Gathering Quotes

The bar was crowded with theorizing Sherlockians, who in the absence of any actual evidence had created grand machinations to explain the crime. Minor points of canonical disagreement became reasons for brutal murder. Some tried to piece together their theories in small groups, hoping that with enough brainpower and expertise they might arrive at a solution. Others jumped straight over the "investigation" phase and landed square at the end of the story they were creating, instantly accusing the man across the table of some vile treachery. And, moreover, actually employing phrases like "vile treachery" in doing so. Everyone was a suspect. But at the world's largest Sherlockian gathering, everyone was a detective as well. ~ Graham Moore

And it may be that a crowd at a particular moment of history creates the object to justify its gathering, as it did at the first Human Be-In and Monterey Pop and Woodstock. Or it may be that two generations of war and surveillance had left people craving the embodiment of their own unease in the form of a lone, unsteady man on a slide guitar. ~ Jennifer Egan

Today much of what we call education is merely knowledge gathering and remembering. Problem solving and thinking, never strong parts of our educational system, have been downgraded in all but a few scientific subjects. ~ William Glasser

I want us all to stop thinking only in terms of accomplishments, of task and completion, of beating the competition, of gathering income and merchandise, of winning praise, and instead, live our lives forging the deepest relationships we can with ourselves and with one another. i want us to respond to adversity by deepening our engagement in our lives. It isn't complicated. ~ Susan Scott

She knew the minute HE arrived. Felt the warm blanket of comfort reach out to her frozen soul ... He made his way down the isle and sat next to her ... he didn't reach out, didn't touch her ... a single tear slid out from her closed lids and she blindly reached for his hand. He took her hand in more, gathering her close, arms coming around her warm and strong as her head sank down unto his shoulder and the tears finally came soaking the lapel of his wool suit. He offered her a perfectly white handkerchief ... she stared at it and wondered who carries that type of thing anymore? He looked back at her and explained, I'm old fashioned. ~ D.B. Reynolds

The years of disillusion, the long debate of who-belongs-to-who, gathered at the mighty feet of the Bangladesh Liberation War like flood waters rising, gathering thick weeds and crusty dirt and pulling it all in one direction. At times, when the body count was high and the air tasted like bloody ash, the way mass graves smell, Sariyah had wondered what progress was supposed to taste like. Often it tasted like unanswered questions, stuck in the teeth. Bangladesh had given her the true answer, though: progress at its best is home-grown. It should taste like joy – pure, unhindered joy. Like the freshest sun-ripened mango on a tree, a little sunrise in her palm. ~ Katherine Russell

All you really need to do is focus on building quality relationships instead of trying to be a social butterfly at every social gathering. ~ S.J. Scott

He looked at her an instant, for the effect of the graceful girlish figure with pale, passionate face and dark eyes full of sorrow, pride and resolution was wonderfully enhanced by the gloom of the great room, and glimpses of a gathering storm in the red autumn sky. ~ Louisa May Alcott

Movies were meant to stay on the screen, flat and large and colorful, gathering you up into their sweep of story, carrying you rollicking along to the end, then releasing you back into your unchanged life. But this movie misbehaved. It leaked out of the theater, poured off the screen, affected a lot of people so deeply that they required endless talismans and artifacts to stay connected to it. ~ Carrie Fisher

After gathering myself, I finally stated bluntly, "Sara, I want to have sex."
"Well, of course you do," she responded like I'd said the most obvious thing in the world.
"But what if I'm terrible at it?"
Sara started laughing hysterically. I hung up the phone. She called back ten seconds later.
"Sorry," she offered calmly. "You're serious. ~ Rebecca Donovan

I had drunk so deeply of grief and innocently gambled so hard with fate and irony that a special kind of vision was gathering in my eyes, not entirely clear just yet. This was the same look people saw in your eyes when you have died for beauty and come to live accepting nature as life with no promise of paradise, and mad at people who couldn't see that. ~ Martin Prechtel

