Bleachers Quotes

Though lip service is paid to the gospel of grace, many Christians live as if only personal discipline and self-denial will mold the perfect me. The emphasis is on what I do rather than on what God is doing. In this curious process God is a benign old spectator in the bleachers who cheers when I show up for morning quiet time. ~ Brennan Manning

All you umpires, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It's my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases. At sunset, I've won or lost. At sunrise, I'm out again, giving it the old try. ~ Ray Bradbury

The other day, I was so desperate for a beer, I snuck into the football stadium and ate the dirt under the bleachers. ~ Homer

After I'd hit a home run and took my position in the field, the fans in the bleachers began throwing packages of tobacco at me. I stuffed them in my pocket. ~ Hank Sauer

My fondest memories were watching the Beastie Boys get prepped to come on stage. They had a lot of antics and they play a lot of basketball ... then they were giving out cameras to the crowd, and performing from the bleachers. The most important thing I learned was that you control your crowd, not the other way around. ~ Talib Kweli

Going back to Roosevelt's "Man in the Arena" speech, I also learned that the people who love me, the people I really depend on, were never the critics who were pointing at me while I stumbled. They weren't in the bleachers at all. They were with me in the arena. Fighting for me and with me. Nothing has transformed my life more than realizing that it's a waste of time to evaluate my worthiness by weighing the reaction of the people in the stands. The people who love me and will be there regardless of the outcome are within arm's reach. This realization changed everything. That's the wife and mother ~ Brene Brown

This past year, sometimes I would get up in the mornings and actually look forward to going to school because I knew I would see you. I would wonder what you were going to wear. I loved lunch because I could sit in the cafeteria and look out the window and see you up there in the bleachers. ~ Sarah Addison Allen

She'd been there for a few hours when Sawyer showed up. It was after midnight, but there he was, walking around the track. The moon was out and he was wearing white shorts and a white polo, so she could see him very clearly from her seat. She didn't move, so she didn't know what made him look up. But he did, and her breath caught, as it did every time he looked at her in school. They stared at each other for a long moment. Then he crossed the track and walked up the bleachers towards her. Sawyer had never approached her before, but he had always watched her at school. A lot of people watched her, so that in itself wasn't unusual. But he was always so deliberate about it. She'd often wondered if that was why she had these strange feelings for him, because she thought he really saw her. ~ Sarah Addison Allen

She had read articles over the years about a man's supposed biological craving for young women: it was all about primeval procreation, in theory, the need to plant seed in fertile soil. Maybe ... She thought of a line from Nabokov: "Because you took advantage of my disadvantage." Lolita. In this case, however, Kristin felt that she was at the disadvantage - not the young thing. The truth was, she feared, all men were Humbert Humbert. Maybe they weren't pedophiles lusting after twelve-year-olds, but didn't Lolita look old for her age? Older, anyway? Sure, there were MILFs in porn, but Kristin had a feeling that considerably more men wanted their porn stars to be students at Duke University than moms from the bleachers at a middle-school soccer game. ~ Chris Bohjalian

I've always like bleachers, things ordered vertically from high to low. ~ Julie Buxbaum

FAVORITE GIRL IN THE WORLD. STILL MY FRIEND? Please meet me on the bleachers after school. Please. And I'm sorry. Sorrier than any person has ever been sorry in the history of sorry people. I'll put in one last please for good luck. Sorry. Again. ~ Julie Buxbaum

If there are bleachers in heaven and a warm sun, that's where you'll find Bill Veeck. ~ Charles Kuralt

I've written in every imaginable location; a repurposed closet, the kitchen table, the bleachers while my kids had basketball practice, the front seat of the car when they were at soccer. In airports. On trains. In the break room when I was supposed to be wolfing down dinner. In the back of classrooms when I was supposed to be paying attention. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

The scoreboard read 2:2 with forty-seven seconds left on the clock. Cheerleaders, including Audrey, clapped, chanted, and danced. Jane, the mascot, in a knight's suit of armor, jumped up and down with them. An announcer stood on the field with a golden microphone, as the teams got into their huddles and took up positions along the kill zones. Mal and Evie stood in the bleachers, watching Jay and Carlos down on the bench. ~ Walt Disney Company

I kept looking around the bleachers at the audience, middle-aged people in practical clothes. Every single one of them cared about love, but how much? A lot, or only a little bit? The opera went on for a long time. Eventually the two youngest people onstage got married, so we could all go home. ~ Elif Batuman

