Aisle Quotes

I couldn't let go of the thought that it had, in fact, been he, restless and moody Heathcliff. Day after day, he floated through all the Wal-Marts in America, searching for me in a million lonely aisles. ~ Marisha Pessl

Jacob smiled from ear to ear when he shook the man's hand on stage. The man then handed him a trophy. "Tell the audience about your book."
My little brother confidently walked up to a microphone his height and beamed to the crowd. "I wrote about the person I love the most, my older brother, Noah. We don't live together so I wrote what I imagine he does when we're not together."
"And what is that?" prodded the stout man.
"He's a superhero who saves people in danger, because he saved me and my brother from dying in a fire a couple of years ago. Noah is better than Batman." The crowd chuckled.
"I love you, too, lil' bro." I couldn't help it. To see him standing there, still worshipping me like he did when he was five … it was too much.
Jacob's smile reached a whole new level of excitement. "Noah!" He pointed right to me. "That's Noah. That's my brother, Noah!" Ignoring his foster parents, Jacob flew off the stage and ran down the middle aisle.
Joe lowered his head and Carrie rubbed her eyes. Jacob raced into my arms and the crowd erupted into applause.
"I've missed you, Noah." Jacob's voice broke, bringing tears to my eyes. I couldn't cry. Not in front of Jacob and not in front of Mrs. Collins. I needed to be a man and stay strong.
"I've missed you, too, bro. I'm so proud of you." ~ Katie McGarry

Presumptuous for me to say, but at least - at a minimum - I've been able to influence the direction of the Democratic Party on foreign policy. And I've been relatively - presumptuous to say - relatively successful legislatively in the Senate, being able to win a lot of Republican friends, and being able to cross the aisle. ~ Joe Biden

How cool it is to see a bride walking down the aisle with a beautiful long gown with beautiful layers of tulle and organza, unveiling their mini dress at the party? ~ Reem Acra

Faelan stuffed his mouth with the granola bar like a starving toddler and moved down the aisle with the loaded cart. Bree grabbed an empty one and squeaked back. She rounded the corner and stopped. Faelan wasn't chewing. That was a good sign. The package he was reading wasn't. He glanced up, mouth parted, eyes dark, and the hand holding the box of extra large condoms darted behind his back. ~ Anita Clenney

I looked around the store and what I saw was not very encouraging. There were rows and rows of violent toys ... aisle after aisle of training devices for recreational slaughter. No wonder our world was such a mean and violent place ... if we teach children that killing is fun, can we really be surprised if now and then someone is smart enough to learn? ~ Jeff Lindsay

I just want to hear the true voices of women self-expressing - smart ones, stupid ones, ugly ones, beautiful ones, good ones, bad ones, fat ones, thin ones, all of it - until the profound silence that has resounded throughout history is filled with a healthy chorus coming from our side of the aisle. ~ Liz Phair

I mean, you can't walk down the aisle in Westminster Abbey in a strapless dress, it just won't happen - it has to suit the grandeur of that aisle, it's enormous. ~ Bruce Oldfield

A few years have gone and come around when we were sittin' at our favorite spot in town and you looked at me, got down on one knee. Take me back to the time when we walked down the aisle; the whole town came and our mammas cried. And you said "I do.", and I did, too. Take me home where we met so many years before; we'll rock our babies on the very front porch. After all this time, you and I. And I'll be eighty-seven you'll be eighty-nine, I'll still look at you like the stars that shine. In the sky. Oh, my my my. ~ Taylor Swift

But men are bound to say
Some things that, though untrue,
Will get you down the aisle
Until you say "I do. ~ Joyce Rachelle

If there's anything romcoms have taught us about spontaneous gifting, it's that the big expensive presents are often a sign of guilt. But not the small, sort of rubbish presents. It seems to me that a cheap bag of crisps says a whole lot more than a gold necklace. It says 'You occupy such a vast space in my mind, I think of you so constantly, that my day-to-day life throws up constant reminders of you.' That person is, subconsciously or not, considered in everything you do and everywhere you go. Even in somewhere as mundane as the supermarket snack aisle. ~ Ali Pantony

I wish that the founders had had the foresight to hang on to and enshrine another one of Independence Hall's chairs, the one that Benjamin Rush mentioned in a letter to John Adams about how Thomas Jefferson objected when his colleagues in the Continental Congress considered a fast day, which Jefferson pooh-poohed as too religious. Rush reminded Adams, 'You rose and defended the motion, and in reply to Mr. Jefferson's objections to Christianity you said you were sorry to hear such sentiments …. You suspected, you told me, that you had offended him, but that he soon convinced you to the contrary by crossing the room and taking a seat in the chair next to you.'

Who knows what happened to that particular chair. … But it might have been a more helpful, sobering symbolic object than that chair with the rising sun. Then perhaps citizens making pilgrimages to Independence Hall could file past the chair Jefferson walked across an aisle to sit in, and we could all ponder the amount of respect, affection, and wishy-washy give-and-take needed to keep a house divided in reasonable repair. ~ Sarah Vowell

Muslim Girlhood

I never found myself in a pink aisle.
There was no box for me
with glossy cellophane like heat
and a neat packet of instructions in six languages.

