Poised Quotes

A porpoise sounded twenty yards away from us in an explosion of breath, startling us. . . . Then another porpoise broke the water and rolled toward us. A third and a fourth porpoise neared the board and we could feel great secret shapes eyeing us from below. I reached out to touch the back of one, its skin the color of jade, but as I reached the porpoise dove and my hand touched moonlight where the dorsal fin had been cutting through the silken waters. The dolphins had obviously smelled the flood tide of boyhood in the sea and heard the hormones singing in the boy0scented water. None of us spoke as the porpoises circled us. The visitation was something so rare and perfect that we knew by instinct not to speak – and then, as quickly as they had come, the porpoises moved away from us, moved south where there were fish to be hunted.
"Each of us would remember that night floating on the waves all during our lives. It was the year before we went to high school when we were poised on the slippery brink between childhood and adulthood, admiring our own daring as we floated free from the vigilance and approval of adult eyes, ruled only by the indifference of stars and fate. It was the purest moment of freedom and headlong exhilaration that I had ever felt. A wordless covenant was set among us the night of the porpoises. ~ Pat Conroy

With the spirit of my administration, New York City is poised for dramatic change. The era of fear has had a long enough reign. ~ Rudy Giuliani

Meanwhile she's coldly interrogating me with her eyes. She's definitely in charge of this house and this moment. This must be Chloe.
She escorts me to a table full of people and presents me. She introduces them briefly. This one's from Morocco, that one from Italy, he's Persian
I'm not exactly sure what that means
this one's from "the UK." They're all in their twenties, poised and dismissive. They don't know or care who I'm supposed to be at home or where I went to school. They're measuring something else I can't see and don't understand.
They nod and turn back to each other. They seem to be waiting for a cue from Chloe to release them from having to feign interest. She introduces herself at substantially more length. Her father is Chinese and her mother is Swiss; she grew up in Hong Kong and "in Europe."
I grew up in Michigan and in Michigan. But she didn't ask. ~ Kenneth Cain

Her body poised with the tension of a wild animal, ready to pounce - or to flee. So beautiful, he thought. As he voiced the words, she faded away, and his world returned to blackness. ~ India Drummond

At any rate those two, one the shadow of a shadow in the hall and the other a shadow also, an imitation of the ruthless man who'd stolen from the world with careless ease, both poised, caught in time. ~ Louise Erdrich

Beauty is at its most poignant when the cold hand of Death holds poised to wither it imminently. ~ Jacqueline Carey

i was poised for greatness, but the poising game me a cramp so i have instead just settled for comfortable mediocrity... (Vimrod # 4904) ~ Ralph Lazar

Love is all around you like the air and is the very breath of your being. But you cannot know it, feel its unfeeling touch, until you pause in your busy-ness, are still and poised and empty of your wanting and desiring. When at rest the air is easily offended and will flee even from the fanning of a leaf, as love flees from the first thought. But when the air or love moves of its own accord it is a hurricane that drives all before it. ~ Barry Long

Can you make it past me, thief-catcher?" Mat called, careful not to take his eyes off the man waiting for him with blade poised to strike. Sandar had insisted irritably on "thief-catcher," not "thief-taker," though Mat could not see any difference.
"I cannot," Sandar called from behind him. "If you move to let me by, you will lose room to swing that oar you call a staff, and he will spit you like a grunt."
Like a what? "Well, think of something, Tairen. This ragamuffin is grating my nerves."
The man in the gold-striped coat sneered. "You will be honored to die on the blade of the High Lord Darlin, peasant, if I allow it so." It was the first time he had deigned to speak. "Instead, I think I will have the pair of you hung by the heels, and watch while the skin is stripped from your bodies - "
"I do not think I'd like that," Mat said. ~ Robert Jordan

He was poised on circumstance. ~ Louise Erdrich

An ocean of ink in a single drop,
Trembling at the tip of my brush.
Poised above stark white paper,
A universe waits for existence. ~ Lao-Tzu

I walk over to Teren, then bend down so that my gaze meets his. I watch the rain pour down his face. When was the first time I saw this face? When I was chained to the stake, of course, and he had come over to bend down before me. How poised he had been, then, with his handsome, chiseled face and his mad, pulsing eyes. I smile, realizing that we have switched places now. ~ Marie Lu

Wall. His forehead touched mine as he gripped my hips, shifting until he was poised back at the core of me. I'm fucking done with this record deal if it means I'm losing your trust. This is forever for me, sweetheart. I want it all with you. You're the thing that gets me up in the morning and lets me rest easy at night. I wouldn't have survived some of the shit these last few months if it weren't for you. You're my rock, Danika, and I need you to trust me. ~ R.K. Lilley

