On The Shelf Quotes

If I wait to be perfect before I love myself I will always be unsatisfied and ungrateful if I wait until all the flaws, chips, and cracks disappear I will be the cup that stands on the shelf and is never used ~ Joyce Rupp

When I take my old copies of the phenomenologies of religion down from the shelf and thumb through their pages, I feel as if I were walking through the halls of abandoned buildings. My graduate school notes lie heavy in the margins, like scrawls of graffiti on the walls, attesting to the fact that human once contested these spaces. I wonder, each time I close one of these volumes and put it back on the shelf, whether the puff of dust that arises from its binding is not a reminder that systems are built to crumble, and the grander the system, the more spectacular the fall. ~ Malcom David Eckel

When I'm not acting, I'm writing, building an inventory of scripts. Even if they sit on the shelf, I just keep stacking them up. ~ Dan Aykroyd

My novels are never truly finished, even if they're published and sitting on the shelf. While I may no longer be interested in spending time with that particular set of characters, I can't help but think about all the ways the book could be different, the small, insignificant tweaks that no one but me would ever notice. ~ Jillian Medoff

Man what's the point of living if I'm living for myself
Lord empty out my life before I put you on the shelf ~ LeCrae

As the field of coaching finds its way to becoming a mature discipline, James Flaherty's dedicated field research, study, and sound articulation offers a definitive ground and a sensibility of genuine care. At the core this book offers a way of thinking about human beings that makes action and practice central to learning. This is a no-nonsense, generous, pragmatic book that belongs on the shelf every coach, novice or veteran. ~ Richard Strozzi-Heckler

The day Metallica's over, i'm not going to put an ad looking for another band. I'll put my drumsticks on the shelf and there's 14 other things I wanna try. Metallica's the only band I've ever been and it's the only I ever wanna be in. ~ Lars Ulrich

People do not buy fortune cookies because they taste better than every other cookie on the shelf. They buy them for the delight they deliver at the end of a meal. Marketers spend most of their time selling the cookie, when what they should be doing is finding a way to create a better fortune. Of course your job is to bake a good cookie, the very best that you can, but you must also spend time figuring out how to tell a great story. ~ William Mougayar

As the new day dawns, and my inkwell runs dry, I hereby make a vow. Not a vow to the man I once hoped to marry, but a promise to myself. From this morning forward, I will never shed another tear for him. There is no need. Because everything Lord Dashwood rejected when he so callously walked away - ­is mine to claim. Mine to use. My wit, my strength, and most of all - ­my heart. I will not put any of these on the shelf. ~ Tessa Dare

You don't have body parts there do you?" my mother interrupted. "I don't want to open the fridge and find a head on the shelf" Rodney laughed. "No Justina, it doesn't look like Jeffrey Dahmer's hideaway. ~ Jeaniene Frost

At the end of the day, it's just grape juice. No one needs anything that I make. The last thing we need is another wine on the shelf. So that just makes me grateful for the people who do enjoy it. ~ Andre Hueston Mack

Things are in the wrong place. Religion is in the box where science used to be. Politics is on the shelf where you thought you left science the previous afternoon. Entertainment seems to have knocked over and spilled on everything. ~ Charles P. Pierce

Now I know what a piece of bacon feels like when it is suddenly picked out of the pan on a fork and put back on the shelf!"
"No you don't!" he heard Dori answering, "because the bacon knows that it will get back in the pan sooner or later; and it is to be hoped we shan't. Also eagles aren't forks! ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

My Lamb, you are so very small, You have not learned to read at all; Yet never a printed book withstands The urgence of your dimpled hands. So, though this book is for yourself, Let mother keep it on the shelf Till you can read. O days that pass, That day will come too soon, alas! ~ E. Nesbit

If I were anyone else ... your opera singer ... the woman across the hall ... would you have apologized?"
He looked confused. "No ... but you are neither of those women. You deserve better."
"Better," she repeated, frustrated. "That's just my point! You and the rest of society believe that it's better for me to be set upon a pedestal of primness and propriety - which might have been fine if a decade on that pedestal hadn't simply landed me on the shelf. Perhaps unmarried young women like our sisters should be there. But what of me?" Her voice dropped as she looked down at the cards in her hands. "I'm never going to get a chance to experience life from up there. All that is up there is dust and unwanted apologies. The same cage as hers" - she indicated the woman outside - "merely a different gilt. ~ Sarah MacLean

Sometimes you buy a book, powerfully drawn to it, but then it just sits on the shelf. Maybe you flick through it, the ghost of your original purpose at your elbow, but it's not so much rereading as re-dusting. Then one day you pick it up, take notice of the contents; your inner life realigns. ~ Hilary Mantel

He couldn't have known it, but among the original run of The History of Love, at least one copy was destined to change a life.

