Bench Quotes

Players must be able to carry out simple instructions from the bench to the court. If they can't, then they can't play ~ Bobby Knight

I would never have thought I was capable of sitting on the bench as the number two man. And it showed me that you can really achieve everything in life, even the unthinkable, as long as you're willing to work on yourself a little bit. ~ Oliver Kahn

Sir Edward Grey belongs to the class which, through heredity and tradition, expects to find a place on the magisterial bench to sit in judgement upon and above their fellow men, before they ever have any opportunity to make themselves acquainted with the tasks and trials of mankind. ~ Max Hastings

You're jumping over the bench, jumping back onto the ice and you're working as a unit. Defenders can move up the ice and score goals as well as the forwards. It's a real fast, physical game. It's the fastest game on earth so it's pretty enjoyable to watch. ~ Gerad Adams

You can't learn to swim on a piano bench. ~ Milton H. Erickson

It is a sunny fall afternoon and I'm engaged in one of my favorite pastimes - picking chestnuts. I'm playing alone under the spreading, leafy, protective tree. My mother is sitting on a bench nearby, rocking the buggy in which my sister is asleep. The city, beyond the lacy wall of trees, is humming with gentle noises. The sun has just passed its highest point and is warming me with intense, oblique rays. I pick up a reddish brown chestnut, and suddenly, through its warm skin, I feel the beat as if of a heart. But the beat is also in everything around me, and everything pulsates and shimmers as if it were coursing with the blood of life. Stooping under the tree, I'm holding life in my hand, and I am in the center of a harmonious, vibrating transparency. For that moment, I know everything there is to know. I have stumbled into the very center of plenitude, and I hold myself still with fulfillment, before the knowledge of my knowledge escapes me. ~ Eva Hoffman

I saw a poet chase a butterfly in a meadow. He put his net on a bench where a boy sat reading a book. It's a misfortune that it is usually the other way round. ~ Karl Kraus

Charles had climbed on a bench and was calling out that he had something to say, creating a racket that quickly got the attention of the room. Everyone looked immensely surprised, including Tessa and Will. Sona frowned, clearly thinking Charles was very rude. She didn't know the half of it, Cordelia thought darkly.
"Let me be the first to raise a glass to the happy couple!" said Charles, doing just that. "To James Herondale and Cordelia Carstairs. I wish to add personally that James, my brother's parabatai, has always been like a younger brother to me."
"A younger brother he accused of vandalizing greenhouses across our fair nation," muttered Will.
"As for Cordelia Carstairs - how to describe her?" Charles went on.
"Especially when one has not bothered to get to know her at all," murmured James.
"She is both beautiful and fair," said Charles, leaving Cordelia to wonder what the difference was, "as well as being brave. I am sure she will make James as happy as my lovely Grace makes me." He smiled at Grace, who stood quietly near him, her face a mask. "That's right. I am formally announcing my intention to wed Grace Blackthorn. You will all be invited, of course."
Cordelia glanced over at Alastair; he was expressionless, but his hands, jammed into his pockets, were fists. James had narrowed his eyes.
Charles went on merrily. "And lastly, my thanks go out to the folk of the Enclave, who supported my actions as acting Consul through our recent t ~ Cassandra Clare

When the plague struck Chicago, the townspeople here erected the gargoyles, and nary a soul was lost to the Black Death."
"The bubonic plague predates Chicago by about five hundred years."
He lowered himself to the bench. "I know. I was very disappointed when I found out. Almost as bad as when I learned there were no fairies. The world is much more interesting with goblins and plagues."
"Unless you catch the plague. ~ Kelley Armstrong

What an idiot he was! Had he really thought he could get away with kissing a marquess's daughter?
And not just any marquess's daughter, either. Celia looking oh so tempting in her sumptuous purple gown. Lovely, angry Celia.
Lady Celia, he reminded himself. But he'd never be able to think of her like that again, not when the taste and smell of her still filled his senses.
Hearing voices behind him, he slipped into an empty room to wrangle his emotions into some semblance of control. But it was no use. He could still feel her body yielding to his, still hear her rapid breathing as he'd taken every advantage.
Damn her and her soft mouth and her delicate sighs and her fingers curling into the nape of his neck so that all he wanted to do was press her down onto a bench...
"Hell and blazes!" He thrust his hands through his hair. What in thunder was he supposed to do about her?
And why had she let him kiss her, anyway? Why had she waited until he'd made a complete fool of himself before she'd drawn that damned pistol?
Oh. Right. That was why. To make a fool of him herself. To lull him into a false sense of security so she could prove she could control any situation.
Well, he'd stymied that, but it was little consolation. He'd behaved like a damned mooncalf, devouring her mouth as if he were a wolf and she were supper. If he'd allowed her to speak of their kiss, she probably would have pointed out exactly how insolent he'd been. Would have warn ~ Sabrina Jeffries

