Mutter Quotes

Long ago I used to mutter (as you probably do), "Very interesting," and cast a desperate glance around for the punch-bowl. This banal comment fools no one, least of all the artist, and you quickly find you have lost a friend and alienated a roomful of people, all of whom are pretending they like the pictures with a grim kind of appreciation. ~ Sydney J. Harris

Little bits of Norwegian came to me by a kind of aural osmosis. The most surprising linguistic fact I learned was the impoverishment of that language in swear words. In fact, there is only one- 'farn'- which merely means something like 'devil take it!', but is considered very rude by a well brought-up Viking. It has to pass muster for most of the everyday tragedies that beset an expedition. If a finger is hammered, you jump up and down and cry 'farn'; if you drop an outstanding fossil irretrievably into the sea, you splutter for a while and then mutter 'farn' under your breath. If all your provisions were carried away by a hurricane and death were guaranteed, all the poor Norwegian could do would be to stand on the shingle and cry 'farn' into the wind. Somehow this does not seem adequate for the occasion. ~ Richard Fortey

Where you can starve to death in safety," I mutter. Then I glance quickly over my shoulder. Even here, even in the middle of nowhere, you worry someone might overhear you. When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol. Eventually I understood this would only lead us to more trouble. So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts. Do my work quietly in school. Make only polite small talk in the public market. Discuss little more than trades in the Hob, which is the black market where I make most of my money. Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food ~ Suzanne Collins

Tits. Ass. Cock. I know those words, Mason, and I know you think I'm so deeply prissy and vanilla but I'm actually a big girl, so you can go ahead and use them on me."…
"You want it then?" His mutter was raspy and low and his eyes burned so deep into mine I felt paralyzed before he even spoke. "Fine, Taylor," he whispered, pressing his hand down hard on my thigh. "You walked in here and the first thing I thought of was how goddamned good you looked and how bad I wanted to rip that dress off those perfect tits of yours. I thought about what you'd look like in those boots and those boots alone and it turned me into a fucking crazy person for a second because I had some very real thoughts about grabbing you, taking you home and fucking you on my bed till I could hear those pretty lips screaming my name. does that get the point across or do you want to hear just how hard and deep I imagined my cock inside you."
Holy fuck.
Just like that, panties ruined. ~ Stella Rhys

A girl's best friend is her mutter. ~ Dorothy Parker

My kin would sooner have a badger in their house than a Campbell."
Alan saw his mother open hermouth and shook his head to silence her. He not only knew Shelby could hold her own but wanted to see her do it.
"Most MacGregors were comfortable enough with badgers in the parlor."
"Barbarians!" Daniel sucked in his breath. "The Campbells were barbarians, each and every one of them."
Shelby tilted her head as if to study him from a new angle. "The MacGregors have a reputation for being sore losers."
Instantly Daniel's face went nearly as red as his hair. "Losers? Hah! There's never been a Campbell born who could stand up to a MacGregor in a fair fight. Backstabbers."
"We'll have Rob Roy's biography again in a minute," Shelby heard Caine mutter. "You don't have a drink, Dad," he said, hoping to distract him. "Shelby?"
"Yes." She shifted her gaze to him, noting he was doing his best to maintain sobriety. "Scotch," she told him, with a quick irrepressible wink. "Straight up.If the MacGregors had been wiser," she continued without missing a beat, "perhaps they wouldn't have lost their land and their kilts and the name.Kings," she went on mildly as Daniel began to huff and puff, "have a habit of getting testy when someone's trying to overthrow them."
"Kings!" Daniel exploded. "An English king, by God! No true Scotsman needed an English king to tell him how to live on his land."
Shelby's lips curved as Caine handed her a glass. "That's a trut ~ Nora Roberts

You staked him. You actually staked him."
"It was handy. Let's get those medics in here. I don't want this guy skipping out on multiple murder charges by dying on me. I want to know the minute he's able to talk. I think we're going to get an interesting confession."
"It's supposed to be the heart." she heard Peabody mutter. "It's really supposed to be the heart."
Eve blew out a long breath. "Keep it up, Peabody, and I may have Mira shrink your head after she's done with the second-rate Dracula ~ J.D. Robb

One day, putting my finger on a spot in the very middle of the then white heart of Africa, I declared that some day I would go there ... It is a fact that, about eighteen years afterwards, a wretched little stern-wheel steamboat I commanded lay moored to the bank of an African river.

Everything was dark under the stars. Every other white man on board was asleep. I was glad to be alone on deck, smoking the pipe of peace after an anxious day. The subdued thundering mutter of the Stanley Falls hung in the heavy night air of the last navigable reach of the Upper Congo ... Away in the middle of the stream, on a little island nestling all black in the foam of the broken water, a solitary little light glimmered feebly, and I said to myself with awe, 'This is the very spot of my boyish boast.'

A great melancholy descended on me. Yes, this was the very spot. But there was no shadowy friend to stand by my side in the night of the enormous wilderness, no great haunting memory, but only the ... distasteful knowledge of the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience and geographical exploration. What an end to the idealised realities of a boy's daydreams!... Still, the fact remains that I have smoked a pipe of peace at midnight in the very heart of the African continent, and felt very lonely there. ~ Joseph Conrad

No really, Lainey. Give it a chance. Millions of readers can't be wrong."
"That's like saying millions of boy-band fans can't be wrong," I mutter, but I flip through a few more pages. ~ Paula Stokes

You're not making a whole lot of sense."
"I am in my head," I mutter. What does he need me to do here? Stand up on the table and yell, "Hello! Hot guy! I'm into you! ~ Allison Rushby

You're probably good at taking lip, aren't you?" I mutter more to myself than to my bodyguard, clawing through the suitcase for a T-shirt that isn't tight on me. "Like a CIA operative, right? Do bodyguards go to bodyguard school? Are you like the hitman in Hitman?"

