Floor Quotes

The silence was deafening, pressing more heavily on Hollyleaf's ears than the stones that pinned her to the cold floor. ~ Erin Hunter

My mother always said you could eat off her floor; you could eat of my floor too, there's so much food down there. ~ Elayne Boosler

He was beautiful.
Whatever else he was, Sage was by far the most magnetic man I had ever seen. I had felt it in my dreams, and it was even more true in real life. I welcomed the chance to study him without his knowledge.
He glanced up, and I quickly closed my eyes, feigning sleep. Had he seen me? The scratching stopped. He was looking at me, I knew it. I held my breath and willed my eyes not to pop open and see if he was staring.
Finally the scratching started up again. I forced myself to slowly count to ten before I opened my eyelids the tiniest bit and peeked through my lashes.
Good-he wasn't looking at me.
I opened my eyes a little wider. What was he doing? Moving only my eyes, I glanced down at the dirt floor in front of him…
…and saw a picture of me, fast asleep.
It was incredible. I could see his tools laid out beside the picture: rocks in several sizes and shapes, a couple of twigs…the most rudimentary materials, and yet what he was etching into the floor wouldn't look out of place on an art gallery wall. It was beautiful…far more beautiful than I thought I actually looked in my sleep. Is that how he saw me?
Sage lifted his head again, and I shut my eyes. I imagined him studying me, taking careful note of my features and filtering them through his own senses. My heartbeat quickened, and it took all my willpower to remain still.
"You can keep pretending to be asleep if you'd like, but I don't see a career for you as an actres ~ Hilary Duff

I tore open the closet door and began feverishly sorting through the shirts piled on the floor in the vain hope that inside that pile there might be some wondrously perfect shirt down there, a nice and tough but I'm also a surprisingly good listener with a true and abiding passion for cheers and those who lead them. ~ John Green

I play knowing that there is somebody watching me out there in the crowd that has never had the opportunity to watch a game before and it might be the only chance they ever to see one, live in person. Michael Jordan once said that in an interview, and I really took it to heart; whenever I step on the floor, I play for that person. ~ Tyson Chandler

My little brother Paul. He owns his own floor sanding business called Silly P Hardwood Floors and hes really good. ~ Amy Sedaris

You forget the life you had before, after awhile. Things you cherish and hold dear are like pearls on a string. Cut the knot and they scatter across the floor, rolling into dark corners never to be found again. So you move on, and eventually you forget what the pearls even looked like. At least, you try. ~ Diana Gabaldon

(The feast-room in GUNNAR'S house. The entrance-door is in the back; smaller doors in the side-walls. In front, on the left, the greater high-seat; opposite it on the right, the lesser. In the middle of the floor, a wood fire is burning on a built-up hearth. In the background, on both sides of the door, are daises for the women of the household. From each of the high-seats, a long table, with benches, stretches backwards, parallel with the wall. It is dark outside; the fire lights the room.) ~ Henrik Ibsen

Denim and doubt, cotton and caution, fell to the floor in a forgotten heap ~ Karen Keast

Marry me." A statement. Not a question. It came again. "Marry. Me." His eyes burned into
mine. I breathed in, my ears ringing. My pulse sped up, my heart raced, I was trying to remember exactly what breathing meant. I was wet, and I was gasping.
"I want you. I want that, what they had today. I want it all, and I want it with you. I want you, want you to be my wife. I've got a ring, I'll give it to you right now if you'll say yes." With every
word, his hands tightened on my hips, desperate, crazy, longing. "I had this all planned out, so much smoother and romantic and everything you deserve. But my head's been spinning since
yesterday, when I saw my best friend steal a van to go meet his new family. And all I want, all I've ever wanted, is exactly that. Exactly you. And when I walked up those stairs, and heard the
shower go on, and knew you were in here all naked and wet and waiting for me, I knew I couldn't wait another day, another hour, another minute, without asking you to be my wife. So. Marry. Me."
He knelt. Christ on a crutch, he knelt on the shower floor, where he had knelt countless times before . . . ahem . . . took my hand, and repeated those words
again. Finally, with a question mark at the end. "Marry me?"
And in that moment, I realized all the worrying, all the hand wringing and wonder ponder, all the thoughts about who says what's right for a couple, and when is it too soon, and when is it the right time, and if it ain't b ~ Alice Clayton

For years I've gathered various books, sources. When I was little it might have been Tolkien, and so I would have just four books around me. I couldn't afford many books at the time, so I'd have what I had. Maybe I'd tear out ten or twenty pictures from magazines because I couldn't afford art books. I would check out library books and try to keep them as long as I could, but I couldn't jot my notes in them. For any particular song, I can't tell you the books that were on the floor, the photographs on the floor. I don't let anybody keep a record of that. Those are the secret ingredients. ~ Tori Amos

The greatest characters the world has known, have rose on the democratic floor. Aristocracy has not been able to keep a proportionate pace with democracy. ~ Thomas Paine

I was standing amid floor-to-ceiling shelves of books in wonder and awe when my view of stories suddenly and forever changed. There were enormous piles of books lying in corners. Books covered the walls. Books even lined the staircases as you went up from one floor to the next. It was as if this used bookstore was not just a place for selling used books; it was like the infrastructure itself was made up of books. There were books to hold more books, stories built out of stories.

