Beard Necessities by Penny Reid (Notes)

“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” — GEORGE BURNS

 

You’ll never be able to find yourself if you’re lost in someone else.” — COLLEEN HOOVER, NOVEMBER 9

 

A person’s time in Tuscany should be spent largely on three pursuits: wine drinking, food eating, and appreciating all the gorgeousness— including the art, views, and Italians. 

 

hormones and grief often make folks do nutty things, and the reasons had existed and persisted. 

 

"If you ask me, something sinister lurks in men who avoid wine,  games, the company of lovely women, and dinnertime conversation. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly detest everyone around them.”  — MIKHAIL BULGAKOV, THE MASTER AND MARGARITA

 

His typically glacial irises were hollow, lifeless, hopeless, defeated. This man who had never been average was diminished in every sense of the word. Seeing him this way physically hurt, ripples of disquiet just under my skin.

“He shrank from hearing Margaret's very name mentioned; he,  while he blamed her – while he was jealous of her – while he renounced her – he loved her sorely, in spite of himself.”  — ELIZABETH GASKELL, NORTH AND SOUTH

Life beyond this room had continued since I’d discovered the vacant rocking chair. Life had moved forward while I’d struggled to think about anything else.

You have no skeletons in the closet because your closet is empty. 

If we want something, we work and work and work and push and push and push until it happens, and then it always happens.

“I’d always secretly believed that a love as fierce and true as mine would be rewarded in the end, and now I was being forced to accept the bitter truth.”  — ALMA KATSU, THE TAKER

 

“In a weird way I must have loved my little collection of hurts and wounds. They provided me with some real nice sympathy, with the feeling I was exceptional...What a special case I was.”  — SUE MONK KIDD, THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES

 

It’s complicated when people die, it’s easy to feel guilty for imaginary transgressions

 

I had trouble taking myself too seriously. When you believe your own opinion is suspect, there’s not much point in putting a lot of time or energy into it. 

 

“I didn’t realize this until my momma died, but the living change, the dead don’t. Who a person was at the time of their death is who we tend to assume they always were, and who they’d always be, if they were still here. 

But that’s not the truth of me, of my life. I changed, I grew, I worked to make something of myself, to earn my family’s trust.”

 

Loving someone means wanting the best for that person, not indulging selfishness. I love my children, and that means I don’t spoil them or let them play with knives, right? Love sometimes means calling another person on their bullshit, even if doing so requires an awkward, uncomfortable conversation, like this one we’re having right now.” 

 

You’re being an asshole to yourself—and don’t you deny it. Your smiles are forced, they have been for years. Not all of them, but most. You put everyone else’s needs first. You haven’t gone on a single date since Ben died, not a single one. I’m not saying you need a man, but you’ve closed yourself off to all possibilities.” 

 

“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”  — TONI MORRISON, SONG OF SOLOMON

 

I now know there’s a universe between wanting and doing. They are not the same. Wanting something doesn’t mean you’re ready for it.” 

 

“It hurts to breathe. It hurts to live. I hate her, yet I do not think I can exist without her.”  — CHARLOTTE FEATHERSTONE, ADDICTED

 

Your job is the substance, I get that. But my job is the perception, and perception gets people elected

 

In my experience, the only undertaking more difficult than forming new habits is breaking old ones. 

 

After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations.”  — OSCAR WILDE, A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE

 

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” — THOMAS MERTON , NO MAN IS AN ISLAND

 

Just that, two people, witnessing or experiencing the same event, can have two entirely different interpretations of the truth. To one person, the knot was a heart, and removing it devastated the stone such that it succumbed to the artist’s vision. To another, the knot was an obstruction to the stone, preventing it from being what or who it was meant to be.” 

 

Truth is always more relative than fiction. And the idea that two factual truths can exist at once, so diametrically opposed to each  other, is completely fascinating. Don’t you think?” 

Now look, your grace," said Sancho, "what you see over there aren't giants, but windmills, and what seems to be arms are just their sails, that go around in the wind and turn the millstone." "Obviously," replied Don Quijote, "you don't know much about adventures.” — MIGUEL DE CERVANTES, DON QUIXOTE

 

Listen. I’ve been where you are. And I’m telling you, if you<BR>don’t have trust, you have nothing.” 

 

“I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.” — JANE AUSTEN, EMMA

 

She’d tell you, ‘People only hold grudges when they can’t forgive themselves.’”

