Cornered Quotes

I mean, you can't have sex until you're married if you're Mormon. The first time I had sex, my parents found out. They were listening in on the phone while I was talking about sex to my girlfriend. They freaked out, man. They both cornered me in my bedroom. ~ Bert McCracken

Were you in the military?"
"Are you kidding me? I was in high school."
"High school," he said quietly. "You're American. And a civilian?"
"Uh, yes. An American civilian."
"Lovely. A straight answer. Keep it up. Did somebody train you?"
"No, nobody trained me. Unless you count the Rhode Island child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Why?"
Malachi held up his hand and ticked off the reasons with his fingers. "You stole a Guard's weapon. If I'm not mistaken, it belonged to a Gate Guard. Which means you managed to do it on your way into the city. You escaped Amid even after he had you in hand. You slashed his leg in just the right place, preventing him from chasing you. Under extreme duress, injured and cornered, you threw a knife and hit a target-"
"It's not like I hit something vital. ~ Sarah Fine

I swallowed my screams whole. They went down my throat as sharp-cornered and cold as ice cubes. ~ Scott Westerfeld

Such are the humiliations of the travel writer in the late 20th century: go to the ends of the earth to search for the most exotic heretics in the world, and you will find that they have cornered the kebab business at the end of your street in London. ~ William Dalrymple

I wanted to forget the past, but it refused to forget me; it waited for sleep, then cornered me. ~ Margaret Atwood

What was the difference between a husband and a lover?
If she took Po as her husband, she would be making promises about a future she couldn't yet see. For once she became his wife, she would be his wife forever. And, no matter how much freedom Po gave her, she would always know that it was a gift. Her freedom would not be her own; it would be Po's to give or to withhold. That he never would withhold it made no difference. If it did not come from her, it was not really hers.
If Po were her lover, would she feel captured, cornered into a sense of forever? Or would she still have the freedom that sprang from herself? ~ Kristin Cashore

Well. You've got me cornered, don't you? I'm at your mercy." Her lips quirked. She took a drag of her cigarette. "And I like a man who just won't stop. ~ Jim Butcher

Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful-
The eye of the little god, four cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

--written 1960 ~ Sylvia Plath

You ... " The centaur's eyes flared like a cornered animal's. "You should be dead. ~ Rick Riordan

Deer in headlights.
Cornered suspect.
Mouse in the open, owls circling. ~ Kathy Reichs

The natural world had gone badly wrong. Everything that mankind is doing on the planet had upset the delicate balance of nature. The pollution, the rampant industrialization, the loss of habitat-when animals were squeezed and cornered, they behave viciously, in a desperate effort to survive. ~ Michael Crichton

Even a cornered rabbit will fight with teeth and claws. ~ Alison Goodman

Meton (astronomer in 5th century BC): With the straight ruler I set to work To make the circle four-cornered . ~ Aristophanes

It's dangerous when music gets cornered by anything. ~ Justin Vernon

This isn't about romance. A proper kiss, a proper courtship. There's a way these things should be done."
"For proper thieves?" The corners of her beautiful mouth curled and for a moment he was afraid she would laugh at him, but she simply shook her head and drew even nearer. Her body was the barest breath from his now. The need to close that scrap of distance was maddening.
"The first day you showed up at my house for this proper courtship, I would have cornered you in the pantry," she said. "But please, tell me more about Fjerdan girls."
"They speak quietly. They don't engage in flirtations with every single man they meet."
"I flirt with the women too."
"I think you'd flirt with a date palm if it would pay you any attention."
"If I flirted with a plant, you can bet it would stand up and take notice. Are you jealous?"
"All the time. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Anyway, I was the one in real danger. I got cornered by a pack of wild sorority girls in the food court. Apparently it's mating season. ~ Rachel Vincent

No one [Islanders] trod easily upon the emotions of another where the sea licked everywhere against an endless shoreline. And this was excellent and poor at the same time-excellent because it meant most people took care, poor because it meant an inbreeding of the spirit, too much held in, regret and silent brooding, a world whose inhabitants walked in trepidation, in fear of opening up...They could not speak freely because they were cornered: everywhere they turned there was water and more water, a limitless expanse of it in which to drown. They held their breath and walked with care, and this made them who they were inside, constricted and small, good neighbors. ~ David Guterson

