House Gutter Quotes

Oh, honey," she says when I'm done with my wallowing, "it's like my grandma used to say: Just when you think life's got you in a gutter, a tornado will come along and destroy your house."
"And then you rebuild?" I ask.
"Well, she never mentioned that part, but I suppose it could happen."
I am not cheered up. ~ David Levithan

Rebel

[Verse 1]
I don't give a fuck my brudda, I never have
I'm straight from the gutter my brudda, we never had
We living on a budget - holes in the rooftop
Room full of buckets, it's getting bad
Things could be worse I suppose, school trips, school kids
Cursing my clothes, is it the same in every house
When the curtains are closed? (daydreamin')
I'm in a world of my own (I ain't leavin')
It must be because I hate my reality
That's why I'm on the verge of embracing insanity
Put me in a padded room
Throw away the key and let me escape the anarchy
I can't take it, I turn my back on the world
I can't face it, Ray-Ban gang fam
Can't see my eyes cause I'm on my dark shades shit (Ray Charles)

[Bridge]
Black everything, you can ask David
Cameron if we're living in the dark ages
Black everything, you can ask David
Black everything, you can ask David
Black everything, you can ask David
Cameron if we're living in the dark ages

[Hook]
(It's a living hell) I'm a rebel
Always have been
Where I'm come from it's a mad ting
(It's a living hell) Standing in my Stan Smiths
Stamping on the canvas for action
(It's a living hell) All I acquired from the riot
Is people are sick and tired of being quiet
(It's a living hell) Dying to be heard
That's why there's fire in my words

[Verse 2]
I don't give a ~ Ghetts

We grab handfuls of bottles and climb up onto the roof of the house. She stumbles and her foot slips into the gutter sopped with dead leaves. I grab her wrists and pull her clear – sure, she's not the person I'd choose to do this with, but she's my only option so I might as well be nice. Plus I don't want her to drop the vodka. ~ Kirsty Logan

They had grown out of childhood in the last few days. Christmas as Christmas had passed unnoticed since their father had died on Christmas day. Neeley's thirteenth birthday had been lost somewhere in those last few days. They came to the brilliantly lighted façade of a big vaudeville house. Since they were reading children and read everything they came across, they stopped and automatically read the list of acts playing that week. Underneath the sixth act, was an announcement in large letters. 'Here next week! Chauncy Osborne, Sweet Singer of Sweet Songs. Don't miss him!' Sweet Singer... Sweet Singer... Francie had not shed a tear since her father's death. Neither had Neeley. Now Francie felt that all the tears she had were frozen together in her throat in a solid lump and the lump was growing... growing. She felt that if the lump didn't melt soon and change back into tears, she too would die. She looked at Neeley. Tears were falling out of his eyes. Then her tears came, too. They turned into a dark side street and sat on the edge of the sidewalk with their feet in the gutter. Neeley, though weeping, remembered to spread his handkerchief on the curb so that his new long pants wouldn't get dirty. They sat close together because they were cold and lonesome. They wept long and quietly, sitting there in the cold street. At last, when they could cry no more, they talked. ~ Betty Smith

The honky-tonk bartender, who doubled as bouncer, waiter, and cashier, was in no mood to compromise. Mercy was not in him. He came out around the open end of the long counter, waddled threatening across the floor in a sullen, red-faced fury and began to shake the inanimate figure lying across the table with its head bedded on its arms. "Hey, you! Do your sleeping in the gutter!"

If you gave these bums an inch; they took a yard. And this one was a particularly glaring example of the genus bar-fly. He was in here all the time like this, inhaling smoke and then doing a sunset across the table. He'd been in here since four this afternoon. The boss and he, who were partners in the joint - the bartender called it jernt - would have been the last ones to claim they were running a Rainbow Room, but at least they were trying to give the place a little class, keep it above the level of a Bowery smoke-house; they even paid a guy to pound the piano and a canary to warble three times a week. And then bums like this had to show up and give the place a bad look!

He shook the recumbent figure again, more roughly than the first time. Shook him so violently that the whole reedy table under him rattled and threatened to collapse. "Come on, clear out, I said! Pay me for what you had and get outa here!" ("I'm Dangerous Tonight") ~ Cornell Woolrich

He asked me innocently, what then had brought me to his home, and without a minutes hesitation I told him an astounding lie. A lie which was later to prove a great truth. I told him I was only pretending to sell the encyclopedia in order to meet people and write about them. That interested him enormously, even more than the encyclopedia. He wanted to know what I would write about him, if I could say.

It's taken me twenty years to answer that question, but here it is. If you would still like to know, John Doe of the city of Bayonne, this is it. I owe you a great deal, because after that lie I told you, I left your house and I tore up the prospectus furnished me by The Encyclopedia Britannica and I threw it in the gutter. I said to myself I will never again go to people under false pretenses, even if is to give them the Holy Bible. I will never again sell anything, even if I have to starve.

I am going home now and I will sit down and really write about people and if anybody knocks at my door to sell me something, I will invite him in and say "Why are you doing this?" and if he says it is because he needs to make a living I will offer him what money I have and beg him once again to think what he is doing. I want to prevent as many men as possible from pretending that they have to do this or that because they must earn a living. It is not true. One can starve to death, it is much better. Every man who voluntarily starves to death jams another cog in the aut ~ Henry Miller

Where are we going?"
… "Just this place I know with a waterfall and a cave. It's part of the estate, so no one uses it."
"How nice," I said … "We have a garage at my house. It holds a car and some of my dad's tools."
Martin glanced at me, equal parts amused and confused. "Oh?"
"Yes. And a hammock in the back yard."
"Is that so…"
"Yeah."
"So no waterfalls?"
"No. But this one time, when it rained a lot, the gutter broke. That was similar to a waterfall. ~ Penny Reid