Namesake Quotes

Wild horses wouldn't have made Daniel admit that his wife, Anna, would have lectured him for an hour if she'd known what he was up to.Daniel considered it basic strategy not to tell her until it was done. "Since she's been moping and sighing around here," he lied without qualm, "I thought I'd bury my pride and call you myself.It's time you took a weekend and came to see your mother."
Alan lifted a wry brow, knowing his father all too well. "I'd think she'd be all wrapped up in her first prospective granchild. How is Rena?"
"You can see for yourself this weekend," Daniel informed him. "I-that is, Rena and Justin have decided they want to spend a weekend with the family. Caine and Diana are coming too."
"You've been busy," Alan murmured.
"What was that? Don't mumble, boy."
"I said you'll be busy," Alan amended prudently.
"For your mother's sake, I can sacrifice my peace and quiet.She worries about all of you-you especially since you're still without wife and family.The firstborn," he added, working himself up, "and both your brother and sister settled before you. The eldest son,my own father's namesake, and too busy flitting around to do his duty to the MacGregor line."
Alan thought about his grueling morning and nearly smiled. "The MacGregor line seems to be moving along nicely. Maybe Rena'll have twins. ~ Nora Roberts

I've outgrown my childhood name, and I haven't found a new one yet."
"Ah," she cried. "Then it will be my pleasure to name you for myself. I can tell you are a colleen after my own heart, more like to me than my own daughter Findbhair. So I bestow on you the brave name of Maeve until such a time as another name shall claim you. ~ Elizabeth Cunningham

Fledgling designers need investment - but how much easier it is to put them in a dead man or woman's shoes, perhaps also backing the new designer's namesake line, but only as what the French call a 'danseuse,' a plaything. ~ Suzy Menkes

And hope is but a dream of those that wake. ~ Matthew Prior

As I came closer, it took shape: long, slender, and curling, with numerous heart-shaped leaves. I felt my soul leap inside me.
For Ivy's tree was now hung with her namesake. Jade-green ivy clutched the bark with such strength that, no matter how hard you pulled, it would never let go.
I know I started crying then.
My friends came to my side at once, patting my back and telling me that everything was going to be okay. And though the tears kept coming, I knew they were right. Everything was really going to be fine now.
Because here, in front of me, was something I'd been hoping and praying for. I'd been searching for a sign, a signal to give me comfort in Ivy's passing and to tell me she was okay. And at last, here it was, growing all around me. ~ Colleen Boyd

Pack a pillow and blanket and see as much of the world as you can.You will not regret it. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

Miltons were, on the whole, the most enthusiastic poet followers. A flick through the London telephone directory would yield about four thousand John Miltons, two thousand William Blakes, a thousand or so Samuel Colleridges, five hundred Percy Shelleys, the same of Wordsworth and Keats, and a handful of Drydens. Such mass name-changing could have problems in law enforcement. Following an incident in a pub where the assailant, victim, witness, landlord, arresting officer and judge had all been called Alfred Tennyson, a law had been passed compelling each namesake to carry a registration number tattooed behind the ear. It hadn't been well received
few really practical law-enforcement measures ever are. ~ Jasper Fforde

Tell me about your children," he said.
"What would you like to know?"
"Anything. How did you decide on their names?"
"Justin was named after my husband's favorite uncle- a dear old bachelor who always brought him books when he was ill. My younger son, Stephen, was named after a character in an adventure novel Lord Clare and I read when we were children."
"What was the title?"
"I can't tell you; you'll think it's silly. It is silly. But we both loved it. We read it dozens of times. I had to send Henry my copy, after-"
After you stole his.
In Henry's view, the worst of West Ravenel's offenses had been stealing his copy of Stephen Armstrong: Treasure Hunter from a box of possessions beneath his bed at school. Although there had never been proof of the thief's identity, Henry had remembered that Ravenel had previously mocked him when he'd seen him reading it. "I know he's the one," Henry had written. "He's probably done something awful with it. Dropped it down the privy. I'd be surprised if the nincompoop can even read."
"Someday when we're big," Phoebe had written in response, full of righteous vengeance, "we'll go thrash him together and take it back from him."
But now she was sitting next to him at dinner.
"-after he lost his copy," she finished awkwardly. ~ Lisa Kleypas

