricks-and-mortar bookshops, how long are these genre categories going to survive in the age of the internet? — Charles Stross

How ignorant we are! How ignorant everyone is! We can cut across only a small area of the appallingly expanding fields of knowledge. No human being can know more than a tiny fraction of the whole. It must have been satisfactory in ancient times when one's own land seemed to be the universe; when research studies, pamphlets, books did not issue in endless flow; when laboratories and scientists were not so rapidly pushing back frontiers of knowledge that the process of unlearning the old left you gasping for breath. — Mary Barnett Gilson

Inside Critics
The critical voices in our own heads are far more vicious than what we might hear from the outside. Our "inside critics" have intimate knowledge of us and can zero in on our weakest spots.
You might be told by the critics that you're too fat, too old, too young, not intelligent enough, a quitter, not logical, prone to try too many things ...
It's all balderdash!
Some elements of these may be true, and it's completely up to you how they affect you. Inside critics are really just trying to protect you. You can:
Learn to dialogue with them.
Give them new jobs.
Turn them into allies.
You can also dismantle/exterminate them. — SARK

The voice of grief is rather convincing, isn't it? It tells you you're "too old," "not good enough," or "not worthy enough" for another chance at life, that starting over is impossible. This voice in your head is the first thing you hear in the morning and the last thing you hear at night. It drives with you to work. It stays with you at lunch. Its message is so consistent that because of its repetitive power, you may be inclined to believe it. But, as persuasive as the voice of grief is, everything it says is a lie.
It's all a pack of lies.
Do you want the truth? If you do, then start listening to life calling to you inside your grief.
How? Every time you are yearning to be held and loved, to laugh again, listen to your yearning. Do not listen to your fear . . . Listen to life calling you, "I am here, come on over. Take a chance on me. I am your life, and you're all that I've got. — Christina Rasmussen

Another reason we know that language could not determine thought is that when a language isn't up to the conceptual demands of its speakers, they don't scratch their heads dumbfounded (at least not for long); they simply change the language. They stretch it with metaphors and metonyms, borrow words and phrases from other languages, or coin new slang and jargon. (When you think about it, how else could it be? If people had trouble thinking without language, where would their language have come from-a committee of Martians?) Unstoppable change is the great given in linguistics, which is not why linguists roll their eyes at common claims such as that German is the optimal language of science, that only French allows for truly logical expression, and that indigenous languages are not appropriate for the modern world. As Ray Harlow put it, it's like saying, Computers were not discussed in Old English; therefore computers cannot be discussed in Modern English. — Steven Pinker

When Ben unfurls the T-shirts, there are two small problems. First, it turns out that a large T-shirt in a Georgia gas station is not the same size as a large T-shirt at, say, Old Navy. The gas station shirt is gigantic-more garbage bag than shirt. It is smaller than the graduation robes, but not by much. But this problem pales in comparison to the other problem, which is that both T-shirts are embossed with huge Confederate flags. Printed over the flag are the words HERITAGE NOT HATE.
"Oh no you didn't," Radar says when I show him why we're laughing. "Ben Starling, you better not have bought your token black friend a racist shirt."
"I just grabbed the first shirts I saw, bro."
"Don't bro me right now," Radar says, but he's shaking his head and laughing. I hand him his shirt and he wiggles into it while driving with his knees. "I hope I get pulled over," he says. "I'd like to see how the cop responds to a black man wearing a Confederate T-shirt over a black dress. — John Green

We women, me and you. Tell me something real. Don't just say I'm grown and ought to know. I don't. I'm fifty and I don't know nothing. What about it? Do I stay with him? I want to, I think. I want ... well, I didn't always ... now I want. I want some fat in this life."
"Wake up. Fat or lean, you got just one. This is it."
"You don't know either, do you?"
"I know enough to know how to behave."
"Is that it? Is that all it is?"
"Is that all what is?"
"Oh shoot! Where the grown people? Is it us?"
"Oh, Mama." Alice Manfred blurted it out and then covered her mouth.
Violet had the same thought: Mama. Mama? Is this where you got to and couldn't do it no more? The place of shade without trees where you know you are not and never again will be loved by anybody who can choose to do it? Where everything is over but the talking?
- Violet Trace and Alice Manfred — Toni Morrison

Sometimes you say things with a smile with the precise intention of making it clear that you are not being serious, and are only kidding. If I salute a friend with a smile and say, 'How are you, you old scoundrel!' clearly I don't really mean he's a scoundrel. — Umberto Eco

Quadruple crap. Why couldn't I control myself? Why did he have this effect on me? "Are you compelling me right now?"
To my surprise, his smile held an edge of sadness. "That would give you a much needed excuse, but I am afraid I am not."
Curse my body for reacting to his. As long as I kept him out of my heart, I would be okay.
"I think it a bit too late for that, my dear."
"You're using old man speak again." I made a face. "It's creepy."
He chuckled. "I'll try to remember that, but I haven't been around humans much in the past hundred years. It's hard to keep up with the changes in common dialect."
"Let's keep on topic, Jett. You were going to teach me how to control my mind. — Christie Rich

People say that teenagers don't know how to love like an adult. Part of me believes that, but I'm not an adult and so I have nothing to compare it to. But I do believe it's probably different. I'm sure there's more substance in the love between two adults then there is between two teenagers. There's probably more maturity, more respect, more responsibility. But no matter how different the substance of a love might be at different ages in a person's life, I know that love still has to weigh the same. You feel that weight on your shoulders and in your stomach and on your heart no matter how old you are. — Colleen Hoover

How on earth can cow's milk be considered an essential part of our diet when its purpose is to feed calves until they are old enough to be weaned? How does it make any sense at all that people are supposed to have it? Just because we have been doing it for centuries does not mean it is rational or good for us; it just means it was an available food source at some point, and has since become an acceptable part of the human diet.

