“I like storms. Thunder torrential rain, puddles, wet shoes. When the clouds roll in, I get filled with this giddy expectation. Everything is more beautiful in the rain. Don't ask me why. But it’s like this whole other realm of opportunity. I used to feel like a superhero, riding my bike over the dangerously slick roads, or maybe an Olympic athlete enduring rough trials to make it to the finish line. On sunny days, as a girl, I could still wake up to that thrilled feeling. You made me giddy with expectation, just like a symphonic rainstorm. You were a tempest in the sun, the thunder in a boring, cloudless sky. I remember I’d shovel in my breakfast as fast as I could, so I could go knock on your door. We’d play all day, only coming back for food and sleep. We played hide and seek, you’d push me on the swing, or we’d climb trees. Being your sidekick gave me a sense of home again. You see, when I was ten, my mom died. She had cancer, and I lost her before I really knew her. My world felt so insecure, and I was scared. You were the person that turned things right again. With you, I became courageous and free. It was like the part of me that died with my mom came back when I met you, and I didn’t hurt if I knew I had you. Then one day, out of the blue, I lost you, too. The hurt returned, and I felt sick when I saw you hating me. My rainstorm was gone, and you became cruel. There was no explanation. You were just gone. And my heart was ripped open. I missed you. I missed my mom. What was worse than losing you, was when you started to hurt me. Your words and actions made me hate coming to school. They made me uncomfortable in my own home. Everything still hurts, but I know none of it is my fault. There are a lot of words that I could use to describe you, but the only one that includes sad, angry, miserable, and pitiful is “coward.” I a year, I’ll be gone, and you’ll be nothing but some washout whose height of existence was in high school. You were my tempest, my thunder cloud, my tree in the downpour. I loved all those things, and I loved you. But now? You’re a fucking drought. I thought that all the assholes drove German cars, but it turns out that pricks in Mustangs can still leave scars.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“Yesterday lasts forever.
Tomorrow comes never.
Until you”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“You've already made me cry countless times." I raised my middle finger to him slowly, and asked, "Do you know what this is?" I took my middle finger and patted the corner of my eye with it. "It's me, wiping away the last tear you'll ever get.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“You were my tempest, my thunder cloud, my tree in the downpour. I loved all those things, and I loved you. But now? You’re a fucking drought. I thought that all the assholes drove German cars, but it turns out that pricks in Mustangs can still leave scars.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“Are you mine?” I asked as I wiped my tears.
He kissed the corners of my mouth softly, and I felt heat rise up my neck. “Always have been,”
he whispered against my mouth.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“Acting like you don't care is not letting it go.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“Tate, you’re mine, and I’m yours. Every day you’re
going to realize that more and more. When you believe it without a doubt, then I’ll have earned your
trust.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“I want to touch you.” His words were against my lips now. “I want to feel what’s mine. What’s always been mine.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“We never lost that. As much as I tried, I
could never erase you from my heart. That’s why I was such an asshole and kept guys away from you.
You were always mine.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“Letting yourself be vulnerable isn't always a weakness. Sometimes it can be a conscious decision to draw the other person out.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“He smiled to himself. “Because she made you.” And he wrapped his skinny arm around my neck and yanked me into his side. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and I wanted to tell her ‘thank you.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“Isn’t it about time you fought back?”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“I held Madoc by the inside of his elbow and held Jerod closer to me by the bicep. While a month ago I never would've thought I'd be with these two, I felt at ease. "Totally. This is the start of a great friendship." I jostled Madoc's arm playfully.
"It could be the start of a great porno, too," Madoc deadpanned, breaking into laughter.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“If I ever lay my hands on you,” he said low and husky, “You’ll want it.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“Jared gripped me tighter. "If you beat metal long enough, it turns to steel.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“This is how bullies are made. I’d just purposely made him feel unloved and unwanted. I’d told him he was alone. Even with everything he’d pulled on me, I’d never felt abandoned or isolated. There was always someone that loved me, someone I could count on.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“If you beat metal long enough, it turns to steel.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“I didn’t want Ben. Plain and simple. I wasn’t going to be one of those silly girls in a love triangle romance novel who couldn’t choose. Not that I was in a love triangle, but I never understood how a girl can’t know whether or not she wants a guy. We can be confused about what is good for us but not about what we truly want.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“He put a hand to my face and guided my eyes to his. "We never lost that. As much as I tried, I could never erase you from my heart. That's why I was such an asshole and kept guys away from you. You were always mine."
"Are you mine?" I asked as I wiped my tears.