What is your name?" he asked softly.
She winced, knowing what was to come, "Calpurnia." She closed her eyes again, embarrassed by the extravagant name- a name with which no one but a hopelessly romantic mother with an unhealthy obsession with Shakespeare would have considered saddling a child.
"Calpurnia." He tested the name on his tongue. "As in, Caesar's wife?"
The blush flared higher as she nodded.
He smiled. "I must make it a point to better acquaint myself with your parents. That is a bold name, to be sure."
"It's a horrible name."
"Nonsense. Calpurnia was Empress of Rome- strong and beautiful and smarter than the men who surrounded her. She saw the future, stood strong in the face of her husband's assassination. She is a marvelous namesake. ~ Sarah MacLean

Dragon watched the heavens turn. He saw his namesake, Draco, the dragon, arc across the sky. There were men who said the brightest star in Draco had once been the constant star by which men measured the way north. It was no longer, but the heavens changed in their own slow time, far beyond the brief ages of man, so perhaps it once had been so.
He drank more wine. A star streaked across the sky, burning brightly in its swift flight. Then it was gone, extinguished as though it had never been.
Life was too damn short. ~ Josie Litton

She's not just a nanny.
She's Aurora.
She's my reckoning and saviour all at once.
She's her namesake, those northern lights that brighten the darkest winter skies.
She's my homecoming.
And I'm in love with her. ~ Karina Halle

What, no Star Wars?"
Solo sighs. "I wanted to bring the original, unaltered Episode IV, in which my namesake shoots first, as our Lord and savior intended."
"Why didn't you?"
"I only have it on VHS, and my dad's old VHS player broke halfway through the summer. ~ Jeff Garvin

Amish children are usually named after aunts or uncles or some other relation. Keeps the family names going. ~ Sarah Price

To The Reader Who Employs His Leisure Ill
Whoever you may be, I caution you against rashly defaming the author of this work, or cavilling in jest against him. Nay, do not silently reproach him in consequence of others' censure, nor employ your wit in foolish disapproval or false accusation. For, should Democritus Junior prove to be what he professes, even a kinsman of his elder namesake, or be ever so little of the same kidney, it is all up with you: he will become both accuser and judge of you in his petulant spleen, will dissipate you in jest, pulverize you with witticisms, and sacrifice you, I can promise you, to the God of Mirth.
Again I warn you against cavilling, lest, while you culumniate or disgracefully disparage Decmocritus Junior, who has no animosity against you, you should hear from some judicious friend the very words the people of Abdera heard of old from Hippocrates, when they held their well-deserving and popular fellow-citizen to be a madman: "Truly, it is you, Democritus, that are wise, while the people of Abdera are fools and madmen." You have no more sense than the people of Abdera. Having given you this warning in a few words, O reader who employ your liesure ill, farewell. ~ Robert Burton

As I walked toward the front door, a little motion to the left caught my eye. Jenny Sells stood in the hallway, a silent wraith. She regarded me with luminous green eyes, like her mother's, like the dead aunt whose namesake she was. I stopped and faced her. I'm not sure why.
"You're the wizard," she said, quietly. "You're Harry Dresden. I saw your picture in the newspaper, once. The Arcane."
I nodded.
She studied my face for a long minute. "Are you going to help my mom?"
It was a simple question. But how do you tell a child that things just aren't that simple, that some questions don't have simple answers - or any answer at all?
I looked back into her too-knowing eyes, and then quickly away. I didn't want her to see what sort of person I was, the things I had done. She didn't need that. "I'm going to do everything I can to help your mom."
She nodded. "Do you promise?"
I promised her.
She thought that over for a moment, studying me. Then she nodded. "My daddy used to be one of the good guys, Mr. Dresden. But I don't think that he is anymore." Her face looked sad. It was a sweet, unaffected expression. "Are you going to kill him?"
Another simple question.
"I don't want to," I told her. "But he's trying to kill me. I might not have any choice."
She swallowed and lifted her chin. "I loved my Aunt Jenny," she said. Her eyes brightened with tears. "Momma won't say, and Billy's too little to figure it out, but I know what happen ~ Jim Butcher

