Ground Rules Quotes

Most people think Marv is crazy, but I don't believe that.
I'm no shrink and I'm not saying I've got Marv all figured out or anything, but "crazy" just doesn't explain him. Not to me. Sometimes I think he's retarded, a big, brutal kid who never learned the ground rules about how people are supposed to act around each other. But that doesn't have the right ring to it either. No, it's more like there's nothing wrong with Marv, nothing at all
except that he had the rotten luck of being born at the wrong time in history. He'd have been okay if he'd been born a couple of thousand years ago. He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an ax into somebody's face. Or in a roman arena, taking a sword to other gladiators like him.
They'd have tossed him girls like Nancy, back then. ~ Frank Miller

I realize the congressman isn't in. I want you to deliver this message to him personally: Tell him to shut his goddamn mouth! ... I know we're working behind the scenes to protect the oil company from its victims. That's exactly why he needs to go mute. Those were the strict ground rules from the beginning of his term: no press conferences, no interviews except Fox, and sit like a silent lump in the committee ... Because he's fucking stupid! And I'm not going to let him throw this away! Do you have any idea how hard it was to get a moron like that elected? ~ Tim Dorsey

One of the trickiest things about 'Game of Thrones' is just seeding those first couple of episodes with that basic information that people need to know, both about the world and the ground rules of the world, and the relationships between the characters, as far as who means what to whom and why. ~ D. B. Weiss

We were playing a game against an unknown and unforgiving opponent. The stakes were terrible - play well or die - but we didn't even know the ground rules. ~ Nando Parrado

Few ground rules: If you've killed someone, I'm calling the cops. If you are dealing drugs, I'm calling the cops. If you are wanting me to buy Girl Scout cookies, I'm calling the cops. Anything else, I'll help you with. ~ J.C. Nelson

And speaking of Terms, we need to set a few ground rules here with ... this," he said, clearing his throat and gesturing at the two of them.
"With what?" Lex said.
"That," Uncle Mort replied, pointing to a suspicious-looking mark on her neck.
Lex's hand flew to her throat while Driggs shifted, uneasy.
"Why?" he asked.
"Don't 'why?' me, Romeo. You know I trust you, but Lex is still my niece. In the absence of her father, it's up to me to do everything in my power to complicate and interfere with her budding love life."
Lex frowned. "Hey- ~ Gina Damico

For me, when I go in to write a profile, and no ground rules are laid down, and I'm there to write an on-the-record profile and cover readings while in the room, then that means it's on the record. ~ Michael Hastings

Though editorialists at The New York Times and The Washington Post still don't get it, most Democrats in Congress finally do: Today's trade disputes are no longer mostly about tariffs, quotas, or free entry of goods. They are about the ground rules for capitalism. Are there to be only property rights? What about the other rights that liberal democracies have fought for since the 1880s? ~ Robert Kuttner

Professionalism is environmental. Amateurism is anti environmental. Professionalism merges the individual into patterns of total environment. Amateurism seeks the development of the total awareness of the individual and the critical awareness of the ground rules of society. The amateur can afford to loose. ~ Marshall McLuhan

STOP!' Keefe held up his hands. 'Ground rules for this conversation: All talk of alicorn baby-making is off the table
got it? Otherwise I'll have to rip my ears off. ~ Shannon Messenger

When the children of Israel left Egypt, they were guided by the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night. For them, this did not seem to be a problem. For me, it was an enormous problem. The pillar of cloud was a fog, perplexing and impossible. I didn't understand the ground rules. The daily world was a world of Strange Notions, without form, and therefore void. I comforted myself as best I could by always rearranging their version of the facts ~ Jeanette Winterson

Science is about recognizing patterns. [ ... ] Everything depends on the ground rules of the observer: if someone refuses to look at obvious patterns because they consider a pattern should not be there, then they will see nothing but the reflection of their own prejudices. ~ Christopher Knight

Ground rules, Tanner," he growled. Tanner paled. More good. "No alcohol. No smoking. No drugs. No looking at other girls. You can dance with my daughter. Your hands will avoid the danger zones, which are here, here and here." Liam gestured to his chest, groin and ass. "You can kiss her. Once. At 10:59 p.m. tonight, when you'll be standing here once again. I will be on the other side of this door, waiting for her. Am I clear?" "Yes, sir," Tanner whispered. "I was your age once, too," Liam said. "I'm aware of that, sir." "I know what you think about." "I'm sorry." "You can think it. You can't do it." "Okay." "I have many sharp tools in my garage." "Yes, sir." "We're clear, then?" "Very, sir." "Good!" Liam smiled, then grabbed the boy by the shoulder and dragged him in. "Nicole! Your date's here. ~ Kristan Higgins