It was like archeology. There was digging and there was dirt. And there was broken things. ~ Louise Penny

When you start to crack open, don't waste a moment gathering your old self up into something like you knew before. Let your new self splash like sunlight into every dark place and laugh and cry and make sounds you never made & thank all that is holy for the gift ... ~ Brian Andreas

I've heard people, usually writers, say that no one wrote a great book after winning the Booker, but I honestly did not feel any big pressure. 'The Gathering' did hang over me in that it was darker than I thought at the time. ~ Anne Enright

On being invited to the Jaipur Festival, I was naturally nervous about attempting an opening address to such an elite gathering. ~ Amartya Sen

Do not spend the day in gathering flowers by the way side, lest night come upon you before you arrive at your journey's end, and then you will not reach it. ~ Isaac Watts

People easily understand that 'primitives' cement their social order by believing in ghosts and spirits, and gathering each full moon to dance together around the campfire. What we fail to appreciate is that our modern institutions function on exactly the same basis. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

A kiss, he said, is a conversation. Easing closer, he continued to speak as he caressed her cheeks with featherlight stokes of his thumbs.
"A first kiss", his lips neared hers, is an introduction and then his mouth brushed against hers. The contact sparked, sharp and bright like lightning, yet his lips were soft, unexpectedly so. Her breath caught the same instant his did.
Against her mouth he whispered "That was Hello" His breath mingled with hers as he waited, his lips so close she could feel their warmth. For a moment she simply breathed him in growing heady on the scent of him and the tight anticipation gathering in her belly. Then she understood. Nerves fluttering, she brushed her lips across his as he had done. Again his breath hitched, as if he too felt that same spark, that hot need. Her eyes drifted closed and his voice poured over her like warm cream.
"This is, 'I'm Jack'. ~ Kristen Callihan

As he strode through the deserted city, he thought of the New Years of his childhood, before he was ten, before the Change, when the city had still glowed with the soft, deep enchantment of sugared angels spreading their sparkling wings in bakery windows, and bells whose limpid sounds rose like the sea at a moonlit tide, and glass ornaments turning slowly this way and that on dark tree branches, gathering in their reflections the whole wondrous, promise-filled world. ~ Olga Grushin

I have always wondered what it would have been like for an outsider to have witnessed firsthand the gathering dark of Hitler's rule. How did the city look, what did one hear, see, and smell, and how did diplomats and other visitors interpret the events occurring around them? Hindsight tells us that during that fragile time the course of history could so easily have been changed. Why, then, did no one change it? Why did it take so long to recognize the real danger posed by Hitler and his regime? ~ Erik Larson

America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. ~ George W. Bush

Who's the subject?"
"The psychiatrist - Dr. Hannibal Lecter," Crawford said.
A brief silence follows the name, always, in any civilized gathering. ~ Thomas Harris

Entitlement breeds laziness, which in turn breeds decline. But of course with enough money, it is possible not to notice for decades that your family name is gathering dust. ~ Matthew FitzSimmons

On my cornice linger the ripe black grapes ungathered;
Children fill the groves with the echoes of their glee,
Gathering tawny chestnuts, and shouting when beside them
Drops the heavy fruit of the tall black-walnut tree. ~ William C. Bryant

I knew Frank Herbert for more than thirty-eight years. He was a magnificent human being, a man of great honor and distinction, and the most interesting person at any gathering, drawing listeners around him like a magnet. To say he was an intellectual giant would be an understatement, since he seemed to contain all of the knowledge of the universe in his marvelous mind. He was my father, and I loved him deeply. ~ Frank Herbert

The wolves of war are gathering. They sing a song of rotten bones. ~ Ryan Graudin

