Arm S Length Quotes

You hold me at arm's length. ~ Kim Edwards

New York is more than a state of mind. It is the completion of a dream. ( "New York at arm's length of desire" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

He caught it one-handed, set it gently back in its place.
I clenched my teeth together to keep from screaming.
The Marquis stepped to the door, opened it. "Please bring Lord Branaric here."
Then he sat down in one of the window seats and looked out as though nothing had happened. I turned my back and glared out the other window, and a long, terrible silence drained my wits entirely until the door was suddenly thrust open by an impatient hand; and there was my brother, tall, thinner than I remembered, and clean. "Mel!" he exclaimed.
"Bran," I squawked, and hurled myself into his arms.
After a moment of incoherent questions on my part, he patted my back then held me out at arm's length. "Here, Mel, what's this? You look like death's cousin! Where'd you get that black eye? And your hands--" He turned over my wrists, squinting down at the healing rope burns. "Curse it, what's toward?"
"Debegri," I managed, laughing and crying at once. "Oh, Bran, that's not the worst of it. Look at this!" I stuck out my bare foot to show the purple scars. "That horrid trap--"
"We pulled 'em all out," he said, and grimaced. "It was the Hill Folk sent someone to tell us about you--that's a first, and did it scare me!--but by the time we got down the mountain, you were gone. I'm sorry, Mel. You were right."
"I was s-s-s-stupid. I got caught, and now we're both in trouble," I wailed into his shoulder.
The carved door snicked shut, and I realized we were al ~ Sherwood Smith

Death had come frequently to the bleak village where the family lived. Indeed, death had been a regular visitor in their own house, taking seven of Chase's twelve brothers and sisters before their fifth birthdays. Whenever, he thought of these children, it was to imagine an inexorable shadow advancing over their tiny forms, at length to darken hearts and eyes. ~ S.K. Rizzolo

If you lack the mental focus to stay with one activity for any length of time, you will never be able to achieve your goals, ~ Robin S. Sharma

My mother said the bizarre name Raccoona had surely been inspired, at least on a subliminal level, by the masks raccoons don't wear but simply have - the ones given them by nature ... [S]he pointed out that Le Guin had suspected all along that Raccoona and Tiptree were two authors that came from the same source, but in a letter to Alice she wrote that she preferred Tiptree to Raccoona: 'Raccoona, I think, has less control, thus less wit and power.'
Le Guin, Mother said, had understood something deep. 'When you take on a male persona, something happens.'
When I asked her what that was, she sat back in her chair, waved her arm, and smiled. 'You get to be the father. ~ Siri Hustvedt

I stood in the center of the Pantheon under the massive oculus, boiling. It was noon and the sun was right overhead, blinding everyone in the room.
"Not incredibly practical to cut a hole in the roof if you ask me," I deadpanned to the ten-year-old beside me.
She sighed heavily and rolled her eyes, walking away with Architecture of the Italian Renaissance shoved underneath her arm. Very cultured, these kids today. ~ R.S. Grey

Remembering Mom's Clothesline -- There is one thing that's left out. We had a long wooden pole (clothes pole) that was used to push the clotheslines up so that longer items (sheets/pants/etc.) didn't brush the ground and get dirty.
I can hear my mother now...

THE BASIC RULES FOR CLOTHESLINES:

(If you don't even know what clotheslines are, better skip this.)
1. You had to hang the socks by the toes... NOT the top.
2. You hung pants by the BOTTOM/cuffs... NOT the waistbands.
3. You had to WASH the clothesline(s) before hanging any clothes - Walk the entire length of each line with a damp cloth around the lines.
4. You had to hang the clothes in a certain order, and always hang "whites" with "whites," And hang them first.
5. You NEVER hung a shirt by the shoulders - always by the tail! What would the neighbors think?
6. Wash day on a Monday! NEVER hang clothes on the weekend, Or on Sunday, for Heaven's sake!
7. Hang the sheets and towels on the OUTSIDE lines so you could Hide your "unmentionables" in the middle perverts & busybodies, y'know!)
8. It didn't matter if it was sub-zero weather... Clothes would "freeze-dry."
9. ALWAYS gather the clothes pins when taking down dry clothes! Pins left on the lines were "tacky"!
10. If you were efficient, you would line the clothes up so that each item. Did not need two clothes pins, but shared one of the clothes pins with the next washed item.
11. C ~ Unnown

The closer he came, the bigger his eyes got through those thick lenses.
It was downright sexy when his eyelids shut and the lashes fanned out on his cheekbones. His lips brushed against hers and heat shot through her body. One arm tangled up in her hair and the other snaked its way around her midriff. His tongue gently parted her lips and he made love to her mouth. ~ Carolyn Brown

