Murks Corner Quotes

I've found that wherever there is one cockroach in plain sight, many more are lurking behind the corner out of view. ~ Harry Markopolos

He went into the Gray Joy, drank a glass of Arkanarian brew, patted the hostess's cheek, and deftly used one of his swords to flip the table of the usual informer, who was gawking at him with empty eyes. Then he walked over to a far corner and tracked down a shabby bearded man with an inkwell around his neck. "Hello, Brother Nanin," he said. "How many petitions have you written today?"
Brother Nanin smiled shyly, showing small, decayed teeth. "There aren't many petitions written nowadays, noble don," he said. "Some people think that asking is pointless, while others expect that in the near future they'll be able to take without asking. ~ Arkady Strugatsky

During my practice sessions, I had walked all around the rink examining each corner. I make a habit of doing this before every major competition, to become familiar with the angles. Then I can envision what it will look and feel like when I am the only one on the ice going into a combination jump, skating backwards or getting ready for my triple Lutz. I know exactly where I will be, and so when it comes time to actually perform my routine, ever step and element will be like deja vu. ~ Josee Chouinard

From across the dark bedroom, Lassiter stood in the corner next to the highboy, feeling like crap while Tohr whispered to the dress.
Scrubbing his face, he wondered why ... why in the hell, of all the ways he could have gotten free of the In Between, did it have to be this one.
The shit was starting to get to him. ~ J.R. Ward

Edouard, I have spent so many hours wrestling with my faith - my lack of faith - but now, in this fearful corner of an all but forgotten world, riddled as I am with this loathsome parasite, I have somehow rediscovered a strength of belief the likes of which I have not known since you and I were boys. I now understand the need for faith - pure, blind, fly-in-the-face-of-reason faith - as a small life preserver in the wild and endless sea of a universe ruled by unfeeling laws and totally indifferent to the small, reasoning beings that inhabit it. Day ~ Dan Simmons

The mission sat in a converted store front on the corner of a medium-busy street. There was a small crowd gathered in front - no real surprise, since they gave out food and clothing, all all you had to do was spend a few moments of your life listening to the good reverend explain why you were going to Hell. It seemed like a pretty good bargain, even to me, but I wasn't hungry. ~ Jeff Lindsay

While I pressed the tissue to my face, Beck said, "Can I tell you something? There are a lot of empty boxes in your head, Sam."
I looked at him, quizzical. Again, it was a strange enough concept to hold my attention.
"There are a lot of empty boxes in there, and you can put things in them." Beck handed me another tissue for the other side of my face.
My trust of Beck at that point was not yet complete; I remember thinking that he was making a very bad joke that I wasn't getting. My voice sounded wary, even to me. "What kinds of things?"
"Sad things," Beck said. "Do you have a lot of sad things in your head?"
"No," I said.
Beck sucked in his lower lip and released it slowly. "Well, I do."
This was shocking. I didn't ask a question, but I tilted toward him.
"And these things would make me cry," Beck continued. "They used to make me cry all day long."
I remembered thinking this was probably a lie. I could not imagine Beck crying. He was a rock. Even then, his fingers braced against the floor, he looked poised, sure, immutable.
"You don't believe me? Ask Ulrik. He had to deal with it," Beck said. "And so you know what I did with those sad things? I put them in boxes. I put the sad things in the boxes in my head, and I closed them up and I put tape on them and I stacked them up in the corner and threw a blanket over them."
"Brain tape?" I suggested, with a little smirk. I was eight, after all.
Beck smiled, a weird private ~ Maggie Stiefvater

What are the true reasons why the purchaser is planning to spend his money on a new car instead of a piano? Because he has decided that he wants the commodity called locomotion more than he wants the commodity called music? Not altogether. He buys a car, because it is at the moment the group custom to buy cars.

The modern propagandist therefore sets to work to create circumstances which will modify that custom. He appeals perhaps to the home instinct which is fundamental. He will endeavor to develop public acceptance of the idea of a music room in the home. This he may do, for example, by organizing an exhibition . . . key people, persons known to influence the buying habits of the public, such as a famous violinist, a popular artist, and a society leader, are invited. These key persons affect other groups, lifting the idea of the music room to a place in the public consciousness which it did not have before. The juxtaposition of these leaders, and the idea which they are dramatizing, are then projected to the wider public through various publicity channels . . .

