1
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.Criss Jami
2
It's only awkward if it matters.Joyce Rachelle
3
Because daytime leaves vampires less than, well, conscious, I told him, “Take your muffins to Boston and shut it, Terrance.” And then I hung up on him.Molly Harper
4
The room was filled with a strange vibe of awkwardness that I was sure could only be dissolved by kissing him again or running away.E.M. Denning
5
All forms of madness, bizarre habits, awkwardness in society, general clumsiness, are justified in the person who creates good art.Roman Payne
6
The girl whose table I occupied was reading a book but I couldn’t help but notice that all this time, she was secretly watching me.“ You are beautiful.” I took my eyes off my phone and I saw the girl talking to me. I was embarrassed and didn’t know what to say or how to react.Nico J. Genes
7
I'm a lion in a strange land.Criss Jami
8
Imagine a young Isaac Newton time-travelling from 1670s England to teach Harvard undergrads in 2017. After the time-jump, Newton still has an obsessive, paranoid personality, with Asperger’s syndrome, a bad stutter, unstable moods, and episodes of psychotic mania and depression. But now he’s subject to Harvard’s speech codes that prohibit any “disrespect for the dignity of others”; any violations will get him in trouble with Harvard’s Inquisition (the ‘Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion’). Newton also wants to publish Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, to explain the laws of motion governing the universe. But his literary agent explains that he can’t get a decent book deal until Newton builds his ‘author platform’ to include at least 20k Twitter followers — without provoking any backlash for airing his eccentric views on ancient Greek alchemy, Biblical cryptography, fiat currency, Jewish mysticism, or how to predict the exact date of the Apocalypse.Newton wouldn’t last long as a ‘public intellectual’ in modern American culture. Sooner or later, he would say ‘offensive’ things that get reported to Harvard and that get picked up by mainstream media as moral-outrage clickbait. His eccentric, ornery awkwardness would lead to swift expulsion from academia, social media, and publishing. Result? On the upside, he’d drive some traffic through Huffpost, Buzzfeed, and Jezebel, and people would have a fresh controversy to virtue-signal about on Facebook. On the downside, we wouldn’t have Newton’s Laws of Motion.Geoffrey Miller
9
Too late; my awkwardness had already made an unforgettable appearance, so, of course, I couldn’t be let off the hook.Katherine McIntyre
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She had the most beautiful awkwardnessBrandon Stanton
11
It's easier to floss with barbed wire than admit you like someone in middle school.Laurie Halse Anderson
12
I remember myself as a child, pudgy and awkward and unsure of myself. For a moment I wonder how anyone could love such a child as that, let alone the woman she promised to become.Ashlee Willis
13
For a moment, I tried to see myself through the eyes of the girl with the black hair, or even the boy in the cowboy hat, studying my features for a vibration under the skin. The effort was visible in my face, and I felt ashamed. No wonder the boy had seemed disgusted: He must have seen the longing in me. Seen how my face was blatant with need, like an orphan's empty dish. And that was the difference between me and the black-haired girl- her face answered all it's own questions.Emma Cline