Evenings, I watched TV like a religion I moderately believed.
I watched to see how the others lived, not knowing I was the other - no laugh track in my living room, no tidy and punctual resolution waiting.

I took tests in which Jane & William had so many apples.

I fasted through birthday parties
and Christmas parties
and ate leftover tajine at plastic lunch tables,
picked at pepperoni from slices like blemishes and tried not to complain.

I prayed at the wrong times in the wrong tongue.
I hungered for Jell-O & Starburts & margarine;
could read mono- and diglycerides by five,
knew what gelatin meant, and
where it came from. ~ Leila Chatti

His own parents, the estimable Gilchrists, a couple who had taken the 'till death' part of their own wedding vows so seriously he wouldn't be surprised if they one day throttled one another, had naturally wangled the next best seat in the house: row two, on the aisle. ~ Ally Blake

I strongly believe that crossing the aisle for the good of the American people is more important than party politics. ~ Gabrielle Giffords

I really am sorry, Micky, for what it's worth. You were the greatest thing that ever happened to me. You were my life. I mean, I know I didn't show that to you, and I'll forever hate myself for that. But you need to know, I loved you so fucking much. I still love you. Whenever I look at my future, it was always you... When I thought about my life... You were the one walking down the aisle towards me, raising our kids. I always smiled to myself when I thought about it, that it was you that was going to be there for me every night, when I got home from work, you in your study, writing your books. A few kids, a decent house. It was perfect in my mind. You were perfect. You are perfect and I threw it all away, because I'm such a fucking asshole, and I can't take it back. I can't fucking take it back, and I can't have you back, and all of this... this life I have, none of this shit is worth it, not without you. ~ Jay McLean

What's a horizon?' Lazlo asked, straight-faced. 'Is it like the end of an aisle of books? ~ Laini Taylor

I belong to the Great Church which holds the world within its starlit aisles; that claims the great and good of every race and clime; that finds with joy the grain of gold in every creed, and floods with light and love the germs of good in every soul. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

Early in the boob-emerging years, I had no boobs, and I was touchy about it. Remember in middle school algebra class, you'd type 55378008 on your calculator, turn it upside down, and hand it to the flat-chested girl across the aisle? I was that girl, you bi-yotch. I would have died twice if any of the boys had mentioned my booblets.
Last year, I thought my boobs had progressed quite nicely. And I progressed from the one-piece into a tankini. But I wasn't quite ready for any more exposure. I didn't want the boys to treat me like a girl.
Now I did. So today I'd worn a cute little bikini. Over that, I still wore Adam's cutoff jeans. Amazingly, they looked sexy, riding low on my hips, when I traded the football T-shirt for a pink tank that ended above my belly button and hugged my figure. I even had a little cleavage. I was so proud. Sean was going to love it.
Mrs. Vader stared at my chest, perplexed. Finally she said, "Oh, I get it. You're trying to look hot."
"Thank you!" Mission accomplished.
"Here's a hint. Close your legs."
I snapped my thighs together on the stool. People always scolded me for sitting like a boy. Then I slid off the stool and stomped to the door in a huff. "Where do you want me?"
She'd turned back to the computer. "You've got gas."
Oh, goody. I headed out the office door, toward the front dock to man the gas pumps. This meant at some point during the day, one of the boys would look around the marina office and ask, " ~ Jennifer Echols

A moose whats into a convenient store and asks the lady who works there,"Where are the potatoes?". She says, "Aisle 8,". He goes to aisle 8 and there are no potatoes! ~ Js Martin

The one thing I couldn't wait for was to watch Kacie walk down the aisle toward me, hold my hand, and swear to love me for the rest of her life. Everything else would forever pale in comparison to that moment. ~ Beth Ehemann

The minister said you could kiss the bride - not inhale the bride, she whispered sharply as they plunged down the aisle. ~ Suzanne Brockmann

I've sold shoes, hawked newspapers, jerked sodas, gazed rapturously at the tinsel dream at the end of a runway from my usher's aisle in a burley-cue, drove a truck - then because I didn't like being pushed around, started pushing a pencil around. ~ Burne Hogarth

At the Unitarian Universalist Christmas pageant in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it didn't matter that Mary insisted on keeping her nails painted black or that Joseph had come out of the closet. On December 25 at seven and nine p.m., three wise women would follow the men down the aisle -- one wearing a kimono and another, African garb; instead of myrrh they would bring chicken soup, instead of frankincense they'd play lullabies. The shepherds had a line on protecting the environment and the innkeeper held a foreclosure sign. No one quite believed in God and no one quite didn't -- so they made it about the songs and the candles and the pressing together of bodies on lacquered wooden pews. ~ Marina Keegan

I saw his eyes widen and his mouth fall open and his expression change from stoic to stunned.

Quinn Sullivan had lost his composure.