Her fingers pressing into me grew firmer and her breath quickened. I told myself this was what I wanted. Believe it. Accepting it. –"don't be afraid," she breathed as she held herself poised ~ Kim Harrison

There's a man masturbating in your bathroom!" She grabbed an umbrella from the foyer and held it in front of her like a weapon, poised for battle. "Ashlyn! Did you hear what I said? Call the police! ~ Kendall Ryan

The essential cultural discrimination is not between having and not having or haves and have-nots, but between the superfluous and the indispensable. Wisdom, it seems to me, is always poised upon the knowledge of minimums; it might be thought to be the art of minimums. Granting the frailty, and no doubt the impermanence, of modern technology as a human contrivance, the man who can keep a fire in a stove or on a hearth is not only more durable, but wiser, closer to the meaning of fire, than the man who can only work a thermostat. ~ Wendell Berry

With leading research universities, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and private companies like Blue Sun working on developing alternative fuels, Colorado is poised to become an international leader in clean energy. ~ Ken Salazar

Name?" the desk clerk said to me politely, her pencil poised.
"Name," I said vaguely. I remembered, and told her.
"Age?" she asked. "Sex? Occupation?"
"Writer," I said.
"Housewife," she said.
"Writer," I said.
"I'll just put down housewife," she said. ~ Shirley Jackson

The sun, an hour above the horizon, is poised like a bloody egg upon a crest of thunderheads; the light has turned copper: in the eye portentous, in the nose sulphurous, smelling of lightning. ~ William Faulkner

I would say that just as easy as a person puts on a raincoat and opens their umbrella before stepping out on a rainy day, you too must put on a new concept of yourself and never take it off, nor pull the umbrella of your imagination down until you see the sun shining on the new situation that you have imagined. You must never be convinced that you are being drenched in your old reality, regardless of how much others are absorbed in it. What is true for them is not true for you, because they are not living in your world. They are not living in your raincoat nor are they living beneath the umbrella of consciousness that you have raised. They may be completely soaked in their world while you remain poised and untouched by unfavorable conditions in your own. ~ Curtis Tyrone Jones

Mami wanted me to be a lady: sit up straight, cross my ankles, let men protect me. Papi wanted me to be a leader. To think quick & strike hard, to speak rarely, but when I did, to always be heard. Me? Playing chess taught me a queen is both: deadly & graceful, poised & ruthless. Quiet & cunning. A queen offers her hand to be kissed, & can form it into a fist while smiling the whole damn time ~ Elizabeth Acevedo

As a veteran, you're a little more poised on that mental side. But athletically, I didn't really think I could get better. ~ Angela Ruggiero

There's a time in some years, after the first frosts, when the sun gets hot again, and summer returns for a time. Winter is coming; you know that from the way the mornings smell, the way the leaves, half-turned to color, are dry and poised to drop. But summer goes on, a small false summer, all the more precious for being small and false. In Little Belaire, we called this time
for some reason nobody knows
engine summer. ~ John Crowley

Ryan looked almost eye-to-eye with the lifelike statue. The warrior's noble and steady gaze stared back at him. Ryan thought that the way the man's thin moustache curved above his unsmiling mouth made him look like he was hiding a secret. He wore no helmet, but his torso and arms had been intricately chiseled to display fine armour. He was poised to fight.
Ryan, Alex and Hong Mei moved forward, studying each sculpture that they passed. Just like real people, some were tall and slim while others were short and heavy. They wore different uniforms and hairstyles, and on some, Ryan could see remnants of the coloured lacquer that once would have covered them. ~ B.L. Sauder

Any given moment - no matter how casual, how ordinary - is poised, full of gaping life. ~ Anne Michaels

But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection. ~ M.J. Rose

Ryder's in jeans and his shirt from last night, and he's staring at the fridge. When I pad closer, I see he's not just staring at the door. I've hung my various ultrasound pictures to the silvery surface, and he's studying them. His index finger is poised over my recent twenty-week one, and he's tracing the outline of the baby's legs.

"Hi," I say, clearing my throat.

He straightens and then smiles. It's a sheepish look, as if he's been caught. "Just checking out Papaya."

I love that the name Papaya has stuck. That must be a sign he feels the same. I gesture to the thirteen-week picture, when I first heard the heartbeat. "I think Papaya was a fig in that one. Funny thing - when I was so sick, Papaya was only a kidney bean."

"Kidney beans are known to be troublemakers." He steps closer, drops a strangely chaste kiss to my forehead, and sets his hands on my belly. "And I think Papaya is almost a mango now, right?"

I nod. "How did you know?"

"I might have googled pregnancy-to-fruit comparisons. Papaya will be an eggplant in a little while."