Don't be upset," he whispered.
"I couldn't stop it from happening," she said in a plaintive voice.
"You weren't supposed to," he said tenderly. "I was playing with you. Teasing you."
"But I wanted it to last longer. It's our wedding night, and it's already over." Pausing, Beatrix added glumly, "At least my part of it is."
Christopher averted his face, but she could see that he was struggling to contain a laugh. When he had mastered himself, he looked down at her with a slight smile and smoothed her hair back from her face. "I can make you ready again."
Beatrix was quiet for a moment as she evaluated her spent nerves and limp body. "I don't think so," she said. "I feel like a wrung-out kitchen mop."
"I promise to make you ready again," he said, his voice threaded with amusement.
"It will take a long time," Beatrix said, still frowning.
Gathering her into his arms, Christopher crushed his mouth over hers. "I can only hope so. ~ Lisa Kleypas

It is not what you gather but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived. ~ Helen Walton

Gathering is peculiar, because you see nothing but what you're looking for. If you're picking raspberries, you see only what's red, and if you're looking for bones you see only the white. No matter where you go, the only thing you see is bones. ~ Tove Jansson

If you keep gathering those reins, lass,
you and the horse are going to end up back
where you came from. ~ Maya Banks

Observing any human being from infancy, seeing someone come into existence, like a new flower in bud, each petal first tightly furled around another, and then the natural loosening and unfurling, the opening into a bloom, the life of that bloom, must be something wonderful to behold; to see experience collect in the eyes, around the corners of the mouth, the weighing down of the brow, the heaviness in heart and soul, the thick gathering around the waist, the breasts, the slowing down of footsteps not from old age but only with the caution of life-all this is something so wonderful to observe, so wonderful to behold; the pleasure for the observer, the beholder, is an invisible current between the two, observed and observer, beheld and beholder, and I believe that no life is complete, no life is really whole, without this invisible current, which is in many ways a definition of love. ~ Jamaica Kincaid

The life of faith is less about gathering information than it is about expanding imagination. The movement Jesus started was a movement of dreamers and visionaries, not a movement of academics and theologians. ~ Erwin Raphael McManus

The first gathering of salads, radishes and herbs made me feel like a mother about her baby - how could anything so beautiful be mine? ~ Alice B. Toklas

You seem rather obsessed with Magnus. Perhaps next time I should try to arrange a meeting between the two of you instead. ~ Morgan Rhodes

Weep not for me. Rather let your tears flow for the sorrows of the multitude. My work is done. Like a ripe fruit I admit the gathering. Death has no terrors for it is a wise law of nature. I am ready whenever the summons may come. ~ Lucretia Mott

My heart seemed to stop. Garret paused, as if gathering his thoughts, or his courage, then took a deep breath. "I know I've made mistakes," he continued, shaking his head. "But there's still the chance for me to fix them. I shouldn't have walked out that night." His brow creased, a flicker of pain and regret going through his eyes. "Ember, I know you can't feel what I do," he said. "I get that. But ... I want to be with you. And if that's not possible, I'll be content just to be close. Fighting Talon with you and Riley, helping people, saving other dragons from the Order-there is nothing I want more. And nowhere else I want to be. ~ Julie Kagawa

We will use all lawful tools at our disposal, and that includes authorities under the renewed PATRIOT Act. We firmly believe that our intelligence gathering tools must enable us to collect the information we need to protect the American people. ~ John O. Brennan

You know nothing about me. You see me. But you don't see me. Everyone else sees me. And yet no one has the foggiest notion of the gathering storm within me. It's my secret private little hell. I live with it, I sleep with it. I love that no one knows. I wish you knew. Sometimes I fear you do. ~ Andre Aciman

The clouds of terror and dictatorship are gathering over the whole country. They must not be allowed to bring eternal night. ~ Boris Yeltsin

Most of us who work as professional futurists never really stop gathering information - you never know when a provocative, potentially disruptive new development might appear. ~ Jamais Cascio

It was funny how all the useless knowledge you accumulated when you're in love with someone could sit for years gathering dust in the back of your mind, only to spill out at the slightest reminder. ~ Blakney Francis

[T]hat old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air ... Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year's mistakes had been wiped clean by summer. ~ Wallace Stegner

