Hopping Quotes

mad maddie: I GOT ACCEPTED TO SANTA CRUZ!!!!
SnowAngel: omg!!!
zoegirl: maddie!!!! yay!!!!!
mad maddie: i know! it's incredible!
SnowAngel: *squeals and hugs sweet maddie*
SnowAngel: tell us every single detail!!!
mad maddie: well, i got home from school and saw this big thick envelope on the kitchen counter, with "Santa Cruz Admissions Office" as the return address. i got really fidgety and just started screaming, right there in the house. no one was there but me, so i could be as loud as i wanted.
zoegirl: omg!!!
mad maddie: i took a deep breath and tried to calm down, but my hands were shaking. i opened the envelope and pulled out a folder that said, "Welcome to Santa Cruz!" inside was a letter that said, "Dear Madigan. You're in!"
mad maddie: isn't that cool? i LOVE that, that instead of being all prissy and formal, they're like, "you're in! yahootie!"
SnowAngel: oh maddie, i am sooooo happy for u!
mad maddie: i ran out to my car all jumping and hopping around and drove to ian's, cuz i knew neither of u would be home yet. i showed him my letter and he hugged me really hard and lifted me into the air. it was AWESOME.
zoegirl: i'm so proud of u, maddie!
SnowAngel: me 2! ~ Lauren Myracle

The top 15 contenders for the Republican nomination own at least 40 guns among them. If we elect a Republican president no one is hopping over the White House fence ever again. ~ Conan O'Brien

I was in a band called the SteelDrivers, and we just played hard in vans, hopping on airplanes, not knowing where you're at. ~ Chris Stapleton

One travels like a golf ball, hopping from green to green. ~ John Gunther

I'm surrounded by morons, I muttered, making certain both the accused in question could hear me, before I began hopping away from them. I was positive I looked like a psychotic Easter bunny terrorizing the woods. ~ Nicole Williams

The important thing for me is that I try to understand the culture. Everything I thought I knew about the country was either through TV, music, movies or hopping in and out when I did shows. You can't just get the US through being in Miami, LA and New York. Middle America is the place to understand real America. ~ Dizzee Rascal

To be good you've gotta have a lot of little boy in you. When you see Willie Mays and Ted Williams jumping and hopping around the bases after hitting a home run, and the kissing and hugging that goes on at home plate, you realize they have to be little boys. ~ Roy Campanella

Liberals are hopping mad because Rush Limbaugh referred to phony soldiers as "phony soldiers." They claim he was accusing all Democrats in the military of being "phony." True, all Democrats in the military are not phony soldiers, but all phony soldiers seem to be Democrats. ~ Ann Coulter

I warned you; I warned you I was the Senses Taker," sneered the Senses Taker. "I help people find what they're not looking for, hear what they're not listening for, run after what they're not chasing, and smell what isn't even there. And, furthermore," he cackled, hopping around gleefully on his stubby legs, "I'll steal your sense of purpose, take your sense of duty, destroy your sense of proportion - and, but for one thing, you'd be helpless yet."
"What's that?" asked Milo fearfully.
"As long as you have the sound of laughter," he groaned unhappily, "I cannot take your sense of humor - and, with it, you've nothing to fear from me. ~ Norton Juster

Children being children, however, the grotesque Hopping Pot had taken hold of their imaginations. The solution was to jettison the pro-Muggle moral but keep the warty cauldron, so by the middle of the sixteenth century a different version of the tale was in wide circulation among wizarding families. In the revised story, the Hopping Pot protects an innocent wizard from his torch-bearing, pitchfork-toting neighbours by chasing them away from the wizard's cottage, catching them and swallowing them whole. ~ J.K. Rowling

(Lest you have forgotten, it is quite excruciating to hammer the back of your thumb. It inevitably prompts a hopping up and down and the taking of the Lord's name in vain.) But ~ Amor Towles

The mind is a monkey, hopping around from thought to thought, image to image. Rarely do more than a few seconds go by in which the mind can remain single-pointed, empty. ~ Dani Shapiro

Standing is stupid,
Crawling's a curse,
Skipping is silly,
Walking is worse.
Hopping is hopeless,
Jumping's a chore,
Sitting is senseless,
Leaning's a bore.
Running's ridiculous,
Jogging's insane-
Guess I'll go upstairs and
Lie down again. ~ Shel Silverstein

It's not that I want children to fall into the pond per se, though I can't really see what harm it would do them; it's that I can't help but assess the situation from the child's perspective. And quite frankly I would be disgusted to the point of taking immediate vengeance if I was brought to a purportedly magical place one afternoon in late September and thereupon belted down to the pond, all by myself most likely, only to discover the word pond scrawled on a poxy piece of damp plywood right there beside it. Oh I'd be hopping. That sort of moronic busybodying happens with such galling regularity throughout childhood of course and it never ceases to be utterly vexing. ~ Claire-Louise Bennett

I would not for the whole world diminish you. I know it is usual in these circumstances to protest - "I love you for yourself alone" - "I love you essentially" - and as you imply, my dearest, to mean by "you essentially" - lips hands and eyes. But you must know - we do know - that it is not so - dearest, I love your soul and with that your poetry - the grammar and stopping and hurrying syntax of your quick thought - quite as much essentially you as Cleopatra's hopping was essentially hers to delight Antony - more essentially, in that while all lips hands and eyes resemble each other somewhat (though yours are enchanting and also magnetic) - your thought clothed with your words is uniquely you, came with you, would vanish if you vanished - ~ A.S. Byatt

Why bother with clubs?

