Clearing Out Quotes

The history of photography needs clearing out. It needs something else now. Because photography always acknowledged there were cameras before photography. ~ David Hockney

Zombie!" Sammy calls. "I knew it was you."
Zombie?
"Where are you taking him?" Ben says to me in a deep voice. I don't remember it being that deep. Is my memory bad or is he lowering it on purpose, to sound older?
"Zombie, that's Cassie," Sam chides him. "You know - Cassie."
"Cassie?" Like he's never heard the name before.
"Zombie?" I say, because I really haven't heard that name before.
I pull off the cap, thinking it might help him recognize me, then immediately regret it. I know what my hair must look like.
"We go to the same high school," I say, drawing my fingers hastily through my chopped-off locks. "I sit in front of you in Honors Chemistry."
Ben shakes his head like he's clearing out the cobwebs.
Sammy goes, "I told you she was coming."
"Quiet, Sam," I scold him.
"Sam?" Ben asks.
"My name is Nugget now, Cassie," Sam informs me.
"Well, sure it is." I turn to Ben. "You know my brother. ~ Rick Yancey

Clearing out your email inbox can make you feel really good - like you're ultra-productive. But unless your job is to delete emails, time spent in your inbox may not be time spent wisely. ~ David Burkus

The Suns, meanwhile, appeared to be hoisting a white flag over the Arizona desert. With a 12-22 record at the time, they were clearing out big contracts for salary-cap relief and a chance to start over again the following summer. We are taking a step backward in the immediate run, .. But we're certainly looking forward to the future. ~ Bryan Colangelo

I think if Jesus was here teaching in the flesh again, he'd be turning over tables, clearing out churches, and raising some serious ruckus over how we are not only missing the point but are continuing to damage far too many people in the name of God. ~ Kathy Escobar

Commitment is what transforms
a dream into reality.

One percent or ninety-nine percent complete are both incomplete.

Wanting is wishing or dreaming. Deciding is the willingness to do whatever it takes to make your wishes and dreams come true.

Pondering on what you are going to do actually sucks up more time and energy than going out there and doing it.

If you're planted in an environment with depleted soil loaded with weeds, your conditions must change in order for you grow and thrive.

As you change your circle of influence, your thinking changes, and ultimately your world changes too.

When you are too busy trying to outshine others, you miss out on your own inner spark.

If your focus is on competing with others, you cannot complete you.

Perfection is a myth, a misconception, and just an opinion.

A well-tailored business suit might look perfect to a banker, but deemed to be dreadful to a heavy metal rocker.

Going out of your comfort zone might be gut-wrenching, but dying with the music still inside is even more painful.

Stagnation drains your energy and slowly sucks the life out of you.

When you declutter your mental space, just like clearing out physical space, you find valuables you had long forgotten about.

Keeping emotional toxin in your head is like fertilizing unwanted weeds.

Positivity is your weed killer.
~ Megan Chan

Your health, your experiences, and your life do not have to be at the mercy of your negative emotions. When you consciously choose to focus on a thought or belief that is positive, comforting, or hopeful, you're clearing out that emotional clutter that's weighing you down. You're energetically shifting yourself to a better place. ~ Susan Barbara Apollon

Economics ought to be a magpie discipline, taking in philosophy, history and politics. But heterodox approaches have long since been banished from most faculties, claims Tony Lawson. In the 1970s, when he started teaching at Cambridge, the economics faculty still boasted legends such as Nicky Kaldor and Joan Robinson. "There were big debates, and students would study politics, the history of economic thought." And now? "Nothing. No debates, no politics or history of economic thought and the courses are nearly all maths."
How do elites remain in charge? If the tale of the economists is any guide, by clearing out the opposition and then blocking their ears to reality. The result is the one we're all paying for. ~ Aditya Chakrabortty

England in the late 1940s was famously grim. As I remember it, London back then was a very dirty place, from coal dust and smoke, from the grit stirred up every day by the jackhammers still clearing out rubble from the Blitz. ~ Alexander Cockburn

I volunteered on a farming community in Israel for two years when I was a teenager. One of the jobs involved clearing out a massive warehouse full of chickens ready for the abattoir. The smell of 40,000 chickens in 45C is awful. ~ Nick Frost