"But essential? Not on your life. Good for you? No way. Talk about putting diesel fuel in a car that requires petrol. At least both diesel and petrol operate similar types of vehicles. — Liberty Forrest

She wasn't planning on being a saint, right? Why would she? She'd get old and then regret it. What pleasure was there in being a saint? All you'd do is be in a picture on the church wall, or they'd hand you out during the priest's Christmastime visit or sell you at church fairs, or you'd have your name in the calendar. But you have to be a big-time saint for that. You'd have to kick another saint off, because there's already four or five of them for every day. Even the most saintly ones are going to get squeezed out soon. It's not worth the effort. On top of everything else, you never know if it's only down here you're considered a saint, but afterwards you're actually going to go roast in hell. How can we know what happens afterwards? — Wieslaw Mysliwski

Have you ever said, 'I can't do that! I'm just not like that!'? If you've ever used this phrase, you've hit the boundary of how you've defined yourself in the past, and it's affecting the quality of your present-day life. Ask yourself, 'Where did these beliefs about who I am come from, and how old are they?' Maybe it's time to update your identity. — Tony Robbins

Spartacus," I called, "how's it hanging?" Probably not too well. Once you're dead, had your organs removed, and are resurrected as an undead mummified cat, your testicles probably looked like old raisins that had rolled under the couch. Raisins didn't tend to ... hang. — Rob Thurman

An explanation of an old man's mistakes. For I see now that what I have done, and not done, with regard to you, bears all hallmarks of the failings of age. Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they what it was to be young ... and I seem to have forgotten lately ... — J.K. Rowling

All you need to catch a fairy is an old birdhouse and some shiny stuff. You know, like glass and glitter, or pieces of colored plastic or metal things that'll sparkle when the sun hits them.
You can paint the birdhouse, but it doesn't really matter what color. It's not like how hummingbirds like red things, fairies aren't that picky.
So you take your birdhouse and shiny stuff and just hang it somewhere. High but not too high. Trees are good but fairies are everywhere so trees aren't like, a requirement.
You don't even need to put anything over the birdhouse entrance. Once they get in they won't be able to figure out how to get out.
Fairies are kind of stupid. — Erin Morgenstern

Over the long term, the eclipse rate of great civilizations being overtaken is 100%. So you know how it's going to end. (Laughter) I'm more optimistic about the staying power of what's good in this country. But just because you have a wonderful spouse doesn't mean you should treat her badly. You have the feeling that some of the old virtues [that made this country great] are lessening. But there's so much good and so much strength left that I would not expect this country to suddenly founder ... — Charlie Munger

Panting and gasping, Harry slowed down, skirting the Willow's swiping branches, peering through the darkness toward its thick trunk, trying to see the single knot in the bark of the old tree that would paralyze it. Ron and Hermione caught up, Hermione so out of breath she could not speak. "How - how're we going to get in?" panted Ron. "I can - see the place - if we just had - Crookshanks again - " "Crookshanks?" wheezed Hermione, bent double, clutching her chest. "Are you a wizard, or what?" "Oh - right - yeah - — J.K. Rowling

I'm not a spy, I'm an agent. There's a difference. I'm protecting you, not that you seem to be grateful."
"You're protecting me. How old are you anyway?"
"Fifteen."
"Fifteen? You can't even drive!"
"I can drive," I responded. It's just that certain officers say I may not drive."
"WTF?" she said. "We're going into Afghanistan, and they've sent a pre-driver."
Pre-driver? Was that even a word? And I was here specifically because Talya and Thorne were so young. "I thought you were sixteen," I said.
"I can drive," she responded haughtily. — Axel Avian

How the hell old is she? "You're not in junior high, are you?" "God no. I've just never held anyone's hand before. The guys I've been with seem to forget this part. But it's nice. I like it." "Yeah," I agree. "It is nice." "Wait," she says. "You aren't in junior high, are you?" "No. Not yet," I say. — Colleen Hoover

And when they finally demanded that I had to stop keeping score and that I needed to play every future contest as an exhibition, I casually made the kind of statement sixteen-year-olds should not make to forty-six-year-old Midwestern housewives: "Why are you telling me how to do my job?" I asked. "It's not like I show up in your kitchen and tell you when to bake cookies. — Chuck Klosterman

Some of those are over a hundred years old," Alessandro explained as he unlocked the door. "Dat's older den you or mommy!" Will said. He stopped and looked at the white marble fountain in the middle of the walkway with a figurine that had water coming out of its mouth and falling into the fountain. He lifted on his tip toes to look inside of the vessel. "Der's water in der. How come it don' fall out?" Will asked. Bree pulled out a penny and handed it to him. "Here, make a wish." Will closed his eyes tight. "I wish for lotsa presents fo' my berfday," he announced and tossed in the penny. Bree snorted. "You're not supposed to say your wish out loud." "Oh. Okay, gimme nudder one. I say it in my head dis time," Will said. — E. Jamie

I heard a tale once,' said Isi, 'of the gifts of language. Do you know it? How in faraway places, there are people who can speak with birds or horses or rain, and some when they speak to other people have the unnatural power to persuade, their every word a kind of magic? Once in Ingridan I heard Sileph speak and wondered if he had not just walked out of that old tale.' Enna's skin tingled with an icy chill. Isi was trying to tell her something - Sileph had the gift of people-speaking. A dangerous gift, Isi had said once. When one with this gift speaks, it's not easy to resist the power of their persuasion. It's difficult not to adore them. — Shannon Hale