I want blood! Two of Aksel's dogs cornered me near Tondara. They shot me. Those bastards actually shot a hole in my stabilizer the size of Mirala ... Aren't you going to say something? (Syn)
Were you hurt? (Nykyrian)
No. (Syn)
Then why are you having a fit? (Nykyrian)
I don't know, it just felt right. You see why I don't like being sober? I overreact like an old woman. (He opened his flask, then slammed it down on Nykyrian's desk.) Figures the damned thing would be empty. (Syn) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

He was lost. He knew it. He had neither the size nor the strength to defeat her, and she had him cornered. But he would fight. He was a warrior, the prince-son of the unicorns, and he meant to go down fighting. There would be no songs to mark his death; and none of his people would even know. But he had saved Korr and the others of the band. It was noon - they were safe out of the hills by now, and none of the rest of it mattered. ~ Meredith Ann Pierce

She still stood in front of the garden tub, the piece of glass in her hand, and she stared back at me like an animal cornered.
In that moment she didn't remind me of a harmless little kitten. She was a full-grown tigress, and she still looked like she wanted to do some damage. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Oh, Iko ... what happened?" "More stupid Lunar guards, that's what happened. He cornered me in the basement of the med-clinic and did this. I had to play dead until he left me alone. Good thing they have no idea how to kill an android here. ~ Marissa Meyer

But the body fails us and the mirror knows, and we no longer insist that the gray hush be carried off its surface by the cloth, for we have run to fat, and wrinkles encircle the eyes and notch the neck where the skin wattles, and the flesh of the arms hangs loose like an overlarge sleeve, veins thicken like ropes and empurple the body as though they had been drawn there by a pen, freckles darken, liver spots appear, the hairah, the hair is exhausted and gray and lusterless, in weary rolls like cornered lint. ~ William H Gass

A sound of cornered-animal fear and hate and surrender and defiance ... like the last sound the treed and shot and falling animal makes as the dogs get him, when he finally doesn't care about anything but himself and his dying. ~ Ken Kesey

For these are the bolt-holes of cornered Man - not to burrow or cower, not to spit or howl or chew off the limb snared, but to mend his broken bow with his own heartstrings, and ere his spark is snuffed out to fit to it and hurl forth everything at his back, be it his home and the very world he leaves. ~ Harley J. Sims

People always laugh at me when I tell them I'm scared of pencils, because they can't fathom why anyone would fear a puncture wound or lead poisoning from a pencil, especially now that it's impossible to get lead poisoning since they don't actually contain lead. But those fuckers are sharp, and I have nightmares about getting cornered in a room and repeatedly stabbed with one. Somehow knives don't frighten me, even though they are the more obvious tool for both a real and imagined stabbing. ~ Kate Madison

To you who eat a lot of rice because you are lonely
To you who sleep a lot because you are bored
To you who cry a lot because you are sad
I write this down.
Chew on your feelings that are cornered
Like you would chew on rice.
Anyway life is something that you need to digest.
- Chunyang Hee
("sorry" doesn't sweeten her tea) ~ Helen Oyeyemi

An artist is a person who lives in the triangle which remains after the angle which we may call common sense has been removed from this four-cornered world. ~ Soseki Natsume

Once, when cornered by a pinwheel-eyed man who insisted that the mayor of Los Angeles was not human but a robot controlled by the audioanimatronics department at Disneyland, Joe had lowered his voice and said, with nervous sincerity, "Yes, we've known about that for years. But if we print a word of it, the people at Disney will kill us all." He had spoken with such conviction that the nutball had exploded backward and fled. ~ Dean Koontz

As I have said for two years now, when Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, it was wrong to outsource the job of capturing them to Afghan warlords who a week earlier were fighting against us. ~ John F. Kerry

