Oddly Quotes

I thought myself sufficiently shrewd to make whatever decisions I wanted to make, and then to be able to sufficiently steer those decisions away from the rather dark and nasty places they would naturally take me. And I stand oddly perplexed that suddenly everything around me is dark and nasty. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

As one does the return of sun after winter, I stood still and accepted the warm glow of possibility, of feeling right in the company of this small, oddly fierce person, with the inky hair and the lovely, unemphasized body. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

Oddly enough, I've always - I've never actually seen "The Alamo" itself, actually. So I don't really have the association of "Green Leaves of Summer" as being "The Alamo" theme. Oddly enough, I grew up watching kung fu movies. They would use the theme "Green Leaves of Summer" in a lot of needle drops in kung fu movies a lot. So I was actually more familiar with it in a Bruce Li movie than I was actually from the John Wayne film. ~ Quentin Tarantino

Remember something you were good at as a kid and bring it back as a hobby now that you're an adult. I gave gardening a go and also crying whenever I drop something on the floor and can't find it. Crying always makes it appear againg, oddly. ~ Sarah Millican

From early childhood his mother had taught him that to discuss in public a profound emotional experience-which, in the open air, immediately evanesces and fades, and, oddly, becomes similar to an analogous experience of one's interlocutor-was not only vulgar, but also a sin against sentiment. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

I'm beginning to sense a theme," Mircea said, tossing his suit coat over a buckskin-covered chair. A moose head with huge, outspread antlers loomed over it, its bright glass eyes looking oddly lifelike in the low light. Mircea took in the room, his expression slightly repulsed yet fascinated. "I believe there is only one thing to say at this point."
What's that?"
Yee haw," he said gravely, and took me down like a rodeo calf. ~ Karen Chance

I got four volumes of the letters and speeches of Oliver Cromwell. He is prominent among the great unread, and treated so oddly by history that I wanted to hear his side of things. ~ Marilynne Robinson

He stole glances at the heathen faces of Bodien and Gaylord, the suffering, yet oddly consoled, eyes and mouth of Basellecci, noting the brave enthusiasm of men who had never dreamed of anything very definite, and it occurred to him through the reek of his person that there was only one hope for him, and for all people who had lost, through intelligence, the hope of immortality. "We must love and delight in each other and in ourselves!" he cried. ~ Edward Lewis Wallant

Oddly enough, many people struggle to learn how to pray because they are focusing on praying, not on God. ~ Paul E. Miller

In other circumstances, if Jamie hadn't been so miserable, Ryan would have laughed. Jamie rarely got so pissed that he lost the thread of the conversation. "Yes, you are." Cradling Jamie's face, he brushed his lips against Jamie's forehead. "Everything will be fine, you'll see." He kissed Jamie's temple.

Jamie shuddered. "Don't. Not now. I can't - not now."

Frowning, Ryan pulled back to look at his friend.

Jamie was staring at him oddly, his lips parted and curled in half a grimace, his eyes gleaming with desperation. "I - " he said before suddenly lunging forward and closing the distance between their mouths.

For a moment, Ryan's alcohol-fogged brain couldn't understand what was going on.

Jamie was kissing him.

Jamie was kissing him. Or at least trying to, his lips clumsy and awkward but desperate and needy - so needy it was weirding Ryan out. ~ Alessandra Hazard

During these years in the small-talk wilderness, I also wondered why Americans valued friendliness with commerce so much. Was handing over cash the sacred rite of American capitalism - and of American life? On a day that I don't spend money in America, I feel oddly depressed. It's my main form of social interaction - as it is for millions of Americans who live alone or away from their families. ~ Karan Mahajan

I am blessed, personally, beyond measure, and yet oddly enough, I, too, struggle to feel His love for me every day. When I stack my obstacles against others' they seem to frivolous to be authentic. And yet, this mortal existence is designed by a genius, so that we all will, no matter our circumstances or parentage or gifts, have to exercise our agency to come to Him. And so though my problems may seem small to an outsider, they are big enough for me to desperately need Him. ~ Virginia H. Pearce

There's something oddly comforting about talking to a legal guy once the billable hours clock has started running; you have passed the magical point at which a lawyer becomes your lawyer. Your lawyer is warm, your lawyer is sympathetic, your lawyer makes notes on a yellow pad and nods in all the right places. Most of the questions your lawyer asks are questions you can answer. And if you can't your lawyer will help you find a way to do so, by God. Your lawyer is always on your side. Your enemies are his enemies. To him you are never shit but always Shinola. ~ Stephen King

