One Shot Billy Quotes

This story is dedicated to all those who help, and all those who care. ~ James D. Scanlon

Passionate. Compulsive. Emotional. I find myself laughing and crying like crazy, and angry at the characters because they do things that I don't want them to and sometimes I hate them. They betray me all the time. I started Daughter of Fortune with two characters that I thought were great. This young man who was tormented, he was the devil lover, he was dark and handsome and he goes to find gold and then I couldn't find him again. I looked for him all over California. I couldn't find him. He just betrayed me and disappeared and became like a ghost - faint, blurred. And the Chinese guy who was supposed to appear for a few lines during a trip on a ship started to grow and grow and became the protagonist. That's the wonder of writing, that you don't know what's going to happen. I never work with an outline. I start adding words and ideas. It's like embroidery. I always say that a short story is like an arrow that has one shot and it has to get there and you need direction, precision, speed, the eye, the wrist to do it in one shot, while a novel is like embroidering a tapestry and you do not know the design. You work from the other side and you put threads and colors together, and then one day you turn it over and you see that there is a design and there is something there that you didn't know was there. ~ Isabel Allende

That's right boys, I made twins. Two babies, one shot, he said with his chest puffed out. ~ Toni Aleo

Of course, with the increasing number of aeroplanes one gains increased opportunities for shooting down one's enemies, but at the same time, the possibility of being shot down one's self increases. ~ Manfred Von Richthofen

Steady there," he whispered, his lips brushing past my ear as he eased up behind me. His hands settled on my hips, fingers toying with the hem of my shirt. "Focus, Duffy. Are you focusing?"
He was trying to distract me. And shit, it was working.
I jerked away from him, trying to thrust the back of my pool stick into his gut. But of course he dodged, and I succeeded only in knocking the cue ball in the opposite direction of what I'd intended, sending it right into one of the corner pockets.
"Scratch," Wesley announced.
"Damn it!" I whirled around to face him. "That shouldn't count!"
"But it does." He took the white ball out of the hole and placed it carefully at the end of the table. "All's fair in love and pool."
"War," I corrected.
"Same thing." He eased the stick back, staring straight ahead, before shooting it forward again. Half a second later, the eight ball sailed into a pocket. The winning shot.
"Asshole," I hissed.
"Don't be a sore loser," he said, leaning his stick against the wall. "What did you really expect? I'm obviously amazing at everything." He grinned. "But, hey, you can't hold it against me, right? We can't help the way God makes us. ~ Kody Keplinger

Send it and end it, kid."
Court would fire, sending a boat-tail round across fields and lakes, over cabins and farms, and, more often than not, much more often than not, he'd hit his target, thereby ending the "threat."
He'd send it, and he'd end it.
He thought back to those days, the fundamentals of the craft, and he fought again to remain calm. He forced himself not to feel any emotion at all. Any increase in heart rate, fluctuation in breathing, new sweating on his skin that could cause reflex muscle contractions. Anything different with his body at the moment he fired would affect his shot. It could send the round out of the barrel one hundredth of an inch from where he wanted the muzzle positioned for firing, but translated out across 1.81 miles, the round would end up several feet off target. ~ Mark Greaney

In India when I was a boy they had great big green lizards there, and if you shouted or shot them their tails would fall off. There was only one boy in the school who could catch lizards intact. No one knew quite how he did it. He had a special soft way of going up to them, and he'd bring them back with their tails on. That strikes me as the best analogy I can give you. To try and catch your poem without its tail falling off. ~ Lawrence Durrell

Introduced Doc to the miracle of morphine. From that very first shot it was as if he'd discovered the one vital ingredient that God had left out when He'd sent Doc kicking and screaming into the cold, cruel world. ~ Steve Earle

