Carving Quotes

As the brother put the carving knife aside, he said, "Stuffing?"

"Am I breathing?"

Phury shoved a spoon into the bird and piled high. "Mashed?"

"Do you have gravy?"

"Am I breathing?"

V cracked a smile. "Roger that. And affirmative on the gravy."

When a plate was put in front of him, he glanced up. "No veggies? Not that I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth."

"Vegetable matter is a waste of porcelain space." Phury pushed a knife and fork across the butcher block. "Ask yourself, would I sacrifice the surface area of mashed or stuffing for peas?"

"I love you. ~ J.R. Ward

What would you know of struggle, perfect son? When have you fought against the mutilation of your mind? When have you had to do anything other than tally compliance's and polish your armor? The people of your world named you "Great One". The people of mine called me slave. Which one of us landed on a paradise of civilization to be raised by a foster father, Roboute? Which one of us was given armies to lead after training in the halls of the Macraggian High Riders? Which one of us inherited a strong, cultured kingdom? And which one of us had to rise up against a kingdom with nothing but a horde of starving slaves? Which one of us was a child enslaved on a world of monsters, with his brain cut up by carving knives? Listen to your blue clad wretches yelling courage and honor, courage and honor, courage and honor! Do you even know the meaning of those words? Courage is fighting the kingdom which enslaves you, no matter that their armies outnumber yours by ten-thousand to one. You know nothing of courage! Honor is resisting a tyrant when all others suckle and grow fat on the hypocrisy he feeds them. You know nothing of honor! ~ Angron, Wahammer 40K

To be a full-blooded hillbilly was to be a living koan. Half of you wanted to be dignified and half of you couldn't tolerate any restraint. You could see it in the regional art and hear it in the music. Wood carving with chainsaws. Cloggers who danced up a storm with the lower half of their bodies, but held the upper half perfectly still and stared off into the distance stone-faced. Or a group of bluegrass musicians who'd be playing the most raucous tunes imaginable, looking around at each other with bemused expressions that seemed to say where's all that racket comin from?
Phoebe believed that nearly all the adult males everywhere were pretty much the same way. Most of them could manage to keep the top half of themselves under a semblance of control, but the bottom half tended to run wild. As she continued to descend the trail she couldn't help but think that most men were mentally ill below the waist. ~ Carolyn Jourdan

I can't tell you why God made you the way you are any more than I can tell you why he's planted a carcinoma in my stomach to make me die painfully while other men die peacefully in their sleep. The cogs of creation seem to slip all the time. Babies are born with two heads, mothers of families run crazy with carving knives, men die in plague, famine and thunderstorms. Why? Only God knows. ~ Morris L. West

When they got to thew bottom of the stairwell, they stopped dead. Blay's father was facing off with a lesser, a Civil War sword in one hand, a dagger in the other.
Behind his Joe Friday glasses, his eyes were lit like torches, and they flicked over for a split second. "Stay out of this. This one's mine."
The shit was done faster than you can say, Ninja Dad.
Blay's father went Ginsu on the slayer, carving the thing up like a turkey, then stabbing it back to the Omega. ~ J.R. Ward

Her eyes are closed when I reach the couch again. She looks so peaceful just lying there. I watch her for a moment, wishing I knew what the hell was going through her head, but I refuse to ask. I can carve pumpkins just as well as she can. ~ Colleen Hoover

Just as food is a craft, great service is, too. It can take years to perfect the technical aspects of clearing a plate, carving tableside, or pouring wine, and a lifetime to master the emotional elements of service. ~ Daniel Humm

You know, Silas shouldn't have something so indecent like this lying about," Ann said. "One of the children might see it." She brightened. "I know! We should put some clothes on it! That would make it all right, don't you think?"
"Oh, by all means. Do clothe the woman," Louisa said, laughter bubbling up from the back of her throat.
Ann flitted around the room looking for something appropriate. "Ah, this'll be fine," she said, her back to Louisa. She fooled with the thing a bit, then turned and held it up for Louisa's approval.
It took Louisa a second to recognize what Ann had chosen to clothe the poor beleaguered fertility goddess in, but as soon as she did, she burst into laughter.
Silas's drawers. Ann had clothed the carving in Silas's dirty drawers.
After that, Louisa couldn't stop laughing. Ann had tied the legs around the carving's neck so that the back side of the unlaced drawers covered her front. It was truly a site to behold. And when Ann looked at her in all innocence, obviously unaware that the lady's clothing was as indecent as the lady herself, Louisa laughed so hard her sides hurt.
"Louisa, are you alright?" Ann asked as she went to her friend's side. "I swear, you're behaving strange today. Really strange."
Louisa couldn't even speak. All she could do was laugh and point at the carving.
"This?" Ann asked as she held the carving up. "What's wrong? Don't you like her fine woolen dress?"
Louisa erupted in more peals of ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Like many indelible family memories, carving a pumpkin begins with someone grabbing a really sharp knife. ~ Dana Gould

