Desisted Crossword Quotes

I love words. Sudoku I don't get into, I'm not into numbers that much, and there are people who are hooked on that. But crossword puzzles, I just can't - if I get a puppy and I paper train him and I put the - if all of a sudden I'd open the paper and there's a crossword puzzle - 'No, no, you can't go on that, honey. I'll take it.' ~ Betty White

The human mind is stimulated by change, motivated by meeting the challenge of novelty or threat or pleasure, rewarded with the sensations of being instrumental in altering environments, and will persevere in this as long as there is some degree of perceivable progress. People turn to knitting baby booties, doing crossword puzzles, collecting rare coins; they may even make an effort to understand E=mc2 or to study the genetic adaptations of cacti, but in all cases, they need to see some fruit of their labors. ~ Michael D. O'Brien

Because I can't help doing it," he said with a shrug. "And hey, if I keep loving you, maybe you'll eventually crack and love me too. Hell, I'm pretty sure you're already half in love with me."
"I am not! And everything you just said is ridiculous. That's terrible logic."
Adrian returned to his crossword puzzle. "Well, you can think what you want, so long as you remember-no matter how ordinary things seem between us-I'm still here, still in love with you, and care about you more than any other guy, evil or otherwise, ever will."
"I don't think you're evil."
"See? Things are already looking promising. ~ Richelle Mead

Thank you for your attempt at trying to be thoughtful while stealing shit from me." He picked up a crossword booklet from a chair and tossed it into the trash. "And for filling out my fucking crossword puzzles without me having to ask. I'm not sure how I've ever survived this long without you. ~ Whitney G.

There seem to be two main types of people in the world, crosswords and sudokus. ~ Rebecca McKinsey

I would prefer to live forever in perfect health, but if I must at some time leave this life, I would like to do so ensconced on a chaise longue, perfumed, wearing a velvet robe and pearl earrings, with a flute of champagne beside me and having just discovered the answer to the last problem in a British cryptic crossword. ~ Olivia De Havilland

I looked at my sister, so tired and yet so happy, and I admit I felt a little envious. And the whole thing still seemed unreal and incomplete to me, and I couldn't really believe it had happened without me. It was as if I had put only one word in a crossword puzzle and someone else finished it when I turned my back. Even more embarrassing, I actually felt a little bit guilty that I hadn't been there, even though I wasn't invited. Debs had been in danger without me, and that felt wrong. Completely stupid and irrational, not at all like me, but there it was. ~ Jeff Lindsay

I get up, go and get a coffee, and go do the crossword - I'm loyal to one particular paper, the 'Guardian' - and that's my idea of a perfect morning. ~ Laura Marling

She's holding a crossword magazine in her hand. Britt-Marie likes crosswords very much because there are very clear rules about how to do them, She only ever does them in pencil, though - Granny always said Britt-Marie was the sort of woman who would have to drink two glasses of wine and feel really wild and crazy to be able to fantasise about solving a crossword in ink. ~ Fredrik Backman

Well, my epic freedom moment was short-lived, because I realized my cell phone was dead. I walked down the road to a gas station and asked if I could use the phone. I called Tracy and told her where I was and asked her to pick me up. When Tracy arrived I hopped in the car and the very first thing I said to her was "I gotta get home. I have to print out some TV guides and I need to write a letter to some of the guys in there." She started laughing and when she could compose herself enough to talk said, "My sisters and I all said we guarantee Noah is going to come out of jail with new friends. He's going to be friends with everybody."
I got home and immediately wrote a letter to Michael Bolton. I put my email address at the bottom. I printed out TV guides. I printed out crossword puzzles. I even printed a couple of pages of jokes and riddles and whatever would be fun to read and do and folded them up and put them in an envelope. All that was left to do was to write the address, put a stamp on the envelope, and put it in the mailbox. I put the envelope in the car in between the seat and the center console to take to the post office.
I must have been distracted or had to do something else because the envelope sat there for months. Every so often I would look at it and go, Oh crap, I haven't sent that yet. And then at some point I spilled something on it so I knew I would never send it now. I threw it out.
To this day I'm worried that one day I'm going to be at the ~ Noah Galloway

The Dark Prophecy
The words that memory wrought are set to fire,
Ere new moon rises o'er the Devils Mount.
The changeling lord shall face a dire,
Till bodies fill the Tiber beyond count.

Yet southward the sun now trace its course,
Through mazes dark to lands of scorching death
To find the master of the swift white horse
And wrest from him the crossword speaker's breath.

