Backward Quotes

Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Puck swung the cannon around in anger. The nozzle spun and hit Sabrina in the chest. The force was so pawerful she was knocked right off the platform and fell backward off the tower. She saw sky above her and felt the wind in her hair. How ironic, she thought, as she fell to her certain death, that at that moment she would have given anything to be a giant goose again.
Air rushed past Sabrina's ears and suddenly she felt her back tingling again. A moment later she was hanging upside down, inches from the ground. She looked up to find her savior, only to find that her her wasn't a person but a long, furry tail sticking out of the back of her pants. It was wrapped around a beam in the tower a kept her swinging there like a monkey.
Puck floated down to her, his wings flapping softly enough to allow him to hover.
"I bet you think this is hilarious. Look what you did to me with your stupid pranks. I have a tail!" she raged.
Puck's face was trembling. "I'm sorry."
"What?" Sabrina said blankly.
"I almost killed you. I'm sorry, Sabrina," he said, rubbing his eyes on his filthy hoodie. He lifted her off the tower and set her on the ground.
"Since when do you care?" Sabrina said, still stunned by the boy's apology. ~ Michael Buckley

My being consists of matter and form, that is, of soul and body; annihilation will reach neither of them, for they were never produced out of nothing. The consequence is, that every part of me will serve to make something in the world; and this again will change into another part through an infinite succession of change. This constant method of alteration gave me my being, and my father before me, and so on to eternity backward: for I think I may speak thus, even though the world be confined within certain determinate periods. ~ Marcus Aurelius

Perhaps we know each other in the future and you're only remembering backward. ~ Marissa Meyer

I became interested in this question of whether you can build wormholes for interstellar travel. I realized that if you had a wormhole, the theory of general relativity by itself would permit you to go backward in time. ~ Kip Thorne

Finn says, "No, ma'am," as he enters the shop, where he gets poked directly in the chest by the fertility goddess. I move a step backward so he can get away because the last thing I need is for Finn to suddenly decide to become fertile. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

It is in many circumstances a troubling thing to belong to the advanced class of a backward nation. One surrenders coherence and begins a difficult process of choice which ends, often, in an eclectic idiosyncrasy. ~ George W. S. Trow

I've finally gotten to a point in my life where I'm not afraid to speak. Where my shadow no longer haunts me. And I don't want to lose that freedom
not again. I can't go backward. I'd rather be shot dead screaming for justice than die alone in a prison of my own making. ~ Tahereh Mafi

If everybody floated with the tide of talk, placidity would soon end in stagnation. It is the strong backward stroke which stirs the ripples, and gives animation and variety. ~ Agnes Repplier

We need to have nature back in our atmosphere. There might be a turning point of going backward - within a few thousand years we are going back to the Stone Age! There are many scenarios [with] the robot technologies: Humans no longer need to walk; machines can produce products and food and everything. You might not be able to recognize what's false and what is real. ~ Hiroshi Sugimoto

We are a heterogeneous society. We have to accept that. Growth has to be such that the most backward sections also benefit from it. Otherwise, it will be a very imbalanced growth. ~ Baba Kalyani

Hello?" I peered into the shadows.
Two green circles flashed in the dark. I yelped, jumping backward and pressing myself against the wall.
"And may I wish a very good morning to you, too, October." The voice was amused, underscored by a chuckle like thick cream. "What happened? Did the prettiest little princess miss her carriage home? ~ Seanan McGuire

I still had moments when my nerves got to me, but whenever I'd start to get anxious, Kyla Ross would remind me, "Simone, just do what you do in practice." And before I went out for each event, she'd high-five me and say, "Just like practice, Simone!" I'd say the same thing to her when it was her turn to go up. "Just like practice" became our catchphrase.
As I walked onto the mat to do my floor exercise, I held on to that phrase like it was a lifeline, because I was about to perform a difficult move I'd come up with in practice - a double flip in the layout position with a half twist out. The way it happened was, I'd landed short on a double layout full out earlier that year during training, and I'd strained my calf muscle on the backward landing. Aimee didn't want me to risk a more severe injury, so she suggested I do the double layout - body straight with legs together and fully extended as I flipped twice in the air - then add a half twist at the end. That extra half twist meant I'd have to master a very tricky blind forward landing, but it would put less stress on my calves.
I thought the new combination sounded incredibly cool, so I started playing around with it until I was landing the skill 95 percent of the time. At the next Nationals Camp, I demonstrated the move for Martha and she thought it looked really good, so we went ahead and added it to the second tumbling pass of my floor routine. I'd already performed the combination at national meets that year, bu ~ Simone Biles