Lorcan nodded, "It'ss a beautiful night," he said. "The stars have all come out for you, Darcy." He turned to go, then had a fresh thought. "Oh and Tempest, a word to the wise ... "
Grace was busily gathering up the edges of Darcy's train. "Yes?" she said, glancing up at Lorcan. "What is it Furey?"
Lorcan grinned."Just so you know, I've put down good money on you catching the wedding bouquet. I trust you wouldn't let me down!"
as he winked at her, Grace thought his eyes never looked so blue. They were eyes you could never tire from looking at- as deep and constant and infinite as the ocean itself. ~ Justin Somper

This is the hope the Maoists offered, the hope of dark clouds gathering over parched, fractured soil; it could rain or it could not, but they brought something new into their lives: possibility. ~ Neel Mukherjee

Two weeks ago at the Greater Glory Gathering Virginia Beach, the Lord spoke to me about contending for a greater outpouring of his presence, signs, and wonders. During this prophetic experience I saw the Revival Healing Angel that had visited us in Lakeland, Florida. ~ Todd Bentley

So disasters come not singly; But as if they watched and waited, Scanning one another's motions, When the first descends, the others Follow, follow, gathering flock-wiseRound their victim, sick and wounded, First a shadow, then a sorrow, Till the air is dark with anguish. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This truth of the gathering together of God's children is in Scripture seen realised in various localities, and in each central locality the Christians resident therein composed but one body: Scripture is perfectly clear on that head. ~ John Nelson Darby

They made their way down the drive in the gathering twilight. The air was full of the smells of warm grass, lake water, and wood smoke from Hagrid's cabin. It was difficult to believe that they were heading for anything dangerous or frightening. p. 553 ~ J.K. Rowling

This week
in live current
events: your eyes.

All power can be
dangerous:
Direct

or alternating,
you, socket to me.
Plugged in and the grid

is humming,
this electricity,
molecule-deep desire:

particular friction, a charge
strong enough to stop
a heart

or start it
again; volt, re-volt--
I shudder, I stutter, I start

to life. I've got my ion
you, copper-top,
so watch how you

conduct yourself.
Here's today's
newsflash: a battery of rolling

blackouts in California, sudden,
like lightning kisses:
sudden, whitehot

darkness and you're
here, fumbling for
that small switch

with an urgent surge
strong enough to kill
lesser machines.

Static makes hair raise,
makes things cling,
makes things rise like

a gathering storm
charging outside
our darkened house

and here I am:
tempest, pouring out
mouthfulls

of tsunami on the ground,
I've got that rain-soaked kite,
that drenched key.

You know what it's for,
circuit-breaker, you know
how to kiss until it's hertz. ~ Daphne Gottlieb

It's all about loyalty and collaboration, gathering your gang around you, finding your soulmate in filmmaking because it is a collaborative process. When failure happens, that family you gathered regroups around you and gives you the fresh energy you're lacking. ~ Matthew Jacobs

We are flies--gathering, swarming--bulging eyes and fragile bones flittering nervously toward imagined destinies. We hurl our bodies at the panes of tentalizing windows, aching for the world promised on the other side. Day after day we drag injured wings and eyes and organs around the same four walls; opened or closed, the exits elude us. We hope to be rescued by a breeze, hoping for a chance to see the sun. ~ Tahereh Mafi

A good soup attracts chairs. This is an African proverb. I can hear the shuffling and squeaking on the wood floor, the gathering 'round. This, from just five well-chosen words. ~ Amy Krouse Rosenthal

She went stealthily as a cat through this profusion of growth, gathering cuckoo-spittle on her skirts, cracking snails that were underfoot, staining her hands with thistle-milk and slug-slime, and rubbing off upon her naked arms sticky blights which, though snow-white on the apple-tree trunks, made madder stains on her skin; thus she drew quite near to Clare, still unobserved of him. ~ Thomas Hardy

If you decide on having an alcoholic at your party, make sure it's a large gathering. This way, until the alcoholic begins removing their clothes or dangling the cat out the window, they can sort of blend in. An alcoholic at a small gathering is called an intervention. ~ Amy Sedaris

