Hung Quotes

Everybody says: the Kremlin, the Kremlin. They all go on about it, but I've never seen it. The number of times (thousands) I've been drunk or hung over, traipsing round Moscow, north-south, east-west, end to end, straight through or any old way - and I've never once seen the Kremlin.

For instance, yesterday - yesterday I didn't see it again, though I was buzzing round that area the whole evening and it's not as if I was particularly drunk. I mean, as soon as I came out onto Savyelov Station, I had a glass of Zubrovka for starters, since I know from experience that as an early-morning tipple, nobody's so far dreamed up anything better.

Anyway, a glass of Zubrovka. Then after that - on Kalyaev Street - another glass, only not Zubrovka this time, but coriander vodka. A friend of mine used to say coriander had a dehumanizing effect on a person, i.e, it refreshes your parts but it weakens your spirit. For some reason or other it had the opposite effect on me, i.e., my spirit was refreshed, while my parts all went to hell. But I do agree it's dehumanizing, so that's why I topped it up with two glasses of Zhiguli beer, plus some egg-nog straight from the bottle, in the middle of Kalyaev Street.

Of course, you're saying: come on, Venya, get on with it - what did you have next? And I couldn't say for sure. I remember - I remember quite distinctly in fact - I had two glasses of Hunter's vodka, on Chekhov Street. But I couldn't have made it across th ~ Venedikt Erofeev

Meridian


First daylight on the bittersweet-hung
sleeping porch at high summer; dew
all over the lawn, sowing diamond-
point-highlighted shadows;
the hired man's shadow revolving
along the walk, a flash of milkpails
passing; no threat in sight, no hint
anywhere in the universe, of that

apathy at the meridian, the noon
of absolute boredom; flies
crooning black lullabies in the kitchen,
milk-soured crocks, cream separator
still unwashed; what is there to life
but chores and more chores, dishwater,
fatigue, unwanted children; nothing
to stir the longueur of afternoon

except possibly thunderheads;
climbing, livid, turreted alabaster
lit up from within by splendor and terror
-- forded lightening's
split-second disaster. ~ Amy Clampitt

The night sky is filled brimful as a night sky can be, lit brightly as it is with clusters of planets and pulsating stars and marriages of galaxies, all of it within a wobble of dust and gas and debris unseen. There are the Dippers Little and Big tonight, a lovely Pleiades, and a throbbing red star out like a tiny heart. This is the stuff of which we are made, I say to Son, all that is of us above us. We stand together looking upward, our mouths hung open as if to swallow what's above down and into us. Looking out at the past in its far distance, where from there, he we are not. ~ Susan Froderberg

I felt like he was hiding so much, that I wasn't even seeing the real Garret at all, and the more I hung out with him, the more I would learn.
Also being with him did strange, twisty things to my insides. My dragon instincts did not approve; they still didn't like this human with his amazing reflexes and bright, intense eyes. The eyes of a predator. But there was another part of me that just couldn't resist. ~ Julie Kagawa

About the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity - an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn - a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hue ~ Edgar Allan Poe

His words hung around, too, leaving their brain stain on the air. ~ Karen Russell

I went to the window, opening the pierced shutters to look out over the sleeping city. The moon was waxing and hung half-full like some exotic silver jewel just over the horizon. From the courtyard below rose the scent of jasmine on the cool night air. A slender vine had wound its way up to the balcony, and I reached out, pinching off a single creamy white blossom. I lifted it to my nose, drinking in the thick sweetness of it as it filled my head, sending my senses reeling. There was something narcotic about that jasmine, something carnal and ethereal at the same time. I crushed the petals between my fingers, taking the scent onto my skin. It was not a fragrance to wear alone. It was too rich, too heady, too full of sensuality and promise. It was a fragrance for silken cushions and damp naked flesh and moonlit beds. I rubbed at my fingers, but the scent clung tightly, keeping me company as I sat in the window, listening to a song I had almost forgot and thinking of Gabriel Starke and the five years that stretched barrenly between us. ~ Deanna Raybourn

It was becoming more and more evident that Salem was a town that celebrated individuality, a real live-and-let-live kind of place. Melody felt a gut punch of regret. Her old nose would have fit in here.
"Look!" She pointed at the multicolored car whizzing by. Its black door were from a Mercedes coupe, the white hood from a BMW; the silver trunk was Jaguar, the red convertible top was Lexus, the whitewall tires were Bentley, the sound system was Bose, and the music was classical. A hood ornament from each model dangled from the rear view mirror. Its license plate appropriately read MUTT.
"That car looks like a moving Benton ad."
"Or a pileup on Rodeo drive." Candace snapped a picture with her iPhone and e-mailed to her friends back home. They responded instantly with a shot of what they were doing. It must have involved the mall because Candace picked up her pace and began asking anyone under the age of fifty where the cool people hung out. ~ Lisi Harrison

