Mid Quotes

It was mid-November 2008. There were pirates taking ships with impunity in African waters, terrorists punching holes in Indian security, China sinking towards depression because Americans were afraid to buy cheap goods for Christmas, and the richest nation in the history of the world was talking about how to keep a budget. ~ Walter Mosley

Her wavy hair falls to mid-waist, and I think how she looks better this way. From the back. ~ Victoria Scott

Take Canada again: why does Canada have the health-care program it does? Up until the mid-1960s, Canada and the United States had the same capitalist health service: extremely inefficient, tons of bureaucracy, huge administrative costs, millions of people with no insurance coverage―exactly what would be amplified in the United States by Clinton's proposals for "managed competition" [put forward in 1993].21 But in 1962 in Saskatchewan, where the N.D.P. is pretty strong and the unions are pretty strong, they managed to put through a kind of rational health-care program of the sort that every industrialized country in the world has by now, except the United States and South Africa. Well, when Saskatchewan first put through that program, the doctors and the insurance companies and the business community were all screaming―but it worked so well that pretty soon all the other Provinces wanted the same thing too, and within a couple years guaranteed health care had spread over the entire country. And that happened largely because of the New Democratic Party in Canada, which does provide a kind of cover and a framework within which popular organizations like unions, and then later things like the feminist movement, have been able to get together and do things. ~ Noam Chomsky

During the mid-1980s dairy farmers decided there was too much cheap milk at the supermarket. So the government bought and slaughtered 1.6 million dairy cows. How come the government never does anything like this with lawyers? ~ P. J. O'Rourke

The construction of the nuclear doomsday machine - and its continued maintenance and development since the mid-twentieth century - is surely one of the most astounding acts of collective insanity in the history of the human species. ~ Richard L. Currier

Fore more than a decade - from the mid-1950s until the late 1960s - conservatives systematically and strategically linked opposition to civil rights legislation to calls for law and order, arguing that Martin Luther King Jr.'s philosophy of civil disobedience was a leading cause of crime. Civil rights protests were frequently depicted as criminal rather than political in nature, and federal courts were accused of excessive 'lenience' toward lawlessness, thereby contributing to the spread of crime. ~ Michelle Alexander

Gang members have joined the military since the mid-1800s. ~ Carter F. Smith

Should I be insulted that you're so eager to enjoy another man's pork?" I leaned out of the bathroom, toothbrush mid-swipe, and grinned. "Ethan Sullivan, did you just make a joke?" He hadn't, at least from the look on his face. But I wasn't threatened by the possessiveness in his eyes. Because bacon. ~ Chloe Neill

When I was writing 'The Satanic Verses,' if you had asked me about the phenomenon that we all now know as radical Islam, I wouldn't have had much to say. As recently as the mid-1980s, it didn't seem to be a big deal. ~ Salman Rushdie

The full-blown rose, mid dewy sweets Most perfect dies. ~ Maria Gowen Brooks

Look at the mid- sky, about halfway up from the horizon, and wait for your eyes to adjust," I said softly. "It will take five to ten minutes."He was quiet. The sky was full of stars; and the spaces between them were not fully black, because the longer we stared, the more the pricks of other stars peeked behind and next to them. I stole that time to listen to him breathe. I soaked up his presence, storing it for the future, burning it into my memory. ~ Elizabeth Fama

My mother and I were part of a deal in the mid-'60s between Romania and Israel. Israel bought freedom for Romanian Jews for $2,000 a head. Ceausescu made a bundle in hard currency. He also 'sold' ethnic Germans to West Germany. Instead of going to Israel, my mother and I came to the United States. ~ Andrei Codrescu

This kind of pragmatism has become a hallmark of our psychological culture. In the mid-1990s, I described how it was commonplace for people to "cycle through" different ideas of the human mind as (to name only a few images) mechanism, spirit, chemistry, and vessel for the soul.14 These days, the cycling through intensifies. We are in much more direct contact with the machine side of mind. People are fitted with a computer chip to help with Parkinson's. They learn to see their minds as program and hardware. They take antidepressants prescribed by their psychotherapists, confident that the biochemical and oedipal self can be treated in one room. They look for signs of emotion in a brain scan. Old jokes about couples needing "chemistry" turn out not to be jokes at all. ~ Sherry Turkle

In the mid-1970s, there was this huge boom of stand-up comedy throughout North America. I went to see a show at a club called Yuk-Yuks, in Toronto, and I was just fascinated. I ended up coming back for amateur hour on a Monday at midnight and got up there without any thought as to what might come of it. ~ Howie Mandel