I want you and only you and I can't bear the thought of sharing you. I'm sorry." He looked down sadly. "I want to be with you in the right way – in the open. I want to walk into Pete's with you on my arm. I want to kiss you every time I see you, no matter who's looking. I want to make love to you without fear of someone finding out. I want to fall asleep with you in my arms every night. I don't want to feel guilty about something that makes me feel so…whole. I 'm sorry, Keira, but I'm asking you to choose. ~ S.C. Stephens

When in doubt, observe and ask questions. When certain, observe at length and ask many more questions. ~ George S. Patton

I didn't see Danny come in or run towards me. He was just suddenly there, pulling me up by my arm so hard that I gasped. I felt his grip on my skin long after he let go. We ran down the steps where Mom met us, coughing. She was followed by a thick black cloud of smoke. I had never felt smoke that hot in my life. I tasted ash when I breathed in.
"Go! Get out!" she choked, waving us towards the front door.
We ran out into the night in our pajamas.
"Run to Violet's!" Mom called behind us.

- The Stable House ~ Laura Smith

The happiest hour a sailor sees Is when he's down At an inland town, With his Nancy on his knees, yo ho! And his arm around her waist! ~ W.S. Gilbert

But I love it up here. There is a certain allure to this place, some dark, shameful part of me that thrills at the beauty of death and decay."
Walking arm in arm with the Countess, I understood what she meant. The notion of finding death and decay beautiful should have sounded ridiculous and morbid, yet it resonated with me with a sort of romance of its own. ~ S. Jae-Jones

But what the long walk had not done was reveal the cause of the inherent distaste that had sprung out of nowhere overtaking her there under the tree. On the cold, damp grass, or up against the rough tree trunk. He had done it many times without a second thought, and in more challenging situations. It would have been nothing at all to wrap her long legs around his waist, brace one hand against the tree trunk, hold her tight with his other arm, and give the lady exactly what she wanted.

But for some reason he had not been able to do it. For the first time in his life, his body had been willing but his mind had not. Labeling the experience unpleasant would be a severe understatement. ~ Evangeline Collins

Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs, rising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys, advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm, retreating to the corner of arm and knee, eager to be reassured, taking pleasure in the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree. ~ T. S. Eliot

It's easy to forget when you're around." She stopped walking for a moment and I had to stop too, as she'd linked her arm in mine. "That's not right. I mean to say that when you're around, it's easy to forget."
"Forget what?"
"Everything," she said, and for a moment her voice wasn't quite as playful. "All the bad parts in my life. Who I am. It's nice to be able to take a vacation from myself every once in a while. You help with that. You're my safe harbor in an endless, stormy sea. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

In the age of Facebook and Instagram you can observe this myth-making process more clearly than ever before, because some of it has been outsourced from the mind to the computer. It is fascinating and terrifying to behold people who spend countless hours constructing and embellishing a perfect self online, becoming attached to their own creation, and mistaking it for the truth about themselves.20 That's how a family holiday fraught with traffic jams, petty squabbles and tense silences becomes a collection of beautiful panoramas, perfect dinners and smiling faces; 99 per cent of what we experience never becomes part of the story of the self.
It is particularly noteworthy that our fantasy self tends to be very visual, whereas our actual experiences are corporeal. In the fantasy, you observe a scene in your mind's eye or on the computer screen. You see yourself standing on a tropical beach, the blue sea behind you, a big smile on your face, one hand holding a cocktail, the other arm around your lover's waist. Paradise. What the picture does not show is the annoying fly that bites your leg, the cramped feeling in your stomach from eating that rotten fish soup, the tension in your jaw as you fake a big smile, and the ugly fight the happy couple had five minutes ago. If we could only feel what the people in the photos felt while taking them!
Hence if you really want to understand yourself, you should not identify with your Facebook account or with the inner story of the s ~ Yuval Noah Harari

The Novoloume gazed in interest around the cabin. "So the whispers are true - Kats, SAIs and Humans have come to join with the anarchs in a quest to save us all."

Felzeor returned to Caleb's outstretched arm and leaned in to nuzzle his nose. "What a grand quest it's sure to be! ~ G.S. Jennsen

When Annunziata said she loved me or any of her thousands of other friends and beloveds, she was really saying, at least in my mind, "God loves you." To quote the singer/songwriter James Taylor, she showered the people she loved with love, always showing the way that she felt without holding back. Even as her body could barely contain her soul any longer, she'd open wide the gates of herself with a smile, that giggle, her twinkling eyes, and she'd let the supernatural love flow through her. Walking out of the chapel after her funeral, a woman I'd never seen before stopped me and said, "You're Cathleen, aren't you?" "Yes," I croaked, tears rolling off my nose as I fingered the prayer card with Annunziata's picture on it. Slipping an arm around my shoulders, the woman explained that she was one of Annunziata's former students and said, "She loved you so much." I know. ~ Cathleen Falsani

