Sam Reviews "Five Men Who Broke My Heart" by Susan Shapiro

I think it's awesome that the author grew up in Michigan and went to U of M Ann Arbor.  As far as my feelings on the book, I felt like the book could have been written in a better way, more storytelling.  But the author is primarily a journalist, so it makes sense that I read that way.  Also, I'm sure most people would think that the story / autobiography I inevitably want to write would read this way, too.

"In my family, achievement was redemption." 

"From age sixteen to thirty-one [are] the worst years to be off and on in love with anybody."

"If I was capable of loving someone it would be you, but I'm not so I don't." 

"The hidden perk of punishing:  it left a trail that could be easily followed if someone from the past wanted to find you.   Or was that the hidden peril?"

"That was the problem lately - everything led back to what was missing." 

"Five years was the crucial point in a union - when the sheets you got as wedding presents were wearing thin.  It was time to decide whether to buy new sheets, live with each other's lunacy forever and have a baby, or give up and go back to playing musical beds." - Isadora Wing

"At forty-two, he had chosen a student almost half my age, as if twenty years later he could still only handle half of me." 

"That was my curse, I remembered everything." 

"'He's ten years older.  When he dies, you and I will get married in our old age.'  ...  He could only use the M-word from the safest distance possible."

"That was the problem with marriage:  nothing stayed neat or where you expected it." 

"The one benefit of middle age was being to tired for bullshit."

"So what if I sounded petty?  I was." 

"You said when I left for Harvard I'd get one more gold star on my forehead, but still be empty inside. You were right." 

"I'd settle for feeling the way I used to feel at sixteen, when everything was still possible." 

"After each break up, I couldn't help but feel abandoned.  Until I found another boyfriend - who eventually abandoned me as well.  Until I met Aaron the workaholic, who managed to marry and abandon me simultaneously."

"Breakups are worse than death. When a mate passed away, you were left with good memories and sympathy. When a lover dumped you, you were expected to get over it in a month. Then, for the rest of your days, you were faced with the threat of seeing him happier with someone else."

"Was that what I wanted from the men I used to love - permission to have what they couldn't give me?" 

"Had I broken his heart first?  No wonder I distorted the truth." 

"I was flattered; I still had the power to at least ruin his schedule." 

"[Marriage] was all timing. When you're ready, you're ready. You go for your fantasy. If that doesn't work, you try someone available."

"I was a bad wife for wanting to go to Claire's party more than I wanted to greet [my husband after a three week long work trip].  My mother would have been waiting at home for my father, sweating over a brisket. No, my mother wouldn't be waiting, she'd never let him out of her sight for that long."

"Years of therapy trying to shrug off the overwhelming pressure to be like our mothers.  Or was it guilt that we didn't have to be?"

"That was the problem with honesty, it didn't end. You always needed to keep going further."

"No wonder Richard inflated his success. He had to bolster himself up, no one else in his life did."

"There were three ways [people] could [change]: through therapy, the death of a parent, or healthy love."

"Richard and Sally had only dated for a few years two decades before; their hate was longer and more passionate than their love."

"He had also just watched Ally McBeal and said I reminded him of her. I found the character totally neurotic, but at least she was skinny. Did he remember me skinny? Or neurotic?"

"Stop apologizing for your life."

"It seemed I was much more apt to be completely heartbroken when I was at my thin weight. Conversely, I had happily pranced down the aisle at my heaviest. So when I gave up all the dieting and exercising, there was room to fit in happiness."

"This was exactly what I detested about marriage. I could not make one simple decision about my own apartment, taxes, or womb without getting his sign-off."

"More comfortable playing shrink than siren."

"Aaron spoke more slowly than Joshua, his words more deliberate. His manner was older, he knew who he was. Yet that meant he couldn't change. Men my age were more malleable."

"Whoever said weddings were romantic was single and/or in the wedding business."

"I felt awkward, like an actress reprising a role I'd walked out on decades ago, swearing I'd never return."

"Every lover is a reaction against your last."  - Erica Jong

Sam Reviews "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd

Overall I really enjoyed this book. I know I've seen the movie but it had been long enough ago that I didn't remember the details of the story. I had trouble being interested in the beginning, but at about the halfway point I became invested and couldn't wait to continue. I think this story is beautiful and has a ton of valuable lessons we should all learn and commit to memory.

"We loved them [negroes] in the Lord, Brother Gerald said, but they had their own places." 

"I couldn't help but envy the way a good storm got everyone's attention." 

"If you look carefully at people's eyes the first five seconds they look at you, the truth of their feelings will shine through for just an instant before it flickers away." 

"You could not stop a bee from working if you tried.  ...  They are hard working to the point of killing themselves. Sometimes you want to say to them, 'Relax, take some time off, you deserve it.'"

"Did you know there are thirty-two names for love in one of the Eskimo languages?  And we just have this one.  We are so limited, you have to use the same word for loving [a person] as you do for loving a Coke with peanuts."

"When they looked at [the Black Madonna of Breznichar in Bohemia], it occurred to them for the first time in their lives that what's divine can come in dark skin. You see, everybody needs a God who looks like them."

"Women make the best beekeepers, 'cause they have a special ability built into them to love creatures that sting.  It comes from years of loving children and husbands."

