Periodic Table Quotes

The element of surprise wasn't allowed near the Periodic Table. ~ Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Mendeleev, unlike the squeamish Meyer, had balls enough to predict that new elements would be dug up. Look harder, you chemists and geologists, he seemed to taunt, and you'll find them. ~ Sam Kean

I completely failed to see the value in memorizing the stupid periodic table of elements. ~ Inara Scott

The periodic table was incredibly beautiful, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I could never adequately analyze what I meant here by beauty – simplicity? coherence? rhythm? inevitability? Or perhaps it was the symmetry, the comprehensiveness of every element firmly locked into its place, with no gaps, no exceptions, everything implying everything else. ~ Oliver Sacks

Even as a raft, of course, it could have been made from gold, or any element with a molecular number lower than mercury. Lead would still sink in mercury, but gold shouldn't. It was one number down the Periodic Table and so ought to float. Veppers looked over the side of the vessel at where his ingot of gold had entered the liquid metal, but it showed no sign of surfacing yet. ~ Iain M. Banks

Here she was at eight, with the chemistry set she'd begged for at Christmas. Her father was beside her in this one, showing her a picture of the periodic table, explaining how everything on earth, everything in the universe, even - people, starfish, cement, bicycles, and far-off planets - was made up of a combination of these elements. "Isn't it amazing to think of, Ruthie?" he'd asked. Ruthie had found the idea that we were only a series of neatly constructed puzzle pieces or building blocks vaguely unsettling - even at eight, she wanted there to be more to it than that. ~ Jennifer McMahon

And I often dream of chemistry at night, dreams that conflate the past and the present, the grid of the periodic table transformed to the grid of Manhattan. [ ... ] Sometimes, too, I dream of the indecipherable language of tin (a confused memory, perhaps, of its plaintive "cry"). But my favorite dream is of going to the opera (I am Hafnium), sharing a box at the Met with the other heavy transition metals my old and valued friends Tantalum, Rhenium, Osmium, Iridium, Platinum, Gold, and Tungsten. ~ Oliver Sacks

One theme I ran into over and over while writing about the periodic table was the future of energy and the question of which element or elements will replace carbon as king. ~ Sam Kean

[The fine structure constant] ... defines how firmly atomic nuclei bind together and how all the atoms on Earth were made. Its value controls the power from the Sun and, more sensitively, how stars transmute hydrogen into all the atoms of the periodic table. ~ Martin J. Rees

helium became the first and only element in the chemist's Periodic Table to be discovered someplace other than Earth. Okay, ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

It's not even known how many kinds of cells there are in the brain. If you were looking for a periodic table of the brain, there is no such thing. I really like to think of the brain as a computer. ~ Edward Boyden

[The] structural theory is of extreme simplicity. It assumes that the molecule is held together by links between one atom and the next: that every kind of atom can form a definite small number of such links: that these can be single, double or triple: that the groups may take up any position possible by rotation round the line of a single but not round that of a double link: finally that with all the elements of the first short period [of the periodic table], and with many others as well, the angles between the valencies are approximately those formed by joining the centre of a regular tetrahedron to its angular points. No assumption whatever is made as to the mechanism of the linkage. Through the whole development of organic chemistry this theory has always proved capable of providing a different structure for every different compound that can be isolated. Among the hundreds of thousands of known substances, there are never more isomeric forms than the theory permits. ~ Nevil Vincent Sidgwick

For the first time I saw a medley of haphazard facts fall into line and order. All the jumbles and recipes and hotchpotch of the inorganic chemistry of my boyhood seemed to fit into the scheme before my eyes - as though one were standing beside a jungle and it suddenly transformed itself into a Dutch garden.
[Upon hearing the Periodic Table explained in a first-tern university lecture.] ~ C.P. Snow

What the ocean was to the child, the Periodic Table is to the chemist. ~ Karl Barry Sharpless