I can't deal with someone wanting to take a relationship backward or needing space or cheating on you. ~ Taylor Swift

Imagine the privileges an abusive man may acquire: getting his own way most of the time, having his partner bend over backward to keep him happy so he won't explode, getting to behave as he pleases, and then on top of it all, he gets praise for what a good person he is, and everyone is trying to help him feel better about himself! ~ Lundy Bancroft

You're impinging on my private space," I said, inching backward.
Patch gave a barely-there smile. "Impinging? This isn't the SAT, Nora. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick

We cannot go backward. We cannot erase time and events. But we can go forward, hand in hand, hope in our hearts and love lighting our way. ~ Sharon Shinn

I finally understood that I didn't lack pen and paper but my own
memorizing mind. It had been given away with a hundred poems, called
rote learning, old-fashioned, backward, an enemy of creative thinking,
a great human gift disowned. ~ Grace Paley

The Malays were outstripped economically in their own country by the immigrant races. In the words of historian Lennox Mills, "when the British came, the Malay was a poor man in a poor country; when they left he was a poor man in a rich country." British attitudes and policies, what the Malays did for a living, the strengths of the immigrants and the nature of the Malay value system all contributed to their backward economic position. ~ Anonymous

Listen," she said in a fierce voice, barely controlled below a shout, "you sanctimonious, know-nothing, backward, shriveled son-of-a-bitch. It's attitudes like yours that screw up the world! You talk about your religion and culture, but you're just a self-serving, patriarchal, fanatic. You wouldn't know Satan if she bit you on the ass! ~ J. Craig Wheeler

We have to get a crew together to meet up after school today."
"Ouch," Finn said. "Well, you've come to the right place."
They looked out across the cafeteria, where hundreds of their peers sat and ate, just waiting to be tapped for after-school labor.
"I guess I should get started," Megan said.
"What about Doug?" Finn asked.
"It's just a gut instinct, but I don't think he's going to be much help," Megan replied, walking backward. "Wish me luck."
"Good luck," Finn said with a smile. ~ Kate Brian

Wise men count backward toward zero. They know that's where contentment lies. ~ Marty Rubin

Dream Song 55
Peter's not friendly. He gives me sideways looks.
The architecture is far from reassuring.
I feel uneasy.
A pity, - the interview began so well:
I mentioned fiendish things, he waved them away
and sloshed out a martini
strangely needed. We spoke of indifferent matters
God's health, the vague hell of the Congo,
John's energy,
anti-matter matter. I felt fine.
Then a change came backward. A chill fell.
Talk slackened,
died, and began to give me sideways looks.
'Chirst,' I thought 'what now?' and would have askt for another
but didn't dare.
I feel my application failing. It's growing dark,
some other sound is overcoming. His last words are:
'We betrayed me. ~ John Berryman

Sometimes, staying put, going sideways, or moving backward is actually the best way to eliminate what blocks or impedes your path. ~ Ryan Holiday

The eastward spurs tip backward from the sun.
Nights runs an obscure tide round cape and bay
and beats with boats of cloud up from the sea
against this sheer and limelit granite head.
Swallow the spine of range; be dark. O lonely air.
Make a cold quilt across the bone and skull
that screamed falling in flesh from the lipped cliff
and then were silent, waiting for the flies.

Here is the symbol, and climbing dark
a time for synthesis. Night buoys no warning
over the rocks that wait our keels; no bells
sound for the mariners. Now must we measure
our days by nights, our tropics by their poles,
love by its end and all our speech by silence.
See in the gulfs, how small the light of home.

Did we not know their blood channelled our rivers,
and the black dust our crops ate was their dust?
O all men are one man at last. We should have known
the night that tidied up the cliffs and hid them
had the same question on its tongue for us.
And there they lie that were ourselves writ strange.