As her tutors had said, there were two signs of a good alchemist: the Athletic and the Intellectual. A good alchemist of the first sort was someone who could leap over the bench and be on the far side of a safely thick wall in three seconds, and a good alchemist of the second sort was someone who knew exactly when to do this. ~ Terry Pratchett

At 200 pounds, with a 17-inch neck, a resting pulse of 78, a bench press of 200 pounds, I was very much indeed a normal, All-American male. I carried my sickness within. ~ Dirk Benedict

SPIDER-MAN (thinking): I can bench press a car. I can climb up the
side of a wall. Fight twenty guys to a standstill. Swing across chasms thirty stories deep. Feel a bullet coming my way and move fast enough to get clear. But something in her makes me gentle. Makes me shy. Makes me strong. Makes me happy to be alive. And maybe that's it. Maybe that's what it really comes down to. She makes me. Makes me whole ... She completes me ...
So here's the thing, God ... I know I complain a lot, and I know that you and me, we've got issues, but right now, just for tonight ... Thank you for her. Thank you. Amazing Spider-Man #53 (Volume 2) ~ J. Michael Straczynski

The Samurai lived by a code of honor, not unlike the code that you live by. It's called the Bushido. It was never written down; was always something the Samurai knew, and it was handed down from one warrior to another. One of the tenets of the code is about justice. Not the pounding of a gavel on the bench of some judge who's been appointed to pass judgment on people by some politician. No, malaka, this concept of justice is what you feel in your bones: to die when it is right and to strike when it is right. ~ Kenneth Eade

But even regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimised - the question involuntarily arises - to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

And yet on that bench at Jacobacci, I was glad I had left everyone else behind. Although this was a town with a main street and a railway station, and people with dogs and electric lights it was near enough to the end of the earth to give me the impression that I was a solitary explorer in a strange land. That illusion (which was an illusion in the South Pole and at the headwaters of the Nile) was enough of a satisfaction to me to make me want to go forward. ~ Paul Theroux

Two buddies are walking home together. As they get to the fork where they part ways, the one turns to the other and says "Man...life sure stinks!". His pal grins and says "I think life is beautiful." From a nearby park bench an old bum overhears them. With a shaky voice from years of experiences he looks up at them... "You're both right." he say's as he turns to the 2nd fellow. "But I'd rather walk with you. ~ Unknown

It's so worth-while being a judge, because, if I make good, I can help prove that a woman's place is as much on the bench, in City Council, or in Congress, as in the home. ~ Florence Ellinwood Allen

On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire of thorns, that crackled 'like the laughter of the fool.'

Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing gowns of various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls shy and not shy filled the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake the hedge-carpenter, Elijah New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a neighboring dairyman, the shepherd's father-in-law, lolled in the settle; a young man and maid, who were blushing over tentative pourparlers on a life companionship, sat beneath the corner-cupboard; and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward moved restlessly about from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where she was. Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more prevailed in being unhampered by conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each other's good opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression or trait denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever - which nowadays so generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except the two extremes of the social scale.

("The Three Strangers") ~ Thomas Hardy

Now she sat on a bench alongside Valerie West, the two of them pretending to be on their lunch. Val was a whiz with data analysis, but nervous in the field. Cooper was watching her shred her napkin, and weighing whether it was worth it to say something, when Luisa touched the other woman's knee, said something off-mic. Valerie nodded, shrugged her shoulders back, and tucked the napkin in her pocket. Good. Normally Cooper would have discouraged a romantic relationship between teammates, but the two often seemed better agents because of it. ~ Marcus Sakey

Discouraged?
As I was driving home from work one day, I stopped to watch a local Little League baseball game that was being played in a park near my home. As I sat down behind the bench on the first-baseline, I asked one of the boys what the score was.
"We're behind 14 to nothing," he answered with a smile.
"Really," I said. "I have to say you don't look very discouraged."
"Discouraged?" the boy asked with a puzzled look on his face. "Why should we be discouraged? We haven't been up to bat yet. ~ Jack Canfield

Go ahead, throw this book away. Spit on me. Revile me. I dare you. Cast me out of your intellectual orbit. Throw me out of your backpack. Pitch me in the airport trash bin. Leave me on a bench in Central Park!
What do I care?
No. I don't want you to do all that. Don't do that.
DON'T DO IT! ~ Anne Rice

Some other brown stuff that might not be mud into her tangled hair. All around, villagers wandered with their baskets of brightly colored eggs, looking for the perfect hiding places. Ruth Zardo sat on the bench in the middle of the green tossing ~ Louise Penny

A cockroach stepped out from behind the ketchup, gave me a quick impassive once-over, decided that I was of the Brahmin faith, and walked earnestly across the table on errands of his own. Somebody had left a newspaper on the bench beside me, and I picked it up and swatted the cockroach, permitting his soul to transmigrate into the body of a quartermaster. ~ Ross Macdonald

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

Isabelle had always thought of her mind as a garden, a magical place to play as a child, when the grown-ups were having conversations and she was expected to listen politely-- and even, although she hated to admit this, later with Edward, her husband, when listening to the particularities of his carpet salesmanship wore her thin. Every year the garden grew larger, the paths longer and more complicated. Meadows of memories.

