After Night Out Quotes

The beauty of theatre was that it was a moving, changing art form - only those who watch the same performance night in after night out see the real naturalistic drama at work - the small changes, adjustments, changes in articulation or intonation, the addition of a cough or hiccup, a longer pause rife with more (or less) meaning, the character's movement across the stage a step slower, a step closer to the audience, the change of a word here and there, an overall change in mood and tone, the actors becoming (or not) the characters more fully, blending in with them, losing themselves in the lines, in the characterizations, in a drama that is simultaneously unfolding and becoming more and more verisimilitudinous as time marches on. This is the real narrative - while the character changes on stage in an instant, the play changes slowly, unnoticeably (unnoticeable to those closest to it perhaps), like the face of a man in his thirties, like his beliefs about life, his motives, all slowly as if duplicating itself day by day, filling itself and becoming more and more itself, the rehearsal of Self, the dress rehearsal of Self, the performance of Self, the extended performance of Self, the encore… - it appears to be the same show, played over and over again with the same details to different crowds, and yet something happens. Something changes. It is not the same show. ~ John M. Keller

Thanks to the moon, the ground in front of me was well-lit, and I wondered if this were the reason God created and placed the moon up there in the first place, so girls like me could effortlessly sneak out in the midst of night, or maybe so their fathers might catch them. ...I prayed that God put the moon up there for the first reason and not the second. ~ Christine Lemmon

My instinct was that it was Sidney's childhood in the Bahamas that gave him the fearlessness to fight racism. So this documentary was a kind of rounding out of what had begun in that scene in In the Heat of the Night. ~ Lee Grant

I tumbled into the taxi alone, closing the door closed with a dull thud before I could possibly change my mind. Not like this, I remember thinking. Whatever this thing is between us, it could only be tainted and cheapened by a semi-drunken encounter on the night of our first meeting. As the car pulled away I stared back at him. The thought that I might never see him again, that I might never know what it would feel like to be kissed by him, seemed unbearably cruel.
At a crossroads, I had been faced with a choice: two possible versions of my future mapped out ahead of me. But I didn't feel like I had made any sort of decision. All I had done was run away. ~ Catherine Sanderson

I know. And I couldn't wait any longer, I have to tell you - "
The panic rises, and I grip the French band tighter. "Cricket, please -"
But his words pour forth in a torrent. "I can't stop thinking about you, and I'm not the guy I used to be, I've changed -"
"Cricket -" I look back up, feeling faint.
His blue eyes are bright. Sincere. Desperate. "Go out with me tonight. Tomorrow night, every ni -" The words cut off in his throat as he sees something behind me.
Cigarettes and spearmint. I want to die.
"This is Max. My boyfriend. Max, this is Cricket Bell. ~ Stephanie Perkins

What would you have me do?
Seek for the patronage of some great man,
And like a creeping vine on a tall tree
Crawl upward, where I cannot stand alone?
No thank you! Dedicate, as others do,
Poems to pawnbrokers? Be a buffoon
In the vile hope of teasing out a smile
On some cold face? No thank you! Eat a toad
For breakfast every morning? Make my knees
Callous, and cultivate a supple spine,-
Wear out my belly grovelling in the dust?
No thank you! Scratch the back of any swine
That roots up gold for me? Tickle the horns
Of Mammon with my left hand, while my right
Too proud to know his partner's business,
Takes in the fee? No thank you! Use the fire
God gave me to burn incense all day long
Under the nose of wood and stone? No thank you!
Shall I go leaping into ladies' laps
And licking fingers?-or-to change the form-
Navigating with madrigals for oars,
My sails full of the sighs of dowagers?
No thank you! Publish verses at my own
Expense? No thank you! Be the patron saint
Of a small group of literary souls
Who dine together every Tuesday? No
I thank you! Shall I labor night and day
To build a reputation on one song,
And never write another? Shall I find
True genius only among Geniuses,
Palpitate over little paragraphs,
And struggle to insinuate my name
In the columns of the Mercury?
No thank you! Calculate, scheme, be a ~ Edmond Rostand