He adjusts his cuffs. "You know the rule about fight club?"

I give him a surprised look. "So you can talk!"

He raises a single eyebrow. "I will be right outside your door if you need me. You have to be down at the lot in twenty minutes. I suggest you hurry." Then he takes his burly frame and saunters out of the room.

I shove my head into a clean shirt and pull my arms through just as my phone blips.

There's a message. Well, two messages.

Gail 8:36 AM

- HIS NAME IS LONNY. BE NICE.

"Lonny?" That name definitely is not fit for a three-hundred-pound machine of total annihilation, but okay ~ Ashley Poston

I will not be violent," I chant-mutter. "I will not be violent. I am peaceful and good. I do not want to give anyone the finger. ~ Carrie Jones

If you really want space on public transport you should carry some pornography from the 1970s and a pair of children's safety scissors, then delicately cut out all the eyes of the glamour models whilst whistling. Every now and again mutter, 'Why are women more beautiful when they are eyeless?' You will be able to stretch out, though this can have ramifications such as ending up on a police list or being run out of town. ~ Robin Ince

Stark though he heard Seoras mutter,"Arrogant feckr," at the same time Sgiach whispered, "Interesting. ~ Kristin Cast

The sanity of the average banquet speaker lasts about two and a half months; at the end of that time he begins to mutter to himself, and calls out in his sleep. ~ James Thurber

Courting is always difficult when the one being courted has an elderly female relative in the house; they tend to mutter or cackle or bum cigarettes or, in the worst cases, get out the family photograph album, an act of aggression in the sex war which ought to be banned by a Geneva Convention. ~ Terry Pratchett

God hates me," she heard him mutter. "Now there are two of them. ~ Nalini Singh

You sweet ... beautiful ... lunatic, he heard himself mutter. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Talking, talking, spinning a spell, pale skin of words that closes me in like a coffin. Not in a language that anyone any longer understands. Rushing, degenerate mutter of noises I send out before me wherever I creep, like a dragon burning his way through vines and fog. ~ John Gardner

Being an introvert is a tricky thing. You have tons of stuff you want to say, that might even be the right thing to say, but you find you can barely open your mouth to mutter a meager "hey, guys," without thinking it through ten times ~ Mary E. Twomey

It seems like I've only shut my eyes for a few minutes, but when I open them, I flinch at the sight of Haymitch sitting a couple of feet from my bed. Waiting. Possibly for several hours if the clck is right. I think about hollering for a witness, but I'm going to have to face him sooner or later.

Haymitch leans forward and dangles something on a thin white wire in front of my nose. It's hard to focus on, but I'm pretty sur what it is. He drops it in to the sheets. "That is your earpiece. I will give you exactly one more chance to wear it. If you remove it from your ear again, I'll have you fitted with this." He holds up some sort of metal headgear that I instantly name the head shackle. "It's alternative audio unit that locks around your skull and under your chin until it's opened with a key. And I'll have the only key. If for some reason you're clever enough to disable it" ---- Haymitch dumps the head shackle on the bed and whips out a tiny silver chip--- "I'll authorize them to surgically implant this transmitter into your ear so that I may speak to you twenty-four hours a day."
Haymitch in my head full-time. Horrifying. "I'll keep the earpiece in," I mutter
"Excuse me?" He says
"I'll keep the earpiece in!" I say loud enough to wake half the hospital.
"You sure? Because I'm equally happy with any of the three options," he tells me
"I'm sure," I say. I scrunch up the earpiece protectivley in my fist and fling the head shakle back in ~ Suzanne Collins

Why is your nose so red?
Snort coke much?

"Okay, Sunshine, it's on," I mutter, then type.

Charming. That's called walking-in-cold-wind nose. However, if I knew I'd be bumping into you,
I'd definitely have turned to drugs to help me through the trauma. ~ J.T. Geissinger

We know that Rangi can at least mutter because Digger Gibson says he used to talk to the bear. In his group home for orphaned Moa boys, Rangi had a pet cinnamon bear. I saw her once. She was just a wet-nosed cub, a cuff of pure white around her neck. Rangi found her on the banks of the Waitiki River and walked her around on a leash. He filed her claws and fed her tiny, smelly fishes. They shot her the day his new father, Digger, came to pick him up.
"Burying that bear," I overheard Digger tell Mr. Oamaru once. "The first thing we ever did together as father and son."
Rangi's given us this global silent treatment ever since, a silence he extends to people, animals, ice. ~ Karen Russell

When one is dining with the devil himself," I mutter, "a vast amount of preparation is in order. ~ Aprilynne Pike

THE NEXT MORNING, MUTTER stood at the front of his cage as six of the Almightys' Guards drug the body of the thing he'd called the Voice out of the room. It was oblong with no particular shape, just a blob. Two tiny arms stuck out from each side and four tentacles protruded from what was probably its head. A wet trail on the floor left by the Voice's body ran from the cell out the door. There was no way that thing had ever been a Guard. ~ L.S. O'Dea

Country gentlemen who read in their newspapers the speeches of this or that Minister would mutter to themselves that he was certainly a clever fellow. But the country gentlemen were not made comfortable by this thought. The country gentlemen had a strong suspicion that cleverness was somehow unBritish. That sort of restless, unpredictable brilliance belonged most of all to Britain's arch-enemy, the Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte; the country gentlemen could not approve it. ~ Susanna Clarke

So you weren't in college."
"I wasn't, no." She takes another sip. "Your father was though. He was visiting for spring break. I mugged him."
"You what?"
"You have to understand I didn't make very much money, even with two jobs. It hardly even paid for my food. I couldn't fish, because-"
"You didn't want anyone to sense you in the water." Otherwise, she could have been pretty self-sufficient.
She nods. "So one day I see this group of cocky college students, spending money left and right. Pulling wads of cash out of their pockets to pay for small purchases, like ice cream." She rolls her eyes. "They were flashing it. They wanted people to know they were rich."
"Doesn't mean they wanted people to mug them," I mutter. ~ Anna Banks