The music room will be accepted because it has been made the thing. And the man or woman who has a music room, or has arranged a corner of the parlor as a musical corner, will naturally think of buying a piano. It will come to him as his own idea. ~ Edward L. Bernays

The milk is long since out of date, the bread all has mold and I think you could start a bacterial plague with what's in the crisper here…"
"Order a pizza," he suggested. "There's a place down on the corner that still owes me ten pizzas, paid for in advance."
"You can't eat pizza for breakfast!"
"Why can't I? I've been doing it for a week."
"You can cook," she said accusingly.
"When I'm sober," he agreed.
She glowered at him and went back to her chore. "Well, the eggs are still edible, barely, and there's an unopened pound of bacon. I'll make an omelet."
He collapsed into the chair at the kitchen table while she made a fresh pot of coffee and set about breaking eggs.
"You look very domesticated like that," he pointed out with a faint smile. "After we have breakfast, why don't you come to bed with me?"
She gave him a shocked glance. "I'm pregnant," she reminded him.
He nodded and laughed softly. "Yes, I know. It's an incredible turn-on."
Her hand stopped, poised in midair with a spoon in it. "Wh…What?"
"The eggs are burning," he said pleasantly.
She stirred them quickly and turned the bacon, which was frying in another pan. He thought her condition was sexy? She couldn't believe he was serious.
But apparently he was, because he watched her so intently over breakfast that she doubted if he knew what he was eating.
"Mr. Hutton told the curator of the museum in Tennessee that I wasn't coming back, and he ~ Diana Palmer

Sometimes life just did things, he felt, and they didn't have to make sense. It helped when they did, and often the sense of a thing was just around a corner, but that didn't mean you ever got to see it. ~ Adam P. Knave

I suffer for birds and fireflies but not frogs, she said, and threw him across the room. Kaboom! Like a genie out of a samovar, a handsome prince arose in the corner of the bedroom. ~ Anne Sexton

William groaned. It was Vimes. Worse, he was smiling, in a humourless predatory way.
"Ah, Mr de Worde," he said, stepping inside. "There are several thousand dogs stampeding through the city at the moment. This is an interesting fact, isn't it?"
He leaned against the wall and produced a cigar. "Well, I say dogs," he said, striking a match on Goodmountain's helmet. "Mostly dogs, perhaps I should say. Some cats. More cats now, in fact, 'cos, hah, there's nothing like a, yes, a tidal wave of dogs, fighting and biting and howling, to sort of, how can I put it, give a city a certain . . . busyness. Especially underfoot,
because - did I mention it? -they're very nervous dogs too. Oh, and did I mention cattle?" he went on, conversationally. "You know how it is, market day and so on, people are driving the cows and, my goodness, around the corner comes a wall of wailing dogs . . . Oh, and I forgot about the sheep. And the chickens, although I imagine there's not much left of the chickens now. ~ Terry Pratchett

Unfortunately, you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. ~ Barack Obama

Intriguing isn't it? One day you are the king of your world. And the next day, you stand aside, watching it all burn. Ashes slipping out of your hand, you just stand and stare, your glassy gaze fixed on something no one else could see, no one else could know...

People will talk as people do talk. And they will walk over the ashes. And the ashes will dance in front of you, reminding you every second of what was and what might have been. And you will almost give in.

But my advice is, don't give in. Because one day, you will decide to turn the corner. Put it all behind you. Just stand strong and still as the great wind comes and takes all the ashes away with with it, leaving fresh air behind. Fresh for you to make a new world, a better world. ~ Aleena Yasin

The difference lies in the fact that in Istanbul the remains of a glorious past civilization are everywhere visible. No matter how ill-kept, no matter how neglected or hemmed in they are by concrete monstrosities, the great mosques and other monuments of the city, as well as the lesser detritus of empire in every side street and corner - the little arches, fountains, and neighborhood mosques - inflict heartache on all who live among them. These ~ Orhan Pamuk

He smiled at her, a tiny lift of the corner of his mouth. "Color me impressed." Linked, pp 225 ~ Imogen Howson

In old stapled problems, you can see the TB vaccine marks in the upper left corner where the staples have been removed and replaced, as the problem - even the staple holes of the problem - was copied and sent on to other departments for further action, copying, and stapling. ~ Nicholson Baker

There's an opportunity for the corner drugstore to play a much greater role. Pharmacists have been extremely well respected - they're one of the top two or three most-trusted professionals in opinion polls year after year. ~ Gregory Wasson

As the sky behind the Eddy Match Factory across the river filled with light, the steady timbre of the water and rapids became sentences spoken in a soft female voice and Eileen accepted, without surprise, the presence of her mother's lost words. So this is what it is to be away, her mother's voice told her. You are never present where you stand. You see the polished dishes in your kitchen cupboard throwing back the hearth light, but they know neither you nor the meals you have taken from their surfaces. Your flagstones are a series of dark lakes that you scour, and the light that touches and alters them sends you unspeakable messages. Waves arch like mantles over everything that burns. Each corner is a secret and your history is a lie. ~ Jane Urquhart