A staunch abolitionist, Hamilton was one of the founding members of the New York Manumission Society. He was a trustee and namesake of Hamilton-Oneida Academy, an upstate New York school dedicated to educating Native-American boys. ~ Eric Schneiderman

Now it seems obvious, of course, that even a strong person has weak spots and that I had hit Cassie's full force, with all the precision of a jeweler fragmenting a stone along a flaw. She must have thought, sometimes, of her namesake, the votary branded with her god's most inventive and sadistic curse: to tell the truth, and never to be believed. ~ Tana French

The experience of that night, coming so overwhelmingly to a man so dead, almost rent me in pieces. It was the same feeling that artists know when we, rarely, achieve truth in our work; the feeling of union with some great force, of purpose and security, of being glad that we have lived. For the first time I felt the pull of race and blood and kindred, and felt beating within me things that had not begun with me. It was as if the earth under my feet had grasped and rooted me, and were pouring its essence into me. I sat there until the dawn of morning, and all night long my life seemed to be pouring out of me and running into the ground.
from the short story The Namesake ~ Willa Cather

She is stunned that in this town there are no sidewalks to speak of, no streetlights, no public transportation, no stores for miles at at a time. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

When my namesake, the great Caesar, rode in triumph," Julius said, "he was accompanied by a slave whose role was to whisper to him, You are but mortal. To remind him he was merely a man who would one day die like any other. If I could, I should have you at my side to remind me that I am alive, because I have not felt alive in so damned long, and with you, I do. No, I don't want you to marry, any more than I want you to return to your dirty democrats. I want to show you the world, and see you smile, and keep you with me while my soul grows back. ~ K.J. Charles

President George Washington's namesake capital, once a marketplace for slave auctions, is now synonymous with democracy and freedom; so is the iconic Jefferson, who wanted to build an "Empire of Liberty" for the world. ~ Patrick Mendis

He was like warm marble wherever she touched him, solid and unyielding, Michelangelo's namesake sculpture come to life. ~ Tina Wright

Pet names are a persistant remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated. They are a reminder, too, that one is not all things to all people. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

Something dangerous is beginning:
I am coming late to my own self.
I made an appointment with my thoughts-
the thoughts were snatched from me.
I made an appointment with Faulkner-
but they made me go to a banquet.
I made an appointment with history,
but a grass-widow dragged me into bed.
Worse than barbed wire
are birthday parties, mine and others',
and roasted suckling pigs hold me
like a sprig of parsley between their teeth!
Led away for good
to a life absolutely not my own,
everything that I eat, eats me,
everything that I drink, drinks me.
I made an appointment with myself,
but they invite me to feast on my own spareribs.
I am garlanded from all sides
not by strings of bagels, but by the holes of bagels,
and I look like an anthology of zeros.
Life gets broken into hundreds of lifelets,
that exhaust and execute me.
In order to get through to myself
I had to smash my body against others',
and my fragments, my smithereens,
are trampled by the roaring crowd.
I am trying to glue myself together,
but my arms are still severed.
I'd write with my left leg,
but both the left and the right
have run off, in different directions.
I don't know- where is my body?
And soul? Did it really fly off,
without a murmured 'good-bye! '?
How do I break through to a faraway namesake,
waiting for me in the cold somewhere ~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko

I always think first about the nature of the story. When I had the idea for 'The Namesake,' I felt that it had to be a novel - it couldn't work as a story. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

My father's name is Dee, so when I was born they named me Katherine Dee and they took the K from Katherine and put it with his name, sort of to give me my dad's namesake. But it's hysterical how often it gets misspelled. I used to be like, 'No one capitalizes my D!' ~ KaDee Strickland

All this was only, in my father's estimation, a means; the end was the Earthly Paradise, the translation of William Morris's 'News from Nowhere' into 'News from Somewhere.' Then Whitman's sense of abounding joy in his own and all creation's sensuality would sweep away the paltry backwaters of bourgeois morality; the horrors of industrial ugliness which Ruskin so eloquently denounced would dissolve, and die forgotten as a dream (phrases from hymns still washed about in my father's mind) as slums were transformed into garden cities, and the belching smoke of hateful furnaces into the cool elegance of electric power. As for the ferocious ravings of my namesake, Carlyle, about the pettifogging nature of modern industrial man's pursuits and expectations -- all that would be corrected as he was induced to spend ever more of his increasing leisure in cultural and craft activities; in the enjoyment of music, literature and art.

