Meridian Line Quotes

I suck in a deep breath as I plop one foot over the line and then exhale, knowing I'm standing on both sides of the world at once. ~ Christine Riccio

In Islam there is a line between let's say freedom and the line which is then transgressed into immorality and irresponsibility and I think as far as this writer is concerned, unfortunately, he has been irresponsible with his freedom of speech. Salman Rushdie or indeed any writer who abuses the prophet, or indeed any prophet, under Islamic law, the sentence for that is actually death. It's got to be seen as a deterrent, so that other people should not commit the same mistake again. ~ Cat Stevens

Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.' Say not, ' I have found the path of the soul.' Say rather, 'I have met the soul walking upon my path.' For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals. ~ Kahlil Gibran

[A]s people are beginning to see that the sexes form in a certain sense a continuous group, so they are beginning to see that Love and Friendship which have been so often set apart from each other as things distinct are in reality closely related and shade imperceptibly into each other. Women are beginning to demand that Marriage shall mean Friendship as well as Passion; that a comrade-like Equality shall be included in the word Love; and it is recognised that from the one extreme of a 'Platonic' friendship (generally between persons of the same sex) up to the other extreme of passionate love (generally between persons of opposite sex) no hard and fast line can at any point be drawn effectively separating the different kinds of attachment. We know, in fact, of Friendships so romantic in sentiment that they verge into love; we know of Loves so intellectual and spiritual that they hardly dwell in the sphere of Passion. ~ Edward Carpenter

It matters not whether you win the race or not but that you cross the finish line with a smile and a bit of a laugh. Stress does not come from having too much on your plate. Stress comes from labeling too many of those things as very important. Discussing religion, no matter how in depth the discussion, should never be confused with actually practicing that religion. ~ Pat McBride

His mother had always approached his curse as if G wanted to spend his days as a quadruped. As if it were just another way for a privileged teenage boy to rebel. She often forgot that he didn't ask for this curse, and that if he could find a way to control it, he would give Billingsly's right arm for that information.
As if he could hear G's thoughts, Billingsly pulled his right arm in front of his body, and away from G's line of sight.
"In here, my lord," he said as he swung open the doors of the drawing room, using his left arm. ~ Cynthia Hand

For years, walking round London, I had been aware of the actual land, lying concealed but not entirely changed or destroyed, beneath the surface of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century city. It has been said that 'God made the country and man made the town', but that is not true: the town is simply disguised countryside. Main roads, some older than history itself, still bend to avoid long-dried marshes, or veer off at an angle where the wall of a manor house once stood. Hills and valleys still remain; rivers, even though entombed in sewer pipes, still cause trouble in the foundations of neighbouring buildings and become a local focus for winter mists. Garden walls follow the line of hedgerows; the very street-patterns have been determined by the holdings of individual farmers and landlords, parcels of land some of which can be traced back to the Norman Conquest. The situation of specific buildings - pubs, churches, institutions - often dates from long distant decisions and actions on the part of men whose names have vanished from any record. ~ Gillian Tindall

Driving from the shop by the beach to her home in the Malibu hills, Juliet Weston peered through the deepening dusk and weighed the merits of bathing in Super Glue. A dab would repair a fingernail. She'd read a line of the stuff could close a wound. What she faced was more dire, however. Would immersion in a tub of maximum-hold adhesive keep he from fracturing into a thousand little pieces? ~ Christie Ridgway

I'm like him," she'd whispered.

"You're not," Wren said.

"I am. I'm crazy like him." She was already having panic attacks. She was already hiding at parties. In seventh grade, she'd been late to class for the first two weeks because she couldn't stand being in the halls with everyone else during passing periods. "It's probably going to get worse in a few years. That's when it usually kicks in."

"You're not," Wren said.

"But what if I am?"

"Decide not to be."

"That's not how it works," Cath argued.

"Nobody knows how it works."

"What if I don't even see it coming."

"I'll see it coming."

Cath tried to stop crying, but she'd been crying so long, the crying had taken over, making her bvreathe in harsh sniffs and jerks.

"If it takes you," Wren said. "I won't let go."

A few months later, Cath gave that line to Simon in a scene about Baz's bloodlust. Wren was still writing with Cath back then, and when she got to the line, she snorted.

"I'm here for you if you go manic," Wren said. "But you're on your own if you become a vampire."

"What good are you anyway," Cath said. Their dad was home by then. And better. And Cath didn't feel, for the moment, like her DNA was a trap ready to snap closed on her.