"I decided against marrying altogether. There were enough restrictions in my life without someone expecting me to wait on him hand and foot.  Not that I'm against marrying, I'm just against how it's set up."

"'Being in love and getting married, now, those are two different things.  I was in love once, of course I was. Nobody should go through life without falling in love.'
"'But you didn't love him enough to marry him?'
"'I loved him enough, I just loved my freedom more.'"

"You think to much. It would do you a world of good to stop thinking and just go with your feelings once in a blue moon." 

"Have you ever written a letter you knew you could never mail but you needed to write it anyway?" 

"August turned [the news] off. Enough was enough. You cannot fix the whole world." 

"You can be bad at something, but if you love doing it, that will be enough." 

"After you get sung, you can't get unstung no matter how much you whine about it." 

"Look, [God], I know you meant well creating the world and all, but how could you let it get away from you like this?   How come you couldn't stick with your original idea of paradise?  People's lives were a mess." 

"The sort of look conjured from power without benefit of love." 

"Was it the wounded places down inside people that sought each other out, that bred a kind of love between them?" 

"It's something everybody wants - for someone to see the hurt done to them and set it down like it matters."

"I felt somebody should personally thank every rock out there for the human misery it had absorbed. We should kiss them one by one and say, 'We are sorry, but something strong and lasting had to do this for May, and you are the chosen ones.  God bless your rock hearts.'"

"[Her suicide] had been the thing they'd been waiting for half their lives without even realizing it." 

"When it's time to die, go ahead and die, and when it's time to live, live. Don't sort-of-maybe live, but live like you're going all out, like you're not afraid." 

"I could see the point in [imaginary friends].  How a lost part of yourself steps out and reminds you of who you could be with a little work." 

"The music she played was the kind that sawed through you, cutting into the secret chambers of your heart and setting the sadness free.  ...  [The] music turned to air, and the air into aching. I swayed on my feet and tried not to breathe it in."

"People, in general, would rather die than forgive. It's that hard. If God said in plain language, "I'm giving you a choice, forgive or die," a lot of people would go ahead and order their coffin."

"It is the peculiar nature of the world to go on spinning no matter what sort of heartbreak is happening."

Sam Reviews "Dear John" by Nikolas Sparks

I have to admit I'm a sucker for a romance story that doesn't end the way a typical romance story is expected to.  I do feel that this story fell a little flat compared to The Notebook (admittedly the only other Nicholas Sparks book I've read so far), but it was still a good story.  Sparks' books are made for TV, which explains why so many of his books are movies.  The stories are simple but genuine, and make for nice, short, and sweet reads.

"What does it mean to truly love another? There was a time in my life when I thought I knew the answer: It meant that I’d care for Savannah more deeply than I cared for myself and that we’d spend the rest of our lives together. It wouldn’t have taken much. She once told me that the key to happiness was achievable dreams, and hers were nothing out of the ordinary."

"Life in the army didn’t pay much, but considering there was no rent, no food expenses, and really nothing to spend my paychecks on even when I got them, I had money in the bank for the first time. Not a lot, but enough."

" My dad ended every letter with the promise that he would write again soon, and once again, the man didn’t let me down. He was, I’ve long since come to believe, a far better man than I’ll ever be."

"Everyone in the army is forced to grow up, especially if you’re in the infantry like me. ...  you’re forced to learn the most important lesson in life, and that’s the fact that you have to live up to your responsibilities, and you’d better do it right. When given an order, you can’t say no. It’s no exaggeration to say that lives are on the line. One wrong decision, and your buddy might die. It’s this fact that makes the army work. That’s the big mistake a lot of people make when they wonder how soldiers can put their lives on the line day after day or how they can fight for something they may not believe in. Not everyone does. I’ve worked with soldiers on all sides of the political spectrum; I’ve met some who hated the army and others who wanted to make it a career. I’ve met geniuses and idiots, but when all is said and done, we do what we do for one another. For friendship. Not for country, not for patriotism, not because we’re programmed killing machines, but because of the guy next to you. You fight for your friend, to keep him alive, and he fights for you, and everything about the army is built on this simple premise."

"I read mainly mysteries and thrillers and books by Stephen King, and I took a particular liking to Carl Hiaasen because his words flowed easily and he always made me laugh. I couldn’t help but think that if schools had assigned these books in English class, we’d have a lot more readers in the world."

"I debated whether or not I should stroll over and introduce myself, then decided against it. They weren’t my type, or more accurately, I probably wasn’t theirs."

“'I’ve always loved people who have this . . . passion for life.'
“'It’s a passion for coins, not life,' I corrected her.
“'It’s the same thing. Passion is passion. It’s the excitement between the tedious spaces, and it doesn’t matter where it’s directed.'”

"Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand, and without them, any happiness is only temporary, because there’s nothing to make it last."

"A person with autism lives in his own world, while a person with Asperger’s lives in our world, in a way of his own choosing."