It was pefectly true -- a point that Will Straughan was liable to bring up at the Saturday evening gatherings -- that on the present form the new citizenry might be expected to have a marked preference for dog-racing over chamber music or readings from 'Paradise Lost,' but, my father would loftily point out, education would change all that. Education was, in fact, the lynchpin of the whole operation; the means whereby the Old Adam of the Saturday night booze-up, and fondness for Marie Lloyd in preference to Beatrice Webb, would be cast off, and the ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

That in spite of living in a mansion an American is not above wearing a pair of secondhand pants, bought for fifty cents. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

Flakes fell softly, covering the already frozen castle grounds. When she stuck out her tongue, she could feel the flakes land on it. The little droplets of frozen water had the same name she did: Snow.
Was she named for the snow or was the snow named for her? That's what she wondered. She was a princess, so the weather could have been named after her.
Then again, snow had been around a lot longer than she had. She was only seven. ~ Jen Calonita

When they launch snakes you'll have your namesake. ~ Philippa Gregory

My grandfather says that's what books are for," Ashoke said, using the opportunity to open the volume in his hands. "To travel without moving an inch. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

Joan of Arc is my namesake. I played her character while still in my teens, at a music festival held at the University of Colorado in Boulder. ~ Joan Van Ark

But she has gathered that Americans, in spite of their public declarations of affection, in spite of their miniskirts and bikinis, in spite of their hand-holding on the street and lying on top of each other on the Cambridge Common, prefer their privacy. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

Ladies and Gentlemen! Silence please!" Every one was startled. They looked round-at each other, at the walls. Who was speaking? The Voice went on- a high clear voice.
You are charged with the following indictments:
Edward George Armstrong, that you did upon the 14th day of March, 1925, cause the death of Louisa Mary Clees.
Emily Caroline Brent, that upon the 5th November, 1931, you were responsible for the death of Beatrice Taylor.
William Henry Blore, that you brought about the death of James Stephen Landor on October 10th, 1928.
Vera Elizabeth Claythorne, that on the 11th day of August, 1935, you killed Cyril Ogilvie Hamilton.
Philip Lombard, that upon a date in February, 1932, you were guilty of the death of twenty-one men, members of an East African tribe.
John Gordon Macarthur, that on the 4th of January, 1917, you deliberately sent your wife's lover, Arthur Richmond, to his death.
Anthony James Marston, that upon the 14th day of November last, you were guilty of murder of John and Lucy Combes.
Thomas Rogers and Ethel Rogers, that on the 6th of May, 1929, you brought about the death of Jennifer Brady.
Lawrence John Wargrave, that upon the 10th day of June, 1930, you were guilty of the murder of Edward Seton.
Prisoners at the bar, have you anything to say in your defense? ~ Agatha Christie

Mahtab looked out of the window at the moon clearing the rooftops, bathing everything around in its silver light. She sighed, envying Nasim's freedom. For just like Mahtab's namesake, as the moonlight was beholden to the sun, she was beholden to her family. ~ Azin Sametipour

As she swallow a few more drops, I whisper to my child's namesake, "The first of untold numbers of sweet things you will taste in this life." It is my blessing. ~ Sarah Bird

Your namesake dwelt on this holy mountain three thousand years ago. He came here to listen for the voice of God." Elijah waited, knowing there would be more forthcoming. The wind rummaged uneasily in the grape arbors. "He heard it in a gentle breeze, not in rushing about the world looking for projects. Our vocation is a call to listening. To adoration of the One who dwells among us. That is why you came here. That is why you were born." Elijah ~ Michael D. O'Brien

Ivo observed the group of children still at the sideboard, and heaved a sigh. "They're out of control," he said. "I suppose I'll have to do something about it." He executed a precise bow in Pandora's direction. "You look very pretty tonight, Lady Pandora."
"Thank you, Ivo," she said demurely, and grinned as Ivo hurried away to herd his charges from the room. "What a little rogue," she said.
"I think our grandfather- his namesake- would have doted on him," Gabriel replied. "There's more Jenner than Challon in Ivo, which is to say more fire than ice. ~ Lisa Kleypas

