Crawl Quotes

Love is hungry and severe. Love is not unselfish or bashful or servile or gentle. Love demands everything. Love is not serene, and it keeps no records. Love sometimes gives up, loses faith, even hope, and it cannot endure everything. Love, sometimes, ends. But its memory lasts forever, and forever it may come again. Love is not a mountain, it is a wheel. No harsher praxis exists in this world. There are three things that will beggar the heart and make it crawl - faith, hope and love - and the cruelest of these is love. ~ Catherynne M Valente

I remember when "atheist" was a scary word.

I remember little suits, on little boys, with no lapels.

I remember dining room table leaves.

I remember a brief period of "bad breath" concern: the product of a health class at school.

I remember that "most bad breath is caused by germs."

I remember that germs are everywhere!

I remember trying to visualize germs (physically) as they crawl around all over everything.

I remember that my vision of germs pretty much resembled normal insects, only much smaller, of course.

I remember sneezing into my hand, out in public, and then the problem of what to "do" with it. ~ Joe Brainard

Vichy proves one thing: if you don't want to know how low your fellow citizens can fall, and crawl, don't lose a war. ~ Frederic Raphael

Time plays no role in the life of one man - the subtle consciousness of it floating past me is more than enough. Years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds - what does it matter? Floating by, it rubs against my skin, face, and hair - wearing me down, yet polishing me all the while. Time is like fine grains of sand in a desert storm. At first, you don't pay any attention to it, but the more it hits you in the face, the more aware of it you become, the more annoying it gets until, one day, you find yourself suffocating. The weight of it eventually bends your spine, until you are crawling on your hands and knees, unable to stand straight. Then comes the time to crawl back into the womb, crawl inside and wait for rebirth. ~ Henry Martin

Nature is evil. Nature is conflict, violence, betrayal; worms that crawl through the skin and breen in the gut; thorns that poison; snakes that fight in writhing, heaving masses until all lie dead from another's poison. From nature we learned to tear the flesh off the bone and suck out the blook - and to enjoy it. Do you want to return to that state? I do not. ~ Donna Boyd

You don't really want my side of the story. You don't want to understand me, know me, to crawl inside of my head. You don't want to feel the things I've felt. You just want to know that one thing: why.
Fine. Here's why: Her. I did it all for her. ~ Jess Walter

I made so many promises when I arrived here.
Now I'm not so sure. Now I'm worried. Now my mind is a traitor because my thoughts crawl out of bed every morning with darting eyes and sweating palms and nervous giggles that sit in my chest, build in my chest, threaten to burst through my chest, and the pressure is tightening and tightening and tightening
Life around here isn't what I expected it to be. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Hey," she whispered to Malachi. "When are Irin considered adults?"

He was following what looked to be a quiet argument between Sari and Mala. "Full adults? Around sixty to seventy-five years. When we're finished with our training. Why?"

She flushed. Wow.

"So, you're quite the cradle robber, aren't you?"

Malachi turned to her abruptly. "What? No, I'm not."

"I'm not even thirty. That's like... a teenager to you guys."

She could see the flush crawl up his neck, even behind the beard. "You're human. You mature differently."

"But I'm not really human."

His shoulders were stiff and his posture screamed his discomfort. It was really a shame Ava found teasing him to be so amusing.

"I mean, what would your mom say if she found out you were mated-and I mean well and thoroughly mated- to what she would basically consider a kid?"

He wiped a hand over his forehead. "Heaven above, please stop talking."

"So are we going to stop fooling around now?"

He groaned. "Ava."

"I'm just yanking your chain."

"You're going to have to speak up, because the mental lecture my mother's memory is giving me right now is rather loud. ~ Elizabeth Hunter

through all the
weariness
and depression
and troubled sighs
at the end of the
wailing day
it was enough
to remove my clothing
crawl into bed
and kiss her
in places the
sun never
touches."
-Christopher Poindexter ~ Christopher Poindexter

Forever"

by Logan Keeley

October 18, 20xx




Lying beside me in the failure of flesh,

You wait for the words that will let your mind rest,

But I've already left you - I'm inside this song,

I'm chasing the rhythms that split right from wrong,

Forming chords on your shoulder, tracing notes on your hips,

I can't hear your thoughts as they fall from your lips, and


Every day I give away

A piece of me all torn and frayed -

What I can't keep, I sell for cheap,

Til nothing's left for you and me -



Chorus:

How can so much love feel like nothing at all?

How can so much nothing leave me dying to crawl

To the foot of your bed,

I should be with you - instead,

I walk away, stumbling, waiting, always waiting to fall.


When you look in my eyes, can you see I'm not there,

Just skin over bones and this flesh that I bear,

And there's no room for you, and you know I can never

Get out of myself, get over myself,

For even one moment, much less for forever.



They all take their shares and they all think they see

This stranger inside who pretends to be me.