"Because you might get a shag," is the usual response. Really? If that's the only way you can find a partner - preening and jigging about like a desperate animal - you shouldn't be attempting to breed in the first place. What's your next trick? Inventing fire? People like you are going to spin civilisation into reverse. You're a moron, and so is that haircut you're trying to impress. Any offspring you eventually blast out should be drowned in a pan before they can do any harm. Or open any more nightclubs.

Even if you somehow avoid reproducing, isn't it a lot of hard work for very little reward? Seven hours hopping about in a hellish, reverberating bunker in exchange for sharing 64 febrile, panting pelvic thrusts with someone who'll snore and dribble into your pillow till 11 o'clock in the morning, before waking up beside you with their hair in a mess, blinking like a dizzy cat and smelling vaguely like a ham baguette? Really, why bother? Why not just stay at home punching yourself in the face? Invite a few friends round and make a night of it. It'll be more fun than a club. ~ Charlie Brooker

Every life, every story, has peaks and valleys. You are walking through a low spot now. Perhaps it's foggy in the valley. And maybe you can't see the path anymore. But it's there. Keep walking on it. You'll find your way. And when you come through the thicket, with little rabbits hopping about, there will be a clearing, and the sun will be shining down on you with rays that will warm you and inspire you again. ~ Sarah Jio

Air forces offered the possibility of striking a the enemy's economic and moral centres without having first to achieve 'the destruction of the enemy's main forces on the battlefield'. Air-power might attain a direct end by indirect means - hopping over opposition instead of overthrowing it. ~ B.H. Liddell Hart

It was Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the television series, 1997-2003, not the lackluster movie that preceded it) that blazed the trail for Twilight and the slew of other paranormal romance novels that followed, while also shaping the broader urban fantasy field from the late 1990s onward.

Many of you reading this book will be too young to remember when Buffy debuted, so you'll have to trust us when we say that nothing quite like it had existed before. It was thrillingly new to see a young, gutsy, kick-ass female hero, for starters, and one who was no Amazonian Wonder Woman but recognizably ordinary, fussing about her nails, her shoes, and whether she'd make it to her high school prom. Buffy's story contained a heady mix of many genres (fantasy, horror, science-fiction, romance, detective fiction, high school drama), all of it leavened with tongue-in-cheek humor yet underpinned by the serious care with which the Buffy universe had been crafted. Back then, Whedon's dizzying genre hopping was a radical departure from the norm-whereas today, post-Buffy, no one blinks an eye as writers of urban fantasy leap across genre boundaries with abandon, penning tender romances featuring werewolves and demons, hard-boiled detective novels with fairies, and vampires-in-modern-life sagas that can crop up darn near anywhere: on the horror shelves, the SF shelves, the mystery shelves, the romance shelves. ~ Ellen Datlow

We found it!" Charlotte yelled, as they ran back through the house. "We found it, we found it!"
Eddie, Mr. Mallery, and Colonel Andrews came from separate directions, converging in the front hall. Miss Charming was hopping up and down, her bosom nearly rising to slap her own forehead. ~ Shannon Hale

Let's go inside before a Sector-hopping horde of hungry flervers smells your fear and zeroes in on us from across the galaxy."
"Don't make fun of me."
I put my hand over my heart. "I would never."
Tess's scowl didn't fool me. The humor in her eyes told the real story. "They'll eat you first. More muscle."
"If it keeps you alive, I'm happy to sacrifice my biceps. ~ Amanda Bouchet

He supposed that if he were a young female hitchhiker, he might ask a question or two himself before hopping willy-nilly into someone's car or truck. It might not help, but it sure couldn't hurt. Because once you were out in the desert, anything could happen to you. ~ Stephen King

Let's face it, I like Stanford grads. I'd always hear about this campus, and everybody is riding bikes, and people hopping into fountains. ~ Barack Obama

Presently, one after another, like shyly hopping sparrows, her friends arrived, black against the snow. ~ Marcel Proust

I went to extreme measures to achieve my goals, from strapping heavy sandbags on my ankles, hopping on one leg, up and down four flights of stairs at 5 am to practice my turns in front of the candle light when others are asleep. I felt like that I had climbed many tall mountains and made so many impossible dreams come true through sheer determination, perseverance, passion, self conviction and belief. ~ Li Cunxin

I was probably just graduating high school, maybe still in high school. When I was still in high school, maybe the last two years, I was rapping but I wasn't telling anybody. When I signed my deal people didn't know it was the same Ryan Montgomery from Oak Park High School, because I used to play basketball and I used to fight. Like I'd bring boxing gloves to school. So when they found out, it was, "You mean Ryan who be boxing?" or, "Ryan who be hopping up at the park?" So I was known as that guy. ~ Ryan Montgomery

I like not to be good at anything, so I keep hopping around. ~ Jon Stewart

Then why did they need you?" Lily's face is hard and set again. "Why not just send Sirius?"
James gapes at her. "Alone?"
Lily doesn't say anything.
"No," says James. "I mean no, Lil. Don't be ridiculous. Anyway, he can't work a defensive spell if his life depended on it, which it would. You know how he gets when his blood's up, all laughing and insane and hopping about talking nonsense and all of a sudden someone would hit him in the chest with a hex before the possibility even occurred to him. ~ Jaida Jones