If you don't compromise your gift, if you write each day as well as you can, and then submit your work and not worry about it and go on to the next piece, you suddenly find oddly enough that you're no more interested in the applause than the silence. You don't hear either one of them. You can never listen to the naysayers. If you do you won't survive. ~ James Lee Burke

This morning, prompted by increasing concerns about terrorism, oil prices reached a record high as the cost of a barrel of crude is a whopping $44.34. Wow, it seems shocking that a product of finite supply gets more expensive the more we use it. Now the terror alert means higher oil prices, which oddly enough means higher profits for oil companies giving them more money to give to politicians whose policies may favor the oil companies such as raising the terror alert level. As Simba once told us: "It's the circle of life." ~ Jon Stewart

My first inkling of what the Commonwealth might really mean came only when I escaped the oddly British-tinged Asia I had known and went to live in the Philippines. ~ Romesh Gunesekera

Remind yourself where you come from.

I spent the majority of my life running away from Utah, from the life I led there, from the memories I associated with those early years. It felt very someone-else-ago to me. London changed me profoundly.
When we were dancing on DWTS together, Jennifer Grey called me one night. She was having trouble with her back and wanted to see a physiotherapist. "Can you come with me?" she asked. She drove us through a residential section of Beverly Hills. We pulled into a house with a shed out back. Oddly, it didn't look like a doctor's office. There was a couch and incense burning. An Australian guy with a white beard came in : "Hey, mates." I looked at Jen and she winked at me. This was no physical therapy. She'd signed us up for some bizarre couples therapy!
The guy spoke to us for a while, then he asked Jennifer if she wouldn't mind leaving us to chat. I thought the whole thing was pretty out there, but I didn't think I could make a run for it.
"So, Derek," he said. "Tell me about your childhood." I laid it all out for him--I talked for almost two hours--and he nodded. "You can go pick him up now."
I raised an eyebrow. "Pick who up?"
The therapist smiled. "That younger boy, that self you left in Utah. You left him there while you've been on a mission moving forward so vigorously. Now you can go get him back."
I sat there, utterly stunned and speechless. It was beyond powerful and enlightening. Had I really ~ Derek Hough

Well oddly enough, I liken the years at MGM, and I was there for about eight years, to doing stock, what we used to call repertory or stock, playing a whole bunch of different roles. ~ Angela Lansbury

Ethan and I are done," I said finally. "I'm sorry." "He was my first boyfriend." "I know." "The only real boyfriend I've had. I'm a senior in high school and he was my only real boyfriend." "I know." "And I won't find another one at Jones Hall. That is guaranteed." "Okay." "This is all very sad and tragic," I said. Alan unwrapped a sleeve of Smarties. "Yet, oddly, you don't seem that upset." "I know. ~ Sara Zarr

It's very difficult to break into motion pictures, but it's oddly easier for directors today because of independent films and cable, who have inherited for the most part those films of substance that the studios are reluctant to finance. ~ Mark Rydell

She felt oddly complimented. Petrov hadn't thought she's just a girl; he'd thought she might be a desperate criminal. ~ Jonathan L. Howard

My hands were trembling, but only because of who he was, not because I was scared of him. I oddly felt calmed by his presence. He smiled as he placed his hands in the pockets of his charcoal gray pants. He was finely dressed in a black button up shirt that was unbuttoned at the top low enough to see where his chest began. It clung to him, accentuating every muscular detail. I shook my head. I had to stop evaluating him.
"Is everything okay?" Ethan asked, tilting his head to the side, trying to read my expression.
"Huh ... oh, yeah, fine. ~ Nicole Gulla

Come to see the devil in his lair, have you?" he asked.
[Evie] came closer, her expression intent and oddly fearless. "You're not the devil. You're only a man. A very fl-flawed one. ~ Lisa Kleypas

he'd looked as tall and cool as ever, but a faint panicked light in his blue eyes had put her oddly in mind of a cat that had just had an inadvertent ride in a dryer. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

I obeyed, so far as to quit the chamber; when, ignorant where the narrow lobbies led, I stood still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a piece of superstition on the part of my landlord which belied, oddly, his apparent sense. He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears. 'Come in! come in!' he sobbed. 'Cathy, do come. Oh, do - ONCE more! Oh! my heart's darling! hear me THIS time, Catherine, at last!' The spectre showed a spectre's ordinary caprice: it gave no sign of being; but the snow and wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my station, and blowing out the light. ~ Emily Bronte