He looked completely astonished and it took my entire slow march down the aisle for him to recover ~ Penny Reid

Was it possible that they'd crossed without realizing it, each one rounding the corner of the aisle the other one had just vacated at exactly the same time? ~ Tom Perrotta

I am very self-conscious as I step over the backpacks strewn in the aisle. Do not fall.Do not fall. ~ Alecia Whitaker

In the Senate, where 60 votes are required to do anything important, you have to work with your colleagues on both sides of the aisle. ~ Lamar Alexander

And ultimately, they find out everything: How you chew, how you sip, how you hum, how you dance. How you smell at every point in the day, how you are on the phone with your mother, the fact that many of your friends are shallow, that you always have to sit on the aisle, how you never really listen, how whiny you get when you travel, how you're not gracious to her friends when they call, how certain game shows make you really really happy, how cranky you get because you're too stupid to remember to eat, how you manage to get confrontational only when it's with the absolute wrong person to be yelling at, how you don't like the way you look in any picture you've taken since 1973, how you're unable to get off the phone when you're running late because you don't have the ability to say, "This isn't a good time; can I call you back?" How you have to lick certain fruits before actually eating them, how you have no ability to save receipts - all these things, and they still want to sign on. They still like you. ~ Paul Reiser

The nation, as you know, is at a critical point. At a time like this we can't risk partisan bickering and political posturing.'Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people's work and we citizens also have to rise to the occasion. ~ Mitt Romney

They were properly mad in the Shakespearean sense, talking sense when you least expected it. In North London, where councillors once voted to change the name of the area to Nirvana, it is not unusual to walk the streets and be suddenly confronted by sage words from the chalkfaced, blue-lipped, or eyebrowless. From across the street or from the other end of a tube carriage they will use their schizophrenic talent for seeing connections in the random (for discerning the whole world in a grain of sand, for deriving narrative from nothing) to riddle you, to rhyme you, to strip you down, to tell you who you are and where you're going (usually Baker Street - the great majority of modernday seers travel the Metropolitan Line) and why. But as a city we are not appreciative of these people. Our gut instinct is that they intend to embarrass us, that they're out to shame us somehow as they lurch down the train aisle, bulbous-eyed and with carbuncled nose, preparing to ask us, inevitably, what we are looking at. What the fuck we are looking at. As a kind of preemptive defense mechanism, Londoners have learned not to look, never to look, to avoid eyes at all times so that the dreaded question "What you looking at?" and its pitiful, gutless, useless answer - "Nothing" - might be avoided. ~ Zadie Smith

Then she told me that the Americans with Disabilities Act was recently interpreted as allowing "people with anxiety disorders to travel with an emotional-support pony on airlines." So basically I could bring a goddamn pony on board with me. I'm pretty sure a pony wouldn't fit under my seat or in my lap, but I rather liked the idea of a small medicinal horse standing in the aisle beside me while I braided his mane. ~ Jenny Lawson

Believe it or not, one of the things I try to do around here is try to look for opportunities to work with people across the aisle. I know that's not the common narrative. But the truth is if you want to get anything done, that's an absolute requirement. ~ John Cornyn

Sometimes you almost forgot: that you didn't look like everyone else. In homeroom or at the drugstore or at the supermarket, you listened to morning announcements or dropped off a roll of film or picked up a carton of eggs and felt like just another someone in the crowd. Sometimes you didn't think about it at all. And then sometimes you noticed the girl across the aisle watching, the pharmacist watching, the checkout boy watching, and you saw yourself reflected in their stares: incongruous. Catching the eye like a hook. Every time you saw yourself from the outside, the way other people saw you, you remembered all over again. ~ Celeste Ng

Cashier: Yes, can I help you?
Tee-Ay: Yeah, I need a rattle.
Cashier: Aisle eight.
Tee-Ay: I'm looking for the kind that'll give a fatherless black baby a future, you got any of those?
Cashier: Girl, if we sold those, do you think I'd be workin' here? ~ Alan Sitomer

What we've learned is that if you can make the right decision in the supermarket aisle, it's a heck of a lot easier to make a good decision when you reach in your cupboard when you're craving a snack at eight o'clock at night. ~ Tom Rath

The white woman across the aisle from me says 'Look,
look at all the history, that house
on the hill there is over two hundred years old, '
as she points out the window past me

into what she has been taught. I have learned
little more about American history during my few days
back East than what I expected and far less
of what we should all know of the tribal stories

whose architecture is 15,000 years older
than the corners of the house that sits
museumed on the hill. 'Walden Pond, '
the woman on the train asks, 'Did you see Walden Pond? '

and I don't have a cruel enough heart to break
her own by telling her there are five Walden Ponds
on my little reservation out West
and at least a hundred more surrounding Spokane,

the city I pretended to call my home. 'Listen, '
I could have told her. 'I don't give a shit
about Walden. I know the Indians were living stories
around that pond before Walden's grandparents were born

and before his grandparents' grandparents were born.
I'm tired of hearing about Don-fucking-Henley saving it, too,
because that's redundant. If Don Henley's brothers and sisters
and mothers and father hadn't come here in the first place

then nothing would need to be saved.'
But I didn't say a word to the woman about Walden
Pond because she smiled so much and seemed delighted
that I thought to b ~ Sherman Alexie

Each time you walk down the aisle of your Home Depot or Walgreens, try to remember that behind every label and package is someone's heart and soul, and that efforts in man-years or decades are behind each product. ~ Clifford Spiro

You can't just come out and say what you have to say. That's what people do on airplanes, when a man plops down next to you in the aisle seat of your flight to New York, spills peanuts all over the place (back when the cheapskate airlines at least gave you peanuts), and tells you about what his boss did to him the day before. You know how your eyes glaze over when you hear a story like that? That's because of the way he's telling his story. You need a good way to tell your story. ~ Adair Lara

They" hate us because they feel--and "they" are not wrong--that it is within our power to do so much more, and that we practice a kind of passive-aggressive violence on the Third World. We do this by, for example, demonizing tobacco as poison here while promoting cigarettes in Asia; inflating produce prices by paying farmers not to grow food as millions go hungry worldwide; skimping on quality and then imposing tariffs on foreign products made better or cheaper than our own; padding corporate profits through Third World sweatshops; letting drug companies stand by as millions die of AIDS in Africa to keep prices up on lifesaving drugs; and on and on.