He could not, in good conscience, promote any association with Daisy Green and her band of ladies. He could more easily recommend gang membership or fence-hopping into the polar bear enclosure at the Regents Park zoo. ~ Helen Simonson

She had only the slimmest notion of what he meant, but his voice made her so horny she could barely keep from squirming, crossing her legs, or hopping about, like a little girl who had to go to the bathroom. On ~ Tom Robbins

Everybody knew that he spent an hour each morning hopping about and kicking things like a maddened rabbit ~ Meredith Duran

There exists in society a very special class of persons that I have always referred to as the Believers. These are folks who have chosen to accept a certain religion, philosophy, theory, idea or notion and cling to that belief regardless of any evidence that might, for anyone else, bring it into doubt. They are the ones who encourage and support the fanatics and the frauds of any given age. No amount of evidence, no matter how strong, will bring them any enlightenment. They are the sheep who beg to be fleeced and butchered, and who will battle fiercely to preserve their right to be victimized… patent offices handle an endless succession of inventors who still produce perpetual-motion machines that don't work, but no number of idle flywheels will convince these zealots of their folly; dozens of these patent applications flow in every year. In ashrams all over the world, hopping devotees of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi will never abandon their goal of blissful levitation of their bodies by mind power, despite bruises and sprains aplenty suffered as they bounce about on gym mats like demented (though smiling) frogs, trying to get airborne. Absolutely nothing will discourage them. ~ James Randi

Clever bird, clever man, clever clever fool," said Patchface, jangling. "Oh, clever clever clever fool." He began to sing. "The shadows come to dance, my lord, dance my lord, dance my lord," he sang, hopping from one foot to the other and back again. "The shadows come to stay, my lord, stay my lord, stay my lord." He jerked his head with each word, the bells in his antlers sending up a clangor. The ~ George R R Martin

Astronomers suspect that the Oort Cloud could extend as far as three light-years from our solar system. That is more than halfway to the nearest stars, the Centauri triple star system, which is slightly more than four light-years from Earth. If we assume that the Centauri star system is also surrounded by a sphere of comets, then there might be a continuous trail of comets connecting it to Earth. It may be possible to establish a series of refueling stations, outposts, and relay locations on a grand interstellar highway. Instead of leaping to the next star in one jump, we might cultivate the more modest goal of "comet hopping" to the Centauri system. This thoroughfare could become a cosmic Route 66. ~ Michio Kaku

Witch Mildred was invited
to the wondrous Witches' Wobble,
a Halloween festivity
where witches go to gobble.

Her snakeskin invitation read:

Feasting Starts at Eight!
A Grand Buffet (with Skunk Filet!)

Hopping on her broomstick,
She took off from a thicket.
She raced along the back roads
to dodge a speeding ticket.

A skeleton soon hailed her.
(His bones could use some meat!)
He pled, "Please! I'm so hungry,
I rattle head to feet."

A jack-o'-lantern hollered,
"Please take me from this wall,
for some, I dread, might use my head
as a soccer ball."

Soon the three encountered
a ghost who was in tears.
"Please take me from this graveyard.
It's much too spooky here."

A shaky, quaky mummy
called, "I'm ready to collapse.
Please find me a warm hearthside,
for I forgot my wraps!"

A bat swooped down upon them.
He squeaked, "Please wait for me!
I'll go batty when the sexton bongs
the bells in my belfry."

A black cat yowled,
"Please take me.
I need some company,
for when I cross their pathways,
people run from me! ~ Elizabeth Spurr

Now hoppin'-john was F. Jasmine's very favorite food. She had always warned them to wave a plate of rice and peas before her nose when she was in her coffin, to make certain there was no mistake; for if a breath of life was left in her, she would sit up and eat, but if she smelled the hopping-john, and did not stir, then they could just nail down the coffin and be certain she was truly dead. ~ Carson McCullers

He [satan] vies for the bedside position, hopping to be the first voice you hear. He covets your waking thoughts, those early, pillow-born emotions. He awakes you with words of worry, stirs you with thoughts of stress. If you dread the day before you begin your day, Mark it down; your giant has been in your head. ~ Max Lucado

How did I find myself here? Me - the man who wanted to walk around the world? On foot, no less. I wanted to be Passepartout, a traveller with little luggage, hopping from one train to another, a Thomas Cook, an Ibn Battuta. Where is Xanadu? ~ Fadia Faqir

Minutes later, we were back at the sliding glass door that led inside the house--me, leaning against the glass, Marlboro Man anchoring me there with his strong, convincing lips. I was a goner. My right leg hooked slowly around his calf.
And then, the sound--the loud ringing of the rotary phone inside. Marlboro Man ignored it through three rings, but it was late, and curiosity took over. "I'd better get that," he said, each word dripping with heat. He ran inside to answer the phone, leaving me alone in a sultry, smoky cloud. Saved by the bell, I thought. Damn. I was dizzy, unable to steady myself. Was it the wine? Wait…I hadn't had any wine that night. I was drunk on his muscles. Wasted on his masculinity.
Within seconds, Marlboro Man was running back out the door.
"There's a fire," he said hurriedly. "A big one--I've got to go." Without pausing, he ran toward the pickup.
I stood there, still dazed and fizzy, still unable to feel my knees. And then, just as I was beginning to reflect on the utter irony that a prairie fire may have just saved my eternal soul from burning in hell for carnal sin, Marlboro Man's pickup flew into reverse and screeched abruptly to a halt at the edge of The Porch--our porch. Rolling down his window, he leaned out and yelled, "You comin'?"
"Oh…um…sure!" I replied, running toward the pickup and hopping inside.
A prairie fire. A real, live prairie fire, I thought as Marlboro Man's diesel pickup peeled out of his gravel dri ~ Ree Drummond

Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! My darling!
Light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling.
Down along under the Hill, shining in the sunlight,
Waiting on the doorstep for the cold starlight,
There my pretty lady is, River-woman's daughter,
Slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water.
Old Tom Bombadil water-lilies bringing
Comes hopping home again. Can you hear him singing?
Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! and merry-o,
Goldberry, Goldberry, merry yellow berry-o!
Poor old Willow-man, you tuck your roots away!
Tom's in a hurry now. Evening will follow day.
Tom'sgoing hom again water lilies-bringing.
Hey! Come derry dol! Can you hear me singing? ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

When you come to America, it's a very serious thing. It's not like you arrive and they say, 'Hey, come on! Do movies!' I can't just be hopping around. I have to focus and be still and make sure that I put the time and effort in. Because if I don't, I could lose it like that. ~ Maggie Q

It was starting to get impatient. A hedgehog hopping irritably on its hind legs is a tragic sight. ~ T. Kingfisher

He was asked to draw a rabbit that wouldn't keep still as he drew it - as soon as it had paws it scratched itself luxuriously and then went hopping off around the page, nibbling at the other questions, so that he had to chase it with the pencil to finish filling in the fur. He wound up pacifying it with some hastily sketched radishes and then drawing a fence around it to keep it in line. ~ Lev Grossman

You try almost dying, being chased, then
hopping in a car with a complete (horny)
stranger. ~ Gena Showalter

Well, hurry up," said Isabelle. "I didn't get this dressed up to watch you mess around in the gutter with a bunch of motorcycles."

"They are pretty to look at," said Jace, hopping back up on the pavement. "You have to admit that."

"So am I," said Isabelle, who didn't look inclined to admit anything. "Now hurry up. ~ Cassandra Clare

Sometimes when I get up and emerge from the mists of slumber, my whole room hurts, my whole bedroom, the view from the window hurts, kids go to school, people go shopping, everybody knows where to go, only I don't know where I want to go, I get dressed, blearily, stumbling, hopping about to pull on my trousers, I go and shave with my electric razor - for years now, whenever I shave, I've avoided looking at myself in the mirror, I shave in the dark or round the corner, sitting on a chair in the passage, with the socket in the bathroom, I don't like looking at myself any more, I'm scared by my own face in the bathroom, I'm hurt even by my own appearance, I see yesterday's drunkenness in my eyes, I don't even have breakfast any more, or if I do, only coffee and a cigarette, I sit at the table, sometimes my hands give way under me and several times I repeat to myself, Hrabal, Hrabal, Bohumil Hrabal, you've victoried yourself away, you've reached the peak of emptiness, as my Lao Tzu taught me, I've reached the peak of emptiness and everything hurts, even the walk to the bus-stop hurts, and the whole bus hurts as well, I lower my guilty-looking eyes, I'm afraid of looking people in the eye, sometimes I cross my palms and extend my wrists, I hold out my hands so that people can arrest me and hand me over to the cops, because I feel guilty even about this once too loud a solitude which isn't loud any longer, because I'm hurt not only by the escalator which takes me down to the infern ~ Bohumil Hrabal

Squeezing her palms against her temples, she took another deep breath. It didn't help. Her heart was still hopping around in her chest. Letting her hands drop to her sides, she gave up. It was time to accept the fact that she was going to behave like an idiot in front of Callum. It was unfortunate but, at the same time, inevitable. ~ Katie Ruggle

If he was displeased, he might scream and get hopping mad and use expletives, but he wouldn't do it in a way that would totally destroy the person he was talking to. It was just his way to get the person to do a better job. ~ Walter Isaacson

Finders keepers!" Ian shouted, scooping up the overlay and hopping onto a rock outcropping.
"You cheater!" Amy was furious. No way was he going to get away with that. She climbed the rock, matching him step for step until she reached the top. There he turned to her, panting for breath. "Not bad for a Cahill," he said, grinning.
"You --y-y-you--" The words caught in her throat, the way they always did. He was staring at her, his eyes dancing with laughter, making her so knotted up with anger and hatred that she thought she would explode. "C-c-can't--"
But in that moment, something totally weird happened. Maybe it was a flip of his head, a movement in his eyebrow, she couldn't tell. But it was as if someone had suddenly held a painting at a different angle, and what appeared to be a stormy sea transformed into a bright bouquet -- a trick of the eye that proved everything was just a matter of perspective. His eyes were not mocking at all. They were inviting her, asking her to laugh along. Suddenly, her rage billowed up and blew off in wisps, like a cloud. "You're ... a Cahill, too," she replied.
"Touche."
His eyes didn't move a millimeter from hers.
This time she met his gaze. Solidly. This time she didn't feel like apologizing or attacking or running away. She wouldn't have minded if he just stared like that all day. ~ Peter Lerangis