I watch, and the mothers watch. I do not know how to interact with the mothers. Am I them? They occasionally try to include me in a conversation, but it's clear they don't know what to make of me. I look over and smile when one of them makes a joke that is laughed at by all. They laugh, I chuckle - not too much, I don't want to seem overeager, but enough to say "I hear you. I laugh with you. I share in the moment." But when the chuckling is over I am still apart, something else, and no one is sure what I am. They don't want to invest their time in the brother sent to pick up Toph while his mother cooks dinner or is stuck at work or in traffic. To them I'm a temp. A cousin maybe. The young boyfriend of a divorcee? They don't care.
Fuck it. I don't want to be friends with these women, anyway. Why would I care? I am not them. They are the old model and we are the new. — Dave Eggers

Nine-year-old Laila rose from bed, as she did most mornings, hungry for the sight of her friend Tariq. This morning, however, she knew there would be no Tariq sighting.
- How long will you be gone? - She'd asked when Tariq had told her that his parents were
taking him south, to the city of Ghazni, to visit his paternal uncle.
- Thirteen days
- Thirteen days?
- It's not so long. You're making a face, Laila.
- I am not.
- You're not going to cry, are you?
- I am not going to cry! Not over you. Not in a thousand years.
She'd kicked at his shin, not his artificial but his real one, and he'd playfully whacked
the back of her head.
Thirteen days. Almost two weeks. And, just five days in, Laila had learned a fundamental truth about time: Like the accordion on which Tariq's father sometimes played old Pashto songs, time stretched and contracted depending on Tariq's absence or presence. — Khaled Hosseini

It's not about how old you are, it's about how old you feel. — Mimi Kirk

It's not how old you are, it's how you are old. — Jules Renard

Michelle: Phone. That had to be my phone waking me up. My hand swept across the nightstand until it found the vibrating hunk of silicone. "Hello."
"Michelle, It's Gordon from the Cobb County Sheriff's Office. We need you to deal with some illegally bred magical creatures."
The sound of barking and shouting followed his voice.
"What are they?"
"We don't know. I can tell you what they look like. Henri was one of the responding and he's never heard of these things. I think they're new."
Blech. I rolled out of bed to start getting dressed. Henri was an old vampire. I'm not sure how old. But old enough to take his word on something like this.
"Gordon, tell me what these things look like."
"I'd say someone found the stupidest chihuahua in the city and then did something to give it wings and magic."
"Great! How do I get there?" I wrote down the address and a few directions. "That's the mayor's place, isn't it?
"Yep and he's not happy. — N.E. Conneely

When you're five, you know your age down to the month. Even in your twenties you know how old you are. I'm twenty-three, you say, or maybe twenty-seven. But then in your thirties something strange starts to happen. It's a mere hiccup at first, an instant of hesitation. How old are you? Oh, I'm - you start confidently, but then you stop. You were going to say thirty-three, but you're not. You're thirty-five. And then you're bothered, because you wonder if this is the beginning of the end. It is, of course, but it's decades before you admit — Sara Gruen

That's what drives science though: trying to find out the way things are, the way they were, and the way it really works. If that is your goal, then you want to make sure that your information is accurate, and if it's not, then it doesn't matter how much you liked that old urban legend or fictional factoid you once bought into. You will discard it, and be embarrassed by it, seeking instead for truth. — Aron Ra

There is an optimum rate of discounting the future - mathematically, an optimum interest rate - which depends on how long you expect to live, how likely you will get back what you saved, how long you can stretch out the value of a resource, and how much you would enjoy it at different points in your life (for example, when you're vigorous or frail). "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die" is a completely rational allocation if we are sure we are going to die tomorrow. What is not rational is to eat and drink as if there's no tomorrow when there really is a tomorrow. To be overly self-indulgent, to lack self-control, is to devalue our future selves too much, or equivalently, to demand too high an interest rate before we deprive our current selves for the benefit of our future selves. No plausible interest rate would make the pleasure in smoking for a twenty-year-old self outweigh the pain of cancer for her fifty-year-old self. — Steven Pinker

THIS book is radioactive. And so are you. Unless you are dead, in which case we can tell how long ago you died by how much of your radioactivity is left. That's what radiocarbon dating is - the measurement of the reduction of radioactivity of old bones to deduce the time of death. Alcohol is radioactive too - at least the kind we drink. Rubbing alcohol usually isn't, unless it was made organically - that is, from wood. In fact, the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tests wine, gin, whiskey, and vodka for radioactivity. A fifth of whiskey must emit at least 400 beta rays every minute or the drink is considered unfit for human consumption. Biofuels are radioactive. Fossil fuels are not. Of those killed by the Hiroshima atomic bomb, the best estimate is that fewer than 2% died of radiation-induced cancer. These statements are all true. They are not even disputed, at least by experts. Yet they surprise most people. — Richard A. Muller

In a lending library you see people's real tastes, not their pretended ones, and one thing that strikes you is how completely the 'classical' English novelists have dropped out of favour. It is simply useless to put Dickens, Thackeray, Jane Austen, Trollope, etc. into the ordinary lending library; nobody takes them out. At the mere sight of a nineteenth-century novel people say, 'Oh, but that's OLD!' and shy away immediately. Yet it is always fairly easy to SELL Dickens, just as it is always easy to sell Shakespeare. Dickens is one of those authors whom people are 'always meaning to' read, — George Orwell

