Checking Out Quotes

was driving up S 25th St., this afternoon, and saw this saying on a sign: "Look at life through the windshield, not the rear-view mirror."

Well, I pondered on that a bit. I sense a bit of danger with the idea of not checking out the rear view mirror on occasion. Like driving, it is important we know what has been and what could be coming from behind.

Some old cliches are around because they are true..."If you forget the past, you're bound to repeat it."...."Be prepared"... "Keep your eye on the prize."

Reflections ... Presence ... Aspirations ... ~ F. M. Proctor 'Madame Mim'

Hands grab me, steady me. I jerk back, but they are surprisingly gentle. He doesn't smile as I turn to see his face. He just stands there, letting me inspect him. He's tall with a wide forehead and dark blond hair that's cut short. His green eyes are deeply set beneath that forehead. His lips are wide and rugged like the rest of him. His hands have huge knuckles like he's a boxer or arthritic or hits walls. He looks like he did when he pulled me out of the car, but stronger, taller somehow. He must be completely healed. He looks my age and he looks good, like the guy in high school that everyone, even the teachers, fall in love with. ~ Carrie Jones

Pixie was still looking a little shell-shocked when they walked over to the desk. "This is Pixie, our studio manager. She'll take your details when you're ready."
"Hey, Pixie, pleased to meet you."
Trent had never seen Pixie so inanimate. She didn't move to take the hand Dred had offered.
"Pix?" Trent smirked as she quickly collected herself with a shake of her head, reaching her hand out.
"Sorry. Miles away. Welcome to Second Circle."
"Nice tattoo you got there, Pixie. What are those?"
"Flowers," she mumbled. What the hell was up with Pixie? They'd had famous people in the studio before.
Dred laughed. "I can see that. I was curious what kind."
The phone rang and Pixie jumped all over it, effectively cutting Dred off.
"Sorry," Trent apologized. "Fortunately, we're generally pretty busy here. Want to take a seat and we can figure out what you're looking for?"
Trent started to walk to one of the beds toward the back of the studio. "We have a setup in the room back here if you want a bit more privacy."
Realizing Dred was no longer with him, he turned to see him still staring at Pixie's back.
"Hey dude," he whispered, "we charge extra for checking out the staff's asses."
"What? Oh … right, yeah. How much? I'd definitely pay extra for a closer view. ~ Scarlett Cole

I'm a real music fan, so I listen to all kinds of music all the time. I listen to a lot of what my friends or people I know are listening to. I'm always checking out new bands. ~ Conor Oberst

Holy crap. How fast does a person get sent to hell for checking out a priest? ~ Amy Lamont

Forget all the bars and schmoozing and everybody checking out everybody else. My ideal date would be to park in a dark place, check out the stars, and have a great conversation. When all else fails, you can just make out. ~ Brooke Burke

I guess I might be bi-curious," Ben said quietly."
"What?"
"I said I could be sorta bi-curious," Ben said loudly. "That's someone who is fundamentally straight but is curious about sex with men."
Joshua grunted his opinion of that. "You've been checking out my ass since you were eleven years old, Ben. That's ain't curious, that's convicted. ~ Eli Easton

Laughing behind my hand, I followed him out to his motorcycle. "I like to think I'm hot enough that I don't need to flirt well."
"Do you? Fortunately, I agree. In fact, this time when you walk in front of me and think I'm checking out your ass, it'll be true."
"Cooper, you have such a way with words. A real poet."
"Don't I know it," he said, sliding on his bike. ~ Bijou Hunter

Just because I'm a reporter doesn't mean I don't get to have an opinion about people."
"And your opinion of me is?"
"Very low."
His eyes narrowed infinitesimally. "Is it my hair?"
I flinched back, automatically checking out his hair. "No. There's nothing wrong with your hair."
"You don't like Star Wars?" He gestured to his shirt. "You're a Trekkie? You should know, I'm an equal opportunity space drama aficionado, whether it be BattleSTAR Galactica, STAR Trek, or STAR - "
"I get it, you like science fiction."
"Ah ha!" He lifted his index finger between us.
"Ah ha, what?"
"You're a fantasy reader, aren't you? That's what's going on. What's your favorite TV show? Buffy the Vampire Slayer, right?"
I lifted an eyebrow and crossed my arms, disliking that he'd guessed correctly. "What I read and watch isn't the central issue."
"Have you received your Hogwarts letter?" he asked, and his tone was so serious, I almost mistook it for a real question ~ Penny Reid