This particular book was one of the last of the two thousand to be printed, and sat for longer than the rest in a warehouse in the outskirts of Santiago, absorbing the humidity. From there it was finally sent to a bookstore in Buenos Aires. The careless owner hardly noticed it, and for some years it languished on the shelves, acquiring a pattern of mildew across the cover. It was a slim volume, and its position on the shelf wasn't exactly prime: crowded on the left by an overweight biography of a minor actress, and on the right by the once-bestselling novel of an author that everyone had since forgotten, it hardly left its spine visible to even the most rigorous browser. When the store changed owners it fell victim to a massive clearance, and was trucked off to another warehouse, foul, dingy, crawling with daddy longlegs, where it remained in the dark and damp before finally being sent to a small secondhand bookstore not far from the home of the writer Jorge Luis Borges.

The owner took her time unpacking the books she'd bought cheaply and in bulk from the warehouse. One morning, going through the boxes, she discovered the mildewed copy of The History of Love. She'd never heard of it, but the title caught her eye. She put it aside, and during a slow hour in the shop she read the opening chapter, called 'The Age of Silence.'
Nicole Krauss

Erich Fromm in his 1941 book "Escape from Freedom", about the nature of one of our culture's most cherished values. Fromm argues that freedom is composed of two complementary parts. A common view of freedom is that it means "freedom from the political, economic, and spiritual shackles that have bound men," which defines it as the absence of others forcibly interfering with the pursuit of our goals. In contrast to this "freedom from," Fromm identifies an alternate sense of freedom as an ability: the "freedom to" attain certain outcomes and realize our full potential. "Freedom from" and "freedom to" don't always go together, but one must be free in both senses to obtain full benefit from choice. A child may be allowed to have a cookie, but he won't get it if he can't reach the cookie jar high on the shelf. ~ Sheena Iyengar

Plus she did that stupid "Elf on the Shelf" thing and moved it every morning. It took another minute, but he finally found the bendy little freak hanging from the garland around one of her windows. ~ Joanne Jaytanie

My books standing there on the shelf do not know that I have written them. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a given item. One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The information you need is in the others. ~ Raymond Simard

There is a time limit to how long a spirited young person can be kept in cold storage. ~ Iris Murdoch

If the United States is promoting the development of exploits, of vulnerabilities, of insecurity in this critical infrastructure, and we're not fixing it when we find it, instead we put it on the shelf so we can use it the next time we want to launch an attack against some foreign country. We're leaving ourselves at risk. ~ Edward Snowden

Soros is the best loss taker I've ever seen. He doesn't care whether he wins or loses on a trade. If a trade doesn't work, he's confident enough about his ability to win on other trades. There are a lot of shoes on the shelf; wear only the ones that fit. If you're extremely confident, taking a loss doesn't bother you. ~ Stanley Druckenmiller

Fictional boyfriends were way more satisfying, in my experience. They almost always said the right thing, and when you got bored with them, you just put them back on the shelf. ~ Eileen Cook

Where did she come from, and where can I find one?" "Picked this one up at a gas station in West Virginia, bargain price. Last one on the shelf, sorry. ~ Alexandra Bracken

ROSES UNDERFOOT

The sound of salaams rising as
waves diminish down in prayer,

hoping for some trace of the one
whose trace does not appear. If

anyone asks you to say who you
are, say without hesitation,

soul withing soul within soul.
There's a pearl diver who does

not know how to swim! No matter.
Pearls are handed him on the

beach. We lovers laugh to hear,
"This should be more that and

that more this,"coming from
people sitting in a wagon tilted

in a ditch. Going in search of
the heart, I found a huge rose

under my feet, and roses under
all our feet! How to say this

to someone who denies it? The
robe we wear is the sky's cloth.

Everything is soul and flowering.

---------------------------------

I open and fill with love and
other objects evaporate. All

the learning in books stays put
on the shelf. Poetry, the dear

words and images of song, comes
down over me like mountain water.