Ren took his time perusing the menu and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself. I didn't even pick my menu up. He shot me meaningful glances while I sat silently, trying to avoid making eye contact. When she came back, she spoke to him briefly and gestured to me.
I smiled, and in a syrupy sweet voice, said, "I'll have whatever will get me out of here the fastest. Like a salad, maybe."
Ren smiled benignly back at me and rattled off what sounded like a banquet of choices, which the waitress was more than happy to take her time writing down. She kept touching him and laughing with him too. Which I found very, very annoying.
When she left, he leaned back in his chair and sipped his water.
I broke the silence first and hissed at him quietly, "I don't know what you're playing at, but you only have about two minutes left, so I hope you ordered the steak tartar, Tiger."
He grinned mischievously. "We'll see, Kells. We'll see."
"Fine. No skin off my nose. I can't wait to see what happens when a white tiger runs through this nice establishment creating mayhem and havoc. Perhaps they will lose one of their stars because they put their patrons in danger. Maybe your new waitress girlfriend will run away screaming." I smiled at the thought.
Ren affected shock, "Why, Kelsey! Are you jealous?"
I snorted in a very unladylike way. "No! Of course not."
He grinned. Nervously, I played with my cloth napkin. "I can't believe you convinced Mr. Kadam to ~ Colleen Houck

What changed your mind?"
"I never changed my mind." Stitch grunted as he threw the bag as far as he could into the black water.
Zak sighed, rushed toward him, and pulled him away from the shore. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the water getting rough in the moonlight as reptiles crept closer in the darkness, ready for some fresh meat. "Will you come back home with me?" he uttered, cold sweat sliding down his back.
Stitch took a deep breath and held onto Zak's hand. "If you'll have me," he whispered. "This was such a shit day, wasn't it?"
Zak squeezed his hand tightly with a shuddery sigh. A man who had trembled with pleasure in his bed turned into gator feed, and Zak was choosing to betray him. The death could still be discovered, they could still be charged with murder, but he was determined to keep himself in one piece. "I just want to kiss you so badly."
Stitch bowed down to him and gave the kiss Zak so deeply craved. His soft, warm lips were somehow making all the black thoughts flee into the depths of Zak's mind. "I can't please everyone." His voice was so weak it was getting lost in the sounds of splashing water and buzzing insects.
Zak pushed himself against Stitch and gasped as adrenaline shot into his brain. Stitch's scent was sharper than ever, spiked with all the stress and fear of the passing day. "I love you."
"I know, I love you too." Stitch kissed Zak's lips once more and stroked the side of his head. "Let's go home. ~ K.A. Merikan

One shot is all anyone needs if they back themselves and do it right. ~ S.A. Tawks

At the sound of the heavy knob turning, he cursed under his breath. She was coming in, damn it!
To stop Maria before she ruined everything, he grabbed her about the waist, hauled her against him, and sealed his mouth to hers.
At first she seemed too stunned to do anything. When after a moment, he felt her trying to draw back from him, he caught her behind the neck in an iron grip.
"Oh," Gran said in a stiff voice. "Beg pardon."
Dimly he heard the door close and footsteps retreating, but before he could let Maria go, a searing pain shot through his groin, making him see stars. Blast her, the woman had kneed him in the ballocks!
As he doubled over, fighting to keep from passing out, she snapped, "That was for making me look like a whore, too!"
When she turned for the door, he choked out, "Wait!"
"Why should I?" she said, heading inexorably forward. "You've done nothing but insult and humiliate me before your family."
Still reeling, he presented his only ace in the hole, "If you return to town," he called after her, "what will you do about your Nathan?"
That halted her, thank God.
He forced himself to straighten, though the room spun a little. "You still need my help, you know."
Slowly, she faced him. "So far you haven't demonstrated any genuine intent to offer help," she said icily.
"But I will." He gulped down air, struggling for mastery over his pain. "Tomorrow we'll return to town and hire a runner. I know one who's ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Thank you for the advice, but I know how to comport myself with Maria."
"That remains to be seen." Jarret rose, then bent to plant his hands on the desk. "But know this-none of us will stand by and let you ruin a young woman just to provoke Gran."
Oliver shot to his feet. That his brother thought him capable of such a thing infuriated him, as did being lectured by him. It had never happened before, and he wasn't about to allow it now.
Leaning forward until he and Jarret were eye to eye over the desk, he growled, "And what the deuce do you think you can do to stop me from acting as I please?"
A grim smile touched Jarret's lips. "I could attempt to steal her from you."
Somewhere in the recesses of his sanity, Oliver knew he was being baited, yet it made no difference. Just the idea of Jarret seeking to engage Maria's affections crushed his usual control.
"If you lay a hand on her," he ground out, "Gabe won't be the only one wearing a sling in this family."
With an enigmatic look, Jarret pushed back from the desk. "Fine." His eyes turned to ice. "But be warned-the rest of us intend to make sure that you never lay a hand on her, either." Without waiting for a response, he strode from the room. ~ Sabrina Jeffries