I was standing in Daedalus Books in Charlottesville, Virginia, and I had recently read Mortimer J. Adler's How to Read a Book. I was alive with the desire to read. But at that particular moment, my glee turned to horror. For whatever reason, the truth of the numbers suddenly hit me. The year before, I had read about thirty books. For me, that was a new record. But then I started counting. I was in my early twenties, and with any luck I'd live at least fifty more years. At that rate, I'd have about 1,500 books in me, give or take.

There were more books than that on the single wall I was staring at.

That's when I had a realization of my mortality. My desire outpaced reality. I simply didn't have the life to read what I wanted to read.

Suddenly my choices in that bookstore became a profound act of deciding. The Latin root of the word decide - cise or cide - is to "cut off' or "kill." The idea is that to choose anything means to kill off other options you m ~ Justin Whitmel Earley

Finally I was naked on the table, my legs spread with big hands gripping tight at the sides of my knees, and he was down. As in down. On his knees on the floor, his mouth between my legs. Feeding. God. Oh God. Not feeding. Feeding. ~ Kristen Ashley

The Ball Poem"

What is the boy now, who has lost his ball.
What, what is he to do? I saw it go
Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then
Merrily over - there it is in the water!
No use to say 'O there are other balls':
An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy
As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down
All his young days into the harbour where
His ball went. I would not intrude on him,
A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now
He senses first responsibility
In a world of possessions. People will take balls,
Balls will be lost always, little boy,
And no one buys a ball back. Money is external.
He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes,
The epistemology of loss, how to stand up
Knowing what every man must one day know
And most know many days, how to stand up
And gradually light returns to the street,
A whistle blows, the ball is out of sight.
Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark
Floor of the harbour . . I am everywhere,
I suffer and move, my mind and my heart move
With all that move me, under the water
Or whistling, I am not a little boy. ~ John Berryman

I'd take your tears over someone else's smile any day. I just want to be wherever you are. Even if that's crying on the bathroom floor. ~ Jeannine Allison

I watched my head rolling on the floor. It landed face up and a big tear came out of one eye. ~ Shirley Maclaine

Jacob, is something wrong? Is Isabella okay?"
"Probably. She is not well today. It could be a normal thing for a human female, but since she is usually as resistant to common ailments now as we are, she is nervous. I figured Gideon could ease her mind."
Noah missed the wince that crossed his friend's face that would have given away the indignant argument flying through the Enforcer's thoughts. Jacob's female counterpart huffily took umbrage to his claims of exactly who it was that was nervous and who had insisted on seeking Gideon, because it certainly had not been her.
"Tell her I hope she feels better," Noah said, his fondness for Bella quite clear in his tone. "Bear with her, old friend. She's breaking new ground. It can be pretty frightening to play Eve for an entire race."
"Do not worry. When it comes to my Bella, I would do anything to see to her happiness. That includes making others do anything to see to her happiness," Jacob said. He meant the words, of course, but he was hoping they'd help sooth someone's bristling pride.
"I'm sure Gideon is going to love that," Noah laughed.
Jacob grinned, altering gravity so that he began to float up from the floor.
"If you see Gideon before I do, will you tell him to come to Bella?"
"Of course. Tell her I said to start behaving like a real Druid or I - " Noah was cut off by a sharp hand motion and a warning expression from the Enforcer. It came a little too late, however, if Jacob's pained ~ Jacquelyn Frank

Tripping up over nothing and turning to stare furiously at the floor. ~ Rob Temple

Then I pace the floor, rocking him softly in my arms, patting his ass. You know I must be really desperate - because I try singing: Hush, little baby, don't say a word Daddy's gonna buy you a . . . I stop - because why the fuck would any baby want a mockingbird? None of those nursery rhymes make any goddamn sense. I don't know any other lullabies, so I go for the next best thing, "Enter Sandman" by Metallica: Take my hand, We're off to never-never land . . . ~ Emma Chase

Wolf took Scarlet's hands into his, as tenderly as he would pick up an injured butterfly, and slid the band onto her finger. His voice was rough and wavering as he recited - "I, Ze'ev Kesley, do hereby claim you, Scarlet Benoit, as my wife and my Alpha. Forevermore, you will be my mate, my star, my beginning of everything." He smiled down at her, his eyes swimming with emotion. Scarlet returned the look, and though Wolf's expression teetered between proud and bashful, Scarlet's face contained nothing but joy. "You are the one. You have always been, and you will always be, the only one.
Scarlet took the second ring - a significantly larger version of the same unadorned band - and pressed it onto Wolf's finger. "I, Scarlet Benoit, do hereby claim you, Ze'ev Kesley, as my husband and my Alpha. Forevermore, you will be my mate, my star, my beginning of everything. You are the one. You have always been, and you will always be, the only one."
Wolf folded his hands around hers. From where she sat, Cinder could see that he was shaking.
Kai grinned. "By the power given to me by the people of Earth, under the laws of the Earthen Union and as witnessed by those gathered here today, I do now pronounce you husband and wife." He spread his hands in invitation. "You may kiss your - "
Wolf wrapped his arms around Scarlet's waist, lifting her off the floor, and kissed her before Kai could finish. Or maybe she kissed him. It seemed mutual, as her hands wound through his dis ~ Marissa Meyer

When Marilla took Anne up to bed that night she said stiffly: "Now, Anne, I noticed last night that you threw your clothes all about the floor when you took them off. That is a very untidy habit, and I can't allow it at all. As soon as you take off any article of clothing fold it neatly and place it on the chair. I haven't any use at all for little girls who aren't neat. ~ L.M. Montgomery