----------------------------------

Any cup I hold fills with wine
that lovers drink. Every word

I say opens into mystery. Any way I turn I see brilliance. ~ Rumi

Brisbane continued. "I have led a selfish life, and I have enjoyed it. I cannot imagine a life without my work, and I cannot imagine a life without you, and yet I cannot reconcile the two." My heart, which had given a joyous leap in the middle of his speech, faltered now as I realised what he was trying to say. "I never thought to ask you to give up your work," I began. "But how can I ask you to sit idly by and wait for me to return when every time I kiss you goodbye might be the last?" "Oh, don't!" I told him, fully enraged. "How dare you blame your cowardice upon me?" His lips went white, as did the tiny crescent moon scar high upon his cheekbone. "I beg your pardon?" "Cowardice," I said distinctly. "You hide behind this pretence of fine feeling because you will not declare yourself directly and this gives you a perfect excuse, does it not? Spare poor Julia the horror of being widowed a second time. Put her up on the shelf and keep her out of harm's way whilst you amuse yourself with your dashing adventures." He opened his mouth to speak, but I stepped forward, tipping my head up to rail at him. "I am quite disappointed that you have revealed yourself to be so thoroughly conventional in your philosophy. Have I not proven myself a capable partner?" I demanded. "Have I not stood, side by side, with you, facing peril with equal courage? If you thought for a moment that I would be the meek, quiet, obedient sort of woman who would sit quietly at home mending your socks while you ~ Deanna Raybourn

Virtue," he said. "The real thing. It's not some kind of cuddly teddy bear you can keep on the shelf until you need a hug. It's dangerous, which is why it makes people so nervous. Virtue has its own agenda, and believe me, it's not always yours. The word itself means strength, power. And when it gets loose, you'd better watch out."
Something bad might happen ... "
Impossible. But possibly something painful"
-A Wizard Alone by Diane Duane ~ Diane Duane

A hundred hands wanted shaking, a hundred tongues expressed their condolences. Thank you, said William, and Kind of you, endlessly.

Between his uncle and the helpfulness of the Misses Young and all these other people, William was never alone, not for an hour, except to sleep. He went to bed with the distant, certain expectation that overnight the world would put itself right. He slept for long hours: endless, dreamless sleep, which did not refresh, and when he woke the world bewildered him by persisting in its wayward course. He felt weighted down and dreary. A fog settled between him and his own thoughts, and behind it, unformulated, unexamined, was this: How long before things go back to normal?

His mother was dead: he had seen the body; yet this knowledge refused to find a settled place in his mind. It came and went, surprised him every time he chanced upon it, and there were a million reasons not to believe it. His mother was dead, but look: here were her clothes and here her tea cups, here her Sunday hat on the shelf over the coat hook. His mother was dead, but hark: the garden gate! Any moment now she would come through the door. ~ Diane Setterfield

Allons! the road is before us!
It is safe - I have tried it - my own feet have tried it well - be not detain'd!
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen'd!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn'd!
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live? ~ Walt Whitman

Built-in shelves line my bedroom, adjacent to my Japanese platform bed, purchased for its capacious rim, the better to hold those books that must be immediately accessible. Yet still they pile on my nightstand, and the grid of shelves continues in floor-to-ceiling formation across the wall, stampeding over the doorway in disorderly fashion, political memoirs mixed in with literary essays, Victorian novels fighting for space with narrative adventure, the Penguin classics never standing together in a gracious row no matter how hard I try to impose order. The books compete for attention, assembling on the shelf above the sofa on the other side of the room, where they descend by the window, staring back at me. As I lie in bed with another book, they lie in wait. ~ Pamela Paul

No one who worked in "Corrections" appeared to give any thought to the purpose of our being there, any more than a warehouse clerk would consider the meaning of a can of tomatoes, or try to help those tomatoes understand what the hell they were doing on the shelf. ~ Piper Kerman

You ought to get out more. You know, Pérol, we should go out some evening, just you and me. Otherwise, you lose touch with reality. You know what I mean? You lose your sense of reality, and hey presto, you don't know which shelf you left your soul on. The shelf where you put your friends. The shelf where you put your women. Stage right, stage left. Or in the shoebox. You turn around and you find you're stuck in the bottom drawer, with the accessories. ~ Jean-Claude Izzo

It takes work to keep the world whole. A simple thing like a cup needs to be cleaned each day, placed carefully back on the shelf, not dropped. A city, in its own way, is every bit as delicate. People move over the causeways, ply the canals with their oars, go between their markets and their homes, buy and barter, swindle and sell, and all the while, mostly unknowingly, they are holding that city together. Each civil word is a stitch knitting it tight. Every law observed, willingly or grudgingly, helps to bind the whole. Every tradition, every social more, every act of neighborly goodwill is a stay against chaos. So many souls, so much effort, so difficult to create and so simple to shatter. ~ Brian Staveley