Of course, her mental garden hadn't always been well tended. There were the years when the children were young, fast-moving periods when life flew by without time for the roots of deep reflection, and yet she knew memories were created whether one pondered them or not. She had always considered that one of the luxuries of growing older would be the chance to wander through the garden that had grown while she wasn't looking. She would sit on a bench and let her mind take every path, tend every moment she hadn't paid attention to, appreciate the juxtaposition of the one memory against another. ~ Erica Bauermeister

Brain, maybe you should take a brief vacation. Take two aspirin and sit on the bench. Someone just smacked a line drive up the middle of the heart. ~ Allan Dare Pearce

Seated here in contemplations lost, my thought discovers vaster space beyond, supernal silence and unfathomed peace ~ Giacomo Leopardi

You know those particular stand out beauties you see once in a blue moon walking by themselves down the high street on a Saturday afternoon or sitting on a park bench all alone during their lunch break in the middle of summer, who immediately catch your eye, looking utterly bored out of their minds and just begging for some single handsome stranger to come and distract them away for twenty minutes or so from their mundane and repetitive daily worlds. That special girl who right away tugged so hard on your heart strings that your blood turned to ice and your soul melted to its very core because you knew she was completely your type without even having spoken to her. All you had to go on was a gut feeling and that special crazy something about her that spoke to every inch of your fibre and being and said this girl is the one for you, my friend, if you would only step up to the damn plate, put all your fears of public rejection, humiliation and inhibitions behind you and gather the courage, will power and determination to go and get her. That rare, radiant and beautiful Angel who caught a glimpse of you, too, and smiled back at you in turn while you were within their proximity but, alas, you had absolutely nothing to say to them in that moment. Nothing. No simple magic words, no charming chat up line, just a blank frozen mind and a stuttering tongue. But in reality, just to say one word, utter one stupid, tiny, silly little insignificant syllable would surely have been a million ~ Sean-Paul Thomas

I've always liked shows that have a strong cast of secondary characters. One of the greatest examples ever I would say is 'The Simpsons.' If you think about it, you could name 100 characters recognizable from that show. I think 'Scrubs' has done a good job of having a strong team coming off the bench. ~ Neil Flynn

We sat down on a bench within good view, and began to smoke cigars so as to attract as little attention as possible. ~ Bram Stoker

Alexander smoked and watched her from his tree stump bench. What are you doing? she would ask him.
Nothing, he would reply. Nothing but growing my pain into madness. ~ Paullina Simons

I went to the kiosk and bought ten bags of popcorn. I scattered nine on the ground for the pigeons, and sat on a bench to eat the last bag myself. Enough pigeons descended upon the popcorn for a remake of the October Revolution. ~ Haruki Murakami

What do you think you're doing?" ... "What does it look like, Blake? I'm obviously having wild sex on a cement bench with my best friend's boyfriend fifteen feet from a yard full of people. ~ Talia Vance

I paid the taxi driver, got out with my suitcase, surveyed my surroundings, and just as I was turning to ask the driver something or get back into the taxi and return forthwith to Chillán and then to Santiago, it sped off without warning, as if the somewhat ominous solitude of the place had unleashed atavistic fears in the driver's mind. For a moment I too was afraid. I must have been a sorry sight standing there helplessly with my suitcase from the seminary, holding a copy of Farewell's Anthology in one hand. Some birds flew out from behind a clump of trees. They seemed to be screaming the name of that forsaken village, Querquén, but they also seemed to be enquiring who: quién, quién, quién. I said a hasty prayer and headed for a wooden bench, there to recover a composure more in keeping with what I was, or what at the time I considered myself to be. Our Lady, do not abandon your servant, I murmured, while the black birds, about twenty-five centimetres in length, cried quién, quién, quién. Our Lady of Lourdes, do not abandon your poor priest, I murmured, while other birds, about ten centimetres long, brown in colour, or brownish, rather, with white breasts, called out, but not as loudly, quién, quién, quién, Our Lady of Suffering, Our Lady of Insight, Our Lady of Poetry, do not leave your devoted subject at the mercy of the elements, I murmured, while several tiny birds, magenta, black, fuchsia, yellow and blue in colour, wailed quién, quién, quién, at which point a cold win ~ Roberto Bolano

There are even some stars so remote that their light will reach the Earth only when Earth itself is a dead planet, as they themselves are dead, so that the living Earth will never be visited by that forlorn ray of light, without a living source, without a living destination. Often on fine nights when the park of this establishment is vacant, I amuse myself with this marvelous instrument (telescope). I go upstairs, walk across the grass, sit on a bench in the Avenue of Oaks – and there, in my solitude, I enjoy the pleasure of weighing the rays of dead stars. ~ Villiers De L'Isle-Adam

My dad owned a propane company in Oklahoma. ~ Johnny Bench

On a park bench on 12th street, my whole crew's famous, you try bust your gat and keep it rel but you nameless ~ Prodigy

And before he left, he said something she could never forget.