If you make great music, you can become a mold breaker or a trailblazer. It's a little scary to do that because you can't always see what's in front of you, but you're clearing out a path for people behind you to follow. ~ Anthony Evans

So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I am. Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world will ever warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too rosy-strong; but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel poor-devilish, too; and grow convivial upon tears; and say to them bluntly, with full eyes and empty glasses, and in not altogether unpleasant sadness - Give it up, Sub-Subs! For by how much more pains ye take to please the world, by so much the more shall ye for ever go thankless! Would that I could clear out Hampton Court and the Tuileries for ye! But gulp down your tears and hie aloft to the royal-mast with your hearts; for your friends who have gone before are clearing out the seven-storied heavens, and making refugees of long pampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against your coming. Here ye strike but splintered hearts together - there, ye shall strike unsplinterable glasses! ~ Herman Melville

If it had been touch, it might have been pressure-not an uncomfortable pressure, but one that swept away all the pain of her headache. Like a river rushing through her mind, clearing out everything stagnant and clotted and decayed. ~ L.J.Smith

Pushing through some viney branches, she comes into a clearing andfinds a sight that makes her hush
and not just her voice but every part of her, like feeling silence in her deep guts ...
It's something she can feel in the back of her throat, her dislike of the scene
as though what she's looking upon is unholy, the conjunction of chaos and order in a forced fit where everything is stretched and bent in the wrong way like those baby legs. ~ Alden Bell

Now. Bram, you are a good friend and an uptanding young man, but I'm afraid that tradition dictates I now attempt to scare you within an inch of your unlife."
"Understood," Bram said, taking his arm back as I got myself under control.
My father is a gentle-looking man. Thus, why I started laughing again as he attempted to look stern. "What are your intentions concerning my daughter?"
Bram cast a look my way, laughing himself, before clearing his throat and doing his best to look scared. "Why, to care for and protect her until I rot away, sir. ~ Lia Habel

Until one morning, one of the coldest mornings of the year, when I came in with the book cart and found Jean Hollis Clark, a fellow librarian, standing dead still in the middle of the staff room.
"I heard a noise from the drop box," Jean said.
"What kind of noise?"
"I think it's an animal."
"A what?"
"An animal," Jean said. "I think there's an animal in the drop box."
That was when I heard it, a low rumble from under the metal cover. It didn't sound like an animal. It sounded like an old man clearing his throat.
Gurr-gug-gug. Gurr-gug-gug.
But the opening at the top of the chute was only a few inches wide, so that would be quite a squeeze for an old man. It had to be an animal. But what kind? I got down on my knees, reached over the lid, and hoped for a chipmunk.
What I got instead was a blast of freezing air. The night before, the temperature had reached minus fifteen degrees, and that didn't take into account the wind, which cut under your coat and squeezed your bones. And on that night, of all nights, someone had jammed a book into return slot, wedging it open. It was as cold in the box as it was outside, maybe colder, since the box was lined with metal. It was the kind of cold that made it almost painful to breathe.
I was still catching my breath, in fact, when I saw the kitten huddled in the front left corner of the box. It was tucked up in a little space underneath a book, so all I could see at first was its head. It loo ~ Vicki Myron

We can easily imagine a monetary organization which, by the exclusive use of notes or clearing-house methods, allows all transfers to be made with the instrumentality of sums of money that never change their position in space.
If differences due to the geographical position of money are disregarded in this way, we get the following law for the exchange-ratio between money and other economic goods: every economic good, that is ready for consumption (in the sense in which that phrase is usually understood in commerce and technology), has a subjective use-value qua consumption good at the place where it is and qua production good at those places to which it may be brought for consumption. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

The nurses told me what you did, Livia. You made my heart beat in the woods." He looked at her lips and continued, "You gave me breath. Were you scared, love? I'm sorry."
"You're apologizing because you stopped breathing?" Livia wrinkled her nose.
He nodded reverently. "I left you in the clearing again."
"You took the bullet that had my name on it and let it lodge in your back," Livia responded. "You never left me in those woods. You gave me strength when I needed it. You don't need to apologize, but it's perfectly acceptable for you to never, ever stop breathing again." She touched his Sorry tattoo. ~ Debra Anastasia