 

“I think of you only twice a day - when I am alone and when I am with someone else.”  — AMIT KALANTRI, I LOVE YOU TOO

  

If she touches anywhere above the knee and leaves her hand there, that’s like the universal ‘ride below the crupper’ invitation.” “Anyway, if she touches you, that means she wants you to touch her, the sooner the better.” Jethro explained with an academic air. “Do what she does. If her touch is light and flirtatious, do that. If her touch is more purposeful, well . . . then, there you go. Proceed as directed. But, the important thing is, if she’s opened that door and you don’t walk in, that’ll leave her feeling like you’re not as into her as she’s into you. In which case,  verbal communication, boundary setting, and gentle—but firm—honesty are required.” 

 

“There is no fulfillment that is not made sweeter for the prolonging of desire”  — JACQUELINE CAREY, KUSHIEL'S DART

  

“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.”  — FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

 

Actions have consequences, we don’t get to hide from them. 

 

Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice.” — E.M. FORSTER, A ROOM WITH A VIEW

 

Love isn’t about giving up. It’s about never giving up.”

Seduce him. Then, in the middle of foreplay, explain it to him. Men are much more receptive to admitting they’re wrong when they’re just about to get laid.” 

 

If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing.”  — SIR JAMES BARRIE, PETER PAN

 

A woman only wants to be conquered after she’s done the conquering. Rescued after she’s done the rescuing. Then it’s a choice she’s actively made rather than a debt she needs to repay. I think the grand gesture you need to make is asking her for help.”  I stood straighter, caught off guard by her suggestion. What an interesting idea.  “Show her you’ve been conquered.” Her smile turned sweet and she added, “When was the last time you asked anyone for help, Billy? Or told them how much you needed them? Maybe start there.”

 

Cletus was right. I was good with women, when I applied myself and when I had a goal in mind. With my family, employees, colleagues, and even constituents the goal was clear: I gave them what they needed from me in order for them to be successful, whatever that thing might be. Some folks needed praise, some folks needed boundaries and discipline, others charm and charisma, still others simply wanted frequent communication. 

 

Gordon Lightfoot’s “Fine As Fine Can Be.”

 

Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You .

  

Come Away With Me” by Norah Jones. 

 

Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.”  — WILLIAM BLAKE, THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL

 

Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.” — E.M. FORSTER, A ROOM WITH A VIEW

 

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”  — ERNEST HEMINGWAY

 

how I’d been raised, an intrinsic distrust of the law. My brain prioritized honor and justice over lawfulness. Laws varied depending on the place and time, required documentation, due process, and interpretation. 

 

You couldn’t count on the law to serve justice. Honor didn’t need to be explained. It just was. Within most people existed honorable impulses, whether they listened to those impulses or not. Honor was the reason the majority of folks rooted for the underdog and never questioned why. 

 

Being with Billy now was like coming home to myself, to the person I once was. She was scarred, she’d struggled and lived through dark times.  And yet, I’d missed her, her bravery, her fierce fortitude, her sense of justice. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed her until right this moment, on the precipice of confronting my nightmares. 

 

“He lay back, put his arm over his eyes, and tried to hold onto the anger, because the anger made him feel brave. A brave man could think. A coward couldn't.” — STEPHEN KING, MISERY

 

Better than most, I understand it’s sometimes better to ask for forgiveness than permission, especially when it comes to protecting the ones you love. But, after, you have to tell him the truth

 

Accepting help is its own kind of strength.” — KIERA CASS, HAPPILY EVER AFTER

 

 “I know this might be a hard pill to swallow—because it was for me—but you don’t get to wear the cape all the time. In some instances, you’re the rescuer. Other times, you’re the rescuee. That’s how it works. And you can stay here, simmering in your sour stew at not being the hero this time, or you can take Sienna’s plane back to Nashville and thank your woman for saving your ass.” 

  

“And he took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they stood high upon the walls in the sight of many.”  — J.R.R. TOLKIEN, RETURN OF THE KING

 

“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.” — FREDERICK BUECHNER

 

When I was young, I lived to survive. I’d shunned hopes and dreams, content in the safety of survival. But now I knew better. Nothing lasts forever. Not a song, not happiness, not misery. Mere survival was no safer than living for hopes and dreams. At the end, there will always be the end. So why not dream? Why not hope? Why not live life with wild faith and abandon? Why not take the risk? Otherwise, all these moments—small or significant, heaven on earth—would be lost to fear. I wasn’t afraid. Not anymore. And never again.