“He foll0wed her as she crossed to the four-station apparatus. His attention was glued to her butt the whole way. realizing what he was doing, he snapped his gaze away and checked to make sure no one had noticed.Nope. They were all too busy staring at Jamie’s butt.”

“Marry hope, divorce tension!”

“She inched closer to him. “I intrigue you?””You know you do,” he replied boldly, his eyes burning into hers. Wow-things were suddenly heating up fast. He wondered if they would have sex right there on her desk.Somebody better move that stapler.With a coy look, Taylor stood up to whisper in Jason’s ear.”then I think you’re going to find this next part really intriging,” she said breathlessly.He gazed down at her-he like the sound of that-and raised one eybrow expectantly as taylor grinned wickedly and-Slammed the office door right in his face.For a moment, Jason could only stand there in the hallway with his nose pressed against the cold wood of her door. After a few seconds, he knocked politely.Taylor whipped open the door, unamused.Jason grinned at her. “I just gotta ask: where did you get the whole ‘all the cute girls run around naked’ thing?”

“Endings are abstruse, mystic and unreal. They are but depleted beginnings purposed to be substituted with newer ones.A transition of outlook and time, similar to our differing moods before and after slumber. Before the act we witness an exhaustion, a sulkiness but on gaining consciousness, we’re rejuvenated and good humored. The wakefulness is the new beginning whereas the tension the disturbance we perceive each night is the weariness of the beginnings, of each day. So there never really is an end, all that there are are beginnings.Beginnings which are promising, which offer hope, which have a new leash on life, which neither denounce nor belittle rather soothe and console by reconstructing the broken pieces of yesterday, mending them and reinforcing them with courage and beauty like never before.”

“The day drags along, you make thousands of plans, you imagine every possible conversation, you promise to change your behavior in certain ways–and you feel more and more anxious until your loved one arrives. But by then, you don’t know what to say. The hours of waiting have been transformed into tension, the tension has become fear, and the fear makes you embarrassed about showing affection.”

“Tension, in the long run, is a more dangerous force than any feud known to man.”

“Everyone claims to be okay with freedom of religion, but the moment you mention God there is a strange tension that fills the air. If there was a 6th sense, that would be it.”

“The truth of the story lies in the details.”

“A writer is one who communicates ideas and emotions people want to communicate but aren’t quite sure how, or even if, they should communicate them.”

“Do you know what I see in you now? The usual aura. A steady golden yellow, healthy and strong, with spikes of purple here and there. But when I do this. . . .”He rested a hand on my hip, and my whole body tensed up. That hand moved around my hip, slipping under my shirt to rest on the small of my back. My skin burned where he touched me, and the places that were untouched longed for that heat.“See?” he said. He was in the throes of spirit now, though with me at the same time. “Well, I guess you can’t. But when I touch you, your aura . . . it smolders. The colors deepen, it burns more intensely, the purple increases. Why? Why, Sydney?” He used that hand on me to pull me closer. “Why do you react that way if I don’t mean anything to you?” There was a desperation in his voice, and it was legitimate.”

“Popular culture is a place where pity is called compassion, flattery is called love, propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto-tune is called singing.”