Bob Smith from Brooklyn is a guy who sometimes gets hung with problems and fears. Wolfman Jack is a happy-go-lucky guy who knows how to party. The challenge of my life has been letting more and more of Bob Smith go, becoming the Wolfman on an almost full-time basis, while still taking care of business. ~ Wolfman Jack

I remember something that my granny told me once about these misty mountains of ours they call the Smokies. Granny said God hung that haze on purpose, to hide these hills from the folks up in Heaven who was raised here, so they wouldn't look down and be homesick. ~ Vicki Lane

She didn't need to say that she was going to die sooner or later while he wasn't, because the fact hung over their heads like the sword of Damocles that dangled by a single hair. ~ Thea Harrison

If my joy hung in the balance of having everything I wanted, I would always wrestle with unhappiness. There ~ Tessa Afshar

Penny arranged everything exactly the way that made sense. TP was hung in the correct direction ('over' obviously; 'under' was for murderers). ~ Mary H.K. Choi

I was laughing, she was laughing, and I decided to go in for the kiss. I leaned in and then she suddenly leaned back. Crap. I was so embarrassed.
"I'm sorry. I went in for it, and it wasn't good." I hung my head down.
"No, no, no, I panicked! Please, try again!" she said.
"No, I won't make a fool of myself twice in one night. We'll try again another day," I said and I changed the subject. I was talking about something else for a while and then she whispered, "Just kiss me." I did and it was incredible. Every moment I spent with this girl, I fell more and more in love with her. ~ Noah Galloway

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

For him it was a dark passage which led to nowhere, then to nowhere, then again to nowhere, once again to nowhere, always and forever to nowhere, heavy on the elbows in the earth to nowhere, dark, never any end to nowhere, hung on all time always to unknowing nowhere, this time and again for always to nowhere, now not to be borne once again always and to nowhere, now beyond all bearing up, up, up and into nowhere, suddenly, scaldingly, holdingly all nowhere gone and time absolutely still and they were both there, time having stopped and he felt the earth move out and away from under them. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Those days she was just a beautiful girl, now she's framed and hung up. ~ Elvis Costello

Salem"

In salem seasick spindrift drifts or skips
to the canvas flapping on the seaward panes
until the knitting sailor stabs at ships
nosing like sheep of Morpheus through his brain's
asylum. Seaman, seaman, how the draft
lashes the oily slick about your head,
beating up whitecaps! Seaman, Charon's raft
dumps its damned goods into the harbor-bed,--
There sewage sickens the rebellious seas.
Remember, seaman, Salem fisherman
Once hung their nimble fleets on the Great Banks.
Where was it that New England bred the men
who quartered the Leviathan's fat flanks
and fought the British Lion to his knees? ~ Robert Lowell

Sanchez got the phone call, listened carefully, glanced over at Spencer, in Whittaker's office, having his morning coffee. Hung up the phone, got up, went and knocked on the door, asked if he could see Spencer a moment, and lowering his voice said, "Carl downstairs just called me because someone wants to file a vagrancy report.
Spencer slapped him on the back. "Detective Sanchez, thank you for bringing the particulars of your job description to my attention. Well done. Go to it.
Sanchez hemmed and said, "The young woman says she is Lily Quinn. Specifically asked for me, Carl says.
Spencer didn't slap him on the back this time. He stared at Carl and then said, "All right smart-ass, go back to you desk.
"That's what I thought," said Sanchez. ~ Paullina Simons

Years ago, a Muslim woman called my radio show and asked me why I was not a Muslim. She asked this question with complete sincerity, and I answered her with equal sincerity.
The name of her religion, I told her, is Islam, which in Arabic means submission (to God). The name of the Jewish people is Israel, which in Hebrew means struggle with God. I'd rather struggle with God, I said, than only submit to God.
She thanked me and hung up. The answer apparently satisfied her.
Arguing/struggling with God is not only Jewishly permitted, it is central to the Torah and later Judaism. In this regard, as in others, the Torah is unique. In no other foundational religious text of which I am aware is arguing with God a religious expectation. The very first Jew, Abraham, argues with God, as does the greatest Jew, Moses. (It is worth noting that though Muslims consider Abraham their father as well, arguing with God has no place in the Quran or in normative Islam.)
It is difficult to overstate the importance of this Jewish concept. For one thing, it enabled Jews to believe in the importance of reason - God Himself could be challenged on the basis of reason and morality; one does not have to suspend reason to be a believing Jew. Indeed, it assured Jews that belief in God was itself the apotheosis of reason. For another, it had profound psychological benefits to Jews. We do not have to squelch our questioning of, or even our anger at, God. One can be both religious and real ~ Dennis Prager