Soooooo, trying to grow a beard?" Nope. Just checking out on life. ~ Aaron Goldfarb

It reached a point where the paranoia was getting to me. Everywhere I looked, it seemed like people were hanging out, wanting to date, hooking up, wanting to hook up - it was relationships, relationships, relationships everywhere. Guys checking out girls, girls checking out guys. Dudes checking out dudes, chicks checking out chicks. Fuck! That's what being a teenager was all about. ~ Jess C. Scott

I'm kind of a social person and I enjoy corresponding with people and checking out their Facebook pages. And it really doesn't take much time. Ten minutes in the morning, 10 minutes at night and a little bit during the day. It's just something I really enjoy. ~ Chris Frantz

People say the beach is the great equaliser
Who are they kidding?
Sit at Bondi and watch the boys flex
And the girls walk bolt upright
It looks like a nightmare episode of Baywatch.
The true equaliser is the mountain cold
And stacks of cold flung together
Maybe then we'd listen to what each other is saying
Instead of checking out the best bods.
And as I wrap another layer
Around my Size 10
I think of Jack's favourite saying:
"today's tan is tomorrow's cancer"
I walk outside
And whistle at the wind. ~ Steven Herrick

At the end of the day, though, there are a huge number of considerations that our management team go through before accepting any project - checking out the license is just one of them. ~ Andrew Oliver

Imagine a brain floating in a tank with millions and millions of electrodes attached to specific nerve centers. Now imagine these electrodes being selectively stimulated by a computer to cause the brain to believe that it was walking down Hollywood Boulevard chomping on a hamburger and checking out the chicks.

Now, if there was a technological foul-up, or if the tapes got jumbled, the brain would suddenly see Jesus Christ pass by down Hollywood Boulevard on his way to Golgotha, pursued by a crowd of angry people, being whipped along by seven Roman Centurions.

The brain would say, "Now hold on there!" And suddenly the entire image would go "pop" and disappear.

I've always had this funny feeling about reality. It just seems very feeble to me sometimes. It doesn't seem to have the substantiality that it's suppose to have. ~ Philip K. Dick

Then I started checking out blues albums from the library and playing the harp along with them. ~ John Goodman

This party is lame!" Braeden said loudly. "WOLVES, party at my dorm!" he yelled.
People cheered.
"Dude, how the fuck are you gonna fit all these people in your tiny-ass room?"
He grinned. "Sure as hell will be fun to try."
Out in front of the Omega house, there was hardly anyone around; they were all too busy in the back, checking out the drama. We were silent a moment. Then Braeden said, "You don't need them. You got more than enough talent to bring in the NFL on your own."
"Fuck," I muttered. "When did everything get so damn complicated?"
"When your life became about more than just football."
"You sound like Yoda." I grinned.
"It's the beer."
- Braeden & Romeo ~ Cambria Hebert

It was a prom dress.It was pink.It was originally seventy percent off,but Ma got it down to eighty-five percent off by screaming "My water broke!" while we were checking out ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

Standing behind the desk,checking out an appointment book,is Mr.Asshole himself,Vincent. ~ Laura Wright

The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling. ~ David Foster Wallace

He was silent a moment; then he said, "I want a drink of water."
She almost laughed aloud, because it was such a mundane request that could have been made of anyone, but then she saw the tension in his jaw and lips and realized that, again, he was checking out his condition, and he wanted her with him. She turned to the small Styrofoam pitcher that was kept full of crushed ice, which she used to keep his lips moist. The ice had melted enough that she was able to pour the glass half full of water. She stuck a straw into it and held it to his lips.
Gingerly he sucked the liquid into his mouth and held it for a moment, as if letting it soak into his membranes. Then, slowly, he swallowed, and after a minute he relaxed. "Thank God," he muttered hoarsely. "My throat still feel swollen. I wasn't sure I could swallow, and I sure as hell didn't want that damned tube back."
Behind Jay, Frank turned a smothered laugh into a cough.
"Anything else?" she asked.
"Yes. Kiss me. ~ Linda Howard