What does a woman do as she waits for her man? She may wash her hair, put on makeup, choose the kind of outfit any woman would be eager to try on, spray on perfume, and look at herself one last time in the mirror. If she does these things, it's when she and the man she's waiting for are in love. It's different when a woman waits for a man she still loves but who has broken up with her, because the pure joy of it is missing. Loving someone is like carving words into the back of your hand. Even if the others can't see the words, they, like glowing letters, stand out in the eyes of the person who's left you. Right now, that's enough for me. ~ Kyung-ran Jo

But what was between them went further than a mating ceremony or a back carving or a witnessed exchange of commitment. He couldn't put his finger on the why of it ... but she was his missing puzzle piece, the twelfth in his dozen, the first and the last pages of his book. And at some level that was all he needed. ~ J.R. Ward

Honestly, the essence of publishing hasn't changed. Since the days of the cave man carving stuff on the cave walls, people have wanted stories, and storytellers have wanted an audience. That is still the case. The changes are really a matter of format. ~ Susan Wiggs

Somewhere along the line Coltrane's soprano sax runs out of steam. Now it's McCoy Tyner's piano solo I hear, the left hand carving out a repetitious rhythm and the right layering on thick, forbidding chords. Like some mythic scene, the music portrays somebody's - a nameless, faceless somebody's - dim past, all the details laid out as clearly as entrails being dragged out of the darkness. Or at least that's how it sounds to me. The patient, repeating music ever so slowly breaks apart the real, rearranging the pieces. It has a hypnotic, menacing smell, just like the forest. ~ Haruki Murakami

Science often progresses by carving out new distinctions that refine the fuzzy categories of natural language. ~ Stanislas Dehaene

Charlie and Daniel think money and happiness are not related. They don't know what poor is. They don't know that poverty is a sharp knife carving away at you. They don't know what it does to a body. To a mind. ~ Nicola Yoon

Each of us is carving a stone, erecting a column, or cutting a piece of stained glass in the construction of something much bigger than ourselves. ~ Adrienne Clarkson

In a sense, the process of becoming who you are is defined by carving back the possibilities that were already present. You become who you are not because of what grows in your brain, but because of what is removed. ~ David Eagleman

And this totally normal conversation unspools from there, covering the basics: family, siblings, school, favorite composers, favorite movies, favorite wood (for carving puppets), the prehistory of the sandwich, and whether the ancient Romans got their togas caught in the spokes of their unicycles ~ Laini Taylor

Every race of people since time began who have attempted to describe God by words or painting, or by carvings, have conveyed their idea that the God who made them and shaped their destinies was symbolized in themselves ... ~ Henry McNeal Turner

I've attended some pretty glamorous events over the years, like the Costume Ball at the Met, the Golden Globes, and the Vanity Fair Oscar party. They are usually held at distinguished cultural institutions like the Met or the Annenberg Center - always beautiful spaces that are home to priceless works of art. The first thing they do when a Hollywood party rents out the place is push all the art to the corner so it doesn't get in the way. They have to do that so there's room for a red carpet, a bar, a prime rib carving station, a photo booth, and, for some reason, an Acura parked inside, in the middle of the party floor. There's always a parked Acura at every major Hollywood party. Who ~ Mindy Kaling

Carving out our own place, making something out of nothing. It feels as right as it doesn't and I think maybe I was wrong. We can't have exactly everything we lost. But maybe we can come close. ~ Courtney Summers

I hope you still taste like my name
when the next man kisses you
that he hears it echo down his throat
and crawl across his skin

I hope he knows that you were mine
that you had forevers on your lips
that were only meant for me

I hope he feels small, mismatched
when he takes hold of your hand
that his fingers never fill the void
my own have left behind

and when he lays by your side
and whispers that he loves you
I hope my voice echoes back louder
through all the canyons
I spent nights
and mornings
carving in your sheets. ~ Tyler Kent White

What other sport holds out hope of improvement to a man or a woman over fifty? True, the pros begin to falter at around forty, but it is their putting nerves that go, not their swings. For a duffer like [me], the room for improvement is so vast that three lifetimes could be spent roaming the fiarways carving away at it, convinced that perfection lies just over the next rise. And that hope, perhaps, is the kindest bliss of all that golf bestows upon its devotees. ~ John Updike

I don't think it is always necessary to take up the anti-colonial
or is it post-colonial?
cudgels against English. What seems to me to be happening is that those people who were once colonized by the language are now rapidly remaking it, domesticating it, becoming more and more relaxed about the way they use it
assisted by the English language's enormous flexibility and size, they are carving out large territories for themselves within its frontiers. ~ Salman Rushdie

This isn't how it should be, God.

Thousands of graves marking thousands of lives--so much focus on death. Did the gravediggers spend their lives just serving the dead? How many Numbers ticked away for the sake of carving headstones no one would read?

As I stare at this scene, I decide I don't want a headstone when I die. I don't even want to be buried. I want to disappear--save that chunk of earth for people to live on. This land I stand on is worthless now. No one can build a house here. No one can plant gardens or start a new village. Is that what the people buried beneath me would have wanted?

Earth wasn't intended to hold only dead bodies.

