Racket Quotes

To be a full-blooded hillbilly was to be a living koan. Half of you wanted to be dignified and half of you couldn't tolerate any restraint. You could see it in the regional art and hear it in the music. Wood carving with chainsaws. Cloggers who danced up a storm with the lower half of their bodies, but held the upper half perfectly still and stared off into the distance stone-faced. Or a group of bluegrass musicians who'd be playing the most raucous tunes imaginable, looking around at each other with bemused expressions that seemed to say where's all that racket comin from?
Phoebe believed that nearly all the adult males everywhere were pretty much the same way. Most of them could manage to keep the top half of themselves under a semblance of control, but the bottom half tended to run wild. As she continued to descend the trail she couldn't help but think that most men were mentally ill below the waist. ~ Carolyn Jourdan

He felt good for once, he really did. Maybe the deal was that life had to break your body down before you could see it. Maybe there wasn't any other racket in town except this one that brought you to your nadir and challenged you to build yourself back up from it, then showed you that what you'd done at least meant something to someone. ~ Chris Cleave

Charles had climbed on a bench and was calling out that he had something to say, creating a racket that quickly got the attention of the room. Everyone looked immensely surprised, including Tessa and Will. Sona frowned, clearly thinking Charles was very rude. She didn't know the half of it, Cordelia thought darkly.
"Let me be the first to raise a glass to the happy couple!" said Charles, doing just that. "To James Herondale and Cordelia Carstairs. I wish to add personally that James, my brother's parabatai, has always been like a younger brother to me."
"A younger brother he accused of vandalizing greenhouses across our fair nation," muttered Will.
"As for Cordelia Carstairs - how to describe her?" Charles went on.
"Especially when one has not bothered to get to know her at all," murmured James.
"She is both beautiful and fair," said Charles, leaving Cordelia to wonder what the difference was, "as well as being brave. I am sure she will make James as happy as my lovely Grace makes me." He smiled at Grace, who stood quietly near him, her face a mask. "That's right. I am formally announcing my intention to wed Grace Blackthorn. You will all be invited, of course."
Cordelia glanced over at Alastair; he was expressionless, but his hands, jammed into his pockets, were fists. James had narrowed his eyes.
Charles went on merrily. "And lastly, my thanks go out to the folk of the Enclave, who supported my actions as acting Consul through our recent t ~ Cassandra Clare

He who has never tasted jail Lives well within the legal pale, While he who's served a heavy sentence Renews the racket, not repentance. ~ Ogden Nash

War like any other racket, pays high dividends to the very few. The cost of operations is always transferred to the people who do not profit. ~ Smedley Butler

She [Monica Seles] has so much control of the racket with those double-handed wrists. ~ Virginia Wade

It's all a big racket; they're playing it on themselves. I mean, a gun goes through a famous battle, like the Meuse-Argonne, and it's the same as if it hadn't, unless you know. It's in here.' He tapped his head. 'In the mind, not the gun. ~ Philip K. Dick

Matthew hereby declares that Katherine Galloway is retroactively responsible for all embarrassing and painful incidents that have occurred in his life to date. Including, but not limited to, that time he broke his own nose with a tennis racket in eighth grade. KATHERINE'S FAULT. ~ Lauren James

In that moment she hated him, loathed him, this good man she had married. There was really nothing so terrible on the reverse side of his goodness, his steadiness, his mild good humor – just the belief, apparently grounded in the bedrock of his soul, that everybody was looking out for number one, each with his or her own little racket. ~ Stephen King

What we have to do now is to make the public at large aware that what we're looking at is not a historical event but - and I have to be brutal and I am going to say it - a racket. ~ Ernst Zundel

When Reiko left, I stretched out on the sofa and closed my eyes. I lay there steeping myself into silence when, out of nowhere, I thought of the time Kizuki and I took a motorcycle trip. That had been autumn too, I realized. Autumn how many years ago? Yes, four years ago. I recalled the small of Kizuki's leather jacket and the racket made by that red Yamaha 125cc bike. We went to a spot far down the coast, and came back the same evening, exhausted. Nothing special happened on that trip, but I remembered it well. the sharp autumn wind moaned in my ears, and looking up at the sky, my hands clutching Kizuki's jacket, I felt as if I might be swept into outer space. ~ Haruki Murakami