I have a beautiful address book a friend gave me in 1966. I literally cannot open it again. Ever. It sits on the shelf with over a hundred names crossed out. What is there to say? There are no words. I'll never understand why it happened to us. ~ Jerry Herman

When it comes to religion, we're not two sides of the same coin, and you don't get to put your unreason up on the same shelf with my reason. Your stuff has to go over there, on the shelf with Zeus and Thor and the Kraken, with the stuff that is not evidence-based, stuff that religious people never change their mind about, no matter what happens. ~ Bill Maher

You got me sitting on the shelf, while you're out bewitching someone else. ~ Jimi Hendrix

Books, of which the principles are diseased or deformed, must be kept on the shelf of the scholar, as the man of science preserves monsters in glasses. They belong to the study of the mind's morbid anatomy, and ought to be accurately labelled. Voltaire will still be a wit, notwithstanding he is a scoffer; and we may admire the brilliant spots and eyes of the viper, if we acknowledge its venom and call it a reptile. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

It was important to buy into the fact that the nine hundred pages an end-reader never sees are just as valuable as the ones that are bound and placed on the shelf. ~ Joshua Mohr

Technology is like a fish. The longer it stays on the shelf, the less desirable it becomes ~ Andrew Heller

Oh,and the hunk wasn't hard on the eyes, either." Grinning, she gave an obvious and deliberate shudder. "The real physical type.I thought he was going to punch that idiot Tarmack right in the face. Was kinda hoping he would. Anyway,the pair of you made a great team."
"I suppose."
"So,what about those smoldering looks?"
"What smoldering looks?"
"Get out." Mo cheerfully wiggled her eyebrows. "I got singed and I was only an innocent bystander. The guy looks at you like you were the last candy bar on the shelf and he'd die without a chocolate fix."
"That's a ridiculous analogy, and you're imagining things."
"He was going to pound Tarmack into dust for dissing you.Man, I just wanted to melt when he hauled the guy up by the collar.Too romantic. ~ Nora Roberts

There's no razor in candy. If for no other reason, it doesn't make financial sense. It's not fiscally prudent. How much does a piece of candy cost - like, a penny and a half? An apple's like 15 cents? Anybody here bought a Mach 3 replacement cartridge recently? They're so expensive, they don't even keep them on the shelf. You know, you have to ask the people behind the counter. I feel like I'm trying to buy enriched plutonium or something. ~ Arj Barker

It is important to view a recipe book as one that you use daily and what we in our family call "a living book" - a book that you use all the time, not just read once and discard on the shelf. It is in a sense a spell book, a book of magical enchantments, to be consulted, used and altered as needed. ~ The Silver Elves

Excerpt from the Marquis's Mistake by myself.
"So what am I my Lord, an antidote, a bluestocking or on the shelf? I assume it is the last because I should have come out three years ago and am all of twenty and one."
"But you were not out so that doesn't count and I find you extremely desirable so you are far from an antidote. I think you very pretty and my taste has always been considered excellent. You are well educated but have other interests and ride well, so you fail to fit the criteria of a bluestocking. It might interest you to know my grandmother put you top of the girls she invited to her dinner party. Her opinion only confirmed what I had already concluded from examining your notebook and sketches. You eavesdrop and I sneak a peek at other people's private notebooks. You see I think we would be well-matched. ~ Giselle Marks

Super Troopers is hilarious. Everybody always thought we somehow - we did Reno way, way before any of us had seen Super Troopers. It sat on the shelf for a couple years. ~ Thomas Lennon

A scientist who is also a human being cannot rest while knowledge which might be used to reduce suffering rests on the shelf, ~ Albert Sabin

Listen not to the critics who put their own dreams on the shelf. ~ Garth Brooks

I put the wine bottle on the counter and reached for a couple of wine glasses. "Would you like some? It's a fine vintage stock. I'm pretty sure it was on the shelf of the Piggly Wiggly for at least two weeks. ~ Denise Grover Swank

I have always been interested in this man. My father had a set of Tom Paine's books on the shelf at home. I must have opened the covers about the time I was 13. And I can still remember the flash of enlightenment which shone from his pages. It was a revelation, indeed, to encounter his views on political and religious matters, so different from the views of many people around us. Of course I did not understand him very well, but his sincerity and ardor made an impression upon me that nothing has ever served to lessen.

