Sarah Lyons Fleming · 0 pages
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“The heart. It’s like a lizard’s tail. I read once that when the tail regenerates it’s never an exact replica, but it’s a tail nonetheless.”
― Sarah Lyons Fleming, quote from All the Stars in the Sky
“I let my last bit of hope float up to the stars. It’s not so bad. I don’t know why I didn’t give up a year ago, a few months ago. Next world or not, I’m done with this one. I’m done with this body that has always been mine to give and no longer feels like it belongs to me.”
― Sarah Lyons Fleming, quote from All the Stars in the Sky
“I don’t know why I thought saving my tears for Alaska was a good idea. It was stupid as fuck. There’s no point in saving things for later if later never comes.”
― Sarah Lyons Fleming, quote from All the Stars in the Sky
“You suck at crying, anyway,” I say. “Five tears and you’re done? I could’ve stretched that out for twenty minutes, at least.”
― Sarah Lyons Fleming, quote from All the Stars in the Sky
“I told you I’d make you caramel sauce one day.” And I told you I’d love you forever if you did, I don’t say back. I’m sure he doesn’t remember.”
― Sarah Lyons Fleming, quote from All the Stars in the Sky
“So many people are gone that I can’t even mourn them properly. It would take every hour of every day to do it. I want to hold on to them, to think of them, but I would never get any living done if I gave them all the time they deserve. Especially now, when we’re barely living as it is—barely surviving. I hug Ana’s bag to my chest and sob. I cry over the things in my dead friend’s bag and for all the things we’ve lost so far. I don’t know why I thought saving my tears for Alaska was a good idea. It was stupid as fuck. There’s no point in saving things for later if later never comes.”
― Sarah Lyons Fleming, quote from All the Stars in the Sky
“Love you,” Bits says. “More than all the poop in the toilet?” I ask. Peter heaves a sigh. But you’ve got to play to your audience, and my audience is amused by potty words. It sends her into a coughing spell, but she’s smiling. I wanted that to be the last thing I saw.”
― Sarah Lyons Fleming, quote from All the Stars in the Sky
“You have a good smell.” “I have a smell? What kind of smell? It’s not like sauerkraut or anything, is it?” “No, it’s—” he thinks for a moment, “like something green.” “Like what kind of green? Frogs? Mold?” He knows I’m messing with him, and he exhales noisily. “You know what I mean, Cassandra. Green. Leaves, cut grass, herbs. But a sweet green.”
― Sarah Lyons Fleming, quote from All the Stars in the Sky
“You’re staying here tomorrow.” I sit up and cross my arms. “Don’t even try it. I’m going.” “You can’t go with a fever.” “Why? Do the zombies have a rule that you have to be fever-free for twenty-four hours before you can visit?” “Jesus”
― Sarah Lyons Fleming, quote from All the Stars in the Sky
“Financially independent people are happier than those in their same income/age cohort who are not financially secure.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy
“He paused and then said, as though the words were wrung out of him: ‘O God, Mama, I’ve made such a mull of it! What am I to do?”
― Georgette Heyer, quote from Sylvester
“That boy,” he said. “I’ve done him ever favor I could. Some folks you can’t do nothing with. Just sorry. God knows I’ve done plenty of drinking and stuff in my time, but I be damn if I ever tried to cheat anybody out of any money.”
― Larry Brown, quote from Joe
“We have good news and bad news. The good news is that the dismal vision of human sexuality reflected in the standard narrative is mistaken. Men have not evolved to be deceitful cads, nor have millions of years shaped women into lying, two-timing gold-diggers. But the bad news is that the amoral agencies of evolution have created in us a species with a secret it just can’t keep. Homo sapiens evolved to be shamelessly, undeniably, inescapably sexual. Lusty libertines. Rakes, rogues, and roués. Tomcats and sex kittens. Horndogs. Bitches in heat.1 True, some of us manage to rise above this aspect of our nature (or to sink below it). But these preconscious impulses remain our biological baseline, our reference point, the zero in our own personal number system. Our evolved tendencies are considered “normal” by the body each of us occupies. Willpower fortified with plenty of guilt, fear, shame, and mutilation of body and soul may provide some control over these urges and impulses. Sometimes. Occasionally. Once in a blue moon. But even when controlled, they refuse to be ignored. As German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer pointed out, Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will. (One can choose what to do, but not what to want.) Acknowledged or not, these evolved yearnings persist and clamor for our attention. And there are costs involved in denying one’s evolved sexual nature, costs paid by individuals, couples, families, and societies every day and every night. They are paid in what E. O. Wilson called “the less tangible currency of human happiness that must be spent to circumvent our natural predispositions.”2 Whether or not our society’s investment in sexual repression is a net gain or loss is a question for another time. For now, we’ll just suggest that trying to rise above nature is always a risky, exhausting endeavor, often resulting in spectacular collapse. Any attempt to understand who we are, how we got to be this way, and what to do about it must begin by facing up to our evolved human sexual predispositions. Why do so many forces resist our sustained fulfillment? Why is conventional marriage so much damned work? How has the incessant, grinding campaign of socio-scientific insistence upon the naturalness of sexual monogamy combined with a couple thousand years of fire and brimstone failed to rid even the priests, preachers, politicians, and professors of their prohibited desires? To see ourselves as we are, we must begin by acknowledging that of all Earth’s creatures, none is as urgently, creatively, and constantly sexual as Homo sapiens.”
― Christopher Ryan, quote from Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality
“Uxuriousness may be the last refuge of the honest man,”
― Mario Puzo, quote from Omerta
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