Leeches Quotes

Too many bugs and leeches and spiders and spiderwebs. Please spray the wilderness to rid the area of these pests. ~ Dave Barry

The more leeches there are affixed to a host, the less resources there are to siphon from said hosts, per parasite. The ability to only absorb energy, without the ability or desire to reproduce it in a productive manner, is a dangerous, unsustainable, albeit attractive long term method of collapse and decline. ~ Justin K. McFarlane Beau

Leeches are singing in my asshole. ~ David Sedaris

One exploiting sect, one people of leeches, one single devouring parasite closely and intimately bound together not only across national boundaries, but also across all divergences of political opinion ... [Jews have] that mercantile passion which constitutes one of the principle traits of their national character ~ Mikhail Bakunin

Footballers wives are like leeches, feeding off their partners success. I don't want to be a footballer's wife. ~ Jamelia

The air was so damp that fish could have come in through doors and swum out the windows, floating through the atmosphere in the rooms. One morning Ursula woke up feeling that she was reaching her end in a placid swoon and she had already asked them to take her to Father Antonio Isabel, when Santa Sofia de la Piedad discovered that her back was paved with leeches. She took them off one by one, crushing them with a firebrand before they bled her to death. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Greek word "nostalgia" derives from the root nostros, meaning "return home," and algia, meaning "longing." Doctors in seventeenth-century Europe considered nostalgia an illness, like the flu, mainly suffered by displaced migrant servants, soldiers, and job seekers, and curable through opium, leeches, or, for the affluent, a journey to the Swiss Alps. Throughout time, such feeling has been widely acknowledged. The Portuguese have the term saudade. The Russians have toska. The Czechs have litost. Others too name the feeling: for Romanians, it's dor, for Germans, it's heimweh. The Welsh have hiraeth, the Spanish mal de corazon. Many ~ Arlie Russell Hochschild

His blood is bad. He needs to be leeched. The leeches suck away the bad blood, all the rage and pain. No man can think so full of anger. ~ George R R Martin

...man is as much a parasite on the cow as the tapeworm is on man: We have sucked their udders like leeches. "Man the cow parasite" is probably how non-man defines man in his zoology books ~ Unbearable Lightness Of Being

JOHNNY: Friends! Outcasts. Leeches. Undesirables. A blessing on you, and upon this beggars' banquet. This day we draw a line in the chalk, and push back against the bastard pitiless busybody council, and drive them from this place for ever. I, Rooster Byron, your merciless ruler, have decreed that today all my bounty is bestowed upon you, gratis. There will be free booze, bangers, draw, whizz and whatnot, for all the minions of my kingdom. ~ Jez Butterworth

My son, there is no reason to be distraught. The leeches will cleanse your wound." The friar scratched one of his enormous ears with the tweezers. "My insurance doesn't cover freaky friars or leeches." Troy sat up and swung his legs over the cot. A strip of cloth was wrapped around his gray tights, just above his left knee. A dark red stain had spread across the strip. "When my agent finds out you've kept me here, instead of taking me to a hospital, he'll cram a lawsuit up your butt so fast you'll be the one who's...distraught. ~ Suzanne Selfors

I had to de-program myself. From myself. Had to reinvent rituals of purification. So full of the vagrant pollutions of others. It was time to detox. Not only from alcohol, sex, and drugs, but from needy leeches who looked to swab me with their sores. Detox from my own needy lechery. Had to locate the center wound and cauterize. Undo the original sin, the origin of my sickness ... Had to learn to replace Them, It, Want, Hurt, Anger, Sorrow, Loss, with Power, Healing, Wisdom, Fulfillment, Satisfaction. ~ Lydia Lunch

We live in a cruel world. People are dreadfully cold. I have never seen so many dishonest, selfish and greedy people. They are willing to use others until they get exactly what they want. What makes matters even worse, after they get what they want, they come back and ask for more. Sadly, people do not have any empathy for others. They are like leeches and will suck the blood out of you until you have nothing left. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

I think one possibility [in the future] might be chemotherapy. And I'm always hesitant to say that because it makes it sound like I'm against chemotherapy. Right now, chemotherapy is the best cancer treatment therapy we have. But let's say we find some way where we can almost genetically engineer the DNA of our being and fight cancer that way. Then, the idea that we used to pump poison into people to fight off cancer will almost seem like the use of leeches or something. ~ Chuck Klosterman