I wish that in order to secure his party's nomination, a presidential candidate would be required to point at the sky and name all the stars; have the periodic table of the elements memorized; rattle off the kings and queens of Spain; define the significance of the Gatling gun; joke around in Latin; interpret the symbolism in seventeenth-century Dutch painting; explain photosynthesis to a six-year-old; recite Emily Dickenson; bake a perfect popover; build a shortwave radio out of a coconut; and know all the words to Hoagy Carmichael's "Two Sleepy People", Johnny Cash's "Five Feet High and Rising", and "You Got the Silver" by the Rolling Stones ... What we need is a president who is at least twelve kinds of nerd, a nerd messiah to come along every four years, acquire the Secret Service code name Poindexter, install a Revenge of the Nerds screen saver on the Oval Office computer, and one by one decrypt our woes. ~ Sarah Vowell

Boron is carbon's neighbor on the periodic table, which means it can do a passable carbon impression and wriggle its way into the matrix of a diamond. But it has one fewer electron, so it can't quite form the same four perfect bonds. ~ Sam Kean

That the nobility of Man, acquired in a hundred centuries of trial and error, lay in making himself the conquerer of matter, and that I had enrolled in chemistry because I wanted to maintain faithful to that nobility. That conquering matter is to understand it, and understanding matter is necessary to understanding the universe and ourselves: and that therefore Mendeleev's Periodic Table, which just during those weeks we were laboriously learning to unravel, was poetry, loftier and more solemn than all the poetry we had swallowed doen in liceo; and come to think of it, it even rhymed! ...
[T]he chemistry and physics on which we fed, besides being in themselves nourishments vital in themselves, were the antidotes to Fascism ... because they were clear and distinct and verifiable at every step, and not a tissue of lies and emptiness like the radio and newspapers. ~ Primo Levi

Despite its obscurity, probably no element on the periodic table has as colorful a history as antimony. Money, madness, poison, linguistics, charlatanism, sex - pretty much every theme that runs through the periodic table can be found in Element 51. ~ Sam Kean

Something funny certainly happens when palladium and platinum come into contact with hydrogen gas; it's one of the great mysteries still waiting to be solved on the periodic table. But it's quite a leap from 'something funny' to cold fusion. ~ Sam Kean

I feel clobbered by the impossibility of translating into words as much of this enormous world we live in with its subtly complex and sprawling Periodic Table of emotions. To quote Freddie Mercury, I want it all. ~ David Mitchell

When it comes to the periodic table, the United States really blew its chance to make a name for itself. If you look over a map of all the elements named for cities, states, countries, and continents, it's not surprising that European locales dominate the map. ~ Sam Kean

Despite the disreputable company it keeps, bismuth is harmless. In fact, it's medicinal: Doctors prescribe it to soothe ulcers, and it's the 'bis' in hot-pink Pepto-Bismol. Overall, it seems like the most out-of-place element on the periodic table, a gentleman among scoundrels. ~ Sam Kean

About seven years later I was given a book about the periodic table of the elements. For the first time I saw the elegance of scientific theory and its predictive power. ~ Sidney Altman

You don't let your feelings run around and jump into someone else's hand." Mercury made a fist. "You grab on to your own life and push it around where you want it to go."

Mercury believed she had her life firmly in place beneath her tongue, and she didn't spit it out here and there, in bits and pieces diffusing its power. She had even taken a new name, changing it from Anna to Mercury after er granddaughter brought home a copy of the periodic table in the eighth grade and explained it to her: "An element is a substance that can't be broken down into simpler substances."

"That's my story," Mercury told Charlene. running her thick forefinger across the chart. "I'm all of a piece."

Charlene opened her mouth to object, to explain that her grandmother could never be one of the chemical elements, assigned an atomic number and measured for atomic weight, but Mercury presided over the kitchen like a force of nature. Charlene's words were snatched from her mind before they ever made it to her vocal chords. She imagined they were pulled into the woman's energy field, the electric air surrounding Mercury's body like her own personal atmosphere. ~ Susan Power

Everywhere in the universe, the periodic table has the same basic structure. Even if an alien civilization's table weren't plotted out in the castle-with-turrets shape we humans favor, their spiral or pyramidal or whatever-shaped periodic table would naturally pause after 118 elements. ~ Sam Kean

Vince Russo destroyed the Periodic Table as he only recognises the element of surprise. ~ Jim Cornette

Tell me it's never been done. Because the only real laws in this world-the only things we really know-are the two postulates of relativity, the three laws of Newton, the four laws of thermodynamics, and Maxwell's equation-no, scratch that, the only things we really know are Maxwell's equations, the three laws of Newton, the two postulates of relativity, and the periodic table. That's all we know that's true. All the rest are man's laws ~ Dean Kamen

