Booby Traps Quotes

Once a rebel, always a rebel. You can't help being one. You can't deny that. And it's best to be a rebel so as to show 'em it don't pay to try to do you down. Factories and labour exchanges and insurance offices keep us alive and kicking - so they say - but they're booby-traps and will suck you under like sinking-sands if you're not careful. Factories sweat you to death, labour exchanges talk you to death, insurance and income tax offices milk money from your wage packets and rob you to death. And if you're still left with a tiny bit of life in your guts after all this boggering about, the army calls you up and you get shot to death. And if you're clever enough to stay out of the army you get bombed to death. Ay, by God, it's a hard life if you don't weaken, if you don't stop that bastard government from grinding your face in the muck, though there ain't much you can do about it unless you start making dynamite to blow their four-eyed clocks to bits. ~ Alan Sillitoe

Excuse me, Abigail, but whose shift did she get away during?' Townsend asked with a glare.
'Excuse me, Townsend, but who was supposed to booby-trap the doors?'
'I'm an agent of Her Majesty's Secret Service,' Townsend said, indignant. 'I do not do booby traps. ~ Ally Carter

DI Cartwright: The cat is booby trapped? DI Quill: Welcome to my world. ~ Paul Cornell

Hunter had inherited her grandfather's house after he died at the Battle of Violet Hill. She'd spent weeks finding and dismantling all of the hidden anti-vampire booby traps. Quinn didn't find the second holy water dispenser until he took a shower and nearly died. ~ Alyxandra Harvey

To be fair, English is full of booby traps for the unwary foreigner. Any language where the unassuming word fly signifies an annoying insect, a means of travel, and a critical part of a gentleman's apparel is clearly asking to be mangled. ~ Bill Bryson

I have begun in old age to understand just how oddly we all are put together. We are so proud of our autonomy that we seldom if ever realize how generous we are to ourselves, and just how stingy with others. One of the booby traps of freedom
which is bordered on all sides by isolation
is that we think so well of ourselves. I now see that I have helped myself to the best cuts at life's banquet. ~ Saul Bellow

I love that I am a woman with booby traps ~ Gillian Flynn

I don't know," I said, exasperated. "What else do you have in your wacked-out world? Heat sensors? Mine fields? Dirigibles? Booby traps? Machine guns? Shrink rays? What?"
"Aside from dirigibles, which are rather expensive and rare outside of trade routes, most of what you just said made no sense whatsoever," he said, as delighted as a child hearing a foreign language for the first time. "But it all sounds very dangerous. And fun. Especially the part about the boobies. ~ Delilah S. Dawson

Avoid Calcutta's un- healthy monsoon. From June until the end of September over a meter and a half of rain bombards the city. Outhouses overflow and contaminate water used for drinking, bathing, and washing cooking utensils. Many of the eight thousand annual deaths caused by cholera and gastrointestinal diseases occur during the rains. Antiquated, silt-clogged sewage pipes drain only a quarter inch of rainwater per hour. Manhole covers are removed to facilitate drainage, and in nonstop rains (more than thirty centimeters, or a foot, in twenty-four hours), open sewers, hidden under water, become booby traps as pedestrians inadvertently plunge into them and drown. ~ James O'Reilly

A clever conjurer is welcome anywhere, and those of us whose powers of entertainment are limited to the setting of booby-traps or the arranging of apple-pie beds must view with envy the much greater tribute of laughter and applause which is the lot of the prestidigitator with some natural gift for legerdemain. ~ A.A. Milne

The authority of the civil defense ... issued a warning to the civilian population not to pick up any of those pencils because they are booby traps ~ Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

I am not talking about the American people and the British people, I am talking about those mercenaries ... They have started throwing those pencils, but they are not pencils, they are booby traps to kill the children. ~ Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

If you want to see philosophy in action, pay a visit to a robo-rat laboratory. A robo-rat is a run-ofthe-mill rat with a twist: scientists have implanted electrodes into the sensory and reward areas in the rat's brain. This enables the scientists to manoeuvre the rat by remote control. After short training sessions, researchers have managed not only to make the rats turn left or right, but also to climb ladders, sniff around garbage piles, and do things that rats normally dislike, such as jumping from great heights. Armies and corporations show keen interest in the robo-rats, hoping they could prove useful in many tasks and situations. For example, robo-rats could help detect survivors trapped under collapsed buildings, locate bombs and booby traps, and map underground tunnels and caves. Animal-welfare activists have voiced concern about the suffering such experiments inflict on the rats. Professor Sanjiv Talwar of the State University of New York, one of the leading robo-rat researchers, has dismissed these concerns, arguing that the rats actually enjoy the experiments. After all, explains Talwar, the rats 'work for pleasure' and when the electrodes stimulate the reward centre in their brain, 'the rat feels Nirvana'.