She led him past the engine room, which looked like a very dangerous, mechanized jungle gym, with pipes and pistons and tubes jutting from a central bronze sphere. Cables resembling giant metal noodles snaked across the floor and ran up the walls.
"How does that thing even work?" Percy asked.
"No idea," Annabeth said. "And I'm the only one besides Leo who can operate it."
"That's reassuring."
"It should be fine. It's only threatened to blow up once."
"You're kidding, I hope."
She smiled. "Come on. ~ Rick Riordan

Marya watched from the upper floor as once again the birds gathered in the great oak tree, sniping and snapping for the last autumn nuts, stolen from squirrels and hidden in bark-cracks, which every winged creature knows are the most bitter of all nuts, like old sorrows sitting heavy on the tongue. ~ Catherynne M Valente

The messages pile up,
The worry knocks at
my door, louder & louder.
More calls from the therapist.
Pills that should have been
taken lie scattered across the floor.
The moon taps at my window.
Stars spell out their concern.

I pretend I do not see. ~ Darshana Suresh

I open the box, and there are notes. Notes and notes and notes. Peter's notes. Peter's notes I threw away.
"I found them when I was emptying your trash," she says. Hastily she adds, "I only read a couple. And then I saved them because I could tell they were important."
I touch one that Peter folded into an airplane. "Kitty…you know Peter and I aren't getting back together, right?"
Kitty grabs the bowl of popcorn and says, "Just read them." Then she goes into the living room and turns on the TV.
I close the hatbox and take it with me upstairs. When I am in my room, I sit on the floor and spread them out around me.
A lot of the notes just say things like "Meet you at your locker after school" and Can I borrow your chemistry notes from yesterday?" I find the spiderweb one from Halloween, and it makes me smile. Another one says, "Can you take the bus home today? I want to surprise Kitty and pick her up from school so she can show me and my car off to her friends." "Thanks for coming to the estate sale with me this weekend. You made the day fun. I owe you one." "Don't forget to pack a Korean yogurt for me!" "If you make Josh's dumb white-chocolate cranberry cookies and not my fruitcake ones, it's over." I laugh out loud. And then, the one I read over and over: "You look pretty today. I like you in blue."
I've never gotten a love letter before. But reading these notes like this, one after the other, it feels like I have. It's like…it's like there's onl ~ Jenny Han

Of course our school life was not free from pranks. The property of the townspeople was moved to strange places in the night. One morning as the janitor was starting the furnace he heard a loud bray from one of the class rooms. His investigation disclosed the presence there of a domestic animal noted for his long ears and discordant voice. In some way during the night he had been stabled on the second floor. About as far as I deem it prudent to discuss my own connection with these escapades is to record that I was never convicted of any of them and so must be presumed innocent. ~ Calvin Coolidge

My books are a subject of much discussion. They pour from shelves onto tables, chairs and the floor, and Chaz observes that I haven't read many of them and I never will. You just never know. One day I may - need is the word I use - to read Finnegans Wake, the Icelandic sagas, Churchill's history of the Second World War, the complete Tintin in French, 47 novels by Simenon, and By Love Possessed. ~ Roger Ebert

His hands wilted and the framed picture fell to the floor. ~ Bart J. Gilbertson

Oh be careful! There they go again!" said the old queen as his string broke spilling his balls over the floor ... "Stop them will you, James, you worthless old shit! Don't just stand there and let the master's balls roll into the coal-bin! ~ William S. Burroughs

She clung to him without even opening her eyes. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight as he sat back on the floor of the balcony. Her breath was coming hard. She pressed her cheek against his chest. His heart beat in her ear, thumping nearly as fast as her own. "You are safe now. I have you. You are safe." He held her even tighter. Avelina ~ Melanie Dickerson

They changed the floor back to old school. They changed the uniform back to old school. Somebody tell the damn players to start playing like old school. ~ Karl Malone

I still had moments when my nerves got to me, but whenever I'd start to get anxious, Kyla Ross would remind me, "Simone, just do what you do in practice." And before I went out for each event, she'd high-five me and say, "Just like practice, Simone!" I'd say the same thing to her when it was her turn to go up. "Just like practice" became our catchphrase.
As I walked onto the mat to do my floor exercise, I held on to that phrase like it was a lifeline, because I was about to perform a difficult move I'd come up with in practice - a double flip in the layout position with a half twist out. The way it happened was, I'd landed short on a double layout full out earlier that year during training, and I'd strained my calf muscle on the backward landing. Aimee didn't want me to risk a more severe injury, so she suggested I do the double layout - body straight with legs together and fully extended as I flipped twice in the air - then add a half twist at the end. That extra half twist meant I'd have to master a very tricky blind forward landing, but it would put less stress on my calves.
I thought the new combination sounded incredibly cool, so I started playing around with it until I was landing the skill 95 percent of the time. At the next Nationals Camp, I demonstrated the move for Martha and she thought it looked really good, so we went ahead and added it to the second tumbling pass of my floor routine. I'd already performed the combination at national meets that year, bu ~ Simone Biles

When it's a funky uptempo song, you're basically having the same kind of release you would have when you have sex, only it lasts longer. Whether you're playing it on the guitar or on the dance floor, you're in that moment. ~ Bonnie Raitt