And holy hell the chocolate is so intense and pure it should be named an element and given a spot on the periodic table. It would be Ch, which isn't even taken. ~ Laini Taylor

Think of the most fussy science teacher you ever had. The one who docked your grade if the sixth decimal place in your answer was rounded incorrectly; who tucked in his periodic table T-shirt, corrected every student who said "weight" when he or she meant "mass", and made everyone, including himself, wear goggles even while mixing sugar water. Now try to imagine someone whom your teacher would hate for being anal-retentive. That is the kind of person who works for a bureau of standards and measurement. ~ Sam Kean

You're still just silicon," he said, as he turned the page.
"And you're just carbon," Art persevered. "Since when has the periodic table been grounds for discrimination? ~ Bernard Beckett

the strangely elusive and counterintuitive character of the quantum world has encouraged some to suggest that the idea of entities like electrons which can be in unpicturable states such as superpositions of being 'here' and being 'there' is no more than a convenient manner of speaking which facilitates calculations, and that electrons themselves are not to be taken with ontological seriousness. The counterattack of the scientific realist appeals to intelligibility as the key to reality. It is precisely because the assumption of the existence of electrons allows us to understand a vast range of directly accessible phenomena - such as the periodic table in chemistry, the phenomenon of superconductivity at low temperatures and the behaviour of devices such as the laser - that we take their existence seriously. ~ John Polkinghorne

Sydney! Stop. Think of something else. Conjugate Latin verbs. Recite the periodic table. ~ Richelle Mead

Of all the elements in the periodic table, not a single one is indestructible. ~ Marty Rubin

Periodic Wall of the Elements Q. What would happen if you made a periodic table out of cube-shaped bricks, where each brick was made of the corresponding element? ~ Randall Munroe

Green chemistry is replacing our industrial chemistry with nature's recipe book. It's not easy, because life uses only a subset of the elements in the periodic table. And we use all of them, even the toxic ones. ~ Janine Benyus

This isn't just chemistry. It's the whole periodic table." ~Cain ~ Kelly Moran

The noble gases, which reside on the East Coast of the periodic table, are its aristocrats - detached and aloof, never bothering to interact with the rabble of common elements that make up the vast majority of the world. ~ Sam Kean

Dad once noted (somewhat morbidly, I thought at the time) that American institutions would be infinitely more successful in facilitating the pursuit of knowledge if they held classes at night, rather than in the daytime, from 8:00 PM to 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. As I ran through the darkness, I understood what he meant. Frank red brick, sunny classrooms, symmetrical quads and courts--it was a setting that mislead kids to believe that Knowledge, that Life itself, was bright, clear, and freshly mowed. Dad said a student would be infinitely better off going out into the world if he/she studied the periodic table of elements, Madame Bovary (Flaubert, 1857), the sexual reproduction of a sunflower for example, with deformed shadows congregating on the classroom walls, the silhouettes of fingers and pencils leaking onto the floor, gastric howls from unseen radiators, and a teacher's face not flat and faded, not delicately pasteled by a golden late afternoon, but serpentine, gargoyled, Cyclopsed by the inky dark and feeble light from a candle. He/she would understand "everything and nothing," Dad said, if there was nothing discernible in the windows but a lamppost mobbed by blaze-crazy moths and darkness, reticent and nonchalant, as darkness always was. ~ Marisha Pessl

Sir Isaac Newton famously said that he had achieved everything by standing on the shoulders of giants - the scientific men whose findings he built upon. The same might be said about silicon. After germanium did all the work, silicon became an icon, and germanium was banished to periodic table obscurity. ~ Sam Kean

I woke up to the world of science when my high school chemistry teacher introduced me to the elegantly ordered periodic table. ~ Isadore Singer

Recite the Periodic Table of Teatime, in correct order, with Elemental Symbols, please.'
A-Through-L sat back on his handsome black haunches, shut his eyes, and said: 'Hot Tea (H), Herbal Tea (He), Lingonberry Scones (Li), Berry Jam (Be), Butter (B), Cream (C), Napoleons (N), Orange Marmalade (O), Frosting (F), Nettle Tea (Ne) ... ~ Catherynne M Valente