I blink. Holy shit. He really knows his pregnancy fruits. Better than I do. ~ Lauren Blakely

We're told, often enough, that as a species we are poised on the edge of the abyss. It's possible that our puffed-up, prideful intelligence has outstripped our instinct for survival and the road back to safety has already been washed away. In which case there's nothing much to be done. If there is something to be done, then one thing is for sure: those who created the problem will not be the ones who come up with a solution. ~ Arundhati Roy

Romulan or Vulcan?' the ushers asked each guest.
Marion, who had been poised to say 'friends of the bride' had responded to the question with an open-mouthed stare, and Jay Omega answered, 'Klingon! which got them seats in the back row of the Romulan side. ~ Sharyn McCrumb

Her queenly head was poised haughtily upon her smooth red shoulders. Her ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

What makes me myself rather than anyone else is the very fact that I am poised between two countries, two or three languages, and several cultural traditions. It is precisely this that defines my identity. Would I exist more authentically if I cut off a part of myself ~ Amin Maalouf

If you knew how to cook, maybe I would eat," Jace muttered.
Isabelle froze, her spoon poised dangerously. "What did you say?"
Jace edged toward the fridge. "I said I'm going to look for a snack to eat."
That's what I thought you said." Isabelle turned her attention to the soup. ~ Cassandra Clare

I think I'm most nervous about revealing how nervous I have always been. People think me calm, confident, poised. Inside I'm a jelly ... ~ Stephen Fry

I was poised, fo­cused, and alert.
Two hours lat­er, I was bored, sleepy, and yawn­ing. ~ Storm Grant

the tall white windmills that came to her mind. How their skinny long arms all turned, but never together, except for just once in a while two of them would be turning the same way, their arms poised at the same place in the sky. ~ Elizabeth Strout

He who always prefaces his tale with laughter, is poised between impertinence and folly. ~ Johann Kaspar Lavater

More broadly, we are going to have to examine the safety net programs to make sure they are poised to catch the families before they fall even more, especially in the areas of unemployment benefits, child care assistance, and foster care. ~ Richard Neal

And hope, that ancient seed, redeems the heart it feeds. The heartbeat of any conscious now is poised on the same choice that hope gives all of us, between shadows of the past, and the bright, blank page of any new day. ~ Gregory David Roberts

He smiled as only the truly shy can smile. It was not the easy grin of the confident, nor the quick slashing smile of the extremely durable and the wicked. It had no relation with the poised, intently used smile of the courtesan or the politician. It was the strange, rare smile which rises from the deep, dark pit, deeper than a well, deep as a mine, that is within them. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

It is a pink and blue feeling, as sharp as clear sky; a slight breeze, and the edges of Lake Nakuru would rise like the ruffle at the edge of a skirt; and I am pockmarked with whole-body pinpricks of potentiality. A stretch of my body would surely stretch as far as the sky. The whole universe poised, and I am the agent of any movement. ~ Binyavanga Wainaina

John [the father] kept saying, "You have a penis. That means you're a boy." One day, Shannon noticed that her son had been in the bathroom an awfully long time and pushed the door open. "He had a pair of my best, sharpest sewing scissors poised, ready to cut. Penis in the scissors. I said, 'What are you doing?' He said, 'This doesn't belong here. So I'm going to cut it off.' I said, 'You can't do that.' He said, 'Why not?' I said, 'Because if you ever want to have girl parts, they need that to make them.' I pulled that one right out of my ass. He handed me the scissors and said, 'Okay. ~ Andrew Solomon

For a long time I had not approached the forbidden fruit called happiness, but it was now tempting me with a melancholy persistence. I felt as though Sonoko were an abyss above which I stood poised. ~ Yukio Mishima

As its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we cant predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe. Poised between intransigent scepticism and uncritical credulity, it is par excellence the literature of the open mind. ~ John Brunner

If it please you, the lady's name again? says Reginald. His quill is poised. If God had come to Reginald and not to Moses in the burning bush, he would have asked him how to spell the great I AM so he'd be sure he had it right. ~ Frederick Buechner

Ileni."
She didn't stop.
"You could stay."
Almost, he managed to keep his voice expressionless. She stopped walking. He sat poised and powerful, both hands clenched at his sides.
"No," she said. ~ Leah Cypess

Drawing his sword, he gazed down at the gleaming blade. 'I pledge you to the destruction of Sparta,' he whispered. Raising the weapon high he pointed it to the south-east and, though the city was far beyond his range of vision, he pictured the sword poised above it with the sun's harsh light turning it to fire. ~ David Gemmell