They're a roomful of mirrors in this funhouse of fame,

I shrink and I grow, I am wild, I am tame,
< ~ Jeri Smith-Ready

I'm more of a thriller-horror fan - things that could really happen. I don't like scary movies, the 'Saw' movies scare the crap out of me - I think I've seen two of them and I wanted to go crawl in a hole. ~ Katee Sackhoff

So, what do they pay you for ... exactly?"
Slapped around. Tied up. Beaten. Given orders, made to do things."
"What kind of things?"
"You know."
No, I can't even begin to imagine."
"Lick my boots, crawl on floor, eat like dog."
"Nothing useful, then, like hoovering? ~ Kate Atkinson

Nix to Declan:

Begin transcript -
Testing. Hello, hellooo, anybody out there? Check, check, one, two. Soft pee. Puh, puh. Resonance! Sooooooft pee. Alpha bravo disco tango duck.
This is Nïx! I'm the Ever-Knowing One, a goddess incandescent, incomparable, and irresistible. But enough about what you think of me. It's a beautiful day in New Orleans. The wind is out of the east at a steady five knots and clouds look like rabbits … But enough about what you think of me!
Now, down to business -
Squirrel!
Where was I? [Long pause] Why am I in Regin's car? Bertil, you crawl right back out of that bong this minute!
Oh, I remember! I am hereby laying down this track for Magister Declan Chase. If you are a mortal of the recorder peon class, know that Dekko and I go waaaaay back, and he'll go berserk (snicker snicker) if he doesn't receive this transmittal. …
Chase, riddle me this: what's beautiful but monstrous, long of tooth but sharp of tooth and soft of mind, and can never ever tell a lie?
That's right. The Enemy of Old can be very useful to you. So use him already.
P.S. Your middle name's about to be spelled r-e-g-r-e-t.
And with that, I must bid you adieu. Don't worry, we'll catch up very soon. …
[Muffled] Who's mummy's wittle echolocator? That's right - you are!
- End transcript ~ Kresley Cole

History and societies do not crawl. They make jumps. They go from fracture to fracture, with a few vibrations in between. Yet we (and historians) like to believe in the predictable, small incremental progression. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Cricket walks several steps behind me. It's a careful distance. I wonder if he's looking at my butt.
WHY DID I JUST THINK THAT? Now my butt feels COLOSSAL. Maybe he's looking at my legs. Is that better? Or worse? Do I want him looking at me? I hold on to the bottom of my dress as I climb into the backseat and crawl to the other side. I'm sure he's looking at my butt. He has to be. It's huge, and it's right there, and it's huge.
No. I'm acting crazy.
I glance over, and he smiles at me as he buckles his seat belt.
My cheeks grow warm.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? ~ Stephanie Perkins

Thief!- how did you crawl into, crawl down alone into the death I wanted so badly and for so long ... ~ Anne Sexton

If you choose to crawl, so be it. If you choose to stroll, so be it. If you choose to fly, so be it. ~ Abhishek Kumar

One night i rode home - it was a confession - and i came staggering across the yard and i fell into the rosebush and crawled up the stairs on my hands and knees and i was sick on the floor beside my bed. In the morning I tried to tell him I was sorry, and do you know what he said? 'Why, Tom, you were just jolly'. 'Jolly,' if I did it. A drunken man didn't crawl home. Just Jolly ~ John Steinbeck

I don't know what other people are like, I haven't been able to crawl inside anybody else. ~ Iris Dement

Nothing got more serious than allowing a tortoise to crawl across your kitchen floor. ~ J. Lynn

What can I tell them? Sealed in their metallic shells like molluscs on wheels, how can I pry the people free? The auto as tin can, the park ranger as opener. Look here, I want to say, for godsake folks get out of them there machines, take off those fucking sunglasses and unpeel both eyeballs, look around; throw away those goddamned idiotic cameras! For chrissake folks what is this life if full of care we have no time to stand and stare? eh? Take off your shoes for a while, unzip your fly, piss hearty, dig your toes in the hot sand, feel that raw and rugged earth, split a couple of big toenails, draw blood! Why not? Jesus Christ, lady, roll that window down! You can't see the desert if you can't smell it. Dusty? Of course it's dusty - this is Utah! But it's good dust, good red Utahn dust, rich in iron, rich in irony. Turn that motor off. Get out of that peice of iron and stretch your varicose veins, take off your brassiere and get some hot sun on your old wrinkled dugs! You sir, squinting at the map with your radiator boiling over and your fuel pump vapor-locked, crawl out of that shiny hunk of GM junk and take a walk - yes, leave the old lady and those squawling brats behind for a while, turn your back on them and take a long quiet walk straight into the canyons, get lost for a while, come back when you damn well feel like it, it'll do you and her and them a world of good. Give the kids a break too, let them out of the car, let them go scrambling over rocks hunting for rattle ~ Edward Abbey

I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over the dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow, but I kept looking, and it could be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall. ~ Bram Stoker

Historia abscondita. - Every great human being exerts a retroactive force: for his sake all of history is placed in the balance again, and a thousand secrets of the past crawl out of their hiding places - into his sunshine. There is no way of telling what may yet become part of history. Perhaps the past remains essentially undiscovered! So many retroactive forces are still needed! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

My writing isn't a career or a craft or a hobby or anything like that. It is more like a tiny annex to my life, a little crawl space in which I occasionally end up by accident in the dark. ~ Gary Lutz

I don't know whether to cry or scream or do both. It feels like I've done more than enough of both. And it feels like I haven't done enough.