"You're like a park bench on an evening of sunset. People come, unload their worries, rest a while and may not even want to leave. But leave they must for the world outside awaits. And you must make peace with it. ~ Nitya Prakash

I was born on a bench in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, in the early spring of 1960. ~ Andre Brink

Tony the Beat Poet says the church is like a wounded animal these days. He says we used to have power and influence, but now we don't, and so many of our leaders are upset about this and acting like spoiled children, mad because they can't have their way. They disguise their actions to look as though they are standing on principle, but it isn't that, Tony says, it's bitterness. They want to take their ball and go home because they have to sit the bench. Tony and I agree that what God wants to do is sit the bench in humility and turn the other cheek like Gandhi, like Jesus. We decided that the correct place to share our faith was from a place of humility and love, not from a desire for power. ~ Donald Miller

Year hasn't been observed since the time of the Temple (The Second Jewish Book of Why, p. 262). The Sabbath year is still observed in some form, but only in Israel (ibid., p. 320). DAY 44 I first learned about the "domino" phrase in the book Serving the Word: Literalism in America from the Pulpit to the Bench, a very interesting look at fundamentalism. The history of literalism is actually ~ A. J. Jacobs

I sat on a bench and did what, as a girl, I had done whenever I needed to calm myself: instead of pressing the button with the number 4 on it, I let myself go up to the sixth floor. That space had been empty and dark for many years, ever since the lawyer who had his office there had left, taking with him even the light bulb from the landing. When the elevator stopped, I let my breath glide into my stomach and then return slowly to my throat. As always, after a few seconds, the light in the elevator went out, too. I thought of reaching my hand out to one of the door handles: you had only to pull it and the light would return. But I didn't move and continued to send my breath deep into my body. The only sound was that of the woodworms eating into the panelled walls.

Just a few months earlier (five, six?), on a sudden impulse, I had revealed to my mother, during one of my brief visits, that as an adolescent I used to retreat to that secret place, and I brought her up there, to the top. Maybe I wanted to try to establish an intimacy that there had never been, maybe I wanted to let her know in some confused way that I had always been unhappy. But she seemed to me only amused by the fact that I had sat suspended in the void, in a dilapidated elevator. ~ Elena Ferrante

I sank down on the bench, stupefied, stunned by this profusion of beings without origin: everywhere blossomings, hatchings out, my ears buzzed with existence, my very flesh throbbed and opened, abandoned itself to the universal burgeoning. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Look, Bob, what part of this don't you understand, eh? It's a matter of style, okay? A proper brawl doesn't just happen. You don't just pile in, not anymore. Now, Oyster Dave here--put your helmet back on, Dave--will be the enemy in front, and Basalt, who, as we know, don't need a helmet, he'll be the enemy coming up behind you. Okay, it's well past knuckles time, let's say Gravy there has done his thing with the Bench Swipe, there's a bit of knife play, we've done the whole Chandelier Swing number, blah blah blah, then Second Chair--that's you, Bob--you step smartly between their Number Five man and a Bottler, swing the chair back over your head, like this--sorry, Pointy--and then swing it right back onto Number Five, bang, crash, and there's a cushy six points in your pocket. If they're playing a dwarf at Number Five, then a chair won't even slow him down, but don't fret, hang on to the bits that stay in your hand, pause one moment as he comes at you, and then belt him across both ears. They hate that, as Stronginthearm here will tell you. Another three points. It's probably going to be freestyle after that but I want all of you, including Mucky Mick and Crispo, to try for a Double Andrew when it gets down to the fist-fighting again. Remember? You back into each other, turn around to give the other guy a thumping, cue moment of humorous recognition, then link arms, swing round and see to the other fellow's attacker, foot or fist, it's your choice. Fifteen points right there ~ Terry Pratchett

Van tortured himself with thoughts of insufficient filial affection - a long story of unconcern, amused scorn, physical repulsion, and habitual dismissal. He looked around, making wild amends, willing her spirit to give him an unequivocal, and indeed all-deciding sign, of continued being behind the veil of time, beyond the flesh of space. But no response came, not a petal fell on his bench, not a gnat touched his hand. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

but I noticed she was parked on a bench near the back wall of the palace in the brutally hot sun, her closest companion ~ Kiera Cass

