#contemporary

After I left here on Saturday, I decided never to see you again.” He was sliding the frittata under the broiler, so she could only see his profile, but damn if he didn’t appear to be smirking. “I know that, darling. It wounds my pride you won’t go out with me, but I can console myself with the knowledge that when you do see me, you can’t keep your knickers on for ten minutes running.” She threw her cookie at him, feigning indignation. “You bastard! Are you calling me easy?” “I like you easy. Besides, you’re not to blame. Who’d want to wear wet knickers? ↗

— Ruthie Knox

#contemporary

It is this nothingness (in solitude) that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something. The task is to persevere in my solitude, to stay in my cell until all my seductive visitors get tired of pounding on my door and leave me alone. The wisdom of the desert is that the confrontation with our own frightening nothingness forces us to surrender ourselves totally and unconditionally to the Lord Jesus Christ. ↗

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

#contemporary

Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others... ↗

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

#empathy #empathy-diversity #empathy-psychology #prejudice #racism

Emerson lifts his head. His eyes are two dark pools of desire, a clouded night’s sky. He catches his breath a moment, unsteady, and then drops a kiss on my lips. Sweet. Almost tender. I barely have time to take it in before he grabs my shoulder and spins me around, pushing me so my bare chest is slammed up into the wall, my cheek pressed against the cold concrete. I gasp, my heart skipping with the thrill. I can feel him up against me, a solid wall of muscle trapping me in place, the hard ridge of him pressed against the small of my back. I can’t move, or see the expression on his face, only hear the hoarse groan Emerson sounds as he twists a handful of my hair and yanks it to one side, kissing a searing trail along the curve of my neck. I whimper, bound and powerless against him, and oh God, loving every minute of it. ↗

— Melody Grace

#new-adult-contemporary-romance #new-adult-romance #sexy #love

You cannot simply put something new into a place. You have to absorb what you see around you, what exists on the land, and then use that knowledge along with contemporary thinking to interpret what you see. ↗

— Tadao Ando

#along #around #cannot #contemporary #exists

I consulted a Chinese herbalist and spent two weeks on an island off the coast of Zanzibar. I was away from any kind of contemporary technology. ↗

— Francesca Annis

#away #chinese #coast #consulted #contemporary

Pruned my subconscious. Discovered new shoots. ↗

— Sally Jo Martine

#contemporary-fairytale #fiber-art #grief #illustrated-fable #inspiration

Did the Ancient Greeks ever write anything funny—like slapstick? I mean, I think I speak for everyone when I say that there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of well-written physical comedy. ↗

— Elle Lothlorien

#funny

You have reckoned that history ought to judge the past and to instruct the contemporary world as to the future. The present attempt does not yield to that high office. It will merely tell how it really was. ↗

— Leopold Von Ranke

#contemporary #contemporary world #does #future #high

You naked in my bed is even more unbelievably beautiful than I thought it would be... and trust me I've thought about it. A lot. ↗

— Abbi Glines

#love #new-adult #romance #young-adult #beauty