Girls About Town, another Paramount film, again directed by George Cukor, gave Kay the opportunity to work with her good friend, the irrepressible Lilyan Tashman, who'd previously appeared with Kay in The Marriage Playground. Kay and Lil got to run around in lingerie and play characters who could only be high-priced call girls. "Kay Francis shows off her figure in undies while explaining she's through with the gold-digger racket and intends going straight because she's found love with a rich rube. The undie pose and that bit about going straight all in one has its own satirical kick."43 Andy Lawler, who would become one of Kay's best pals, also appeared in the film as Kay's no-good husband. ~ Lynn Kear

When I want to move, I remember death, how it is ultimate and inevitable, and pure. Then I am free to move properly in life. It's like a man who wants to think, going and standing in front of a window. The space purifys ones' soul. And death is a window to me, with the darkness outside. And when I stand there, looking out, then the world and its active life seems only like a roomful of racket and light behind me, where I am taking part for a time, but not staying for long. It does not contain me and confine me. When I stand peacefully looking out on death, what is true in my soul disengages itself and is free and clear and untrammeled, I know what to do, I am sure, and free, and glad. Then I can turn into the world again"...

"When one stands in front of the darkness, and knows that one's own life will pass away there also, into the darkness...then, in the peace that accompanies this knowledge, one can declare simply that the existing world of man is base and wrong, and must go, we know that our lives contain the inception of a new earth.."

..."Remembering death, I know the life of the world as it is now is not living, it is a bad process of dying. And what we must live for is a new world of life. It doesn't matter when we die, so long as we live fulfilling the deepest desire that is in us. And a life which is a denial of the deepest desire is much worse than any death, it is a sheer lie."

"If one accepts death and knows that nothing can take u ~ D.H. Lawrence

Somewhere out there are a few men with more innate talent at golf than Jack Nicklaus, or women with greater ability at tennis than Chris Evert or Martina Navratilova, but they will never lift a club or swing a racket and therefore will never find out how great they could have been. Instead, they'll be content to sit and watch stars perform on television. ~ Donald Trump

Wherever there's a system, there's a racket to beat it. ~ Jerome Ravetz

I like to let my racket do the talking. ~ Rod Laver

Sam heard someone bellow in the distance, but the sound of freight trains running in his ears dampened the sound, making it impossible for him to locate the source of the cry. When he heard it sound again, closer, the voice sounded familiar somehow. He strained to listen past the thundering racket in his ears, only to be rewarded by another holler from the voice. This time, he recognized the voice as his own. ~ J.M. Northup

Make as much racket as you like people. Noise is life and an excess of noise is a sign that life is good. There will be time for us all to be quiet when we are safely dead. ~ Salman Rushdie

If you take away the state's monopoly over the means of economic interaction, then you take away one of the three principal ingredients of the state. In the model of the state as a mafia, where the state is a protection racket, the state shakes people down for money in every possible way. Controlling currency flows is important for revenue-raising by the state, but it is also important for simply controlling what people do... ~ Julian Assange

I let my racket do the talking. That's what I am all about, really. I just go out and win tennis matches. ~ Pete Sampras

The book was not new. Dates were stamped on the front endpaper, in and out dates. A rent book. A lending library of elaborate smut.
I rewrapped the book and locked it up behind the seat. A racket like that, out in the open on the boulevard, seemed to mean plenty of protection. I sat there and poisoned myself with cigarette smoke and listened to the rain and thought about it. ~ Raymond Chandler

Neighbours complaining about someone's dog making an awful racket. You could hardly blame the poor beast, its owner had died in her bed at least a fortnight before and there hadn't been much left of the old girl worth eating. ~ James Oswald

Gertie hit the brakes and tried to stop, but she tripped over a lip in the sidewalk and went sprawling right into the burro, then hit the pavement, her tutu skirt flipped up over her back, exposing her camouflage underwear. Tiny swung his head around to see what all the racket was and launched off the car door, setting off down the sidewalk toward the burro-Gertie wreck at high speed. ~ Jana Deleon

