Arresting Quotes

It's made it easier to communicate important issues, but I wonder if connecting with millions of people online is ever as arresting to someone's attention as one man standing and screaming in front of City Hall. ~ Jim Parsons

It was wrong. It was like arresting the gun for murder. ~ Ellery Queen

From the first note I knew it was different from anything I had ever heard.... It began simply, but with an arresting phrase, so simple, but eloquent as a human voice. It spoke, beckoning gently as it unwound, rising and tensing. It spiraled upward, the tension growing with each repeat of the phrasing, and yet somehow it grew more abandoned, wilder with each note. His eyes remained closed as his fingers flew over the strings, spilling forth surely more notes than were possible from a single violin. For one mad moment I actually thought there were more of them, an entire orchestra of violins spilling out of this one instrument. I had never heard anything like it--it was poetry and seduction and light and shadow and every other contradiction I could think of. It seemed impossible to breathe while listening to that music, and yet all I was doing was breathing, quite heavily. The music itself had become as palpable a presence in that room as another person would have been--and its presence was something out of myth. ~ Deanna Raybourn

Justus tried to make an objective assessment of Miguel. What was the big deal with him, anyway? So he was easy on the eyes. Actually that was an understatement; he was for female eyes, a virtual feast. He was a perfect physical specimen, and very sensual. He seemed to positively ooze sex and eroticism with his every move, look, and touch. Justus turned her head toward him to steal a glance at his profile, but he caught her looking at him.
His eyes were so arresting, they were a dark, fierce green, like beautiful shining emeralds. She also noticed flecks of gold laced through them, reminiscent of cat's eyes. Not any ordinary house cat, these were the eyes of a wild predator.
He was a panther; with his black hair and green eyes and the way he moved, so gracefully, yet with definite strength and agility. She sighed to herself, so much for her objectivity. ~ Amanda Bretz

The feature that makes people look at her twice, sometimes with suspicious glances, is her eyes. They are too large, wide-set, slanted a bit. And they judge, those eyes do, they watch and they take note and they judge all that they see, and lots of folks do not like that much.
To the innocent, her eyes are arresting. To a person with something on his conscience, they seem too knowing. ~ Michael Grant

He opened his mouth to order her to drop the MP5 she had aimed at him, but nothing would come out. It was like she'd robbed him of the ability to speak. Shooting her wasn't an option, though. And the idea of arresting her didn't make him feel any better. ~ Paige Tyler

What is wrong with you?" He glared at me.


"I'm somewhat sure I'm suddenly gay," I shrugged, "My father and mother are hypocritical abandoning homophobic assholes. The former defending my chief suspect in the biggest case of my life - something I'm sure you had a hand in. I'm obsessed with your freckles, your bunny slippers and your lips - which I should be getting points for not kissing while you're incapacitated, by the way. I'm dating a whore while working on the vice squad - points to me again for not arresting your ass for that - and I'm ridiculously horny. Oh, and my fiancée won't talk to me. ~ Dani Alexander

There was nothing accidental about what happened that morning. Nothing incidental. It was no stray mugging or personal settling of scores. This was an era imprinting itself on those who lived in it.

History in live performance.

If they hurt Velutha more than they intended to, it was only because any kinship, any connection between themselves and him, any implication that if nothing else, at least biologically he was a fellow creature--had been severed long ago. They were not arresting a man, they were exorcising fear. They had no instrument to calibrate how much punishment he could take. No means of gauging how much or how permanently they had damaged him.

Unlike the custom of rampaging religious mobs or conquering armies running riot, that morning in the Heart of Darkness the posse of Touchable Policemen acted with economy, not frenzy. Efficiency, not anarchy. Responsibility, not hysteria. They didn't tear out his hair or burn him alive. They didn't hack off his genitals and stuff them in his mouth. They didn't rape him. Or behead him.

After all they were not battling an epidemic. They were merely inoculating a community against an outbreak. ~ Arundhati Roy

Contemporary scholars have little explored the preconditions of genocide. Still less have they asked whether a society's weapons policy might be one of the institutional arrangements that contributes to the probability of its government engaging in some of the more extreme varieties of outrage. Though it is a long step between being disarmed and being murdered-one does not usually lead to the other-but it is nevertheless an arresting reality that not one of the principal genocides of the twentieth century, and there have been dozens, has been inflicted on a population that was armed. ~ Daniel D. Polsby

Orpheus chose to be the leader of mankind. Ah, not even Orpheus had attained such a goal, not even his immortal greatness had justified such vain and presumptuous dreams of grandeur, such flagrant overestimation of poetry! Certainly many instances of earthly beauty--a song, the twilit sea, the tone of the lyre, the voice of a boy, a verse, a statue, a column, a garden, a single flower--all possess the divine faculty of making man hearken unto the innermost and outermost boundaries of his existence, and therefore it is not to be wondered at that the lofty art of Orpheus was esteemed to have the power of diverting the streams from their beds and changing their courses, of luring the wild beasts of the forest with tender dominance, of arresting the cattle a-browse upon the meadows and moving them to listen, caught in the dream and enchanted, the dreamwish of all art: the world compelled to listen, ready to receive the song and its salvation. However, even had Orpheus achieved his aim, the help lasts no longer than the song, nor does the listening, and on no account might the song resound too long, otherwise the streams would return to their old courses, the wild beasts of the forest would again fall upon and slay the innocent beasts of the field, and man would revert again to his old, habitual cruelty; for not only did no intoxication last long, and this was likewise true of beauty's spell, but furthermore, the mildness to which men and beasts had yielded was only half of the in ~ Hermann Broch