Why had he committed this terrible sin? Everything in the world was insignificant compared to what he had lost. Everything in the world is insignificant compared to the truth and purity of one small man – even the empire stretching from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean, even science itself.
Then he realized that it still wasn't too late. He still had the strength to lift up his head, to remain his mother's son.
And he wasn't going to try to console himself or justify what he had done. He wanted this mean, cowardly act to stand all his life as a reproach; day and night it would be something to bring him back to himself. No, no, no! He didn't want to strive to be a hero – and then preen himself over his courage.
Every hour, every day, year in, year out, he must struggle to be a man, struggle for his right to be pure and kind. He must do this with humility. And if it came to it, he mustn't be afraid even of death; even then he must remain a man.
'Well then, we'll see,' he said to himself. 'Maybe I do have enough strength. Your strength, Mother... ~ Vasily Grossman

There are some families in which, at 9:00 at night, the father starts to hit the wine and the mother the ironing, far away from the fate of the children, who play in the yard, pretending to be hurt, or in the rooms in the dark, or in the bathroom making soap bubbles, or in the kitchen making odd deserts out of sour milk...There are also families that remember their dead at this hour, an aura of sorrow dominating their faces. No one plays, no one talks: the adults write letters that no one will read, the children ask questions that no one will answer. ~ Alejandro Zambra

Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand and strive, until at last rage draw out of thee that dream-power which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending all limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of the whole river of electricity. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

She is her odd self. The kiln has been fired. She is a person persnickity about keeping her house clean, but not above spitting on her desk to rub out a coffee stain. She will never be an athlete, or a mathematician, or a skinny person, or someone whose heart isn't snagged by the sight of fireflies on a summer night and the lilting cadence of a few good lines of poetry. ~ Elizabeth Berg

It was the moths that first revealed the change. Grey-tipped whispers in the moonlit night. Two or three here, a single one there. White ones slipping through the darkness, silent and seemingly harmless, but present. Growing in numbers until they erupted the quiet like flutters of falling ash. There was a music in their silence. The kind of music that attached itself to hums and vibrations in the waters of the earth.

The hums, the vibrations, all but imperceptible. With the dawn the moths vanished, leaving a broken land in their wake. The Elian River leaked out into fissures of streams and brooks that first appeared as watery cracks throughout the Faeran Valley. So small at first, we didn't recognize the difference.

But as the months and years passed, the Elian slipped further and deeper into the growing fractures of earth the moths had left. Trails of watery branches and veins that broke the ground until it couldn't sustain life any longer.

This is what we have against the Bremistans. The land is delicate now, brittle like old bones. And I fear it is aging beyond our ability to heal it.... ~ Debi Cimo

Later that night, feeling restless, I get out of bed, creep into Linus's room, and watch him sleeping in his crib. He's lying on his back, wearing blue feety pajamas, one arm up over his head. I listen to his deep-sleep exhales. Even years past those fragile newborn months, it still gives my maternal ears relief and peace to hear the sounds of my children breathing when they're asleep. His orange nukie is in his mouth, the silky edge of his favorite blanket is touching his cheek, and Bunny is lying limp across his chest. He's surrounded by every kind of baby security paraphernalia imaginable, and yet none of it protected him from what could have happened today. ~ Lisa Genova

Soon, things were heating up in the kitchen. The first course was a variation on a French recipe that had been around since Escoffier, Baccala Brandade. Angelina created a silky forcemeat with milk, codfish, olive oil, pepper, and slow-roasted garlic, a drizzle of lemon juice, and a shower of fresh parsley, then served it as a dip with sliced sourdough and warmed pita-bread wedges, paired with glasses of bubbly Prosecco.
The second course had been a favorite of her mother's called Angels on Horseback- freshly shucked oysters, wrapped in thin slices of prosciutto, then broiled on slices of herb-buttered bread. When the oysters cooked, they curled up to resemble tiny angels' wings. Angelina accented the freshness of the oyster with a dab of anchovy paste and wasabi on each hors d'oeuvre. She'd loved the Angels since she was a little girl; they were a heavenly mouthful.
This was followed by a Caesar salad topped with hot, batter-dipped, deep-fried smelts. Angelina's father used to crunch his way through the small, silvery fish like French fries. Tonight, Angelina arranged them artfully around mounds of Caesar salad on each plate and ushered them out the door.
For the fifth course, Angelina had prepared a big pot of her Mediterranean Clam Soup the night before, a lighter version of Manhattan clam chowder. The last two courses were Parmesan-Stuffed Poached Calamari over Linguine in Red Sauce, and the piece de resistance, Broiled Flounder with a Coriander Reduction. ~ Brian O'Reilly