He reached out, opened the glove compartment, and took out a gun. It was a Smith & Wesson .38 five-shot special. It looked a lot like my gun.
"I stopped by your apartment this morning and picked this up for you," Ranger said. "I found it in the cookie jar."
"Tough guys always keep their gun in the cookie jar."
"Name one."
"Rockford."
Ranger grinned. "I stand corrected. ~ Janet Evanovich

Babe, I nearly shot Skid in the ass one time because a spider fell on me while I was holding a gun," I finally managed to say. "Those things freak me right the hell out. They got eight fuckin' legs, and that ain't natural. That's some Dr. Seuss shit right there. ~ Joanna Wylde

Then, just as we were to leave on a whirlwind honeymoon in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, a call came from Australia. Steve's friend John Stainton had word that a big croc had been frequenting areas too close to civilization, and someone had been taking potshots at him.
"It's a big one, Stevo, maybe fourteen or fifteen feet," John said over the phone. "I hate to catch you right at this moment, but they're going to kill him unless he gets relocated."
John was one of Australia's award-winning documentary filmmakers. He and Steve had met in the late 1980s, when Steve would help John shoot commercials that required a zoo animal like a lizard or a turtle. But their friendship did not really take off until 1990, when an Australian beer company hired John to film a tricky shot involving a crocodile.
He called Steve. "They want a bloke to toss a coldie to another bloke, but a croc comes out of the water and snatches at it. The guy grabs the beer right in front of the croc's jaws. You think that's doable?"
"Sure, mate, no problem at all," Steve said with his usual confidence. "Only one thing, it has to be my hand in front of the croc."
John agreed. He journeyed up to the zoo to film the commercial. It was the first time he had seen Steve on his own turf, and he was impressed. He was even more impressed when the croc shoot went off flawlessly.
Monty, the saltwater crocodile, lay partially submerged in his pool. An actor fetched a coldie from the esky and ~ Terri Irwin

Which one was it? He'll pay for it with his life, I swear to you."
"Settle down, Gray. And for God's sake, don't go punching yourself in the eye just to even the score."
Gray shot him a look. "Not amusing, Joss."
"Oh yes, it is. Give me credit for a joke when I make one. It's nothing, Gray. I've had worse. You've given me worse. And it's no more than a man can expect, I suppose, when he's an alleged pirate."
"Piracy charges." Gray cracked his neck. "What a joke." This was the voyage he'd finally gone respectable, and what had it gotten him? Jilted and jailed. No good deed went unpunished. ~ Tessa Dare

The next day, a dead turtle was left on my doorstep as a warning. I couldn't figure out as a warning for what, and I guess whoever was watching me picked up on that, because the next morning there was another dead turtle, but this one had several sheets of paper glued to it's back leg. The pieces of paper contained a long footnoted explanation of all the symbolism involved. It didn't make a lot of sense to me. The turtle was the "turtle of inquisitiveness" and the cheese smeared on it's shell meant something, and the little cowboy boots on its feet meant something. Everything about this animal meant something apparently to whoever sent it. I still didn't get what it was all about. The next morning there was no turtle. Somebody just shot at me from the bushes. ~ John Swartzwelder

