69
" I said I was sorry, Dani..." Kevin said, as they entered the apartment." I'm so not talking to you." " I couldn't help it! She was so funny, and you were blushing, and... gawd, Dani, I couldn't help it!" " You just had to get us all soft pretzels, didn't you... just had to make sure we'd walk right by that lingerie store..." " Dani... it, uh, it hadn't even occurred to me-" " I hate you! When I go to therapy about this, I'm going to send you the bill!" " You're beautiful when your angry." " Then I must be fucking gorgeous right now!" " You are." " ... Well, I'm still not talking to you. "
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" Go out with me tomorow night," Perry went on. " Let me prove to you that I'm the guy you want." " I...I guess I coul go out tomorrow night," Miranda sounded shocked and a little swept off her feet.Then, from the corner of her eyes. Kylie saw something move at the office window. When she looked back, she spotted Burnett and Holiday standing there high-fiving each other. No doubt Burnett was listening to the coversation and sharing the details with Holiday.Perry nodded, stepped closer, and then pressed a quick kiss on Miranda's cheek. It had to be the most romantic thing Kylie had ever seen. ..." What?" Miranda asked. " You're happy my date [with Todd] wasn't exciting?" " No," Kylie said. " Let's just say we're more excited about tomorrow night's date." A bright smile lit up Miranda's face. " Me too. Can you believ Perry did that? I mean, he was so..." " Romantic," Kylie said." Hot," Della added." Sweet," Miranda whispered. " I couldn't stop thinkibng about him all night." And that was the best news Kylie had gotten all day. "
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" No! I don't want to speak of that! But I'm going to. I want you to hear. I want you to know what's in store for you. There will be days when you'll look at your hands and you'll want to take something and smash every bone in them, because they'll be taunting you with what they could do, if you found a chance for them to do it, and you can't find that chance, and you can't bear your living body because it has failed those hands somewhere. There will be days when a bus driver will snap at you as you enter a bus, and he'll be only asking for a dime, but that won't be what you hear; you'll hear that you're nothing, that he's laughing at you, that it's written on your forehead, that thing they hate you for. There will be days when you'll stand in the corner of a hall and listen to a creature on a platform talking about buildings, about the work you love, and the things he'll say will make you wait for somebody to rise and crack him open between two thumbnails; and then you'll hear people applauding him, and you'll want to scream, because you won't know whether they're real or you are, whether you're in a room full of gored skulls, or whether someone has just emptied your own head, and you'll say nothing, because the sounds you could make - they're not a language in that room any longer; but you'd want to speak, you won't anyway, because you'll be brushed aside, you who have nothing to tell them about buildings! Is that what you want? "
― Ayn Rand , The Fountainhead
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" You're a Dark One," said Anton. " All you see in everything is evil, treachery, trickery." " All I do is not close my eyes to them," Edgar retorted. " And that's why I don't trust Zabulon. I distrust him almost as much as I do Gesar. I can even trust you more—you're just another unfortunate chess piece who happens by chance to be painted a different color from me. Does a white pawn hate a black one? No. Especially if the two pawns have their heads down together over a quiet beer or two." " You know," Anton said in a slightly surprised voice, " I just don't understand how you can carry on living if you see the world like that. I'd just go and hang myself." " So you don't have any counterarguments to offer?" Anton took a gulp of beer too. The wonderful thing about this natural Czech beer was that even if you drank lots of it, it still didn't make your head or your body feel heavy... Or was that an illusion?" Not a single one," Anton admitted. " Right now, this very moment, not a single one. But I'm sure you're wrong. It's just difficult to argue about the colors of the rainbow with a blind man. There's something missing in you... I don't know what exactly. But it's something very important, and without it you're more helpless than a blind man. "