The process of dissociation is an elegant mechanism built into the human psychological system as a form of escape from (sometimes literally) going crazy. The problem with checking out so thoroughly is that it can leave us feeling dead inside, with little or no ability to feel our feelings in our bodies. The process of repair demands a re-association with the body, a commitment to dive into the body and feel today what we couldn't feel yesterday because it was too dangerous. ~ Alexandra Katehakis

Jonah peels off his wet shirt and spreads it out on the ground in the sun. For a second, all Hallelujah can see is his bare skin. She blushes and looks away, not turning back until she hears the zip of his jacket closing. Now he's looking at her. She doesn't know if he caught her staring. ~ Kathryn Holmes

Sometimes I felt that growing up and being a girl was about learning to be afraid. Not paranoid, exactly, but always alert and aware, like checking out the exits in the movie theatre or the fire escape in a hotel. You came to know, in a way you hadn't as a kid, that the body you inhabited was vulnerable, imperfectly fortified. On TV, in the papers, in books and movies, it isn't ever men being raped or kidnapped or bludgeoned or dismembered or burned with acid. But in stories and crime shows and TV series and movies and in life too, it's going on all the time, all around you. So you learn, in your mind, that your body needs to be protected. It's both precious and totally dispensable, depending on whom you encounter. ~ Claire Messud

I'm at that age where I notice friends checking out my face and wondering, Has she been Botoxed? There's a new map there people that are trying to read. I think if I did get any kind of enhancement I would be very public about it. I don't want people wondering - I want them to know. ~ Heidi Julavits

And I don't know, it is one thing to look out a window, but when you are Out, actually Out, that is something very powerful, and how embarrassing was that, because I could not help it, I went down flat on my gut checking out those flowers, and the feeling of the one I chose was like the silk on that Hermes jacket I could never seem to get Reserved because Vance was always hogging it, except the flower was even better, it being very smooth and built in like layers? With the outside layer being yellow, and inside that a white thing like a bell, and inside the white bell-like thing were fifteen (I counted) smaller bell-like red things, and inside each red thing was an even smaller orange two-dingly-thing combo. ~ George Saunders

You must be very secure in your masculinity to parade around in those budgie smugglers."
"Oh, I'm very secure." He see-sawed the towel over his back. "And I'm happy to show you the rear view of my budgie smugglers - oh wait - you already saw it when you were checking out my ass. ~ Tracey Alvarez

Every so often a disappearance is in order. A vanishing. A checking out. An indeterminate period of unavailability. Each person, each sane person, maintains a refuge, or series of refuges, for this purpose. A place, or places, where they can, figuratively if not literally, suspend their membership in the human race. ~ John Murray

I certainly had my God-can-you-just-take-me-now-I've-just-had-it-I'm-checking-out-let-me-off-the-train-I'm-done kind of thing. But, you know, I would never actually do it. I just can't imagine what it would take to do that. ~ Lucinda Williams

Checking out shoes when looking for Lesbians is an elimination device, a negative marker. Lesbians wear sensible shoes whenever possible. Irene and I have learned to pass right by a woman who looks like a Lesbian from head to ankle, but wears flimsy shoes with pointed toes and heels. She is sure to mention a husband by her second sentence.

So, what does a Lesbian look like? Well, we saw two old women drive into a campground in a large motorhome. One dog and no men accompanied them. These are Lesbian-positive clues. We seldom see old women in campgrounds unless they are accompanied by old men. They walked the dog, each wearing a long "ladies" winter coat and lipstick. We casually intercepted them.

"Nice dog," says Irene. The dog growled. We mentioned the movie about nuclear war on TV the night before.

"They should go to Russia. Show it to the Communists," they angrily replied. We walked on. If they were Lesbians, I did not want to know.