Cue dream sequence of Liam running slowly on a beach carrying me in his arms. I love how he's strong enough to carry me with one arm while using the other arm to feed the seagulls. He's such an animal lover like that. ~ R.S. Grey

The United States should not under any circumstances throw away our gun until we are sure the rest of the world cannot arm against us. ~ Harry S. Truman

Gansey said abruptly. "In we go. Ronan, don't forget to set the directional markers as we go. We're counting on you. Don't just stare at me. Nod like you understand. Good. You know what? Give them to Jane."
"What?" Ronan sounded betrayed.
Blue accepted the markers - round, plastic discs with arrows drawn on them. She hadn't realized how nervous she was until she had them in her hands; it felt good to have something concrete to do.
"I want you to whistle or hum or sing, Ronan, and keep track of time," Gansey said.
"You have got to be shitting me," Ronan replied. "Me."
Gansey peered down the tunnel. "I know you know a lot of the songs all the way through, and can do them the same sped and length every time. Because you had to memorize all of those tunes for the Irish music competitions."
Blue and Adam exchanged a delighted look. The only thing more pleasing than seeing Ronan singled out was seeing him singled out and forced to repeatedly sing an Irish jig.
"Piss up a rope," Ronan said.
Gansey, unoffended, waited.
Ronan shook his head, but then, with a wicked smile, he began to sing, "Squash one, squash two, s-"
"Not that one," both Adam and Gansey said.
"I'm not listening to that for three hours," Adam said.
Gansey pointed at Ronan until he began to breathily whistle a jaunty reel.
And they went in deeper. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

My mother folded each pair of trousers over her arm, pulling the legs out so that the creases lay perfectly. She handles clothes meticulously. S did Nai-nai. But there was a difference in attitude. To my grandmother, clothes held a kind of magic--they could change your destiny one way or the other. To my mother, they were servile, like farm animals in China. Treat them well and they'll perform their function. ~ Patricia Chao

And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. ~ C.S. Lewis

Oh ... my ... god,"Drew whimpered."Who ... "
Anubis ignored her (bless him for that) and held out his elbow for me - a sweet old-fashioned gesture.
" May I have this dance?"
"I suppose," I said,as non committally as I could. I looped my arm through his, and we left the Plastic Bags behind us, all of them muttering,"Oh my god! Oh my god!"
No ,actually, I wanted to say. He's my amazingly hot boy god. Find your own. ~ Rick Riordan

Sawyer laughs and wraps a ginormous arm around my shoulder. "Gidge, dogs are all well and good, and it's true that men like them, but he'd rather have a kitty. Your kitty. ~ S.E. Hall

At this point, I can no longer avoid setting out, in an initial, provisional statement, my own hypothesis about the origin of "bad conscience." It is not easy to get people to attend to it, and it requires them to consider it at length, to guard it, and to sleep on it. I consider bad conscience the profound illness which human beings had to come down with, under the pressure of the most fundamental of all the changes which they experienced - that change when they finally found themselves locked within the confines of society and peace. Just like the things water animals must have gone though when they were forced either to become land animals or to die off, so events must have played themselves out with this half-beast so happily adapted to the wilderness, war, wandering around, adventure - suddenly all its instincts were devalued and "disengaged."

From this point on, these animals were to go on foot and "carry themselves"; whereas previously they had been supported by the water. A terrible heaviness weighed them down. In performing the simplest things they felt ungainly. In dealing with this new unknown world, they no longer had their old leader, the ruling unconscious drives which guided them safely. These unfortunate creatures were reduced to thinking, inferring, calculating, bringing together cause and effect, reduced to their "consciousness," their most impoverished and error-prone organ! I believe that on earth there has never been such a feeling of misery, s ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

He seemed like the type that kept people at arm's length, maybe out of arrogance or maybe from personal choice- either way, I wanted to know him so that those eyes were narrowed and focused solely on me. ~ R.S. Grey

There was no need to hurry that future - yet the length of his own youth pressed upon him. Whatever he was to do next he wanted to begin now. But how to begin and on what? ~ Pearl S. Buck

A young officer in my organization, Lyle Ahmad, was a solid, olive-skinned former marine with a trim crew cut. He was a clone, a close protection officer. I had met Ahmad when he was a marine guarding the U.S. embassy in Warsaw and I was an agent with the State Department's protection and investigation arm, Diplomatic Security, where I worked before joining my present outfit. He was quiet and sharp and boasted impressive multiple-language skills. He was a rising star in our organization. Driving ~ Jeffery Deaver

Nothin very bad happen to me lately.
How you explain that? --I explain that, Mr
Bones,
terms o' your bafflin odd sobriety.
Sober as man can get, no girls, no telephones,
what could happen bad to Mr Bones?
--If life is a handkerchief sandwich,

in a modesty of death I join my father
who dared so long agone leave me.
A bullet on a concrete stoop
close by a smothering southern sea
spreadeagled on an island, by my knee.
--You is from hunger, Mr Bones,

I offers you this handkerchief, now set
your left foot by my right foot,
shoulder to shoulder, all that jazz,
arm in arm, by the beautiful sea,
hum a little, Mr Bones.
--I saw nobody coming, so I went instead. ~ John Berryman

Alex thrust her hand and half her arm into the labyrinth of light.
Her stare blanked, and in the halo of the matrix her eyes and glyphs blazed so radiantly she looked as if she were being consumed by a primordial fire.

