Tuesday, December 27, 2011

London's Perfect Scoundrel

     "It amazes me, Saint, that you can own so few redeemable qualities and still be so likable."

     "Did you hear that?" the duke asked with a wide grin, turning to Dare. "She said papa.'"
The viscount returned the candy dish and tea tray to the relocated end table. "I distinctly heard baboon."
"Hm, well, you're distinctly deaf."

     Saint took a seat at the main faro table at the Society club. "What the devil is a ladies' political tea?"
Tristan Carroway, Viscount Dare, finished placing his wager, then sat back, reaching for his glass of port. "Do I look like a dictionary?"
"You're domesticated." Saint motioned for a glass of his own, despite unfriendly looks from the tables other players. "What is it?"
"I'm not domesticated; I'm in love. You should try it. Does wonders for your outlook on life."
"I'll take your word for it, thank you."

     "I don't think there'll be a next time, my lady." Saint smiled. "But thank you for the offer."
     Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. "You're welcome. My, my, manners. Where have you been, church?"

     For a long moment the butler sat in silence, his jaw hanging open. "I . . . my lord, I simply don't feel qualified to advise you about such matters."
"Don't tell me that," Saint protested. "Tell me whether you can imagine me as a married man or not."
To his surprise, the butler set aside his brandy snifter and sat forward. "My lord, I do not wish to overstep my bounds, but I have noticed a ... change in your demeanor, of late. The question of whether anyone can imagine you married or not, however, is one I believe must be answered by you. And the lady, of course."
Saint frowned. "Coward."
"There is that, as well."

     Never interrupt a lady when she is speaking to you, as if what you have to say is more important.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Oceans of Fire

"It's all well and good to look back after the fact and see what we should have done, but we rarely know what path is best when we take that first step."

"We never can just stop time. Or take moments back. Life doesn't work that way, does it?"

"I'll be damned if I apologize for the choices I've made. They were hard decisions, but I had good reasons for making them."

"If what he said was the truth, it broke her heart. If what he said was a lie, it was broken anyway."

"Torture can be a two edged sword."

"It's your way of fighting. You refuse to engage and then you can't lose. ...but you have to know when you close those doors, you don't leave anything for the other person."

"I had to work so hard to find myself again, Alexandr." There was pain in her voice. "I was so lost without you. You left me raw and wounded and trapped in a dark place with no windows or doors. I didn't know how to live without you. I didn't know how to smile or feel or be. It took almost two years before I really accepted that it was over and I had to find a way to go on. I made myself strong. I'm alive again. I can wake up some mornings and be happy. I can look at the ocean and find peace again. Now you're asking me to risk everything all over again and I'm not certain I could survive if it all came crashing down."

"I realized I love him just as much or more than I did four years ago. That I'll never live with him" She raised her head to look at her sisters with haunted eyes. "And I don't know if I can live without him."

"You can't be anything but who you are. I wouldn't love you the same if you stopped being you. How do I change enough to accept that ruthless streak in you."

"The real question is, can you love the real me? Not the perfect person you want me to be, not that image you had of me, but who I really am."

Friday, December 23, 2011

England's Perfect Hero

On nights like this, when he rode out from the dark, silent house to the dark, deserted park, he could
forget.
He could be nothing but a solitary rider on a fast horse, wind in his face and the world open around him.
No walls, no bars, no quiet weeping or screams or death. None of that could catch him.
On a night like this, none of it could find him.

"Talking to yourself?" Her father turned the corner of the house to join her amid the rows of roses.
Sneaking was evil, she decided. "No. I was just conversing with the new rosebush," she stammered, feeling her cheeks warm.
"Ah. And did it answer?"
"I believe it to be shy."
"If it ever does answer, you will inform me, won't you ?"
"Very amusing.

"Roses," Georgiana repeated, her thoughtful gaze touching his. "It's about time one of the Carroway men
decided to cultivate something other than their poor reputations."