It was, of course, the memory of Sophie and Nathan's long-ago plunge that set loose this flood [of tears], but it was also a letting go of rage and sorrow for the many others who during these past months had battered at my mind and now demanded my mourning: Sophie and Nathan, yes, but also Jan and Eva -- Eva with her one-eyed mis -- and Eddie Farrell, and Bobby Weed, and my young black savior Artiste, and Maria Hunt, and Nat Turner, and Wanda Muck-Horch von Kretschmann, who were but a few of the beaten and butchered and betrayed and martyred children of the earth. I did not weep for the six million Jews or the two million Poles or the one million Serbs or the five million Russians -- I was unprepared to weep for all humanity -- but I did weep for these others who in one way or another had become dear to me, and my sobs made an unashamed racket across the abandoned beach; then I had no more tears to shed, I lowered myself to the sand...and slept...When I awoke it was nearly morning...I heard children chattering nearby. I stirred...Blessing my resurrection, I realized that the children had covered me with sand, protectively, and that I lay as safe as a mummy beneath this fine, enveloping overcoat. ~ William Styron

I follow the teachings of Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, United States Marine Corps. He won two Congressional Medals of Honor, and he wrote the highly controversial antiwar book 'War is a Racket.' ~ Jesse Ventura

It might behoove us to realize that isolation is the absence of all the senseless clutter, and all the incessant racket that would keep God from having ample room to show up and sufficient silence to be heard. Therefore, isolation may actually be the place where we are least isolated. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

For a split second, Harry thought how absurd it was for Tonks to expect the dummy to hear her talking that quietly through a sheet of glass, when there were buses rumbling along behind her and all the racket of street full of shoppers. Then he reminded himself that dummies could not hear anyway. ~ J.K. Rowling

What you mons making all the racket about? You wake me again and I'll put the voodoo hex on you. All you only call me Tuberculosis behind my back now. You want the real thing?" Sergeant "T. B" Tinkerbelle Bettina Jones. ~ Ellen Dawn Benefield

The Lover Reconsiders

Wait...
You.
Come hither come closer come here,
shrug and wriggle your way out of those clothes,
shed them like baby teeth,
like snakeskin,
like feathers from the molt of a phoenix
come here
let me hold you let my arms draw you closer
come hither let me be suffused with your scent come here now.

I want to kiss you, I want to kiss you,
I want to kiss my way down your body and back up again
give me your guided tour, teach me of your landmarks
those hips of yours are strangers to my touch but I mean to make their acquaintance
so yes there here I want to kiss you

I want to learn what you whisper when you kiss with your heart's shutters open
I want to nip at your lower lip
I want the rush of blood to make that mouth tingle
I want to talk in quiet tones to all of you
come hither come closer come here

Now, bolt the door, now, unplug the phone,
now warn the neighbors to ignore the racket
I do not want fifteen minutes of your time
I want the whole fucking night.
Now let me see the smile you save for special occasions

Now don't pick a favorite position pick five
Now I want to bathe myself in you
Now now now like the Ganges,
like the Red Sea, like the Amazon
I want to follow you down to your ocean

Now I want to savor you, lover, come to me
make ti ~ Patrick Honovich

The racket reverberates down the second staircase and spills out into the kitchen, and the two screeching, running kids who are making it do laps around the island like a fucked-up Hunger Games version of ring-around-the-rosy. ~ Emma Chase

If a 13 year old girl is pregnant, that is evidence of sexual abuse and that's supposed to be reported to the authorities and these people are never doing it. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the American abortion industry is running a pedophile protection racket and they've been doing it for years and they're often getting federal tax dollars to run this thing. ~ Mark Crutcher

I woke up to an ache in my chest, the smell of chocolate, and the sound of the ghost making a racket in the kitchen. Now, I'm not the sort to dwell on doom and sorrow. Life is too short for that. But I should at least try to describe the ache briefly: It is not the kind that comes from eating tacos too late at night. It's the kind that comes from being left behind. I think my heart is smart enough to know there's a place I should be filling with new memories, new jokes, and wondrous adventures with the one person I loved most of all. But that person is gone now. And so, my heart has a giant hole. I call it The Big Empty. ~ Natalie Lloyd

I had one good racket, a Wilson Javelin. It was my favorite racket, and I made the mistake of putting it next to the heater. It just got so hot that it melted. ~ Stefan Edberg

