Electrical Ground Quotes

Great, Alexia thought, I have gone from soul sucker to electrical ground. The epithets just get sweeter and sweeter. ~ Gail Carriger

One more salt to try," Kellan said, reaching into the box. He brought a jar of black, flaky crystals up to the light. "Black diamond finishing salt. Extremely rare and too bold for those with meek palates. But, for a true connoisseur, the flavor is incomparable." He lowered her head and torso to the ground and pushed her sweater up to expose her stomach and ribs. "I want to sample it on your skin. ~ Melissa Cutler

Then there are those who think their bodies don't exist. They live by mechanical time. They rise at seven o'clock in the morning. They eat their lunch at noon and their supper at six. They arrive at their appointments on time, precisely by the clock. They make love between eight and ten at night. They work forty hours a week, read the Sunday paper on Sunday, play chess on Tuesday nights. When their stomach growls, they look at their watch to see if it is time to eat. When they begin to lose themselves in a concert, they look at the clock above the stage to see when it will be time to go home. They know that the body is not a thing of wild magic, but a collection of chemicals, tissues, and nerve impulses. Thoughts are no more than electrical surges in the brain. Sexual arousal is no more than a flow of chemicals to certain nerve endings. Sadness no more than a bit of acid transfixed in the cerebellum. In short, the body is a machine, subject to the same laws of electricity and mechanics as an electron or clock. As such, the body must be addressed in the language of physics. And if the body speaks, it is the speaking only of so many levers and forces. The body is a thing to be ordered, not obeyed. ~ Alan Lightman

Because once you're born you might feel all of those things," Boris was saying. "In any order. And you can't control it." Daniel looked up, but Boris had turned away from him, his eyes staring at the ground. He held him tighter. "Maybe it will never happen," Boris said, and blinked. "I hope it never will. But if it does, I want you to be prepared. ~ Dara Horn

Since its founding, Detroit has been a place of perpetual flames. Three times the city has suffered race riots and three times the city has burned to the ground. The city's flag acknowledges as much. Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus: We hope for better things; it shall rise from the ashes. ~ Charlie LeDuff

At the same time they both caught sight of a third curly flourish on a tree-trunk right in front of them, but it was terribly high up, at least three feet above the ground.
"That's it, I'm sure," said Sniff, stretching himself. "I must be taller than I thought! ~ Tove Jansson

But still Adam holds his ground. The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree, and I ate. He confesses his sin, but as he confesses, he takes to flight again. 'You have given me the woman, not I. I am not guilty, you are guilty.' The double light of creation and sin is exploited. 'The woman is surely your creature, it is your own work that has caused me to fall. Why have you brought forth an imperfect creation, and is it my fault?' So instead of surrendering Adam falls back on one art learned from the serpent, that of correcting the idea of God, of appealing from God the Creator to a better, a different God. That is, he flees again. The woman takes to flight with him and blames the serpent; that is, she really blames the Creator of the serpent. Adam has not surrendered, he has not confessed. He has appealed to his conscience, to his knowledge of good and evil, and out of this knowledge he has accused his Creator. He has not recognized the grace of the Creator which proves itself true by the fact that he calls Adam, by the fact that he does not let him flee. Adam sees this grace only as hate, as wrath, and this wrath kindles his own hate, his rebellion, his will to escape from God. Adam remains in the Fall. The Fall accelerates and becomes infinite. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The sharp scents made my throat ache. I had been up such hillsides before, and smelled these same spring scents. But then the pine and grass scent had been diluted with the smell of petrol fumes from the road below and the voices of day trippers replaced those of the jays. Last time I walked such a path, the ground was littered with sandwich wrappers and cigarette butts instead of mallow blossoms and violets. Sandwich wrappers seemed a reasonable enough price to pay, I supposed, for such blessings of civilization as antibiotics and telephones, but just for the moment, I was willing to settle for the violets. I badly needed a little peace, and I felt it here. ~ Diana Gabaldon

He stared at her and his smile slowly faded. He put his hands on his hips. He took a deep breath and felt tears gather in his eyes. "You're all I need to be happy, Shelby," he said. "You're everything I need ... "
He actually surprised her. Her arms dropped from over her chest and she gaped at him for a second.
"You're everything," he said. "It scares me to death, but I want it all with you. I want you for life. I want what you want, and I want it right now. Everything, Shelby. I want you to be the lead in my shoes that keeps me on the ground. The mother of my children. My best friend, my wife, my mistress. It's a tall order." He took a breath.
"If you won't quit, I won't. ~ Robyn Carr

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, we will never lose our value in God's eyes. ~ Joyce Meyer

Mr. Bradshaw was, in a way, my second father. I trusted him and wanted to make him proud. But that day, as I lowered myself to the ground in shock, it was hard to believe I was staring up at the same person. ~ Embee

Tyler reacted to this for some reason, looking at John with a "when are people gonna learn" look, and then he spat on the ground. Tobacco spitting is a kind of nonverbal communication in many parts of the Midwest. He must have spilled his coffee a lot as a kid because he had one of those big spill-proof mugs, the kind that flare way out at the bottom. It looked like he was speaking into a megaphone every time he took a drink. I ~ David Wong