"Apparently, I'm good for something," Wren said. "You keep stealing all my best lines. ~ Rainbow Rowell

A man walks the straight and narrow all his life; he follows the rules, stays within the lines; then one day he makes a misstep. He crosses a line and sets in motion a chain of events that will take from him everything he has and damn him forever in the eyes of those he loves. ~ Greg Iles

The trees reminded me of unity, all lined up peacefully. I thought about who we all are as people, how we come together in moments we need hope. I thought about how we draw inspiration from each other, how we long to be in love with another. I wondered how many of us have someone else to rely on, what happens when we don't. The nightmares that play over and over again when the days seem like they are running out of hope. And I wanted to stretch my arms out wide, welcome the hopes and dreams of others, nurture them, support them, remind you that things keep moving no matter how strange and difficult the world seems. The trees will continue to line the roads; the sun will shine through the clouds; and despite a very real feeling of doubt, just know that of you, I'll always be proud. ~ Courtney Peppernell

It wasn't enough. He ached inside. But there was a line he wasn't allowed to cross, and he was never sure where it started. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

If you love math, have a knack for numbers, study hard and become a successful accountant; who cares if you can't draw a straight line or sing on key? ~ Nick Carter

One way or another, we spend our whole lives being conditioned into accepting some line or order, some position of domination or subjection. It's hard to unlearn such hierarchy, to undo such control. It's implicit. ~ Cliff James

His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling in the eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe, blindly seeking with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale. That captain was Ahab. And then it was, that suddenly sweeping his sickle-shaped lower jaw benieath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab's leg. ~ Herman Melville

What would happen, they conjectured, if they simply went on assuming their children would do everything. Perhaps not quickly. Perhaps not by the book. But what if they simply erased those growth and development charts, with their precise, constricting points and curves? What if they kept their expectations but erased the time line? What harm could it do? Why not try? ~ Kim Edwards

The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both. ~ Vaclav Havel

Why not end up with her? floats into my line of vision. An answer: she has a better body than most other girls I know. Another one: everyone is interchangeable anyway. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

The zone of melancholy which I then entered was as distinct from the zone in which I had been bounding with joy a moment before as, in certain skies, a band of pink is separated, as though by a line invisibly ruled, from a band of green or black. You may see a bird flying across the pink; it draws near the border-line, touches it, enters and is lost upon the black. ~ Marcel Proust

I actually like older horror movies more than newer ones because when I'm watching newer ones, like 'Chucky' or 'Saw' or whatever, I'm like, 'Come on, really, this isn't even good, all it is is blood and knives.' I like when it has a story line, you know? When it's actually a movie. ~ Emily Alyn Lind

Never stand on one spot, always be doing something in line with your calling ~ Sunday Adelaja

I would be shocked by the lack of security if we were not at Amity headquarters. They often straddle the line between trust and stupidity. ~ Veronica Roth

If you line everything up, just right, you walk through a doorway where the world as you know it collapses. ~ Frederick Lenz

The line I trace with my feet walking to the museum is more important and more beautiful than the lines I find there hung up on the walls. ~ Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Port of Oakland truckers, who are not legally allowed to form a union, went on strike to protest against repressive work rules. The President of ILWU Local 10 helped the police break the picket line and directed his own members to cross, complaining without a hint of irony that the truckers were "trying to use the port as an economic tool. ~ Anonymous

The idea of direct action against the evil that you want to overcome is a kind of common denominator for anarchist ideas and anarchist movements. I think one of the most important principles of anarchism is that you cannot separate means and ends. Anarchism requires means and ends to be in line with one another. I think this is in fact one of the distinguishing characteristics of anarchism. ~ Howard Zinn

Being tame is what we're taught: ... put the crayons back, stay in line, don't talk too loud, keep your knees together, nice girls don't ...
As you might know, nice girls DO, and they like to feel wild and alive. Being tame feels safe, being wild, unsafe. Yet safety is an illusion anyway. We are not in control. No matter how dry and tame and nice we live, we will die. And we will suffer along the way. Living wild is its own reward. ~ SARK

I'm one of those who believe the bumper sticker: If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns. The first people who are going to be in line to turn in their guns are law-abiding citizens. Criminals are going to be left with guns. ~ Gary Johnson

There is a line of poetry, a sentence in a fable, a word in an essay, by which my existence is justified; find that line, and immortality is assured. ~ Alberto Manguel

Stephen Covey, in his book The 8th Habit, decribes a poll of 23,000 employees drawn from a number of companies and industries. He reports the poll's findings:

* Only 37 percent said they have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve and why
* Only one in five was enthusiastic about their team's and their organization's goals
* Only one in five said they had a clear "line of sight" between their tasks and their team's and organization's goals
* Only 15 percent felt that their organization fully enables them to execute key goals
* Only 20 percent fully trusted the organization they work for



Then, Covey superimposes a very human metaphor over the statistics. He says, "If, say, a soccer team had these same scores, only 4 of the 11 players on the field would know which goal is theirs. Only 2 of the 11 would care. Only 2 of the 11 would know what position they play and know exactly what they are supposed to do. And all but 2 players would, in some way, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponent. ~ Chip Heath

To him who has thought, or done, or suffered much, the level days of his childhood seem at an immeasureable distance, far off as the age of chivalry, or as the line of Sesostris. ~ Thomas Noon Talfourd