And even though he enjoyed being around her, he resisted her, because he was supremely aware that he wasn't the old Robert any longer; he was Bit, a piece of what he'd once been.

"I had a thought," Bradshaw said into the silence.
"Amazing," Tristan returned dryly.

"I'll be back at sea by then," Bradshaw put in, "so I'll comfort myself with the knowledge that you'll name
the infant after me."
"I don't think 'Half-wit' will pass muster with Georgie, but I'll let her know that's your suggestion."

"I wish you'd tell me when we're having friends over for luncheon."
"I would, if they would tell me."

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Proposal Daisakusen

If you don’t face it, you will never overcome it.

In Time With You

First sign of growing old: more easily forget things that happened recently, but remember things of the past clearly.

Do you know I spent a lifetime to learn one thing. Possession is the beginning of losing it. But at the end  I still couldn't learn, I can't accept having youth, is actually the beginning of losing youth. Having a marriage is actually the beginning of losing the marriage. Having reputation, it can also be lost. Having wealth is also the same. Heath is also the same. Even raising a dog is the same. Possession of love ...losing a loved one is harder to accept. Why is it that everything I pursue in life, I start losing it, as soon as I gain possession of it. If I don't have it, then I won't have anything to lose.

Now do you know the reason I don't love you?
Because possession is the beginning of losing.

I think gaining possession is not the beginning of losing it. Every stage of the possession, even if it leads to a painful loss in the end, is after all filled by those time that passed. If it didn't, then it's lost.

I am not a suitcase to be withdrawn, but a bag that holds stories.

I'll use my own money to buy my own bag, to create my own story.

Hey Li Da Ren, did you know that between one person and another there's a lot of conflict and opposition. This is why people are attracted to each other, but can also be the  start of a disaster.

Hey Li Da Ren, recently, I randomly had this feeling there is something that is always against us. Sometimes we really want to chase after it in hopes of catching it. As if after attaining it we can possess many, many things. But at times we may be chased by it to a point of breathlessness, hoping it would just disappear. It would be best if it never came back to us. It is time.

Have a friend who will grieve for you for your heart-broken.

Fifth Sign of aging: you feel like you are drowning in a pile of passwords.

We finally gave our memories a beautiful color.

hey Li Da Ren, lately I have been thinking how long can I be on display? But then I realised everything has an expiry date.

A pity that being in love is not just about those sweet moments. Sweet moments of self captured photos, sweet moments of breakfast or sweet moments of dinner

Other than the nonstop sorry's, what's even more bothersome is after you get back with your ex boyfriend, it seems as if you have the obligation to explain it to the whole world. 'We're starting over.'

How can happiness be guaranteed?

You can't rely on a small bridge to overcome obstacles.

I am frustrated with myself. I don't know why I being mediocre and unambitious. I'm frustrated with not knowing what it there for me to fight for. I randomly get angry, Frustrated that I was defeated, that I have been rejected. Other than this, there's an even deeper, hidden

Sixth sign of getting old: always putting important things in important places, and then forgetting that important place.

I have lost my self confidence. It has gone to a place I can’t find.

There are many thing if mistaken will be too late.

Love is not about who is better than who.

Hey, letting go is not being resigned to it, it doesn’t mean to forgive him. Its to let you yourself.

If not think about it then. If your heart is discontented then how would happiness come in?

Remember you are not the other choice. You should be his only choice.

I suddenly just realized I am currently walking on a road to my past. I suddenly realized, what I am really not resigned to is that I still care about that person. I suddenly realized what I received in the past 5 years of hard work I actually forgot about it is an important place.

Sixth charm of a matured woman: the thing that makes you shine is not diamond, but your eyes after you cried.

Each moment is staged with laughter. Each time is also staged with tears. And so there are those who are heartbroken. And there are others who suddenly become flustered.

Twelfth sign of getting old: if you don't mutter to yourself your brain ends up in knots!

Thirteenth sign of aging: Becoming suspicious of perfection and having unshakable faith in imperfection.