For me too, the periodic table was a passion ... As a boy, I stood in front of the display for hours, thinking how wonderful it was that each of those metal foils and jars of gas had its own distinct personality. ~ Freeman Dyson

I still have a vivid memory of my excitement when I first saw a chart of the periodic table of elements. ~ Joe Murray

For his part, Mendeleev scanned Lecoq de Boisbaudran's data on gallium and told the experimentalist, with no justification, that he must have measured something wrong, because the density and weight of gallium differed from Mendeleev's predictions. This betrays a flabbergasting amount of gall, but as science philosopher-historian Eric Scerri put it, Mendeleev always "was willing to bend nature to fit his grand philosophical scheme." The only difference between Mendeleev and crackpottery is that Mendeleev was right: Lecoq de Boisbaudran soon retracted his data and published results that corroborated Mendeleev's predictions. ~ Sam Kean

This is not to say that science itself is politics. Scientific knowledge is profoundly different from political ideology. Science is an intellectual system producing objective data about the nature of the universe. Science involves falsifiable hypotheses, reproducible results, and rigorous experimental verification. Scientific knowledge isn't a political construct, any more than element 79 in the periodic table is a political construct.

But the things people do with science are every bit as political as the things people do with gold. ~ Bruce Sterling

From 'Periodic Table of Elements':
A girl ago, a girlhood gone like a phial of ether | Thrown on fire--just | A little jump of flame, like grief, or | Like a penicillin that has lost its skill at killing | Off, it then is gone. ~ Lucie Brock-Broido

Adam pronounced love very carefully, as if it were an unfamiliar element on the periodic table. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Do they always flirt with biblical quotes?" Asil asked Tad.
In long-suffering tones, Tad said, "They can flirt with the periodic table or a restaurant menu. We've learned to live with it. Get a room you guys. ~ Patricia Briggs

When first presented with the jumble of the periodic table, I scanned for mercury and couldn't find it. It is there - between gold, which is also dense and soft, and thallium, which is also poisonous. But the symbol for mercury, Hg, consists of two letters that don't even appear in its name. ~ Sam Kean

The body tends to treat elements in the same column of the periodic table as equivalents. ~ Sam Kean

Many different elements can form isomers, but only a few elements on the periodic table, like hafnium, can form isomers that last more than fractions of a second - and might therefore be turned into weapons. ~ Sam Kean

In some sense, what you might have suspected from the first day of high-school chemistry is true: The periodic table is a colossal waste of time. Nine out of every 10 atoms in the universe are hydrogen, the first element and the major constituent of stars. The other 10 percent of all atoms are helium. ~ Sam Kean

I immersed myself in The Periodic Table gladly and gratefully. There is nothing superfluous here, everything this book contains is essential. It is wonderful pure, and beautifully translated ... I was deeply impressed. ~ Saul Bellow

Gundar's smile broadened at the memory of that evening as he recalled how his rough-and-tumble sailors had stayed on their best manners, humbly asking their table companions to pass the meat, please, or requesting just a little more ale in their drinking mugs. These were men who were accustomed to cursing heartily, tearing legs off roast boar wih their bare hands and occasionally swilling ale traight from the keg. Their attempts at mingling with polite society would have made the basis of some great stories back in Skandia. ~ John Flanagan

If a Jewish group sat down with a Christian conservative group, and there was a so-called Messianic Jew at the table, that would be the end of the meeting. ~ Elliott Abrams

We show hospitality to strangers not merely because they need it, but because we need it, too. The stranger at the door is the living symbol and memory that we are all strangers here. This is not our house, our table, our food, our lodging; this is God's house and table and food and lodging. We were pilgrims and wanderers, aliens and strangers, even enemies of God, but we, too, were welcomed into this place. To show hospitality to the stranger is, as Gordon Lathrop has observed, to say, We are beggars here together. Grace will surprise us both. ~ Thomas G. Long

The children who were able to sit for three minutes with a marshmallow on the table in front of them without eating it were rewarded with two marshmallows when the experimenter returned. But that's as crazy as inbox-watching. Krishna said we have the right to our labor, but not to the fruits of our labor. He meant that the piano is its own reward, as is the canvas, the barre, and the movieola. Fuck the marshmallows. ~ Steven Pressfield