I live for books that produce a mood of gathering creepy fascination, a true descent in the Weird. ~ Gemma Files

There was no near sound - no steam-engine at work with beat and pant - no click of machinery, or mingling and clashing of many sharp voices; but far away, the ominous gathering roar, deep-clamouring. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

Quite a merry gathering! ... What's that? Tea! No thank you! A little red wine, I think for me. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Greta's car was three blocks away, and up ahead there looked to be a crowd of people gathering. They had probably come outside to see what the commotion was. Rapp stopped running. There was no quicker way to attract attention than running in street clothes at night when gunshots had been fired. The sirens were much closer now. At the next intersection a police car came skidding around the corner. Rapp's training kicked in. He stopped and stared directly at the two policemen in the front seat. That's what innocent people did. Guilty people looked away, hid their faces, and even ran. ~ Vince Flynn

I can't even take a stroll through a park. As soon as women see my face they start gathering up their children and running for home. ~ Timothy Carey

Proper praying is like a person who wanders through a field gathering flowers-one by one, until they make a beautiful bouquet. In the same manner, a person must gather each letter, each syllable, to form them into words of prayer. ~ Nachman Of Breslov

It's been a prevalent notion. Fallen sparks. Fragments of vessels broken at the Creation. And someday, somehow, before the end, a gathering back to home. A messenger from the Kingdom, arriving at the last moment. But I tell you there is no such message, no such home
only the millions of last moments ... nothing more. Our history is an aggregate of last moments. ~ Thomas Pynchon

They rode on through sunset, and slow dusk, and gathering night. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love: These are complex and hard-earned capacities. You don't need a history of trauma to feel self-conscious and even panicked at a party with strangers - but trauma can turn the whole world into a gathering of aliens. ~ Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

Consolidation isn't new, though ... it was a major factor in our rush to form the Gathering and place a stake in the ground to ensure that there is a solid path for developers who are willing to stay independent and build their own companies on their own terms. ~ Mike Wilson

Apple Tree Inn, the nightly gathering place of all Winslow residents, and in many ways the core of the town's happiness, always had a warm fire crackling on the hearth and was known for its good cider and company. ~ Clara Diane Thompson

I've never trusted calm; there has always been the hint of a gathering storm just around the corner. ~ Jennifer Sommersby

In America most orthodox Christians become defensive or testy when they are asked even to break into a sweat. Most of our efforts up until now have been more symbolic than anything else. We are great at holding conventions, gathering for strategy meetings and seminars, holding congresses on evangelism. But where are the people to run our own antidefamation league? ~ Cal Thomas

You can't run a government from one single person. What instead matters is that leadership be about gathering around extraordinary individuals and getting the best out of them. ~ Justin Trudeau

If you choose to stay with us, Jaime, and if we choose to accept you, the pride, the vanity, must go. You will learn by observing and experiencing the training process, which, as you're probably gathering, won't always be easy and won't always be fun. But in the process, if you can set aside your preconceptions, your fear, and most especially your ego, you will achieve a level of peace and actualization that is tremendously freeing." Jaime ~ Claire Thompson

Once we form a belief, we immediately start gathering evidence to support the belief, whether it is positive or negative. Therefore, begin consciously creating the pictures you want to become your future reality. ~ T.J. Hoisington

Keep in mind that when we limit our exposure to information, or when information itself is scarce, our picture of reality suffers. We become oblivious to both opportunities and hazards. Trends become invisible. History disappears. It's really just two sides of the same coin: the first commitment is as much a commitment to gathering information, from as many sources and in as much volume as can constructively be used, as it is a commitment to facing the facts. ~ John Salka

Alyosha later wrote down. Sometimes he stopped speaking altogether, as if gathering his strength, and gasped for breath, yet he seemed to be in ecstasy. He was listened to with great feeling, though many wondered at his words and saw darkness in them ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

