“Because I'm tryin' to push you away when all I want to do is hold you. I know you say you don't want a hero, but damn I'd like to be that guy who'll save you from spiders and whatever and whoever else hurts you.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Wild Cards
“Julian, sometimes girls are like junk food. They look good, and they sure taste good… but you know they're not healthy for you and cause cavities so it's better to just leave 'em alone. Got me?”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Wild Cards
“You own a piece of me," he murmurs as he holds me afterward.
"Good," I tell him. "And just so you know… I'm never giving it back.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Wild Cards
“Some things need to be left unsaid.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Wild Cards
“I'll explain it to you. To me it's more than a game." She touches her chest and says, "When you love something as much as I love football, you just feel it inside. Did you ever love doing something so bad that it consumed you?"
"A long time ago."
"That's what football is to me. It's my passion, my life… my escape. When I play, I forget everything that sucks in my life. And when we win…" She looks down like she's embarrassed to admit what she's about to reveal. "I know this is going to sound stupid, but when we win I think miracles can happen.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Wild Cards
“I never believed in love at first sight, until I met Derek. It's all-consuming and delicious and wonderful and exciting. At the same time, it makes me nervous and self-conscious and emotional. Love exists. I know it does, because I'm madly, deeply, hopelessly in love.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Wild Cards
“This attitude means you haven't met a girl worthy of your attention. You'll want to get caught if the right girl comes along.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Wild Cards
“She's a Texan, born and raised. Football is in our blood.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Wild Cards
“I look ridiculous and stupid. As I check myself in the bathroom mirror, I want to back out. I'm wearing a skintight leotard/body suit obviously designed by women who have no clue about men's plumbing, because the outline of my dick is obscene. Don't dudes who do this ridiculous sport wear a cup or something? I've been on a trampoline, but I've never done synchronized trampolining. Looking at myself in the mirror, I can see why.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Wild Cards
“I thought of making you and Julian real brothers.”
What is she talking about? Does she expect us to do a ritual thing like cut ourselves and rub blood together so we’re blood brothers?”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Wild Cards
“It's not stupid. I guess havin' hope is better that givin' up and thinking life will such forever.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Wild Cards
“Bein' here with you . . . you've really got under my skin."
"You want to break the rule?"
He nods slowly. "Yeah."
"Why?"
“Because I’m tryin’ to push you away when all I want to do is hold you. I know you say you don’t want a hero, but damn I’d like to be that guy who’ll save you from spiders and whatever and whoever else hurts you.”
His words seep deep into the core of my heart. With our eyes locked, I straddle him on the chair. “I want to break the rule, too.”
My heart pounds rapidly and I grab his shoulders so he can steady me. I’m dizzy with wanting him to love me as much as I love him. He’s soaking wet and now I’m soaking and rain falls on us and around us. I don’t feel hot or cold . . . I’m too caught up in being with Derek, here in the dark in the middle of the night.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Wild Cards
“It’s true, I am skinny. My bones jostle underneath my skin, fighting to be the first one to pierce my flesh.”
― Louise O'Neill, quote from Only Ever Yours
“IT is not impossible that among the English readers of this book there may be one who in 1915 and 1916 was in one of those trenches that were woven like a web among the ruins of Monchy-au-Bois. In that case he had opposite him at that time the 73rd Hanoverian Fusiliers, who wear as their distinctive badge a brassard with ' Gibraltar ' inscribed on it in gold, in memory of the defence of that fortress under General Elliot; for this, besides Waterloo, has its place in the regiment's history.
At the time I refer to I was a nineteen-year-old lieutenant in command of a platoon, and my part of the line was easily recognizable from the English side by a row of tall shell-stripped trees that rose from the ruins of Monchy. My left flank was bounded by the sunken road leading to Berles-au-Bois, which was in the hands of the English ; my right was marked by a sap running out from our lines, one that helped us many a time to make our presence felt by means of bombs and rifle-grenades.
I daresay this reader remembers, too, the white tom-cat, lamed in one foot by a stray bullet, who had his headquarters in No-man's-land. He used often to pay me a visit at night in my dugout. This creature, the sole living being that was on visiting terms with both sides, always made on me an impression of extreme mystery. This charm of mystery which lay over all that belonged to the other side, to that danger zone full of unseen figures, is one of the strongest impressions that the war has left with me. At that time, before the battle of the Somme, which opened a new chapter in the history of the war, the struggle had not taken on that grim and mathematical aspect which cast over its landscapes a deeper and deeper gloom. There was more rest for the soldier than in the later years when he was thrown into one murderous battle after another ; and so it is that many of those days come back to my memory now with a light on them that is almost peaceful.”
― Ernst Jünger, quote from Storm of Steel
“But besides, I haven't the time, I'm too busy trying to see that you don't lose any of the money I married you for.”
― Dashiell Hammett, quote from The Thin Man
“If everything in a dream were realistic, it would have no power over us; if everything were unreal, we would feel less involved in its pleasures and fears. Its fusion of the two is what makes it haunting.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction
“Maybe I didn't try as hard as I ought when he started calling you
names. Serves him right, the nasty old turd. Punch him again, Moth" - Peaseblossom”
― Lisa Mantchev, quote from Eyes Like Stars
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