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1 " I PAINT MY FACE.By Omrane Khuder.Mirror, distorted; I sit, paint my Face,Toxic white Make-up buries my Scars,My Eyes tell lies; Dumbfounded Confidence hides the Disgrace.Place the tragic Vehicle called My Life in to Drive,Sad pathetic Clown; Late for the suppression show,Despair another time; Let the chuckles and defeat derive.I paint my Heart; I hide my True.I paint my Soul; I keep it from You.I paint, I cannot accept; To ignore you the way you ignore Me?I paint my scarred and pitiful Face; No Will left to restore Me.I paint my Face; it’s all I know to do.My painted Face shatters the Mirror, yet still all I see is You. "
― Omrane Khuder
2 " The people we find truly anathema are the ones who reduce the past to caricature and distortit to fit their own bigoted stereotypes. We’ve gone to events that claimed to be historic fashionshows but turned out to be gaudy polyester parades with no shadow of reality behind them. Aswe heard our ancestors mocked and bigoted stereotypes presented as facts, we felt like we hadgone to an event advertised as an NAACP convention only to discover it was actually a minstrelshow featuring actors in blackface. Some so-called “living history” events really are that bigoted.When we object to history being degraded this way, the guilty parties shout that they are “justhaving fun.” What they are really doing is attacking a past that cannot defend itself. Perhapsthey are having fun, but it is the sort of fun a schoolyard brute has at the expense of a child whogoes home bruised and weeping. It’s time someone stood up for the past.I have always hated bullies. The instinct to attack difference can be seen in every socialspecies, but if humans truly desire to rise above barbarism, then we must cease acting like beasts.The human race may have been born in mud and ignorance, but we are blessed with mindssufficiently powerful to shape our behavior. Personal choices form the lives of individuals; thesum of all interactions determine the nature of societies.At present, it is politically fashionable in America to tolerate limited diversity based aroundrace, religion, and sexual orientation, yet following a trend does not equate with being trulyopen-minded. There are people who proudly proclaim they support women’s rights, yet have anappallingly limited definition of what those rights entail. (Currently, fashionable privileges arevoting, working outside the home, and easy divorce; some people would be dumbfounded at theidea that creating beautiful things, working inside the home, and marriage are equally desirablerights for many women.) In the eighteenth century, Voltaire declared, “I disagree with what yousay but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.”3 Many modern Americans seem to haveperverted this to, “I will fight to the death for your right to agree with what I say.”When we stand up for history, we are in our way standing up for all true diversity. When wequestion stereotypes and fight ignorance about the past, we force people to question ignorance ingeneral. "
― Sarah A. Chrisman , This Victorian Life: Modern Adventures in Nineteenth-Century Culture, Cooking, Fashion, and Technology
3 " Aeron’s stone-faced expression cracked, as he turned to give me a dumbfounded look. Meeting his questioning eyes, I let out a little annoyed sigh, “I refuse to believe that you don’t know the meaning of ‘cojones’.”“I’m well aware of the meaning,” he raised his eyebrows, fighting back a smile. “Just a little surprised at your choice of words…”“Yeah, I can really paint a verbal picture,” I responded dryly. "
― M.A. George , Relativity (Proximity, #2)
4 " I thought it could be something, I mean, eventually." Harrison finally looks at us. " My life I thought-but I mean... it's nothing." " Don't cry" Grace says. " You have a lot of time." " No, I don't." " Yeah, you do." " No.-" " Yeah! Yeah, you do. It's okay. Look-" She does something that is so amazingly selfless and also gross. She tilts Harrison's face up and gives him a sweet kiss on the lips and it lasts long enough for him to taste her back, to move his mouth against hers.Harrison stares at her dumbfounded but he's stopped cryingShe is so nice. "
5 " A moral man is essentially dumbfounded when confronted by a man who is amoral—everything the latter does is met with a certain disbelief. "
― Andrew Holleran , Dancer from the Dance
6 " He had never been satisfied and never would be. It wasn't success he craved, or even fame, it was history: he wanted to crack the universe open like a ripe watermelon, to arrange the mess of pulpy seeds before his dumbfounded colleagues. He wanted to take the dripping red fruit in his hands and quantify the guts of infinity to look back into the dawn of time and glimpse the very beginning. He wanted to be remembered. "
― , Good Morning, Midnight
7 " Was this how trauma worked? she wondered. Those closest to it remained dumbfounded by the fact that those who weren't present could derive meaning from it? "
8 " Do people call you Ollie?” Lola asked.Oliver looked at her, completely dumbfounded by the possibility of this nickname. She may as well have asked him if people call him Garth, or Andrew, or Timothy.“No,” he said flatly, and the only thing charming about him was the way his accent seemed to run through every vowel with one syllable. Lola’s eyebrow twitched in her single tell—mildly annoyed—and she lifted her flashing LED drink cup to her lips.Lola wears mostly black, including her glossy dark hair, and has a tiny diamond pierced into her lip, but, even still, she’s never been able to pull off the full physical manifestation of the angry Riot Grrrl. With her perfect porcelain skin and the longest eyelashes in the world, she’s simply too delicate. But once she decides you’re an asshole, it no longer matters to her what you think. She gives good glare.“The flower suits you,” she said, tilting her head to study him. “And you have pretty hands, kind of soft. Maybe we should call you Olive.”He grunted out a dry laugh.“And a really beautiful mouth,” I added. “Gentle. Like a woman’s.”“Aw fuck off.” He was laughing outright by then. "
― Christina Lauren , Dirty Rowdy Thing (Wild Seasons, #2)
9 " I can turn into anything," he said with emphasis. " Even another werewolf." When Daisy blinked back at him, too dumbfounded to speak, Talent laughed, heartily. She'd been correct. He was devastating when he truly smiled. " Haven't you learned, woman? You've fallen off the map. Here there be monsters. "