Ash Cans For Fireplaces Quotes

What sorts of books are placed by garbage cans on garbage night in the town of Sterns? Mainly they're old class books, the kind people carry around in boxes in their basements for twenty years and then one day think: I will never again in my entire life open this book and there is no sense in its taking up valuable space in my basement, and they throw them out. Right out by the garbage cans they put them, in cardboard boxes with the bottoms falling out.
Books should not ever be treated that way. It's a sin to treat a book that way. That's what I believe to be true. ~ Alison McGhee

For the millennium [New Year's Eve], you really have a choice to make. You either have to be naked with your head on fire and a shotgun in Bali or else you have to spend time with friends or family around the fireplace. And I'm choosing option B ~ Tom Morello

I remember Liz, her face white, delicate as an ash on the wind; her red lips staining the cigarette; her full breasts under the taut black jersey. She said to me, "But think how happy you can make a man someday." Yes, I'm thinking, and so far it's all right. But then I do a flipover and reach out in my mind to E., seeing a baseball game, maybe, perhaps watching television, or roaring with careless laughter at some dirty joke with the boys, beer cans lying about green and shiny gold, and ash trays. I spiral back to me, sitting here, swimming, drowning, sick with longing. I have too much conscience injected in me to break customs without disasterous effects; I can only lean enviously against the boundary and hate, hate, hate the boys who can dispel sexual hunger freely, without misgiving, and be whole, while I drag out from date to date in soggy desire, always unfulfilled. The whole thing sickens me. ~ Sylvia Plath

Scientology , how about that? You hold on to the tin cans and then this guy asks you a bunch of questions, and if you pay enough money you get to join the master race. How's that for a religion ? ~ Frank Zappa

I opened a writing app and began typing what I knew about Pierce.
Vain. Terminal fear of T-shirts or any other garment that would cover his pectorals.
Deadly. Doesn't hesitate to kill. Holding him at gunpoint would result in me being barbecued. Whee.
Likes burning things. Now here's an understatement. Good information to have, but not useful for finding him.
Antigovernment. Neither here nor there.
Hmm. So far my best plan would be to build a mountain of gasoline cans and explosives, stick a Property of US Government sign on it, and throw a T-shirt over Pierce's head when he showed up to explode it. Yes, this would totally work. ~ Ilona Andrews

I had abandoned Elana; I deserved her uncertainty. I closed my eyes and focused on her touch. Perhaps she wouldn't have understood had I tried to explain it to her, but to me Elana was not only Elana--she was the sad-eyed love of mine who used to bag groceries at Woodley's in Buffalo; she was the sweet one who always sat across from me on the city bus in Niagara Falls; she was the girl I'd picked up hitchhiking in Mobile and dropped off in New Orleans, brash, full of sarcastic humor, but truly lonely and scared; she was the one I'd nabbed pinching Newports for her dad from the Marathon station I'd worked at in Bakersfield (I'd softened and paid for the pack myself); yes, she was the girl playing basketball with all the boys in the park, collecting cans by the side of the road, keeping secret pet kittens in an empty boxcar in the woods, walking alone at night through the rail yards, teaching her little sisters how to kiss, reading out loud to herself, so absorbed by the story, singing sadly in the tub, building a fort from the junked cars out in the meadow, by herself in the front row at the black-and-white movies or in the alley, gazing at an eddy of cigarette stubs and trash and fall leaves, smoking her first cigarette at dusk by a pile of dead brush in the desert, then wishing at the stars-she was all of them, and she was so much more that was just her that I still didn't know. ~ Davy Rothbart

It became clear that Keisha Blake could not start something without finishing it. If she climbed onto the boundary wall of Caldwell, she was compelled to walk the entire wall, no matter the obstructions in her path (beer cans, branches). This compulsion, applied to other fields, manifested itself as "intelligence." Every unknown word sent her to a dictionary--in search of something like "completion"--and every book led to another book, a process that, of course, could never be completed. This route through early life gave her no small portion of joy, and, indeed, it seemed at first that her desires and her capacities were basically aligned. She wanted to read things--could not resist wanting to read things--and reading was easily done, and relatively inexpensive. On the other hand, that she should receive any praise for such reflexive habits baffled the girl, for she knew herself to be fantastically stupid about many things. Wasn't it possible that what others mistook for intelligence was in fact only a sort of mutation of the will? ~ Zadie Smith