To westward palace must the Lester go;
Demeter's daughter finds her ancient roots.
The cloven guide alone the way does know,
To walk the path in thine own enemy's boots.

We three are known and Tiber reached alive,
'Tis only then Apollo starts to jive. ~ Rick Riordan

I was fortunate to be able to do two movies with Harold Ramis. He was the kindest of any director with whom I worked. Harold was a genius. On top of his talent, he could do the 'New York Times' crossword puzzle faster than anyone! I am lucky to have known him as well as I did. I will miss him. ~ Andie MacDowell

Egotism, n: Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen. ~ Ambrose Bierce

You're never quite sure where the song is going, because you might not find the word to rhyme with the end of the line. You have to find associative meaning to get you there. So it's rather like doing a crossword puzzle backwards. A kind of strange, three-dimensional, abstract crossword puzzle. ~ Annie Lennox

I don't want to retire. I'm not that good at crossword puzzles ~ Norman Mailer

Yes, I was a twenty-nine year old woman who lived with her mother. One who didn't do drugs, party, or have sex. I read books, drank the occasional beer on a hot afternoon, and did the Times crossword puzzle on Sunday afternoons. I hadn't attended college, I wasn't particularly gorgeous, and I often forgot to shave my legs. On the upside, I could cook some mean dumplings and bring myself to orgasm within five minutes. Not at the same time, mind you. I wasn't that talented. ~ Alessandra Torre

Sometimes I'll work through the crossword sections of three separate papers. ~ Samantha Bond

Introverts feel "just right" with less stimulation, as when they sip wine with a close friend, solve a crossword puzzle, or read a book. Extroverts enjoy the extra bang that comes from activities like meeting new people, skiing slippery slopes, and cranking up the stereo. ~ Susan Cain

Crossword puzzles, Sudoku ... I'm good at all those things. It's not daily, but I'll do stuff on the airplane. I love playing chess. It's my favorite game. ~ Larry Fitzgerald

It's not as if I'm trying to write crossword puzzles to which one might find an answer at the back of the book or anything like that. ~ Paul Muldoon

Winning an award is a great feeling but winning the Vodafone Crossword Popular Choice Award is particularly exhilarating because it is based upon public voting. I find it a strange quirk of fate that Chanakya's Chant, a political tale, should end up winning an election! ~ Ashwin Sanghi

Sorry, it's all those crossword puzzles I do. I love words ... ~ Dakota Cassidy

Whatever wisdom I have has been hard-earned – each meaning carefully culled out of the dictionary of human experiences and emotions and put in its precise place in the matrix. Meaning doesn't come easy. The Great Crossword Setter in the Sky is capricious and wilful, demanding absolute obedience. You can waste the better part of a lifetime arguing about the randomness of the clues, the setting of the squares, why a certain square is black and not white as you need it to be, question the whole point of doing the crossword – what, after all, is to be gained by solving it. Only after all the chattering is over and you give your complete attention to it, does the perfection of the pattern reveal itself. As is, where is, everything fits. And at the end, when it's all done, there is no reward to be had – the joy of doing it right is all the reward there ever is. (A Deepavali Gift) ~ Manjul Bajaj

His way of coping with the days was to think of activities as units of time, each unit consisting of about thirty minutes. Whole hours, he found, were more intimidating, and most things one could do in a day took half an hour. Reading the paper, having a bath, tidying the flat, watching Home and Away and Countdown, doing a quick crossword on the toilet, eating breakfast and lunch, going to the local shops ... That was nine units of a twenty-unit day (the evenings didn't count) filled by just the basic necessities. In fact, he had reached a stage where he wondered how his friends could juggle life and a job. Life took up so much time, so how could one work and, say, take a bath on the same day? He suspected that one or two people he knew were making some pretty unsavoury short cuts. ~ Nick Hornby

She nods, turning the silver bangle around on her wrist.
"She came from some village north of here, a few hours away. She traveled all the way to the city just to…"
She trails off, feeling a lump grow in her throat.
"…to take you to that orphanage?" Sanjay finishes for her.
Asha nods.
"And she gave me this."
She slides the bangle back on her wrist.
"They gave you everything they had to give," Sanjay says. He reaches across the table for her hand. "So how do you feel, now that you know?"
Asha gazes out the window.
"I used to write these letters, when I was a little girl," she says. "Letters to my mother, telling her what I was learning in school, who my friends were, the books I liked. I must have been about seven when I wrote the first one. I asked my dad to mail it, and I remember he got a really sad look in his eyes and he said,
'I'm sorry, Asha, I don't know where she is.'"
She turns back to face Sanjay.
"Then, as I got older, the letters changed. Instead of telling her about my life, I started asking all these questions. Was her hair curly? Did she like crossword puzzles? Why didn't she keep me?"
Asha shakes her head.
"So many questions."
"And now, I know," she continues. "I know where I came from, and I know I was loved. I know I'm a hell of a lot better off now than I would have been otherwise."
She shrugs.
"And that's enough for me. Some answers, I'll just have to figure ou ~ Shilpi Somaya Gowda