I have lived for four centures," he said. "Perhaps I am still a youth, in that all of us are, compared to the timeless age of the Wheel itself. That said, I am one of the oldest people in existence."
Moiraine smiled. "Very nice. Does that work on the others?"
He hesitated. Then, oddly, he found himself grinning. "It worked pretty well on Cadsuane."
Moiraine sniffed. "That one ... Well, knowing her, I doubt you fooled her as well as you assume. You may have the memories of a man four centuries old, Rand al'Thor, but that does not make you ancient. Otherwise, Matrim Cauthon would be the patriarch of us all."
"Mat? Why Mat?"
"It is nothing," Moiraine said. "Something I am not supposed to know. You are still a die-eyed sheepherder at heart. ~ Robert Jordan

I've done about six comedies. Oddly enough, the script came to me from one of the guys in Platoon. ~ Tom Berenger

Said by Maltcassion the Dragon:
"Humans," he scoffed. "Always so inquiring about stuff. Never satisfied with the status quo. It will be your downfall, but oddly enough, it´s also one of your more endearing features."
"Do we have any otheres?"
"Oy yes, plenty. ~ Jasper Fforde

Oddly enough, white is a dead tone in a small room. Choosing something with a more medium tone will make the space feel larger. ~ Emily Henderson

Oddly, I've never heard of a church or denomination that asked people to affirm a doctrinal statement like this: The purpose of Scripture is to equip God's people for good works. Shouldn't a simple statement like this be far more important than statements with words foreign to the Bible's vocabulary about itself (inerrant, authoritative, literal, revelatory, objective, absolute, propositional, etc.)? ~ Brian D. McLaren

And yes, we broke up.' Grover bleated, 'really? But I heard - I thought -'
'You thought what?' Piper's voice remained calm and even. 'That we'd be together forever like Percy and Annabeth?' (...) 'Things change. People change. Jason and me - we started out oddly. Hera kind of messed with our heads, made us think we shared a past we didn't share. ~ Rick Riordan

I spent my childhood and youth on the outskirts of the Alps, in a region that was largely spared the immediate effects of the so-called hostilities. At the end of the war I was just one year old, so I can hardly have any impressions of that period of destruction based on personal experience. Yet to this day, when I see photographs or documentary films dating from the war I feel as if I were its child, so to speak, as if those horrors I did not experience cast a shadow over me ... I see pictures merging before my mind's eye - paths through the fields, river meadows, and mountain pastures mingling with images of destruction - and oddly enough, it is the latter, not the now entirely unreal idylls of my early childhood, that make me feel rather as if I were coming home ... ~ W.G. Sebald

Getting all dressed up and putting on fancy clothes - all of that's a great thing, but oddly, it doesn't really have a lot to do with acting most of the time. ~ Annette Bening

This was combat. You created the chaos, but at the same time, tried not to be a part of it, tried not to be affected by it. It was a strange mix of hot-blooded instinct, and cold-blooded logic. It was fighting with emotion, but thinking with your head, almost as though your mind was the handler and your body the beast, the two of them at odds, and yet oddly the same. And when the two forces fell into step with each other, it was sickening and exhilarating all at once. ~ D.J. Molles

It's an embarrassing fact that we are more afraid of embarrassment than a host of other discomforts, but it isn't less true for all that. How often have you refrained from voicing hope or indignation for fear of being dismissed as childish? Oddly enough, that fear is adolescent, born of a time when few things feel worse than being regarded as a less grown-up than your peers. ~ Susan Neiman

Oddly enough, the very considerations that had made marriage impossible for him were mirrored in my own being: a rabidly independent nature, an impatience with lesser minds, total unconventionality, and the horror of being saddled with someone who would need cosseting and protection - the ~ Laurie R. King

So this was what being alone was like, she thought. ... It was this wandering in a sea of people with the anchor lifted, and all of it oddly pointless and confusing. ~ Colm Toibin

Instead of Gnostics, we have Existentialists and God-is-dead theologians, instead of Neo-Platonists, devotees of Zen, instead of desert hermits, heroin addicts and Beats (who also, oddly enough, seem averse to washing), instead of mortification of the flesh, sado-masochistic pornography; as for our public entertainments, the fare offered by television is still a shade less brutal than that provided by the Amphitheatre, but only a shade and may not be so for long. ~ W. H. Auden