"I realized, it [the Asberger's diagnosis] might explain two questions that had always plagued me regarding my mother: What had she seen in him? And why had she left? ...  I could envision a quiet man who struck up a conversation about his rare coin collection with a poor young waitress at a diner, a woman who spent her evenings lying in bed and dreaming of a better life. Maybe she flirted, or maybe she didn’t, but he was attracted to her and continued to show up at the diner. Over time, she might have sensed the kindness and patience in him that he would later use in raising me. It was possible that she interpreted his quiet nature accurately as well and knew he would be slow to anger and never violent. Even without love, it might have been enough, so she agreed to marry him, thinking they would sell the coins and live, if not happily ever after, at least comfortably ever after. She got pregnant, and later, when she learned that he couldn’t even fathom the idea of selling the coins, she realized that she’d be stuck with a husband who showed little interest in anything she did. Maybe her loneliness got the better of her, or maybe she was just selfish, but either way she wanted out, and after the baby was born, she took the first opportunity to leave."

"It’s strange how knowledge changes perception."

"Yeah, it’ll be hard, but life moves fast-we’ll see each other again. I know that. I can feel that. Just like I can feel how much you care for me and how much I love you. I know in my heart that this isn’t over, and that we’ll make it through this. Lots of couples do. Granted, lots of couples don’t, but they don’t have what we have.” I wanted to believe her. I wanted it more than anything, but I wondered if it was really that simple."

"As tender and exciting as it [making love for the first time] had been, I couldn’t help wondering whether there had been a trace of desperation in our actions, as if we were both clinging to the hope that this would sustain our relationship through whatever the future would bring."

"As we were drifting apart, I was becoming more desperate to save what we once had shared; like a vicious circle, however, my desperation made us drift apart even further."

"When I close my eyes, I see your face; when I walk, it’s almost as if I can feel your hand in mine. Those things are still real to me, but where they once brought comfort, now they leave me with an ache."

"...the sensation of her body against mine was like a glass of cool water on a hot summer day."

"I knew there were words to comfort Savannah, but as usual, I didn’t know what to say."

"I know she loves me, but she’s never loved me the way she loved you. She never had that burning passion for me, but we were making a good life together."

"...the relationship between Savannah and me would never be what it once was. We’d met at a carefree time, a moment full of promise; in its place now were the harsh lessons of the real world."

Sam Reviews "Lost in Translation - A Life in a New Language" by Eva Hoffman

"But the wonder is what you can make a paradise out of."

"I observe, as long as possible, the delicious process of falling asleep.  That awareness of subsiding into a different state is also happiness."

"To be an adult, I conclude, is to be close to death."

"Throughout my childhood and youth, she [my mother] is quite set on not teaching me how to cook or sew, lest such skills prevent me from turning to more interesting things."

"I want to tell A Story, Every Story, everything all at once ... I try to roll all the sounds into one, to accumulate more and more syllables ... the sounds have to resemble real syllables ... they can't disintegrate into brute noise for then I wouldn't be talking at all.  I want articulation - but articulation that says the whole world at once."

"What I really want is to be transported into a space in which everything is as distinct, complete, and intelligible as in the stories I read."

"The more words I have, the more distinct, precise my perceptions become - and such lucidity is a form of joy."

"Nothing fully exists until it is articulated."

"Primitive means vulgar or unenlightened."

"...a weeping willow by the pond that is just about the most graceful thing I know:  it's so melancholy, and melancholy is synonymous with beautiful."

"To me, it's natural that a city should be very old...  Age is one of the things that encloses me with safety; Cracow has always existed, it's a given, it doesn't change much.  It has layers and layers of reality."

"My mother listens to the tales of those boyfriends with a sort of older woman tolerance."

"America is always ready to go to war, in contrast to those Soviet tanks, which are always wreathed in flowers and peaceful intentions. In a magazine, I read an article on lynching in the South and another one on the poverty of American workers. I also read Uncle Tom's Cabin, which makes me weep with frustration at the injustices perpetrated upon Tom and his family; perhaps America is a cruel place full of cold-hearted people."

"My idea of grace is fulfilling your talent completely, and my only idea of sin is misusing that gift. The dread of not becoming completely what you can be is so strong that sometimes later in life it will paralyze me. How horrible to do the wrong thing, the thing that doesn't express your essence - and how horrible to fall short of your powers, or to discover that they might be more meager than their seemingly limitless potential!" 

"I stroke up images of Marek - they are not memories yet, he is too much alive within me - as if my will could made him materialize." 

"Even fulfillment of a fantasy, it turns out, is different grin a fantasy of fulfillment." 

"I feel that satisfaction and contentment are surely possible - more, that they're everyone's inalienable right - possibly even mine." 

"They were more generous toward me than I was toward them; but then, a sense of disadvantage and inferiority is not a position from which one can feel the largeheartedness of true generosity." 

"If you have no money, no language, and no accredited profession, what exactly do you turn your hand to?" 

"So many people have made good; if you don't, it appears that you have only yourself to blame. This - corrosive logic - is the other side of the New World dream, the seemingly self- inflicted nightmare in which you toss and turn in gut-eating guilt." 

"I don't have a silk slip, don't like to put on makeup, and these elaborate preparations are somehow disturbing to me, as if we were in a harem and remodeling ourselves into a special species - "girls" - so that we can appeal to that other, alien species, boys. They are supposed to come and get us, of course, but only after we have made ourselves into these appetizing and slightly garish bonbons. ...  We're not going to show them who we are, we're going to show them what they want."

