Into The Grey Quotes

One more item slipped out of the bag. It was the metal identification tag from Maureen's cremation, the one I had burned with her just a few weeks before. These tags say with the body through the whole cremation, and leave stuck in with the ashes, which is how sacks of cremated remains found in old storage lockers and attics can still be identified years later. The tag I found was identical (except for the ID number) to the one I was putting in with Matthew now. I imagined his hands sinking into the grey mulch of Maureen's bones and finding the tag. I imagined him pulling the tag out and brushing the dusty metal against his cheek. It was a bizarre honor to have been a part of their last private moment together, the last act of their love story.
I cried (sobbed, if we're being honest) standing over Matthew's body, moments before it was loaded into the chamber. Even if all we love will die, I still ached for a love like theirs, to be adored so completely. Had not Disney guaranteed all of us such an ending? ~ Caitlin Doughty

(on teaching writing)
So many writers come to class with one question dominant in their mind, 'How do I make a living from this?' It's a fair enough question and one I always try to answer well - but it saddens me that it so often overshadows the more relevant questions of 'why am I writing' and 'what am I saying' and 'how do I keep it honest. ~ Celine Kiernan

... bleak, wind-swept fens and moors; empty fields with broken walls and gates hanging off their hinges; a black, ruined church; an open grave; a suicide buried at a lonely crossroads; a fire of bones blazing in the twilit snow; a gallows with a man swinging from its arm; another man crucified upon a wheel; an ancient spear plunged into the mud with a strange talisman, like a little leather finger, hanging from it; a scarecrow whose black rags blew about so violently in the wind that he seemed about to leap into the grey air and fly towards you on vast black wings ... ~ Susanna Clarke

Raistlin opened his eyes, looking at her without recognition. And in them, she saw deep, undying sorrow
the look of one who has been permitted to enter a realm of deadly, perilous beauty, and who now finds himself, once more, cast down into the grey, rain-swept world. ~ Tracy Hickman

On the ghosts in Moorehawke & Into The Grey/Taken Away:
The ghosts ... are symbolic of those unresolved moments in history that linger, and affect the next generation. Sometimes this happens without that generation ever really knowing the truth of what has come before. This is so true of war, I think, where we are often only left the stories that the previous generation wanted us to hear ... How much harder would the truth be to deny were it lingering about as an actual manifestation of the past? ~ Celine Kiernan

Each of the dancers took a partner, the living with the dead, each to each. Bod reached out his hand and found himself touching fingers with, and gazing into the grey eyes of, the lady in the cobweb dress. She smiled at him.
"Hello, Bod," she said.
"Hello," he said, as he danced with her. "I don't know your name."
"Names aren't really important," she said.
"I love your horse. He's so big! I never knew horses could be that big."
"He is gentle enough to bear the mightiest of you away on his broad back, and strong enough for the smallest of you as well."
"Can I ride him?" asked Bod.
"One day," she told him, and her cobweb skirts shimmered. "One day. Everybody does."
"Promise?"
I promise. ~ Neil Gaiman

You wear a crown of glory and honor. The transcendent King of creation placed it upon your head. When you look into the mirror and see scars and zits and fat and abuse and loneliness and pain, Yahweh sees glory and honor. ~ Preston Sprinkle

Learn how to grow out of yourself and into the world of others: Plant a shade tree under which you know you will never sit. Set some goals that may benefit your children or an orphanage or the employees of your company or future generations or your own city, fifty years from now. ~ Denis Waitley

You must be the Italian cow now sharing my last name." He looked her up and down with disgust. As I stood, Mel glared, telling me to back the fuck down or else.

She moved from behind the desk and stood directly in front of his face, causing his bodyguards to step forward as well.

"Old man, you're in my house. That makes you a fucking guest. I don't owe you shit and you will respect me if you want my respect. My name is Melody. Mrs. Callahan if it suits you, but..." She leaned in until their noses were almost touching. She was shorter, but the black heels helped. "If you even call me a cow again I will kill you painfully slow. I don't care how many motherfucking body guards you have."

Two of his bodyguards drew their guns and the last had a knife hidden in his sleeve.