SUNLIGHT SEEPED THROUGH the thickly-bunched leaves of the towering kirstal trees, the clearing beneath them riddled with chaotic patches of brilliant light and gray shadow. ~ Mickey Zucker Reichert

Good writing is always a breaking of the soil, clearing away prejudices, pulling up of sour weeds of crooked thinking, stripping the turf so as to get at what is fertile beneath. It would be amusing to carry the simile further. Those bulbs that flower in the sand and wither! The gay fiction annual that has to be planted again every year! Those experimental plants from Russia, France, and Greenwich Village that are always getting winter killed - confound 'em! - is it worth while planting them again? The stocky perennial that keeps coming up and coming up - so easy to grow and so ugly. Scarlet sage that gives a touch of fiery sin to the edge of the suburbanite's concrete walk! And then the good flowers - as honest as they are beautiful! The well-ordered gar den! The climbing rose that escapes and is the most beautiful of all! ~ Henry Seidel Canby

Love
Embracing Tao, you become embraced.
Supple, breathing gently, you become reborn.
Clearing your vision, you become clear.
Nurturing your beloved, you become impartial.
Opening your heart, you become accepted.
Accepting the World, you embrace Tao.
Bearing and nurturing,
Creating but not owning,
Giving without demanding,
Controlling without authority,
This is love. ~ Lao-Tzu

Leaf was staring down into shadow, and Thunder followed his gaze. The land dropped away into a small ravine. Moonlight pooled at the bottom, lighting a clearing ringed by bracken and trees. ~ Erin Hunter

There was a clearing in the middle of the woods. It tasted of lightning and magic.
Of claw and fang.
And in the middle of this clearing sat a man who had once been a boy.
A boy who I had loved.
Then a monster had come to town with murder on his mind and tore a hole in our heads and hearts.
The boy chased after the monster with revenge in his bloodred eyes.
The monster was gone now.
And so was the boy. Because a man had taken his place. ~ T.J. Klune

He coughed again, that deferential cough of his which sounds like a well-bred sheep clearing its throat on a distant mountain-top. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Organic farming is environmentally friendlier to every acre of land. But it requires _more_ acres. The trade-off is a harsh one. Would we rather have pesticides on farmland and nitrogen runoffs from them? Or would we rather chop down more forest?

How much more forest would we have to chop down? If we wanted to reduce pesticide use and nitrogen runoff by turning all of the world's farmland to organic farming, we'd need about 50 percent more farmland than we have today. Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug, whose work helped triple crop yields over the last fifty years and arguably saved billions from starvation, estimates that the world would need an _additional_ 5 to 6 billion head of cattle to produce enough manure to fertilize that farmland. There are only an estimated 1.3 billion cattle on the planet today.

Combined, we'd need to chop down roughly half of the world's remaining forest to grow crops and to graze cattle that produce enough manure to fertilize those crops. Clearing that much land would produce around 500 billion tons of CO2, or almost as much as the total cumulative CO2 emissions of the world thus far. And the cattle needed to fertilize that land would produce far _more_ greenhouse gases, in the form of methane, than all of agriculture does today, possibly enough to equal all human greenhouse gases emitted from all sources today.

That's not a viable path. ~ Ramez Naam

I bought a small bottle of beer for fifteen cents and sat on a bench in the clearing, feeling like an old man. The scene I had just witnessed brought back a lot of memories - not of things I had done but of things I had failed to do, wasted hours and frustrated moments and opportunities forever lost because time had eaten so much of my life and I would never get it back. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

The big nest was in Afghanistan, thats not quite cleared, then there are nests in the Philippines, there are nests in Indonesia, the Malaysians are clearing up their nests. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

When the Securities & Exchange Commission settled securities-fraud charges against Richard Harriton, former chairman of the clearing subsidiary of Bear, Stearns & Co., there were smiles all around. The SEC was happy. Harriton was happy. Bear Stearns was happy. ~ Gary Weiss

We are not speaking gibberish. We're speaking the sacred language of the Qur'an, the language of great Calipha and Saladin, the most beautiful intricate of all human tongues. "
" Well it sounds like a Racoon clearing it's throat. ~ John Green