For young males that weigh between 150-200 lbs., deadlifts can move up 15-20 lbs. per workout, squats 10-15 lbs., with continued steady progress for 3-4 weeks before slowing down to half that rate. Bench presses, presses, and cleans can move up 5-10 lbs. per workout, with progress on these exercises slowing down to 2.5-5 lbs. per workout after only 2-3 weeks. Young women make progress on the squat and the deadlift at about the same rate, adjusted for bodyweight, but much slower on the press, the bench press, cleans, and assistance exercises. ~ Mark Rippetoe

There's no justice for the poor man. Money buys justice, and I have no doubt there's a great deal of money in that man's pockets to buy the finest judge on the bench. ~ Mercedes Lackey

In a house, as in a garden, there is a point when over-mingling can occur. At first, when the new plants are dug in, there is too much space between them. They seem artificial, temporary. Then, as they grow, the bed finds a point of balance, the taller trees occupying the upper layers, the sprawling shrubs - the hydrangeas, buddleia, pittosporum - filling out the middle, and the smaller bulbs and ground covers punctuating the under-spaces. Then, without warning, equilibrium is lost. A rampant jasmine covers an adolescent tree; a hydrangea thrives, forcing out a lilly pilly that struggles for light beneath a spreading magnolia. The spaces are subsumed. In the house, there was a period when everyone thrived. Even Heloise had been noticed by Jerome, who was sitting down with her on most days and doing sums and geography, and reading poetry. 'She has real talent,' he said to Helena, over the kitchen bench. She raised an eyebrow ambiguously but didn't comment. Then, slowly, the balance began to slip. ~ Emily Bitto

I'm not the kind of player to see out my time and sit with my bum on the bench too much. I want to be involved. That's my character. ~ Frank Lampard

Cheat propped his elbows on his knees and gazed up at Kestrel. He scrutinized her: the long, loosely clasped hands, the folds of her dress. Kestrel's clothes had mysteriously appeared in the suite's wardrobe, probably while she had slept, and she was glad. The dueling ensemble had served well enough, but wearing a dress fit for society made Kestrel feel ready for different kinds of battle.
"Where is Arin?" Cheat said.
"In the mountains."
"Doing what?"
"I don't know. I imagine that, since the Valorian reinforcements will come through the mountain pass, he is analyzing its values and drawbacks as a battleground."
Cheat gave her a gleeful smirk. "Does it bother you, being a traitor?"
"I don't see how I am."
"You just confirmed that the reinforcements will come through the pass. Thank you."
"It's hardly worth thanking me," she said. "Almost every useful ship in the empire has been sent east, which means there is no other way into the city. Anyone with brains could figure that out, which is why Arin is in the mountains, and you are here."
A flush began to build under Cheat's skin. He said, "My feet are dusty."
Kestrel had no idea how to respond to that.
"Wash them," he said.
"What?"
He took off his boots, stretched out his legs, and leaned back against the bench.
Kestrel, who had been quite still, became stone.
"It's Herrani custom for the lady of the house to wash the feet of special guests," said Cheat.< ~ Marie Rutkoski

It seemed as though the secret of the universe had miraculously appeared right here at our feet, as though God's notebook had opened under our bench. ~ Yoko Ogawa

He placed our stuff on the table and then sat, straddling the bench. Patting the spot next to him, he grinned.
I dropped my bag on the tan pavers and as I swung a leg over the bench, I stopped to look at him. He was watching me through thick lashes, head still tilted, grinning so that lone dimple was begging to be touched. I realized that this was the first moment Rider and I had been alone. No prying eyes. No adults watching over us. No one walking past us as there had been in the parking lot yesterday. We were alone, just him and me, like it had been so many times in the past.
I don't know why I did what I did next, but a decade of emotion swirled up inside me. Maybe it had to do with everything he'd done for me in the past. Maybe it was just because he was sitting right there and we were in the present.
And I never felt more present than I did in that moment.
Bending over, I wrapped my arms around his wide shoulders and I squeezed him. Probably the lamest hug in history, but it felt good. It felt magnificent when he rose up a little and circled his arms around my waist. His hug was better.
When I pulled back, his hands slid off my waist, to my hips, and lingered for a moment. A strange sensation curled low in my stomach. He let go, but the heated awareness remained. "What was that for?"
Shrugging, I sat, tucking both legs under the table. My face was hot. "I...I just wanted to."
"Well, you can do that whenever you want to. I don't mind. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

By the time I was in fourth grade, the teacher had already called my parents more than once to say they did not think I could tell fantasy from reality. I could tell. I could. I just didn't want to. I don't want to, I don't want to, I wailed, marched out to the hallway bench. Again. ~ Leigh Alexander

Come! Come sit by me. It's a nice bench. Nice and lovely on the butt."
"You're drunk."
"Yeah, and you're ugly, but do I complain about it? No! Because I don't complain about things that I can't change. That's called intelligence. ~ Sara Wolf