Much has been written on the excellence of bats' navigation equipment. It is all false. Tropical bats spend their entire time flying into obstacles with a horrible thudding noise. They specialize in slamming into walls and falling, fluttering onto your face. As my own 'piece of equipment essential for the field' I would strongly recommend a tennis racket; it is devastatingly effective in clearing a room of bats. ~ Nigel Barley

There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. ~ Smedley Butler

Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class. ~ Al Capone

Protected businesses never, never become competitive ... Halliburton, Bechtel, Parsons, KPMG, RTI, Blackwater and all other U.S. corporations that were in Iraq to take advantage of the reconstruction were part of a vast protectionist racket whereby the U.S. government had created their markets with war, barred their competitors from even entering the race, then paid them to do the work, while guaranteeing them a profit to boot - all at taxpayer expense. ~ Naomi Klein

A ball feels different off every player's racket-there are minute but concrete subtleties of force and spin. Now, hitting with her (Steffi Graf), I feel her subtleties. It's like touching her, though we're forty feet apart. Every forehand is foreplay. ~ Andre Agassi

Intelligence is silence, truth is being invisible. But what a racket I make in declaring this. ~ Ned Rorem

Some rooftop, water-tank looming, street-racket strangely quelled
and other known and unknown there, long sweet summer evening
on the tarred roof:
leaned back your head to the nightvault swarming with stars
the Pleiades broken loose, not seven but thousands
every known constellation flinging out fiery threads
and you could distinguish all
-cobwebs, tendrils, anatomies of stars
coherently hammocked, blueblack avenues between…

It was New York, the dream-site
the lost city the city of dreadful light…we
went striding the avenues in our fiery hair
in our bodies young and ordinary riding the subways reading
or pressed against other bodies
feeling in them the maps of Brooklyn Queens Manhattan… ~ Adrienne Rich

What is taking place here should be made very clear: Citizens who are completely innocent of any legal wrongdoing and simply minding their own business--not seeking any litigation and neither convicted nor accused of any legal infraction, criminal or civil--are ordered into court and told to write checks to officials of the court or they will be summarily arrested and jailed, Judges also order citizens to sell their houses and other property and turn the proceeds over to lawyers and other cronies they never hired. Summoning legally unimpeachable citizens to court and forcing them to empty their bank accounts to people they have not hired for services they have neither requested nor received on threat of physical punishment is what most people would call a protection racket. . . Yet family court judges do this as a matter of routine. This is by far the clearest example of what we political scientists term a "kleptocracy," or government by theives. ~ Stephen Baskerville

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. ~ Smedley Butler

Advertising is a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

I grip very close to the butt of the racket. This allows me to get a lot of wrist action to create more spin and whip. ~ Sloane Stephens

War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. ~ Smedley Butler

The earth is speaking to us, but we can't hear because of all the racket our senses are making. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our senses. Then - maybe - the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper. ~ Jerry Spinelli

War is a lie. War is a racket. War is hell. War is waste. War is a crime. War is terrorism. War is not the answer. ~ Coleen Rowley

To dine, drink champagne, raise a racket and make speeches about the people's consciousness, the people's conscience, freedom andso forth while servants in tails are scurrying around your table, just like serfs, and out in the severe cold on the street await coachmen
this is the same as lying to the holy spirit. ~ Anton Chekhov

Scriptwriting is the toughest part of the whole racket ... the least understood and the least noticed. ~ Frank Capra

I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. ~ Smedley Butler

What she had unexpectedly met there in the village church was not God; it was beauty. She knew perfectly well that neither the church nor the litany was beautiful in and of itself, but they were beautiful compared to the construction site, where she spent her days amid the racket of the songs. The mass was beautiful because it appeared to her in a sudden, mysterious revelation as a world betrayed.