I promised myself that we'd have this little air-clearing chat today without my tongue ending up in your mouth. ~ Bella Andre

War is just like bush-clearing-the moment you stop, the jungle comes back even thicker, but for a little while you can plant and grow a crop in the ground you have won at such a terrible cost. ~ Kenneth Kaunda

You deserve better than some thief who's going to end up in jail again. Everyone knows it. Even I know it. But you seem determined to believe I'm a actually a decent guy who's halfway worthy of you. So, what scares me most" - he twisted a lock of hair between his fingers - "is that someday even you will realize that you can do better." "Thorne ... " "Not to worry." He kissed the lock of hair. "I am a criminal mastermind, I have a plan." Clearing his throat, he started to check things off in the air. "First, get a legitimate job - check. Legally buy my ship - in progress. Prove that I'm hero material by helping Cinder save the world - oh, wait, I did that already." He winked. "Oh, and I have to stop stealing things, but that's probably a given. So I figure, by the time you realize how much I don't deserve you ... I might kind of deserve you ~ Marissa Meyer

Sometimes the biggest gain in productive energy will come from cleaning the cobwebs, dealing with old business, and clearing the desks - cutting loose debris that's impeding forward motion. ~ David Allen

And though Clara couldn't speak, she determined that she would no longer be aimless. Whatever wit or pluck she had would be used for one thing: clearing Mrs. Glendoveer's name. ~ Kathleen O'Dell

My known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. ~ D.H. Lawrence

The children walk away from me, flick flickety off at a tangent between thin blotched beech trunks, then turn like yo-yos at the end of their strings and come back to me" from the poem "In a BishopsWood Clearing ~ Jay Woodman

Disappointment was never a thing you looked for, but it had a wonderful way of clearing the mind. ~ Stephen King

The air brightened, the running shadow patches were now the obverse, and it seemed to him that the fact that the day was clearing was another cunning stroke on the part of the foe, the fresh battle toward which he was carrying ancient wounds. ~ William Faulkner

Some experience of popular lecturing had convinced me that the necessity of making things plain to uninstructed people, was one of the very best means of clearing up the obscure corners in one's own mind. ~ Thomas Huxley

I used to think meditation served the purpose of clearing my mind of dreams. Good and bad, dreams do affect us in our daily mood. Now I wonder if meditation unlocks them, utilizes the wisdom that has been sent to us by our subconscious. ~ Robert Black

Mathematics had never had more than a secondary interest for him [her husband, George Boole]; and even logic he cared for chiefly as a means of clearing the ground of doctrines imagined to be proved, by showing that the evidence on which they were supposed to give rest had no tendency to prove them. ~ Mary Everest Boole

Maycomb did not have a paved street until 1935, courtesy of F. D. Roosevelt, and even then it was not exactly a street that was paved. For some reason the President decided that a clearing from the front door of the Maycomb Grammar School to the connecting two ruts adjoining the school property was in need of improvement, it was improved accordingly, resulting in skinned knees and cracked crania for the children and a proclamation from the principal that nobody was to play Pop-the-Whip on the pavement. Thus the seeds of states' rights were sown in the hearts of Jean Louise's generation. ~ Harper Lee

So, Jessamine," said Lucie. "Can ghosts lie?"
"Certainly not!" Jessamine looked shifty. "Ghosts are completely honest. I keep telling you, it was mice who knocked your silver mirror behind the desk and broke it."
"It appears clear that if ghosts are liars, they are terrible liars," said James.
Matthew sighed. "It is very strange to see you conversing with the invisible."
"Humph," said Jessamine. She wobbled a bit and firmed up, her outlines clearing as she drifted down toward the floor. Shadowhunters, having the Sight, could generally see ghosts who wanted to be seen, but Lucie knew it was an effort for Jessamine to make herself visible to all eyes.
"Oh!" said Cordelia. "It's very nice to meet you, Jessamine. Lucie speaks of you often."
Jessamine beamed.
"You are a very attractive ghost," said Matthew, tapping his ringed fingers against his chest. "I do hope Lucie and James have mentioned as much."
"They have not," Jessamine noted.
"Very remiss," said Matthew, his eyes sparkling.
"You are not at all like Henry," said Jessamine, eyeing Matthew speculatively. "He was forever setting things on fire, and not a compliment to be heard."
"Jessamine," Lucie said. "This is important! Do tell us, can ghosts lie? Not you, of course, my dear."
"Ghosts can lie," Jessamine conceded. ~ Cassandra Clare