I stand. God, I need to live. ~ Nadine Brandes

So our problem is to explain where symmetry comes from. Why is nature so nearly symmetrical? No one has any idea why. The only thing we might suggest is something like this: There is a gate in
Japan, a gate in Neiko, which is sometimes called by the Japanese
the most beautiful gate in all Japan; it was built in a time when
there was great influence from Chinese art. This gate is very elaborate,
with lots of gables and beautiful carving and lots of columns
and dragon heads and princes carved into the pillars, and so on.
But when one looks closely he sees that in the elaborate and complex
design along one of the pillars, one of the small design elements
is carved upside down; otherwise the thing is completely
symmetrical. If one asks why this is, the story is that it was carved
upside down so that the gods will not be jealous of the perfection
of man. So they purposely put an error in there, so that the gods
would not be jealous and get angry with human beings.
We might like to turn the idea around and think that the true
explanation of the near symmetry of nature is this: that God made
the laws only nearly symmetrical so that we should not be jealous
of His perfection! ~ Richard P. Feynman

During those times, only under piles of blankets did she feel substantial enough not to drift away; they kept her weighted down and a part of the world. But eventually her dog's persistence and her own strong will would win over, and she'd drag herself up from the thick bog and go back to her chores and her books, carving the missing days into the wall so they did not escape entirely. ~ Sere Prince Halverson

That was true, Iris would sometimes think, about marriage: it was only a boat, too. A wooden boat, difficult to build, even more difficult to maintain, whose beauty derived at least in part from its unlikelihood. Long ago the pragmatic justifications for both marriage and wooden-boat building had been lost or superseded. Why invest countless hours, years, and dollars in planing and carving, gluing and fastening, caulking and fairing, when a fiberglass boat can be had at a fraction of the cost? Why struggle to maintain love and commitment over decades when there were far easier ways to live, ones that required no effort or attention to prevent corrosion and rot? Why continue to pour your heart into these obsolete arts? Because their beauty, the way they connect you to your history and to the living world, justifies your efforts. A long marriage, like a classic wooden boat, could be a thing of grace, but only if great effort was devoted to its maintenance. At first your notions of your life with another were no more substantial than a pattern laid down in plywood. Then year by year you constructed the frame around the form, and began layering memories, griefs, and small triumphs like strips of veneer planking bent around the hull of everyday routine. You sanded down the rough edges, patched the misunderstandings, faired the petty betrayals. Sometimes you sprung a leak. You fell apart in rough weather or were smashed on devouring rocks. But then, as now, in the teeth of a storm, ~ Ayelet Waldman

And remember, when things get tough for him, please teach him how to stop carving pumpkins . . . ~ Colleen Hoover

Her father sat her down and spoke to her with great seriousness. "You are not a witch, Katerina. There is magic in the world, and some of it is wholesome, and some of it is not, but it is a thing that is in the blood, and it is not in yours.
"The foolish will always treat you badly, because they think you are not beautiful," he said, and she knew this was true. Plain Kate. She was a plain as a stick and thin as a stick and flat as a stick. Her nose was too long and her brows too strong. Her father kissed her twice, once above each brow. "We cannot help what fools think. But understand, it is your skill with a blade that draws this talk. If you want to give up your carving, you have my blessing."
"I will never give it up," she answered. ~ Erin Bow

Cassia.
Even far away, I know it's her by the way her dark hair tangles with the wind and how she stands on the red rocks of the Carving. She's more beautiful than snow.
Is this real?
She points to the sky. ~ Ally Condie

Think of the many articles one can find every year in the Wall Street Journal describing some entrepreneur or businessman as being a "pioneer" or a "maverick" or a "cowboy." Think of the many times these ambitious modern men are described as "staking their claim" or boldly pushing themselves "beyond the frontier" or even "riding into the sunset." We still use this nineteenth-century lexicon to describe our boldest citizens, but it's really a code now, because these guys aren't actually pioneers; they are talented computer programmers, biogenetic researchers, politicians, or media monguls making a big splash in a fast modern economy.

But when Eustace Conway talks about staking a claim, the guy is literally staking a goddamn claim. Other frontier expressions that the rest of us use as metaphors, Eustace uses literally. He does sit tall in the saddle; he does keep his powder dry; he is carving out a homestead. When he talks about reining in horses or calling off the dogs or mending fences, you can be sure that there are real horses, real dogs or real fences in the picture. And when Eustace goes in for the kill, he's not talking about a hostile takeover of a rival company; he's talking about really killing something. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

For a torture to be effective, the pain has to be spread out; it has to come at regular intervals, with no end in sight. The water falls , drop after drop after drop, like the second hand of a watch, carving up time. The shock of each individual drop is insignificant, but the sensation is impossible to ignore. At first, one might manage to think about other things, but after five hours, after ten hours, it becomes unendurable. The repeated stimulation excites the nerves to a point where they literally explode, and every sensation in the body is absorbed into that one spot on the forehead
indeed, you come to feel that you are nothing but a forehead, into which a fine needle is being forced millimeter by millimeter. You can't sleep or even speak, hypnotized by a suffering that is greater than any mere pain. In general, the victim goes mad before a day has passed. ~ Yoko Ogawa

Self-will and prayer are both ways of getting things done. At the center of self-will is me, carving a world in my image, but at the center of prayer is God, carving me in his Son's image. ~ Paul E. Miller

I need to stop carving out four-hour chunks to do random things and go home and watch my children grow up. ~ Neil Patrick Harris

I looked back at the two of them. I knew I didn't have the sharpest knives carving my Christmas turkey but I had what I had. ~ Vera Jane Cook

Enough Truthseeker! Do not utter another word about religion! We have debated it to death! If you so much as mention it again while I am present, I will resume my heart-carving. Not for the honour of Avanti, but to shut you up!"