My mother is European and expresses her love through food and cuddling. She wasn't the type of mother who would make it to school plays or soccer games, but if you wanted to stay at home sick, she was your girl. Whenever you'd go up to her room to cuddle with her, she'd pull out a Kit Kat or Snickers bar from her night table and look at you with dancing eyes. ~ Chelsea Handler

Reading a book is like having the ability to dip a straw into the author's soul and sip and slurp without lowering the water table of wisdom. ~ Jarod Kintz

The book is not an object on the table; it is an event in the reader's mind. It's a process, through which an idea in my mind triggers an idea, more-or-less corresponding, in yours. The words on the page are merely the means to that end, a think-by-numbers set, a bottled daydream. The book, therefore, is only finished when someone reads it. - Sidelines ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

It came to pass, not long after the scene above recorded, that the Reverend Mr Dimmesdale, at noonday, and entirely unawares, fell into a deep, deep slumber, sitting in his chair, with a large black-letter volume open before him on the table. It must have been a work of vast ability in the somniferous school of literature. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

You've got to show them that by expressing themselves creatively through singing, songwriting, and performing, they can be whoever they want to be . . . not someone who takes off her clothes on top of a pool table for beer, not someone who can be bought and sold, not some sexual object for a man's desire, but a strong, tough businesswoman and artist. ~ Meg Cabot

Once men sang together round a table in chorus; now one man sings alone, for the absurd reason that he can sing better. If our civilization goes on like this, only one man will laugh, because he can laugh better than the rest. ~ G.K. Chesterton

the tea. 'Shall we sit?' I said, and pulled up a chair to the table. I cupped both hands around the mug. 'Maybe we could stay here on ~ Kate Mildenhall

What about you, Mr. Shaw?" she asked. "Are your affections engaged by someone back home?"
He shook his head at once. "I'm afraid that I share McKenna's rather skeptical view of the benefits of marriage."
"I think you will fall in love someday."
"Doubtful. I'm afraid that particular emotion is unknown to me..." Suddenly his voice faded into silence. He set his cup down as he stared off into the distance with sudden alertness.
"Mr. Shaw?" As Aline followed his gaze, she realized what he had seen- Livia, wearing a pastel flower-printed walking dress as she headed to one of the forest trails leading away from the manor. A straw bonnet adorned with a sprig of fresh daisies swung from her fingers as she held it by the ribbons.
Gideon Shaw stood so quickly that his chair threatened to topple backward. "Pardon," he said to Aline, tossing his napkin to the table. "The figment of my imagination has reappeared- and I'm going to catch her."
"Of course," Aline said, struggling not to laugh. "Good luck, Mr. Shaw."
"Thanks." He was gone in a flash, descending one side of the U-shaped stone staircase with the ease of a cat. Once he reached the terraced gardens, he cut across the lawn with long, ground-eating strides, just short of breaking into a run.
Standing to better her view of his progress, Aline couldn't suppress a mocking grin. "Why, Mr. Shaw... I thought there was nothing in life you wanted badly enough to chase after it. ~ Lisa Kleypas

soon after we arrived in the U.S., Baba started grumbling about American flies. He'd sit at the kitchen table with his flyswatter, watch the flies darting from wall to wall, buzzing here, buzzing there, harried and rushed. "In this country, even flies are pressed for time," he'd groan. ~ Khaled Hosseini

Table talk and Lovers' talk equally elude the grasp; Lovers' Talk is clouds, Table Talk is smoke.
Les Miserables ~ Victor Hugo

She had also heard other things, scary things, things that made no sense to her. Some said her father had murdered King Robert and been slain in turn by Lord Renly. Others insisted that Renly had killed the king in a drunken quarrel between brothers. Why else should he have fled in the night like a common thief? One story said the king had been killed by a boar while hunting, another that he'd died eating a boar, stuffing himself so full that he'd ruptured at the table. No, the king had died at table, others said, but only because Varys the Spider poisoned him. No, it had been the queen who poisoned him. No, he had died of a pox. No, he had choked on a fish bone. ~ George R R Martin