If I ever form my own clan, we'll be the Anti-Cheerleaders. We will not sit in the bleachers. We will wander underneath them and commit mild acts of mayhem. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

Or there, in the clay-baked piedmont of the South, that lean and tan-faced boy who sprawls there in the creaking chair among admiring cronies before the open doorways of the fire department, and tells them how he pitched the team to shut-out victory to-day. What visions burn, what dreams possess him, seeker of the night? The packed stands of the stadium, the bleachers sweltering with their unshaded hordes, the faultless velvet of the diamond, unlike the clay-balked outfields down in Georgia. The mounting roar of eighty thousand voices and Gehrig coming up to bat, the boy himself upon the pitching mound, the lean face steady as a hound's; then the nod, the signal, and the wind-up, the rawhide arm that snaps and crackles like a whip, the small white bullet of the blazing ball, its loud report in the oiled pocket of the catcher's mitt, the umpire's thumb jerked upwards, the clean strike. ~ Thomas Wolfe

I'm terrible at being one of those moms who can sit in the bleachers or dance studios and make forced small talk with parents who all seem to know (and secretly hate) each other and who never seem to show up in pajamas or mismatched shoes. I'm continually saying something awkward and inappropriate, like "I thought this was just for fun" or "No, actually I don't think that toddler is too fat for ballet. ~ Jenny Lawson

Look, nobody's trying to kill me right now and that's just fine. If they don't
like me, that's just how it goes. I got over needing people to LIKE me in tenth
grade, when I spied the captain of the cheerleading squad on her knees in
front of the offensive line of the football team under the bleachers, one day after school. I figured that wasn't the life for me. ~ MaryJanice Davidson

You scan the cheering bleachers for the strange boy's face: handsome, reserved, with the eye patch, a little dramatic, a little scary. You finally find him sitting there in the middle of the sixth row. He is wearing a dark green army jacket and is staring back at you. He looks sad and beautiful, like a watercolor in a hospital room. ~ Joe Meno

Chase grabbed Joey's neck and hauled him into a kiss.
Oh shit.
Not again.
It didn't matter how many times it had been wrong, he still wanted to believe it. Wanted to believe it when he kissed a guy and everything inside said him. It had been wrong about Mark and Noah and Jorge and Tom and the whole list going right back to kissing Eduardo under the bleachers in tenth grade. Or maybe before. When he'd been three and told his mom he was going to marry his best friend Cody. ~ K.A. Mitchell

Here's the pitch. Mantle swings. There's a tremendous drive going into deep left field! It's going, going! It's over the bleachers ... over the sign atop the bleachers ... into the yards of houses across the street! It's got to be one of the longest runs I've ever seen! How about that! ~ Mel Allen

During this pep rally, the cheerleaders would call two members of each class, one boy, one girl, to come down and take part in some embarrassing game--a relay race, or water balloon toss, or singing competition--all in the name of school spirit. Invariably, I was the seventh-grade boy called down. I suspected that this is because the head cheerleader was Rob Cantrell's girlfriend.

No misery I feel as an adult can match what I felt as I carefully stepped my way between the kids down the bleachers to the floor. The high school kids called my name, again and again, in falsetto, "Ves! Vessy!" and made kissing noises. Then I tried to run like a boy in the relay race, or sing whatever stupid song I was forced to sing in a voice quiet and masculine.

[...]

The next year the torture continued, but in a different way. It was less creative, a simple "Fag," as I passed the boys in the hall. What could they do? I didn't give them material anymore. I had swallowed my voice, and my walk was utterly nondescript. ~ Todd Pozycki

How did high schools all over the country decide that athletes needed pep rallies to boost their pride and self-esteem? Isn't it enough that people actually pay money to see these kids compete in games? That people cheer from the sidelines? And they get their names in the paper? Why don't they take all the lonely ghost floaters in every high school and have a pep rally for them? Make all the most popular kids in school sit on the hard bleachers and cheer until their asses hurt like hell? ~ Matthew Quick

A camera winks at me from high in the bleachers like we're sharing a secret. Fans in the home section of the Fair Grove High gym smile in envy as I hurry toward the bench, wishing some winking camera had ever, in their entire lives, shared a secret with them. ~ Holly Schindler

On every pack leaned an M16, except Lori's. Her son was playing soldier with it in the bleachers. There was no clip in it, which was a good thing. ~ Rick Bragg

