Butting Their Heads Quotes

An image flashed across her mind of two rams flinging their heads against each other on a rocky mountainside. What did the girl rams do? Faint with pleasure? Clap their cloven hooves? Lean against some nearby boulders, with little tubs of mountain grass, discussing the battle? ~ Edward St. Aubyn

The flowers were opulent, full-blown, topple shower petals at a touch. He thought that she might topple that way, falling all at once into his hand, a soft drift of blossom between his fingers. The roses bowed their extravagant heads, nodding, but she was all stiff prim and black, back in her bonnet, so that he could not see her face unless she looked directly at him. ~ Laura Kinsale

Those who believe that after I have left the government as prime minister, I will go into a permanent retirement, really should have their heads examined. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

It's all right, Harry. We've come to take you away."
Harry's heart leapt. He knew that voice, too, though he hadn't heard it for over a year.
"P-Professor Lupin?" he said disbelievingly. "Is that you?"
"Why are we all standing in the dark?" said a third voice, this one completely unfamiliar, a woman's. "Lumos"
A wand-tip flared, illuminating the hall with magical light. Harry blinked. The people below were crowded around the foot of the stairs, gazing up at him intently, some craning their heads for a better look.
Remus Lupin stood nearest to him. Though still quite young, Lupin looked tired and rather ill; he had more grey hairs than when Harry had last said goodbye and his robes were more patched and shabbier than ever. Nevertheless, he was smiling broadly at Harry. ~ J.K. Rowling

I wish I could blame the solar storm
that blitzed the earth with electromagnetic rays,
rerouted several commercial airlines,
and caused all the geese to mistakenly fly west,
the secret compass needles in their heads
playing spin the bottle over a rowdy Pacific.
Satellite communications were disrupted,
electric eels in Peru forgot how to sing,
and for a few seconds all the iPhones in the world
flickered to black, during which time
everyone raised their eyes and noticed
moths shivering like tiny chandeliers.
The truth is your glance shortcuts every traffic light
in my heart and now no one's in charge,
I'm accelerating down the expressway
of a tuba's gold dream. With one outburst
from your hair, I sputter like a firefly drowning
in champagne. Just imagining the charged particles
of your lips colliding with mine
and I'm watching the northern lights,
those bodies flaring across midwinter sheets of sky ~ Katherine Rauk

Only a fool says in his heart
There is no Creator, no King of kings,
Only mules would dare to bray
These lethal mutterings.
Over darkened minds as these
The Darkness bears full sway,
Fruitless, yet, bearing fruit,
In their fell, destructive way.
Sterile, though proliferate,
A filthy progeny sees the day,
When Evil, Thought and Action mate:
Breeding sin, rebels and decay.
The blackest deeds and foul ideals,
Multiply throughout the earth,
Through deadened, lifeless, braying souls,
The Darkness labours and gives birth.
Taking the Lord's abundant gifts
And rotting them to the core,
They dress their dish and serve it out
Foul seeds to infect thousands more.
'The Tree of Life is dead!' they cry,
'And that of Knowledge not enough,
Let us glut on the ashen apples
Of Sodom and Gomorrah.'


Have pity on Thy children, Lord,
Left sorrowing on this earth,
While fools and all their kindred
Cast shadows with their murk,
And to the dwindling wise,
They toss their heads and wryly smirk.
The world daily grinds to dust
Virtue's fair unicorns,
Rather, it would now beget
Vice's mutant manticores.
Wisdom crushed, our joy is gone,
Buried under anxious fears
For lost rights and freedoms,
We shed many bitter tears.
Death is life, Life is no more,
Humanity buried in a tomb,
In a fatal prenatal w ~ E.A. Bucchianeri

The TV people. I like calling them that. The TV people. And they have TVs for heads and their faces can change when the channels change. ~ Paul Tremblay

These boys, now, were living as we'd been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities. They were filled with rage. All they really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which were now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed, at once more together than they were at any other time, and more alone. ~ James Baldwin

Writers transform: they throw a hand grenade into the notion of reality that people carry around in their heads. That's very dangerous, very destructive, but not to do it means you are satisfied with the status quo - and that's a kind of danger as well, because a kind of violence is already being perpetuated. ~ John Edgar Wideman

Alice haunted the mossy edge of the woods, lingering in patches of shade. She was waiting to hear his Austin-Healey throttle back when he careened down the utility road separating the state park from the cabins rimming the lake, but only the whistled conversation of buntings echoed in the branches above. The vibrant blue males darted deeper into the trees when she blew her own 'sweet-sweet chew-chew sweet-sweet' up to theirs. Pine seedlings brushed against her pants as she pushed through the understory, their green heads vivid beneath the canopy. She had dressed to fade into the forest; her hair was bundled up under a long-billed cap, her clothes drab and inconspicuous. When at last she heard his car, she crouched behind a clump of birch and made herself as small as possible, settling into a shallow depression of ferns and leaf litter. ~ Tracy Guzeman