I found a brief piece of by Antonio Vivaldi around this time which became my 'Pinhead Mood Music'. Called Al Santo Sepolcro (At The Holy Sepulchre), it opens more like a piece of modern orchestral music, and although it it moves toward Vivaldi's familiar harmonies, there is always the threat that it will fall back into dissonance. The piece progresses in an exquisite agony, poised on a knife edge between beauty and disfigurement, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. Perfect. ~ Doug Bradley

There was the kind of silence there might have been on the day before Creation.
Adam stood smiling at the two of them, a small figure perfectly poised exactly between Heaven and Hell.
Crowley grabbed Aziraphale's arm. "You know what happened?" he hissed excitedly. "He was left alone! He grew up human! He's not Evil Incarnate or Good Incarnate, he's just...a human incarnate- ~ Neil Gaiman

Yet I was wound up. I tick. I exist. I am poised eighteen inches over the black rivets you are reading, I am in your place, I am shut in a bone box and trying to fasten myself on the white paper. The rivets join us together and yet for all the passion we share nothing but our sense of division. ~ William Golding

Hold on to your wallets folks because with the passage of this trillion-dollar baby, the Democrats will be poised to spend as much as $3 trillion in your tax dollars. Taxpayers will be on the hook for spending that will stimulate the debt, stimulate the growth of government, but will do little to stimulate jobs or the economy. ~ Christopher Bond

As he looked up and saw is audience poised on the staircase, he gave a curt nod that barely passed for a greeting.
"Well," Lucy said, "it looks as if you Christmas spirit has undergone a beating. ~ Lisa Kleypas

The primary function of art is not to imitate or represent or interpret, but to create a living thing; it is the reduction of all life to a perfectly composed and dynamic miniature - a microcosm where there is perfect balance of emotion and intellect, stress and strain resolving itself, form rhythmically poised in three dimensions. ~ Lawren Harris

I feel to that the gap between my new life in New York and the situation at home in Africa is stretching into a gulf, as Zimbabwe spirals downwards into a violent dictatorship. My head bulges with the effort to contain both worlds. When I am back in New York, Africa immediately seems fantastical – a wildly plumaged bird, as exotic as it is unlikely.

Most of us struggle in life to maintain the illusion of control, but in Africa that illusion is almost impossible to maintain. I always have the sense there that there is no equilibrium, that everything perpetually teeters on the brink of some dramatic change, that society constantly stands poised for some spasm, some tsunami in which you can do nothing but hope to bob up to the surface and not be sucked out into a dark and hungry sea. The origin of my permanent sense of unease, my general foreboding, is probably the fact that I have lived through just such change, such a sudden and violent upending of value systems.

In my part of Africa, death is never far away. With more Zimbabweans dying in their early thirties now, mortality has a seat at every table. The urgent, tugging winds themselves seem to whisper the message, memento mori, you too shall die. In Africa, you do not view death from the auditorium of life, as a spectator, but from the edge of the stage, waiting only for your cue. You feel perishable, temporary, transient. You feel mortal.

Maybe that is why you seem to live more vividly in A ~ Peter Godwin

A Pheonomenal woman is driven by her divine given POWER: The acronym Power defines her qualities:
Poised for success
Opportunities are endless
Works hard to achieve her goals
Enduring strength and vitality
Reaps the rewards of her hard work

A Phenomenal woman will get out of bed, when the whole world around her is falling apart. ~ Delma Pryce

Charles did not know it, but in those brief poised seconds above the waiting sea, in that luminous evening silence broken only by the waves' quiet wash, the whole Victorian Age was lost. And I do not mean he had taken the wrong path. ~ John Fowles

The shoes of leadership have many ways to pinch and blister the feet of those who walk in them. But here's the thing, when we do walk in them despite the difficulties and challenges, our gait gradually changes from an ungainly, self-conscious toddle to a poised, purposeful stride that inspires trust in those who follow. ~ Jodi Detrick

The smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us ... ~ Marcel Proust

Twelve o'clock! It is the natural centre, key-stone, and very heart of the day. At that hour, the sun has arrived at the top of his hill; and as he seems to hang poised there a while, before coming down on the other side, it is but reasonable to suppose that he is then stopping to dine; setting an eminent example to all mankind. ~ Herman Melville

The fact is, that there was considerable difficulty in inducing Oliver to take upon himself the office of respiration, - a troublesome practice, but one which custom has rendered necessary to our easy existence; and for some time he lay gasping on a little flock mattress, rather unequally poised between this world and the next: the balance being decidedly in favour of the latter. ~ Charles Dickens