Shit. I thought as she pulled her gun. Declan and Neal were already backing her up. My father just rolled his eyes and took my mother into the corner, all while drinking his brandy. This was ridiculous.

"Lower your weapons," Grandfather said as he glared into her eyes. "The Italian cow..."

The moment he said it, three bullets went flying into them. One in the chest, one in the wrist and the other the knee; they all went down like cards. You don't out gun Mel.

"What the fuck? Where did she pull the gun out from?" Neal whispered. "I swear, she's a motherfucking ninja. ~ J.J. McAvoy

I'm not going to waste my energy looking into the eyes of someone like the guy who blew my legs off trying to find a way to forgive him for doing something that horrible when there are way more productive ways I could be spending my life. You've got to focus on moving on. ~ Augusten Burroughs

I know it, but I'm going to let it go, because i'm the bigger person. Not literally but metaphorically as well. Because I believe what you put into the universe comes back at you times three, which is why I always try only to put good things, not horrible skinny bitch things, into the universe. ~ Meg Cabot

Medieval illustrations of the mind from the fourteenth century depict memories like snakes feeding into the imagination and, long before this, both Aristotle and Galen described memories not as archives of our lives, but as tools for the imagination. ~ Claudia Hammond

It is a long Baptism into the seas of humankind, my daughter. Better immersion and in pain than to live untouched. Yet how will you sustain? ~ Tillie Olsen

He walked over to the piano and lifted the cover revealing black and white keys that my fingers knew all too well. "Play for me?"
I looked at the piano hesitantly and I felt the passion start to grow back inside of me. My fingers itched to play and suddenly my body was moving towards the piano and I sat down, my posture back to where it should be, my fingers hovering over the keys ready to play a song that I hadn't heard in years.
I closed my eyes and slowly breathed in and out. And then my fingers flew across the keys, the music filling the room. The music moved me both emotionally and physically as I rocked my body to the music, putting all of me into the song. The music took me to a different place than where I was here and now. This is the melody I always seem to come back to, always finding myself lost in the notes. The song is a part of me as it tells a story. A story about loss and recovery. ~ Alexandria Rhodes

What we're starting to see is a quantum biology, it being applied in biology and cosmology and a host of other sciences, because it does really pertain to how we know. It really helps bring epistemology, which is how do we know what we know, out of the realm of philosophy and brings it into the realm of science. ~ Edgar Mitchell

He stalked up behind her to clench her hips, and she stilled.
In a breathy voice, she asked, "You're going to make love to me again, aren't you?"
In answer,he lifted her onto the counter, tore off her shift, then pressed her naked body back into the blooms. ~ Kresley Cole

In the basement of 33 Himmel Street, Max Vandenburg could feel the fists of an entire nation. One by one they climbed into the ring to beat him down. They made him bleed. They let him suffer. Millions of them
until one last time, when he gathered himself to his feet ... ~ Markus Zusak

And if you wish to receive of the ancient city an impression with which the modern one can no longer furnish you, climb--on the morning of some grand festival, beneath the rising sun of Easter or of Pentecost--climb upon some elevated point, whence you command the entire capital; and be present at the wakening of the chimes. Behold, at a signal given from heaven, for it is the sun which gives it, all those churches quiver simultaneously. First come scattered strokes, running from one church to another, as when musicians give warning that they are about to begin. Then, all at once, behold!--for it seems at times, as though the ear also possessed a sight of its own,--behold, rising from each bell tower, something like a column of sound, a cloud of harmony. First, the vibration of each bell mounts straight upwards, pure and, so to speak, isolated from the others, into the splendid morning sky; then, little by little, as they swell they melt together, mingle, are lost in each other, and amalgamate in a magnificent concert. It is no longer anything but a mass of sonorous vibrations incessantly sent forth from the numerous belfries; floats, undulates, bounds, whirls over the city, and prolongs far beyond the horizon the deafening circle of its oscillations.