~ Vexis Zaelwarsh to Brael Truthseeker
Deathsworn Arc 5: The Temple of the Mad God
Martyn Stanley ~ Martyn Stanley

So she moved away from the carving of the mythical stag, instantly cold as she severed contact with the delightful heat living within the stone. Part of her could have sworn that ancient, strange power was sad to see her go. ~ Sarah J. Maas

You have two seconds to tell me what the fuck you did to her, or I start carving you up into tiny pieces. And it won't be quick and it won't be painless. I'll make you bleed and suffer, but you won't die. You'll only wish you had, Skylar spat. ~ Maya Banks

Any system of periodization is thus inevitably social, since our ability to envision the historical watersheds separating one conventional "period" from another is basically a product of being socialized into specific traditions of carving the past. ~ Eviatar Zerubavel

One thing however, Nat did for him. He taught him carpentry. He learned to distinguish between the different kinds of wood, to love them and understand their ways. Realizing that the boy had great skill with his hands Nat gave him a few tools for his own and taught him wood carving ... First the books and then the wood. Each was a milestone for him on the way through. ~ Elizabeth Goudge

But you came into the Carving to save yourself and get back to the girl you're in love with. That's all. ~ Ally Condie

I did a gig at a comedy club in Bournemouth where they served a buffet while the acts were on. There was the clang of people carving turkey during the set. If you put comedy and turkey side by side, turkey always wins. ~ Jack Whitehall

To subdivide this land into two unstable, insecure nations, to try to defend what is indefensible, is to invite disaster. Carving Judea and Samaria out of Israel means carving up Israel. ~ Benjamin Netanyahu

I know Oz, now," she said, and in the carving of the lintel she found that common ideogram, a Z circled with an O. "Usually letters don't hide inside each other," she told Glinda firmly. "No, that's true. In Oz, I suppose, something is always hiding ... ~ Gregory Maguire

We were all grinning and everyone had their eyes open for once. Ian must have been moving - his hand was blurred. It was exactly how I imagined us, right down to Kieran's arm around me and the peace sign he was making above Matty's head. The big carving was behind us, and the other trees leaned into the picture, like giant people.

Then a cloud went over the sun and Ian said he had better get going. I wished we had taken five pictures so that we could all have a copy. When I looked at the image again, the colours had already started to fade, as if it was a moment we could never have back. ~ Inga Simpson

The house-elves of Hogwarts swarmed into the entrance hall, screaming and waving carving knives and cleavers, and at their head, the locket of Regulus Black bouncing on his chest, was Kreacher, his bullfrog's voice audible even above this din: Fight! Fight! Fight for my Master, defender of house-elves! Fight the Dark Lord, in the name of brave Regulus! Fight! ~ J.K. Rowling

[On Venice:] A wondrous city of fairest carving, reflected in gleaming waters swirled to new patterning by every passing gondola. ~ Sylvia Pankhurst

Jack was too absorbed in his work to hear the bell. He was mesmerized by the challenge of making soft, round shapes of hard rock. The stone had a will of its own, and if he tried to make it do something it did not want to do, it would fight him, and his chisel would slip, or dig in too deeply, spoiling the shapes. But once he had got to know the lump of rock in front of him he could transform it. The more difficult the task, the more fascinated he was. He was beginning to feel that the decorative carving demanded by Tom was too easy. Zigzags, lozenges, dogtooth, spirals and plain roll moldings bored him, and even these leaves were rather stiff and repetitive. He wanted to curve natural-looking foliage, pliable and irregular, and copy the different shapes of real leaves, oak and ash and birch. ~ Ken Follett

Somewhere, a trucker reads alien letters carved into the bathroom stall walls of a truck stop. He cannot look away. Pathogens in the grammar open an event horizon in his head. He spreads the scrawl in every stop on his route, carving it into the stalls. he itches and he scratches. Others see the letters. They itch. They scratch. He scratches his face, draws the runes in red with his box knife. His head blossoms into a bouquet of writhing lampreys. ~ Joshua Alan Doetsch

Then he bestows the final commandment onto me: Thou shalt remake the world. This is something I would very much like to do, though no clue how carving a rock will achieve it.
- Jude Sweetwine ~ Jandy Nelson

Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

I realized it wasn't necessary to work in the traditional methods of carving and casting. ~ Martin Puryear

The walls were painted red, and there was the painter up ahead, that candle-maned woman carving her way through the darkness, and carving her way through everyone she thought the darkness owned. ~ Dean F. Wilson