The college library was a high beautiful space, designed and built and paid for by people who believed that those who sat at the long tables before open books - even those who were hung-over, sleepy, resentful, and uncomprehending - should have space above them, panels of dark gleaming wood around them, high windows bordered with Latin admonitions, through which to look at the sky. For a few years before they went into schoolteaching or business or began to rear children, they should have that. And now it was my turn and I should have it too. ~ Alice Munro

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Why won't the light just shut up ... ? I swear I'll never drink again ... someone please kill me ...
-Britain (he was hung-over), Hetalia: Axis Powers ~ Hidekaz Himaruya

The British are absolutely hung up on class, and whenever they start to really - class for the English is like sex for Americans: They start to shake all over when the subject comes up. ~ Gore Vidal

He squinted up at the sky and quickly rose to his feet, sheathing his knife. "Rosie," he beckoned to her but kept his eyes on the shadows that hung low brushing the top of the keep. "Rosie, come inside. There's a storm almost ready to hit."
She skipped over to him and slumped her shoulders, but he teased a grin out of her the next moment. "I'll fill your bucket for you if you set up the blanket house with Maire."
She shoved the bucket into his hands and entered the house, sing-songing for her sister. ~ Kate Willis

It's like each face was a sign like one of those "I'm Blind" signs the dago accordion players in Portland hung around their necks, only these signs say "I'm tired" or "I'm scared" or "I'm dying of a bum liver" or "I'm all bound up with machinery and people pushing me alla time." I can read all the signs, it don't make any difference how little the print gets. ~ Ken Kesey

It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady she was; dark, like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face and voice; and with very heavy eyebrows, nearly meeting over her large nose, as if, being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from wearing whiskers, she had carried them to that account. She brought with her two uncompromising hard black boxes, with her initials on the lids in hard brass nails. When she paid the coachman she took her money out of a hard steel purse, and she kept the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung upon her arm by a heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had never, at that time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was. ~ Charles Dickens

She had thought the chewing and digesting were meant literally and wondered, horrified, why Mo had hung on his workshop door the words of someone who vandalized books. ~ Cornelia Funke

Ella turned to the fireplace where a blackened kettle hung over what Granny Weatherwax always called an optimist's fire: two logs and hope. ~ Terry Pratchett

She went to the window and looked out. The ground fell away to a branch where willows burned lime green in the sunset. Dark little birds kept crossing the fields to the west like heralds of some coming dread. Below the branch stood the frame of an outhouse from which the planks had been stripped for firewood and there hung from the ceiling a hornetnest like a gross paper egg. The tinker returned from the cart with a lantern ~ Cormac McCarthy

The plaque the Romans placed above Jesus's head as he writhed in pain - "King of the Jews" - was called a titulus and, despite common perception, was not meant to be sarcastic. Every criminal who hung on a cross received a plaque declaring the specific crime for which he was being executed. Jesus's crime, in the eyes of Rome, was striving for kingly rule (i.e., treason), the same crime for which nearly every other messianic aspirant of the time was killed. ~ Reza Aslan

I never knew, not then, not now, whether Cassie thought she had hung up, or whether she wanted to hurt me, or whether she wanted to give me one last gift, one last night listening to her breathe. ~ Tana French

Just think life's too short to get hung up on maybes. ~ A Meredith Walters

I'm really looking forward to playing in Copenhagen again. Last time I stayed as long as I could, took pictures, signed autographs, and hung out until they through me out of the place! ~ George Duke

Yet my longing for her was like a bad cold that had hung on for years despite my conviction that I was sure to get over it at any moment. ~ Donna Tartt

Myrnin to Claire: "Claire, there are things to do." "Here, too, and I'm staying here, believe me." Myrnin was silent for a beat, and then he said, "Bob would be very disappointed in you."
"Bob the spider?"
"He looks at you like a mother, you know. I'm surprised at your lack of work ethic. Think of the example you set for -"
She hung up. ~ Rachel Caine

The trash bags are gone, the bar wiped clean. The lights have been hung; they line the stage and loop around the Snakehead, making the old axe glow. Stalled in the doorway, Lorca experiences a stomachache he can only call Christmas. ~ Marie-Helene Bertino

The Bumpuses were so low down on the evolutionary totem pole that they weren't even included in Darwin's famous family tree. They had inbred and ingrown and finally emerged from the Kentucky hills like some remnant of Attila the Hung's barbarian horde. Flick said that they had webbed feet and only three toes. It might have been true. ~ Jean Shepherd

Let me tell you, it is still morning in America. It just happens to be kind of a head pounding, hung over for four hours in America - and it's shaping up to be a nasty day, but its still morning in America. ~ Glenn Beck

Regardless of my age, such a trivial thing isn't important, it was upon that decision which my life hung. ~ Ross Turner