I was being sincere. Hold on to it as long as you can, Lark. Life knocks the stuffing out of you
eventually. Look at me. Look at Cade. As long as things are simple, keep them that way. As long as
unrequited liking is the least of your worries ... it's not so bad."
"It feels bad."
"I know. Take comfort in the fact that that actually makes you pretty normal."
"Not comforted."
He laughed. "That's normal too."
"Shut up."
"Love you too." He didn't say it often enough. But it had never been easy for him to say.
That earned him a smile. "I do. Love you, you know. Thanks for trying. And thanks for ... being
willing to kill someone for me."
"It's what brothers are for. 'Night ~ Maisey Yates

Ain't it queer that she'd take to stones, bugs, and butterflies, and save them. Now they are going to bring her the very thing she wants the worst. Lord, but this is a funny world when you get to studying! Looks like things didn't all come by accident. Looks as if there was a plan back of it, and somebody driving that knows the road, and how to handle the lines. Anyhow, Elnora's in the wagon, and when I get out in the night and the dark closes around me, and I see the stars, I don't feel so cheap. ~ Gene Stratton-Porter

It was almost a mystical experience. I do not know how else to put it. My mind outran time as he neared, and it was as though I had an eternity to ponder the approach of this man who was my brother. His garments were filthy, his face blackened, the stump of his right arm raised, gesturing anywhere. The great beast that he rode was striped, black and red, with a wild red mane and tail. But it really was a horse, and its eyes rolled and there was foam at its mouth and its breathing was painful to hear. I saw then that he wore his blade slung across his back, for its haft protruded high above his right shoulder. Still slowing, eyes fixed upon me, he departed the road, bearing slightly toward my left, jerked the reins once and released them, keeping control of the horse with his knees. His left hand went up in a salute-like movement that passed above his head and seized the hilt of his weapon. It came free without a sound, describing a beautiful arc above him and coming to rest in a lethal position out from his left shoulder and slanting back, like a single wing of dull steel with a minuscule line of edge that gleamed like a filament of mirror. The picture he presented was burned into my mind with a kind of magnificence, a certain splendor that was strangely moving. The blade was a long, scythe like affair that I had seen him use before. Only then we had stood as allies against a mutual foe I had begun to believe unbeatable. Benedict had proved otherwise that night. Now that I sa ~ Roger Zelazny

Well, this has been super fucking weird, April May, thank you for calling me out into the chill of the night to make a robot video with you. ~ Hank Green

Sex always has consequences. When Hitler's mother spread her legs that night, she effectively canceled out the spreading of fifteen to twenty million other pairs of legs. ~ George Carlin

I'll take you home," I say, and my words are simple, obvious. I'm surprised when she follows me to the passenger door of the Merc and slips into the seat without hesitation, but she seems dazed somehow. Naïve, maybe. Maybe that's what got her into this mess in the first place. I suspect as much.
Young, naïve and vulnerable.
No way should she be out alone this late at night. No way should she be here, in this shithole part of Brighton. I feel the anger, at some unknown parents who should be worried sick, parents who should have taught her more fucking sense.
A father who should be driving around looking for his daughter, who should be protecting her from pieces of shit like that fucking waster back there.
I ignore the twitch in my jaw. Push aside that feeling.
She needs a ride home. Just a ride home. ~ Jade West

I am a plant and I have a fragile green stem and my flower is still in the pod on the top of the stalk, unopened, when the dawn strolls in over the horizon. My blossom spreads out during the day and it goes into the pod at night and then it goes again the next day and all of the days. ~ Jenny Slate

Studios are so used to digital now, and there is a mythology that it's cheaper. But it's really not cheaper. For instance, digital is great for night exteriors; everybody knows it's a video tap, so it's very responsive to light. So you can go out at night, shoot with digital, and it's gorgeous, beautiful to look at. ~ Don Scardino

When I got married and had a child and went to work, my day was all day, all night. You lose your sense of balance. That was in the late '60s, '70s, women went to work, they went crazy. They thought the workplace was much more exciting than the home. They thought the family could wait. And you know what? The family can't wait. And women have now found that out. It all has to do with women, or the homemaker leaving the home and realizing that where they've gone is not as fabulous, or as rewarding, or as self-fulfilling as the balance between the workplace and the home place. ~ Martha Stewart