Hey, Li Da Ren, Do you ever get the feeling, that the happiness of purchasing all the shoes on the rack is far inferior to the joy of finally getting the one pair you've long coveted?

I have really changed. Now I know that such a change is what I really wanted. what I really needed. Li Da Ren, I know you'll understand.

So, ever so gradually I began to understand that the things I could not have were destined to belong to another. At some as yet undetermined moment they will certainly meet.

And so this fortunate me, finally put an end to all the things that didn't belong to me. I abandoned security, and began to take flight.

Waiting for the lake monster. The lake monster simply won't come. What an unreliable lake monster!

Why do people spin endlessly on and on?... Is all our spinning just for the sake of finding that certain someone? Or is the thing we're always searching for is actually ourselves? ...Revolving. Revolving. How foolish! And how humble we are. What do we really need? What exactly is it?

All of a sudden I felt that this humble me was lonely indeed.

No matter how far people go we will always miss home. Although the precondition is that the home must be a very cozy one.

The me now that grown really fond of love. And has learnt to love better. Because it makes life even more worth living.

We all hope to gain love. But what have we ever done for love?

I am sure that your love won't reach high peaks, or involve earth shattering moments. But I am certain that even though it is of long standing, it will never fade or feel stale. Because for the past 15 years we've never run out of things to say to each other. So for the next 15 years and the 15 years after that and the 15 years after that..
Stop. I just want you to promise, that whether Li Dar Ren and I split up or not, you'll always be there by my side.
I'll always be by your side.

What do I do? When you leave waves of longing come flooding in.

The friendship I couldn't shake out, followed me till the end.

Thirteenth charm of a mature woman: Have a job that you love. Have a home that you cherish. Have him.

The End?

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Deadly Game

"It's Mari, Jack," Ken whispered, needing to say it aloud.
"What?" Jack jerked around, staring at the sniper as the eyes fluttered closed. "Are you certain?"
Ken pulled the woman's belt loose and buckled it around her leg. "Either that or your wife is playing sniper for the other team. It has to be Mari. She looks exactly like Briony."

Jack glanced at Ken. "Lily is a brilliant woman when it comes to academics, but she's so blind when it comes to people." It was a small warning to keep Ken's anger from boiling over. "She's struggling to accept that Whitney needs to die, but she needs more time. The pregnancy also probably makes her more emotional when it comes to her father."
"When the hell did you get so smart?" Ken demanded.
"I've been reading all the pregnancy books." Jack sounded a little smug.

"Speaking of the sick, twisted freak, have you caught sight of the bastard?" Jack gave a short, expressive snort. "Um, that would be a negative. I've never actually seen Sean."
"I sent you an image."
"Tails and horns aren't exactly the real deal, Ken. You gave me a picture of the devil."

But I'm not any better at relationships than you are. We'll find our way together, even if we're fumbling around in the dark for a while.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

This Lullaby

I am coming to terms with the fact that loving someone requires a leap of faith, and that a soft landing is never guaranteed.

Some things don't last forever, but some things do.  Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down on the corners and peering in close, hoping you still recognize the person you see there.

Because you can never go from going out to being friends, just like that. It's a lie. It's just something that people say they'll do to take the permanence out of a breakup. And someone always takes it to mean more than it does, and then is hurt even more when, inevitably, said "friendly" relationship is still a major step down from the previous relationship, and it's like breaking up all over again. But messier.

Right now, though, I wanted not to think forward or backward, but only to lose myself in the words.

Are those the only options? Nothing or forever?

No relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater...

The love we have for each other is bigger than these small differences. And that's the key. It's like a big pie chart, and the love in a relationship has to be the biggest piece. Love can make up for a lot.

You know, when it works, love is pretty amazing. It's not overrated. There's a reason for all those songs.

Holding people away from you, and denying yourself love, that doesn't make you strong. if anything, it makes you weaker. Because you're doing it out of fear.

What did it feel like, I wondered, to love someone that much? So much that you couldn't even control yourself when they came close, as if you might just break free of whatever was holding you and throw yourself at them with enough force to easily overwhelm you both.