And she gave herself up to him body and soul, responding to his disarming affection, the bounty of his indefatigable dick, and as always to his arresting strength and beauty. He was her temptation and deliverance. He was her life. ~ C.C. Gibbs

Marijuana is the finest anti-nausea medication known to science, and our leaders have lied about this consistently. [Arresting people for] medical marijuana is the most hideous example of government interference in the private lives of individuals. It's an outrage within an outrage within an outrage. ~ Peter McWilliams

Whether anybody comes to convince me or not
a part of my life does always ache
arresting my chest. ~ Suman Pokhrel

I love the way you taste, Rebecca," he said, his voice rubbing over my exposed flesh. "I dream about it every night." Then he lifted his eyes and met mine with a gaze so arresting I thought my heart would stop. A wicked smile sliced over his lips. "And now I'll get to taste it every morning. ~ Ava Lore

One thing I learned working at magazines was that if you couldn't get people to look at a page or a cover, then you were fired. It was all about how you create arresting works, and by arresting I mean stop people, even for a nano-second. ~ Barbara Kruger

Miltons were, on the whole, the most enthusiastic poet followers. A flick through the London telephone directory would yield about four thousand John Miltons, two thousand William Blakes, a thousand or so Samuel Colleridges, five hundred Percy Shelleys, the same of Wordsworth and Keats, and a handful of Drydens. Such mass name-changing could have problems in law enforcement. Following an incident in a pub where the assailant, victim, witness, landlord, arresting officer and judge had all been called Alfred Tennyson, a law had been passed compelling each namesake to carry a registration number tattooed behind the ear. It hadn't been well received
few really practical law-enforcement measures ever are. ~ Jasper Fforde

The evil eye is the fascinum, it is that which has the effect of arresting movement and, literally, of killing life. At the moment the subject stops, suspending his gesture, he is mortified. This anti-life, anti-movement function of the terminal point is the fascinum, and it is precisely one of the dimensions in which the power of the gaze is exercised directly. ~ Jacques Lacan

When we feel the cards are stacked against us, and we have to confront the arresting questions of our walks of life, we may happen to face up to an "apocalypse." When we meet head-on a disclosure of a "new" truth and come to terms with the destruction of our "old" reality, the disparity might be very challenging, but conceivably liberating as well. ("Looking for the unexpected" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

You're a dark, dangerous storm, Nathan," She tilted her head back, her glacial blue eyes arresting, even in the darkness of the club. "If i'm not carful I'm going to leap off a cliff with you. ~ Lara Adrian

But I would like to make an important point before this
goes any further and that is if anyone feels like arresting me
for corrupting an innocent kid then all I can say is that
Edmond was not corruptible. Some people are just like
that and if you don't believe me it just means you've never
met one of them yourself.
Which is your loss. ~ Meg Rosoff

There's a lot of common ground between criminals and cops. Both savor power, thrills, control. The good cops know they're only a step or two away from the crooks they're arresting. ~ Nanci Rathbun

No one wanted the job. What had seemed one of the least challenging tasks facing Franklin D. Roosevelt as newly elected president had, by June 1933, become one of the most intransigent. As ambas-sadorial posts went, Berlin should have been a plum - not London or Paris, surely, but still one of the great capitals of Europe, and at the center of a country going through revolutionary change under the leadership of its newly appointed chancellor, Adolf Hitler. Depending on one's point of view, Germany was experiencing a great revival or a savage darkening. Upon Hitler's ascent, the country had undergone a brutal spasm of state- condoned violence. Hitler's brown- shirted paramilitary army, the Sturmabteilung, or SA - the Storm Troopers - had gone wild, arresting, beating, and in some cases murdering communists, socialists, and Jews. Storm Troopers established impromptu prisons and torture stations in basements, sheds, and other structures. Berlin alone had fi fty of these so- called bunkers. Tens of thousands of people were arrested and placed in "protective custody" - Schutzhaft - a risible euphemism. An esti-mated fi ve hundred to seven hundred prisoners died in custody; others endured "mock drownings and hangings," according to a police affi davit. One prison near Tempelhof Airport became especially no-torious: Columbia House, not to be confused with a sleekly modern new building at the heart of Berlin called Columbus House. The up-heaval prompted one Jewish leader, Rabbi Step ~ Erik Larson

The US ... cultivates no origin or mythical authenticity; it has no past and no founding truth ... it lives in a perpetual present. in the US everything human is artificial. The country is without hope. What is arresting here is ... both the absence of architecture in the cities and the dizzying absence of emotion and character in the faces and bodies. ~ Jean Baudrillard