As they walked, the subtle lamplight of a dirigible washed over them. Finley glanced up, watching the light grow closer, slowly descending from the sky in a whirl of propellers as the ship made its way into the London air dock just a few miles away. How amazing it must be to float so high, to travel so quickly.
Dandy followed her gaze, but they didn't stop walking. "I was up in one of them flyers once," he told her. "I climbed over the rail and hung on to one of the ropes. Freeing it was. I almost let go."
She whipped her head around to gape at him. "The fall would kill you."
He smiled ever so slightly. "Not afore I flew. Worse ways to go. ~ Kady Cross

Jane sobbed even harder, not noticing the sounds of footsteps coming up behind her. A cold wind blew, and she shivered in it. As her eyes hung between tears, she looked out and saw a shape where the car had been. It was a figure, slim and wrapped in a gray shroud. Almost the whole body was covered, save for a single blue eye that stared at her intently. Jane stared back until she felt a warm hand touch her shoulder and a cold voice whisper in her ear.
"You are never alone. ~ Eric Nierstedt

Sleepwalking"

I fell in love and
I needed a roadmap
To find out where you lived
So excited now
Sleepwalking, cuz I'm sleepwalking
The white trash boys
Listen to the headphones
Blasting white noise
In the convenience store parking lot
I hung around there
Wasting my time
Hoping you'll stop by
Cuz I'm sleepwalking, I'm sleepwalking
A mutual friend's parents
Left town for a week
So we raided their liquor stash
And walked down by the riverside
Sleepwalking, cuz I'm sleepwalking ~ Modest Mouse

I just always liked the company. The people who hung around her were amazing storytellers, whether it was actors or crew. They were just exciting people. And I knew that they were different when I would go see a friend or stay at someone else's house. It just wasn't as cool. So I always loved the theater, and that's where I started: at a theater up in Canada. ~ Kiefer Sutherland

Stumbling closer, I held up the manuscript, the pages flapping frantically in the wind. "I take it this is a murder mystery? You killed the ex-fiancée and thanked her in the dedication? Mighty dignified of you, I must say."

"Nah. It's a horror novel. But yeah, the bimbo dies in the end. Bob Hall says it's going to be a bestseller, so I figured I owed her some thanks for the inspiration." He edged a few feet closer, his smile spread from ear to ear. The glimmer in his eyes flickered toward the ocean, breaking our connection. He hung his head, licked his lips, then returned his eyes to mine, restoring the connection with an intense smolder. "Are you gonna get over here, or what?"

Letting out a soft chuckle, the tears began to blind me. "Make me. ~ Rachael Wade

It took Cianfrance 12 years to bring 'Blue Valentine' to the screen after he first conceived it. He found Gosling and Williams early on, and they hung in there with him. The film finally premiered at Sundance 2010, then screened at Cannes and the Toronto Film Festival before landing in theaters in December. ~ Katie Hafner

I had hoped to do a lot more to help promote science in this country and in Europe, but I cannot see how that can happen. I have become toxic. I have been hung to dry by academic institutes who have not even bothered to ask me for my side of affairs. ~ Tim Hunt

Since it was my car, and since I felt confident it would make Marcus miserable, I pushed the Pearl Jam cassette into the tape deck as I got back on the freeway and turned it up. After a couple of tracks, Bas got hung up on trying to figure out the lyrics to "Yellow Ledbetter" - an unattainable goal since they were basically undecipherable sounds with a few words sprinkled in. The song was all feeling, but he was determined. We listened to it over and over, and caught a little more each time. Metaphorically, the song felt perfect for the mission we were on. ~ Veronica Rossi

That's my advice to people. You can't get hung up on thinking, "Am I the victim in this situation?" No, I'm in charge of it. ~ Mindy Kaling

Exalt the Cross! God has hung the destiny of the race upon it. Other things we may do in the realm of ethics, and on the lines of philanthropic reforms; but our main duty converges into setting that one glorious beacon of salvation, Calvary's Cross, before the gaze of every immortal soul. ~ Theodore L. Cuyler

Lately she can read a novel in two hours. She has always been an avid reader, but these days she can read much faster. The colors, the conversations, everything is much more vibrant and inclusive, as if opening a book releases genies trapped inside. The scenes and people between their covers sometimes seem more vivid than real life, with their sunny, pearl-toothed characters, the witty conversation, the handsome stranger squeezed into a subway car or knocking about on the street. Sometimes, when she finishes a book at record speed, Dana feels a slight letdown, as if a good friend has hung up the phone in the middle of a conversation. ~ Susan H. Crawford

Pedro, the Guardia, asked him if he could inspect the inside of his van because hundreds of very expensive ham legs had been stolen recently and the robbery perpetrated by a gang of men dressed as priests ‒ how do you say, monks. Danny felt the beads of sweat trickle down his back as he slid open the door. Along the side was a clothes rack with different costumes hung on hangers. He couldn't actually remember when he'd last cleaned the van out, hadn't the front to admit to such slovenliness. Pedro the cop lifted off a cassock.
"I use that for my work."
Pedro put his hand on the van and poked his nose in, sniffed and backed his face away and looked at his hand covered in sticky egg yolk and shell.
"It's for the wash," continued Danny, fighting a smirk.
Pedro pointed at his eyes with his fingers and then at Danny's to indicate, I'm watching you.
Danny reluctantly handed the cash over to the cop. They ambled off as he watched his money scrunch into his pocket.
Danny slumped at the bar, deflated. ~ Mark Shearman