The granite complex inside the Great Pyramid, therefore, is poised ready to convert vibrations from the Earth into electricity. What is lacking is a sufficient amount of energy to drive the beams and activate the piezoelectric properties within them. The ancients, though, had anticipated the need for more energy than what would be collected only within the King's Chamber. They had determined that they needed to tap into the vibrations of the Earth over a larger area inside the pyramid and deliver that energy to the power center - the King's Chamber - thereby substantially increasing the amplitude of the oscillations of the granite.
Modern concert halls are designed and built to interact with the instruments performing within. They are huge musical instruments in themselves. The Great Pyramid can be seen as a huge musical instrument with each element designed to enhance the performance of the other. While modern research into architectural acoustics might focus predominantly upon minimizing the reverberation effects of sound in enclosed spaces, there is reason to believe that the ancient pyramid builders were attempting to achieve the opposite. The Grand Gallery, which is considered to be an architectural masterpiece, is an enclosed space in which resonators were installed in the slots along the ledge that runs the length of the gallery. As the Earth's vibration flowed through the Great Pyramid, the resonators converted the vibrational energy to airborne sound. By design ~ Christopher Dunn

Sunflower poised against the sunset, crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye
corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face, soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sunrays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried wire spiderweb,
leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear ~ Allen Ginsberg

In the Heart's cavity, the sole Brahman as an ever-persisting 'I' shines direct in the form of the Self. Into the Heart enter thyself, with mind in search or in deeper plunge. Or by
restraint of life-movement be firmly poised in the Self. ~ Ramana Maharshi

Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts. ~ Plotinus

7.Remain calm and poised at all times, just like Audrey Hepburn; ~ Piper Banks

The script for 'Infamous' was so poised between tragedy and comedy. It's a dream part. One reads those scripts with a sense of melancholia. When you read a script that good ... I remember thinking, 'Oh, this script is too good. They'll never give it to me.' ~ Toby Jones

Way back in 2000, the EPA was poised, and, in fact, had drafted a rule, to specially regulate pollution - water pollution and other types of pollution - from power plants, but the energy industry pushed back pretty significantly. ~ Charles Duhigg

beyond it the sun was poised directly between two sawtoothed peaks, casting golden light across the rock faces and the sugared snow on the high tips. The clouds around and behind this picture-postcard view were also tinted gold, and a sunbeam glinted duskily down into the darkly pooled firs below the timberline. ~ Stephen King

Somewhat overly legibly, I wrote on a sheet of paper, "We're held up indefinitely by the parade. We're going to find a phone and have a cold drink somewhere. Will you join us?" I folded the paper once, then handed it to the Matron of Honor, who opened it, read it, and then handed it to the tiny old man. He read it, grinning, and then looked at me and wagged his head up and down several times vehemently. I thought for an instant that this was the full and perfectly eloquent extent of his reply, but he suddenly motioned to me with his hand, and I gathered that he wanted me to pass him my pad and pencil, I did so- without looking over at the Matron of Honor, from whom great waves of impatience were rising. The old man adjusted the pad and pencil on his lap with the greatest care, then sat for a moment, pencil poised, in obvious concentration, his grin diminished only a very trifle. Then the pencil began, very unsteadily, to move. An "i" was dotted. And then both pad and pencil were returned personally to me, with a marvellously cordial extra added wag of the head. He had written, in letters that had not quite jelled yet, the single word "Delighted." The Matron of Honor, reading over my shoulder, gave a sound faintly like a snort, but I quickly looked over at the great writer and tried to show by my expression that all of us in the car knew a poem when we saw one, and were grateful.

На едно листче - някак прекалено четливо - написах: „Парадът ще ни задържи неопреде ~ J.D. Salinger

The pleasure of sport was so often the chance to indulge the cessation of time itself
the pitcher dawdling on the mound, the skier poised at the top of a mountain trail, the basketball player with the rough skin of the ball against his palm preparing for a foul shot, the tennis player at set point over his opponent
all of them savoring a moment before committing themselves to action. ~ George Plimpton

If eternity had a season, it would be midsummer. Autumn, winter, spring are all change and passage, but at the height of summer the year stands poised. It's only a passing moment, but even as it passes the heart knows it cannot change. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Jesus breaks what we bring to Him. All too often we come to the table with our best manners and a pose of impenetrable self-sufficiency. We're all surface, all role - polished and poised performers in the game of life. But Jesus is after what is within, and He exposes the insides - our inadequacies. At the table we're not permitted to be self-enclosed. We're not permitted to remain self-sufficient. We are taken into the crucifixion. We dramatize it as we eat the common food. The breaking of our pride and self-approval opens us up to new life, to new action. Everything on the table represents some kind of exchange of life, some sacrifice to our Host. If we come crusted over, hardened within ourselves in lies and poses, He breaks through and brings new life. 'A broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise' (Psalm 51:17). We discover this breaking first in Jesus. Jesus was broken, His blood poured out. And now we discover it in ourselves. Then Jesus gives back what we brought to Him, who we are. But it is no longer what we brought. Who we are, this self that we offer to Him at the table, is changed into what God gives, what we sing of as Amazing Grace. [Living the Resurrection] ~ Eugene H. Peterson

