Block Shot Quotes
"Testosterone and entitlement. The air is thick with both."
"You're close. Perform this last rite Prescott assigns tonight, and you'll be in."
"It won't be that bad. Just . . . Just don't lose it when he tells you what it is. Do this one thing, and you're in."
"You've met and exceeded every challenge so far. For your final rite, you will fuck a fat girl."
"The only fucking there will be, Prescott, is however you manage to fuck yourself."
"I'm not stupid. I know what you've been up to."
"I want in here. But I want you to come first. Have you ever come standing up?"
"Then let me make it abundantly clear. I like you, Banner."
"Important rule of negotiation. Know what you’re willing to give up before you start."
"Her beautiful same-size lips settle into an immovable line."
"With the light snuffed out, my other senses rise, hunting for her in the dark."
"I know your face by heart. You have seven freckles here."
"Sometimes a dish carries a scent so rich you taste it before it hits your tongue."
"Darwin. Maslow. Who cares. In the end, we are just animals."
"How the earth tremors following a seismic disruption."
"It just feels good to be touched this way—with passion and care."
"I want Iris to have that experience. That okay with you?"
"Survival of the fittest, my ass. Who needs The Pride?"
"Men are essentially boys. Just boys whose penises kept growing... some more than others."
"Let them have their Pride of Lions and their alpha male cliques."
"No, you make a living from your hard work and ingenuity."
"I'm not interested in being tiny. I want to be strong and healthy and feel good in my clothes, and now I do."
"Work hard, good things happen. Or not. It’s life. A cosmic crapshoot in which odds don’t mean shit."
"I’m more fatalism, less fate. With that said, I do believe circumstances happen in a certain order at a certain time. And for a certain reason."
"I may be a ruthless son of a bitch, but I don’t lie. Especially not to myself."
"I'm not here to talk to you about sports. We all specialize in various sports or fields."
"I've seen Banner Morales more in the last two weeks than I have in the last ten years, and I 'just know' something’s shifting."
"The gulf between the truth and the lies we tell ourselves is filled with misery."
"Do not live someone else's life and someone else's idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you."
"For example, women only make eighty cents on the dollar to what men make. That’s white women. Black women, not so fast. You’re only at sixty-three cents on the dollar. And my Latina sisters, lo siento. We average only fifty-four percent of every dollar men make."
"The truth is in the numbers," Banner continues. "We make less than men do, but the future isn’t in the numbers. What’s true today won’t be in a hundred years. In ten years. It was held as fact that the Earth was flat until it was proven otherwise. It was true that women couldn’t vote a hundred years ago. But the Earth is round and now we vote. Now we speak and are heard. We re-made truth. We re-shaped fact."
"You are your greatest natural resource and don’t let anyone strip you of that or tell you it’s not enough. We are making the future, defying the odds just being in this room right now."
"I don’t give a damn about odds," she says. "Odds don’t tell me what I can’t do. Odds just tell me how hard I’ll have to work to get what I want. Don’t allow anyone to make you feel less."
"I hid her in the dark," she says more softly, holding my stare for a few seconds before moving past me, but even when she looks away, I feel seared. Like in one glance and with a few words she’s burned years away.
"I am done letting my waistline and other people define me."
"Culture twists what it is to even be a feminist, tries to sort us into categories and force us to choose between being a good mother and being a successful businesswoman. I unabashedly want to rule every boardroom room I step into, and I unashamedly want at least four kids."
"What I’m saying is be unafraid to want it all and be disciplined enough to work hard to get it."
"Life is seldom binary. And I’ve talked a lot about patriarchy and living, working in a male-dominated culture, but men are not our enemies. Any force that would diminish us, pigeonhole us, would make us one thing instead of all that we are, that’s the enemy . . . even if it’s inside of you."
"But the daughter of a lion is still a lion, and this is your domain."
"It’s a Hollywood life, yes, but it’s real. Somehow for them, it’s still real."
"Well if Jared doesn’t like smart, beautiful women, then he doesn’t know what he’s missing."
"And if there’s one thing I learned from Professor Albright’s debate class, it’s how to persuade."
"This will be great. The homeless situation in San Diego and in LA is abominable."
"I endure Bent’s presence while he greets his father and then mother when she returns to the terrace. My body is stiff as if tensed for a blow the whole time."
"I’ve never thought she was fat, but she didn’t believe me."
"You can’t fake a brilliant mind like Banner’s."