I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other. When you're five, you know your age down to the month. Even in your twenties you know how old you are. I'm twenty-three, you say, or maybe twenty-seven. But then in your thirties something strange starts to happen. It's a mere hiccup at first, an instant of hesitation. How old are you? Oh, I'm - you start confidently, but then you stop. You were going to say thirty-three, but you're not. You're thirty-five. And then you're bothered, because you wonder if this is the beginning of the end. It is, of course, but it's decades before you admit it. You start to forget words: they're on the tip of your tongue, but instead of eventually dislodging, they stay there. You go upstairs to fetch something, and by the time you get there you can't remember what it was you were after. — Anonymous

No matter how old you are, if you're just not an empathetic person, it's a lot easier to concentrate solely on something that is injuring another person to even some score. Hopefully as people grow older, their ability to empathize deepens. — James Scott

Stories," she blurted. "The mosaic told stories, didn't it?"
"Yes, old ones."
"I'll tell them to you."
His eyes cracked open. He didn't remember closing them. "You know those tales?"
"Yes."
She didn't. This became clear as she began to tell them. She knew bits and pieces, cobbled together in ways that would have made him smile if smiling didn't hurt. "You," he breathed, "are such a faker."
"Don't interrupt."
Mostly pure invention. She remembered the images--it pleased him, how vividly she knew the temple floor's details. Which god curled around which, or how the snake's tongue forked into three. But the stories she told had little to do with his religion. Sometimes they didn't even make sense.
"Do this again," he said, "when I have strength to laugh."
"As bad as that?"
"Mmm. Maybe not. For a Valorian. — Marie Rutkoski

I was only going to say," said Scrooge's nephew, "that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it - I defy him - if he finds me going there in good temper, year after year, and saying, 'Uncle Scrooge, how are you?' If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that's something. — Charles Dickens

Are you a Dominant, Sir?"
"Yes." A smile played at his lips. Hearing her call him that would never get old.
"And I'm a submissive?"
"Absolutely," Law whispered in her ear. "You're the sweetest little sub I've ever seen."
A grin curled her mouth up. "So I call you my Doms?"
"Yes, pet."
Her smile widened until she looked as if she was trying to keep a straight face. "You're Dominic, the Dom."
He sighed. "Yes, pet. I think I was aptly named."
"You're Dom Dominic."
"While true, that's not exactly how you should phrase it." He frowned.
"You're Dom Dom." The smile zipped across her face. "I get to call you Dom Dom. — Shayla Black

But eventually I nudged the old bandages in the corner toward me. Once I had them in my hands, I unwound them to their full length.
"What are you doing with those?" Roden asked, "You're not injured."
"The vigils are forbidden from harming me tonight. Vargan was very clear that I wasn't to come out tomorrow looking like a martyr." My grin widened." But don't worry, Avenia already fell for this trick once before. They love it."
"That's your trick?" Roden asked. "Can't you take this seriously?"
"If you understood what Vargan's men did to me, you'd know exactly how serious I am."
"Hush now," I said. "Imogen needs to sleep, I need to think and you need to ... let me think. — Jennifer A. Nielsen

Have you ever been in love, Hadrian?"
"I'm not sure. How do you tell?"
"Love? Why, it's like coming home."
Hadrian considered the comment.
"What are you thinking?" Bulard asked.
Hadrian shook his head. "Nothing."
"Yes, you were. What? You can tell me. I'm an excellent repository for secrets. I'll likely forget, but if I don't, well, I'm an old man in a remote
jungle. I'm sure to die before I can repeat anything."
Hadrian smiled, then shrugged. "I was just thinking about the rain. — Michael J. Sullivan

Can you even cry, anyway? With your eyes and all." Josh asks, fingers tapping a rhythm on the cushion behind Caid's right shoulder.
Caid swats his arm away. Says, "How is someone paying you to teach children? Of course I can fucking cry; it's not my tear ducts that are broken."
"I teach history, not the anatomy of eyeballs, shithead."
"How old are you?" Caid scoffs, feeling frustrated and exposed. He hates talking about his blindness. Hates it almost more than actually being blind. — Seventhswan

Imagine that Jesus is calling you today. He extends a second invitation to accept His Father's love. And maybe you answer, "Oh, I know that. It's old hat."
And God answers, 'No, that's what you don't know. You don't know how much I love you. The moment you think you understand is the moment you do not understand. I am God, not man. You tell others about Me - your words are glib. My words are written in the blood of My only Son. The next time you preach about My love with such obnoxious familiarity, I may come and blow your whole prayer meeting apart.
Did you know that every time you tell Me you love Me, I say thank you? — Brennan Manning

And you and I know you're the best thing that ever happened to me, and, yes, that's an expression, something people say, that has no meaning, but what I mean is there isn't anybody in the whole world who has loved me the way you have, not my mother, not my old man, not my friends.
There's nothing preventing me and you from loving each other and being some kinda world-class shining beacon of love except how bad do we want it and what are we willing to do for it?
Now, I know I did you wrong, and I was freaking out and being stupid and I was mean to you. You know sometimes I get all fucking confused and I can't see outside of my own asshole. I'm unhappy. Why am I unhappy? It's gotta be somebody's fault, right? It couldn't just be that I'm a self-centered fuck spinning around inside my own dank cloud of concerns.
There isn't anything I can think of that I really want or that the best part of me wants, that loving you won't start doing. I love you. — Ethan Hawke

How's the blood-stream, my dear, invaluable little woman? How's the blood-stream?" ...
"It's quite comfortable, sir ... I think, sir, thank you." ...
"Aha!" ... "a comfortable stream, is it? Aha! v-e-r-y good. V-e-r-y good. Dawdling 'twixt hill and hill, no doubt. Meandering through groves of bone, threading the tissues and giving what sustenance it can to your dear old body ... I am so glad. But in yourself - right deep down in yourself - how do you feel? Carnally speaking, are you at peace - from the dear grey hairs of your head to the patter of your little feet - are you at peace?"
"What does he mean, dear?" said poor Mrs. Slagg, clutching Fuschia's arm ...
"He wants to know if you feel well or not. — Mervyn Peake