We do, upon reaching a very high comfort level, mostly choose to go from ten to eleven instead of helping another guy far away go from zero to one.

We even do it in our own country. Barbara Ehrenreich's brilliant book Nickel and Dimed describes the impossibility of living with dignity or comfort as one of the millions of minimum-wage workers in fast food, aisle-stocking and table-waiting jobs. Their labor for next to nothing ensures that well-off people can be a little more pampered.

So if we do it to our own, what chance do foreigners have? ~ Bill Maher

I look at these people and can't quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention? To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it? To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked. ~ David Sedaris

- Mr. Alakbarov, how much is the rent for this fantastic apartment?
- Madam, this is the red wine aisle of the grocery store. ~ Fuad Alakbarov

Sometimes heartbreak is as simple as staring at the shelf of chocolate in the grocery store aisle and not knowing which one to choose because you used to always get her favorite. ~ Courtney Peppernell

Sean started the engine and putted through the marina waters, and Adam had the nerve to plop onto the seat across the aisle from me. Sean reached the edge of the idle zone and cranked the boat into top speed. Adam called to me so softly I could barely catch his words over the motor, "Close your legs."
"What for? I waxed!" I looked down to make sure. This was okay now, because Sean was facing the other way and couldn't hear me in the din. Indeed, I was clean. I spread my legs even wider, put my arms on the back of the seat, and generally took up as much room as possible, like a boy. I glanced back over at Adam. "Does it make you uncomfortable for me to sit this way?"
He watched me warily. "Yes."
"May I suggest that this is your problem and not mine?"
He licked his lips and bent toward me. "If it keeps Sean from asking you out, it's going to be your problem, and you're going to make it my problem."
"Speaking of which," I said, crossing my legs like a girl. "Thanks for staying out of my way. How the hell am I supposed to get Sean to ask me out when he's all pissy?"
"You wanted me to lose to him at team calisthenics? That was too sweet to miss."
"You didn't have to win by quite so much, Adam. You knew I needed him in a good mood. You didn't have to rub it in."
Adam grinned. "And you wanted me to stop growing?"
"Do not make a joke about your size. If you can't think of anything to talk about except your large size, please say nothing at ~ Jennifer Echols

Do you think that guy's sweet on her?" I asked, pointing to the grey-spotted spider, momentarily forgetting my darker concerns.

"Most certainly." Seba grinned. "I do not think spiders know love as we do. But he remained by her side throughout the fighting and did not leave when she decided to stay. I think they wish to couple."

I smiled at the absurd notion of Madam Octa walking down an aisle in a tiny white dress, Mr. Crepsley waiting at the end to give her away. ~ Darren Shan

It was clear that Chloe, even down to the last moment, was working something out. Her eyes were closed, her face arranged in a look of concentration as she sifted through her thoughts. Just as clear was the moment she figured it all out. Lifting her head, her eyes moved up the aisle to me, and it was as if time stopped and everything else fell away. I could feel myself smile, then see it reflected in the way her entire face seemed to light up, and I did the only thing I could think. I whispered the words, Come here. ~ Christina Lauren

It has been said that a bride's attitude towards her betrothed can be summed up in three words: Aisle. Alter. Hymn. ~ Frank Muir

She hardly felt the steps down the aisle, though she did feel the weight of all eyes on her as she walked. It was over in what seemed far too little time, and then her dad handed her off to Shane, and her heart almost stopped as his eyes met hers. ~ Rachel Caine

To think there are men who dare so defile a church, a sacred sanctuary dedicated to God. We have to hold up our skirts and walk tiptoe, so covered is the floor, the aisle and pews, with the dark shower of tobacco juice. ~ Mary Boykin Chesnut

When you are traveling by bus, it is always difficult to decide whether you should sit in a seat by the window, a seat on the aisle, or a seat in the middle. If you take an aisle seat, you have the advantage of being able to stretch your legs whenever you like, but you have the disadvantage of people walking by you and they can accidentally step on your toes or spill something on your clothing. If you take a window seat, you have the advantage of getting a clear view of the scenery, but you have the disadvantage of watching insects die as they hit the glass. If you take a middle seat, you have neither of these advantages, and you have the added disadvantage of people leaning all over you when they fall asleep. You can see at once why you should always arrange to hire a limousine or rent a mule rather than take the bus to your destination. ~ Lemony Snicket

The drag queen walks into a Catholic church as the priest is coming down the aisle swinging the incense pot. And he says to the priest, Oh, honey, I love your dress, but did you know your handbag's on fire? ~ Garrison Keillor