Okay, more disclosure. I'm not a fugitive at the moment, but I might become one. I don't know if I'm going back for a trial. I can't go to prison and leave the twins alone. We'll leave before it comes to that. I don't want to get you in trouble."
Hilda waved off the words. "I'm an old woman. They ain't gonna take me out of here in shackles. I've seen most of the local officers run around in diapers."
Luanne was pretty sure that didn't mean immunity. She'd seen Chase naked, and that hadn't stopped him from arresting her. She didn't tell that to Aunt Hilda. ~ Dana Marton

[W]hile the use of non-lethal weapons such as tasers and LEDIs may not necessarily reduce the number of civilian casualties, they have been largely accepted as the humane alternative to deadly force because they make the use of force appear far less dramatic and violent than it has in the past.
Contrast, for instance, the image of police officers beating Rodney King with billy clubs as opposed to police officers continually shocking a person with a taser. Both are severe forms of abuse. However, because the act of pushing a button is far less dramatic and visually arresting than swinging a billy club, it can come across as much more humane to the general public. This, of course, draws much less media coverage and, thus, less bad public relations for the police. ~ John W. Whitehead

For my present purpose I require a word which shall embrace both the Sub-Creative Art in itself, and a quality of strangeness and wonder in the Expression, derived from the Image: a quality essential to fairy-story. I propose, therefore, to arrogate to myself the powers of Humpty-Dumpty, and to use Fantasy for this purpose: in a sense, that is, which combines with its older and higher use as an equivalent of Imagination the derived notions of 'unreality' (that is, of unlikeness to the Primary World), of freedom from the dominion of 'observed fact,' in short of the fantastic. I am thus not only aware but glad of the etymological and semantic connexions of fantasy with fantastic: with images of things that are not only 'not actually present,' but which are indeed not to be found in our primary world at all, or are generally believed not to be found there. But while admitting that, I do not assent to the depreciative tone. That the images are of things not in the primary world (if that indeed is possible) is, I think, not a lower but a higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most Potent.

Fantasy, of course, starts out with an advantage: arresting strangeness. But that advantage has been turned against it, and has contributed to its disrepute. Many people dislike being 'arrested.' They dislike any meddling with the Primary World, or such small glimpses of it as are familiar to them. They, therefore, stupidly and even maliciously ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Sexual conflict occurs when one mating partner has an opportunity to increase its fitness at a cost to the other partner. On a genetic level, most sexual conflicts are interlocus conflicts that mainly concern the outcome of male-female interactions about the mating rate, fertility efficiency, relative parental effort, remating behavior, and female reproductive rate. In sexually antagonistic evolution, a trait that affords advantage to one sex is disadvantageous to the other. An example is the sexual arms race that evolves when resistance in one sex drives the evolution of coercive traits in the other sex. Without the restrictions of natural selection, this process may lead to a runaway amplification of male and female traits. The coevolutionary arms races between adaptations in one sex and counteradaptations in the other sex can be made visible by experimentally arresting evolution in one sex. ~ Todd K. Shackelford And Aaron T. Goetz

Some experiences are mis-educative. Any experience is mis-educative that has the effect of arresting or distorting the growth of further experience. ~ John Dewey

Ordinary butterflies derive their color from scales, infinitesimally small and carrying all the colors of the rainbow within them, reflecting back the jewel tones associated with the most magnificent butterflies. Moths and more restrained specimens of butterfly have scales with softly powdered hues, but the most arresting sight is by far the butterfly without any scales at all. The wings of these butterflies are crystalline in their clearness, patterned only with narrow black veins like the leaded glass of a cathedral window, the thinnest of membranes stretching between them. It seems impossible that they can fly, but they do, like shards of glass borne upon the wind. ~ Deanna Raybourn

Investors look at economic fundamentals; traders look at each other; 'quants' look at the data. Dealing on the basis of historic price series was once described as technical analysis, or chartism (and there are chartists still). These savants identify visual patterns in charts of price data, often favouring them with arresting names such as 'head and shoulders' or 'double bottoms'. This is pseudo-scientific bunk, the financial equivalent of astrology. But more sophisticated quantitative methods have since proved profitable for some since the 1970s' creation of derivative markets and the related mathematics. Profitable ~ John Kay

A dramatist is one who believes that the pure event, an action involving human beings, is more arresting than any comment that can be made upon it. ~ Thornton Wilder

There was that in the atmosphere of San Salvatore which produced active-mindedness in all except the natives. They, as before, whatever the beauty around them, whatever the prodigal seasons did, remained immune from thoughts other than those they were accustomed to. All their lives they had seen, year by year, the amazing recurrent spectacle of April in the gardens, and custom had made it invisible to them. They were as blind to it, as unconscious of it, as Domenico's dog asleep in the sun. The visitors could not be blind to it - it was too arresting after London in a particularly wet and gloomy March. Suddenly to be transported to that place where the air was so still that it held its breath, where the light was so golden that the most ordinary things were transfigured - to be transported into that delicate warmth, ~ Elizabeth Von Arnim