It takes me about twenty seconds to forget about the staring faces and all that shiny, pulled-back hair and which of the girls on the bleachers may or may not be a better dancer than I am and the fact that I'm twice as big as anyone in this room. After that first thirty seconds, I disappear into the song. I become one with the music, one with the dance. ~ Jennifer Niven

Two boys, both in varsity football, kissing under the bleachers, muscular silhouettes merging against the deep purple sky. I wasn't the only one with a secret. In the grand scheme of things, my secret wasn't even as dangerous as some of theirs. ~ Leah Raeder

The further I wake into this life, the more I realize that God is everywhere and the extraordinary is waiting quietly beneath the skin of all that is ordinary. Light is in both the broken bottle and the diamond, and music is in both the flowing violin and the water dripping from the drainage pipe. Yes, God is under the porch as well as on top of the mountain, and joy is in both the front row and the bleachers, if we are willing to be where we are. ~ Mark Nepo

Vision is easy. It's so easy to just point to the bleachers and say I'm going to hit one over there. What's hard is saying, OK, how do I do that? What are the specific programs, what are the commitments, what are the resources, what are the processes we need in play to go implement the vision, turn it into a working model that people follow every day in the enterprise. That's hard work. ~ Lou Gerstner

You are the TEACHER. Some people are so stuck on what you did in the past, that they don't realize that you forgave yourself, matured, and graduated from what happened.

Yet here they are stuck on that memory..wondering how you were able to move on. Time waits for no one and life keeps going.

When haters try to remind you of your past, starve their attention with silence..Just realize that you don't have time to supervise adults. You got things to do and individuals to mentor.

What was designed to crush you just strengthened your walk, put confidence in your talk, and encouraged you to be content with You.

Their presence or opinion is only entertainment in the bleachers, tolerated decorations on the wall, and the uncelebrated clown at your events.

Remember you are the teacher and they are the student...take charge of your classroom!! ~ Kendricks Fields

Let's be honest, Mr. Ravenwood. You have no place in this town. You are not part of it and clearly, neither is your niece. I don't think you are in any position to make demands."
"Mrs. Lincoln, I appreciate your candor, and I will try to be as frank with you as you have been with me. It would be a grave error for you, for anyone in this town, really, to pursue this matter. You see, I have a great deal of means. I'm a bit of a spendthrift, if you will. If you try to prevent my niece from returning to Stonewall Jackson High School, I will be forced to spend some of that money. Who knows, perhaps I'll bring in a Wal-Mart."
There was another gasp from the bleachers.
"Is that a threat?"
"Not at all. ~ Kami Garcia

You see Carter, people are two things: greedy and cruel. So we have a perfect set-up here. The greed part - a kid pays a buck for a chance to win a hundred. Plus fifty boxes of chocolates. The cruel part - watching two guys hitting each other, maybe hurting each other, while they're safe in the bleachers. That's why it works, Carter, because we're all bastards. ~ Robert Cormier

I think inspiration is strongest when I find a balance between observation and participation. You can't write about what it means to dance by watching from the bleachers. ~ Chelsey Philpot

I have a blanket behind the seat, a thick wool one. We can cuddle on the bleachers, and with the blanket wrapped around us no one will know if I sneak a feel every now and then."
"I'll know."
"God, I hope so. If you don't, then I've either lost my touch or my aim. ~ Linda Howard

She'd been given gifts before. Earrings, necklaces, bracelets. Weekend trips to the Bahamas or a day at the spa. Expensive - but meaningless - trinkets that showed Dax didn't have a clue what to give her, that he didn't listen to her. Things that could be meant for any woman. Nothing that said she was special, that what she thought and wanted mattered.
A set of aluminum bleachers full of teenage boys meant more than any of those things combined. ~ Jeanette Murray

I don't get pat down, you know what's on the waist,
I don't mean Jazz when I say I "count base."
Fly Louis sneakers, Purple Tape coming out the speakers,
Bumped into my high school teachers,
They said I wouldn't be nothing, sitting on the bleachers.
Now I'm sitting in the Phantom, trynna figure out the features.
I'm a big fish now, I watch for the leeches. ~ Sheek Louch

If you like soccer, then welcome to America. See, our country already has entertainment so watching people chase a ball for four hours to end 0 - 0 is not enjoyable - unless, of course, the bleachers collapse and half of Europe dies. ~ Daniel Tosh