"I'm no colder than I've ever been, but I'm learning to be less demonstrative.  I learn this from a teacher who, after contemplating the gesticulations with which I help myself describe the digestive system of a frog, tells me to "sit on my hands and then try talking."  I learn my new reserve from people who take a step back when we talk, because I'm standing too close, crowding them.  Cultural distances are different, I later learn in a sociology class, but I know it already.  I learn restraint from Penny, who looks offended when I shake her by the arm in excitement, as if my gesture had been one of aggression instead of friendliness.  I learn it from a girl who pulls away when I hook my arm through hers as we walk down the street - this movement of friendly intimacy is an embarrassment to her.
"I learn also that certain kinds of truth are impolite.  One shouldn't criticize the person one is with, at least not directly.  You shouldn't say, "You are wrong about that" - though you must say, "On the other hand, there is that to consider."  You shouldn't say, "This doesn't look good on you," though you may say, "I like you better in the that other outfit."  I learn to tone down my sharpness, to do a more careful conversational minuet.

"Perhaps my mother is right, after all; perhaps I'm becoming colder.  After a while, emotion follows action, response grows warmer or cooler according to gesture.  I'm more careful about what I say, how loud I laugh, whether I give vent to grief."

"'This is a society in which you are who you think you are.  Nobody gives you your identity here, you have to reinvent yourself every day.'  
"He is right, I suspect, but I can't figure out how this is done.  You just say what you are and everyone believes you?  ...  But how do I choose from identity options available all around me?  I feel, once again, as I did when facing those ten brands of toothpaste - faint from excess, paralyzed by choice."

"I try to remember what Mrs. Steiner - who with her daughters has guided me toward this step - said about living my own life.  It is not so simple for me to accept this idea, to extricate myself from the mesh of family need and love, to believe in the merits of a separate life."

"I have been given the blessings and the terrors of multiplicity.  ...  If I want to assimilate into my generation, my time, I have to assimilate the multiple perspectives and their constant shifting.  Who, among my peers, is sure of what is success and what failure?  Who would want to be sure?  Who is sure of purposes, meanings, national goals?"

"We've entered a period during which these very friends of mine will try to unwrap, unravel, and demolish every norm passed on to them from their parents and the culture at large; for a while, they will use their inheritance and their sense of entitlement for that most luxurious of rights, the right to turn down one's privileges; for a while at least, they will refuse to inherit the earth." 

"This vigorous, handsome man is somebody I don't know at all, but he carries within himself a person whom I once knew completely."

"One cannot go against the grain of one's temperament forever.  It's time again to rediscover the springs of my desires and love and appetite. ... It will be a complicated task, trying to break the carapace of fear and will, but by now, I know that if I don't set out to do it, I run the true peril of living an alien life." 

"My father's fatalism, I explain to myself carefully, was perfectly suited to his conditions. But in my less threatening world, I need to develop the art of optimism and of benign expectations.  ...  There's no need to be sucked back into the vortex of these atavistic anxieties; they're misplaced and will only harm you; this Pavlovian pessimism will prevent you from rational planning, and from showing a cheerful, confident face, which is what you need, what your world requires."

"I've become a more self-controlled person over the years. ...  I don't allow myself to be blown about this way and that helplessly; I've learned how to use the mechanisms of my will, how to look for symptom and root cause before sadness or happiness overwhelm me.  I've gained some control, and control is something I need more than my mother did. I have more of a public life, in which it's important to appear strong."

"It's shameful to admit that sometimes things can go very wrong; It's shameful to choices that sometimes we have no control." 

"The French, in the eighteenth century, classified ambition - a new phenomenon in the typography of behavior and emotion - as an illness."

Sam Reviews "Will Grayson, Will Grayson" by John Green and David Levithan

I'd like to start by saying that I've always been a harsh critic of young adult books, even when I was the target reading age.  So, my personal review and opinion of this books is as follows:  it wasn't bad.  There was a serious "cheese factor" when it came to Tiny Cooper.  Some of his quirks I could appreciate but a lot of his quirks were over the top and (in my opinion) unrealistic.  I didn't feel the issues tackled in this book were especially serious or life altering.  And, despite my love of musicals, I didn't see the "genius" in the book's showcased musical, which was disappointing.  I do feel teenagers will appreciate this more than I do, as I tend to prefer books with more mature themes.  This just kind of seemed like a little snippet out of two people's diaries.  It wasn't especially moving or educational, it was just a nice story.

The opening quote, "You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose" is from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy - unless it's a really old quote I just heard on the show first. 

"I feel bad for her - I do. A damn shame, really, that I had to have a mother. It can't be easy having me for a son. Nothing can prepare someone for that kind of disappointment." 

"I don't know if there's anything more horrifying than a goth girl getting all cuddly." 

"I don't even picture it.   Instead I'm in it. How I would feel with him here. That peace. It would be so happy, and it makes me sad because it only exists in words." 

"He is both the source of my happiness and the one I want to share it with." 

"You know how people are always saying your parents are always right?  "Follow your parents' advice; they know what's good for you."  And you know how no one ever listens to this advice, because even if it's true it's so annoying and condescending that it just makes you want to go, like, develop a meth addiction and have unprotected sex with eighty- seven thousand anonymous partners?  Well, I listen to my parents. They know what's good for me. I'll listen to anyone, frankly.  Almost everyone knows better than I do." 

"In the ensuing silence, I have the time to contemplate the word cute - how dismissive it is, how it's the equivalent of calling someone little, how it makes a person into a baby, how the word is a neon sign burning through the dark reading "Feel Bad About Yourself"."