At every moment I convinced myself that I was gathering material for the novel of my life - all experienced from the philosophical distance of the author. Even these humiliating occasions when I was robbed could be used as material. Life was a field trip. ~ Edmund White

He felt as though he were a prism, gathering up God's love like white light and scattering it in all directions, and the sensation was nearly physical, as he caught and repeated as much of what everyone said to him as he could, soaking up the music and cadence, the pattern of phonemes on the fly, gravely accepting and repeating Askama's quiet corrections when he got things wrong. ~ Mary Doria Russell

A heavenly female with long, russet tresses that drifted over her right shoulder in undulating waves stepped toward him. A bright blue ribbon held her unruly mass of hair. She wore a light blue, snugly fitted shirt that matched the ribbon. It clung to full breasts tapering to a narrow waist. Skin like polished stone with a light kiss from the sun gleamed in the gathering light. Large, round, azure eyes the shade of sea shoals under a noonday summer sun and blanketed with thick lashes assessed him and left him speechless. ~ Aleigha Siron

We actually tried Free Will before. After taking you from hunting and gathering to the height of the Roman Empire we stepped back to see how you'd do on your own. You gave us the Dark Ages for five centuries... until finally we decided we should come back in. The Chairman thought maybe we just needed to do a better job of teaching you how to ride a bike before taking the training wheels off again. So we gave you the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution. For six hundred years we taught you to control your impulses with reason, then in 1910 we stepped back. Within fifty years, you'd brought us World War I, the Depression, Fascism, the Holocaust and capped it off by bringing the entire planet to the brink of destruction in the Cuban Missile Crisis. At that point a decision was taken to step back in again before you did something that even we couldn't fix. You don't have free will, David. You have the appearance of free will."

(Agent Thompson's response to David Norris when asked "What ever happened to free will?") ~ Philip K. Dick

A rejection of absolutism, in all its forms, may sometimes slip into moral relativism or even nihilism, an erosion of values that hold society together, but for most of our history it has encouraged the very process of information gathering, analysis, argument, and persuasion which allows us to make better, if not perfect, choices – not only about the means to our ends, but also the ends themselves. ~ Barack Obama

Once Lotari reached his mate's side and gently kissed her hand, the crowd began cheering and whooping for them.
Bastion the dwarf appeared beside Stitch, a handkerchief extended. "Ye blubbering hoofer. Best keep that with you tonight, I doubt this'll be the first tears you'll be a shedding."
Stitch took the cloth and dabbed at his cheeks. "Glad to see you here, Bast."
"Never miss a hoofer gathering. There's always meat and grog. Who in their right mind turns a nose up to such a fare, eh? ~ Jackie Castle

Dawn comes after the darkness, and with it the promise that what has been torn by the sea is not lost. All of life is breaking and mending, clipping and stitching, gathering tatters and sewing seams. All of life is quilted from the scraps of what once was and is no more- the places we have been, the memories we have made, the people we have known, that which has been long loved but has grown threadbare over time and can be worn no longer. We keep only pieces. All colors, all shapes, all sizes.
"All waiting to be stitched into the pattern only you can see.
"In the quiet after the storm, I hear you whisper, 'Daughter, do not linger where you are. Take up your needle and your thread, and go see to the mending ... ~ Lisa Wingate

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night. ~ Khaled Hosseini

Islam lays great emphasis on the social side of things. Every day, the rich and the poor, the great and the small living in a locality are brought five times in a day in the mosque in the terms of perfect equality of mankind and thereby the foundation of a healthy social relationship is laid and established through prayer. At the end of Ramazan comes the new moon, the crescent as a signal for a mass gathering on the 'Id day again in perfect equality of mankind which effects the entire Muslim world. ~ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Listen, I know there were days you wanted to die

when the sky was so clear
you'd stand obnoxious underneath it
begging for stars to shoot you
just so you could feel at home.

I know about the ways you misplaced all the right words,
stockpiled every important social cue you ever missed
from the first time you learned you were wrong,
waited to make it right
once everyone stopped watching.