The sense of wishing to be known only for what one really is is like putting on an old, easy, comfortable garment. You are no longer afraid of anybody or anything. You say to yourself, 'Here I am --- just so ugly, dull, poor, beautiful, rich, interesting, amusing, ridiculous -- take me or leave me.' And how absolutely beautiful it is to be doing only what lies within your own capabilities and is part of your own nature. It is like a great burden rolled off a man's back when he comes to want to appear nothing that he is not, to take out of life only what is truly his own. — David Grayson

Cole!" Cassandra smacked him on the shoulder.
"Wha-?" When he opened his mouth all you could see was half-chewed goo.
"How old are you?" I demanded. I threw shrimp at him and it got stuck in his tangle of wig hair. Bergman fished it out, wiped it off, and put it back on the serving dish.
"Now, thats disgusting," said Cassandra.
"Children!" Vayl's voice boomed in our ears, loud and sudden enough to make us all jump guiltily. "I trust you are all preforming actual work right now."
"Chill out, Vayl," I replied. "Bergman is just conducting and experiment to see how vampires respond to ingesting brown hair dye."
"That makes me curious, Vayl," said Cole in a sticky, goodie-between-the-gums voice that reminded me of Winnie the Pooh after a major honey binge. "Have you ever colored your hair? You know blonds have more fun."
"Not when they are in the hospital. — Jennifer Rardin

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.
Almost everything
all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure
these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is how it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. — Steve Jobs

It's not a matter of how old you are, it's how you feel. — Mila Marinova

Some street jokes are just timeless. There's an old street joke about comedians. The joke is that a beautiful girl comes up to a comedian at the end of the night and says, "I saw your show tonight, and I just loved it. I want to go home with you, and I'll do anything you want." And the comedian says, "Were you at the 7 or the 9?" That's just a perfect joke, because it points out how egomaniacal and obsessive comedians are. Even though I'm not waiting for a groupie, I can completely understand it. It just defines how comedians are driven. — Amy Schumer

In the Old Testament, a person in grief tore his robe and didn't run out to Kohl's to get a new one to go to church. Women cut their hair. Men shaved their beards. There was weeping and wailing. For a whole year, nobody expected you to look or be the way you were. How wonderful! But in our nutty society, the person who "keeps it together," who's "so brave," and who "looks so great - you'd never know," that's who is applauded. Grief is not the opposite of faith. Mourning is not the opposite of hope. I believe that well-meaning Christians can try to hurry us out of our mourning because we make them uncomfortable. The Bible does not say to cheer up the bereaved, but rather to "mourn with those who mourn." Christ does not say we grieve because we are deficient in faith, but rather, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted [not rushed]" (Matthew 5:4). — Jennifer Saake

Don't expect me to be sane anymore. Don't let's be sensible. It was a marriage at Louveciennes - you can't dispute it. I came away with pieces of you sticking to me; I am walking about, swimming, in an ocean of blood, your Andalusian blood, distilled and poisonous ... I can't see how I can go on living away from you - these intermissions are death. How did it seem to you when Hugo came back? Was I still there? I can't picture you moving about with him as you did with me. Legs closed. Frailty. Sweet, treacherous acquiescence. Bird docility. You became a woman with me. I was almost terrified by it. You are not just thirty years old - you are a thousand years old.
Here I am back and still smouldering with passion, like wine smoking. Not a passion any longer for flesh, but a complete hunger for you, a devouring hunger. — Henry Miller

Have a fake ID." I snatched it from his hands and smiled. "Where the heck did you get this?!" His eyes shifted back to Avery. "I know people who know people." "Burt Summerstone?" I asked, reading his name off the card. He took it back from me and slid it into his pocket. "It's not about the name, baby girl. It's about the date. I am officially a twenty-one-year-old high school student. And we are officially getting drunk and crossing that item off of your bucket list. Bow down, bitches." He pulled out a fake ID for me and I grinned. Summer Burtstone. How creative. — Brittainy C. Cherry

You're a hopeless romantic," said Faber. "It would be funny if it were not serious. It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the 'parlor families' today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios, and televisors, but are not. No,no it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type or receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. Of course you couldn't know this, of course you still can't understand what I mean when i say all this. You are intuitively right, that's what counts. — Ray Bradbury

Desford said abruptly: "How old are you, my child? Sixteen? Seventeen?"
"Oh, no, I am much older than that!" she replied. "I'm as old as Lucasta - all but a few weeks!"
"Then why are you not downstairs dancing with the rest of them?" he demanded. "You must surely be out!"
"No, I'm not," she said. "I don't suppose I ever shall be, either. Unless my papa turns out not to be dead, and comes home to take care of me himself. But I don't think that at all likely, and even if he did come home it wouldn't be of the least use, because he seems never to have sixpence to scratch with. I am afraid he is not a very respectable person. My aunt says he was obliged to go abroad on account of being monstrously in debt." She sighed, and said wistfully: "I know that one ought not to criticize one's father, but I can't help feeling that it was just a little thoughtless of him to abandon me. — Georgette Heyer

I never understood those commercials with the parents celebrating the end of summer. Now I understand that around mid-August, all the summer camps are over and you've run out of constructive things to do with your kid and you are desperate to get them out of the house. You've grown tired of your four-year-old pointing to words and asking, "What does this say?" Apparently it's not okay to respond to them with, "It says, 'Learn how to read.' " You don't want to get rid of your children, but you do want to get rid of them for a couple of hours a day. School seems like a perfect solution. Your precious child will learn something, and most important, you will be able to use the bathroom in peace. — Jim Gaffigan