The weather here is windy, balmy, sometimes wet. Desert springtime, with flowers popping up all over the place, trees leafing out, streams gushing down from the mountains. Great time of year for hiking, camping, exploring, sleeping under the new moon and the old stars. At dawn and at evening we hear the coyotes howling with excitement - mating season. And lots of fresh rabbit meat hopping about to feed the young ones with. ~ Edward Abbey

They say the path of true love never runs smooth. Well, Luke and my true love's path didn't run at all, it limped along in new boots that were chafing its heels. Blistered and cut, red and raw, every hopping, lopsided step, a little slice of agony. ~ Marian Keyes

[To Oleg Cassini:] Just make sure no one has exactly the same dress I do ... I want all of mine to be original & no fat little woman hopping around in the same dress. ~ Jackie Kennedy

I need to brush my teeth. And I need a shower."
He grinned, hopping off the bike. "Now that is an invitation. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick

Ash held one finger up. "OK. Now listen-"
Mary-Lynnette kicked him in the shins. She knew it was inapporopriate, she knew it was uncalled-for, but she couldn't stop herself. She just had to.
"Oh, for God's sake," Ash said, hopping backward. "Are you crazy? ~ L.J.Smith

It was some time before I could summon resolution to go down through the trees and bushes upon the flank of the headland to the beach. At last I did it at a run; and as I emerged from the thicket upon the sand, I heard some other body come crashing after me. At that I completely lost my head with fear, and began running along the sand. Forthwith there came the swift patter of soft feet in pursuit. I gave a wild cry, and redoubled my pace. Some dim, black things about three or four times the size of rabbits went running or hopping up from the beach towards the bushes as I passed. ~ H.G.Wells

Bed in Summer
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day? ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Don't know. Don't care. I'm hopping on a bus and going until I can't go any farther. Until I find a place that feels like home.'
He's quiet for a long time. 'How will you know what home feels like?'
It hangs in the air between us, as frozen as our breaths. I don't have an answer. ~ Holly Black

Rushing toward her are all the letters of the alphabet. Each one moves in its own way, X cartwheeling over and over, C hopping forward, M and N marching stiff-legged and resolute. ~ Myla Goldberg

And then, well ... He might have slept for a bit. He rather hoped he was sleeping, because he was quite certain he'd seen a six-foot rabbit hopping through his bedchamber, and if that wasn't a dream, they were all in very big trouble.
Although really, it wasn't the rabbit that was so dangerous as much as the giant carrot he was swinging about like a mace.
That carrot would feed an entire village. ~ Julia Quinn

If you really want me to be safe, maybe it's time."
"I'd just feel safer if you'd start sleeping in a coffin."
Just then my door creaked open.
Billy's expression turned to surprise.
"Get out!" I said, hopping off the bed. "Uh ... we are making up lyrics to a song."
But that didn't keep Billy out. Instead he was totally interested.
"You're writing a song? That's so cool. I want to hear it."
"It goes, 'Safer in a coffin, and if your brother doesn't leave, he'll be in one too. ~ Ellen Schreiber

But to return to your question, Vidanric's tendency to keep his own counsel ought to be reassuring as far as people hopping out with embarrassing words are concerned. If I were you
and I know it's so much easier to give advice than to follow it
I'd sit down with him, when no one else is at hand, and talk it out."
Just the thought of seeking him out for a private talk made me shudder. "I'd rather walk down the mountain in shoes full of snails."
It was Nee's turn to shudder. "Life! I'd rather do almost anything than that
~ Sherwood Smith

I can't imagine that I'm supposed to get over it , like hopping a low stone wall; if Thursday was a barrier of some kind, it was made of razor wire, which I did not bound over but thrash through, leaving me in flayed pieces and on the other side of something only in a temporal sense. ~ Lionel Shriver

meander, v.

"...because when it all comes down to it, there's no such thing as a two-hit wonder. So it's better just to have that one song that everyone knows, instead of diluting it with a follow-up that only half succeeds. I mean, who really cares what Soft Cell's next single was, as long as we have 'Tainted Love'?"
I stop. You're still listening.
"Wait," I say. "What was I talking about? How did we get to 'Tainted Love'?"
"Let's see," you say, "I believe we started roughly at the Democratic gains in the South, then jumped back to the election of 1948, dipping briefly into northern constructions of the South, vis-a-vis Steel Magnolias, Birth of a Nation, Johnny Cash, and Fried Green Tomatoes. Which landed you on To Kill a Mockingbird, and how it is both Southern and universal, which -- correct me if I'm wrong -- got us to Harper Lee and her lack of a follow-up novel, intersected with the theory, probably wrong, that Truman Capote wrote the novel, then hopping over to literary one-hit wonders, and using musical one-hit wonders to make a point about their special place in our culture. I think."
"Thank you," I say. "That's wonderful. ~ David Levithan

If you were called to gallop like the horse, never end up hopping like the frog. Rise up for greatness. ~ Israelmore Ayivor

Modern dances always seem to me so vulgar. So much hopping about; like a scene from a mental ward! ~ Sarah Waters

Old Tom Bombadil water-lilies bringing Comes hopping home again. Can you hear him singing? ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Make then your forecasts, my lords Astrologers, with your slavish physicians, by means of those astrolabes with which you seek to discern the fantastic nine moving spheres; in these you finally imprison your own minds, so that you appear to me but as parrots in a cage, while I watch you dancing up and down, turning and hopping within those circles. ~ Giordano Bruno