From that time on she had known that beauty is a world betrayed. The only way we can encounter it is if its persecutors have overlooked it somewhere. Beauty hides behind the scenes of the May Day parade. If we want to find it, we must demolish the scenary. ~ Milan Kundera

Bang! Clang! Bang! Clangity bang, rat-a-tat! "Reuben, I have been thinking, what a good world this might be, if the men were all transported far beyond the Northern Sea."
"Oh,no!" Willow rose off Rider's lap so fast her forhead bumped his chin.
"What is that racket?" he asked, standing and following her to the window overlooking the street.
One corner of her mouth quirked in mock disgust. "Take a look for yourself."
Clangity bang! Rat-a-tat! The men below beat their pots and pans with wooden spoons and, in a couple cases, gun butts.
"Rachel, I have long been thinking, what a fine world this might be, if we had some more young ladies on the side of the Northern Sea. Too ral loo ral. Too ral lee."
"Looks like your brothers and the whole Niners team!" Rider laughed. "What are they doing?"
"Haven't you ever heard of being shivareed, husband?"
Outside the boisterous, drunken voices broke into another chorus of Reuben and Rachel. "Rachel, I will not trasport you,but will take you for a wife. We will live on milk and honey, better or worse we're in for life."
Willow chuckled as all up and down Allen Street lights began to glow through every window. Someone in a room down the hall lifted their window, threw a chamber pot at the crooners, and followed it with a foul epithet. Undaunted, the man broke into a chorus of Aura Lea.
"They sure have lousy timing," Rider commented wryly. "Just how long does this little serenade last?"
Seei ~ Charlotte McPherren

I have to give my family credit for putting up with the racket, because as some of you may know, its not the easiest thing in the world to live with a kid who's trying to become a rock and roll drummer. ~ Max Weinberg

Demon pox, oh demon pox
Just how is it acquired?
One must go down to the bad part of town
Until one is very tired.
Demon pox, oh demon pox, I had it all along
Not the pox, you foolish blocks,
I mean this very song
For I was right, and you were wrong!"
"Will!" Charlotte shouted over the noise, "Have you LOST YOUR MIND? CEASE THAT INFERNAL RACKET! Jem - "
Jem, rising to his feet, clapped his hands over Will's mouth. "Do you promise to be quiet?" he hissed into his friend's ear.
Will nodded, blue eyes blazing. Tessa was staring at him in amazement; they all were. She had seen Will many things - amused, bitter, condescending, angry, pitying - but never giddy before.
Jem let him go. "All right, then."
Will slid to the floor, his back against the armchair, and threw up his arms. "A demon pox on all your houses!" he announced, and yawned.
"Oh, God, weeks of pox jokes," said Jem. "We're in for it now. ~ Cassandra Clare

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. ~ Smedley Butler

I'm not really interested in participating in mainstream culture. Participating in the mainstream music business is, to me, like getting involved in a racket. There's no way you can get involved in a racket and not someway be filthied by it. ~ Steve Albini

Power leads to more power, no matter what your racket, and not only were they rich and influential but they were smart as hell, too. ~ Jimmy Hoffa

She usually worked at night, claiming that the racket he made about the house distracted her during the day; she needed silence, total silence, in which to pursue her inspiration - else it fled away and left her with a splitting headache to show for it. ~ Helen Hodgman

Printing currency for foreigners to buy is the best racket a government can get into. ~ Lee Child

War traumatizes soldier and civilian alike; warfare is a profit-making racket; warfare resolves nothing that negotiations can't resolve better; the weapons we have now make non-violence the only option to planetary annihilation. ~ Madeline Taylor

Sure. I'd like to live regular. Go home to a good looking wife, a hot dinner, and a husky kid. But I guess I got film in my blood. I love this racket. It's exciting. It's dangerous. It's funny. It's tough. It's heartbreaking. ~ Weegee

Tolerating organized crime promotes the cheap philosophy that everything is a racket. It promotes cynicism among adults. It contributes to the confusion of the young and to the increase of juvenile delinquency. ~ Robert Kennedy

Feb. 1, 1965
Storm late at night, heavy rain, a thunderous racket, the windows shaking. I heard my name called. A woman's voice in hell pleading with me to join her. ~ Leonard Michaels

A tennis racket makes a great fake guitar! ~ Isaac

Let's take my truck," Jim said as he hit the gravel. "Less noise."
And it has a radio, right?" With tragic concentration Adrian started warming up his voice, sounding like a moose being backstroked by a chesse grater.
Jim shook his head at Eddie as the doors opened "How can you stand that racket?"
Selective deafness"
Teach me,master. ~ J.R. Ward

No one told these American soldiers they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with US patents. ~ Smedley Butler