And at some point, I know I'm going to have to crawl out of this bed and pick up the pieces but right now, it can be just me. Just me, these four walls, and this bed.

The universe doesn't have to exist outside this bedroom, and that's perfectly okay. ~ Mason Deaver

My Father Still Sleeping After Surgery
In spite of himself,
my father loved me. In spite
of the hands that beat me, in spite
of the mouth that kept silent, in spite
of the face that turned cruel
as a gold Chinese king,
he could not control the love
that came out of him.
The body is monumental, a colossus
through which he breathes.
His hands crawl over his stomach
jerkily as sand crabs on five legs;
he makes a fist
like the fist of a newborn. ~ Toi Derricotte

Look, now, in the distance, a person, closer, it's two people, hand in hand, ankle deep in the froth. Sunrise in hair, blonde, green bikini, tall, shining. They kiss. Handsy things happening underneath hist trunks, her tongue.
Who wouldn't envy such youth, who wouldn't grieve what has been lost in watching. They come up the dune, she pushing him backward, up.
Study them from the balcony, holding your breath while the couple stops in a smooth bowl of sand, protected by the dunes. She pushes down his trunks, he takes off her bathing suit, top and bottom. Oh yes, you would return to your wife on hands and knees, crawl the distance of the eastern seaboard to feel her fingers once more in your hair.
You are unworthy of her. Yes. No.
Even as you think of flight, you're transfixed by the lovers, wouldn't dare move for fear of making them flap like birds into the blistered sky.
They step into each other, and it's hard to tell where one begins and one ends. Hands in hair and warmth on warmth, into the sand her red knees raised, his body moving.
It is time. Something odd happening though you are not ready for it. There is an overlap. You have seen this before, felt her breath on your nape, the heat of her beneath, and the cold damp of day on your back, the helpless overwhelm, a sense of crossing. The sex reaching it's culmination.
Come. Lip bitten to blood and finish with a roar and birds shoot up and crumbles in the pink folds of an ear. Serrat ~ Lauren Groff

I traveled to the page where scripture meets fiction.
The paper slept but the night in me woke up.

Black letters were now alive
and collectible in a material crawl.

I could not decipher their intentions anymore.
To what end did their shapes come forth?

To seduce or speak truth? ~ Fanny Howe

But what can happen over time is this: You wake up one day and realize that you have put yourself back together completely differently. That you are whole, finally, and strong – but you are now a different shape, a different size. This sort of change - the change that occurs when you sit inside your own pain - it's revolutionary. When you let yourself die, there is suddenly one day: new life. You are Different. New. And no matter how hard you try, you simply cannot fit into your old life anymore. You are like a snake trying to fit into old, dead skin, or a butterfly trying to crawl back into the cocoon, or new wine trying to pour itself back into an old wineskin. This new you is equal parts undeniable and terrifying.

Because you just do not fit. And suddenly you know that. And you have become a woman who doesn't ignore her knowing. Who doesn't pretend she doesn't know. Because pretending makes you sick. And because you never promised yourself an easy life, but you did promise yourself a true one. You did promise – back when you were putting yourself back together – that you'd never betray you again. ~ Glennon Doyle Melton

Hermione slid out of her bunk and moved like a sleepwalker towards Ron, her eyes upon his pale face. She stopped right in front of him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. Ron gave a weak, hopeful smile and half-raised his arms.
Hermione launched herself forwards and started punching every inch of him that she could reach.
'Ouch - ow - gerroff! What the - ? Hermione - OW!'
"You - complete - arse - Ronald - Weasley!"
She punctuated every word with a blow: Ron backed away, shielding his head as Hermione advanced.
"You - crawl - back - here - after - weeks - and - weeks - oh, where's my wand?"
She looked as though ready to wrestle it out of Harry's hands and he reacted instinctively.
"Protego! ~ J.K. Rowling