My beautiful sister. You are like sunshine: bright, incandescent, and oddly irritating at times. But what else are sisters for? ~ Darynda Jones

The massive bronze gates were wide open now, too late. Inside, the cemetery had been turned into a grotesque place gleaming with high-powered searchlights, blue flashlight flares, winking pocket torches. Uniformed men were already swarming about. Red cigarette-embers showed oddly amidst the headstones here and there.
("The Street Of Jungle Death") ~ Cornell Woolrich

A primordial instinct going back to humanity's tribal past makes us see difference as a threat. That instinct is massively dysfunctional in an age in which our several destinies are interlinked. Oddly enough, it is the market -- the least overtly spiritual of concepts -- that delivers a profoundly spiritual message: that it is through exchange that difference becomes a blessing, not a curse. When difference leads to war, both sides lose. When it leads to mutual enrichment, both sides gain. ~ Jonathan Sacks

We feel that our actions are voluntary when they follow a decision and involuntary when they happen without decision. But if a decision itself were voluntary every decision would have to be preceded by a decision to decide - An infinite regression which fortunately does not occur. Oddly enough, if we had to decide to decide, we would not be free to decide ~ Alan W. Watts

He's not doing anything he shouldn't be doing, right?"
"Like what?"
"Like hitting on you."
"Ew. No, of course not. He doesn't see me that way."
Michael shook his head and went back to his coffee.
"What? You think he does?"
"Sometimes he looks at you a little ... oddly, that's all. Maybe you're right. Maybe he just wants you for your blood."
"Again, Ew! What's with you this morning?"
"Not enough coffee. ~ Rachel Caine

Desire had a way of making a person oddly courageous. ~ Alice Hoffman

By the second week of November 1990, a new character had begun to spring forth in Kurt's journal writings, and this figure would soon make its way into almost every image, song, or story. He intentionally misspelled its name, and in doing so he was granting it a life of its own. Oddly, he gave it a female persona, but since it became his great love that Fall - and even made him throw up, just like Tobi - there was a fairness in this gender choice. He called it 'heroine'. ~ Charles R. Cross

Oddly enough, my partner went on Prodigy when it first came out, and I ended up playing with some of that stuff!. ~ Bobby Sherman

Reality does not easily give up meaning; it's the biographer's job to clobber it into submission. You're meant not only to tame it but to extract substance, to identify cause and axiomatic effect. You subsist on the tactical omissions, the hollow words, the oddly unconnected dots. ~ Stacy Schiff

Nora cocked her head as she studied it. It was an interesting piece. Rather large as it lay nestled in the short, dark curls. It seemed oddly harmless lying there, and she had a sudden urge to reach out and touch it. ~ Kinley MacGregor

By the worldly standards of public life, all scholars in their work are of course oddly virtuous. They do not make wild claims, they do not cheat, they do not try to persuade at any cost, they appeal neither to prejudice nor to authority, they are often frank about their ignorance, their disputes are fairly decorous, they do not confuse what is being argued with race, politics, sex or age, they listen patiently to the young and to the old who both know everything. These are the general virtues of scholarship, and they are peculiarly the virtues of science. ~ Jacob Bronowski

I contemplated the phone for some time. Never had I heard her so oddly gay and forthright; as a matter of fact, we hadn't discussed sex since adolescence. Her entire inner life was secretive and mysterious, and no one dared violate it. She sent out powerful "No Trespassing" signals and I had learned to honor them. It crossed my mind that my sister was drunk. ~ Brooke Hayward

Michaels went upstairs to start cooking while Judge walked and catered to his dog. It felt oddly domestic. He smiled without even realizing it. Maybe he did like the idea of settling down, just had to have the right guy put those thoughts there. Judge chewed on his cane. ~ A.E. Via

And what does he feel?"
"He feels uneasy. A little afaid. Angry. Oddly, a hint of pride."
"Good," Henry said. "ANd where are you?"
"Backstage."
Henry shook his head gravely. "THere's no such thing as backstage. The play begins, and there's only the world it dramatizes. Now, where are you?"
"With my father, the president. In his chambers."
"Right. With me. Your father. And now
this is important
do you love me?"
Nelson considered this; or rather, Nelson, as Alejo, considered this.
"Yes," he said after a moment. "I do."
"Good. Remember that. In every scene
even when you hate me, you also love me. That's why it hurts. Got it?"
Nelson said that he did.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Good. Because it does hurt," Henry said. "DOn't forget that. It's supposed to. Always. ~ Daniel Alarcon