In addition, help your children learn self-discipline by such activities as learning to play a musical instrument or other demanding skill. I am reminded of the story of the salesman who came to a house one hot summer day. Through the screen door he could see a young boy practicing his scales on the piano. His baseball glove and hat were by the side of the piano bench. He said, "Say, boy, is your mother home?" To which the boy replied, "What do you think?" Thank heavens for conscientious parents! ~ Joe J. Christensen

But now it is Norris's privilege and pleasure to see her as no one else does, for he has been struck by love for Vida. And in his eyes, under the transforming inspection of his gaze―well, who can tell? Vida may become something more than she appears at the very moment, waiting quietly on her bench, the world breathing delicately around her. ~ Carrie Brown

The school-room sends men to the Legislature, to the bench, and the executive office. The bar-room sends them to the scaffold and hell. ~ Thomas Jordan Jarvis

On Monday I come in and get in a full body workout, and then I come back in on Wednesday and do a quick six, which consists of bench press, biceps and triceps curls, pull downs, something for the back and the neck. And then you come back and hit it again on Friday with a 16-machine workout. ~ LaMarr Woodley

See the judge upon the bench who tries the case as best he can, see the wise and wicked ones who feed upon life's sacred fire, see the soldier with his gun who must be dead to be admired. ~ Gordon Lightfoot

Using encryption on the Internet is the equivalent of arranging an armored car to deliver credit card information from someone living in a cardboard box to someone living on a park bench. ~ Gene Spafford

the figures are shadow-swept, various, self-involved, and as turbulent as waves, as standing waves ...; and as I look at them, as I curl more tightly into shin-warmth on my preferred bench, I wonder which of these figures, too, are runaways, which of these scudding clumps are the moving forms of runaways ...but runaways whom I don't recognize, whose rightfulness I don't acknowledge: which of these figures am I denying ...; because it would take, I am sure, only a glance, only one shared eye-shudder, for all this to end, for their circumstances suddenly to reverse; it would only take one glance upon them...and one glance from them...; this, then, would be interpenetration, genuine interpenetration, a real refutation of figure and ground...; ~ Evan Dara

Although there is validity, I believe, in leaving a church where the leadership consistently presents false doctrine, I also see people who are offended by one remark from the pulpit or one perceived hurt flit to the next church to look for fault there. It's like the cartoon I saw of a skeleton dressed in women's clothes and sitting on a park bench; the caption read, 'Waiting for the perfect man.' There is no perfect church either. ~ David Jeremiah

The greatest barrier I have met is the almost total absence from the minds of my audience of any sense of sin... The early Christian preachers could assume in their hearers, whether Jews, Metuentes, or Pagans, a sense of guilt. (That this was common among Pagans is shown by the fact that both Epicureanism and the mystery religions both claimed, though in different ways, to assuage it.) Thus the Christian message was in those days unmistakably the Evangelium, the Good News. It promised healing to those who knew they were sick. We have to convince our hearers of the unwelcome diagnosis before we can expect them to welcome the news of the remedy.

The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man, the roles are quite reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge; if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the bench and God is in the dock. ~ C.S. Lewis

He picked her up and sank onto the warm oven-bench with her in his arms. He was gentle. His breath was the winter wind, but his flesh was warm, and his heart beat under her hand. ~ Katherine Arden

We will win an election when all the seats in the House and Senate and the chair behind the desk in the Oval Office and the whole bench of the Supreme Court are filled with people who wish they weren't there. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

I'd leave London only for Man
United, the club of my dreams. For
Mr Ferguson I'd also stay silent on
the bench. ~ Adel Taarabt

He was on the bench for 36 years and had the girth to show it. ~ Rodes Fishburne

I was happier going back to my roots: training like men do in my hometown of Pittsburgh. Back home the guys in the gyms don't lift to look good; they're lifting to lift. They do it because they want to squat more and bench more. ~ Joe Manganiello

Some souls are like empty bench in an evening park, no one to take care. The role of compassionate artificial intelligence is to fulfill those souls with love and care. ~ Amit Ray

Ordinary folk prefer familiar tastes - they'd sooner eat the same things all the time - but a gourmet would sample a fried park bench just to know how it tastes. ~ Walter Moers

Dante watched Tess eat the thick, caramel-laced brownie, feeling her pleasure radiate across the small space that separated them on the river-walk bench. She'd offered him a bite, and although his kind could not consume crude human food in anything more than a mouthful, he accepted a small taste of the sticky chocolate confection if only to share in Tess's unabashed enjoyment. He swallowed the heavy, pretty much revolting bit of pasty sweetness with a tight smile.
"Good, huh?" Tess licked her chocolate-coated fingers, slipping one after the other into her mouth and sucking them clean.
"Delicious," Dante said, watching her with his own brand of hunger.
"You can have some more if you want it."
"No." He drew back, shaking his head. "No, it's all yours. Please. Enjoy it. ~ Lara Adrian

I guess we could find a bench."

