Dredging Quotes

Once in my life I knew a grief so hard I could actually hear it inside, scraping at the lining of my stomach, an audible ache, dredging with hooks as rivers are dredged when someone's been missing too long. I have to think my mother felt something like that. ~ Leif Enger

It was the very rightness of the idea that made Nelson become a Juvey-cop to begin with. The knowledge that he would leave the world a cleaner, brighter place by dredging the dregs from the streets was what propelled him into the police academy. Eventually, though, his ideals were replaced by an abiding hatred for those marked for unwinding. They were all alike, these Unwinds; sucking valuable resources from those more deserving, and clinging to their pathetic individuality, rather than accepting peaceful division. ~ Neal Shusterman

There was a strong but not unpleasant smell- moist earth, decomposing leaf matter, new flowers beginning to catch the day's sun- and great fat bumblebees were busy already collecting pollen from a profusion of small pink and white blooms. Blackberries: Sadie surprised herself by dredging up the knowledge. They were blackberry flowers, and in a few months' time the bushes would be heavy with fruit. ~ Kate Morton

When Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, only five Americans had previously been so honored. Accepting the prize in Stockholm, he gave an impassioned speech in which he argued that "the ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement. ~ John Steinbeck

Aelin," said Aedion, dredging up a drawl as best he could, even as the lie choked him, "has her own plans that she'll only tell us about when the time is right. ~ Sarah J. Maas

As some find picking on people a treasured entertainment, 'recreational bullying' has become their devious tool, to satisfy an exhibitionist urge to outdo themselves, by dredging up acerbic stories for score-settling and airing dirty laundry. ("On a doggy day") ~ Erik Pevernagie

I don't want this. I've never wanted this. What is the point in dredging up a past that no longer serves any purpose? A past that's no longer connected to the present or the future. A past that is bittersweet because the love we shared was doomed from the outset - a stolen love that was never meant to be.
Why would I want to relive that? ~ Siobhan Davis

The citizens of Buffalo, then a smallish lakeside town, embarked on a brief campaign, led by a local judge named Wilkeson, to clear their own eponymous riverway and so tempt the canal engineers to route the Erie Canal to a terminus nearby. Energetic lobbying, together with the clearance of the creek, evidently worked, for the engineers did eventually end their labors there, and the fact that more than a million people now still brave one of the country's cruelest climates (with roof-topping lake-effect snowfalls drowning the city each winter) to live in and around Buffalo is testimony to the wisdom of Judge Wilkeson and the city fathers of 1825 in doing all the persuading, as well as dredging and prettifying the banks of Buffalo Creek. ~ Simon Winchester

When something's painful, you just avoid it. Why bother dredging up the past if it's nothing but bad stuff? ~ Shane Koyczan

I wanted to get from 4th street to 8th ... Then I remembered Einstein postulating that parallel lines eventually meet. They're dredging my car from Lake Michigan as we speak. ~ Emo Philips

What Jack remembered and craved in a way he could neither help nor understand was the time that distant summer on Brokeback when Ennis had come up behind him and pulled him close, the silent embrace satisfying some shared and sexless hunger. They had stood that way for a long time in front of the fire, its burning tossing ruddy chunks of light, the shadow of their bodies a single column against the rock. The minutes ticked by from the round watch in Ennis's pocket, from the sticks in the fire settling into coals. Stars bit through the wavy heat layers above the fire. Ennis's breath came slow and quiet, he hummed, rocked a little in the sparklight and Jack leaned against the steady heartbeat, the vibrations of the humming like faint electricity and, standing, he fell into sleep that was not sleep but something else drowsy and tranced until Ennis, dredging up a rusty but still useable phrase from the childhood time before his mother died, said, "Time to hit the hay, cowboy. I got a go. Come on, you're sleepin on your feet like a horse," and gave Jack a shake, a push, and went off in the darkness. Jack heard his spurs tremble as he mounted, the words "see you tomorrow," and the horse's shuddering snort, grind of hoof on stone. Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives. Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to ~ Annie Proulx

The pool was but a stone's throw from the house, and I arrived there in a few minutes, only to find a boy disturbing the water by dredging it with a worm. Him I lured away with a cake of chocolate ... Every day I see the head of the largest trout I ever hooked, but did not land. ~ Theodore Gordon

One of the wonderful things about being ALIVE is that it's never too late. ~ Phyllis A. Whitney

I've seen novels that have grown out of one story in a collection. But it hasn't occurred to me to take any of those stories and build on them. They seem very finished for me, so I don't feel like going back and dredging them up. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

The warning rhyme flickered in my heart, dredging up old nightmares: I know the monster in your bed.
So did I--
Death. ~ Roshani Chokshi

Often, I'm spending months with a person in a very intimate context, getting to know the ins and outs of what they ate for breakfast, not to mention dredging up the most traumatic experiences of their lives, digging through their documents and photographs from difficult times, all of that. And that process, I think, can be extraordinarily strange for subjects who've never been interviewed before, especially if you don't acquaint them from the get-go with what you're trying to do, what it entails, and why you care. ~ Sarah Stillman

Violet had carefully chosen some long-hanging, loose-fitting basketball shorts to wear over her swimsuit, in hopes of keeping her injuries at least partially hidden. But it didn't take long before one . . . and then two . . . and then at least twenty of her friends had noticed her bandages peeking out from beneath the swishing fabric, and she was forced to recount her morning accident.
Jay loved hearing her tell the story, and every time he heard her talking about it, he would come over so that he could interject, and of course embellish, his role in the events. In his version, he was her champion, practically carrying her from the woods and performing near-miraculous medical feats to save her legs from complete amputation. Violet, and annoyingly every other girl within earshot, couldn't help but giggle while he jokingly sang his own praises.
Violet happened to walk up just in time to hear Jay recounting his version once more to a group of eager admirers.
"Hero? I wouldn't say hero . . ." he quipped.
Violet rolled her eyes, turning to Grady Spencer, a friend of theirs from school. "Can you believe him?"
Grady gave her a concerned look. "Seriously, are you okay, Violet? It sounds like it was pretty bad."
Violet was embarrassed that Jay's exaggerations were actually dredging up real sympathy from others. "It's fine," she assured him, and when Grady didn't look convinced, she added, "Really, I just tripped."
She reached out and shoved Jay. "Wil ~ Kimberly Derting