Never from earth again the coolamon
or thin black children dancing like the shadows
of saplings in the wind. Night lips the harsh
scarp of the tableland and cools its granite.
Night floods us suddenly as history
that has sunk many islands in its good time. ~ Judith A. Wright

He was the first to reach the aircraft, and he went for the door that by some miracle was facing outward and not into the concrete wall. Wrenching the thing open, and getting out his flashlight, he didn't know what to expect inside - smoke? Fumes? Blood and body parts?
Zsadist was sitting rigid in a backward-facing seat, his big body strapped in, both hands locked on the armrests. The Brother was staring straight ahead and not blinking.
"Have we stopped moving?" he said hoarsely ~ J.R. Ward

Go back to what's good, what's certain, what's always there. You woke up today. Just start walking. Whatever it is, it'll pass. Time doesn't go backward. That's the one real blessing. It happened; it does you no good to worry. Keep it movin'. ~ Jesse L. Martin

I had the courage to look backward
The ghosts of my days ~ Guillaume Apollinaire

It came to her so clearly now: the stiff-armed reach out to her side with her palm facing backward, the confident expectation of some trusting little hand grabbing hers. ~ Anne Tyler

Horeb bent over me and ran his hand down my neck, not stopping when his fingers reached my chest.
I jerked backward. "What are you doing?"
His eyes were black and intense. "A little taste before the wedding, Jayden? ~ Kimberley Griffiths Little

No end of blessings from heaven and earth. As we climb up out of the Moab valley and reach the high tableland stretching northward, traces of snow flying across the road, the sun emerges clear of the overcast, burning free on the very edge of the horizon. For a few minutes the whole region from the canyon of the Colorado to the Book Cliffs - crag, mesa, turret, dome, canyon wall, plain, swale and dune - glows with a vivid amber light against the darkness on the east. At the same time I see a mountain peak rising clear of the clouds, old Tukuhnikivats fierce as the Matterhorn, snowy as Everest, invincible. "Ferris, stop this car. Let's go back." But he only steps harder on the gas. "No," he says, "you've got a train to catch." He sees me craning my neck to stare backward. "Don't worry," he adds, "it'll all still be here next spring." The ~ Edward Abbey

The illuminated ones can take any form
a man, a woman, a child, an elder, or even a dog. It is not inconsequential that the English language allows for the dyslexia of the spelling of the word dog: God spelled backward. ~ Jean Houston

And you are a useless princess who knows absolutely nothing of the real world. You would be the very last person I'd choose to chain myself to. But apparently both our kingdoms - no. The whole realm needs this alliance, so what we want doesn't matter. I will do what I have to do, regardless of my personal feelings, and you will do the same. So sit down, grow up, and start acting like the kind of princess your people deserve." He snapped off the last syllable and abruptly let go at the same time so that I stumbled backward. ~ Betsy Schow

My days were not days of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and fretted by the ticking of a clock; for I lived like the Puri Indians, of whom it is said that "for yesterday, today, and tomorrow they have only one word, and they express the variety of meaning by pointing backward for yesterday forward for tomorrow, and overhead for the passing day." This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The computer's password protected. I try the basics: 1,2,3,4. QWERTY. YTREWQ, which is qwerty backward. PASSWORD. A few others. Whoever uses this computer isn't quite that dumb. They are, however, dumb enough to write it down in the corner of the desk blotter. ~ Michael Grant

Suzy Zeus is tense as stemware,
not explosive, just on edge -
needs a ten-foot wall around her,
or at least a ten-foot hedge,
Suzy's straining, teeth to toenails,
easing backward on the ledge. ~ Maggie Robbins

Mankind never loses any good thing, physical, intellectual, or moral, till it finds a better, and then the loss is a gain. No steps backward is the rule of human history. What is gained by one man is invested in all men, and is a permanent investment for all time. ~ Theodore Parker

He grabbed Ty and dipped him backward, kissing him for all he was worth. ~ Abigail Roux

Ture stories can't be told forward, only backward. We invent them from the vantage point of an ever-changing present and tell ourselves how they unfolded. ~ Siri Hustvedt