At the corner she looked suddenly far away and saw the street go straight out to the sky. She looked up to the sky and saw it go everywhere, and my, she thought, how large it is, what a large place it is. What a large world. So many different people, so many different places, close by and far away, people everywhere, places everywhere. What a fine place to be in. ~ William, Saroyan

Everybody wants to play in the playoffs. You don't know how good the good times were until you hit the bad times. But sometimes success is just around the corner. ~ Trevor Linden

One of the most satisfying experiences I know is fully to appreciate an individual in the same way I appreciate a sunset. When I look at a sunset ... I don't find myself saying, 'Soften the orange a little more on the right hand corner, and put a bit more purple along the base, and use a little more pink in the cloud color ... ' I don't try to control a sunset. I watch it with awe as it unfolds. ~ Carl Rogers

Anyway, that guy. This is all his damned fault. It's his fault I'm bent over the edge of the bed with my red satin panties hanging from my one ankle. It's his fault I've got a little hot, gooey cum dripping from my chin. It's his fault my heart is still pounding from my first non-DIY orgasm. My first thundering, shuddering orgasm that I didn't tease out with my wet, dripping fingers, the corner of the dryer or 'Jumbo', the 7-inch ribbed black dildo I keep as my shameful little secret, tucked in the gap between my mattress and the headboard.

...

Fuck you, Michael Cera. Fuck you hard.

Sincerely,

Jill Travers ~ Aya Fukunishi

He glanced at Flat Finn, who was positioned in one corner of the room, facing the wall. "What is Flat Finn doing? If he's urinating on the floor, you're cleaning it up."
...
"Is he in trouble? He has to stand in the corner and think about what he's done? ~ Jessica Park

If we can have a fast food restaurant on almost every corner,
then we can certainly have a garden. ~ Bill De Blasio

It was then that she realized she still had God. He was the only one who hadn't left her. He knew who she was, even if she didn't. A single tear formed in the corner of her eye as she thanked God for not abandoning her - especially when she needed Him most. ~ J.E.B. Spredemann

Every corner of the sky awkwardly showed up wearing the exact same thing, a moody gray dress accessorized with flat clouds. If North, South, East, and West were drag queens, this would be bad, very bad. ~ Edmond Manning

Hollin was still sitting with Levitas's head in his lap, a bucket now beside him; he was squeezing water from a clean cloth into the dragon's open mouth. He looked at Rankin without bothering to hide his contempt, but then he bent over and said, "Levitas, come along now; look who's come."
Levitas's eyes opened, but they were milky and blind. "My captain?" he said uncertainly.

Laurence thrust Rankin forward and down onto his knees, none too gently; Rankin gasped and clutched at his thigh, but he said, "Yes, I am here." He looked up at Laurence and swallowed, then added awkwardly, "You have been very brave." There was nothing natural or sincere in the tone; it was as ungraceful as could be imagined.

But Levitas only said, very softly, "You came." He licked at a few drops of water at the corner of his mouth. The blood was still welling sluggishly from beneath the dressing, thick enough to slightly part the bandages one from the other, glistening and black. Rankin shifted uneasily; his breeches and stockings were being soaked through, but he looked up at Laurence and did not try to move away.

Levitas gave a low sigh, and then the shallow movement of his sides ceased. Hollin closed his eyes with one rough hand.

Laurence's hand was still heavy on the back of Rankin's neck; now he lifted it away, rage gone, and only tight-lipped disgust left. "Go," he said. "We who valued him will make the arrangements, not you." He did not even look ~ Naomi Novik

In an ancient though not very populous settlement, in a retired corner of one of the New England states, arise the walls of a seminary of learning, which, for the convenience of a name, shall be entitled Harley College. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Words provided to me-- loss, grief, sorrow, bereavement, trauma-- never seemed to be able to speak precisely of what was plaguing me. One can and must live with loss and grief and sorrow and bereavement. Together they frame this life, as solid as the ceiling and the floor and the walls and the doors. But there is something else, like a bird that flies away at the first sign of one's attention, or a cricket chirping in the dark, never settling close enough for one to tell from which corner the song comes. ~ Yiyun Li

Though Calvin lived in the world of books and laws, his real home was in the corner of a stranger's eye. ~ Larry Benjamin

How was she not the quintessential woman in our culture, compulsively pleasing others in order to achieve some degree of perfection and power that's forever just around the corner, out of reach? It was easier for her to disappear, to free herself finally from that body, to find a perfection in dying. ~ Kim Gordon