When asked "What do we need to learn this for?" any high-school teacher can confidently answer that, regardless of the subject, the knowledge will come in handy once the student hits middle age and starts working crossword puzzles in order to stave off the terrible loneliness. ~ David Sedaris

I became an actor because I love solving problems. I'm a big crossword puzzle person. I love doing research. One of the reasons I became Jewish is because I love text study. ~ Anthony Heald

Some people do crossword puzzles. I do books. ~ Betty Smith

But are you glad you went to college? Was it a good experience?"
I suppose it was. Althought I can't remember a single thing I learned. Except for Latin, and that's only because the nuns literally beat it into us and I use it sometimes for the crossword."
There were nuns at Radcliffe?"
Yes, it was all nuns."
Are you sure? At Radcliffe?"
Maybe it was high school."
But you aren't Catholic," I said. "I don't think you ever went to a parochial school."
Well, I distinctly remember nuns with sticks walking up and down the aisles as we recited Latin. Maybe it was a show I was in, but I doubt it because nuns don't beat children in musicals. ~ Peter Cameron

THUS I gave up myself to a readiness of being ruined without the least concern, and am a fair Memento to all young Women, whose Vanity prevails over their Virtue: Nothing was ever so stupid on both Sides, had I acted as became me, and resisted as Virtue and Honour requir'd; this Gentleman, had either Desisted his Attacks, find|ing no room to expect the Accomplishment of his Design, or had made fair, and honourable Proposals of Marriage; in which Case, whoever had blam'd him, no Body could have blam'd me.

In short, if he had known me, and how easy the Trifle he aim'd at, was to be had, he would have troubled his Head no farther, but have given me four or five Guineas, and have lain with me the next time he had come at me; and if I had known his Thoughts, and how hard he thought I would be to be gain'd, I might have made my own Terms with him; and if I had not Capitulated for an imme|diate Marriage, I might for a Maintenance till Marriage, and might have had what I would. ~ Daniel Defoe

The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution. ~ Stephen Sondheim

There's this moment sometimes, when you do a crossword puzzle and you have the one really long word. And once you get that, the whole thing kind of comes into focus. Sometimes it's just working things over in your mind and then finding that one line that kind of ties the song together, and now it works. It's a puzzle of sorts. ~ Craig Finn

Certainly not! I didn't build a machine to solve ridiculous crossword puzzles! That's hack work, not Great Art! Just give it a topic, any topic, as difficult as you like..."
Klapaucius thought, and thought some more. Finally he nodded and said:
"Very well. Let's have a love poem, lyrical, pastoral, and expressed in the language of pure mathematics. Tensor algebra mainly, with a little topology and higher calculus, if need be. But with feeling, you understand, and in the cybernetic spirit."
"Love and tensor algebra?" Have you taken leave of your senses?" Trurl began, but stopped, for his electronic bard was already declaiming:

Come, let us hasten to a higher plane,
Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn,
Their indices bedecked from one to n,
Commingled in an endless Markov chain!

Come, every frustum longs to be a cone,
And every vector dreams of matrices.
Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze:
It whispers of a more ergodic zone.

In Reimann, Hilbert or in Banach space
Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways.
Our asymptotes no longer out of phase,
We shall encounter, counting, face to face.

I'll grant thee random access to my heart,
Thou'lt tell me all the constants of thy love;
And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove,
And in bound partition never part.

For what did Cauchy know, or Christoffel,
Or Fourier, or any Boole or Euler, ~ Stanisław Lem

About 35-40% of the time, a player wants to create a word ending in a specific letter. This, however, is not the way we traditionally think, and, not to mention, this is not the way dictionaries are sorted. In other words, in many situations, conventional dictionaries are not arranged in an easy to use manner. This dictionary solves that problem by sorting on the last letter of the word. ~ Richard D. Ekstrom

A mama's boy, loner, intellectual, voracious reader and gourmand, Dimitri was a man of esoteric skills and appetites: a gambler, philosopher, gardener, fly-fisherman, fluent in Russian and German as well as having an amazing command of English. He loved antiquated phrases, dry sarcasm, military jargon, regional dialect, and the New York Times crossword puzzle - to which he was hopelessly addicted. ~ Anthony Bourdain