Systems awareness and systems design are important for health professionals, but they are not enough. They are enabling mechanisms only. It is the ethical dimensions of individuals that are essential to a system's success. Ultimately, the secret of quality is love. You have to love your patient, you have to love your profession, you have to love your God. If you have love, you can then work backward to monitor and improve the system. ~ Avedis Donabedian

Check it out."
Jonah removed the bubble wrap and held up the picture for his three cousins.
Dan took a step backward. The shock was almost as powerful as it had been the day before at the Uffizi. "It's perfect! It's every bit as disgusting as the real one!"
Amy nodded. "And so fast. We only called you yesterday."
Jonah shrugged. "Even the Janus take a short cut every now and then. You can do a lot with digitization these days. You break the picture down to squares and reproduce them one at a time. The other two are just as fly."
"You mean, hog ugly," Hamilton amended.
"The serpents don't help," Dan put in critically. "Live fat spaghetti. Lady, if you're thinking of a modeling career, forget it!"
The rapper clucked sympathetically. "You guys just don't appreciate the power of the visual image. The Wiz used to be like that–until Gangsta Kronikles. When you're in film industry, you understand the whole picture's-worth-a-thousand-words deal."
Hamilton rolled his eyes. "Here we go again. ~ Gordon Korman

Paradoxical as it may seem, to believe in youth is to look backward; to look forward we must believe in age. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

Jake shuts the van's back doors and lies down next to me. He's really close, so close I can feel him breathing on the nape of my neck. I could put more space between us, but instead I scoot backward, leaning into him, my back pressed into the pleasant warmth of his front. Jake holds his breath for a moment, but he doesn't say anything. And he doesn't move away ... He moves so his mouth is right under my ear, brushing the skin there, and one of his hands slides up, resting on my rib cage. My whole body tingles as he starts to sing softly into my ear. ~ Hannah Harrington

But if we go in for reservations on communal and caste basis, we swamp the bright and able people and remain second-rate or third-rate. I am grieved to learn of how far this business of reservation has gone based on communal considerations. It has amazed me to learn that even promotions are based sometimes on communal or caste considerations. This way lies not only folly, but disaster. Let us help the backward groups by all means, but never at the cost of efficiency. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru

It seemed like a backward step at first, but now I know going back was the only way to show how far I've come. ~ Kekla Magoon

Every moment of every day, I was tripping backward while the rest of the world marched forward. ~ Emily Henry

You take this world and make it what it should be. And don't let the beliefs of a backward system define you. You are the one who has to live with the future, baby girl. So you live it. You understand? ~ Mary Weber

Vaccinated Time Travel: To fantasize about traveling backward in time, but only with proper vaccinations. ~ Douglas Coupland

She's learned it's largely a matter of being willing to ask the next question. She's met the very Mexican who first wore his baseball cap backward, asking the next question. ~ William Gibson

I didn't say anything - just held up my hands and shuffled backward toward the door. Antagonizing a little old lady holding a shotgun seemed like a very bad idea. ~ Mike Mullin

The smallest thing by the influence of eternity is made infinite and eternal. We pass through a standing continent or region of ages, that are already ebfore us, glorious and perfect while we come to them. Like men in a ship we pass forward, the shores and marks seeming to go backward, though we move and they stand still. We are not with them in our progressive motion, but prevent the swiftness of our course, and are present with them in our understandings. Like the sun we dart our rays before us, and occupy those spaces with light and contemplation which we move towards, but possess not with our bodies. And seeing all things in the light of Divine knowledge, eternally serving God, rejoice unspeakable in that service, and enjoy it all. ~ Thomas Traherne

done everything backward. She'd done everything, forever, by the book. The right way. Until then, I'd only learned this about grace: sometimes, like in my case, you get blessed for no reason. You get something wonderful that you don't deserve. But on that day, I learned that the flip side is also true: sometimes you get screwed for no reason. You get something awful that you never, ever deserved. It all slips away. You cannot earn yourself an easy life or even a fair one. Soon ~ Glennon Doyle Melton

The Sugar Frosted Nutsack is fantastic. It's volcanic and sexy and utterly unlike anything I've read before. It feels like the future in a dazzling way that has nothing to do with looking backward. It's been a long wait for a new novel from Mark Leyner, but worth it. Ten out of ten from me. ~ Douglas Coupland