But it's not just me, you know. The whole world's sad," I said. "It's like a virus. It's going to end badly. Glaciers melting, ozone depleted. Terrorists blowing up buildings, nuclear rods infecting the aqueducts. Influenza hopping from the pigeons to the humans, killing millions. Billions. People rotting in the street. The sun bursting open, shattering us eight minutes later. If not that, starvation. Cannibalism. Freakish mutated babies with eyeballs in their navels. It's a terrible place to bring a child into," I said. "This world. It is terrible. Just terrible." I ~ Lauren Groff

Hopping the fence or wading the Rio Grande River isn't part of America's immigration process. ~ Ted Nugent

Over the slow pass of winters and summers, Amanda had grown to understand the cycles that made up small-town life. She knew that fewer tourists meant easier work for the staff, but fewer tips for the servers, and less chance of picking up extra hours. A busy summer kept everyone hopping and the tills full, but it also shifted the steady pace of life, tugging it into a frenetic rate. ~ Danika Stone

When I go train hopping and I look up into the sky, there are always so many more stars than I remember there were. ~ William T. Vollmann

At some unseen signal the long line of guards around me stopped and their spears thudded to the floor with a noise that sounded like doom.
Then a tall figure with a long black cloak walked past us, plumed and coroneted helm carried in his gloved right hand. For a moment I didn't recognize the Marquis; somewhere along the way he'd gotten rid of his anonymous clothing and was now clad in a long black battle tunic, Remalna's crowned sun stitched on its breast. At his side hung his sword; his hair was braided back. He passed by without so much as a glance at me. His eyes were slack lidded, his expression bored.
He stopped before a dais, on which was a throne made of carved wood--a piece of goldwood so beautifully veined with golds and reds and umbers it looked like fire--and bowed low.
I was tempted to try hopping on my one good foot in order to get a glimpse of the enemy on the throne, but I didn't--and a moment later was glad I hadn't, for I saw the flash of a ring as Galdran waved carelessly at the guards. The four in front promptly stepped to each side, affording a clear field of vision between the King and me. I saw a tall, massively built man whose girth was running to portliness. Long red hair with gems braided into it, large nose, large ears, high forehead, pale blue eyes. He wore a long, carefully cultivated mustache. His mouth stretched in a cruel smile.
"So you won your wager, Shevraeth, eh?" he said. The tone was jovial, but there was an ugly edge ~ Sherwood Smith

On this Thursday, on this particular walk to school, there was an old frog croaking in the stream behind the hedge as we went by.
'Can you hear him, Danny?'
'Yes,' I said,
'That is a bullfrog calling to his wife. He does it by blowing out his dewlap and letting it go with a burp.'
'What is a dewlap?' I asked.
'It's the loose skin on his throat. He can blow it up just like a balloon.'
'What happens when his wife hears him?'
'She goes hopping over to him. She is very happy to have been invited. But I'll tell you something very funny about the old bullfrog. He often becomes so pleased with the sound of his own voice that his wife has to nudge him several times before he'll stop his burping and turn round to hug her.'
That made me laugh.
'Dont laugh too loud,' he said, twinkling at me with his eyes. 'We men are not so very different from the bullfrog. ~ Roald Dahl

Yeah, weirdly, our cell doesn't have laundry facilities. So I figured I'll wash undies at one time and outerwear at another, anyways keeping some cover for the cameras. I'm not shy, but frankly, I've had my limit of men chubbing themselves to videos of me. It's moved from simple idolatry to something more sinister." She sauntered over to his desk, hopping atop it, sitting on his papers. "A little to Caged Heat, you know? ~ Kresley Cole

In Chapter 1, on relativity, I offered some dating advice. I proposed that if you want to go bar-hopping, you should consider taking along someone who looks similar to you but who is slightly less attractive than you are. Because of the relative nature of evaluations, others would perceive you not only as cuter than your decoy, but also as better-looking than other people in the bar. By the same logic, I also pointed out that the flip side of this coin is that if someone invites you to be his or her wingman (or wingwoman), you can easily figure out what your friend really thinks of you. ~ Anonymous

Now, I've another errand for you,' said my untiring master; "you must away to my room again. What a mercy you are shod with velvet, Jane!--a clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture. You must open the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a little phial and a little glass you will find there,--quick!"

I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels.

"That's well! Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of administering a dose myself, on my own responsibility. I got this cordial at Rome, of an Italian charlatan--a fellow you would have kicked, Carter. It is not a thing to be used indiscriminately, but it is good upon occasion: as now, for instance. Jane, a little water."

He held out the tiny glass, and I half filled it from the water-bottle on the washstand.

"That will do;--now wet the lip of the phial."

I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and presented it to Mason.

"Drink, Richard: it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour or so."

"But will it hurt me?--is it inflammatory?"

"Drink! drink! drink!"

Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist. He was dressed now: he still looked pale, but he was no longer gory and sullied. Mr. Rochester let him sit three minutes after he had swallowed the liquid; he then took his arm--

"Now I am sure you can get on your feet," he said--"try."