They were all very much of a type, tall and narrow-faced, eyes pale blue and pale green and pale gray, their features sharp but oddly empty - young men who has never been lonely or afraid or devastated by grief. ~ Katherine Addison

I love clothes - I love shopping for clothes, I love wearing clothes, I love talking about clothes - but oddly, putting on the dress and walking around in front of people, that's the place where I'm most uncomfortable. ~ Julianne Moore

By nature independent, gay, even exuberant, seductively responsive and given to those spontaneous sallies that sparkle in the conversation of certain daughters of Paris who seem to have inhaled since childhood the pungent breath of the boulevards laden with the nightly laughter of audiences leaving theaters, Madame de Burne's five years of bondage had nonetheless endowed her with a singular timidity which mingled oddly with her youthful mettle, a great fear of saying too much, of going to far, along with a fierce yearning for emancipation and a firm resolve never again to compromise her freedom. ~ Guy De Maupassant

He lives in a room above a courtyard behind a tavern and he comes down at night like some fairybook beast to fight with the sailors. He is not big but he has big wrists, big hands. His shoulders are set close. The child's face is curiously untouched behind the scars, the eyes oddly innocent. They fight with fists, with feet, with bottles or knives. All races, all breeds. Men whose speech sounds like the grunting of apes. Men from lands so far and queer that standing over them where they lie bleeding in the mud he feels mankind itself vindicated. ~ Cormac McCarthy

Oddly enough, I'm not a particularly judgmental person. I just don't have a lot of filtering when I'm in 'tiger mother' mode. I say what comes into my head. ~ Amy Chua

Luke glanced at me, his expression oddly light. "Shh, pretty girl. Let's enjoy ourselves for a bit before you start riddling again ". ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Richard felt oddly proud. He had proved himself in the ordeal. He was One of Them. He would Go, and he would Bring Back Food. He puffed out his chest. ~ Neil Gaiman

For some reason when I type the word "love" in my iPad it keeps autocorrecting to "live". I find it oddly profound. My ipad IS. My iPad is ZEN:
"Only the iPad that autocorrects can write the true thing. ~ Annastacia Dickerson

He moved closer, crowding her back into the darkness. He didn't touch her, but strangely, it didn't matter. He was close enough to feel, tall and lean and ever so warm. "But you're going to wager now, Pippa, aren't you?"
He was muddling her brain and making it very difficult to think clearly. She took a deep breath, the scent of sandalwood wrapping around her, distracting her.
She shouldn't say yes.
But somehow, oddly, she found she couldn't say no.
She reached for the dice, where they lay small and white in his broad palm. Touched them, touched him- the brush of skin against fingertips sending sensation coursing through her. She paused at the feeling, trying to dissect it. To identify it. To savor it. But then he was gone, his hand falling away, leaving her with nothing but the ivory cubes, still warm from his touch.
Just as she was.
Of course, the thought was ridiculous. One did not warm from a fleeting contact. It was the stuff of novels. Something her sisters would sigh over.
He moved, stepping back and extending one arm toward the hazard field. "Are you ready?" His voice was low and soft, somehow private despite the cavernous room. ~ Sarah MacLean

I'd had more than my fair share of near-death experiences; it wasn't something
you ever really got used to.
It seemed oddly inevitable, though, facing death again. Like I really was marked
for disaster. I'd escaped time and time again, but it kept coming back for me.
Still, this time was so different from the others.
You could run from someone you feared, you could try to fight someone you
hated. All my reactions were geared toward those kinds of killers - the monsters,
the enemies.
When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options. How could
you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your
life was all you had to give your beloved, how could you not give it?
If it was someone you truly loved? ~ Stephenie Meyer

Oddly, because she has that confidence, the people around her like her more. She becomes more a part of the Reaper family, and she also is able to get along with people more outside of their circle as well. ~ Ellen Muth

It's still warm; there are clouds of midges under the trees and the sunshine is streaming through the leaves, bathing the path in an oddly subterranean light. Above our heads, magpies chatter angrily. ~ Paula Hawkins