For men tied fast to the absolute, bled of their differences, drained of their dreams by authoritarian leeches until nothing but pulp is left, become a massive, sick Thing whose sheer weight is used ruthlessly by ambitious men. Here is the real enemy of the people: our own selves dehumanized into the masses. And where is the David who can slay this giant? ~ Lillian Smith

Up the stairs I found an imposing headquarters, decorated with the portraits and busts of solemn, whiskered old darlings who, no doubt, bled their customers with leeches and passed on the information to alarmed small boys that self-abuse leads to blindness. ~ John Mortimer

She just laughed in his face and told him she'd sooner crawl in a bed with his father's leeches before she'd crawl in one with him. She stopped laughing when he put his knife in her. ~ George R R Martin

Rather, very, little, pretty
these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words. The constant use of the adjective little (except to indicate size) is particularly debilitating; we should all try to do a little better, we should all be very watchful of this rule, for it is a rather important one, and we are pretty sure to violate it now and then. ~ William Strunk Jr.

then I must have dropped off. It wasn't much later that I awoke - the story of my life since my mate passed away. I get tired, wiped out, even, but can't seem to sleep more than a few hours at a stretch. It's such a weird time to be awake - noon. Spooky, really. There have been a few occasions when, tired of just standing there and hoping to fall back to sleep, I got up and flew around. The dining options were definitely interesting - lapdogs, ducklings, I even saw an iguana sunning himself on top of a Styrofoam cooler. But there was also a lot of traffic and noise. I never liked the world I saw during the day. Then I started hating the one I saw at night and wondered, What's left? What changed things, albeit slowly, was learning. It's like there's a hole where my life used to be, and I'm filling it with information - about potatoes. About hot water heaters. Anything will do. These leeches, though. For the first time in memory, I was unable to sleep not because I was anxious but because I was excited. To live in a damp crowded asshole and sing - if these guys don't know the secret to living, I don't know who does. ~ David Sedaris

It was impossible to tame, like leeches. ~ Lemony Snicket

Honestly, as hard a profession as acting is, I think music is even harder. Acting, you're like a leech, because someone else does the hard part for you. They write it for you, then the director tells you what to do. You really just need to know how to pay attention, follow instructions. ~ Michael Shannon

The high, thin nose was a little lonely, a little sad, but the bud of her lips opened and closed smoothly, like a beautiful little circle of leeches. ~ Yasunari Kawabata

It's millions of leeches from a primitive country come here to leech off you and, with it, they are ruining the schools, the hospitals, and a lot of life in America. ~ Jay Severin

People are like germs, only bigger. That bit of wisdom has proven true, for the most part. Humans are little more than highly evolved bacteria, leeches on a rotting ball of clay. It's depressing, I know. ~ Mike Duran

In a genre where most of the artists are one-hit wonders, I've been able to hang around longer than most "serious" acts. I pride myself in being a very talented leech. ~ Al Yankovic

The Lachrymose Leeches,' Aunt Josephine said, 'are quite different from regular leeches. They each have six rows of very sharp teeth ad one very sharp nose - they can smell even the smallest bit of food from far far away. The Lachrymose Leeches are usually quite harmless, preying only on small fish. But if they smell food on a human they will swarm around him ~ Lemony Snicket

Bankers, nepotists, contracts and talkies: on four fingers one may count the leeches which have sucked a young and vigorous industry into paresis. ~ Dalton Trumbo

If I sat back and decided to sell the product of my father and my grandfather's work, like a leech, you know I wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mirror ... I want to be able to look at my father in 10 years' time and say, 'I'm proud of you, and you should be proud of me.' ~ James Packer

