#anne

Cabal regarded her with mild amusement. “Smile when you whisper,” he advised her. “You’re supposed to be flirting with me, if you recall?” She stared at him icily. Then suddenly her expression thawed and she smiled winsomely, her eyes dewy with romantic love. “Oh, sweetheart… somebody tried to kill you? Whosoever would do such a thing to my nimpty-bimpty snookums?” Cabal could not have been more horrified if she’d pulled off her face to reveal a gaping chasm of eternal night from which glistening tentacles coiled and groped. That had already happened to him once in his life, and he wasn’t keen to repeat the experience. “What?” he managed in a dry whisper. “Smile when you whisper,” she said, her expression fixed and blood-curdlingly coquettish. You’re supposed to be flirting with me, remember?” “Please don’t do that. ↗

— Jonathan L. Howard

#jonathan-l-howard #leonie-barrow #experience

The rendering of my thoughts, emotions, and experiences is part comedy and part tragedy as well as history, for life is such a mingling. ↗

— Karen Harper

#life #truthful #experience

There is a moment in our healing journey when our denial crumbles; we realize our experience and it's continued effects on us won't "just go away". That's our breakthrough moment. It's the sun coming out to warm the seeds of hope so they can grow our personal garden of empowerment ~ Jeanne McElvaney ↗

— Jeanne McElvaney

#abuse-survivors #childhood-abuse #childhood-sexual-abuse #effects-of-child-abuse #harrietta-s-happenstance

Now she has power and passion and the struggle has significance for me-let the momentary consequences be what they may. Suppose that in her pride she becomes giddy, suppose that she does break with me-all right! -she has her freedom, but she will still belong to me. That the engagement should bind her is silly-I want to possess her only in her freedom ↗

— Søren Kierkegaard

#fiction #johannes #love #philosophy #seducer-s-diary

Nobody's truly free. Everyone is prisoner to a secret, a sin, a lie. It wasn't by accident that, in the Star Spangled Banner, Francis Scott Key set the word "free" to a note so high nobody could attain it. ↗

— J. Matthew Nespoli

#freedom #lies #secrets #sins #star-spangled-banner

Now Doon seemed to care for his new friends more than he did for her. Every time she thought about him she felt a thud of pain, like a bruised place inside her. ↗

— Jeanne DuPrau

#city-of-ember #friendship #jeanne-duprau #lef-out #loneliness

If I were a mannequin, I'd know people would only want me for my body. But that's OK, because that's how it is now. ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#lust #mannequin #funny

The smaller the dinner table, the better the side conversation: you can gossip about the guests without fearing whether you will be overheard. It just isn't good table manners to exclude someone from their own ridicule. That's why the juiciest side conversations occur at a table for one. ↗

— Bauvard

#dinner #funny #gossip #humor #table-manners

The law and a thin veil of insincerity, all that prevents me from strangling an etiquette coach. ↗

— Bauvard

#funny #humor #law #manners #politeness

Charming villains have always had a decided social advantage over well-meaning people who chew with their mouths open. ↗

— Judith Martin

#humor #manners #humor