The rest of the family tree had a root system soggy with alcohol ... One aunt had fallen asleep with her face in the mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner; another's fondness for Coors was so unwavering that I can still remember the musky smell of the beer and the coldness of the cans. Most of the men drank the way all Texas men drank, or so I believed, which meant that they were tough guys who could hold their liquor until they couldn't anymore
a capacity that often led to some cloudy version of doom, be it financial ruin or suicide or the lesser betrayal of simple estrangement. Both social drinkers, my parents had eluded these tragic endings; in the postwar Texas of suburbs and cocktails, their drinking was routine but undramatic. ~ Gail Caldwell

All scornful descriptions of American landscapes with ruined tenements, automobile dumps, polluted rivers, jerry-built ranch houses, abandoned miniature golf links, cinder deserts, ugly hoardings, unsightly oil derricks, diseased elm trees, eroded farmlands, gaudy and fanciful gas stations, unclean motels, candlelit tearooms, and streams paved with beer cans, for these are not, as they might seem to be, the ruins of our civilization but are the temporary encampments and outposts of the civilization that we – you and I – shall build. ~ John Cheever

Weird. I rang it three times." – Nekoda
"There might be something with out condo." 'Other than the fact that it lived under a perpetual dismal cloud and was infested with roaches the size of his fist. It was probably over a hellmouth, too, that didn't allot for any kind of reception other than two cans joined by a length string.' – Nick ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

In the Mountains, they cooked, too.
Joe Godwin made liquor in Muscadine. Moe Shealey made it in Mineral Springs. Junior McMahan had a still in ragland. Fred and Alton Dryden made liquor in Tallapoosa, and Eulis Parker made it on Terrapin Creek. Wayne Glass knew their faces because he drove it, and made more money hauling liquor than he ever made at the cotton mill. He loaded the gallon cans into his car in the deep woods and dodged sheriffs and federal men to get it to men like Robert Kilgore, the bootlegger who sold whiskey from a house in Weaver, about ten minutes south of Jacksonville. "I could haul a hundred and fifty gallons in a Flathead Ford, at thirty-five dollars a load," he said. Wayne lost the end of one finger in the mill, but he was bulletproof when he was running liquor, and only did time once, for conspiracy. "They couldn't catch me haulin' liquor," he said, "so they got me for thinkin' about it. ~ Rick Bragg

My buddy Tim Bass he's a-workin' pumpin gas, and he makes two fifty for an hour. He's got rhythm in his hands as he's tappin' on the cans, sings rock and roll in the shower. ~ Jon Stewart

It seemed as if nothing were to break that tie - as if the years were merely to compact and cement it; and as if those years were to be all the years of their natural lives. Eighteen-forty-two turned into eighteen-forty-three; eighteen-forty-three into eighteen- forty-four; eighteen-forty-four into eighteen-forty-five. Flush was no longer a puppy; he was a dog of four or five; he was a dog in the full prime of life - and still Miss Barrett lay on her sofa in Wimpole Street and still Flush lay on the sofa at her feet. Miss Barrett's life was the life of "a bird in its cage." She sometimes kept the house for weeks at a time, and when she left it, it was only for an hour or two, to drive to a shop in a carriage, or to be wheeled to Regent's Park in a bath-chair. The Barretts never left London. Mr. Barrett, the seven brothers, the two sisters, the butler, Wilson and the maids, Catiline, Folly, Miss Barrett and Flush all went on living at 50 Wimpole Street, eating in the dining-room, sleeping in the bedrooms, smoking in the study, cooking in the kitchen, carrying hot-water cans and emptying the slops from January to December. The chair-covers became slightly soiled; the carpets slightly worn; coal dust, mud, soot, fog, vapours of cigar smoke and wine and meat accumulated in crevices, in cracks, in fabrics, on the tops of picture-frames, in the scrolls of carvings. And the ivy that hung over Miss Barrett's bedroom window flourished; its green curtain became thicker and thicker, ~ Virginia Woolf

I think his portraits of Jackie, Liz, Marilyn, Mao, Elvis, Lenin - and objects like the soup cans, the dollar signs, the hammer and sickle, it's all about icons. Its all about what people worship in an irreligious or secular world. In terms of Andy's personality and Andy Warhol as a human being who I was very close to, I still feel kind of sorry for him on a personal level. I mean, he was the ultimate example of great success wrapped around inner turmoil and emotional pain. ~ Bob Colacello