Wildland firefighters do not enjoy the cultural prestige that structural firefighters do. They do not wax their fire engines and cruise down the local parade route, lights flashing; they are not the subject of countless popular books and movies; major politicians do not honor their sacrifices on the Senate floor or from the Rose Garden; they do not have bagpipe bands, fancy equipment, enduring icons, or other signifiers of honor verifying the importance of their activity. ~ Matthew Desmond

Vlad's heart sank into his stomach, then squeezed its way down his leg and popped out of the hole in his shoe, where it struck the floor and broke. ~ Heather Brewer

When I got started, I was a sideshow. At my first Consumer Electronics Show, in 1977 in Chicago, people came from all over the floor to see the 'lady programmer.' They had me dressed in a turquoise lab coat with my name embroidered on the pocket. ~ Brenda Laurel

Discovering a note in the mending basket, Phoebe plucked it out and unfolded it. She instantly recognized West's handwriting.

Unemployed Feline Seeking Household Position


To Whom It May Concern,
I hereby offer my services as an experienced mouser and personal companion. References from a reputable family to be provided upon request. Willing to accept room and board in lieu of pay. Indoor lodgings preferred.

Your servant,
Galoshes the Cat

Glancing up from the note, Phoebe found her parents' questioning gazes on her. "Job application," she explained sourly. "From the cat."
"How charming," Seraphina exclaimed, reading over her shoulder.
"'Personal companion,' my foot," Phoebe muttered. "This is a semi-feral animal who has lived in outbuildings and fed on vermin."
"I wonder," Seraphina said thoughtfully. "If she were truly feral, she wouldn't want any contact with humans. With time and patience, she might become domesticated."
Phoebe rolled her eyes. "It seems we'll find out."
The boys returned from the dining car with a bowl of water and a tray of refreshments. Galoshes descended to the floor long enough to devour a boiled egg, an anchovy canapé, and a spoonful of black caviar from a silver dish on ice. Licking her lips and purring, the cat jumped back into Phoebe's lap and curled up with a sigh.
"I'd say she's adjusting quite well," Seraphina commented with a grin, and elbowed Phoebe ge ~ Lisa Kleypas

Eve was tall. Her face had cheekbones. Her shoulders slumped when she walked. The shelves in her living room were bent beneath the books. She worked for a publisher; oh, you've heard of him, she said.
Her life was one in which everything was left undone - letters unanswered, bills on the floor, the butter sitting out all night. Perhaps that was why her husband had left her; he was even more hopeless than she. At least she was gay. She stepped from her littered doorway in pretty clothes, like a woman who lives in the barrio walking to a limousine, stray dogs and dirt on the way. ~ James Salter

The Healing spells on his chest were certainly earning their keep tonight. Sullivan got to his feet. The lack of noise from the courtyard indicated that his team had gotten all the mechanical men. "Thanks."

Toru just grunted a noncommittal response as he lifted the feed tray to check the condition of his borrowed machine gun. They didn't see the final robot inside until it turned on its eye and illuminated the Iron Guard in blue light.

Sullivan's Spike reversed gravity, and the gigantic machine fell upward to hit the steel beams in the ceiling. Sullivan cut his Power and the robot dropped. It crashed hard into the floor where it lay twitching and kicking. The two of them riddled the mechanical man with bullets until the light died and it lay still in a spreading puddle of oil.

"Normally, this would be the part where you thank me for returning the favor and saving your life."

"Yes. Normally… If we were court ladies instead of warriors," Toru answered. "Shall we continue onward or do you wish to stop and discuss your feelings over tea?"

Sullivan looked forward to the day that the two of them would be able to finish their fight. "Let's go. ~ Larry Correia

I figured if I was tired enough, I wouldn't miss Travis.
Which kind of worked, until after the three o'clock fussing-wombat feed and I got back into bed and his side of the bed was cold.
Or until I tripped over his laundry that he'd left on the bathroom floor. That he always left on the bathroom floor.
Or until I sat at the table at breakfast time and his chair was too damn empty. There was no smartarse comments, no bursts of laughter. His blue eyes didn't spark with humour and his sandy-blond hair didn't spike out just so.
There was no foot-holding under the table. ~ N.R. Walker

My daughter loves to cook. At first, I found myself making her be really neat and precise. Then I realized it's OK if things get all over the floor and counters and ceiling. We're making memories. ~ Kimberly Schlapman

THIS TORTURE
Why should we tell you our love stories
when you spill them together like blood in the dirt?
Love is a pearl lost on the ocean floor,
or a fire we can't see,
but how does saying that
push us through the top of the head into
the light above the head?
Love is not
an iron pot, so this boiling energy
won't help.
Soul, heart, self.
Beyond and within those
is one saying,
How long before I'm free of this torture! ~ Rumi

I'd never believed in luck. Never had any cause to. Never relied on it, because I never could. ~ Lee Child

Nick stands up and offers his hand to me. I have no idea what he wants, but what the hell, I take his hand anyway, and he pulls me up on my feet then presses against me for a slow dance and it's like we're in a dream where he's Christopher Plummer and I'm Julie Andrews and we're dancing on the marble floor of an Austrian terrace garden. Somehow my head presses Nick's t-shirt and in this moment I am forgetting about time and Tal because maybe my life isn't over. Maybe it's only beginning. ~ Rachel Cohn

In movement class, you had to lie on the floor and get your alignment in to pass the class. ~ Beth Henley