I don't know," [my father] said, after clearing his throat. "But I know that he loves you." ... Twenty years later, I'm convinced it is the most important thing my father ever told me ... I used to think that the measure of true faith is certainty. Doubt, ambiguity, nuance, uncertainty - these represented a lack of conviction, a dangerous weakness in the armor of the Christian soldier who should "always be ready with an answer." ... Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God. The former has the potential to destroy faith; the latter has the power to enrich and refine it. ~ Rachel Held Evans

Every student of science, even if he cannot start his journey where his predecessors left off, can at least travel their beaten track more quickly than they could while they were clearing the way: and so before his race is run, he comes to virgin forest and becomes himself a pioneer. ~ Theodore William Richards

Cam stepped into the clearing. His eyes were rimmed with a thick, shimmering gold shadow, and it shone on his face in the moonlight, making him look like a wildcat. ~ Lauren Kate

Every life, every story, has peaks and valleys. You are walking through a low spot now. Perhaps it's foggy in the valley. And maybe you can't see the path anymore. But it's there. Keep walking on it. You'll find your way. And when you come through the thicket, with little rabbits hopping about, there will be a clearing, and the sun will be shining down on you with rays that will warm you and inspire you again. ~ Sarah Jio

It's a way of clearing the palate. Kids come into the classroom with all this other stuff in their hands. If they write it down for 10 minutes they become much more available for whatever it is we want to do in the class. ~ Joan Countryman

The heavy eyelids snapped open. Jack froze.
A huge gold-and-amber eye, as big as a dinner plater, stared at him. The dark pupil shrank, focusing.
Jack stood very still.
The colossal head turned, the scaled lip only three feet from Jack. The golden eyes gazed at him, wirling with fiery color.
Jack breathed in tiny, shallow breaths.
Dont blink. Don't blink ...
Two gusts of wind erutped from the wyvern's nostrils Jack jumped straight up, bounced off the ground into another jump, and scrambled up the nearest tree.
In the clearing, Gaston bent over, guffawing like an idiot.
'It's not funny! ~ Ilona Andrews

One more time? We've done this. We've done this at least four times where there's a new government program to help homeowners who have trouble with their mortgages. None of these programs have worked. I don't know why anyone would think that this next idea is going to work. All it does is delay the clearing of the market. As soon as the market clears and we understand where the prices really are - [that] will be the most important thing we can do in order to improve home values around the country. ~ John Boehner

NUM14.18 The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. ~ Anonymous

The board is clearing. The old game is almost played, and the pieces broken. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

That and many other cases since then, most of them concerning autoimune diseases, have drilled into my head that patient relief is NOT THE BOTTOM LINE IN standardized medicine - following protocol is. That kind of reasoning works when the protocol in question achieves a cure for a given
disease. For diabetes, clearing it hasn't. ~ Doug Kaufman

He first saw her in a ray of sunshine. She was dancing and singing in a forest clearing, her golden hair sparkling as it swirled around her. Her voice was the very essence of a happy, sunny day distilled into song. She was as weightless on her toes as golden motes in a drowsy beam, floating their way up to the ceiling. ~ Liz Braswell

He might have wished us good luck," Graystripe complained. "He probably thinks we don't need it," joked Fireheart as they crossed the clearing toward Yellowfang's den. ~ Erin Hunter

Together they stood in the doorway. For Sethe it was as though the Clearing had come to her with all its heat and simmering leaves, where the voices of women searched for the right combination, the key, the code, the sound that broke the back of words. ~ Toni Morrison

He was in a fairy kingdom where everything was possible.
He looked up at the sky. And the sky was a fairy realm like the earth. It was clearing, and over the tops of the trees clouds were swiftly sailing as if unveiling the stars. ~ Leo Tolstoy