If "fast" and "slow" animals had parties, writes the evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson, "some of the fasts would bore everyone with their loud conversation, while others would mutter into their beer that they don't get any respect. Slow animals are best described as shy, sensitive types. They don't assert themselves, but they are observant and notice things that are invisible to the bullies. They are the writers and artists at the party who have interesting conversations out of earshot of the bullies. They are the inventors who figure out new ways to behave, while the bullies steal their patents by copying their behavior. ~ Susan Cain

Colt lies on my bed and pulls me down behind him. I expect him to go for my clothes, but instead he kisses me again.
"Blanket." I mutter, between kisses.
"If you're cold I'm doing something wrong. ~ Nyrae Dawn

Clear up??" said Ron, looking around at the partly destroyed café. "Why?"
"Don't you think they might wonder what's happened if they wake up and find themselves in a place that looks like it's just been bombed?"
"Oh right, yeah…"
Ron struggled for a moment before managing to extract his wand from his pocket.
"It's no wonder I can't get it out, Hermione, you packed my old jeans, they're tight."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," hissed Hermione, and as she dragged the waitress out of sight of the windows, Harry heard her mutter a suggestion as to where Ron could stick his wand instead. ~ J.K. Rowling

Stop or I'll kill him!" Sophia shouted at the angels as she tore out a fistful of arrows and leaped on Cam. Straddling him, she raised the silver shafts above his head.
His dark hair was matted and greasy. His hands were pale and trembling. Miss Sophia studied these details with a smirk.
"I do so love to see an angel die." She cackled, holding the starshots high. "And such an arrogant one to kill." She looked back down at Cam. "His death will be a beautiful thing to behold."
"Go ahead." Cam's voice came for the first time, low and even. Luce nearly cried out when she heard him mutter: "I never asked for a happy ending."
Luce had watched Sophia kill Penn with her bare hands and no remorse. It would not happen again. "No!" Luce shouted, struggling to break free from Daniel's grip and dragging him with her into the chapel.
Slowly Miss Sophia craned her body around toward Luce and Daniel, clutching her fistful of starshots. Her eyes gleamed silver and her thin lips curled in a ghastly smile as Luce tugged Daniel forward, pulling against his relentless grip.
"We have to stop her, Daniel!"
"No, Luce, it's too dangerous."
"Oh, there you are, dear." Miss Sophia beamed. "And Daniel Grigori! How nice. I've been waiting for you." Then she winked and whipped the starshots over her head in a dense cluster aimed straight at Daniel and Luce. ~ Lauren Kate

In a British accent, he tells me his name is Dr.Nawaz, and suddenly I want to be away from this man, because I don't think I can bear what he has come to tell me. He says the boy had cut himself deeply and had lost a great deal of blood and my mouth begins to mutter that prayer again:
La illaha ila Allah, Muhammad u rasul ullah.
They had to transfuse several units of red cells-
How will I tell Soraya?
Twice, they had to revive him-
I will do namaz, I will do zakat.
They would have lost him if his heart hadn't been young and strong-
I will fast.
He is alive. ~ Khaled Hosseini

Even though he was inside the house, I could still hear Vlad's sardonic mutter of "Where's a tissue when I need one?"
I turned my face away from Bones after a long moment, ending our kiss, and called out,
"If you're not too busy watching Hitman, I hear Dracula 2000 is a good movie."
"Vicious," came Vlad's reply, amusement clear in his tone. ~ Jeaniene Frost

Oh good, you're ready."
"No, I've only just got out of the bath. What should I put on?"
"Put on?" he says in obvious mystification.
"Well I've only got a towel on." When he still doesn't get it I sigh. God, he's so dense sometimes. "Charlie, I haven't got any knickers on," I mutter.
His eyes seem to darken and then he starts laughing. "Mabel, I'm shocked. What sort of massages have you been having? I'm not massaging down there however much you expect it. I'm not that type of boy! ~ Lily Morton

When he has disappeared, Mother clears her throat. I don't turn around and look at her in the rocking chair. I don't want her to see the disappointment in my face that he's gone.
"Go ahead, Mother," I finally mutter. "Say what you want to say."
"Don't you let him cheapen you."
I look back at her, eye her suspiciously, even though she is so frail under the wool blanket. Sorry is the fool who ever underestimates my mother.
"If Stuart doesn't know how intelligent and kind I raised you to be, he can march straight on back to State Street." She narrows her eyes at the winter land. "Frankly, I don't care much for Stuart. He doesn't know how lucky he was to have you. ~ Kathyrn Stockett

The crime rates would go right down, I think, if Americans stopped saying: 'Have a nice day,' to one another. At least it would stop me from contemplating violence; when people in shops & so on order me to have a nice day in this authoritarian way, I want to kill, kill, kill. When I mutter 'sod off' under my breath, they think it is a Russian Orthodox benediction. ~ Susannah Clapp

Everytime I say "sure" when I mean "no," everytime I smile brightly when I'm exploding with rage, every time I imagine my man's achievement is my own, I know the cheerleader never really died. I feel her shaking her ass inside me and I hear her breathless, girlish voice mutter "T-E-A-M, Yea, Team. ~ Louise Bernikow