What would you have me do?
Seek for the patronage of some great man,
And like a creeping vine on a tall tree
Crawl upward, where I cannot stand alone?
No thank you! Dedicate, as others do,
Poems to pawnbrokers? Be a buffoon
In the vile hope of teasing out a smile
On some cold face? No thank you! Eat a toad
For breakfast every morning? Make my knees
Callous, and cultivate a supple spine,-
Wear out my belly grovelling in the dust?
No thank you! Scratch the back of any swine
That roots up gold for me? Tickle the horns
Of Mammon with my left hand, while my right
Too proud to know his partner's business,
Takes in the fee? No thank you! Use the fire
God gave me to burn incense all day long
Under the nose of wood and stone? No thank you!
Shall I go leaping into ladies' laps
And licking fingers?-or-to change the form-
Navigating with madrigals for oars,
My sails full of the sighs of dowagers?
No thank you! Publish verses at my own
Expense? No thank you! Be the patron saint
Of a small group of literary souls
Who dine together every Tuesday? No
I thank you! Shall I labor night and day
To build a reputation on one song,
And never write another? Shall I find
True genius only among Geniuses,
Palpitate over little paragraphs,
And struggle to insinuate my name
In the columns of the Mercury?
No thank you! Calculate, scheme, be a ~ Edmond Rostand

One day I asked a wingless bird what will she do now. She replied, "If I can't fly than I shall run. If I can't run I shall walk. If I can't walk I shall crawl. But I will never be stuck in cage. ~ Joyce Guo

I cannot follow you Christians; for you try to crawl through your life upon your knees, while I stride through mine on my feet. ~ Charles Bradlaugh

On a normal day, I crawl out of bed before 8 A.M., have a protein shake, chuck my gym kit on, and go for a class or personal-training session. When I'm back, I'll have poached eggs with salmon or spinach for breakfast before my stylists arrive to do my hair - which takes ages. I then go wherever I am needed. ~ Ella Eyre

Can I have a glass of water?" Her voice was hoarse, probably from screaming. She'd always sounded like that after they'd-

He didn't just force the thought aside. He clubbed it unconscious, threw it into a crawl space and walled it up alive. ~ Jenny Trout

When you wanted it to hurry up, it slowed to a crawl. When you desperately needed more, it rushed ahead. Time was such an asshole. ~ Annette Marie

What dark corner of the soul did you crawl out of? ~ Jerry O'Connell

I can't crawl any further. You never crawled for me. ~ Tom Petty

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

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

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

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

What was meant to float will never drown.
What was meant to soar will never plunge.
What was meant to ascend will never tumble.
What was meant to hasten will never delay.
What was meant to grow will never shrink.
What was meant to bloom will never wither.
What was meant to flourish will never falter.
What was meant to thrive will never wane.
What was meant to start will never end.

Who was meant to go will never come.
Who was meant to leave will never stay.
Who was meant to run will never crawl.
Who was meant to stand will never sit.
Who was meant to continue will never quit.
Who was meant to thrive will never perish.
Who was meant to gain will never lose.
Who was meant to conquer will never bow.
Who was meant to rise will never fall. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

But Galen hasn't been responsible in looking for road signs since this conversation first started. Even now, another exit-maybe theirs-zooms by them. He's in a bit of awe of human drivers who seem to be able to conduct all sorts of business while driving. Apparently, Galen isn't capable of carrying on simple conversations while watching for road signs. The worst part is, they should be reaching their exit any time now. But then again, Galen hasn't been able to drive the speed limit. Every time he gets up to speed, Grom tenses up and scowls at him until he slows down. Old people.
Abruptly, Galen sees their exit and takes it. He slows down to a crawl around the curve, which appears to irritate the driver behind him. But the driver behind him doesn't have hundreds of years left to put up with Grom. ~ Anna Banks

What is it about beauty that intimidates; causing us to kneel somewhere deep inside and pray and wonder just how close we might crawl before being banished from the sanctuary? ~ Jonathan Hull

And that's the problem. When you're
alive, people can hurt you. It's easier to crawl into a bone
cage or a snowdrift of confusion. It's easier to lock everybody
out.
But it's a lie. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

For me, therapy is partly translation therapy, the talking cure a second-language cure. My going to a shrink is, among other things, a rite of initiation: initiation into the language of the subculture within which I happen to live, into a way of explaining myself to myself. But gradually, it becomes a project of translating backward.
The way to jump over my Great Divine is to crawl backward over it in English. It's only when I retell my whole story, back to the beginning, and from the beginning onward, in one language, that I can reconcile the voices within me with each other; it is only then that the person who judges the voices and tells the stories begins to emerge. ~ Eva Hoffman

And another way of explaining it is to say that shit happens, and there's no space too small, too dark and airless and fucking hopeless, for people to crawl into. ~ Nick Hornby

Ruin your fucking self before they do. Otherwise they'll screw you because you're a nobody. They'll keep you alive but you'll have to crawl and say "thank-you" for every bone they throw. You might as well stay drunk or shoot junk and be a crazy fucker. If the rich guys want to play with you, make them get their hands dirty. Send them away gagging, or sobbing if they're soft-hearted. You'll be left alone if you're frightening, and dead you're free! ~ Jenny Holzer