Before I could even raise a hand, he spun around like the wind, letting go of the dagger. It smacked into the chest of the white-garbed Guard sneaking up on him. Darting forward, he pulled the blade free before the Guard collapsed, and then threw it again, taking out the other Guard who'd cornered Solos.
Damn. Aiden was a badass ninja. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Zoe readied her arrows. Grover lifted his pipes. Thalia raised her shield and I noticed a tear running down her cheek. Suddenly it occurred to me: this had happened to her before.She had been cornered on Half-
Blood Hill. She'd willingly given her life for her friends. But
this time she couldn't save us. ~ Rick Riordan

Still pleasant as a cornered hedgehog, and as well mannered as a badger, I see. ~ Kerrigan Byrne

When its back's against the wall, even positivity will come out fighting! ~ Serina Hartwell

I don't think I've ever been either militant or profound as an anti-Fascist. When the issue has come up, when certain things have come up, and I've been called on to express - literally, when I've been cornered, then I take a left-wing stand. ~ Nelson Algren

Reading Stephen King's book, On Writing, was like being cornered and forced to have a long, drawn out mental enema. ~ Mary Garden

Ariel gets bad when she's scared. That's when she stings; that's what stings, scared things cornered. ~ Leah Bobet

We were examining a big hole with two entrances. The burrow sloped into the ground at a gentle angle, so that we could see where the two corridors united, and the floor was dusty from use, like a little highway over which much travel went. I was walking backward, in a crouching position, when I heard Antonia scream. She was standing opposite me, pointing behind me and shouting something in Bohemian. I whirled around, and there, on one of those dry gravel beds, was the biggest snake I had ever seen. He was sunning himself, after the cold night, and he must have been asleep when Antonia screamed. When I turned, he was lying in loose waves, like a letter "W". He twitched and began to coil slowly. He was not merely a big snake, I thought - he was a circus monstrosity. His abominable muscularity, his loathsome, fluid motion, somehow made me sick. He was as thick as my leg, and looked as if millstones couldn't crush the disgusting vitality out of him. He lifted his hideous little head , and rattled. I didn't run because I didn't think of it - if my back had been against a stone wall I couldn't have felt more cornered. I saw his coils tighten - now he would spring, spring his length, I remembered. I ran up and drove at his head with my spade, struck him fairly across the neck, and in a minute he was all about my feet in wavy loops. I struck now from hate. Antonia, barefooted as she was, ran up behind me. Even after I had pounded his ugly head flat, his body kept on coiling and windi ~ Willa Cather

I have learned how I work best, and that is something that, if you're going to be a professional writer, you should be noticing: under what circumstances you work at your best, and to not get yourself cornered into writing in a way that doesn't let you do your best. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

The petulance that relatives show towards each other is in truth directed against that intangible Causality which has shaped the situation no less for the offenders than the offended, but is too elusive to be discerned and cornered by poor humanity in irritated mood. ~ Thomas Hardy

A cornered animal is almost as dangerous as a wounded one. ~ Cameron Dokey

Rora played along, saying the right words, smiling the right smile, and nodding, but her mind wasn't in it. Not really. She was outside herself. Her heart grew calm and steady and quiet-- the kind of quiet that came before the Rage season. As if the whole land was bracing itself for the battle to come. All the nerves and the confusing emotions melted away, and she was nothing more than a series of actions cobbled together by instinct alone. That was what happened to an animal when it was cornered. When the danger was high and adrenaline took over. Reason disappeared then, and the only thing left was an instinct older than blood and bones. And her instinct? It told her two things. To lie. And to run. ~ Cora Carmack

When you are cornered by self-centred humans don't except any mercy from them. They cannot understand your pain and they try the best of them to destroy you in order to justify their EGO. All you can do is to pray for them to realise that ups and down are nature's policy and above all GOD is the only creator cum terminator. I pray for your betterment. Darkness is only for few hours, Sun will be back soon since he resembles truth. ~ Sreeraj.C.V

Left alone in an interrogation room, some men will look as though they're well into their last ten seconds before throwing up. And they'll look that way for hours. They sweat like they just climbed out of the swimming pool. They eat and swallow air. I mean these guys are really going through it. You come and tip a light in their face. And they're bugeyed - the orbs both big and red, and faceted also. Little raised soft-cornered squares, wired with rust.
These are the innocent. ~ Martin Amis