Nevertheless, this sea of harmony is not a chaos; great and profound as it is, it has not lost its transparency; you behold the windings of each group of notes which escapes from the belfries. ~ Victor Hugo

Her own dolls were either babies or storybook characters like Cinderella and Snow White who though past childhood were somehow not yet into the world, girls who kept themselves apart from the world without really knowing what for. Now girls know what for. They menstruate when they are ten, and their dolls are sluts. ~ Josephine Humphreys

For me, a great show is when there's a great rapport with the band and the audience, and we're all really into it. The first trick is to bring the audience into the band, break the ice, have a life, and be one, so you can enjoy the next hour and a half together. ~ Andy Summers

INTO THE WILD was a lot of fun, but challenging, 'cause you can get lost in the movement. ~ Shannon Leto

He heard a soft voice calling him and turned towards it, trying to focus the vision before him. It wasn't his mother. If he weren't so tired, he would have smiled. He hadn't expected to find an angel in Hell.
The angel, her image blurred, a whiteness surrounding her, would understand. The angel would know.
"Why couldn't she love me?" he asked. The angel's answer was garbled. He strained to understand the words, not all his senses failed him as he slipped back into the abyss on the edge of Hell.
And the angel knelt down beside the bed and wept. ~ Lorraine Heath

He has the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thoughts. ~ Winston Churchill

Just like you could dump oil into the Cuyahoga in the 60s and let someone else foot the bill, today you can pump CO2 into the atmosphere and let the whole world foot the bill. ~ Ramez Naam

Down the corridor was not back into the bedroom, which was good ... Okay, she had to argue with her ovaries on that one, since all her feminine instincts were clamoring for her to climb tall, alien, and handsome like a frigging tree. ~ Mina Carter

I don't normally vote. I'm lazy and I never bought into the 'Every vote counts.' ~ Adam Carolla

Meaning comes from the unknown, from the stranger, from the unpredictable that suddenly knocks at your door - a flower that suddenly blooms and you never expected it; a friend that suddenly happens to be on the street you were not waiting for; a love that blooms suddenly and you were not even aware that this was going to happen, you had not even imagined, not even dreamed. Then life has meaning. Then life has a dance. Then every step is happy because it is not a step filled with duty, it is a step moving into the unknown. The river is going towards the sea. ~ Osho

You have to know someone intimately to be able to love them. So love at first sight is a contradiction in terms. Unless in that first sight there's some sort of mystical gigabyte downloading of information from one mind into the other. ~ David Mitchell

The walls of this elevator are made of crystal so that you can watch the people on the ground floor shrink to ants as you shoot up into the air. It's exhilarating and I'm tempted to ask Effie Trinket if we can ride it again, but somehow that seems childish. ~ Suzanne Collins

A man who has the ability to generate a new word and to inject it into the bloodstream of the language seems to me only a little lower than the Creator of light and darkness. If you write a book, you may be fortunate enough to be read for a while, until other, better books come along and take its place; but to produce a new word is to approach immortality. ~ Amos Oz

This is why a new task faces us which did not exist before, the task of investigating the relationship of the manifest dream-content to the latent dream-thoughts, and of tracing the processes by which the latter turned into the former. ~ Sigmund Freud

IF THE MAN WHO CAME THROUGH THE DOOR FIRST WAS Mr. Spanos, then Tyler's father was a twenty-eight-year-old bodybuilder with a ponytail and a suspicious bulge under his left arm. That would have meant he fathered Tyler at the age of ten, which seemed to be pushing the envelope, even in Miami. But whoever this man was, he was very serious, and he looked the room over carefully, which included glaring at me and Deke, before he stuck his head back into the hall and nodded. The next man into the room looked a little bit more like you would hope a teenage girl's father might look. He was middle-aged, relatively short, and a little chubby, with thinning hair and gold-rimmed glasses. His face was sweaty and tired and his mouth hung open as if he had to gasp for breath. He staggered into the room, looked helplessly around for a moment, and then stood in front of Deborah, blinking and breathing heavily. A ~ Jeff Lindsay

You know, I don't talk about the characters that I play. Years ago, I was a little timid about it and I kind of squirmed when I was asked, 'Could you tell us something about your character.' Now with a little self-confidence that comes with the grey beard, I just flatly refuse. ~ Christoph Waltz