There are only two choices in life: Fight. or crawl in a corner to die. The second choice, while tempting at times, is never acceptable. ~ Jonathan Heatt

Alan Scheflin reports on some of the children who received stereotaxic surgery in the sixties and seventies. He lists several doctors who performed such surgery on children because they suffered from behavioral problems such as "wandering." One young boy would sneak away from his home and crawl underneath an automobile in order to smell the oil. Two groups were as young as two and four years old when surgery took place for "violent behavior. ~ Carol Rutz

Let's feed out tears to the dragons of misery, but let's never crawl in their mouths. ~ Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

For me it is essential to understand that everyone is alone. Not in the sense of loneliness, but rather in the sense that no one can completely understand someone else. I know very well what Diane Arbus means when she says that one cannot crawl into someone else's skin, but there is always an urge to do so anyway. I want to awaken definite sympathies for the person I have photographed. ~ Rineke Dijkstra

I think I have grown wise enough
To not to wish to climb up the stairs
'M gonna sit, walk, crawl, swing by on the step I am
And let the upper ones have their stare ~ Mansi Laus Deo

Sometimes when I look at them from a distance, I try and squint my eyes and clear my mind. I peer at them the way a stranger would - without any emotions, just observations. In this large fortress I had created around my heart, the one that let me enter situations easily and leave even more easily, how did they find a cat flap that allowed them to crawl into my soul? ~ Twinkle Khanna

My balls crawl up my throat. ~ D.B.C. Pierre

Georgie was the good in me. Without her, I was sure I'd sink into the darkness of my mind and never emerge. She gave me the light to keep coming back. To crawl away from the evil I was surrounded by, the nightmares, the coldness, and she made me human again." Deck ~ Nashoda Rose

Some had hurled spears first. Those spears thumped into our shields, making them unwieldy, but it hardly mattered. The leading Danes tripped on the hidden timbers and the men behind pushed the falling men forward. I kicked one in the face, feeling my iron-reinforced boot crush bone. Danes were sprawling at our feet while others tried to get past their fallen comrades to reach our line, and we were killing. Two men succeeded in reaching us, despite the smoking barricade, and one of those two feel to Wasp-Sting coming up from beneath his shield-rim. He had been swinging an ax that the man behind me caught on his shield and the Dane was still holding the war ax's shaft as I saw his eyes widen, saw the snarl of his mouth turn to agony as I saw his eyes widen, saw the snarl of his mouth turn to agony as I twisted the blade, ripping it upward, and as Cerdic, beside me, chopped his own ax down. The man with the crushed face was holding my ankle and I stabbed at him as the blood spray from Cerdic's ax blinded me. The whimpering man at my feet tried to crawl away, but Finan stabbed his sword into his thigh, then stabbed again. A Dane had hooked up his ax over the top rim of my shield and hauled it down to expose my body to a spear-thrust, but the ax rolled off the circular shield and the spear was deflected upward and I slammed Wasp-Sting forward again, felt her bite, twisted her, and Finan was keening his mad Irish song as he added his own blade to the slaughter. "Keep the shields to ~ Bernard Cornwell

You're about to pay so hard for that, acushla. You think because I let you crawl all over me like a slippery eel that I'll take you talking about another man that way with hunger in your voice? ~ V. Theia

Two coconuts dropped beside him. Each went about its death throes with a slight bounce and languorous crawl then fell still. ~ Darrell Drake

If we all leap before we crawl, we might fall. ~ Lisa Loeb

I partnered you with Jim all those years ago because you were complimentary kinds of crazy. You kept each other in check. I need you to not crawl back inside your own skull and watch the world with binoculars from deep cover. ~ Warren Ellis

I am a cemetery abhorred by the moon, In which long worms crawl like remorse. ~ Charles Baudelaire

Dark and drear, fear and weep
Are the spots where the Goobleys crawl and keep
And their minds are small if they have them at all
And their eyes are BIG!!! ~ Craig Herbertson

I scroll past images every bit as violent and beautiful as Jeb's paintings: luminious, rainbow-skinned creatures with bulbous eyes and sparkly, silken wings who carry knives and swords; hideous, naked hobgoblins in chains who crawl on all fours and have corkscrew tails and cloven feet like pigs; silvery pixielike beings trapped in cages and crying oily black tears. ~ A.G. Howard

The sheep stampeded away because sheep are smart enough not to trust anyone for anything, especially not people who sleep in and crawl out of sheds, and I couldn't disagree with those sheep because I would run away from me, too, if I was a sheep and not me and even if I was me, I'd still like, some mornings, to be the thing running far from me instead of sewn inside myself forever. ~ Catherine Lacey

Mr. Duffy Napp has just transmitted a nine-word e-mail asking that I immediately send a letter of reference to your firm on his behalf; his request has summoned from the basement of my heart a star-spangled constellation of joy, so eager am I to see Mr. Napp well established at Maladin IT.