He kissed the corners of my mouth softly, and I felt the heat rise up my neck. "Always have been," he whispered against my mouth.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“This is how bullies are made.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“I thought that all the assholes drove German cars, but it turns out that pricks in Mustangs can still leave scars.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“I was going to Homecoming with the one person in this school who made my skin crawl, I was getting attention from a gorgeous, star football player that I could care less about, and I was having wet dreams about a potential sociopath who acted like he hated me most of the time.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I know I can make this up to you. Don’t hate me.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“Being a bitch could be a survival technique. They get respect. There was no honor in people thinking you were a slut.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“What was worse than losing you was when you started to hurt me. Your words and actions made me hate coming to school. They made me uncomfortable in my own home.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“There was a time when I had all of his attention and loved it. As much as I wanted him to leave me alone, I also liked how he seemed surprised. I liked the way he was looking at me right now. And then I remembered that I hated him.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“He was giving me the same look I got Wednesday night right before he kissed me, and I knew I hadn’t imagined anything. It was anger and desire mixed together to make something hot enough for my knees to go weak.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“You were the person that turned things right again. With you, I became courageous and free. It was like the part of me that died with my mom came back when I met you, and I didn’t hurt if I knew I had you. Then one day, out of the blue, I lost you, too. The hurt returned, and I felt sick when I saw you hating me. My rainstorm was gone, and you became cruel. There was no explanation. You were just gone. And my heart was ripped open. I missed you.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“There were so many times when we were kids, growing up next door to each other, that I thought Jared was the greatest. He was sweet, generous, and friendly. And the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
Penelope Douglas
Born place: in Dubuque, Iowa, The United States
Born date February 1, 2018
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“What do you do when all the excuses you used to not chase your dream are gone? What do you do then?”
― Jon Acuff, quote from Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters
“Sono gli impiegati che inventano, in fin dei conti, tutte queste scartoffie [i passaporti] per avvelenare la vita agli uomini, e le loro disposizioni non vanno prese troppo sul serio.”
― Czesław Miłosz, quote from Native Realm: A Search for Self-Definition
“MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, quote from The Social Contract
“Sylphid was beginning to play professionally, and she was subbing as second harpist in the orchestra at Radio City Music Hall. She was called pretty regularly, once or twice a week, and she’d also got a job playing at a fancy restaurant in the East Sixties on Friday night. Ira would drive her from the Village up to the restaurant with her harp and then go and pick her and the harp up when she finished. He had the station wagon, and he’d pull up in front of the house and go inside and have to carry it down the stairs. The harp is in its felt cover, and Ira puts one hand on the column and one hand in the sound hole at the back and he lifts it up, lays the harp on a mattress they keep in the station wagon, and drives Sylphid and the harp uptown to the restaurant. At the restaurant he takes the harp out of the car and, big radio star that he is, he carries it inside. At ten-thirty, when the restaurant is finished serving dinner and Sylphid’s ready to come back to the Village, he goes around to pick her up and the whole operation is repeated. Every Friday. He hated the physical imposition that it was—those things weigh about eighty pounds—but he did it. I remember that in the hospital, when he had cracked up, he said to me, ‘She married me to carry her daughter’s harp! That’s why the woman married me! To haul that fucking harp!’ “On those Friday night trips, Ira found he could talk to Sylphid in ways he couldn’t when Eve was around. He’d ask her about being a movie star’s child. He’d say to her, ‘When you were a little girl, when did it dawn on you that something was up, that this wasn’t the way everyone grew up?’ She told him it was when the tour buses went up and down their street in Beverly Hills. She said she never saw her parents’ movies until she was a teenager. Her parents were trying to keep her normal and so they downplayed those movies around the house. Even the rich kid’s life in Beverly Hills with the other movie stars’ kids seemed normal enough until the tour buses stopped in front of her house and she could hear the tour guide saying, ‘This is Carlton Pennington’s house, where he lives with his wife, Eve Frame.’ “She told him about the production that birthday parties were for the movie stars’ kids—clowns, magicians, ponies, puppet shows, and every child attended by a nanny in a white nurse’s uniform. At the dining table, behind every child would be a nanny. The Penningtons had their own screening room and they ran movies. Kids would come over. Fifteen, twenty kids.”
― Philip Roth, quote from I Married a Communist
“Jealousy is a fever that arises from a stupid, baseless excitement in our unthinking brain.
Jealousy is a phenomenon of auto-suggestion.
The woman you love has gone to bed with X. You hate X, you hate her, and you have perpetually before your eyes the vision of your loved one and X embracing in an act that fills you with horror.
But you too in your time have deceived the woman you love and have done with Y what X did in bed with woman you love.
Well, what remains in your skin ,your mind of Mrs Y? Nothing whatever. No more than X left with your woman.
In other words, auto suggestion. Do you want evidence of that? Well, then, if you don't know the man, you imagine him to be hateful, offensive, repulsive, and you feel that if you met him you'd kill him.
But, if you happen to see his photograph, you begin to realize that it's possible to look at him without horror; and believe me, if you were actually introduced to him you'd approach him with a cordial smile on your lips, look him in the eye without trembling and, if you have reached my degree of perfection, you'd actually be capable of cheerfully patting him on the back and telling him he's a good chap.
In a not too distant future, reason and education will have driven home the lesson of the futility of jealousy.”
― Pitigrilli, quote from Cocaine
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