Hunkering Down Quotes

When you're down on yourself, and when you are hunkering down and pulling back, you're not going to make any better decisions than when you were aggressively, belligerently putting yourself forward. ~ Hillary Clinton

I try to stay sane and grounded by hunkering down, eating right, and exercising. I make a routine of spin class, yoga, and Pilates, places I push my body so hard I can lose my mind. Cutting out caffeine and sugar, being mindful, and getting enough rest are important. ~ Jaime Murray

It's rude to discuss religion', the Buraq sniffed. 'But I don't hold with Teatimers. I'm of the Midnight Snack school. You have tea because it's three o'clock and that's what's done and yes, yes, it's pleasant to have a nice cup and a sandwich with no crusts on, but pleasant is not enough for me! When you tuck into a Midnight Snack, it's because you're hungry in the dark. You want that bit of roast you couldn't finish at supper and you want it now. Midnight Snackery is primal, like a wolf in the wood, hunkering down over her kill. ~ Catherynne M Valente

And if the world went to hell in a handbasket-as it seemed to be doing-you could say good-bye to everyone and retreat to your land, hunkering down and living off it. ~ Jeannette Walls

Being part of an attack was a strange thing, Marcus had always thought. It was like being a component in a larger organism, something that could live or die, stand or flee, all on its own and independent of the will of the men who made it up. Sometimes it drove you onward, into the face of what seemed like certain death, in spite of every instinct screaming for flight. Other times, you could feel it falling apart, turning at bay like a whipped dog, hunkering down or turning tail to run. ~ Django Wexler

I think the idea of holing up and hunkering down against the larger forces of the world has not lost its allure since Thoreau's time. If anything that instinct, or impulse, continues to reside in almost all of us, sometimes activated or bestirred and other times dormant but always present. ~ Rick Bass

What was the point of being able to forgive, when deep down, you both had to admit you'd never forget? ~ Jodi Picoult

I was always a keen reader. I jotted down one or two things, but it never occurred to me to think of a job in writing. I thought that writers were like demi-gods. I don't know what I thought. ~ Penny Jordan

When life beats you down, NEVER give up. ~ Jared Padalecki

At whatever point one opens Gift from the Sea, to any chapter or page, the author's words offer a chance to breathe and to live more slowly. The book makes it possible to quiet down and rest in the present, no matter what the circumstances may be. Just to read it - a little of it or in its entirety - is to exist for a while in a different and more peaceful tempo. Even the sway and flow of language and cadence seem to me to make reference to the easy, inevitable movements of the sea. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

When they killed my family, they may as well have killed me, Hayden. I was fourteen when I killed my first man. I wasn't even of age. All I could think about was what he had done to my mother, my father, my sister and my brother. That was all I could see. Luke found out who they were and we took care of them. I spent the next sixteen years doint the same thing. I don't think I was alive. I died that night.
"I never worried going into battles. I never cared what would happen if I jumped into an ambush. How could I die if I was already dead?"
I reached back and pulled his head down so that it was against mine. His arms tightened around me.
"But then one day, I looked down a hill and saw this most beautiful woman. I looked into those unbelievable eyes and my heart jumped. When you kissed me by the lake it started to beat again. You're the one who brought me back to life, Hayden, and now that I'm alive again, I'm terrified. ~ Mireille Chester

Aging is not one process. It's many different things going on that cause us to age. I have a program that at least slows down each of these different processes. ~ Ray Kurzweil

As children and into our tumultuous teen years, we feel our way through the world. We may be told our intuition is wrong by peers and family. We act on our intuition and are quieted, shushed, or made fun of. In abusive situations, children raise their voice in objection and are silenced by adults who are supposedly know better. Our childhood intuition is stuffed down, ignored or suppressed. When you lie to a child, you send the message that their intuition is worthless and unreliable. This same child grows into adulthood questioning and doubting themselves. One of the most empowering things you can do is start to heal, trust and cultivate your intuition. You have the ability to reignite that candle inside yourself. You can reclaim your intuitive facilities. To do so is your birthright. ~ Sasha Graham

But dreams have a nasty habit of going bad when you're not looking. The sun went down with practiced bravado. Twilight crawled across the sky, laden with foreboding. ~ Sam Lake

Most people give up on what they want. They'll come across the first little obstacle and they'll give up, and then they'll try to tear down the people they see doing what they felt like they couldn't. ~ Jack Cheng

Every drama school in the country turned me down, and so I was lucky to study drama at all, even if it was lowly Birmingham University. But even when I came out with my degree, my mother promptly insisted I go straight to secretarial college to have something to fall back on, just in case - which didn't exactly fill me with confidence. ~ Tamsin Greig