I don't subscribe to the narrative that Africa is backward because of colonialism. ~ Mo Ibrahim

Please don't feel hurt, Satan, but my parents raised me to believe you didn't exist. My mom and dad said you and God were invented in the superstitious, backward pea brains of hillbilly preachers and Republican hypocrites. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Backward glances are not encouraged. ~ Margaret Atwood

Where we choose to be, where we choose to be
we have the power to determine that in our lives. We cannot reel time backward or forward, but we can take ourselves to the place that defines our being. ~ Sena Jeter Naslund

It is often said that if you have a room with a view, you will feel peaceful and relaxed, but if the room is a caravan hurtling down a steep and twisted road, and the view is an eerie mountain range racing backward away from you, while chilly mountain winds sting your face and toss dust into your eyes, then you will not feel one bit of peace and relaxation. ~ Lemony Snicket

Mr Abrahams was a preparatory schoolmaster of the old-fashioned sort. He cared neither for work nor games, but fed his boys well and saw that they did not misbehave. The rest he left to the parents, and did not speculate how much the parents were leaving to him. Amid mutual compliments the boys passed out into a public school, healthy but backward, to receive upon undefended flesh the first blows of the world. ~ E. M. Forster

Her lips were suddenly on his again, and he lost his balance and almost fell backward off the bench. Now that he'd finally been able to kiss her, she apparently liked it. He had thought she would take off his blindfold first, but he wasn't about to complain. ~ Melanie Dickerson

Too much looking backward ... is bad for progress. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

We have it backward. Faith is not business, and there is no such thing as quarterly growth of the inward life. ~ Ricky Maye

If you start parsing the cause-and-effect chain backward through time, eventually you land in cosmology - does the story begin with the Big Bang or the out-of-nothing creation of the world by the word of a Southern Baptist god? And that question is even more fraught than any of the others. The stakes couldn't be any higher, because not it's not just a question of life and death, but also a question of life after death or eternal torture after death. ~ Kyle Minor

All across the multiverse there are backward tribes* who distrust mirrors and images because, they say, they steal a bit of a person's soul and there's only so much of a person to go around. And the people who wear more clothes say this is just superstition, despite the fact that other people who spend their lives appearing in images of one sort or another seem to develop a thin quality. It's put down to over-work and, tellingly, over-exposure instead.
*Considered backward, that is, by people who wear more clothes than they do. ~ Terry Pratchett

Nobody gets to live life backward. Look ahead, that is where your future lies. ~ Ann Landers

The arabs are a backward people who eat nothing but camel dung. ~ Winston Churchill

Leave me like this. I have come full circle and I understand. The world must be read backward. All is clear. ~ Italo Calvino

Have you ever seen anything quite as pathetic?" said Malfoy. "And he's supposed to be our teacher!"
Harry and Ron both made furious moves toward Malfoy, but Hermione got there first - SMACK!
She had slapped Malfoy across the face with all the strength she could muster. Malfoy staggered. Harry, Ron, Crabbe, and Goyle stood flabbergasted as Hermione raised her hand again.
"Don't you dare call Hagrid pathetic you foul - you evil - "
"Hermione!" said Ron weakly and he tried to grab her hand as she swung it back.
"Get off Ron!"
Hermione pulled out her wand. Malfoy stepped backward. Crabbe and Goyle looked at him for instructions, thoroughly bewildered.
"C'mon," Malfoy muttered, and in a moment, all three of them had disappeared into the passageway to the dungeons.
"Hermione!" Ron said again, sounding both stunned and impressed. ~ J.K. Rowling

People tell me that the countryside must always be stupid and backward, and I get angry, as if it were said that only townspeople had immortal souls, and that it was only in the city that the flame of divinity breathed into the first men had an unobscured glow. ~ George William Russell

Ka is a wheel; its one purpose is to turn. The spin of ka always brings us back to the same place, to face and reface our mistakes and defeats until we can learn from them. When we learn from the past, the wheel continues to move forward, towards growth and evolution. When we don't, the wheel spins backward, and we are given another chance. If once more we squander the opportunity, the wheel continues its rotation towards devolution, or destruction. ~ Robin Furth