I remember she sang the opening aria from Her Last Nocturne and I saw the night sky pour out of her mouth. Every time I wemt to hear her sing afterward, even months afterward, I saw the same thing. Blackness and stars flooding her mouth and splashing onto the boards in great gouts. Galaxies and the void dripping off her chin. Her teeth burning. I told her about it on a night in December and she whispered I know it, baby. I see it, too. That's my insides coming out. ~ Catherynne M. Valente

My biggest pet peeve are just girls who go to sports bars who have no intention on caring what teams are playing, like they're looking for just a night out. That drives me more crazy than anything else. Like, don't pretend to be a sports fan. ~ Jerry Ferrara

It is so still and transcendent, the cypress trees poise like flames of forgotten darkness, that should have been blown out at the end of the summer. For as we have candles to light the darkness of night, so the cypresses are candles to keep the darkness aflame in the full sunshine. ~ D.H. Lawrence

With Hairspray, we had a great experience. I always think of the last time I saw Divine: He was in the last booth in the back of the Odeon. Now every time I go in there, I look at that table. It was a wonderful night.Hairspray had been out a week; it was a hit. If I had to pick a night that was going to be the last night. ~ John Waters

The places we are born come back. They disguise themselves as migraines, stomach aches, insomnia. They are the way we sometimes wake falling, fumbling for the bedside lamp, certain everything we've built has gone in the night. We become strangers to the places we are born. They would not recognize us but we will always recognize them. They are marrow to us; they are bred into us. If we were turned inside out there would be maps cut into the wrong side of our skin. Just so we can find our way back. Except, cut wrong side into my skin are not canals and train tracks and a boat, but always: you. ~ Daisy Johnson

Emma?" "Hmm?" "You took everything I told you really well." "I've never understood the woe-is-me thing. I mean, the hottest guy in town just told me he wants me badly enough to bite me and make me like him, and now he wants to drag me home and ravish me. I'm going to, what, run screaming into the night? Oh, no! I'm a Puma now! My life is over! Sob!" Emma rolled her eyes. "I mean, don't get me wrong, it's freaking me out a bit, and it's probably going to cost me a fortune in bikini waxing, but it's not the end of my world." Max nearly ran off the road. "You get a bikini wax?" "Wouldn't you like to know?" "Hell yes. ~ Dana Marie Bell

Why say 'the world is complicated' and stop there? I say the world is complicated but not incomprehensible. Only you have to look at it steadily. Isn't it true a person's shoulder hurts sometimes because they've got a disorder in their stomach? And then what does a stupid doctor do? Order massages for the shoulder. What does a wise doctor do? He takes time to think about it, watches the patient carefully, gives him some medicine for his stomach, and the pain in his shoulder goes away. Better yet, he explains to his patients what they have to do to keep their stomach from getting out of order. One day his patient's going to get old and die, just like himself, just like us, and one day, incredible as it may seem, the Empire's going to die, and how foolish people are who whine about it, and whine about how complicated the world is. A seamstress's room is complicated too, but even at night, with the lights out, she can reach out in the darkness and find the yellow thread, the needles, the pincushion. We couldn't, because we don't know the order things are in, in the seamstress's room. And we can't see the order the world is in. But all the same it's there, right under our eyes. ~ Angélica Gorodischer

I got into a brawl one night in a saloon in Greenwich Village. Elia Kazan, a great director, saw me put out a couple of hecklers and figures there was some Big Daddy in me, just lyin' dormant. And out it came. People still do call me Big Daddy, but to me, inside, I'm no Big Daddy at all. ~ Burl Ives

I build each one of my days out of hope
and I give that hope your name

'cause I know there is strength
in the differences between us
and I know there is comfort
where we overlap

come here
stand in front of the light
stand still
so I can see your sillouette
I hope
you have got all night
'cause I'm not done looking,
no, I'm not done looking yet ~ Ani DiFranco

She stared at him. His eyes were glazed, glassy, blazing with triumph behind his glasses, and as his lip curled in a sneer, she felt it happen.
Her love for him - whatever shred of it was left - was gone. It had slunk away into the night. It would die out there, and she would not be sorry to leave it, at the side of the road, in a no-name town surrounded by nothing but blackness.
Quietly, she said, "Knew what, exactly?"
He licked his lips.
"I knew you'd never turn into such a whore without a little help."
"Good-bye."
The word was out, and she was gone. ~ Kat Rosenfield