I STOOD IN the piazza facing St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Bodies pressed around me and a pope's voice boomed in my ears. The ground began to tremble, as if aching under the crowd's weight. The cobblestones lurched under my feet. I staggered, tripped over someone, and fell flat on my back. People started running and screaming. ~ J.B. Simmons

Most things we need in life are only inch deep below the ground, all you need to do is dig it out ... using the wind that you blow away.So start blowing now ... ~ Nathaniel E. Quimada

Advice, as it always gives a temporary appearance of superiority, can never be very grateful, even when it is most necessary or most judicious. But for the same reason everyone is eager to instruct his neighbours. To be wise or to be virtuous is to buy dignity and importance at a high price; but when nothing is necessary to elevation but detection of the follies or faults of others, no man is so insensible to the voice of fame as to linger on the ground. ~ Samuel Johnson

Faint traces of other black churches are tucked away in handwritten ledgers at the state archives at Morrow; in the collections at the University of Georgia in Athens; even in the basement of the Forsyth courthouse, where a cardboard box atop a metal filing cabinet still holds deeds for the land on which black residents once founded Mt. Fair, Shakerag, and Stoney Point - about which nothing is known but names and approximate locations. All that can be said for certain is that, again and again in the fall of 1912, white men sloshed gasoline and kerosene onto the benches and wooden floors of such rooms, then backed out into the dark, tossing lit matches as they went. All over the county, beneath the ground on which black churches stood, the soil is rich with ashes. ~ Patrick Phillips

Throughout the house one could detect the good sense and care of a woman whose feet were planted firmly on the ground. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I can't believe my reserve of water - from my nose and eyes. I have dormant fluid in my body, every woman does. I don't know if I am a cavern or a river. Once, you said I was a geyser: a hole in the ground - bursting. ~ Terese Marie Mailhot

True law necessarily is rooted in ethical assumptions or norms; and those ethical principles are derived, in the beginning at least, from religious convictions. When the religious understanding, from which a concept of law arose in a culture, has been discarded or denied, the laws may endure for some time, through what sociologists call "cultural lag"; but in the long run, the laws also will be discarded or denied.

With this hard truth in mind, I venture to suggest that the corpus of English and American laws--for the two arise for the most part from a common root of belief and experience--cannot endure forever unless it is animated by the spirit that moved it in the beginning: that is, by religion, and specifically by the Christian people. Certain moral postulates of Christian teaching have been taken for granted, in the past, as the ground of justice. When courts of law ignore those postulates, we grope in judicial darkness. . . .

We suffer from a strong movement to exclude such religious beliefs from the operation of courts of law, and to discriminate against those unenlightened who cling fondly to the superstitions of the childhood of the race.

Many moral beliefs, however, though sustained by religious convictions, may not be readily susceptible of "scientific" demonstration. After all, our abhorrence of murder, rape, and other crimes may be traced back to the Decalogue and other religious injunctions. If it can be shown that our oppositio ~ Russell Kirk

We simply must look beyond partisan goals and find common ground as Americans. It is imperative that the Members of Congress recognize that partisanship will not serve the American people. ~ Michael Crapo

Ain't got so much moral ground to stand on. ~ A.C. Gaughen

Politics is the practical exercise of the art of self-government, and somebody must attend to it if we are to have self-government; somebody must study it, and learn the art, and exercise patience and sympathy and skill to bring the multitude of opinions and wishes of self-governing people into such order that some prevailing opinion may be expressed and peaceably accepted. Otherwise, confusion will result either in dictatorship or anarchy. The principal ground of reproach against any American citizen should be that he is not a politician. Everyone ought to be, as Lincoln was. ~ Elihu Root

Darkness moves like a pack of wild dogs.
The wind moves like a wounded animal.
The ground must be full of teeth by now. ~ Cecilia Llompart

It's a wonderful body, he'd whispered the next morning while she was still asleep. Not even the blue silk Loretta Caponi pajamas he'd brought back for her from Florence could disguise its lumpiness. But it was so gorgeously strong. She almost never got sick. She could outswim riptides and ski double diamonds. And even when a wave scraped her into the sand or a patch of ice threw her to the ground, she rarely bruised. He loved that body for taking care of her, for sheltering the one thing he couldn't live without. ~ Tanya Egan Gibson

The foot feels the foot when it's touched by the ground, like the heart feels the heart when it's no longer bound. ~ Ricky Mathieson

Close to the Gates a spacious Garden lies, From the Storms defended and inclement Skies; Four Acres was the allotted Space of Ground, Fenc'd with a green Enclosure all around. Tall thriving Trees confessed the fruitful Mold: The reddening Apple ripens here to Gold, Here the blue Fig with luscious Juice overflows, With deeper Red the full Pomegranate glows, The Branch here bends beneath the weighty Pear, And verdant Olives flourish round the Year. ~ Homer

'Emptiness' means empty of a separate self. It is full of everything, full of life. The word emptiness should not scare us. It is a wonderful word. To be empty does not mean non-existent. Emptiness is the ground of everything. Thanks to emptiness, everything is possible. ~ Nhat Hanh