When Franci walked in the house a few hours later, she encountered one of the biggest messes she'd ever seen. Newspapers were spread over the island in the kitchen, covered with pumpkin guts. She could see the spills on the floor - seeds that had gotten away - and three pumpkins were in the middle of the carving process on the dining room table. One huge, one large and one small. The pumpkin family. "Nuts," Sean said. "You're home early. We were going to surprise you. We've gotta have jack-o'-lanterns for Halloween!" "Mama!" Rosie shouted excitedly. Then pointing, she said, "Daddy, Mommy, Rosie!" "Were you going to surprise me with the cleanup?" she asked hopefully. "Of course," he said. "Maybe you should just go to your room and read or something until I have a chance to get things under control." "I'll go change and then come and help," she said. ~ Robyn Carr

Hunting is the noblest sport yet devised by the hand of man. There were mighty hunters in the Bible, and all the caves where the cave men lived are full of carvings of assorted game the head of the house drug home. If you hunt to eat, or hunt for sport for something fine, something that will make you proud, and make you remember every single detail of the day you found him and shot him, that is good too. ~ Robert Ruark

Piece by Piece Piece by piece They tear at you: Peeling away layers of being, Lying about who you are, Speaking for your dreams. In the squalor of their eyes You are an outlaw. Dressing you in a jacket of lies - tailor-made in steel - You fit their perfect picture. Take it off! Make your own mantle. Question the interrogators. Eyeball the death in their gaze. Say you won't succumb. Say you won't believe them When they rename you. Say you won't accept their codes, Their colors, their putrid morals. Here you have a way. Here you can sing victory. Here you are not a conquered race Perpetual victim - the sullen face in a thunderstorm. Hands/minds, they are carving out A sanctuary. Use these weapons Against them. Use your given gifts - they are not stone. ~ Luis J Rodriguez

What I think is that Fox has done a very smart job of carving out their place. ~ Tom Brokaw

It's good to know that Xander's here. So that when I go down, she won't be alone.
"You walked through the Carving to find me," I tell Cassia softly. "I'm going to walk through this to reach you. ~ Ally Condie

Those treasures were stolen from the village they destroyed. The
man pulled out a carved wooden horse and the two boys grabbed it at the
same time. They pulled at it, fighting for possession.
Zane's carving. He shook his head and looked away, fighting tears. His
son's skilled fingers could carve any image. He'd inherited his mother's
slender hands.
Sweet revenge just became sweeter. ~ Jennifer M. Zeiger

Dear Pat,
You came upon me carving some kind of little figure out of wood and you said, 'Why don't you make something for me?'
I asked you what you wanted, and you said, 'A box.'
'What for?'
'To put things in.'
'What things?'
'Whatever you have,' you said.
Well, here's your box. Nearly everything I have is in it, and it is not full. Pain and excitement are in it, and feeling good or bad and evil thoughts and good thoughts - the pleasures of design and some despair and the indescribable joy of creation.
And on top of these are all the gratitude and love I have for you.
And still the box is not full.
John ~ John Steinbeck

When pain bites, men bargain. Boys too. We twist and turn, we plead and beg, we offer our tormentor what he wants so that the hurting will stop. And when there is no torturer to placate, no hooded man with hot irons and tongs, just a burn you can't escape, we bargain with God, or ourselves, depending on the size of our egos ... Take the pain, I said, and I will be a good man. Or if not that, a better man. We all become weasels with enough hurt on us. But I think a small part of it was more than that. A small part was the terrible two-edged sword called experience, cutting away at the cruel child I was, carving out whatever man might yet to come. I promised a better one. Thought I have been known to lie. ~ Mark Lawrence

He narrowed his eyes at me, pushed out of the booth and stomped over to the cash desk where Ash had returned and was playing a game on his mobile phone.

"Sorry, sir," he echoed, dead-pan, and then added: "She is the owner."

He dropped his voice to a stage whisper. "And she's righ' crazy, so I wouldn't mess with her. She stabbed someone with a plastic fork just last week."

"A--a plastic fork?" the man said, looking over at me nervously.

"Yeah, and you would not believe the mess. A carving knife woulda made cleaner work of it."

The man slapped a few coins on the counter near the cash and, clutching the remains of his paper, dashed out the door.

"Thanks, Ash," I said, absently.

"No probs," he said. "Chasing zombies on my phone--fair inspirational, aye? ~ K.C. Dyer

Just as Emme neared the main staircase, as she could see the intricate carving of the banisters, a noise from behind her made her thundering heart skip. She froze mid stride and peered over her shoulder at the growing triangle of light emerging from the doorway of the billiard room. Tension coiled in her stomach, and her breath seized in her lungs. Someone was coming, and her wits fled her entirely. ~ Chasity Bowlin

And that's when it hits me, the punch in the stomach, the carving out of my insides. That's when I realize that none of this is a movie. I will not go out with a bang. There is no ending. There are no credits. I will wake up and I will keep waking up and this will always be waiting for me. ~ Amy Reed

But after all the years, her husband and children have come to accept that, once every few weeks, their usually warmhearted and approachable Camisha will get into her Honda Accord at the beginning of a seemingly random day, and disppear until well after supper, when she will return home and go directly to bed. Her family has learned never top ask her where she had been on such a day, because the most she will ever say is, "Out. I just went out for a bit."