"Not Lesbians," pronounced my expert. "There are Lesbians who wear 'ladies' coats and Lesbians who wear lipstick. There are even Lesbians who prefer nuclear war to "Godless Communism"; but Lesbians would not let their dog growl at a woman without correcting it. ~ Julia Penelope

It's Baz they're checking out, not me. He's got to be scared, or at least nervous, but he doesn't look it. I swear he gets less ruffled the more that he's threatened. (When I'm the one threatening him, that's infuriating. But it's kind of cool now.) ~ Rainbow Rowell

He considered getting up to check the color of the bong he'd be using but decided that obsessive checking and convulsive movements could compromise the atmosphere of casual calm he needed to maintain while he waited, protruding but not moving, for the woman he'd met at a design session for his agency's small campaign for her small theater company's new Wedekind festival, while he waited for this woman, with whom he'd had intercourse twice, to honor her casual promise. ~ David Foster Wallace

For some of us love comes into the room, kicks her
shoes off, finds the most comfortable sofa, and lies down, rests, has no intention of going anywhere. For others love walks in smoking a cigarette, checking her watch every two seconds, jittery, with one hand on the doorknob, heart rate up, always in sprinter's position, ready to run. ~ Eric Jerome Dickey

That much hope had brought Max to his knees.
Apparently if he didn't let himself weep like a little girl to relieve this emotional pressure building inside of him, he was in danger of hitting the ground in a dead faint.
Jules crouched beside him, checking for his pulse. "Are you okay? You're not, like, having a heart attack or a stroke, are you?"
"Fuck you," Max managed, swatting his hand away. "I'm not that old."
"If you really think heart disease is about age, then you definitely need to make an appointment with a cardiologist, like tomorrow - "
"I just . . . tripped," Max said, but when he tried to get up, he found he still hadn't regained his equilibrium. Shit.
"Or maybe you needed to get on your knees to pray," Jules said as Max put his head down and waited for the dizziness to pass. "That excuse sounds a little more believable, if you want to know the truth. 'Hello God? It's me, Max. I know I've been lax in my attention to You over the past forty-mmph years, but if You give me a second chance, I'll make absolutely certain this time around I'll tell Gina just how much I love her. Because withholding that information sure as hell didn't do either of us one bit of good, now did it?'"
"I did what I - " Max stopped himself. To hell with that. "I don't have to explain myself to you."
"That's right, you don't." Jules ignored Max's attempt to push him away, and helped him to his feet. "But you might want to work up some kind of Forgive-Me ~ Suzanne Brockmann

Rather than doing the kind of fact-checking that normally goes with a story, you ran with certain stories for not wanting to get beat. There's a pressure that exists in your profession. I would be surprised in any honest exchange that you say that doesn't exist. ~ Rahm Emanuel

Sometimes we feel that the busier we are, the more important we are--as though our busyness defines our worth...We can spend a lifetime whirling about at a feverish pace, checking off list after list of things that in the end really don't matter.
That we do a lot may not be so important. That we focus the energy of our minds, our hearts, and our souls on those things of eternal significance--that is essential.
--Joseph B. Wirthlin ~ Carolyn J. Rasmus

I met this kid from Miles City, Montana, who read the Stars and Stripes every day, checking the casualty lists to see if by some chance anybody form his home town had been killed. He didn't even know if there was anyone else from Miles City in Vietnam, but he checked anyway because he knew for sure that if there was someone else and they got killed, he would be all right. I mean, can you just see *two* guys from a raggedy-ass town like Miles City getting killed in Vietnam? ~ Michael Herr

Gavin appeared and vanished numerous times each day checking up on me. Now and then he'd randomly pop the question, often disguising it within our conversations.

"Did you know that bubbleberries are in season right now? They're blooming all over Dreamland."

"I love those berries. They're fun and strange." I recalled the time that Gavin and I had burped up iridescent-purple bubbles after swallowing handfuls of berries. They were deliciously sweet.

Gavin nudged me with his elbow. "Not half as strange as you are."

I laughed.

"So, Annabelle, will you come with me?" I nearly spoke without thinking, but caught myself, careful not to slip and say the word, yes.

