Contemporary Quotes

The French have a penchant for absolutism, for thinking that things are all one way or all another, which is why their politics are marked by a general inability to compromise and why they tend to hold their personal opinions until the bitter end, even after they have clearly lost an argument.

~ Mark Zero

For in America this season is decreed “family season”. (Eat your hearts out, you pitiable loners who don’t have families!) Melancholy as Thanksgiving is, the Christmas-New year’s season is far worse and lasts far longer, providing rich fund of opportunities for self-medicating, mental collapse, suicide and public mayhem with firearms. In fact it might be argued that the Christmas-New year’s season which begins abruptly after Thanksgiving is now the core-sason of American life itself, the meaning of American life„ the brute existencial point of it. How without families must envy us who bask in parental love, in the glow of yule-logs burning in fireplaces stoked by our daddie’s robust pokers, we who are stuffed to bursting with our mummie’s frantic holiday cooking; how you wish you could be us, pampered/protected kids tearing expensive foil wrappings off too many packages to count, gathered about the Christmas tree on Christmas morning as Mummy gently chided: “Skyler! Bliss! Show Daddy and Mummy what you’ve just opened, please! And save the little cards, so you know who gave such nice things to you”.

~ Joyce Carol Oates

... she was a pudding of immaturity and precocious wisdom that had not yet set into a stable mold.

~ Mark Zero

How can you be kissing at a time like this? Have you no respect for the dead?

~ Mark Zero

When you’re used to being in dangerous situations, you develop a sixth sense about your surroundings, about where possible enemies might be lurking, how many steps it will take to reach the next corner on a dead run, the best hiding places if bullets start to fly...

~ Mark Zero

Never run upstairs when someone’s chasing you. Don’t try to quick-draw a man who already has his gun out. Never light a match in the dark in a strange building. Half of staying safe is just keeping your head and being prudent.

~ Mark Zero

It wasn’t playing both sides of the fence – it was betting against yourself but still playing to win – and it encapsulated everything absurd and paradoxical that I loved about the French.

~ Mark Zero

And I had just kissed my ex-girlfriend, who had cried, while my current girlfriend was in jail. So far, it had not been my best day.

~ Mark Zero

I congratulate you on your success stealing the painting.

~ Mark Zero

... The use of your gift for good is your responsibility. You must decide for yourself.

~ Thomas Sweeney

Have you ever believed in something so completely that you were willing to give up everything and everyone in your life to protect it?

~ Thomas Sweeney

The destruction of something beautiful can appear so entertaining.

~ Thomas Sweeney

My eyes refuse to let him leave, but he stands still holding my hand, lingering for as long as possible.

~ Thomas Sweeney

We are one.

~ Thomas Sweeney

Finishing my thoughts aloud meant saying how my dad had passed, and I had failed. How I had smoked joints and lay in bed enabling my hopelessness. I’d been the ugly in my world.

~ Rebecca Berto

She actually isn't so bad, now that I'm getting to know her. She's just a little messy on the outside. But aren't we all?

~ S. Elle Cameron

His smile is beautiful. It's the kind of smile that can take away all nervousness and tension in a room, no matter how big. I have no choice but to smile back.

~ S. Elle Cameron

Lucy: I don't feel like talking about college. It increases my stress level.James: And increased stress levels lead to hair loss.Lucy: My head-hair volume is fine.James: You say that like I should be concerned about leg-hair volume.

~ Kristen Tracy

It’s okay to dress up like another person, but never try to be someone else. Just try to be yourself, because that’s what makes you special. Oh, and watch out if a dragon ever starts to dance ballet.

~ Jeff Hutchins

Does bad luck come in 3's...or is it multiples of 3?

~ Tara Ford

Humph! A text message that said, ‘What’s up, sexy?’ You call that setting a mood? Love making takes place long before the bedroom—

~ N. Wood Lane

If you want the extra-ordinary, you've got to be willing to forsake the ordinary' - Annie Grimes in Mr Alhourani's Dead Man's Spots

~ D.m. Lee

The animals known as human beings live in humongous condominium blocks, just going about their daily lives. I've come to realize that it's just a modern jungle. And I'm the girl who's wandered into the forest.