Ryder! What's taking you so long?"
"I'm on my way!" he yells back.
It feels like forever before he pushes open the door and ducks inside. Then I see why it took him so long. He's somehow got the three cats tucked under one arm and the cake plate clutched in the other hand. No spare for a flashlight or lantern--so he accomplished this all in the dark.
"Here," he says, handing off the cake to me before releasing Kirk, Spock, and Sulu into the crate and latching the door.
"Seriously, Ryder? You brought the cake?"
He shrugs. "I was hungry."
Hmm, I guess all that kissing worked up his appetite. For cake. I'm not sure if I should be offended or not. On the plus side, he doesn't look like he's about to puke. So we're making progress as far as his fear of storms goes. I guess that's something.
"Did you happen to bring a fork?" I ask, setting the plate on the makeshift tabletop.
He produces two from his pocket, holding them up triumphantly. So we eat cake while the sirens blare. Actually, it doesn't sound that bad out there. Still, the fact that we're so calm--that Ryder's so calm--should tell you how routine this is getting. As long as we don't hear that awful freight-train sound, we're good.
"What happened to the cake?" he asks between bites. "It looks like someone mutilated it while I was gone."
"Sorry," I mutter. "Guess I did some stress bingeing. You realize you're not wearing a shirt, right?"
He glances down and shrugs, his ~ Kristi Cook

Salty tears stream down my face - coating my lips as I mutter senseless apologies for so many things. So many irreversible things.
Morpheus peels the vines off and lifts me, cradling me to his chest. ~ A.G. Howard

Those terms haunt me, -- in the way of all aspersions that contain a germ of truth. I have been unable to banish them. They sit on my shoulders and mutter in my ears during all my moments of doubt. ~ Alyson Foster

Pixies have to be invited in, like vampires. I read it on the Internet."
"Well, there you go," I mutter. "Then it must be true. ~ Carrie Jones

If nobody talks about books, if they are not discussed or somehow contended with, literature ceases to be a conversation, ceases to be dynamic. Most of all, it ceases to be intimate. It degenerates into a monologue or a mutter. An unreviewed book is a struck bell that gives no resonance. Without reviews, literature would be oddly mute in spite of all those words on all those pages of all those books. Reviewing makes of reading a participant sport, not a spectator sport. ~ Patricia Hampl

I want to stay," and then, more weakly, "Need some more sun."
A fly from a batch of seaweed lands on a white, bony thigh. She doesn't slap at it. It doesn't go away.
"But there's no sun, dude." I tell her.
I start to walk away. So what, I mutter under my breath. When she wants to come in, she will. Imagine a blind person dreaming. I head back up toward the house. Wonder if Griffin will stick around, if Mona made reservations for dinner, if Spin will call back. "I know what the word dead means," I whisper to myself as softly as I can because it sounds like an omen. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

How's Tucker? You guys an actual thing?"

"We're something," I mutter.

"What's that supposed to mean? You've been seeing him since the end of October. That's more than four months. In Sabrina Land, you might as well be engaged."

Actually, eighteen weeks and three days, but who's counting besides me and my OB? ~ Elle Kennedy

Hey Cara," Crispin Calaway says. "Just wanted to drop these off for you. You need to get cracking on your chemistry studying if you want to understand the class." He sets a notebook down in front of me.
I pull it toward me with one finger, as if it's diseased. "Who says I want to understand the class?" I mutter.
"That's the spirit," he tells me pleasantly. ~ Haley Fisher

Yes. Yes, thank you," Headmistress McGonagal cal ed over the applause. "That wil be enough. We are al quite, er, happy that we have young Mr. Potter here with us this year. Now, if you'l please resume your seats…" James began his ascent of the dais while the applause died down. As he turned and sat down on the chair, he heard the Headmistress mutter, "So we can finish this and have dinner before the next equinox. ~ G. Norman Lippert

Behind her, she heard Lyre's exasperated mutter.
"We incubi might claim to understand them," he grumbled to Ash, "but no male can actually comprehend how a woman's mind works."
"It's safer not to even try. ~ Annette Marie

Sometimes I thought of Him as a cloud in the sky; ... sometimes as simply an enormous white light. Whatever the image, I would imagine Him close to me. And then I would wait, listening to my breath, until the silence came. And I would mutter: I give myself to You. ~ Ayad Akhtar

Perhaps it was Maggie, perhaps not. In solitary moments magpies will perch on a branch and mutter soft soliloquies of whines and squeals and chatterings, oblivious to what goes on around them. It is one of those things, I suppose, intelligence now and then does, must in fact now and then do, must think, must play, must imagine, must talk to itself ... What, finally, intelligence could be for: finding your way back. ~ Stanley Crawford

I super don't like you right now," I mutter as I grasp the bars of our jail cell.

"They can't keep us in here and they know it," Hunter answers, pacing leisurely behind me.

I continue staring straight ahead. "We've been crime-fighting almost two years, and this has never happened. People know we're the good guys!"

"It's just some new guys trying to show who's boss around here. In the lamest way possible. ~ Jes Drew

Truth! why shall every wretch of letters Dare to speak truth against his betters! Let ragged virtue stand aloof, Nor mutter accents of reproof; Let ragged wit a mute become, When wealth and power would have her dumb. ~ Charles Churchill

You raised me to fight monsters," I mutter, stepping forward with my sword. "It took me far too long to understand that the real monster was you. ~ Tomi Adeyemi

Forward, intending to give the boy a reassuring pat on the shoulder or mutter some word of apology. He never saw the wolf, where it was or how it came at him. One moment he was walking toward Snow and the next he was flat on his back on the hard rocky ground, the book spinning away from him as he fell, the breath going out of him at the sudden impact, his mouth full of dirt and blood and rotting leaves. As he tried to get up, his back spasmed painfully. He must have wrenched it in the fall. He ground his teeth in frustration, grabbed a root, and pulled himself back to a sitting position. "Help me," he said to the boy, reaching up a hand. And suddenly the wolf was between them. He did not growl. The damned thing never made a sound. He only looked at him ~ George R R Martin

You will be my favorite ex," I whispered in his ear. "I'll be your fifth former wife. We'll mutter crazy dreams together then apart, but you will always be with me." His breath was warm and so very human, not demonic at all. He said, "Don't break my nose." I said, "I won't even break your heart. ~ Monica Drake