Under Polly's eyes, her gaunt cheeks, and her shaking hands as she poured the tea. * * * Cat watches as her cab winds its way through the streets of Soho, thinking she would never stoop to that. It's the lowest of the low. We're supposed to be features writers, not news hacks. But behind her mutterings, behind her disdain, as unwilling as she is to admit it, lies a ribbon of insecurity. The Daily Gazette is the best paper she could ever imagine working for, but Cat, just past her mid-twenties, has yet to prove herself with a big story. She's proving adept at the smaller fluff pieces - How to wear a scarf in thirty different ways! How to put the romance back into your marriage! (As if she would know anything about that.) How to revamp your wardrobe in five easy steps! But the big interviews, the ones that Poppy ~ Jane Green

I saw that everything, all paths I had been following, all steps I had taken, were leading back to a single point - namely, to the mid-point. It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the center, to individuation. I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the self I had attained what was for me the ultimate. ~ Carl Jung

Anyone who knows the history of the Pete Best Band or the Combo, we were on the verge of breaking in in America. In the mid-'60s, I had great songwriters; we wrote some great stuff. ~ Pete Best

I have been interested in global web-based communities and emerging technologies since the mid 80's. There is a revolution occurring in global culture nowadays, that will change everything. and it's only just beginning. ~ Alex Winter

I was introduced to the world of modern food production in the mid-1990s, while researching an article about California's strawberry industry for the 'Atlantic Monthly.' ~ Eric Schlosser

And it was back in the mid-1980s, and as I point out in a piece, that was when we are spending about eight percent of our gross domestic product on health care. And even then, we had the impression that so much of the excessive, aggressive medical treatment that took place at the end of life was not only unnecessary but it was cruel. ~ Richard Dooling

Seven...eight...nine...
Some in the crowd shuffled for positions where they could have a better view. By now it was close to four o'clock, and the sun was setting slightly in the west. What that morning had been close to zero weather was now in the mid-forties. The dueling field, which had been sparkling with the morning frost was now dry. ~ William Roy Pipes

I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was poured a little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my mid-day, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise of my contemporaries. ~ Henry David Thoreau

BOOK BEAUTY

Here's the end of that story about the old woman who wanted to lure a man with strange

cosmetics. She made a paste of pages from the Qur'an to fill the deep creases on her face and

neck with. This is not about an old woman, dear reader. It's about you, or anyone who tries

to use books to make themselves attractive. There she is, sticking scripture, thick with

saliva, on her face. Of course, the bits keep falling off. "The devil," she yells, and

he appears! "This is a trick I've never seen. You don't need me. You are yourself a troop

of demons!" So people steal inspired words to get compliments. Don't bother. Death comes

and all talking, stolen or not, stops. Pity anyone unfamiliar with silence when that happens.

Polish your heart with mediation and quietness. Let the inner life grow generous and handsome

like Joseph. Zuleika did that and her "old woman's spring cold snap" turned to mid-July. Dry

lips wet from within. Ink is not rouge. Let language lie bygone. Now is where love breathes. ~ Rumi

Mid-range to low-budget movies have to have a name in the lead to get financing for it. ~ Joel Kinnaman

When historians consider the significance of the Berlin crises of the mid-20th century, I do not believe that they will record it as an incident in the encirclement of freedom. The true view, in my judgment, will be to see it rather as a major episode in the recession of communism. ~ Robert Kennedy

Well, when I started modeling in the mid-'80s, the girls who did shows did shows, and the girls who did magazines did magazines. That's what was understood. ~ Naomi Campbell

Move away from the mid-set that the fulfillment of the organization's mission, vision, and strategic plan is only the work of leaders. ~ Sue Tetzlaff

I like "God Give Me the Strength" very much. It's not really a blues and to call it a ballad is absurd. I don't know, its mid-tempo. Mark (St. John) actually wrote it and I think its very telling of our lives in the 60s. Its just a good song, ya know ... ~ Dick Taylor

That solar hue, that variegation of gleam and shade, made Don Fabrizio's heart ache as he stood black and stiff in a doorway: this eminently patrician room reminded him of country things; the chromatic scale was the same as that of the vast wheat fields around Donnafugata, rapt, begging pity from the tyrannous sun; in this room, too, as on his estates in mid-August, the harvest had been gathered long before, stacked elsewhere, leaving, as here, a sole reminder in the color of the stubble burned and useless now. The notes of the waltz in the warm air seemed to him but a stylization of the incessant winds harping their own sorrows on the parched surfaces, today, yesterday, tomorrow, forever and forever. The crowd of dancers, among whom he could count so many near to him in blood if not in heart, began to seem unreal, made up of that material from which are woven lapsed memories, more elusive even than the stuff of disturbing dreams. ~ Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

Desktop computers - boxes inside boxes - began appearing in those cubicles in the mid-eighties, electrical cords curling on the floor like so many ropes. ~ Jill Lepore

I know all about bridges like that one. I know all about roads that can only be found with the mind. One of them is how I find my way to Christmasland. There is the Night Road, and the train tracks to Orphanhenge, and the doors to Mid-World, and the old trail to the Tree House of the Mind, and then there is Victoria's wonderful covered bridge. ~ Joe Hill

Sometime when I was in my mid-twenties I noticed, "Hey, even I don't go into too many art galleries. Why? Because I don't like the vibe in them. If even I'm not going into galleries, then who goes into art galleries in the first place?" It's just a certain, very narrow percentage of the population. ~ Eric Drooker

When you left
you left behind a field
of silent flowers
under a sky
full of unstirred clouds...you left
a million butterflies
mid-silky flutters

You left like midnight rain
against my dreaming ears

Oh and how you left
leaving my coffee scentless
and my couch comfortless

leaving upon my fingers
the melting snow of you

you left behind
a calendar full of empty days
and seasons full of aimless wanders

leaving me alone
with an armful of sunsets

your reflection behind
in every puddle
your whispers
upon every curtain
your fragrance
inside every petal

you left your echoes in between
the silence of my eyes

Oh and how you left
leaving my sands footless
and my shores songless

leaving me with windows full of
moistened moonlight

nights and nights
of only a half-warmed soul

and when you left...
you left behind a lifetime
of moments untouched

the light of a million stars
unshed

and when you left
you somehow
left my poem...unfinished.



(Published in Taj Mahal Review Vol.11
Number 1 June 2012) ~ Sanober Khan

I think that a lot of teenagers think they got it all down-pat. Especially when they first move out and they're on their own for the first time. Oh this is easy, this is breezy. Then all of a sudden it hits you in your mid-twenties that maybe you don't know how to do your taxes still. There's all kinds of things and you start calling your parents up again. ~ Katy Perry

I like L.A., but I think what's changed is that the kinds of films I do, the mid-range dramatic film, has become an endangered species. ~ Christopher Hampton

Next time we need to be on drugs and have lots of suffering and alcohol abuse going on while recording, I'm kinda picturing a Jerry Lee Lewis session from the mid Seventies. ~ Jim Diamond

On a Wednesday morning in mid-June, Eli Sharpe was sitting at his desk treating jetlag with strong coffee when he heard a knock on his apartment door. After a second, more insistent knock, he added a dash of George Dickel to his Folgers and hid the pint in a desk drawer.
"It's open," he said loudly and stood up to receive his visitor.
In walked a tall blonde, her high heels stabbing the scuffed- up hardwoods, her perfume battling the smell of coffee and dust permeating Eli's six-hundred square foot studio apartment that doubled as a working office. Her perfume won the battle: Light Blue by Dolce & Gabbana. Same scent his third fiancée used to wear. ~ Max Everhart

Most restaurants in most cities, including Washington, are at a sort of mid-level. They're somewhat trendy, or they have some sort of gimmick, or they're somewhat expensive. And they make a lot of money off drinks. I tell people don't go to most of them, unless your goal is just to socialize. ~ Tyler Cowen

So whether he calls it spirit music or not, I don't care. He took it out of wind off mid-Atlantic. ~ Seamus Heaney

Montgomery's unique role in the domestic slave trade was that it was the first community that had a rail line that connected the Deep South to the mid-Atlantic region. ~ Bryan Stevenson

When you walk along a wooded path
In the nature my heart held so dear,
Remember the joy that it gave me
And know that I'll always be near.

When a robin announces his presence
Singing solo as day becomes new
The doe lifts her head to listen
As her fawn drinks the freshness of dew.

When an otter glides through the river,
His swim is a masterful one.
He engages his mate in a playful chase
Then they climb on the rocks to sun.

When the rustling leaves touch the autumn sky,
Boasting colors of russet and gold
Geese wing on their southern-most journey
To escape from the beckoning cold.

When the North wind blows through the towering pines
It delivers a mid winter's chill
While snowflakes drift softly on fresh frozen lakes
And the call of the wild becomes still.

In each of these things, remember me.
And know that I'll always be near.
The woodlands, God's wondrous Creation,
In His nature my heart held so dear. ~ Kris Nelson

During the onset of the Industrial Revolution in Eastern Massachusetts, mid-nineteenth century, there happened to be a very lively press run by working people, young women in the factories, artisans in the mills, and so on. They had their own press that was very interesting, very widely read and had a lot of support. And they bitterly condemned the way the industrial system was taking away their freedom and liberty and imposing on them rigid hierarchical structures that they didn't want. One of their main complaints was what they called "the new spirit of the age: gain wealth forgetting all but self." For 150 years there have been massive efforts to try to impose "the new spirit of the age" on people. But it's so inhuman that there's a lot of resistance, and it continues. ~ Noam Chomsky

The true test of maturity is not how old a person is but how he reacts to awakening in the mid-town area in his shorts. ~ Woody Allen

Ballimore! Ballimore, where's the inkwell?' Dobbilan's voice echoed down the corridor, interrupting Cimorene in mid-sentence. 'Where are you? Why can't I find anything around here when I want it?'
'Because you never look in the right place, dear,' Ballimore called. 'The inkwell is in the kitchen next to the grocery list, where it's been for the past six months, and I'm in the dining room. Which is where you'd be if you'd done what I asked you to, instead of wandering off in all directions. ~ Patricia C. Wrede

They claim that autism naturally occurs at about 18 months, when the MMR is routinely given, so the association is merely coincidental and not causal. But the onset of autism at 18 months is a recent development. Autism starting at 18 months rose very sharply in the mid-1980s, when the MMR vaccine came into wide use. A coincidence? Hardly! ~ Bernard Rimland

When I was a student there in the mid-1990s, they had just created the weekend; depth and individuality were slowly returning after the austere, colorless low of the 1970s. When I returned to live in China from 2005 to 2013, the country was building everything anew. ~ Evan Osnos

I became an actress because my mom wanted me to become an actress. It took me until my mid-30s to realize I actually didn't. I actually wanted to write and direct and be more involved in politics and humanitarian issues. ~ Angelina Jolie

My key aim is to get man on the surface of Mars by the mid-2030s. ~ Ellen Stofan

It's a funny thing with the inspiration thing. There's always loads of music around that I absolutely love and films going back to when I started making film music in the mid-80's. ~ Steven Price

The end of the mid finger on my left hand is wider than normal, the nail distorted and a scar in the end. This was from when I managed to shove it in the path of a mower blade. ~ Neal Asher

Let's see it," Boyd calls from outside the dressing room.

"How do you know I like this one enough to come out?"

"Because you've been in the same dress for five minutes and you're wearing pretend heels," he answers drily.

Wait. I fling open the door. "Are you watching me under the fitting room door? That's kind of pervy."

He smiles slowly. "All I can see are your feet to mid calf."

"Maybe you have a foot fetish. ~ Jana Aston

The task of the modern individual is to move appropriately and effectively from disengaged spectator to attentive perceiver in order to slide easily into the social order. The starer, in contrast, is an undisciplined spectator arrested in an earlier developmental stage or one resistant to the attentiveness of the modern networker. The starer is a properly attentive spectator befuddled, halted in mid-glance, mobility throttled, processing checked, network run amuck ... So the challenge of proper looking is converting the impulse to stare into attention, which is socially acceptable. (21-22) ~ Rosemarie Garland-Thomson

Some deaths were long, the decay so gradual the rotted end was nothing more than a sigh disappearing in the wind.
Others were quick, the abrupt cut of a life in mid-phrase leaving unanswered questions lingering like an unresolved harmony. ~ Emma Raveling

After what happened when my last - and if I'm being completely honest, my only - real relationship imploded, my focus needs to be on my career. Sex and marriage and a family and all that can fall into place after I'm a top fund manager. Sometime in the mid-nineties, perhaps.
But the eighties? The eighties are all about getting ahead in the rat race.
And I am determined to be at the front of the pack.
Of rats. ~ Karen Grey

Well ... there might be a slight problem with the she-devil in your room," she admitted.
What! Demon red shimmered before his eye. "Did you harm her?"
"What? Sweet lil me? She shook her head, all innocence. "But I may or may not have done some research and come across a bit of info that said hacking off all the her hair would severely weaken her. Then I may or may not have snuck in your bedroom with a pair of scissors and taken these." She lifted her arms and clutched in both her hands were thick hanks of golden hair. "By the way, I may or may not know for a fact that the rumors are definitely not true."
Going. To. Kill. Her.
"The Red Queen may or may not have woken up mid style job," Anya continued blithely, "and may or may not have taken the scissors away from me and given me a new style of my own. ~ Gena Showalter

Each of the three cultures in New Mexico during the mid-1800s (Caucasian, Hispanic, and Native American) were actively involved in kidnapping each other. As competition and fighting occurred between the three races, cruelty and violence were rampant on all sides. Yet, some captives found kindness among their captors. ~ Noel Marie Fletcher

No, I always felt that amongst my core fans- because there was a level of popularity that I had in the mid '80s that was sort of a bump on the scale- they fundamentally understood the values that are at work in my work. ~ Bruce Springsteen

Something is coming uphill," said Mother Wolf, twitching one ear. "Get ready." The bushes rustled a little in the thicket, and Father Wolf dropped with his haunches under him, ready for his leap. Then, if you had been watching, you would have seen the most wonderful thing in the world - the wolf checked in mid-spring. He made his bound before he saw what it was he was jumping at, and then he tried to stop himself. The result was that he shot up straight into the air for four or five feet, landing almost ~ Rudyard Kipling

It was a broiling afternoon of mid-August in Brinoe and everybody who was anybody had long ago quit its burning pavements and chilly palaces for the mountains or the sea. ~ Louis Bromfield

The landscape in Montgomery and in the South is just saturated with imagery. Markers are everywhere. There's a marker for the first Confederate post office, there's a marker for a ball that Robert E. Lee hosted, there's a marker for where Jefferson Davis had a meeting. We love reminding people about all that was going on in the mid-nineteenth century. ~ Bryan Stevenson

Apple Computer would not have reached its current peak of success if it had feared to roll the dice and launch products that didn't always hit the mark. In the mid-1990s, the company was considered washed up, Steve Jobs had departed, and a string of lackluster product launches unrelated to the company's core business. ~ Naveen Jain

I sort of came out at the dawn of the Internet in the mid-90s and I think it helped break my career. I think I was one of the first artists to really benefit from the grassroots swell that can happen online. I don't know if I would have broken out without it. ~ Jewel

the Catholic Church not only didn't oppose abortion but actually regulated it until the mid-nineteenth century. It was made a mortal sin mostly for population reasons.8 Napoleon III wanted more soldiers, and Pope Pius IX wanted all the teaching positions in the French schools - plus the doctrine of papal infallibility - so they traded. Also, ~ Gloria Steinem

Just as in the second part of a verse bad poets seek a thought to fit their rhyme, so in the second half of their lives people tend to become more anxious about finding actions, positions, relationships that fit those of their earlier lives, so that everything harmonizes quite well on the surface: but their lives are no longer ruled by a strong thought, and instead, in its place, comes the intention of finding a rhyme. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Wraeththu have been with me for the greater part of my life. My first rather ham-fisted (and half-finished) stories about them began in my mid-teens. It wasn't until I was twenty-six that I began work properly on the full-length novel that became The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit, first volume of the Wraeththu trilogy, which was published in 1987. This was followed by The Bewitchments of Love and Hate and the Fulfilments of Fate and Desire. ~ Storm Constantine

Owen felt his mouth curve into a grin as he heard the familiar clap, clap, clap behind him.
That was one of his favorite sounds - high heels on the wooden dock of the Boys of the Bayou swamp boat tour company.
He took his time turning and once he did, he started at the shoes.
They were black and showed off bright red toenails. The straps wrapped sexily around trim ankles and led the eye right up to smooth, toned calves. The heels matched the black polka dots on the white skirt that thankfully didn't start until mid-thigh, and showed off more tanned skin.
He straightened from his kneeling position in one of the boats as his eyes kept moving up past the skirt to the bright red belt that accentuated a narrow waist and then to the silky black tank that molded to a pair of perfect breasts.
He was fully anticipating her lips being bright red to go with that belt and her toenail polish. God, he loved red lipstick. And high heels. In any color.
But before he could get to those lips, she used them, to say, "Oh, dammit, it's you."
Owen's gaze bypassed her mouth to fly to her eyes. Because he'd know that voice anywhere.
Madison Allain was home.
A day early.
Not that an extra day would have helped him prepare. He'd been thinking about her visit for a week and was still as wound tight about it as he'd been when Sawyer, his business partner and cousin, had told him that she was coming home. For a month.
Owen stood just watching her, fi ~ Erin Nicholas

The Cold War went on for so long that it bred a kind of worldwide military establishment. Even when budgets went down in the early and mid-nineties, it didn't really affect it. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

Answer to Job : 601 was an anticipation in the grand manner, but everything still hung in mid air as mere revelation that never came down to earth. In view of these facts one cannot, with the best will in the world, see how Christianity, as we hear over and over again, is supposed to have burst upon world history as an absolute novelty. If ever anything had been historically prepared, and sustained and supported by the existing Weltanschauung, Christianity would be a classic example. XII ~ C. G. Jung

At the time of my second marriage, my husband was in his early 50s, I was in my mid-40s, and we each had two kids. We maintained our individual accounts and opened one for the house. We each kick the same percentage of our incomes into the house account and have a joint credit card. But we pay for our children separately. ~ Jean Chatzky

Miss Wigglesworth gave him an assessing look out of her remarkable blue eyes.
"You're a libertine? How very unique."
She gave a small fake yawn. She was, in that heartbeat, so perfect and so pure and so very dangerous indeed that all he could do was frighten her away.
"Have you been listening at keyholes, Lazuli? I assure you, they have always been willing, even when I ask that they pretend otherwise."
She blushed deep pink at that – an appealing thing, the blood high under her cheeks, warm and subtle and alive. He wanted to delve into her, with teeth and body until she was ravaged and supine and wrecked and bleeding and his. She did not, as he had expected, break away from him mid-step. The blush was there, to be sure, but she was made of sterner stuff. Any true innocent would be repulsed by the intent in his tone. A woman without experience would fear the implication of his preferences – the certain acknowledgment that there was wolf, nothing but wolf, underneath all his icy indifference. Faith was intrigued. She tilted her head and looked hard at him, her lovely eyes flinty.
"So, you're just a beast who enjoys the chase, nothing else?"
"Exactly so."
She threw it all at him. Like a piece of warm fresh meat, cut and dripping temptation, enough to make him salivate, to bait her trap.
"You can't catch me."
The waltz ended. ~ Gail Carriger

Meanwhile, in Genoa, the noons were getting hotter, the converging outer roads getting deeper with white dust, the oleanders in the tubs along the wayside gardens looking more and more like fatigued holiday-makers, and the sweet evening changing her office - scattering abroad those whom the mid-day had sent under shelter, and sowing all paths with happy social sounds, little tinklings of mule-bells and whirrings of thrumbed strings, light footsteps and voices, if not leisurely, then with the hurry of pleasure in them; while the encircling heights, crowned with forts, skirted with fine dwellings and gardens, seemed also to come forth and gaze in fulness of beauty after their long siesta, till all strong colour melted in the stream of moonlight which made the streets a new spectacle with shadows, both still and moving, on cathedral steps and against the facades of massive palaces; and then slowly with the descending moon all sank in deep night and silence, and nothing shone but the port lights of the great Lanterna in the blackness below, and the glimmering stars in the blackness above. ~ George Eliot

There is a time in our lives, usually in mid-life, when a woman has to make a decision - possibly the most important psychic decision of her future life - and that is, whether to be bitter or not. Women often come to this in their late thirties or early forties. They are at the point where they are full up to their ears with everything and they've "had it" and "the last straw has broken the camel's back" and they're "pissed off and pooped out." Their dreams of their twenties may be lying in a crumple. There may be broken hearts, broken marriages, broken promises. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Feminism is as old as sexual repression. In this country, women's liberation flowered best in the soil prepared by black liberation the mid-19th century abolitionist movement yielded suffragettes. The mid-20th century civil rights movement yielded women's liberation. Both movements were loudly championed by black men no white men so distinguished themselves. But both abandoned Black Civil Rights and regarded the shift away from the race problem as an inevitable and necessary development. An opportunity to concentrate on exclusively sexist issues. Each time that shift took place, it marked the first stage of divisiveness and heralded a future of splinter groups and self-sabotage. ~ Toni Morrison

Bringing back the Golden Fleece," I repeated, mocking him. "As if it exists."
Castor frowned. "What's biting you? Of course it exists! We told you what Jason said. It belonged to a marvelous ram sent by the gods to rescue two royal children, Phrixus and Helle, from their murderous stepmother. A pity it wasn't a perfect rescue. Phrixus reached Colchis safely, but his sister, Helle, fell off in mid-flight and drowned. Jason says that's why the place where she plunged into the sea's called the Hellespont. If that doesn't prove the story's true, what will satisfy you?"
"Anyone can give a place a name," I said, rolling my eyes. "When I get home, I'll name that olive grove near our training ground Wolf Forest and see what happens. A ram with a fleece of real gold, a flying ram that could carry the children through the skies to Colchis, where there are dragons, oh yes, that's believable! That's worth risking your lives for on a voyage across the world! I'll bet you don't care if that story's true or not. You just want an excuse to go off chasing fame!"
Polydeuces set a honey cake on my already heaping plate. "There must be something waiting for us in Colchis, little sister," he said gently. "Maybe not the gold fleece of a flying ram, but something. Why would Jason go to the trouble and expense of outfitting a ship for such a long, dangerous voyage otherwise?" He smiled wistfully and added, "You mustn't worry about us. We'll come back; we'll be fine."
He was right ~ Esther M. Friesner

You know the story." The Nalnom rotated his hand in the air as if she should recall it.

"I don't. I've never heard the story."

Joshlon summarized it for her. "Prometheus was turned into a dragon by his angry lover, Naradite. She refused to turn him back into his manly form. He became the first fire-breathing dragon - Naga the Terrible."

Eena dropped her lower jaw. "What?"

"Naradite turned Prometheus into a dragon," Joshlon repeated. "Naga."

"And Prometheus is Edgar's father?" She was sure the surrounding stares were the result of her virtually shouting out the question.

Joshlon answered with some hesitance in his voice. "I don't know who Edgar is, but Edgarmetheus was supposedly the son of Prometheus, the illegitimate child of him and his lover, Naradite."

"Oh. My. Gosh!" Eena exclaimed. "Naga is Edgar's father!"

Joshlon's lip curled. He didn't look like he was following her emotional outburst. "Sha Eena, are you trying to tell me that this is all for real? And Naga is the undefeatable enemy you're fighting?"

Her hazel eyes focused on him instantly. "Oh, no, no, not Naga! Out of all the immortals, he's the nice one!"

Joshlon looked confused. "Naga the Terrible is the nice one?"

"Yes," Eena nodded assuredly. "Edgar is the…" She halted mid-sentence. Joshlon had stopped moving. In fact, all the surrounding Nalnoms were frozen in place, skeptical expressions st ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

This was one of those mid-thirties moments when you take a look at the stale, half-chewed bagel your life has become and kiss jealousy on its smokey mouth. ~ Steve Almond

There you'll find the place I love most in the world. The place where I grew thin from dreaming. My village, rising from the plain. Shaded with trees and leaves like a piggy bank filled with memories. You'll see why a person would want to live there forever. Dawn, morning, mid-day, night: all the same, except for the changes in the air. The air changes the color of things there. And life whirs by as quiet as a murmur ... the pure murmuring of life. ~ Juan Rulfo

The United Nations was founded 70 years ago, at the end of World War II. Since that time, Japan has steadfastly walked the path of peace and rebuilt a nation. And, since the mid-1950s onward, we have actively worked to share our experience of development with other nations, especially in Asia. ~ Shinzo Abe

I think because my parents died in their early 50s, mid 50s, I always thought I would die young. And that's been both a useful thing and I suspect something that's haunted me a little bit. ~ Stephen Dunn

Some build their castles 'mid thunderbolts and fireworks. My worlds take shape in silence. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

I don't think anybody's necessarily ready for death. You can only hope that when it approaches, you feel like you've said what you wanted to say. Nobody wants to go out in mid-sentence. ~ Johnny Depp

Sometimes everything you need to know to be an actor in your mid-forties, you learn before you were 15 years old. ~ Robert Downey, Jr.

I love my sons and I love that they are writers - I also love my daughter, who's a minister and an orchard keeper! - but I wouldn't wish the burden of Mid-World and the Dark Tower on them. I enjoy working with them, though, because we fit together. ~ Stephen King

Corpses were real. He had heard about these cannibal dead walkers in the northeast, but they were in fact real. Rumor had it that one - just one - had made its way down towards the Mid-Atlantic.
The rumored Dead Walker lived. ~ Laurel Jay

But in those days - in the mid-'50s, early '60s - there was less than 300 radio stations that were playing country music and a lot of that wasn't full time. ~ Mel Tillis

John Milton (December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674) was an English poet, prose polemicist, and civil servant for the English Commonwealth. Most famed for his epic poem Paradise Lost, Milton is celebrated as well for his eloquent treatise condemning censorship, Areopagitica. Long considered the supreme English poet, Milton experienced a dip in popularity after attacks by T.S. Eliot and F.R. Leavis in the mid 20th century; but with multiple societies and scholarly journals devoted to his study, Milton's reputation remains as strong as ever in the 21st century. Very soon after his death – and continuing to the present day – Milton became the subject of partisan biographies, confirming T.S. Eliot's belief that "of no other poet is it so difficult to consider the poetry simply as poetry, without our theological and political dispositions…making unlawful entry." Milton's radical, republican politics and heretical religious views, coupled with the perceived artificiality of his complicated Latinate verse, alienated Eliot and other readers; yet by dint of the overriding influence of his poetry and personality on subsequent generations - particularly the Romantic movement - the man whom Samuel Johnson disparaged as "an acrimonious and surly republican" must be counted one of the most significant writers and thinkers of all time. Source: Wikipedia ~ John Milton

The limner's art may trace the absent feature,
And give the eye of distant weeping faith
To view the form of its idolatry;
But oh! the scenes 'mid which they met and parted;
The thoughts
the recollections sweet and bitter,
Th' Elysian dreams of lovers, when they loved,
Who shall restore them? ~ Charles Robert Maturin

MOMA's values were blown through the American education system, from high school upwards-and downwards, too, greatly raising the status of "creativity" and "self-expression" in kindergarten. By the 1970s, the historical study of modern art had expanded to the point where students were scratching for unexploited thesis subjects. By the mid-eighties, twenty-one-year-old art-history majors would be writing papers on the twenty-six-year-old graffitists. ~ Robert Hughes

When a person pauses in mid-sentence to choose a word, that's the best time to jump in and change the subject! It's like an interception in football! You grab the others guy's idea and run the opposite way with it! The more sentences you complete, the higher your score! The idea is to block the other guy's thoughts and express your own! That's how you win!

Conversations aren't contests!

Ok, a point for you, but I'm still ahead. ~ Bill Watterson

By George Eliot Let thy chief terror be of thine own soul: There, 'mid the throng of hurrying desires That trample on the dead to seize their spoil, Lurks vengeance, footless, irresistible As exhalations laden with slow death, And o'er the fairest troop of captured joys Breathes pallid pestilence. ~ George Eliot

Being a nice girl from the Mid-West, my inclination is always to give in and say yes because I want people to like me. ~ Cindy Crawford

The Beetle's body, whether it be a '49 split or a '73 Jeans Bug, or an '03 Mexican, was originally conceived in the mid 1930's. This is evident in it's body styling which aside from it's rear engine layout and absence of front radiator (or radiator!) grille, is very similar to other cars of the same period. Believe it or not, in those days streamlining was a hot new concept, kind of like how wireless networking is today with computing.
The only problem was, in the beginning they didn't seem to realize that streamlining ought to be applied sideways as well as longitudinally! ~ Christina Engela

A Woman's Question

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing
Ever made by the Hand above?
A woman's heart, and a woman's life---
And a woman's wonderful love.

Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing
As a child might ask for a toy?
Demanding what others have died to win,
With a reckless dash of boy.

You have written my lesson of duty out,
Manlike, you have questioned me.
Now stand at the bars of my woman's soul
Until I shall question thee.

You require your mutton shall always be hot,
Your socks and your shirt be whole;
I require your heart be true as God's stars
And as pure as His heaven your soul.

You require a cook for your mutton and beef,
I require a far greater thing;
A seamstress you're wanting for socks and shirts---
I look for a man and a king.

A king for the beautiful realm called Home,
And a man that his Maker, God,
Shall look upon as He did on the first
And say: "It is very good."

I am fair and young, but the rose may fade
From this soft young cheek one day;
Will you love me then 'mid the falling leaves,
As you did 'mong the blossoms of May?

Is your heart an ocean so strong and true,
I may launch my all on its tide?
A loving woman finds heaven or hell
On the day she is made a bride.

I require all things that are grand and true,
Joshua Harris

It was a great time to grow up in Chicago. It was the mid-'80s, and we had the '85 Bears and the Michael Jordan era. ~ Bailey Chase

It is the fate of great achievements, born from a way of life that sets truth before security, to be gobbled up by you and excreted in the form of shit. For centuries great, brave, lonely men have been telling you what to do. Time and again you have corrupted, diminished and demolished their teachings; time and again you have been captivated by their weakest points, taken not the great truth, but some trifling error as your guiding principal. This, little man, is what you have done with Christianity, with the doctrine of sovereign people, with socialism, with everything you touch. Why, you ask, do you do this? I don't believe you really want an answer. When you hear the truth you'll cry bloody murder, or commit it. … You had your choice between soaring to superhuman heights with Nietzsche and sinking into subhuman depths with Hitler. You shouted Heil! Heil! and chose the subhuman. You had the choice between Lenin's truly democratic constitution and Stalin's dictatorship. You chose Stalin's dictatorship. You had your choice between Freud's elucidation of the sexual core of your psychic disorders and his theory of cultural adaptation. You dropped the theory of sexuality and chose his theory of cultural adaptation, which left you hanging in mid-air. You had your choice between Jesus and his majestic simplicity and Paul with his celibacy for priests and life-long compulsory marriage for yourself. You chose the celibacy and compulsory marriage and forgot the simplicity of Jesus' m ~ Wilhelm Reich

("I knew it," Conor grumbled. "These kinds of stories always have stupid princes falling in love." He started walking back to the house. "I thought this was going to be good.")
(With one swift movement, the monster grabbed Conor's ankles in a long, strong hand and flipped him upside down, holding him in mid-air so his T-shirt rucked up and his heartbeat thudded in his head.)
(As I was saying, said the monster.) ~ Patrick Ness

I opened my eyes to stare at a bright blue tulle monstrosity with a skirt that would hit me at mid thigh. I'd look like the really slutty bride of Cookie Monster. ~ Rachel Hawkins

Here's my theory: If a person gets worldwide fame at a young age, they're emotionally frozen at that moment. For me, that's 15 to 18, so you find yourself in your mid-20s being a glorified 15-year-old. What could possibly go wrong? ~ Rob Lowe

The burning embers within me burst into flame / My body becomes a fire-lit torch. / Ho someone! Send for the mid-wife. ~ Amrita Pritam

Nietzsche wrote, "One often contradicts an opinion when it is really only the tone in which it has been presented that is unsympathetic". Or, as The Dude put it: "You're not wrong, Walter - you're just an asshole". Less quotable, and often overlooked, is Walter's response: "Okay, then." The Walters of the world don't mid being assholes; what matters to them is being right. ~ Tim Kreider