It's not you it's me' she couldn't use that line. Even though it really was her and not him, everyone thought that line really meant, 'it's not me. It's definitely you.'
There was still a part of her that thought perhaps she shouldn't do it at all. In Andrew she had all the raw ingredients for a perfect life. Here was a grown-up, good-looking, solvent, generous, warm-hearted man who adored her. A man who adored her even when she looked like the loch ness monsters little sister and had a terrible temper to match.
It didn't take a huge leap of imagination to see Andrew standing at the top of the aisle, looking back at lou walking towards him with a grin as wide as the English channel. She could see him painting the nursery yellow; pushing a pram that contained two lovely brown haired twins (one boy, one girl); presenting her woth an eternity ring on their tenth anniversary, taking the twins to school, teaching them how to play football on long, summer holidays in Tuscany, giving the daughter away at her own wedding, cosying up to Lou on the veranda of their perfect house as their retirement stretched ahead of them- a long straight road of well-planned for, financially comfortable and perpetually sunny days.
'oh god' Lou poured herself a vodka. ~ Chris Manby

We cannot meet 'em [Democrates] halfway. We can't cross the aisle. These people, I'm talking about the left wherever you find them, the Democrats, they have to be defeated. ~ Rush Limbaugh

To be a part of your biggest days - you know, your child being conceived or born, or you walking down the aisle - there's really nothing sweeter. That's the truth. ~ Robin Thicke

A tall blonde entered the room, wearing a yellow sash that marked her as advocate. Two men followed her, carrying papers. She was lean and long-legged, with a graceful neck and nice ankles, and William took a minute to watch her come down the aisle. She looked high-strung and difficult. Still, good legs.
Mmm, smelled of mimosa, too. Expensive scent. Cerise smelled better, when clean. ~ Ilona Andrews

The cheerful trumpet strains of Purcell's "Prince of Denmark March" sang out as Prince Charles, flanked by Princes Andrew and Edward, strode confidently up the aisle, smiling and nodding to his friends in the congregation. He seemed very much at ease as he took his place to await his bride.
Then . . . we heard the trumpet fanfare that heralded Diana's entrance. We could not see her arrival from our seats to the side. Very clearly, though, we could hear the murmurs and gasps of approval inside the church along with the cheers and applause outside, as the entire world first glimpsed the bride in her fairy-tale dress.
Diana looked an absolute vision in her cloud of tulle, taffeta, and lace, with the Spencer diamond tiara sparkling above her veil. Lovely, innocent, and demure, she more than met her subjects' expectations that glorious morning.
Holding her father's arm, Diana progressed slowly and beautifully up the aisle to the rustle of silk and the scrutiny of the congregation. I recognized the processional march as Jeremiah Clarke's "Trumpet Voluntary" from my own wedding. She appeared outwardly composed, almost deadly calm, with an endearing tentative quality to her smile. I felt certain she was trembling inside. I was quaking in sympathy for her.
It may have been simply the effect of the artificial light, but I thought Diana looked rather pale and tense under her veil. Even Pat noticed. He turned to me and whispered, "She looks as nervous as you did, almo ~ Mary Robertson

Though Beckett remained confined to the same claustrophobic hotel room that had housed him for weeks now, he'd attended the wedding in every sense but literally.
He dressed for the occasion, and Eve helped him get his bow tie just right before she left, promising once again that her hummingbird pin would send him every detail it could.
Riveted to the live feed from Eve's transmitter on his hotel room TV, Beckett stood when the congregation stood, and he sat when they sat. And when he noticed that the camera had bounced even lower, Beckett knelt.
As Kyle came fluttering down the aisle in her simple blue dress, Beckett swore aloud in the empty room. Shit, Fairy Princess, you're an angel. ~ Debra Anastasia

It used to be you had real friends on the other side of the aisle. It's not like that anymore. Society has changed. The public is to blame as well. I think the people have gotten dumber. ~ Gary Ackerman

The last man she'd dated said something to her, shortly before they broke up: 'I don't know, maybe I'm boring, but I never really feel like you're there when we're out to dinner. You live in your head. I can't. No room for me in there. I don't know, maybe you'd be more interested in me if I were a book.'

She had hated him at the time, and hated herself a little, but later, looking back, Hutter had decided that even if that particular boyfriend had been a book, he would've been one from the Business & Finance aisle and she would've passed him by and looked for something in SF & Fantasy. ~ Joe Hill

DOCTOR AIN WAS recognized on the Omaha-Chicago flight. A biologist colleague from Pasadena came out of the toilet and saw Ain in an aisle seat. Five years before, this man had been jealous of Ain's huge grants. Now he nodded coldly and was surprised at the intensity of Ain's response. He almost turned back to speak, but he felt too tired; like nearly everyone, he was fighting the flu.

The stewardess handing out coats after they landed remembered Ain too: A tall thin nondescript man with rusty hair. He held up the line staring at her; since he already had his raincoat with him she decided it was some kooky kind of pass and waved him on.

She saw Ain shamble off into the airport smog, apparently alone. Despite the big Civil Defense signs, O'Hare was late getting underground. No one noticed the woman.