Emma must feel Jake stiffen because she pulls back. He can't see her eyes in the dark and wonders if she is going to say something. Instead she kisses him on the mouth. Then her hand slides slowly down his chest and stomach. She doesn't slip it inside his jeans. She just presses it against his erection.
Jake inhales sharply, and he's pretty sure he hears Duncan mutter, "Get a room. ~ Thomas Fahy

I grit my teeth. Despite everything, I mutter with a smile, "No."
"No, what?"
"No, I'm glad you came."
"I haven't ... yet."I slap my book across his arm, blushing furiously.
"You're impossible."
"And you're incredible. ~ K.A. Tucker

The clouds were flying fast, the wind was coming up in gusts, banging some neighboring shutters that had broken loose, twirling the rusty chimney-cowls and weathercocks, and rushing round and round a confined adjacent churchyard as if it had a mind to blow the dead citizens out of their graves. The low thunder, muttering in all quarters of the sky at once, seemed to threaten vengeance for this attempted desecration, and to mutter, Let them rest! Let them rest! ~ Charles Dickens

There were vases of silk roses carefully centered on crocheted doilies, figurines of puppies carrying roses in their mouths on lace doilies, and delicate rose-covered tea sets placed on paper doilies. And that was just the start of it. It all had a really old feel to it as well, like I'd been transported back to the 1890s.
Adrian stood behind us, just outside the door, and I was pretty sure I heard him mutter, Needs more rabbits. ~ Richelle Mead

Zach finally acknowledges me when my elbow smacks against his side as I shove my way between him and Rachel. He straightens and mumbles so only I can hear, "Damn, she gives me a hard-on. Gorgeous, and she knows cars."
"I suggest you back the f*ck off," I mutter.
Zach smirks. > "Hey, you're the one that left her here with me."
"What are you guys talking about?" Rachel asks.
"Cars," I say. "You said you needed to be home by ten. It's nine-thirty."
She blinks as if she just woke up. "Crap. Already?"
I step aside so Rachel can exit the driver's seat. Because Rachel is every guy's fantasy, Zach begs her to stay: she should see the engine, she can ride in his car, she can drive his car. Each of his attempts to lure her to stay causes me to think of one more way to hide the body parts after I kill him. ~ Katie McGarry

Derek turned to face Stiles, his expression falling into a very familiar stare of utter disgruntled bitchiness. "Would you like more water?"

Stiles squinted, resisting the urge to mutter, ' not sure if angry, or just emotionally constipated,' under his breath. Instead, he pursed his lips and attempted to lay on the old Stilinski charm by blurting out, "I could do with something a little... harder."

It was almost disturbing how Derek was able to stare back at Stiles without blinking once. "I have beer," he said slowly, cautiously.

Stiles narrowed his eyes, echoing the tone of Derek's voice, "...harder."

".... pudding?" Derek ventured, as if pudding was actually a viable option when Stiles was demanding something harder than beer. ~ Tylerfucklin

Kovacs to a female believer in New Revelation: ..I'm calling you a gutless betrayer of your sex. I can see your husband's angle, he's a man, he's got everything to gain from this crapshit. But you? You've thrown away centuries of political struggle and scientific advance so you can sit in the dark and mutter your superstitions of unworth to yourself. You'll let your life, the most precious thing you have, be stolen from you hour by hour and day by day as long as you can eke out the existence your males will let you have. And then, when you finally die, and I hope it's soon, sister, I really do, then at the last you'll spite your own potential and shirk the final power we've won for ourselves to come back and try again. You'll do all of this because of your fucking faith, and if that child in your belly is female, then you'll condemn her to the same fucking thing ~ Richard K. Morgan

NINA
Your life is beautiful.

TRIGORIN
I see nothing especially lovely about it. [He looks at his watch] Excuse me, I must go at once, and begin writing again. I am in a hurry. [He laughs] You have stepped on my pet corn, as they say, and I am getting excited, and a little cross. Let us discuss this bright and beautiful life of mine, though. [After a few moments' thought] Violent obsessions sometimes lay hold of a man: he may, for instance, think day and night of nothing but the moon. I have such a moon. Day and night I am held in the grip of one besetting thought, to write, write, write! Hardly have I finished one book than something urges me to write another, and then a third, and then a fourth--I write ceaselessly. I am, as it were, on a treadmill. I hurry for ever from one story to another, and can't help myself. Do you see anything bright and beautiful in that? Oh, it is a wild life! Even now, thrilled as I am by talking to you, I do not forget for an instant that an unfinished story is awaiting me. My eye falls on that cloud there, which has the shape of a grand piano; I instantly make a mental note that I must remember to mention in my story a cloud floating by that looked like a grand piano. I smell heliotrope; I mutter to myself: a sickly smell, the colour worn by widows; I must remember that in writing my next description of a summer evening. I catch an idea in every sentence of yours or of my own, and hasten to lock all these treasures in my lit ~ Anton Chekhov

If you find yourself in conversation with someone you know and that person brings up someone you both know and before he says another word you mutter, "That guy's a fucking asshole," you might be a little bitter. If you find yourself dismissing universally acclaimed landmark achievements, saying, for example, "The Godfather is an okay movie," you might be bitter. ~ Marc Maron

Ryodan doesn't like Mac. He never has. She got between him and his best boy-bud. I give him a look. "I'll tell you a secret, Ryodan. You mess with her, Barrons'll kill you." I drag a finger across my neck. "Just like that. You aren't all that. Barrons'll stomp your ass, hand's down."

He smiles faintly. "I'll be damned. You have a crush on Barrons."

"I do not have a crush - "

"You do, too. It's all over your face. Anybody could see it."

"Sometimes, boss, you're just wrong."

