Phanom Rung Quotes

sweatshops are the first rung on the ladder out of extreme poverty ~ Jeffrey D. Sachs

In the library
I search for a good book.
We have many books,
says Mrs. Rose, the librarian,
and ALL of them are good.
Of course she says that. It's her job.
But do I want to read about
Trucks
Trains and
Transport?
Or even
Horses
Houses and
Hyenas?

In the fiction corner
there are pink boks
full of princesses
and girls who want to be princesses
and black books
about bad boys
and brave boys
and brawny boys.

Where is the book
about a girl
whose poems don't rhyme
and whose Granny is fading?
Pearl, says Mrs. Rose, the bell has rung.

I go back to class
empty-handed
empty headed
empty-hearted. ~ Sally Murphy

Show business is one of those things that people can use to get themselves out of the lower rung of society. ~ Taylor Hackford

The next words were a revelation that God had made the world not for me.
It was a revelation that rung in my ears and nearly flayed me. I looked at my bandaged hand and thanked the heavens or the devil for my luck. I tried to swallow but my tongue was thick and dry.

I could feel my heartbeat in my eyeballs.

Then, I was alone in the universe. ~ -Milan Sime Martinic, Ironway: Watching Over Benjamin Hill -

She could feel the sweat forming between her palm and the envelope she was carrying and worried that by the time she reached home, the letter would need to be rung out before she could show her father. ~ Jill Maguire

the sleeve slipping over the edge of the rung. I steadied myself, fed more of the sleeve through it, until I had a complete loop through the rung. That work shirt was my favorite one, Gap, one hundred ~ Kathy Hogan Trocheck

As someone who was gay bashed as a kid, I learned firsthand how a lot of people only feel good about themselves when they sense that someone or something is on a lower rung than they are. This inferiority complex drives racism and sexism as well as outdated attitudes about animals. ~ Dan Mathews

The values and assumptions of that household I took in without knowing when or how it happened, and I have them to this day: The pleasure in sharing pleasure. The belief that is is only proper to help lame dogs to get over stiles and young men to put one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. An impatient disregard for small sums of money. The belief that it is a sin against Nature to put sugar in one's tea. The preference for being home over being anywhere else. The belief that generous impulses should be acted on, whether you can afford to do this or not. The trust in premonitions and the knowledge of what is in wrapped packages. The willingness to go to any amount of trouble to make yourself comfortable. The tendency to take refuge in absolutes. The belief that you don't have to apologize for tears; that consoling words should never be withheld; that what somebody wants very much they should, if possible, have. ~ William Maxwell

In today's society, the animals known as Homo sapiens have become conditioned to elicit the same kind of fearful response whenever the bell of Islam is rung. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Indeed, said the monk, a mass, a matins, and vespers well rung are half-said. ~ Francois Rabelais

The complete atheist stands on the next-to-last highest rung leading to the fullest and most complete faith (he may take that step, or he may not), but the indifferent man has no faith at all, except an ugly fear. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I think women gather up into themselves what they have been through much more than we (men) do. To them, what is past becomes a real part of them, as much a part of them as a limb; to us it's always something external, at the best the rung of a ladder, at the worst a weight on the heel. ~ A.E.W. Mason

This idea of the digital native in the bedroom taking down a fascist regime and building a billion-dollar company is a very attractive image, but actually, if you look at the research, young people are on the lowest rung of digital opportunity. ~ Beeban Kidron

Start ringing things up then. This won't take long."
"Which ones?"
"I don't care." I push some at her. "These."
"These?" She looked dubious.
"Why not these?"
She glanced at Ray. "'Cause if that's your man, I'd say you can leave these off."
"Oh, no, you didn't." Ray said.
"What's this shit?" Ray demanded, looking at the saleclerk.
"Honey, truth hurts, but ain't no way you're a Magnum."
"Well, I ain't no medium!"
The clerk smiled. "Yeah, but I was being generous."
"What are you doing?" The clerk demanded as Ray grabbed another box. "I ain't rung those up yet."
Ray pulled out a foil package and tossed the box back on the counter. "So ring it up."
She arched an eyebrow, but didn't bother, maybe because she was watching him unbutton his fly. I caught his wrist. "What are you doing?"
"Proving a point."
"Not in the middle of the store, you're not."
"Ain't nobody here," the cashier reminded me. "And ain't no way he's filling that thing out. ~ Karen Chance

