“My face is expressionless: a thing of stone. I’m mastering this moment. She won’t see anything but what I show her.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“Men see beauty wherever they can get it. But that’s the allure of the Red Light Princess. Like any good whore, she’s whoever you want her to be.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“Men started praying to you, begging for a taste. That legend of yours spiraled out of control. You gave the people hope. They were told you were all they ever needed.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“Hannibal knew your beauty was trouble. Only bad things could come from such a pretty girl. You were made for temptation. You would be a source of jealousy and greed. Men would lust, plot and kill to claim you as their own. He decided to place you in the public domain and donate your body to the pimps as a gift to the people.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“That girl has done things to your head.'
He pats my back, 'Don’t pretend she’s not crawling inside of yours.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“They are all cheap copies and every one of them is forgotten.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“She knew every single one of us. Gave us the chance to share in her bed. We all took comfort that she was here and we were not alone. The princess had nothing but love to give.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“These poor girls are just bad impersonators. They look cheap, really. There’s nothing special about them. They are just reaching out to get noticed. They don’t want to be invisible anymore. They don’t want to get lost in crowds.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“These squatters aren’t just aliens, drifters and undesirables. They’re new world barbarians, conquering free spaces and making them their own.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“There’s fear and violence under the surface. One always follows the other.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“We build up celebrities easily here. They tower above us on the public screens: huge and terrifying and out of our reach.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
James W. Bodden
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“This is something different again. A feeling of peace. The feeling you get when a recipe turns out perfectly right, a perfectly risen souffle, a flawless sauce hollandaise. It's a feeling which tells me that any woman can be beautiful in the eyes of a man who loves her.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from Five Quarters of the Orange
“Marya Morevna! Don't you know anything? Girls must be very, very careful to care only for ribbons and magazines and wedding rings. They must sweep their hearts clean of anything but kisses and theater and dancing. They must never read Pushkin; they must never say clever things; they must never have sly eyes or wear their hair loose and wander around barefoot, or they will draw his attention!”
― Catherynne M. Valente, quote from Deathless
“ 134. Letters are Commonplace
Letters are commonplace enough, yet what splendid things they are! When someone is in a distant province and one is worried about him, and then a letter suddenly arrives, one feels as though one were seeing him face to face. Again, it is a great comfort to have expressed one's feelings in a letter even though one knows it cannot yet have arrived. If letters did not exist, what dark depressions would come over one! When one has been worrying about something and wants to tell a certain person about it, what a relief it is to put it all down in a letter! Still greater is one's joy when a reply arrives. At that moment a letter really seems like an elixir of life.”
― Sei Shōnagon, quote from The Pillow Book
“Lena knew she had spent too much of her life in a state of passive dread, just waiting for something bad to happen. In a life like that, relief was as close as you got to happiness. ”
― Ann Brashares, quote from The Second Summer of the Sisterhood
“It's hard to form a lasting connection when your permanent address is an eight-inch mailbox in the UPS store.
Still,as I inch my way closer, I can't help the way my breath hitches, the way my insides thrum and swirl. And when he turns,flashing me that slow, languorous smile that's about to make him world famous,his eyes meeting mine when he says, "Hey,Daire-Happy Sweet Sixteen," I can't help but think of the millions of girls who would do just about anything to stand in my pointy blue babouches.
I return the smile, flick a little wave of my hand, then bury it in the side pocket of the olive-green army jacket I always wear. Pretending not to notice the way his gaze roams over me, straying from my waist-length brown hair peeking out from my scarf, to the tie-dyed tank top that clings under my jacket,to the skinny dark denim jeans,all the way down to the brand-new slippers I wear on my feet.
"Nice." He places his foot beside mine, providing me with a view of the his-and-hers version of the very same shoe. Laughing when he adds, "Maybe we can start a trend when we head back to the States.What do you think?"
We.
There is no we.
I know it.He knows it.And it bugs me that he tries to pretend otherwise.
The cameras stopped rolling hours ago, and yet here he is,still playing a role. Acting as though our brief, on-location hookup means something more.
Acting like we won't really end long before our passports are stamped RETURN.
And that's all it takes for those annoyingly soft girly feelings to vanish as quickly as a flame in the rain. Allowing the Daire I know,the Daire I've honed myself to be, to stand in her palce.
"Doubtful." I smirk,kicking his shoe with mine.A little harder then necessary, but then again,he deserves it for thinking I'm lame enough to fall for his act. "So,what do you say-food? I'm dying for one of those beef brochettes,maybe even a sausage one too.Oh-and some fries would be good!"
I make for the food stalls,but Vane has another idea. His hand reaches for mine,fingers entwining until they're laced nice and tight. "In a minute," he says,pulling me so close my hip bumps against his. "I thought we might do something special-in honor of your birthday and all.What do you think about matching tattoos?"
I gape.Surely he's joking.
"Yeah,you know,mehndi. Nothing permanent.Still,I thought it could be kinda cool." He arcs his left brow in his trademark Vane Wick wau,and I have to fight not to frown in return.
Nothing permanent. That's my theme song-my mission statement,if you will. Still,mehndi's not quite the same as a press-on. It has its own life span. One that will linger long after Vane's studio-financed, private jet lifts him high into the sky and right out of my life.
Though I don't mention any of that, instead I just say, "You know the director will kill you if you show up on set tomorrow covered in henna."
Vane shrugs. Shrugs in a way I've seen too many times, on too many young actors before him.He's in full-on star-power mode.Think he's indispensable. That he's the only seventeen-year-old guy with a hint of talent,golden skin, wavy blond hair, and piercing blue eyes that can light up a screen and make the girls (and most of their moms) swoon. It's a dangerous way to see yourself-especially when you make your living in Hollywood. It's the kind of thinking that leads straight to multiple rehab stints, trashy reality TV shows, desperate ghostwritten memoirs, and low-budget movies that go straight to DVD.”
― Alyson Noel, quote from Fated
The Blue Fairy Book
Juliet, Naked
To Sir Phillip, With...
Personal Demon
Beautiful
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