I have heard it said that Paine borrowed from Montesquieu and Rousseau. Maybe he had read them both and learned something from each. I do not know. But I doubt that Paine ever borrowed a line from any man...

Many a person who could not comprehend Rousseau, and would be puzzled by Montesquieu, could understand Paine as an open book. He wrote with a clarity, a sharpness of outline and exactness of speech that even a schoolboy should be able to grasp. There is nothing false, little that is subtle, and an impressive lack of the negative in Paine. He literally cried to his reader for a comprehending hour, and then filled that hour with such sagacious reasoning as we find surpassed nowhere else in American letters - seldom in any school of writing.

Paine would have been the last to look upon himself as a man of letters. Liberty was the dear companion of his heart; truth in all things his object.

...we, perhaps, remember him ~ Thomas A. Edison

A long time ago, I heard a piece of advice that went something like "write the book you wish you could find on the shelf but can't." And that's what I do... ~ Maggie Stiefvater

More than fifty-five years ago my father told me, "The Bible does not belong on the shelf but in your hand, under your eye, and in your heart." ~ Martin Niemoller

When I was with my mother, I sometimes thought of myself of a trophy - something to be flaunted before friends. When out of public view, I sat on the shelf ignored and forgotten. ~ Joan Frances Casey

Seeing one's books on the shelf tells you so much about the way somebody has, over the years, put together their private library, which is a reflection of their minds and their selves. ~ Jeanette Winterson

Every heart has a story to tell. Some dreams have wings, some are torn at the seams and just sit there on the shelf. If you were to walk in my shoes, you would see that we are all the same. So find the love inside yourself because every heart has a story to tell. ~ Sara Haze

The rock sitting on the shelf has potential because it can fall-it's the same way with the Internet. It has this potential. It's not really doing it yet, but it's about to. ~ Michael Nesmith

And it has to do with having no inventory or stockpiles on the shelf, but items arrive as you need to build your product. What that means is that it's much more difficult to actually find stockpiles of already built weapons. ~ Mitchell Reiss

It is not proper, you being closeted up here with him
"
"Delphinia, don't be absurd. I am so firmly on the shelf that the maids are tempted to dust me. ~ Meredith Duran

I think the sorts of people who honestly think that service workers should be more smiley and gracious just don't get it. They don't get it because they can take so much for granted in their own lives - things like respect, consideration, and basic fairness on the job. Benefits. Insurance. They're used to the luxury of choosing the most aesthetically pleasing item on the shelf, of caring what color their car is rather than simply whether it runs or not. They don't understand how depressing it is to be barely managing your life at any given moment of the day. So forgive me if I don't tell you to have a pleasant day with unfeigned enthusiasm when I hand you your fucking hamburger. You'll have to settle for the fake sort. ~ Linda Tirado

Most of my colleagues have research awards on the shelf. I have party invites. ~ Anita Elberse

Write the book you've always wanted to read, but can't find on the shelf. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

I had so many songs that were actually sort of finished. And I deleted them. I wrote on my website that I'd put them on the shelf, but that wasn't true. I actually deleted them from my computer. I got sort of trigger-happy and I think I deleted about 200 songs from my computer. ~ Jens Lekman

Demon. Gremlin. Poltergeist. Ghost. Phantom. Spirit. Shadow. Ghoul. Devil. People are afraid of them, so they relegate their existence to stories, volumes of books that can be closed and put on the shelf or left behind at a bed and breakfast; they clench their eyes shut, so they will see no evil. But trust me when I tell you that the zebra is real. Somewhere, the zebra is dancing. ~ Garth Stein

If you don't include your women graduates in your breeding pool and leave them on the shelf, you would end up a more stupid society ... So what happens? There will be less bright people to support dumb people in the next generation. That's a problem. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

My wife and I lived all alone,
contention was our only bone.
I fought with her, she fought with me,
and things went on right merrily.
But now I live here by myself
with hardly a damn thing on the shelf,
and pass my days with little cheer
since I have parted from my dear. ~ Robert Creeley

A dozen candles burned themselves to death on the shelf before me. Each of my breaths made them tremble. To them, I was a behemoth, to frighten and destroy. And yet, if I strayed too close, they could destroy me. My invisible breath, the pulses of life that flowed in and out, could end them freely, while my fingers could not do the same without being repaid in pain.'"
"'I understood in a moment of stillness,'" Litima read. "'Those candle flames were like the lives of men. So fragile. So deadly. Left alone, they lit and warmed. Let run rampant, they would destroy the very things they were meant to illuminate. Embryonic bonfires, each bearing a seed of destruction so potent it could tumble cities and dash kings to their knees. In later years, my mind would return to that calm, silent evening, when I had stared at rows of living lights. And I would understand. To be given loyalty is to be infused like a gemstone, to be granted the frightful license to destroy not only one's self, but all within one's care. ~ Brandon Sanderson