Look, now, in the distance, a person, closer, it's two people, hand in hand, ankle deep in the froth. Sunrise in hair, blonde, green bikini, tall, shining. They kiss. Handsy things happening underneath hist trunks, her tongue.
Who wouldn't envy such youth, who wouldn't grieve what has been lost in watching. They come up the dune, she pushing him backward, up.
Study them from the balcony, holding your breath while the couple stops in a smooth bowl of sand, protected by the dunes. She pushes down his trunks, he takes off her bathing suit, top and bottom. Oh yes, you would return to your wife on hands and knees, crawl the distance of the eastern seaboard to feel her fingers once more in your hair.
You are unworthy of her. Yes. No.
Even as you think of flight, you're transfixed by the lovers, wouldn't dare move for fear of making them flap like birds into the blistered sky.
They step into each other, and it's hard to tell where one begins and one ends. Hands in hair and warmth on warmth, into the sand her red knees raised, his body moving.
It is time. Something odd happening though you are not ready for it. There is an overlap. You have seen this before, felt her breath on your nape, the heat of her beneath, and the cold damp of day on your back, the helpless overwhelm, a sense of crossing. The sex reaching it's culmination.
Come. Lip bitten to blood and finish with a roar and birds shoot up and crumbles in the pink folds of an ear. Serrat ~ Lauren Groff

It's like we're strands of wire intertwined in a great cable that runs through a slot ... Most people lead two-dimensional lives. All they can see is the face of the slot, a cross section, so that the wires look like a mass of separate little circles looking bigger or smaller according to how close you are. They don't
they can't see that these 'circles' are just cross sections of wires that run backward and forward infinitely and that there is a great surge through the whole cable and that anybody who is truly into the full bare essence of the thing ... ~ Tom Wolfe

It is only in the backward countries of the world that increased production is still an important object. ~ John Stuart Mill

Winning times in the New York City Marathon have not dropped all that much over the years, but rather U.S. runners went backward. In 1983, there were 267 U.S. men who broke 2:20 in a marathon, and by 2000 that number was down to 27. ~ Alberto Salazar

On Good Friday last year the SS found some pretext to punish 60 priests with an hour on "the tree." That is the mildest camp punishment. They tie a man's hands together behind his back, palms facing out and fingers pointing backward. Then they turn his hands inwards, tie a chain around his wrists and hoist him up by it. His own wight twists his joints and pulls them apart ... Several of the priest who were hung up last year never recovered and died. If you don't have a strong heart, you don't survive it. Many have a permanently crippled hand. ~ Jean Bernard

In the moment all is dear to me, dear that in this logic there is no redemption, the city itself being the highest form of madness and each and every part, organic or inorganic, an expression of this same madness. I feel absurdly and humbly great, not as megalomaniac, but as human spore, as the dead sponge of life swollen to saturation. I no longer look into the eyes of the woman I hold in my arms but I swim through, head and arms and legs, and I see that behind the sockets of the eyes there is a region unexplored, the world of futurity, and here there is no logic whatever, just the still germination of events unbroken by night and day, by yesterday and tomorrow. The eye, accustomed to concentration on points in space, now concentrates on points in time; the eye sees forward and backward at will. The eye which was the I of the self no longer exists; this selfless eye neither reveals nor illuminates. It travels along the line of the horizon, a ceaseless, uninformed voyager. Trying to retain the lost body I grew in logic as the city, a point digit in the anatomy of perfection. I grew beyond my own death, spiritually bright and hard. I was divided into endless yesterdays, endless tomorrows, resting only on the cusp of the event, a wall with many windows, but the house gone. I must shatter the walls and windows, the last shell of the lost body, if I am to rejoin the present. That is why I no longer look into the eyes or through the eyes, but by the legerdemain of will swim throug ~ Henry Miller

To picture world history as advancing smoothly and steadily without sometimes taking gigantic strides backward is undialectical, unscientific and theoretically wrong. ~ Vladimir Lenin

It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward. ~ Louis Sachar

Fulgham's team started by coming up with more than one thousand scenarios in which Sentinel could be useful, everything from inputting victims' statements to tracking evidence to interfacing with FBI databases that looked for patterns among clues. Then they started working backward to figure out what kind of software should accommodate each need. Every morning, the team conducted a "stand-up" - meetings where everyone stood to encourage brevity - and recounted the previous day's work and what they hoped to accomplish over the next twenty-four hours. ~ Charles Duhigg