The sun's rim dips; the stars rush out: At one stride comes the dark; With far-heard whisper o'er the sea, Off shot the spectre-bark. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I wish I was sort of someone like Woody Allen who can stage everything in one long master shot, no coverage; just, you know, that's it. ~ Jay Roach

I made three short films of my own which I wrote, produced, directed ... you did everything in those days. My favourite one was something I shot on VHS ... a little documentary. ~ Asif Kapadia

Should I leave you two alone?" he asked, changing the subject.

"He's taken," I said, accepting the fact that forgiving himself was something Reyes didn't do. "Osh. By someone very special."

"And who might that be?"

This might be a little hard for him to swallow. Tact was definitely in order. Or I could just blurt it out and watch his expression go from content to disbelief to horror to a bristly, murderous kind of fury. I chose door number two. "He's destined to be with our daughter."

Reyes's expression slowly changed from content to disbelief to horror to a bristly, murderous kind of fury. "Oh, hell, no." He shot to his feet. "A Daeva? Are you fucking kidding me?"

Just like a dad.

"Yes, a Daeva. But I wouldn't dismiss him so offhandedly."

He whirled around and scowled. Not really at me. Just in general. "What do you mean?"

I pressed one corner of my mouth together in thought. "Okay, you know how I was the grim reaper all of my life, then suddenly I'm also this god from another dimension? And how you're the son of Satan all your life, then suddenly you're a god from this dimension? Who does that? Our lives are so weird. I think that maybe Osh is something else, too." I traced one of the dark lines on his face. "I think there's more than meets the eye. I see greatness in him, Reyes. I see a power beyond our imaginings. I see him giving his life for our daughter."

"Oh." He sat bac ~ Darynda Jones

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side ~ Bob Dylan

One of the first decisions I made, as the director of "Hide and Seek," was that our film would be silent and use underscoring of original music that I was planning on composing. The decision was mostly predicated on knowing how time consuming the editing of dialogue can be and given the various locations we shot in, I didn't want to worry about having to mix room tones in such a short amount of time. ~ Garth Kravits

That bar also delineated the realm of sweat and hourly wage, the working world that college was educating me to leave. Rewards in that realm were few. No one congratulated you for clocking out. Your salary was spare. The Legion served as recompense. So the physical comforts you bouth there - hot boudain sausage and cold beer - had value. You attended the place, by which I mean you not only went there but gave it attention your job didn't deserve. Pool got shot not as metaphor for some corporate battle, but as itself alone. And the spiritual comforts-friendship, for instance - couldn't be confused with payback for something you'd accomplished, for in the Legion everybody punched the same clock, drew the same wage, won the same prize. ~ Mary Karr

The luxury of television is that you get more than one shot at who you think the guy is that you're playing. ~ Ron Perlman

She stared, wide eyed as glass-walled elevators shot up fifty-two floors like pods in a launch tube. Everything - from the glaringly bright carpet swirling with psychedelic lines; to the hotel's open ceiling ringed by storey after storey of balconies, the distant roof so high it made her head spin; to the people decked out in cosplay - was torn from a science fiction novel. It seemed Liv had spent the last eighteen years in search of her people, and in one sudden explosion of fate, they'd all been brought together in this place in time. Her eyes filled with tears as a sudden awareness filled her.
They were all nerds. ~ Danika Stone

Excuse me, Ben," Bowen said. "Am I wrong, or aren't you the corporate treasurer?"
Glisan bristled. "Yes."
"What do you mean, you think you can get one?" Bowen shot back. "This is the current fucking maturities schedule! Go get it. You have to have a maturities schedule!"
But they didn't. With all the focus on deals and earnings- with finance group's transformation into a profit center rather than a division to support the business- the workday, boring details had been sloughed off.
p. 560 ~ Kurt Eichenwald