The momentary darkness gave way to scores of small glowing lights. Blaise stepped into a candlelit room filled with people and furniture.
'Where are we?" he asked Livia. "How can a whole other room be here? There were only two rooms on the top floor. ~ Teresa Flavin

Remember something you were good at as a kid and bring it back as a hobby now that you're an adult. I gave gardening a go and also crying whenever I drop something on the floor and can't find it. Crying always makes it appear againg, oddly. ~ Sarah Millican

His fear-inflamed mind sent the control-signal to his finger-joint to fold back. The trigger sliced back. The blast seemed to lift the booth clear off the floor, drop it down again. A pin-wheel of vacancy appeared in the glass, flinging off shards and slivers. ~ Cornell Woolrich

God, could that dopey girl dance. Buddy Singer and his stinking band was playing 'Just One of Those Things' and even they couldn't ruin it entirely. It's a swell song. I didn't try any trick stuff while we danced
I hate a guy that does a lot of show-off tricky stuff on the dance floor
but I was moving her around plenty, and she stayed with me. The funny thing is, I thought she was enjoying it, too, till all of a sudden she came out with this very dumb remark. "I and my girl friends saw Peter Lorre last night," she said. "The movie actor. In person. He was buyin' a newspaper. He's cute."
"You're lucky," I told her. "You're really lucky. You know that?" She was really a moron. But what a dancer. ~ J.D. Salinger

It's like all guys want to do is make a dunk, grab their shirt and yell out and scream - they could be down 30 points but that's what they do. Okay, so you made a dunk. Get back down the floor on defense! ~ Oscar Robertson

Lost in the shadows of the shelves, I almost fall off the ladder. I am exactly halfway up. The floor of the bookstore is far below me, the surface of a planet I've left behind. ~ Robin Sloan

Darcy rolled the quill between his fingers and looked with benign pity upon his cousin. "You should, you know. It's a wonderful feeling to be the head of your home, with a wife who adores you and whom you adore in return."

Fitzwilliam whipped out his pocket watch. "Oh, look at that. I have to run."
Ignoring him, Darcy turned his face to the fire, a besotted look in his eyes and a smile on his lips. "It's a good feeling to care for your family and their well-being. It makes you finally grow up, I can tell you." He sighed deeply and began attacking his figures once more, his mind filled with unlimited love and joy, thinking on his upcoming paternal responsibilities. "I myself find women to be unbelievably wonderful creations."

"I suppose you will continue with this treacle even as I beg you to stop."

"Well, think about it…" Darcy continued, looking up from his work.

Fitzwilliam groaned.

"They give back to you double and triple whatever little you hand them."

"I think I'm going to be ill, Darcy. Please stop."

"You hand them disparate items of food, and they give you back a wonderful meal. You provide them with four walls and a floor, and they give you back a loving home. You give them your seed," Darcy's eyes misted, his voice choked with emotion. "You give them your seed, and they give you back the most precious thing of all - a child…" They sat in silence together.

"And God help you if ~ Karen V. Wasylowski

If you're afraid of heights, lean over a railing. If you're afraid of germs, lick a floor. But what do you do if your greatest fear is of being afraid? ~ Daniel Smith

Channel Firing
BY THOMAS HARDY
That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgment-day

And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into the mounds,

The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, "No;
It's gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:

"All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you who are helpless in such matters.

"That this is not the judgment-hour
For some of them's a blessed thing,
For if it were they'd have to scour
Hell's floor for so much threatening....

"Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
And rest eternal sorely need)."

So down we lay again. "I wonder,
Will the world ever saner be,"
Said one, "than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!"

And many a skeleton shook his head.
"Instead of preaching forty year,"
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
"I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer."

Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,
As far inland as Stourton Tower,
And Camelot, ~ Thomas Hardy

Sometimes it can feel awkward going into the neighbors his houses. I mean, we really take over their world, not just a room is being read decorated. Participants give up so much control when you're on Trading Spaces. They have to let go of expectations they have for their own room, they have to let go of doing things their way and if seen their house is a home. To some degree, their houses become TV sets. We leave runners on the floor, we keep up with the trash, and we're careful, but there is only so much you can do when every room is filled with TV equipment or catering or make up or supplies, not to mention 20 to 30 people running in and out. And let's not forget the tablesaws, hammers, compressors, and a construction madness going on outside. ~ Paige Davis

Not drunk is he who from the floor - Can rise alone and still drink more; But drunk is They, who prostrate lies, Without the power to drink or rise. ~ Thomas Love Peacock

Mama," the child exclaimed, breathless and agitated.
Phoebe looked down at him in concern. "Justin, what is it?"
"Galoshes brought me a dead mouse. She dropped it on the floor right in front of me!"
"Oh, dear." Tenderly Phoebe smoothed his dark, ruffled hair. "I'm afraid that's what cats do. She thought it was a fine gift."
"Nanny won't touch it, and the housemaid screamed, and I had a fight with Ivo."
Although Phoebe's younger brother Ivo was technically Justin's uncle, the boys were close enough in age to play together and quarrel.
"About the mouse?" Phoebe asked sympathetically.
"No, before the mouse. Ivo said there's going to be a honeymoon and I can't go because it's for grownups." The boy tilted his head back to look up at her, his lower lip quivering. "You wouldn't go to the honeymoon without me, would you, Mama?"
"Darling, we've made no plans to travel yet. There's too much to be done here, and we all need time to settle in. Perhaps in the spring - "
"Dad wouldn't want to leave me behind. I know he wouldn't!"
In the electrified silence that followed, Tom shot a glance at West, who looked blank and startled.
Slowly Phoebe lowered to the ground until her face was level with her son's. "Do you mean Uncle West?" she asked gently. "Is that what you're calling him now?"
Justin nodded. "I don't want him to be my uncle - I already have too many of those. And if I don't have a dad, I'll never learn how to tie my shoes ~ Lisa Kleypas