We want you to write it down
to camouflage it. Only for the present, of course. Once the thing gets going we shan't have to bother about the great heart of the British public. We'll make the great heart what we want it to be. But in the meantime, it does make a difference how things are put. For instance, if it were even whispered that the N.I.C.E. wanted powers to experiment on criminals, you'd have all the old women of both sexes up in arms and yapping about humanity. Call it re-education of the mal-adjusted, and you have them all slobbering with delight that the brutal era of retributive punishment has at last come to and end. Odd thing it is
the word 'experiment' is unpopular, but not the word 'experimental.' You must'nt experiment on children; but offer the dear little kiddies free education in an experimental school attached to the N.I.C.E. and it's all correct! — C.S. Lewis

Exercise: Willing to Change So we have decided we are willing to change, and we will use any and all methods that work for us. Let me describe one of the methods I use with myself and with others. First: go look in a mirror and say to yourself, "I am willing to change." Notice how you feel. If you are hesitant or resistant or just don't want to change, ask yourself why. What old belief are you holding on to? Please don't scold yourself, just notice what it is. I'll bet that belief has been causing you a lot of trouble. I wonder where it came from. Do you know? Whether we know where it came from or not, let's do something to dissolve it, now. Again, go to the mirror, and look deep into your own eyes, touch your throat, and say out loud ten times, "I am willing to release all resistance. — Louise L. Hay

It makes Brooke feel strange in her stomach. It is like the feeling when she reads a book like the one about the man with the bomb, or thinks a sentence, just any old sentence like: the girl ran across the park, and unless you add the describing word then the man or the girl are definitely not black, they are white, even though no one has mentioned white, like when you take the the out of a headline and people just assume it's there anyway. Though if it were a sentence about Brooke herself you'd have to add the equivalent describing word and that's how you'd know. The black girl ran across the park. — Ali Smith

I know what's coming you see. I know no one beats these odds and I know it's a matter of getting used to that and realizing that you are expelled from your mother's uterus as if shot from a cannon towards a barn door studded with old nail files and rusty hooks. It's a matter of how you use up the intervening time in an intelligent and ironic way; and try not to do anything ghastly to your fellow creatures. — Christopher Hitchens

I'll never forget one of the first families I visited. The father was a railroad man who had lost his job. I was told by my supervisor that I really had to see the poverty. If the family needed clothing, I was to investigate how much clothing they had at hand. So I looked into this man's closet - (pauses, it becomes difficult) - he was a tall, gray-haired man, though not terribly old. He let me look in the closet - he was so insulted. (She weeps angrily.) He said, "Why are you doing this?" I remember his feeling of humiliation . . . this terrible humiliation. (She can't continue. After a pause, she resumes.) He said, "I really haven't anything to hide, but if you really must look into it. . .." I could see he was very proud. He was so deeply humiliated. And I was, too. . .. — Studs Terkel

And one asks oneself where are one's dreams. And one shakes one's head and says how rapidly the years fly by! And again one asks oneself what has one done with one's years. Where have you buried your best days? Have you lived or not? Look, one says to oneself, look how cold the world is growing. Some more years will pass, and after them will come gloomy solitude; then will come old age trembling on its crutch, and after it misery and desolation. Your fantastic world will grow pale, your dreams will fade and die and will fall like yellow leaves from the trees. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

My whole life I've been ordered about. Now I shall give the orders." I've never seen Felicity so wounded. "Not me," she says. "I never ordered you about." "Oh, Fee." The old Pippa surfaces for just a moment, hopeful and childlike. She pulls Felicity to her. Something I cannot name passes between them, and then Pip's lips are on Fee's in a deep kiss, as if they feed on one another, their fingers entwined in each other's hair. And suddenly, I understand what I must have always known about them - the private talks, the close embraces, the tenderness of their friendship. A blush spreads across my neck at the thought. How could I not have seen it before? — Libba Bray

How old were you when you had your first kiss?
Twenty. It's pathetic. Guys don't want to kiss fat girls.
Not true. There are all those guys on jerry springer, and there's president Clinton...
Make that: no one I ever wanted to kiss wanted to kiss a fat girl.
I'll bet you never gave anyone a chance. Mitch says you practically beat him away with a stick.
I was trying to spare him. — Rainbow Rowell

You would like to know how I behave when I am experiencing pain, not writing books about it. You need not guess, for I will tell you; I am a great coward... If I knew any way of escape I would crawl through sewers to find it. But what is the good of telling you about my feelings? You know them already; they are the same as yours. I am not arguing that pain is not painful. Pain hurts. That is what the word means. I am only trying to show that the old Christian doctrine of being made 'perfect through suffering' is not incredible. To prove it palatable is beyond my design. — C.S. Lewis

... Obviously, I have always wished I could remember what happened in that wood. The very few people who know about the whole Knocknaree thing invariably suggest, sooner or later, that I should try hypnotic regression, but for some reason I find the idea distasteful. I'm deeply suspicious of anything with a whiff of the New Age about it - not because of the practices themselves, which as far as I can tell from a safe distance may well have a lot to them, but because of the people who get involved who always seem to be the kind who corner you at parties to explain how they discovered that they are survivors and deserve to be happy. I worry that I might come out of hypnosis with that sugar-high glaze of self-satisfied enlightenment, like a seventeen-year-old who's just discovered Kerouak, and start proselytizing strangers in pubs ... — Tana French