Poor teaching leads to the inevitable idea that the subject (mathematics) is only adapted to peculiar minds, when it is the one universal science and the one whose four ground-rules are taught us almost in infancy and reappear in the motions to the universe. ~ Henry John Stephen Smith

You have the right to set ground rules. This means deciding if, when, and how you want to see the people in your family. Many survivors feel that if they open up the channels at all, they have to open them up all the way. When you were a child you had two options - to trust or not to trust. Your options are broader now. ~ Ellen Bass

Agree to these ground rules: Be curious, conversational and real. Don't persuade or interrupt. Listen, listen, listen. ~ Elizabeth Lesser

There is a theory of space and time embedded in the way we use words. There is a theory of matter and a theory of causality, too. Our language has a model of sex in it (actually, two models), and conceptions of intimacy and power and fairness. Divinity, degradation, and danger are also ingrained in our mother tongue, together with a conception of well-being and a philosophy of free will. These conceptions vary in their details from language to language, but their overall logic is the same. They add up to a distinctively human model of reality, which differs in major ways from the objective understanding of reality eked out by our best science and logic. Though these ideas are woven into language, their roots are deeper than language itself. They lay out the ground rules for how we understand our surroundings, how we assign credit and blame to our fellows, and how we negotiate our relationships with them. A close look at our speech-our conversations, our jokes, our curses, our legal disputes, the names we give our babies-can therefore give us insight into who we are. ~ Steven Pinker

So I need to lay down some ground rules."
"Rules for the use of the ground?" He's gazing out the window. "Am I still allowed to step on it? ~ Eva Morgan

The teaching fellow establishes the atmosphere of a class in the first few meetings. I have found that students appreciate having the ground rules clearly defined from the start. ~ Catherine Asaro

Nora sobered and turned back to the windows, her breath fogging the glass. "We may as well lay some ground rules if we're going to be stuck here for a few days."
"Okay."
"You can keep the bed, I prefer the sofa. I don't cook. I'm not a maid, so pick up after yourself. You can eat whatever you can find in the kitchen, but I'll warn you, I don't keep much. I prefer my privacy, so you'll have to occupy yourself. Any questions?
"Only one."
She turned to face him.
"What are you hiding from? ~ Jennifer Lowery

As any organizer of focus groups will tell you, people's views on highly emotional subjects, from immigration to abortion to drugs, will change just 30 minutes into a face-to-face discussion with people of differing views, provided that they are all given the same information and ground rules that enforce civility. One of the problems of pluralism, then, is the assumption that interests are fixed and that the role of the legislator is simply to act as a transmission belt for them, rather than having his own views that can be shaped by deliberation. ~ Anonymous

Integrity is the factor that determines which one will prevail. We struggle daily with situations that demand decisions between what we want to do and what we ought to do. Integrity establishes the ground rules for resolving these tensions. it determines who we are and how we will respond before the conflict even appears. Integrity welds what we say, think, and do, into a whole person so that permission is never granted for one of these to be out of sync. ~ John C. Maxwell

What we say here every day is that our success is really based on our members' success, our community's success. We've created an infrastructure and laid some basic ground rules to create this marketplace. ~ Pierre Omidyar

When we were teenagers, we would imagine that when we had daughters of our own, we wouldn't be so strict. We would give them room to explore, let them decide for themselves if they wanted to follow this way of life. But once we were in the parental role, it wasn't as simple. We wanted our daughters to grow up and get married, to have Jewish homes and raise Jewish families. We wanted them to pass on this tradition to their children and to their children's children. We didn't want them to be exposed to bad influences, ones that might make them steer from this path that had been set out for them since birth. We wanted them to avoid the confusion of the modern world, where no one seemed to believe in anything anymore. We wanted them to always feel rooted in their tradition, to be close to their families, their community, and God. And we didn't know how to do that if we made no ground rules, set down no boundaries. ~ Tova Mirvis

Okay. Ground rules," I said, and locked gazes with Eli. "I pee alone and I shower alone. Some things need to remain a mystery, and those are two I firmly believe in. ~ Elle Jasper

I also suggested that my five cousins establish ground rules in respect of their personal lives, particularly in respect of their marriage to Draupadi. Each brother would have access to Draupadi's bed chamber for one year at a time. This was to prevent disharmony among the five. All the brothers were also allowed to marry other women so that they would have companionship for the four years when Draupadi was inaccessible to them. ~ Ashwin Sanghi