Though every city shall he hunt her down,
Until he shall driven her back to Hell,
There from whence envy first did let her loose. ~ Dante Alighieri

Hey, Vickie, why don't you come down here and reprimand me to my face! ~ Randy Orton

If eternity is the plan, then it makes no sense to shrink your living down to the needs and wants of this little moment. ~ Paul David Tripp

As a fantasist, I well understand the power of escapism, particularly as relates to romance. But when so many stories aimed at the same audience all trumpet the same message – And Lo! There shall be Two Hot Boys, one of them your Heart's Intended, the other a vain Pretender who is also hot and with whom you shall have guilty makeouts before settling down with your One True Love – I am inclined to stop viewing the situation as benign and start wondering why, for instance, the heroines in these stories are only ever given a powerful, magical destiny of great importance to the entire world so long as fulfilling it requires male protection, guidance and companionship, and which comes to an end just as soon as they settle their inevitable differences with said swain and start kissing.

I mean to invoke is something of the danger of mob rule, only applied to narrative and culture. Viz: that the comparative harmlessness of individuals does not prevent them from causing harm en masse. Take any one story with the structure mentioned above, and by itself, there's no problem. But past a certain point, the numbers begin to tell – and that poses a tricky question. In the case of actual mobs, you'll frequently find a ringleader, or at least a core set of agitators: belligerent louts who stir up feeling well beyond their ability to contain it. In the case of novels, however, things aren't so clear cut. Authors tell the stories they want to tell, and even if a number of them choose ~ Foz Meadows

Deep down, everyone wants the truth. ~ Keith Ablow

Vision

The rainbow touched down
'somewhere in the Rio Grande,'
we said. And saw the light of it
from your mother's house in Isleta.
How it curved down between earth
and the deepest sky to give us horses
of color
horses that were within us all of this time
but we didn't see them because
we wait for the easiest vision
to save us.

In Isleta the rainbow was a crack
in the universe. We saw the barest
of all life that is possible.
Bright horses rolled over
and over the dusking sky.
I heard the thunder of their beating
hearts. Their lungs hit air
and sang. All the colors of horses
formed the rainbow,
and formed us
watching them. ~ Joy Harjo

What I am is a heretic who's recanted and, thereby, in everyone's eyes, saved his soul. Everyone's eyes but one, who knows deep down inside that all he has saved is his skin. ~ Robert M. Pirsig

I move past the scaffolding and walk down the steps, hearing one language after another, rich, harsh, mysterious, strong. This is what we bring to the temple, not prayer or chant or slaughtered rams. Our offering is language. ~ Don DeLillo

Keeping your head down and doing the best job you can in the beginning gives you the opportunity to be evaluated on the basis of the contributions you are making. [Then], when you feel strongly about your work or about a position, you'll be given more attention [than] if you hadn't done that constantly. ~ Hillary Clinton

Black people comprehend the South. We understand its weight. It has rested on our backs ... I knew that my heart would break if ever I put my foot down on that soil, moist, still, with old hurts. I had to face the fear/loathing at its source or it would consume me whole. ~ Maya Angelou

Very few artistic partnerships last more than 10 years, and if they do they tend to go down the tubes. ~ Tim Rice

I think it would be best if you came down from there before I explained that."
"I think I'll stay right where I am, thank you," I said. "And you, you stay where you are, or I'll ... I don't know what I'll do, but it will really hurt. You, I mean. ~ Molly Harper

Elysia!" Driggs interrupted. "Slow the hell down."
She grinned at Lex. "Sorry. I talk a lot when I get excited."
"That's okay," Lex said with an impish nod. "We all have our flaws. Driggs here loves Titanic."
"Really??"
Driggs folded his arms and studied the girls. "I can already see the ramifications of an alliance between you two. And they are troublesome. ~ Gina Damico

I could see the corridor window, where the wires-six thin black wires-were doing their best to slant up, to ascend skyward, despite the lightning blows dealt them by one telegraph pole after another; but just as all six, in a triumphant swoop of pathetic elation, were about to reach the top of the window, a particularly vicious blow would bring them down, as low as they had ever been, and they would have to start all over again. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

The Savior is working mightily among men, every day He is invisibly persuading numbers of people all over the world, both within and beyond the Greek-speaking world, to accept His faith and be obedient to His teaching. Can anyone, in face of this, still doubt that He has risen and lives, or rather that He is Himself the Life? Does a dead man prick the consciences of men, so that they throw all the traditions of their fathers to the winds and bow down before the teaching of Christ? ~ Athanasius Of Alexandria