I know you let them beat up your beauty in bed
because redemption was still alive in you, howling relentless, gathering strength.
Felt like ecstasy when they pounded it out of you in the hard dark.
Those days of dead weather
got all strung together
and they spoke for you,
wore you down to telling everyone here it was a good life
so you could run back into the wails of your windfight.

I know the parts of your past that haunt you the most
are the days you weren't being yourself,
and I know that's why most of your past haunts you.
There were so many who found you out,
and they were right.
You were good.

So
un-
numb. ~ Buddy Wakefield

There often is a dark secret in books ... There is often a gathering sense of dread; there's a gap sometimes in the text from which all kinds of monsters can emerge. ~ Anne Enright

Elizabeth's concern that Ian might insult them, either intentionally or otherwise, soon gave way to admiration and then to helpless amusement as he sat for the next half-hour, charming them all with an occasional lazy smile or interjecting a gallant compliment, while they spent the entire time debating whether to sell the chocolates being donated by Gunther's for $5 or $6 per box. Despite Ian's outwardly bland demeanor, Elizabeth waited uneasily for him to say he'd buy the damned cartload of chocolates for $10 apiece, if it would get them on to the next problem, which she knew was what he was dying to say.
But she needn't have worried, for he continued to positively exude pleasant interest. Four times, the committee paused to solicit his advice; four times, he smilingly made excellent suggestions; four times, they ignored what he suggested. And four times, he seemed not to mind in the least or even notice.
Making a mental note to thank him profusely for his incredible forbearance, Elizabeth kept her attention on her guests and the discussion, until she inadvertently glanced in his direction, and her breath caught. Seated on the opposite side of the gathering from her, he was now leaning back in his chair, his left ankle propped atop his right knee, and despite his apparent absorption in the topic being discussed, his heavy-lidded gaze was roving meaningfully over her breasts. One look at the smile tugging at his lips and Elizabeth realized that he wanted her to kno ~ Judith McNaught

There is no straight and easy road to the city of modernity. Whatever the main road chosen, there will be many tempting and ruinous side roads; there will be many marshes and wastes on either side, and many wrecked aspirations will lie there, rusting and gathering dust. Those who arrive at the city will discover it to be quite different from the destination which they and their ancestors originally sought. Yet, some roads are better than others; some destinations are better than others.


Even if none is perfect and none corresponds to the voyagers' hope on starting, some of the destinations will turn out to have been worth the travail, worth the effort of the voyagers and of their friends who helped them on their way. ~ Edward Shils

And what we've been always been is ... ?"
"Is living on borrowed time. Never caring about who's paying for it, who's starving somewhere else all jammed together so we can have cheap food, a house, a yard in the burbs ... planetwide, more every day, the payback keeps gathering. And meantime the only help we get from the media is boo hoo the innocent dead. Boo fuckin hoo. You know what? All the dead are innocent. There's no uninnocent dead."
After a while, "You're not going to explain that, or ... "
"Course not, it's a koan. ~ Thomas Pynchon

That's the trouble with gathering truth. It's never neat and tidy ... ~ Emma Jane Holloway

Yes. Just now, I was actually trying to rank 'I love you, I like you, I worship you, I have to have my cock inside you,' in terms of relative sincerity.
Did I day that? he said sounding slightly startled.
Yes. Weren't you listening?
No, he admitted. I meant every word of it though. His hand cupped one buttock, weighing it appreciatively. Still do come to that.
What, even that last one? I laughed and rubbed my forehead gently against his chest, feeling his jaw rest snugly on top of my head.
Oh, aye, he said gathering me firmly against him with a sigh. I will say the flesh requires a bit of supper and a wee rest before I think of doin' it again, but the spirit is always willing. God, ye have the sweetest fat wee bum. Only seeing it makes me want to give it yea again directly. It's lucky ye're wed to a decrepit auld man, Sessenach, or ye'd be on your knees with your arse in the air this minute. ~ Diana Gabaldon