Also, they learned long ago never to express irritation or anger of any kind against Camisha, because when they do, her reaction is to become mute and exit to the garden, where for several hours she will sit cross-legged on a favourite flat stone, her back to the house. Slender, straight-backed, and unmoving, at these times she resembles nothing so much as an elegant ebony carving, exquisite but not quite alive. Watching her is almost unberable, and so is the guilt. Or if the weather is not suitable for the garden, she will simpily go to her bedroom and lock the door. Then as a matter of course, without comment during or after, her husband sleeps on the sofa in the den. In the morning, Camisha is usually her old self again, just as if nothing had happened. ~ Martha Stout

Ruskin's interest in beauty and in its possession led him to five central conclusions. First, beauty was the result of a number of complex factors that affected the mind both psychologically and visually. Second, humans had an innate tendency to respond to beauty and to desire to possess it. Third, there were many lower expressions of this desire for possession (including, as we have seen, buying souvenirs and carpets, carving one's name on a pillar and taking photographs). Fourth, there was only one way to possess beauty properly, and that was by understanding it, by making oneself conscious of the factors (psychological and visual) responsible for it. And last, the most effective means of pursuing this conscious understanding was by attempting to describe beautiful places through art, by writing about or drawing them, irrespective of whether one happened to have any talent for doing so. ~ Alain De Botton

I envy the table its scars, the scorch marks caused by the hot bread tins. I envy its calm sense of time, and I wish I could say: I did this five years ago. I made this mark, this ring caused by a wet coffee cup, this cigarette burn, this ladder of cuts against the wood's coarse grain. This is where Anouk carved her initials, the year she was six years old, this secret place behind the table leg. I did this on a warm day seven summers ago with the carving knife. Do you remember? Do you remember the summer the river ran dry? Do you remember? I envy the table's calm sense of place. It has been here a long time. It belongs. ~ Joanne Harris

Horns. The skull had horns His heart sank. Only one pirate ship bore that flag - the Satyr.
To make sure, he looked for the figurehead. When he saw the telltale carving of the mythological half-goat, half-man, he groaned aloud. Then he lifted his glass, and saw the black-haired man standing in the bow. It was the Satyr, all right. And its demon owner Captain Gideon Horn.
Tis the Pirate Lord himself! ~ Sabrina Jeffries

I threw the carving of my goddess as high and far as I could, into the sky above the waves, and watched its arcing path through the air. As it fell, I saw a golden shape come diving toward the plummeting image, a huge eagle that seized the monster's tooth in his talons. The feathers on his breast skimmed the sea before he soared back into the sky and flew away.
"Did you see that, La--Glaucus?" Milo's voice sounded in my ear. He'd woken from his nap and come up behind me unexpectedly. I almost jumped overboard with surprise. "It's a good sign, isn't it? Or is it predicting that something's waiting to snatch us away? If that's so, I swear I won't let it touch you. But is it a good sign after all? Ah, what does it mean?"
"You worry too much, Milo," I said as if I had no such worries of my own. "If every hero stopped to think about all the what-ifs in his path, none of us would ever take one step beyond our own doorways."
"But you saw what it did," Milo protested. "The eagle is Lord Zeus's bird. We can't just ignore it. Ah, what does it mean?"
"What it means," I said, smiling, "is that you and I have just seen either the world's most unmistakable omen or the world's most nearsighted eagle." May the gods stand by us, I thought as I laughed and Milo stared at me in dismay. May they favor and guide us, but may they never hold us hostage through our fears.
"Don't look at me like that," I told him, wiping sea spray from my eyes. "I haven't said anything wrong. ~ Esther M. Friesner

Recently I have been working in the country, where, carving in the open air, I find sculpture more natural than in a London studio, but it needs bigger dimensions. A large piece of stone or wood placed almost anywhere at random in a field, orchard, or garden, immediately looks right and inspiring. ~ Henry Moore

What is it?"
"A prayer."
"For a child?"
She nodded.
"For me?"
Another nod.
"On a tree?"
"Trees spend all day looking up at God. ~ Mitch Albom

The true blessing of the mountains is not that they provide a challenge or a contest, something to be overcome and dominated (although this is how many people have approached them). It is that they offer something gentler and infinitely more powerful: they make us ready to credit marvels - whether it is the dark swirl which water makes beneath a plate of ice, or the feel of the soft pelts of moss which form on the lee sides of boulders and trees. Being in the mountains reignites our astonishment at the simplest transactions of the physical world: a snowflake a millionth of an ounce in weight falling on to one's outstretched palm, water patiently carving a runnel in a face of granite, the apparently motiveless shift of a stone in a scree-filled gully. Tu put a hand down and feel the ridges and score in a rock where a glaciers has passed, to hear how a hillside comes alive with moving water after a rain shower, to see late summer light filling miles of landscape like an inexhaustible liquid - none of these is a trivial experience. Mountains returns to us priceless capacity for wonder which can so insensibly be leached away by modern existence, and they urge us to apply that wonder to our own everyday lives. ~ Robert Macfarlane