Prison is, simply put, the bottom rung of the welfare ladder. ~ Stephen Reid

There was a difference between people looking at you because they wanted to be like you, and people looking at you because your misfortune brought them one rung higher. ~ Jodi Picoult

Merciful heaven, social status is something to be strived for, not born with, or, worse yet, displayed. Social status is a reward for social climbing, a pursuit that may get you the attention of other limelighthers but won't move you up one skinny rung as far as your social station in Dixie is concerned. ~ Ann Barrett Batson

We must display a heart for every American, and a special passion for those still on the first rung of life's ladder. ~ Mitch Daniels

The artist is the lowest form of life on the rung of the ladder. The publishers are usually businessmen who deal with businessmen. They deal with promotional people. They deal with financial people. They deal with accountants. They deal with people who work on higher levels. They deal with tax people, but have absolutely no interest in artists, in individual artists, especially very young artists. ~ Jack Kirby

When a really new product comes along, it's almost always a mistake to hang a well-known name on it. The reason is obvious. A well-known name got well-known because it stood for something. It occupies a position in the prospect's mind. A really well-known name sits on the top rung of a sharply defined ladder. The new product, if it's going to be successful, is going to require a new name. New ladder, new name. It's as simple as that. ~ Al Ries

When one bell is rung, by the sound of that one bell other bells will also vibrate. So it is with the dancing of the soul ... it produces its reaction, and that again, will make other souls dance. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

You been forgetting Who's in charge and who ain't. So here's what I'm gone do: I'm gone send a storm so big it rips the roof off the shed where you keep that mule you so proud of. Then I'm gone send hail big as walnuts down on that mule, making it break its leg trying to bust out of there. Then, just so you know for sure it's Me you dealing with, the next morning after you put that mule down and buried it and you up on the ladder trying to nail the roof back onto the shed I'm gone to let that weak top rung, the one you ain't got around to fixing yet, I'm gone let it rot all the way through so you fall off and break your own leg, and I'm gone to send Florence and Lilly Mae to a birthing and the twins out to the far end of the field so you laying there half the day. That'll give you time to think real hard on what I been trying to tell you. ~ Hillary Jordan

The most insidious of our country, the greediest and highest rung of our socioeconomic ladder, line their pockets with misappropriated funds as military personnel and hordes of civilians are maimed or killed. It's not their children out there, blinded by manufactured patriotism or lured into the service with the promise of economic stability, all with the sanctimonious blessings of misguided public consent by way of corporate, state-sponsored media. It won't be their children who are terrorized by Wahabbist insurgents tearing through city blocks and rural areas as only an ever-devouring plague could. It won't be any of their loved ones watching thousands of years of civilization unraveling like an old sweater as each thread of wool is lit on fire or stolen to sell on the black market for greedy consumers with a fetish for hijacked Mesopotamian artifacts. ~ M.B. Dallocchio

I half expected cathedral bells to ring out across the city in memoriam, a carillon of joyous bells that said Someone is free at last, and simultaneously a monody of heavy bells, iron bells, as solemn as those rung for heroes and for statesmen, bells that said He is gone who was much loved. But the night was empty of all bells. There were no bells for such as us, no funerals, no crowd of mourners around our graves. ~ Dean Koontz

The key to ending extreme poverty is to enable the poorest of the poor to get their foot on the ladder of development. The ladder of development hovers overhead, and the poorest of the poor are stuck beneath it. They lack the minimum amount of capital necessary to get a foothold, and therefore need a boost up to the first rung. ~ Jeffrey Sachs

So spirit is both the highest "level" in the holarchy, but it's also the paper on which the entire holarchy is written. It's the highest rung in the ladder, but it's also the wood out of which the entire ladder is made. ~ Ken Wilber

If some people are right, artists are put into this world not to practice their art, but to talk about it. And judging by the flattering invitations many a humble climber will receive to pontificate from the lowest rung but one of the ladder, humanity is in a dangerously receptive frame of mind, and artists a race devoid of either modesty or sense of humor. ~ Ethel Smyth

To move to the next rung, you must give up your grip and reach for the next one. Release, reach, and raise yourself up, ~ Nick Vujicic

We need our children to get onto the reading ladder: anything that they enjoy reading will move them up, rung by rung, into literacy. (Also, do not do what this author did when his 11-year-old daughter was into RL Stine, which is to go and get a copy of Stephen King's Carrie, saying if you liked those you'll love this! Holly read nothing but safe stories of settlers on prairies for the rest of her teenage years, and still glares at me when Stephen King's name is mentioned.) ~ Neil Gaiman