To a literate reader, a crisp sentence, an arresting metaphor, a witty aside, an elegant turn of phrase are among life's greatest pleasures. And ~ Steven Pinker

Kaylin's memory was like a kaleidoscope; fractured, but in a way that was arresting, even beautiful, if looked at the right way. As a child, Catti's hair had been bright red, but it had shaded ~ Michelle Sagara

Well, I'm not saying that we're solving every problem or arresting every person that ought to be arrested and deported, but we're doing a better job than has been done in the past. ~ Thad Cochran

Pornography is supposed to arouse sexual desires. If pornography is a crime, when will they arrest makers of perfume? ~ Richard Fleischer

While the darkness of the interior concealed her body, the streetlight behind them illuminated the pale oval of her face, gilding her cheeks in shades of amber and ghostly blue. The effect was . . . arresting. Vermeer had used natural light to paint women in this way, faces emerging from the shadows, forcing the viewer's eye to focus on what was most important: the look of grace. The mouth firmed in determination. The eyes poised to behold a revelation. ~ Meredith Duran

Ryzek will be in a huge crowd of people, many of whom are his most ardent supporters and fiercest soldiers. What kind of 'move' do you suggest we make?"
Cyra replied, "You said it yourself, didn't you? Kill him."
"Oh, right!" Teka smacked the table, obviously annoyed. "Why didn't I think of killing him? How simple!"
Cyra rolled her eyes. "This time you won't have to sneak into his house while he's asleep. This time, I'll challenge him to the arena."
Everybody got quiet again. For different reasons, Akos was sure. Cyra was a good fighter, everybody knew that, but no one knew how good Ryzek was--they hadn't seen him in action. And then there was the matter of getting to a place where Cyra could actually challenge him. And getting him to do it instead of just arresting her.
"Cyra," Akos said.
"He declared nemhalzak--he erased your status, your citizenship," Teka said, talking over him. "He has no reason to honor your challenge."
"Of course he does." Isae was frowning. "He could have gotten rid of her quietly when he learned she was a renegade, but he didn't. He wanted her disgrace, and her death, to be public. That means he's afraid of her, afraid she has power over Shotet. If she challenges hi in front of everyone, he won't be able to back down. He'll look like a coward."
"Cyra," Akos said again, quiet this time.
"Akos," Cyra answered, with just a touch of the gentleness he had seen in the stairwell. "He is no match for me."
The ~ Veronica Roth

I had to stop him from arresting an old lady who let her dog urinate against the fire hydrant that was in front of Burgerville headquarters.
"You'll blow our cover."
"But what if there is a fire?"
"The fire department will come and put it out," I said.
"With what?"
"Water," I said.
"Not from that hydrant," Monk said. "It's inoperable."
"No, it's not," I said. "It can still be used."
"There is urine all over it," Monk said. "no fireman would dare touch it, nor would any other human being."
"Firefighters run into burning buildings," I said."They aren't going to care about some dog pee on a fire hydrant."
"They would if they knew," Monk said. "We should call and warn them. Call Joe right now. He can get the word out faster than we can."
"Every fire hydrant in the city has dog pee on it, Mr. Monk. It's how dogs mark their territory. I can guarantee you that every male dog that has passed that hydrant has pissed on it."
He looked at me, wide eyed, "No."
"It's what dogs do," I said. "The firefighters knows this."
Monk swallowed hard. "And they still use the hydrants?"
"Of course they do."
"They are the bravest men on earth," Monk said solemnly. ~ Lee Goldberg

I knew Sebastian by sight long before I met him. That was unavoidable for, from his first week, he was the most conspicuous man of his year by reason of his beauty, which was arresting, and his eccentricities of behaviour, which seemed to know no bounds ... I was struck less by his looks than by the fact that he was carrying a large teddy-bear. ~ Evelyn Waugh

Raised in the Episcopal church, I was once removed from my pew, at age six, because I could not control my weeping. Unbeknownst to anyone, I had been staring at a terrible, glorious stained-glass window of the crucifixion and grieving for the pain Christ must have endured. The arresting mosaic of that forlorn image etched itself indelibly upon me. And yet at some point, I became emotionally and empathically detached. ~ William Stillman

Why does an iPhone cost only a couple hundred dollars? Because, as the stage performer Mike Daisey depicted in an arresting one-man show called 'The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,' Apple's shiniest products are made by a shadowy company in China called Foxconn. ~ Eric Liu

In Fascism, if you were a Jew, you were simply killed. Nobody had the idea of arresting Jews and torturing them to confess the Jewish plot. Because in Fascism, you are guilty for your whole being. ~ Slavoj Zizek

Tod Clifton's one with the ages. But what's that to do with you in this heat under this veiled sun? Now he's part of history, and he has received his true freedom. Didn't they scribble his name on a standardized pad? His Race: colored! Religion: unknown, probably born Baptist. Place of birth: U.S. Some southern town. Next of kin: unknown. Address: unknown. Occupation: unemployed. Cause of death (be specific): resisting reality in the form of a .38 caliber revolver in the hands of the arresting officer, on Forty-second between the library and the subway in the heat of the afternoon, of gunshot wounds received from three bullets, fired at three paces, one bullet entering the right ventricle of the heart, and lodging there, the other severing the spinal ganglia traveling downward to lodge in the pelvis, the other breaking through the back and traveling God knows where. ~ Ralph Ellison