The fate of your heart is your choice and no one else gets a vote.

Everything, in the end, comes down to timing. One second, one minute, one hour could make all the difference.

...He always did the leaving. But not this time. She kept walking, and did not look back.

She fell, she hurt, she felt. She lived. And for all the tumble of her experiences, she still had hope. Maybe this next time would do the trick. Or maybe not. But unless you stepped into the game, you would never know.

This Lullaby is only a few words,
A simple run of chords,
Quiet here in this spare room,
But you can hear it, hear it,
Wherever you may go,
Even if I let you down,
This lullaby plays on...

And for one second, it was like I could feel the timing clicking together, finally pieces falling into place.

I've seen what commitment leads to.

Going in is the easy part. It's the ending that sucks!

I can say I made a lot of mistakes, but I don't regret things. Because at least I didn't spend a life standing outside, wondering what living would be like.

Whenever you made a choice, especially one you'd been resisting, it always affected everything else, some in big ways, like a tremor beneath your feet, others in so tiny a shift you hardly noticed a change at all.

But it was happening. So many times it seemed like there were chances to stop things before they started. Or even stop them in midstream.

But it was even worse when you knew in that very moment that there was still time to save yourself, and yet you couldn't even budge.

But I think, personally, that it would be worse to have been alone all that time. Sure, maybe I would have protected my heart from some things, but would that really have been better? To hold myself apart because I was too scared that something might no be forever?

And I felt a sudden whirl in my head, knowing this leap was inevitable, that I wasn't just standing on the cliff, toes poking over, but already in mid-air.

Maybe marriage, like life, isn't only about the big moments, whether they be good or bad. Maybe it's all the small things - like being guided slowly forward, surely, day after day - that stretches out to strengthen even the most tenuous bond.

"See," he began, leaning back into the booth, "I was at this car dealership today, and I saw this girl. It was an across-a-crowded-room kind of thing. A real moment, you know?"
I rolled my eyes. Chloe said, "And this would be Remy?"
"Right. Remy," he said, repeating my name with a smile. Then, as if we were happy honeymooners recounting our story for strangers he added, "Do you want to tell the next part?"
"No," I said flatly.

In those first few hours officially single again the world seems like it expands, suddenly bigger and more vast now that you have to get through it alone.

He'd always had that fearless optimism that made cynics like me squirm.

I wondered if it was enough for both of us. I would never know from here, though.

And time was passing.  Crucial minutes and seconds, each one capable of changing everything.

This is what daughters did. They left, and came home later with lives of their own.

But for now, I just sat there on the bed and listened to my song. The one that had been written for me by a man who knew me not at all, now sung by the one who knew me best.

I am not breaking my rules,' I snapped, hating that I'd ended up on the advice-recieving end of things, jumping from Dear Remy to Confused in Cincinnati all in one summer.

The chances we take, knowing no better than to fall or to stand back and hold ourselves in... protecting our hearts with the tightest of grips.

There was only so much space between us,  not even a real distance if measured in miles or feet or even inches, all the things that told you how far you'd come or had left to go.  But it was a big space, if only for me.  And as I moved forward to him covering it, he waited there on the other side.  It was only the last little bit I has to go, but in the end, I knew it would be all I would truly remember.  So as I kissed him, bringing this summer and everything else full circle, I let myself fall, and was not scared of the ground I knew would rise up to meet me.

The only thing I can't stand more than seeing something done wrong is seeing it done slowly.

I closed my eyes and listened. It was like music I'd heard all my life, even more than "This Lullaby." All those keystrokes, all those letters, so many words.

I brushed my fingers over the beads and watched as her image rippled, like it was on water, breaking apart gently and shimmering before becoming whole again.

Just me and the future, finally together. Now there was a happy ending I could believe in.