Avoid head trash. Don't be a garbage can for anything that does not feed your intellect, stimulate your imagination, or make you a more compassionate peaceful person. Refuse to open your mind to other people's trash. Tune out anything that promotes conflict or controversy. This can infect you with a mind virus of cynicism or defeat, and you won't even know it! ~ Les Brown

Getting into fights with people makes my heart race. Not getting into fights with people makes my heart race. Even sleeping makes my heart race! I'm lying in bed when the thumping arrives, like a foreign invader. It's a horrible dark mass, like the monolith in 2001, self-organized but completely unknowable, and it enters my body and releases adrenaline. Like a black hole, it sucks in any benign thoughts that might be scrolling across my brain and attaches visceral panic to them. For instance, during the day I might have mused, Hey, I should pack more fresh fruit in Bee's lunch. That night, with the arrival of The Thumper, it becomes, I'VE GOT TO PACK MORE FRESH FRUIT IN BEE'S LUNCH!!! I can feel the irrationality and anxiety draining my store of energy like a battery-operated racecar grinding away in the corner. This is energy I will need to get through the next day. But I just lie in bed and watch it burn, and with it any hope for a productive tomorrow. There go the dishes, there goes the grocery store, there goes exercise, there goes bringing in the garbage cans. There goes basic human kindness. I wake up in a sweat so through I sleep with a pitcher of water by the bed or I might die of dehydration. ~ Maria Semple

For every can't, there's a can. Cans are worth money, so you'd better start collecting them. ~ Bianca McCormick-Johnson

The cans of bathroom cleaner they sold had faced the sun in their display pyramid for so long that their front labels had faded from lime green to pale lemon. The mouse-print instructions about not eating the stuff could no longer be read. "If swallowed - " each of the cans said, then there was just a wordless scorch mark as warning. At ~ Mary Karr

To live with integrity in an unjust society we must work for justice. To walk with integrity through a landscape strewn with beer cans, we must stop and pick them up. ~ Starhawk

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not. ~ Seamus Heaney

Tatiana fretted over him before he left as if he were a five-year-old on his first day of school.
Shura, don't forget to wear your helmet wherever you go, even if it's just down the trail to the river.
Don't forget to bring extra magazines. Look at this combat vest. You can fit more than five hundred rounds. It's unbelievable. Load yourself up with ammo. Bring a few extra cartridges. You don't want to run out.
Don't forget to clean your M-16 every day. You don't want your rifle to jam."
Tatia, this is the third generation of the M-16. It doesn't jam anymore. The gunpowder doesn't burn as much. The rifle is self-cleaning."
When you attach the rocket bandolier, don't tighten it too close to your belt, the friction from bending will chafe you, and then irritation follows, and then infection...
...Bring at least two warning flares for the helicopters. Maybe a smoke bomb, too?"
Gee, I hadn't thought of that."
Bring your Colt - that's your lucky weapon - bring it, as well as the standard -issue Ruger. Oh, and I have personally organized your medical supplies: lots of bandages, four complete emergency kits, two QuickClots - no I decided three. They're light. I got Helena at PMH to write a prescription for morphine, for penicillin, for -"
Alexander put his hand over her mouth. "Tania," he said, "do you want to just go yourself?"
When he took the hand away, she said, "Yes."
He kissed her.
She said, "Spam. Three cans. And kee ~ Paullina Simons

The E-Meter, short for "electropsychometer," is an "electronic instrument that measures mental state and change of state in individuals," according to the church. During the process, the preclear, or PC (person getting the auditing), is asked a set of questions or given directions as he holds on to two empty "cans" hooked up to the meter. It is believed that the thoughts in a person's mind affect the flow of energy between the cans and cause the needle on the dial to move. ~ Leah Remini

I never waited for my Irish Cream coffee to be the right temperature, with a storm happening outside and my fireplace crackling ... I wrote every day, at home, in the office, whether I felt like it or not, I just did it. ~ Stephen J. Cannell

It wasn't the best place to go for a walk, really. There were all these things that people had thrown away back there - old cookers and broken dishes and dolls with no arms and no legs and empty cans and broken bottles. Mum and Dad made me promise not to go exploring back there, because there were too many sharp things, and tetanus and such. ~ Neil Gaiman