Were the paths that we were heading down the right ones for us- or were we simply staying the course because we thought we should? Was the road most frequently traveled the one that we wanted to follow? ~ Amanda Pressner

I should have known," he whispered. "I am the rain." And yet he looked dully down the mountains of his body where the hills fell to an abyss. He felt the driving rain, and heard it whipping down, pattering on the ground. He saw his hills grow dark with moisture. Then a lancing pain shot through the heart of the world. "I am the land," he said, "and I am the rain. The grass will grow out of me in a little while."
And the storm thickened, and covered the world with darkness, and with the rush of waters. ~ John Steinbeck

When I give concerts, the tickets sell for five dollars to one hundred dollars, but for my concerts the five-dollar seats are down in front ... the further back you go, the more you have to pay. The hundred dollar seats are the last two rows, and those tickets go like hotcakes! In fact, if you pay two hundred dollars you don't have to come at all. ~ Jack Benny

I've never looked at film-making as a career. I've looked on film-making as an adventure. When you come down the mountain, you get ready to climb again. ~ Shekhar Kapur

No matter how good a President you are, if the historian is hostile to you, he will emphasize your errors and break down your merits... without departing from the facts. ~ Teodoro A. Agoncillo

One day Dostoevsky threw out the enigmatic remark: "Beauty will save the world". What sort of a statement is that? For a long time I considered it mere words. How could that be possible? When in bloodthirsty history did beauty ever save anyone from anything? Ennobled, uplifted, yes - but whom has it saved?

There is, however, a certain peculiarity in the essence of beauty, a peculiarity in the status of art: namely, the convincingness of a true work of art is completely irrefutable and it forces even an opposing heart to surrender. It is possible to compose an outwardly smooth and elegant political speech, a headstrong article, a social program, or a philosophical system on the basis of both a mistake and a lie. What is hidden, what distorted, will not immediately become obvious.

Then a contradictory speech, article, program, a differently constructed philosophy rallies in opposition - and all just as elegant and smooth, and once again it works. Which is why such things are both trusted and mistrusted.

In vain to reiterate what does not reach the heart.

But a work of art bears within itself its own verification: conceptions which are devised or stretched do not stand being portrayed in images, they all come crashing down, appear sickly and pale, convince no one. But those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force - they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags. The mere minimum of the Church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Yet already their destruction begins. It comes upon them gradually, in little ways. Bit by bit their belief in themselves erodes. A growing cynicism pervades their lives. Small acts of kindness and charity are abandoned as pointless and somehow indicative of weakness. Little failures of behavior lead to bigger ones. It is not enough to ignore the discourtesies of others; discourtesies must be repaid in kind. Men are intolerant and judgmental. They are without grace. If one man proclaims that God has spoken to him, another quickly proclaims that his God is false. If the homeless cannot find shelter, then surely they are to blame for their condition. If the poor do not have jobs, then surely it is because they will not work. If sickness strikes down those whose lifestyle differs from our own, then surely they have brought it on themselves. ~ Terry Brooks

Livia had never wanted anything more than to taste his lips right then.
"Would you mind very much if I kissed you?" she whispered.
Blake shook his head.
Livia leaned in and took a gentle kiss. His lips were soft, and they tasted perfect. The smell of his skin combined with that wonderful taste almost made her collapse.
Blake steadied her by placing his hand against her chest. His splayed fingers must have felt how fast her heart was beating. Livia pulled back just a bit to see his eyes again. They were half closed and shimmering.
It was his turn to whisper. "Would you mind very much if I kissed you?"
She shook her head and waited, very still. Blake lifted his other hand to touch her face. Livia had to work not to press her skin into his fingers. His touch was light as a breeze. He traced the features of her face. He trailed his fingers down to her throat and up to her earlobe. He's so gentle.
As soon as the thought flashed through Livia's mind, Blake grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking it enough to make her gasp. Then he kissed the living hell out of her.
Oh, oh, OH. Livia felt her arms begin to shake, and Blake took more of her weight onto his forearm. She'd had no idea kissing was an art form. She knew now. ~ Debra Anastasia

He rode out in the dark long before daylight and he rode the sun up and he rode it down again. In the oncoming years a terrible drought struck west Texas. He moved on. There was no work in that country anywhere. Pasture gates stood open and sand drifted in the roads and after a few years it was rare to see stock of any kind and he rode on. Days of the world. Years of the world. Till he was old. ~ Cormac McCarthy

And no matter where you are right now, you can come on out and stand in the middle of it as the sun is going down, and you can know that right in the spot where you are standing, there used to be someone else, that at some other point in time, someone stood where you are standing, thinking their own thoughts. And someday in the future someone will stand there and wonder about you, wonder if there was ever anybody else.

