8
" I rolled my eyes. “I feel like a zoo animal.”
Travis watched me for a moment, noted those staring, and then stood up. “I CAN’T!” he yelled. I stared in awe as the entire room jerked their heads in his direction. Travis bobbed his head a couple of times to a beat in his head.
Shepley closed his eyes. “Oh, no.”
Travis smiled. “get no….sa…tis…faction,” he sang, “I can’t get no….sat-is-fac-tion. ‘Cuz I’ve tried…and I’ve tried…and I’ve tried…and I’ve tried…,” he climbed onto the table as everyone stared, “I CAN’T GET NO!”
He pointed to the football players at the end of the table and they smiled, “I CAN’T GET NO!” they yelled in unison. The whole room clapped to the beat, then.
Travis’ sang into his fist, “When I’m drivin’ in my car, and a man comes on the…ra-di-o…he’s tellin’ me more and more…about some useless in-for-ma-tion! Supposed to fire my im-agin-a-tion! I CAN’T GET NO! "
― Jamie McGuire , Beautiful Disaster (Beautiful, #1)
9
" Cover me!' Augustus said as he jumped out from behind the wall and raced toward the school. Isaac fumbled for his controller and then
started firing while the bullets rained down on Augustus, who was shot once and then twice but still ran, Augustus shouting,'YOU CAN’T KILL MAX MAYHEM!' and with a final flurry of button combinations, he dove onto the grenade, which detonated beneath him. His dismembered body exploded like a geyser and the screen went red. A throaty voice said, 'MISSION FAILURE,' but Augustus seemed to think otherwise as he smiled at his remnants on the screen. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and shoved it between his teeth.
'Saved the kids' he said.
'Temporarily' I pointed out.
'All salvation is temporary' Augustus shot back. 'I bought them a minute. Maybe that’s the minute that buys them an hour, which is the hour that buys them a year. No one’s gonna buy them forever, Hazel Grace, but my life bought them a minute. And that’s not nothing. "
― John Green , The Fault in Our Stars
11
" You know, one of the interesting things you find about writing fiction is that any fiction you write has to be political. Otherwise, it goes into the realm of fantasy. So like, if you write about a woman in America in 1910, if you don’t write that she can’t really control her property, that she can’t—doesn’t have any say over her children, that she can’t vote—if you don’t put that in it, then it’s a fantasy. Like, well, how is her life informed? That’s true about everybody. If you write about black people, you write about white men, I mean, it has to be political. A lot of people don’t realize that, it seems. "
― Walter Mosley
13
" Your place is with me,” Jem said. “It always will be.”
“What do you mean?”
He flushed, the color dark against his pale skin. “I mean,” he said, “Tessa Gray, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Tessa sat bolt upright. “Jem!”
They stared at each other for a moment. At last he said, trying for lightness, though his voice cracked, “That was not a no, I suppose, though
neither was it a yes.”
“You can’t mean it.”
“I do mean it.”
“You can’t—I’m not a Shadowhunter. They’ll expel you from the Clave—”
He took a step closer to her, his eyes eager. “You may not be precisely a Shadowhunter. But you are not a mundane either, nor provably a
Downworlder. Your situation is unique, so I do not know what the Clave will do. But they cannot forbid something that is not forbidden by the Law.
They will have to take your—our—individual case into consideration, and that could take months. In the meantime they cannot prevent our
engagement.”
“You are serious.” Her mouth was dry. “Jem, such a kindness on your part is indeed incredible. It does you credit. But I cannot let you sacrifice
yourself in that way for me.”
“Sacrifice? Tessa, I love you. I want to marry you. "
― Cassandra Clare
17
" If you love her as much as you claim you do, why can’t you let her be happy? She’s made her choice,” Lucas asked.
“It’s because I love her that I’m trying to protect her from you. I could give her a better life in the heavens, away from danger,” Clyde fired back.
Lucas chuckled, further maddening Clyde. “Maybe you could give her a better life, but you don’t love her. You know nothing of love, angel. If she chose you, I’d let her go because I love her. Above my needs come hers. That’s love. "
― J.L. Sheppard , Demon King's Desire (Elemental Sisters, #1)
20
" Every few months or so at home, Pops had to have Taiwanese ’Mian. Not the Dan-Dan Mian you get at Szechuan restaurants or in Fuchsia Dunlop’s book, but Taiwanese Dan-Dan. The trademark of ours is the use of clear pork bone stock, sesame paste, and crushed peanuts on top. You can add chili oil if you want, but I take it clean because when done right, you taste the essence of pork and the bitterness of sesame paste; the texture is somewhere between soup and ragout. Creamy, smooth, and still soupy. A little za cai (pickled radish) on top, chopped scallions, and you’re done. I realized that day, it’s the simple things in life. It’s not about a twelve-course tasting of unfamiliar ingredients or mass-produced water-added rib-chicken genetically modified monstrosity of meat that makes me feel alive. It’s getting a bowl of food that doesn’t have an agenda. The ingredients are the ingredients because they work and nothing more. These noodles were transcendent not because he used the best produce or protein or because it was locally sourced, but because he worked his dish. You can’t buy a championship.
Did this old man invent Dan-Dan Mian? No. But did he perfect it with techniques and standards never before seen? Absolutely. He took a dish people were making in homes, made it better than anyone else, put it on front street, and established a standard. That’s professional cooking. To take something that already speaks to us, do it at the highest level, and force everyone else to step up, too. Food at its best uplifts the whole community, makes everyone rise to its standard. That’s what that Dan-Dan Mian did. If I had the honor of cooking my father’s last meal, I wouldn’t think twice. Dan-Dan Mian with a bullet, no question. "
― Eddie Huang , Fresh Off the Boat