Pure Love is detached, self-assured, self-poised, non-possessive and non-aggressive in nature. Yet, it is tremendously powerful to move the whole universe. ~ Banani Ray

Whenever I gaze up at the moon, I feel like I'm on a time machine. I am back to that precious pinpoint of time, standing on the foreboding - yet beautiful - Sea of Tranquility. I could see our shining blue planet Earth poised in the darkness of space. ~ Buzz Aldrin

Somewhere, in some shadowy bedroom of a leaf-strewn town, a father bolts the door to a child's room, then steps closer to the bed. In a neighbor's garden lurks a weed with a funny, blade-petaled flower, its poison choking the red roses. Somewhere a car is crashing; a phone is ringing in the center of night. The spider waits poised in the slipper. The bird swoops headlong into glass it thought was farther air. The strangler envisions a neighborhood of throats. The head finds the noose; the foot kicks the chair. ~ Scott Heim

While the darkness of the interior concealed her body, the streetlight behind them illuminated the pale oval of her face, gilding her cheeks in shades of amber and ghostly blue. The effect was . . . arresting. Vermeer had used natural light to paint women in this way, faces emerging from the shadows, forcing the viewer's eye to focus on what was most important: the look of grace. The mouth firmed in determination. The eyes poised to behold a revelation. ~ Meredith Duran

Our strategic evolution has established Monsanto as the leading innovator in agricultural seeds and technology, .. The financial discipline we have exercised has also allowed us to establish a solid foundation which is poised for growth in the years ahead. ~ Terry Crews

You trip and lance
Your finger at a crab. It strikes. You rub
It inch-meal to a bilge of shell. You dance
Child-crazy over tub and gunnel, grasping
Your pitchfork like a trident, poised to stab
The greasy eel-grass clasping and unclasping
The jellied iridescence of the crab. ~ Robert Lowell

Calvin: Trick or Treat!
Adult: Where's your costume? What are you supposed to be?
Calvin: I'm yet another resource-consuming kid in an overpopulated planet, raised to an alarming extent by Madison Avenue and Hollywood, poised with my cynical and alienated peers to take over the world when you're old and weak!
... Boy, am I scary or what? ~ Bill Watterson

Nudging her legs apart with one knee, he poised himself above her. "Do you want it fierce and powerful?" he asked in a husky tone.
She nodded.
He pushed inside her in one swift thrust and waited for her to react, to welcome him. Her legs rose to coil around his hips. She clung to his shoulders. Her body tightened, holding him in, wanting him. ~ Tatiana March

All human desire is poised on an axis of paradox, absence and presence its poles, love and hate its motive energies. ~ Anne Carson

My childhood memories of my grandparents are of a wonderful, complementary couple. While my grandfather had a spirited, humorous personality, my grandmother is gentle and poised. ~ Kristina McMorris

Before thy undertaking of any design, weigh the glory of thy action with the danger of the attempt; if the glory outweigh the danger, it is cowardice to neglect it; if the danger exceed the glory, it is rashness to attempt it; if the balances stand poised, let thy own genius cast them. ~ Francis Quarles

Biting a plump bottom lip, I stare into endless irises open and poised over my own. Sliding my hand up her thigh, under her gown, I pull her closer with the hand cupping her hipbone, releasing the growl of a king caught in delight. ~ Poppet

Oh, Captain Aubrey,' cried she, 'I have a service to beg of you.'
Mrs Fielding had but to command, said Jack, smiling at her with great affection; he was at her orders entirely - very happy - delighted - could not be more so.
'Why then,' she said, 'you know I am a little talkative - the dear Doctor has often said so, desiring me to peep down - but alas I am not at all writative, at least not in English. English spelling! Corpo di Baccho, English spelling! Now if I give you a dictation and you write it down in good English, I can use the words when I write to my husband.'
'Very well,' said Jack, his smile fading.
It was just as he had feared: and he must have been quite mistaken about the signals.
Mr Fielding was to understand that the excellent Captain Aubrey had saved Ponto from being drowned: Ponto now doted upon Captain Aubrey and ran up to him in the street. Wicked people therefore said that Captain Aubrey was Laura's lover. Should these rumours reach Mr Fielding he was to pay no attention. On the contrary. Captain Aubrey was an honourable man, who would scorn to insult a brother-officer's wife with dishonest proposals; indeed she had such confidence in his perfect rectitude that she could visit him without even the protection of a maid. Captain Aubrey knew very well that she would not ply the oar.
'Ply the oar, ma'am?' said Jack, looking up from his paper, his pen poised.
'Is it not right? I was so proud of it.'
'Oh yes,' said Jack ~ Patrick O'Brian