It was the kind of love that, sooner or later, cornered you into a choice: either you tore free or you stayed and withstood its rigor even as it squeezed you into something smaller than yourself. ~ Khaled Hosseini

Today everyone on our side knows that criminality is not the result of the Algerian's congenital nature nor the configuration of his nervous system. The war in Algeria and wars of national liberation bring out the true protagonists. We have demonstrated that in the colonial situation the colonized are confronted with themselves. They tend to use each other as a screen. Each prevents his neighbor from seeing the national enemy. And when exhausted after a sixteen-hour day of hard work the colonized subject collapses on his mat and a child on the other side of the canvas partition cries and prevents him from sleeping, it just so happens it's a little Algerian. When he goes to beg for a little semolina or a little oil from the shopkeeper to whom he already owes several hundred francs and his request is turned down, he is overwhelmed by an intense hatred and desire to kill - and the shopkeeper happens to be an Algerian. When, after weeks of keeping a low profile, he finds himself cornered one day by the kaid demanding "his taxes," he is not even allowed the opportunity to direct his hatred against the European administrator; before him stands the kaid who excites his hatred - and he happens to be an Algerian. ~ Frantz Fanon

You can hold on to the smallest doubt and take comfort in it, stay in denial and go on with your carefree life, until one day you're finally cornered by a truth that can no longer be ignored. ~ Glenn Beck

I've seen that cornered look on more than a few Parish faces over the years, and each time it brings a lump to my throat. The old-timers say you eventually get numb to it. I'm not sure I want to live that long. ~ Steven Dos Santos

From the political angle, I'm trying to be apolitical if you will. I mean people say, 'Are you a red state or blue state?', I say, 'I'm purple.' I think there are great ideas on both sides of the aisle and neither side has cornered the market. ~ Brad Thor

Sometmes when you pull knives on people, they get this impression that you're going to hurt them, and then they're completely terrified. Crazy, I know!"

"Okay," said Nick. He turned to Jamie & popped his left wrist sheath again. "Look."

Jamie backed up. "Which part of 'completely terrified' did you translate as 'show us your knives, Nick'? Don't show me your knives, Nick. I have no interest in your knives."

Nick rolled his eyes. "This is a quillon dagger. That's a knife with a sword handle. I like it because it has a good grip for stabbing."

"Why do you say these things?" Jamie inquired piteously. "Is it to make me sad?"

"I didn't have you cornered," Nick went on. "You could've run. And this dagger doesn't have an even weight distribution; it's absolute rubbish for throwing. If I had any intention of hurting you, I'd have used a knife I could throw."

Jamie blinked. "I will remember those words always. I may try to forget them, but I sense that I won't be able to. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

Slade placed his pistol on the table next to his chair. "Sid down, Doll. This might take awhile," he said, as he took a deep breath. "I gots a proposition for ya'. Does 100 G's interest you? Sure might help keep them debt collectors you got at bay. Plus, might be able to finish up yer' master's degree without havin' to work your ass off to pay the bills. ~ Dianne Harman Cornered Coyote

But honesty requires courage. As she cornered the thief in his lair, she found that she wasn't so sure of herself. She was sure of only one thing. It made her fall back a little. She lifted her chin.
Her heart had an unsteady rhythm they both could hear when she told the thief that he might keep what he had stolen. ~ Marie Rutkoski

He has definitely cornered the market on enigma. I hope Stella goes for the deeply layered type. ~ Tera Lynn Childs

She sounded about as displeased as a cat who'd just cornered a mouse. ~ Marissa Meyer

When he utilizes combined energy, his fighting men become as it were like unto rolling logs or stones. For it is the nature of a log or stone to remain motionless on level ground, and to move when on a slope; if four-cornered, to come to a standstill, but if round-shaped to go rolling down. ~ Sun Tzu

And wow ... was that a lot of perfection to look at. Seven feet and three hundred and fifty pounds of perfection. While most guys - most guys being her brother, cousins, and uncles - would be lapping this up - pocketing numbers, getting girls to strip, and playing "who can get my kilt to rise" - Lock looked more like a bear cub cornered by hungry grizzly males. But what exactly did he expect in that outfit? She didn't want to imply he was asking for it but ... he kind of was! ~ Shelly Laurenston