I was a farm kid from the plains of South Venezuela, from a very poor family. I grew up in a palm tree house with an earthen floor. ~ Hugo Chavez

Hey, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey, hey

Simmer down, simmer down
They say we're too young now to amount to anything else
But look around
We work too damn hard for this just to give it up now
If you don't swim, you'll drown
But don't move, honey

You look so perfect standing there
In my American Apparel underwear
And I know now, that I'm so down
Your lipstick stain is a work of art
I got your name tattooed in an arrow heart
And I know now, that I'm so down (hey!)

Hey, hey!
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey, hey

Let's get out, let's get out
'Cause this deadbeat town's only here just to keep us down
While I was out, I found myself alone just thinking
If I showed up with a plane ticket
And a shiny diamond ring with your name on it
Would you wanna run away too?
'Cause all I really want is you

You look so perfect standing there
In my American Apparel underwear
And I know now, that I'm so down
I made a mixtape straight out of '94
I've got your ripped skinny jeans lying on the floor
And I know now, that I'm so down

Hey, hey!
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey, hey

You look so perfect standing there
In my American Apparel underwear
And ~ 5 Seconds Of Summer

All I have to do is shoot! In my excitement, I throw the ball down with more force than ever, feeling bad-ass. It ricochets off the floor at an angle and slams right into my crotch.
All around me, the room goes, "Ohhhh!"
I look up. Every face is staring at me, contorted into winces. Right. Ball in crotch equals excruciating pain. I'm such an idiot! Too late, I double over in pain.
"Ouch!" I yell. I sneak a glance around. Nobody looks convinced, so I add, "My balls! ~ Jody Gehrman

The thing that you learn in directing is that when you're on the floor, no matter how complex the shooting is ... you have to remain absolutely sensitive to every nuance of the behavior of the people around you. Because, ultimately, if you don't keep in mind the overall humanity, then the machine takes over and suddenly all you have are technically fine shots, technically good performances. The story's being told, but something's lacking, something mysterious, indefinable. ~ Irvin Kershner

Libidinous, adj.
I never understood why anyone would have sex on the floor. Until I was with you and I realized: you don't realize you're on the floor. ~ David Levithan

In architecture volume can be seen to be either a portion of space contained and defined by wall, floor and ceiling or roof planes or a quantity of space displaced by the mass of the building. ~ Francis D.K. Ching

You've got to rise from the floor alone or fall back alone. ~ Charles Bukowski

Gina hoisted herself up onto her elbows and gaped at Spike. "So that's the famous Spike I've been hearing so much about from your brothers? Damn, he is ugly."
Jesse, who'd stayed where he was, looked defensive. Spike was his baby, and you just don't go around calling Jesse's baby ugly.
"He's not so bad," I said, hoping Gina would get the message and shut up.
"Are you on crack?" Gina wanted to know. "Simon, the thing's only got one ear."
Suddenly, the large, gilt-framed mirror above the dressing table started to shake. It had a tendency to do this whenever Jesse got annoyed - really annoyed.
Gina, not knowing this, stared at the mirror with growing excitement. "Hey!" she cried. "All right! Another one!"
She meant an earthquake, of course, but this, like the one before, was no earthquake. It was just Jesse letting off steam.
Then the next thing I knew, a bottle of finger-nail polish Gina had left on the dressing table went flying and, defying all gravitational law, landed upside down in the suitcase she had placed on the floor at the end of the daybed, around seven or eight feet away.
I probably don't need to add that the bottle of polish - it was emerald green - was uncapped. And that it ended up on top of the clothes Gina hadn't unpacked yet.
Gina let out a terrified shriek, threw back the comforter, and dove to the floor, trying to salvage what she could. I, meanwhile, threw Jesse a very dirty look.
But all he said was, "Don' ~ Meg Cabot

This big part flies off on the floor. The other part goes like this and lands in my foot! Standing up! It's standing in my foot! Right in the side of my foot. The flute glass. I think I'm like in one of my own pictures. ~ Danny DeVito

Candlelight flickered in the adjacent bedroom. She followed the ambient warmth to the threshold and paused there, marveling at what she saw. Lucan's austere bedroom had been transformed into something out of a dream. Four tall black pillar candles set into intricate silver sconces burned in each corner. Red silk draped the bed. On the floor before the fireplace was a cushioned next of fluffy pillows and even more crimson silk. It looked so romantic, so inviting.
A room intended for lovemaking.
She took a step farther inside. Behind her, the door closed softly on its own.
No, not quite on its own. Lucan was there, standing on the other side of the room, watching her. His hair was damp from a shower. He wore a loosely tied, satiny red robe that skated around his bare calves, and there was a heated look in his eyes that melted her where she stood.
"For you," he said, indicating the romantic setting. "For us tonight. I want things to be special for you."
Gabrielle was moved, instantly aroused by the sight of him, but she couldn't bear to make love the way things had been left between them.
"When I left tonight, I wasn't going to come back," she told him from the safety of distance. If she went any closer, she didn't think she'd have the strength to say what had to be said. "I can't do this anymore, Lucan. I need things from you that you can't give me."
"Name them." It was a soft command, but still a command. He moved toward her with careful ste ~ Lara Adrian

Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket weather. Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can't play it here. Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Culler broke a window in the Kildare street club with a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more in their line. And the skulls we were acracking when M'Carthy took the floor. Heatwave. Won't last. Always passing, the stream of life, which in the stream of life we trace is dearer than them all. ~ James Joyce

When Salter was fifty-five, his twenty-five-year-old daughter, Allan, died in an electrical accident. She was in the shower in a cabin next door to his in Aspen. He walked in and found her lying naked on the floor, the water running. He carried her dead body in his arms. He took her outside and tried to resuscitate her, somehow thinking she was drowning. We do not talk about this. He says only, There was the wreckage of that. ~ Katie Roiphe

To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor. ~ Deanna Raybourn

I hear his denim jeans crumple to the floor and my insides squeal like a horny teenager. ~ Skyla Madi

I can't stand a man who fawns, you know what I mean? I can't stand a man sucking up to me, but he was the kind who took you right on the floor and he didn't even look at you afterwards when he zipped up his pants. ~ Sue Grafton

A question from the floor: are there tribes whose lexicon lacks the words 'I love you'? Or have they all died out. ~ Julian Barnes

I got in a fight one time with a really big guy, and he said, 'I'm going to mop the floor with your face.' I said, 'You'll be sorry.' He said, 'Oh, yeah? Why?' I said, 'Well, you won't be able to get into the corners very well.' ~ Emo Philips

Then I'll hide all the scissors and chewing gum." It made the entire room grow quiet before he looked over at me. "I know how upset you were last time when I had to cut your hair." My jaw was on the floor. He'd totally cracked a joke. "Then I guess you should hide the mattresses, too," I shot back playfully. ~ Amber L. Johnson

Juliette!" His voice is tighter, higher, laced with anger and terror and denial and betrayal. Realization is a new piece in his puzzled mind.
"He can touch you?"
"Goddamit, Juliette, answer me!" Warner is writhing on the floor, unhinged in a way I never thought possible. He looks wild, his eyes disbelieving, horrified. "Has he touched you? ~ Tahereh Mafi

Look how the floor of heaven is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold! ~ William Shakespeare

Enter my lair, said the dragon. I have shiny treasure for you to play with, I'll keep you warm and safe, and if it suits my purpose, I'll chain you to the floor and kill your client by throwing quarters at him with my magic. Been there, done that. ~ Ilona Andrews

The ochre-yellow linoleum floor hasn't been scrubbed for some time; splotches of dirt bloom on it like grey pressed flowers. ~ Margaret Atwood

Sufferers of depression have 'episodes' the same way those who suffer from multiple sclerosis do. It comes, wipes the floor with you, and then somehow returns you to the world. But it comes back. ~ Michael Redhill

I would kill Kurt. I would strangle him with my bare hands.

I stomped up the stairs to the second floor of Rogan's HQ, where Heart and Bug waited for me. Napoleon saw my face and ran behind Bug's chair to hide.

"Where is Kurt?" I growled.

Bug blinked. "I'm not sure I should tell you this information."

"Bug!"

"Kurt is a valuable member of the team, and you have murder on your face. ~ Ilona Andrews

A battle is like a deadly sort of dance, Lyss thought. We learn the steps by sparring in the practice yards, by marching up and down the field in the hope that we'll remember the moves when we're distracted by the smell of blood and the shrieks of the wounded anddeath howling toward us from all sides. We go into battle to the cadence of drums and guns, but our dance cards are blank. We have no idea who we'll dance with that day, when death might cut in, and who'll leave the floor alive. ~ Cinda Williams Chima

One time I tried to use the bathroom in the dark, and I missed the toilet, and I fell on the floor. ~ Rita Ora

I'd like to lose enough weight so that my bones creaked louder than the floor ~ Stanley Victor Paskavich

The point of nonviolence is to build a floor, a strong new floor, beneath which we can no longer sink. A platform which stands a few feet above napalm, torture, exploitation, poison gas, A and H bombs, the works. Give man a decent place to stand. ~ Joan Baez

I certainly love a boogie and once the music starts I'm usually one of the first out there on the dance floor. Although I haven't had any formal dance training and something tells me I'm really going to notice the difference. ~ Ainsley Harriott

I just did an arc with Warren Ellis - and no one else on the planet could get away with this, because I think this is like harassment? - But Warren felt like there was a depiction of Spider-Woman where it looked like her waist perhaps didn't contain any internal organs. And he suggested very quietly ... 'You should fix that, or else I will come to your house and nail your feet to the floor and set your house on fire.' ... And it totally got fixed! ~ Kelly Sue DeConnick

It pulsed under the lights of the dance floor like a separate, disembodied heart. ~ Cassandra Clare

As for the danger of alienating people with good intentions - well, one of the things that I learned from RaceFail (and also from general experience) was that people with good intentions are the ones to fear most. The overt racists are easy to deal with. You can spot them coming a mile away. But the well-intentioned people are scarier. They might not intend harm, but in most cases they haven't thought about all the racist (and other "-ist") messages they've absorbed from society. They haven't done the basic groundwork necessary to purge themselves of that passively-absorbed "-ism". So they say the most incredibly hurtful, self-absorbed, and utterly useless things, then compound the problem by getting upset when they're called on it. I liken these people to sleeper agents - they seem OK at first, but then they suddenly "activate" and stab you in the back, and then they come out of their fugue and freak because there's blood on their hands and they don't know how it got there and they refuse to accept that they're the ones who put it there, OMG, OMG. Meanwhile, you're on the floor bleeding out, unnoticed because of their histrionics.