Think they'll work it out?" Nicholas asked.
"The emo twins?" I asked. "They love each other, so yes. Plus, I plan to smack their heads together. ~ Alyxandra Harvey

Didn't anyone stop to reflect that the so-called old people of today used to smoke pot, for heaven's sake, and wear bandannas tied around their heads and picket the White House? When Amanda chided her for saying that something was "cool" ("I hate it when the older generation tries to copy the younger," she had said), did she not realize that "cool" had been used in Abby's time, too, not to mention long before? ~ Anne Tyler

Before the eyes of monks intent on meditation, what is the meaning of those ridiculous grotesques, those monstrous shapes and shapely monsters? Those sordid apes? Those lions, those centaurs, those half-human creatures, with mouths in their bellies, with single feet, ears like sails? Those spotted tigers, those fighting warriors, those hunters blowing their horns, and those many bodies with single heads and many heads with single bodies? Quadrupeds with serpents' tails, and fish with quadrupeds' faces, and here an animal who seems a horse in front and a ram behind, and there a horse with horns, and so on; by now it is more pleasurable for a monk to read marble than manuscript, and to admire the works of man than to meditate on the law of God. Shame! For the desire of your eyes and for your smiles! ~ Umberto Eco

That truth which you swallow from others will not be yours ... you have to realize truth and work it our for yourself according to your own nature ... All must struggle to be individuals-strong, standing on your own feet, thinking your own thoughts, realizing you own Self. No use swallowing doctrines others pass on-standing up together like soldiers in jail, sitting down together, all eating the same food, all nodding their heads at the same time. Variation is the sign of life. Sameness is the sign of death. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Say you're at home and you want something, like a book, so you go online and order it from Amazon. Two days later, the book you ordered is in a box on your front porch. What if you'd just thought, 'I wish I had that book,' but you didn't do anything else? Would it be on your porch two days later?" A few ladies shook their heads. "No, it would not. Because you didn't put in an order. Think of all the times you've said, 'Why isn't this happening for me?' or 'I want this,' and nothing ever changes. Without placing your order, you're just saying words that circle in the air. ~ Karen McQuestion

[To Bonaparte, when asked why she meddled in politics:] Sire, when women have their heads cut off, it is but just they should know the reason. ~ Madame De Stael

Ninety-eight percent of what goes on in people's heads is none of their smucking business. ~ Stephen King

For a long time they sat in silence, observing the huddles of juvenile reeds peeking through the water's surface, and watching the scores of bank-rooted daisies nodding their dainty heads in time with the gentle breeze. ~ Jack Croxall

To know that we are only angels weighed down by filth, free of guilt? The bacteria in our bellies are responsible for the farts which shame us, tiny monsters shitting in their billions all over our pure skin create the acid reek of "our" sweat. And Slade: when the "inner voices" tell us we're unworthy or instruct us to "love" and "hate," despite our best instincts ... are these incessant distracting thoughts our own? Or do we only hear the voice of the eternal germ screaming in our heads? ~ Grant Morrison

There is another dangerous component to armed robberies, one that I could never understand. I noticed some time ago that with each robbery I committed there was an intense out of control anger that gripped me. It was as if I was there to get something that was inherently mine, and I came to take it by force. I've heard many stories directly from individuals about how they just burst into stores with their guns drawn. They would be shouting at people, gun butting them sometimes for no reason at all. One individual told me that he ran into a store and jump kicked a fella who just stood there. The only reason he was kicked is that he was there.
It's as if once you've overridden your conscience of going through with the act, it is replaced with anger and a level of brutality that is usually reserved for when you are fighting for your life. This, to me, is what makes armed robberies so dangerous - because the slightest provocation or any sudden movement by anyone could lead to them being shot or killed. It is always an extremely delicate and dicey situation, because the armed robber is pulling the trigger out of fear more than anything else. ~ Drexel Deal

And with light lips yet full of their swift smile,
And hands that wist not though they dug a grave,
Undid the hasps of gold, and drank, and gave,
And he drank after, a deep glad kingly draught:
And all their life changed in them, for they quaffed
Death; if it be death so to drink, and fare
As men who change and are what these twain were.
And shuddering with eyes full of fear and fire
And heart-stung with a serpentine desire
He turned and saw the terror in her eyes
That yearned upon him shining in such wise
As a star midway in the midnight fixed.
Their Galahault was the cup, and she that mixed;
Nor other hand there needed, nor sweet speech
To lure their lips together; each on each
Hung with strange eyes and hovered as a bird
Wounded, and each mouth trembled for a world;
Their heads neared, and their hands were drawn in one,
And they saw dark, though still the unsunken sun
Far through fine rain shot fire into the south;
And their four lips became one burning mouth. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