"So what do you wear to dump somebody?" she asked me, twirling a lock of hair around one finger. "Black, for mourning? Or something cheerful and colorful, to distract them from their pain? Or maybe you wear some sort of camouflage, something that will help you disappear quickly in case they don't take it well."

"He's getting dumped. And he doesn't even know it yet. He's probably eating a cheeseburger or flossing or picking up his dry cleaning, and he has no idea. No inkling."

Yes, it sucked getting dumped. But wasn't it better to just be brutally honest? To admit that your feeling for someone is never going to be powerful enough to justify taking up any more of their time? I was doing him a favor, really. Freeing him up for a better opportunity. In fact, I was a practically a saint, if you really thought about it. Exactly.

"It's so weird," Chloe said finally, "that it doesn't feel different now."
"What?" I asked her.
"Everything," she said. "I mean, this is what we've been waiting for, right? High school's over. It's a whole new thing but it feels exactly the same."
"That's because nothing new has started yet," Jess told her. She had her face tipped up, eyes on the sky above us. "By the end of the summer, then things will feel new. Because they will be."
Chloe pulled another tiny bottle, this time gin, out of her jacket pocket and popped the top. "It sucks to wait, though," she said, taking a sip of it. "I mean, for everything to begin."

That was the nice thing about the Spot: you could hear everything, but no one could see you.

I eased back on my elbows, tilting my head back to look up at the sky, which was pinkish, streaked with red. This was the time we knew best, that stretch of day going from dusk to dark. It seemed like we were always waiting for nighttime here. I could feel the trampoline easing up and down, moved by our own breathing, bringing us in small increments up and back from the sky as the colors faded, slowly, and the stars began to show themselves.

The lizard stared up at us, and we stared back, taking each other in. He was little and defenseless, I felt sorry for him already. This was a screwed-up place he'd just come into. But he didn't have to know that. Not yet, anyway. There in that room, where it was hot and cramped, the world probably still seemed small enough to manage.

But I always worked harder when I was up against something, or when someone assumed I couldn't succeed. That's what drove me, all those nights studying. The fact that so many figured I couldn't do it.

It passed, though. That was the bad thing. It always passed.

In a way, I was almost happy to see her. The worst part of me, out in the flesh. Blinking back at me in the dim light, daring me to call her a name other than my own.

In the dark everyone felt the same: the edges blurred. When I think of myself then, what I was like two years ago, I feel like a wound in a bad place, prone to be bumped on corners or edges. Never able to heal.

I didn't trot my pain out to show around. I kept it better hidden than anyone. I did.

It seemed like this day could go in so many directions, like a spiderweb shooting out toward endless possibilities.

Her life was perfect. But as was often the case, the rest of us were still adjusting.

Once, I was easy. Now, I was choosy. See? Big difference.

"One word," Ted replied, dead serious, "can change the whole world." There was a moment while we all considered this. Finally Lissa said to Chloe, loud enough for all of us to hear (she'd had a minibottle or two herself), "I bet he did really well on his SATs."

It was a basic plot in any number of her books: girl strikes out, makes good, finds love, gets revenge. In that order. The making good and striking out part I liked. The rest would just be bonus.

As if he was beating me to the punch, his words living forever, while I was left speechless, no rebuttal, no words left to say.

I'd seen another shade of him, and if it had been light where we were now, he'd have seen the same of me. So I was grateful, as I had been so often in my life, for the dark.

...as if at the age of eighteen life already sucked beyond any hope of improvement.

"I planned my whole future around Adam," she said now, quietly. "And now I have nothing."
"No," I told her, "now you just don't have Adam. There's a big difference, Lissa. You just can't see it yet."

"So," she went on, "it got me thinking about what cost beauty. Or for that matter, what cost anything? Would you trade love for beauty? Or happiness for beauty? Could a gorgeous person with a mean streak be a worthy trade? And if you did make the trade, decide you'd take that beautiful swan and hope it wouldn't turn on you, what would you do if it did?"

"I should have told you from the start. I will let you down.

I knew this feeling, the 2 a .m. loneliness that I'd practically invented.