Is it not true that for most of us who call ourselves Christians there is no real experience? We have substituted theological ideas for an arresting encounter; we are full of religious notions, but our great weakness is that for our hearts there is no one there. Whatever else it embraces, true Christian experience must always include a genuine encounter with God. ~ A.W. Tozer

But it was not her beauty that was arresting. It was her style, a sort of insolence toward life, her total lack of caution, her fearless and abundant pride. ~ Nancy Milford

What is truly arresting about our kind is better captured in the story of the Tower of Babel, in which humanity, speaking a single language, came so close to reaching heaven that God himself felt threatened. ~ Steven Pinker

Craig Varjabedian's photography captures, with arresting clarity, the ineffable whispers of time and spirit layered deep in New Mexico's cultural landscape. Through the artful combination of his compassionate eye and technical virtuosity, he evokes the past in the present and the holy in the everyday. ~ Catherine Whitney

Ethan's jaw dropped. Again he had underestimated her. Abruptly, he fought down a smile. "I don't know whether to kiss you or arrest you."
She smiled up at him and again Ethan thought her lips were entirely too close to his.
"You should kiss me," she said, stunning him even more. "I guarantee it will be a lot more pleasant than arresting me ... for both of us. ~ Kathryn Loch

First they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I'm not a Jew. Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I'm not a socialist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because I'm not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, but by then there was no one left to help me. ~ Martin Niemoller

The arresting officer-who I had literally known all my life, you know what I mean? This guy lived four doors down from me in a town of less than 400 people. We've met. Anyway, at the station, he asks me if I have any aliases. And I was just being a smartass and said, "Yeah, they call me ... Tater Salad." Seventeen years later, I'm handcuffed to a bench with blood coming out my nose, this cop comes up to me and says, "Are you Ron ... 'Tater Salad' White?" ~ Ron White

Ludwig Wittgenstein famously said that the limits of one's language were the limits of one's world. By coming up with fresh and arresting words to describe the world accurately, the writer expands the boundaries of her world, and possibly her readers' world, too. Real writing can do what R. P. Blackmur said it could: add to the stock of available reality. There ~ Mark Edmundson

All over India policemen were arresting people, all opposition leaders except members of the pro-Moscow Communists, and also schoolteachers lawyers poets newspapermen trade-unionists, in fact anyone who had ever made the mistake of sneezing during the Madam's speeches, ~ Salman Rushdie

Dead Butterfly
By Ellen Bass
For months my daughter carried
a dead monarch in a quart mason jar.
To and from school in her backpack,
to her only friend's house. At the dinner table
it sat like a guest alongside the pot roast.
She took it to bed, propped by her pillow.
Was it the year her brother was born?
Was this her own too-fragile baby
that had lived - so briefly - in its glassed world?
Or the year she refused to go to her father's house?
Was this the holding-her-breath girl she became there?
This plump child in her rolled-down socks
I sometimes wanted to haul back inside me
and carry safe again. What was her fierce
commitment? I never understood.
We just lived with the dead winged thing
as part of her, as part of us,
weightless in its heavy jar. ~ Ellen Bass

How would you judge an artist who mutilated animals in a gallery because it was visually arresting? How riveting would the sound of a tortured animal need to be to make you want to hear it that badly? Try to imagine any end other than taste for which it would be justifiable to do what we do to farmed animals. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

She could have been a figure in a Welsh fairy tale, a nymph who had formed from the mist off a lake. There was something otherworldly about the delicacy of her porcelain skin, and the arresting contrast between her dark lashes and brows and her silver-blond hair. And those eyes, cool translucence contained in dark rims. ~ Lisa Kleypas

[The] arresting of time is photography's unique capacity, and the decision of when to click the shutter is the photographer's chief responsibility. ~ Janet Malcolm

If you wouldn't mind coming with us, sir? I am arresting you now and will shortly make a formal charge at the station.' I was so happy, so blissfully, radiantly, wildly happy that if I could have sung I would have sung. If I could have danced I would have danced. I was free. At last I was free. I was going on a journey now where every decision would be taken for me, every thought would be thought for me and every day planned for me. I was going back to school. ~ Stephen Fry

Scarlet O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin-that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns. ~ Margaret Mitchell

As we watch, in fascination, the arresting replicas of reality on our television screen, there may sit, in the same room, a telephone and a phonograph. On our bedside table stands a radio; another accompanies us in our car. These strange machines never move unless we move them; they come alive only at our touch. But give them their due: they serve us well. They provide the far-flung, trillion-nerved ganglia of commerce, of news, of our mighty military forces. And down through the days and nights of our lives, they ward off our loneliness and bring us nearer together. Perhaps someday they will make us brothers. ~ Robert O'Brien