"I'm never wrong. You might as well take out a billboard. 'Dani O'Malley thinks Jericho Barrons is hot.' My offer to teach you is still open. Save you from future embarrassment. If I can see it on your face, he can, too. "

"He never figured it out before," I grumble then realize I just admitted it. Ryodan has a tricky way of wording things that makes you say things you didn't mean to say. "Maybe I'll ask Barrons to teach me," I mutter and turn away from the stairs, heading for his office. I run smack into his chest. "Dude, move. Trying to get somewhere here."

"No one but me is ever going to teach you, Dani."

He touches me before I see it coming, has his hand under my chin, turning my face up. My shiver is instant and uncontrollable.

"That's non-negotiable. You signed a contract with me that grants exclusivity. You won't like it if you try to break it. ~ Karen Marie Moning

Somewhere," he told her, "somewhere else lived a boy and a girl beside the sea and as they grew older they grew more transparent. At first blue blood vessels and then bones bloomed beneath the skin but soon they could see the shapes of the world behind their bodies, the shudder of leaves like shadows in the brain, a butterfly's flutter in the mutter of the heart, beetles in the coils of the bowels. They watched wine whirl down each other's throats and the sun rise up each other's spines, stepping vertically vertebra to vertebra. Soon the only substance they obtained was when their bodies overlapped and so they clasped each other, peering for the vestiges of eyes, teeth, ears, smears against the landscape. And one day they kissed and disappeared. ~ Keith Miller

Claybourne grabbed his arm, stopping his forward movement. "Do we have a plan?"
"Get Emma out alive and I don't care who the hell dies in the bloody process." Breaking free of the hold, Swindler began running toward the gate.
"I do hope he's not including us in the 'who the hell dies' arena," he heard Greystone mutter.
"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you," Dodger responded. "I do believe the man's in love. ~ Lorraine Heath

I mutter and mutter and no one to listen. I speak my words in Japanese and my daughter will not hear them. The words that come from our ears, our mouths, they collide in the space between us.
"Obachan, please! I wish you would stop that. Is it too much to ask for some peace and quiet? You do this on purpose, don't you? Don't you! I just want some peace. Just stop! Please, just stop."
"Gomennasai. Waruine, Obachan wa. Solly. Solly."
Ha! Keiko, there is method in my madness. I could stand on my head and quote Shakespeare until I had a nosebleed, but to no avail, no one hears my language. So I sit and say the words and will, until the wind or I shall die. Someone, something must stand against this wind and I will. I am. ~ Hiromi Goto

Get over yourself," I mutter. "I'd be wet if any guy was rubbing up against me."
"Bull. Fucking. Shit." His thumb brushes my clit. I almost fall over.
"It's me. You want me. ~ Elle Kennedy

There are all kinds of pedants around with more time to read and imitate Lynne Truss and John Humphrys than to write poems, love-letters, novels and stories it seems. They whip out their Sharpies and take away and add apostrophes from public signs, shake their heads at prepositions which end sentences and mutter at split infinitives and misspellings, but do they bubble and froth and slobber and cream with joy at language? Do they ever let the tripping of the tips of their tongues against the tops of their teeth transport them to giddy euphoric bliss? Do they ever yoke impossible words together for the sound-sex of it? Do they use language to seduce, charm, excite, please, affirm and tickle those they talk to? Do they? I doubt it. They're too farting busy sneering at a greengrocer's less than perfect use of the apostrophe. Well sod them to Hades. They think they're guardians of language. They're no more guardians of language than the Kennel Club is the guardian of dogkind. ~ Stephen Fry

How is your father?" she asks disinterestedly.
"A contrivance," I mutter. "A plot device. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

His kisses to her neck were growing hungry and her insides were heating up,but she managed to mutter a terse,I would rather eat my own eyeballs than sit at the table with those bastards. ~ Laura Wright

Though we are confident that Blessed Martin had no serious sins with which to reproach himself, though his contemporaries assure us that they had moral certitude that he had ever preserved his baptismal innocence, he regarded himself, like St. Paul, as the least of all men and unworthy of the habit he wore. Martin never lost an opportunity of being humiliated; he gladly received any personal insults and injuries as an ordinary person would receive favors. Indeed, he evidenced clear signs of gratitude to those who humbled him - he looked upon them as his real benefactors, and nothing caused him so much affliction of the soul and mental anguish as hearing himself the object of praise. When he found himself thus honored, especially by those distinguished by their good sense and their position of dignity in the community, he promptly sought out the most hidden place and there mercilessly inflicted upon himself a penance, usually in the form of the discipline. When it was impossible for him to retire, he had the habit of striking his breast unobtrusively and humbling himself before Almighty God. Even at times, especially when he was not conscious of the fact that he was being observed, strange words of self-deprecation fell from his lips. We are assured that he often repeated epithets of scorn, that he would mutter: 'What real merit have you? Remember that you ought to be nothing but a slave. Only through the mercy of God are you tolerated by these holy religious. ~ J.C. Kearns

I bring the petals to my nose and breathe deeply. "Where did it come from?"
Seth smiles. "A garden."
"A garden?" I repeat, raising an eyebrow.
He laughs.
"You think you're so clever," I mutter. "It must be nice, conjuring up whatever you want whenever you want it."
"It has it's perks. ~ Katie Klein

He went into another bar already drunk, found himself confronted by a ghost. Earlier that night he had glimpsed hints of them
in the curl of a lip that sparked a memory, a flicker of an eyelid, the way someone's hand lingered on a tabletop. Those shoes. That dress. But when you encountered a real ghost
the Thing Entire
it was a shock ... it took your breath. Not away. It didn't take your breath away
your breath wasn't going anywhere. Your breath was still in you, locked up, not of use to you. Took your pulse only to mutter dire predictionsfor the future because the Ghost Entire trapped Control somewhere between the person he had been and the person he had become. And yet it was still just a wraith. Just a woman he had known in high school. ~ Jeff VanderMeer