"Welcome to adulthood," she said. "It sucks as much as high school."

Despite our differences, we did have a history. No one understood where I was coming from the way he did.

But it was too early to know: there were always more pages to go, more words to be written, before the story was over.

But even more so, it reminded me that this was all really happening. Stanford. The end of the summer. The beginning of my real life. It was no longer just creeping up, peeking over the horizon, but instead lingering in plain sight. Times like this it did seem real I was leaving, and even more that my family, and this life, would go on without me. And again I felt that emptiness rise up, but pushed it away. Still, I lingered there, in the doorway, memorizing the noise. The moment. Tucking it away out of sight, to be remembered when I needed it most.

Maybe, you just misplaced it, you know? It's been there. But you just haven't been looking in the right spot. Because lost means forever, it's gone. But misplaced... that means it's still around, somewhere. Just not where you thought.

So much hanging on just these things, tiny increments that together build a life. Like words build a story, and what had Ted said? One word can change the entire world.

I drove off, with my friends watching me go, all of them grouped on Lissa's hood. As I pulled onto the road, I glanced into the rear view and saw them: they were waving, hands moving through the air, their voices loud, calling out after me. The square of that mirror was like a frame, holding this picture of them saying good-bye, pushing me forward, before shifting gently out of sight, inch by fluid inch, as I turned away.

I was heading off to my new world. But I was taking a part of my past, and the future, along with me for the ride.  

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Silent Melody

It was hard to leave. But it was impossible to stay. He was leaving from choice because he was young and energetic and adventurous  and had long wanted to carve a life of his own.
He was going to new possibility, new dreams. But he was leaving behind places and people. And though, being young, he was sure he would see them all again some day, he knew too that many years might pass before he did so.

It was not easy to leave. Even at its darkest moment, life was a precious gift.

"Tis what marriage is all about, madam," he said.
"Have you not realized it? 'Tis about discovering unknown facets of the character and experience and taste of one's spouse and learning to adjust one's life accordingly. 'Tis learning to hope that one's spouse is doing the same thing. Leave love to take its course. 

She wondered if she would have tumbled into love with him during the past week if her heart had been whole, if her soul had no been shattered long ago. She rather thought she might have. But a heart and soul could not be mended by the power of the will, she had discovered over seven years. And so she had accepted reality and moved on.

Idleness was so often despised. And yet it was on idleness, she knew, that one touched meaning and peace.

But Ashley had always understood. He had always known there was a person behind the silence - not just a person who listened with her eyes and would have responded in similar words if she could have, but one who inhabited a world of her own and lived in it quiet as richly  as anyone in his world. With Ashley there had always been a language. There had always been a way of giving him glimpses of herself. He would never know know her. Such intimacy but no communication, because words - even if she could speak or write them - could never explain her world to him.

That was the heart of the difference, she thought. In her world she had learned to be. Other people seemed to gain their sense of identity and worth from doing.

It takes character to refuse a man you love more dearly than life merely because marrying him would be the wrong thing to do.

There was at least as much to learn as there was to be taught.

She was not sure that her deafness had strengthened her character. She was not even sure she had met a challenge.

A silent world was as natural to her as a noisy one must be to them, she reflected. But people tended to assume that deaf persons could function as people only if they learned to conform to a world of sound. What about the challenge of silence? Very few people of hearing ever accepted it or even knew that there was a challenge there. People of hearing feared silence...

Gifts were dangerous things, she thought. Sometimes one succeeded only in taking far more than one gave.

"Ah, those eyes," he said. "They can speak volumes, but sometimes even I cannot translate the language. And we never did invent enough signs for deeper thoughts and feelings.

Perhaps we should do the learning - and learn not to communicate, or to do it in a different way.