As for the basis of our acquaintanceship: I am a professor in an English department whose members consult Tech Help - aka Mr. Napp - only in moments of desperation. For example, let us imagine that a computer screen, on the penultimate page of a lengthy document, winks coyly, twice, and before the "save" button can be deployed, adopts a Stygian façade. In such a circumstance one's only recourse - unpalatable though it may be - is to plead for assistance from a yawning adolescent who will roll his eyes at the prospect of one's limited capabilities and helpless despair. I often imagine that in olden days people like myself would crawl to the doorway of Tech Help on our knees, bearing baskets of food, offerings of the harvest, the inner organs of neighbors and friends - all in exchange for a tenuous promise from these careless and inattentive gods that the thoughts we entrusted to our computers will be restored unharmed.

Colleagues have warned me that the departure of Mr. Napp, our only remaining Tech Help employee, will leave us in darkness. I am ready. I have girded my loins and dispatched a secular prayer in the hope that, given the abysmal job market, a former maso ~ Julie Schumacher

In order to understand how engineers endeavor to insure against such structural, mechanical, and systems failures, and thereby also to understand how mistakes can be made and accidents with far-reaching consequences can occur, it is necessary to understand, at least partly, the nature of engineering design. It is the process of design, in which diverse parts of the 'given-world' of the scientist and the 'made-world' of the engineer are reformed and assembled into something the likes of which Nature had not dreamed, that divorces engineering from science and marries it to art. While the practice of engineering may involve as much technical experience as the poet brings to the blank page, the painter to the empty canvas, or the composer to the silent keyboard, the understanding and appreciation of the process and products of engineering are no less accessible than a poem, a painting, or a piece of music. Indeed, just as we all have experienced the rudiments of artistic creativity in the childhood masterpieces our parents were so proud of, so we have all experienced the essence of structual engineering in our learning to balance first our bodies and later our blocks in ever more ambitious positions. We have learned to endure the most boring of cocktail parties without the social accident of either our bodies or our glasses succumbing to the force of gravity, having long ago learned to crawl, sit up, and toddle among our tottering towers of blocks. If we could remember those earl ~ Henry Petroski

So Wolf, what did you do?" – Sundown
"You mean before or after I soiled my jeans? Which, by the way, I want kudos for coming back in the cab when I could have gone home. The foot valve was stuck. It doesn't happen often. But it can happen as you just saw. If you're lucky you can pop it back out from the cab. Obviously, given the horrors of this night, I wasn't lucky so I had to crawl under the damn thing at ninety miles an hour and pound it out from underneath. I don't ever want to hang like that under a speeding vehicle again. I swear I just lost eight of my nine lives." – Sasha
"What is it with you the cat analogies?" – Sundown ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

I believe God has instilled in us a craving, a deep desire to run with Him on a fantastic adventure, yet many of us crawl along in life without even a glimpse of our hidden passion. There has to be a reason for living. There must be a Camelot, a hidden Utopia where we can rest from our personal campaigns. Fantasy opens our eyes to a better place, a shining city we do not yet know. And these stories provide a mental bridge to that city as we pursue horizons we could never distinguish with our physical eyes. ~ Bryan Davis

You can't see anything from a car; you've got to get out of the goddamn contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thornbrush and cactus. When traces of blood begin to mark your trail, you'll see something, maybe. ~ Edward Abbey

I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin, especially when people start questioning me. ~ Skeet Ulrich

I wished I were a snake, so I could crawl out of my skin. ~ Lisa Lutz

I am the camera's eye. I am the machine that shows you the world as I alone see it. Starting from today I am forever free of human immobility. I am in perpetual movement. I approach and draw away from things-I crawl under them-I climb on them-I am on the head of a galloping horse. ~ Dziga Vertov

But this time it was not pain that filled the empty shell, but feelings, flooding back, bringing knowledge and realisation. Here, and now, and his once more. Vadim. Forever and always. Vadim. His.
And Dan cried, helplessly, while his good hand clawed at the other's body, his body pressed so close, as if he was trying to crawl inside. ~ Marquesate & Vashtan

Notwithstanding how uncanny moments of life might be, you never walk backwards. Once you take a step, you move forward by a step with a step. That is life! Even a child would never crawl backward and so would streams hardly flow backward. Just keep moving when it is a must to move! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Bullets can harm you and death can disarm you, but no, you will not be deceived. Stripped of all virtue as you crawl through the dirt, you can give but you cannot receive. ~ Bob Dylan

Ali and the woman whose baby crawled out on the roof


A woman comes to Ali. My baby has crawled out on the roof near

the water drain, where I cannot go. He won't listen to me. I talk, but he doesn't understand

language. I make gestures. I show him my breast, but he turns away. What can I do?