Indeed," Arthur said. "But ... no one has said I'll be a good king. It would be a relief to know I don't go mad or bad before the end."
Alex sighed, but with a smile. She knew Arthur was prying information out of her just to tease her, but two could play this game.
"You're a good king, don't worry," she said, and then looked sadly to the ground. "At least you are once you heal from ... the incident."
"What incident?" Arthur asked.
Alex shook her head somberly. "Well, if Merlin hasn't told you, then I probably shouldn't."
"Oh, right - the incident," he said, pretending to know. "Old Merlin's told me about that plenty of times."
"Good," Alex said. "So you know all about the leeches."
Arthur gulped. "Yes ... I do," he said nervously.
"Luckily by then you've already been captured by the Saxons and your legs have been ripped off," Alex said. "So there aren't too many leech wounds."
Arthur gulped. "It's the definition of luck," he said.
"It's a shame you lose both your arms in the battle before you get captured," Alex said. "But you aren't known as Arthur the Limbless for nothing."
"Arthur the Limbless? "
"Oh, yes," Alex said. "A lesser king would have let the title belittle him, but you still manage to instill fear in all your enemies. Then again, that could be because of your future wife, Queen Girtha. Of course, Merlin has told you about her ..."
"Naturally," Arthur said. "She's that nasty woman, right? So hideous, ~ Chris Colfer

Mr. Marsham was born (in 1822) into a world that was still essentially medieval - a place of candlelight, medicinal leeches, travel at walking pace, news from afar that was always weeks or months old - and lived to see the introduction of one marvel after another: steamships and speeding trains, telegraphy, photography, anesthesia, indoor plumbing, gas lighting, antisepsis in medicine, refrigeration, telephones, electric lights, recorded music, cars and planes, skyscrapers, motion pictures, radio, and literally tens of thousands of tiny things more, from mass-produced bars of soap to push-along lawn mowers. ~ Bill Bryson

Me and the folks who buy my food are like the Indians
we just want to opt out. That's all the Indians ever wanted
to keep their tepees, to give their kids herbs instead of patent medicines and leeches. They didn't care if there was a Washington, D.C., or a Custer or a USDA; just leave us alone. But the Western mind can't bear an opt-out option. We're going to have to refight the Battle of the Little Big Horn to preserve the right to opt out, or your grandchildren and mine will have no choice but to eat amalgamated, irradiated, genetically prostituted, barcoded, adulterated fecal spam from the centralized processing conglomerate. ~ Michael Pollan

I think the more rational explanation is that the excision of a five-to-six-foot leech from the surface of a human body means that that body is going to have more of its own blood in its own veins. Unless the leech finds another body, it is going to go hungry. ~ Dave Sim

We walked up the steps of a quaint stone church. "Get those friggin' leeches away from me!" a familiar voice yelled from a second story window ... "I said, no leeches! ~ Suzanne Selfors

If you dream your problems at night and live your problems by day, you are suffering the effects of paralyzing toxins delivered by the sting of worry, stress, and fear. You must detach yourself from these leeches if you do not wish to be irreversibly poisoned. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

'American Idol' is sometimes lumped with reality shows and it has that element - folks-next-door battling it out in a contest. But instead of fighting leeches, bugs, parasites and each other, as on CBS's 'Survivor' and other shows that imitate it, the 'American Idol' contestants, of course, sing. ~ Tom Shales

In this metropolis a number of lurking leeches infamously gain subsistence by practicing on the credulity of women. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft

When you're a writer, the question people always ask you is, "Where do you get your ideas?" Writers hate this question. It's like asking Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, "Where do you get your leeches?" You don't get ideas. Ideas get you. ~ Connie Willis

Leeches should be kept a day before applying them. They should be squeezed to make them eject the contents of their stomachs. ~ Avicenna

It is a sort of quasi-monastic diabolical vision. In a landscape populated with larvae - flowing and undulating larvae called forth like a cascade of leeches by tolling bells - three female figures rise up phantasmally, enshrouded with gauze like Spanish madonnas. They are the 'three brides': the bride of Heaven, the bride of the Earth and the bride of Hell...

The bride of Hell, with her two serpents writhing about her temples to hold her veil in place, has the most attractive mask: the most profound eyes, the most vertiginous smile that one could ever see.

If she existed, how I would love that woman! I feel that if that smile and those eyes were in my life they would be all the cure I need!

I could never tire of the study and contemplation of that hallucinatory visage.

"The Three Brides" is very peculiar in its detail and composition. It is the whimsy of a dream rendered with astonishing fastidiousness: the delusion of an opium-smoker composed in the style of Holbein. ~ Jean Lorrain

In the mid-thirties, a young black poet named Langston Hughes wrote a poem, "Let America Be America Again":

. . . I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-
And finding only the same old stupid plan.
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. . . .