"Anything that happens all at once is just as likely to unhappen all at once." 

"Since they are theater people, they are all talking. All of them. Simultaneously. They do not need to be heard; they only need to be speaking." 

"I don't just feel depressed - instead, it is like the depression is the core of me, of every part of me, from my mind to my bones. If he got blue, I got black. That I hate those pills so much, because I know how much I rely on them to live. No, I couldn't say any of this. Because, when it comes down to it, nobody wants to hear it. No matter how much they like you or love you, they don't want to hear it." 

"Your mom and I had dinner with the Porters on their yacht years ago, and in the span of a single meal - in that two hours - the boat went from feeling like the most extraordinarily luxurious experience to just being a boat. You're our yacht, bud. All that money that would have gone into a yacht, all that time we would have spent traveling the world?  Instead, we got you. It turns out that the yacht is a boat. But you - you can't be bought on credit." 

"Such is life. We grow up. Planets like Tiny get new moons. Moons like me get new planets." 

"If you try to ruin someone's life, it only gets better. You just don't get to be a part of it." 

"Shouldn't letting go be painless if you've never learned how to hold on?" 

"I am going to stay the same, and the same, and the same, until I die of it." 

"I'm not saying I'm innocent. I'm saying you're guilty too." 

"...When did who you want to screw become the whole game?  Since when is the person you want to screw the only person you get to love? ... Who even gives a fuck about sex?!  People act like it's the most important thing humans do, but come on. How can our sentient fucking lives revolve around something slugs can do. ... You know what's important?  Who would you die for?  Who would you wake up at five forty-five in the morning for even though you don't even know why he needs you?..."

"Being in a relationship, that's something you choose. Being friends, that's just something you are." 

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."  - Oscar Wilde

"The pure and simple truth, is rarely pure and never simple. What's a boy to do, when lies and truth are both sinful."

"That's it - hundreds of texts and conversations, thousands upon thousands of words spoken and sent, all boiled down into a single line. Is that what relationships become?  A reduced version of the hurt, nothing else let in."

"We acknowledge that being the person God made you cannot separate you from God's love." 

"In some ways, you are who you are because other people observe you; but in some ways, you are who you are in spite of other people's observations of you." 

Sam Reviews "There I Go Again" by William Daniels

There's a few three or less star reviews of this book because people wanted it to be all about Boy Meets World.  I am one of the top die hard fans of Boy Meets World and Mr. Feeny, but it's important to remember this is William Daniels' autobiography of how he "Came To Be" all these beloved characters.  This book was not advertised as "All the Fun Things That Happened Behind the Scenes of Boy Meets World".  This is a book about a man, and the life he lived, while also portraying characters on TV he didn't expect to be very popular at all.
This book was everything I wanted it to be:  the story of William Daniels and an inside view of which roles he enjoyed and took pride in.  I learned more from this book than I probably ever would have on my own time and now I have a handful of movies and shows to add to my "to watch" list.  I appreciate William Daniels' honesty and humanity in this book, and I'm glad I took the time to read it.

"Whatever success I've had in my life - and I've had considerable success - has come to me almost accidentally.  ...  I'm left with the feeling that none of my success was really due to me.  
"When I'm sent a script to consider, I only see its problems, not its strengths.  I have almost always had to be talked into a role, even when the project turned out to be tremendously successful.  I've been known to go to the wrong theater to audition for a role I subsequently got - and played for years.  Once, while auditioning for a musical, I forgot the lyrics of a song I'd sung for months on Broadway; they hired me anyway.  I insisted on having no billing on a series I thought was silly, and that series (Knight Rider) ran for years and even after all this time I still get fan mail.
"I went 'ass backwards' into just about everything - and what a lucky guy I've been."

"Many of us without name recognition make a fine living,  put our kids through college,  and,  if we're lucky,  enjoy long careers precisely because we can play many different kinds of roles.  ...  As a character actor I became a start,  but a very small one,  and I saw time and again how the big stars - the leading men - surrounded by sycophants, lost their sense of reality and then lost everything..."

"When you think about it,  it's a huge compliment for an actor to be remembered for a role he played.  It means that ... I helped create a character, a person utterly different from myself,  yet someone real enough to lodge in someone's memory."

"Sometimes kids can suffer without even knowing they are suffering."

As I'm reading the chapters about his parents it's all so sad.  His mother was this overbearing pageant mom basically and his dad was just a very depressed man.  There's a scene in Boy Meets World, Season One, Episode Three "Father Knows Less" where Mr. Feeny explains how his dad wouldn't let him stay up to hear Truman announce the end of the war, not for any good reason, but because education was important.  And I always remember that scene resonating with me and I wonder if it's because some of the sadness about it was somewhat truthful to how his dad probably was as a person. 

"I know, at this point, I must sound like some kind of idiot.  Did it never occur to me to tell my mother I didn't want to do this?  The kindest thing I can say on my own behalf is that I was a young man who, from a very early age, was taught to take directions from a mother I must have loved or feared very much.  Probably both.  This was the pattern of my life throughout my childhood, in the army, and even in college:  following someone else's instructions or suggestions without instigating anything myself.  I noticed that I was able to break the pattern when I finally learned to say no, and that became a life-long pattern in and of itself."