On the first day of November last year, sacred to many religious calendars but especially the Celtic, I went for a walk among bare oaks and birch. Nothing much was going on. Scarlet sumac had passed and the bees were dead. The pond had slicked overnight into that shiny and deceptive glaze of delusion, first ice. It made me remember sakes and conjure a vision of myself skimming backward on one foot, the other extended; the arms become wings. Minnesota girls know that this is not a difficult maneuver if one's limber and practices even a little after school before the boys claim the rink for hockey. I think I can still do it - one thinks many foolish things when November's bright sun skips over the entrancing first freeze.

A flock of sparrows reels through the air looking more like a flying net than seventy conscious birds, a black veil thrown on the wind. When one sparrow dodges, the whole net swerves, dips: one mind. Am I part of anything like that?

Maybe not. The last few years of my life have been characterized by stripping away, one by one, loves and communities that sustain the soul. A young colleague, new to my English department, recently asked me who I hang around with at school. "Nobody," I had to say, feeling briefly ashamed. This solitude is one of the surprises of middle age, especially if one's youth has been rich in love and friendship and children. If you do your job right, children leave home; few communities can stand an individual's most ~ Mary Rose O'Reilley

I've only have time for one last lesson...
"I have you," Demandred finally growled, breathing heavily. "Who ever you are, I have you. You cannot win."
"You didn't listen to me," Lan whispered.
One last lesson. The hardest...
Demandred struck, and Lan saw his opening. Lan lunged forward, placing Demandred's sword point against his ow side and ramming himself forward onto it.
"I did not come here to win", Lan whispered, smiling, "I came here to kill you. Death is lighter that a feather."
Demandred's eyes opened wide, and he tried to pull back. Too late. Lan's sword took him straight through the throat.
The world grew dark as Lan slipped backward off the sword. He felt Nynaeve's fear and pain as he did, and he sent his love to her. ~ Robert Jordan

A holiday gives one a chance to look backward and forward; to reset oneself by an inner compass. ~ May Sarton

From the day we touched these stolen shores, he'd explain to anyone who'd listen, they infected our minds. They deployed their phrenologists, their backward Darwinists, and forged a false Knowledge to keep us down. But against this demonology, there were those who battled back. Universities scorned them. Compromised professors scoffed at their names. So they published themselves and hawked their Knowledge at street fairs, churches, and bazaars.
For their efforts, they were forgotten. Their great works languished out of print, while those they sought to save grew fat on integration and amnesia. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time? ~ William Shakespeare

When they separated, the freckleless spot between Pete's eyes was bright red. Before anything else could be said or done, May grabbed her bike and hopped on. She waited until she was six houses down to turn and see if he was still standing in the driveway watching her. He was. She stopped for just a moment, and they caught each other's eyes. Then he slowly started walking backward toward the house. May couldn't see that well, considering that her eyes were still a little blurry and he was far away, but it looked like he was smiling. ~ Maureen Johnson

Rage twisted his features. He would hurt her now, and badly, she knew that. Crack. The whip made a sound like thunder. The coil took Viserys around the throat and yanked him backward. He went sprawling in the grass, stunned and choking. ~ George R R Martin

My feet took an involuntary step backward as I suddenly envisioned a world where I wasn't a hot tempered smartass. It was a pretty world. ~ Jennifer R. McDonald

I believe that we're all created in the image of God and we're all fallen sinners. And I think we can recognize that as we look backward in history. ~ Russell D. Moore

My tears fall backward, burning as they singe their way down my throat. ~ Tahereh Mafi

When you have a hard day or when I see you slipping backward, I'm desperate to stop it, to make you see how amazing you are, to help you know that you have so much to look forward to. The things that happened to you won't haunt you forever."
"But I'll remember them forever." I know there's no forgetting and I'm still not sure what to do with that.
He sucks in a breath. "But they'll hurt less."
I don't have to look at him to know there are tears on his face. ~ Jolene Perry

Just being nice is not a winning strategy. Nice sends a message that the woman is willing to sacrifice pay to be liked by others. This is why a woman needs to combine niceness with insistence, a style that Mary sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, calls "relentlessly pleasant." This method requires smiling frequently, expressing appreciation and concern, invoking common interests, emphasizing larger goals, and approaching the negotiation as solving a problem as opposed to taking a critical stance. Most negotiations involve drawn-out, successive moves, so women need to stay focused... and smile.