Showing weakness will encourage your opponents. It inspires them. It encourages them to hit harder. To come faster. But when you don't show any fear, or when you don't show any hurt, you have the opportunity to discourage your opponent. You discourage your enemies. The bottom line is, if you think properly, you don't even have to think about all of that. All you have to think about is that guy across from me is human, and so am I. And he'll never out-work me. He'll never out-think me. And if you can't out-work me, and you can't out-think me, you'll never beat me. ~ Jim Brown

People write about getting sick, they write about tummy trouble, they write about having to wait for a bus. They write about waiting. They write three pages about how long it took them to get a visa. I'm not interested in the boring parts. Everyone has tummy trouble. Everyone waits in line. I don't want to hear about it. ~ Paul Theroux

The Bottom Line: If people don't LOVE our work, we will not be able to sell what we make. ~ Jack White

Let's hold insurance companies accountable the right way by making them put their whole customer base on the line. ~ Ron Wyden

While a number of people have pointed out the various costs and drawbacks of sentience, few if any have taken the next step and wondered out loud if the whole damn thing isn't more trouble than it's worth. Of course it is, people assume; otherwise natural selection would have weeded it out long ago. And they're probably right. I hope they are. "Blindsight" is a thought experiment, a game of "Just suppose" and "What if". Nothing more.
On the other hand, the dodos and the Steller sea cows could have used exactly the same argument to prove their own superioirity, a thousand years ago: "if we're so unfit, why haven't we gone extinct?" Why? Because natural selection takes time, and luck plays a role. The biggest boys on the block at any given time aren't necessarily the fittest, or the most efficient, and the game isn't over. The game is never over; there's no finish line this side of heat death. And so, neither can there be any winners. There are only those who haven't yet lost. ~ Peter Watts

Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I've wanted to do some sort of acting stuff down the line, but modeling is a good way to get comfortable in front of the camera. ~ Patrick Schwarzenegger

It is a strange story, the story of Jesus. To the Jews, it is not the story of Israel's redemption but some odd detour. For Christians, though, the story of Jesus is the final chapter of the story of Israel. For Christians, all that Israel hopes for - redemption from enemies, forgiveness of sins, triumph and exaltation, a restoration of Eden, the conversion of the nations, the earth filled with the glory of Israel's God - all of it comes to pass through Jesus. Not through the sword of Zealots, or the rigid purity of the Pharisees, or the political compromises of the Sadducees, or the withdrawal of the Essenes. Israel's story is carried to its conclusion by a different sort of Jew entirely, a different sort of holiness, a different story-line, a story-line of compassion, service, suffering, death. And, over all and transforming all, resurrection. For Jesus is risen. He is risen indeed. ~ Peter J. Leithart

If we want an all-volunteer force, the bottom line is that we're going to have to take care of these people who were willing to do what the bulk of people weren't willing to do. Going to war is dangerous - you can get killed doing it. And the question is, are the American people willing to recognize the sacrifices of these young people? ~ Gordon R. Sullivan

But there is a more virulent strain at the root of Western Lysenkoism today. Scientists, like Holdren and Michael Mann, can be leftist ideologues as well, posing to manipulate and mislead for the good of the cause. Bottom line: green is the new red. That is why Obama at root is so committed to it. ~ Peter Ferrara

When I was a kid, phone calls were a premium commodity; only the very coolest kids had a phone line of their own, and long-distance phone calls were made after eleven, when the rates went down, unless you were flamboyant with your spending. Then phone calls became as cheap as dirt and as constant as rain, and I was on the phone all the time. ~ Susan Orlean

Weight is caused by one element being situated in another; and it moves by the shortest line towards its centre, not by its own choice, not because the centre draws it to itself, but because the other intervening element cannot withstand it. ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

Emptying Town"

I want to erase your footprints
from my walls. Each pillow
is thick with your reasons. Omens

fill the sidewalk below my window: a woman
in a party hat, clinging
to a tin-foil balloon. Shadows

creep slowly across the tar, someone yells, "Stop!"
and I close my eyes. I can't watch

as this town slowly empties, leaving me
strung between bon-voyages, like so many clothes
on a line, the white handkerchief

stuck in my throat. You know the way Jesus

rips open his shirt
to show us his heart, all flaming and thorny,
the way he points to it. I'm afraid

the way I'll miss you will be this obvious.

I have a friend who everyone warns me
is dangerous, he hides
bloody images of Jesus
around my house, for me to find

when I come home; Jesus
behind the cupboard door, Jesus tucked

into the mirror. He wants to save me
but we disagree from what. My version of hell
is someone ripping open his shirt

and saying, Look what I did for you. ~ Nick Flynn

I always imagined that when I got pregnant it would be awesome and everything would go perfectly, and I'd pose for all those artfully naked, pregnant Demi Mooresque pictures and put them all over my house, and suddenly I'd have less cellulite, and then I'd go into labor while I was standing in line at the bank, but it would be okay because the baby would get stuck in my pants leg, so it totally wouldn't slam into the floor. Thank God for skinny jeans with maternity panels; am I right? ~ Jenny Lawson