To the best of our understanding, the rat doesn't feel that somebody else controls her, and she doesn't feel that she is being coerced to do something against her will. When Professor Talwar presses the remote control, the rat wants to move to the lef ~ Yuval Noah Harari

The trombone and side-drums in the chamber music of Stravinsky will do well enough in a very smart house-party where all the conversation is carried on in an esoteric family slang and the guests are expected to enjoy booby-traps. Very different is the outlook of some of our younger masters such as Hindemith, Jarnach, and others, whose renunciation of beauty was in itself a youthfully romantic gesture, and was accompanied by endless pains in securing adequate performance. The work of masterly performers can indeed alone save the new ideas from being swamped in a universal dullness which no external smartness can long distinguish from that commemorated in the Dunciad. ~ Donald Francis Tovey

Simon catches up with me and traps me against the car. He's kissing me before I see it coming, bending me back over the boot. "You were amazing," he says, taking a breath. "You didn't even need a wand. ~ Wayward Son, Rainbow Rowell

What we don't let out traps us. We think, No one else feels this way, I must be crazy. So we don't say anything. And we become enveloped by a deep loneliness, not knowing where our feelings come from or what to do with them. Why do I feel this way? ~ Sabrina Ward Harrison

Well, you know what they say about traps." "Be sure the reward is worth the risk?" "Aye. ~ Carl James

Before I was a Discordian, I took life much too seriously. When you take life too seriously you start to wonder what the point of it all is. When you wonder what the point is in life, you fall into a trap of thinking there is one. When you think there is a point, you finally realize there is no point. And what point is there in living like that? Nowadays I skip the search for a point and find, instead, the punch lines. ~ Kerry Thornley

As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs. I might possibly invent some excuse for them and him, but I have no time for it. As for the religion and love of art of the builders, it is much the same the world over, whether the building be an Egyptian temple or the United States Bank. It costs more than it comes to ... For my part, I should like to know who in those days did not build them
who were above such trifling. ~ Henry David Thoreau

There's plenty of food here," Erik said dismissively. "We have fish traps and eel traps, we net wildfowl and eat well. And the prospect of silver and gold buys a lot of wheat, barley, oats, meat, fish, and ale. ~ Bernard Cornwell

View a Copycat as a Stray Cat.. They stray through the day hunting down prey. They pick up a scent through steel or cement. They act shy yet their sly. They get around traps, they escape with the bait. When you realize your loss and feel the hard cost without a peep nor a sign, they stand smiling across the finish line. ~ Victoria Addino

I hope it's the good kind of dilemma," Reginald broke Patricia's reverie. "Whatever one you're on the horns of."
...
"I was just thinking," she said. "There are so many scary problems in the world. Like, I was just reading that we could be seeing the last of the bees in North America soon. And if that happened, food webs would just collapse, and tons more people would starve. But suppose you had the power to change things? You still might not be able to fix anything, because every time you solve a problem you'd create another problem. And maybe all these plagues and droughts are nature's way of striking a balance. We humans don't have any natural predators left, so nature has to find another way to handle us."
...
"I am, as you know, a fan of nature," said Reginald. "And yet, nature doesn't 'find ways' to do anything. Nature has no opinion, no agenda. Nature provides a playing field, a not particularly level one, on which we compete with all creatures great and small. It's more that nature's playing field is full of traps. ~ Charlie Jane Anders

They soothed him with words of flattery, and they gave him hope - the two traps into which people the world over will always fall. ~ Voltaire

I could have told him that nothing was safe and that no matter how careful you were and how hard you tried, there were still accidents, hidden traps, and snares. You could get killed on an airplane or crossing the street. Your marriage could fall apart when you weren't looking; your husband could lose his job; our baby could get sick or die. ~ Jennifer Weiner

For too long, tricks and traps in mortgages, credit cards, and other financial transactions have stripped wealth from working families. ~ Jeff Merkley

I'd let him put his hand under my shirt, over the bra, where he kneaded with delighted disbelief at my booby. It had been super exciting, not really because it felt that great to have my booby treated like a yeast roll, but because we had both been so thrilled that I had let him touch it. ~ Joshilyn Jackson

Fear traps you inside your own body, holding you prisoner, convincing you of lies that sound like the truth. ~ Kristen Granata

In order to find your true potential, what you need to do is simply determine your core values, visualize the person you want to be, challenge common thought traps, and have a clear sense of your goals. ~ Prem Jagyasi

When I did 'Parent Trap,' I was ten. I was thrown off by the whole fame thing. ~ Lindsay Lohan

Obsessional does not necessarily mean sexual obsession, not even obsession for this, or for that in particular; to be an obsessional means to find oneself caught in a mechanism, in a trap increasingly demanding and endless. ~ Jacques Lacan

The palace of Ephebe is a labyrinth. I know. There are traps. No one gets in without a guide." "How does the guide get in?" said Vorbis. "I assume he guides himself," said the general. ~ Terry Pratchett