Ninety-seven percent of the CEOs of the Fortune 500 are white men, and what they do radiates all the way down into poor areas and cities around our country. Like predatory lending and misallocation of municipal services. These guys get municipal service, poor areas don't. So they run the economy into the ground, and who suffers the most? The poor pay more and they die earlier. ~ Ralph Nader

Since the beginning of the world, a prayer is a prayer and a curse is a curse
no matter the people
no matter the language
Man has given a thousand different namesto his god, but look into the face of each one
long enough
hard enough
You will find one truth. ~ Mike Mignola

This government to government relationship is the result of sovereign and independent tribal governments being incorporated into the fabric of our Nation, of Indian tribes becoming what our courts have come to refer to as quasi-sovereign domestic dependent nations. Over the years the relationship has flourished, grown, and evolved into a vibrant partnership in which over 500 tribal governments stand shoulder to shoulder with the other governmental units that form our Republic. ~ George H. W. Bush

This was how it had to be. The city centre had to be for all religions, and so the ubiquitous, shinning, grey had quickly become the nascent colour. Whereas the the Ardoyne rejoced in the tricolours and every shade of green, so too the Shankill kept their houses and kerbs in the Union Jack, and each side of the divided city painted their gables and drenched themselves in the rich colours which formed their history, their protection, their identity, their, and they lived under the terrible weight that came with it. In Belfast, colour was joyful, territorial, and frightening. And so the heart of the city embraced a comforting blanket of grey. ~ Steve Cavanagh

An angel fighting through the darkness or a devil breaking into the light? ~ K. Bromberg

You'll never be the heavyweight champion of the world," he said, "but you should be able to duck anything Edward throws at you."
Theo wanted his turn, but John said it was too hot for more lessons. He looked up into the tree where Hannah sat swinging her feet, and smiled. "Maybe your sister will come down from her perch and offer us a nice cold glass of lemonade."
Hannah gave her hand to John and allowed him to help her. "Not that I need your assistance," she said. "I'm merely practicing my manners."
We watched John and Hannah walk away, still holding hands. "He's as bad as diphtheria," Theo muttered.
"What do you mean?"
"Diphtheria made you into a perfect gentleman," Theo said, "and John makes Hannah into a perfect lady. I'm sure I don't know which is worse--being sick or falling in love. ~ Mary Downing Hahn

The true liberty of the press is amply secured by permitting every man to publish his opinion; but it is due to the peace and dignity of society, to inquire into the motives of such publications, and to distinguish between those which are meant for use and reformation, and with an eye solely to the public good, and those which are intended merely to delude and defame. To the latter description, it is impossible that any good government should afford protection and impunity. ~ Thomas McKean

There are these little things about you and everything that you do. The beauty of which the mere words can't cage or explain. Moments that grabs me in its arms, throws me to the sky, bangs me back on the earth and throws me into the sea. Like I am dead for a moment watching you. And the next second I am breathing heavily and trying hard to swim in the magic of you. ~ Akshay Vasu

My favorite laser disk ever was the laser disk for The Graduate, which had a commentary track that wasn't even the filmmakers, it was a professor, some film criticism guy who just happen to be this amazing commentator who went off into the whole theory of comedy. ~ Jay Roach

All whom the Lord has chosen and received into the society of his saints ought to prepare themselves for a life that is hard, difficult, laborious and full of countless griefs. ~ John Calvin

In the life of the individual when love awakens it is older than everything else, because when it exists it seems as if it has existed for a long time; it presupposes itself back into the
distant past until all searching ends in the inexplicable origin. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

We ask that streams of Easter light might flow into the intimacy and privacy of our hearts this morning, to heal us and encourage us and enable us to make again a new beginning. ~ John O'Donohue

I do not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype. I know there must be a few out there, but I can't find them. ~ James Spann

Child labour is an issue of grave importance. It must become a top priority for all governments of the world. How can the world move into the twenty-first century with children still being exploited for their labour and denied their basic right to an education? ~ Craig Kielburger