Nikolais Roof Quotes

Usually, we think of an apple as being red.
This is not the same red as that of a cherry or tomato.
A lemon is yellow and an orange like that of its name.
Bricks vary from beige to yellow to orange,
and from ochre to brown to deep violet.
Foliage appears in innumerable shades of green.
In all these cases the colors named are surface colors.

In a very different was, distant mountains appear uniformly blue,
no matter whether covered
with green trees or consisting of earth and rocks.
The sun is glaring white in daytime, but it is full red at sunset.
The white ceiling of houses surrounded by lawns or the white-painted
eaves of a roof on a sunny day appear in bright green, which is
reflected from the grass on the ground.
All these cases present film colors.

They appear as a thin, transparent, translucent layer between the eye and an object, independent of the object's surface color. ~ Josef Albers

We both liked the idea but couldn't figure out a way to get up to the roof. Vince had just seen the Spider-Man movie and suggested we shoot webs out of our wrists and swing up there. We asked Vince not to contribute any more ideas. ~ Chris Jericho

When we give of ourselves, our time, and our money, we're also giving up control. As a control freak myself, I know that sounds scary, but I've learned that the momentary lack of control forces me to look at what I do have and truly count my blessings. I have clean drinking water. I have food on my table. I have a roof over my head and clothes on my back. Suddenly, my panic-stricken mindset is replaced with gratitude. ~ Jen Lilley

Now I must get up and go while they are all quiet. Where are my things? Things have a will of their own in this place and hide where they like. Daylight will strike a sudden blow on the roof startling them all up to their feet; faces will beam asking, Where are you going, What are you doing, What are you thinking, How do you feel, Why do you say such things, What do you mean? ~ Katherine Anne Porter

Is what I am not saying, young LaMont Chu, is why you cease to seem to give total effort of self since you begin with the clipping pictures of great professional figures for your adhesive tape and walls. No? Because, privileged gentlemen and boys I am saying, is always something that is too. Cold. Hot. Wet and dry. Very bright sun and you see the purple dots. Very bright hot and you have no salt. Outside is wind, the insects which like the sweat. Inside is smell of heaters, echo, being jammed in together, tarp is overclose to baseline, not enough of room, bells inside clubs which ring the hour loudly to distract, clunk of machines vomiting sweet cola for coins. Inside roof too low for the lob. Bad lighting, so. Or outside: the bad surface. Oh no look no: crabgrass in cracks along baseline. Who could give the total, with crabgrass. Look here is low net high net. Opponent's relatives heckle, opponent cheats, linesman in semifinal is impaired or cheats. You hurt. You have the injury. Bad knee and back. Hurt groin area from not stretching as asked. Aches of elbow. Eyelash in eye. The throat is sore. A too pretty girl in audience, watching. Who could play like this? Big crowd overwhelming or too small to inspire. Always something.' [p.458] ~ David Foster Wallace

Is it okay to go the roof of the tallest building in your town and jerk off into the street? ~ Eugene Mirman

I had always been led to believe that ageing was a slow and gradual process, the creep of a glacier. Now I realise that it happens in a rush, like snow falling off a roof. ~ David Nicholls

Nothing's more determined than a cat on a hot tin roof ... ~ Tennessee Williams

In Nikolai's experience, honesty was much like herbal tea - something well-meaning people recommended when they were out of better options. ~ Leigh Bardugo

THE DEATH OF SALADIN
You left ground and sky weeping, mind
and soul full of grief. No one can
take your place in existence or in
absence. Both mourn, the angels, the
prophets, and this sadness I feel has
taken from me the taste of language,
so that I can't say the flavor of my
being apart. The roof of the kingdom
within has collapsed! When I say the
word YOU, I mean a hundred universes.
Pouring grief water, or secret dripping in the heart, eyes in the head or eyes
of the soul, I saw yesterday that all these flow out to find you when you're
not here. That bright fire bird Saladin
went like an arrow, and now the bow
trembles and sobs. If you know how to
weep for human beings, weep for Saladin. ~ Rumi

I'm scanning the sky for doo-doo missiles, when there's a bloodcurdling scream. An ugly thing with a human body, ears like a rabbit and a face so grotesque it would make gladiators wet their pants leaps off the roof of the houseboat. It lands right in front of me. ~ J.E. Fison

I shall never be there but once more,' said the invalid; 'and then you'll leave me, and I shall remain for ever. Next spring you'll long again to have me under this roof, and you'll look back and think you were happy to-day. ~ Emily Bronte

I have never loved Fortune, even when she seemed most to love me. I never considered her treasures mine, neither her money, nor her office nor her influence. Her theft of these things, therefore. has taken away nothing of my own. Mother, my roof is the stars. My house is human goodness. My body is clothed. My stomach is full. And the thirstier part of me, my soul, drinks gladly from the pool of my books.
So much for me. I am just fine. ~ Walter Wangerin Jr.