I tried to think about what he had asked me to do, to step so far beyond myself. I found it difficult to think about. It was as if it hung over me, this huge choice I must make, this future I could not imagine. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Hands folded under my chin, I drifted. A bruise-colored cloud hung over Koko Head. A transistor radio twanged on a seawall where a Hawaiian family picnicked on the sand. The sun-warmed shallow water had a strange boiled-vegetable taste. The moment was immense, still, glittering, mundane. I tried to fix each of its parts in memory. I did not consider, even passingly, that I had a choice when it came to surfing. My enchantment would take me where it would. ~ William Finnegan

There were two things about Mama. One is she always expected the best out of me. And the other is that then no matter what I did, whatever I came home with, she acted like it was the moon I had just hung up in the sky and plugged in all the stars. Like I was that good. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

I avoid the looming visitor,
Flee him adroitly around corners,
Hating him, wishing him well;

Lest if he confront me I be forced to say what is in no wise true:
That he is welcome; that I am unoccupied;
And forced to sit while the potted roses wilt in the crate or the sonnet cools

Bending a respectful nose above such dried philosophies
As have hung in wreaths from the rafters of my house since I was a child.

Some trace of kindliness in this, no doubt,
There may be.
But not enough to keep a bird alive.

There is a flaw amounting to a fissure
In such behaviour. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

After lunch, he rose and gave me the tips of his fingers, saying he would like to show me over his flat; but I snatched away my hand and gave a cry. What I had touched was cold and, at the same time, bony; and I remembered that his hands smelt of death. 'Oh, forgive me!' he moaned. And he opened a door before me. 'This is my bedroom, if you care to see it. It is rather curious.' His manners, his words, his attitude gave me confidence and I went in without hesitation. I felt as if I were entering the room of a dead person. The walls were all hung with black, but, instead of the white trimmings that usually set off that funereal upholstery, there was an enormous stave of music with the notes of the DIES IRAE, many times repeated. In the middle of the room was a canopy, from which hung curtains of red brocaded stuff, and, under the canopy, an open coffin. 'That is where I sleep,' said Erik. 'One has to get used to everything in life, even to eternity.' The sight upset me so much that I turned away my head"

- Chapter 12: Apollo's Lyre ~ Gaston Leroux

You first."
"No, you."
"Why?"
"I'm afraid."
"Of what, my Sassenach?" The darkness was rolling in over the fields, filling the land and rising up to meet the night. The light of the new crescent moon marked the ridges of brow and nose, crossing his face with light.
"I'm afraid if I start I shall never stop."
He cast a glance at the horizon, where the sickle moon hung low and rising. "It's nearly winter, and the nights are long, mo duinne." He leaned across the fence, reaching, and I stepped into his arms, feeling the heat of his body and the beat of his heart.
"I love you. ~ Diana Gabaldon

We have to love more, I believe the most powerful message preached was when no words were used Jesus hung on the cross. And with his blood declared its finish. This is why we need to love harder, and I don't mean we need more preachers we need Christians so changed by the gospel that the love of God on the cross floods every aspect of your life. ~ Jordan Wells

The man who was born to be hung will never be drowned! ~ Jules Verne

As great Pythagoras of yore,
Standing beside the blacksmith's door,
And hearing the hammers, as they smote
The anvils with a different note,
Stole from the varying tones, that hung
Vibrant on every iron tongue,
The secret of the sounding wire.
And formed the seven-chorded lyre. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Morgan," I said into the receiver. And if I'd known what was coming I would not have said it so cheerfully. Someone on the other end made a throat-clearing noise, and with a jolt of surprise I recognized it. It was the sound Captain Matthews made when he wanted to call attention to the fact that he was about to make an important pronouncement. But what momentous declaration could he possibly have now, for me, before I even finished one doughnut, and why would he speak it on the phone to a mere forensics wonk? "Ahem, uh, Morgan," the captain said. And then there was silence. "This is Morgan," I said helpfully. "There's a, um," he said, and cleared his throat again. "I have a special assignment. For you. Can you come up to my office? Right now," he said. There was another slight pause, and then, most baffling of all, he added, "Uh. Please." And then he hung up. I ~ Jeff Lindsay

Jo tried to think about her suspicion that Lynn liked her. She figured that Lynn was nice to her because she was a patient. Jo's mother had shown her what it meant to have a professional mask. The times Jo saw her mother at work in the lab, busy and efficient as she drew blood and marked vials. Nancy smiled warmly at the patients, ready with a sympathetic comment. If a patient or a doctor called Nancy at home, she immediately became the caring professional, no matter what had been happening before the phone rang. When Lynn hung up after an evening phone call from Missy, Jo suspected that Lynn resumed screaming at her husband or kids. ~ Joan Frances Casey

An interesting thing happened today," she said, giving me just enough time to get the word "hi" out of my mouth. "I opened the front door and there was a man on my doorstep. A big man. A very big, very black man."