Adult Swim has cornered this really cool market, especially for comedy shows. ~ Paul Scheer

Are you lost?"
I turned around. "Excuse me?"
Two guys were sprawled on a bench close to the sidewalk. The one who had spoken wore tattered shorts and a colonial three-cornered hat-nothing else. He had wide shoulders and long, muscular legs. He stretched dramatically, then lay his tanned arm along the back of the bench. "You look lost," he said. "Can I help you find something?"
"Uh, no, thanks. I was just looking."
He grinned. "Me too."
"Oh?" I glanced around, thinking I'd missed something. "At what?"
He and his friend burst out laughing.
Way to go, Lauren, I thought. He had been looking at me! ~ Elizabeth Chandler

Checkmate" doesn't mean you've simply cornered the enemy king.It's a declaration that the enemy king is yours. ~ Yū Kamiya

Some actors specialize in shooting weapons and punching people. Some have the market on playing buffoons cornered, others specialize in roles that require heavy makeup or outrageous wardrobe. Some trade exclusively in a post-ironic blase attitude. ~ Rob Lowe

We're Bonnie and Clyde! Wanted and unwanted. Caged and cornered. We're lost and we're alone. We're a big, tangled mess. We're a shot in the dark. We're two people who have nowhere else, no one else, and yet, suddenly that feels like enough for me! I'm sorry if it's not enough for you. ~ Amy Harmon

i love watching what you become when life thinks it has you cornered. ~ Curtis Tyrone Jones

Maybe she'll fight better this way. Nothing motivates you like being alone and cornered on the streets. ~ Marie Lu

Mal snickered.
"What's so funny?"
"I just pictured the Darkling being cornered by a sweaty duchess trying to have her way with him. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Now, this is where I draw the line! It's bad enough everybody in town's going to be thinkin' I'm sleeping with a depressed, lice-ridden, hemorrhoidal foreigner who likes to be tied up and might be pregnant, although-since she's just about cornered the market on condoms-I don't know how that could have happened. But I will not-you listen to me, Emma!-I absolutely will not have anybody thinkin' a woman of mine needs a vaginal moisturizer, do you hear me? ~ Susan Elizabeth Phillips

No other way off the hill. He'd managed to get himself cornered. He stared at the stream of cars flowing west toward San Francisco and wished he were in one of them. Then he realized the highway must cut through the hill. There must be a tunnel ... right under his feet. His internal radar went nuts. He was in the right place, just too high up. He had to check out that tunnel. He needed a way down to the highway - fast. He slung off his backpack. He'd managed to grab a lot of supplies at the Napa Bargain Mart: a portable GPS, duct tape, lighter, superglue, water bottle, camping roll, a Comfy Panda Pillow Pet (as seen on TV), and a Swiss army knife - pretty much every tool a modern demigod could want. But he had nothing that would serve as a ~ Rick Riordan

What the hell is going on?" demanded Kami's dad, advancing with his black eyes snapping. Jared blurted, "My intentions are honourable."
Kami sat up straight in her bed and stared in Jared's direction. "Are you completely crazy?" she wanted to know. "This isn't the eighteenth century. How do you think that's going to help?"
"Well, I mean," Jared said, back against the wall like a cornered animal. "When we're older. I mean-"
"Please shut up," Kami begged.
"I agree with Kami," said Dad. "When you're in an abyss-like hole, quit digging. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

And then there is the waiter. Not pathetic-decidedly not comic. Never making one of those perfectly insignificant remarks which amaze you so coming from a waiter (as though the poor wretch were a sort of coffee-pot and a wine bottle and not expected to hold so much as a drop of anything else). He is grey, flat-footed, and withered, with long, brittle nails that set your nerves on edge while he scrapes up your two sous. When he is not smearing over the table or flicking at a dead fly or two, he stands with one hand on the back of a chair, in his far too long apron, and over his other arm the three-cornered dip of dirty napkin, waiting to be photographed in connexion with some wretched murder. "Interior of Café where Body was Found." You've seen him hundreds of times. ~ Katherine Mansfield