"Sorry, Gavin. I can't. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The key to becoming a more efficient leader isn't checking off all the items on your to-do list each day. It's in forming the habit of prioritizing your time so that you are accomplishing your most important goals in an efficient manner. ~ John C. Maxwell

Isn't that the guy you asked me to throw soda on?"
Colton's head jerked up. He stared first at Reece, then at me. "You asked him to throw soda on me?"
"Of course not. The boy is delirious, That's what happens to children when they're malnourished. They start hallucinating." I put my hand against Reese's forehead as though checking for a temperature. "I'm afraid he has a serious case of it."
Colton folded his arms and continued to glare at me. "No, Charlotte, you have a serious case of it, and I'm not talking about malnourishment."
Reese stepped away from my temperature check and toward Colton. "She said you wouldn't melt like the Wicked Witch of the West, but you might fizz a little." Reese turned back to me. "He never did fizz."
"I'm about to," Colton said. "Just watch for a few more seconds. ~ Janette Rallison

An increasing number of devices allow people to collect data about themselves: blood sugar levels, the number of steps taken each day, and sleep cycles. It won't be long before checking blood work will only require a relatively inexpensive device that plugs into a smartphone, not a visit to the doctor's office. The cost of sequencing the genome continues to drop, and soon it will be as unremarkable as taking a fingerprint. ~ John Durant

Deleting 200 spams a day is a drag. And I was checking my email constantly, rather than getting on with my real work, which is reading and writing. Email was becoming a distraction, a burden rather than a liberation. ~ Tom Hodgkinson

I read that when cats are cuddling and kneading you, and you think it's cute, they're really just checking your vitals for weak spots. ~ Kandyse McClure

Your memories are like the air I breathe. I don't have to keep checking on it every now and then to make sure whether I am doing it or not. It happens all by itself. But the moment I try to stop it and hold it back forcefully, I start craving for it more and before I could even know I will be fighting to get more of it so that I could survive. ~ Akshay Vasu

Over time, you'll find that the more you trust your intuition and allow it to set your direction, the more you build that trust. Develop a habit of continually checking in with your intuition by asking yourself: Does this feel right to me? ~ Lauren Mackler

Good night's sleep?' she enquired, still smiling.

'For Wing, certainly,' Otto replied, 'though possibly not anyone within a hundred yards of him. If whales snore, that's what it sounds like.'

Wing smiled guiltily. 'I did warn you.'

'It's a sign of a good healthy set of lungs, at least that's what my dad always used to tell me,' Laura said, chuckling, 'though I think there were a few nights where my mum was not far from taking a kitchen knife and checking to see if his were as healthy as he claimed, if you know what I mean.'

Otto nodded in agreement. 'I wonder if you snore after you get hit with a sleeper?'

'Don't even think about it,' Wing replied. ~ Mark Walden

Once you deposit that money in your checking account, it becomes the bank's money and you're just another one of their creditors. ~ Kenneth Eade

Bending his head, Kai pressed his lips to her knuckles. The plating had no nerve endings, and yet the touch sent a tingle of electricity along her arm.
"Cinder?"
"Mm?"
He lifted his gaze. "Just to be clear, you're not using your mind powers on me right now, are you?"
She blinked. "Of course not."
"Just checking."
Then he slid his arms around her waist and kissed her.
Cinder gasped, pressing her palms against his chest. Kai pulled her closer.
Seconds later, her brain began registering all the new chemicals flooding her system. INCREASED LEVELS OF DOPAMINE AND ENDORPHINS, REDUCED AMOUNTS OF CORTISOL, ERRATIC PULSE, RISING BLOOD PRESSURE ...
Leaning into him, Cinder sent the messages away. Her hands tentatively made their way to his shoulders, before stringing around his neck. ~ Marissa Meyer

Driving yourself insane on the Internet is as easy as checking the weather. ~ Ben Dolnick

The Seinfeld writers began checking message boards and other sites regularly to gauge fan response to the episodes. ~ Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

On your way towards becoming a bad theoretician, take your own immature theory, stop checking it for mistakes, don't listen to colleagues who do spot weaknesses, and start admiring your own infallible intelligence. ~ Gerard 't Hooft

Prayer is meeting with God. It's checking in, saying I am here, You are here. It is the present moment. ~ J.R. Rim

If we accept time for what it is, how it flows and how we flow with it, I doubt very much that would continue wasting loads of it by constantly checking our watches. ~ Samantha Sotto

It was sweet he was checking on me. He didn't have to, but he knew that Blair and I were friends. Sisters, even. And he wanted to protect her friends like he'd protect her.