Indeed what reason may not go to Schoole to the wisdome of Bees, Ants, and Spiders? what wise hand teacheth them to doe what reason cannot teach us? ruder heads stand amazed at those prodigious pieces of nature, Whales, Elephants, Dromidaries and Camels; these I confesse, are the Colossus and Majestick pieces of her hand; but in these narrow Engines there is more curious Mathematicks, and the civilitie of these little Citizens more neatly sets forth the wisdome of their Maker. ~ Thomas Browne

I believe that if we are to survive as a planet, we must teach this next generation to handle their own conflicts assertively andnonviolently. If in their early years our children learn to listen to all sides of the story, use their heads and then their mouths, and come up with a plan and share, then, when they become our leaders, and some of them will, they will have the tools to handle global problems and conflict. ~ Barbara Coloroso

Dolphins felt top-heavy, that year, most of the time, and wanted to lie down. When their heads weren't on top they still felt top-heavy, but metaphysically. In public places they felt sad. They went into restrooms, hugged themselves, and quietly went, 'Eeeee eee eeee.' Weekends they went to playgrounds alone. They sat in the top of slides - the enclosed part, where it glowed a little because of the colored plastic - and felt very alert and awake but also very sad and immature. Sometimes they fell asleep and a boy's mother would prod the dolphin with a broom and the dolphin would go down the slide while still asleep. At the bottom they would feel ashamed and go home and lie in bed. They felt so sad that they believed a little that it was their year to be sad, which made them feel better in a devastated, hollowed-out way. Life was too sad and it was beautiful to really feel it for once; to be allowed to feel it, for one year. When dolphins had these thoughts, usually on weekends at night, it was like dreaming, like a pink flower in a soft breeze on a field was lightly dreaming them. The sadness was like a pink forest that got less dense as you went in and then changed into a field, which the dolphins walked into alone. Sometimes the sadness was like a knife against the face. It made the dolphins cry and not want to move. But sometimes a young dolphin would feel very lonely and ugly and it was beautiful how alone it felt, and it would become restless with how perfect and elegant ~ Tao Lin

Get some sleep," Magda advised as she bustled by on her way to bring Rycca yet another meal she likely would not eat.
"Find out why she isn't eating," he shot back. For good measure, he added, "And tell her she damn well better."
Magda rolled her eyes but knew better than to say anything more.
Dragging the whetstone out in front of the stable, Dragon settled down to sharpen his sword. It was a proper enough activity, one he engaged in frequently. No one ought to think anything of it.The Moorish blade truly was remarkable, enough so to give him a few minutes' surcease from his constant worry over Rycca.
The day warmed. He noted that Rycca had on a fresh gown and was trying once again to eat. Magda was going her job. From the nearby paddock,Grani and Sleipnir nickered.They refused to quiet until he got up, went over, and fed the fools apples.
"She'll be all right," he told them under his breath. "I probably won't be but I don't expect you to concern yourselves with that."
They bobbed their heads in what, he suspected,was agreement. ~ Josie Litton

Australia! Australians! Surely it's still full of Magwitch-types, lumbering oafs with shaven pates and broken noses on the run from whatever law there is, chucking kangaroo heads on the barbie as they read their awful bush poetry. ~ Dave Franklin

North Koreans have two stories running in their heads at all times, like trains on parallel tracks. One is what you are taught to believe; the other is what you see with your own eyes. It wasn't until I escaped to South Korea and read a translation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four that I found a word for this peculiar condition: doublethink. This is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in your mind at the same time - and somehow not go crazy. This "doublethink" is how you can shout slogans denouncing capitalism in the morning, then browse through the market in the afternoon to buy smuggled South Korean cosmetics. It ~ Yeonmi Park

I never got over the horror of watching their graduation ceremonies, performed before their parents. After a demonstration of 'military prowess' and personal courage the ceremony ended with their biting off the heads of snakes. As the blood dripped down their chins, they roasted the dead animals for a victory feast. Other schools had the children strangle puppies and drink their blood. ~ Leon Uris

The other dangerous delusion from which those who are wilfully or otherwise blind to realities suffer, is summed up in the word "integration." To be integrated into a population means to become for all practical purposes indistinguishable from its other members.
Now, at all times, where there are marked physical differences, especially of colour, integration is difficult though, over a period, not impossible. There are among the Commonwealth immigrants who have come to live here in the last fifteen years or so, many thousands whose wish and purpose is to be integrated and whose every thought and endeavour is bent in that direction.
But to imagine that such a thing enters the heads of a great and growing majority of immigrants and their descendants is a ludicrous misconception, and a dangerous one. ~ Enoch Powell