- 'The Last Flight of Doctor Ain ~ James Tiptree Jr.

The building has settled into itself so that when you walk down the aisle, you can hear it yielding to the burden of your weight. It's a pleasanter sound than an echo would be, an obliging, accommodating sound. You have to be there alone to hear it. Maybe it can't feel the weight of a child. But if it is still standing when you read this, and if you are not half a world away, sometime you might go there alone, just to see what I mean. After a while I did begin to wonder if I liked the church better with no people in it. I know they're planning to pull it down. They're waiting me out, which is kind of them. ~ Marilynne Robinson

In the United States Senate, we cannot do great things without reaching across the aisle and working together - and I look forward to the challenges ahead. ~ Richard Burr

Most satyrs excel at running away.
Gleeson Hedge, however, was not most satyrs. He grabbed a barrel brush from his cart, yelled, "DIE!" and charged the three-hundred-pound manager.
Even the automatons were too surprised to react, which probably saved Hedge's life. I grabbed the satyr's collar and dragged him backwards as the employees' first shots went wild, a barrage of bright orange discount stickers flying over our heads.
I pulled Hedge down the aisle as he launched a fierce kick, overturning his shopping trolley at our enemies' feet. Another discount sticker grazed my arm with the force of an angry Titaness's slap.
"Careful!" Macro yelled at his men. "I need Apollo in one piece, not half-off! ~ Rick Riordan

Just before the top of the hill she stopped, breathed deeply, and tried to muster her scattered sense of calm, like a bride checking her veil in the last mirror before the aisle. ~ Edward St. Aubyn

(Erin) 'What do you think gave you this interest?' Yep. There it was. 'I'm not saying anything bad about it. I just wonder what makes one person want to hit another. Did I not give you enough contact when you were young? Should I have breast-fed?'
(Derek)'I'm pretty sure it started when you left me in the bread aisle when I was two. I started thinking the only way to get people to notice me was to tie them up and whip them. ~ Lisa Henry

You remember what else I said to you that day in the drawing room," he said. "I want you to be happy, and him to be happy. And yet when you walk that aisle to meet him and join yourselves forever you will walk an invisible path of the shards of my heart, Tessa. I would give over my own life for either of yours. I would give over my own life for your happiness. I thought perhaps that when you told me you did not love me that my own feelings would fall away and atrophy, but they have not. They have grown every day. I love you now more desperately, this moment, than I have ever loved you before, and in an hour I will love you more than that. It is unfair to tell you this, I know, when you can do nothing about it." He took a shuddering breath. "How you must despise me. ~ Cassandra Clare

Aren't you tired of these career politicians on the left side of the aisle moralizing about the greed of the 'wealthy' when these same politicians habitually buy votes with borrowed dollars? Who are they to lecture those who actually produce and contribute to the economy? ~ David Limbaugh

Coup de foudre; perhaps it was real. One went from believing, when twenty, that it was the one kind of love that was real, to believing, once closer to forty, that it was not only fragile but false
the inferior, infantile, doomed love of twenty-year-olds. Somewhere between, the norms of one culture of love were discarded, and those of the other assumed. When did it happen, at midnight of one's thirty-first birthday? On the variable day that, while browsing a grocery-store aisle with a man, the repeating refrain of the rest of one's life for the first time resounds in one's ear? ~ Susan Choi

So what's the big emergency?" Jeffrey says. He jogs down the aisle of the Pink Garter toward where Christian and I are sitting, waiting for Angela, who uncharacteristically late. "I thought we weren't going to meet this week because we like, you know, spent all weekend together. I'm kind of sick of you people."
"Glad to see that you decided to grace us with your presence, anyway," Christian says. ~ Cynthia Hand

It's hard to get fluffed up about love anymore. I've lived it. I try to avoid it. If I'm extremely fond of a woman, if I think I might really wind up walking down the aisle again ... I go in another direction. ~ Phil Everly

Gus the driver is everywhere and yet he appears nowhere, not in portraits or photographs, not even in the stories of men like Barthelme and Carver, who were all about guys with jobs and prospects like Gus's but who insisted on more sorrow, more angst, than Gus remotely manifests. If Gus weeps sometimes for no reason, if he stands despairing in the aisle of a Wal-Mart, it is not apparent in his daily demeanor ... ~ Michael Cunningham

Over the last 30 odd years, Democrats have moved to the right and the right has moved into the mental hospital. So what we have is one perfectly good party for hedge fund managers, credit card companies, banks, defense contractors, big agriculture and the pharmaceutical lobby ... That's the Democrats. And they sit across the aisle from a small group of religious lunatics, flat-earthers and civil war re-enactors who mostly communicate by AM radio and call themselves the Republicans and who actually worry that Obama is a socialist. Socialist? He's not even a liberal. ~ Bill Maher