Well, maybe not the same way. If there was a gun fight he'd probably use me as a shield to protect her. But still, he cared. ~ Barbara C. Doyle

Black women are always the loudest when they have babies. Screaming to Jesus, usually. White women are much quieter, right up until the baby starts to crown. Then you can't tell a white woman from a black woman. Asian women make no sound at all. Quiet as church mice. We have to keep an extra-careful eye on them, because if we don't keep checking their hootchies they'll give birth without even letting us know. ~ Jenny Lawson

I won't snatch, harm, or scare to death people with you or use checking up on you as an excuse to cause trouble. You're worse than my mother, Rachel."
"Mine, too," Jenks muttered. ~ Kim Harrison

Writing time is for writing, not for checking e-mail, reading the news, or browsing the latest issues of journals. Sometimes I think it would be nice to download articles while writing, but I can do that at the office. The best kind of self-control is to avoid situations that require self-control. ~ Paul J. Silvia

Riiiight," you interrupt,
"I was just checking
to make sure that
what me and my friend do
was actually none of your
goddamned
business… ~ Hosho McCreesh

Is this a habit of yours?" he asks.
"What?"
"Dropping stuff whenever you first see me? It's kind of cute. Flattering," he adds, straightening while easily holding all of my stuff in his giant arms.
I've recovered enough to roll my eyes. "Maybe the habit is connected to your urge to rifle through my private things every time you see me?"
"It's possible. Your stuff is so randomly interesting." He eyes my science kit and then scans through the pile of papers in his hands. "You got any other lists that need checking off? College tuition aside, I'm also trying to save for a new car." He laughs. ~ Anne Eliot

I went through my reasoning again, checking it carefully, looking for any indications that I had added things up wrong, and found none. I was as sure as I could be, and that's always a nice feeling. If I lived through all this, I must remember to have that feeling more often. ~ Jeff Lindsay

Emptying yourself of your best work isn't just about checking off tasks on your to-do list; it's about making steady, critical progress each day on the projects that matter, in all areas of life. ~ Todd Henry

TRUST
'A soft thread, that could broken while checking it ~ Samar Sudha

But, for all that, there is a Beyond, and he who has once caught a glance of it, is like a man who has gazed at the sun - wherever he looks, everywhere he sees the image of the sun. Speak to him of finite things, and he will tell you that the Finite is impossible and meaningless without the Infinite. Speak to him of death, and he will call it birth ; speak to him of time, and he will call it the mere shadow of eternity. To us the senses seem to be the organs, the tools, the most powerful engines of knowledge ; to him they are, if not actually deceivers, at all events heavy fetters, checking the flight of the spirit. To us this earth, this life, all that we see, and hear, and touch is certain. Here, we feel, is our home, here lie our duties, here our pleasures. To him this earth is a thing that once was not, and that again will cease to be ; this life is a short dream from which we shall soon awake. Of nothing he professes greater ignorance than of what to others seems to be most certain, namely what we see, and hear, and touch ; and as to our home, wherever that may be, he knows that certainly it is not here. ~ F. Max Müller

Sawyer watched Rex from the hospital bed. The man was fucking fluttering. Fluffing pillows. Pouring water. Talking to doctors and nurses. Checking on Sawyer without actually talking to him. When ~ S.E. Jakes

Please put your shirt on," she said.
He pulled it over his head, checking the buttons. "Better?"
She looked exhausted, and happy, and too bighearted to believe. So why did he still feel anguished? He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her onto his lap.
"Hey!" She laughed, hugging an arm around him.
He snuggled his nose in her hair and kissed her neck. Mine, he thought.
"They'll see," she muttered.
They'd better. "Let them. It's legal."
She laughed again and quickly kissed him. Finally. ~ Caragh M. O'Brien

Do people even look at one another?"
"Not really. Everything that matters is on your screen. There's an agenda that rearranges itself. There's a back-channel chat. And there's fact-checking! If you get up to speak, there are people cross-referencing your claims, supporting and refuting you
"
It sounds like an engineer's Athens. ~ Robin Sloan