As iAm cracked the door to his brother's room, the poor bastard's suffering stained the very air, making it hard to breathe - and even see properly.
Then again, everything was dark by design.
"Trez?"
The moaned answer was nothing good, a combination of wounded animal and sore throat from throwing up.
iAm lifted his wrist into the light streaming in from behind and cursed at his Piaget.
By this time, the SOB should have been solidly in recovery, his body digging itself out of the headache hole that had swallowed him. Not the case.
"You want something for your stomach?"
Mumble, mumble, groan, mumble?
"Okay, I'm sure they've got some."
Mumble, moan, moan. Mutter, mutter.
"Yeah, that, too. You want some Milanos?"
Mmmmmmmmmoan.
"Roger that. ~ J.R. Ward

A greyish substance that might be blood. Remembering the spray I caught earlier, I wipe a hand across my face and it comes away wet and sticky with the same grey liquid. "I'd kill for a shower," I mutter, chuckling darkly at the sick joke. Juni cuts a long, jagged line through the creature's flesh, ~ Darren Shan

I am beginning to be sorry that I ever undertook to write this book. Not that it bores me; I have nothing else to do; indeed, it is a welcome distraction from eternity. But the book is tedious, it smells of the tomb, it has a rigor mortis about it; a serious fault, and yet a relatively small one, for the great defect of this book is you, reader. You want to live fast, to get to the end, and the book ambles along slowly; you like straight, solid narrative and a smooth style, but this book and my style are like a pair of drunks; they stagger to the right and to the left, they start and they stop, they mutter, they roar, they guffaw, they threaten the sky, they slip and fall ...
And fall! Unhappy leaves of my cypress tree, you had to fall, like everything else that is lovely and beautiful; if I had eyes, I would shed a tear of remembrance for you. And this is the great advantage in being dead, that if you have no mouth with which to laugh, neither have you eyes with which to cry. ~ Machado De Assis

Grumpy Wes stomps into the bedroom and I follow him, because it's one of two functional rooms in our place. I set down the coffee maker and watch while he throws off his shirt and climbs onto our giant bed. "Would you please get over here?" he whines. "It's an emergency." "It's a good thing you're so attractive," I mutter as I ditch my shoes. "I had no idea that stepping into a store turned you into cryin' Ryan." I walk over to the bed where a shirtless, ripped man lies waiting for me, his expression burning up with lust. ~ Sarina Bowen

Take a moment. What was it you saw when you were moved to pick up the camera? I'm going to pretend I didn't hear you mutter something about thinking "it looked cool." Dig deeper. Was it a thought, a feeling, a simple moment when your eyes did a double-take at the intersection of two lines? Was it a lick of light, two blocks of color? ~ David DuChemin

I didn't even care about being cautious. It would serve him right that I be killed while he pretended to flirt with coeds. I started to mutter. Something I did often when irritated. "I should frame him for my death. I could scroll his name on the sidewalk in my blood just to give the local authorities a direction to focus their investigation." Spending ~ L.A. Fiore

I can hear your whisper and distant mutter. I can smell your damp on the breeze and in the sky I see the halo of your violence. Storm I know you are coming. ~ Robert Fanney

The swathe of misfortune is a twisted repellent cloth, one we turn our nose at, as we mutter, no thanks. But is hardship ever warranted? The question - why me, slides off every tongue. Does anyone ask - why should it not be me? We believe tragedy should strike faceless strangers. Yet every face is familiar, and treasured by someone. ~ Nancy-Gail Burns

Otter. Otter. Otter," I mutter. "Yes, Bear?" he says beautifully. "Don't lead cows to slaughter," I say. He arches an eyebrow. "Come again?" I take a deep breath. "I ... love you and I know I should've told ya soon-a." His eyes widen slightly. "Wait, what? You ... me?" I shake my head. "But you didn't buy the dolphin-safe tuna." "Bear, what the hell? Did you just ... rhyme? ~ T.J. Klune

Trapped in a conspiracy
of chance we sit close inside
this sardine can on wheels
horning the gasfume streets

of this dust-tired afternoon.
How your shoulders
strain your shirt; a stray wind cools
your sweat in my skin.

"This heat," I mutter,
"melts the very bones,"
saying this as I feel
inside me awakening

sweet April, fragrant May
unfolding flower fingers
on her lap. ~ Merlie M. Alunan

She didn't get this pish from you, did she? Because I'm still looking for a reason to lop off one of your appendages after what you did to her, and this looks like the perfect excuse."

"For god's sake," I mutter.

Gavin backs up with his hands raised. "Don't blame me. I might have presented the idea, but she's the one who sauntered off with it."

Derrick narrows his eyes. "Aileana, is that true?"

"Yes," I snap. "Well, not the sauntering. I don't saunter."

"Does . . . this mean I get to keep my appendages?" Gavin asks.

"For now," Derrick says, holding up the needle in a clear threat. ~ Elizabeth May

Robert could piss in a cup and men would call it wine, but I offer them cold clear water and they squint in suspicion and mutter to each other about how queer it tastes. ~ George R R Martin

Going north, he thought, but that was wrong. Not going north. Because it's not a train; it's a time machine. Not north; back. Back in time. He thought he heard the moon mutter. ~ Stephen King

I hate this," I mutter.
"Really? I'm having a grand time," Aithinne says brightly.
"That's because you're barmy."
"I believe you just mispronounced 'magnificent'. ~ Elizabeth May

Sam held one of the mice up by its tail over the box and then hesitated. "Her, you want to have a go?"...
If Sam thought she was going to squeal at the sight of nature in the raw, he had a lot to learn.
Bella fed the owlet, cheering as he gulped down his food with a greedy intensity that bode well for the little guy's future recovery. And she grinned to herself when she heard Sam mutter under this breath. "This has got to be the weirdest first date in history. ~ Deborah Blake