All great shows, she told me when I was little (and still learning to flex the tiny muscles in my esophagus), depend on the most ordinary objects. We can be a weary, cynical lot - we grow old and see only what suits us, and what is marvelous can often pass us by. A kitchen knife. A bulb of glass. A human body. That something so common should be so surprising - why, we forget it. We take it for granted. We assume that our sight is reliable, that our deeds are straightforward, that our words have one meaning. But life is uncommon and strange; it is full of intricacies and odd, confounding turns. So onstage we remind them just how extraordinary the ordinary can be. This, she said, is the tiger in the grass. It's the wonder that hides in plain sight, the secret life that flourishes just beyond the screen. For you are not showing them a hoax or a trick, just a new way of seeing what's already in front of them. This, she told me, is your mark on the world. This is the story that you tell. — Leslie Parry

I went to school, and I remember that you had to do these tests to find out what set you're in - how clever you are. I put down "Kit Harington," and they looked at me like I was completely stupid, and they said, "No, you're Christopher Harington, I'm afraid." It was only then I learnt my actual name. That was kind of a bizarre existential crisis for an 11-year-old to have, but in the end I always stuck with Kit, because I felt that's who I was. I'm not really a "Chris." — Kit Harington

I looked at the titles on the bookshelf and found a book on Greek mythology next to a book of poetry, which was flanked by a book on German philosophy. "How are these organized?"
"They're not."
I turned to him. "How do you find anything? There must be thousands of books here."
"I like the search. It's like visiting old friends. — Julianne Donaldson

If you live in the dark a long time and the sun comes out, you do not cross into it whistling. There's an initial uprush of relief at first, then-for me, anyway- a profound dislocation. My old assumptions about how the world works are buried, yet my new ones aren't yet operational.There's been a death of sorts, but without a few days in hell, no resurrection is possible. — Mary Karr

March 4 CHARITY is being rescued by the LORD I love you just as the Father loves me. ~ John 15:9 Someone asked an old chief "Why're you always talking about Jesus?" The chief didn't say anything. Instead, he collected some dry grass and twigs and put them into a circle. Next he caught a caterpillar, feeding on a nearby clump of weeds. He placed it inside the circle. Then, he took a match and set fire to the dry grass and the twigs. As the fire blazed up, the caterpillar began to search for an escape. At this point the old chief extended his finger to the caterpillar. Instantly, it climbed on to it. He said, "That's what Jesus did for me. I was like the caterpillar, without hope. Then Jesus rescued me. How can I not talk about my Savior's love and mercy?" ~ Mark Link, S.J. How grateful are you for what Jesus did for us? How do you show it concretely? It wasn't the nails that held Jesus on the cross but his love for us. ~ Author unknown — Scott Hahn

I'm not sure how old I am, mainly because there are so many different ways to tel time-one one way with clocks and watches and sunsets, or other ways with how many times a person laughs, or what they forget, or how they change their minds about what they care about, or why, or whom. And there are times when something happens that you don't understand- but somehow you still know it's important- like walking through a door you only notice when you hear it lock behind. — Gorden Dahlquist

Explaining God to Children
Draw a rapid river clockwise, flowing in a circle.
Draw a mountain in the middle, with heaven at the tip.
Tell a child,
'God is the top of the mountain.
Man is the river.
Only God's sees we're in a big hurry going nowhere.'
The clever child will ask,
'What does man see?'
Tell the child,
'Well, man sees there's a light side to God ~ and maybe a dark side too,
depending on where he's at.
Man sometimes doesn't see God at all because there are clouds.'
(Quickly draw some clouds.)
The clever child will ask,
'How do i know it's God on top of the mountain in heaven and it's not the Devil in hell?'
'Hmm...How old did you say you were?'

Back to the drawing board. — Beryl Dov

There's a lot of unnecessary meanness that happens while you're trying to sort out who you want to be, who your friends are, who your friends are not. Adults spend a lot of time talking about bullying in schools these days, but the real problem isn't as obvious as one kid throwing a Slurpee in another kid's face. It's about social isolation. It's about cruel jokes. It's about the way kids treat one another. I've seen it with my own eyes, how old friends can turn against each other: it seems, sometimes, that it's not enough for them to go their separate ways - they literally have to "ice" their old buddies out just to prove to the new friends that they're no longer still friends. That's the kind of stuff I don't find acceptable. Fine, don't be friends anymore: but stay kind about it. Be respectful. Is that too much to ask? — R.J. Palacio

Love is art, not truth. It's like painting a scenery.' These are the things one takes from mothers. Once they die, of course, you get the strand of pearls, the blue quilt, some of the original wedding gifts - a tray shellacked with the invitation, an old rusted toaster - but the touches and the words and the moaning the night she dies, these are what you seize, save, carry around in little invisible envelopes, opening them up quickly, like a carnival huckster, giving the world a peek. They will not stay quiet. No matter how you try. — Lorrie Moore

I watched 60 Minutes ... and they showed this woman, she's in every kind of..thing like that. 'This woman', they say, 'she lost her first four children
died from malnutrition
and, now, she's afraid that her new six-month-old newborn twins will suffer the same fate' ... Who's going to step in and say ... 'kick her in the cunt 'til it doesn't work', 'that woman is a sociopath! that is a sick human being!' ... How much of a sociopath do you need to be? That is the slow ritual torture-murder of children, one after another! At what point does cause-and-effect not kick in? How many bulb-headed skeletons have to go stiff in your arms?! ... 'what? this one's not working ... oh, well let's try again', one after another. At what point do you not go 'I think this is bad'? ... How many kids are you going to fuckin' kill, lady? ... If you impregnate someone under those conditions, they should abort the parents! that's sick! — Doug Stanhope

Now The Head Lines


How do you like your truth?
Gently spoken on breakfast TV
By a man and a woman who sit comfortably
Saying riots, and murder, when will it end?
As they struggle to act as if they are good friends.