He'll behave. He has a mien and manners of a prince."
"Oh, like you?"
"I resent your tone."
"I'm not sure you can control him."
"Has he ever aught but the gentlest of creatures? Would you deny your namesake the chance to bear witness to our victorious celebration? And, of course, to the vision of you and Kestrel: side by side, Herrani and Valorian, a love for the ages. The stuff of songs, Arin! How you'll get married, and make babies
"
"Gods, Roshar, shut up. ~ Marie Rutkoski

I don't understand," Olivia said. "How did Penny sewing and unsewing make for the Trojan War?"
"Penelope was Odysseus's wife," Philippa explained. "He left her, and she sat at her loom, sewing all day, and unraveling all her work at night. For years."
"Why on earth would someone do that?" Olivia wrinkled her nose, selecting a sweet from a nearby tray. "Years? Really?"
"She was waiting for him to come home," Penelope said, meeting Michael's gaze. There was something meaningful there, and he thought she might be speaking of more than the Greek myth. Did she wait for him at night? She'd told him not to touch her... she'd pushed him away... but tonight, if he went to her, would she accept him? Would she follow the path of her namesake?
"I hope you have more exciting things to do when you are waiting for Michael to come home, Penny," Olivia teased.
Penelope smiled, but there was something in her gaze that he did not like, something akin to sadness. He blamed himself for it. Before him, she was happier. Before him, she smiled and laughed and played games with her sisters without reminder of her unfortunate fate.
He stood to meet her as she approached the settee. "I would never leave my Penelope for years." He said, "I would be too afraid that someone would snatch her away." His mother-in-law sighed audibly from across the room as his new sisters laughed. He lifted one of Penelope's hands in his and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. "Penelope and Odys ~ Sarah MacLean

Michael Eisner contacted me once and asked me if he could change the name of Disneyland to 'Braffland.' I said no, because whenever I go to Disneyland there's always fat people everywhere wearing tight clothes. Disneyland, frankly, has a lot of improving to do before it gets my namesake. ~ Zach Braff

The boy turns to his parents and for an instant in the twilight he looks like his namesake, like Jeevan's brother. He comes to them, the moment already passed, and Jeevan lifts him into his arms to kiss the silk of his hair. Always these memories, barely submerged. ~ Emily St. John Mandel

This tradition doesn't exist for Bengalis, naming a son after father or grandfather, a daughter after mother or grandmother. This sign of respect in America ad Europe, this symbol of heritage and lineage, would be ridiculed in India. Within Bengali families, individual names are sacred, inviolable. They are not meant to be inherited or shared. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

I wasn't taught to hate white people. That dead body hanging from the platform broke the heart and wounded the spirit of every black man and woman who passed by. But I suspected that it also hurt right-thinking white people. Both parents had spoken well of fair-minded white people - my namesake, Jim O'Reilly, and Flake Cartledge - so I knew better than to blame a whole race for the rotten deeds of a few. When some blacks talked about whites as devils, I could see the source of their wrath. I could still see the dead man outside the courthouse on the square. But I couldn't turn the fury into hatred. Blind hatred, my mother had taught me, poisons the soul. I kept hearing her say, 'If you're kind to people, they'll be kind to you. ~ B.B. King

What's your name again?"
"Peter. Peter Granford."
Lewis opened up his mouth to speak, but then just shook his head.
"What?" The boy ducked his head. "You just, uh, looked like you were going to say something
important."
Lewis looked at this namesake, at the way he stood with his shoulders rounded, as if he did not
deserve so much space in this world. He felt that familiar pain that fell like a hammer on his
breastbone whenever he thought of Peter, of a life that would be lost to prison. He wished he'd
taken more time to look at Peter when Peter was right in front of his eyes, because now he would be
forced to compensate with imperfect memories or-even worse-to find his son in the faces of
strangers.
Lewis reached deep inside and unraveled the smile that he saved for moments like this, when there
was absolutely nothing to be happy about. "It was important," he said. "You remind me of someone
I used to know. ~ Jodi Picoult

On a sticky August evening two weeks before her due date, Ashima Ganguli stands in the kitchen of a Central Square apartment, combining Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts and chopped red onion in bowl. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

Meeting a namesake is one of the most delicate and most brief surprises. ~ Michael Chabon