Letter 4

As I lay dreaming, Montezuma introduced himself and put his hand on my shoulder. The palm of the Aztec king felt like ancient papyrus.
When I looked up at him, I saw that his nose was chipped like that of a sphinx. His arms were like long ivory ropes that frayed into hands.
He led me down to the river, where we sat together and shared the river's silence. Then he spoke:
„Allow me to tell you my story. It may help you understand your own.
At dusk, in the year of one thousand rivers, the Spanish explorer Cortés arrived at the gates of my city. I welcomed him with open arms.
I showed Cortés hundreds of aviaries that had built in the city, and finally I took him to the most aviary of sighs. These birds carried only love letters.
Cortes laughed and said that all the bird songs made him feel like a virgin bride who is drunk with faith as she walks down the aisle of the church. On her wedding night, she undresses for her husband and he takes her in his arms. She believes everything is possible.
When Cortés stared straight into my eyes and said 'It is a night that is always colored in blood'." He paused for a long time before he spoke. Then he said, „Cortés returned with a small army of soldiers on horseback. When they ransacked the city, I was Cortes's own hand that lit the torch that set fire to the aviary of sighs.
The fires raged. The birds painted the blue sky black with the ashes of their wings. The gardens were redde ~ Gregory Colbert

When we walked down the aisle, they played Taco Bell's Canyon, Quinn says knowingly. (Named for its German composer, Johann TacoBell.) ~ Michael Lewis

I think that more and more you're going to see people of good will on their side of the aisle say you know what, we got to get off the bus here, this is not headed in the right direction. ~ David Axelrod

It looks like fallen petals, and it looks like rain. It looks like the sounds the birds make at dawn. It looks like the aisle of grocery stores when a song I love suddenly begins to play overhead, and I cannot help but dance a little dance. It looks like a sigh, a kiss, an unmade bed. It looks like Cheerios in a white bowl with a bit of silence on the side. It looks like a plain vanilla cupcake in white paper, a dance with the wind, pink toenails, warm socks. It looks like a fire against the cold of winter, and a deep lake cool against a summer sky. It looks like chick flicks, books that make you cry, and all the candles blown out on the first try. ~ D. Smith Kaich Jones

I've been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say "bless you"
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. "Don't die," we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don't want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, "Here,
have my seat," "Go ahead - you first," "I like your hat. ~ Danusha Laméris

Leaning toward a certain party is one thing (Matthew did it, Simon did it, and Jesus allowed it), but it is important to see that a partisan spirit can actually run against the Spirit of God. If there ever was a partisan crowd in the Bible, it was the crowd that pressured Pilate to crucify Jesus instead of Barabbas. Barabbas, a true criminal, went free while Jesus, an innocent man, was executed after having his impeccable character assassinated. This is the essence of partisanship. Partisans inflate the best features of their party while inflating the worst features, real or contrived, of the other party. They ignore the weaknesses of their own party while dismissing the other party's strengths. I have good friends on both sides of the political aisle. I trust them. Many of them - on both sides - have a strong commitment to their faith. Because of this I grow perplexed when Christian men and women willingly participate in spin - ready, willing, and armed to follow the world in telling half-truths to promote their candidates, while telling more half-truths to demonize their opponents. Have we forgotten that a half-truth is the equivalent of a full lie? What's more, political spin is polarizing even within the community of faith. ~ Scott Sauls

I want to make you happy. And yet when you walk in that aisle to meet him and join yourself forever you will walk of the invisible shards of my heart, Tessa. ~ Cassandra Clare

I turned around to see Jim standing in the aisle with a smirk and a box of tampons in his hand.
Very funny asshole. Looks like you're on the rag this week. Make sure to get yourself some Midol and a copy of Terms of Endearment so you can have yourself a good cry. ~ Tara Sivec

So here we are, in the family planning aisle with a cart full of sports drinks and our hands full of . . . "Trojans, Ramses, Magnum . . . Jeez, these are worse than names for muscle cars," Jase observes, sliding his finger along the display.
"They do sound sorta, well, forceful." I flip over the box I'm holding to read the instructions.
Jase glances up to smile at me. "Don't worry, Sam. It's just us."
"I don't get what half these descriptions mean . . . What's a vibrating ring?"
"Sounds like the part that breaks on the washing machine. What's extra-sensitive? That sounds like how we describe George."
I'm giggling. "Okay, would that be better or worse than 'ultimate feeling' - and look - there's 'shared pleasure' condoms and 'her pleasure' condoms. But there's no 'his pleasure.'"
"I'm pretty sure that comes with the territory," Jase says dryly. "Put down those Technicolor ones. No freaking way."
"But blue's my favorite color," I say, batting my eyelashes at him.
"Put them down. The glow-in-the-dark ones too. Jesus. Why do they even make those?"
"For the visually impaired?" I ask, reshelving the boxes.
We move to the checkout line. "Enjoy the rest of your evening," the clerk calls as we leave.
"Do you think he knew?" I ask.
"You're blushing again," Jase mutters absently. "Did who know what?"
"The sales guy. Why we were buying these?"
A smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. "Of course not. I'm sure it never ~ Huntley Fitzpatrick

She bypassed the junk food aisle altogether. "Okay, Faith. Hold up." He grabbed the end of her cart and pulled it down the aisle. Snagging a bag of potato chips, he tossed them in her cart. "Better. Let's find you some Twinkies. ~ Kelly Moran

The bride, white of hair, is stooped over her cane Her faltering footsteps need guiding. While down the church aisle, with wan toothless smile, The groom in a wheelchair comes riding. And who is this elderly couple you ask? You'll find, when you've closely explored it, That here is that rare, most conservative pair, Who waited 'til they could afford it. ~ Richard Armour