The patient ros ~ Charlotte Bronte

While my seemingly compulsive school-hopping has raised some eyebrows among my peers and caused my parents understandable consternation, I do not regret it. ~ Alexandra Adornetto

Golfers who play a lot of courses often encounter short ledges or retaining walls, and I always had fun hopping down from them. I could jump off something six feet high and land like a cat, no problem. Well, today I can't jump off anything higher than two feet without it just killing me. ~ Tom Watson

What is normal? Normal was yesterday. If you lose a leg, one day you're hopping around on one leg, so you know the difference. ~ Terry Pratchett

While some women had wing girls for club hopping, Sal had something far more important - a best friend who could run patient interference better than most linebackers. ~ Carolyn McCray

But he'd also gotten a personal prickly chill all over from his own thinking. He could do the dextral pain the same way: Abiding. No one single instant of it was unendurable. Here was a second right here: he endured it. What was undealable-with was the thought of all the instants all lined up and stretching ahead, glittering. And the projected future fear of the A.D.A., whoever was out there in a hat eating Third World fast food; the fear of getting convicted of Nuckslaughter, of V.I.P.-suffocation; of a lifetime on the edge of his bunk in M.C.I. Walpole, remembering. It's too much to think about. To Abide there. But none of it's as of now real. What's real is the tube and Noxzema and pain. And this could be done just like the Old Cold Bird. He could just hunker down in the space between each heartbeat and make each heartbeat a wall and live in there. Not let his head look over. What's unendurable is what his own head could make of it all. What his head could report to him, looking over and ahead and reporting. But he could choose not to listen; he could treat his head like G. Day or R. Lenz: clueless noise. He hadn't quite gotten this before now, how it wasn't just the matter of riding out the cravings for a Substance: everything unendurable was in the head, was the head not Abiding in the Present but hopping the wall and doing a recon and then returning with unendurable news you then somehow believed. ~ David Foster Wallace

...You're my princess," I tell her, hopping up onto the bed, scooping her up and laying back. Her knees come to rest on either side of my head and I grin. "And your throne is my face. ~ Kerry Heavens

We may need to consider a little abstinence from our automatic, reflexive responses of being helpful to others. For some of us, doing this may feel very threatening; to identify our addictions of helpfulness is to challenge the ways we habitually express love – it comes close to challenging our love itself.

. . . Let us go back for a moment and look at that tiny, perhaps almost nonexistent space between feeling a person's pain and doing something in response to it. It is not easy to just be with the pain of another, to feel it as your own. No wonder we are likely to jump into our habitual responses so quickly. As soon as we start doing something for or to the suffering person, we can minimize the bare agony of feeling that person's pain. It is like that everywhere; our addicted doings act as minor anaesthesia.

. . . Sometimes, perhaps often, taking the space will feel like an absence of response. We may fear the person will think we don't care because we are not immediately hopping like popcorn to do something helpful. And sometimes the response that is authentically invited will never appear overtly helpful. Perhaps we are just invited to pray, silently in the background, or just to be present without saying a word or offering even a touch. Sometimes love even invites us to leave a person alone. Such responses are not too good for our egos; the suffering person is unlikely to come and thank us for our lack of involvement. But love does not ask for credi ~ Gerald G. May

In communities, at work, but particularly in families, people are put together in something like a three-legged race. God means us to cross the finish line together, and all the other people tied together with us play some part in our progress. They are oftentimes to rouse our stubborn sins to the surface, where we can deal with them and overcome them. Bundled together in families, a giant seven or nine or fifteen legged pack, we seem to make very poor progress indeed and fall to the ground in bickering heaps with some regularity. But God has put us together - has appointed each person in your bundle specifically for you, and you for them. And so, 'little children, let us love one another' with might and main, and keep hopping together toward the finish line. ~ Frederica Mathewes-Green

Instead of hopping around like a wild in'jun on fire, try counting from 10 backwards while hopping on one foot. ~ R. Alan Woods

The forestland thickened at one point, and without warning it opened onto a road. Fading back behind a screen of ferns, I watched the traffic. It appeared I'd reached a major crossroads. A stone marker at the intersection indicated the Akaeriki road downhill, and to the north lay the town of Thoresk.
A town. Surely one anonymous female could lose herself in a town? And while she was at it, find some shelter?
Big raindrops started plopping in the leaves around me. The coming storm wouldn't be warded by tree branches and leaves, that was for certain. Clutching my half-empty basket to my side, I started up the road, careful not to limp if anyone came into view from the opposite direction.
I saw a line of slow wagons up ahead, with a group of small children gamboling around them. I hurried my pace slightly so I would look like I belonged with them; I had nearly caught up when a deep thundering noise seemed to vibrate up from the ground.
"Cavalcade! Cavalcade!" a high childish voice shrieked.
The farmers clucked at their oxen and the wagons hulked and swung, metal frames creaking, over to one side. The children ran up the grassy bank beside the road, hopping and shrieking with excitement.
Feeling my knees go suddenly watery, I scrambled up the bank as well, then sat in the grass with my basket on my lap. I checked my kerchief surreptitiously and snatched my hand down as two banner-carrying outriders galloped into view around the bend I'd walked so sh ~ Sherwood Smith

Just working through what other people had done gave me a feeling that this was all actually worth it. When you get stuck fighting small battles, it makes you small. Hopping from cable news show to cable news show to discuss controversy after controversy had made me small. I thought only about the fight, not why I was fighting. ~ Hank Green

It had been two weeks since they had last danced, and Azalea lay in bed, awake again. A dream hadn't roused her this time, but rather an odd tinny noise that had been clinking across the wooden floor of their room, under their beds and butting against the wainscot with a clinkety tap-tap. It sounded like ... well, quite honestly, it sounded like a spider dragging a spoon.