Far as I knew, closest she'd gotten to art was a drafting table and dressing mannequins in store windows, and the closest I'd gotten to saving the world was my name on some petitions, for everything from recycling aluminum cans to saving the whales. I put my cans in the trash now, and I didn't know how the whales we're doing. ~ Joe R. Lansdale

She walked down the basement steps. She saw an imaginary framed photo seep into the wall - a quiet-smiled secret. No more than a few meters, it was a long walk to the drop sheets and the assortment of paint cans that shielded Max Vandenburg. She removed the sheets closest to the wall until there was a small corridor to look through. The first part of him she saw was his shoulder, and through the slender gap, she slowly, painfully, inched her hand in until it rested there. His clothing was cool. He did not wake.
She could feel his breathing and his shoulder moving up and down ever so slightly. For a while, she watched him. Then she sat and leaned back.
Sleepy air seemed to have followed her.
The scrawled words of practice stood magnificently on the wall by the stairs, jagged and childlike and sweet. They looked on as both the hidden Jew and the girl slept, hand to shoulder.
They breathed.
German and Jewish lungs. ~ Markus Zusak

Headphones are to an introvert what the cloak of invisibility is to Harry Potter. Slipping them on is a way of becoming invisible. The bigger the headphones, the better. As a rule I'm against ear buds. The message they send is ambiguous: "I'm sort of listening to something, but you can still talk to me." Give me headphones big enough for Dumbo, cans that say, "Don't you dare try to talk to me right now." You can tell how big an introvert someone is by how big their headphones are. At least you should be able to. ~ Sammy Rhodes

If that's what you do to people you love, I can's imagine what you have in store for people you hate ~ Rachel Gibson

Griffin Drake and his MacBook were the best of friends, more intimate than lovers. He slept with it. He cared for it with specially made cleaning cloths and cans of air to keep it dust free. Plants and fish had died under his watch with alarming regularity, but the computer-the computer was tended like a child. ~ Tere Michaels

The escape from industrialism is not in socialism or in Sovietism. The answer lies in a return to a society where agriculture is practiced by most of the people. It is in fact impossible for any culture to be sound and healthy without a proper regard for the soil, no matter how many urban dwellers think that their food comes from grocers and delicatessens, or their milk from tin cans. This ignorance does not release them from a final dependence upon the farm and that most incorrigible of beings, the farmer. ~ Andrew Lytle

Atticus said to Jem one day, "I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. "Your father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corn cribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird. ~ Harper Lee

He'd figured out the body, so now it was on to the brain. Specifically: How do you make anyone actually want to do any of this stuff? How do you flip the internal switch that changes us all back into the Natural Born Runners we once were? Not just in history, but in our own lifetimes. Remember? Back when you were a kid and you had to be yelled at to slow down? Every game you played, you played at top speed, sprinting like crazy as you kicked cans, freed all, and attacked jungle outposts in your neighbors' backyards. Half the fun of doing anything was doing it at record pace, making it probably the last time in your life you'd ever be hassled for going too fast. ~ Christopher McDougall

Rahel thought of the someone who had taken the trouble to go up there with cans of paint, white for the clouds, blue for the sky, silver for the jets, and brushes, and thinner. ~ Arundhati Roy

...[I]t doesn't take an advanced degree to figure out that this education talk is less a strategy for mitigating inequality than it is a way of rationalizing it. To attribute economic results to school years finished and SAT scores achieved is to remove matters from the realm of, well, economics and to relocate them to the provinces of personal striving and individual intelligence. From this perspective, wages aren't what they are because one party (management) has a certain amount of power over the other (workers); wages are like that because the god of the market, being surpassingly fair, rewards those who show talent and gumption. Good people are those who get a gold star from their teacher in elementary school, a fat acceptance letter from a good college, and a good life when they graduate. All because they are the best. Those who don't pay attention in high school get to spend their days picking up discarded cans by the side of the road. Both outcomes are our own doing. ~ Thomas Frank

The computer is the new fireplace, everyone in the family gathers around the digital hearth for warmth. ~ Amy Poehler

Film is the packaging of information in cans. Videotape is involved with the feeding back of process. Film rips information away from the situation for use elsewhere. Videotape can be fed back into a given situation and enrich experience. Film extends man as a spectator. Videotape extends man as a cybernator. Film imports information. Videotape implodes indigenous data. ~ Paul Ryan