"No, you wanted the grass." He stood for a minute, brow creased. Then abruptly he took off his suit jacket and spread it out on the ground. "There. You can sit on that."

She stared at him. Surely he didn't mean that? She knew how important having his jacket all in order was to him, because every day when he came home from work, the first thing he did was take off his suit and hang it up so it remained perfectly pressed. He was a tidy kind of guy and she respected that, even if she didn't understand it.

"But…it'll get dirty."

"I'll get it dry-cleaned afterward." And when she hesitated, he gestured toward it again. "Go on, sit. ~ Jackie Ashenden

For those of us who have been diagnosed with cancer, time is a precious commodity. The time and distance from the scientist's lab bench to the patient's bedside must be shortened. ~ Larry Lucchino

I played a few rough versions of songs while Chad sat by, looking lost. Mia came in wearing black leather pants and a tight sweater. As I strummed the Gibson, she made her way over to the piano. She smiled and threw her hand up, waving to Chad. He smiled back and then I watched him study her as she passed. Then his dipshit, googly eyes dropped to her ass while she moved the piano bench out.

When he looked back at me, I glared at him and began strumming a dreary and much louder tune. His body sank into his chair and he dropped his head down to stare at his fidgeting hands. Mia began playing a sullen little melody in an attempt to accompany the monotonous song I was forming, and then she stopped abruptly and turned toward me.

I continued playing.

"Is this going to be a ballad?" she asked.

Without taking my eyes off of dipshit, I said, "No, baby, this is what's called a funeral march."

Chad threw his arms up and said, "I get it. I get it. I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" Mia asked.

"Nothing!" Chad and I both shouted.

"Let's move on," I said, arching one eyebrow at him.

Chad kept his eyes trained on either the ground or me through the rest of the session ~ Renee Carlino

It's easy to fall in love online with someone you'd slide away from on a bus stop bench. A little too damn easy. ~ Michael Makai

I've seldom seen a horny player walk into a bar and not let out exactly what he did for a living. ~ Johnny Bench

At teenage parties he was always wandering into the garden, sitting on a bench in the dark ... staring up at the constellations and pondering all those big questions about the existence of God and the nature of evil and the mystery of death, questions which seemed more important than anything else in the would until a few years passed and some real questions had been dumped into your lap, like how to earn a living, and why people fell in and out of love, and how long you could carry on smoking and then give up without getting lung cancer. ~ Mark Haddon

Conse­quently the Wolfenden recommendations will be indefinitely rejected, police prosecutions will continue and Clive on the bench will continue to sentence Alec in the dock. Maurice may get off. ~ E.M. Forster

It's a beautiful city, and the waterfront area is fantastic. I haven't had time to visit the theatre, but I find it remarkable that Toronto has the third-largest English-speaking theatre district in the world, after New York and London. I once noticed a fellow sitting on a bench, then I realized it was a statue of Glenn Gould. It's very realistic. ~ Donald Trump

A pair of Blue Noses on the next bench glared their disapproval at Evie's knee-length dress. Evie decided to give them a real show. She hiked her skirt and, humming jauntily, rolled down her stockings, exposing her legs. It had the desired effect on the Blue Noses, who moved down the platform, clucking about the "disgrace of the young." She would not miss this place. ~ Libba Bray

The werewolf pointed at a bench next to the door into the Kirkwoods' tomb. "Sit. Wait."
Did I mention werewolves were chatty? ~ Mindee Arnett

Husbands take photographs of their wives and children in front of a fountain and call out to the boys who rush back and forth, carrying trays of tea and wrinkly, black dates. We sit at opposite ends of a large wooden bench covered in rugs and pillows; a spot more suited to a courting couple than the two of us who have nothing to say. ~ Jennifer Klinec

And then, all of a sudden, he stopped, and his jaw dropped as though he had remembered something.
"The score!" he burst out. "Three goes o' rum! Why, shiver my timbers, if I hadn't forgotten my score!"
And, falling on a bench, he laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. I could not help joining; and we laughed together, peal after peal, until the tavern rang again. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

What were you doing spying on me?" she asked bluntly as she flounced down on a bench to inspect her charred skirts.
The lean, hard muscles of his thighs flexed beneath the tight-fitting breeches as he half sat, half leaned on a high stool nearby.
"I grew bored with viewing the ladies who meander about the markets, and I came to see if the sights were better here at the mayor's cottage."
The corners of his lips twitched with amusement, and his eyes gleamed into hers as he added, "I am happy to report, they are!"
Erienne got to her feet in a huff. "Have you nothing better to do than go about ogling the women?"
"I suppose I could find something else to occupy me," he replied easily, "but I can't think of anything that's nearly as enjoyable, except, of course, being in a lady's company."