Keep in mind that you are making memories.

Consider that something you take for granted today may be the one thing you might pine for someday, and there might not be any more of it left, but you'll remember its sweetness. Remember the curve of the sun in your bedroom window late in the day, the way your little brother's hair smelled after his bath, and the sound of your mother and father talking in the kitchen.

Make sure you notice if the trees meet in an arch over your street, or if there's a certain sound that you hear at a particular time every day. Take note of those people who are so familiar to you, and consider memorizing them for a time when they are gone.
And know that if anyone ever says to you, "What will you always remember about this place?" you will know just exactly which story it is that you would tell them. ~ Pam Conrad

Oh . . . I'd been getting pretty sick of the office. It made me feel dead inside. Finally, the week-ends weren't long enough to get it out of my system. I couldn't read poetry or listen to music. It was like being constipated. Well, I got a holiday and went to Kent for a week's hiking. And for the first two days I felt nothing at all, just a sort of deadness inside. And one day I went into a pub in a place called Marden and had a couple of pints. And as I came out, a sort of bubble seemed to burst inside me, and I started feeling things again. And I suddenly felt an overwhelming hatred for cities and offices and people and everything that calls itself civilisation . . . .

"Then I got an idea. I sat down at the side of the road and thought about it. I'd read somewhere that the Manichees thought the world was created by evil. Well, it suddenly seemed to me that the forces behind the world weren't either good or evil, but something quite incomprehensible to human beings. And the only thing they want is movement, everlasting movement. That's the way I saw it suddenly. Human beings want peace, and they build their civilisations and make their laws to get peace. But the forces behind the world don't want peace. So they send down ertain men whose business is to keep the world in a turmoil - the Napoleons, Hitlers, Genghis Khans. And I called these men the Enemies, with a capital E. And I thought I belong among the Enemies - that's why I detest this bloody civilisation. A ~ Colin Wilson

I write about it in the book and, you know, explain that. But that was the technicality that actually got my sentence reduced - that Alan Dershowitz used to have my sentence - it came down eventually to eight years. ~ Jim Bakker

There is nothing remarkable about this 'guac', about any 'guac', and California needs to calm the fuck down. ~ Caroline Kepnes

Annabelle, I'm going to kill you! I cried, frowning at the mess. Then I glanced down the stairway and gasped.
It looked like someone had beaten me to it. ~ Cleo Coyle

Ink and paper are as cheap as sand or water, almost. No board of directors has to convene in order to decide whether we can afford to write down this or that. I myself once staged the end of the world on two pieces of paper- at a cost of ... less than a penny, including wear and tear on my typewriter ribbon and the seat of my pants.
'Think of that. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Only those burdened with a common affliction understand each other. Thanks to their affliction they constitute a circle and provide each other mutual support. They glide along the inner borders of their circle, make way for or jostle one another gently in the crowd... There exists not the shadow of a thought to give the comforter an advantage over the comforted. Thus their conversations consist only of a coming-together of their imaginations, outpourings of wishes from one upon the other... Sometimes they will unite in faith and, their heads together, look up into the unending reaches of the sky. Recognition of their situation shows itself, however, only when they bow down their heads in common and the common hammer descends upon them. ~ Franz Kafka

I had to slow down. If I was going to listen to Venice properly I needed to hear the cadence of the place. I needed to stand still. <...> I thought of Whitman observing the parade of humanity with lewd concentration. Walt had a good ear. He loved opera and knew how to sit perfectly still. ~ Stephen Kuusisto

There were, of course, other heroes, little ones who did little things to help people get through: merchants who let profits disappear rather than lay off clerks, store owners who accepted teachers' scrip at face value not knowing if the state would ever redeem it, churches that set up soup kitchens, landlords who let tenants stay on the place while other owners turned to cattle, housewives who set out plates of cold food (biscuits and sweet potatoes seemed the fare of choice) so transients could eat without begging, railroad "bulls" who turned the other way when hoboes slipped on and off the trains, affluent families that carefully wrapped leftover food because they knew that residents of "Hooverville" down by the dump would be scavenging their garbage for their next meal, and more, an more. But they were not enough, could not have been enough, so when the government stepped in to help, those needing help we're thankful. ~ Harvey H. Jackson

cigar, and walked up and down before the house, a portly, ~ Sinclair Lewis