"'Life with Father' ... was a snapshot of a family in the 1890s headed by a father whose impossible standards create humorous situations with all of the other characters in the show.  It was the first sitcom, if you will.  And America loved it."

"Then it struck me, right there on Fifth Avenue, the hypocrisy of confessing to something that was so lovely and innocent.  It was absurd. [sex with his girlfriend]
"And for me that was the end of Catholicism, with its idea of original sin."

"There is no greater satisfaction for an actor than performing before a live audience, to cope with an audience from the beginning of a performance to the end.  First they may be coughing, rustling in their seats, flipping pages in their programs, and wondering if the play is going to be worth the price of the tickets.  And then you slowly but surely command their attention with your stage presence, your focus, and your conviction.  Finally it is so quiet you know you have their full attention.  You can let your acting impulses take over and carry you wherever they will, for as far as the audience is concerned you can do no wrong."

"I never played a bricklayer, so 'Life with Father' turned out to be life with a kind of 'father' indeed."

There was a part in the chapter "Go West, Young Man, to Northwestern" where William talks about Bonnie deciding to go to New York and he had to decide to go with her or stay at school on scholarship to complete his Master's degree.  He followed Bonnie - again I wonder if the writers of Boy Meets World were inspired by some of William Daniels' stories seeing as how this is basically how the show ended.

I never put the dates together but the fact that William Daniels knew Marilyn Monroe is pretty amazing.  And he worked with Audrey Hepburn. 

It's crazy that his wife carried a baby a month longer than she should have and lost him at a doctor's judgement

"My good friend Gene Wilder stepped in and acted as my 'surrogate' to help Bonnie bring Robert home."  -  So casually mentioned. 

[On adoption] "Those bumbles can,  I'm  told and believe,  with proper care and love,  turn into very nice people."  -Edward Albee, who was himself adopted. 

Look into the movies:  A Thousand Clowns, Two For The Road, The Presidents Analyst, and 1776.

I wasn't expecting there to be pictures in this book, but boy am I glad there are!  He's hardly recognizable, if the caption wasn't there I'd doubt myself haha (there's more pics in the book than I posted).  But I also just had to say how amused I am that young William Daniels looks pretty similar to Will Friedle when he played Eric!

 I was thinking about when I was a boy just a little younger than you are.
There was a war going on.
It's hard to picture you as a boy.
Did your parents call you Mr.
Feeny? I used to ask my mother why I could only have butter on my toast two mornings a week and she said, "Because of the war in Europe.
" And I wondered why there was never enough candy and she told me, "Because of the war in Europe.
" oh, and I longed for a pair of sneakers.
But I couldn't have any.
Those Europe guys stole 'em? No, no.
The rubber had to be diverted to the war effort.
There was a version of a sneaker available but it was made out of recycled tires and left black marks on the gym floor.
Hey, you took gym? They made me.
Anyway, I prayed every night for an end to the war in Europe.
Not from any altruistic desire for world peace.
Just a boy's selfish wish for buttered toast and sneakers.
Then I heard that Mr.
Truman was going on the radio that night to announce the end of the war.
And I went home and asked my father if I could stay up with him to hear the president.
Do you know what he said? I'm guessing it's either yes or no but we both know how well I do on multiple choice.
He said "Tomorrow's a school day.
"l don't want you up with me.
" So you're saying your dad really knew the value of education.
No, I'm saying my father didn't want me hanging around with him and his drinking buddies.
As a result, the next day at school I was rested and fresh and ready to learn.
I see your point, Mr.
Feeny.
No, I don't think you really do, Cory.
What do you suppose I learned in school that day? I know this has got to be a biggie Iike the Magna Carta or something.
I have no idea what you learned that day.
Neither do l.
You see, Mr.
Matthews education is not about obscure facts and little test scores.
Education is about the overall effect of years of slow absorption concepts, philosophies approaches to problem-solving.
The whole process is so grand and all-encompassing that it really can't be threatened by the occasional late-night no-hitter.
It is important that a boy spend time with his father.
Buthow do you know that? Your dad didn't let you stay up with him.
That's precisely Why I do know.
ALAN: Cory! over here, Dad having a drink with Mr.
Feeny.
It's just apple juice.
How's the store? oh, the store is fine.
Just a small grease fire at the rotisserie.
Tomorrow we'll run a special on blackened chicken.
-Alan.
-George.
Better come in, kiddo.
About time for bed.
Sure, Dad.
Umare we ever gonna study that European sneaker war? I think you'll get to it sometime in the course of your education.
Good, 'cause it sounded really interesting.
oh, it was.
Well, good night, Mr.
Feeny.
Good night, Mr.
Matthews.
Ahem.
I, uh just want you to know I'm gonna have him in bed every night when he's supposed to be.
Well, I want you to know that if I did have a son and the opportunity presented itself to wake him up to watch a baseball game or to listen to the president on the radio or for absolutely no reason at all Well good night, Alan.