"But it’s true we’d take better care of her at Elevation."
"So we’re at an impasse where she avoids me, slinks back into her comfort zone with Alonzo."
"It’s testament to how focused I am on Banner that I’m not even tempted by the abundance of naked flesh being flashed around the large house."
"I know. I’m the one who sounds crazy, but that is not the case."
"I’m not a cheat. I keep reassuring myself it was an indiscretion, but nothing we couldn’t get past."
"My heart aches every time I think about the conversation we need to have."
"I refuse to hurt Zo any more than I have to."
"Nothing is private. I told you that day one."
"I’m a grown ass woman, not some little girl who requires an escort at a fucking party."
"I’m not his mother," I snap, slicing one hand through the air for emphasis. "His mother fled a war-torn country with four children and nothing but the clothes on her back."
"I want to make you laugh like that every day."
"You’re not confused about the fact that you want me in a way you don’t want him."
"Never do anything you can’t live with or walk away from the person you can’t live without."
"Nothing," I answer out of habit, so used to things being right.
"You fuck someone else, and you offer me an apology?"
"You’ve ruined everything. My entire life is intertwined with yours."
"We are made in His image, with the same life-giving, life-stealing power nestled between the rows of our teeth."
"I have no idea what that means, but I want to bite your ass every time I see it, if that answers your question."
"Humans, we suck. I know we have these bright shining moments, but a lot of us just suck most of the time."
"There’s only ever been one Banner, and her... I’ve never been able to forget."
"She has no idea that you’ve always been the girl I liked most, and I don’t even like people."
"I don’t feel for women. I fuck them. I date them. I don’t feel for them, not what I feel for Banner, and now she knows."
"I don't need to be so full of myself that I feel I am without flaw. I can feel beautiful and imperfect at the same time. I have a healthy relationship with my aesthetic insecurities."
"You’re so beautiful," I whisper, my hands addicted to the feel of him.
"I’ve never met another woman like you, and I liked you from the first day of class."
"I know how bad it feels. There were things he said that, even to this day, make me second and third guess myself."
"You were incredible then, and you’re magnificent now."
"I don’t even know if you watch TV, much less what your favorite show might be."
"This is more than sex for me. Do you understand?"
"I won’t share you. I know it’s hypocritical. I know I took you. I don’t care. I won’t share."
"Could you just be human enough to care about someone other than yourself for one damn second?"
"I can’t say I’ve ever seen tenderness on Jared Foster’s face, but the way he’s looking at me now, it’s the closest I think he’s come."
"I didn’t mean to be an asshole." He grimaces. "I mean, that is my naturally occurring state, but I know he’s in the hospital."
"You have to," he agrees, nodding and tightening his hands on me. "Just remember us, okay? That we have something special."
"I think the better question is," I say, "why didn’t you call me?"
"I don’t care what you tell them," I reply honestly because I’ll air all our dirty laundry in front of strangers if that’s what it takes.
"My career is inextricably tied to yours as long as I’m your agent, so anything that happens to that body happens to me."
"I don’t particularly care about your team or your season right now." I rest my fists at my hips and lift my chin.
"He needs a goal. He needs something at the end of this to make him fight and keep going, and that is ball."
"He and I will both wait until I’m better and the fight is fair and the playing field is even."
"I’ve seen love, real love. I saw it between my father and mother. I’ve witnessed the miracle of my dad finding it again with my stepmother."
"Wrong thing to say." I stand up to pace in front of the couch. "You bathing Zo is not exactly winning me over to this idea."
"I have to put things on hold," she says, her voice soft but steely. "Things with you on hold."
"He said he wants to fight for me, but he has to fight for his life right now and he can’t do both."
"This is not my specialty," Dr. Clintmore says hastily. "There are generalities and many variables that factor into each individual’s prognosis."
"We’ll see about that," Mama says with confidence. "And what about his sperm?"
"He needs something he’s fighting for. Simply fighting to live is not enough. He needs something he’s fighting to live for."
"I don’t mind heavy. Life is heavy sometimes."
"Why is she holding his hand? Is that really necessary?"
"You keep saying you don’t care, but I think you do."
"Loving someone is the most selfless thing you can do."
"It’s not always about what you want from that person but what you want for them."
"I would say may the best man win, but we both know you’re a better man than I am, and I have no intention of losing her."
"I’ve always known how to play the game, Ban. Always calculated what every move would yield and how I would come out the winner."