Cautiously, the mouth applied to the valve, I breathe. The gas still creeps over the ground and sinks into all hollows. Like a big, soft jellyfish it floats into our shell-hole and lolls there obscenely. ~ Erich Maria Remarque

The ground is wet. It occurs to me that my sneakers, meticulously washed two days before, will soon be covered in mud again, however carefully I tread. ~ Pablo Coelho

When I throw a ground ball, I expect it to be an out, maybe two. ~ Warren Spahn

All efforts of persuasion by reasoned argument rely on the implicit assumption that homo sapiens, though occasionally blinded by emotion, is a basically rational animal, aware of the motives of his own actions and beliefs-an assumption which is untenable in the light of both historical and neurological evidence. All such appeals fall on barren ground; they could take root only if the ground were prepared by a spontaneous change in human mentality all over the world-the equivalent of a major biological mutation. Then, and only then, would mankind as a whole, from its political leaders down to the lonely crowd, become receptive to reasoned argument, and willing to resort to those unorthodox measures which would enable it to meet the challenge. ~ Arthur Koestler

Inconsistency, incompetence, and lies are all cut short by the ground. It will stop you if you can't stop yourself. ~ Mark Twight

He was leaving me. I wondered if I should stop him. If I should wrestle him to the ground and force him to love me. I wanted to hold his shoulders down and shout into his face. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

There was no room for dust devils in the laws of physics, as least in the rigid form in which they were usually taught. There is a kind of unspoken collusion going on in mainstream science education: you get your competent but bored, insecure and hence stodgy teacher talking to an audience divided between engineering students, who are going to be responsible for making bridges that won't fall down or airplanes that won't suddenly plunge vertically into the ground at six hundred miles an hour, and who by definition get sweaty palms and vindictive attitudes when their teacher suddenly veers off track and begins raving about wild and completely nonintuitive phenomena; and physics students, who derive much of their self-esteem from knowing that they are smarter and morally purer than the engineering students, and who by definition don't want to hear about anything that makes no fucking sense. This collusion results in the professor saying: (something along the lines of) dust is heavier than air, therefore it falls until it hits the ground. That's all there is to know about dust. The engineers love it because they like their issues dead and crucified like butterflies under glass. The physicists love it because they want to think they understand everything. No one asks difficult questions. And outside the windows, the dust devils continue to gambol across the campus. ~ Neal Stephenson

'Bonnie and Clyde' was the first show and the first role that I got to originate. Being part of that from the ground up and investing three years of my life into seeing that show come to Broadway was really rigorous but also so exciting. ~ Laura Osnes

Among men and women, those in love do not always announce themselves with declarations and vows. But they are the ones who weep when you're gone. Who miss you every single night, especially when the sky is so deep and beautiful, and the ground so very cold. ~ Alice Hoffman

I still dream in pictures and color, always the world of my childhood. I see the purple Judas trees at Easter lighting up the roadsides and terraces of the town. Ochre cliffs made of cinnamon powder. Autumn clouds rolling along the ground of the hills, and the patchwork of wet oak leaves on the grass. The shape of a rose petal. And my parents' faces, which will never grow any older.
"But it is strange how scent brings it all back too. I only have to smell certain aromas, and I am back in a certain place with a certain feeling."
The comforting past smelled of heliotrope and cherry and sweet almond biscuits: close-up smells, flowers you had to put your nose to as the sight faded from your eyes. The scents of that childhood past had already begun to slip away: Maman's apron with blotches of game stew; linen pressed with faded lavender; the sheep in the barn. The present, or what had so very recently been the present, was orange blossom infused with hope. ~ Deborah Lawrenson

To know a piece of grass, you've got to see the ground that grew it. Maybe that's why I remember every detail of that night, every inch of ground we covered, as I followed Zach to the place that had made him, seeing them both with fresh eyes. ~ Ally Carter

The dried blood from the wounds leaves dark and repulsive stains on the ground. Cleaning them up, I think of the identical nature of men: the same red blood irrigating the same organs. These organs, situated in the same places, carry out the same functions. The same remedies cure the same illnesses everywhere under the sun, whether the individual be white or black. Everything united men. Why, then, do they kill each other in ignoble wars for causes that are futile when compared with the massacre of human lives? So many devastating wars! And yet man takes himself to be a superior being. In what way is his intelligence useful to him? His intelligence begets both good and ill, more often ill than good. ~ Mariama Ba

Spring flew swiftly by, and summer came; and if the village had been beautiful at first, it was now in the full glow and luxuriance of its richness. The great trees, which had looked shrunken and bare in the earlier months, had now burst into strong life and health; and stretching forth their green arms over the thirsty ground, converted open and naked spots into choice nooks, where was a deep and pleasant shade from which to look upon the wide prospect, steeped in sunshine, which lay stretched out beyond. The earth had donned her mantle of brightest green; and shed her richest perfumes abroad. It was the prime and vigour of the year; all things were glad and flourishing. ~ Charles Dickens