Clearly, it's time to lay down the ground rules and let her know she can't order me around. This is my life, and I'm going to be in control of it.
"I can train with you in the afternoons, as long as we go somewhere with air-conditioning. But before we do that, you're explaining everything. Got it?"
Personally I'm pretty proud of the line I just drew in the sand.
But Audra's eyes narrow and her jaw sets, turning her face into a series of hard lines. "You seem to be under the misimpression that you're in charge here, so let me correct that right now." She whips her arms in front of her and whispers, "Rush."
A blast of wind slams against my chest and sends me flying backward. I grunt as my back crashes into one of the remaining walls of the fire-scarred house. The wind pins me to the scratchy stucco and my eyes water from the racing air.
Audra steps toward me, the glare in her eyes leaving no doubt that she can end me right here, right now.
"Let's get a few things straight," she says, her voice deadly serious. "We're in a tremendous amount of danger, and I am responsible for keeping everyone in this valley alive - including you. No one will be making greater sacrifices than I will, so you will do what I say when I say it - and you will do it without complaint. Is. That. Understood? ~ Shannon Messenger

India may be the soul of world cricket, but IPL is its commercial heart. Just as 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' changed the ground rules for quiz shows by injecting a massive dose of money into the equation, IPL has changed the dynamics of the cricket economy. ~ Vikas Swarup

I don't know about ground rules; but I create the world that arrives with the characters or situation or voice in my head that instigates the piece, whatever form it may take. ~ Norman Lock

The locales varied, but the approach was the same - set up the ground rules so that the opposition's only real options appeared unreasonable, illegal, or futile. For years, if not generations, it had worked well. But there were signs that the tactic was getting old, and creating more and more frustration - leading to a social explosion? ~ L.E. Modesitt Jr.

I have a question."
"Yes?"
"Are we on a date?"
I nearly choked on the sip of beer I'd just taken.
"For the love of God, woman, don't have a fit. I just wonder if you'd like to reestablish ground rules. Should we review our previous set?"
I nodded, pressing a napkin to my lips and mumbling, "Sure. ~ Christina Lauren

Oh, I should probably set a few ground rules before we do this."
"Oh?" I turn at the waist and look at him curiously. "What kind of ground rules?"
He smiles.
"Well, number one: my car, my stereo; I'm sure I don't need to elaborate on that. ~ J.A. Redmerski

I use the rules to frustrate the law. But I didn't set up the ground rules. ~ F. Lee Bailey

Some kinds of animals burrow in the ground; others do not. Some animals are nocturnal, as the owl and the bat; others use the hours of daylight. There are tame animals and wild animals. Man and the mule are always tame; the leopard and the wolf are invariably wild, and others, as the elephant, are easily tamed. ~ Aristotle.

A basic rule of life for reporters is that you should spend your time talking with and learning about people who are not sending you press releases, rather than those who are. ~ James Fallows

Selethen was names Hawk. Alyss had been given the title of Tsuru, or Crane. . .Evanlynn was Kitsune, the Nihon-Jan word for Fox . . .Halt strangly enough had been known only as Halto-san. . . But Will had been taken aback in his confrotation with Arisaka to discover that his name - Chocho - meant "butterfly". It seemed a highly unwarlike name to him- not at all glamorous.And he was puzzled to know why they had selected it. His friends,of course, were delighted in helping him guess the reason.
"I assume its because you're such a snazzy dresser," Evanlynn said. "You Rangers are like a riot of color after all."
Will glared at her and was mortified to hear Alyss snigger at the princess's sally. He'd thought Alyss, at least, might stick up for him.
"I think it might be more to do with the way he raced around the the training ground, darting here and there to correct the way a man might be holding his sheidl then dashing off to show someone how to put theri body weight into their javelin cast," said Horace, a little more sympathetically. Then he ruined the effect by adding thoughtlessly, "I must say, your cloak did flutter around like a butterfly's wings."
"It was neither of those things," Halt said finally, and they all turned to look at him. "I asked Shigeru," he explained. "He said that they had all noticed how Will's mind and imagination darts from one idea to another at such high speed," . .
Will looked mollified. "Isuppose it's not too bad it you put ~ John Flanagan

The axiomatic thing about Saudi society is that while there are a seemingly infinite number of rules, it is also possible for people in authority to go outside those rules, and, if not break them, at least bend them quite a bit. ~ Manal Al-Sharif

Honour and I would have to create our world, live by our own rules. My family wasn't ready for her just yet.