You really are F****** arresting, love, but I reckon I'll be the one doing the cuffing tonight. ~ L.J. Shen

I have found in my years of work that getting stuck is a rather ubiquitous theme and shows itself in a multitude of ways, affecting and even arresting personal development, intellectual discovery, scientific progress and political and religious innovation. It is quite clear and evident that humans get stuck, and stubbornly so, but can souls? From years of experience, I can say that indeed our aerial selves, composed of unique personalities and free will can and have lost their way at times. ~ Stephen Poplin

Up close like this, I can see that her skin is smooth and clear except for two freckles on her right cheek,and her eyes are gray-green that makes me think of fall.It's the eyes that get me.They are large an arresting,as if she sees everything.As warm as they are,they are busy,no-bullshit eyes,the kind that can look right into you.. ~ Jennifer Niven

She did not delude herself into expecting Francis to love her. He had never been taught how to love, but had an arresting way of looking pleased at Adah's achievements. ~ Buchi Emecheta

I should love to do a novel, about one abnormal character seeing present-day life, very ordinary life, yet arresting through it, abnormality, until at the end the reader sees, and with little reluctance, that he is not abnormal at all, and that the main character might as well be himself. ~ Patricia Highsmith

Her sample drawings were clipped, rather subordinately, to her photograph. All of them were arresting. One of them was unforgettable. The unforgettable one was done in florid wash colors, with a caption that read: 'Forgive Them Their Trespasses.' It showed three small boys fishing in an odd-looking body of water, one of their jackets draped over a 'No Fishing!' sign. The tallest boy, in the foreground of the picture, appeared to have rickets in one leg and elephantiasis in the other--an effect, it was clear, that Miss Kramer had deliberately used to show that the boy was standing with his feet slightly apart. ~ J.D. Salinger

Cages, spanking benches, sawhorses, bondage tables. Scene after scene. Throaty moans, high screams, whining, whimpering, and groaning. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. All his cop instincts shouted for him to get his cuffs out and start arresting people. ~ Cherise Sinclair

Snorri stood with one thick arm gripping the wagon bed, arresting its motion. 'Come.'
I hadn't the breath to tell him that's what I was trying to do. Instead I slipped out, lacing up what needed to be laced. ~ Mark Lawrence

Would you be shedding tears for McNab's dead body if he'd been screwing around on you?"

Peabody pursed her lips. "Well, since I'd've been the one who killed him, I'd probably be shedding tears for me because you'd be arresting me. And that would really make me sad. ~ J.D. Robb

Tragedy belongs to the poets. Only they have "trod the sunlit heights and from life's dissonance struck one clear chord." None but a poet can write a tragedy. For tragedy is nothing less than pain transmuted into exaltation by the alchemy of poetry, and if poetry is true knowledge and the great poets guides safe to follow, this transmutation has arresting implications. Pain changed into, ~ Edith Hamilton

Haven't even fucked her yet and she's shuddering under my touch.

It's in this moment that I know I'm done waiting.

Done waiting for her to fully come to me.

I'm over being patient.

Gabriella is going to be mine in every way I can have her.

"You can walk away from this right now. Today. I will allow it. You're tired and I prefer you get some decent rest if you won't get it here."

"Allow?"

My hand circles around the front of her throat, unable to not touch her in any way that I can. I feel like a beggar needing water who's just been handed a jug. All I want to do is roam over her skin and memorize how every silky inch feels. I know my touch is possessive and out of fucking order, seeing as only hours ago she was still treating me as her boss only. But she made that switch when she turned up, didn't she? She can't take that back now.

"Yes, allow. I gave you time to come to me. Here you are, Gabriella. Now you can put us in my hands."

She blinks and I feel the pulse in her delicate throat start to jump. What she doesn't do is move out from under my hands. I feel as though she's gifted me a prize. So close to her, her scent is arresting, she smells fucking good, lickable.

She sucks her lower lip between her teeth and I want to bite it hard.

"What… what does that even mean?"

"It means you can no longer deny what we are, cara. It's time for me to make t ~ V. Theia

Singling out political opponents for working against the ruling party is precisely the tactic of every tyrannical government from Red China to Venezuela. The first step in the process is creating unfounded public suspicion of political opponents, followed by arresting and jailing any who continue speaking against the regime. ~ John Carter

But no soldier above the rank of sergeant ever served jail time. No civilian interrogators ever faced legal proceedings. Nobody was ever charged with torture, or war crimes, or any violation of the Geneva Conventions. Nobody ever faced charges for keeping prisoners naked,or shackled. Nobody ever faced charges for holding prisoners as hostages. Nobody ever faced charges for incarcerating children who were accused of no crime and posed no known security threat. Nobody ever faced charges for holding thousands of prisoners in a combat zone in constant danger of their lives. Nobody ever faced charges for arresting thousands of civilians without direct cause and holding them indefinitely, incommunicado, in concentration camp conditions. Nobody ever faced charges for shooting and killing prisoners who were confined behind concertina wire. And nobody has ever been held to account for murdering al-Jamadi in the Tier 1B shower, although Sabrina Harman initially faced several charges for having photographed him there. ~ Philip Gourevitch