Indian cricket, and the youngsters themselves, are dealing with issues inconceivable a few summers ago. Riches and all the attendant temptations are thrown at them before they have started shaving regularly. It's not their fault. It's no one's fault. That is the marketplace. Inevitably, though, it can distract attention from the long struggle towards mastery. Cricket does not give itself away; it expects players to apply themselves, to think and study and seek. It plays tricks, too, pretends that sixes and slower balls and the other shortcuts matter. Cricket sets traps, flatters players and calls them kings when they are barely princes. ~ Peter Roebuck

The world tends to trap you in the role you play and it is always extremely hard to maintain a watchful, mocking distance between oneself as one appears to be and oneself as one actually is. ~ James A. Baldwin

Catholicism - all the perversions of Christianity - is not a faith of love. It is a faith of fear. Obey, be good, toe the line, and heaven is yours, the first prize in the lottery of eternity. Disobey, react, cut the lifeline, and never-ceasing damnation is the booby prize. The dogma is, love the only god and you shall be safe. Fail in that love and he will not rescue you, not until you crawl and apologize and fawn before the altar. What kind of a religion demands such indignity? ~ Martin Booth

Have you ever felt trapped in circumstances, then discovered that the only trap was your own lack of vision, lack of courage, or failure to see that you had better options? ~ Nick Vujicic

Many computer scientists have fallen into the trap of trying to define languages like George Orwell's Newspeak, in which it is impossible to think bad thoughts. What they end up doing is killing the creativity of programming. ~ Larry Wall

Man is the yokel par excellence, the booby unmatchable, the king dupe of the cosmos. He is chronically and unescapably deceived, not only by the other animals and by the delusive face of nature herself
by his incomparable talent for searching out and embracing what is false, and for overlooking and denying what is true. ~ H.L. Mencken

Once, he'd been sure the view from the peak would be worth the climb. But slowly he'd come to know that the path he was on, littered with boulders, pitfalls, and traps, crept onward forever but never reached the top. ~ S.J. Rozan

Sometimes just explaining your predicament--to a bartender, a priest, the old woman in a shift and flip-flops cleaning the lint traps in the Laundromat dryers--is all it takes to see a way out of it. ~ Julia Claiborne Johnson

One must be a fox in order to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten off wolves. Those who simply act like lions are stupid. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

It is not important whether what he is chanting is true or not, whether you believe in it or not. Your decision to chant along with him is no measure of your commitment to justice or freedom or whatever lofty principle is at hand. Sometimes, radical slogans are a trap. They are shouted by infiltrators so that a group of students protesting a press crackdown can be depicted as seeking to overthrow the regime. Sometimes they are not traps at all but the frustrated stand of a brave person. But how are you to know? Your objective is to avoid being a pawn, to avoid getting dragged into trouble because you are curious, or believe you are seeing history being made." They ~ Shirin Ebadi

Beware prejudices. They are like rats, and men's minds are like traps; prejudices get in easily, but it is doubtful if they ever get out. ~ Francis Jeffrey

If [Sean] doesn't see me a few days or if I'm really, really busy, and I just sort of get a glimpse of him, or if I'm feeling depressed without him even seeing me, he sort of picks up on it. And he starts getting that way. So I can no longer afford to have artistic depressions. If I start wallowing in a depression, he'll start coming down with stuff, so I'm sort of obligated to keep up. And sometimes I can't, because something will make me depressed and sure as hell he'll get a cold or trap his finger in a door or something, and so now I have sort of more reason to stay healthy or bright ... ~ John Lennon

The real trap of fame is its irresistibility. ~ Ingrid Bengis

I'm supposed to trust you?"
"No," he said. He picked up the phone. "Put her sister on." A second later he
handed the small silver device to her.
Summer felt a second of panic - after all, this tiny piece of metal and circuitry
unlocked doors, turned off death traps and blew up houses. God knows what would
happen if she pushed the wrong button. ~ Anne Stuart

I clipped a Ferrari, hit the gravel trap at a fair old speed, which lifted the car up into the barrier, and then rolled a few times. I had no injuries or anything - I just had to wait for the marshals to right the car before I could get out. ~ Allan McNish

This is where you first failed us. You gave us minds and told us not to think. You gave us curiosity and put a booby-trapped tree right in front of us. You gave us sex and told us not to do it. You played three-card monte with our souls from day one, and when we couldn't find the queen, you sent us to Hell to be tortured for eternity. That was your great plan for humanity? All you gave us here was daisies and fairy tales and you acted like that was enough. How were we supposed to resist evil when you didn't even tell us about it? ~ Richard Kadrey

I head someone say once that passionate people live violent lives. At the time I didn't really get it but if what they meant was the way love waits in ambush traps your well trained sense of control and tortures you into a confession you'd just as soon not make I now understand. ~ Jay Kopelman

I understand that it's the music that keeps me alive ... That's my lifeblood. And to give that up for, like, the TV, the cars, the houses - that's not the American dream. That's the booby prize, in the end. Those are the booby prizes. And if you fall for them - if, when you achieve them, you believe that this is the end in and of itself - then you've been suckered in. Because those are the consolation prizes, if you're not careful, for selling yourself out, or letting the best of yourself slip away. ~ Bruce Springsteen