How do you like your truth?
Bite-sized in sound bites cut easy to chew, With a talking head saying the victim's like you
And when you've digested the horrors you've seen
You find good, you find evil, and no in-between.

How do you like your truth?
Fantastic, sensational, printed in bold,
Today it's exclusive, tomorrow it's old,
All on the surface with nothin too deep
With a story about animals to help you to sleep

How do you like your youth?
From perfect families with parents thet care,
Or in perfect families but still in despair,
Ten out of ten parents say they'd not choose
To have bad kids like those in the news. — Benjamin Zephaniah

Relationship is ugly, relating is beautiful. In relationship both persons become blind to each other. Just think, how long has it been since you saw your wife eye to eye? How long has it been since you looked at your husband? Maybe years. Who looks at one's own wife? You have already taken it for granted that you know her; what more is there to look at? You are more interested in strangers than in the people you know - you know the whole topography of their bodies, you know how they respond, you know everything that has happened is going to happen again and again. It is a repetitive circle. It is not so, it is not really so. Nothing ever repeats; everything is new every day. Just your eyes become old, your assumptions become old, your mirror gathers dust and you become incapable of reflecting the other. Hence — Osho

how you were moved by a child in its mother's arms, how you saw an old man on his deathbed, and how it was your father who lay there dead, who had passed on to the silent dead - remember this, remember this. Forget, forget nothing, don't forget the sweetness, don't forget the severity. If indifference and unkindness take hold of your being, stir your memory and think of all the beautiful, and all the burdensome things. Remember there is life and there is death, remember there are moments of bliss and there are graves. Do not be forgetful, but instead remember this. — Robert Walser

Old man," she said. "Don't you want to prepare or something?"
"Prepare what?"
"Yourself. For death."
Siri laughed.
"Well, Bpoo. Let's see. If the Buddhists are right, I'm just on my way to the next incarnation. Unless there's a manual for how to behave correctly as a gnat I'm not sure how I'd prepare for that. If the Catholics are right, nothing short of an asbestos suit and a glass of iced water will help where I'm going. And if the communists are right, you do your best and when you're gone they put up a statue in your honor and the locals dry their laundry on it. So, if I'm going, you're the heir to today's legacy. — Colin Cotterill

You know she'll probably be at the party tonight? Which is why I'm absolutely not going if we don't get some coke.'
'Egon, why is it that every single time you're obliged to be in the same room with one of your ex-girlfriends you have to make it into a huge emergency? It's incredibly boring.'
'Come on. You know how it is. You catch sight of an old flame and get this breathless
animal prickle like a fox in a room with a hound. And then all night you have to seem carefree and successful and elated, which is a pretence that for some reason you feel no choice but to maintain even though you know they're better qualified than anyone else
in the world to detect immediately that you're really the same hapless cunt as ever.'
'That's adolescent. The fact that you are so neurotic about your past lovers makes it both fortunate and predictable that you have so few of them. It's one of those elegant self-regulating systems that one so often finds in nature. — Ned Beauman

Char," I said, and asked for a third time: "Where did you learn to dance?"
He looked up at me then, though his hand was still fiddling with dials. "I taught myself," he said finally. "I go out a lot."
I nodded like I was very wise and knew all about going out a lot.
"How old are you?" he asked me suddenly.
"Sixteen."
Char hung his headphones around his neck. "I like that."
"What?" I felt self-conscious all of a sudden, and I crossed my arms across my chest. "That I'm only sixteen?"
He laughed. "That sounds creepy. No, I like that you're honest. Some girls might claim to be older, you know, so they seem more mature or whatever. You're not pretending to be anything you're not."
"I suck at pretending to be anything I'm not," I told him, leaning against the booth's railing. "It's not for lack of trying. — Leila Sales

>>How old were you when you had your first kiss?
>>Twenty. It's pathetic. Guys don't want to kiss fat girls.
>>Not true. There are all those guys on jerry springer, and there's president Clinton ...
>>Make that: no one I ever wanted to kiss wanted to kiss a fat girl.
>>I'll bet you never gave anyone a chance. Mitch says you practically beat him away with a stick.
>>I was trying to spare him. — Rainbow Rowell

I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT KING TRITON. Specifically, King, why are you elderly but with the body of a teenage Beastmaster? How do you maintain those monster pecs? Do they have endocrinologists under the sea? Because I am scheduling you some bloodwork ...
... Question: How come, when they turn back into humans at the end of Beauty and the Beast, Chip is a four-year-old boy, but his mother, Mrs. Potts, is like 107? Perhaps you're thinking, "Lindy, you are remembering it wrong. That kindly, white-haired, snowman-shaped Mrs. Doubtfire situation must be Chip's grandmother." Not so, champ! She's his mom. Look it up. She gave birth to him four years ago ... As soon as you become a mother, apparently, you are instantly interchangeable with the oldest woman in the world, and / or sixteen ounces of boiling brown water with a hat on it. Take a sec and contrast Mrs. Pott's literally spherical body with the cut-diamond abs of King Triton, father of seven. — Lindy West

I mean, imagine for a second Olivero Barretto, some nice Italian kid from down the block in Cranston, Rhode Island. He comes to see Mr. Cavilleri, a wage-earning pastry chef of that city, and says, "I would like to marry your only daughter, Jennifer." What would the old man's first question be? (He would not question Barretto's love, since to know Jenny is to love Jenny; it's a universal truth). No, Mr. Cavilleri would say something like, "Barretto, how are you going to support her? — Erich Segal