We've had drive-by shootings. I've been spat on, slapped, shot at. One guy tried to stab me with a broken beer bottle. But the way we look at it, if people do the worst they can, we'll still wake up in glory. ~ Troy Perry

To the three men in gray coats and golden buttons just cresting the hill, the pantomime was a strange one. The speck of green merged with the gray, and the black with the flash of red, as they shot off toward north. ~ Katherine Rundell

We made it back to the airport without getting mugged, stoned, shot at, pounced on, bombed, shelled, garroted, gassed, pitched into, caught in a cross fire, sniped at, blockaded, napalmed, or trip-wired. No one even hit us with a water balloon. ~ Daniel Quinn

Everybody knows - but no one wants to say - that the Democratic Party has become the party of special interest bigots and racial dividers. It runs the one-party state that controls public services in every major inner city, including the corrupt and failing school systems in which half the students - mainly African American and Hispanic - are denied a shot at the American dream. ~ David Horowitz

The crowd started going crazy. Like even crazier than when Romeo got up from the hit. I was clinging to the railing, wondering if I would like prison, when Ivy sighed. "I swear. You have all the luck."
Confused, I glanced around. Romeo was jogging toward us, helmet in his hands. Quickly, I glanced at the big screen and it was showing a wide shot of me clinging onto the rails and him running toward us.
When he arrived, he slapped the guard on his back and said something in his ear. The guard looked at me and grinned and then walked away.
Romeo stepped up to where I was. At the height I was at one the railing, for once I was taller than him.
"You're killing me, Smalls," he said. "I had to interrupt a championship game to keep you from going to the slammer."
"I was worried. You didn't get up."
"And so you were just going to march out on the field and what?"
God, he looked so… so incredible right then. His uniform stretched out over his wide shoulders and narrow waist. The pads strapped to his body made him look even stronger. He had grass stains on his knees, sweat in his hair, and ornery laughter in his sparkling blue eyes.
I swear I'd never seen anyone equal parts of to-die-for good looks and boy-next-door troublemaker.
"I was going to come out there and kiss it and make it better."
He threw back his head and laughed, and the stadium erupted once more. I was aware that every moment between us was being broadcast like some ~ Cambria Hebert

Against all odds, some poor presbyopic chump takes a shot at it, maybe so he won't make himself ill by sensing a truth no one else sees. And he falls flat on his face, of course, his truth as incomprehensible and strange as it was to begin with. But at least he's tried. And ~ Fredrik Sjoberg

The sabbath was made for men. But man now behaves like the Pharisees and insists that he is made for all the things - science , nation , money, religion, schools - which were really made for him. Why? Because he is so little aware of his own interests as a human being that he feels irresistibly tempted to sacrifice himself to these idols. There is no remedy except to become aware of one's interest as a human being , and , having become aware , to learn to act on that awareness. Which means learning to use the self and learning to direct the mind. It's almost wearisome, the way one always comes back to the same point. Wouldn't it be nice , for a change , if there were another way out of our difficulties! A short cut. A method requiring no greater personal effort than recording a vote or ordering some " enemy of society" to be shot. A salvation from outside, like a does of calomel. ~ Aldous Huxley

He was clearly in love with Amber too, and this time it wasn't the usual water off the back of the duck. Instead, the duck, wounded by a hunter and bewildered because half its head had been shot way, and was still tottering about on its webby feet by the side of the pond. From the one side it looked like a duck usually looks. From the other, it was a different story. ~ Ali Smith

It was all a big joke. I could see that now. There was no rhyme or reason to whether we lived or died. One day it might be the man next to you at roll call who is torn apart by dogs. The next day it might be you who is shot through the head. You could play the game perfectly and still lose, so why bother playing at all? ~ Alan Gratz