This time of year, the purple blooms were busy with life- not just the bees, but butterflies and ladybugs, skippers and emerald-toned beetles, flitting hummingbirds and sapphire dragonflies. The sun-warmed sweet haze of the blossoms filled the air.
"When I was a kid," said Isabel, "I used to capture butterflies, but I was afraid of the bees. I'm getting over that, though." The bees softly rose and hovered over the flowers, their steady hum oddly soothing. The quiet buzzing was the soundtrack of her girlhood summers. Even now, she could close her eyes and remember her walks with Bubbie, and how they would net a monarch or swallowtail butterfly, studying the creature in a big clear jar before setting it free again. They always set them free.
As she watched the activity in the hedge, a memory floated up from the past- Bubbie, gently explaining to Isabel why they needed to open the jar. "No creature should ever be trapped against its will," she used to say. "It will ruin itself, just trying to escape." As a survivor of a concentration camp, Bubbie only ever spoke of the experience in the most oblique of terms. ~ Susan Wiggs

The funny thing is you oddly don't really say goodbye to all the characters you've played. There's like a chest of drawers in your head that you can always access. They're always around. I'm not sure if that's healthy. But they're all there. ~ Johnny Depp

Oddly enough, I find it quite engaging to be working with a female when I'm directing. It's kind of interesting. ~ Ridley Scott

Sometimes I think it is ... frustration with life as it is lived day to day that compels me to write such long letters to people who seldom reply in kind, if indeed they reply at all. Somehow by compressing and editing the events of my life, I infuse them with a dramatic intensity totally lacking at the time, but oddly enough I find that years later what I remember is not the event as I lived it but as I described it in a letter. ~ Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey

Oddly enough, I find the best hostages are the live ones. - Karl ~ Kelley Armstrong

Oddly, I think if you look at comic books, you look at the shelves in the store, it's predominantly male characters, historically. But if you look outside the window it's 52-percent female, and something odd is going on there. So I do think it's your responsibility as a writer, really, to create stuff that little girls can get into too. I want my daughters to have role models that are female. ~ Mark Millar

This was a young man who had killed, but never before been in imminent danger of being killed. I felt oddly qualified to introduce him to the sensation. ~ Robin Hobb

Oddly, I found myself calmer than I'd been in a long while. Maybe it was simply because my muscles ached or maybe because I felt that nothing was more compelling than the stack of wood that was waiting in Camelli's garage. ~ Dee Williams

I was heavily involved on all fronts: with mountaineering outfitters, who oddly enough never fathomed the depths of my ignorance; possibly because they couldn't conceive of anyone acquiring such a collection of equipment without knowing how to use it… ~ Eric Newby

It has frequently been asserted that low Christologies are "Jewish" ones, while high Christologies have come into Christianity from the Greek thought world. Oddly enough, this position has been taken both by Jewish writers seeking to discredit Christianity as a kind of paganism and by orthodox Christian scholars wishing to distinguish the "new religion" from the old one as far and as quickly as possible. This doubly defensive approach can no longer be maintained. ~ Daniel Boyarin

Does everyone grow the way you do?" puffed Milo when he had caught up.
"Almost everyone," replied Alec, and then he stopped a moment and thought. "Now and then, though, someone does begin to grow differently. Instead of down, his feet grow up towards the sky. But we do our best to discourage awkward things like that."
"What happens to them?" insisted Milo.
"Oddly enough, they often grow ten times the size of everyone else," said Alec thoughtfully, "and I've heard that they walk among the stars." And with that he skipped off once again toward the waiting woods. ~ Norton Juster

My dear sister...

His dear sister.

Those words - how oddly they affected me ~ Nancy Springer

Ah, hissed Neeve, plump but strangely elegant as she sat beside Blue on the wall. Blue was struck again, as she had been struck the first time she'd met Neeve, by her oddly lovely hands. Chubby wrists led to soft, child-like palms and slender fingers with oval nails. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

There it was before her - life. Life: she thought but she did not finish her thought. She took a look at life, for she had a clear sense of it there, something real, something private, which she shared neither with her children nor with her husband. A sort of transaction went on between them, in which she was on one side, and life was on another, and she was always trying to get the better of it, as it was of her; and sometimes they parleyed (when she sat alone); there were, she remembered, great reconciliation scenes; but for the most part, oddly enough, she must admit that she felt this thing that she called life terrible, hostile, and quick to pounce on you if you gave it a chance. ~ Virginia Woolf

Oddly, I feel more protected when I write in Italian, even though I'm also more exposed. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

Contrary to pre-conceived notions and first impressions, the club was an oddly relaxed place, with friendly, polite people, all having a good time. Drugs and even cigarettes were not allowed. No one came near being drunk, or disorderly. Must be a natural high, she thought with wry amusement. Kelly said that for her, coming to the club had been a lifesaver. It was ~ Nikki Sex

To her surprise, Lucky tilted his head and looked her in the eye, appearing oddly ... crestfallen, she thought. "Don't be nervous," he said. "I hate making you nervous. ~ Toni Blake

Spending time around her house, I came across a cache of 16mm movies in her basement. It turned out that Barbara [Stanwyck] had a lot of her own movies, and I convinced her to spend some time watching them with me. I ran the projector. She had prints of Union Pacific, Ball of Fire, and Baby Face, among others. She didn't particularly like watching them, but she did enjoy reminiscing about their production: how she got the part, what the location was like, that sort of thing. She liked people with humor and always spoke highly of Gary Cooper, Joel McCrea, and Frank Capra. Oddly enough, she wasn't crazy about Preston Sturges; she seemed to feel that he expended all his charm and humor for his movies and that there wasn't anything left for his actors. In broad outline, all this sounds a little bit like the scene in Sunset Boulevard where Gloria Swanson sits with William Holden and watches a scene from Queen Kelly, rhapsodizing about her own face. But Barbara couldn't have cared less about how she looked; as I watched her films with her, it was clear that, for her, the movies were a job she loved, as well as a social occasion for a woman who was otherwise something of a loner. ~ Robert J. Wagner

Identifying a potential threat feels curiously good. You're like a gazelle that smells a lion and can't relax until it sees where the lion is. Seeing a lion feels good when the alternative is worse. We seek evidence of threats to feel safe, and we get a dopamine boost when we find what we seek. You can also get a serotonin boost from the feeling of being right, and an oxytocin boost from bonding with those who sense the same threat. This is why people seem oddly pleased to find evidence of doom and gloom. But the pleasure doesn't last because the "do something" feeling commands your attention again. You can end up feeling bad a lot even if you're successful in your survival efforts. ~ Loretta Graziano Breuning

Is this true?" Suzette asked, sounding like a suspicious nanny. It was a tone Daniel had heard often as a child, though from his mother, not a nanny. They hadn't been able to afford a nanny. Oddly enough, he suddenly found himself imagining Suzette as that nonexistent nanny, though really the gown he pictured her in as that nanny was nothing a respectable nanny would wear and covered less than it revealed as she approached him in his mind with a naughty smile and a spanking paddle in hand.
"Spank me," he breathed on a sigh, and then muttered, "Better yet,let me spank you." A vision immediately rose in his mind of her turning and slowly pulling up her scandalously short, ankle-revealing skirt to present him with a view of her very fine bottom.
That vision died an abrupt death when Richard's voice intruded, soaked with melodrama as he said, "Guilt can lead a man to act like an ass and do the most foolish of things."
Daniel almost snorted at that. He was standing there in a dark room all but dancing with a dead man while having the most ridiculous sexual fantasies about Suzette. All this wile waiting to be able to slip out of the house undiscovered. Oh yes, guilt-and many other emotions-made a man do foolish things. ~ Lynsay Sands

So Captain Jack's come a-courtin'." Her hands stilled on the basket. "Who?" "The tall Shawnee who come by your cabin." The tall one. Lael felt a small surge of triumph at learning his name. Captain Jack. Oddly, she felt no embarrassment. Lifting her shoulders in a slight shrug, she continued pulling the vines into a tight circle. "He come by, but I don't know why." "Best take a long look in the mirror, then." Lael's eyes roamed the dark walls. Ma Horn didn't own one. "Beads and a blanket, was it?" She nodded and looked back down. "I still can't figure out why some Shawnee would pay any mind to a white girl like me." Ma Horn chuckled, her face alight in the dimness. "Why, Captain Jack's as white as you are." "What?" she blurted, eyes wide as a child's. Ma Horn's smile turned sober. "He's no Indian, Shawnee or otherwise, so your pa says. He was took as a child from some-wheres in North Carolina. All he can remember of his past life is his white name - Jack. ~ Laura Frantz

He keeps looking at me so oddly."
"Oddly? How? Give me an imitation."
Considering that she had only about a second and a half to do it in, I must say it was a jolly fine exhibition. She opened her mouth and eyes pretty wide and let her jaw drop sideways, and managed to look so like a dyspeptic calf that I recognized the symptoms immediately.
"Oh, that's all right," I said. "No need to be alarmed. He's simply in love with you. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Hidden in a toolbox, in the rafters of his four-car garage, was an envelope full of pictures taken by a private detective...They were pictures of a scrawny, boyish looking nine year old with a wide mouth and a tangle of brown hair...Her eyes were oblong and deep set, their color hidden from the camera by the slant of the sun. The angles and planes of her face were oddly beautiful just then, in that moment, frozen on Kodak paper. A hint of the woman she would someday become. ~ Shirley A. Martin

Fr. 2
All We as Leaves
He (following Homer) compares man's life with the leaves.
All we as leaves in the shock of it:
spring-
one dull gold bounce and you're there.
You see the sun? - I built that.
As a lad. The Fates lashing their tails in a corner.
But (let me think) wasn't it a hotel in Chicago where I had the first of those - my body walking out of the room
bent on some deadly errand
and me up on the ceiling just sort of fading out-
brainsex paintings I used to call them?
In the days when I (so to speak) painted.
Remember
that oddly wonderful chocolate we got in East
(as it was then) Berlin? ~ Anne Carson

He found her unwillingness to quake in the face of his temper oddly intriguing. It was no reason to think he loved the witch, but it was curious. And that made him want to know her better. ~ Jaimey Grant

I have begun in old age to understand just how oddly we all are put together. We are so proud of our autonomy that we seldom if ever realize how generous we are to ourselves, and just how stingy with others. One of the booby traps of freedom
which is bordered on all sides by isolation
is that we think so well of ourselves. I now see that I have helped myself to the best cuts at life's banquet. ~ Saul Bellow

To some Humans, the promise of a patch land was worth any effort. It was an oddly predictable sort of behavior. Humans had a long, storied history of forcing their way into places where they didn't belong. ~ Becky Chambers

Mr. Tulkinghorn is always the same, speechless repository of noble confidences, so oddly out of place and yet so perfectly at home. ~ Charles Dickens

They were gone, she hoped, to be happy, however oddly constructed such happiness might seem; as for herself, she was left with as many sensations of comfort, as were, perhaps, ever likely to be hers. ~ Jane Austen

You make plans and decisions assuming randomness and chaos are for chumps. The illusion of control is a peculiar thing because it often leads to high self-esteem and a belief your destiny is yours for the making more than it really is. This over-optimistic view can translate into actual action, rolling with the punches and moving ahead no matter what. Often, this attitude helps lead to success. Eventually, though, most people get punched in the stomach by life. Sometimes, the gut-punch doesn't come until after a long chain of wins, until you've accumulated enough power to do some serious damage. This is when wars go awry, stock markets crash, and political scandals spill out into the media. Power breeds certainty, and certainty has no clout against the unpredictable, whether you are playing poker or running a country. Psychologists point out these findings do not suggest you should throw up your hands and give up. Those who are not grounded in reality, oddly enough, often achieve a lot in life simply because they believe they can and try harder than others. If you focus too long on your lack of power, you can slip into a state of learned helplessness that will whirl you into a negative feedback loop of depression. Some control is necessary or else you give up altogether. Langer proved this when studying nursing homes where some patients were allowed to arrange their furniture and water plants - they lived longer than those who had had those tasks performed by others. Knowing ~ David McRaney

All places where the French settled have corruption at their heart, a kind of soft, rotten glow, like the phosphorescence of decaying wood, that is oddly attractive. ~ Anne Rivers Siddons

Would you like to be a doctor when you grow up?" I ask her. She looks at me oddly. "I'm already a doctor," she says. ~ Jenny Offill

Oddly, no matter which way I positioned my finer over the little button, it wouldn't read my fingerprint ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

I eat breakfast pretty much 'round the clock - muffins in the morning, scones for lunch, cereal at night - which may be odd but is also oddly satisfying, if only because the choice is my own. ~ Caroline Knapp

Thus I began my systematic though half-bewildered tour of Innsmouth's narrow, shadow-blighted ways. Crossing the bridge and turning toward the roar of the lower falls, I passed close to the Marsh refinery, which seemed to be oddly free from the noise of industry. The building stood on the steep river bluff near a bridge and an open confluence of streets which I took to be the earliest civic center, displaced after the Revolution by the present Town Square. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

Men behave very oddly in the company of attractive women. ~ Alex Kapranos