She smiled from ear to ear at the thought of knowing his name. She perched herself up onto her tip toes to try to be able to get a good look at him. He was smiling a charming smile and he escorted his bridesmaid through the manmade aisle. Again, like before as his proximity got closer, so did the intense feelings she felt burning inside of her body. She tried really hard to not feel them. She wished she had something stronger to drink to dull the uncomfortable and scary emotions he was bringing out in her. ~ J.B. McGee

Crinoline was so wide that she parted the crowd wherever she walked, leaving an aisle of space behind her. ~ Eleanor Catton

Let me be candid. If I had to rank book-acquisition experiences in order of comfort, ease, and satisfaction, the list would go like this: 1. The perfect independent bookstore, like Pygmalion in Berkeley. 2. A big, bright Barnes & Noble. I know they're corporate, but let's face it - those stores are nice. Especially the ones with big couches. 3. The book aisle at Walmart. (It's next to the potting soil.) 4. The lending library aboard the U.S.S. West Virginia, a nuclear submarine deep beneath the surface of the Pacific. 5. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. ~ Robin Sloan

I don't feel like, unless I have a boyfriend or somebody to march down the aisle with for the fifth time, that I'm 'Oh, poor me.' I'm not going to go running out desperately looking, making myself crazy and thinking that, without that, I'm nothing. ~ Raquel Welch

I think more so than the Republican Party, we reflect America on the Democratic side of the aisle, and that's a healthy thing. I mean, that's what democracy is all about. ~ Mike Ross

Hi," I whisper.
He peels off my hands and turns toward the aisle. "Please don't make this any harder than it already is," he whispers back. ~ Stephanie Perkins

Shit! Halvorsen thought furiously, and for a moment one hand clawed under his sport-coat where there was a .38 in a clamshell holster. Then sanity reasserted itself. This was no drug bust or armed robbery; this was a crippled black lady in a wheelchair. She was rolling it like it was some punk's drag-racer, but a crippled black lady was all she was just the same. What was he going to do, shoot her? That would be great, wouldn't it? And where was she going to go? There was nothing at the end of the aisle but two dressing rooms. ~ Stephen King

Hazel Motes sat at a forward angel on the green plush train seat, looking one minute at the window as if he might want to jump out of it, and the next down the aisle at the other end of the car. ~ Flannery O'Connor

I think I developed a culture of healthy skepticism of claims of certainty on any side of the aisle. A sort of boldness in using economics no matter where it leads you in political circles, you know, rather than worrying about being left-wing or right-wing or biased or this or that. ~ David Plotz

I'm gonna walk down the aisle in style and profile. ~ Ric Flair

The grocery store
has rows and rows
of color, of light,
of easy hope.
Hannah moves down the aisle,
but I stand like a tree rooted firm,
my eyes too full of this place,
with its answers to prayers
on every shelf. ~ Katherine Applegate

On his way back through the plane Richard had seen women crying-- three women, four women. And he realized that there always were these women on planes, crying, with makeup in meltdown, folded over in the window seat or candidly hideous in the aisle, clutching Kleenex. Before, if he assumed anything, he assumed they were crying about boyfriends or husbands (partings or sunderings), or crying (who cared?) from toothache or curse pains or fear of flying. But now he was forty, and he knew.

Women on planes were crying because someone they love or loved is dead or dying. Every plane has them. ~ Martin Amis

I had done something wrong. I shouldn't have shown him. But he had known, hadn't he? What had I done? I retreated quickly down the aisle, pushing my way through the double doors into the porch, where I swiped one of my eyes dry. For a long moment I stood in the dim room, looking blankly at the flyers for bake sales and Bible studies on the noticeboard.
Then I heard him shout, "Damn you! Why?"
I looked through the clear glass of the porch doors to see if he spoke to some barely seen faerie. But to my eyes, there was no one there but Luke and God. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

As incisively pointed out in the documentary Food Inc.," an overwhelmingly large percentage of "new," healthy," and "organic" alternative food products are actually owned by the same parent companies that scared us into the organic aisle in the first place. "They got you comin' and goin'" has never been truer. ~ Anthony Bourdain

Here's an Advent illustration for kids - and those of us who used to be kids and remember what it was like. Suppose you and your mom get separated in the grocery store, and you start to get scared and panic and don't know which way to go, and you run to the end of an aisle, and just before you start to cry, you see a shadow on the floor at the end of the aisle that looks just like your mom. It makes you really happy and you feel hope. But which is better? The happiness of seeing the shadow, or having your mom step around the corner and it's really her?

That's the way it is when Jesus comes to be our High Priest. That's what Christmas is. Christmas is the replacement of shadows with the real thing. ~ John Piper

You make a horror film that's not very good. You'd be joining a long line, in a long video aisle, of stuff that doesn't work. ~ Patrick Fabian

It used to be the custom for the bachelor dinner to take place the night before the wedding. Now, however, the bridesmaids' and ushers' dinner is usually on that night, for a groom realizes that he and his attendants need some time in which to recover sufficiently to be able to distinguish the altar from the organ and walk up the aisle with no mishaps. ~ Alice-Leone Moats