Printing up extra money - with no backing - used to be the sort of thing only counterfeiters did. Now it is done by the central bankers and Treasury Secretaries themselves. They don't apologize for it. They don't hang their heads and contemplate blowing their brains out. Instead, they're proud of it ... announcing that they 'saved civilization,' or some such claptrap. ~ Bill Bonner

[F]olks would better off dipping their heads in a bucket of liquid [nitrogen] and battering them against a tree very very hard than reading Baxter's Titan. It would not surprise me if reading that book causes birth defects. ~ Stephen Baxter

What made a movie buff different from others was the amount of freakish details they chose to fill their heads with. The typical movie-goer remembered the big lines, the ones that you could find on the film's shirts and posters. Just a bunch of tag-lines used for promotion. A true movie buff memorized the odd ones that said more about the story's theme or characters. A true buff read up on the movie's history. ~ Kenya Wright

Down the pool they went until finally they were bunched and crowded against the end. And the feet and wildly plunging bodies followed them. A few frogs lost their heads and floundered among the feet and got through and these were saved. But the majority decided to leave this pool forever, to find a new home in a new country where this kind of thing didn't happen. A wave of frantic, frustrated frogs, big ones, little ones, brown ones, green ones, men frogs and women frogs, a wave of them broke over the bank, crawled, leaped, scrambled. They clambered up the grass, they dutched at each other, little ones rode on big ones, And then - horror on horror - the flashlights found them. Two men gathered them like berries. The line came out of the water and closed in on their rear and gathered them like potatoes. Tens and fifties of them were flung into the gunny sacks, and the sacks filled with tired, frightened, and disillusioned frogs, with dripping whimpering frogs. Some got away, of course, and some had been saved in the pool. But never in frog history had such an execution taken place. ~ John Steinbeck

I've watched about a dozen tourists almost get hit by cars since I've been here. I barely made it to the beach alive the other day. I mean, no one knows what they're doing. They swing their heads back and forth like they're mounted on a door hinge, but they don't even know what they're looking for, not really. Cars just come at you from all sorts of unnecessary directions here, and we're all probably going to get killed. ~ Elle Lothlorien

Ignorance breeds fear. Tell people the truth. Trust them to keep their heads. ~ Olivia Manning

Some people are never content with their lot, let what will happen. Clouds and darkness are over their heads, alike whether it rain or shine. To them every incident is an accident, and every accident a calamity. ~ Charles Spurgeon

Most calves used by the dairy industry have their horns BURNED or GOUGED out of their heads. ~ Casey Affleck

I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of 'em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures. ~ Gary Snyder

Men and women of integrity understand intrinsically that theirs is the precious right to hold their heads in the sunlight of truth, unashamed before anyone. Embodied within this simple principle and character trait rests the foundational virtue of every person and of every society. ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

It is unacceptable that people often have to make huge sacrifices just to find a place to live, a roof over their heads. ~ Eric Cantona

It is said that Deucalion and Pyrrha created men by throwing stones over their heads behind them: - Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque laborum, Et documenta damus qua simus origine nati. Or, as Raleigh rhymes it in his sonorous way, - From thence our kind hard-hearted is, enduring pain and care, Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Some of the biggest bores I've ever known are men who have been highly successful in business, particularly self-made heads of big companies. Before the first olive has settled into the first martini, they pour the stories of their lives into the nearest and sometimes the remotest ears capturable ... These men have indeed paid the price of success. To rise to the top of a big company often takes a totality of effort, concentration and dedication. Others, too, have to pay part of the price. Wife and children are out of mind even when in sight ... ~ Malcolm Forbes

The members of the board were very sage, deep, philosophical men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse, they found out at once, what ordinary folk would never have discovered - the poor people like it! It was a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer classes; a tavern where there was nothing to pay; a public breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper all year round; a brick and mortar elysium where it was all play and no work. "Oho!" said the board, looking very knowing; "we are the fellows to set this to rights; we'll stop it all in no time." So, they established the rule, that all poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, not they) of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or a quick one out of it. With this view, they contracted with the waterworks to lay on an unlimited supply of water; and with a corn-factor to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal; and issued three meals of thin gruel per day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll on Sundays. They made a great many other wise and humane regulations, having reference to the ladies, which it is not necessary to repeat; undertook to divorce poor married people, in consequence of the great expense of a suit in Doctor's Commons; and, instead of compelling a man to support his family, as they had theretofore done, took his family away from him, and made him a bachelor! There is no saying how many applicants for relief under these two heads, mig ~ Charles Dickens

Why is it that the less intelligence people have, the more spiritual they are? They seem to fill all the vacant, ignorant spaces in their heads with soul. Which explains how it is that the less knowledge they have, the more religion. ~ Lincoln Steffens