He wanted to say that America was a country where there was only the future. From the day he had arrived, with twenty-five dollars in his pocket, he had been swept forward into tomorrow and the next day, awed by the driving possibilities of life without tradition, without the past. There were no memories for him in America.
Quotes
‘It’s this music we play, Billy. It opens people up, makes them give up secrets. Better than whiskey or dope for that. It don’t kill you, and you can’t piss it away. You can whistle it the next day in new places. You can loan it to strangers, and they thank you for it.’
‘It’s this music we play, Billy. It opens people up, makes them give up secrets. Better than whiskey or dope for that. It don’t kill you, and you can’t piss it away. You can whistle it the next day in new places. You can loan it to strangers, and they thank you for it.’
‘Never know when you get the tune down right. Go too early and you pluck it raw. Go too late and you got rotten fruit.’ Earl coughed. ‘Don’t go at all and you put a bad hurt on yourself.’
‘Never know when you get the tune down right. Go too early and you pluck it raw. Go too late and you got rotten fruit.’ Earl coughed. ‘Don’t go at all and you put a bad hurt on yourself.’
London was married twice and had two daughters with whom his relationship became chillingly, almost cruelly, distant, Kershaw says. His first marriage had ended in anger and scandal — he was having an affair with Charmian, who would become his second wife, the love of his life, his ‘Mate Woman.’ It was, as Kershaw writes, a match made in London’s version of heaven: ‘At last, here was a woman who adored fornication, expected Jack to make her climax, and to do so frequently, and who didn’t burst into tears when the sadist in him punched her in the mouth.’
London was married twice and had two daughters with whom his relationship became chillingly, almost cruelly, distant, Kershaw says. His first marriage had ended in anger and scandal — he was having an affair with Charmian, who would become his second wife, the love of his life, his ‘Mate Woman.’ It was, as Kershaw writes, a match made in London’s version of heaven: ‘At last, here was a woman who adored fornication, expected Jack to make her climax, and to do so frequently, and who didn’t burst into tears when the sadist in him punched her in the mouth.’
It still took years for me to let go of learned patterns of behavior that negated my capacity to give and receive love. One pattern that made the practice of love especially difficult was my constantly choosing to be with men who were emotionally wounded, who were not that interested in loving, even though they desired to be loved. I wanted to know love but was afraid to be intimate. By choosing men who were not interested in being loving, I was able to practice giving love but always within an unfulfilling context. Naturally, my need to receive love was not met. I got what I was accustomed to getting. Care and affection, usually mingled with a degree of unkindness, neglect, and on some occasions, out right cruelty.
bell hooks
It still took years for me to let go of learned patterns of behavior that negated my capacity to give and receive love. One pattern that made the practice of love especially difficult was my constantly choosing to be with men who were emotionally wounded, who were not that interested in loving, even though they desired to be loved. I wanted to know love but was afraid to be intimate. By choosing men who were not interested in being loving, I was able to practice giving love but always within an unfulfilling context. Naturally, my need to receive love was not met. I got what I was accustomed to getting. Care and affection, usually mingled with a degree of unkindness, neglect, and on some occasions, out right cruelty.
bell hooks
They were obviously giving a large party, exactly the kind that Marta dreamed of ever since she was a child. Heaven help her if she missed it. Down there opportunity was waiting for her, fate, romance, the true inauguration of her life. Would she arrive in time?
She spitefully noticed that another girl was falling about thirty meters above her. She was decidedly prettier than Marta and she wore a rather classy evening gown. For some unknown reason she came down much faster than Marta, so that in a few moments she passed by her and disappeared below, even though Marta was calling her. Without doubt she would get to the party before Marta; perhaps she had a plan all worked out to supplant her.
Then she realized that they weren’t alone. Along the sides of the skyscraper many other young women were plunging downward, their faces taut with the excitement of the flight, their hands cheerfully waving as if to say: look at us, here we are, entertain us, is not the world ours?
Dino Buzzati, “The Falling Girl” (viamerelyhumanbeing)
The focus of my fiction has often been young women. Most of my early stories featured them. There could be a number of reasons, from seeking to understand them for my own purposes to my protective nature forcing itself upon my creativity. Mostly, though, I want to see these young women get through an ordeal. I see so many of them corralled into spheres of anxiety and self-doubt that does nothing for them besides make their youth and their lives thereafter unnecessarily difficult.