I don't think closeted homosexual morticians have the market cornered on self-loathing or sense of shame. ~ Michael C. Hall

I cornered him a few nights after the stampede and made sure he knew that little boys who liked rope got sliced up by men who liked knives. ~ Amy Harmon

There's no such thing as an animal too big too kill, AND we're cornered by such animals every day. ~ Shane McCrae

Scientists often talk of parsimony (as in "the simplest explanation is probably correct," also known as Occam's razor), but we should not get seduced by the apparent elegance of argument from parsimony; this line of reasoning has failed in the past at least as many times as it has succeeded. For example, it is more parsimonious to assume that the sun goes around the Earth, that atoms at the smallest scale operate in accordance with the same rules that objects at larger scales follow, and that we perceive what is really out there. All of these positions were long defended by argument from parsimony, and they were all wrong. In my view, the argument from parsimony is really no argument at all – it typically functions only to shut down more interesting discussion. If history is any guide, it's never a good idea to assume that a scientific problem is cornered. ~ David Eagleman

Back in my days as a chemistry student, I used to be quite a technocrat. I was firmly convinced that scientists would have cornered God and photographed Him in color by 1951. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

It seemed that unbeknownst to her father, the lecherous bishop had chased Clio for the entire previous week and had foolishly cornered her on the staircase, where he stole a kiss and squeezed her small breasts. So when it came time to doctor him, she had smiled sweetly and stitched up his wound in the shape of three sixes, the sign of the devil. ~ Jill Barnett

Heroes aren't born, they' re cornered. Oh, I was cornered. And I found out that I was no hero. ~ James Belushi

Millie's car cornered like a beached whale, and the brakes required brute force to get them to - you know - stop. It explained a lot about my aunt's driving style. The ~ Joelle Charbonneau

All right, you conniving little punks, I'll play ball, but I'm going to make up a lot of rules you never heard of. You think I'm cornered and it'll be a soft touch. Well, you won't be playing with a guy who's a hero. You'll be up against a guy with a mind gone rotten and a lust for killing! That's the way I was and that's the way I like it! ~ Mickey Spillane

Or a mother might look at her child's cheek and ask him: "What's that, a pimple?" and see the flesh puff out a little, split, open, and at the bottom of the split an eye, a laughing eye might appear. Or they might feel things gently brushing against their bodies, like the caresses of reeds to swimmers in a river. And they will realize that their clothing has become living things. And someone else might feel something scratching in his mouth. He goes to the mirror, opens his mouth: and his tongue is an enormous, live centipede, rubbing its legs together and scraping his palate. He'd like to spit it out, but the centipede is a part of him and he will have to tear it out with his own hands. And a crowd of things will appear for which people will have to find new names, stone eye, great three cornered arm, toe crutch, spider jaw. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

It's too big to change. It's too heavy and all sharp-cornered and shit. ~ Tim Tharp

We will not die cornered and cowering in the ruins of a dead city. ~ Rachel L. Schade

When you've got a thing to say,
Say it! Don't take half a day.
When your tale's got little in it
Crowd the whole thing in a minute!
Life is short
a fleeting vapor
Don't you fill the whole blamed paper
With a tale which, at a pinch,
Could be cornered in an inch!
Boil her down until she simmers,
Polish her until she glimmers. ~ Joel Chandler Harris

Mountain lions are psychological animals, preying on the mind with secret eyes. They know that they still dominate, that they cannot be cornered without ripping their way out. They know that they are still the heart of firceness. Being pack animals ourselves, we humans have some alliance with other pack animals, like wolves or coyotes. When I see a free wolf, I feel as if we could sit down and talk, given that the details have been worked out. Not so with the cat. The cat speaks in symbols. ~ Craig Childs

As grand and glorious as love is, it is not without its perils. Anyone who has felt the cruel pangs of rejection knows that love is best approached cautiously, as one would approach an angry, cornered brush-tailed possum. Yes, before throwing yourself into a relationship, it's wise to buy a sturdy pair of leather gloves, and to be extra careful of love's front claws and rows of needle-sharp teeth. ~ Michael J. Nelson

Conviction is a fist of stone at the heart of all things. Its form is shaped by sure hands, the detritus quickly swept from view. It is built to withstand, built to defy challenge, and when cornered it fights without honour. There is nothing more terrible than conviction. ~ Steven Erikson

The Last Leaf

I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o'er the ground
With his cane.