I didn't know if they ever would be. ~ Ruth Ahmed

He dug and ploughed over his piece of land, and then sowed some turnip seed. Soon the seed began to show itself above ground, and there grew on turnip immensely large and thick, which seemed as if it would never have done growing, but was a princess among turnips; and as there had never before been seen such a turnip, so also there has never been such another since. ~ Jacob Grimm

To free yourself from the past you must break the rules of silence and compliance. ~ Claudia Black

Despite the complexity and variety of the universe, it turns out that to make one you need just three ingredients. Let's imagine that we could list them in some kind of cosmic cookbook. So what are the three ingredients we need to cook up a universe? The first is matter - stuff that has mass. Matter is all around us, in the ground beneath our feet and out in space. Dust, rock, ice, liquids. Vast clouds of gas, massive spirals of stars, each containing billions of suns, stretching away for incredible distances.
The second thing you need is energy. Even if you've never thought about it, we all know what energy is. Something we encounter every day. Look up at the Sun and you can feel it on your face: energy produced by a star ninety-three million miles away. Energy permeates the universe, driving the processes that keep it a dynamic, endlessly changing place.
So we have matter and we have energy. The third thing we need to build a universe is space. Lots of space. You can call the universe many things - awesome, beautiful, violent - but one thing you can't call it is cramped. Wherever we look we see space, more space and even more space. Stretching in all directions. It's enough to make your head spin. So where could all this matter, energy and space come from? We had no idea until the twentieth century.
The answer came from the insights of one man, probably the most remarkable scientist who has ever lived. His name was Albert Einstein. Sadly I never got to meet h ~ Stephen Hawking

Hey, hold up!" I drop the pickax to the ground and jog after K.T. I pull a roundish piece of amethyst about half the size of my palm out of my pocket and hold it out. "Would you give this to her?"
K.T. tilts her head to the side as she takes the stone and examines it. "Pretty. Is it amethyst?"
"Yeah."
"Why don't you give it to her yourself?"
I shove my hands in my pockets and shrug. There's no answer I can give that wouldn't either sound crazy or be an outright lie. K.T. smiles and slips the stone into her pocket.
"All right, Romeo. I'll go see if I can get Juliet to come to the ball tonight."
K.T. winks and walks around to the front of the house. ~ Erica Cameron

The wild pursuit of status and wealth has destroyed our souls and our economy. Families live in sprawling mansions financed with mortgages they can no longer repay. Consumers recklessly rang up Coach handbags and Manolo Blahnik shoes on credit cards because they seemed to confer a sense of identity and merit. Our favorite hobby, besides television, used to be, until reality hit us like a tsunami, shopping. Shopping used to be the compensation for spending five days a week in tiny cubicles. American workers are ground down by corporations that have disempowered them, used them, and have now discarded them ~ Chris Hedges

Thankfully for us, water seems unaware of the rules of chemistry or laws of physics. Everyone ~ Bill Bryson

We ran hunched along a subterranean corridor, discarded animal bones underfoot, the ceiling brushing our heads, past things I tried not to see - a slumped figure in a corner, sleepers shivering on miserable mats of straw, a boy in rags lying on the ground with a beggar's pail bangled around one arm. ~ Ransom Riggs

It is hard enough for anyone to map out a course of action and stick to it, particularly in the face of the desires of one's friends; but it is doubly hard for an aviator to stay on the ground waiting for just the right moment to go into the air. ~ Glenn Curtiss

It means she's amazing - and terrifying. Annwyl kills without question, rules with an iron fist, and has little patience for anyone. She can be cruel , she can be loving, she can be heartless, and she can care too much... I can't explain Annwyl ~ G.A. Aiken

The rules of physics are, in some cases, suspiciously anthropic. ~ Charles Stross

Why does soldiers leave the protection of his trench hole in the ground and go forward in the face of shot and shell? It is because of the leader who is in front of him and his comrades who are around him. Comradeship makes a man feel warm and courageous when all his instincts tend to make him cold and afraid. ~ Bernard Law Montgomery