Coincidentally, a good age for a Japanese girl is younger than twenty five, because that's when she turns into a 'Christmas Cake'. Christmas cakes, as everyone knows, are desirable before the twenty fifth but afterward quickly become stale and are put on the shelf. ~ Andrew Davidson

The Christian faith does not call for us to put our minds on the shelf, to fly in the face of common sense and history, or to make a leap of faith into the dark. The rational person, fully apprised of the evidence, can confidently believe ... ~ William Lane Craig

Love isn't an act, it's a whole life.
It's staying with [them] now because [they] need you; it's knowing you ... will still care about each other when sex and daydreams, fights and futures - when all that's on the shelf and done with. ~ Brian Moore

Create a trophy room in your heart. Each time you experience a victory, place a memory on the shelf. Before you face a challenge, take a quick tour of God's accomplishments. Look at all the paychecks he has provided, all the blessings he has given, all the prayers he had answered. Imitate the shepherd boy David. Before he fought Goliath, the giant, he remembered how God had helped him kill a lion and a bear (1 Samuel 17:34-36). He faced his future by revisiting the past. ~ Max Lucado

I always have to have sweet and salty. I know some of you are going to say, "Oh, I tried dates. I hate them." That's probably because you had the ones that were on the shelf for three years. Go to some healthy place and get the fresh ones, and you will just love them. You'll start eating them and think they're so good. ~ Sandra Cisneros

I know the names of the books - their old covers bleached to palest greens or pinks by the endless cycle of summers - lined up on the shelf. ~ Harriet Lane

When you go to a movie, you don't care for one Oscar, really. Do you care if a guy got a Oscar on the shelf or is it a good movie? And, you don't care how much the movie made. ~ Ice Cube

From sunny woof and cloudy weft Fell rain in sheets; so, to myself I hummed these hazard rhymes, and left The learned volume on the shelf. ~ Alfred Austin

Whites and pastels - colors suitable for a girl's come-out, though not always suited to the girls coming out - eddied erratically around gowns in every brilliant hue ladies married, widowed or on the shelf could imagine, and a few they ought not have. ~ Colleen Ladd

Since I was trying so hard to make books lead my life, I didn't want to read them and then just put them back on the shelf and say, "good book," as if I was patting a good dog. I wanted books to change me, and I wanted to write books that would change others. ~ Jack Gantos

Sure, I had been through the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program when I was a kid. I had seen Nancy Reagan's pasty white ass on TV telling me to, "just say no". But Nancy Regan had never had to worry about paying the rent, or living pay check to pay check, or finding her dad's rolling papers on the shelf above the coco-puffs. So I guess in Nancy Reagan's world it was pretty damn easy to adopt retarded slogans like, "just say no". I wouldn't know, though. I lived in the real world. I had problems. ~ Steven Eggleton

See, I know how they do. White folks like to stay in those books. They carry and they keep and they dig in their books, like nothing matters that don't get written in some book somewhere. Like that's the only way they can know for sure what happened. They'll write down who they are and what they did. And their daddies and theirs too. Put it all in a book, then close it up and put it on the shelf. Just to know it's there so they can sleep at night. Like if they don't get written down somewhere and they shut their eyes for a minute, they might disappear. ~ Margaret Wrinkle

If the book is finished - published and on the shelf - I do not think of revising it. But if I'm not finished psychologically with characters, they will recur, either as themselves or as new, slightly altered manifestations, and their same issues will reappear. It's a matter of the subject and emotional investment and my own obsessive thinking about various issues It's an unconscious process. To say that a single story is not done isn't quite true. A story can be finished and judged successful or not by somebody else, but if the issue is not done for me, I can count on its reappearance. ~ Antonya Nelson

Only a certain number of people go to a store over the period of a year. When a person sees my record on the shelf, it eliminates someone else's record from being sold. It's about continuing to try to find new ways to sell records. ~ Roy Ayers

Douglas has more books- and comic books- than anyone I know. Still, if you wanted to borrow one, and took it down off the shelf and forgot to mention it to him, Douglas would notice right away it was missing, even though there are maybe a thousand other ones that look exactly like it right on the shelf beside it. Douglas is one of those books people ~ Meg Cabot

The Aristocrat

The Devil is a gentleman, and asks you down to stay
At his little place at What'sitsname (it isn't far away).
They say the sport is splendid; there is always something new,
And fairy scenes, and fearful feats that none but he can do;
He can shoot the feathered cherubs if they fly on the estate,
Or fish for Father Neptune with the mermaids for a bait;
He scaled amid the staggering stars that precipice, the sky,
And blew his trumpet above heaven, and got by mastery
The starry crown of God Himself, and shoved it on the shelf;
But the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't brag himself.