They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.

But now he walks the streets,
And looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
"They are gone."

The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.

My grandmamma has said
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago
That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow;

But now his nose is thin,
And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff,
And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.

I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!

And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

For the first time all day I felt safe.
Except that Patch had cornered me in a dark tunnel and was possibly stalking me. Maybe not so safe. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick

Only a fool would underestimate a man with nothing to lose. ~ Lance Conrad

Cornered mothers pray for strange things. ~ Nadia Hashimi

I want my team to play like a cornered tiger ... when it's said it's most dangerous ~ Imran Khan

I always write three or four projects at the same time. They're stories that I want to tell, and usually I dump them unfinished for the next one in order not to get too cornered and depressed about it. ~ Pawel Pawlikowski

It is crucial we also think beyond workers' rights to confront a broader and more fundamental set of questions: What is so great about work that sees society constantly trying to create more of it? Why, at the pinnacle of productive development, is there still thought to be need for everybody to work for most of the time? What is work for, and what else could we be doing in the future, were we no longer cornered into spending most of our time working? [ch.one] ~ David Frayne

Speaking of welding torches... there's one heading our way!'

The Nursebot was not wrong. Coming for them with the calculated patience of a Grim Reaper on rollerblades was the greatest wildfire the trio had ever seen. Burning in a mischievous cobalt-blue flame that straightforwardly spelled "chemical fire", the all-consuming flames had cornered them by the unopenable hatch, within an inch of their lives.

'We're all going to die!' wined 22-8, cradling his coppery head. 'We're done for!'

'I thought you social robots were built with problem-solving code,' said Floater, hovering as close to the ceiling as possible.

'Yes, well. My problem-solving code took too much space on the disk,' said 22-8 morosely.

Floater shook his head in disbelief. 'So you deleted it? To make room for what?'

22-8 lowered his head and whispered something that sounded very much like "dank memes" before falling silent. ~ Louise Blackwick

I made a decision to live outside the city in northern California. My agent said to me, 'Kid, you're going to make a mint in television movies.' He positioned me, and we picked really good projects, and I cornered that market. They were 20-day projects. ~ Mare Winningham

Beware of driving men to desperation. Even a cornered rat is dangerous. ~ Winston Churchill

I sometimes wish my childhood had been less obsessed with the question of why we are here. But that must be the question of any childhood. To write about your mother and father is to tell the story of your own close call, to count all the ways you never should have existed. To write about home is to write about how you dropped from space, dragging ellipses behind you like a comet, and how you entered your country and state and city, and finally your four-cornered house, and finally your mother's body and finally your own. From the galaxy to the grain and back again. From the fingerprint to the grand design. Despite all the conspiracies of the universe, we are here; every moment we are here we arrive. ~ Patricia Lockwood

I can dance like an angel, fight like a cornered bear, plan better than a fox, sing like a nightingale ... ~ Neil Gaiman

IN THE UNFORTUNATE EVENT THAT YOU FIND YOURSELF CORNERED BY A MEMBER OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN, PICK YOUR NOSE. ~ Pseudonymous Bosch

And were you cornered by her,
eye to eye,
you would see that
there are still some watchful creatures
whose essence lies unbound by words.
There is still a wilderness. ~ Toby Barlow

Unlike the beasts of the wild, the many cruel varieties of human monsters, when at last cornered, seldom fight with greater ferocity. Instead, they reveal the cowardice at the core of their brutality. ~ Dean Koontz

Even the most innocent person, when cornered, is capable of a heartless crime. ~ Yiyun Li

A Rattlesnake, if Cornered will become so angry it will bite itself. That is exactly what the harboring of hate and resentment against others is - a biting of oneself. We think we are harming others in holding these spites and hates, but the deeper harm is to ourselves. ~ E. Stanley Jones