Now there is a thought. Perhaps we could learn your peace if we could share your silence.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Between The Devil And Desire

     He wondered briefly what it was like to dream. He never did. Possibly because he so seldom slept. He was obsessed with obtaining all the wealth he could, burning the midnight oil as often as possible. It protected a person from having to do things he didn't want to do.
     "I don't trust good fortune that comes so easily. There is always a price to be paid, Frannie. Always." He gave her a cocky grin. "I want to know the price before I have to pay it."
     He doesn't need to know the path to adventure. He simply needs to recognize that it awaits.
     To take from life what you can, while you can.  

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Perfect Match

-] Sometimes when you pick up your child you can feel the map of your own bones beneath your hands, or smell the scent of your skin in the nape of his neck.

-] This is the most extraordinary thing about motherhood - finding a piece of yourself separate and apart that all the same you could not live without.

-] You are only as invincible as your smallest weakness, and those are tiny indeed - the length of a sleeping baby's eyelash, the span of a child's hand.

-] Life turns on a dime, and - it turns out - so does one's conscience.

-] Envy, after all, comes from wanting something that isn't yours. But grief comes from losing something you've already had.

-] You build a wall to keep something unwanted out - or to hold something precious in.

-] Life, it turns out, goes on. There is no cosmic rule that grants you immunity from the details just because you have come face-to-face with a catastrophe. The garbage can still overflow, the bills arrive in the mail, telemarketers, interrupt dinner.

-] If I have gained anything over these months, it is the knowledge there is no starting over- only living with the mistakes you've made.

-] But rules only work when everyone plays by them. What happens when someone doesn't, and the fallout bleeds right into his life?

-] Whats stronger- the need to uphold the law, or the motive to turn one's back on it?

-] We have been naive enough to believe that we were invincible; that we could run blind through the hairpin turns of life at treacherous speeds and never crash.

-] "You saved me," I said. Nathaniel put his hands on either side of my face.
"I had to," he said. "So you could save me back."

-] Just when you think you've got your life by the reins, that's when it's most likely to run away with you.

-] There is a gulf as wide as an ocean between should and want, and I am drowning in it.


-] But then, caleb taught me long ago you can't build anything without some sort of foundation. maybe we learn to live our lives by understanding, firsthand, how not to live them. Maybe honesty is overvalued. What's truly priceless is picking out from a stream of falsehoods the ones you most need to hear.

-] Does fate ever play by the rules?

-] I'm not saying you did the wrong thing. I'm not even saying it wasn't something I'd thought of doing, myself. But even if it was the just thing to do, or the fitting thing, it still wasn't the right thing.

-] Justification is a remarkable thing - takes all those solid lines and blurs them, so that honor becomes as supple as a willow, and ethics burst like soap bubbles.

-] You ask your readers if they can account for every minute of their lives, every thought in their heads, and be proud of it. You ask them if they've never jaywalked.... never gone thirty-one miles per hour in a thirty-mile zone... if they've never sped up when they saw that yellow light. And when you find that single, sorry person who hasn't taken a misstep, that one person with the right to judge me, you tell him he's just as human as I am. That tomorrow, his world could turn upside down and he might find himself capable of actions he'd never believed possible... you tell him, he could have been me.

-] After all, the only way to communicate is to find someone who can comprehend; the only way to be forgiven is to find someone who is willing to forgive.

-] The minute I stand up, I've jumped off the cliff. The world goes by in a haze of color and light; my weight accelerates, head-over-heels. Then I think, falling is the first step in learning how to fly.

-] And he wonders if maybe Nina is right; if a superhero is nothing but an ordinary person who believes that she cannot fail.

-] Change your point of view, and the perspective is completely different.

-] "Can you see the pond?"
From up here, I can. It is a piece of sky, lying on the ground.
When Heaven breaks, who fixes it?

-] After years of seeing the world in absolutes, he has taught me how to pick out all the shades of possibilities.

-] She isn't the girl who used to live next door, hasn't been for years. Back then she had freckles and jeans with holes at the knees and a ponytail yanked so tight it made her eyes pull at the corners. Now she wears pantyhose and tailored suits; she has had the same short bob hairstyle for five years. But when Patrick gets close enough, she still smells like childhood to him.
-] Where is this going to take me? she had asked. And Caleb's answer: Where do you want it to?