Unburdening, she'd told Laurie about a vision she'd had when she was four or five years old. Unable to sleep on Christmas Eve, she'd tiptoed downstairs and seen a fat bearded man standing in front of her family's tree, checking items off a list. He wasn't wearing a red suit - it was more like a blue bus driver's uniform - but she still recognized him as Santa Claus. She watched him for a while, then snuck back upstairs, her body filled with an ecstatic sense of wonder and confirmation. As a teenager, she convinced herself that the whole thing had been a dream, but it had seemed real at the time, so real that she reported it to her family the next morning as a simple fact. They still jokingly referred to it that way, as though it were a documented historical event - the Night Meg Saw Santa. ~ Tom Perrotta

Quick! What aisle are the douches in? I've got three bitches at the beach cottage and they all stick to high heaven."...
"You do carry Massengill, don't you? That's the best brand, according to my research."
"Ah..." What kind of man researches douches? A man who goes to bed with three women...
"Would you mind checking your inventory in the back? I'll need more."
"I'm not allowed to leave the register, but I'll be happy to page our stock boy."
Douche-man grunted and flipped the package around. "It's gonna take at least two boxes for Loa. She's big. Got wide hips. Skinny legs, though. Kinda like a twenty-gallon tank on toothpicks. ~ Vonnie Davis

I looked back and forth from my glass to hers. "Why does your tea look different?"
"Because my tea is whiskey." She grinned proudly.
"Whiskey?" I stared at it incredulously before checking the time on my phone. "It's ten thirty in the morning."
"Lawrence, when you're my age, you learn to do things when you want to do them, not when it's socially acceptable. Hell, who knows if I'll still be around at dinner time? While we're on the subject, I had half a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream for dinner last night. Cheers!" She raised her glass again and winked at me. ~ Beth Ehemann

Perhaps we should wait outside in the hall, Dedalus," murmured Hestia. She clearly felt that it would be tactless for them to remain in the room while Harry and the Dursleys exchanged loving, possibly tearful farewells.
"There's no need," Harry muttered, but Uncle Vernon made any further explanation unnecessary by saying loudly,
"Well, this is good-bye, then, boy."
He swung his right arm upward to shake Harry's hand, but at the last moment seemed unable to face it, and merely closed his fist and began swinging it backward and forward like a metronome.
"Ready, Diddy?" asked Aunt Petunia, fussily checking the clasp of her handbag so as to avoid looking at Harry altogether.
Dudley did not answer, but stood there with his mouth slightly ajar, reminding Harry a little of the giant, Grawp.
"Come along, then," said Uncle Vernon.
He had already reached the living room door when Dudley mumbled, "I don't understand."
"What don't you understand, popkin?" asked Aunt Petunia, looking up at her son.
Dudley raised a large, hamlike hand to point at Harry.
"Why isn't he coming with us?"
Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia froze where they stood, staring at Dudley as though he had just expressed a desire to become a ballerina.
"What?" said Uncle Vernon loudly.
"Why isn't he coming too?" asked Dudley.
"Well, he--he doesn't want to," said Uncle Vernon, turning to glare at Harry and adding, "You don't want to, do you?"
"Not in ~ J.K. Rowling

Checking email every 45 seconds is not only compulsive, it's presumptuous. It suggests a belief that anyone who sends us a message needs us to read it immediately, even if the message is from SkyMall telling us our Bigfoot Garden Yeti statue has shipped. ~ Meghan Daum

When you wake up, instead of checking emails on your phone, or counting your retweets, pick up a pen and scratch a few sentences into a notebook. ~ Kevin Barry

Today is Earth Day. Environmentalists spent the day drawing attention to the Earth, while the Earth just spent the day checking Facebook to see which planets wished it a happy Earth Day. ~ Jimmy Fallon

Hey, it's me. Just checking if you were dead. If you aren't, call me. If you are, call me anyway. ~ Mark Del Franco

My father could have been deported because on his immigration application he said that he was a printer, obviously because he didn't want them to be checking his writings. ~ Joe Eszterhas