O blind your eyes and break your heart and hack your hand away,
And lose your love and shave your head; but do not go to stay
At the little place in What'sitsname where folks are rich and clever;
The golden and the goodly house, where things grow worse for ever;
There are things you need not know of, though you live and die in vain,
There are souls more sick of pleasure than you are sick of pain;
There is a game of April Fool that's played behind its door,
Where the fool remains for ever and the April comes no more,
Where the splendour of the daylight grows drearier than the dark,
And life droops like a vulture that once was such a lark:
And that is the Blue Devil that once was the Blue Bird;
For the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't keep his word. ~ G.K. Chesterton

WOMAN: Hi, where are your copies of Breaking Dawn? I can't see any on the shelf.
BOOKSELLER: Sorry, I think we've sold out of the Twilight books; we're waiting on more.
WOMAN: What?
BOOKSELLER: We should have some in tomorrow.
WOMAN: But I need a copy now. I finished the last one last night.
BOOKSELLER: I'm sorry, I can't help you.
WOMAN: No, you don't understand. I've taken the whole day off work to read it.
BOOKSELLER: Erm…
WOMAN: I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS! NOW!
BOOKSELLER: Erm…
WOMAN: Can you call your wholesaler and see if they can deliver this afternoon?
BOOKSELLER: They only ---
WOMAN: And then I can wait here for them.
BOOKSELLER: I'm sorry, they only deliver in the morning.
WOMAN: BUT WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW?
BOOKSELLER: . . .we have many other books.
WOMAN (sniffs): Do any of those have Robert Pattinson in them? ~ Jen Campbell

I felt a bottomless sadness. So completely alone. Like one of my stuffed animals at home that I was too old for now, that sat on the shelf in my closet, mashed against the back wall. ~ Augusten Burroughs

The forbidden cabinet. The forbidden fruit. That fruit is - a volume, a huge blue-lilac volume with a gold inscription slantwise: Collected Works of A.S. Pushkin. I read the fat Pushkin in the cabinet with my nose in the book and on the shelf, almost in darkness and almost right up against it and even a little bit suffocated by his weight that came right into the throat, and almost blinded by the nearness of the tiny letters. I read Pushkin right into the chest and right into the brain. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

THERE ARE FEW THINGS as beautiful as a glass bottle filled with deep amber whiskey. Liquor shines when the light hits it, reminiscent of precious things like jewels and gold. But whiskey is better than some lifeless bracelet or coronet. Whiskey is a living thing capable of any emotion that you are. It's love and deep laughter and brotherhood of the type that bonds nations together. Whiskey is your friend when nobody else comes around. And whiskey is solace that holds you tighter than most lovers can. I thought all that while looking at my sealed bottle. And I knew for a fact that it was all true. True the way a lover's pillow talk is true. True the way a mother's dreams for her napping infant are true. But the whiskey mind couldn't think its way out of the problems I had. So I took Mr. Seagram's, put him in his box, and placed him up on the shelf where he belonged. ~ Walter Mosley

It is of the utmost importance to us to be kept humble. Consciousness of self-importance is a hateful delusion, but one into which we fall as naturally as weeds grow on a dunghill. We cannot be used of the Lord but that we also dream of personal greatness, we think ourselves almost indispensible to the church, pillars of the cause, and foundations of the temple of God. We are nothings and nobodies, but that we do not think so is very evident, for as soon as we are put on the shelf we begin anxiously to enquire, 'How will the work go on without me?' As well might the fly on the coach wheel enquire, 'How will the mails be carried without me?' Far better men have been laid in the grave without having brought the Lord's work to a standstill, and shall we fume and fret because for a little season we must lie upon the bed of languishing? God sometimes weakens our strength in a way at the precise juncture when our presence seems most needed to teach us that we are not necessary to God's work, and that when we are most useful, He can easily do without us. If this be the practical lesson, the rough schooling may be easily endured for assuredly it is beyond all things desirable that self should be kept low and the Lord alone be magnified. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Yes no yes no yes no? Red blue? Yes red, no blue? No red, yes no? In out, up down? Do don't, can can't? Choices sit on the shelf life New shoes in a shoe shop. If the in crowd are squeezing into a must-have shoe And the one pair left are too tiny for you Don't feel compelled into choosing them If you're really a size 9, buy that size. While everyone else Hobbles round with sore feet Your choices should feel comfortable Or they aren't your choices at all. Why limp when you can sprint ~ Sir David Baird, 1st Baronet