The rage of RaceFail made many of these well-intentioned sleeper agents wake up. So while yes, I think the anger risked alienating some of them, I'm fine with that. They were always dangerous; I haven't lost anything by their alienation. The ones who wake up are a gain (or they will be, once they shift from "not causing harm" anymore ~ N.K. Jemisin

Even the girl he'd danced with had thought it was some marvelous trick. She had been enveloped in real, bright fire and she had tipped back her head and laughed, the tumble of her black hair becoming a crackling waterfall of light, the heels of her shoes striking sparks like glittering leaping dust all over the floor, her skirt trailing flame as if he were following a phoenix tail. Magnus had spun and swung with her, and she'd thought he was marvelous for a single moment of bright illusion.
But, like love, fire didn't last. ~ Cassandra Clare

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

Then a movement began among the people. They creaked to their feet, shuffled and fumbled up to the front, kneeling on the floor, and she saw little Thomas at the beginning of the row. The priest turned and made the sign of the cross and all signed themselves; then he came forward and moved along the line, placing the Hosts in the mouths of the people.

Cecil had a very strange feeling; she felt that this was at the same time the most natural and the most unnatural thing she had ever seen. They were like little birds being fed by their mother, and yet it was grown people who knelt to receive what looked like a paper penny of bread on their tongues. She knew at once why the Mass provoked such love and such hate. Either what they believe is true, or else it is a dreadful delusion, she thought. ~ Meriol Trevor

We are over 60 percent water by weight. We're just a big ball of ... blob of water, with enough organic thickener added so we don't dribble away on the floor. ~ David Suzuki

I moved another step forward. "Do you know how much of my blood is soaked into the stone floor of that castle? I'd own the fucking place if blood were coin! I put myself to sleep once by counting the drops as they hit. ~ S.L. Jesberger

Agnes shut her eyes, clenched her fists, opened her mouth and screamed.

It started low. Plaster dust drifted down from the ceiling. The prisms on the chandelier chimed gently as they shook.
It rose, passing quickly through the mysterious pitch at fourteen cycles per second where the human spirit begins to feel distinctly uncomfortable about the universe and the place in it of the bowels. Small items around the Opera House vibrated off shelves and smashed on the floor.

The note climbed, rang like a bell, climbed again. In the Pit, all the violin strings snapped, one by one.
As the tone rose, the crystal prisms shook in the chandelier. In the bar, champagne corks fired a salvo. Ice jingled and shattered in its bucket. A line of wine-glasses joined in the chorus, blurred around the rims, and then exploded like hazardous thistledown with attitude.

There were harmonics and echoes that caused strange effects. In the dressing-rooms the No. 3 greasepaint melted. Mirrors cracked, filling the ballet school with a million fractured images.
Dust rose, insects fell. In the stones of the Opera House tiny particles of quartz danced briefly...

Then there was silence, broken by the occasional thud and tinkle.
Nanny grinned.
'Ah,' she said, 'now the opera's over. ~ Terry Pratchett

People think blood red, but blood don't got no colour. Not when blood wash the floor she lying on as she scream for that son of a bitch to come, the lone baby of 1785. Not when the baby wash in crimson and squealing like it just depart heaven to come to hell, another place of red. Not when the midwife know that the mother shed too much blood, and she who don't reach fourteen birthday yet speak curse 'pon the chile and the papa, and then she drop down dead like old horse. Not when blood spurt from the skin, on spring from the axe, the cat-o'-nine, the whip, the cane and the blackjack and every day in slave life is a day that colour red. It soon come to pass when red no different from white or blue or black or nothing. Two black legs spread wide and mother mouth screaming. A black baby wiggling in blood on the floor with skin darker than midnight but the greenest eyes anybody ever done seen. I goin' call her Lilith. You can call her what they call her. ~ Marlon James

They cowered in a corner as far away as they could from the sound of ripping, tearing and banging. The creature above was frantically trying to find a way through the floor to them.
The terrifying scraping noise signaled that the thing had torn its way through the clean, white woolen carpet that had neatly covered the hard wood floorboards. Now it scraped its claws along the wood trying to find a hold.
In frustration, and after many attempts, it thumped the floor in anger. Screaming a long high-pitched whistle, it smashed itself hard and heavily against the floor.
Dust drifted towards them as they looked to each other for any suggestions to the one impending question upon all of their minds.
How are we going to get out of here alive? ~ Robert E. Kreig

I was waiting for my body receipt when Morelli walked in. He nodded to Ranger and grinned at me in my whiteness.
"I was at my desk, and Mickey told me I had to come out to take a look," Morelli said.
"It's floor," I told him.
"I can see that. If we add some milk and eggs, we can turn you into a cake. ~ Janet Evanovich

We stood there, the three of us, our jaws firmly planted on the floor. Aunt Lil recovered first. She nudged me with her elbow and said with a cackle of delight, I think you guys should make some more of those brownies, 'cause that boy looks hungry. ~ Darynda Jones