For those of us who have come to believe that unless we are thinking we are wasting time, it may be challenging to simply linger with a beautiful sunset, an exquisite painting, or an arresting piece of music. The intellect often reacts to the seductions of beauty by attempting to recapture us. ~ Carolyn Baker

Imagine a survivor of a failed civilization with only a tattered book on aromatherapy for guidance in arresting a cholera epidemic. Yet, such a book would more likely be found amid the debris than a comprehensible medical text. ~ James Lovelock

The concept of Free Will makes no sense unless associated, somehow or the other, with Absolute Determinism; it is just as a man cannot walk without gravity arresting and spurring his pace simultaneously. ~ Raheel Farooq

The Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home ... What I think we know - separate and apart from this incident - is that there is a long history in their country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that's just a fact. - President Obama on Gates' arrest. ~ Barack Obama

It is ironic-rouse the limpest adjective-that a government as spontaneously tyrannous and callous as ours should, over the years, have come yo care so much about our health as it endlessly tests and retests commercial drugs available in other lands while arresting those who take "hard" drugs on the potential ground that they are bad for the user's health. One is touched by their concern- touched and dubious. After all, these same compassionate guardians of our well-being have sternly, year in and year out, refused to allow us to have what every other First World country simply takes for granted, a national health service. ~ Gore Vidal

He had always disliked the people who encored a favorite air in an opera - "That just spoils it" had been his comment. But this now appeared to him as a principle of far wider application and deeper moment. This itch to have things over again, as if life were a film that could be unrolled twice or even made to work backward . . . was it possibly the root of all evil? No: of course the love of money was called that. But money itself - perhaps one valued it chiefly as a defense against chance, a security for being able to have things over again, a means of arresting the unrolling of the film. He ~ C.S. Lewis

Prepare a little hot tea or broth and it should be brought to them ... without their being asked if they would care for it. Those who are in great distress want no food, but if it is handed to them, they will mechanically take it ' ... There was something arresting about the matter-of-fact wisdom here, the instinctive understanding of the physiological disruptions ... I will not forget the instinctive wisdom of the friend who, every day for those first few weeks, brought me a quart container of scallion-and-ginger congee from Chinatown. Congee I could eat. Congee was all I could eat. ~ Joan Didion

Professional reviewers read so many bad books in the course of duty that they get an unhealthy craving for arresting phrases. ~ Evelyn Waugh

The most important domestic challenge facing the U.S. at the close of the twentieth century is the re-creation of fatherhood as avital social role for men. At stake is nothing less than the success of the American experiment. For unless we reverse the trend of fatherlessness, no other set of accomplishments
not economic growth or prison construction or welfare reform or better schools
will succeed in arresting the decline of child well-being and the spread of male violence. To tolerate the trend of fatherlessness is to accept the inevitability of continued social recession. ~ David Blankenhorn

When one speaks of religion influencing public policy, the immediate question is, Whose religion? If one subscribes to the notion that this is in some sense a Christian society, then the question becomes, Whose Christianity? Without some basic agreement religiously, the entrance of religion into the public arena would seem to be a formula for open-ended conflict and possible anarchy.

Yet, in the absence of a public ethic, we arrive at that point where, in Alisdair MacIntyre's arresting phrase, "politics becomes civil war carried on by other means." MacIntyre believes that we have already reached that point, and he may be right. A major problem, however, is that a public ethic cannot be reestablished unless it is informed by religiously grounded values. . . .

It is important to note that, unlike Rousseau, for example, the founders thought the conventional religions could manage this role of ancillary reinforcement. They did not think it necessary to construct a new "civil religion" for the maintenance of republican virtue. ~ Richard John Neuhaus

Writing about the futility of trying to force a wolf into a vehicle, Martino describes the final stage of the conflict. The italics are hers:

"But if I continue, perhaps muttering 'Get up you lazy old dusty thing,' The wolf grabs my arm in his teeth, snarling, as if to say, Look, move me where I don't want to go, and we're going to have problems. Your problems will be bigger than mine. He then looks at me with a frank arresting stare, the strength of the mountain rumbling in his eyes. ~ Teresa Tsimmu Martino

Advertising: the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it. ~ Stephen Leacock

It is a stark and arresting fact that, since the middle of the 20th century, humankind has consumed more natural resources than in all previous human history ~ Margaret Beckett

Born on a mountain, raised in a cave. Arresting fugitives is all I crave. ~ Duane Chapman

It was the kind of pure, undiffused light that can only come from a really hot blue sky, the kind that makes even a concrete highway painful to behold and turns every distant reflective surface into a little glint of flame. Do you know how sometimes on very fine days the sun will shine with a particular intensity that makes the most mundane objects in the landscape glow with an unusual radiance, so that buildings and structures you normally pass without a glance suddenly become arresting, even beautiful? Well, they seem to have that light in Australia nearly all the time. ~ Bill Bryson