"Rachel - "

"You said it would be discreet. His T–shirt had the words 'Klan Killer' written on the front."

"I - "

"And do you know what he said?"

I waited.

"He handed me a note from Louis and told me he was lactose intolerant. That was it. Note. Lactose intolerant. Nothing else. He's coming to the reading with me. It was all I could do to get him to change his T–shirt. The new one reads 'Black Death.' I'm going to tell people it's a rap band. Do you think it's a rap band?"

I figured it was probably his occupation, but I didn't say that. Instead, I said the only thing I could think of to say.

"Maybe you'd better buy some soy milk."

She hung up without saying good–bye. ~ John Connolly

Then Lyra gave a cry so passionate that even in that muffled, mist-hung world it raised an echo, but of course it wasn't an echo, it was the other part of her crying in turn from the land of the living as Lyra moved away into the land of the dead. "My heart, Will ... " she groaned, and clung to him, her wet face contorted with pain. And thus the prophecy that the Master of Jordan College had made to the Librarian, that Lyra would make a great betrayal and it would hurt her terribly, was fulfilled. ~ Philip Pullman

I found myself, unbidden, thinking of the holy fools in the old story, the ones who went fishing in the lake for the moon, with nets, convinced that the reflection in the water was nearer and easier to catch than the globe that hung in the sky. ~ Neil Gaiman

Talc: You have been found guilty of misleading and perverting the young. I decree that you be
hung by your underdeveloped testicles until dead. ZORRO ~ John Kennedy Toole

People stopped hanging out with me at the point when I stopped doing drugs. All of a sudden they didn't wanna hang out with me anymore. And I would have hung out with them. I mean they were killing themselves, but I still would have hung out with them. ~ John Wozniak

The author relates that Mickey Mantle did not expect to play one day and showed up extremely hung over. He was nevertheless called on to pitch and smashed a towering home run to an enthusiastic ovation. He related to his teammates, Those people don't know how tough that was. ~ Jim Bouton

And the earth self-balanced on her centre hung. ~ John Milton

I think Winston Churchill is an appallingly bad politician, and always has been, that he hung onto power long after he should have done, and that his post-war administration was a disaster. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

Marriage is sacred. It was created to be the wedding portrait of Christ and His Bride hung over the blazing fireplace of judgment. A match made in Heaven, a contract signed in blood. In the bond of marriage, we are to stand at the altar of Sacrifice or we're not to stand at all. ~ Beth Moore

It's hard to see. There are only the shadows of things. She feels along the fridge to the wall and the phone, touching first her uncle's keys, then her dead aunt's, a woman Devon can feel judging her from the grave even though she's only borrowing something, not stealing it. She has never stolen anything in her life, and she never will. She steps into the cool, still air of the closed garage and she sees Sick's face. The way he looked at her as she let him in, the only one. His hair hung down and his lips were parted and as he moved inside her his eyes seemed to shine with a sweet sadness, the kind that only comes when you know something good can never, ever last. But you keep going anyway. All you can do is keep going and never quit. ~ Andre Dubus III

I thought crocodiles lived under my bed and if my feet hung over the side, they'd get bitten off. So I slept in a ball. I think I still do actually." Oh God. Shut up. Shut up. "Out of habit, I mean, not crocodiles. I d-don't think that anymore. Obviously."

He was quiet a moment. And then, faintly accusingly, "You know that's adorable, don't you?"

I tripped hard over adorable and couldn't think how to answer. So I said nothing at all, and merely enjoyed my few minutes in a dangerous puddle with a man who maybe thought I was adorable. ~ Alexis Hall

The constant exercise of riding across the estate lands, walking the fields, helping a farmer repair a gate or retrieve an ewe that had jumped a garden wall, had wrought considerable changes in West. He'd lost so much weight that his garments hung on his frame. The bloat had melted from his face and neck, revealing a firm jawline and hard profile. All the time spent outdoors had imparted healthy color to his complexion, and he appeared years younger, an air of vitality replacing the look of sleepy indolence. ~ Lisa Kleypas

We sped on, across the plains, toward Metz. I hung back, saving myself. It is called the Race of Truth. The early stages separate the strong riders from the weak. Now the weak would be eliminated altogether. ~ Lance Armstrong