I'm at the age where food has taken the place of sex in my life. In fact, I've just had a mirror put over my kitchen table. ~ Rodney Dangerfield

As governor I would have made sure that I bargained fairly but firmly, been able to get the changes that were needed to balance the budget, but done that through collective bargaining and making sure that our public employees had a voice at the table. ~ Mary Burke

Why is it so important for me to forgive that son-of-a-bitch? I'm not the one at fault here. It shouldn't be about me. He's the one that did wrong. Screw his feelings. He should feel like he's hated for what he did." Lisa added another used tissue to the growing pile on the table.
Lyn warmly smiled. "Forgiving Byron isn't for his sake, it's for yours. The block in your life's road can only be removed if you forgive him for what he did. If you don't, you'll just keep bumping into that block again and again. The life you live will be miserable. You'll never be able to break the chains of the past."
Lisa listened and let the words sink into her subconscious. She realized the only way to get to the end of the road was to take the first step. There was a block preventing her from moving forward in life. She had to find a way past it. ~ Dane Hatchell

I've had moments in my life where it was all out on the table. Everything I had. I'm okay with that, because I had a strong belief that what I was doing other people could believe in it, too, if I can get it just right. ~ Kevin Costner

It hasn't been easy to listen to the conversations at the table. Even without anyone expecting me to say anything. It hasn't been easy to sit there watching other people's lives go on. I ~ Colleen Faulkner

Look, sweetheart, I can drink you under any goddamn table you want, so don't worry about me. ~ Elizabeth Taylor

Peyton Manning is doing things that I think no other quarterback in the history of the league has done at the line of scrimmage ... I just think they are a team right now that's got a real chance to run the table. ~ Don Shula

I hope I just continue to be passionate about the roles and to always endeavor to bring clarity and honesty to the table and different ideas. ~ Angela Bassett

Of course." He picked up the brown bag of candy on the table. "What's your ... " He trailed off as he weighed the bag in his hands. "Didn't I give you three pounds of candy?"
She smiled impishly.
"You ate half the bag!"
"Was I supposed to save it?"
"I would have liked some!"
"You never told me that."
"Because I didn't expect you to consume all of it before breakfast!"
She snatched the bag from him and put it on the table. "Well, that just shows poor judgement on your part, doesn't it? ~ Sarah J. Maas

What the devil was Davy doing up there with a marlinespike? That's what I'd like to know. It's a sailors duty."
She put her head in her hands. "I'm afraid that's my fault, too. I'd been talking to him about moving up to the forecastle, and I…I think he wanted to impress me."
Gray choked on a laugh. "Well, of course he did. You ought to take care how you bat those eyelashes, sweetheart. One of these days, you're likely to knock a man overboard."
The legs of her chair scraped the floor as she stood. The color returned to her cheeks. "If Davy was trying to impress me, it's as much your fault as mine."
"How is that my fault?" Gray's frustration came right back to a boil. He hated himself for growling at her, but he couldn't seem to help it.
"You're the one who humiliated him in front of the crew, with all those questions. You goaded him into saying he…well, you know what he said."
"Yes, I know what he said." Gray stepped toward her until only the table separated them. "I know what he said. And don't pretend you didn't enjoy it. Don't pretend you don't use those men to feed your vanity."
"My vanity? What would you know about feeding my vanity? You don't so much as breathe in my direction. At least the sailors speak to me. And if that entire 'Kind of the Sea' display wasn't one long exercise in feeding your own vanity, I'm sure I don't know what is." She jabbed one finger on the tabletop and lowered her voice. "Those men may flirt with me, but the ~ Tessa Dare

Attachments made men soft. This fact was made obvious lately by my buddies.
I blamed Tucker. A little over a year earlier, the idiot strolled over to a table filled with college girls. Each one shot him down until he was left with Maddy. For whatever reason, she thought he was funny. Or maybe just hot enough to overcome his lack of brain cells. They hooked up and he quickly handed his balls to her with a ribbon tied around them. He acted like he was still his own man, but the guy was whipped to the point of being fluffy.
Once he lost his way, the others fell like dominoes. ~ Bijou Hunter

[Telzey] took out a pocket edition law library and sat down at the table.
She clicked on the library's viewscreen, tapped the clearing and index buttons. Behind the screen, one of the multiple rows of pinhead tapes shifted slightly as the index was flicked into reading position. ~ James H. Schmitz