Who said I was going to give it to you?" He smiled and took a step toward me. "Maybe I have secret love for Fitzwilliam Darcy. We do share a name. I also need to get a gift for someone who would love it."
"If I can't have it, no one can." I narrowed my eyes in mock threat.
"Is that so?"
"You'll have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers." I backed into the bookshelf behind me.
"Maybe I just need to distract you long enough to steal it." He put a hand on the shelf by my head.
"And how do you plan on doing that?" I licked my lips.
"I have a few ideas." He moved his other hand, caging me in, and leaned down. ~ Nichole Chase

So those pills that offered painless relief stayed stored on the shelf, out of the strength of her reach, high atop the altar of platitudes. ~ J.R. Hamantaschen

Librarians are hot. They have knowledge and power over their domain ... It is no coincidence how many librarians are portrayed as having a passionate interior, hidden by a cool layer of reserve. Aren't books like that? On the shelf, their calm covers belie the intense experience of reading one. Reading inflames the soul. Now, what sort of person would be the keeper of such books? ~ Holly Black

There are some men, Jepp, whose lives are like this
a single volume. Their story is seamless, without fissures or breaks. They live but one life. Then there are others, like you and me, whose lives are a series of volumes. Their stories stop and must be started up again. They must accept this is so, and put one book away on the shelf in order to start another. ~ Katherine Marsh

I'm not interested in creating a book that is read once and then placed on the shelf and forgotten. ~ Richard Scarry

Shimamoto was in charge of the records. She'd take one from its jacket, place it carefully on the turntable without touching the grooves with her fingers, and, after making sure to brush the cartridge free of any dust with a tiny brush, lower the needle ever so gently onto the record. When the record was finished, she'd spray it and wipe it with a felt cloth. Finally she'd return the record to its jacket and its proper place on the shelf. Her father had taught her this procedure, and she followed his instructions with a terribly serious look on her face, her eyes narrowed, her breath held in check. Meanwhile, I was on the sofa, watching her every move. Only when the record was safely back on the shelf did she turn to me and give a little smile. And every time, this thought hit me: It wasn't a record she was handling. It was a fragile soul inside a glass bottle. ~ Haruki Murakami

He feels like saying that of course there's lint on Mr. Wiggly, or dust at any rate, or maybe rust; what does she expect, because as she is well aware Mr. Wiggly has been on the shelf for some time. ~ Margaret Atwood

People are best on records and books because you can turn them off or put them back on the shelf. ~ Henry Rollins

I can get any retail buyer on the phone with you and get them to verify that not a single retail location in America where there's a PlayStation 3 on the shelf for sale. They've all been sold in a matter of minutes. ~ Jack Tretton

She looked up and smiled. "I'm glad you found some books that interest you. Would you like a glass of lemonade?"
Though I was hoping to thank her for the books and be on my way, I didn't want to seem rude. I nodded and set the stack of books on the counter. While Miz Goodpepper pulled a pitcher from the refrigerator, I asked, "Is the Kama Sutra a volcano?"
She gasped and splashed lemonade across the kitchen counter. The strangest look streaked across her face as she sopped up the mess with a wad of paper towels. "Well, I suppose some might think it's a volcano of sorts, but I can say with absolute assurance you wouldn't enjoy that book."
"That's what I thought," I said, feeling pleased with myself, so I put it back on the shelf.
She let out a barely audible sigh. "Good. ~ Beth Hoffman

Then the screen comes on, showing a familiar menu on a blue background and I stare at it, transfixed, like a yokel who's never seen a television before. Because it's not a TV. It's a flat-screen PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition. They can't be that dumb. It's got to be a trap, I gibber to myself. Not even the clueless cannon-fodder-in-jumpsuits who staff any one of the movies on the shelf would be that dumb! ~ Charles Stross

Relations are errors that Nature makes. / Your spouse you can put on the shelf. / But your friends, dear friends, are the quaint mistakes / You always commit yourself. ~ Phyllis McGinley