We twist and turn, we plead and beg, we offer our tormentor what he wants so that the hurting will stop. And when there is no torturer to placate, no hooded man with hot irons and tongs, just a burn you can't escape, we bargain with God, or ourselves, depending on the size of our egos. I made mock of the dying at Mabberton and now their ghosts watched me burn. Take the pain, I said, and I will be a good man. Or if not that, a better man. We all become weasels with enough hurt on us. But I thing a small part of it was more than that. A small part was that terrible two-edged sword called experience, cutting away at the cruel child I was, carving out whatever man might be yet to come. I promised a better one. Though I have been known to lie. ~ Mark Lawrence

I had an experience in a restaurant one time where there was a large trolley with beef being carved up, and I just transposed different images onto it. Like, what if there was a nice little cow there with a bowtie and a knife carving up humans. I was a vegetarian for a couple of years after that. ~ Tobe Hooper

Carving is easy, you just go down to the skin and stop. ~ Michelangelo

Before I start carving the idea must be almost complete. I say 'almost' because the really important thing seems to be the sculptor's ability to let his intuition guide him over the gap between conception and realization without compromising the integrity of the original idea; the point being that the material has vitality - it resists and makes demands ... ~ Barbara Hepworth

But, if you've decided to go out on a limb and kill one, for goodness' sake, be prepared. We all read, with dismay, the sad story of a good woman wronged in south Mississippi who took that option and made a complete mess of the entire thing. See, first she shot him. Well, she saw right off the bat that that was a mistake because then she had this enormous dead body to deal with. He was every bit as much trouble to her dead as he ever had been alive, and was getting more so all the time. So then, she made another snap decision to cut him up in pieces and dispose of him a hunk at a time. More poor planning. First, she didn't have the proper carving utensils on hand and hacking him up proved to be just a major chore, plus it made just this colossal mess on her off-white shag living room carpet. It's getting to be like the Cat in the Hat now, only Thing Two ain't showing up to help with the clean-up. She finally gets him into portable-size portions, and wouldn't you know it? Cheap trash bags. Can anything else possible go wrong for this poor woman? So, the lesson here is obvious--for want of a small chain saw, a roll of Visqueen and some genuine Hefty bags, she is in Parchman Penitentiary today instead of New Orleans, where she'd planned to go with her new boyfriend. Preparation is everything. ~ Jill Conner Browne

It's actually easier to do autobiographical stories. The story is already there. It's a matter of carving away what doesn't fit rather than building up from nothing. ~ Craig Thompson

I had just finished carving some boiled beef (remarkably tough by the way) and on resuming my seat I remarked, in a spirit most unbecoming to my cloth, that anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe would be doing the world at large a service. ~ Agatha Christie

Cooking is just as creative and imaginative an activity as drawing, or wood carving, or music. And cooking draws upon your every talent
science, mathematics, energy, history, experience
and the more experience you have, the less likely are your experiments to end in drivel and disaster. The more you know, the more you can create. ~ Julia Child

Carving?"
"Your name. My back. I can't fucking wait."
Jane whistled under her breath. "Do I get to do it?"
He barked a laugh. "No!"
"Come on. I'm a surgeon, I'm good with knives. ~ J.R. Ward

Symbols are important. The Christians followed the pagans there, carving and painting their one God as the old ones carved and painted the many. Neither understand that the one is part of the many, the many part of the one. ~ Nora Roberts

NO ONE GETS OUT OF CHILDHOOD ALIVE. It's not the first time I've said that. But among the few worthy bon mots I've gotten off in sixty-seven years, that and possibly one other may be the only considerations eligible for carving on my tombstone. (The other one is the one entrepreneurs have misappropriated to emboss on buttons and bumper stickers: The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
(I don't so much mind that they pirated it, but what does honk me off is that they never get it right. They render it dull and imbecile by phrasing it thus: "The two most common things in the universe are ... "
(Not things, you insensate gobbets of ambulatory giraffe dung, elements! Elements is funny, things is imprecise and semi-guttural. Things! Geezus, when will the goyim learn they don't know how to tell a joke. ~ Harlan Ellison

Shylah was like Nonny. She would stand with her man, carving out a home and fighting by his side when necessary in the worst of circumstances. ~ Christine Feehan

The terror takes you. The cage is locked and the curtain drawn. Fingers dance along as blades, carving memories into your flesh that will leave scars long past being healed. ~ Amanda Steele

It doesn't talk back,' he said ruefully as I approached, without looking round.

I glanced up at the griffin. 'No,' I said. Then something, an impulse of gaiety perhaps, made me add, 'Perhaps you need to stroke it between the ears. Timothy likes that.' Timothy is my cat.

Although the Doctor was evidently an eccentric man - who else talks to a statue - I was nonetheless taken aback when he jumped up into the air like a circus performer and, holding on to the iron standard of a lamp, swung himself on to the narrow sill above the carving. There he teetered for a moment, arms extended flat against the wall, his shoes dislodging small pieces of debris which clattered on to the yard. He somehow found a secure foothold, then reached down and petted the stone animal between the ears, or what would have been the ears if it hadn't been a relief carving. 'Hello, Timothy. Would you care for a stick of liquorice?'