~ Inio Asano

No one is sent by accident to anyone.

~ Juvy Ann

Fate bring two people together and it is love's job to keep them there

~ Juvy Ann

Seeing him again had been a gut punch.

~ Tan Redding

Stop saying hurt.’ She turned on him; the wounded animal finally breaking free. ‘You fall over on the pavement, that hurts; you stub your toe, that hurts; you trap your finger in a car door, shit, that hurts. You did not hurt me. James. It was like you took a razor and pressed down hard in the tenderest place.

~ Tan Redding

How will the performer-audience interaction change, now that we are so used to participating in the lives of strangers?

~ Natasha Tsakos

This person has hoped and dreamed and now it is really happening and this person can hardly believe it. But believing is not an issue here, the time for faith and fantasy is over, it is really really happening. It involves stepping forward and bowing. Possibly there is some kneeling, such as when one is knighted. One is almost never knighted. But this person may kneel and receive a tap on each shoulder with a sword. Or, more likely, this person will be in a car or a store or under a vinyl canopy when it happens. Or online or on the phone. It could be an e-mail re: your knighthood. Or a long, laughing, rambling phone message in which every person this person has ever known is talking on a speakerphone and they are all saying, You have passed the test, it was all just a test, we were only kidding, real life is so much better than that.

~ Miranda July

Before I could respond, I looked out the window again and as if in response to my thoughts, I saw Cooper walking up my driveway. My jaw dropped. I peeked around the kitchen doorframe. Mom was still lost to the television. I turned and looked out the window to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. No, it was really him. And he had a horse walking beside him. How clichéd could it get?

~ Pixie Lynn Whitfield

And you never fall behind?”“Of course I do. But I always feel guilty when that happens. After all, my journal is the oldest and most loyal friend I have. And it never interrupts me when I’m speaking,” he added, with a boyish grin.

~ Zack Love

I looked in the mirror and realized that I was already dead. I let you kill me one piece at a time, starting when I was, what? Eight years old? Nine? You killed yourself and then you came after us.

~ Laurie Halse Anderson

He tilted my head up with his index finger. Tingles spread on my skin. Pain, obstacles, betrayal and all shitty things that happen in life shape everyone, just as much as good things do. Don't regret anything if in the end you can say you're an amazing woman.

~ Stephanie Witter

He nibbled on my lower lip again and pulled away, his breathing loud and labored. I opened my eyes and met two blue orbs so dark with desire that it almost made me lose all train of thought and strip naked. His lips were red and a little swollen from our kiss. And I'd be damned if I didn't want to nibble on his lower lip, too.

~ Stephanie Witter

Forgivenesss: It's a miracle drug. It's God's miracle drug.

~ Gayle Forman

I can't stop thinking about what he felt like against my body, against my lips. I can't remember anything else, anything before that. And I realize in this moment that I've finally done it. That horrible, awful thing I swore I would never do.The frosting. The cigarettes. The blue glass triangle. The shooting stars. The taste of his mouth on mine in the hall closet. Gone. All I can think about is Sam. Matt is – erased. My whole body is warm and buzzing. Sam is smiling next to me, because of me. And I've never felt so lonely in all my life.

~ Sarah Ockler

Happiness & Sadness are two contemporary stages in life. A wise man overcomes sadness with his wisdom, and a foolish man faces it with tears.

~ Deepak Chandra

Don't compete with your friends to win a date with few beautiful girls, but compete to win few beautiful goals.

~ Amit Kalantri

The modern man needs to catch on to the fact that women want to be treated as equals, but only when it suits us. the modern woman's fierce need for independence doesn't mean we want to pay for our half of a meal, or that we don't want a man to hold a door open for us. We still want to be looked after, but on our terms.

~ Jodi Ellen Malpas

Have you ever met someone for the first time, but in your heart you feel as if you’ve met them before?

~ Joanne Kenrick