Though the parallel is not complete, it is safe to say that science will never touch them unaided by its practical applications. Its wonders may be catalogued for purposes of education, they may be illustrated by arresting experiments, by numbers and magnitudes which startle or fatigue the imagination but they will form no familiar portion of the intellectual furniture of ordinary men unless they be connected, however remotely, with the conduct of ordinary life. ~ Arthur Balfour

During the year that the atrocities in the Ukraine occurred, a young Turkish Jew of arresting personality and magnetism announced himself as the Messiah in the city of Salonika. This was the cabalist Sabbatai Zevi. Because the Jews of his day had the will to believe in a supernatural instrumentality that would save them from further disaster, he came as the answer to their prayers. Messianic hysteria swept like a conflagration over all of European Jewry. Tens of thousands liquidated their worldly affairs and readied themselves for the End of Days. ~ Nathan Ausubel

Of the seven butchers who interest us, four are Tatars and three are Yids. They're at the top of the list of suspects. But, to avoid any reproaches of prejudice, I'm arresting the lot. And I'll give them a thorough working over. I ~ Boris Akunin

You taught me to see The State of Palestine as a sexy man, a prince wearing the most arresting uniform.
علمتني أن أرى فلسطين كرجل مثير
يرتدي كل مساء أغلى ثياب الحرير ~ Amany Al-Hallaq

Arresting a single drunk or a single vagrant who has harmed no identifiable person seems unjust, and in a sense it is. But failing to do anything about a score of drunks or a hundred vagrants may destroy an entire community. ~ James Q. Wilson

More recently, during a debate in the House of Lords in 1978 one of the members said: "If there is a more hideous language on the face of the earth than the American form of English, I should like to know what it is." (We should perhaps bear in mind that the House of Lords is a largely powerless, nonelective institution. It is an arresting fact of British political life that a Briton can enjoy a national platform and exalted status because he is the residue of an illicit coupling 300 years before between a monarch and an orange seller.) ~ Bill Bryson

Roan studied the photo in his hand. Shiloh Gallagher
had to be twenty-nine years old according to what Maud
had told him. Damned if she didn't look twenty-five or so,
her features unlined. She wasn't model pretty, but she had
an arresting face, with huge intelligent-looking green eyes.
His gaze dropped to her mouth and he felt himself stir. Her
mouth would make any man go crazy. Her upper lip was
full, but thinner than her lower one. The shape of her mouth
made him feel heat in his lower body. "Is she married?"

"No," Maud said. She's single. Never did marry. I don't know why. Shiloh's
a beautiful girl."

She was hardly a girl, but Roan said nothing because he
was fully reacting to her as a woman. He wondered if she
was curvy or rail thin. He was disgruntled over his avid
curiosity. "I have no problem with it. You know I get up
early and come in late. She's going to have to fend for herself.
I'm not cooking for her."

"Right," Maud agreed. "She's pretty shaken up, Roan.
You might find that stressful until, hopefully, Shiloh will
start to relax."

Shrugging, he slid the photo onto the desk. "Maud, I just
hope I don't stress her out with my award-winning personality,"
he said, and he cracked a small, sour grin.

Maud cackled. "I think you'll like her, Roan. She's a
very kind person. An introvert like you. Just remembe ~ Lindsay McKenna

We have to stop arresting prostitutes and not arresting traffickers and pimps. It's absurd. We're arresting the victim or the survivor and not the oppressor. ~ Gloria Steinem

Equally arresting are British pub names. Other people are content to dub their drinking establishment with pedestrian names like Harry's Bar and the Greenwood Lounge. But a Briton, when he wants to sup ale, must find his way to the Dog and Duck, the Goose and Firkin, the Flying Spoon, or the Spotted Dog. The names of Britain's 70,000 or so pubs cover a broad range, running from the inspired to the improbable, from the deft to the daft. Almost any name will do so long as it is at least faintly absurd, unconnected with the name of the owner, and entirely lacking in any suggestion of drinking, conversing, and enjoying oneself. At a minimum the name should puzzle foreigners-this is a basic requirement of most British institutions-and ideally it should excite long and inconclusive debate, defy all logical explanation, and evoke images that border on the surreal. ~ Bill Bryson

He belonged to a walled city of the fifteenth century, a city of narrow, cobbled streets, and thin spires, where the inhabitants wore pointed shoes and worsted hose. His face was arresting, sensitive, medieval in some strange inexplicable way, and I was reminded of a portrait seen in a gallery I had forgotten where, of a certain Gentleman Unknown. Could one but rob him of his English tweeds, and put him in black, with lace at his throat and wrists, he would stare down at us in our new world from a long distant past - a past where men walked cloaked at night, and stood in the shadow of old doorways, a past of narrow stairways and dim dungeons, a past of whispers in the dark, of shimmering rapier blades, of silent, exquisite courtesy. ~ Daphne Du Maurier

But we don't do things like that!" said Vimes. "You can't go around arresting the Thieves' Guild. I mean, we'd be at it all day! ~ Terry Pratchett

Beautiful. Jules once thought he'd understood what the word meant. He now believed it overused. Some word needed to be kept in reserve for the rare, the arresting, the surprising ... the magical. Or a new one invented. ~ Julie Anne Long