Remember the last show you saw that got a standing ovation? Now try to think of one that had the audience on its feet at intermission. They stepped, strutted, stomped, romped, ran rung, hung, flung, flew, threw and played their way through 16 numbers (17 if you count the percussion encore in the lobby that stopped the departing crowd in its collective tracks). It was Blast! and it was fantastic. That said, the show is a cacophony of color and creativity a musical montage offering nearly two hours of stimuli. ~ Jan Perry

Until the curtain was rung down on the last act of the drama (and it might have no last act!) he wished the intellectual cripples and the moral hunchbacks not to be jeered at; perhaps they might turn out to be the heroes of the play. ~ George Santayana

We continued talking as my purchases were rung up - about the first
Christmas, the sadness of ending up in a cemetery on a holiday, and the
pain of getting through that first year.
"They tell me it gets better," she said with a sigh.
"Can I give you a hug?" I asked shyly before I turned to go. She nodded eagerly, and one small sob escaped her as I squeezed her shoulders tightly.
I might look back on that first Christmas and remember it as the year
I did so many things so badly, the year I forgot to feed my family.
Or I might just remember it as the Christmas I learned what it meant to reach out to a hurting stranger. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

However, for the man who studies to gain insight, books and studies are merely rungs of the ladder on which he climbs to the summit of knowledge. As soon as a rung has raised him up one step, he leaves it behind. On the other hand, the many who study in order to fill their memory do not use the rungs of the ladder for climbing, but take them off and load themselves with them to take away, rejoicing at the increasing weight of the burden. They remain below forever, because they bear what should have bourne them. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Straight out of Blackpool, I'm William Regal. My rhymes so intense, they shouldn't be legal. My style is refined, not crude and crass. I'll keep you grounded, like volcanic ash. I'll take you down, rung by rung. I'm just like British Parliment; I'm completely hung. Straight-up gangsta trippin'. Yes, boy! ~ William Regal

Her eyes take on that suspicious, wounded look girls get when they know they've fallen off the top rung of friendship and someone else has passed them, but they don't know when or how the change took place. ~ Libba Bray

Then one should not stepon the first rung at all ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Before I knew what I was doing, I was out of my seat and rushing up toward the railing that divided the seats from the field. I had to make sure he was okay. I couldn't just sit here and watch him lie there in pain.
I heard my name called, but I ignored it as I flung my leg over the top railing and prepared to hoist myself over.
One of the guys working security happened to see me and he rushed over and ordered me to stop.
"I can't. That's my…" My voice broke. I couldn't force the word boyfriend between my lips. It just wasn't enough. It just didn't describe how desperate I was to get to him.
"He's my everything," I finished.
The security guard gave me a grim look. "You can't come on the field."
A lone tear tracked its way down my cheek, and I craned my neck. Frustrated, I glanced up at the big screen to see if it was showing a different angle.
But they weren't playing Romeo. They were focused on me.
I blinked at the site of me half straddling the railing and the security guard standing there with a grim look on his face as he stared me down. My cheeks were red, behind my glasses, my eyes wild.
I turned away from the screen, irritated that they weren't focused on Romeo.
I glanced at the guard. "I'm coming over."
He crossed his arms over his chest as if to say, I dare you.
I flung my other leg over so I was balanced on the bottom rung.
"This is your last warning," the guard shouted.
The crowd st ~ Cambria Hebert

Dong.
Dong.
Dong.
The third toll of the church bells hovered in the air, and everything became still. Someone in the village had died. Valerie froze.
Dong.
A forth toll shattered the silence. The world split open, exposing a raw inside.
Valerie and Peter looked at each other first in confusion, then in awful understanding.
The fourth bell meant only one thing: Wolf attack.
She had never heard the fourth bell except for the time she and Peter had rung it themselves.
With those bells, Valerie knew.
Life would never be the same, ~ Sarah Blakley-Cartwright

Only the most reckless, self-indulgent of men would deny Aquinas's conclusion, God. Albeit a concealed one, the presence of an overmind is self-evident and necessary, yet in the same breath, only the most negligent and asinine would terminate the enquiry at such a premature rung, believing as the theologian William Paley believed that the earthly design is inherently beneficial. ~ John Zande