My love, why did you leave me on Lexington Avenue in the Ford that had no brakes?
It stalled in the traffic and broke down outside her window. She was writing a letter: I love you very much: Careful Now in capitals.
That was a different letter.
Yes, but I get confused. One day she saw a golden oriel in the orchard. One day she said, Then have your orgy with Blondie, work out your passion on her.
I see it all, the poop of burnished gold. If I got angry and made a scene?
But No. No.
No, I believe you, of course, I believe you for didn't you say I was the one? Yes, you said, Take care of this girl for she is what makes my blood circulate and all the stars revolve and the seasons return.
This was my dream, and why I had circles under my eyes this morning at breakfast. Everyone noticed it, and I think one of them sniggered.
You don't take much interest in politics, do you? You never read the newspapers? I drank my coffee, but I had a slight feeling of nausea. It's to be expected, I don't mind it at all, it's nothing.
My love, are you feeling better?
He can't talk, he can only mutter.
O my dear, O my dear, drink a little milk, lie down and rest a little. I will comfort you. I can carry love like Saint Christopher. It is heavy, but I can carry it. It's the stones of suspicion I stumble on. Did I say suspicion? No.
No. No. It's nothing. I love you. A slight feeling of nausea, that's all.
After a while I got out into the ~ Elizabeth Smart

Now that he was semidressed, I recovered enough to say, "Not really. But I guess if you want me to hold a conversation with you, you should keep your clothes on."
He gestured for me to follow him through the house, and I thought I heard him mutter, "Conversation is so overrated. ~ Renae Kaye

In the sheltered heart of the clumps last year's foliage still clings to the lower branches, tatters of orange that mutter with the passage of the wind, the talk of old women warning the green generation of what they, too, must come to when the sap runs back. ~ Jacquetta Hawkes

My nerves bubble up, but the look in his eyes stop them. There's no mistaking the passion there, but under that layer is so much honesty, it knocks the wind out of me.
"The way you look at me...," I mutter.
"Is the way you make me feel," Eli finishes my half statement. ~ Corinne Michaels

I'm vaguely aware of the sound of approaching footsteps, but it takes me a second to make the connection--to remember why I'd come out here in the first place.
"Jemma?"
Damn. I sit up and pull the earbuds from my ears, swinging my legs over the side of the table.
"Figured I'd find you out here," Ryder says, drawing up beside me.
I decide to act surprised. "What are you doing here?"
His brow creases. "I told you I was coming, remember?"
"Oh. Right."
"By the way, you might want to call your parents and tell 'em where you are."
I shrug. "Did you see Nan?"
"Yeah. She looks okay, considering she just had brain surgery. She's awfully quiet, though."
"It's better when she's quiet," I mutter, remembering the way she yelled at me for not plumping her pillow just so after dinner. "Trust me. ~ Kristi Cook

How dare you touch my cookies, you bastard!" Jason said in utter disgust before popping the cookie into his mouth and heading back to his house.
"Damn those looked good, too," Brad grumbled.
Haley sighed. "Don't worry I have a second plate on my counter." The words were barely out of her mouth when Jason abruptly changed course and headed towards her house.
"Well, there was," she said, watching Jason walk into her house like he owned it. A minute later he walked out of her house, carrying both plates and the gallon of milk she had in her fridge. He headed back to his house, but not before he glared at Brad. "You cookie thieving bastard," they heard him mutter.
Brad rolled his eyes, chuckling. "And people wonder how I lost weight rooming with him in college. ~ R.L. Mathewson

I have a pesky little critic in the back of my mind. He's a permanent fixture and passes judgment on everything I write.
In order to placate him, especially when I'm endeavoring to write anything as ambitious as a novel, I have to constantly mutter, 'I'm not writing a masterpiece, I'm not writing a masterpiece.'
This mantra lulls him into a kind of stupor so that he pays no attention to what I'm doing, because after all, I'm not claiming it's any good. Slowly, and secretly, one page at a time, I write my story.
I know I've succeeded when he grudgingly admits, 'That's pretty good.' And if I'm lucky, every once in a while, I blow him away. ~ Rukhsana Khan

Will glanced over at Cordelia and smiled. "We could ask for no lovelier girl to be his wife."
Alastair looked as if he wished to edge away. Cordelia didn't blame him. "Thank you, Mr. Herondale," she said. "I hope to live up to your expectations."
Tessa looked surprised. "Why would you ever worry about that?"
"Cordelia worries," Alastair said unexpectedly, "because of the idiots who mutter about our father, and our family. She should not let them bother her."
Tessa laid a gentle hand on Cordelia's shoulder. "The cruel will always spread rumors," she said. "And others who take pleasure in that cruelty will believe them and spread them. But I believe that in the end, truth wins out. Besides," she added with a smile, "the most interesting women are always the most whispered about. ~ Cassandra Clare

Fuck it,' I hear him mutter, and the next thing I know he's taking hold of my hand. ~ Samantha Towle

Sloppy, Mega," I mutter. I still can't see. I wipe my bloody nose on my sleeve and reach out to feel what I hit.
"That's my dick," Ryodan says.
I snatch my hand away. "Gah!" I choke out. I can feel my face again - because, like, it's going up in flames. What kind of universe makes me reach out at exactly that fecking level to feel what I think is a wall and puts my hand on a penis?
Then I remember this is Ryodan and scowl. "You did that on purpose!" I accuse. "You saw my hand go out and you stepped right into it!"
"I'd do that why, kid? ~ Karen Marie Moning

Uh-oh," Brynna says. "Here comes Caleb."
"Caleb, I'd like to introduce - "
"Fine," says Caleb, Brynna's husband, holding his hand up for me to stop talking. "I know who you are. And I don't give a flying fuck. If you hurt her, I'll kill you and make it look like you did it to yourself, do you understand me?"
"Well, that's lovely," I mutter. "And unnecessary."
"He's here?" Will chimes in, hurrying over. "Dude, we'll kill you. But welcome. ~ Kristen Proby