he won't tell you he loves you but he loves you.

[you-are-jeff]

I watched the bonfire again, thinking how it'd be if you could actually turn into the person your clothes made you seem like. Then you could go over to whatever party was happening like you totally belonged and have as much fun as everyone else.

Matt de la Peña, I Will Save You

[you-are-jeff]

Every time I see him put the bottle to his mouth he don't suck out of it, it sucks out of him until he's shrunk so wrinkled and yellow even the dogs don't know him.

Ken Kesey, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

[you-are-jeff]

There were empty rooms in the house where they had meant to put their love, and they worked hard to fill these rooms with midcentury modern furniture.

Birthmark, Miranda July

[you-are-jeff]

Father Mike was moving down the line of communicants, holding the chalice, with the altar boy, an eighth-grader, sometimes even John, standing beside him in a lace surplice, holding the paten under each chin; and she would closer her eyes and open her mouth, sticking her tongue out, and hear the prayer and feel the host placed gently on her tongue. Sometimes Father's hand brushed her bottom lip, and she would feel a spark from her finger, which Sister said was static electricity, not the Holy Spirit.

Stuart Dybek, The Palatski Man

[you-are-jeff]

Tsze-kung asked about government. The Master said, “The requisites of government are that there be sufficiency of food, sufficiency of military equipment, and the confidence of the people in their ruler.” Tsze-kung said, “If it cannot be helped, and one of these must be dispensed with, which of the three should be foregone first?” “The military equipment,” said the Master.

Analects of Confucius (James Legge Translation)

[you-are-jeff]

We are teenaged Quasimodos for the bells of hell and we are as happy as pigs in shit because killing is our business and business is good. The Commandant of the Marine Corps has ordered you to Khe Sanh to get yourself some trigger time and pick up a few sea stories. But you are not even here to win the D-F-M, the Dumb Fucker's Medal. The only virtue of the stupid is that they don't live long. The Lord giveth and the M-79 taketh away. There it is. Welcome to the world of zero slack.

Gustav Hasford, The Phantom Blooper

[you-are-jeff]

And the streets empty except for the newsboys moving through shadows, leafless trees snatching underclothes out of wind, the El clattering above the roofs like a strip of blue movie.

Stuart Dybek, Night of Voyeurs (excerpt)

[you-are-jeff]

Hold my hand in yours, and we will not fear what hands like ours can do.

The Epic of Gilgamesh (Danny P. Jackson translation)

[you-are-jeff]

Some say a cavalry corps, some infantry, some, again, will maintain that the swift oars of our fleet are the finest sight on dark earth; but I say that whatever one loves, is.

Sappho, To an army wife, in Sadis: (Mary Barnard translation)

[you-are-jeff]

There’s been time this whole time. You can’t kill time with your heart. Everything takes time. Bees have to move very fast to stay still.

David Foster Wallace, Forever Overhead

[you-are-jeff]

She had a soft voice and strong hands. When she sang she would seem too large for the room and she would play guitar and sing which would make his chest feel huge. Sometimes he would touch her knee and smile. Sometimes she would touch his face and close her eyes.

Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

[you-are-jeff]

Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern. The country is grey and brown and white in trees, snows and skies of laughter always diminishing, less funny not just darker, not just grey. It may be the coldest day of the year, what does he think of that? I mean, what do I? And if I do, perhaps I am myself again.

Frank O'Hara, Mayakovsky

[you-are-jeff]

Not now for the first time I think this human life a shadow; yea, and without shrinking I will say that they amongst men who pretend to wisdom and expend deep thought on words do incur a serious charge of folly; for amongst mortals no man is happy; wealth may pour in and make one luckier than another, but none can happy be.

Medea, Euripides (E. P. Coleridge translation)

[you-are-jeff]

I cry now, Enkidu, like some crazed woman. I howl. I screech for you because you were the ax upon my belt and the bow in my weak hand; the sword within my sheath, the shield that covered me in battle; my happiest robe, the finest clothes I ever wore, the ones that made me look best in the eyes of the world. That is what you were; that is what you'll always be.

The Epic of Gilgamesh (Danny P. Jackson translation)

[you-are-jeff]

In an unnecessary war, patriotism is just racism made to sound noble.

Gustav Hasford, The Phantom Blooper

[you-are-jeff]

It must always be remembered that the Vietnam War was a human ordeal and not an abstract heroic adventure as might be understood by Hollywood or a politician's speechwriter.

Al Santoli, Everything We Had: An Oral History of the Vietnam War

[you-are-jeff]

I rode cross-country buses a great deal when I was young. There was something that I needed, constant movement, somehow I needed this constant movement to survive what was happening to me inside and what the world was doing to me.

Charles Bukowski, Absence of the Hero