The promise of God is that you are His son. Her offspring. Its likeness. His equal. Ah ... here is where you get hung up. You can accept "His son," "offspring," "likeness," but you recoil at being called "His equal." It is too much to accept. Too much bigness, too much wonderment-too much responsibility. For if you are God's equal, that means nothing is being done to you-and all things are created by you. There can be no more victims and no more villains-only outcomes of your thought about a thing. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

Buy potatoes," he said. "Gotta hop." Then he hung up. Of course. A cloud of fallout would threaten European food and water supplies, including the potato crop, placing a premium on uncontaminated American substitutes. Perhaps a few folks other than potato farmers think of the price of potatoes in America minutes after the explosion of a nuclear reactor in Russian, but I have never met them. ~ Michael Lewis

He hung up and stood there, his mind spinning. Uncle Benny's words whispered in his head. We'll do what we always do. What they always did. Fight fires. Save people's lives. Yes, that's what they'd do now. The FDNY was the biggest fire department in the world. They were the best. And they would do what they always did. ~ Lauren Tarshis

I try not to think about what people think of me. You can't, because then you get hung up in all the people who love you, and you've also got all the people who hate you, because of what you're doing. ~ Eve Ensler

Fireflies winked, and the darkening bay breathed and sighed like a great dolphin and the thin pure curve of a young moon hung in the green sky... ~ Anne Rivers Siddons

SUMMER SHOWER. A drop fell on the apple tree, Another on the roof; A half a dozen kissed the eaves, And made the gables laugh. A few went out to help the brook, That went to help the sea. Myself conjectured, Were they pearls, What necklaces could be! The dust replaced in hoisted roads, The birds jocoser sung; The sunshine threw his hat away, The orchards spangles hung. The breezes brought dejected lutes, And bathed them in the glee; The East put out a single flag, And signed the fete away. ~ Emily Dickinson

I met a woman in Albuquerque and she came and hung out with me in the trailer. It was really just more to kind of really understand my biggest concern was always the interrogation scenes. Remember, that's why I really wanted to meet somebody because you see those scenes on TV so much. ~ Charlize Theron

I know when people think of New York, they think of theater, restaurants, cultural landmarks and shopping," I told him. "But beyond the iconic skyline and the news from Wall Street, New York is a collection of villages. In our neighborhoods, we attend school, play Kick the Can, handball and ride our bikes. I grew up knowing the names and faces of the baker, the shoe repair family, the Knish man and the Good Humor man who sold me and the other kids in my neighborhood half a popsicle for a nickel. My father took me to the playground where he pushed me on the swing, helped balance me on the seesaw and watched as I hung upside down by my feet on the monkey bars. Yes," I told the interviewer, "people actually grow up in New York. ~ Gina Greenlee

A Second Childhood."

When all my days are ending
And I have no song to sing,
I think that I shall not be too old
To stare at everything;
As I stared once at a nursery door
Or a tall tree and a swing.

Wherein God's ponderous mercy hangs
On all my sins and me,
Because He does not take away
The terror from the tree
And stones still shine along the road
That are and cannot be.

Men grow too old for love, my love,
Men grow too old for wine,
But I shall not grow too old to see
Unearthly daylight shine,
Changing my chamber's dust to snow
Till I doubt if it be mine.

Behold, the crowning mercies melt,
The first surprises stay;
And in my dross is dropped a gift
For which I dare not pray:
That a man grow used to grief and joy
But not to night and day.

Men grow too old for love, my love,
Men grow too old for lies;
But I shall not grow too old to see
Enormous night arise,
A cloud that is larger than the world
And a monster made of eyes.

Nor am I worthy to unloose
The latchet of my shoe;
Or shake the dust from off my feet
Or the staff that bears me through
On ground that is too good to last,
Too solid to be true.

Men grow too old to woo, my love,
Men grow too old to wed;
But I shall not grow too old to see
Hung crazily overhead
Incredible rafters w ~ G.K. Chesterton

How about this? Hong Kong had been appropriated by British drug pushers in the 1840s. We wanted Chinese silk, porcelain, and spices. The Chinese didn't want our clothes, tools, or salted herring, and who can blame them? They had no demand. Our solution was to make a demand, by getting large sections of the populace addicted to opium, a drug which the Chinese government had outlawed. When the Chinese understandably objected to this arrangement, we kicked the fuck out of them, set up a puppet government in Peking that hung signs on parks saying NO DOGS OR CHINESE, and occupied this corner of their country as an import base. Fucking godawful behavior, when you think about it. And we accuse them of xenophobia. It would be like the Colombians invading Washington in the early twenty-first century and forcing the White House to legalize heroin. And saying, Don't worry, we'll show ourselves out, and take Florida while we're at it, okay? Thanks very much. ~ David Mitchell