It had to be done," Rumfoord told Billy, speaking of the destruction of Dresden. "I know," said Billy. "That's war." "I know. I'm not complaining." "It must have been hell on the ground." "It was," said Billy Pilgrim. "Pity the men who had to do it." "I do." "You must have had mixed feelings, there on the ground." "It was all right," said Billy. "Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Science discovered long ago that carbon is a source of life. The ashes of my faith have prepared the ground for the planting of seeds that have produced new forms of truth, morality and meaning on my own terms, not according to the dogma laid down by religious ruffians or a vengeful God. If, as believers claim, the word "gospel" means good news, then the good news for me is that there is no gospel, other than what I can define for myself, by observation and conscience. As a journalist and free-thinking human being, I have come not to favor and fear religion, but to face and fight it as an impediment to civilized advancement. ~ Steve Benson

Kathleen, Lady Trenear, was a petite woman with red hair, tip-tilted eyes and high cheekbones. Phoebe had come to like her very much during the week the Ravenels had stayed at Heron's Point. Kathleen was cheerful and engaging, albeit a bit horse mad, since both her parents had been in the business of breeding and training Arabians. Phoebe liked horses, but she didn't know nearly enough about them to carry on a detailed conversation. Fortunately, Kathleen was the mother of an infant son who was close to Stephen's age, and that had provided ample ground for conversation. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I had just two rules for their virtual reality worlds: No shooting violence and no pornography. I issued that decree mostly because those things have been done in computer games only about a zillion times, and I was looking for original thinking. ~ Randy Pausch

All that matters is what happens with the here and now. The past is just ground beneath your feet, there to hold you up or be left behind. ~ Karina Halle

Love was nothing but a lie people told themselves.
But lust?
Lust was real, and he was feeling it. Feeling it to his core. As he held her to him, his blood pounded with the fiercest, most primal kind of need. One that spoke of possession and claiming and mine.
She made him wild.
Surely it was simply because he'd gone so long without female company. Madeline wasn't even his usual sort. Given his choice, he would have said he favored a bonny Scots lass with fiery hair and a knowing gleam in her eye. Not a shy, proper English gentlewoman just learning the taste of her first kiss.
But beneath the shyness and reserve, she possessed a natural, earthy sensuality. He couldn't help but think of what that might mean in bed- when all the rules and corsets were shed, and the dark freed her from propriety. ~ Tessa Dare

My point is, why are we slaves to something that is just a set of rules? Yes, we get up at six thirty. We get to school for nine. We eat lunch at one. But why?'
'Because if we didn't there would be chaos. There would be people going to work and people eating lunch and people going to bed. Nobody would have a clue what was right and what was not. ~ Rachel Joyce

When I was 15, they changed the playground rules because I was dominating everything and blocking everything that came my way. ~ Moses Malone

War has rules, mud wrestling has rules - politics has no rules. ~ Ross Perot

The man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures and acknowledging unity with the universe of things, was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization. ~ Luther Standing Bear

No middle ground is possible on this subject. Either "taxation without consent is robbery," or it is not. If it is not, then any number of men, who choose, may at any time associate; call themselves a government; assume absolute authority over all weaker than themselves; plunder them at will; and kill them if they resist. ~ Lysander Spooner

Life's most obvious truths are the hardest to see but once you've burned everything to the ground they are the only things left standing.
André Chevalier ~ Nikki Sex

But Julian's blood was different. When she saw it she thought of him, shot and crumpling, the way his blood had run like water through her fingers. It was the first time in years that she'd actually thought he might die, that she might lose him. She knew what people said about parabatai, knew that it was meant to be a loss as profound as that of a spouse or a sibling. Emma had lost her parents; she had thought she knew what loss was, was prepared for it. But nothing had prepared her for the feeling that the idea of losing Jules wrenched out of her: that sky would go dark forever, that there would never be solid ground again. ~ Cassandra Clare

Novels, says Sartre, are not life, but they owe our power upon us, as upon himself as an infant, to the fact that they are somehow like life. In life, he once remarked, 'all ways are barred and nevertheless we must act. So we try to change the world; that is, to live as if the relations between things and their potentialities were governed not by deterministic processes but by magic.' The as if of the novel consists in a similar negation of determinism, the establishment of an accepted freedom by magic. We make up aventures, invent and ascribe the significance of temporal concords to those 'privileged moments' to which we alone award their prestige, make our own human clocks tick in a clockless world. And we take a man who is by definition de trop, and create a context in which he isn't.

The novel is a lie only as our quotidian inventions are lies. The power which goes to its making--the imagination --is a function of man's inescapable freedom. This freedom, in Mary Warnock's words, 'expresses itself in his ability to see things which are not.' It is by his fiction that we know he is free. It is not surprising that Sartre as ontologist, having to describe many kinds of fictive behaviour, invents stories to do so, thus moving into a middle ground between life and novel. .... ~ Frank Kermode