"She just stuck her hand into Machim Command's central server matrix!"

Caleb smiled, watching on in blatant awe. "She does that. ~ G.S. Jennsen

I felt that same tingly sensation begin in my hand, up my arm, to my chest and it was as if it jump-started my heart. ~ S.L. Ross

Nikolas.
If it scarred, she was going to be really annoyed.
"Is your control really this good, or are you a secret masochist?" Nikolas asked as he cut the tail of the S, a jagged underline.
"Is this a ritual thing, or are you just a sadist?" she returned, impatient. Though he was enjoying his busywork, he wasn't focused enough for Sarah to act.
"Both," he answered, laughing, as he turned to the other arm. "You can ask me to stop any time now." She understood what he really meant--You can break down and beg. "Or must I continue?"
"Hurry up, would you?" She yawned. "I have to get to the drugstore before it closes. We're out of Band-Aids at my house. ~ Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Swallowing hard, she looked at him.
He raised his eyes from the frothy concoction on his spoon at the precise moment she looked up, and their gazes
locked over the length of the polished wood table. Where would you drip whipped cream on him, Lisa? The answer
came with frightening swiftness and conviction: Everywhere. She wanted to explore his body, the hard ripples, the smooth skin. The candlelight bathed his olive skin with a golden hue, and his dark good looks were set off perfectly by his linen shirt and the splash of black and crimson draped across his chest. He was mesmerizing.
"Are you hungry, lass?" He licked his spoon languidly. She couldn't tear her gaze away. "No. I've eaten quite
enough," she managed.
"You seem to be watching my dessert most intently. Are you certain there isn't something else you wish to sate your appetite?"
Besides you to remove your clothing, lie on the table, and let me finger paint you with whipped cream, you mean?
"Nope," she said casually. "Not a thing." She watched him for a moment; he still had a great deal of dessert left. How was she going to get through this? ~ Karen Marie Moning

Nearly everyone who has ridden a bike for any length of time will agree. The highways are crowded with people who drive as if their sole purpose in getting behind the wheel is to avenge every wrong ever done them by man, beast or fate. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Maybe it's not about the length of time you've known someone; maybe it's about instant recognition on an unconscious level. Our souls know each other. ~ S.E. Hall

The result was unreal. The most incredible feeling came over me. Weightlessness. Like the vise that engulfed me had evaporated. There was no more tightness. I could breathe freely. My head didn't hurt. My stomach didn't hurt. After a few moments, the only thing that hurt was the cut on my arm. I sat there and closed my eyes, reveling in the physical pain that was a hundred times easier to handle than what I had been dealing with. ~ S.M. Koz

I picked up my camera and held it at arm's length and took a picture of myself not caring. I called it: Glory Doesn't Care. ~ A.S. King

There was an old man of St. Bees,
Who was stung in the arm by a wasp;
When they asked, "Does it hurt?"
He replied, "No, it doesn't,
But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet. ~ W.S. Gilbert

For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy making arm of the government. ~ Harry S. Truman

She placed a hand on his arm. "It's not our fault, not truly. It's theirs. The killers. They're the ones who - "

"Get down!" Caleb collided with her back, sending her crashing to the floor hard enough to knock the air from her chest. The windows shattered and the sounds of a city overtaken by chaos rushed in. ~ G.S. Jennsen

Madam,
My sincere thanks for your offer to speak to the tenants regarding the drainage issues. However, since you are already burdened with many demands, I have sent my brother, Weston, to handle the problem. He will arrive at Eversby Priory on Wednesday, and stay for a fortnight. I have lectured him at length about gentlemanly conduct. If he causes you a moment's distress, wire me and it will be resolved immediately.
My brother will arrive at the Alton rail station at noon on Saturday. I do hope you'll send someone to collect him, since I feel certain no one else will want him.
Trenear

P.S. Did you really dye the shawl black?

My Lord,
Amid the daily tumult of construction, which is louder than an army corps of drums, your brother's presence will likely go unnoticed.
We will fetch him on Wednesday.
Lady Trenear

P.S. Why did you send me a shawl so obviously unsuitable for mourning?

In response to Kathleen's letter, a telegram was delivered from the village post office on the morning of West's scheduled arrival.

Madam,
You won't be in mourning forever.
Trenear ~ Lisa Kleypas