-Erienne & Christopher ~ Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

I want to lie down on the bench then, or better yet, on the grass, rest on something living and see if I can hear the dead underneath. ~ Elizabeth Scott

I don't really have an office or anything, and I like to have to move location every two hours. So I just kind of write in a park, on a bench, in the library, in a cafe, back to the library, that kind of thing. ~ Steve Toltz

A lot of the people who are supposed to be enforcing the crime, enforcing the law, are also criminals. They've suppressed something in their childhood and they don't want to think they themselves were sexually abused as children or they are abusing their own children and they're sitting on a bench and they either can't admit it, won't admit it, depending on how deeply buried it is. ~ Gloria Steinem

One time in spring training, we had the hit-and-run on, and Carl Erskine threw me a curve and I struck out into a double play. I came back to the bench and Casey [Stengel] said, 'next time, tra-la-la.' I didn't know what tra-la-la meant, but next time up, I hit a line drive, right into a double play. When I sat down, Casey came over and said, 'Like I told you, tra-la-la.' ~ Whitey Herzog

I think you´re beautiful. And I´m no stranger to fucked-up families."
And then he was kissing her again. The addictive pull of his mouth almost had her crawling into his lap. Her hands bunched in his shirt, pulling him closer. [...]
Layne always rolled her eyes in health class when they talked about hormones getting out of control. But right now, she could barely remember her name. She totally got how someone could forget something like a silly little condom.
Suddenly Gabriel was laughing. "How someone could forget what?"
She almost fell off the bench. "I said that out loud?"
"Yeah." He leaned closer, his breath against her jaw. "Just what were you thinking about? ~ Brigid Kemmerer

I think it's important to bring somebody from outside the system, the judicial system, somebody that hasn't been on the bench and, therefore, there's not a lot of opinions for people to look at. ~ George W. Bush

My turn?" asks the blond from behind me. "Didn't you say she deserved a good spanking for her recent misdemeanours Mike?"
His voice has taken on a husky, carnal quality since our introduction at the bench, and I suspect there is another hard cock waiting for me. I struggle impatiently at the thought.
"Absolutely Niall," Mike replies, "but not here. I want her punished in public, to make sure she remembers the lesson. Sean, pull in at the next layby will you ... ~ Felicity Brandon

Not Really, he said then lit a cigarette and handed it to me. I inhaled. Coughed. Wheezed. Gasped for breath. Coughed again. Considered vomiting. Grabbed the swinging bench, head spinning, and threw the cigarette to the ground and stomped on it, convinced my Great Perhaps did not involve cigarettes. ~ John Green

They passed through the waiting room, the statue of Hygeia was sitting on a bench, pouring acid on her face and singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," while her golden snake gnawed at her foot. The peaceful scene was almost enough to lift Leo's spirits. ~ Rick Riordan

Mistress Eustacia sent me to have my bandage changed. He looked disgruntled. She adjusted the pot so that it wasn't directly over the fire then wiped her hands on her apron. He sat down impatiently on the bench against the wall. Annabel rummaged through the shelves until she found a container of honey and some bandages, smiling to herself at his reluctant compliance. Then ~ Melanie Dickerson

In my view, I did not get to the federal bench because I was a woman. ~ Constance Baker Motley

We spend our life, it's ours, trying to bring together in the same instant a ray of sunshine and a free bench ~ Samuel Beckett

When RBG fretted over the first dry opinion the chief justice assigned her, O'Connor gave her a pep talk. As RBG read that opinion on the bench, O'Connor, who had dissented in the case, passed her a note. "This is your first opinion for the Court," she had written. "It is a fine one, I look forward to many more." Remembering the comfort that note gave her on such a nerve wracking day, RBG did the same for the next two women to join the court, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. ~ Irin Carmon

I say,she is sinfully attractive when she's angry.You may not claim to have a way with the ladies,but when you want to make one mad,you are indeed an expert."
Ranulf clenched his teeth and said nothing, but sent Tyr a flash of warning.
Tyr dismissed the look and pressed on,opting for a flank attack. "You know that dress she was wearing? She would wear that color more often, complements that odd color of blue in her eyes."
Ranulf sank onto the bench across the table from Tyr and raked his hands through his hair. "Take my advice and avoid looking too long at them.They can confound a man.Make him believe in lies."
"You might be right," Tyr agreed and moved to pour himself some more wine. "But when a man can't think straight,is it she who is telling the lies or is it he who is telling them to himself?"
"If you are trying to make a point, don't."
"No,no point." Tyr sighed and swirled his mug. "Just that she was looking pretty tonight. Did you not think so?"
"No."
"Well,I did.I especially liked the hair. Normally I do not like stuff being all free like that,gets in the way.I usually prefer a woman's hair to be pulled back and tidy,but hers...well,I just might have to change my mind."
Nothing from Ranulf.Not even a twitch.Damn.The man was stubborn.
Tyr swallowed the mug's contents for fortification.If he got out of this with his skin still intact,he would be lucky.He had maybe one more shot before Ranulf got up to leave,so it had to ~ Michele Sinclair