Humble we must be, if to heaven we go; High is the roof there, but the gate is low. ~ Robert Herrick

I am completely through the roof, over the moon, skyrocketing through space in love with my best friend. ~ Cassie Mae

Soft sun shone down on a misty cathedral at the opposite end of a football-field length courtyard. The cathedral had a long pointed tower with beautiful rose and ivory stained glass windows. Pink-petal flowers and deep green ivy climbed the stones from the ground to it's roof. A large fountain stood in the middle of the courtyard with water falling from several lion's heads. Between the misty air and rolling slope of the earth, the grounds reminded me of a long lost fairy tale. ~ Priya Ardis

Take that rage, put it on a page, take the page to the stage, blow the roof off the place. ~ The Script

Although, fanciful's origin circa 1627 made me still love the word, even if I'd ruined its applicability to my connection with Snarl. (I mean DASH!) Like, I could totally see Mrs. Mary Poppencock returning home to her cobblestone hut with the thatched roof in Thamesburyshire, Jolly Olde England, and saying to her husband, "Good sir Bruce, would it not be wonderful to have a roof that doesn't leak when it rains on our green shires, and stuff?" And Sir Bruce Poppencock would have been like, "I say, missus, you're very fanciful with your ideas today." To which Mrs. P. responded, "Why, Master P., you've made up a word! What year is it? I do believe it's circa 1627! Let's carve the year
we think
on a stone so no one forgets. Fanciful! Dear man, you are a genius. I'm so glad my father forced me to marry you and allow you to impregnate me every year. ~ Rachel Cohn

Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence.

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new -
Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches will fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dea ~ Philip Larkin

My dressing room was right on the water, and I would climb out of my window and walk around on the roof, whenever I needed time to think, or whenever I couldn't get a scene together. My father even came out there on the roof with me. We just walked around and talked up there, just to get away from everything, and nobody could get to us there. I really do love that place very much. It holds a very deep-rooted place in my heart. ~ Angie Harmon

You've gotta blow the roof off of your heart and let the universe in. ~ Lou Reed

Vashet: "I will admit, I've never had a studen offer himself up for a vicious beating in order to prove he's worth my time."
Kvothe: "That was nothing. Once I jumped off a roof. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

We tend to harp on little things, or worry about something, when, really, it's just not that important. If you have a roof over your head, and you're healthy, and your family is healthy, that's all that matters. Don't let the little things get you down. ~ Asher Roth

I want my music to jump off the stage and out of the speakers. When we do 'Rain Is A Good Thing' paired back to back with 'Country Girl,' it just feels like the roof is fixin' to come off the place. ~ Luke Bryan

The trouble with us is that the ghetto of the Middle Ages and the children of the twentieth century have to live under one roof. ~ Anzia Yezierska

Crouched on the roof between BEx and Liz, I wasn't a girl who had just broken up with her boyfriend; I looked at my watch and check my gear instead of crying. I had a mission objective and not a broken heart. ~ Ally Carter

But that drummer – the one who could make his drum sound like water dropping into a bucket or like the footfalls of a giant or like rain scattering on a roof – he was the one to watch. He was the one who could make you forget yourself. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

My eyes begin watering as I look up at the sky, squinting against the sun's glare. There's not a cloud anywhere, nothing, except the bird that I'm following as it swoops and rolls high above my head. I can't remember the last time I saw one this close up and my heart beat quickens as adrenalin begins to build.
Steadying myself on the rooftop, I shift my weight from leg to leg as it dips its wings and begins to drop like a stone until I think it's going to hit the ground for sure. My right foot stretches towards the edge of the roof as I lose sight of it in among the slums of Sanctum.
The place I call home.
The Wastelanders ~ Nicholas Grey

Why did Mitt Romney strap his dog to the roof of his car? Could it be because his station wagon was full of wives? ~ Bill Maher

I glanced out of the window, and it was like turning the page of a photograph album. Those roof-tops and that sea were mine no more. They belonged to yesterday, to the past. ~ Daphne Du Maurier

When they [Democrats] running all these ads that are characterizing [Mitt] Romney as a rich, insensitive, out of touch, aloof nerd who loved having his dog on the roof of the station wagon, who didn't care when the wife of an employee dies with cancer. ~ Rush Limbaugh

Architecture begins to matter when it brings delight and sadness and perplexity and awe along with a roof over our heads. ~ Paul Goldberger

Crusoe and Friday. Ishmael and Ahab. Daisy and Gatsby. Pip and Estella. Me. Me. Me. I am not alone. I am surrounded by words that tell me who I am, why I feel what I feel. Or maybe they just help me while away the hours as the rain pounds down on the porch roof, taking me away from the gloom and on to somewhere sunny, somewhere else. ~ Anna Quindlen