Being a Negro writer these days is a racket and I'm going to make the most of it while it lasts. About twice a year I sell a story. It is acclaimed. I am a genius in the making. Thank God for this Negro literary renaissance. Long may it flourish ~ Wallace Thurman

We arranged to spend the next day, a Sunday, looking at apartments together, followed by a round of tennis, since we both played. Before Nancy left the Pilot that night, I said to her lasciviously - I don't know what possessed me - "Have you ever tried a comedian before?" Which was either very sexy or very creepy, depending on your opinion of me. She just stared at me, betraying no emotion, and said, "I hope you have a racket. I'm pretty good." Our ~ Martin Short

Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket. ~ Eric Hoffer

There's the hum of the bee drone two blocks away the racket of it you'd think it was right over the roof, when the bee drone swirls nearer and nearer (gulp again) you retreat into the cabin and wait, maybe they got a message to come and see you all two thousand of em- but gettin used to the bee drone finally which seem to happen like a big party once a week- and so everything is eventually marvelous. ~ Jack Kerouac

I served in all commissioned ranks from a second Lieutenant to a Major General. And during that time, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. ~ Smedley Butler

Wisdom of the Ages: "Government" Like a mafia protection racket-without the protection. ~ Matthew Heines

I'm in the wrong racket if I didn't want a public life. ~ Joe Mantegna

Y.T. is bored. She gets on her plank. The wheels blossom and become circular.
She guides a tight wobbly course around the cars, coasts down into the street.
The spotlight follows her for a moment, maybe picking up some stock footage.
Videotape is cheap. You never know when something will be useful, so you might
as well videotape it.
People make their living that way -- people in the intel business. People like
Hiro Protagonist. They just know stuff, or they just go around and videotape
stuff. They put it in the Library. When people want to know the particular
things that they know or watch their videotapes, they pay them money and check
it out of the Library, or just buy it outright. This is a weird racket, but
Y.T. likes the idea of it. Usually, the CIC won't pay any attention to a
Kourier. But apparently Hiro has a deal with them. Maybe she can make a deal
with Hiro. Because Y.T. knows a lot of interesting little things.
One little thing she knows is that the Mafia owes her a favor. ~ Neal Stephenson

Just then, a little hopped-up Japanese car zips up next to us. It's bright yellow with loud, high-pitched exhaust pipes and a big air spoiler on the back. I look over at the driver to see who's making all the racket. I'm surprised to see a teenage girl there. After a moment, she gooses it and whinnies on past. On her back window, there's a sticker: NO FEAR.
I think, good girl. ~ Michael Zadoorian

And beeping, obviously sure that I was either too stupid or too deaf to hear the racket. ~ Mary Higgins Clark

Lyrics are my racket; music is play - the fluff stuff. ~ Cass McCombs

When I want to go to sleep, I must first get a whole menagerie of voices to shut up. You wouldn't believe what a racket they make in my room. ~ Karl Kraus

War is just a racket ... I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. ~ Smedley Butler

The mere fact that you belong to a certain ethnic group makes you eternally guilty, according to the twisted logic of Zionism. If Germans who were not even born before 1945 must pay reparations to the State of Israel, which did not exist until 1948, then you can be included in the Zionist racket of reparations and revenge. ~ Ernst Zundel

In the middle section of the book Mirabelle breaks into not one, but two houses near Belgravia Books. I had fun scoping these out - checking which windows looked least secure and figuring out how to scale the mews houses to the rear to get her inside. A man came out at one point, 'What are you doing?' he questioned me. 'The thing is, I'm writing a book,' I started with a smile. He waved me off, his hand as wide as a tennis racket. 'Everyone is writing a book, my dear,' he said. Between you and I, it's his house that MIrabelle ends up breaking into. ~ Sara Sheridan

The old saying that war is a racket has taken on an even more shameful meaning. ~ David Hackworth

One day when a linesman starts to laugh I swear I will hit the guy over the head with my racket. I think it will be the end of my career, but I will be happy. ~ Ilie Nastase

Standing at the bathroom mirror, toweling off, I stare at my face. Red eyes, gray stubble - a face totally different from the one with which I started. But also different from the one I saw last year in this same mirror. Whoever I might be, I'm not the boy who started this odyssey, and I'm not even the man who announced three months ago that the odyssey was coming to an end. I'm like a tennis racket on which I've replaced the grip four times and the strings seven times - is it accurate to call it the same racket? ~ Andre Agassi