I've hung out and dated people I've never even met before. ~ Derek Jeter

She seemed to me at that time to be of no particular age, or at that age between ages when it is impossible to say that the child is a young lady, or that the young lady is still a child. From the mystery which surrounded her, my mind hung back, my thoughts turned themselves away. It was enough for me to believe that wherever in this world she actually belonged, in some way, for some reason, she belonged with me. Even ~ Robert Nathan

I wanted to be like my friends. I hung out with girls who had blue eyes and blond hair and I thought, 'I want to look like them!' ~ Selena Gomez

I was too unsettled. Too full. Full of dark thoughts, dark musing, as if I'd eaten them for dinner instead of the roasted duck, and they were sitting undigested in my stomach, waiting to be vomited back up at the wrong time. The threat of it hung over my mind like nausea. ~ Kate Avery Ellison

Knowledge evolves, understanding matures and wisdom progresses. Don't be so hung up on what you think you know. ~ TemitOpe Ibrahim

On Good Friday last year the SS found some pretext to punish 60 priests with an hour on "the tree." That is the mildest camp punishment. They tie a man's hands together behind his back, palms facing out and fingers pointing backward. Then they turn his hands inwards, tie a chain around his wrists and hoist him up by it. His own wight twists his joints and pulls them apart ... Several of the priest who were hung up last year never recovered and died. If you don't have a strong heart, you don't survive it. Many have a permanently crippled hand. ~ Jean Bernard

A young woman stood in the hallway, a suitcase at her feet, a cardboard carton in her hands. She wore a yellow cotton dress with a white flower print. The silver dragonfly on her necklace hung in the hollow of her collarbone and her thick red hair cascaded past her sunburned shoulders. She will tell you that she hadn't chosen that dress with any care, or the necklace, that she hadn't washed her hair or scrubbed her face, put a little red on her lips. Don't believe it. No one looks that good by accident. ~ David Benioff

One day, putting my finger on a spot in the very middle of the then white heart of Africa, I declared that some day I would go there ... It is a fact that, about eighteen years afterwards, a wretched little stern-wheel steamboat I commanded lay moored to the bank of an African river.

Everything was dark under the stars. Every other white man on board was asleep. I was glad to be alone on deck, smoking the pipe of peace after an anxious day. The subdued thundering mutter of the Stanley Falls hung in the heavy night air of the last navigable reach of the Upper Congo ... Away in the middle of the stream, on a little island nestling all black in the foam of the broken water, a solitary little light glimmered feebly, and I said to myself with awe, 'This is the very spot of my boyish boast.'

A great melancholy descended on me. Yes, this was the very spot. But there was no shadowy friend to stand by my side in the night of the enormous wilderness, no great haunting memory, but only the ... distasteful knowledge of the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience and geographical exploration. What an end to the idealised realities of a boy's daydreams!... Still, the fact remains that I have smoked a pipe of peace at midnight in the very heart of the African continent, and felt very lonely there. ~ Joseph Conrad

Business people - Your business - is your greatest prejudice: it ties you to your locality, to the company you keep, to the inclinations you feel. Diligent in business - but indolent in spirit, content with your inadequacy, and with the cloak of duty hung over this contentment: that is how you live, that is how you want your children to live! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

No, no, you twit, move towards the well-hung male of the species! It's only natural; you don't want to insult Mother Nature. Go claim your mate. ~ Jenna McCormick

Men are hung up on breasts. They're looking at the titty dinner. It's pathetic. ~ Betty Dodson

She closed her eyes, trying to remember the photos that had hung on the walls. She had passed these pictures every day, but now she only remembered them vaguely--her parents on their wedding day, her mother in a garden, her family at Knott's Berry Farm. How had she not memorized them? Or maybe she had once but she was beginning to forget. Did the house smell different because her mother's scent was gone? Or had she just forgotten how her mother smelled? ~ Brit Bennett

Can you make it past me, thief-catcher?" Mat called, careful not to take his eyes off the man waiting for him with blade poised to strike. Sandar had insisted irritably on "thief-catcher," not "thief-taker," though Mat could not see any difference.
"I cannot," Sandar called from behind him. "If you move to let me by, you will lose room to swing that oar you call a staff, and he will spit you like a grunt."
Like a what? "Well, think of something, Tairen. This ragamuffin is grating my nerves."
The man in the gold-striped coat sneered. "You will be honored to die on the blade of the High Lord Darlin, peasant, if I allow it so." It was the first time he had deigned to speak. "Instead, I think I will have the pair of you hung by the heels, and watch while the skin is stripped from your bodies - "
"I do not think I'd like that," Mat said. ~ Robert Jordan

Across the intersection he could see the crumbling blue-green facade of the Palace Amusements building, the grinning ten-foot-high face on its north wall smiling out on empty streets and vacant lots. The arcade entrances were covered with plywood; broken neon tubing hung from the walls. He thought of the hours he had spent there as a kid, playing pinball, firing the real .22s in the shooting gallery, riding the bumper cars. It hurt to look at it now. ~ Wallace Stroby