Read more: http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=boy-meets-world&episode=s01e03

So, how come you're sitting outside in the dark? I was thinking about when I was a boy just a little younger than you are.
There was a war going on.
It's hard to picture you as a boy.
Did your parents call you Mr.
Feeny? I used to ask my mother why I could only have butter on my toast two mornings a week and she said, "Because of the war in Europe.
" And I wondered why there was never enough candy and she told me, "Because of the war in Europe.
" oh, and I longed for a pair of sneakers.
But I couldn't have any.
Those Europe guys stole 'em? No, no.
The rubber had to be diverted to the war effort.
There was a version of a sneaker available but it was made out of recycled tires and left black marks on the gym floor.
Hey, you took gym? They made me.
Anyway, I prayed every night for an end to the war in Europe.
Not from any altruistic desire for world peace.
Just a boy's selfish wish for buttered toast and sneakers.
Then I heard that Mr.
Truman was going on the radio that night to announce the end of the war.
And I went home and asked my father if I could stay up with him to hear the president.
Do you know what he said? I'm guessing it's either yes or no but we both know how well I do on multiple choice.
He said "Tomorrow's a school day.
"l don't want you up with me.
" So you're saying your dad really knew the value of education.
No, I'm saying my father didn't want me hanging around with him and his drinking buddies.
As a result, the next day at school I was rested and fresh and ready to learn.
I see your point, Mr.
Feeny.
No, I don't think you really do, Cory.
What do you suppose I learned in school that day? I know this has got to be a biggie Iike the Magna Carta or something.
I have no idea what you learned that day.
Neither do l.
You see, Mr.
Matthews education is not about obscure facts and little test scores.
Education is about the overall effect of years of slow absorption concepts, philosophies approaches to problem-solving.
The whole process is so grand and all-encompassing that it really can't be threatened by the occasional late-night no-hitter.
It is important that a boy spend time with his father.
Buthow do you know that? Your dad didn't let you stay up with him.
That's precisely Why I do know.
ALAN: Cory! over here, Dad having a drink with Mr.
Feeny.
It's just apple juice.
How's the store? oh, the store is fine.
Just a small grease fire at the rotisserie.
Tomorrow we'll run a special on blackened chicken.
-Alan.
-George.
Better come in, kiddo.
About time for bed.
Sure, Dad.
Umare we ever gonna study that European sneaker war? I think you'll get to it sometime in the course of your education.
Good, 'cause it sounded really interesting.
oh, it was.
Well, good night, Mr.
Feeny.
Good night, Mr.
Matthews.
Ahem.
I, uh just want you to know I'm gonna have him in bed every night when he's supposed to be.
Well, I want you to know that if I did have a son and the opportunity presented itself to wake him up to watch a baseball game or to listen to the president on the radio or for absolutely no reason at all Well good night, Alan.

Read more: http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=boy-meets-world&episode=s01e03 I was thinking about when I was a boy just a little younger than you are.

There was a war going on.
It's hard to picture you as a boy.
Did your parents call you Mr.
Feeny? I used to ask my mother why I could only have butter on my toast two mornings a week and she said, "Because of the war in Europe.
" And I wondered why there was never enough candy and she told me, "Because of the war in Europe.
" oh, and I longed for a pair of sneakers.
But I couldn't have any.
Those Europe guys stole 'em? No, no.
The rubber had to be diverted to the war effort.
There was a version of a sneaker available but it was made out of recycled tires and left black marks on the gym floor.
Hey, you took gym? They made me.
Anyway, I prayed every night for an end to the war in Europe.
Not from any altruistic desire for world peace.
Just a boy's selfish wish for buttered toast and sneakers.
Then I heard that Mr.
Truman was going on the radio that night to announce the end of the war.
And I went home and asked my father if I could stay up with him to hear the president.
Do you know what he said? I'm guessing it's either yes or no but we both know how well I do on multiple choice.
He said "Tomorrow's a school day.
"l don't want you up with me.
" So you're saying your dad really knew the value of education.
No, I'm saying my father didn't want me hanging around with him and his drinking buddies.
As a result, the next day at school I was rested and fresh and ready to learn.
I see your point, Mr.
Feeny.
No, I don't think you really do, Cory.
What do you suppose I learned in school that day? I know this has got to be a biggie Iike the Magna Carta or something.
I have no idea what you learned that day.
Neither do l.
You see, Mr.
Matthews education is not about obscure facts and little test scores.
Education is about the overall effect of years of slow absorption concepts, philosophies approaches to problem-solving.
The whole process is so grand and all-encompassing that it really can't be threatened by the occasional late-night no-hitter.
It is important that a boy spend time with his father.
Buthow do you know that? Your dad didn't let you stay up with him.
That's precisely Why I do know.
ALAN: Cory! over here, Dad having a drink with Mr.
Feeny.
It's just apple juice.
How's the store? oh, the store is fine.
Just a small grease fire at the rotisserie.
Tomorrow we'll run a special on blackened chicken.
-Alan.
-George.
Better come in, kiddo.
About time for bed.
Sure, Dad.
Umare we ever gonna study that European sneaker war? I think you'll get to it sometime in the course of your education.
Good, 'cause it sounded really interesting.
oh, it was.
Well, good night, Mr.
Feeny.
Good night, Mr.
Matthews.
Ahem.
I, uh just want you to know I'm gonna have him in bed every night when he's supposed to be.
Well, I want you to know that if I did have a son and the opportunity presented itself to wake him up to watch a baseball game or to listen to the president on the radio or for absolutely no reason at all Well good night, Alan.