Inside a wool jacket the man had made a pocket for the treasure and from time to time he would jiggle the pocket, just to make sure that it was still there. And when on the train he rode to work he would jiggle it there also, but he would disguise his jiggling of the treasure on the train by devising a distraction. For example, the man would pretend to be profoundly interested in something outside the train, such as the little girl who seemed to be jumping high up on a trampoline, just high enough so that she could spy the man on the train, and in this way he really did become quite interested in what occurred outside the train, although he would still jiggle the treasure, if only out of habit. Also on the train he'd do a crossword puzzle and check his watch by rolling up his sleeve; when he did so he almost fell asleep. Antoine often felt his life to be more tedious with this treasure, because in order not to be overly noticed he had deemed it wise to fall into as much a routine as possible and do everything as casually as possible, and so, as a consequence, despite the fact that he hated his wife and daughter, he didn't leave them, he came home to them every night and he ate the creamed chicken that his wife would prepare for him, he would accept the large, fleshy hand that would push him around while he sat around in his house in an attempt to read or watch the weather, he took out the trash, he got up on time every morning and took a quick, cold shower, he shaved, he acce ~ Justin Dobbs

Within the same hour as the murder took place, Isabel Trumbo sat in her armchair dozing, the Alaskan Outdoor magazine on her lap. Her kid sister Alma fidgeted in the other armchair, from time to time picking up her newspaper folded over to the day's crossword puzzle. ~ Ed Lynskey

Change the setting, change the mood ... She'd taught him to make himself go outside if he was in, or inside if he was out, to interrupt the plummet with something as simple as making a cup of tea or spending a few minutes working on crossword puzzles. ~ Jennifer Weiner

My being a writer and playing Scrabble are connected. If I have a good writing day, I'll take a break and play online Scrabble. My favorite word as a child was 'carrion,' before I knew what it meant. I later created crossword puzzles, which was a lot about puns, and how words would create these strange, strange things. ~ Meg Wolitzer

He fakes a smile and then turns to unlock the door.
I follow him inside; he stops me at the kitchen island. "I found it right here." He points to the countertop.
"You found what right where?" I ask, feeling my face scrunch up in bewilderment.
"The crossword puzzle from today." He pulls it out of his pocket. "I found it here when I was making breakfast this morning."
"Wait, you didn't get it in the mail?"
"I'm sorry; I thought I mentioned that."
"No," I say, holding back from whacking him in the head. "I think I would've remembered if someone had broken into your apartment.
"I'm sorry," he repeats, and then lets out a stress-filled sigh.
"So, someone broke in here last night while you were asleep?"
"I'm not sure. I was thinking that, too, but then . . . what if I just didn't see it last night when I got home?"
"Are you sure you didn't set your mail down here, maybe even for a second, and then leave this piece behind?"
"What difference does it makes?"
"It makes a huge difference." My voice gets louder. "The difference between someone breaking in or not." I peer around the kitchen and living room, trying to see if anything looks off.
"I don't know." He reaches for a box of cereal. "I mean, I'm pretty sure I would've noticed getting another puzzle in the mail, especially since we've been talking so much about this stuff."
"Who has a key to your apartment?"
"No one that I know of."
"None of your friend ~ Laurie Faria Stolarz

She became a question mark. An unfinished puzzle. An intricate crossword. An impervious shooting star yet to determine her course. ~ Neetha Joseph

I think that, at the end of the day, I'm drawn to a certain level of ambiguous storytelling that requires hard thought and work in the same way that the 'New York Times' crossword puzzle does: Sometimes you just want to put it down or throw it out the window, but there's a real rewarding sense if you feel like you've cracked it. ~ Damon Lindelof

My activities tend to revolve around crossword puzzles, reading and playing piano and games with my friends. ~ Rashida Jones

It's the boredom that kills you. You read until you're tired of that. You do crossword puzzles until you're tired of that. This is torture. This is mental torture. ~ Jack Kevorkian

Even at the age of twenty-four, she felt more comfortable with people in their eighties than people in their twenties. People her age never sat and relaxed on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and a crossword. They never just sat around and talked. They took selfies and got rip-roaring drunk and partied all night long. And ~ Jessica Clare

What I love about cooking is that after a hard day, there is something comforting about the fact that if you melt butter and add flour and then hot stock, it will get thick! It's a sure thing! It's sure thing in a world where nothing is sure; it has a mathematical certainty in a world where those of us who long for some kind of certainty are forced to settle for crossword puzzles. ~ Nora Ephron