I think a marvelous stunt would be to have your best friend (or the most critical acquaintance) take some candid color snapshots of you from all angles, dressed just as you usually appear at, say, six in the evening. The same hairdo, the same makeup, and if possible the same expression on your face. Be honest! Be sure to have her take the rear views, too.
There ought to be some other shots of you wearing your best going-out-to-dinner dress, or your favorite bridge-with-the-girls costume - hat, gloves, bag, and costume jewelry. Everything. Then have that roll of film developed and BLOWN UP. You can't see much in a tiny snapshot. An eight-by-ten will show you the works - and you probably won't be very happy with it. Sit down and take a long look at that strange woman.
Is she today's with-it person - elegant, poised, groomed, glowing with health? Or is she a plump copy of Miss 1950? Is she sleek, or bumpy in the wrong places? How is her posture? Does she look better from the front than from the back? Does she stand gracefully? […] Feet together or one slightly in front of the other, is the most graceful stance.
[…]
I always pin my bad notices on my mirror. How about keeping those eight-by-ten candid shots around your dressing room for a while as you dress? ~ Joan Crawford

And then, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonnet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation ... ~ Abraham Lincoln

The As were judged to be much more alert, poised, attractive, and well dressed. In fact, the scores on those four dimensions are so different as to make you think you are looking at two different species of humans. You aren't, of course. You're simply seeing the difference between those schooled by their families to present their best face to the world, and those denied that experience. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

I am in the prime of my womanhood, nunga-nungas poised and trembling (attractively). Lips puckered up and in peak condition for a snogging fest. ~ Louise Rennison

You stand exactly in the middle, poised between heaven and earth, a human conductor for the energy that seeks to flow between these two polarities. ~ Margot Anand

Now you are come! You tremble like a star Poised where, behind earth's rim, the sun has set. Your voice has sung across my heart, but numb And mute, I have no tones to answer. ~ Amy Lowell

She missed the autumn weekends at somebody's country house, leaf-fall and touch football, kids tumbling down grassy slopes, leaders and followers, all watched by a pair of tall slender dogs poised on their haunches like figures in myth. ~ Don DeLillo

We've been getting shafted for a long time now. We have fought, and the freaky little white men have prevailed. The stories of our fights are glossed over in the freaky little white men's history, which is partly how they have prevailed. Now they are poised to kill the earth, and this is not about signing petitions and attending protests. This is about eradicating fascinations with celebrities who contribute nothing to our imaginations. This is about telling our stories, poetically employing our imaginations in the actions of our every day lives. And this is about loving each other. ~ Inga Muscio

While I pressed the tissue to my face, Beck said, "Can I tell you something? There are a lot of empty boxes in your head, Sam."
I looked at him, quizzical. Again, it was a strange enough concept to hold my attention.
"There are a lot of empty boxes in there, and you can put things in them." Beck handed me another tissue for the other side of my face.
My trust of Beck at that point was not yet complete; I remember thinking that he was making a very bad joke that I wasn't getting. My voice sounded wary, even to me. "What kinds of things?"
"Sad things," Beck said. "Do you have a lot of sad things in your head?"
"No," I said.
Beck sucked in his lower lip and released it slowly. "Well, I do."
This was shocking. I didn't ask a question, but I tilted toward him.
"And these things would make me cry," Beck continued. "They used to make me cry all day long."
I remembered thinking this was probably a lie. I could not imagine Beck crying. He was a rock. Even then, his fingers braced against the floor, he looked poised, sure, immutable.
"You don't believe me? Ask Ulrik. He had to deal with it," Beck said. "And so you know what I did with those sad things? I put them in boxes. I put the sad things in the boxes in my head, and I closed them up and I put tape on them and I stacked them up in the corner and threw a blanket over them."
"Brain tape?" I suggested, with a little smirk. I was eight, after all.
Beck smiled, a weird private ~ Maggie Stiefvater

The skinny Doya-sensei, in his cotton clothing, appeared on stage. He had braved the elements, walking as straight as a needle. Exposed to the dry wind, he looked like an old withered gourd. The sound of hands clapping filled the air. The clapping of hands is not necessarily the same as applause. Takayanagi alone sat silently and adjusted his collar.

"Man is a link between the past and the future."

Doya-sensei began abruptly. The audience was taken by surprise. No one started his lecture this way.