So I sat at the kitchen table chopping the "holy trinity" of Creole cuisine - bell peppers, celery, and onions - ~ Rysa Walker

I think that a strong Israel is the only Israel that will bring the Arabs to the peace table. ~ Benjamin Netanyahu

Well, it's all a kind of puzzle, isn't it? You start out with your own little set of pieces you're trying to fit together, then you get married and it's a lot more pieces, way more than double in my opinion, and next thing you have kids and all of a sudden there are too many pieces for the table, and more showing up every day." He gave a small dry laugh. "I suppose the Buddhists and them would say you just got to appreciate the ever-changing thinginess of the puzzle. ~ Tom McNeal

The people who hire all these things done for them never know what they lose, for the homeliest tasks get beautified if loving hands do them, and Meg found so many proofs of this that everything in her small neatness from the kitchen roller to the silver vase on her parlor table was eloquent of home love and tender forethought. ~ Louisa May Alcott

The whole barrier exists because most people never come together and sit down at a table ... join together, break bread together, and celebrate their differences and their likenesses. ~ Oprah Winfrey

Eating be eating, b'ain't it, Birdie?'
'Nay, Uncle Bear: In Caermelor, at the Royal Court, they be so-oh, so much more advanced than anywhere else. 'Tis not done to wipe your fingers on your hair or the tablecloth, or belch, or speak with your mouth full of food, or scratch, or pick your teeth at table. Ye have to use little forks to pick up the food. Ye not allowed to pour wine for your betters or for yourself, but to wait for them to deign to pour it for ye, if they be feeling generous. And the carving of the meats must be done a certain way, and as for the toasts-it would take ye a whole day just to learn the complications.
'Takes the fun out of eating,' observed Sianadh. ~ Cecilia Dart-Thornton

Oh, I think my new slave is a wanton little slut. Aren't you?"
"No, I'm a good boy," he moaned as he pushed his ass back on my hand. "I'm not a whore!"
"You're my whore," I growled and fucked him with my fingers as I picked up the flogger someone had left on the table. I started spanking him hard with it. "Does my boy want to come?"
"Yes," he hissed and jumped when I slapped him with the toy again. "Please, master? I'll do anything you want."
"You'll do it whether I let you come or not!" I pulled my fingers free and walked over to the wall of toys. I grabbed a large butt plug and quickly pushed it into his ass. Then, before he could even get used to the size of it, I slapped the flogger against it. "Admit you're a dirty slut."
"No! I'm a good boy," Shely cried out again. "Please don't breach my ass! I've never been with a man before. ~ Joyee Flynn

I love the idea of farm to table and farmer's markets. I enjoy a meal more if I know I'm eating something that's good quality and good for me. ~ Haylie Duff

More accurately, on the bed and on the table lay various pieces of what had once been a body.
Holmes was leaning with his back against the wall, his countenance deathly white. "The door was open," he said incongruously. "I was passing by, and the door was open."
"Holmes," I whispered in horror.
"The door was open," he said once more, and then buried his face in his hands. ~ Lyndsay Faye

The shared meal is no small thing. It is a foundation of family life,
the place where our children learn the art of conversation and acquire
the habits of civilization: sharing, listening, taking turns, navigating
differences, arguing without offending. What have been called the
"cultural contradictions of capitalism" - its tendency to undermine
the stabilizing social forms it depends on - are on vivid display today
at the modern American dinner table, along with all the brightly colored packages that the food industry has managed to plant there. ~ Michael Pollan

Eat. You need to eat."

Everyone stared at their plates as I picked up the fork I hadn't even realized I'd dropped. I dared a peek at Aiden as I twirled my fork around the noodles. He was watching, always watching.

Deacon offered me a pair of chopsticks. "You shouldn't be using a fork."

I shot him a bland look. "Do I look like I know how to use chopsticks?"

He grinned. "Poser."

"Punk," I retorted.

His eyes rolled. "It's not that hard. Here, let me show you."

Deacon's impromptu chopsticks lesson and my absolute failure at mastering them eased the sudden awkward tension around the table. Laughing, I gave up when Aiden finally ordered his brother to let me eat in peace. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout