Mopping Quotes

Determined secularists view these as residual inconsistencies that they have not yet go around to extirpating and that may not be worth bothering about ... Form the secularist perspective it may be that the essential battles have been won and excessive zeal in pressing a final mopping-up operation might only excited further public hostility. ~ Richard John Neuhaus

While the male eye zooms in on a particular element to the exclusion of all else, a woman's gaze flickers from one tedious task to the next, to the point where we can't distinguish between the importance of mopping the kitchen floor and achieving world peace. ~ Mariella Frostrup

Everybody had his arms on everybody else's shoulders, and they were all singing. Mike was sitting at the table with several men in their shirt-sleeves, eating from a bowl of tuna fish, chopped onions and vinegar. They were all drinking wine and mopping up the oil and vinegar with pieces of bread.
"Hello, Jake. Hello!" Mike called. "Come here. I want you to meet my friends. We are all having an hors d'œuvre. ~ Ernest Hemingway

As with many teens, my first jobs included babysitting and mopping floors at McDonald's. Since then, I've held jobs a diverse as selling used cars, selling apparel, cosmetics, and real-estate, substitute-teaching six graders, teaching undergraduate creative writing, and working as an editorial assistant for a literary magazine. ~ Therese Fowler

I love cleaning. I love mopping the floor. If you need your floor mopped, I'm there. ~ Saoirse Ronan

With just about every script, in almost every corner of the set, I was faced with the truth: This was my parents' life. My mother had sat in handcuffs; my father had once worn an orange jumpsuit like the dozens that sat folded in our wardrobe department. For the other actors and me on our show, this was all fantasy, the re-creation of a world we knew little about; for Mami and Papi, it could not have been any more real or painful...I've had so many scenes in which Flaca & I are doing the dirty work, like cleaning the kitchen or mopping the floors, which is when I think of my parents most. Long before they ended up in prison, they'd spent years handling the nastiest jobs, the ones often avoided by others. Manual labor. Low pay. No respect. They must've felt so trapped. It must've been so hard for them to maintain their dignity when others looked down on them or, worse, didn't see them at all. ~ Diane Guerrero

My first experience with the creative was mopping tar. If you let the tar sit, it can get cold pretty quickly. And because the mops are so heavy, you've got to dip it and then ride it really fast. ~ Theaster Gates

Once, I did a halfhearted job of sweeping and mopping the kitchen floor, and that's the first place she checked because she knew I'd do a lousy job because "that's the kind of kid you are." As in I'm not a "go-getter who makes her own luck" like she is, so I'm "never going to get anywhere in this world." She knew all that because of two missed Cheerios and a small dust bunny. ~ Sarah Darer Littman

I know a man who used to be a millionaire before 2007. Now he's poor and mopping floors. But I'm not laughing, because at least he was able to get a job. Unlike me, who only has an English degree that's not even worth the paper it's printed on, the paper I folded into an origami dragon and lit on fire. ~ Jarod Kintz

I think sometimes all the charities are doing is mopping up the blood. It's a shame. ~ Thom Yorke

Overnight, our neighbors began to look at us differently. Maybe it was the little girl down the road who no longer waved to us from her farmhouse window. Or the longtime customers who suddenly disappeared from our restaurants and stores. Or our mistress, Mrs. Trimble, who pulled us aside one morning as we were mopping her kitchen and whispered into our ear, "Did you know that the war was coming?" Club ladies began boycotting our fruit stands because they were afraid our produce might be tainted with arsenic. Insurance companies canceled our insurance. Banks froze our bank accounts. Milkmen stopped delivering milk to our doors. "Company orders," one tearful milkman explained. Children took one look at us and ran away like frightened deer. Little old ladies clutched their purses and froze up on the sidewalk at the sight of our husbands and shouted out, "They're here!" And even though our husbands had warned us--They're afraid--still, we were unprepared. Suddenly, to find ourselves the enemy. ~ Julie Otsuka

You're with Rapier squad. Mopping-up detail, under Sergeant Gortoss." He gestured along the corridor in the opposite direction from where Ross had just come.
"Turn left at the first pile of flaming debris and look for the most homicidally deranged bastard you can find. Ordinarily he'd be in a maximum-security prison, but when there's a war on, he's just the kind of chap you want inside the tent pissing out."
"Yes sir," said Ross, by which he meant, "Holy mother of fuck. ~ Christopher Brookmyre

Jenks watched for a moment from the rim of the bucket, then said, " You look like a porno star on your hands and knees, mopping in your underwear. Push it baby" he moaned. " Push it! ~ Kim Harrison

Jesus won the war, and the rest of history is simply mopping up. ~ Carolyn Custis James

I did spend about 5 years in the Griffin Theatre Company in 1978 actually , and worked therefore about 5 years on a voluntary basis. This was very much as a amateur, doing things like mopping the floor, handling props, setting up scenery, etc. I never acted, and don't think I'm an actor, but those years in the theatre taught me a lot about professional theatre. ~ Robert Dessaix

And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement. To spend a Saturday afternoon mopping your kitchen floor while listening to opera on the radio, and to go that night to an Indian restaurant with a friend and be home by nine o'clock - these are enough. They are gifts. ~ Curtis Sittenfeld

Parents love bathtime because it means that bedtime is near. To prepare your darling for her bath, put on your full-length poncho, because toddlers don't bathe, they splash, motherfucker. When toddlers bathe, they act like they're a junior member of the summer Olympics diving team. Get ready. By the time you're done, your bathroom floor will have a few inches of standing water. The good news is that wiping up all that water counts as mopping the floor. ~ Bunmi Laditan

People might feel sorry for a man who's fallen on hard times, but when an entire nation is poor, the rest of the world assumes that all its people must be brainless, lazy, dirty, clumsy fools. Instead of pity, the people provoke laughter. It's all a joke: their culture, their customs, their practices. In time the rest of the world may, some of them, begin to feel ashamed for having thought this way, and when they look around and see immigrants from that poor country mopping their floors and doing all the other lowest paying jobs, naturally they worry about what might happen if these workers one day rose up against them. So, to keep things sweet, they start taking an interest in the immigrants' culture and sometimes even pretend they think of them as equals. ~ Orhan Pamuk

It is, in the imagination of combat's fans, the divinely listless loveplay that follows the orgasm of victory. It is called 'mopping up. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I have far more enthusiasm in life than I have actual energy. In my excitement, I routinely take on more that I can physically or emotionally handle, which causes me to break down in quite predictable displays of dramatic exhaustion. You will be the one burdened with the job of mopping me up every time I've overextended myself and then fallen apart. This will be unbelievably tedious. I apologize in advance. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

She has drudge written all over her. She probably stares at the ceiling, things about mopping the floor. ~ Margaret Atwood

Happily Ever After

Imagine them all
after the plotting, after the ball,
after the spelling, hopping, sweeping,
grumping, grousing, mopping, sleeping,
from small glass shoe to nuisance pea,
so ever after, all happily be-
enchanted with magic
from kingdoms
to seas.
Now close your eyes,
and dream of these. ~ Jane Yolen

Why this girl? Why had this girl crawled right under his skin and made an uncomfortable home there? Why did he want to make things good for her, to see her smile, to make her face
and her voice make all those interesting shapes and noises? Why did he want to stay up late with her when he knew she should be sleeping, just to hear her talk about maths and politics and the
state of the world?
This was not Quentin. Quentin did not like skinny girls. He didn't like serious girls. And he really hated bossy girls.
Quentin loved curvy, fun, uncomplicated girls; girls who laughed at his jokes and took off their bras when they danced on tables. If they wore bras at all. Yet here he was, washing up and mopping and feeling like five kinds of an arsehole over hurting the feelings of some skinny, serious, bossy girl. ~ Ros Baxter

I started out mopping floors, waiting tables, and tending bar at my dad's tavern. I put myself through school working odd jobs and night shifts. I poured my heart and soul into a small business. And when I saw how out-of-touch Washington had become with the core values of this great nation, I put my name forward and ran for office. ~ John Boehner

How can it ever be right to wreck
A man because he's time by the clock
As an elderly man grizzled and gray,
Who long ago struggled at your side
Mopping the copious
Manly sweat from his brow
When he bravely fought at Marathon
In defense of our city. ~ Aristophanes

It's the central executive in your brain that notices that the floor is dirty. It forms an executive attentional set for "mop the floor" and then constructs a worker attentional set for doing the actual mopping. ~ Daniel J. Levitin

Sacrifice is a stupid thing that women do.
Don't do it.
The men don't notice.
And all the women around you spend their lives mopping you up.
So you're only making more work for the women who'll have to repair you.
That's more than a warning.
It is an order.
Be prepared to be unpopular. ~ Anakana Schofield

You can burn a lot of calories mopping the house. ~ Jerry Hall