"Those who carry over the past into the future are called conservative; those who save the future from the past are called progressive."

The audience was more puzzled than before. Among the audience of three hundred were those who came to jeer Doya-sensei. Like sumo wrestlers in a ring, they watched for a chance to take advantage of their opponent. They were poised like a snake ready to strike. In Doya-sensei's vision there was nothing but the Way.

"If you say you have no past in yourself, you may as well say you have no parents. If you say you have no future in yourself, you may as well say you have no capacity to beget children. One's standpoint should be clear from this. Either to live for your parents, to live for your children, or to live for yourself: your mission in life can be only one of these three alternatives. ~ Natsume Sōseki

That seemed to relax him a little, that simple nothing of a reassurance, as though there was ever a doubt that she wasn't exactly where she wanted to be at this very moment. As if there was even the slightest chance that she would rather be with Grady than Jay. He squeezed her hand, still holding it, and pulled her down so that she was leaning over his chest.
"Kiss me again," he challenged, only half joking.
It was so weird to hear him say that, to hear those words out loud. They had kissed. More than once. More than a lot. They had passed the point of being "just friends" by a long shot.
She leaned down and gave him a dry, sisterly little peck. And then she leaned back up again and smiled at him innocently. She wished she could make a halo appear above her head for effort.
Jay made a sound at her that was like a growl, and then he pulled her down...hard. He flipped her over so that she was lying on her back and he was poised above her, and taking full advantage of his upper hand, he moved his lips over hers with a feather-light touch, in a way that was anything but innocent. Until she parted his lips and let him kiss her again...completely...thoroughly. She heard herself moan, and she could feel the throbbing of her own pulse flickering hotly through her veins.
He lifted his head and started down at her, rubbing his thumb across her lower lip. "That's what I was talking about. A real kiss."
She thought that he was probably trying to gloat, but s ~ Kimberly Derting

There are four statements that lead to wisdom. I want you to remember them and follow them. Are you ready?' Agent Lemieux had taken out his notebook and, pen poised, he'd listened. 'You need to learn to say: I don't know. I'm sorry. I need help and I was wrong. ~ Louise Penny

Milla put her hands on his ribs, holding on as he braced his weight on one arm while with his other hand he guided his penis to her and in the same rough motion pushed deep inside.
He froze in place, his breath panting between his parted lips as they stared at each other. She couldn't move; the feel of him inside her was too sharp, almost painful in its intensity. Their gazes met in the mellow lamplight, and she was mesmerized by the tension in his face, the way his steely muscles were locked as if he didn't dare move. It built and built, that clawing need, and yet she remained poised on the razor's edge of something she knew she couldn't control. His chest suddenly heaved on a convulsive breath, and he moved in a long, deep stroke that took him all the way to the hilt. ~ Linda Howard

Being humble doesn't mean allowing yourself to get stepped on like a doormat. Being humble means taking every negativity coming up against you positively with grace and poised so that you can allow the spirit to be seen. ~ Apostle Helen Mayers

The family were wild," she said suddenly. "They tried to marry me off. And then when I'd begun to feel that after all life was scarcely worth living I found something" - her eyes went skyward exultantly - "I found something!"

Carlyle waited and her words came with a rush.

"Courage - just that; courage as a rule of life, and something to cling to always. I began to build up this enormous faith in myself. I began to see that in all my idols in the past some manifestation of courage had unconsciously been the thing that attracted me. I began separating courage from the other things of life. All sorts of courage - the beaten, bloody prize-fighter coming up for more - I used to make men take me to prize-fights; the déclassé woman sailing through a nest of cats and looking at them as if they were mud under her feet; the liking what you like always; the utter disregard for other people's opinions - just to live as I liked always and to die in my own way - Did you bring up the cigarettes?"

He handed one over and held a match for her silently.

"Still," Ardita continued, "the men kept gathering - old men and young men, my mental and physical inferiors, most of them, but all intensely desiring to have me - to own this rather magnificent proud tradition I'd built up round me. Do you see?"

"Sort of. You never were beaten and you never apologized."

"Never!"

She sprang to the edge, poised or a moment like a c ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

WE ARE

We are the lost ones

Seeking refuge in dark alleys

Told we are not forgotten

We are a past generation's hope

Asking daily for forgiveness

Viewed as misbegotten

We are restorers of humanity

Who punished betrayers of justice

Now the hangman in his own noose

We are the select few

Wandering parks and streets

Lost in a sea of endless faces

We are the faded photographs

Stored in an attic

Yearning to finish our missions

We are both the young and the old

Poised on the cliff's edge

Thinking of a last goodnight

We are our nation's warriors

Destined to become

Line-items in a county's budget ~ Jose N Harris