Take another baby his age up to the roof. The woman does, and the child sees his friend and

crawls away from the edge. The prophets are human for this reason, that we may see them

and delight in their friendly presence, and crawl away from the downspout. Muhammad calls himself

a man like you. Likeness is a great drawing force. Those of mean dispositions learn hatred

from each other, and they try to draw others in. Anyone whose haystack has burned

does not enjoy seeing someone else's candle lit. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi

Oh? Did you think he was some paragon of purity? I've seen him kill girls younger than you. I've seen him wind women up to crawl to his bed. ~ Elise Kova

How many times have I turned away? How may voices have I chosen to ignore, my own not least of all? How far into darkness, into shadow, must one crawl not to see? And how can the blind walk out? - C.V. Dreesman, The Marksmith ~ C.V. Dreesman

BORN TO CRAWL, REBORN TO FLY ~ Billy Graham

There is probably something good in every religion, the important thing is how you practice it. And this is when I found out that the most beautiful thing is to be able to live with a religion. Not just by displaying it and going to church and all, but by really being able to live some of these thoughts in your everyday life. This is a good thought. My problem right now is - and I just went to a Catholic service in connection with my daughter's something-or-another - and I got so damn annoyed by the fact that every text was about humility in relation to God. That's annoying, and I keep on being annoyed by it. Granted, the texts were written by people and not by God, but it's still so annoying. I don't see the meaning of you being humble just because you've been created by God and He has created all this. You can be humble toward life and toward other human beings and toward creativity and everything - and you are - but being humble toward the man who has created the whole circus? Of course, but you shouldn't have to prostrate yourself, and you do that in many religions - you crawl in the dust before these gods. Why? I can see why some king down here on earth might enjoy seeing people crawling before him, but if this guy is that great, then he shouldn't care whether I bow down before him or whether I play around with my dick at night - he shouldn't care a bit about anything like that. As long as I don't do anything that will harm his creation, as long as I don't kill, say, too ~ Lars Von Trier

There was, for example, the theory that A'Tuin had come from nowhere and would continue at a uniform crawl, or steady gait, into nowhere, for all time. This theory was popular among academics. ~ Terry Pratchett

Occasionally she'd stay over at my apartment after we'd talked until the wee hours, but there was never even the slightest hint of romance. Come 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. and she'd yawn, crawl into bed, sink her face into my pillow, and fall fast asleep. I'd spread out some bedding on the floor and lie down, but I wouldn't be able to sleep, my mind full of fantasies, confused thoughts, self-loathing. Sometimes the inevitable physical reactions would cause me grief, and I'd lie awake in misery until dawn. It ~ Haruki Murakami

You would like to know how I behave when I am experiencing pain, not writing books about it. You need not guess, for I will tell you; I am a great coward... If I knew any way of escape I would crawl through sewers to find it. But what is the good of telling you about my feelings? You know them already; they are the same as yours. I am not arguing that pain is not painful. Pain hurts. That is what the word means. I am only trying to show that the old Christian doctrine of being made 'perfect through suffering' is not incredible. To prove it palatable is beyond my design. ~ C.S. Lewis

Scarlet sat up, heat rushing to her face as she was struck with an almost irresistible yearning to crawl toward him - not to get off the train's roof, but to be wrapped up against him again. To feel warm and safe and content, just for another moment. She smashed the desire down into her gut. Wolf ~ Marissa Meyer

Once again the absurdity of my inner thoughts overwhelms me, and I want to crawl out of my skin, escape my ugly, awkward flesh and be a skeleton, naked and anonymous. ~ Isaac Marion

Let them be anything but the creatures which leap and crawl and slither and shamble in the world between. Let there be God, let there be Sunday morning, let there be smiling Episcopalian ministers in shining white surplices... but let there not be these dark and draggling horrors on the nightside of the universe. ~ Stephen King

THINGS perplex me
irritate and disgust me
THINGS disaffect me
when they try
to make me crawl.

THINGS persecute me
Those which try to usurp me
THINGS that have
no meaning
without me.

THINGS annoy me
when others worship them
THINGS that approximate I
to me and are
put in my place.

THINGS nauseate me,
good, bad, indifferent
THINGS; like flies
in a calabash
of sour milk.

I prefer people
laughter and comfort
the use and pleasure of science.
But my head aches when all I hear is
THINGS, THINGS, THINGS. ~ Lenrie Peters

In life, some laugh, some cry, some live, some die. The choice is ours to crawl or to fly.-RVM ~ R.v.m.

What - in other words - would modern boredom be without terror? One of the most boring documents of all time is the thick volume of Hitler's Table Talk. He too had people watching movies, eating pastries, and drinking coffee with Schlag while he bored them, while he discoursed theorized expounded. Everyone was perishing of staleness and fear, afraid to go to the toilet. This combination of power and boredom has never been properly examined. Boredom is an instrument of social control. Power is the power to impose boredom, to command stasis, to combine this stasis with anguish. The real tedium, deep tedium, is seasoned with terror and with death.