When it was finished, the scaled dragon looked around and as the thing spotted V, a growl rippled up to the bleachers, then ended in a snort. "You finished, big guy?" Va called down. "FYI, goalpost over there would work righteous as a toothpick. ~ J.R. Ward

Speaking of tongues, they are the main reason I'm a nervous wreck. Ryan is a senior and well, sadly, I'm not all that experienced with boys. I mean, I'm a freshman and have been to dances with boys my age and even have gone out with boys, but I've never really kissed them. Not like I hope to kiss Ryan anyway. Bobby Robinson did shove his tongue into my mouth one time, when we were kissing under the bleachers at a football game, but it didn't feel so good. I'm pretty sure he didn't have it exactly right. So I talked to my friends, Katie and Lisa, about how to properly make out. But, well, here is just a bit of their unhelpful advice.
Just let him take the lead, do what ever he does.
Um, couldn't that get me into a lot of trouble?
Just sort of kiss his tongue, but try not to drool.
Don't open your mouth too wide.
And then, just open your mouth wide.
See?
Stupid, conflicting information.
And this from girls who supposedly know how to do this!
I feel like I'm an undercover CIA agent trying to wrestle vital information out of a ruthless double agent, and the fate of the free world depends upon it. All the while, the President is yelling at me in a panic, saying, Somebody! Anybody! Just get me the truth! ~ Jillian Dodd

I have always been a firm believer that the game has never belonged to the owners. It has never belonged to the ballplayers. It belongs to the guy who puts his money up on the window and says, 'How much does it cost to sit in the bleachers?' That is who owns baseball. And it has got to be kept that way. ~ Johnny Vander Meer

No one gets out of the game of life alive. You either die in the bleachers, or on the field. So, you might as well play out on the field, and go for it. ~ Les Brown

I put a bullet where I shoulda put a helmet. ~ Jack Antonoff

I don't know whether it was the general anxiety of being on a date (albeit one with my would-be date sitting five
people away from me) or the specific anxiety of having the Beast stare in my direction, but for some reason, I took
off running after Takumi. I thought we were in the clear as we began to round the corner of the bleachers, but
then I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a cylindrical orange object getting bigger and bigger, like a fastapproaching
sun.
I thought: / think that is going to hit me.
I thought: J should duck.
But in the time between when something gets thought and when it gets done, the ball hit me square across the
side of the face. I fell, the back of my head slamming against the gym floor. I then stood up immediately, as if
unhurt, and left the gym.
Pride had gotten me off the floor of the gym, but as soon as I was outside, I sat down.
"I am concussed," I announced, entirely sure of my self-diagnosis.
"You're fine," Takumi said as he jogged back toward me. "Let's get out of here before we're killed."
"I'm sorry," I said. "But I can't get up. I have suffered a mild concussion."
Lara ran out and sat down next to me.
"Are you okay?"
"I am concussed," I said.
Takumi sat down with me and looked me in the eye. "Do you know what happened to you?"
"The Beast got me."
"Do you know where you are?"
"I'm on a triple-and-a-half date."
"You're fine," Takumi said. ~ John Green

In sum, do not insult me with the beheadings, finger choppings or the lung-deflations you plan for my works. I need my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs to shout or whisper with. I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book.
All you umpires, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It's my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases. At sunset I've won or lost. At sunrise, I'm out again, giving it the old try.
And no one can help me. Not even you. ~ Ray Bradbury

Look. Chris." She dropped onto the bench again and gripped the edge of the table. "I'm not going to sleep with you," she whispered fiercely, feeling her cheeks flush. "I'm not going to mess around with you under the bleachers. I don't give hand jobs in the men's room, or - "
"Wow. You like to get all this out of the way up front, huh? ~ Brigid Kemmerer

If you can get past those awful idiot faces on the bleachers outside the theater without a sense of the collapse of human intelligence, and if you can go out into the night and see half the police force of Los Angeles gathered to protect the golden ones from the mob in the free seats, but not from the awful moaning sound they give out, like destiny whistling through a hollow shell; if you can do these things and still feel the next morning that the picture business is worth the attention of one single, intelligent, artistic mind, then in the picture business you certainly belong because this sort of vulgarity, the very vulgarity from which the Oscars are made, is the inevitable price that Hollywood exacts from each of its serfs. ~ Raymond Chandler

Marginalia

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
who wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.

Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.

Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.

And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.

We have all seized the white perimeter as our ownBilly Collins

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