Read more: http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=boy-meets-world&episode=s01e03

So, how come you're sitting outside in the dark? I was thinking about when I was a boy just a little younger than you are.
There was a war going on.
It's hard to picture you as a boy.
Did your parents call you Mr.
Feeny? I used to ask my mother why I could only have butter on my toast two mornings a week and she said, "Because of the war in Europe.
" And I wondered why there was never enough candy and she told me, "Because of the war in Europe.
" oh, and I longed for a pair of sneakers.
But I couldn't have any.
Those Europe guys stole 'em? No, no.
The rubber had to be diverted to the war effort.
There was a version of a sneaker available but it was made out of recycled tires and left black marks on the gym floor.
Hey, you took gym? They made me.
Anyway, I prayed every night for an end to the war in Europe.
Not from any altruistic desire for world peace.
Just a boy's selfish wish for buttered toast and sneakers.
Then I heard that Mr.
Truman was going on the radio that night to announce the end of the war.
And I went home and asked my father if I could stay up with him to hear the president.
Do you know what he said? I'm guessing it's either yes or no but we both know how well I do on multiple choice.
He said "Tomorrow's a school day.
"l don't want you up with me.
" So you're saying your dad really knew the value of education.
No, I'm saying my father didn't want me hanging around with him and his drinking buddies.
As a result, the next day at school I was rested and fresh and ready to learn.
I see your point, Mr.
Feeny.
No, I don't think you really do, Cory.
What do you suppose I learned in school that day? I know this has got to be a biggie Iike the Magna Carta or something.
I have no idea what you learned that day.
Neither do l.
You see, Mr.
Matthews education is not about obscure facts and little test scores.
Education is about the overall effect of years of slow absorption concepts, philosophies approaches to problem-solving.
The whole process is so grand and all-encompassing that it really can't be threatened by the occasional late-night no-hitter.
It is important that a boy spend time with his father.
Buthow do you know that? Your dad didn't let you stay up with him.
That's precisely Why I do know.
ALAN: Cory! over here, Dad having a drink with Mr.
Feeny.
It's just apple juice.
How's the store? oh, the store is fine.
Just a small grease fire at the rotisserie.
Tomorrow we'll run a special on blackened chicken.
-Alan.
-George.
Better come in, kiddo.
About time for bed.
Sure, Dad.
Umare we ever gonna study that European sneaker war? I think you'll get to it sometime in the course of your education.
Good, 'cause it sounded really interesting.
oh, it was.
Well, good night, Mr.
Feeny.
Good night, Mr.
Matthews.
Ahem.
I, uh just want you to know I'm gonna have him in bed every night when he's supposed to be.
Well, I want you to know that if I did have a son and the opportunity presented itself to wake him up to watch a baseball game or to listen to the president on the radio or for absolutely no reason at all Well good night, Alan.

Read more: http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=boy-meets-world&episode=s01e03

Sam Reviews "The Impossible Knife of Memory" by Laurie Halse Anderson

I once believed that "Speak" was Laurie Halse Anderson's only book, and I loved it.  I recently learned she's actually written a lot of books and I was very excited to read them.  Unfortunately I was mostly disappointed by this book.  I really wasn't invested in the story until the last 80 pages, which is a huge difference from the instant hook I felt while reading "Speak".  That's not to say this is a bad story, it's features a strong young woman character handling a tough situation admirably.  I guess I just don't relate enough to this book to find it interesting, but I still want to read more books from her.

"There are two types of people in this world:   1.  Zombies  2.  Freaks. ...  everyone is born a freak. ...  every newborn baby, wet and hungry and screaming,  is a fresh-hatched freak who wants to have a good time and make the world a better place." 

"It's always there - fear - and if you don't stay on top of it, you'll drown." 

"Sometimes I wonder if he cheats on us, too, if he's looking for new kids who won't disappoint him." 

"It doesn't matter how much she loves him,  he's not going to change." 

"I called mom back to tell her I hadn't killed myself and then we got into a fight. Why?  Because I didn't make my bed this morning."

"'You go to a cemetery on purpose?'
"'Isn't that the point?'"

"I kissed him until everything that hurt inside me melted into a pool of black water so deep I couldn't touch the bottom. As long as I was touching him, I wouldn't drown." 

"'Do you think we've crossed the border...to the next town yet?'
"The moon chuckled. It did. I heard it."

"The remembering takes up every breath until there is no time for today.  I pour a drink, ten drinks, so I can forget that I have forgotten today."

"Here's what you don't know. By five o'clock that morning, the officers had all gotten the message that the war would end that day. But lots of them ordered their men to keep fighting.  ...  Almost eleven thousand soldiers died on November 11, 1918. ...  Politics beats out freedom,  honor,  and service every time. Don't ever forget that." 

"Killing people is easier than it should be.  Staying alive is harder." 

"Odysseus had twenty years to shed his battle skin.  My grandfather left the battlefield in France and rode home in a ship that crawled across the ocean slowly so he can catch his breath. I get on a plane in hell and get off,  hours later,  at home."

"I added it to the growing list of things I never thought I would do but did anyway." 

"The clouds scuttled away from the sun and blinding light reflected off the fresh snow.  We were standing in a sea of glass shards,  millions of tiny frozen mirrors."

"I've been standing on the edge with you for years."

"Out there on the edge, the spinning of the earth had slowed to give us the time we needed to start giving each other again."