O, let America be America again-
The land that never has been yet-
And yet must be-the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine-the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's
ME-
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure call me any ugly name you choose-
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America! . . . ~ Howard Zinn

sutures, bandages, antibiotics Mop Sucking chest wound Anesthesia, surgery Cork Cancer Chemotherapy, radiation, surgery Casket wreath* 13 Diabetes Insulin Leeches* 14 Hatchet embedded in skull Removal of hatchet, treatment of wound Larger hat Eyes gouged out in hospital by psychopath posing as nurse Prosthetic eyeballs, therapy Six-pack Source: ~ Dave Barry

The people are just the unwitting slaves of their representative governments, the best of which are like insatiable leeches that suck the lifeblood from their populations. The people then foolishly and euphorically rejoice when the body politic belches up a modest excess of their own blood for them to take back. ~ Volker G. Fremuth

Things. Cosas. Things attach themselves like leeches to the human soul, then they bleed out the sweetness and the music and the primordial joy of being unencumbered upon the land. ~ Tom Robbins

I don't have any leeches on my speed dial. - Jacob Black ~ Stephenie Meyer

I don't get pat down, you know what's on the waist,
I don't mean Jazz when I say I "count base."
Fly Louis sneakers, Purple Tape coming out the speakers,
Bumped into my high school teachers,
They said I wouldn't be nothing, sitting on the bleachers.
Now I'm sitting in the Phantom, trynna figure out the features.
I'm a big fish now, I watch for the leeches. ~ Sheek Louch

She loves you, loathes you, treats you well, then ill. Like a leech or a surgeon's knife, she's double-edged: sometimes she'll cure, but sometimes she will kill. ~ Arturo Perez Reverte

Nurse, it was I who discovered that leeches have red blood.[]On his deathbed when the nurse came to apply leeches ~ Georges Cuvier

If leeches ate peaches instead of my blood, then I would be free to drink tea in the mud! ~ Emilie Autumn

Right. I can tell from the bat wings and the leeches that you three are just all happy-smiles and rainbows. ~ Greg Farshtey

He was just the sort of man to have faith in leeches. Leeches, and licorice, and cod-liver oil. ~ Sarah Waters

Rule by the statist elite is not benign or simply a matter of who happens to be in office: it is rule by a growing army of leeches and parasites battening off the income and wealth of hard-working Americans, destroying their property, corrupting their customs and institutions, sneering at their religion. ~ Murray Rothbard

Some memories battened onto a person's mind like evil leeches, and certain words could bring them instantly back to squirming, feverish life. ~ Stephen King

The years leech at a man's memories, even those he has vowed never to forget. ~ George R R Martin

My lord said, amongst other things, that he did not propose to burden the doctor with the details of his genealogy. He consigned the doctor and all his works, severally and comprehensively described, to hell, and finished up his epic speech by a pungent and Rabelaisian criticism of the whole race of leeches. ~ Georgette Heyer

Time leeches most horror and pain from our memories. ~ Marisha Pessl

When the leeches have sucked enough blood, one simply has to sprinkle some salt on their backs and they fall off – But you, my friend, how can I get rid of you?
Your despairing cousin ~ Heinrich Heine

The syndrome known as life is too diffuse to admit of palliation. For every symptom that is eased, another is made worse. The horse leech's daughter is a closed system. Her quantum of wantum cannot vary. ~ Samuel Beckett

When I was little, I used to pour salt on slugs. I liked watching them dissolve before my eyes. Cruelty is always sort of fun until you realize that something's getting hurt. It would be one thing to be a loser if it meant that no one paid attention to you, but in school, it means you're actively sought out. You're the slug, and they're holding all the salt. And they haven't developed a conscience. There's a word we learned in social studies: schadenfreude. It's when you enjoy watching someone else suffer. The real question though, is why? I think part of it is self preservation. And part of it is because a group always feels more like a group when it's banded together against an enemy. It doesn't matter if that enemy has never done anything to hurt you-you just have to pretend you hate someone even more than you hate yourself. You know why salt works on slugs? Because it dissolved in the water that's part of a slug's skin, so the water on the inside its body starts to flow out. They slug dehydrates. This works with snails, too. And with leeches. And with people like me. With any creature, really, too thin-skinned to stand up for itself. ~ Jodi Picoult

The poor have often been subversive just because they don't always believe their own depiction as brutes and loafers and leeches, and new economy is making lots more poor or recognize their fellowship with the insecurity of the poor, the portion of the population for whom the system does not work. ~ Rebecca Solnit