-] Just so you know: if this ever happens to you, you will not be ready. You will ask yourself How come; you will ask yourself What if.

 -] You cannot be doomed, after all, as long as you can still see the faint outline of hope on the opposite shore.

-] "Is Understatement 101 a course in medical school?"
"Of course. It's the prereq for Lying Through One's Teeth."

-] A level of a house, his father has told him, is called a story.
Nathaniel likes that. It makes him feel like may be he is living between the covers of a book himself. Like may be everyone in every home is sure to get a happy ending.

-] There are a lot of places," I reply, "that I thought I'd never go."

-] When the door opens, I realize that the only thing worse than waiting is the moment you realize a decision has been made.

-] I know every line of his face. The one that was carved the first year of our marriage, by laughing so often. The one that was born of worries the year he left the contracting companies to go into business for himself. The one developed from focusing hard on Nathaniel as he took his first steps, said his first words.

-] "What would you like to be?" Nina asks.
Nathaniel tosses his magical tablecloth. "A superhero," he says. "A new one."
Caleb is sure they could muster up Superman on short notice. "What's wrong with the old ones?"
Everything it turns out. Nathaniel doesn't like Superman because he can be felled by Kryptonite. Green Lantern's ring doesn't work on anything yellow. The Incredible Hulk is too stupid. Even Captain Marvel runs the risk of being tricked into saying the word Shazam! and turning himself back into young Billy Batson.
"How about Ironman?" Caleb suggests.
Nathaniel shakes his head. "He could rust."
"Aquaman?"
"Needs water."
"Nathaniel," Nina says gently, "nobody's perfect."
"But they are supposed to be." Nathaniel explains, an d Caleb understands. Tonight, Nathaniel needs to be invincible.

-] ...because he believed that if you wanted to get rid of a hole, you filled it. He had not realized at the time that there were all sorts of filler that took up space, but had no substance. That made you feel just as empty.

-] I have met convicted child molesters before. They don't wear badges or brands or tattoos announcing their vice. It's hidden under a soft, grandfatherly smile; it's tucked in the pocket of a buttoned down shirt. They look the rest of us, and that's what makes it so frightening - to know that these beasts move among us, and we are none the wisest.

-] They have girlfriends and wives who have loved them, unaware. There had to have been a moment where they made a conscious decision to turn away before they saw something they didn't want to.

-] Where is the line? We're taught to stand up for ourselves; we're taught to stand up for others we care about. But all of a sudden, there's a new line drawn by the law. You sit back, it says, and let us deal with this. ...what's morally right is considered wrong...and what's morally wrong, you can get away with.

-] But if I've learned anything, it's that we don't know half of what we think we do. And we know ourselves least of all.

-] The future may unfold in indelible strokes, but it doesn't mean we have to read the same lines over and over.

-] How far can a person go... and still live with himself.

-] Those eyes, they've got a history with mine. They were the first things I saw when I came to, after being hit in the skull with a baseball thrown by Patrick at Little League. They were the fortification I needed at sixteen to ride the chairlift at Sugarloaf, although I am terrified of heights. For almost my whole life, they've told me I'm doing all right, during moments when it was not in my own power to answer.

-] The relationship between people knot so easily, there needs to be a person skilled at working free the threads. Sometimes, though, the only way to extricate a tangle is to cut it out and start fresh.

-] And when your wife is not the same person you fell in love with eight years ago, where exactly does that leave you? Do you try to get to know who she has become, and hope for the best? Or do you keep deceiving yourself in the hope that she might wake up one morning and have gone back to the woman she used to be? May be, Caleb thinks with a small shock, he isn't the same person he once was, either.

-] As it turns out, you can function while your heart is being torn to shreds.

-] Best place to be?" Adrienne asks after a moment.
On the other side of this wall. In my bed, at home. Anywhere with Nathaniel.
"Before," I answer, because I know she'll understand.