I've met the girl. She's a zero in my opinion but terrific-looking. I don't actually know that she's a zero. I mean she hardly said two words the night I met her. Just sat and smiled and smoked, so it isn't fair to say. ~ J.D. Salinger

There's another problem," Percy said. "I'm not good with air travel. It's dangerous for a son of Neptune."
"You'll have to risk it ... and so will I," Frank said. "By the way, we're related."
Percy almost stumbled off the roof. "What? ~ Rick Riordan

Growing up, I used to climb out my window onto the roof and look up at the stars. There, in the quiet, I would write stories inside my head. ~ Christy Hall

The price of oil is rising because of all the unrest in the Middle East. And the unrest in Wisconsin is causing the price of cheese to go through the roof. ~ Jay Leno

When you do music, your friends are writers, actors, painters. It's all under the same roof. So anything creative is interesting to me. ~ Alison Mosshart

Up on the roof Tatiana thought about the evening minute, the minute she used to walk out the factory doors, turn her head to the left even before her body turned, and look for his face. The evening minute as she hurried down the street, her happiness curling her mouth upward to the white sky, the red wings speeding her to him, to look up at him and smile. ~ Paullina Simons

This was why people got mated, Rehv suddenly thought. Fuck the sex and the social position. If they were smart, they did it to make a house that had no walls and an invisible roof and a floor that no could walk on-and yet the structure was a shelter no storm could blow down, no match could torch up, no passage of years could degrade.
That was when it hit him. A mated bond like that helped you through shit nights like this. ~ J.R. Ward

Honestly, Edward." I felt a thrill go through me as I said his name, and I hated it. "I can't keep up with you. I thought you didn't want to be my friend."
"I said it would be better if we weren't friends, not that I didn't want to be."
"Oh, thanks, now that's all cleared up." Heavy sarcasm. I realized I had stopped walking again. We were under the shelter of the cafeteria roof now, so I could more easily look at his face. Which certainly didn't help my clarity of thought.
"It would be more ... prudent for you not to be my friend," he explained. "But I'm tired of trying to stay away from you, Bella."
His eyes were gloriously intense as he uttered that last sentence, his voice smoldering. I couldn't remember how to breathe. ~ Stephenie Meyer

I don't know whether Asimov realized he was saying this as well, but as an old historical materialist, if only as an afterthought, he must have realized that he was saying too: No one here will ever look at you, read a word you write, or consider you in any situation, no matter whether the roof is falling in or the money is pouring in, without saying to him- or herself (whether in an attempt to count it or to discount it), 'Negro ... ' The racial situation, permeable as it might sometimes seem (and it is, yes, highly permeable), is nevertheless your total surround. Don't you ever forget it ... ! And I never have. ~ Samuel R. Delany

my bonny love, our roof is safe above, our roof is finely tiled, God protect my little child. ~ Anonymous

Me being biracial, me being from Canada but having success in the States, I have all these moments in my life where I'm jumping roof to roof. Black to white. Singing and rapping. ~ Drake

When a fine old carpet is eaten by mice, the colors and patterns of what's left behind do not change,' wrote my neighbor and friend, the poet Jane Hirschfield, after she visited an old friend suffering from Alzheimer's disease in a nursing home. And so it was with my father. His mind did not melt evenly into undistinguishable lumps, like a dissolving sand castle. It was ravaged selectively, like Tintern Abbey, the Cistercian monastery in northern Wales suppressed in 1531 by King Henry VIII in his split with the Church of Rome. Tintern was turned over to a nobleman, its stained-glass windows smashed, its roof tiles taken up and relaid in village houses. Holy artifacts were sold to passing tourists. Religious statues turned up in nearby gardens. At least one interior wall was dismantled to build a pigsty.

I've seen photographs of the remains that inspired Wordsworth: a Gothic skeleton, soaring and roofless, in a green hilly landscape. Grass grows in the transept. The vanished roof lets in light. The delicate stone tracery of its slim, arched quatrefoil windows opens onto green pastures where black-and-white cows graze. Its shape is beautiful, formal, and mysterious. After he developed dementia, my father was no longer useful to anybody. But in the shelter of his broken walls, my mother learned to balance her checkbook, and my heart melted and opened. Never would I wish upon my father the misery of his final years. But he was sacred in his ruin, and I took from it the ~ Katy Butler

Come clean with a child heart
Laugh as peaches in the summer wind
Let rain on a house roof be a song
Let the writing on your face
be a smell of apple orchards on late June. ~ Carl Sandburg

Fourth Floor, Dawn, Up All Night Writing Letters
Pigeons shake their wings on the copper church roof
out my window across the street, a bird perched on the cross
surveys the city's blue-grey clouds. Larry Rivers
'll come at 10 AM and take my picture. I'm taking
your picture, pigeons. I'm writing you down, Dawn.
I'm immortalizing your exhaust, Avenue A bus.
O Thought, now you'll have to think the same thing forever! ~ Allen Ginsberg