There were even profounder questions. For instance, the history of the universe would be very boring if one tried to think of it in the ordinary way of human experience. All that time without events! Gases over and over again, and heat and particles of matter, the sun tides and winds, again this creeping development, bits added to bits, chemical accidents - whole ages in which almost nothing happens, lifeless seas, only a few crystals, a few protein compounds developing. The tardiness of evolution is so irritating to contemplate. The clumsy mistakes you see in museum fossils. How could such bones crawl, walk, run? It is agony to think of the groping of the species - all this fumbling, swamp-creeping, munching, preying, and reproduction, the boring slowness with which tissues, organs, and members developed. And then the bored ~ Saul Bellow

You could still be lying," says the Roach. He turns to Cardan. "Try her."

"Your pardon?" Cardan says, drawing himself up, and the Roach seems to suddenly remember to whom he's speaking in such an offhanded way.

"Don't be such a prickly rose, Your Majesty," the Roach says with a shrug and a grin. "I'm not giving you an order. I'm suggesting that if you tried to glamour Jude, we could find out the truth."

Cardan sighs and walks toward me. I know this is necessary. I know that he doesn't intend to hurt me. I know he can't glamour me. And yet I draw back automatically.

"Jude?" he asks.

"Go ahead," I say.

I hear the glamour enter his voice, heady and seductive and more powerful than I expected. "Crawl to me," he says with a grin. Embarrassment pinks my cheeks.

I stay where I am, looking at all their faces. "Satisfied?"

The Bomb nods. "You're not charmed. ~ Holly Black

Laughing can serve you in dark moments and even help you crawl your way back out. ~ Ryan Reynolds

If you can't run, then walk. And if you can't walk, then crawl. Do what you have to do. Just keep moving forward and never, ever give up. ~ Dean Karnazes

Go for broke, my friends. Straighten your spine when you step to the podium. Trust your own tongue. Believe that your weary legs will hold you until you reach the finish line. And reach it you will if you give it your all. Fall if you must, crawl if you must, but don't you dare give up or give in until you've made it to the end. For at the end is where your great reward will be to begin anew. A new chance. A new life. A new you. ~ Toni Sorenson

I wanted a bath, even if it were dust. A strigil to scrape the skin that I couldn't crawl out of. ~ Debora Greger

I have no special desire to go crawl around in caves, but I really like the word [spelunking] and want to use it in conversation. I do a lot of things just to use words I like. ~ Evan Mandery

I cannot but conclude that the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth. ~ Jonathan Swift

I love being in cities with lots of other people, because I'm reminded that there are billions of people like me, and we are each stuck inside of our minds, feverishly trying to crawl out to make connections with other people. ~ John Green

An empty house had a particular sound, Colton had come to realize: a sigh made without lungs, the silent crawl of time passing with no one to measure it in beats of words and breaths. No one to speak to or listen to or watch. A loneliness that was cutting. ~ Tara Sim

I wanted to marry wood. I wanted to chew down some two–by–fours, crawl inside a tree, slide elm into my aorta so that every beat of every second was a grand waltz with luck. ~ Aimee Bender

Curran smiled.
"What's so funny?"
"Your panties have a bow," he said.
I looked down. I was wearing a short tank top - not mine - and my blue panties with a narrow white strip of lace at the top and a tiny white bow. Would it have killed me to check what I was wearing before I pulled the blanket down? "What's wrong with bows?"
"Nothing." He was grinning now. "I expected barbed wire. Or one of those steel chains."
Wiseass. "I'm secure enough in myself to wear panties with bows on them. Besides, they are comfy and soft."
"I bet." He almost purred.
I gulped. Okay, I needed to either crawl back into bed and cover myself with the blanket or get the hell to the bathroom and back. Since I didn't fancy peeing on myself, the bathroom was my only option.
"I don't suppose you'd mind giving me a bit of privacy for my trip?"
"Not a chance," he said.
I tried to get off the bed. Everything was under control until my weight actually hit my legs and then the room decided to crawl sideways. Curran caught me. His arm hugged my back, his touch sending an electric shiver along my skin. Oh no.
"Need some help, ass kicker?"
"I'm fine, thanks." I pushed away from him. He held on to me for a second, letting me know that he could restrain me against my will with laughable ease, and let go. I clenched my teeth. Enjoy it while it lasts. I'll be back on my feet soon.
I walked away from him, successfully maintaining vertical position, and ze ~ Ilona Andrews

Thanks," she murmured, fighting the urge to embrace him, to crawl into his arms and hide from the rest of the galaxy. Maybe forever. "Also" - his voice lowered - "you look beautiful." It was Iko who responded, "Thank you for noticing." Kai ~ Marissa Meyer