There was a brief silence, and I was struck by the puzzled, almost grief-stricken expression that crossed the Doctor's face when the carving made no reply. It could have been drollery, but it seemed genuine.

Then he looked down at me, and grinned, as if it had been a joke. 'He still doesn't talk! Did you say he was called Timothy?'

I decided it was time to inject some sanity into the conversation. 'Timothy.' I said, precisely and quietly, ' is the name of my cat. ~ Paul Leonard

On the platter sat the roast, half of it black, the other half bloody. A wilted sprig of parsley sat beside it, as if Mary couldn't quite allow the roast to leave her kitchen without trying to disguise it.
Silence hung over the table.
Dougal set the cover to one side and removed the covers from the other dishes: a bowl of something green that sat in an oily liquid; a thick slab of pork in the middle of a large, chipped platter; some turnips floating unappetizingly in water; and a basket of undercooked bread.
Sophia thought the turnips were a nice touch. No one liked turnips.
Dougal picked up the carving knife. "Well, my dear?" he asked pleasantly, an amused glint in his eyes. "How do you like your meat? Raw? Or burned to a charred mess? ~ Karen Hawkins

She tried to make her eyes seem tender; she did not know why, for no reason, for pleasure, the pleasure of charity, of a little vanity, and also gratuity, the pleasure of carving your name into a tree trunk for a passerby whom you will never see, the pleasure of throwing a bottle into the ocean. ~ Marcel Proust

When she goes about her kitchen duties, chopping, carving, mixing, whisking, she moves with the grace and precision of a ballet dancer, her fingers plying the food with the dexterity of a croupier. ~ Craig Claiborne

Some people like to paint pictures, or do gardening, or build a boat in the basement. Other people get a tremendous pleasure out of the kitchen, because cooking is just as creative and imaginative an activity as drawing, or wood carving, or music. ~ Julia Child

Ageism works in both directions. As a teenager in the public eye, people would talk condescendingly to me. When you get older there's this feeling that you have to start carving up your face and body. Right now I'm in the middle ground - I think women in their thirties are taken seriously. ~ Alanis Morissette

We all have the tools to shape culture to some degree, by organizing, attending and spreading the word. We can all create or contribute to experiences that touch other inhabitants, and this feels good. You don't have to start a gallery or spend your weekends carving kebab meat, but consider what your strengths and interests might be and how you can give something of yourself to others, something of yourself to your city. ~ The School Of Life

We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we long for, need, love or desire, often against reality, against their benefit, and always, in the end, a disappointment, because it does not fit them. ~ Anais Nin

You've got her mad now and there's no turning back. All she has to do is go to the authorities, saying you molested her. Is that what you want? One little phone call and your life is ruined.'

'But I didn't do anything. I'm gay, remember?'

'That's not going to save you,' she said. 'Push comes to shove and who do you think they're going to believe, a nine-year-old girl or the full-grown man who gets his jollies carving little creatures out of balsa wood?'

'They're NOT little creatures!' I yelled. 'They're tool people! ~ David Sedaris

I did feel a concentrated dislike for those boys, who couldn't submit to the odd faithless girlfriend, needling classmate, or dose of working-single-parent distraction
who couldn't serve their miserable time in their miserable public schools the way the rest of us did
without carving their dime-a-dozen problems ineluctably into the lives of other families. It was the same petty vanity that drove these boys' marginally saner contemporaries to scrape their dreary little names into national monuments. And the self-pity! That nearsighted Woodham creature apparently passed a note to one of his friends before staging a tantrum with his father's deer rifle: "Throughout my life I was ridiculed. Always beaten, always hated. Can you, society, blame me for what I do?" And I thought, Yes, you little shit! In a heartbeat! ~ Lionel Shriver

I'm a very compulsive person, so I spend most of my time drawing or writing my diary, patching things up and carving bits of wood - I've carved two of my guitars. ~ Lou Doillon

Sometimes, when we cannot attain the freedom we are fighting for, we free ourselves b carving a new path to freedom. ~ Christina Westover

But in the name of all that is holy, Mosca, of all the people you could have taken up with, why Eponymous Clent?" murmured Kohlrabi.
Because I'd been hording words for years, buying them from peddlers and carving them secretly on bits of bark so I wouldn't forget them, and then he turned up using words like "epiphany" and "amaranth." Because I heard him talking in the marketplace, laying out sentences like a merchant rolling out rich silks. Because he made words and ideas dance like flames and something that was damp and dying came alive in my mind, the way it hadn't since they burned my father's books. Because he walked into Chough with stories from exciting places tangled around him like maypole streamers ... "
Mosca shrugged.
"He's got a way with words. ~ Frances Hardinge

Training is such a vital part of preparation for a game, you really do train to play. It tops up your ability, like sharpening a carving knife. You can get away with not doing it for a while, as long as you have reached a certain standard of fitness. ~ Graeme Le Saux