When will we get done with the fool idea that the way to make a party grow is to scare away everybody who has an extra dollar in his pocket? God forbid that the Democratic Party should become a mere gathering of the unsuccessful! ~ John W. Davis

Well, when people talk about interrogating terrorists, they're acting like this is some sort of law enforcement function. Law enforcement is about gathering evidence to take someone to trial, and convict them. Anti-terrorism is about finding out information to prevent a future attack so the same tactics do not apply. ~ Marco Rubio

There are a few 'Raw Shark Texts' tattoos floating around the Internet now, so I'm gathering them up to post on my forum. It's a strange thought, knowing that readers are tattooing themselves with something I've created, but it feels wonderful to have added something that people care about to the world. ~ Steven Hall

Right," Reilin said, and Ronoah looked up at him because his voice had changed again and suddenly it sounded clear and young, hushed with breathless anticipation. It made his own heart kick in a way that made him more excited than nauseous. The man rolled his broad shoulders in their sockets, gathering the reins in his hands. He was staring intent at the horizon, the blue canvas of the eastern sky, the rip and rupture of the sun. His face was unreadable, sort of like a question and sort of like an answer and sort of like a challenge and yet none of those things at all. "Off we go, into the glorious unknown. ~ Sienna Tristen

Making progress in science often hinges on asking the right kind of question.

Without a well-posed question, discussions become little more than people talking (or yelling) past each other.

And without a well-posed question, there's no clear path toward gathering data that will yield answers.

Finding a good question is like throwing open the shades in a dark room.

It's the first step in finding a new way to tell is important. It tells us where we should be looking, where we should be going, and how to begin organizing our efforts to get there. ~ Adam Frank

There, all gone, Luce." And the little girl continued to open and squint shut her eyes. "All gone," she said eventually. Then, "More 'tato!" and the hunt began again. Inside, Isabel swept the floor in every room, gathering the sandy dust into piles in the corner, ready to gather up. Returning from a quick inspection of the bread in the oven, she found a trail leading all through the cottage, thanks to Lucy's attempts with the dustpan. ~ M.L. Stedman

The owls are gathering; find out why soon. ~ J.K. Rowling

The first morning I really sat and watched him it was a Tuesday. I know that because Tuesday is trash day for our neighborhood. Unlike me, he leaves gathering up his trash for the morning of pickup instead of doing it the night before. My alarm went off at 6 AM and I went in to start the coffee maker, and as I went about selecting a bit of fruit from the bowl on my kitchen table I looked out the window. It was just a casual glance, and the human eye is attracted to movement. ~ Benjamin R. Smith

There was a downpour coming; Avery could feel it. The wind was already gaining strength, tearing out the last of her hairpins, whipping her dress close to her body. The air was heavy with the scent of rain. Avery's thoughts circled frantically in her mind, pressing so hard she thought she would burst.
A falcon that had been perched farther along the railing turned a beady eye on her, curious. Avery watched it unfurl its wings and take off. She felt a sudden kinship with the bird, the way it flew screaming into the sky like a wild thing. She wished she could follow it straight into the gathering storm. ~ Katharine McGee

The real process of making decisions, of gathering support, of developing opinions, happens before the meeting or after. ~ Bill Vaughan

But having mastered the art of descending the stairs to a gathering of admirers, she had yet to master the art of ascending the stairs alone. Perhaps no one has. ~ Amor Towles

Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief and noted orator, tried to unite the Indians against the white invasion: The way, and the only way, to check and to stop this evil, is for all the Redmen to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was at first and should be yet; for it was never divided, but belongs to all for the use of each. That no part has a right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers - those who want all and will not do with less. Angered when fellow Indians were induced to cede a great tract of land to the United States government, Tecumseh organized in 1811 an Indian gathering of five thousand, on the bank of the Tallapoosa River in Alabama, and told them: Let the white race perish. They seize your land; they corrupt your women, they trample on the ashes of your dead! Back whence they came, upon a trail of blood, they must be driven. ~ Howard Zinn