My father had never watched tennis, never liked tennis too much. He said, 'OK, we buy a racket, we watch together,' because we didn't know anything. It was a process of learning together that made it more interesting. ~ Novak Djokovic

The wind from the Caribbean blew in the windows along with the racket made by the birds, and Fermina Daza felt in her blood the wild beating of her free will. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

My three favorite travel writers of all time are Robert Louis Stevenson, Graham Greene, and Chuck Thompson. Smile When You're Lying not only tells the truth about the travel-writing racket, it gets to the heart of some of the travel industry's best-kept secrets. ~ Kinky Friedman

When Mama leaned over to kiss me, I hugged her so tight she could hardly breathe. "I'll never forget you," I whispered.
Mama drew back. "What did you say?"
"Nothing," I mumbled. "I love you, Mama."
She smiled. "Well, for goodness sake, you little jackanapes, I love you too."
Smoothing the quilt over me, she turned to the others. "What Andrew needs is a good night's sleep. In the morning, he'll be himself again, just wait and see."
"I hope so," Andrew said.
Papa frowned. "No one will get any sleep, good or bad, with Buster making such a racket. I don't know what ails that animal."
While we'd been talking, Andrew had gone to the window and whistled for the dog. Though the Tylers hadn't heard the loud two-fingered blast, Buster definitely had. His howls made the hair on my neck prickle. Even Andrew looked frightened. He backed away from the window and sat quietly in the rocker.
"Edward told me a dog howls when somebody in the family is about to die," Theo said uneasily.
Papa shook his head. "That's superstitious nonsense, Theodore. Surely you know better than to believe someone as well known for mendacity as your cousin."
Muttering to himself, Papa left the room. Taking Theo with her, Mama followed, but Hannah lingered by the bed.
I reached out and grabbed her hand. "Don't leave yet," I begged. "Stay a while."
Hannah hesitated for a moment, her face solemn, her eyes worried. "Mama's right, Andrew," she said softly. "You ~ Mary Downing Hahn

For centuries, the mystics of spirit had existed by running a protection racket - by making life on earth unbearable, then charging you for consolation and relief, by forbidding all the virtues that make existence possible, then riding on the shoulders of your guilt, by declaring production and joy to be sins, then collecting blackmail from the sinners. ~ Ayn Rand

I'm not an activist. I'm trying to get off the whole atheist racket. ~ Julia Sweeney

It was really impossible to break through in Russia. We couldn't buy any balls. We really didn't have any courts, no rackets, nothing. And no people to practice with. ~ Marat Safin

I knew you'd be lucky today. I was pretty lucky myself, 693 came out and I played 698. Had the first two numbers right, anyway." Andy smiled. "Are you a ducker for that number racket. I guess everybody is a sucker for some kind of racket. Horses, numbers, cards, bingo, pinball machines...the great American hobbies. Everybody trying anything to make a few bucks." "I only play two cents a day," Charley said weakly. "Go ahead, play, if you get a bang out of it. Maybe you'll hit...one of these days! There's our old pal, one of these days, and some day, popping up. ~ Len Zinberg

The words of the social critic Eric Hoffer were ringing true: Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and turns into a racket. ~ Christopher McDougall

Journalism is a kind of profession, or craft, or racket, for people who never wanted to grow up and go out into the real world. ~ Harry Reasoner

Racket beer, sonny," he said sadly. "Tasteless as a roadhouse blonde." (Spanish Blood) ~ Raymond Chandler

I broke all my rackets. I didn't have a racket for the fifth set. I broke four. Now I hold the record. Now I go home. No rackets. I really don't like these rackets. ~ Nikolay Davydenko

It's hard to hear over the racket of gunfire. Politicians want to talk about war, but the people want to talk about peace. ~ Jarod Kintz

When I was a freelancer, I thought this journalism thing was a racket, and now that I'm where I am now, I know it's a racket. ~ Tabitha Soren

Only a man with nothing to hide could make that kind of racket. ~ Sara Sheridan

Twenty years ago, you'd see guys busting rackets in locker rooms. Today they do it in their hotel rooms. ~ Brad Gilbert