No wonder women don't negotiate as much as men. It's like trying to cross a minefield backward in high heels. So what should we do? Should we play by the rules that others created? Should we figure out a way to put on a friendly expression while not being too nice, displaying the right levels of loyalty and using "we" language? I understand the paradox of advising women to change the world by adhering to biased rules and expectations. I know it is not a perfect answer but a means to a desirable end. It is also true, as any good negotiator knows, that having a better understanding of the other side leads to a superior outcome. So at the very least, women can enter these negotiations with the knowledge that showing concern for the common good, even as they negotiate for themselves, will strengthen their position. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

Within 25 years, virtual reality meetings will be essentially transparent to being there in person. Once we can do this, the idea of climbing into an aircraft, and burning up huge quantities of fossil fuels to propel our bodies and briefcases full of papers, will seem absolutely backward. ~ Burt Rutan

When you're flying, the changing balance of lift and weight pulls you up or down. But another pair of forces pulls you forward or backward through the air: thrust and drag. Thrust is the power that pulls the kite forward - you run with it to get it up in the air. You have to have thrust to create lift. Drag is there because your kite's surfaces push against the air and slow the kite down. Drag doesn't pull you out of the sky; it makes you fly more slowly. ~ Elizabeth Wein

Be grateful simply for being alive. When you are grateful for life, pure and simple, your life becomes one you can be grateful for. That may strike you as circular or even backward logic, but your attitude really does have an effect on how things work out. When you can't change your life any other way, you can still change your attitude. When you do, your life changes. You find more chances to love, and you will be surprised to see how much more love is returned to you. ~ Bernie Siegel

I walk slowly, but I never walk backward. ~ Abraham Lincoln

There's no backward and no forward, no day other than this. You fill your cart as you go, and that's that. ~ John Burnham Schwartz

They felt the poorhouse would always be there, exempt from time. That some residents died, and others came, did not occur to them; a few believed that the name of the prefect was still Mendelssohn. In a sense the poorhouse would indeed outlast their homes. The old continue to be old-fashioned, though their youths were modern. We grow backward, aging into our father's opinion and even into those of our grandfathers. ~ John Updike

You're still holding my arm."
"I know."
So this was it, she thought, and struggled to keep her voice. "Should I ask you to let go?"
"I wouldn't bother."
She drew a deep, steadying breath. "All right. What do you want, Roman?"
"To get this out of the way, for both of us."
He rose. Her step backward was instinctive, and much more surprising to her than to him. "I don't think that's a good idea."
"Neither do I." With his free hand, he gathered up her hair. It was soft, as he'd known it would be. Thick and full and so soft that his fingers dived in and were lost. "But I'd rather regret something I did than something I didn't do."
"I'd rather not regret at all."
"Too late." He heard her suck in her breath as he yanked her against him. "One way or the other, we'll both have plenty to regret."
He was deliberately rough. He knew how to be gentle, though he rarely put the knowledge into practice. With her, he could have been. Perhaps because he knew that, he shoved aside any desire for tenderness. He wanted to frighten her, to make certain that when he let her go she would run, run away from him, because he wanted so badly for her to run to him.
Buried deep in his mind was the hope that he could make her afraid enough, repelled enough, to send him packing. If she did, she would be safe from him, and he from her. He thought he could accomplish it quickly. Then, suddenly, it was impossible to think at all.
She tasted like heav ~ Nora Roberts

A year jammed full of adventure and misadventure, strides forward and many steps backward, another year in my topsy-turvy, Jekyll-and-Hyde existence. ~ Anthony Kiedis

He took another steps backward, right into the horse of the Cokyrian soldier we had avoided earlier, bouncing off to land gracelessly upon the ground on his rear end. He stared up at the woman, making no attempt to stand.
"Your horse is very solid," he slurred. "Congratultions on having such a fine mount. ~ Cayla Kluver