Azalea knew it couldn't possibly be that (or, rather, she hoped it wasn't), but even so, she heaved herself from the bed and grasped one of Hollyhock's boots, strewn across the floor. The tapping now clinked from the fireplace, and Azalea caught a glint of silver among the soot. Raising the boot, she tiptoed to the unlit hearth.

The fireplace in their room was massive - so large that Azalea could stand up in it and her skirts wouldn't brush the sides. The silver hopped. Azalea dove.

In a puff of soot, Azalea found herself sitting in the hearth, and the silver bit skittering away like mad. Azalea grabbed at it and was rewarded with a very sharp, very familiar bite.

"You!" Azalea seethed, leaping up. Now she recognized the half-hopping half-skitter motion. The sugar teeth! ~ Heather Dixon Wallwork

This is textbook Bad Idea. We're driving with a stranger, no one knows where we are, and we have no way of getting in touch with anyone. This is exactly how people become statistics."
"Exactly?" I asked, thinking of all the bizarre twists and turns that had led us to this place.
Ben ceded the point with a sideways shrug. "Maybe not exactly. But still..."
He let it go, and the cab eventually stopped at the edge of a remote, forested area. Sage got out and paid. "Everybody out!"
Ben looked at me, one eyebrow raised. He was leaving the choice to me. I gave his knee a quick squeeze before I opened the door and we piled out of the car.
Sage waited for the cab to drive away, then ducked onto a forest path, clearly assuming we'd follow.
The path through the thick foliage was stunning in the moonlight, and I automatically released my camera from its bag.
"I wish you wouldn't," Sage said without turning around. "You know I'm not one for visitors."
"I'll refrain from selling the pictures to Travel and Leisure, then," I said, already snapping away. "Besides, I need something to take my mind off my feet." My shoes were still on the beach, where I'd kicked them off to dance.
"Hey, I offered to carry you," Sage offered.
"No, thank you."
I suppose I should have been able to move swiftly and silently without my shoes, but I only managed to stab myself on something with every other footfall, giving me a sideways, hopping gait. Every few m ~ Hilary Duff

My genre-hopping has caused problems with marketing and sales departments over the years, because they need to know where to position a book with the booksellers. ~ F. Paul Wilson

Well, it seems like a miracle to be able to look forward-to-to see all the minutes in front of one come hopping along with something marvellous in them, instead of just[Pg 295] saying, Well, that one didn't actually hurt and the next may be quite bearable if only something beastly doesn't come pouncing out
~ Dorothy L. Sayers

Life was not fair. If you wanted something you had to take it. Before someone else took it from you. Neatly dissected down to its essence, life was one long series of lily pad hoppings. The quick and the resourceful were able to adapt and survive; all others were simply crushed as a more nimble creature landed on the lily pad they had occupied for too long. ~ David Baldacci

It doesn't matter how sensitive you are or how damn smart and educated you are, if you're not both at the same time, if your heart and your brain aren't connected, aren't working together harmoniously, well, you're just hopping through life on one leg. You may think you're walking, you may think you're running a damn marathon, but you're only on a hop trip. The connections gotta be maintained. ~ Tom Robbins

I have to confess I'm addicted to Sky Sports News. Just the music can pull me in. And then whether it's badminton in the Czech Republic, snail pushing or mole hopping, I'm hooked. ~ Andrew Buchan

After all, looking around, we see bodies, not naked genes. Bodies, bodies everywhere: eating, sleeping, being eaten, growing, reproducing, laughing, lounging, walking, running, swimming, hopping and slithering their way to...what? To either success or failure, as measured by how well they project their component genes into the future. ~ Nanelle Barash

People were always chasing after some leader or another, and stumbling from one superstition to the next, cheering His Majesty one day and giving the most disgusting incendiary speeches in Parliament the next, and none of it ever amounted to anything in the end! If this could be miniaturized by a factor of a a million and reduced, as it were, to the dimensions of a single head, the result would be precisely the image of the unaccountable, forgetful, ignorant conduct and the demented hopping around that has always been the image of a lunatic. ~ Robert Musil

Autobiography, if there really is such a thing, is like asking a rabbit to tell us what he looks like hopping through the grasses of the field. How would he know? If we want to hear about the field on the other hand, no one is in a better circumstance to tell us-so long as we keep in mind that we are missing all those things the rabbit was in no position to observe. ~ Arthur Golden

Happily Ever After

Imagine them all
after the plotting, after the ball,
after the spelling, hopping, sweeping,
grumping, grousing, mopping, sleeping,
from small glass shoe to nuisance pea,
so ever after, all happily be-
enchanted with magic
from kingdoms
to seas.
Now close your eyes,
and dream of these. ~ Jane Yolen

If any man has a ghost
Bourne has a ghost
a tiny twisted unscared ghost in a black cloak
hopping along the grimy old brick and brownstone streets still left in downtown New York,
crying out in a shrill soundless giggle:
War is the health of the State. ~ John Dos Passos

She read about amazing people she could never be, met friends she would never see, go on incredible adventures she would never have, in mystical places that didn't exist. Slipping inside the minds of others, feeling their every heartbeat, their passion and sorrow. Spending a life hopping between the pages, living a life less ordinary. Getting the life she had always dreamed of had never been so easy. ~ Raven Lockwood